Skipping Church on Christmas?

I really enjoyed John Grisham's book Skipping Christmas.  It's a fun, light-hearted escape for a couple of hours that tells the story of Luther Crank and his attempts to skip Christmas one year.  And it was made into a funny movie that came out last year called Christmas with The Krank's starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis.  The comedy in the movie dealt with Luther's futile battle to avoid Christmas.

This year the body of Christ has been given a wonderful gift in that the world's celebration of Christmas falls on a Sunday.  For so many years we have been talking about the need to put Christ back in Christmas.  This year the battle has reached a fever pitch with endless debates about  "Xmas vs. Christmas, " and "Holiday Trees vs. Christmas Trees."  And so, we have a wonderful gift this year, where Christmas falls on the Lord's Day.  Christians across America have a terrific opportunity to not only worship our Lord together as a body on the day that ostensibly marks His birth, but also to make a statement in the eyes of a watching world.  This is a statement that Christmas is a day of worship!

But alas, and alack, some of the largest and most influential churches in our nation have decided to join Luther Crank in skipping Christmas this year.  Now to be sure they are not skipping Christmas in the worldly sense.  But they are skipping Christmas by cancelling their Lord's Day worship services this Christmas.  Ben Witherington seems to be the first one to break this story in the blogosphere.  Here are some words of his that are on point:

Our culture does not need any encouragement to be more self-centered and narcissistic or to stay at home on Sunday. It is already that way. Christmas above all else should be a day when we come together as the body of Christ to worship and adore the Lord Jesus. Christmas should be the day above all days where we don't stay home and open all those things we bought for ourselves INSTEAD of going to church. Christmas should be the day when we forget about ourselves for a few hours and go and honor the birthday of the great King, our Savior.

What we are dealing with here are churches whose priorities are so askew that they somehow think it is more important for the church to serve the wants of the physical family than the other way around. This is a far cry from the pattern of the original disciples of Jesus who were seen leaving homes, relatives, jobs to come and follow Jesus. What kind of message does it send to our culture when churches close on one of its highest holy days? That it is o.k. to stay home and do one's own thing even on Jesus' birthday?

It is past time that these sorts of churches be called to account. It is time for them to realize that they have simply capitulated to the larger culture's agenda on issue after issue, in this case in supporting the worship of the idol called family in place of the worship of Jesus. The church does not exist to serve the world, but rather to save the world. The church does not exist to serve the physical family but rather to redeem it and make clear that if it is a Christian family it has a larger and more primary obligation to the family of faith and to its Lord. Christmas is one of two days in the year when we should especially make that clear to our culture and our country.

Shame on you mega-churches--- repent and believe the Gospel, starting with the birth stories of Jesus.

 

This gives me a good occasion to call your attention to an old favorite puritan sermon that I reference from time to time - Public Worship to Be Preferred Before Private, by David Clarkson.  The corporate worship of the body of is to be preferred before private in general, and how much more on Christmas Day.

I'm not into instigating blog swarms, but this is one I could get behind.  Tommy Hull at the Boars Head Tavern points out that over 1000 blogs have already weighed in on this at Google Blog Search and I am happy to add my name to that list.

For those who don't want to go to Google Blogsearch let me go ahead and list a few of the links to other blogs that are talking about this:

BrAd Boydston lists some of the churches which are boycotting the Lord's Day Worship this Christmas.

Think Christian points out that, in effect, these megachurches are treating Christmas as just another family holiday with no particular religious significance.

The Impish Antagonist points out the miixed messages this sends and why we need to worship together as a body this Christmas.

Greg Hazelrig took a poll that finds that 99% of respondents are astonished that a church would even think of not having corporate worship on Christmas Day.

Grattuitous Advice calls this a crime - Amen, preach it brother!

And there are many more.  If you have an opinion on this, pro or con, I do encourage you to weigh in on your own blog and trackback here.  And, if you don't have a blog of your own, feel free to comment your heart out here.

Comments

[Ken]

Looks like the mega-churches are really into Family Values (TM).

Never mind the Disneyland-with-Churchspeak and G-rated Family Movies, they're kicking out Christ to "Focus on the Family".

