Midnight Christmas Eve

I still remember our first Midnight Christmas Eve service. We were living in Missoula at the time, leading a tiny little church just barely off the ground. After a year of laying groundwork, All Souls "launched" in September of 2007.

In November, a new friend asked me a fateful question. "Gillian" was a talented local fiddle player who helped out with our music. She was not a Christian, but like most working musicians I've known, she was always looking for paid work. Gillian supported us by playing on Sundays; we supported her by providing a weekly gig. It was a win-win situation.

"So," said Gillian casually one Sunday after rehearsal, "are we doing a Christmas Eve service this year?"

"Sure," I said. "I suppose so."

Actually, I was so busy trying to keep my head above water while pulling off a beautiful, thoughtful, compelling Sunday service – with setup! and teardown! and music! and liturgy! and a sermon! ...every single week!!!! – that I hadn't even thought about Christmas yet.

"So," Gillian continued (smiling sweetly), "are we going to have a midnight mass... or one of those cheesy evangelical services at 5 pm?".

(As someone who grew up in Roman Catholicism, she knew exactly how to stir the pot with Presbyterians: just compare them them to Catholics.)

"Oh." I stammered, "Well, yeah, we might have a midnight mass..."

Actually, I had never experienced anything other than the cheesy evangelical thing. Still, I was beginning to appreciate the older, deeper Christianity that I had started to discover while in seminary, full of traditions, liturgy, and history; populated by characters like Knox, Luther, Calvin, and Augustine. Our tagline for All Souls read "Fresh encounter, ancient faith." So I dug in and started reading, researching, imagining what a midnight Christmas Eve service (done by Presbyterians, in a community where folks have largely given up on religion) might look like.

The problem (I figured) was going to be getting people to come.

We had less than thirty folks those first few months, and most of them were gone for the holidays. Those who remained had (largely) grown up the same cheesy traditions like mine, so the idea of dragging kids to a "midnight service" (or staying up that late themselves) seemed inconvenient and unappealing. Midnight Christmas Eve is a tough sell for evangelicals.

Still, I pressed on.

We were meeting in downtown at the time, in a small catering space next door to a dive bar. I figured the evening would be dead on all accounts. We printed just 20 worship guides (and even that felt overly optimistic).

When Christmas Eve rolled around, I carted the whole family down early to set up the sound equipment, and...

I was shocked at what I discovered.

In all my cheesy, evangelical upbringing, I had never ventured much of anywhere on Christmas Eve. But here in downtown Missoula at 10 pm, there was an inch of fresh snow on the ground. It was beautiful. The streets were quiet.

But next door, there was a party raging at the dive bar. Inside our rental space, the mirrors on the wall where vibrating with the thump of loud music, yet even that couldn't drown out the clamor of human voices. I imagined a dozen of us trying to sing "Silent Night" with the racket next door... and gave it up as a lost cause.

This Midnight Christmas Eve thing was going to be disaster.

"Hey," said one of our guitarists (also a non-Christian). "I know the bartender. Maybe I can get him to turn it down a little when the service starts..."

About 15 minutes before the service started, something crazy happened... People started wandering in. To this day, I have no idea how they found us or where they all came from or. Maybe some of our folks invited friends, and those people invited their friends, and so on. Whatever the case, people just kept coming.

By midnight there were more than sixty of us, all huddling together in the candlelight to share our handful of song sheets, singing "Silent Night" (strongly!) while the thump-thump-thump of party music raged on in the bar next door... (Our guitarist's connections bought us 30 minutes of slightly lower volume, for which I was immensely grateful.) The whole thing was beautiful. And surreal.

I remember thinking: "Maybe this is what the first Christmas eve was like..." – with something otherworldly happening right here in the midst of our worldliness. Shepherds. Stables. Bustling inns with no room for unmarried couples or pregnant women in labor. But also angels. Voices. With a glimpse of starry skies that go on forever into the heavens. That is Midnight Christmas Eve for me.

I also realized: perhaps there is more of an appetite than we realized among all these secular, burned-out, post-Christendom people for an older, deeper "middle-of-the-night-in-winter" kind of spirituality?

And so began a tradition that lasted as long as we lived in Missoula: every year All Souls hosted a Midnight Christmas Eve service in public space. Was it inconvenient and exhausting? Yes. But was it also beautiful, otherworldly, and worth it? Did people find it compelling? Yes to that, too.

The first Christmas we moved to Austin, Marilyn and I looked for a Midnight Christmas Eve service to attend. When our search came up empty (surely there must have been something?!?) I was first disheartened, then later resolved: we would just have to start one of our own, once we got another church up and running. But that would take longer this time around...

Fast forward three years. That's when Lazarus finally opened its doors to the public, on December 24th, 2016. And that evening – Christmas Eve! – after our first day of business, our first day of pouring pints and slinging tacos (and getting paid for it!) we paused for an hour, right there in the taproom, and read the Story and sang the Songs, with the garage doors open and a gentle 70 degree breeze flowing through the space, with the string lights blinking and humanity clamoring...

Only this time, we were the bar, rather than simply being next door to one.

And once again, it was magical and amazing (and let's face it: a little bit strange and weird to be singing sacred songs while hoisting a pint with strangers... but after a beer or two, you get over it and just enjoy it for what it is – sacred in the midst of secular; or perhaps it is the secular made sacred, for just a few moments.)

At any rate, this is why we host our Midnight Christmas Eve service at Lazarus, every year. Once again, our church is still very small (by design, this time). And once again, most of our folks are traveling at Christmas time.

Nevertheless, year after year, 100+ friends and neighbors gather together to sing and to listen and to draw near on this one special night. Folks tell us it's special. If you're ever here over Christmas we'd love to have you join us. And if you have friends in Austin, please feel free to invite them.

Austin is a beautiful city. Especially at Lazarus at Midnight on Christmas Eve. We'd love for you to experience it for yourself!

Peace on earth,
Christian