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Keeping Christmas fresh

Amanda Wells investigates how parishes around New Zealand are reminding people of the real Christmas message.

What does Christmas bring to mind? For many people, their first associations are crazed shopping marathons and that rush to have everything at work done by 24 December while simultaneously organising a gourmet feast for the following day.

The secular associations of the festival have grown so strong that they threaten to obliterate the quiet message of Christ’s birth. Every year, our ministers and congregations face the challenge of making the real Christmas news heard.

The Rev Howard Carter of Ahuriri Putorino parish, which has six rural churches in the Napier region, says the demand for traditional elements, like carol services by candlelight, is still strong. “But we’re not the only people who like doing that anymore.”

Throughout New Zealand, organised carols events have become big business, complete with broadcasting involvement, candle kits and celebrity singers. For example, in 2005 Napier will sport carols not only in the park, but also in the botanical gardens and on the main parade. This year, Mr Carter says, the local churches have got together to organise a carols event with corporate sponsorship that is expected to attract 10,000 people but will feature a clear Gospel message.

In Christchurch, Hornby Presbyterian Community Church takes a similar tack, organising “Party in the Park”, which is usually held the Sunday before Christmas. The Rev Murray Talbot says the event, which runs from mid afternoon to late evening, usually attracts about 3000 people. Christchurch City Council provides several thousand dollars’ worth of sponsorship. Stalls from community groups are set up around a “village green”, children can participate in colouring-in competitions and enjoy a bouncy castle or train rides, and there’s free candy floss or afternoon tea.

Mr Talbot says the event is a gift from the church to the community at Christmas. A large team of church volunteers run the event, with organisation commencing about halfway through the year. “Everyone seems to pull together, usually with a buzz.” Though the event has elements of outreach, such as a performance by the church choir, it’s more about building relationships with the community, Mr Hornby says.

For many people, attending this type of event may be the closest they come to church during Christmas. Says Mr Carter: “For most New Zealanders, Christmas is a Hallmark moment.” Nativity plays and carols can seem far removed from both the pressure that Christmas generates and from the tough realities of life.

The Rev Peter Cheyne of Gore’s Calvin Presbyterian Church says Christmas has become “a huge communication issue”. People are more busy than usual and have less time to hear the church’s message among the din of consumer marketing. People tend to see Christmas as a family time, he says, rather than something involving church or the wider community.

Calvin has a large billboard outside, and experiments with attention-grabbing Christmas messages. One year it was a Christmas tree that changed over the course of four billboards into a cross. Another year, the church took a full page ad in the local newspaper that illustrated Father Christmas kneeling before the Christ-child.

Taking a different tack, last Christmas Napier’s Mr Carter held a service reflecting on significant images: the girl burned by napalm in Vietnam, a plane flying into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square, and the Voyager photograph of our solar system. He says these were an attempt to reconcile the image of the nativity, which has become meaningless to many non-church goers, with contemporary concerns. The reflections were later published in Hawkes Bay Today , generating comments that people found them helpful, Mr Carter says.

When working at Rotorua’s St John’s in the City several years ago, Mr Carter helped the young people devise a service called “10 things I hate about Christmas”. It played off the title of a contemporary film and revealed issues like disillusionment with the commercialism of Christmas, the pain of shuttling between different parents or families, and complaints about “cheesy stuff on TV”. He says casting the Bible’s light on these issues revealed the real nativity scene: one that wasn’t about happy families, presents or entertainment.

Giving things away during the most commercial season of the year is another way to make people think twice. Calvin offers free gift wrapping at The Warehouse, holds a community dinner on Christmas day and is this year planning to pick a street and offer its residents free car washes. Mr Cheyne says doing something for free helps grab people’s attention and makes them wonder at the motivations behind it.

Different teams organise each programme, with many people in the congregation involved. Those helping out on Christmas day give up time with their families to provide transport and serve the traditional Christmas dinner for between 80 and 100 people from the community. Mr Cheyne says volunteers often end up finding their involvement is the best part of Christmas. “They feel like they’ve done something significant.”

However, running out of energy by the end of the year can be a problem for Christmas outreach programmes, he says. “We’re trying to get people to budget their energy and keep some for this. It’s a huge issue.” Some ways to do this include taking time out or a holiday before Christmas.

Wellington’s Johnsonville Uniting Church will also hold a meal in the church on Christmas day, for those who don’t spend the day with family, says the Rev Peter MacKenzie. In previous years, it has been at the MacKenzie’s home, but has grown too big.

But the growing range of ways in which our congregations express the meaning of Christmas doesn’t mean an abandonment of church services. In Hornby, a memorial service acknowledges the loss that many people will be feeling at this time of year. Mr Talbot says those attending bring a flower to remember a loved one. Hornby’s Christmas day service attracts large numbers of people on the fringes of the church, he says, with the message usually emphasising the hope that Jesus brings.

Traditionally, Calvin has held a service late on Christmas Eve in one of the rural churches. This is well attended, Mr Cheyne says, and past attempts to run more of a family-type service in a neutral location, such as a school hall, haven’t been as popular.

Mr Carter says the traditional Christmas services will be held in his rural worship centres but they will be advertised in contemporary ways, such as putting postcards into people’s letterboxes. Key messages will be highlighted, he says, such as the Christmas day service being only 45 minutes so that people can easily fit it between family commitments.

Mr McKenzie says that Christmas remains “a balance between tradition and originality”. Johnsonville Union has a large nativity scene with models half life-size. They feature every Christmas, though their location in the church changes every year. And a Christmas tree in the foyer is decorated by the different community groups that use the hall. Every year Johnsonville strongly supports the CWS Christmas appeal because of its origins in the Uniting movement, Mr McKenzie says.

But he also notes that the church's focus is trying to connect faith with everyday lives, and “for most people, Christmas is not ordinary”.