The Party's Over: Getting Over the Post-Christmas Hangover

There's something a bit sad about a church after Christmas Day. Sure, the decorations usually stay up, at least until Epiphany, but it's just not the same. The pre-Christmas, Advent build up is mighty impressive, in terms of brand development and marketing. The hymns go into that "glad tidings" mode on the road to Christmas. The prophet Isaiah goes into heavy rotation and there seem to be angels everywhere. The secular world helps out, too, with supermarkets taking over whole aisles devoted to the King of Kings' sub-brands - jolly inflatable snow men, candy canes, red bows, wrapping paper tubes, and Christmas wreaths, and department stores exhausting themselves with endless sales and 24/7 hours. Cable TV dusts off holiday chestnuts so that for at least a month or two all of the world gets to know Jimmy Stewart and wonder just how wonderful his "Wonderful Life" really was. Car companies trot out giant red bows and radio stations throw out their formats, opting, instead, for the Beach Boys crooning about Christmas. This total and complete saturation brings people into churches in droves with seating at Christmas Eve services putting sanctuaries at or over capacity. And then the clock strikes midnight, and as the crowds head home, and the churches, awash in Christmas greens and flourishes of red, go quiet, an emptiness begins to creep into these houses of worship. It's as if the rush to Christmas was one, big party, but what happens when those revelers leave and the clean-up begins?

Those practiced church goers are familiar with the phrase C&E Christians, meaning those who show up for Christmas and Easter and that's all. Pastors seem flummoxed on how to get these infrequent guests to come to the church's weekly "party", to extend further the metaphor. Much attention is given over to figuring out how to convert this attraction into retention, and while this is important for church growth, in terms of a church's health, I'm more interested in those who always stay after the party. Growing up Roman Catholic, I grew up with the concept of Ordinary Time - that time in the liturgical calendar outside of the major seasons (after Epiphany and after Pentecost). And while there is a more scholarly explanation for the term "Ordinary Time" that refers to the numbering of the weeks in Ordinary Time using ordinal numbers (ordinalis in Latin, if you'd like to be fancy), calling something "ordinary" is like calling something boring/dreary/bleak. 

But not everything is ordinary in Ordinary Time. The passionate volunteers who show up to make the coffee for coffee hour, who teach your children in Sunday school, who greet you with a friendly smile every Sunday - these people do ordinary things to bring us into the mystery of the extraordinary. 

I know it can be hard to look around your churches on those post-Christmas Sundays remembering those heady Christmas Eve services where worshippers were turned away to the overflow space in the auditorium! Any host who throws a party wants guests to show up and have a good time, and nobody wants to be at a party that's a bust. But, before you start weeping bitter tears into the communion chalice, dry your eyes and look ahead. If you've been sitting on the sidelines, volunteer. The Christmas party might be over, but do you know what's better than the party? The After Party!!