Christmas Eve/Day

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Rodrick-Schnaath on September 10, 2008 at 2:57pm

I think the trick of planning services for families with kids is that you don't want to dumb it down too much. Although they want their children to have an understanding of what's going on, parents also want to be fed by what's happening during the service. For most of them, that "children friendly" service will be the only time that they come for worship at Christmas.

For the congregation that I served most recently, this meant including Holy Communion at all services with the liturgy abbreviated at the early services. It was important to read the whole Christmas narrative at all four services. The sermon at the early services was a lengthy children's sermon that often took a narrative form. It couldn't just be an object lesson. It had to be as well written and rehearsed as the sermon delivered at the late candlelight service.

I have participated in Christmas Day services for the last 18 years. As a pastor, they are my favorite. Finally! finally! I get to relax and really enjoy Christmas. It does mean getting up on Christmas morning and going to work- but I am always so thankful for that service. It became a family tradition that my husband would vacuum the worship area on Christmas morning. He and my daughter usually ushered. The size of this service grew over the years and for many it was a real blessing.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Linman on September 17, 2008 at 1:02pm

I think you're on the right track with offering an earlier service...3 might be a little early, but if others are doing it, why not give it a try. Some ideas:

+have the kid's choir sing
+have a young family (kid's included) read the christmas story
+do a kid's message
+get younger families to serve communion, greet people, etc.

To echo what Heidi said, keep it short or break it up to hold people's attention. For example, when your young family is reading the Christmas story, break it up with songs in between. This is what we did back in 2005 with the reading from Luke 2:

Bible Reading: Luke 2:1-7
Carol Song: Away In A Manger
Bible Reading: Luke 2:8-14
Carol Song: Angels We Have Heard On High
Bible Reading: Luke 2:15-19
Carol Song: Mary, Did You Know?

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Permalink Reply by Lynne Ogren on September 17, 2008 at 5:12pm

We have 3 Christmas Eve services at 4:00, 7:00 & 10:00 (recently changed from 11:00 which was dwindling). The 4:00 service is when the Sunday School Christmas program takes place, which confines that production to the specific gospel message. We have a writer who has produced several versions from differing character perspectives (although we haven't had any talking donkeys or the like). The later 2 services are candlelight/traditional substituting carols for liturgy music and the adult choir sings at both.

I, too, enjoy the Christmas Day service most and usually it is a service of lessons and carols. We have some older folks with no family in the area who don't drive at night that come to this one. We also have Holy Communion at all Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Webb on September 21, 2008 at 10:23am

For us Christmas Eve and Christmas day are "garage door" services, where we open the door really really wide for folks who don't normally go to church. Our normal weekend services are "seeker-friendly". Christmas, along with Easter is "seeker focused" in our context.

That means we're very careful to sing hymns and songs that seekers already have in their heads (not really hard to do at Christmas time). We also employ a TON of kids throughout our services as well as drama, media, etc. Our service "form" is fairly simple: greeting and opening prayer, Christmas carol sing, readings and special music, and message. On Christmas day we have a liturgical chorale communion service to reach folks who are used to a more traditional Christmas experience.

Here's what our schedule has typically looked like: Christmas Eve-Eve, 5:00 pm (usually it's packed); Christmas Eve 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00, 11:00 pm; Christmas Day, 10:00 am. Our most full services are the Christmas Eve-Eve service and the 3:00, 5:00, 7:00 pm services on Christmas Eve.

In terms of worship order everything's the same except for Christmas Day--different style (traditional liturgical), music, lessons, and message.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Meyer on September 29, 2008 at 5:28pm

I think it really depends on who might come to your service. We have found that the families from our congregation and the community with smaller children come out of the woodwork for an afternoon Christmas Eve service. We like to do something between 2 and 4. We really aim that at families. There is a lot of energy - to put it mildly. Then a late night service (8 pm to 11 pm) is great for people who don't have kids (or have teens) and want something more contemplative. Your congregation/community may not want one or the other, or something different. Depends who comes. Don't underestimate the power of exposing new people to God's presence in your church on this day, as is already mentioned.

As for Christmas Day. i'm a heretic (gladly). I think the only people who come are long retired people, and most of them out of obligation. I think it is our job to get Christmas off on the right foot (we do that with Advent, and Christmas Eve) and then to get out of the way. Let families celebrate by themselves. What's this about always making people come back to the church building? Do we think they need to come both days? Are there many people who couldn't come to one of the Eve services? Give people materials to have a brief worship or meditative time with their families. A short and good devotion to do with the Advent wreath.

