Eight ways to make the least of Christmas

These are all things that I find it very easy to do each December, regret in January, and then repeat the next Christmastime…

1. Be more excited about presents than Jesus. It’s great to think more about what we give to others than what we receive from them. But ultimately, Christmas isn’t about us giving, it’s about us receiving—receiving the precious gift of the Lord Jesus. All of which we know. But all of which we find easy to forget in our excitement at Christmastime.

2. Leave the Carol and Christmas morning services straight away. You may have family and mulled wine and turkey to go back home for. Chances are, there’s someone sitting in those services who doesn’t—who has only an empty home to return to. Why not plan to stick around for twenty minutes after the services, to be a friend to anyone who has nothing to rush off for? Why not prepare some extra mulled wine or cook some extra turkey in preparation for meeting them?

3. Leave it too late to invite someone to an event. In November, the dates of your church’s evangelistic December events are announced. You think of several people you can invite. You think of praying for them. But you never get round to it… you never invite them… suddenly it’s the day before the event, and another year slips by without you asking them to come along and hear the gospel at Christmas. Who are you going to pray for and then invite today?

4. Make Christmas dinner the most important element in the day. Christmas is a season for us to remember, and be awed by, what happened when the Word became flesh. (The Word became flesh. Incredible!) What will you spend most time thinking about this Christmas Day? What will direct your emotions? God doesn’t care about the state of our roast potatoes. He does care about whether His Son is centre stage.

5. Send a Christian book to someone you didn’t make time to speak to throughout 2012. If you haven’t managed to make time to be in contact for a year, it’s unlikely that your relationship is close enough to be an effective bridge for the gospel message. Why not ring them, put a date in the diary for 2013, and start praying that by next Christmas, you’d have been able to show and speak the gospel to them?

6. Keep your family happy at all costs. Christmas is not about family. It is about Christ. If you have non-believing family, the best thing you can do for them is to show them that Jesus matters most to you. If He doesn’t matter most on His “birthday”, when does He? You never know, they may decide to come to church with you…

7. Don’t risk asking someone who comes to an event what they made of the message. They were invited, they came, they heard. Job done? No—keep the conversation going. Take the plunge and ask them what they thought. What struck them? What did they disagree with? Would they like to think more about it in the New Year? Strike while the iron is hot (or at least lukewarm!)

8. Don’t bother to make sure your church has some free evangelistic resources ready to give away. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people will visit your church for their only time in the year over the next few weeks. What will they take away with them to encourage them to keep thinking about Jesus? Of course, someone else might be thinking about this, your minister or church administrator may put in an order for evangelistic books or tracts and sort out the funding, etc. But if they're not, why couldn’t it be you?