Sunday Morning

I am wondering as I prepare worship for the fourth Sunday of Advent, Christmas Eve morning, if I can expect many worshippers to join me. Christmas Eve is one of the biggest services of the year and John and I thought for a long time about what to do with the morning services. Some churches have cancelled or combined services but we opted not to. Here was our reasoning: First, we believe that the season of Advent is a really important time. We really need this time of preparation for Christmas to mean all that it can mean. We didn't want to skip the last Sunday of Advent. Second, a more practical reason, it is hard to get the word out when you change services. Say that our church decided to have one morning service at 10:00. Say that we spent weeks telling everyone in the congregation about it to make sure they would come at the right time. Then say someone we have never seen before wakes up on Christmas Eve morning and decides to go to church. Say she has been by the church before and thought about it and jotted down the service times. Perhaps she looked in the yellow pages. Maybe she even cut out our ad a few weeks ago from the newspaper when she was thinking about going to church. Say she decides to come to our 8:30 service and we were not there. We would like to think that she would go home and come back at 10, but realistically and statistically, she wouldn't. I would rather be here. Just in case she comes.

peace,

will