In our most introspective and honest moments, all of us who are involved in any sort of public ministry have that nagging feeling of hypocrisy that haunts us.  We know the real us, the one that struggles with the very things that we are exhorting others about.  Sometimes our adversary can magnify those feelings to the point where they debilitate you and your effectiveness (he’s not called the “accuser of the brothers” for nothing, you know).  But most of the time we realize that at best we are wounded healers and that it is in our weakness - yielded to Him - that He can work best.

Never did I feel more hypocritical when I was in local church ministry than at Christmas.  From the beginning of my ministry as a Worship Pastor, I led the churches I served to put on elaborate Christmas presentations. It was our Christmas gift to the community.  The idea was to meet folks in our town where they were and share the gospel with them at a time of the year when their hearts are inclined toward spiritual things.  I still believe in that strategy.  The idea of doing a Christmas production for “just us” strikes me as a waste of time and resources.

Every church I served caught the vision and “bought into” the idea.  We would stage the events over multiple nights and give away free tickets.  Invariably, the building was packed every night, especially as the church’s reputation for doing these events spread.  We would sing much-loved secular songs of the season in the first half and mix in fun things like monks “singing” the Hallelujah Chorus with cue cards, “stage hands” doing a “Stomp” version of “Carol of the Bells,” or guys doing Jingle Bells with car keys, dog barks and gargling.  In the second half, we would present the gospel through the Christmas story.

Every year an underlying theme of these events was to point people away from the hustle and bustle of Christmas and get them to focus on what Christmas was really all about.  Here is where the aforementioned hypocrisy comes in.  For the last 20 years the vast majority of my time during the Christmas season was not spent with family and friends, and it wasn’t even spent concentrating on the real meaning of the holiday.  It was dominated by frantic preparation for the Christmas event. 

After Thanksgiving, I was always at church with a crew of volunteers, usually until well after midnight each night hanging and programming lights, building sets, rehearsing groups and individuals.  My wife and kids didn’t see much of me until the production was done.  One year a family member bought all of us tickets to see Christmas with the Atlanta Symphony. At the last minute, I bailed out because of glitch with the Intellibeams.  My family went without me.  It was the last time Robert Shaw conducted the legendary event before he passed away, and I missed it because a moving light was acting up.

This year, for the first Christmas since 1987, I’m not doing a Christmas production.  I wondered how it would feel and if I would be a basket case.  The truth is there has been only one time I missed it at all - and then only briefly - as I walked through the worship center at Calvary Baptist in Winston-Salem as they were striking the set after four nights of their production. 

This year, I have been able to experience Christmas as never before.  Last Sunday as I walked out of an awesome Christmas-themed service at NorthStar into the crisp, cold morning air, my heart felt like it was going leap out of my chest with the sheer joy of the season and all that it means.

One of the biggest dangers of ministry is that you can get so busy doing things for God that you neglect to spend time with him.  Your frantic activity is sometimes easy to justify as vital to the Kingdom and it becomes a substitute for important spiritual disciplines.  Allowed to continue, this can result in our trying to take people to a place that we have not been ourselves.

If it is true (and it is) that you don’t really know what you have until you no longer have it, it is also true that you don’t realize what you are not experiencing until you really experience it.  This year, for the first time in over two decades, I’m not missing Christmas… and it is wonderful.

If you are in ministry, I urge you to not get so busy this year leading others to see the wonder of Christmas that you miss it yourself.  And this year, I can say that without hypocrisy!