Why we do what we do at Christmas

I was outlining the upcoming plans for Christmas:  A Nativity service on the 14th Dec, an impromptu Nativity Service on 21st Dec, a Christmas Eve Carol service, and a Christmas Morning Service.  When someone asked me why we do what we do?  Why have two nativity services?  Why do a service on Christmas Eve?  Well here's my reasoning:

The Nativity service is when the Sunday school children put on their Christmas play/nativity.  There are a number of reasons why we do this:  Firstly it's a great chance for the church family to allow the children to serve us, and for us to show our appreciation and love for them.  Evangelistically this is the service non believing family members are most likely to come to, be it dad or mum, or Aunt and Uncles or Grandparents.  We've had them all the in the past and we want to make the most of that gospel opportunity as we share the good news of Jesus, God with us.

So why have an Impromptu Nativity Service.  This service is a bit more wacky I guess.  Very simply anyone can come along and play a part in the Nativity, it is more light hearted and fun, and we have a very gifted young lady in church we writes great scripts for this.  It takes a lot of improvising, last year one of King Herod's henchmen was batman, and you never know how many shepherds, kings, Josephs and angels you are going to get.  Why do we do it?  We have friends who come every year with their children dressed up to play different parts and who love it, we hope it'll become a tradition in the community.  It is light hearted and helps show those who come that we love to have fun.  But again it provides an opportunity for people to come along and hear the gospel taught.

Why Christmas Eve?  This is the first year we've run this service so I may think differently about it by the 27th, but the theory goes something like this.  We have had a number of people from the community ask us if we do a Christmas Eve midnight service.  Whilst we are not going that far, ours is at 5pm, we are hoping that it becomes something of a traditional way to mark Christmas Eve for our community.  It'll be traditional with lots of Carols, Christmas readings and a 7-10 minute talk.  We are praying that this service will include all those who've been to the two above and others from the surrounding area.  Unlike in many middle class areas most folks in our area aren't away over Christmas, they are here.  So we'll pray and we'll trust God and do it.

Why Christmas Morning?  What better way than to start Christmas (well 6 hours in for those whose children will be up around 4am) than singing God's praise and reminding everyone what christmas is really about.  And there is real joy in being able to do that with your church family too.

So there we are, that's why we are doing what we are doing over Christmas.  Please be praying for gospel fruit as people meet Jesus.