Will Your Church hold services on Christmas?

[minniecarousel]

Holy moly! No church on Christmas Day?!?! I don't get it. Our Catholic Church has more Masses on Chritmas Eve, but all our regular Mass times on Christmas Day.

 

[binny]

we have 3, 2 on Christmas eve ( we will attend the 7 pm one) and then one Christmas morning.



I prefer the Christmas eve services personally they are so cozy and nice and with the kids singing and the Christmas story it just makes me feel so good!

 

[BrinxFam]

Without Christ's birth there would be no reason to celebrate. No church service on Christmas is kinda like forgetting to invite the guest of honor to his/her own birthday party.
We'll be in church for candlelight & communion service and again on Sunday morning to celebrate the season!

 

[ZachnElli]

Yes, my church will be open as usual Sunday morning, classes and all. There is usually just one service on Sat. night, but there will be 3 or 4 on Christmas eve starting in the afternoon. I didn't know about the controversy until last Sunday when our minister mentioned it. We will be out of town, but will hit my parents' Christmas Eve service there.

 

[MidgeD79]

I am organist at 2 Methodist churches and we are having church on Christmas day.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

Catholic here, we will most definitely be having Mass on Christmas..

 

[DisneyCP2002]

My church will be having Christmas Eve services at 9pm. Then there will be a combined sunday school and 11 am worship service. There will be no evening activities.

 

[helenabear]

This thread made me go "WHAT?????" We always have service on Christmas no matter what day it falls on. For us, it's a holy day of obligation so the idea of canceling is weird to me! We will have our standard Family mass on the Eve as well as Midnight Mass. Then I believe there will be a early and later service on Sunday. That's the norm for us (actually we are having 3 evening services and just the two on Christmas day... standard though) Yes, we even have Mass on New Years Day. The thought of not going to church on Sunday no matter the "holiday" is too weird for me to really even think of!

 

[allie&mattsmom]

We always go to Christmas Eve mass, but our church and every other Catholic church around here that I know of will be having masses on Sunday. I don't get it, why wouldn't they? They have church every other Sunday why wouldn't they do it on "Christmas Sunday"? Am I missing something? (cuz it sure wouldn't be the first time )

 

[vivilasvegas]

I really don't get this!! Doesn't every church have Mass on Sundays and Christmas???

I've honestly never heard of NOT having services on Christmas!

If still went to church, I'd be cheering!! Christmas and Sunday done in one shot!!

 

[gr8ful4Him]

My dh is a pastor of 3 United Methodist churches. We will be having Christmas eve services at each church and then a combined Christmas day service @ 10 a.m. at the largest of the 3 churches.

 

[Joanna71985]

There are 2 Christmas Eve services at 5pm and 11pm. Then on Christmas there is 1 service at 10:45am.

 

[golfgal]

I could see some smaller churches having Christmas Eve services and not Christmas Day services but only because of limited priests/ministers. In the Catholic Church any Mass after 5:00 on Saturday counts for Sunday too so offering a Christmas Eve service and nothing on Christmas Day would be "acceptable". I am pretty sure my Grandpa's parish will do something like this but they have 100 members.

Our church needs to offer all the extra services. We have 7000 members and since most of the inactive ones show up for Christmas as well as family members visiting parents, etc., the church is filled for all the services--we have 3 Christmas Eve Services-forgot about the 4:00 one in my earlier post-and our regular ones on Sunday, Christmas Day.

 

[palmtreegirl]

I'm confused, why wouldn't a church have service/mass on Christmas?

 

[OhMari]

I work for a Catholic church and we have having our regular weekend service with a 10:00 p.m. thrown in which was traditionally the midnight Mass years ago.

The only thing different is the ushers are not going to allow people to save pews in front and back of them with jackets and blankets, otherwise everyone is more than welcome to attend any Mass. I'm thinking our 8:00 p.m. won't be to bad, but it is going to be in one of our smaller churches.
Services are 4:00 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
10:00 p.m. on christmas Eve

Christmas Day 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

 

[CoolTrainerTerry]

My church has survice, doubt I'll be there, though.

 

[roseprincess]

Ok, Ok. Please no bashing me.
I am one the members of the "mega churches" not having Christmas service on Sunday-Christmas day. The church my dh and I have and are still members is Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington,Il. Our senior pastor, Bill Hybels is the one who makes the executive decisions for church to be open or closed on Christmas day.
My dh and I personally have no problems with no church service on Christmas day because Willow has been doing that for years! We have 8 identical Christmas Eve services this yr. starting on Tues. night Dec. 20 , Wed night Dec 21, Thurs Dec 22, two services on Fri. Dec 23 and 3 services on Sat. Dec. 24. These are all identical Christmas eve services. We usually have about 50,000 plus come to the Christmas eve services total.
For Easter services, yes, we do have Easter Sunday services on Easter Sunday! About 5 or 6 identical Easter services total.
The church website is www.willowcreek.org if you want more info on my church.

The reasoning behind not having Christmas service on Christmas day is that the pastors and the elders and the board of directors of Willow feel the many employees at Willow need to be with family. The many full-time employees get a week off of work(church offices are closed) between Christmas Eve (Dec 24) and New Years. The church wants to honor this with the hundreds of employees they have and also the thousands of volunteers in our children's ministries. This has always been the case at Willow for many yrs.

Also, very recently on my local news last night, I saw that Bill Hybels(senior pastor of Willow Creek) will be teaming up with another mega church on the south side of Chicago And will hold Christmas Day Sunday service with this other church, I think it is called Salem Baptist Cchurch. He will be teaming up with the pastor at Salem Baptist, which is a predominantly african american congregation. I have no problem with this,either.

At Willow, we have wonderful Christmas eve services, Easter services, and all the other weekend and midweek services!
In general, when you go to a mega church for awhile, you get used to the bigness of the congregation, church facilities, at least I have gotten used to it.

Rosemarie

 

[minniecarousel]

Well - no bashing from me - but I don't think I would enjoy a "mega" church. Seems kindof impersonal - but "to each his own".

 

[tiggerlover]

Our church normally has two services on Sunday, however, on Christmas Sunday they will only have an 11am service. Additionally they are having two services for Christmas Eve.

We normally go every Sunday, however, since we will be going Christmas Eve we will not go on Christmas and spend the day with family.

 

[roseprincess]

Well - no bashing from me - but I don't think I would enjoy a "mega" church. Seems kindof impersonal - but "to each his own".

Being a member of a mega church may not be for everyone, but I never once felt at Willow Creek,the services there, being impersonal at all.
We also have thousands of small groups for anyone to join, so you can really know people more one-on-one in a small group setting. The key thing is to get involved in a small group setting or a serving ministry.

Rosemarie