Why I Believe Churches Should Have a Christmas Day Service

It was the practice of the Episcopal church that I attended as a teenager and later as an adult to have a service of Holy Communion on Christmas morning. It was a quiet service, the reading of lessons from Scripture, prayers, and the sacrament of Holy Communion. Even though it was Christmas morning, a surprising number of people attended.

The church also had a late night service on Christmas Eve, preceded by the singing of Christmas carols. At that service there was not only more Christmas carols, special music, Scripture readings, prayers, and the sacrament of Holy Communion but also solemn procession with lights and incense. It was always well attended.

The Episcopal church that I would help to plant and to pioneer had a service early on Christmas Eve and no service on Christmas Day. The thinking was, as is the case of a number of churches, that families would be too busy on Christmas Day to have time for a church service.

At that time, it was my wont as the church’s senior lay reader to read Morning Prayer at church on Christmas Day. As I was about to read the service, a car pulled up in the parking lot. A man and a woman and two children got out. I met them at the church entrance. The man asked me if the church was going to have a service on Christmas morning. I explained to him that there was no service on Christmas morning. I invited the family to join me for Morning Prayer. There was a look of disappointment on the faces of the man and the woman. The man declined, the family got back in their car, and left. I believe that they had been hoping that the church would have an early morning celebration of Holy Communion on Christmas Day.

 
This experience and the early Christmas morning celebration of Holy Communio at my former church convinced me that it a mistake not to have such a celebration on Christmas morning. It did not matter if the attendance was small. If the Holy Spirit prompts a family or individual to attend church service on Christmas morning, we should offer one for them to attend. We also should not underestimate the Holy Spirit’s ability to use such occasions to draw a family or individual closer to God. While some people may be very busy on Christmas Day, others are not. They will spend Christmas Day by themselves, not with family or friends. It is a mistake to assume that everyone is busy on Christmas Day.

The one whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day came into the world to seek, and save the lost. It is the mission that he passed on to the apostles and to us after he rose from the dead and before he ascended into heaven. We are to share the good news with all and a sundry and to point them to Jesus. We are as his representatives to extend his invitation to discipleship. What better occasion than on the day on which we celebrate his birth.