Why No Cantata on Sunday?

In the last week, I've been asked a couple of times why we don't do Christmas cantatas (although I'm not really sure what that word means - it 'feels' Spanish).

I've talked about this before, but thought it may be a good reminder.  The bottom line reason is that we want holiday Sundays to feel as much like a "normal" Sunday as possible. Here are some of the specific reasons we don't do cantatas at Northridge:

• We don't want someone to get invited to a special Sunday, be impressed, then come the next week and have it be TOTALLY different. It would feel like a "bait and switch."
• We think however a church "wins" people is how we best "keep" people.  If someone is attracted to God and His Gospel through our "normal" preaching and singing - then they will most likely stay around when the holiday is over.  But if someone is attracted to God and His Gospel through church softball, large outreach events, or cantatas - they rarely "stick" when it comes to long-term discipleship. We want to "win" people in the same way that we "keep" people. 
• Most church cantatas I've seen only impress "insiders." Especially on Sundays where more visitors will likely attend, we want to be sure that we are thinking about how "outsiders" may hear and see something (1 Corinthians 14:23 seems to indicate we should at least consider this). Our culture has Hollywood expectations, and often "insiders" can be as easily pleased as parents attending their elementary child's piano recital. It's only parents that love piano recitals. And it is only insiders who love cantatas.
• The amount of man-hours to pull of a quality cantata is huge... for a one-hour program. Just do the math. Imagine a choir of 50 with 15 practices that last 90 minutes each. That is a total of 1125 ministry hours to prepare for a program that is typical "insider" friendly and "outsider" unfriendly (unless the outsider grew up in church attending Christmas cantatas). Imagine what could be done with over a thousand extra ministry man-hours!

So - that is why Christmas Sunday felt like most every other Sunday. On holiday Sundays - the goal is the same. The target is the same. I have nothing against Easter or Christmas plays or cantatas. We just don't think they best serve our purposes at this point in our church's ministry.

Comments

[Jonathan Beigle]

Hey David,

I keep forgetting to give your our Church Softball championship plaque. I'll give it to you soon. :)

[David Whiting]

I would display it in a prominent place, I'm sure! :)