My earliest memory of Christmas Eve church doesn’t start in a sanctuary. It starts at my MawMaw’s house.
Every year, my mom’s family would gather there first—too many people in one room, folding plastic tables filling usually empty spaces, kids weaving between adults, the steady hum of conversation and laughter. We would eat, exchange presents, eat dessert, and fellowship late into the night. And when it was time to leave, the grownups would do something that felt very serious to me as a kid: they would change clothes. Into nice clothes. “Church” clothes.
The kids, on the other hand, were put into pajamas.
Because after MawMaw’s, we all went to the 11:00 pm Christmas Eve service at our home congregation, just down the street from that crowded house. The expectation was clear: the adults would worship, and the children would inevitably sleep. We were tucked onto church pew cushions, heads resting where hymnals usually sat, wrapped in coats and blankets. I remember the smell of old wood and wax, the low murmur of voices, and the feeling that something important was happening just beyond my drifting attention.
And then—without fail—I would be woken up.
Not for the sermon. Not for the announcements. Maybe not even for communion. But for the candlelighting.
Someone would gently shake my shoulder, press a small candle into my hand, hold me up with my little feet standing on the back of the wooden pew, and suddenly, I was awake enough to see it all. As we sang Silent Night, the sanctuary slowly filled with light. One flame passed to another, and another, and another, until what had been a dark room was bathed in a warm, flickering glow. To a child, it felt endless—like there were more candles than people, more light than darkness.
I didn’t have the language for it then, but I know now what that moment was teaching me.
The candlelighting on Christmas Eve is more than a beautiful tradition. It’s a quiet proclamation of the Christmas story itself. We begin in near darkness, remembering a world longing for hope. And then, slowly and deliberately, light spreads. Not all at once. Not with spectacle. But person by person. Candle by candle.
That’s how Christ comes into the world—not with blinding force, but with a light gentle enough to be shared, strong enough to endure, and powerful enough to change everything.
Even now, decades later, that moment still gets me. Every time I watch the light move through a sanctuary, I’m reminded that faith is often formed in small, tender moments. Sometimes, it even happens when we’re half-awake, wrapped in pajamas, not fully aware of how deeply we’re being shaped.
Next week on Christmas Eve, I invite you to be part of that story with us at Emmanuel, or wherever you may be on Christmas Eve, if you aren’t in High Point, NC.
We’ll gather for worship at 7:00 pm, and we’ll share in that same holy rhythm—scripture, song, and candlelight. Whether this is a lifelong tradition for you or something entirely new, there is room for you here.
Come as you are. Bring your family. Bring your memories. And together, we’ll pass the light—once again—into a waiting world.