I thought I would take an extract from my book Emails to Pastor Phil as this week’s weekly reflection. I believe it is very on topic.
It is that time of year again when many Christian Leaders and Pastors start to get stressed and rushed off their feet. Christmas Programmes are being launched. The nativity set has been repainted but is not fully dry, the donkey has gone lame and you have a rooster instead of a lamb. The church roof has sprung a leak and the Kids church leader has informed you that Joseph and Mary have come down with the chicken pox. Your wife has phoned to remind you not to miss your youngest child’s recital at the local school, to be honest you had forgotten. To top it all you haven’t finished your Christmas morning sermon and are tempted to rehash a sermon from 5 years ago, hoping that it will get great reviews and that Mrs Jones who is 87 and never missed a service in fifty years, will not notice,-she will. A hundred other things need to be done and time is running out.
But take a moment just to pause, breathe and think about the Christmas story and what you need to do during this season, to set you up for the coming year. To make sure you stay on the right side of life and family and congregation, here are three things to remember.
Time:
The best gift that any Christian Leader or Pastor can give anyone this Christmas is TIME. It isn’t about the sermon or the programs; it’s about spending time with people and family. The sermon, the leak, the hundred other problems are not important. Your Kids Church team will handle the nativity. Your wife, your children and people are important. So spend time with them. Spend time hearing them, laughing with them and interacting with them.
Memories:
Create memories, create them with your children and with your wife, so that in the years to come when you sit around another Christmas table they will say “Dad, Mom do you remember when this happened or when dad did……” Your children will not resent the time you spent on church things, if you take time to make memories with them, make the effort to create Christmas family traditions. Laugh with your congregation, listen to them. Let them, in the years to come remember the time you sat with them and really got to know them. Share a joke with Mrs Jones. Memories are more important than sermons. My own children remember sitting on the floor at the front of the church listening avidly to the pastor’s storytelling, as he too sat crossed legged on the floor with them. They would giggle and point at his socks because every year he wore an odd pair of Christmas themed socks, even now some thirty years later they still remember and tell the story to their children.
Stay Focused:
The season is about Jesus about the fact that God, in his infinity, packaged himself in the form of a helpless child, who would one day save the world. The reason for the season is always about Jesus never the short, overweight white bearded man with rosy cheeks in a red suit and with a coca cola bottle in his hand.