By Robin G Jordan
Churches have gimmicks—things that they do to attract attention, publicity, and attendance. The Christmas Season is the time of the year when they are most likely to dust off their oldest, time-tested gimmicks—the Singing Christmas Tree, the Living Nativity, the Christmas Cantata, and that perennial favorite—the Nativity Play. One year my former church had dancing Christmas presents at its Christmas Eve Service. The children from the church’s preschool were dressed as Christmas gifts and twirled around the sanctuary in their bright-colored wrappings. Another year they performed a simple Christmas song with handbells. The pre-school director cued them when it was time to ring their bell. Their parents were thrilled. Other seasons have their gimmicks too—the Easter Egg Hunt. But the Christmas Season is the season for the most gimmicks.
This Christmas Season may be the season to try something new—a gimmick-free Christmas Season--due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control are recommending that households do not mix over the holiday season. While that recommendation may not specifically mention churches, it would apply to Christmas Eve Services and other seasonal church events.
You will notice that I use the terms “parish” and “parishioners” in this article. My use of these terms deserves a brief explanation. The concept of a pastor’s care of souls and a church’s ministry extending beyond the members of a particular congregation to the residents of a particular community or neighborhood helps keep members of that congregation from becoming inward-looking and focused upon their own preferences. It recognizes that God has placed a church in a particular community or neighborhood to serve that community or neighborhood. The parish family is not just the people who attend the church but also the other residents of the community or neighborhood. It is an extended family.
The importance of seeing the community or neighborhood this way was brought home to me by a young pastor who only offered pastoral care to paying members of his church. He sent a sympathetic note to the parents of a little girl who was bitten by ants at the church picnic. The child’s parents were paying church members. However, when one of my niece’s sons was diagnosed with leukemia and the boy’s diagnosis was brought to his attention, he did nothing. He made no effort to reach out to my niece even though I was bringing the boy to church with me and he knew the boy. My niece was not a paying church member.
An empathetic, supportive telephone call from him might have led to my niece attending the church. He appeared to agree to pray for the boy and his family during the prayer time at the church’s Sunday morning worship service but when the prayer time came, he made no mention of the boy or his family. Thinking that he had forgotten, I asked for the congregation’s prayers for my grandnephew and his mother. After the service, he took me aside. He was furious. I had interrupted the service with my brief prayer request. I was surprised. At my previous church members of the congregation had been free to add their own prayer requests and concerns during the prayer time.
I had always taken for granted that pastors as a part of their cure of souls saw the community or neighborhood in which their church was located. It was an integral part of the church tradition in which I grew up. Pastoral care was free to all. It was not a part of a contractual relationship between a pastor and a church member. My experiences with this pastor showed me that I was mistaken in my assumptions.
How then might a gimmick-free Christmas Season look?
1. With COVID-19 surging in many parts of the United States and Canada, a church can encourage parishioners and other members of the community to stay home and stay safe instead of holding a Christmas Eve Service and other seasonal events which might turn into super-spreader events. COVID-19 is a nasty Christmas present to give to anyone.
2. Churches can encourage parishioners and other members of the community to read the Christmas story to their households aloud from the Bible on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Churches can post links to the appropriate passages on their church website and Facebook page. They can record videos of volunteers reading these passages and post them on the internet.
3. Churches can encourage parishioners and other members of the community to listen to Christmas carols and sing the carols with their households not just on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day but throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. They can post links to YouTube videos of the Christmas carols on their church website and Facebook page. They can also post the lyrics.
4. Churches can encourage parishioners and other members of the community to take time to pray with their households during the Christmas Season. They can offer God thanks for the gift of his Son Jesus Christ They can ask God to heal those who are sick, to bless those who are dying, and to comfort those who mourn the loss of a loved one. They can ask God’s help for those in trouble or distress. They can pray that the Spirit of Christmas, the Spirit of God, fills the hearts of everyone and draws them to his Son.
5. Churches can record a Christmas message from the pastor and post the message on the church website and Facebook page. The message should be short and conversational—along the lines of a fireside chat. The pastor should explain why Christians celebrate Christmas and emphasize that Christmas is not just a day or a season but a mindset. He should gear the message to non-believers as well as to Christians. He should bear in mind that his viewers will include both adults and children. He should use simple and easy-to-understand language and not the language of Zion, words and phrases that non-believers would not understand. If he must use a word or phrase that non-believers would not understand, he should explain what he means. He should keep his explanation simple. He should limit the use of such words and phrases. It should be the kind of message that if someone accidentally overheard it, the message would point them to Jesus. If the pastor concludes the message with a prayer, he should keep the prayer short and succinct and not turn it into a mini-sermon.
