The Importance of Christmas Eve
It’s not too early to begin thinking about what you’re going to do to capitalize on the pagan holiday known as Christmas. Yes, you heard me correctly – Christmas is a pagan holiday. But contrary to what you might think, being a pagan holiday makes it even that more valuable evangelism tool than you think.
One of the great sins of the modern church is turning Christmas into an in-house celebration when it is one of the best evangelism nights of the year. Only 16% of the U.S. population is in worship on an average Sunday whereas 47% of the U.S. population is in worship on Christmas Eve.
And if that isn’t enough to convince you, more people who attend Christmas Eve will return in the future than those who attend Easter services. So, it is possible to say, from an evangelism standpoint Christmas Eve is more important to the growth of your church than is Easter. It’s hard to believe that some churches don’t offer anything on Christmas Eve night.
So, when you plan for Christmas Eve do you do it with the unchurched in or with your members in mind?
You can answer this question by answering some of the following questions:
- Do you have a lessons and carols type of services?
- Do you fail to have a sermon that night?
- Do you fail to have your best choir or band at the services?
If you answered “Yes” to any of these, unless you’re Catholic, and even if you’re Lutheran or Episcopalian, you are not thinking about the unchurched on Christmas Eve night. You want Christmas Eve night to be a close to what you do on a normal Sunday as possible, only better. You want people to see what they would miss if they fail to return the following Sunday.
So, what should you do?
- Have your best sermon
- Have you best music
- Have your best hospitality
- Don’t offer Communion
- Have your best parking lot team
- Have your best hospitality in play
- Make your best welcome you can possibly make
- Do whatever you can to have people register
- And follow up on those who do register within 48 hours
So start now on your sermon for that night and line up your musicians and hospitality teams to insure you are guest-friendly Christmas Eve.
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