Christmas Church

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25

 

Often, the class teaches the teacher more than she teaches them.

I am at one of those awkward points in a teaching series where I have finished the book I was teaching from but still have two weeks to fill in the Sunday School session.  So we tried something different on the Sunday before Christmas.  Our class is a wonderful intergenerational mix of women with ages ranging between 28 and 80 and I enlisted them all for a round-table discussion instead of listening to me, yet again.

We called it “Keeping Christ in Christmas.” Many of these women have raised their families and some are in the middle of doing so. We have single and married women, moms and Mom-moms, widows and daughters. I asked each one to tell us how they and their families keep Christ in Christmas, or how their parents did it when they were young.

Most shared some version of the same ideas of how to keep Christ in Christmas. Many said they read the story of Christ’s birth from Luke 2 before opening gifts on Christmas morning and some said they sang Christmas carols as a form of family worship. Many talked of all the time they spend and/or spent as kids and young mothers, participating in church programs. There were musical services and ministry opportunities the church offered to serve the shut ins. Some go caroling, some delivered baked goods to the nursing homes or hospitals, and others joined in whatever outreach the church might be doing to reach others with the truth of what God did for us in sending His Son.

At the center of each testimony of these women was the church, the local congregation they belong to. Without the opportunities presented by the body of Christ most of the testimonies would have stopped at a few minutes spent worshipping Christ on Christmas morning.

Everyone seemed to participate in and enjoy the worship services on Christmas Eve, they enjoy caroling and gathering food and gifts through opportunities the church presented. They reported that their children all started participating in Christmas programs while they were pretty young, walking through the Christmas story, etching it on their hearts as they get involved in what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph to have a baby in a stall.

In all of the wrangling in my own heart about how to keep Christ in Christmas it had not occurred to me how important the whole body of Christ is to keeping me focused. God said that we should not forsake the gathering of believers. Isn’t this part of the reason why? So we will remind each other, point each other to Christ all the time, not just at Christmas. The truth is that the culture we live in has taken such a liking to our Holy day that it is very easy to get caught up in many things “culturally Christmassy” that have nothing to do with the birth of Christ.  In the church, at least in our church, it is all about Christ’s birth.

So, if you are not in a congregation of believers who are pointing you to Christ then I suggest you find one. If you are and you are still distracted, perhaps next year you could be the one to start a work in your church that would point others to Christ. You may end up more focused on Him because you’ll be looking in His direction as you point others that way. 

Others may help you focus as these ladies helped me.