Some Churches Closing On Christmas Day
An interesting post on CNN.com (read here) cites a number of the mega churches that have decided to cancel services on Christmas Sunday (and even New Year's Day) because they anticipate low attendance. Some of the churches that are closing for the day respond that they have added other services during the week prior to Christmas in lieu of Christmas Day. One individual asserts that the last time Christmas fell on Sunday (1994) there was only a small number of people who showed up. Some have argued that since attendance is anticipated to be down on this day it would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources.
It will be interesting to see how people respond. Seems to me that no matter what we say in regards to this issue - if one chooses to stay away on Christmas Sunday, that individual has voted to close the church on Christmas Day. What are your thoughts?
posted by Dan Pritchett @ 8:30 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Thoughts:
1) No where in the Bible are we commanded to celebrate the birth of Jesus with a holiday.
2) Nor are we commanded to worship on Sunday. The NT example is descriptive, not prescriptive.
3) So, it should be a matter of conscience to gather with church family, biological family, and saved or unsaved friends, at home or in a designated "house of worship." (ala Romans 14:5)
4) That being said, my conscience feels really bad about canceling church services due to Christmas. It just seems wrong somehow. I guess that makes me more of an idealist than a pragmatist.
Certainly agree that there is no command to celebrate Christmas. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that New England Puritans even banned the celebration of Christmas because it had become too commercialized. I also realize that it makes it very difficult for those families who have long established Christmas traditions (and I suspect this maybe one of those issues that one may have to examine his/her conscience and if they have freedom...). My concern probably revolves around he "idealist" perspective (as defined above) and what are we saying to the unsaved world. They hear us go into long arguments about how we are having our religious freedoms taken away, but when the practice of that religion becomes inconvenient, we ditch it. Seems to me that we lose some significant credibility with the unsaved world.
I think that it is just wrong! Yes, you are right that it is not a requirement to worship on sunday or to even celebrate Christmas as a holiday. Matter of fact, "Christmas" has become alot less like CHRISTmas ever year for me, since childhood. But the image of churches, Especially these churches that are being held up like models for so much of the new church philosphy, is horrible. What it appears to be saying is that we will come to church and remember Christ, when it is convivent and fits our schedule. It makes the work of ministry and calling people away from the siren call of money, privilige and self-centeredness that much more difficult.
E. Eickhoff
Portis GBC
Certainly Christmas observance is one of those optional "day observances" Paul speaks of in Romans 14:5-8, so what lies behind our doing/not doing of it is more important than the actual practice.
On balance, doing it is more edifying than not doing it, in my opinion. The world needs more recognition of Jesus' coming and more interruptions by Jesus into our normal way of life, not less. Likewise for New Year's Day, what better way to start it than with worship and fresh commitment?
Cancelling services on these two days is not in itself a bad sign. But it goes in tandem with the trend in megachurch thinking in general to succumb to the culture rather than to redefine it.
Grace Community of Seal Beach CA will drop its 8:00 service those mornings but not our 9:30 or 11:00 services--these will be shorter, for outreach and for the whole family.
Don Shoemaker
GCC Seal Beach
Others have already written in with the Biblical truth that "he who honors the day does so unto the Lord & he who does not does so unto the Lord" perspective. In addition to this I would like to add that since the biblical example was meeting for worship "on the first day of the week", and most churches do meet for worship on Sundays - perhaps we should ask ourselves why wouldn't we meet on Christmas Sunday? It seems an embarrassment to the church that we challenge Christians to keep Christ in Christmas - yet some of us cancel services because it IS Christmas! Is there not a discrepancy there, at least in testimony to the public? Here at CGBC we are cutting our normal two worship & one ABF services to simply one 10:30 worship hour on Christmas. We also have a very popular and varied Christmas Eve service. That leaves time for presents & a nice family gathering to follow. For me I simply ask not "how many will come?" but "will this please Jesus?" I think it does.
Pastor Jeff Peeler
Community GBC
Everett, PA
OOPS! I have ten people traveling over Christmas Sunday. I guess we will dismiss church, after all does not Jesus look for crowds more then individuals ? Hey ! those people won't be back until after New years Sunday...Well, I guess we will meet the second Sunday in January.
The main reason we aren’t having a service this year on Sunday December 25th is that we are already having two worship services on Christmas Eve and we don’t want to abuse our volunteers by taking away all their family time at Christmas.
Many of our volunteers will be serving at both of our Christmas Eve Services, not getting home until close to 1:00 AM. I don’t want to require them to be back at church early Christmas morning to get ready for an 11:00 worship service. The janitor would need to clean, musicians would need to practice, ushers would need to prepare the buildings and possibly shovel snow, and hospitality people would prepare coffee and cookies. Add to that the children's workers who we want to come with their children the night before.
Of course, having Christmas fall on a Sunday is not the norm. In our church’s history it has happened only twice. In 1988, we had no Christmas Eve service, so having the regular Sunday AM service was a natural. In 1994, we had one early Christmas Eve service and one Sunday 11AM service. I didn’t hear complaints but I know that was difficult for some families.
Since 1988, our people have benefited from our Christmas Eve services so much that we can’t accommodate them in only one sitting, so we now have 2 Christmas Eve worship times. We’re always trying new things, so this year we decided to encourage everyone to come on Christmas Eve and then not plan a major service Christmas Day.
I think that if 2:00 worship worked best for our people every week, we wouldn't have a problem moving our worship service from 11:00 to 2:00. Now for this one weekend, we think it would be better to have worship Saturday night rather than Sunday morning. So that's what we are trying.
When Christmas is again on Sunday (in 2011), we'll have a better idea of what to do.
It looks like I'll be the minority here, but I would say that First Corinthians 16:2 and Revelation 1:10, though descriptive, form a prescriptive pattern which the church follows. That this is so seems incontrovertible from the practice of the church throughout history. Collective worship on the Lord's Day (sundown Saturday through sundown Sunday in Hebrew thinking) has certainly been the consistent practice, which is the best way of demonstrating an interpretation.
Christmas, on the other hand, is entirely arbitrary. As many previous comments suggest, our approach to it needs some rethinkikng. I appreciate efforts to keep Christ in Christmas. Perhaps we also need efforts to get the "mass" out of Christmas. Instead of "merry Xmas" perhaps someone could try "merry ChistX". We do not celebrate a mass - we celebrate Jesus.
Keith Shearer
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