Forgetting How to Do Christmas Eve

It pains me to write this, it really does. I've been a member of Saddleback Valley Community Church (SVCC) since 1997 and have attended Christmas Eve services every year. In fact, from 1997 through 2000 I sang in every single Christmas Eve service we did - 8-10 each year in front of up to 30,000 people in a single year.

It's really not that hard to put on a Christmas service. Lights, decorations, maybe a live nativity (camels optional), readings from Luke, and of course, Christmas music. I write this a few days after attending, for the third year in a row, a very uninspiring Christmas Eve service at SVCC.

I hate to be critical of anything SVCC does because they do so many things well. Any church that can draw 25,000 people to their weekend services must be doing something right. But somehow in the midst of all the success, they've forgotten how to put on a Christmas Eve service.

Tens of thousands of people attended the services this year at Saddleback, and undoubtedly most of them went away feeling that it was worth the trip. For me, however, take away the lights and Christmas trees and the service could have taken place any other weekend of the year. I understand that Pastor Rick sees the Christmas services as a great opportunity to reach the lost, and that's exactly the approach he should take. The seeker-oriented message is not the problem. My disagreement with how things have gone lately have to do with the music and the overall feeling of the service.

Music sets the tone in these services, and SVCC has one of the most talented collections of musicians and singers that you'd ever like to find. They're wonderful people and they certainly have their heart in the right place. Why then, have they lost the ability to effectively program a Christmas Eve service?

During the years I was singing at Saddleback, and for at least one year after, all of the music had a Christmas theme, and at some point in the service there was a drama piece in coordination with a powerful song which really brought the whole nativity scene to life. There was a reverence and awe in the service, and by the time you walked out you knew that Christmas was here and it was something very special.

For some reason, about three years ago the music took a turn that for me has taken all the sacredness out of the service. Instead of mixing traditional Christmas hymns with soaring choral numbers, they've taken to contemporizing the traditional songs and mixing in stuff no one's ever heard before. This year there were several specials that didn't have anything to do with Christmas at all! They had some remote connection to a point in the message, but once the music started, Christmas was all but forgotten. I didn't walk out of the service feeling the Christmas spirit; I walked out feeling sad and bored. My sadness had mainly to do with the fact that my kids weren't able to experience the kind of Christmas service that has deep meaning and lasting effect on their lives.

It's too bad that it's come to this. The services I remember from a few years back were absolutely magical. Even after singing in ten of them in three days, you wanted the experience to continue. It was almost as though Christmas ended with the last note of the last service.

Now the pattern is a collection of pop-contemporary noise that rattles and clangs around for 4 minutes and then suddenly stops, leaving the audience wondering if it's now time to clap. Why is it that contemporary song writers can't figure out how to end a song in a dynamic way? Say what you want about "old-fogey" Southern Gospel music, but at least we know how to end a song.

The choir at SVCC, though full of enthusiastic people, is really not a choir in the true sense, but a large collection of backup singers whose purpose is to fill in some holes in a solo arrangement. Because of the fear of looking old-fashioned, the choir has never been allowed to do a true choral arrangement which features just them. Don't you think the 30,000+ who attend the SVCC Christmas services would like to hear the original "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah, instead of the pop-rock Brooklyn Tab version that we had to sit through a couple of years ago? It's not singing, it's coordinated yelling.

Unfortunately, the choir can't do Handel's original version because the choir only has three parts: soprano, alto and tenor. Bass singers are not allowed in the choir since everything they do is three part screaming, and no one whose voice changed after age 15 can sing that stuff.

The church wants desperately for us to invite unchurched friends to these services, but how can I do that when the services have lost so much of their meaning? Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a new church. Next year, however, I will look for a Christmas Eve service at a church that still knows how to do a service that brings both the message and the spirit of the Holy Day.