Jesus said; “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
Shine Your Light is all about making goodness fashionable. Its about ‘letting the light’ of Jesus shine through acts of kindness, generosity, hospitality, etc. Its about loving and preferring others, being good neighbours, living in the opposite spirit to the fear, division and selfishness that fills our newspapers and our local communities. Shine Your Light is about making a difference in thousands of simple ways.
And it starts with just fifteen.
Andy Hawthorne and the Message Trust team recently launched Shine Your Light, focusing mainly on young people and children, and we love it. On their website, they’ve listed fifteen simple ideas to get people started. For example… encouraging the person serving you at the supermarket checkout, doing a job for someone that they usually do for you, saying sorry, making some time to talk with an elderly relative, litter-picking, etc.
We’d love to encourage the 24-7 prayer family all over the UK – Boiler Rooms and smaller 24-7 communities, youth groups and university CUs, churches and, well, just you and your mates, wherever you are – to join in. Start with these fifteen ideas, but don’t stop with them. There are endless ways that we can express the love of Jesus to those around us… all it takes is a little bit of imagination, and a bit of courage to ‘go against the (selfish) flow’.
To get started;
1. Check the Shine Your Light website and choose an act of kindness to begin with, either on your own or with friends (as I said, the fifteen are just suggestions… be creative!)
2. Do your thing, and if you can, video it, or video your story of what happened.
3. Upload it onto the Shine your light website.
And pop us an email at uk@24-7prayer too – we’d love to post a few videos here as well.
Interestingly, the Government’s Shine Week takes place in July, encouraging young people to “show their skills and talents”… and they’re also using LZ7′s version of ‘This little light of mine’ as their theme-song. :)
So, come on… Let your light shine.
