Category: church

Church on Christmas?

I was surprised to read that some columnists (like this one) are complaining that some churches are choosing not to have services on Christmas day. Even (gasp!) Willow Creek has decided not to open the doors on Christmas. What’s the big deal?

The columnist I linked to says that not having church on Christmas means: 1.) We love things more than we love Jesus. 2.) The church is compromising. 3.) The church is hypocritical. 4.) Non-christians think we are compromising and hypocritical. 5.) The family has become more important than Jesus.

All this because of skipping one service. This leads me to ask the question, what is the purpose of a church service, anyway? According to this guy, we go to show the world that we are self-sacrificing world-haters who would rather attend church than see our families. In his defense, he also says that a church service is an opportunity to “gather with God’s people for worship.” A noble endeavor, of course, but is that it?

To me, it depends on whether the purpose of Christianity is to facilitate church services, or whether the purpose of church services is to facilitate Christianity. I fall into the latter camp. I attend church for the same reason I take my car to the gas station — it’s an opportunity to fuel up. I gain spiritual energy through fellowship and corporate worship, helping me to live the rest of the week as Jesus would have me do. Missing one week doesn’t drain my tank, and some services (you’ve been to them, too) don’t exactly overflow the tank, either.

I didn’t decide to follow Jesus so that I can attend church services. I attend services to help me follow Jesus. Church is not what we do on Sunday morning. Church is when we talk with our friends, when we gather with our families, when we live out our Christian faith in our everyday lives. I don’t know about you, but I definitely will be “attending church” on Christmas.

Pot and kettle

I saw this posting, and it reminded me that people are the same, no matter how they define themselves.

To summarize the post, this woman apparently describes herself as emerging, and is looking for a job in a “culturally relevant church”. She found a job description which seems perfect for her. (You really need to read that job description. Wonder if we could use it here….) Then she finds out that this particular community does not accept women in the lead teaching position, and watch the fur fly.

She and the folks on her blog proceed to take this church apart, in unflattering, ungenerous, and (dare I say) unChristian ways. Apparently, Ms. Pittman has already determined what an emergent, culturally-relevant church believes, and the ordination of women is on the list.

Others who respond agree with her in the most uncharitable terms, post email addresses of the church staff, predict they’ll “never emerge” (is that a goal, anyway?), and in general buffet the church for not thinking the same way they do. Sounds like something the modern churches would do.

One staff member from this church responded to the posting, trying to describe his church’s situation, but he was roundly dismissed as being disingenuous (read: lying), and the flogging went on.

If you skip down to the bottom, the third-to-last post (this morning, anyway, from Anonymous at 1:52pm) says more or less what I was thinking: this group of emergents is no different than the groups they are emerging from. In our zeal to get the world (or the church) to see our point of view and do something about it, sometimes we forget the big picture, which is to continue to look like Jesus in the midst of it.

Whether the issue is ordination of women, or incense in the service, isn’t one of the main points of the emerging discussion to “broaden the tent”, as it were, and allow more freedom of expression — not just different expressions — into the church?