Relax, Connect, and Enjoy: A Christmas Eve Reminder for Every Church Leader

Every year, church staffs enter a familiar and intense season. As Christmas approaches, they plan, coordinate, rehearse, adjust, meet, and troubleshoot their way toward what will likely be their largest gathering of the year. Whether a church is hosting Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve Eve, or multiple special services across several days, the preparation is enormous.

Every ministry area feels it. The teaching pastor finalizes the message. Production teams refine cues and lighting. The worship team rehearses until the music is seamless. Guest experience teams prepare for unusual crowd flow. Facilities teams set extra chairs, adjust signage, and prepare parking plans that often feel more like event-management strategies than a typical Sunday routine.

It's a remarkable amount of work, and it’s done with purpose. Churches want to honor the birth of Christ with excellence, and they want to create an environment where the gospel is presented clearly and beautifully. But there is another reason, one church leaders must keep in front of their teams:  Christmas Eve brings people who rarely step into a church building at any other time of the year.

For one night, the sanctuary becomes a meeting place between the faithful and the searching, the skeptical and the curious, the tradition-keepers and the spiritually hungry. Families who have not attended church in months, sometimes years, will walk through the doors. Neighbors who promised themselves they would “get back to church someday” will finally take a step. Relatives visiting from out of town will follow the invitation of someone they love.

Christmas Eve is a rare time of receptiveness. The question is whether church leaders will be ready to embrace it.

The Shift Every Church Staff Must Make

In the days before Christmas Eve, most church staffs are exhausted. They’ve pushed, focused, and fine-tuned for weeks. They’ve carried the weight of details that can’t be overlooked. They’ve invested themselves in preparation, requiring lots of time, effort, and energy.

But preparation can’t be the mindset that carries them into the service itself.

There must be a moment—before the first car pulls into the lot and before the first guest walks through the door—when the staff intentionally shifts from production mode  to hospitality mode. They must move from fixing  to welcoming, from managing to embracing, from executing  to connecting.

It’s an essential mental and spiritual shift.

In my corporate days many years ago, I was the General Manager of a manufacturing facility in Chihuahua, Mexico. Each quarter, senior corporate leadership—including my company’s president and his boss—flew in for a board meeting held on-site. The preparation for these meetings was intense. For weeks, our staff worked tirelessly to ensure the facility, the data, the presentations, and the production floor were ready for our guests.

On the day of the meeting, just before leaving for the airport to meet the arriving corporate jet, I would gather the team in the lobby. They were excited, anxious, and…exhausted.

I would ask, “Have you done everything possible in your area to prepare?” They always answered yes.

Then I would say something like this:

“If it’s not done by now, it’s not going to get done. As of right now, don’t worry about it, it's time to relax and enjoy the experience. Let’s focus on being present for our guests. All of you, relax, connect, and enjoy.”

That phrase—relax, connect, and enjoy—became a rhythm in that manufacturing environment. And it’s also a fitting mantra for church staffs heading into Christmas Eve.

The preparation matters.The excellence matters. The rehearsal matters. But once guests start arriving, none of those things matter as much as the ability of the staff to be fully present, fully attentive, and fully hospitable.

The Ministry of Presence

Scripture consistently affirms the value of presence. In Romans 12:13, Paul writes, “Practice hospitality.” In Hebrews 13:2, believers are reminded, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers.” Jesus Himself modeled presence in the most profound ways—He noticed people, paused for them, looked at them, and treated them with dignity and compassion.

Christmas Eve is a night when churches need more than polished services. They need staff and volunteers who are emotionally available. They need leaders who make eye contact, who greet guests warmly, who remember names, who ease anxieties, and who genuinely want people to feel welcomed and valued.

A perfectly executed service without authentic hospitality is a missed opportunity.

The Church Leader is in the Shift

Church leaders sit at the intersection of preparation and experience. They know what the team has carried. They know the level of detail required behind the scenes. They know how much energy has already been spent. And they know that the final hours before doors open can create tension, stress, or frantic last-minute attempts to correct things that will not meaningfully impact the guest experience.

So, the church leader must help the team make that shift. A few simple but powerful actions can make all the difference:

1. Gather the staff and key volunteers before the service.

Bring them together physically. Let them breathe. Let them reset.

2. Affirm the work they have done.

People need to hear, “You’ve done everything you can, and it’s enough.”

3. Release them from the weight of unfinished details.

There will always be something imperfect. It's not the end of the world.

4. Refocus them on people, not production.

Remind them that guests are the true priority of the evening.

5. Encourage them to enjoy the night.

A joyful volunteer is far more effective than a stressed one. This is leadership in its most pastoral form.

A Christmas Eve Encouragement

Church staffs need this reminder every year, because the pressure of preparation is real and the stakes are high. But the truth is simple:

If it’s not done by now, it’s not going to get done. And that’s all right. It’s time to relax, connect, and enjoy.

The Savior they are celebrating was born into simplicity, not perfection. He invites His people to rest, not strive. And He uses imperfect environments to reach people with perfect grace.