No products in the cart.
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many churches will host virtual worship services on Christmas Eve. We’ve created a list of ideas to help you navigate a meaningful holiday season while keeping everyone safe from the coronavirus.
In a normal year, Christmas Eve is a time many look forward to for candlelight worship services and special programming for children and families. For 2020, many churches must limit their participation at in-person services, or prohibit them altogether. Indeed, there are benefits to live streaming your Christmas Eve service(s). For youth programs, in particular, live worship streaming makes it possible for friends and families of the children to participate, even if they aren’t local.
Here are five ways your church can celebrate Christmas in a socially-distant manner, while providing opportunities for potentially more people to enjoy the events with you.
Music, especially choirs, are always one of our favorite parts of the Christmas season. Granted, there is nothing that replaces the enjoyment of a live musical performance. However, singing in particular has been shown to be a potential way for viruses such as COVID-19 to spread. Even if your church holds in-person worship for Christmas, you should carefully consider if and how choral singing is part of your order of service.
Pre-recording musical performances and streaming them is a safer way to continue celebrating the season in song. Acapella is an app that a growing number of churches are using for this purpose. The app allows each singer to record their part individually.
Live-streamed content designed for youth gives families in your community a safe option to celebrate Christmas virtually. Your church could record Sunday School lesson to stream. Because of the target audience, consider ways to make the video interactive. Educational techniques, such as doing a sing-along or repeat-after-me, are good strategies to consider.
Christmas plays are always popular and are a great way to engage the whole community. Among other things, plays can foster memories for both immediate and extended families that last a lifetime. A variation of this idea would be to live stream a reenactment of the scene at the Nativity.
There are many sources for content available online based on the story of the manger. For more ideas on this, in particular, you can check out Ministry to Children’s online archive of Christmas play for youth.
Adding video content to your worship live stream is another option you may want to consider as part of a virtual Christmas Eve. There are many sources for ready-to-go Christmas videos suitable for use in worship. You can find additional ideas here.
Additionally, there are other forms of shared video material your church can use. Other churches are a great source of video content. Many churches will share content they have created without charge as another way to spread the word. Others may ask for nominal fees to help them cover the costs of production.
Of course, your church should make plans to stream a live or pre-recorded sermon for Christmas Eve. And again, while people may miss the experience of in-person worship, providing access to a video message ensures that people retain access to this key part of the holiday time.
While the coronavirus pandemic certainly poses challenges with Christmas Eve worship this year, it also provides opportunities for you to bring your events to the members of your community who are unable to join celebrations in person.
Advent Candle Lighting Readings
