Tell us about your preaching program during the Christmas season. I spent 14 Christmases at Northbrook Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, IA. It was not easy to come up with fresh, biblical approaches to the Christmas story. How many sermons can you do on the angels on the hillside or the Manger in Bethlehem?
So, I’m interested. How do you approach your pulpit duties in the Christmas season? Any creative approaches to the Nativity story you’d be willing to share with the rest of us?
- I know some preachers who almost completely ignore the season from the pulpit and simply continue with whatever series they are currently in.
- Others do advent series throughout the month of December.
- Others do a little mix-and-match.
We know that the incarnation is a foundational truth for our faith. It is an important truth to proclaim from the pulpit. How do you do it? What is your plan? How many Christmas-related sermons do you do?
Oh, and one more thing. Do you have any ideas for Christmas sermons or sermon series that you would like to share with the rest of us. Fair warning: someone may very well co-opt your ideas and use them!
Dave-
At Frederick we’re taking 4 weeks to consider the implications of the Incarnation from Philippians 2:5-18 as well as our response to the Incarnation.
That’s fantastic approach. I have preached from Philippians 2:5-11 as a single Christmas message, but never a series based on that passage.
I love that passage, DAVID, particularly this part:
“5 Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
6 Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
7 Rather, He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
8 He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. ”
I think it may contrast to Genesis 1:26 and to Geneses 3:5-6
“26 Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. ” (Genesis 1)
“5 No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.
6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Genesis 6)
Unlike Adam, Jesus, though . . . in the form of God (Genesis 1:26-27), did not reach out for equality with God, in contrast with the first Adam in Genesis 3:5-6.
I’ll probably be in Isaiah, but I’m not sure. I’ll come back early next week and give you the whole plan.
Doug
A detailed plan might help. If its good enough, I’ll steal it.
Will do. I’ve got a relief preacher tomorrow, so I’ll be finalizing Monday. Would you object if I post the plan at my blog and post a link? Or do you want it all here?
The past two years I have done a two sermon series entitled, “Christology for Christmas” where I deal with some aspect of a doctrine about Jesus and relate it to His birth. Two year ago, I preached on the significance of the Virgin Birth and Incarnation and last year I did Propitiation and Imputation. This year I plan on doing Christ as Priest and Christ as King, looking at each role from birth to death to the current administration of these roles.
In depth messages. I like it.
I am preparing a series of messages examining Jesus’ family tree. In particular Mattew 1 and Luke 3, along with John 1. I am looking at how each gospel writer has a particular focus for what is included, how it substantiates the claims of Jesus as the Son of God, Son of Abraham, Son of David, and Son of Adam. This will be my 12th year of preaching a Christmas series and I still get excited each time.
Did you do something different all 12 years, or have you “recycled”.
I no doubt have used the same passages before, but I don’t recall preaching the same series twice. Christmas and Easter can be challenging at times, but I have learned over the years not to try to be ‘cool’ and ‘creative/hip/savvy’ in coming up with a series. It is much better to pray and preach those texts the Lord leads me too. I am called to preach Christ, not to preach ‘a cool sermon’. I haven’t preached the genealogy texts before, so I am pretty excited about it, just hope everyone else can handle all the ‘begats’!
Some evangelical mega-churches are closing for the Christmas holidays. Will this trend spread?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-06-christmas-churches_x.htm
For the record, that article is 5 years old. But I am sure that next year, when Christmas falls on a Sunday again, many churches will cancel services.
In my head is the voice of my father whispering, “How do you celebrate the birth of Christ by cancelling services designed to honor him?”
Willow Creek was mentioned in the article. I disagree with their perspective in general. I believe in “believer’s” church instead of seekers church. Church is the gathering of believers for encouragement, instruction and worship. The Willow Creek philosophy that church is about the lost leads to some unfortunate consequences. Cancelling church on Christmas is not the worst of those.
Next year, on Christmas, we may have one service instead of two. We may not have Sunday School. But we will gather and worship God Incarnate.
By way of resource, Dr. Hugh Litchfield wrote a little book entitled: Preaching the Christmas Story, Broadman Press, 1984. He gives three series of messages for the Christmas season and its filled with Christmas stories and illustrations.
