Diverse Reasons Bring People to Church Services

Some came for the music, the impassioned crescendo of a gospel choir or the orchestral strains of Vivaldi. Others immersed themselves in the quiet spirituality of the moment and the serenity of ornately adorned sanctuaries. Still others used this holy day to reconnect with a religion from which they had become estranged.

For reasons as diverse as the many congregations themselves, tens of thousands of Christians gathered around the Southland on Wednesday to celebrate Christmas in the place that many felt best embodied its spirit: in church.

“The gift-giving and all that is nice, but you have to remember what the day is really about too,” Angelique McKnight said after a spirited morning service at the Messiah Baptist Church in the Crenshaw district, the same church she has attended since she was a baby.

It all began at the stroke of midnight Tuesday as worshipers crowded into pews to welcome the Christmas holiday. Some were greeted by priests in golden vestments and booming organ music, while others prayed by candlelight in more modest settings.

For some pastors, the standing-room-only crowds at popular midnight services posed the particular challenge of preaching to two distinct groups: the regular church-goers and the occasional visitors.

Christmas Eve is an especially big draw for those who may make only a few church appearances during the year--a group sometimes called “C ‘n’ E’ers” (for Christmas and Easter) or “AMH Christians” (for “all major holidays”).

“It gets to be a habit,” said Doris Mark, 65, coming to the Woodland Hills Methodist Church’s Christmas Eve service. “It starts being easier to read the Sunday paper than to go to church.”

Mark said she and her husband, Bob, were regular churchgoers most of their lives, particularly when their children were young. But as the children and other relatives drifted away, Christmas and Easter became the only times they went to church.

“If we had a family, we would go,” said Bob Mark.

Some don’t attend church regularly because of time limitations. “Sometimes it’s not possible. I don’t have a baby-sitter,” said Jean Poague of Woodland Hills, coming to the Christmas service at the Methodist Church with her 14-year-old daughter, Amy.

Poague brought her daughter to the Christmas program because she wants the girl to learn the true meaning of Christmas, she said.

“I want her to know there’s more [to Christmas] than just opening presents.”

Kim Bebak, at the First Christian Church of North Hollywood, said: “We’re terrible, but we don’t like to admit it.”

She said that though her family does not attend church regularly, it’s important to go during the holidays for her children’s sake. “The children get more of the meaning [of Christmas] at church,” she said. “We go because without celebrating the birth of Christ, there would be no Christmas.”

“I have great empathy” for the once-a-year churchgoers, said Malcolm Boyd, the retired pastor at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Santa Monica, which had a full house for midnight services. “They might be lonely, and they certainly are reaching out spiritually. . . . I don’t speak down to them or try to sentimentalize them. Yet at the same time, I know we won’t see them until next year.”

Several pastors said they wanted to use the occasion to gently encourage the wayward to attend services more frequently.

“It’s really a soft sell,” said the Rev. Steven E. Berry of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, where 700 people turned out Tuesday night.

Come Christmas morning, some churches saw sparser crowds, as the “C ‘n’ E’ers” gave way to the Sunday regulars cradling their own Bibles and closing their eyes as they prayed and sang.

At St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Granada Hills, the morning service was a quiet and intimate affair, drawing only 50 worshipers.

Most people who come to services on Christmas morning, he said, attend services regularly and are fairly devout. Many come from the Midwest, where there is a tradition of going to church on Christmas Day. In California, Christmas morning tends to be more of a time to celebrate with family in the home, leaving church for more devout congregants, said pastor Kapp L. Johnson.

But for all the faithful who turned out Wednesday, there were some who acknowledged a bit of star-gazing, as two congregations welcomed prominent visiting clergy.

At a Spanish language morning Mass at St. Joseph’s in downtown Los Angeles’ garment district, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony led his fourth Christmas service of the day, as parishioners filed into the wooden pews to the swelling sound of “Noche de Paz,” or “Silent Night.”

“I’m a Catholic, and he’s the top man,” said Philip Rioz, 63, a boxing coach. “I came from a very religious family--my mother prayed for everyone. I haven’t started doing that yet. But it’s important because of what’s going on in the world today. Everyone’s going haywire, going cuckoo.”

Over at St. Matthew’s Baptist Church in the Crenshaw district, Bishop T. Larry Kirkland had his own following, as some congregants from his old church attended services to see Kirkland’s return to Los Angeles. He has begun a nine-month missionary assignment in central Africa for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Returning to Los Angeles for Christmas after seeing the poverty and desperation of countries like Zimbabwe “was one of the most humbling experiences in the world,” Kirkland said.

“We’re throwing away our chances here. We’ve got all the crime and drugs, and young people are failing to get educated, when the African kids are just crying out for a chance,” he said later.

Kirkland admonished parishioners to avoid the commercialism of the season. “I know you’ve got your gifts under the tree. But are you really ready for Christmas? . . . Really ready from a spiritual perspective?”

Times staff writers Sharon Bernstein, Jose Cardenas, Lily Dizon, Ken Reich and Larry Stammer and special correspondent Matea Gold contributed to this story.