It is a fair question: why don’t we have a church service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Truthfully, there isn’t any one answer or reason why we don’t. Also, as a church, we are not fundamentally opposed to such a service; although as an individual, I (Pastor Adam) am sort of opposed to these kinds of things, at least in our current context. So why don’t we have a church service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? I’ll give you three reasons: Church Calendars, Modern Calendars and Grace.
CHURCH CALENDARS
There is this thing called the church calendar or the liturgical calendar depending on who you ask (sometimes also called “the church year”). As near as we can tell it was first developed some time in the fourth century by leaders of the Eastern Church. There is a Biblical precedent for this idea. In the Hebrew Bible, God gave the people of Israel a calendar to follow for their year. Days of somber repentance and of jubilant feasting; there was even a yearly, nationwide campout scheduled! Over the centuries, the original church calendar which focused on a few days like Easter and Pentecost, evolved to cover every single day of every single week of the year including ‘Holy Days’, Bible readings, and times when you can’t eat certain foods.
So what’s the problem? Well, on one hand, nothing. People who know me, know that I am not the most organized person in the world. People who know my wife know that she is very much the opposite. Having everything laid out in advance seems like a really good idea for people like my wife. I actually try to do this with preaching. Sometime in the fall, I try to map out in broad strokes where we will be for the next Calendar year so I can take into account things like Easter, Spring Break (which are sometimes the same thing), Mother’s Day, and other high points on the calendar. There is nothing wrong with planning ahead.
But the downside to the church calendar is that people begin to think that there are things that we MUST DO, that God never actually told us TO DO in the first place. For example, we have never canceled church when Christmas Eve or Christmas Day is on a Sunday, because we see a Biblical model for Christian gathering together, and historically that has always been on Sunday (Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 11:18, Revelation 1:10). But there is no Biblical model for observing Jesus’ birth on any date, let alone December 25th. Additionally, while many Christians have found observing things like Lent to be valuable, others have found it to be an oppressive form of legalism that came from the human-made church calendar rather than just following what the Bible gives us to observe (Romans 14:5).
MODERN CALENDARS
The reality is that in our modern calendar, life is busy. I’d argue that we make ourselves far too busy and that we over schedule ourselves beyond what is good for us. But even outside of our schedules, there is the reality of the world we live in. It used to be that everyone gathered at Grandma’s house for a Christmas meal. My family never went to church on Christmas Eve because every year we went to my dad’s family gathering on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and then we went to my mom’s family the other day. But now, people don’t just have one or two sides of the familly but sometimes 4 or even 6 because of the complexities of modern family life. Therefore, we have made an intentional decision to keep the calendar clear so that people can be free to travel, see family and take a breather.
By the way, this is why we still have church the Sunday in-between Christmas and New Years, because we believe in the regular gathering of believers, which has almost always been on Sundays. At the same time, we recognize that everyone is exhausted this time of year, so that Sunday after Christmas isn’t a normal gathering and for the last few years we’ve been doing a church breakfast instead of our normal gathering.
GRACE
The biggest thing we want to emphasize is the grace of God. We are not bound to traditions in a legalistic way. People can be free to breathe this week. At the same time, we recognize the beauty and blessing that many have found in observing historical and liturgical things found in the church calendar. Personally, I spent much of last year reading creeds and liturgies, both ancient and modern. I wanted to learn from different church experiences and find a way to clearly and concisely express what I feel and what I believe. If you come from a more traditional or liturgical church experience, we are not against you! We value what you bring to the table!
So we can’t wait to see everyone at our Christmas Carols and Communion Service (which is functionally our Christmas Eve service), Dec 22 at 6pm and then next Sunday, December 29th for our Church Breakfast service. You don’t have to bring anything, we’ll be flipping the pancakes.
-Pastor Adam