Three Questions for an Intentional Holiday

by Brian Rutherford

I invested 26 years of my adult life on staff at a local church. Those years were marked with highs and lows and plenty of in-betweens.

I’ve been off staff for the last four years, and that space has given me a kind of perspective I simply couldn’t see while I was in the whirlwind.

That perspective has yielded growth, breakthroughs, and insights—one of which is this: I wish I would have done the run from Thanksgiving to Christmas differently.

During my staff years, I put so much pressure on that season.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decorated the church to the nines. Then came the community Advent service, the children’s Christmas program (with rehearsals, cookie baking, and a post-service reception), the band learning all the Christmas music, and the invites and prep for the Christmas Eve services. Add in age-specific Christmas experiences for children, students, groups, and teams—each with their own planning and details to manage. Mix in a year-end giving campaign, next year’s budget, and planning a new-year launch series so compelling that Christmas guests would return in January. And when it was all over, we still had to strip the building of decorations and get ready for the new year.

There was one moment every year that stands out. 

After the final Christmas Eve service, I was always the last to leave the building. (It felt like the right thing to do.) I’d walk through the dark sanctuary, turning off the last of the lights, checking for burning candles. (The last thing I wanted was a midnight call saying the church was on fire.) Then I’d stand there in the quiet and feel a wave of relief. It was over. I’d drive the mile home in peace, grateful for the silence and the stillness of nothing left to do.

Do I regret it? I don’t know. Regret feels like a wasted emotion.

But I do wish I had spent more time reflecting on what I actually wanted during that Thanksgiving-to-Christmas run.

The idea of wanting something is often frowned upon in church leadership. Who am I to want anything? After all, did Jesus want to die?

But I’ve come to believe that most church leaders want good things. They want to love their families well. They want to help people find and follow Jesus. They want to live lives full of the fruit of the Spirit—especially the first three: love, joy, peace.

Ultimately, I think I wanted those things too. But many times, I tried to reach them by impressing people with well-oiled programs, smooth preaching, and perfectly executed plans—as if those could usher the kingdom in.

(I’m not even sure anyone expected all that from me. It’s possible I created those expectations myself—trying to prove something, or maybe fill a space I didn’t yet know how to name.)

So, if you’re a church leader about to make the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas run, I want (there’s that word again) to leave you with three questions before the season begins:

1. What would need to be true for you to grow in love, joy, and peace during this year’s run?

What would you have to say no to, to make that a reality? What would you say yes to?

And here’s another one worth asking: What could we do more simply—something that keeps the meaning of the experience, but requires less time and energy? (And if you’re feeling really brave, why not ask this at your next staff meeting?)

2. What do your closest family and friends want from you this year?

What do they want you to be fully present for—not just show up at? Ask them. Then put those moments on your calendar now.

Let me be blunt about this: I served at the same church for twenty-five years. I haven’t been there in four. No one from that church has expectations of me this holiday season—but I still have the same family.

3. What are you cramming into the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas run that could actually wait until late January?

One year, our staff couldn’t fit a Christmas party into December’s chaos, so we moved it to late January. It was wonderful. It gave us something to look forward to in the dark days of winter and loosened up the holiday schedule for everyone.

Looking back, I don’t miss the pressure or the pace—but I do miss the people. I miss the conversations that happened in the middle of the chaos and the sense that we were all in it together.

If you’re leading through that season now, remember this: you don’t have to prove anything. You’re already doing holy work. Breathe deep, hold things loosely, and let love and peace rise to the surface again.