Something has been bothering me for a while, but until now I haven't had a chance to write about it. Prior to Christmas I was told that several churches across the country, and even some in my own community, were not going to have any worship services on Christmas Day. Honestly, when I first heard and read of those stories I thought it was a joke. Wouldn't that be like the beaches closing during the summer or the mountains closing during the fall? But sadly I found that the stories were true. I passed a couple of empty church parking lots on Christmas Sunday morning.
What I'm going to say next will not sit well with some, but I'm convinced that enough is enough. Frankly, I'm not concerned with who this might offend. I mean, what's next? No service on Easter Sunday? Doesn't that make sense? If you would cancel services on the day we've set aside to celebrate Christ's birth, why not cancel services on the day we've set aside to celebrate His resurrection?
What really gets under my skin are some of the lame excuses that were offered up to justify the Christmas cancellations. The most prominent one I heard is "we want to give our people some time to spend with their families." I'm sorry, but that's one of the most selfish things I've ever heard. Have we become so preoccupied with our own lives, families, and possessions that we can't find a few minutes to come and worship at God's house on Christmas?
By the way, I wonder what kind of testimony we set before the world when some of us chose to cancel worship. I can just imagine the irony in a lost person's mind as he/she considered that the Waffle House and Walgreens were open on Christmas but the church chose to close. For the last several years our culture has started to treat Christmas as just another day. Judging by the actions of some of our churches, perhaps the culture is right. Maybe Christmas is just another day.
I could be wrong, but I think the cancellation of services at Christmas was really done to give us a morning off so we could open gifts and play with our new toys. Maybe the greatest damage was done to our kids. What lesson did they learn by staying home on Christmas morning? Perhaps they got the impression that me and my gifts are more important than the Heavenly Father and His greatest Gift. The next time Christmas falls on a Sunday, I genuinely hope that every house of God will remain open for business.
