This Christmas, “Let’s go to and FROM Bethlehem.”

What are your plans for Christmas at the time of the Coronavirus? Have you already been forced to change your family’s traditional holiday plans? How about your congregation’s plans for Christmas? Do your contingencies have contingencies?

Perhaps you are still trying to get past that initial sense of disappointment, fearing that your Christmas celebration may be yet another casualty of 2020. Or perhaps, like me, you’re already searching for ways to rejoice “together while apart.”

I have been hearing and seeing many conversations focused around the big question: What is your school, Sunday School, or church going to do for its Christmas services this year? Specifically, the ones involving children?

Answers are all over the board. Creativity in churches has clearly grown in the time of the Coronavirus. Most of the ideas proposed center on finding ways to modify the traditional children’s Christmas program so that social distancing and other safety precautions can be in place. Here are just a few of the MANY ideas being considered by congregations:

• Those with fewer students are simply planning to have additional smaller services on Christmas Eve or a Sunday before Christmas.
• Those with more students are planning to have increased student participation in small group choirs in their midweek Advent services or the Sunday services leading up to Christmas.
• Some are planning to record videos of small groups/family units reciting verses and then edit them into a longer production shown in worship on or around Christmas.
• Some are planning innovative outdoor rotational services with stations located all around their campus. 
• Others focused on simplicity will incorporate children briefly into their Christmas Eve service. Children will speak parts from where they are seated with their parents.
• Finally, others are leaning towards audio-only recordings shared as part of live services led by a small group of older students.

I’m impressed with the innovation and flexibility modeled by pastors, teachers, and lay leaders. However, what concerns me is that most plans are focused primarily on Christmas as a come-to-our-church event.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all about going to church at Christmas. I plan to do so myself along with my family and as many others as I can pull along. Christmas worship has and always will be one of the highpoints of the Christian church year.

However, if our primary or sole focus this Christmas is on getting people to come-to-our-church for a modified children’s program, then I wonder if we are missing out on a huge opportunity to go-and-tell. Especially in a year where so many are perhaps all the more ready and willing to listen to a message of peace and joy, we need to focus on going to them, rather than, or at least along with, them coming to us.

As I think of Christmas this year, ringing through my head and my heart is the third verse of a newer Christmas hymn, Sing We the Song of Emmanuel, which encourages us,

Go spread the news of Emmanuel

Joy and peace for the weary heart

Lift up your heads, for your King has come

Sing for the Light overwhelms the dark

Glory shining for all to see

Hope alive, let the gospel ring

God has made a way,

He will have the praise

Tell the world His name is Jesus

Sing We The Song of Emmanuel by Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Keith Getty, Stuart Townend

The first two verses of this remarkable hymn take singers along with shepherds and sages (wise men) TO Bethlehem to PRAISE the newborn king. But the shepherds, sages, and singers don’t stay at the manger, as tempting as that might be. Rather, the third verse appropriately sends them FROM Bethlehem to PROCLAIM, the newborn king. This Christmas, could we who have already experienced the glory, wonder, and majesty of the Christ child’s birth take a page out of the shepherd’s playbook?

For we who have been privileged to go to Bethlehem at Christmas, we want to go back there each year, to hear the same stories again and sing the same old songs again. I am so glad that we do. Bethlehem is the best. The stories and songs of Christmas never grow old. Christmas’s traditions and trappings are a feast for the ears, eyes, heart, and soul. Who can honestly say they didn’t appreciate receiving a bag of goodies at they left Christmas worship as a kid? That odd taste combination of peppermint, orange, and chocolate isn’t one you soon forget.

Even though the goody bags were a highlight, ever since I was little, my favorite Christmas tradition has been participating in a candlelight service. The glow in my five-year-old eyes is still glimmering there today. When the first candle is lit my heart leaps. When the light slowly spreads into the darkness of the sanctuary and the congregation sings “Silent Night, Holy Night,” I experience peace on earth and goodwill to men.

Some traditions like candlelight services never grow old and can and should be enjoyed year after year. But sometimes it’s time to add new traditions into the rotation. Is there a way that we could take traditions like the candlelight service and use them to share the good news of Christmas into our communities? (I always wondered why we blow the candles out and return them at the end of the service rather than carrying them out into the world with us. I know no one wants wax everywhere, but could there be a way?)

What new traditions could our families and congregations add into the rotation that don’t just take us to Bethlehem, but from Bethlehem? I will share some of my ideas below, but I would also love to hear your ideas. Please share them in the comments below.

• Put together and distribute “Christmas for Kids at Home” kits. Christmas for Kids at Home could easily be designed as a 2-hour event that church and/or community members will host in their own homes, on their own schedule, with those they personally invite. To make things easy for families to host this event, they can pick up a Christmas for Kids at Home kit from your church that will include all supplies, instructions, and maybe even a link to devotional videos. Is there a way you can make use of candles? Christmas and candles go together, even the battery-operated ones, will get the job done.
• Take your own children or a few families from your congregation caroling. Pick neighborhoods near your church or those belonging to member families. Take along a hymnal, and sing through the Christmas section. Need help with music and singing? Take along a smartphone loaded with Koine Christmas songs connected to a Bluetooth speaker. Have a flatbed trailer? Turn the idea into a one float parade, and head all over town. Candles? Yes, candles.
• Spend your congregation’s candy budget on purchasing children’s story Bibles to distribute to your community. Take the books along caroling with you and give them to anyone you meet. What other ways could you share this gift with your community? Each year around Thanksgiving and Black Friday, this book and these books go on sale. Reach out to the Goodbook Company for bulk discounts. Order a hundred or more, and the price drops dramatically. Hmmm… candles, children, and books aren’t a great mix. Maybe stick with the battery-operated ones in this case.
• Create short videos of your children speaking and singing Christmas stories and songs. Share them on your church’s website and social media platforms. This way, all of the grandmas and grandpas will get to see their children participating in Christmas, even if they live in a different state or are unable to be present because of Cornovirus concerns. Candles burning in the background?
• Share Christmas music and artwork on your church’s website and social media platforms. If you are looking for artwork, use some of the incredible works from Chris Powers at Full of Eyes. For music, ideas check out this post or this playlist. If you have other music and artwork ideas, please share them in the comments below, especially if they make use of candles.
• Create a digital Advent Calendar. Using some of the ideas above, each day, starting on December 1, you could share a short devotion, scripture reading, small group song, or a piece of artwork. Enlist your whole family or a wide variety of congregation members to participate. Be sure to include it on your church website so that the whole thing is easily accessible. Perhaps one day each week, you could have someone in a video lighting a candle in an advent wreath. Aren’t candles the best?

I hope these ideas will get your creative juices flowing. Perhaps they will help us switch gears from thinking about what we are not doing this Christmas to what we can do. We have the best reason to celebrate, the best message to share. I look forward to seeing and hearing all of your ideas. Candles anyone?