Making Holidays – Holy Days!

Making Holidays – Holy Days!

July 8, 2025

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Co-host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 7/08/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to another Stand in the Gap Today program. Now, as we often state this program and frankly our entire ministry here at the American Pastors Network and Stand in the Gap Radio of which this is one of our programs and Stand in the Gap TV as well, it’s all focused on biblical truth. And as a result, the application of biblical principles and commands through, as we talk about so often a biblical worldview because we believe the word of God speaks to all areas of life and living. And that makes us concerned about our families, our nation, and frankly for all of God’s people. The church we’re also driven by Christ’s command to declare the gospel and to make disciples because that is command of the Lord himself. Now, to do that, we attempt to equip and support and resource, provide those for pastors and church leaders with material and training.

But it’s also for all of you who are listening who may not be a pastor or a church leader, but really for all who fear God. Because for all of us together we have a role to be effective in whatever place God has called us. But certainly if God has called you into the ministry or leadership position of some type. But one of the things we’ve noticed throughout church generally here in America is that there are many opportunities to create what we’d call a culture of invitation to help reach friends and family and acquaintances, which are well, they’re frequently overlooked. And one of these opportunities is to leverage special times each year for let’s say, unique, biblical and practical application In that particular, this are focused today on holidays. Now, did you know that for instance, hallmark, hallmark cards, you probably all have used them from time to time.

Hallmark, for instance, produces cards for no less than 20 different holidays throughout the year and as a part of their 90 million or so annual income, approximately 5 million of that, about 5%, a little bit more is just on holiday greeting cards. And that’s not including sacred or religious observations like Easter or Christmas or that type of thing. Literally, a church could acknowledge a different holiday every other week throughout the entire year. There’s that many. Now we’re not today or ever advocating that we do that every month or every other week. That’s not the point. But it’s the idea that holidays can serve as a platform for the church to stage different times of remembering and celebrating as a basis to well invite the lost to church and also to instruct in biblical truth. Now today with the help of our director of church culture, Dr. Jamie Mitchell, he I are going to discuss together how to turn holidays into what it really is. Holy days. That’s what it really means, and opportunities for meaningful ministry. And with that in mind, Jamie, welcome to the program. It’s good to talk to you today in this regard, and there’s a lot to talk about.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, thanks so much. As always. I love being with you. I love all the guests that we have, but there’s always something exciting when Jamie and Sam do a program together.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, there is because it’s different than you and somebody else or me and somebody else. So I enjoy being with you as well. Jamie, let’s go here. What would you say to a pastor to convince him that doing something around a holiday in fact might be a good idea to consider?

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, that’s a great question and I appreciate your opening there. First off, you can’t do these kind of initiatives every Sunday, as you mentioned. To be honest, advocating them a few times a year is probably the most, but there are some natural holidays that we already fit into our church calendar, like Christmas and Easter, maybe even Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. But what I tell pastors when they start thinking about this situation and they look at their own church calendar, is that they got to look at their own people and their own situation, their own world and develop some kind of an outreach plan that will work for them. Now, personally, when I was pastoring a church, I tried every 60 days or so to have one or two opportunities within our church calendar that would make it easy for our people to invite their friends or family members or neighbors to church and to connect them with some things.

The past few years I’ve been ministering to more senior citizens, and so I’ve leveraged things like Grandparents Day in September. It’s not something that we always think of, but there’s a lot of grandparents, Sam, who don’t come to church or who would love to come to church if they were either being honored or something was happening with their grandkids. Also, where I was ministering to seniors, Sam, we had 40 veterans living in our community, and so doing a Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day type of celebration and them being able to invite other vets and other servicemen made it very, very simple. And we made a very simple program where we had maybe somebody who had been in the military or had a story to tell about their time in the service, but then made the connection of how Jesus Christ changed their life or maybe how they found Christ in the military. And so there are a myriad of ways for churches and pastors to leverage holidays that are on people’s mind anyway, but to open the door of ministry that is very specific and really tailor made to their church’s situation.

