Ah, Christmas Eve. The services where every church is scrutinized by people who show up twice a year, every lead pastor battles between having a “simple and traditional” or “cutting edge and boundary-pushing” service, and every worship leader burns the candle at both ends for two to three weeks with the planning, prep, construction, rehearsing, practicing, and execution. At the time of this writing, it’s Friday the 21st and most of you have at least planned your services, if not already had your rehearsals. You have the weekend to think through final details, and you will play it back over and over again I am sure, so instead of trying to convince you of what I think makes a good Christmas Eve service I want to give you this handy-dandy survival guide to simply keep you energized as a worshiper, a pastor, a disciple-maker, and a friend (and for many of us, a spouse/parent). Use this as a checklist or as an itinerary if you want.
In the chaos of the season and the workload, have you been eating? Because I can tell you that even if there’s a meal planned for your worship team/pastoral staff between services on the 24th, I bet you will need to choose between eating and engaging with your volunteers, eating quickly and not engaging with anyone, or not eating at all and fixing something that didn’t work the first service. If you want to survive the night, might I suggest a late lunch? If your soundcheck is at 3, maybe scarf down your meal at 2:30 (some soundcheck burps aren’t the end of the world) and hold off until you get home at 8:30 for a late dinner. Take the time to engage with your team between services. Greet the visitors. If you need some alone time, take your team members Starbucks orders and be the team runner. Do everything you can (that is healthy) to not need to focus on eating during this time so you can maximize your ministry capacity.
Have you kept yourself spiritually nourished and rested in Jesus? How many times have you heard your pastor’s Christmas Eve messages? Is it the same thing as last year? How many times have you listened? Like really listened? There’s a balance between spending time with your team in a green-room type of space (and investing in them in a relational way) and being present in the services (and making sure you get fed). If your church is like mine and you usually have some sort of worship response after the message then you’re probably keeping an ear or an eye on the service anyway. Do you take notes in the services that you fully engage in? Do you sit with your spouse and kids? Will your team and their significant others and families try to sit together (assuming they all go to the same service)? Work out all those details ahead of time, and even see if you can delegate the task of seat-saving to a few spouses (takes the pressure off of you and your team members to try to hold seats right before you hop up onstage). Try to take actual message notes this year, just let yourself enjoy the sermon and be refreshed with the story of the coming of Christ!
At my church we have five evening services spanning over two days (the 23rd and 24th), plus this year we have a separate and unique prayer service on the morning of Sunday the 23rd. If your church is like that, make sure you’re hyper organized in your planning of which services your family should show up to and what time they need to show up to not have to stress about parking. Which service will be the emptiest and likely have the least number of visitors so they don’t have to save seats? Take the pressure off of your family (and ultimately yourself) by helping them know all them deets. I’ve found in my life, when my wife gets stressed, I get stressed. When we get stressed, we get tired quicker. Be proactive and keep yourself sane throughout the Christmas Eve services.
Do you have a tendency to get straight to business and need to lock in during soundchecks, run-through’s, and prayer time? I know my tendency is to be a bit of a fun killer and push my team to efficient and serious prep, so I’ve had to combat that by building in margin for fun. Maybe we start rehearsal 30 minutes sooner so you can build in that margin for those spontaneous jams or side conversation full of inside jokes and laughs. Give your team some time to breathe! An important piece to this is to include your tech team as well. If you’re in the size of church where you have tech staff, maybe run the schedule changes by them first and play off of each other, making it clear that this is all for the sake of keeping the atmosphere fun for the team of both volunteers and staff. If you’re a worship leader who also runs the tech ministry from the stage, include your tech team volunteers. Let these services be fun and life-giving to everyone who is serving, and you’ll find yourself enjoying the service(s) more.
Lastly, and this might be one of the most overlooked things we forget to do, take some time this weekend to plan something that would make your team feel appreciated. Sure, bringing a huge carafe of caffeine is helpful, and a couple dozen donuts is a nice treat, but what I’ve seen work best is writing your team members notes. Give them a personal thank you. If you can give them a gift of some sort like a gift card then that’s great, but if that’s not in your budget, I know from my own experiences that those personal hand-written cards and notes go a long way with everyone on your team, be they vocalists, bassists, sound engineers and graphics operators. Find time to give those out in intimate opportunities (“Hey [name], before we go back in for the second service I wanted to give this to you” or “I know you’ll need to leave right after the last service, so I didn’t want to forget to get this to you”). You can pass them all out at once right before soundcheck or the first service, but finding those one-on-one opportunities to hand someone a gift really feels like you had full attention and a mission to get them that specific gift. You’d be surprised how life-giving that is for your team AND for you!
I know almost everything that I shared doesn’t actually eliminate any work or planning, in fact I probably added to your task list, but by doing even one or two of these I think you find the time leading your congregation (and their friends, family, and neighbors who are visiting) and your team more refreshing, more rewarding, and more in sync than you’d expect. Enjoy this opportunity, and Merry Christmas!
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Kevin McClure has been leading worship in the local church for over 10 years in different capacities of student and adult ministries. As a songwriter, musical artist, and worship leader he has had the honor of touring the United States both as a performer and worship leader over the better part of the last decade. With a heart to see believers learn how to take the act of worship beyond the setting of a group gathering, Kevin is incredibly intentional with his time on and offstage to help teach the practice of worship as a lifestyle. Kevin lives in Omaha, Nebraska with his bride Hailey and his two daughters, Everleigh (8) and Eliska (2). His favorite food is coffee (lifesource), loves bonfires, and is convinced that Jesus is a Chicago Cubs fan.
Kevin McClure 