Christmas will be a little different this year but the message and the essence will be the same, says Elaine Duncan, of The Scottish Bible Society.

She speaks to Christian Today about how the pandemic has impacted the charity's work in helping people to engage with God's word. 

CT: Looking back over 2020, what change has that brought to the Scottish Bible Society? Did it force you to work in new ways?

Elaine: Yes, for one thing everyone had to start working from home and that was a big change for everybody but they've done remarkably well with that. In terms of our ministry, we already had websites and some digital resources but like everyone else, we've really had to ramp that up this year.

Because people's lives have been more constrained, we wanted to provide a bit more variety in terms of how people engage with the Bible. Bible2020 - our yearlong campaign to read the Bible outloud - was just a gift for this year because it was centred on an app that people could download and use to follow along with the Bible readings.

We were excited about it anyway but once the global pandemic started, knowing there were people all around the world using this app to speak the words of the Bible aloud every day just seemed like a gift in the midst of the turmoil.  Knowing that there were people all over the world doing the same thing has given people a sense of connection not just in their own locality but in the global church.

Along with that we started to produce some podcasts, like The Outspoken Bible, which is based on three friends discussing the readings from Bible2020. You feel as though you are just eavesdropping on a conversation with friends but they draw out so many thoughtprovoking things about the Bible and the passages.

We had planned to bring the story of Ruth to the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe but that was shelved with the pandemic. So instead of going to the festival, one of the creative team wrote a Ruth audio story instead. The series covers the whole book of Ruth but there is a narrator who draws out some interesting reflections and questions around the text to help people engage with it in fresh ways. 

These are just some of the new things we've had to do because of Covid.

CT: When the pandemic first started, there was a hope among Christian leaders that it would lead people to reflect on God anew. Do you sense that there is a reaching for the Bible that there wasn't before?

Elaine: Yes, I think so because people are longing for some hope. I think people are asking big questions about life and death, and what's really important.  These questions have really come to the fore in people's thinking during these last few months and the statistics tell us that people are tuning in much more to online services. In some ways, I think it's easier for many people to do that than to walk through the doors of a physical church. In terms of our Bible engagement resources, we've just wanted to help people with that. 

CT: It seems like we're hearing a lot more these days about "community" and "neighbours". Are you seeing something of that too?

Elaine: I think that's right.  We're beginning to see biblical values come to the fore in the pandemic. I think community has been really important, and getting to know our neighbours and asking: who is my neighbour?! Life is just a lot more revolved around our locality now and of course that chimes with a lot of the stories in the Bible.  Obviously the church has a global reach and it's really important that we remember that, but the reality of those in-flesh relationships happens within the family, neighbourhood and community, and I think there's a lot more relationship-building going on now.  It's almost like a flashback to how things were when things were so much more localised.

CT: Is the Bible speaking to you in fresh ways during the pandemic?

Elaine: We have very close relationships with Bible Societies in other countries through the United Bible Societies, which is our global fellowship, and we've been holding monthly prayer meetings based around the Bible2020 readings for that day, so the Bible is central to the prayer meeting.  But what has really struck me is that so many of our brothers and sisters around the world live with constraints and difficulties all the time, and the global pandemic has simply come on top of that for them.

For them, the ability to talk about suffering and lament in the Bible is much more a part of their normal life. And so I have found myself reflecting a little bit more on that from the Bible, and appreciating what I'm learning from friends and colleagues in other parts of the world.

The Bible is so real about the harshness of life. It doesn't try to airbrush life's difficulties out of the way but really digs into them.  In the midst of those difficulties, there's the promise of God to be with us and at Advent we remember the wonder of God actually coming and living with us in the person of Jesus Christ.

CT: You've launched some resources for people to use in Advent. One of your resources is called Advent Light in the Dark.

Elaine: The Advent Light in the Dark is a set of reflections around the Bible2020 reading plan until the end of the year and our hope for this Advent is that in the midst of everything, we can help people who are dealing with all this to encounter God afresh. People who have been in the church for any length of time know the Christmas stories well, but how do we help people engage with that in a fresh way that impacts them deeply?  That's always the question we're asking ourselves and the Advent reader is designed to help with that.

Where I live, I noticed that a lot of Christmas lights went up in the middle of November, so it was almost as if people were wanting to bring light into their darkness and put their decorations up much earlier this year than they would normally do.

Tapping into that, we've produced something called 'Christmas Windows', an intergenerational craft resource that builds a Nativity scene to put in your window. There are 10 days to build window over the Advent period and it produces a Nativity scene in the end. But there's also a Bible passage to read and a short, child-friendly podcast for each of the 10 days.  The idea is that families and households will do this together, and we're really praying that every street in Scotland might have a Nativity scene in their window this year.  That in amongst all the Santas and reindeers and snowmen, we would see a Nativity scene that speaks of the primary reason why we celebrate Christmas.

People are kind of reaching out for that light, that hope, that sense of joy and purpose, and we really can only find that meaningfully in Jesus Christ. And that's why we want to get people into the Bible, because the Bible leads to Jesus.

Christmas is often one of the most popular times to invite family and friends who wouldn't normally come to church and churches are now so limited in terms of people who can physically be there. And so we're delighted that several hundred churches in Scotland have ordered the Christmas window pack and Advent reader because many of them have put them into gift bags to give to families in their church or local community.  I think that's one of the lovely ways that churches are still focused on the question of how we can help others connect with God at this time. Christmas will be different but the message and the essence has not changed, and we as Christians just need to be faithful to what God is asking of us in being His witnesses.

CT: Looking to 2021, many people are hoping it will be better than this year! What are your plans going forward? Will you continue Bible2020 in some form?

Elaine: We're planning to keep the Bible2020 app going and we'll get some new content onto that at some point in the New Year. And we will create new podcasts and audio dramas next year. I think we're also conscious that January is quite a dark month for the UK. And so we're asking ourselves: once the Christmas lights are down, how does that leave people feeling? And how can we help people in that?

One of our ongoing programmes here is to train people in Bible-based trauma healing.  We've trained a number of people in Scottish churches to be facilitators. It's not counselling but rather facilitating groups that meet and go through the Bible together to help them see that God cares and is compassionate about the things that cause us the most pain. 

We are alerting our trained facilitators to be ready to run extra sessions in the New Year as we get beyond Christmas and into January and February. Because thank God there's a vaccine, but we don't quite know how long that's going to take to be effective and allow life to open up a little bit more.  So we just want to try and provide what we can to churches in Scotland to help their communities through what might be at least another couple of difficult months.