Season’s Greetings to all members of the Free Churches Group.
As we stand in the precious gap between 2025 and 2026, the story at the centre of this season still speaks with amazing clarity. The nativity is far more than a tender scene—its truth is bold, unsettling, and filled with promise. A child is born into a world shaped by imperial power, social strain, and communities struggling under the pressure of political decisions made far above them. Yet through this child, God’s presence breaks into ordinary life with a courage that cannot be silenced.
This year has carried its own troubles and joys. Across the nations, households have endured financial uncertainty, stretched public services, political volatility, and widening fault lines in our common life. Too many live with the unspoken ache of isolation, exhaustion, or grief. Many communities feel unseen. And yet, in the midst of this, signs of grace continue to rise: communities supporting one another, churches standing with those pushed aside, people choosing compassion even when the world encourages impatience and fear.
The Christmas story meets us here as witness and as revelation.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it” (John 1:5).
This is the heartbeat of the incarnation: that God steps into places where people struggle to breathe freely, and affirms their dignity without condition. God’s presence arrives in vulnerability, aligning with those who know what it is to be overlooked or pushed to the margins.
The family at the centre of the Christmas story journeys under imperial decree, their later flight from danger, and their resilience in the face of injustice mirror the world we inhabit. Families today move across borders seeking safety; communities navigate pressures created by systems that count numbers and neglect lives; people hold hope through journeys they did not choose. Christmas reveals that God is already there—in the displacement, in the uncertainty, in the fragile courage that keeps families moving toward life.
As the Free Churches, our vocation is rooted in this truth. We are called to shape communities where justice is lived, not merely spoken; where compassion is genuine; where the voices of those most affected by the decisions of the powerful are not nudged to the edges but brought to the centre. Our witness must speak to the world as it is, while insisting on the world that can be.
The year ahead will bring its share of demands. Yet it also carries possibility—new alliances for justice, fresh commitments to healing, deeper solidarity with the vulnerable, and renewed courage to speak truth in public life. May we enter the coming year with hearts attuned to God’s movement: steady, compassionate, and bold.
My prayer for us all is that we step into the future with clarity of purpose; that we continue to lift the voices of those long unheard; that our churches become places where hope takes root in real and tangible ways; and that the light that rises in the Christmas story shines through our common life with strength and grace.
May peace, courage, and God’s liberating love accompany you into the year ahead.
Revd Dr Tessa Henry-Robinson
Moderator of the Free Churches Group
