The Advent War

By the day of this article (December 22), most of the Advent versus Christmas war will be over for another year. By the time the fourth Sunday of Advent comes around, all but only the most genuinely liturgical will be singing the carols in sanctuaries fully decorated for Christmas. Most churches will have already had their choir concerts and parties, Sunday school programs, and children's activities. The handbells will have already played in the nursing homes, and the young people will have completed their caroling to the shut-ins. In this year (2006), we'll have had to be a bit careful not to go too far too soon with Christmas during Advent because Christmas Eve is a Sunday. We need to hold most of our Christmas celebration for that service. If we don't, if we've done all there is to do with Christmas by the morning of the fourth Sunday of Advent, then why should our people come out for Christmas Eve services?

In the online Discipleship Ministries worship discussion room, one writer said, "I have noticed many, many UMCs call this season 'Advent'; but by their actions, what they really mean is 'Christmas.'" He concluded by saying, "We've lost the Advent war."

One United Methodist pastor reacted to my article "Understanding Advent", in which I noted the "intrusion" of Christmas into Advent, by saying that my observations didn't have any basis in the reality and pressures of the local church and that by calling for Advent during Advent I was making myself irrelevant to the discussion.

Let me see if I can make the case for this pastor and many others who must yearly fight the Advent war:

• Advent and Christmas, although linked, have different emphases and themes.
• Congregational worship should lead the people to both seasons' experiences through Scripture, music, sermon, prayer, and the arts.
• There is, for many people, a difficult quality to Advent with its roots in penitence and its concentration on longing, anticipation, hope for something in the future, and perhaps above all, the waiting. It calls us to experience all of this while putting off the joy and celebration of Christmas to follow.

While most of us would agree with the points above, there are complicating factors:

• Advent is a church-only season. Television, radio, newspapers, and media advertising do not observe Advent. In fact, they oppose it. Observing or promoting Advent would be adverse to their very purpose of pushing us early into Christmas commercialism.
• The culture begins its push to Christmas in September. It picks up dramatically after Halloween, with another jump at Thanksgiving. By December 1, everything outside the church is fully engaged in Christmas, including its mix of sacred and secular.
• School Christmas programs (often called "holiday" or "winter" programs) take place in early December in preparation for some kind of extended vacation.
• Even in our churches, we schedule choir concerts, children's programs, Sunday school class parties, youth activities, shut-in caroling, and more during the early weeks of December.
• Many (perhaps most?) churches decorate for Christmas, including the sanctuary, long before the day.
• Outside the church, our people's lives are consumed with Christmas activities shopping, decorating, concerts, TV specials.
• Many Advent hymns are set to tunes that are restrained, meditative, and often unfamiliar. Advent tunes lack the joy and celebration of the carols as well as the many associations of past memories in the minds of singers.
• Those who urge the keeping of Advent during Advent and the delay of Christmas until Christmas often point out that there are twelve days of Christmas to observe the holiday and sing the carols. But the truth is that there is Christmas Eve and perhaps one, occasionally two Sundays before the church moves on to Epiphany and Ordinary Time. And outside the church, Christmas is over by the first Sunday after Christmas Eve or December 27, whichever comes first. The decorations come down, the trees go out, the store sales take place, and we're on to Happy New Year. By January 1, Christmas is a distant memory.

The disconnect between the culture's Christmas between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day and the church's Advent during those same weeks is a conflict most of our people cannot negotiate. Outside the church, they are fully engaged in Christmas; but as soon as they enter the sanctuary, they are expected to act, speak, pray, sing, and relate to one another as if what is going on outside the sanctuary isn't really happening. Put simply, the culture has already won the Advent versus Christmas war. In refusing to recognize it, the church has become irrelevant to the discussion and the celebration.

So what should we do? United Methodist worship, with few exceptions, is left entirely to the planning and leading of the local church. There are guidelines and suggestions from bishops, agencies, and publications such as The Book of Worship. There are many publications and resources available from agencies and publishers, both within and outside the church. The choice of what happens in congregational worship remains with the local church. Churches may entirely delay Christmas until December 24, or they may jump in with Hanging of the Greens and "O Come, All Ye Faithful" on the first Sunday of Advent. Most of our churches are somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

Here are two articles that may be helpful as churches find their way through Advent to Christmas:

• "A Modest Proposal for Advent/Christmas Peace"
• "What to Do About Advent"