Christmas from Church Staff Perspective

As I got ready to walk up the aisle for Easter Sunday one year, an elder said to me, "Biggest crowd of the year, pastor. Its your Super Bowl game. Don't screw up." I took it well. I knew his sense of humor. He was right. It was a big crowd. Just like at Christmas.

Christmas and Easter are the two high water marks for church attendance. With good cause. They are huge days as we remember God becoming flesh and then, at Easter, rising from the dead. There is also enough cultural memory of these days as somehow spiritually significant to draw otherwise reluctant crowds to churches. Most churches go all out for these high holy days which puts extra burdens on church staffs, especially at Christmas.

For youth staff, Christmas is the season when the students are out of school and all attention shifts to spending time with them. For worship arts staff, like choir directors or worship leaders, Christmas usually means some big event that requires hours of extra effort. Our church recently presented a choir cantata with a 15 piece orchestra and 45 member choir complete with narration, solos, light shows and congregational singing. It was a work that took several months of preparation. For pastoral staff and for me as lead pastor, this is the time of year where everything that family is all about--the good, the bad and the ugly--all rises to the surface. For healthy families, this is a time of great joy. For the rest, Christmas brings with it feelings of depression, irritation, sorrow, anxiety or bitterness. Add to that the cultural predisposition to spend too much money and the anxiety that brings and it makes for a wild ride for pastoral care.

It gets to the point sometimes that many on church staff are eager for the season to end. Not that we don't love Jesus or Bethlehem's manger or Christmas in America. It's just that we are sometimes so busy telling the story or working with people on vacation, that we are worn out. One year, the staff and I decided to have a murder mystery theme for the staff Christmas party. It was completely non-Christmasy and we had a blast.

The real challenge for church staffs walking with Jesus is to not get so caught up in all of the production around Christmas that we lose sight of a baby wraps in cloths lying in a feeding trough who just happened to be the Alpha and Omega and the Ancient of Days. The challenge is to make sure that our knees are also bent in homage before this Christ child. The challenge is not to be professional Christians, but fellow journeyers who are in awe and childlike wonder of it all.