Calendar clash: birthday party or church?

I recently commented to a friend that it felt like every kid who had a birthday between March and September was entitled to a birthday celebration this year, like an audience giveaway at an Oprah Winfrey show: ‘You get a party, and you get a party, everybody gets a party!’ After two years of COVID lockdowns and cancellations, the winter babies are finally free to celebrate!

And so the steady stream of invitations arrived home in school backpacks, which commenced the flurry of gift shopping and wrapping and the juggle of drop-offs and pick-ups at all sorts of entertainment facilities where children were quite literally bouncing off the walls. 

Occasionally these birthday parties clash with our regular church gathering on Sunday mornings. Like many Christian parents, this leaves us wondering what we should do. Do we skip the party, or do we skip gathering with our church community? This article will outline the approach we have taken as a family and the reasons behind our decision. While this is not a case of one size fits all, my hope is that considering our approach will help you work through similar situations and come to a decision that works for your family and context.

The importance of birthday parties

A study published in 2017 found that children younger than seven often believed people only aged when they had a birthday party or celebration. By that logic, if you had two parties, you would gain two years in age! If you skip having a party, you could stay forever young! Unfortunately, this is not the secret to eternal youth, rather a reminder that birthday parties and celebrations are very significant to the children in our lives. It is a day when they are the centre of attention and celebrated for being themselves with the people who care about them. Many children look forward to this day for the entire year! It is truly important to them—whether it is a huge, extravagant celebration or a simple gathering with cake at their home. Just turning up is an easy way to demonstrate that we love and value the children in our community.

Birthday parties also help children and their families to feel connected to their community and further deepen social connections. When we meet with others in a secondary context it strengthens our relationship. Sam Chan, in his book Evangelism in a Skeptical World, highlights the importance of relationship and community in determining belief. He encourages Christians to spend time showing up for our non-Christian family and friends’ significant life events. He suggests that often as a result they will also show up for our life events—perhaps even church outreach events we might invite them to.

These principles are the basis for our approach as a family. We have decided that because birthday parties have so much significance for our friends and family and because we love them and want to invest in these relationships, we do our best to attend even if it falls on a Sunday. This approach can also be applied to other significant life events for our non-Christian family and friends.

Do not give up meeting together

But what about church? Many people quote this verse as evidence that the Bible says the church gathering should always take priority:

‘And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ (Hebrews 10:24–25)

However, the passage is not speaking of the occasional missed Sunday service, but rather an intentional rejection of meeting with Christians on an ongoing basis. To give something up is not the same as missing an occasional week whether it is due to sickness, holidays or a birthday party. We need to avoid a legalistic approach to church attendance. 

If we have to miss church, there are many other ways we can gather as Christians. For example, my children attend the weekly kids’ club at church and have Scripture classes in their schools. My husband and I are attending weekly Bible study groups. We are still meeting regularly with other Christians. (Of course, those other events shouldn’t generally take precedence over church gatherings in our family life.)

Context matters

We attend a medium-sized church that holds four services on the weekend. If a child is invited to a birthday party that clashes with our regular service, we find ways to include our kids in another service wherever possible. As an example, we have taken a five-year-old to the 8am service where his presence lowered the average age by decades but was also a source of great joy and encouragement for those regular attendees. We have taken a six-year-old to the afternoon youth service where we felt largely out of place but still were able to be mutually encouraging. If this is an option for you, I encourage you to try it. There is gain in visiting other sections of our church community that we may otherwise have little contact with, and a birthday party clash is a great opportunity to do so.

Your family may need to take a different approach, depending on your context  Your church may not have the luxury of multiple meeting times. Or perhaps yours is a vocational ministry family, which may require a different approach.

Our children attend a very small school with roughly 14 children in each of my children’s grades. So we say yes to all the invites because the community is small and close-knit. Whereas others have shared about the endless invites to class parties for 30 children each year for each child. They have decided to be more selective in which invites they accept and invest in those closest to their children. It is OK to be discerning!

There is no easy solution; there is no right or wrong approach. But I pray that you will find the best fit for your family in teaching your children the importance of meeting with other Christians as well as loving those who don’t yet know Jesus.
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Fiona Dewhurst attends church in the Sutherland Shire with her husband and three sons. Fiona has spent time pondering the subjects of history, communication and biblical studies and has worked in various roles including youth ministry, administration, tourism blogging and debate adjudication to name a few. She is most happy drinking tea, reading a book, running riot with her boys or cooking up a storm.

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