One sermon on the Wise Men entitled: Being Caught By a Vision
I. We need to be caught by a vision that’s worthy to live for.
II. We need to be caught by a vision that will not die, no matter what!
III. If we keep our vision going, we will reach it.
Blessings!
I’ve been at Springer 11 years this coming Sunday and like you, Dave, I’ve preached Christmas and the implications of it about every way you can. One year I preached four messages on Responses to the Coming of Christ where we looked at the response of Anna and Simeon, then the Wise men, then Herod, and then Mary’s response. Another year I preached only one Christmas message entiltled The Message in a Manger that outlined what God was saying when He sent His Son, because Christ is the Word manifest in the flesh. But my favorite messages have revolved around the Incarnation and the fact that God dwelt (lit. tabernacled) with us, God humbling Himself to be with us and to save us amazes and excites me. Another series was entitled The Gift of Christ, focussing on Christ being the gift at Christmas and what we got when we received that gift.
As far as cancelling services for Christmas, in my opinion, it’s ridiculous. The other Baptist Church in our little town did so and we ended up having a very large attendance. We didn’t have Sunday School but we moved our worship time back 30 minutes and added some extra carols and I preahced a short 10 minute message. It was one of my favorite services ever.
On the canceling: we’ll probably not have an evening service next year, and might drop Sunday School as well, but we’ll have church.
Also, though, we do a Christmas Eve service, so we’ll have folks that Saturday night and then Sunday morning. We’ll have them Friday night and Sunday this year…
We’re taking the Sunday night before Christmas to do an all-out sing night: specials, groups, and congregation. Just lift voices in song and celebrate. Should be fun.
Sounds a lot like what we do, Doug.
That Christmas Eve ‘vigil’ is a lovely, spiritual way
to call us away from the shopping malls,
and bring us gently back to Bethlehem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXkgqpVVpTg
Hey Christiane,
Thanks for sharing that video, it was beautiful.
Hi JOHN WYLIE,
There are so many beautiful ways to ‘keep’ Christ in Christmas.
Here’s a favorite ADVENT video that I CAN share with Southern Baptists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POm7_WBMJTI
Thank you again Christiane, that was awesome. How do you find all this cool stuff?
I googled
the ‘autonomy’ of the SBC,
and this was the first site mentioned.
Dave,
Sorry I’m late:
December 5: Isaiah 9: Hope: People walking in Darkness seeing the Light of Christ
December 5 Evening: Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:30-33: The two most important women in the Christmas story, the two who were told of the coming Christ ahead of time.
December 12: Isaiah 53: Love: Shown to us through the suffering of the Messiah
December 12 Evening: Matthew 1: What does it matter who your ancestors were? Your obedience to God matters, your decisions matter, your adoption by God as His own matters. (Highlight the hooligans in the genealogy of Christ)
December 19: Isaiah 55: Joy: The offer of grace, the Lord who may be found! ->Into Luke 2: found at Christmas in the manger, at Easter not found in the tomb, and now found by grace through faith.
December 19 Evening: Songs….probably interweave stories behind a few of the songs.
December 24: Matthew/Luke/John/Revelation: The greatness of God, encased in a baby, that He may lead us back: Philippians 2:5-11
December 26: Isaiah 65:17-25: Peace: not only with one another but with God Almighty, for eternity. Luke 2:10-14
December 26 Evening: Matthew 1:18-25: Do not be afraid to follow God’s commands, even if your reputation is ruined by them.
January 2: Matthew 2: Visit of the Magi: start the year right: by following the Light of God, seeking the Word of God, worshiping the Savior with joy, and going among the people praising God
January 2 Evening: Luke 2:41-52: Losing Jesus, because we’ve left him in the manger, as Mary and Joseph left Him in Jerusalem. (I tend to agree with my OT prof in college: the logical reason Mary and Joseph left Jesus was they each thought he was with the other one: Women and kids left early while the men stayed to do business: Mary could have expected the 12-year-old to be with His father, doing business, because He was old enough. Joseph might have not thought of it yet: Jesus is just now 12, the last 11 years He’s gone with the kids. The “I must be about my Father’s business” kind of supports this.)
