[Hawkeye]

pilipo, I tend to agree with you. While my personal preference is for churches to be open on Christmas I've actually listened to Jon Weece's sermon (the entire thing, not just a couple of minutes) on this subject. It can be listened to at the link way up top or people can go to it here. This guy walks the talk (listen to any of his other sermons they are full of plenty of "meat" --- and he was a missionary for several years in Haiti preaching by flashlight in a mud hut). He challenges the church to put its money where its mouth is for Christmas and instead of "going" to church on Christmas day he challenged Christians about "being" the church on Christmas day. But of course that gets lost in the shuffle...

[rwfromkansas]

Of course, he does nothing to try to get his church to be the church. He doesn't organize anything to do that.

He is just putting on a good show for his congregation.

[pilipo]

Thanks for encouraging me to listen to Weece's sermon. A lot to munch on, but a solid 'clarification' to say the least. (Though I'm not much on sound bites, I liked his conversion of 'Jesus is the reason for the season' to 'Jesus is the reason for every-thing every-day') Your observation regarding getting lost in the shuffle is particularly apropos to this whole enterprise of 'pursuing perfection'.