The message should be captioned. Otherwise, a transcript of the message should be emailed to parishioners and other members of the community. Some parishioners and community members may have difficulty in hearing and captioning or a transcript is a way of including them in the worship and life of the parish. The transcript should also be posted on the church website and Facebook page.
6. Churches can send a Christmas card or Christmas letter to parishioners and other members of the community. The card or letter does not have to arrive before Christmas Day so long as it arrives during the Twelve Days of Christmas. The envelope should be hand addressed and, if possible, the card or letter should be signed by hand. A brief Christmas message should be sent with the card or letter explaining why Christians celebrate Christmas and emphasizing that Christmas is just not a day or a season but a mindset. The message should be geared to non-believers as well as to Christians. It should be the kind of message that if someone accidentally reads it, the message would point them to Jesus. It should use simple and easily understood language and not the language of Zion—Christian jargon.
7. Churches can recruit volunteers to telephone parishioners and other members of the community to check on how they are doing and to pray with them. They can also recruit volunteers to visit parishioners and other members of the community who do not have a telephone to check on them and to pray with them too. These volunteers should not go into the homes of these parishioners and community members but speak to them from outside of their homes. The volunteers can tell them that they stopped by to wish them a Merry Christmas and to see if the church could do anything for them. The volunteers should ask them if they have any needs or concerns for which they would like prayer. The purpose of the telephone calls and visits is to let parishioners and other members of the community know that they have not been forgotten and the church is there for them.
8. Churches can deliver food baskets and small Christmas gifts to parishioners and other members of the community who are needy. This should be done with sensitivity.
Some folks are very proud, do not like to accept help when they need it, and do not want to be beholding to anyone. They may be suspicious of people who offer them what they may view as charity.
A former pastor of mine, Lane Corley, who is planting new churches in Louisiana, tells the story of an older pastor who was his mentor. The pastor in question made it a practice of visiting the members of the community in which his church was located, offering them help if they needed it, and praying for them. He was frequently rebuffed. However, he kept visiting them. Often as not the same folks who rebuffed him would eventually show up at his church. When they were asked why, they would answer, “He showed that he cared.”
9. Churches can also arrange with a local radio station to broadcast a pre-recorded message from the pastor one or more times during the Christmas Season. In preparing the message the pastor should follow the same guidelines that I have suggested for a pre-recorded video Christmas message and for a Christmas message sent by regular mail.
10. Churches can draw to the attention of parishioners and other members of the community that the ambiance of Christmas—its sights, tastes, smells, and textures are an expression of God’s love and good-will toward them. This can be done through one or more pre-recorded videos on the church website and Facebook page or one or more articles in the parish newsletter if one is mailed to parishioners and other members of the community.
For some folks Christmas may bring back unpleasant memories from the past, bad experiences that they had as a child or later in life and which are now associated in their minds with this season of the year. These experiences have twisted and warped what was meant to be a manifestation of God’s grace.
The knowledge that flickering candlelight, the carols, the fragrance of gingerbread men baking in the oven and spiced apple cider simmering on the stove, the scent of evergreen boughs, and the creamy smoothness of eggnog are tangible signs of God’s redemptive love for us can be a way of healing our memories and easing our pain. God did not mean these things to be a cause of pain but of joy. This knowledge may help parishioners and other members of the community to see Christmas in a different light.
We tend to see these things as the secular, human side of Christmas. However, God is at work in these things as he is at work in all things that are right, good, and noble. The presence of sin in the world may keep some folks from enjoying them but it is not their doing or God’s.
Maybe when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides we will dust off our favorite Christmas gimmick again. I have some marvelous ideas for the annual Christmas Nativity Play. I envision lots of children dressed as angels, shepherds, and magi, one child with a long bamboo pole with a huge star at the top, one or two children in donkey and oxen costumes, and of course, Mary and Joseph, a crib, and a cloth doll Baby Jesus. But until then let us enjoy the simplicity of a gimmick-free Christmas, cherishing the message of the heavenly host, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to men of good will.”
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