[Matt]

Heh, well I am one of those bloggers! There has been some pretty good discussion of this problem at my recent blog post. My home church decided to close... I wrote a letter raising my concerns...good discussion at my blog...I am assuming other members raised their concerns...THEY CHANGED THEIR DECISION! I am amazed by this news and look forward to hearing their decision making process. Anyway, just through I would throw that out there.

Cheers,
Matt

[cavman]

Just today I had a conversation w/a congregant who recommended we not have a service because so few will be there.
I can't do it- regardless of the decisions of various families, corporate worship should be available for the people. That is a major part of our calling in this world, and not just when it is convenient.

[Chris Hamer-Hodges]

From the upset this is causing I would say we now have the situation of too much "religion" in Christmas.

Lighten up guys. This is a non-issue. Having a Sunday morning meeting no-matter-what is not our calling to the world. It is to be a witness to the risen Christ. He is for life not just for Christmas.

Christmas does present a unique opportunity for getting the unchurched through the doors, but if you think they are going to give up opening their pressies with their kids on Christmas morn to be with a bunch of religious sticklers who they have had nothing to do with the rest of they year, then you are one reindeer short of a sleigh-pack.

I hate to break it to you, but Jesus was not born 25 Dec. No-one knows exactly when he was born, and for good reason: God is not concerned with "religious" days or festivals. You good Sola Scriptura boys and girls need to go back and read the book of Galatians.

God does have one most holy and precious day though: It's called Today.

[Henry]

Chris, surely you jest....Dec.25th not the actual birthdate???? LOL

Ok your point is duly noted- however I think you are falling into the same error by assuming only out-of-touch "religious sticklers" (to use your terminology) care about such issues.

I did enjoy the reindeer humor however :)

[Matt T.]

"Lighten up guys. This is a non-issue. Having a Sunday morning meeting no-matter-what is not our calling to the world. It is to be a witness to the risen Christ. He is for life not just for Christmas."

Finally, someone with a common sense outlook on this "issue".

[Steve S]

I've been reading quite a few of the blogs that have written about this, and I've been reading the comments that are being given. I've been hesitant to actually weigh in on the issue because I'm really having trouble getting my thoughts cohesively organized on the topic enough to respond. However, this one thought keeps bothering me: The arguments are being way over-stated, in my opinion.

By that, I mean that all of those condemning churches for cancelling their services on Dec 25 seem to be stretching the issue. Cancelling a Sunday service is not "skipping Christmas". That adds a straw man to the argument that I think does more damage than good to a potentially good topic for discussion.

I'm all for discussing the merits of whether or not a church should hold services on December 25, but somehow it seems like this is being used as a litmus test of whether or not a church is really preaching the Gospel.

Nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to meet every Sunday morning for public worship. That's a fact. (I'm specifically including the words "every", "Sunday", and "morning", so I'm making a very precise statement there.) Now, if you want to debate that the believers did meet on a regular basis for public worship, I have no argument there. I don't disagree at all. If you want to emphasize that they met on Sundays, you can make that point, and there is valid evidence toward that conclusion (although it's not entirely conclusive in a complete cut-and-dried way). But the reality is that these churches (at least as far as I can tell) are still having services on Christmas Eve, so it's not like they are completely abandoning public worship for Christmas! To say that they are "skipping Christmas" is to overstate the point and turn it into something that it's not.

Just my thoughts...

steve :)

[cavman]

I haven't heard anyone condemn anyone else in this discussion. Just some folks expressing their opinions. Okay, except David's quote of Ben Witherington (who can't even accurately describe the Calvinism he claims to refute in his new book).
This is not a hill to die on, but I don't see anyone here doing that, so I'm not sure who, besided BW needs to lighten up.
Some just find it strange that a Christian wouldn't want to worship w/their local body of believers. I'm one, though I probably shouldn't talk; I'll be on an airplane.

Perhaps one day we can discuss the odd custom of celebrating the Savior's birth with a greed-fest.

[jan]

Just curious why so much of the suspicion of motives seems to be directed at the local "megachurch." If the criticism is that they are closing their doors on Christmas morning, and the expectation is that there should be church, then the question should be why. And if the answer is that no one is coming, then it seems to me the larger issue may be believers with misplaced priorities. So why aren't we condemning Christians who stay home on Christmas?