Sam Rohrer:

And Jamie, I think that’s a great idea, and you’ve just referenced some of those. There are obviously Christmas and Easter as an example. Oftentimes there are people who only come to church on those two days. Now that’s not the way it ought to be, but we know that’s the case, and so guests can be invited to come. But in your experience, we have about a minute left here, but in your experience in the past which days, which special focus days, for instance, do you recall that were the most effective, maybe perhaps that way of inviting in say, first time guests? Can you think of anything? What was,

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, I was just thinking when you said that the big holiday for us, the two big holidays for us for outreach was Christmas Eve and Good Friday, Christmas Eve. Everybody wants to be with their family, their friends, their loved ones, and if you do some creative things, but also not have it just on the 24th of December, we used to do things on the 22nd, 23rd and the 24th, and we would see a myriad of people come and then on Good Friday was also a great day of outreach for us.

Sam Rohrer:

So ladies and gentlemen, you get the idea in your own experience at your church, you may have found an off day, a day before a holiday, like a Christmas or a New Year or Easter or some other, but we’ll further flesh out this whole concept today. But being creative in helping your people to reach out, to invite others in is a good thing. Now, I’m going to come back, we’re going to talk about some other resources as well that we make available and stay with us. We’ll be back in just a moment. Well, welcome back to today. It’s a little bit of a different program. I am speaking with Dr. Jamie Mitchell today. He’s our director here at a PN of Director of Pastoral Engagement and church culture. Also a co-host here on Stand in the Gap today, as you know. But in that role, Dr. Mitchell, Jamie, as I’m going to talk to him, seeks to encourage pastors and to suggest ideas for more creative and effective ways to lead a congregation.

I’m going to add into there also the concept of discipling the people and preaching the word. Now, that is the purpose of a pastor to do those things, but every church leader, so if you’re listening to me, you’re a deacon, you’re an elder, you’re an adult Sunday school teacher, you’re involved in any way with the setting of a church, you ought to be thinking about the same obligations as well because it’s not just the pastor, it’s all of us to do those things. If you’re parents, you should be teaching and obviously discipling your children, right? Grandparents, you’re not done, you’re not done yet. You can still do that with your grandchildren. So this subject and theme today has applications certainly to church leaders and pastors, but it free to all of us. Now in that light, one of those ways that we’re talking today about making holidays holy days, but building emphasis around holidays, one of the ways is by providing that we do here, not just that, and I’m going to pick up on the holiday theme in just a moment, but there is another area where we here at American Pastors Network, Jamie and I have begun to interact actually a couple of years now, interact on issues of key importance, particularly to pastors and church leaders.

These videos, which are called, they’re about a half an hour in length, they’re called pastor to pastor, and they can be found on our website under resources. But you’ll find there are a myriad of ideas as well, a number of practical discussion areas for pastors and church leaders in that area. I’d encourage you to check them out because these have been very helpful to a lot of people. Now, Jamie, let’s get back to our theme here in our focus today. One of the episodes that we produced was called In the P2P was making much about Christmas. You gave some great ideas about how to strengthen Christmas efforts. We just talked about that a little bit in the last segment, Easter also, and you talked about how you were meeting even the day before, like Good Friday and all of that. But you’ve also produced a very practical emphasis there on Passion Week, a devotional guide shared just very, very, very quickly. Just very briefly what that is.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, for the last five years, I’ve written a week long devotional guide for churches to engage together and unite around studying the passion week, whether it’s each of the days of the Passion Week or specific people involved with the Easter story or different things that Jesus said or taught with this whole idea of engaging people with the holiday, both for outreach, but also Sam for discipleship, and deepening people’s understanding about what the scripture says about that particular holiday.

Sam Rohrer:

And that’s been very, very helpful. Ladies and gentlemen, we just mentioned that we also did something around Liberty Sunday, around the 4th of July. So the point is there are a lot of things that have been created that are very helpful to all of them. Let’s go back now, Jamie, to the matter of the holidays and actually in the theme which I’m making holidays, holidays, and ladies and gentlemen, can I just share right now with all of you that that’s not just a play on words? Because when I go to the dictionary, and I love to use the Websters of 1828 because it was built off a biblical worldview, but the definition there, you can’t even find the word holiday. It’s only holy Day. H-O-L-Y-D-A-Y holiday doesn’t exist. At that point, it was holy day and it’s a day set apart for commemorating something important. Now, from a biblical worldview perspective, if anything is worth celebrating, anything is worth discussing. There is an element that can be directed to the Lord, and that is where a holy day comes from Now. Now Jamie, there are some days like these easy ones, but there are other days like family Holy Days, mother’s Day, father’s Day, grandparents’ Day, as an example. How could a church use some of these days to encourage and to edify and instruct the people in biblical truth and principles for everyday living?

