I have been reading/hearing that some of the mega churches are not having worship services on Sunday, Dec. 25th. Their large paid and volunteer staffs are not available for the worship productions that they have each week. Some others have said such decisions underscore the fact that such churches are being built by consumers and not by disciples. In this season of much discussion of bowing to a secular culture, the cynical would add this to the "holiday" debate. This event does give us some understanding of the emerging church as defined by these churches and their leadership.
Although I have been surprised at these Christmas worship decisions, I wonder if we (First UMC) are at a much different place? We have wrestled all year with this matter and have chosen like many churches to have only one service knowing many of our folk will be content to worship on Christmas Eve only. I don't know that there is a "right answer" for this dilemna, but I do know that it does ask some questions:
What is the role of Sunday worship?
When are we to lead and when are we to follow the secular world?
What kind of message does this send to non-churched?
4 comments:
I hae been bothered by this church's decicion to have only one worship service. What message are we sending? That is a good question, and it deserves a good, well thought out answer. The more imprtant question is, what are we saying to God?
Somehow, I can not imagine that God, who gave his very Son, is very impressed by our half hearted Christmas giving of time.
I will be away on Christmas, so I probably have no right to offer a judgment. Yet First Church's decision to go with one service reminds me of an old training adage for sales people:"never prejudge the customer's pocketbook." I feel we have prejudged the worshipper's need. Rather than prejudging how many members we think might come, we should be aggressively attacting people to come and worship on this most special Sunday. What better way than to proclaim our doors (and our hearts and minds) open for not one but two or three services. It isn't necessary that we have a full choir--John Wesley wouldn't approve of a choir at all. And with multiple clergy, the responsibility could be divided between them, with only one at each service. Oh, well, maybe in 2011.
I think the decision to have only 1 service on Christmas day is a reasonable one. I don't think it sends the wrong message at all. We should remember that the clergy also have families, and Christmas day is an important day for families to be together as much as possible.
I guess in a way that one service is better than no service, but judging by the number of people in attendance on Christmas morning, more services were needed. it was wonderful to see the church that full and I hope that one day each service of each Sunday of the year will be that way as well as Sunday School, MYF, and all other activities and services provided by the church.
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