Worship on Christmas?
Could it be that churches that feel the need to close their doors on Christmas morning are too large and, therefore, outside of God's desire and design for His Church?
Full disclosure: while our church is not cancelling Christmas morning worship services, they are greatly modified in the name of "giving our volunteers time with their families" - so, could it be that churches that feel the need to greatly downsize are outside of God's desire and design for His Church as well? [The average attendance fluctuates between 900 - 1100 on any given Sunday.]
Sarcasm aside, could someone give me a legitimate reason why a church should not worship on the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth?
Just askin'...
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posted by Brent C Sleasman at 5:10 PM
15 Comments:
I drove by one of the largest churches in our area yesterday and their sign says, 'no services Sunday.'
There are a couple of factors that come to mind...
To me fair, just about every church that is not holding Sunday services is having Christmas Eve services.
Most evangelical churches don't have Christmas Day services normally. It's only because it falls on a Sunday that it becomes a question.
It's probably worth noting that there is no indication that the earliest church (N.T.) celebrated Christmas. Most of us know that the Jesus' birth was likely not around this time of the year.
It does seem to be primarily large churches that are canceling Sunday services, although I'm sure some smaller churches are as well.
There are two 'critical' thoughts that come to mind:
1. It strikes me as problematic that churches require such a substantial 'volunteer base' to 'pull off a service' because of the complexity and magnitude of it. Not for Christmas, but every Sunday. I guess there is a lot of discussion that could be had here.
2. Many of the comments that are being made are about consumerism, convenience, etc. It is ironic that we've built up some a system around that supposed celebration of Christ's birth that we no longer have time to take time out to focus on Him anymore.
I have a young family myself, so I understand wanting to relax a bit for the holiday and not be stressed. HOWEVER, we all know that our kids will rip into their gifts in about 30 mins tops and then it's on to a day of relaxing and doing nothing, besides eating another big meal (besides those who have to cook it.)
Our church has chosen to not have Sunday School (9:00) but to have our usual worship gathering at 10:00. We'll see how people respond.
I have tons of ideas about this question.
Among them is that Christmas is an entirely made up religious holiday. It is an example of one of the the ways we set aside the commands of God in order to observe our own traditions. Jesus never even hinted that we might celebrate Christmas. Christmas was so insignificant in the day when we were committed to the New Testament plan that the Eldership I am in held it annual meeting over Christmas at least once. Jesus commanded baptism--though not as a part of a so-called worship service. And, He commanded us to eat and drink in remembrance of Him. So, there is no reason from the authority of Jesus to 'worship' on Christmas day.
However, the word instructs us not to give up meeting together. Our gathering together serves the purpose of allowing us to stimulate each other to the love and good deeds that are the fruit that Jesus will judge on that Day. That we would ever cancel a gathering is not a part of His plan for the Kingdom, as far as I can tell. Early followers met daily. That we'd cancel a once-a-week show for any reason can't please Him.
The real question, since, as a body, we have taken an oath, "As witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ" to "establish churches on the New Testament plan," is how the first Christians accommodated their volunteers when Christmas happened to fall on a Sunday.
Seriously, gang, we did meet. Our gathering was centered around the reading of and a discussion of Francis Chan's book, Ronnie Wilson's Gift. The number of people who gathered was significantly smaller than usual but the fellowship was extremely sweet and, I believe, everyone who gathered would agree that we accomplished the goal of our gatherings:
To spur one another on to love and good deeds.
i'd like to draw attention to something dan said:
"Many of the comments that are being made are about consumerism, convenience, etc. It is ironic that we've built up some a system around that supposed celebration of Christ's birth that we no longer have time to take time out to focus on Him anymore. "
how do you celebrate Christ on Christmas? how do you make it more than a day of shredded paper, a big meal, football games, and things that will sooner-or-later end up in the trash?
Good question, walt.
What is appropriate to acknowledge that the one who was in very nature God but Who did not consider equality with God something to hold on to but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness?
To appropriate the much overused C. H. Forney term: Acts of personal 'humiliation?'
