Posted on 12/06/2005 3:32:33 PM PST by franky
I saw that other thread as well. Kinda surprised Southland is doing that.
My church routinely offers communion on Christmas Eve. One of my favorite times. Between 5-7 you can go and have a "private" time of communion with one of the pastors around a table.
Sunday School and other stuff is cancelled on Christmas and New Year's. And we're having one service instead of the regular two. We wouldn't dream of not being there.
We're even a bit more radical than that. We have a Thanksgiving Day service.
Could not say it any better myself, except that everyone is welcome to attend the Liturgy at an Eastern Orthodox Church near them, remember "Orthodoxy Same as it ever was."
This article really astonished me. However, it was very informative. To me, the idea of a Church being closed on Sunday OR Christmas leaves my mouth agape.
There seems to be agreement that canceling Christmas Sunday worship isn't the right answer.
I keep struggling for a biblical example.
If you can find one, pass it on to me. I can't think of any example where you could forgo the day of worship because an at home holiday took precedence.
Tells me all I need to know about these "megachurches".
That's right. I don't even know why folks wouldn't attend Chistmas services anyway.
Matt 22:36-37
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[Deut. 6:5] This is the first and greatest commandment.
It's His birthday.
We celebrate Jesus' birthday every communion Sunday. We will have a candle lighting service on Christmas Eve and one service instead of two on Sunday. The only other difference is we won't have small group Bible studies on Sunday night. Our children's choir will be part of the service and that usually takes care of the restless children.
WHAT???!
No service on Sunday BECAUSE it's Christmas? For crying out loud, that's the one day of the year many Catholics ever GO to mass!
I wonder if they'll have church on New Year's Day. You know after "evangelizing" all night. LOL!
I don't think you will find a Biblical example for cancelling it altogether, but limiting the number of services seems apropo, expecially in light of the fact that most Churches have Christmas eve services. Just pretend your Christmas eve service is in another time zone. That would be consistent with our time/space discussions.
Wow. Our church usually has to add an extra Mass.
Why do you suppose that is?
Christmas Eve was typically spent at one grandparents' house; then off the Midnight Mass, then back home to visit until the wee hours of the morning. Get up, eat breakfast, open presents, brunch at my brother's, and Christmas dinner at my other grandparents' house.
Midnight Mass holds a special place in my heart for another reason, too. My husband proposed to me after Midnight Mass in 1991.
With a 4 year old, 5 year old, and newborn, we will be attending the earlier service (and praying that we make it through!).
Maybe it says a lot about the four churches they bothered to name. Doesn't say a whole lot about the thousands upon thousands of large churches that will have mass on Christmas day. Maybe four is all they could find.
It really is a "foreign concept" to a Catholic because Mass is a sacred ritual, a bloodless re-enactment of Christ's sacrifice, with the grace-bestowing, miraculous mystery of transubstantiation. We are receiving a Sacrament instituted by God. It's also been going on for approximately the last 2000 Christmases in a row.
Compare that to the megachurches. I was shocked by the few I've visited with an evangelical friend. They seem to be more about entertainment and emotion than worshipping or knowing God. They look like assembly halls, not churches; the last one I was in had no windows and not a single Christian symbol, not even a plain cross anywhere. But they had a loud band complete with drums, huge video presentations flashing on three walls, colored lights, clapping, chatting, plenty of laughing. No doctrine, very little prayer (and the prayers that were said were just the pastor speaking very casually), no sense of reverence, at least at the one I visited. It was sort of a combination of John Bradshaw and Jimmy Swaggert.
I credit these folks with having strong values, but a sense of the sacred, quiet devotion, the power of the real Presence of God, the things that are inherent in the Mass, were definitely missing in the megachurch I went to. It was a big pep rally for people to "get their spiritual needs met." Contrary to the Catholic sense of obligation to meet God on his terms (we even call in a "holy day of obligation"), the mega-service is there for them, not they for God. It's an entirely different concept of the meaning of Sunday or a Holy Day.
Our church will have 2 Christmas Eve services, one in the late afternoon primarily intended for families with younger children. The second PM service will be at 10:00 and will be a candle light service. Our 2 Sunday services (normally at 8:45 and 10:30) will be combined and held at 9:30.
There WAS discussion last spring about making a decision to cancel the Sunday service and that proposal was soundly rejected by the elders
I have no trouble with buggman's (and others) info that the evening prior was counted as the following day in biblical times.
Sat eve is actually Sunday, if I understand him correctly.
The actual day begins right after 12 midnight for us, but we think of it from morning to morning. It does sound like an arbitrary thing.
If a church is accustomed to having 2 or more services on Sunday, because of the volume of worshippers, and if they truly expect a huge number less on any given Sunday, then I can see good cause for having only 1 service....it accomodates the number of worshippers. I have no problem with that.
Our church is having a 5:00 pm on Saturday, Christmas Midnight Mass, and then on Christmas day, three masses in three different languages. We are very diverse!
I have to say that the Spanish Mass music is better!
We get dressed to the "nine's" for Midnight Mass.
"Just pretend your Christmas eve service is in another time zone. That would be consistent with our time/space discussions."
Well, we here in "neenerland" celebrate our days from sunset to sunset, so actually, it is all the same day.
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