Local church invites public to Christmas Eve dinner

SOUTH ZANESVILLE, Ohio- A local church opens its doors to the community to have a Christmas fellowship.

Rolling Plains United Methodist Church holds a Christmas Eve service every year and this year they decided to add something new. So Lead Pastor John Alice got together with church staff and leaders and they came up with a plan.

“One of the things that’s really special this year is that Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday. And as we were looking at our schedule we knew that we were going to be doing our normal morning worship as we would normally on a Sunday morning. And then we would add our Christmas Eve services in the evening at 6:00 and 11 pm. And we thought, why not serve a meal at 5:00 that would be open, not only to the people of our church, but to open it up to the community as well.”

The church wanted to do something for people who may be alone this Christmas. They say it’s important to remember that the holidays aren’t a happy time for everyone.

“One of the reasons we did so is we just recognize that for Christmas for a lot of people it’s a joyous occasion with family and friends; but there are also a lot of people out there that have experienced blue Christmases. Either they’re by themselves, they’ve lost somebody over the past year, and it’s a trying and challenging time. Maybe for some people a broken time and we thought what better opportunity to open up our church to the general public to come and to have a meal on Christmas Eve. Especially those that might not have a meal otherwise or be eating alone.”

Rolling Plains held three morning services and two evening services today.