Singing Carols in Advent?
It's Advent, that season of preparation, to welcome the Christ child. But there's lots of pressure to jump start Christmas. Part of the problem is that once Thanksgiving hits, it's Christmas 24/7. So, why wait at church?
There are, of course, many wonderful Advent hymns and songs -- O Come, O Come Emmanuel, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, Com, O Long-Expected Jesus, Blessed Be the God of Israel (by Michael Perry, tune is Hal Hopson's Merle's Tune) -- but people want the carols, and they want them now.
I grew up Episcopalian, so we didn't do Christmas until Christmas Eve. For many older Free Church Protestants, those who came of age before the dawn of Liturgical Renewal in the 1960s, Christmas Carols were standard fare throughout December. They don't seem to understand why we wait. Suggesting that waiting is an opportunity to resist the creeping commercialism of Christmas doesn't work. Talking about the liturgical year doesn't either.
So, I've made my concession. I'm using the final hymn to do Christmas. One parishioner who was clamoring for more Christmas songs responded to my suggestion that we would have at least one each week -- "Oh, how generous."
So, what do we do? Is this something we should stand our ground on? Does it really matter? For my part, as I plan worship, I try to keep the service as thematically tight as possible. Therefore, I try to utilize music that fits with the sermon. If I'm preaching Advent texts then using Christmas carols doesn't really fit. Ah, the fun of being a pastor!
Comments
For me, Advent is one of the most important seasons of the year... so I do continue to fight the battle.
This is not our world. We have a young church. Many will travel for Christmas. We will have a Christmas Eve service, but only about a fourth of the congregation will be there. We will not have a Christmas day service at all.
So If I don't get to the birth of Jesus in Advent, we have people who will never experience that in worship.
So we just dropped the little apocalypse from the schedule and skipped ahead one week. On the fourth Sunday of Advent, we'll read the birth story and sing Christmas hymns. We will not sing any of them for the first 3 Sundays. The Christmas Eve service is really more of the same. Some other part of the birth story perhaps will be emphasized. We light the Christ Candle on Christmas Eve.
I think it's a nice compromise.
However, I am using Advent Hymns as a personal spiritual prayer discipline, and am blogging one a day until Christmas.
My congregation may wish to rush the season, but that doesn't mean I have to.
If churches are going to stick to their guns about Advent, then it has to be about more the four weeks when the church looks like Christmas, feels like Christmas, but doesn't sound like Christmas. Advent seems very Midwestern and Lutheran to me; you can experience the joy of Christmas, but only after you've earned it. And we'll constantly remind you of what you're missing and how you're earning it. It'll be much better that way.
Christmas carols stir a lot of wonderful emotions in church members, and a lot of pastors are pretty insensitive to that. If you're going to remove something that gives people meaning, what are you going to replace it with? Somber, Lenten-style messages? Good luck with that.
I know some folks see the value in the liturgical calendar, and some things are worth waiting for, but do people in the clergy really believe that refusing to sing a song that reverberates at a deep emotional level helps to "resist the creeping commercialism of Christmas?" I have a hard time believing that people really think that. If you do, I'd like for you to explain how it works. Has there been a study on the subject? Any empirical evidence of that?
Considering that Christmas has become MORE commercial since the Liturgical Renewal (not less), I also have to ask how that's working out for you all.
I think this has to do with what we think Advent and Christmas are for and how we think of time. I wrote, sort of incoherently, on my blog about this today. The other pastor I am currently working with disagrees with me on this, and since she gets to plan worship 3 out of every 4 Sundays, we're singing a few verses here and there throughout Advent. I have to admit that it drives me crazy.
(sigh)...it's a losing battle, I know, but one I think is worth fighting.
As for Christmas Eve, we will have a large congregation at two services, but at least half of them will be strangers.
Perhaps the pastor was trying one of the compromises suggested here -- I admit I haven't spoken with her about it yet, but there are indeed people in our church who clamour for carols as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is cold -- and maybe if her choice had been, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" or "O Little Town of Bethlehem," I wouldn't feel quite so badly, but "Joy to the World!!" We might as well sing "Silent Night" while we light the Advent candles and just blow off the Christmas Eve service entirely. My kids will be happier to stay home and watch "Rudolph" anyway . . . .
Together in Song and other books I believe have 'Joy to the World as an Advent Hymn.
Aussie Ian
Rebecca in Georgia