We managed to have worship on the Lord’s Day for centuries but now Christmas Day just doesn’t work for us if it falls on a Sunday.
“No one will show up.” Some will. Try it.
“OK, not enough will show up.” No sense in worshiping with just a few, huh?
“Families have their own Christmas Day activities.” You bet…and some families even include worship with their church on Sunday, Christmas Day.
“The staff needs this day off with their families.” Odd. Clergy have until now considered leading worship on Sunday as a rare privilege, part of their calling.
“We do Christmas Eve big so we can cancel Sunday, Christmas Day.” Hmmm, that might work for most any Saturday evening of the year, and, I hear some churches do both. Imagine that.
“We provide our members with a special devotion for home use.” Big of you. Send ’em 52 of these along with some offering envelopes (or your online giving link) and they need never warm a pew or chair.
“It’s almost certainly not Jesus actual birth date any way.” Probably not. But the entire world is agreed on the day of the week, Sunday, the Lord’s Day.
“It’s cool to not worship on Christmas Day. Shows how up-to-date we are.” Or, perhaps, how out-of-touch you are.
___________
No need to say it. I understand that my day is past and things have changed.
I could see canceling Sunday night service (if the church even has one) on Christmas, but to cancel a Sunday morning service for anything but extreme weather is anathema!
Your day is not past. You are right on the mark. Worldly logic has no place in scheduling our worship services.
William, I could not agree with you more.
I do not think you are out of date (on this one anyway) 😉
Anecdotally, the churches I see cancelling in our area are pastored by older pastors – all us whippersnappers are excited about Christmas falling on Sunday this year!
The Saturday night/Sunday morning pairing was heavy on our minds… so we backed our Christmas Eve service up to the 23rd. Better to move that than cancel Sunday morning, in my opinion.
Brent, are you advertising that as a Christmas Eve Eve Service? 🙂 Sorry, couldn’t resist…
Brent, you are having a Christmas Adam Service.
We pulled the plug on Sunday PM and on Sunday School, but we’re still having morning service and our Christmas Eve service Saturday night. Not having anything Sunday just didn’t make sense.
William, I can’t agree with you more!
Hey, let’s cancel Easter service too, it falls on a Sunday this year! 🙂 Wouldn’t want church and the worship of our Savior to get in the way of family traditions!
William! Great article, though you probably a little nuanced for my taste with the “C’mon Man!”. Any church that does not have Sunday Worship on Christmas Day should turn in their Christian Card.
Rob
We get a card? Nobody told me I get a card! Where’s my card?
We cancelled Sunday School and other activities – I feel a little guilty about that, but cancelling on Sunday AM was never an issue.
But I’ve never cancelled on Super Bowl Sunday pm either (except one year, I believe, for snow).
Ditto. No SS but absolutely having Sunday service.
Agree William. Why would a church ever cancel a Lord’s day service? I can think of only a couple things and they involve real danger to congregants. Like a severe snow storm or approaching hurricane of real threat of tormnado and such. But for Christmas? No way.
William, your day has definitely passed but you are correct on this issue. No SS but 10:30 worship service.
Outstanding article, William. We are having Sunday AM services on Christmas. This will be the fourth time that Christmas has landed on a Sunday since I have been the pastor at Springer. We have always had a record attendance…folks from other churches who are upset about their church canceling the services
There is one possible good exception I can think of: a church that meets in rented space it won’t have access to on Christmas and it can’t find an alternative.
No Sunday Service for us. The doors will be shut and locked. Don’t even think about tossing insults. That’s just the way it is going to be. The Christmas Eve service will be 90% or better music only, too.
Why?
We do church on Friday here in the UAE. Couldn’t help but say it. I needed a laugh.
Jon, I have an uncle who built a power plant in Dubai. He was there about 5 -7 years. He speaks fondly of his time there.
Educate me on the Friday worship. Is it strange not worshipping on Sunday? I am not legalistic who imposes Sabbath laws to Sunday but it would be strange not to have some kind of celebration on the Lord’s Day.
Friday is the first day of the work week. Think of it as your Monday.
It isn’t easy to get used to at first. Every trip home takes a few weeks to re-adjust back to saying things like Friday School.
Friday being the day for church was made by the Sheik some years ago. It is the day the Muslims meet.
The whole life of being / doing church here is different from the US. It will be hard to go back long term. Not trying to be rude but it seems to be real here. The people who come to the church I pastor want to be the church They live it out in high percentage compared to my experience in US.
Come visit us.
Our Christmas day service in 2011 was very high attendance — most of our folks found it a particularly meaningful addition to their family celebrations.
We will do Christmas Eve and Christmas Evening. But then, I am a rebel who lived somewhere in South America most of his adult life–a place we did everything differently.
We are having a Sunday morning service, but I am sympathetic to churches who will not. Planning and executing two excellent, engaging services is difficult for most churches.
I live in an area of the country that is extremely unchurched, and to not seize the opportunity of “going all in” Christmas Eve quite frankly is saddening to me. While we will have both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services, we are going to defer our best thoughts and energy to Christmas Eve because we know that there will be many unchurched family members, friends, and community members.
Christmas Eve is such a low-hanging fruit opportunity for our church in regards to evangelism that it would be selfish to divert our best energy to a Christmas Day service that will be geared more towards insiders. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve, by seeking and saving those who are lost. I couldn’t think of a better B-day present for Him than carrying out His mission.
We Will be following the Prescribed Baptist pattern: Xmas eve service, then no SS, yes 10am Service, nothing in the evening.
