Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. So once again, many congregations are CANCELLING SERVICES! That boggles my mind. You should go to church on Christmas even when it doesn’t fall on a Sunday! But when it does, why wouldn’t you go to church as you usually would?
OK, I understand about opening presents, making the Christmas dinner, and all that. I understand someone missing church, though that’s not to condone it. But what I cannot understand is a church that would not open its doors on Christmas day, that would not worship Christ on the commemoration of His birth.
I guess this practice is more common than I realized. I’ve heard the reason given that Christmas is a family time, so we are going to be “worshipping” by spending time with our families. But that’s just more secularizing of the holiday. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
UPDATE: Here is a defense of the practice, one that slams us critics. Do you find it convincing? I guess the big difference is one of theology. The defense portrays worship as something we do–hard work that we sometimes need a break from–with little sense of what we receive when we worship or of Christ actually being present when we worship.
After the jump, Jonathan Aigner, gives 8 reasons NOT to cancel church services on Christmas.
Just as it’s important to keep Christ in Christmas, it’s important to keep “mass” in Christmas. In fact, doing the latter is the best way to do the former.
From Jonathan Aigner, 8 Reasons NOT to Cancel Church on Christmas – Ponder Anew:
- It’s Sunday. The whole “church” thing happens on Sundays.
- It’s CHRISTMAS, for God’s sake. That whole thing about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us? Yeah, that’s what this whole Christmas thing is all about.For me personally, I think those are more than enough reason to take an hour or so off from celebrating the indulgent, gluttonous, sentimental, Hallmark reasons for the season and get your happy butts to church. But in case you aren’t quite convinced, read on.
- Canceling Christmas services turns Christmas into a civil observance instead of a sacred day. I do love many things about this time of year. The weather, hitting the mall late into the evening, holiday parties, watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (“Where’s the Tylenol?”). But, as fun and exciting as these things can be, the discipline of the church year helps us realize that these things are merely periphery. Our lives are divided up into semesters, work schedules, electric bills, tax deadlines. Intentionally choosing a gospel-centered organization system helps us to maintain our first allegiance to Christ and his kingdom.Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Stop worry being the “Happy Holidays” police or petitioning to keep the nativity scene on City Hall lawn. We serve a higher throne that calls us to rise above that noise.
- Even if it’s a low-attendance Sunday (shouldn’t be, but often it is), people will come. They will bring their families and out-of-town guests. Is worship only worth it if we get lots of butts in the seats? I would hope we haven’t sunk that low, but apparently, some of us have.
- It unites us with the holy catholic church, past, present, and future. Christ wasn’t crucified during the Clinton administration, and we don’t do the Christian life in a vacuum. We are part of a long faith tradition, one that wouldn’t have canceled Christmas for anything in the world until, oh, the rise of the megachurch.
- It’s theologically negligent (also practically unnecessary…maybe stupid) to deny your people the Word and Sacrament. Of course, most of the megachurches and aspiring megachurches don’t believe in all the sacrament stuff, anyway, but still. If what you have to offer is so important that it constitutes the life blood of those who claim Christ’s holy name, why would you take a week off? Oh, right, family. And volunteers.
- The suggestion that cancelling church on ANY Sunday, particularly on Christmas, is a pro-family idea just doesn’t make sense. Is the church a drain on families in general? Really?!? On a Sunday when virtually everyone is off work for a day, and often longer? I would hope that our official position would be different; that corporate worship is vitally important, that the gifts God has to offer would grow, refresh, and strengthen us as individuals and as families. Certainly, don’t guilt anyone for not coming to your church, but don’t delude yourself into thinking giving families one more hour of toys and calories is going to strengthen them more than God’s gifts. And, oh yeah, again, Christmas is about Jesus, not family.
- If your volunteers are so over-taxed that you have to give them all a Sunday off, perhaps you need to scale back your ministries in other areas during the rest of the year. Christmas Sunday shouldn’t be the first thing to get the ax. Cancel all your other regular Sunday opportunities, just don’t cancel worship.
Photo: Trinity Lutheran Church altar, Friedheim, Missouri. By Markkaempfer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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