Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

 A friend* of mine believes that churches would be in better shape if they treated every Sunday like it was Christmas Sunday: Brought out the good linen, took the plastic off the furniture, decorated, smiled, and just welcomed everybody into church like long lost pals. He has a point.

A good point.

A very good point.

We are probably at our most "welcoming" on or about Christmas. We have the junior choir singing; we have the senior choir with special December members thrilling us; we do pageants and have dinners... lots of applause and all very exciting.

Now, maybe I'm Christmas weary, although I don't think so, I loved Christmas 2008! Same story as 2007, but better carols and better presents from my kids!!

It is possible that I'm a curmudgeon, but I really think that 46 is too young for full curmudgeonhood.

With all this time off between Christmas and Epiphany (have a Spiffy one, incidentally), maybe I've been thinking too much...

BUT...

What if we didn't go crazy at church on or about Christmas? What if we celebrated Advent and Christmas, with the usual readings and an Advent wreath, but carried on as if was mid March, or mid October (better weather)?

With all of the push, I know that our choir members are bushed and really just want to lie low for the next couple of months.

I know that we're not going to even think about liturgical drama until at least Easter - we pulled out all the stops for the pageant (which was magical and miraculous, incidentally, Jesus got up out of the manger and walked off, just hours after his birth!).

There is such a post-Christmas let down and often a pre-Christmas lying low, that I have to wonder if we might be further ahead doing liturgical drama all through the year, with pageants for the story of Elijah or Ruth. Choirs singing special anthems and songs in June and September.

What with all of the secular hype and crowded calendars, wouldn't you just love to walk into a church "sanctuary" and experience quiet peace, and the gentle reading of Scripture, with a couple of candles lit, but nothing that suggests that your still in the mall?

It's been suggested that people are disappointed when they first come to church in March and discover that's not like it was at Christmas. It's further suggested that the cure for that is to make every Sunday a little "Christmas." But I wonder if it might not be more authentic to make every Christmas a little "Sunday," leave a couple of the stops left in for another time and spread the enthusiasm, involvement, and joy more evenly across the whole calendar. It's not like the hype of the season will disappear if we don't participate, and maybe we could offer some kind of alternative to the hustle and bustle of our secular celebration.

That being said, I'm already excited about next Christmas and getting ready to cast the Christmas Pageant. (There's a new couple in church that just might be able to provide me a baby Jesus, if they get started now!)

*That friend is Michael Kooiman and after his reading this, I might not be invited to be so familiar