Taking Christmas Day off is also a way of allowing staff, worship leaders and others involved in worship time ministries a chance to honor the Holy Day with their families. A sabbath. That is very important as well.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Reinhardt on October 6, 2008 at 1:34pm

We will have 4 services on Christmas Eve; 2, 4, 6 and 11. There will be one on Christmas Day. I will attend each one and help to provide music. There is always the service that has the larger number in attendance, but it is still good to provide as many services on Christmas Eve as possible, as many as the Pastors can handle. The early afternoon services are actually very touching. The candles, well, the fact that everyone lights their candle from their neighbor's candle, that's what matters. That's the SPIRIT moving through the Sanctuary. That's what counts!!!

About the special music at 10pm, "LET THE CONGREGATION BE THE SPECIAL MUSIC!!!!" In some cases, the precious Christmas Hymns are going by the wayside. We, as planners, cannot let them go away. They are Blessing to us.

That late night service is very important to many people. They need that opportunity. It means a lot to those in attendance, even though few.

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Permalink Reply by Michael H. Marchal on October 13, 2008 at 8:45pm

I think that one needs to be very careful in talking about "the Christmas story." What immediately comes to mind for everybody is Luke's version, but Matthew has one to with a different emphasis, and so does John whose story focuses not only on the origins of Jesus but on the "birth" of believers. Neither one of these two accounts lend themselves to the sentimentality that can surround Luke's story, but they do say very profound things about Jesus's coming among us.

And much of the "traditional" music is less sentimental than we sometimes seem to notice, for example, the Appalachian carol, "I wonder as I wander out under the sky, How Jesus the Savior did come for to die." As always, we have to be careful so that our preconceptions and preferences do not get in the way of the Word of God.

Another point that I feel deserves pondering is how "symbolically authentic" is the service. If Luke's account is going to be the focus of the service, then how can the service be scheduled for 2 or 4 PM on Christmas Eve? The story is set in the dark of night! Would an Easter sunrise service be scheduled for 9 or 10 AM? The more liturgical churches have always had multiple sets of lessons for Christmas constructed to fit the time of the actual celebration.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Gronberg on October 15, 2008 at 1:05pm

Thanksf or all the good feedback. Interesting to hear your comments and thoughts and also the variety of what goes on in the church, how exciting that the holy spirit moves us in so many ways.

we are going forward with services at 3, 5 and 10pm and of course Christmas Day (which is personally my favorite as it actually falls on the festival of Christmas and we get Johns gospel reading). the 3pm will be a "kid friendly" service and hopefully an opportunity for us to reach out to our immediate neighborhood a bit more. the outreach team is working on a plan for that.

fun to hear, keep it up.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Linman on December 5, 2008 at 6:10pm

I brought all the Christmas and Advent community content on the site into one place here. Share your Christmas Eve/Day ideas here then check it out.

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Permalink Reply by Melanie Vaughn on November 16, 2009 at 7:18pm

Amen to getting out of the way and about not always making people come back to the church building!

Greg Meyer said:

I think it really depends on who might come to your service. We have found that the families from our congregation and the community with smaller children come out of the woodwork for an afternoon Christmas Eve service. We like to do something between 2 and 4. We really aim that at families. There is a lot of energy - to put it mildly. Then a late night service (8 pm to 11 pm) is great for people who don't have kids (or have teens) and want something more contemplative. Your congregation/community may not want one or the other, or something different. Depends who comes. Don't underestimate the power of exposing new people to God's presence in your church on this day, as is already mentioned.

As for Christmas Day. i'm a heretic (gladly). I think the only people who come are long retired people, and most of them out of obligation. I think it is our job to get Christmas off on the right foot (we do that with Advent, and Christmas Eve) and then to get out of the way. Let families celebrate by themselves. What's this about always making people come back to the church building? Do we think they need to come both days? Are there many people who couldn't come to one of the Eve services? Give people materials to have a brief worship or meditative time with their families. A short and good devotion to do with the Advent wreath.

Taking Christmas Day off is also a way of allowing staff, worship leaders and others involved in worship time ministries a chance to honor the Holy Day with their families. A sabbath. That is very important as well.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Bracken on November 25, 2009 at 10:35am

Christmas Eve at Ginghamsburg is fun. We do 7 celebrations on Christmas Eve, and zero on Christmas. Times are 1, 2:30, 4, 5:30, 7, 8:30 and 10. Our most crowded is the 7. To help the spread, we have special children's music at the 1 and 2:30, which makes families with small children attend those two celebrations.

This is the last year of a 5 year commitment to relief work in Sudan. We've partnered with UMCOR NGO (United Methodist Committee on Relief Non-government organization), and have raised $3.7 million over the past 5 Christmases. This Christmas, we'll take another miracle offering, and unveil our NEXT 5 year plan, which includes a church plant! Exciting stuff. Christmas is not your birthday, it's Jesus' birthday. So we've developed a "tradition" of spending Christmas in Africa (to an extent...).

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