Too Soon?

As crazy as it sounds, Christmas is only 80 days away. For some of you, that means it’s time to break out the Christmas decorations now. For others, it means you have 79 days before you have to frantically run around Walmart looking for a gift. But for church leaders around the country it means it’s past time to start planning Christmas services. It could be the social circles I run in, but I have seen a lot of back and forth on what church’s are doing, or should be doing, on Christmas Day.

This is the first time in 6 years that Christmas falls on a Sunday (it will be 11 years before it happens again by the way). One of my pastor friends said this, “If your church does not worship together at all that day because it is Christmas then I would humbly suggest you find a different church.” Believe it or not, that is one of the nicer comments I’ve seen from church leaders who are are confused why any church would choose not to have a worship service on Christmas Day this year.

Before you start to get too antsy, our church staff met earlier this month and we are planning on having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. However, before we all jump on the “churches who don’t worship on Christmas Day have their priorities wrong” bandwagon, I want to share why those churches might have not be so bad after all. For starters, according to a recent survey, a little less than 2/3s of churches are still having service on Christmas morning.  Some of those, like Navarre UMC, will be combining or simplifying their services and others are moving it to the afternoon.

Like I said, it’s been 6 years since this last happened, and only a few things have happened in that time. Not only did COVID cause a widespread drop in church attendance, but churches also developed the technology and ability to enable families to worship at home. Over a third of the churches who are not having a Christmas Day service are already working on a prerecorded service so families can worship at home at a time that works best for them. The rest of the churches are spending their time and efforts on Christmas Eve services.

And that brings me to the number one reason why I empathize with those churches who choose not to meet for worship on Christmas Day this year. Burnout. December is one of the busiest months in church life, and between the events our church does each year (Breakfast with Santa, Christmas Concert, and Christmas Eve) we ask our staff and volunteers to put in an extra 1200+ man-hours in a three week span. Unfortunately, it is these same people that we are asking to come back 14 hours after one of the longest and most intense worship days to do a Christmas Day service. Those 1200 man-hours don’t just affect the volunteers. It also affects their family who lose 1200 hours with their fathers, mothers, or children during the holiday season because they are serving.

So yes, some churches might choose to focus on Christmas Eve services and let their volunteers celebrate Christmas in their own way with their own family. It’s not because they have their priorities mixed up. It’s because there is more than one way to celebrate the birth of our Savior. If the king of kings can be born in a stable and celebrated by angels in a field, I think people are capable of celebrating and worshiping that same God outside of a corporate worship service.

As for our church, we are blessed with people who love to serve and have the time to serve, even on Christmas Day. Our service might look a little different, but we want to offer the opportunity for you to worship at home with your family or to come together and worship Jesus in a church service.

I suppose this is also a good time to mention, if you would like to join one of our ministry teams such as ushers, hospitality, greeters, sound, video, or worship team, please contact the church office. We’d love to get you plugged in.

Jamel: The Music Man

It is obvious that music is a huge part of my life. From the time I was a young boy I knew that music was my destiny. I wasn’t sure in what capacity, but I always knew it would be a constant throughout my life. Music is an escape. It can accurately depict a person’s emotion and calm someone’s nerves. I have always thought music as a portal, something that could instantly transport you to a certain time in your life. I’ve always been a non biased person when it comes to music. I enjoy listening to almost every genre and would never criticize a song/album simply because of its origin. I believe every style of music has its purpose and place. One of the reasons, and there are many, I love music and consider it a huge part of who I am, is because every single person can relate to at least one song out thee. One song can also have multiple meanings to many different people and that’s a special thing. Interpretations of the same song can be drastically different. Music and songs touch people and have an impact on a person’s mental state. It’s scientifically proven that there is a healing aspect to music.

Here lately, certain songs have become cleansing for my soul and have lifted my faith. Music has taken me on many different journeys in my life. Not all of them have been good, but they’ve all had a purpose in my life and, without music, I wouldn’t have experienced any of them. The most significant one happened three years ago this April, when I entered Navarre Untied Methodist Church for the very first time. The overwhelming feeling of hospitality from the congregation was heartwarming, but I won’t lie, the stage is what intrigued me. The worship band and their energy were unlike the stages I’ve been playing on all my life. There was almost an inner challenge, a bet I placed with myself to see if after all these years of playing music… could I play Christian music in the house of the Lord? What began as a little competition within me turned into an overpowering sense of peace and I fell in love with music all over again. I felt like I was a little boy just beginning my journey, and essentially, I was. Over the last couple of years I have grown not only in my music, but more importantly, in my faith. To be completely honest, there is a good possibility that without music, I might not have ever felt like I had a gift to honor God with. Music broke down any walls I had and gave me strength to confidently worship our Lord Jesus Christ.

My entire musical career I’ve followed my instincts. Whether I was writing, recording, or performing music, that instinctual gut intuition always seemed to serve me well. The instinct I felt in April 2019 to join the worship team will forever be the greatest and most treasured blessing of my life.

