There are some things just not worth fighting about. One of those things was the argument over whether or not BIG churches should close their doors on Christmas Sunday.
1. It was not productive: A church of 20,000 is not going to change its schedule due to some bloggers.
2. I caused dissention: The church is not about fighting.
So, while I watched some of the argument take place on blogs I had visited I stayed out. I was curious at how Christmas Sunday would turn out here at Christ’s Church in Jacksonville, FL.
Our first Easter Sunday in our new building back in 1999 had 1500 more people in attendance than the average up to that point. The Sunday after Easter was under the average by 1000. I figured that it was because the every-other-Sunday people all ended up on the same schedule and needed to work back over to the regular schedules.
How do you deal with a sway of 2500 people? Our church is big, but it is still small enough to consider 2500 to be big.
Each Sunday we have to estimate how many people will be coming. In my last church, which was very small, we would just look over the list and figure out who was on vacation and then remember what snowbirds came last year then build the estimate off of that.
Now, for what we did on Sunday December 25, 2005. Almost nothing.
The staff was given the day off and told that they could work if they wanted too, but they were not required. There was no childcare (except for infants). There were no Bible studies. The 9:00am service was canceled. Our Satellite congregation’s service was canceled.
Our Sunday attendance: 668 (I am wondering if someone padded it by 2)
668 people showed up on Sunday morning for church.
Of course, our Christmas eve service was a bit bigger. In the 4 services (one of them held at the satellite campus), there were 6056 people in attendance.
Our choir and staff participated in 9 hours of services in one day on two campuses 30 minutes apart.
The weekend of New Years was still low. We only had 2306, yet we needed to be staffed and ready for 3600.
0 Responses to “Mega Church = Mini Christmas”