We have several services (our building only holds about 2,000, and we need 3 services to deal with the crowds.)
Anyhoo,one of our regular services is Saturday evening, so we're turning our Saturday evening (Christmas Eve) service into a coprorate worship service...bringing in enough chairs and setting up outside to provide seats for 5000 people.
No way, could we reorganize everything between Christmas Eve and early Sunday AM, so no services on Christmas. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the scenario...we are not "forsaking the assembling of ourselves" as the Scripture says, we're just trying to find a time for a corporate service where we can accommodate the most people.
Funny line from one of the pastors was...come to Christmas Eve service, if you don't get the message and show up for Christmas morning, they'll be a sign on the door that says "See you at Easter."
>>we're just trying to find a time for a corporate service where we can accommodate the most people.<<
Church worship is about giving God the glory and honor He is due, not about accommodating people.
That verse has been taken so out of context that it would be laughable if it were not so sad.
We need to read it in context of when it was written to better understand it.
But hey, that's never stopped us before from building doctrine.
What's to reorganize? If you've already got enough seats set up to accommodate as many as want to show up, what's the problem? Got a pastor, precentor, and pianist willing to show up for an hour or two? You don't need the normal full compliment of attendants to pull off a basic, suitable worship service.
Most churches hold Christmas morning services, regardless of day of week. Why then is it suddenly so hard to do that just because that day happens to be Sunday?
Funny line from one of the pastors was...come to Christmas Eve service, if you don't get the message and show up for Christmas morning, they'll be a sign on the door that says "See you at Easter."
Not funny. Tells me they don't take faith seriously. "All or nothing" doesn't cut it.
Put yourself in the "shows up" shoes: Packed up the family, put festivities on hold, spent non-trivial time getting there, only to find a "see you at Easter" sign. Been there; big letdown.
So...where does the namesake of Christmas fit in?
Doesn't sound very service oriented.