Do you remember when it used to be common for churches to hold a “Watchnight Service” on New Year’s Eve? We would have a covered dish dinner at church, with lots of delightful homemade dishes, and a lot of “left over” Christmas goodies. Then we would play table games until 11:00 pm, at which time we would all move into the sanctuary. It would be a quiet, subdued devotional service that included scriptures, hymns, testimonies of God’s blessings during the past year, prayer requests for the year ahead, and a brief devotional message from the pastor. We would conclude with the lights turned low, coming forward row by row to receive the elements of the Lord’s Supper just before midnight, before wishing one another “Happy New Year” as we departed for home. No fireworks; just loving fellowship. Of course, we dare not do that whole thing these days because of the great number of drunk drivers on the roads at that hour. How sad!
But we can enjoy an abbreviated version of that, concluding perhaps by 8 or 9 pm so as to be home before it becomes so dangerous. If so, how wonderful to conclude one year and then begin the next with grateful praise and trust in the Lord, and in fellowship with our church family. Hopefully whatever yourgathering will look like, it will include a time of worship, informed by God’s word so as to hear and claim God’s promises. It could be a great opportunity to introduce a theme verse for the church for the year ahead, with the pastor bringing a short exposition of that, as people took the first step toward memorizing. Perhaps something like Philippians 3:13-14, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” or 1 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”