Will Your Church hold services on Christmas?

[MUFFYCAT]

All the churches in my area will have Sunday services. But I go on Christmas Eve.

 

[beattyfamily]

Well I have a question for everyone whose church will be having services on Christmas day, Will you be attending? From what I am reading, a lot of people go to christmas eve services instead. How many will actually be going on Christmas day? Maybe a lot more people go on Christmas day than I realized.

We go every Christmas Day because we have young ones...but when they can handle it, we'll switch to the Midnight Mass because it is so very beautiful and moving. Sometimes one of us goes to that one while the other babysits and waits for Santa (then that parent goes to the next day Mass with the kids)!

We always do the 12:00p Christmas Day Mass so our kids can spend the morning enjoying their gifts. Then after Mass we head to my sisters for Christmas dinner and exchanging of gifts.

 

[Queen Quinnella]

We will have 2 services on Christmas Eve and our regular service on Christmas Day, but no Sunday School.

 

[JVL1018]

We have services on Christmas Eve(7:45) and Christmas morning. Normally our church services are at 10 am with coffee hour following, they are flipping it for Christmas to allow everyone a more leisurely morning.
Coffee hour is at 10, church at 10:45.
I'm not going, but will attend Christmas Eve services.
When we were kids if Christmas was on a Sunday we went to church and I didn't like it.

 

[kydisneyfans]

No service on Christmas Eve as usual-a 1 hour service on Christmas Day-down from 2.

No service Wednesday between Christmas and New Year-regular service on New Year Day.

We live close to the area where a "megachurch" has cancelled service. The pastor will not even talk to local media. Maybe if he would explain the reasoning the issue would go away. We attempted to attend a marriage conference at this same church in the fall, and inquired about child care. The response was "for our members only". So much for opening up to outsiders. With hundreds of places to worship in our area, why someone would attend this "megachurch" is beyond me.

 

[kc73]

My husband is the pastor of a Baptist church. We've been a part of this church 4 1/2 years, so this is the 1st time that Christmas has fallen on Sunday. We thought it was a no-brainer that we would most definitely have church on Christmas, after all we have services on Easter. We also are having a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

Some members prefer not to have any services on Christmas. We'll meet and whoever shows up will show up. It's all about priorities, I guess.

 

[Deb in IA]

Yes.

Matins (spoken) at 7:15 am
Eucharist at 9:30 am

Evensong is cancelled.


Two services on Christmas Eve: Family Eucharist at 5 pm and Midnight Mass at 10:30 pm.

 

[pooh4evr]

Our church (Catholic) has 3 on Christmas Eve 4, 6 and 10:30, and all the normal Sunday services on Christmas Day 6, 8:15, 10:00,and 12 As far as I know everything is the same we got a paper in the mail a few weeks ago listing times and special masses I think the 6 pm is thr childrens mass and 1030 pm is supposed to take the place of midnight mass.

 

[AZKathy]

Our church is doing two services Christmas Eve (4:30 pm and then at 11:00 pm) and then none on Christmas Day. Our church is asking all of us to go out and extend some of Christmas to those who have to work on that day such as bringing home made cookies to the fire department near our home, etc. and also having our own service privately with our families.

If our church did hold services that Day, we would have planned on attending as usual like we do every Sunday.

 

[Aimeedyan]

Well I have a question for everyone whose church will be having services on Christmas day, Will you be attending? From what I am reading, a lot of people go to christmas eve services instead. How many will actually be going on Christmas day? Maybe a lot more people go on Christmas day than I realized.

Yes, we will be there (XMas Eve and XMas Day), of course, I'm a Minister on staff so that skews things

 

[HunnyPots]

Believe it or not, there are certain denominations of Christianity (not my own)that do not celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday because (a) there is no historical evidence that Christ was born in December and (b) no biblical instruction to observe his birth as a holiday at all. I have friends who fervently believe that we as Christians should not observe Christmas as a religious holiday because it was derived from the Pagan celebration of the Winter solstice. That being said, the church that I am speaking of will hold regular service on Christmas but it will not be a special "Christmas" service.

 

[golfgal]

Well I have a question for everyone whose church will be having services on Christmas day, Will you be attending? From what I am reading, a lot of people go to christmas eve services instead. How many will actually be going on Christmas day? Maybe a lot more people go on Christmas day than I realized.

We go on Christmas Eve. There are many in our parish though that go on Christmas Day.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

Not having church on Christmas Day Sunday is a truly bad idea. The two main mega-churches that are doing this (Northpoint in Atlanta and Willow Creek in Chicago) are forgetting the "reason for the season". I do understand that they exist to serve and reach the unchurched, so they figure they won't reach much of that "market" on this coming Christmas Day.

 

[roseprincess]

Not having church on Christmas Day Sunday is a truly bad idea. The two main mega-churches that are doing this (Northpoint in Atlanta and Willow Creek in Chicago) are forgetting the "reason for the season". I do understand that they exist to serve and reach the unchurched, so they figure they won't reach much of that "market" on this coming Christmas Day.

I will have to disagree on behalf of Willow Creek in South Barrington, Il.
If you read my first post, post #37 on page 3, the reason for Willow not having Christmas Day services is written in paragraphs 2 and 3. Willow Creek knows people would show up on Christmas Day. I'm guessing if enough of the congregation that goes to Willow disagrees on the decision to not hold service on Christmas day, then the following year, they will hold services on Christmas day. I haven't heard anyone from Willow complain that church service is not being held on Christmas Day.
I guess these type of decisions(to hold service or not hold service on Christmas Day) is basically up to each church, whichever denomination you attend.

Rosemarie

 

[EltonJohn]

Yes, my church will hold servics on Xmas Day.

 

[ead79]

Yes, our church is having 1 service on Christmas morning (instead of the usual multiple services). It will be identical to the Christmas Eve candlelight services. I think it was a good idea—that way they are still having a service for those that want to go, but not as many as usual since attendance will probably be way down (I’m thinking most people will go on Christmas Eve instead). We plan to go on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.

 

[delilah]

Our church usually has two Masses on Sunday at 8am and 11am. There will be one Mass at 9:30pm. On the other hand, there will be a 5pm vigil mass and Midnight Mass on Christmas eve. We are probably going to Midnight Mass, as are probably many others--usually standing room only, you need to get there no later than 11pm. So, we have the same number of weekend Masses we usually have Saturday and Sunday, just at different t

 

[tommygirl79]

My father is a minister at a mid-sized church (around 500 people). Our rural community has something like 15-17 churches for the 17,000 or so people in our area and our church is the ONLY one holding services on Christmas day. Our community's churches get together for community services for Good Friday and Thanksgiving so there are pretty good interchurch relationships. However this is my dad's viewpoint that I definitely agree with. He said, "Our Savior was willing to come to this nasty place called Earth from his glorious heaven for us and we can't even show up at church for an hour to celebrate it on the day created for celebrating it." It does seem INCREDIBLY silly and like one other poster said, quite hypocritical, not to spend at least part of that day worshipping our Savior who did this wonderful thing and then continue on with our celebrations at home for the remainder of the day.

He has even had several people in our community come and tell him that since their church has decided to not hold services that they will be attending our church that morning. Evidently, not everyone in these congregations feel this way which is a good sign.

I will say though that we are only having one of our two services and will not have Sunday school which tells me that we still won't have a HUGE amount of people there.