Two things stand out for me as a pastor this year. One that brings me great delight and is rippling waves of optimism through the churches and one that is a simmering pot of concern that's now affecting us all in a less healthy way.
The first is the 'Quiet Revival' this being the name given by the Bible Society to a trend they've observed of increased church engagement.
Ever since I've been a Christian I've read about and prayed for revival which, broadly speaking, is a time when lots of previously unchurched people become Christians, often in unexpected and dramatic ways.
As a pastor and as someone with a passion to share Jesus with non-christians it's been a dream of mine to lead people to Christ, to preach the gospel and witness people becoming Christians. In the past year I've seen more people come to Christ and led more people to make decisions to follow Jesus than in any other year prior to this one. Not only did I fulfil a lifetime dream of preaching the gospel at Newday (a large youth festival) and witnessing hundreds of young people make decisions to follow Jesus - I still pinch myself about that! - I have also led more people 1:1 in a prayer of commitment to Christ than ever before.
I love that all of this is happening in way without the attention being on any one particular preacher or church. Jesus is the only celebrity or mastermind being elevated in all this.
My stand-out experience that sums all of this up was the Easter weekend. In the week leading up to it I received an email from a young woman who introduced herself to me as being raised in an anti-theist, anti-church home. She said that her friends called her a 'shaman' and that she was a leader in the world of new-age spirituality, into hallucinogenic drugs and had led many a retreat for fellow psychonauts. Freya emailed to say that over the past two years, through the work of Jordan Peterson, she'd been on a journey toward Christianity and had recently had an experience of Christ and become a Christian. She then, rather tentatively, turned up to church one Sunday with her husband and several months later the two of them were baptised in the sea.
Freya and James are a delight to know and have in the church. The Easter weekend was our busiest ever Sunday service, with people sitting on the floor and filling the corridors of our small chapel witnessing the five baptisms we celebrated.
Weekends like this, people like Freya and James, and preaching experiences like Newday in the summer are the reason I followed Jesus' call into ministry in the first place. Stick a fork in me, I'm done!
The second, more challenging, reality of the year is an experience also being felt by others across the country. The rapidly changing debates of the day, the polemics in the nation and the challenges in the country can make life feel hard to keep up with.
This year I have felt a fatigue from a growing need and pressure to display the wisdom of Solomon that I've not known before. Every week at work church members get asked 'you're a Christian, what do you think about this issue...' but as a pastor there's an added layer of pressure since any opinion I share comes with the assumed weight that this is what 'the church' or (dare I say it) what 'God' says about a thing.
In the past year I've been called upon in conversations with church members and non-Christians to offer a thoughtful, nuanced and yet truthful word on: transgender issues, the boy crisis, youth mental health, homophobia, aliens, smartphones and the sexploitation of young people, Israel-Palestine/Gaza, Christian zionism, the rise of Islam, youth violence, Charlie Kirk's assassination, New Age spirituality and spiritual practices, American exceptionalism, Protestants converting to Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic evangelisation, the merits and pitfalls of Spiritual Formation, the cutting down of the tree at Sycamore Gap, celebrity pastors and internet church, gender roles in the church, Fundamentalism and Christian nationalism. All whilst also trying to ensure the church doesn't get blown off course by these prevailing winds or have its agenda set by them.
What's also always fascinating in these conversations is the need to try and discern early-on the particular tests for orthodoxy the person is looking out for, before they're able to listen to what I'm saying. You see the result of all our online silo-ing and tribal line drawing is that we're more suspicious of one another and more quick to define alternative viewpoints as heretical and their holders as woke/liberal/nazis/fascist/deluded/evil (delete as appropriate) than ever before.
In most of the issues listed above the answer to any question really depends on who's asking it and where/how they need helping. As a pastor I'm painfully aware that I can't just spout my views on a thing, I'm not an opinion columnist. My job isn't to tell people what I think about an issue but to help them live faithfully for Christ. My job is to be true to the witness of the truth of the gospel, to offer challenge or comfort depending on the questioner, not the issue.
The challenge of the last year is not only in how broad ranging many of the issues listed above are but also in how passionately people are holding views and being animated about positions that bear almost no impact on their day to day life. Whether Charlie Kirk's death was a political assassination or a Christian martyrdom is not something anyone in Seaford really need care about, but people did care about it - very strongly! How we might establish peace in Israel is, again, something that no one in my town has any influence over and yet by the way Christians in my church talk about it you'd never know. Equally the rise of Islam is not something that Seaford knows anything about, not in the way my friends in East London do.
The reality is that we all now feel such strong and urgent emotions about everything in politics whether or not any of it has had any real-world impact on us and our communities.
August and September was a particularly tiring time for this. This was the season that the flag of St George started flying on lampposts in our land. At first I had no idea why they were appearing and enjoyed a fresh wave of patriotism (I love England), but then I learnt about the messages many were trying to share.
Migrants in my church talked to me about the financial pressures they face to live here; the amount they pay in taxes, visas and the NHS. They also spoke about the fear they felt from seeing all the flags, their message being clear enough to them - we don't want you here!
Seaford is 95% white British. These were flags flown in solidarity, not lived reality. The consequence wasn't political change but a rising tide of fear and animosity.
Then, in early September, on one tragic day a 16yr old was stabbed to death outside the train station and the main suspect was a child of a dear and godly single mum in my church. I came to the youth group that the evening to check on how the young people were coping and was then surprised to hear that what they were talking about most was the shooting of Charlie Kirk, some having seen it on the phone already. What a confusing and troubling experience for them all.
The town was grieving, the youth were in shock, the nation was marching to Unite the Kingdom, the internet was hunting Kirk's killer and some in the church were arguing over whether he was a martyr or a racist. It was a particularly tiring time as a pastor but a desperately sad one as a father and member of the community.
Those are my standout experiences as a pastor from 2025.
Both experiences are ones that have shaped not only how I'll remember the year but have also affected the air I breathe as I enter 2026.
I'm thankful and delighted for the Quiet Revival, asking for more.
I'm saddened and exhausted by the tensions in our nation, asking for less.
In it all however my abiding lesson as a follower of christ this year has been about our need for and invitation to greater levels of intimacy and delight with Christ. 'This is eternal life,' Jesus said 'that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' That has been my anchor. It's prevented me from growing proud or complacent when the good things have happened, but it's also stopped me becoming fearful or cynical in the bad. Christ is my life, knowing him is life's goal and enjoying him forever is why I was made.
That's what keeps me excited and calls me ever onward into whatever the new year brings.
Amen.