Most churches are gearing up right now for Christmas. Some have been engulfed in the rehearsals and putting many man hours into the holiday season.  When you think about it, when a church puts on a Christmas production, whether children, adult or both, hundreds of cumulative man hours are put into the Sunday.

Everything comes to a halt and all efforts, volunteers and resources are focused on this weekend. In this time of preparing for Christmas and with all resources focused on a service in a couple of months, planning for upcoming services begin to slack and the excellence level drops on the scale for the services leading up to the Christmas production.
Now there are some churches who have great Christmas weekends, experiencing valuable fruit(life change) for their time and preparation. However, most churches put on productions and use the excuse of evangelism to cover for their desire to hang on to tradition. When the service actually comes, no unbelievers show up, just friends from other churches or family who are excited to see their kid.
My fear is that churches use “evangelism” to support their addiction to tradition.  We throw out the “evangelism” word and repeat unproductive event to support our unproductive traditions.
I know churches who will put hundreds of hours and throw thousands of dollars into a Christmas production and not one person will be there who needs to hear the gospel of Jesus. 
So I propose: Do something different this Christmas.
  • Take the money you would put into a Christmas production and adopt several families. Then do a series a series on The gift of giving.
  • Find a local cause: collecting coats for kids, blankets for the homeless. 
  • Do something to effect the community. Instead of telling about the love of God, show the love of God.
Think outside of the box this year. Let God do a God thing and use you and your church to effect a community that needs to see His love as well as hear about it.

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