I’ve heard pastors talk about Christmas Eve and Easter services as “our Super Bowl.” They describe it as such because you only get one shot a year at those services, and there are many, many more eyes on you that day than any other day of the year. I think the analogy is intended to communicate that pastors are the football players (or coaches) in the Super Bowl. As a pastor myself, that feels a little too us-centric to me, as if it’s primarily up to us for the Christmas Eve and Easter services to be a “success.”

But I get the sentiment. There’s a lot of pressure leading up to Christmas and Easter. And much of that pressure comes down to one thing: many of the people attending those worship services won’t see you again until Easter or Christmas rolls around.

In fact, this practice is so common that there’s a term for those who only attend church on Christmas Eve and/or Easter: Chreasters (Christmas and Easter combined).

This past Easter Sunday, after I had done the usual preparation for our worship services—pre-service prayer, mic checks, etc.—I was sitting in my office and pulled out my phone to check something. I saw an article in my inbox addressing the Chreasters and began to read it. The preview of the article caught my eye: “[Author’s name] has one message for any of us who might be tempted to look down on those entering our church doors for the first time in a while today: Stop it.“

Fascinated, I began reading the article.

Three paragraphs in, the article abruptly stopped. Maybe I needed to be a paying subscriber to continue reading. Maybe the author’s Easter house guests just arrived and he instinctively clicked “Publish.” Maybe I’m just the most technologically illiterate Millennial alive (that one’s most likely).

But either way, my intrigue had been piqued only to leave me hanging:
Why should we stop it? What should we think about those visitors who we haven’t seen in 6 months? What would Jesus want to say to us about what to do about all those Chreasters?

Throughout Easter Sunday, one thought was permeating my mind: “How would I finish the article?”

And as that thought was permeating my mind, I began noticing things around the church.

There were many faces I didn’t recognize. Many, I’m sure, were out of town family and friends. But many (primarily those I didn’t recognize that greeted me by name or had a sheepish expression on their face when I greeted them with a “Happy Easter!”) were in church for the first time in months.

I also noticed that our regular attenders acted different than they usually do on a Sunday morning. Many, elatedly, ran up and gave me a hug, before bouncing off to give another person a hug with a high-pitched, “Ohhh Susannnn!!!! It’s so great to see you! How’ve you been??”

But there were the occasional few who were grumpy, sullen, visibly frustrated as they rolled their eyes that someone would dare block the hallway in their church to take yet another Easter picture.

It was a stark contrast: those elated to see our occasional visitors and those annoyed by their very presence.

In fact, the contrast reminded me of the Easter story: the elation of Jesus’s disciples when they learned He was alive compared to their sullenness when He was still dead.

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Since I didn’t get to read the article that began with “[Author’s name] has one message for any of us who might be tempted to look down on those entering our church doors for the first time in a while today: Stop it,” I’ll write the article myself.

[Hunter Bethea] has one message for any of us who might be tempted to look down on those entering our church doors for the first time in a while today: Stop it.

But first, I get the desire to look down on those entering our church doors for the first time in a while. I used to be one of those people looking down. As a pastor it’s tough to not take it personally (Do they not like my preaching? What am I doing wrong? What can we change to keep them?). It’s easy to think that those seemingly “faithful few” should have more privileges than the “innumerable inconsistents.”

If I’m honest, I’m still tempted to be a person that looks down on the Chreasters. But I think the way of Jesus calls us to view them differently.

There are many preachers who thrive at the opportunity Christmas and Easter give to preach that one message that penetrates the soul of the visitor and changes their heart about church, leading them to a lifetime of faithful church attendance.

That’s not me. Maybe it’s because I’m just not that effective of a preacher, but the sermons I’ve preached that have radically changed someone’s life and behavior are more infrequent than Chreasters’ church attendance.

I don’t think an individual sermon is all that effective at changing lives. And I’m a preacher! What I do think is effective at changing peoples’ lives is community and formation over many teachings and a long period of time. [This idea was solidified for me when reading and listening to John Mark Comer talk about Practicing the Way, where we change through good teaching, community, practices over time and through the hard knocks of life.]

