A Welcome Form of Evangelism
As the door opens, you can hear the group sing that well-known verse, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the newborn king!
Every year, we gather a group of people to join us around our community to go Christmas Caroling. This will be our eighth year. It has become a staple to our Christmas tradition.
What makes it special for our family is friends who join us every year. Others try it once or twice but generally most find the time very worthwhile. It is amazing how precious and profound the lyrics to our traditional Christmas hymns are, as we sing “Jesus” to our neighborhood.
Let me share why I believe Christmas Caroling may be the last open door-to-door outreach left in America people openly receive:
- It is relevant. Statistics show the Christmas season is the most open time of the year for people to hear the meaning of the gospel. It is demonstrated by increased church attendance, publicly played music and faith-based television specials with Christmas themes. There is something about baby Jesus that attracts people. We regularly hear our neighbors say with a smile, “No one has ever carolled for us before!” We even get offers of food for singing and pictures taken of us.
- It is biblical. Jesus commands us to share his message. Going door-to-door with a Bible may be taboo any other time of the year, but during Christmas Season, singing the gospel is still captivating. There is something special about singing the old carols. Biblical truth speaks loud and clear in our music, as we sing the recognizable songs.
- It is relational. We often get to talk to our neighbors once done singing. In our busy lives, rarely do we get to know many neighbors. Yet, through caroling we have one moment where conversing and relating to one another takes place. One year, a family who in the previous year was so ministered to by our singing joined us the following year. And since they spoke Spanish, they were able to share Christ with the non-English speakers that we could not.
When we first started caroling in our neighborhood, I honestly didn’t think of it in terms of evangelism and outreach. It was just something fun to do that brought people together. But as we continue in the tradition, the opportunities have grown for sharing Jesus to a lost world. After we sing, we hand out Story of Jesus for Children and Magdalena DVDs. With so many languages available, we usually have one for all the languages spoken in our neighborhood.
Our wonderful experiences doing door-to-door singing have shown me people are hungry for a Savior! We have that person in Jesus, but how we approach people with the gospel matters. Christmas Caroling still works in our secular world.
