Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale now promoting its Christmas Day service online after initially announcing a Dec. 25 closure
Posted on 12/19/2005 6:23:54 AM PST by NYer
With many large churches across the U.S. announcing they won't be open on Christmas Day, some pastors are defending their decision to stay closed, even going so far as to blast those who question their motives.
Among them is Jon Weece, pastor of Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Ky., who received complaint e-mails from Christians in all 50 states.
"I was deeply saddened by the knee-jerk response of the Christian community as a whole to give the benefit of the doubt to the media and not a church or a brother in Christ," Weece said in his Dec. 10 sermon. "I'm still troubled that more Christians in this community specifically did not stand up for us knowing what this church represents."
(Audio of the entire sermon is available here.)
Weece blamed Satan the devil for using the Christmas issue as a distraction, prompting Christians to bicker among themselves.
"People are not the enemy," he said. "The devil is, and it is obvious that he has been at work in this situation."
Weece said the services being offered on Christmas Eve were still technically the "first day of the week" if one went by the custom of starting days at sunset, which some believe was the case in Jesus' day.
He went on to note: "Christmas began as a pagan holiday to the Roman gods, and if we were to really celebrate the historical birth of Jesus, it would either be in January or mid-April. I'm only pointing out the historical technicalities not out of intellectual arrogance, but again because of the illogical, ill-informed and even hypocritical arguments that were aimed at me personally this last week."
Weece also said Jesus himself walked all over opinion and tradition: "Do not lose sight of the controversy that Jesus incited by turning traditions on their head. And always remember in the economy of Jesus, the one whose birthday so many are claiming to be so passionate about, Jesus placed value and emphasis on people over policy and procedure and protocol every single time."
Meanwhile, the largest Christian church in South Florida has reversed itself on its closure Christmas Day, and now says it will be open for a single service next Sunday morning, Dec. 25.
Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale now promoting its Christmas Day service online after initially announcing a Dec. 25 closure |
Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale originally decided to give its members and workforce a day off to spend with their families on Christmas, even though it falls on Sunday, its traditional day of worship. Instead, it had scheduled a slate of extra services for Saturday night, Christmas Eve.
 Pastor Bob Coy |
"I've been called a bad person and a shame to Christianity," pastor Bob Coy told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "It made me realize that many people misunderstood our motives."
But after an onslaught of negative public reaction from both inside and outside his congregation, Coy had a change of heart.
"Say it isn't so," read one e-mail, according to Coy. "You're shutting your doors on Jesus' birthday. I'm appalled at the message you're sending to the community."
Coy also was advised by some church members who said they wouldn't be able to attend services on Christmas Eve, and preferred to come on the actual holiday.
"Christmas is filled with unrealistic expectations," he said. "I don't want to fuel that. If people need Jesus on Christmas, I want to make Him available."
The entire issue has exacerbated the national Christmas controversy at a time which many believe is supposed to harken back to the Gospel of Luke's "peace on Earth."
"There is no biblical mandate that we meet on Sunday, only that we meet," writes Larry Baden in an online messageboard. "This is clearly a nonessential issue. Nobody's orthodoxy stands or falls on having a Sunday service. Nobody's salvation depends on having a Sunday service."
Minister Jeff Chitwood contends: "I think the issue centers on canceling worship on a day that is supposed to be centered on Christ. Too many times the church accuses the world of taking Christ out of Christmas but now the church is the one changing things because a day centered on Christ conflicts with schedules. What kind of message does it send to those who we have condemned in the past? At our church we are rescheduling service times but not eliminating the opportunity to worship on a day centered on Christ."
One poster said true worship is about much more than just singing or attending a church service.
"The way I greet my family when I go home from work is an act of worship. The way I talk to my co-workers. The dedication I give to my employer. The passion and inspiration I find in teaching or writing or editing or reading or mowing the lawn or ironing my shirts. ...
"Let's all just focus on God this Sunday. He's a big Guy. I'm sure those who look for him will find him – even if they don't set foot in a church building."
Nope, nothing justifies smearing priests, Dave. I got a fine education from selfless Basilican and Jesuit priests. Anyone who smears priests generally is as wrong as anyone who smears evangelicals generally.
I missed the smear post, btw. And if I catch a fellow protestant doing that, I WILL call him on it.
Would you care to expound a bit more?
My church is just cancelling Sunday School next week.
SD
And what day was the "Lord's Day?"
To the believer, every day is the Lord's day and we are to live accordingly.
Sure it does, provided he is a widower, or she has entered a convent. Nary an early Christian had an exegesis of this passage other than that. "Husband of one wife" was a guaranteee of his continence in the minsitry. A man who could not control his human flesh and remarried, or who continued using marriage after ordination, could not be expected to maintain the discipline needed to be a Bishop.
The Catholic Church doesn't forbid married men the ministry. It forbids ministers to make use of their marriage if they had one prior to ordination, faithful to the exhortation of the Lord. "And every one that hath left house, or ... wife, or children, ... for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting." (St. Matthew 19.29)
A million Chinese can be wrong.
A few millennia of the Christian Tradition of Sunday worship I am less likely to dismiss as erroneous or irrelevant.
SD
Dang straight! LOL!
Every house is the "Lord's House". My house is even more so as he is actively worshiped here.
We're having services on Christmas Eve (evening) and Christmas morning (non-denominational evangelical church), but I certainly won't and cannot condemn any other churches who choose to close on Christmas. Their choice.
This is a tempest in a teapot. Quite frankly I have no intention of going to Church on Christmas Day. Our Church is having 4 Christmas Eve Services and one Christmas morning service and I will be attending one of the Christmas eve services?
I will not judge those who choose for whatever logistical or spiritual reason to close on Christmas Day. Personally, I'm going to be closed on Christmas Day.
Frankly, I suspect that many of those who are critical of Pastors Weese and Coy will choose to attend Christmas Eve services and skip the morning Christmas service at their own churches. Yet here they are tossing stones.
"Oh, but OUR Church would NEVER think of closing on Christmas day!!" "OUR Church is better than THEIR Church!" Of course they themselves won't be there on Christmas morning but certainly they take comfort in the fact that their pastor and all their church volunteers all have to drag themselves out of bed at 5 AM on Christmas morning and drag themselves to the sanctuaries to serve them, even though they probably won't be there to watch.
How many more are homosexual and just haven't moved on their urges?
No, God is offended by those who go to church only as an obligation.
Would your parents not be offended if they knew that you visit them not because you love them and enjoy the being with them, but only due to obligation? Remember, you may be able to fool your parents, but you can't fool God - he knows why you're there.
The Lord's house is in your heart, not in some edifice.
About the same amount that Jesus and His disciples received for walking through a wheatfield and eating the grain on a Sabbath?
To SD, yes, if they're not Catholic.
I know of one church that normally has three services on saturday night and three on Sunday morning. They are doing six services on Christmas eve and five on Christmas day. They can seat just over 1,000 in each service.
Hebrews 10.24-27. St. Paul claims forsaking the assembly of believers merits eternal hellfire.
And let us consider one another, to provoke unto charity and to good works: Not forsaking our assembly, as some are accustomed: but comforting one anther, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins: But a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries.
Why is it always so easy to make doctrinaire Protestants like yourself look so foolish on these points?
I'll be there at Midnight, and I'll be there the next morning too. With my family.
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