We are mesmerized by bedtime stories, and enchanted by the hushed sound of snow falling in the garden as trees unburden sheets of white Christmas onto the ground below. We are open and we are receiving, and we are discovering the wonder all around us.

If I am cautious about the principles and language of business when it comes to the Church, I am even more cautious when it comes to ministry. We have to be extremely clear about the motive and the reason, and be equally transparent and faithful in all our “transactions”.

We live in a business-orientated world. The food we eat, the goods we buy and the services we enjoy. The businesses we run, the companies we work for and the reasons we need to work in the first place. Our lives are made up transactions and exchanges, and it is unsurprising, therefore, that a language has developed to help us navigate such transactions and exchanges.

At the age of 17, I had my first taste of business. It was a retail games store in Westport, Dundee. The store was owned by a family friend and he was struggling to keep the business afloat. He asked me to work for him, partly because I had some ideas that I thought might work and partly, I suspect, because he was desperate and at this stage had nothing to lose.

The true transformation into the likeness of Christ is when we face the reality of who Jesus is to us personally and make a decision to be ‘all in’. It is in that moment that we receive an identity from Jesus that is unshakable. it is an identity that Jesus will not let us forget.