Fall Bucket List

Today is the first official day of FALL! It’s a time when hopefully the air starts to cool, the leaves may begin to change, and pumpkin spice is everywhere. It is the one time of year the store shelves are full of pumpkin-spiced-scented candles and the pumpkin/fall décor is lining the aisles. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. When the season hits, I tend to make a list of what all I want to try and do this fall. Starting with… I love having football on the tv and homemade chili simmering on the stove while curled up on the couch under my cozy blanket. It brings me back to some of my favorite childhood memories and always gives me that warm homey feeling. What gives you that childhood warm homey feeling? Is it baking chocolate chip cookies or making a hot bubbling apple pie with a family member and then cooling it down with the cold vanilla ice cream? Or is it getting to pick out a caramel-covered apple and wash it down with hot apple cider at a Fall Festival?

When we lived in Indiana many years ago, we only had two of our three kids at the time (the third one wasn’t born yet), we would have a family day and take them to one of our local farms that put on a Harvest Festival every year. The kids would have so much fun laughing and running around playing the different games they had set up, winning treats to take home (actually they never made it home because they would eat them there), attempting the different mazes they put together, and then finishing up with the hayride that takes you to the pumpkin patch where you get to pick out your perfect pumpkin to take home and carve with your family in preps for Halloween. Before we would take the kids out to trick or treat, we would light up their little pumpkins that were on the porch and the joy and excitement on their faces will be one I will never forget.

Family memories are amazing to make, and I will forever be grateful to the people who put on these festivals every year for families to enjoy. This is one reason why I love to get involved with our church’s annual Fall Festival every year. Becoming a part of something for not only my church family but all our families out in the community brings so much joy and happiness. Knowing that I have become a small piece in helping make memories for these children and their families that they will hold onto for a lifetime is such a blessing.  Our fall festival takes a lot of pieces to put together and organize each year. I am blessed that God has put together such an amazing crew to work with and we still need more pieces to make it amazing. What’s on your fall bucket list this year? Would you like to be a part of making family memories that they hold onto for years to come? If so, please feel free to contact the church office so we can get you added to our crew! Now time for me to start planning the theme for my trunk this year to pass out candy to the smiling faces.

Jen Neely is our Preschool Assistant Director. She enjoys cooking, being artsy, and raising her three amazing children.

Time

Time. We have too much of it when we don’t want it, but we never have enough when we need it.  Time, for most of us, always seems to be against us.  It steals away those moments with loved ones; those few and far between minutes of relaxation are gone in a blink.  Our youth is gone before we know it and our time on earth is ticking away second by second. James tells us that “you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).  This used to be my dad’s favorite verse to use from the pulpit. It reminds us that there is an urgency we have to live a life of faithfulness and the promise that our worldly troubles are temporary.

This kind of makes one think about their life: what they’ve done, where they are going.  Hopefully it encourages you to make the best of the unknown number of years you have.  Hopefully there will be times of joy and laughter, and equally important sadness and tears; for these are the times we grow the most.  Time is something we have little of and can never gain.  Now, this isn’t a blog meant to depress you. My hope is that you will come to find the sweetness of a second, the beautiful fragrance of an hour, or the refreshment of a minute.

But does it end there?  Is that it?  All this time we’ve been savoring the seconds and trying to do the best we can in life, and now it’s just the end?  Far from it, the only thing that has ended is the beginning… the beginning of eternity.  May we recognize that our trust is put into the hands of God, and He will raise us up to be with Him forever.  Time can take away our life on this small blue planet, but our God has bigger and better things for us; things that time cannot wither.  However, we have a job here, to be done right now.  And no matter the journey you take through life, the ups and downs you’ll face, always remember this is just the beginning.

“But from this earth, this grave, this dust, my God shall raise me up I trust” – Even Such Is Time by Sir Walter Raleigh

Loose Handles

There’s a handle on my desk that has been loose for months now. I don’t open that door very often but every time I do I feel the handle wiggle a bit, and I can hear the screws on the back side hitting the wood. The sad thing is, I have a screwdriver less than 10 feet away from me that would fix it. Actually, give me a minute…

It just took me less than ten seconds to fix this handle that’s been bugging me for a long time. I could have addressed this problem many times over the past couple of months but instead I just dealt with the minor inconvenience and put off the repair. I wish I was making this story up just as an illustration but this actually happened. It took procrastinating on writing a blog for me to fix a problem that never should have gone on this long.

But how many other things do we have in our life that we are putting off because it’s inconvenient? My mind immediately goes to the dishes and trash that need to be taken care of, but it goes way beyond the menial tasks. It’s the broken relationships that need to be mended, the people who are hurting that need to be comforted, the lonely who need to be talked to. So many of the things in our life that need to be addressed deal with other people and we put it off because it almost always means admitting we were wrong or that we have to embrace the uncomfortableness of it.

But there’s also the spiritual side. We know we should pray, but we put it off because we’re too busy. We know we should read our Bibles but there’s never the time. We should volunteer or tithe but… In the words of Paul, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”.  There aren’t easy answers, but perhaps there is a first answer. Do the small things first. It took ten seconds to fix a handle and I put it off for months as it occupied entirely too much of my head space. There are small things that you can do right now, and once they are done will make it easier (though still not easy) to handle the larger things in your life.