I did hear of one church that is planning to have identical services xmas eve and xmas morning. (they will let people know this, so they can choose which they want to attend).
{gasp}. You typed X instead of Christ multiple times in that post – I’m horrified! 😉
X was/is a valid symbol for Christ. I will not apologize.
Andy,
I know, I was kidding.
People around these parts get all up in arms about that though…LOL.
William:
Allow me to present a personal experience with this matter. Back in 1979, our church was without a pastor and I was serving as the church moderator.
For my entire Christian life(68 years) I have always felt that every church should have a Christmas day service to honor our Lord Jesus Christ, no matter on which day of the week Christmas day fell. That feeling was supported by the knowledge that on the couple occasions when the day fell on a Sunday no appreciable reduction in Sunday School and church attendance was experienced.
So, I suggested to our church council that we schedule such a service. I received almost zero support and was subject to ridicule as well as all the senseless cliches about having such a service, such as: “this is a family holiday,” “kids will never agree to come,” “mothers/wives are so busy preparing meals, they can’t come” and the most common objection, “nobody will come.”
I finally ended the objections by asking the council, “suppose nobody except my family attends the service, what harm will accrue.” I even offered to pay for the gas and electric costs for the service. With that, I received a very, very, very, reluctant approval to move forward with the service.
In announcing the service to the congregation I advised them that the service would be a brief one and would consist only of songs of praise and thanksgiving plus congregational testimonials.
Lo and behold, on Christmas Day, even I was surprised when the church was practically packed for the service – with children, young people, and adults. And, because I had promised a brief service, I even found it necessary to cut off the testimonials in order to be true to my promise.
That test proved to me that my desire for a Christmas Day service was not a fluke – if the church has the service, they will come! Gladly!
I sadly add that in the ensuing 47 years our church has never had another Christmas Day service when the day didn’t fall on a Sunday.
So, not only do I consider it sad for any church to cancel a Christmas Day service when it falls on a Sunday but, to repeat myself, I still consider it sad that every church does not have such a special service no matter on which day of the week the day falls.
HONORING GOD AND HIS SON ON HIS BIRTHDAY SHOULD TAKE PRECEDENT OVER THE DESIRES OF MANKIND.
Carrying on these services should also present an excellent teaching opportunity for all parents to show their children what and Whom Christmas is all about! It blows my mind that any pastor or church would be willing to pass up such an opportunity.
We will not be doing a Christmas Eve service but we will be worshiping Christmas Day. The Christmas Eve service something my church normally does but I didn’t feel good about back-to-back services.
i anticipate a smaller-than-usual congregation Christmas morning, but we would NOT cancel the service, unless there happens to be snow we cannot remove in time or other exigent circumstances. We will have Sunday school too, though it will probably be with 2 or 3 combined classes.
John
We have no problem canceling on Christmas day this year. It is a time for family which God instituted. I have never had to be in a building with four walls that said Baptist on the sign outside to give my all to God. The building is not the church.
No Jess, but the People assembled is the church. Quite frankly, it doesn’t take time away from family to attend a worship service on the Lord’s Day. Nothing says Christmas is not about Christ quite so much as canceling worship services.
I wonder why church time is not considered family time?
Bill Mac,
That was precisely what I was thinking.
I don’t think nothing is wrong with taking a vacation away from the building once and a while. Matter of fact, I will take Sunday off whenever I can get one. It doesn’t happen often but when I can take a Sunday or Wednesday off it rejuvenates me, and I’m proud to get it. It’s good to be away from people too. I just happen to be one that loves to celebrate Christ’s birth with his family. Besides, Christ’s birth was probably in the summer. The shepherds were keeping watch over their flock. This means they were in the countryside where their sheep could feed. Dead grass wouldn’t do them any good, it had to be green.
Jess, You obviously don’t get what is being said. This isn’t about taking a vacation from the building. Those people who gather in that building are as much family as blood kin are, or they are supposed to be.
To me this is about that fact that Christianity for 20 centuries now has reserved Sunday as a day of corporate worship to the Lord. If Christmas is truly about the birth of Christ, it would seem to me that the most inappropriate thing in the world one could do is cancel services on Christmas Sunday.
Further, I guess I am strange, but even when I take vacation I generally attend church somewhere. I don’t do this because I think God is going to be mad at me, I do it because I want to be in church on Sunday.
Agreed, John.
I know I’m old school, but this type of thinking is precisely why so many churches are seeing record attendance, but very few, if any, actual conversions. We’ve created churches for people who don’t like church in basketball gyms and football stadiums because we don’t want to offend or alienate anyone. Once in a while I believe we need to be reminded that when God searched through Heaven to find someone to be the supreme sacrifice for the sins of the world, He gave the very best He had. Anything less from us, His redeemed, should be unthinkable, especially when Christmas on Sunday only happens every few years.
A few years back when Christmas was on Sunday, I had everyone wear their (appropriate) pajamas to the service. It was a small congregation (like 30 or so), and pretty much everybody showed up. I wore my pajama pants and a long robe.
We mainly did that for the families that didn’t have family close, and being as we, as the church, are a family, we treated it like a family Christmas morning.
It was really neat.
Well said John! We were created to worship. Why, especially a pastor, would allow anything else would take priority, on the day we set aside to recognize the day God came to dwell amongst us is beyond my understanding. Pastors are not CEO’s, not site managers, their single task is to prepare those placed under their care to meet God. John Piper wrote a book several years ago names: “Brothers we are Not Professionals”. I think I may read it again.