Christmas on Sunday this year

We may do AM worship only, and do it in possibly a different way.

 

My guess right now is that we will have our normal Sunday AM service and cancel the evening service.

 

We will be reducing our schedule to one service at 10:30. We will cancel both our Sunday School and Evening Service that day.

 

I read somewhere that Christmas Eve has now surpassed Easter as the day most unchurched people are likely to visit a church. We will probably (not carved in stone yet) put all our efforts into one excellent Christmas eve service and give our folks Christmas day to spend with their families. That's the way we're leaning, but not completely decided.

 

Avoid the calendar dilemma--treat every day as the day Jesus will return. It will change your focus on daily priorities.

Question: Where is it written that we CELEBRATE the birth of Jesus? He did tell us to REMEMBER His death.

Are we ready?

Selah,

Bro. James

 

We're going to have our usual morning SS and worship with a lunch for everyone who wants to stay, and then no evening service.

A lot of the folks at my church (myself included) are of the mindset that Jesus was not born on Dec. 25, and therefore the date itself is not that important. We're not celebrating Christ's literal "birthday", but rather have set this day aside to devote it entirely to worshipping Him.

 

We are having a Christmas musical on Christmas Eve. This is where we think the biggest attendence will be. Probably only the committed "regulars" on Christmas morning. I heard that the pastor had actually considered cancelling Sunday altogether because he was expecting both his family and his wife's family over, and it would be too much!

I am planning a "Birthday Party for Jesus" theme for the kids who show up.

 

So what are you saying?? That we need to take the Lord's Supper every day?

 

We will have a CHRISTMAS EVE service on Saturday at 5 pm and will have CHRISTMAS services at 11am on Sunday but no evening services.

BTW, we should celebrate the Birth in that it reminds us that God became man to die for us. Even at Christmas we are remembering the Cross.

 

I'm just curious, for those who are going to have regular AM service but are canceling the PM service. What is your reasoning?

It would seem to me that the only reason to cancel a service would be that you want your people to be able to honor their family time and celebrate whatever traditions they have. So to me it would make more sense to cancel the AM service, since most family traditions involve Christmas morning, and then meet for an awesome worship service that evening. Not picking an argument here, just wondering why you're doing what you're doing.

 

That's a good question, I think.

We're just trying to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ and not "run down the stairs and see what Santa brought". It just doesn't make any sense to stay home from church to celebrate Christmas Morning.

SO many folks from our congregation are having family in for Christmas dinner that afternoon that the church just decided to skip it this time.

 

The angel of the Lord celebrated His birth.
The multitude of the heavenly host celebrated His birth.
The shepherds abiding in the field celebrated His birth.
The wise men came from afar to celebrate His birth.
God recorded His birth in the holy Scriptures.
I think maybe we ought to celebrate His birth as well. </font>[/QUOTE]Did they have a mass on the 25th as in Christ-mass?

 

Well said, Bro. James. This is why - even on Christmas day - I will preach the life, death on the cross, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just because the world celebrates His birth doesn't mean that the Christian shouldn't also remember His sacrificial death for us.

 

...however, I didn't read your continuing posts before I posted.

Bro. James, if it was important enough for the heavenly host to celebrate, it's important enough for me. And just because our Catholic friends continue to be well off-track in their understanding of God doesn't mean that we shouldn't properly celebrate the coming of the Messiah.

(By the way, let's not hijack this thread with our differences in this area - it's clearly not the intent of the OP.)

 

We celebrate the birth of our child, why not the birth of our Savior?????

We'll cancel SS and have one service somewhere around 10:30.

We'll cancel Sunday night service to allow people to travel since Monday is the federal day off. Our youth also leave for their winter retreat the next day and many youth leaders travel Christmas night.

 

No where. It's neither required nor condemned by scripture. We do so out of social custom. Nothing scripturally wrong with celebrating it whatsoever.

Well then, we'll have to cancel Easter, since it celebrates his resurrection, not his death.

He tells us to "remember" his death. That's a completely different topic from commemorating or celebrating other events that are important to us. I don't think there's a single born-again individual that forgets his death.