We'll Be Closed For Christmas

Imagine a retailer being closed on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Imagine them shunning the very pinnacle of their retail being. Contemplate the possibilities of a storekeeper sympathizing with Adbusters' "Buy Nothing Day," and tossing in "Sell Nothing Day."

Scratch your head and wonder why anyone would do something so silly.

And now consider how some mega-churches have opted-out of having services on Christmas this year. Thanks to the whims of the Gregorian Calendar, Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. And rather than treat it like the Holy Day it is, some mega-churches are treating it like a holiday.

Perhaps the biggest and best-known of the taking-the-day-off churches is Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago. Various others around the country have followed suit. Amarillo's Trinity Fellowship Church is also canceling regular services on Christmas Sunday.

The arguments for closing are pretty simple. Pastoral staff deserve time with their families. If Christmas had fallen on a Monday, the church would be shuttered anyway. Regular services would have been held over the weekend, and then everyone would go home for the holiday.

And that's the problem, for it seems the holiday is taking precedence over what is a "normal" working day for clergy. Sunday is still the primary day of worship in Christianity. What about the church family these clergy serve?

To Willow Creek's and Trinity's credit, they are hosting numerous worship services for several days leading up to Christmas, but this gesture just pales against the backdrop of the most holy of days in the Christian year.

And so the sanctuary will be noticeably dark come Christmas Day.

I fully recognize there has been a huge time-shift when it comes to going to church. Saddleback Church in southern California has a Friday evening service, two on Saturday evening, two on Sunday morning, and two on Sunday evening. Willow Creek worships on Saturday and Sunday. Locally, Trinity Fellowship has 2 Saturday services and three on Sunday morning. Churches are not as bound to traditional days and times as they once were. To their credit, they have dropped the legalism that once drove many churches into cultural irrelevance.

Never mind that for roughly 60% of the US population (the folks who are technically unchurched) the two times of the year they are most likely to darken the doors of the church are on Easter and Christmas. Some churches have just cut church-going in half.

I like the way the Catholics observe church. They just do it. It matters not what day of the week Christmas falls on, for it is a Holy Day, and mass is held. Maybe it's germaine to the discussion that in the monastic life, priests and nuns have little else to do on Christmas, but I give them credit for making it possible for everyone else to worship. I doubt the Pope would ever sanction skipping Christmas.

Critics and bloggers have seized on this PR boondoggle, and say that these mega-churches have gone a little far in adopting culture in order to remain relevant. The truth is, churches should be busy trying to create culture, not bending to it. It's great to have lifestyle churches, but whose life are we worshipping anyway?

This Christmas I'll attend mass with my father, and then worship with my mother at First Baptist in Plant City FL. At one place or the other I'll be lining up for communion, waiting to shake the hand of the priest or pastor, and then filing out of the parking lot to head home for family time.

It's Sunday. That's when my parents' churches meet. And it's Christmas. So be it.

Dr "Minding My Pews and Queues" Gerlich