October 2026
Free Shine Your Light resources for Baptist churches
This December, with the ongoing support of Baptist Churches,
Shine Your Light seeks to unite 5,000 UK Churches to reach 5-million citizens with the Christmas message of hope, peace, and light.
There is no doubt that nationally and globally we’re facing very real challenges and uncertain time – many feel anxious about the future.
As Christians, we know that nothing takes God by surprise, and throughout scripture, He has promised to be with His people through everything that life throws at us. Therefore, as Christians, we can rise each day with peace and hope.
This is a message our nation – and our local communities – desperately needs. Through
The Baptist Times, I would like to invite every Baptist church to register for FREE resources to take part in Shine Your Light 2026, over 11-13 December.
Last year, just over 3,000 churches – including hundreds of Baptist churches united as together, we reached 3.5 million citizens. Carol services and other Christmas events were taken out of church buildings and onto the streets, shopping centres, nursing homes, sports events – everywhere people gathered.
This year, whilst encouraging as many public events as possible, we want to encourage every UK church to intentionally consider how it might reach those on the margins of society, those for whom Christmas simply passes them by every year.
By registering for Shine Your Light, Baptist churches can access FREE resources on how to reach:-
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Residents on hard-to-reach communities and council estates
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Homeless people
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The lonely or isolated, including older people, care home residents, women, and children's refuges, and those living in asylum seeker and refugee accommodation, and ..
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90,000 prisoners in UK prisons and Young Offenders Institutes
Please visit
www.shineyourlight.org.uk as soon as possible.
Pastor Jonathan Oloyede, Founder and CEO, Shine Your Light/National Day of Prayer & Worship
Re: A reflection on Professor Jason Arday
Followers of Wale Hudson-Roberts’ writings will not have been surprised that he regards the Jason Arday story as yet another example of racism, for we have learned that Mr. Hudson-Roberts’ zeal in detecting racism is second to none. In fact, he has informed us that what happened to Arday was not simply racism but a public lynching, for which the press and all the rest of us (‘society’) are shamefully culpable. Hudson-Roberts’ article fails to appreciate the deep and honest concern felt by many over the tendency of our universities to prioritize certain political stances over academic excellence.
How much more balanced were the comments of Sir James Cleverly on this matter, speaking on BBC Radio 4. While allowing that some of Arday’s scrutiny may have been motivated by racism, Cleverly acknowledged that the case also circled around legitimate questions about the behaviour and standards of our universities:
‘Had those same questions been asked by the institutions involved, he would never have been in such a personally exposed position...He was made the poster child.…and they surely should have known that a number of the claims he was making were impossible, literally impossible, and yet they did it anyway.’
I note that Hudson-Roberts did not come out against the hounding of Tony Sewell a few years ago, which he himself took part in, on behalf of Churches Together. I suppose, to his way of thinking, that would have been a just public execution, not a lynching.
Michael Thomas
Re: Think tank reports findings on Christian Nationalism
The Bible is on the side of patriots. I guess that is why there is not ONE verse of scripture anywhere in this Baptist Times article. The migrant stranger-danger warnings are at Deuteronomy 28:43-44 and Isaiah 1:7 and John 10:1.
BE JUST BEFORE YOU ARE GENEROUS. Be fair. Be reasonable. Prioritise the needs of people in a rational order. 1st Yourself 2n Your family 3rd Your community 4th Your country. In that order.
The opposite of loyalty is treachery. And even a child knows that a limited number of houses cannot accommodate an unlimited number of people. The Bible says : God is not the author of confusion. Let all things be done decently and in order ( Corinthians 14). The Bible says : The foolish said unto the wise : Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered saying : NOT SO. Lest there be NOT ENOUGH. for us and you (Words spoken by Jesus Christ - Matthew 25:8-9).
Doing illegal migrants a favour not at your own expense but at the expense and safety of a 3rd person without asking for the 3rd person's consent. That is a corrupt heretical example of Good Samaritan. And it leaves much to be desired. It is certainly not the behaviour of the Good Samaritan described in Luke 10. There is a way that seems right unto a man.......
Love without discipline degenerates into inordinate affection. Christians have to obey the Lord's 1st commandment wisely to avoid making a bodge-up of the 2nd one.
Watch a YouTube video called No illegal migrants No terrorism - Dominik Tarcynski praises Poland's security.
George Warner
02/11/2026