Radical giving of self, not giving of schtuff?
bill,
i appreciate your theoretical response, but i meant the question more directly. not "what should one do?" but rather, "what do you do, or have you done?"
i ask that, because i want to hear about real life, it has been done, practical nitty-gritty stories, not merely vague, abstract, nice-sounding-but-maybe-never-done answers. does that make sense?
walt,
We, personally, have abandoned the Christmas folly. In recent years, we've told people not to expect gifts and cards from us. We don't give them and we don't want them.
We seek out hungry and homeless people through the Salvation Army and other sources more personally close to us and give as extravagantly as we are able to meet their needs.
Our congregation adopted two needy families in our community and gave items of need to them. It also knotted 200+ blankets to distribute them to needy people in the city. And, we went as a physical--incarnational--presence into the city to give them away.
Due to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ our morning worship service, which in part is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, is cancelled.
Gang,
I think that it's time we get serious about separating human traditions from the life of repentance and faith commanded by Jesus and modeled by His early followers as it is described in the New Testament.
We are not commanded to celebrate Jesus' birth. There is no evidence that early followers of Jesus did so.
Could it be that the problem this thread describes is not that we no longer put Christ in Christmas but that human tradition did so in the first place and that Bible Christians don't do that?
I am convinced that, on this issue, and in almost every case in which things are not right among God's people, we seek our authority blindly from the traditional past and not from the three places we need to be seeking authority:
1. The practice of early believers.
2. The commands of Jesus. And,
3. The guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
From the moment I saw the title of this thread, I was fascinated. Brent, you frame the issue, quite unintentionally, from the framework of a very destructive human tradition by raising the issue of "worship."
I've did study of the story of the coming of the Magi to worship the one who was born King of the Jews. In that story in Matthew the Greek word, proskuneo, meaning to worship, appears three times.
Did you know that that verb is NEVER used in the Book of Acts or in the Epistles to describe an activity that followers of Jesus engage in?
Right.
There is no evidence that worship of God or Christ or anyone or anything else took place among early Jesus people. There are quite a few references to worship in the Book of Revelation. But, the gathering of followers of Jesus is never, ever called worship in the New Testament.
Could it be that part of this problem is that we're still trying to figure out how to engage in worship when that's not something we are to be doing at all?
I've been saying for a long time that what we do when we gather is not consistent with what the Bible teaches and it is far from what happened when early disciples gathered.
And, it is.
We have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe our own traditions. We need to get over that. We need to get back to the New Testament and set aside silly, baseless human traditions.
bill,
i love your ferocious Biblicism in this. i rejoice and am encouraged that you want to follow God as He has said and shown. with that in mind, i want your help in understanding how your thoughts in the last comment fit with a few Scriptures.
how do you deal with John 4, where Jesus says "the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him"? should we not worship as the Father is seeking us to?
and what do you make of paul, when he says that he went to jerusalem to worship (proskuneson) in Acts 24?
what do you make of the word latreia and its related forms, which is often translated as service or worship, in places like Acts 27:23 or Romans 12:1?
what do you do with 1 Corinthians 14, which you so love to quote, where it is written that, when an outsider or unbeliever hears God's people prophesy, he will worship (proskunesei) God? admittedly, this is not directly describing the activity of a Christian, but is it not a commendable thing?
i love you, brother, and i know you to be a discerning man of the Word. i would greatly appreciate your insight into these things.
I'm reading Brad Kallenberg's God and Gadgets: Following Jesus in a Technological Age and he makes a relevant statement to this conversation:
"I fear that in contrast, the mega-church, currently so much in vogue for American evangelicals, has simply broadened the narrow way by reproducing within its walls a microcosm of civil society rather than a microcosm of God's peculiar people. I'm at odds with myself on this issue. I have been a member of a mega-church. But I find myself agreeing with Robert Jenson's conclusion that, if God be merciful our churches will of necessity get much smaller than they are" (page 70, emphasis in the original text).
As Bill is stressing, this is not just a mega-church issue. This comment is tucked away in a footnote and is not the main focus of the text. But, it is a point worth exploring further.