[George Mimmen]

This issue is not the day a church meets. I see a lot of discussion about Sunday attendance.

The issues are: 1. Canceling service because not enough people will attend; 2. Canceling service because it takes too much staff to run for so little attendance; 3. Being too stressed out to go to church for Christmas; 4. Putting the family before Christ, for a very poor reason.

Don't get me wrong. My family has skipped church before because we were exhausted, or ill, or were in the middle of a way too serious argument. There are reasons to skip, but during Christmas???

Contemporary churches are just too dependent on technology. Do they mostly have hugh auditoriums? Don't they have chapels?

I find the Mega-church idea sad and depressing, despite the cancelling of Christmas.

[Mike Singenstreu]

I would like to weigh in on this Skipping XpMas discussion for a moment as a pastor in the PCA. I am not surprised. When you exist to serve "seekers" (considering the Bible says that "no man seeks God" I really don't know what that means) then it makes sense that you would do what some of these churches are doing. Why? Well as was put well by the spokewoman from Willow Creek the "seekers" are not going to come out. So given their demographic it is understandable. The marketing of Christmas is so much more to be raised up than the true reason for the church which is the worship of the one true and living God.

Having said this though I have to admit that my teenage girls did ask me what we were going to do. They forget that in 1994 we had services in the church we were at then. Whether you hold "aboslutely" to the 1st day of the week Lord's day or one day in 7 lets not change the rules just because some people may not be there. I have had many Sundays where only half of the church has showed up. Granted this day falling on Sunday is "inconvenient" for all the things we want to do but thank the Lord that He did not consider His coming..His life ...and His Death and resurrection to be inconvenient or we would have all been in big trouble. I like the surprises of this season and when the calendar surprises us as it has this year it gives us another reason to stop and "Keep" Christmas rather than simply "Observe" Christmas. Merry Christmas to all y'all as we say in South Texas.

[Joan Santomenna]

Amazing! Being a member of a church so small that we meet in a school, I thought everyone would love to have church on Christmas Sunday! We can not because the school is closed. In fact, we will have "Christmas Eve" on Friday this year to accommodate the cleaning staff. Maybe when we grow bigger make better choice. I hope so!

[Pastor Sam]

WOW! What a discussion I've stumbled into here. I used to work with BW. Seems like he's popped a cork on this one. Hope I don't get cut from the ATS Alumni Gift Exchange.

Well, our (unmega) church is not having service this Christmas for a few reasons. These are NOT in order of importance, they are just all part of the decision. One, we have been celebrating the coming of Jesus all December (and January, February, March..., etc). Two, the people who already get it, get it. The ones who don't that we are trying to woo into the church on Sunday mornings probably won't be there. Three, staff and Sunday morning volunteers will get a chance to celebrate CHRISTmas with their families. Four, relationships (family) ARE important to God. Five, Christmas isn't really Jesus' birthday (shhh...keep that one on the down low). Six, Jesus liked screwing with the Pharisees heads and we do too. Try it, it's fun. Seven, we don't have to worship on Sunday (Read Colossians 2). I'll stop there since the Bible says that seven is the perfect number. ;-p

Cavman...you get it.

BTW, our site is nomorechristmas.net. That should get your juices flowing.

[Leonard Partika]

I appreciate your article on skipping Church on Christmas. I have forwarded to the rest of our club members. I thought I was overreacting when I heard it announced that there would be no Church on Christmas Day.Wouldn't it be wonderful to get the majority of the Christian Community to make a statement to the U.S. Government and large corporate that we have had enough of the devil working through them to attack Christianity. I believe we could accomplish this by boycotting the sales and marketing (commercialized) part of Christmas for next year. It would be a powerful statement for all of us to join together and vow to have next years Christmas with no store bought presents everyone would have a large family meal and only handmade personalized gifts only made with what you have at home could be exchanged
no toys not store boughts presents. Just a Christmas of God -Family- Church - I believe that after all the resistance we would find it one of our best Christmases ever but also that the world would quickly change their mind about taking Christ out of Christmas. The Birth of Christ our Savior is what Christmas is about not MONEY. not HOLIDAY