Do Not Miss Christmas by Trying to Make It Impressive
Christmas has a way of sneaking pressure into church life. Services get bigger. Expectations get higher. Calendars fill up fast. Somewhere between planning programs and polishing details, it becomes easy to believe that Christmas has to be impressive to be meaningful.
But the first Christmas was anything but impressive.
There was no stage, no production, no audience. There was a teenage mother, a tired father, borrowed space, and a baby laid in a feeding trough. God announced salvation with glory, but He chose shepherds as the witnesses, reminding us that His greatest work often happens away from the spotlight. And yet, that quiet night changed the world.
Churches in revitalization are especially vulnerable to missing this. Leaders already feel the weight of expectations and the desire to prove that things are turning around. Christmas can feel like a chance to show momentum, creativity, and relevance. But when churches chase impressiveness, they often sacrifice presence. When everything becomes about pulling off a moment, the miracle of the season can get buried under exhaustion.
Christmas does not require excellence at the expense of faithfulness. It requires attentiveness. It requires obedience. It requires making room for Christ rather than trying to manage appearances. A church does not honor the incarnation by wearing itself out. It honors the incarnation by reflecting the humility of Christ in how it loves, serves, and gathers.
For many pastors, the most faithful Christmas decision this year may be to simplify. Fewer events. Clearer focus. More margin for prayer, relationships, and rest. The goal is not to create a flawless experience. The goal is to point people to a Savior who entered the world quietly and changed everything without fanfare.
Impressiveness fades quickly. Faithfulness lasts.
The good news of Christmas is not that the church pulled something off. It is that God showed up. And He still does. Often in ways that are small, unseen, and deeply ordinary. Churches that resist the urge to perform and instead choose to be present often find that Christmas becomes richer, not smaller.
Do not miss Christmas by trying to make it impressive. The miracle has already happened. Our task is simply to receive it and reflect it.