The past couple of weeks I’ve read blogs imploring churches
not to cancel services on Christmas day.
And the authors (mostly pastors) give some compelling reasons. They’re just not compelling enough for
us! Like Elvis, we’ll be home for
Christmas. But, we’re not somehow
ignoring or downplaying the significance of the Incarnation.
Our tradition is to have Christmas Eve gatherings every
year. In the past they’ve taken place in
the evenings. Last year we moved them to
the afternoon (we do two), and our attendance increased by about 50%. If it’s about reaching people (and I believe
it is), that’s a good thing.
But this year we’re thinking a bit more out of the box,
radical or if you choose heretical.
We’re moving our Sunday worship schedule to Saturday. For those diehards who thump the “Sabbath”
drum, there you go! We’ll be worshiping
on the Sabbath! We won’t have any
services in the evening or on Sunday.
As others have done in campaigning for Christmas services on
Sunday this year, here are some reasons we are not, both practical and
historical:
1. Ours is a pretty
young church. With right at 200
partners (our word for “members”) we typically have around 100 children (who
are not yet partners) from birth through 5th grade in church every
Sunday. Having had three of my own, and
now with four grandkids in elementary school, I understand how doing the
Christmas morning thing with kids, then trying to get them ready to leave it
all behind to go to a church service (that typically would be somehow scaled
down…and for what reason?) isn’t a choice we felt necessary to put to our
parents. It’s like, “If you really love
the baby Jesus you’ll get to church to celebrate”. Really?
We’re calling ours a “guilt free Christmas weekend”.
2. We don’t typically
have Saturday worship gatherings. So
moving ours this year to Saturday is kind of a unique thing for us. And we like to do and try new things and
change it up. That’s part of our church’s
culture.
3. This allows our
folks (many of whom travel over the holidays) to take off earlier on Christmas Eve to get to grandma’s house…even
in time, perhaps to go to a Christmas Eve service (double dipping) at her
church! They would not have been with us
on Sunday anyhow.
4. We’re putting the
word out every way we can in the community so those who are unchurched and
are looking for a place to do a Christmas service will see what we are
doing. If it floats their boat,
great! If not, there are plenty of good
churches around us meeting on Christmas day.
And that’s OK. One of our values
is to always expect the unchurched to be invited by our congregation. By the way, we’ve been open every other
Sunday this year (except when Hurricane Matthew visited)!
5. Paul’s cautions to
the churches in Colossae and Galatia about legalism regarding “observing
special days, months, seasons and years” reminds me that it is Jesus who is the
pinnacle of our worship, not a date randomly chosen by someone we don’t even
know. We all realize that no one alive
actually knows when Jesus was born, and that scholars tell us it probably wasn’t
in December. Maybe there’s a good reason
the date of His birth wasn’t recorded. So,
does it really matter that we move it one day from tradition? We’ll be worshiping the new born King with
just as much fervor (and we’re counting on a bigger number of worshipers) on
Saturday than we would have on Sunday this year.
Just as the bloggers I’ve read have refrained from casting
judgment on those churches which choose a less traditional path to celebrate
Christ’s birth (and I appreciate their grace), I have no issue with churches
who will be open on Christmas day.
It’s about understanding your church’s culture and your
community. I’m certainly not one who believes God wants all churches to be the
same. So, whether your church gathers
this Sunday, or gathers Saturday only or Saturday and Sunday, as long as Christ
is the reason for our gatherings God is pleased with us.
I wish you a merry celebration!
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