Christmas is sacred, unless it's on a Sunday

[SoCalDem]

This whole "closed on Christmas" stuff is giving me fits of giggles.. I guess what the "closed" churches are saying is that THEIR time with family is more important that the savior's birth..

Nutty as a payday bar

[redqueen]

1. What?

Churches closed on Christmas?

Surely I'm misunderstanding...

[tularetom]

4. Some "megachurches" in Jesusland

decided that they couldn't rake in enough bucks on Xmas to justify paying the massive heating bills necessary to keep their giant buildings open for traditrional sunday sawdust rolls and snake handling fests, so they announced that they'd be closed that day.

[redqueen]

11. Ridiculous.

GREED is their belief... the DOLLAR is their God.

Fuck them.

[Avalux]

2. Please give me a link!

I have folks with which to bombard with this information. Thanks. :evilgrin:

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Here ya go.

So much for preserving the meaning of Christmas.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/06/churches.closed.christmas.ap/

[LisaM]

3. It's true

a bunch of mega churches are closing on Christmas because they expect low attendance (of course they do! Their congregations have to comprise the most hypocritical group of drones ever assembled) and they claim they are giving people more time to spend with their families. I think that their members are probably going to Florida or on ski vacations, but of course they won't give that as an excuse.

[LisaM]

5. Oh, and here's a link

it's from the nutty AFA, but it lists some of the churches.

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/12/afa/142005a.asp

[chefgirl]

7. I felt the same way SoCal..

That is, of course, after I was done being furious at the total hypocrisy of these people.

I mean, they wear His name, claim to have the VERY highest of morals, whine and moan about being persecuted, manufacture outrage over the 'war on Christmas', but can't be bothered to show up to celebrate His birthday! (without which there would be no Christianity, btw)

But the funniest part of it all is that they see absolutely NO conflict in their reasoning.
Boy, if anything ever proved what these people are really all about, this story is it.

-chef-

[Kazak]

8. My church will be closed on Christmas...

Of course, we're only heathen Unitarian Universalists, but still...

[StoryTeller]

9. My church isn't meeting Christmas Day.

I don't see why it's such a big deal. Several of us who will be in town have made sure that no one in our congregation will be alone that morning. We're having two elderly women and one developmentally disabled adult and...possibly one other woman come to our house. I am excited about the chance to share our special family time with some of my extended church family in my own home.

Considering that celebrating Jesus' birth was never even suggested in the Bible, how one celebrates it is certainly not a doctrinal issue. It's purely tradition, and if a church decides to buck tradition, does it really matter? Plus, a lot of protestant or evangelical churches, like mine, don't typically hold Christmas Day services like Catholic churches do unless it happens to fall on a Sunday. So it's not that big of a change for them.

Now, if that church is ignoring their members who are alone or too poor to even celebrate Christmas, that's a different story. But some churches do that all the time, regardless of whether or not they have services on Christmas morning. It's a separate issue.

But I do see the absurdity of some of the same churches that are squawking about saying "Happy Holidays" then cancelling their own services for Christmas morning. It is sending an odd message. :) My church tends to be more progressive, and I think they made the decision to not meet on Christmas more to keep everyone's stress level down that morning and let people keep their own family traditions in how they celebrate.

[tanyev]

10. A small church I used to play the organ for finally stopped having

Christmas Day services a few years ago. Part of me hated to see it happen, but the part of me that wasn't able to start my four hour drive to my family's house until after that service was over was so relieved. Especially when the last year they had the CDay service there were about 6 people there, counting me and pastor.

A very large church should still be able to pull enough people in to make it worth having a service, though. Oh sure, it might not be the usual extravaganza with praise team and orchestra and all the bells and whistles, but it's Christmas Day, for cryin' out loud. Christ Mass, if you want to get really particular about it. Might as well cede it completely to the shopping malls if you don't even try to have a service.

[alfredo]

12. The only people that would have shown are the poor, the lonely,

and the ones too old to stay up so late on Christmas eve. The deep pocket yuppies have already gone to midnight mass, given their offering, and will be sleeping it off on Sunday morning.