Which is why I grieve that many (maybe even most) professing Christians only attend church once in a blue moon. I believe that it is impossible to live in the way of Jesus and become like Jesus (the goal of Christianity) without regular participation in a Jesus-shaped community.

I can’t speak for others, but for me, that’s why I’m tempted to look down on the Chreasters: because I grieve. I grieve that the Christian message has gotten so watered down that to “be a Christian,” all you have to do is say a prayer asking God to rescue you from all the bad things you’ve done so that you don’t have to spend forever in Hell. I grieve that we’ve shaped church around a sermon and not a community. I grieve that we think being a Christian is more about a set of beliefs than a way of life.

But to take that grief out on visitors to the church isn’t fair. And if our goal is that they start attending more regularly, it also isn’t effective.

If I want people to experience the life-changing community of Jesus that we call the Church, the least effective thing I can do when they enter that community is to scowl at them, roll my eyes that they’ve taken my seat, or loudly complain about how crowded the hallways are.

If I want people to be in the community of Jesus, shouldn’t I help make the community of Jesus welcoming?

As 1 Peter 4:7 says, “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

That Greek word we translate “hospitality” is philoxenos, “philo” meaning “love” and “xenos” meaning “stranger, foreigner, guest.”

Peter literally writes to the church to say, “Love the guest without grumbling.”

Isn’t that a word to the faithful church attenders when the hallways are crowded on Christmas and Easter?

What strikes me is that, anecdotally speaking, those that complain about all the people crowding their church on Christmas and Easter are also the ones complaining the most about culture, young people, non-Christians, and the world. They tell me that if those people just had Jesus in their life, then they would be much better off. But when those people they complain about come to their church, they turn them away with a complaint and a scowl.

What I’m learning is this:
Many people have a philosophy about church outsiders that goes something like this: “Go to church. Just not my church.”

And I intentionally keep using possessive language like “my” and “their” because it’s the language I hear when talking about these issues. The issue people have isn’t that these people are crowding a church; the issue is that they’re crowding my church.

Have we forgotten Whose church we’re in?

We’re not in our church or the pastor’s church or the denomination’s church. We’re in Jesus’s church. So maybe we should ask Jesus who He wants us to welcome into His Church.

In my recollection, there aren’t many people that Jesus turned away from His Church. I remember Him saying something like, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden.” Not “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and have been to church at least once a month.”

I remember Jesus saying, “For God so loved the world,” not “For God so loved the church-goer.”

I remember Jesus saying to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” not “If you attended church more frequently, you’d be with me in Paradise.”

I believe in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s Bride, the Church. I believe that it is nearly impossible to follow Jesus in the way of Jesus without active participation in the Church. I believe that this world would radically change if self-professed Christians were involved in a local church.

But I also believe that it’s our job to welcome. To extend Jesus’s love and grace and joy and hospitality to others. To show everyone who walks into our church on Christmas and Easter that Christ’s love has transformed us.

As I walked out of the darkened church on Sunday afternoon after exciting and exhausting Easter services, I have to admit that I felt a bit sad. Not because it would be another 8 months until I got to see many of those people again. But because there are some people I would see next Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday that still haven’t learned to embody the love of Christ for the stranger.

Which is worse: that some people infrequently attend church or that some people frequently attend church but don’t live like it?

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If you’re new to my blog, welcome! I’m glad you’re here. I’m Hunter Bethea, a follower of Jesus, husband, father, Global Methodist pastor, and curator of books I don’t have time to read. You’re welcome to learn more about me here.

I primarily write about faith, family, and leadership, all through the Wesleyan language. If you’d like to receive my newest blog posts in your email, sign up below. Also, if you’d like to check out my Facebook page (where I share more than just my blog posts), check it out here!

And finally, here are some of my most recent blog posts if you want to read more!

• John Wesley’s 19 Historic Questions for Ordination: A Wesleyan Guide for Pastoral Ministry
• How Debt and Distraction Undermine Faithful Ministry (The 19)
• 3 Reasons Christians Should Care about the Earth
• “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence – Book Review
• What to do about all those Chreasters