I realized pretty early in my ministry that I tended to preach my favorite passages and the Scriptures that seemed to be most directly “connected” to Christmas during the month of December. It took me several years to realize it, and probably the congregation noticed it before I did. Yes, I prayed about it, but let’s face it: the leadership of the Holy Spirit in such matters is usually a subtle thing, and it is easy to convince oneself that your own preferences are God’s–or at least it is for me. Consequently, I needed some way to discipline myself to preach the “full counsel of God,” especially at this time of the year. I accepted the collective wisdom of the church over the centuries, and so, for the past 12 or 15 years, have been (generally) using the common lectionary, with its three year cycle of Scripture divided into Old Testament, Gospel, Epistle, and Psalm readings. It has worked well for me.
John Fariss
Hi JOHN FARISS,
What a wonderful idea.
You might also like the beautiful Sarum ‘O’ Antiphons that are traditionally used each night leading up to Christmas Eve in the Anglican Church.
Here is a link:
http://www.gracehere.org/PDF/The_O_Antiphons.pdf
Each antiphon in Latin begins with a letter. And when those initial letters are arranged in order, they spell this:
“
Each antiphon in Latin begins with a letter. And when those initial letters are arranged in order, they spell this:
‘TOMORROW, I WILL COME’.
The “O” Antiphons are the verses for the ancient hymn ‘
O Come, O Come Emmanuel’
. The first letter of the Messianic titles: Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia—
spell out Latin words ERO CRAS,
meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.”
“It was not easy to come up with fresh, biblical approaches to the Christmas story. How many sermons can you do on the angels on the hillside or the Manger in Bethlehem?”
don’t stress out David, keep it simple, that’s how it was long ago: here’s some help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVGJgJ5cReg&feature=related
A spot to look, if you can take some wisdom from a *gasp* Freewill Baptist is http://www.robertjmorgan.com/journal/overflow/
Robert J. Morgan is a good preacher, and an excellent storyteller. I’d find this worth your effort. He’s got a spot about halfway down entitled “Sermon and Lesson Ideas for Christmas.” He’s been at his place of service for 30 years, so when it comes to having to keep from recycling too much, he’s had to do it!
There. I posted a link to someone other than me! Can I now claim to be humble or does that defeat the humility claim?
This year I am preaching a sermon series entitle “The World Needs a Stable Influience.” I am taking the messages from Isaiah. The first was entitled “For Unto Us a Son is Given.” The second message is entitled “And His Name Shall Be Called Immanuel.” The third message will also come from Isaiah 53 entitled “By His Stripes.”
I have been pastor of FBC Heath, TX for 9 years.
Paul Jacobs
Hi PAUL,
Your theme ‘a stable influence’ is a wonderful one.
I am reminded of a famous quote from C.S. Lewis’ book ‘The Last Battle’ where Queen Lucy says,
“‘Yes, in our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
Like Dave, interestingly enough, I just came to the conclusion as per the Holy Spirit this very morning to do Phil. 2:5-11 and the incarnation and its application of humility to us, over the next two weeks at CCC (Christ Community Church), after having initially leaned towards continuing my expositional series thru Luke’s gospel, which appropriately began with the Christmas story one year ago this week.
Thanks for the reminder guys and for David Jeremiah’s radio message on this same text which gave confirmation.
Bernie
Sunday, I’m actually planning to try to incorporate “That’s My King” into the worship. We’ll see how that works.
I did that last week for the conclusion to my 2 part series on Christology for Christmas. Since I was doing Christ as King, I thought it appropriate. The only problem was that I decided to play it at the beginning as a sort of call to worship and unfortunately too many people were stirring around and didn’t absorb it as they should have.
On a side note, I did a seemingly crazy thing with my sermon on Christ as King. I walked through the first seven chapters of Revelation pointing out the throne room scenes and the pictures of Christ as the Lamb-King. I think it worked well and was symmetrical with my sermon on Christ as Priest, where we walked thorugh the first 7 chapters of Hebrews and examined Jesus as a greater priest from a greater order of priests.
Sounds pretty cool.