For the past three years, local Churches Together groups have partnered with Shine Your Light (SYL) by taking carol and other Christmas services and events out of church buildings, onto the streets, market squares and shopping malls. The plan is to do this again in 2026 alongside a wider focus where SYL is encouraging every church to intentionally look at how to reach lonely and isolated people in their area.
Pastor Jonathan Oloyede, founder and CEO of Shine Your Light said: “Churches Together in England has been a key partner with us for many years and we’d love every local Churches Together group to take part this year.
“Very many churches will already have pastoral and outreach ministries in their local area, but we hope by registering for SYL 2026, they will access our free Toolbox with lots of resources, ideas and links to Christian charities with expertise in this area.
“Together, let’s bring light, hope and joy. Let’s also offer an extended family, and real sense of community to hundreds of thousands of isolated and lonely people – which can then be developed throughout 2027 by local churches.”
Reaching the lonely and isolated is one of four new Shine Your Light expansions in 2026, the others being:
- Residents of hard-to-reach communities and council estates
- People experiencing homelessness
- 55,000 people in UK prisons and youth offender institutes.
Pastor Oloyede concluded: “Shine Your Light is not about creating yet another programme for churches to run. We want to encourage, connect and resource what God is already doing, while inspiring others to take a first step. Our prayer is that what begins through a Christmas outreach might develop into something much more lasting.”
Register your Christmas event under the Shine Your Light banner.
Local Shine Your Light stories
From Bedworth in Warwickshire
A previous Churches Together group disbanded around the pandemic, but with a growing town to reach, the Church Secretary at the URC, Lynda Burton, contacted friends at nearby churches. Shine Your Light 2025 was used as a catalyst to bring together believers from four churches: the URC, Methodists, Anglicans, and Wesleyan Reformed Church.
After using Shine Your Light materials and ordering 200 carol sheets, Lynda and fellow believers set up on Friday 12 December in Bedworth town centre. A strategic location – on a walk-through for most pupils from the town’s main secondary school and, for busy mums, after the afternoon pick-up from primary school on their way to next-door Tesco.
75 Christians from the partner churches led singing and, having invited school pupils to come along with their mobile phone lights, whenever ‘light’ was mentioned in a carol the festive courtyard was lit up with teenagers’ phone lights, alongside traditional candle lanterns provided by the churches. The afternoon ended with a rapturous version of ‘Shine Jesus Shine’.
From Backwell in Somerset
Backwell Together is a partnership of the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Roman Catholic and Hillside Church which serve the village of the same name. In 2024, on top of individual ‘in-church’ Advent and Christmas services and events, Backwell Together decided to unite – taking the joy and hope of Christmas onto the streets under the Shine Your Light banner.
In 2025, the churches decided to move to the Saturday morning before Christmas, 10.30-12.30pm, outside the mini shopping area in Backwell, directly outside the Spar supermarket (see top photo). 25 Christians from across the churches took part. The team set up four gazebos: one for live music, one to store refreshments, one for children’s work, and one as a café/sitting area, and where prayer is offered.
The format is simple: carols from the Shine Your Light carol sheet interspersed with a very brief talk.
“The children’s tent is really important,” said Janet Bainbridge one of the organisers. “Children love it – but it also draws the parents and grandparents in. Each child is given a carrier bag to take away with information about the faith and local Christmas services. Something for adults as well as children.”
From Eastleigh in Hampshire
Last year, Sammy Jordan from the Clock House Church, on an estate between Winchester and Stoneham Park, near Eastleigh, led a Shine Your Light carol event with live sheep!
Around 200 locals gathered outside the community centre where they erected a 12-foot Christmas Tree and offered free refreshments of hot chocolate and mince pies. We then led them on an easy journey through carols, readings and the Christmas story.
“We’d scattered hundreds of knitted sheep around for them to find. Oh – we also brought in ‘live sheep’ – which were a huge attraction,” Sammy explained.
“One church member was invited to dress up as a shepherd. Through his sharing the excitement of the shepherds experiencing the angels, then visiting Jesus, it brought the whole gospel alive.”
Sammy added: “In our divisive world, people need connection and community. As a church we see Shine Your Light as a resource to help us at a strategic time for mission when many people are open to the message and deeper relationships can be built. We urge others to get involved this year.”
Shine Your Light is a programme of the National Day of Prayer and Worship which is a Charity and Network in Association with Churches Together in England.
Photo credits: From local groups via Shine Your Light