Wow, walt. "Ferocious biblicism!" I'll accept that gladly. I guess that makes me the ideal CGGCer considering that we have committed ourselves to make more and better disciples by establishing churches on the New Testament plan.
And, you are correct. I do want to follow God.
I appreciate your questions related to the appearance of the word proskuneo in the New Testament. I stand by what I said about the appearances of the word in the New Testament text but I will acknowledge that I wrote what I wrote the way I wrote it in the hope that it would provoke response and I'm glad that it does seem to have provoked a response in you.
I'll add that there seems to be some emotion packed into your post, and I am gratified by that. Jesus was clear that the greatest of all the commands is to love the Lord and it's hard to imagine that we can do that without becoming emotional, though I see very little of that among my CGGC brothers and sisters.
What I said is that the gathering of followers of Jesus is never, ever called worship in the New Testament. And, none of the places that the word proskuneo appears does suggest something that happens when followers of Jesus come together. The coming together of disciples is often called just that, 'coming together,' 'coming together to break bread' or 'meeting' or 'meeting together.' It is never described as worship.
What Jesus and the Samaritan woman are discussing in John 4 can not be understood in any way natural way as being as a reference to what Protestants today call a 'worship service.'
In Acts 24, Paul describes himself going to Jerusalem, to the TEMPLE, to worship. At that time, out of concern that he would be an offense to his unbelieving Jewish brothers, Paul did everything he could to do what a good Jew would do. "To those under the law I became like one under the law." But, he was doing worship as a Jews, for the sake of Jews, not as a disciple for the sake of Jesus.
The 1 Corinthians 14:25 appearance gave me the great pause in framing my words in the previous post. I wrote what I wrote carefully with that verse in my mind.
It is clear that Paul is describing the act, not of a follower of Jesus in a gathering of disciples but that of an unbeliever suddenly and powerfully convicted of sin who, at the moment that faith springs to life in his heart, literally falls on his face to worship God.
This verse is very helpful because it illustrates what kind of worship is described by the word proskuneo. It means literally, as the verse describes, to prostrate oneself. That's what the Magi did to the baby Jesus. That's what the Samaritan woman and Jesus were talking about in John 4 and it is not what early followers of Jesus did when they gathered together. Their gatherings were both active and interactive and they did not involve sucking dust from the ground. Early followers of Jesus did not proskuneo when they gathered.
Rather, 1 Corinthians 14:25 describes what might happen at the moment that a sinner's heart is crushed and s/he repents from sin is begins to follow Jesus.
walt, I love you even more deeply than you love me. I am thankful that you are also ferocious in your biblicism. I had hoped, as I said, to provoke discussion about something very important--an area in which I am convinced that needs our examination and our repentance. Thanks for responding.
walt,
I was sure that the previous comment would be so long that I'd have to cut it into two parts. I was surprised when it all entered in one piece.
To continue:
The word latreia, as you have noted is also sometimes translated as worship. This is the word that appears in Romans 12:1 where Paul says that 'offering your body as a living sacrifice' is, literally, your logical (reasonable)latreia. Service is probably a better translation than worship here but the New NIV translates it 'true and proper worship.' But, note that Paul is talking about personal lifestyle. There is no suggestion whatsoever that corporate worship is his focus.
This word describes lifestyle connected to love of Yahweh, not the coming together to worship. This is the word that would appear in a verse that says, "I worship Yahweh, the God of Israel." In the Old Testament, in the LXX, it was used to describe obedience to the Law. Keeping in mind how our contemporaries have defiled the meaning of the word worship, it would be better to translate the word latreia as serve, not worship. In fact the noun form of the word is a word for a servant.
Again, there is no way that this word can be understood to describe what happens when disciples gather. It denotes one's life of faith in God, through Jesus. In that sense, we are all worshipers of God. But that sort of worship has nothing to do with a so-called 'sanctuary.'
Brent,
Thanks for that comment.
It strikes me as being powerfully ironic that what we now call worship is an act of consuming religious products and services for most and for a few others an act of performance, when the biblical words mean to actively humble oneself and to function as a servant.
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