c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) On the last Sunday in December _ which happens to be Christmas Day this year _ Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis will hold four services instead of the usual six.
Other megachurches, including Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., won’t be holding services at all.
When Christmas and Sunday occur on the same day _ which last occurred in 1994 _ what’s a church to do? At a time when evangelicals have criticized retailers for ignoring the religious reason for the season, this December dilemma raises a broader question for Christians: Should Christmas Day be a time for faith or family, or both?
For Tom MacNally, chief operating officer of Mount Olivet, there is no question church doors should remain open when Jesus’ birthday falls on a Sunday.
“It’s a Sunday …, for one thing, and the second thing is we know that a lot of our members are going to want to go to church on Christmas Day,” said MacNally.
He said he was “totally surprised” to learn that some churches aren’t planning services. He wasn’t the only one.
Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek, has attempted to handle the reaction to news reports that her church won’t be open. She points out that tens of thousands of people are expected to attend eight services leading up to Christmas Day.
“I’m getting e-mails from people who just think we’re shutting our doors because we’re lazy,” said Parkinson.
She said the last time Christmas fell on a Sunday “we didn’t get very good attendance on that day, at least not for us,” so they opted for a DVD that would carry the “God With Us” theme of their pre-Christmas services into the homes of those who attended.
Parkinson said the church has never offered Christmas Day services, except for the last time it fell on a Sunday, 11 years ago. Turnout was lower than usual.
Sociologist Scott Thumma said he has heard of half a dozen megachurches not holding Sunday services on Christmas. This comes during a year in which retailers and public schools have been targeted by evangelicals, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who says he must “protect Christmas from the secular Grinches” trying to take Christ out of Christmas.
“How much is Christmas a secular reality and how much is it a religious holiday?” asked Thumma, based at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. “There are going to be plenty of open churches that are going to be mostly empty.”
At Catholic churches, crowds are expected to be larger than usual on Christmas Day _ considered a holy day of obligation. Thumma and other Protestant researchers expect the numbers to be far lower than usual in Protestant pews.
One reason is the liturgical calendar, which Catholic and some mainline Protestant congregations follow. Christmas is a prominent date. Non-liturgical congregations, including most evangelical and nondenominational churches, may have more extended Christmas celebrations that occur on days other than the specific holiday.
Thumma noticed in a nonscientific online search that of 26 small and medium-sized evangelical churches, five were closing and those having services were reducing them from two to one, and canceling Sunday school or evening services.
“How many kids do you want to drag away from the house while their presents are still under the tree, wrapped or unwrapped? How many husbands are you going to drag away from the football game?” asked Thumma.
Honoring family time is a primary reason cited by churches that have chosen to not have a Christmas Day service.
“We have large, involved Christmas Eve services the day before so we decided not to have Christmas Day services on the Sunday so we could offer our members time to spend with their family and celebrate through family,” said Penny Greenwood, director of communications at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton.
When Christmas falls on another day, the 4,800-member church has not held services.
Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., decided to hold five services on Christmas Eve and one on Sunday _ compared to the usual two on Sunday and one Saturday service.
“Part of the reason … is it takes about 1,500 volunteers for us to pull off a service,” said Cindee Coffee, administrator of the church that usually draws 18,000 over the three services. Volunteers serve in such roles as parking lot attendants, ushers, greeters and nursery workers.
“If you multiply that times a family of four, in theory you could be impacting 6,000 people.”
Christmas Day plans at Southeast call for 1,700 people to be accommodated in the fellowship hall and overflow seating in a chapel. That will require about 30 volunteers. Normally, the church meets in a 9,000-seat worship center.
Some churches view a Sunday Christmas as a double blessing.
“It gives us an opportunity the same day to celebrate the birth and the resurrection,” said Mike Buster, executive pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in the Dallas suburb of Plano.
The church will have three identical services, two on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day.
For others, theological reasons are mixed with a desire to satisfy congregants’ expectations.
“We don’t have a Christmas service if it falls on a Tuesday, but being that it falls on a Sunday, my goodness, we definitely will have a service,” said Donald Iloff, spokesman for Lakewood Church in Houston.
He expects a total of 25,000 to 30,000 to attend the church’s one Christmas Eve service and three Christmas Day services compared to the usual 40,000 on a weekend.
Despite this drop-off, there was no consideration to nix church altogether, he said.
“We would have to answer if we didn’t have a service on Christmas Day,” he said.
MO/PH END BANKS
Editors: Check the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for photos of Willow Creek Community Church and Southeast Christian Church. Search by subject or slug.
Editors: Cally in the 7th graph is cq.
