I’ll be With My Family, Too
I know it shouldn’t surprise me, but is does. I continue to hear of more and more churches in the broader world of Christianity who are moving services off of Sunday, December 25. Some are meeting on Saturday, while others are even moving their worship times to Friday (Christmas Eve Eve services, anyone?).
The main reason being given is what you would expect. The churches are saying that holidays are all about family, so they are freeing up that day for families to be together.
I have two reactions (and I’m trying to word these as calmly as I can).
1. Whatever happened to the Lord’s Day actually being the Lord’s Day? I would not argue that we need to have a 24-hour-in-length worship service that starts at midnight and lasts until 11:59PM each Sunday, but isn’t our risen Lord a little more important than Santa Clause and some turkey? Oh, I’m sure some families will have a reading of the so-called “Christmas story,” but is that the same as coming together to praise Him with the saints? But, as we have filled Sunday with so much over the years, and made it just another day, should it surprise us that many churches are not going to worship the Lord on His day, in order to make things more convenient for families?
2. I’ll be with my family, too! You see, Lebanon Road is a family!!! Each congregation should love, encourage, discipline, and help each other mature in such a way that you truly “miss them” when you are away for some reason. They are family. They may not be my physical family, but they are family.
I enjoy Christmas, and we are trying to figure out how to fit in the usual traditions since it falls on Sunday. But that is where the difference is: we want to fit Christmas around worship, not vice versa. Worshiping the Almighty comes first. Everything else–including this fun holiday–comes far down the list.
So please, if you are going to call off or move services from that Sunday, don’t play that “family time” card. Admit what you are doing: you are making a holiday more important than the Lord’s Day.
15 Comments
Struggling with my heritage
I am not giving my real name on purpose. But I want to be honest with my reply and I am afraid of the repercussions.
In the church I attend and the church I grew up in we are not allowed to talk about Christmas or the Birth of Christ during December. We are so afraid of looking like a denomination that we have swung all the way to the other side of the argument. I really think we have gone to far and look foolish. So I will respectfully ask how are we going to marry our Christmas Traditions and our Worship Traditions on December 25th? In the church of Christ that is the real problem I see.
Donna Faughn.
I am so proud of you – for a lot of reasons – one of which is that you put God first in your life. I love you
Jim Faughn
Ditto to what Mom said. You have 2 VERY proud parents.
Adam Faughn
Struggling…
I truly appreciate you taking the time to read the post and share your tension about this matter. It is okay that you wish to remain anonymous.
You are right that it is easy to so strongly avoid one “extreme” (if I may use that term) that we end up at the other end of the spectrum. The last time I checked, God asked us to remain balanced in our lives.
Where I worship, we are going to have worship as usual on Sunday morning, including Bible classes. We will also meet on Sunday night.
As the preacher, I will be preaching on a subject related to Christmas (as I do each year), but just not on the “Christmas story.” This year, for example, I will be finishing a four-part series on some of the characteristics of God, and I’ll be preaching on God’s giving nature. My thinking is that this ties to what people are thinking about, but it forces them to think more deeply about this subject.
Our family will have “Santa gifts” early Sunday morning, then open our gifts to one another in the afternoon and enjoy some time together.
I don’t know if that answers your question, but I hope it helps a little. My goal in this post was not to talk about whether or not Jesus is the “reason for the season.” It was to point out how far too many have downgraded the Lord’s Day and meeting as God’s people, in the name of a holiday.
Again, thanks for reading.
Joe Palmer
Adam here is some more information on the topic of what is a Holiday and what we should do in response to Christmas.
http://joepalmer.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/happy-holy-day/
Auntie Am
Cindy and I were actually talking about what a wonderful teaching opportunity this is for our kids. Yes, Christmas is fun. Yes, it is important. But, as with every other Sunday, we will leave our home and worship together hopefully teaching what should always be most important and enjoyable.
As for the “reason for the season,” you might want to referencce Jeremiah’s recent article on his blog. Just a thought! 🙂
Kristen H.
Good for you! I haven’t heard of any churches moving their worship service to other days, but I am not surprised in the least. You know, having Christmas on a Sunday is a little “problematic” for one’s usual traditions, but it seems very telling when people are truly bothered by it. Your last paragraph says it ALL. Thanks!
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Sandy Puckett
Amen! I agree wholeheartedly!
Lisa Childs
Thank you for you stand Adam. We will be worshiping on December 25th. It is the Lord’s Day after all. Presents, lunch, brunch, afternoon snacks, all worked around our worship.
I should not be surprised but to hear of the people moving worship to a Friday or Saturday….Lord’s Day = Sunday.
Michael Farris
(My bulletin’s article for Sunday, —>
“I DIDN’T COME – MY FAMILY WAS VISITING”
I’m not sure if you can relate to the stinging effect that hearing these words has on me. They’re often used as the ‘reason for staying home’ during a church service. I was thinking of how ‘Christmas Day’ falls on Sunday this year. I was also thinking of how sad it is that so many congregations are actually canceling services entirely since it’s ‘inconvenient for so many families.’ It’s therefore worthy to note & express appreciation for the brethren here for ‘seeing no need to change’ the service times in this case. Because the designation of a man-appointed holiday does not supersede that of the Lord’s appointed 1st day of the week to worship him. In this community & our case, by keeping the service times the same, it’s a bold declaration to holding fast to the proper priorities. May we always do so in our hearts & in everyday life above our own desires or ‘convenience.’
LUKE 14:26-27
Many families will be together on ‘Christmas day’ (which lands on a Sunday this year). I know not all Christians have the blessing of a whole family devoted to the Lord. So it Just-Could be that this 25th will be a wonderful opportunity for you to ‘preach an-extra-powerful lesson’ of priorities & set a great example by the action of church-service-attendance as always- & perhaps this time to invite your relatives to come With You.
John Dobbs
I think we can become pretty legal about this by taking our humanly made decisions (worship time/replication at various hours) and then suggesting that anyone who does not conform just does not have the right priorities. That’s just pretentiousness, not faithfulness.
That being said, I cannot fathom cancelling services altogether on Christmas Day. What a beautiful opportunity to express worship to the Christ who came to save us together as a family (as we do each week).
In our case, we cancelled Sunday School and will worship together once at 10:30 on that day. It will be a worship service centered around the beauty and truth of the incarnation. The rest of the day remains free for the wonderful traditions of Christmas.
I feel sorry for Anonymous above … and the legal yoke placed upon them … and encourage them to escape that as soon as possible. If you are going to be under the yoke of man made laws, then you might as well be under a lighter yoke somewhere else.
Certainly provokes a lot of thoughts!