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, obviously, whether it’s Mother’s Day, father’s Day, grandparents Day, you can focus on the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents. But part of that is telling your church and giving your church enough time that they know to invite their moms, their dads, their grandparents, and then to plan the service around honoring them, encouraging them, lifting them up and giving them a reason for them to come and say, wow, your church loves moms. They love dads, they love grandparents, or they share insights that are helpful and encouraging. And also Sam, it helps you, especially if you have moms, dads, grandparents who don’t know the Lord, to then be able to say the Bible is pretty clear on the role of a mom, the role of a dad, parents, husbands, family, family structure, honoring grandparents. In the past when I have done these things, I’ve had unsaved parents and grandparents come up to me and say, you know what? I’m so glad my kid invited me today. I never knew that’s what the Bible said about my role in the family. And so it becomes a tremendous opportunity to put on display what God in his word says about these special people in our lives. And it really becomes a slam dunk, Sam, both for the believer who’s coming, but also the opportunity to reach the lost and honor them as well.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, it sure does, and I am sure everyone listening to us right now probably have been a part, hopefully maybe have been a part of a service of that type somewhat. But people like to know the fuller understanding of what God’s word says, Jamie, and we talk about it here regularly because there is no meaning in life, in our work, in our play, in our entertainment or anything unless we know what God’s design for that was all about. And when we know, all of a sudden these things come together. Now let me go here and ask you on this because there are sometimes there could be folks listening who would say, well, you know what? A grandparent’s day or a Mother’s Day or a Father’s Day, other than recognizing the oldest father, the youngest father on Father, that kind of thing, I want to make too much of an emphasis because there could be someone. Well, in these days, there are many probably sitting in that audience who didn’t come from a good family, have had a difficult circumstance, and maybe they don’t like to reflect back on it, and so they tend to avoid a service like that, at least a church from doing it. But how would you address something like that because those are real concerns.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, it is, Sam, especially when you think of things like infertility or even people who’ve had abortions, having a Mother’s Day or having a day that celebrates parenting becomes a really difficult thing. But here’s what I have experienced. Number one, I always say this, that the Bible is filled with families that were totally dysfunctional. If you think you have found only the Bible puts forth perfect families, we’re completely missing it. Matter of fact, the lion’s share of them are dysfunctional families, but the grace of God, the power of God has come in and changed those families’ lives. Therefore, if you are coming today and you’re here for a Mother’s day, father’s day, grandparents day, and you didn’t have such a great father or mother or home life, or you came from a very dysfunctional family, we have good news from you. We’re not going to avoid the topic.

We’re going to lean in and embrace it because here’s the good news that when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, your future can be different from your past. Christ breaks the cycles of dysfunctional families. It also allows you, Sam, and talking about not avoiding. That’s why on these special days, using people’s testimonies, allowing people to share their stories, talking about things like adoption, talking about people not being able to have children. That’s an equally important topic to raise during these family days that all of a sudden you touch the need of the person sitting there and it’s just not glorifying or celebrating that everybody has a perfect home and everybody has a perfect mom and dad or grandparent, but that in Christ we can move to what God wants. And that is whole functioning godly biblical homes.

Sam Rohrer:

Yeah, Jamie, and that is perfect. That is really good. I think all of who you’re listening to us right now identified with one or more things that what Dr. Jamie Mitchell just shared because all of us are broken, it just to what degree are we broken? But before we, any of us who know the Lord now trusted in him, we were all dead in our trespasses and sins, but you see that is the gospel. And then when new life comes and form the gospel, then that’s what the word of God is all about. To come alongside, provide freedom and discipleship and to move us more into well, how Christ is and how we should live. Well, that’s all the good news. That’s what reaching out is all about. So just part of the application today, now when we come back, we’re going to continue in this discussion, making holidays, those special days, making them holy days, which is really the meaning of that word as a means of reaching out easily within the community.

Well, if you’re just joining us, we’re midway in the program today and trying to throw out some ideas in a special way here about how to utilize Well, holidays. My definition, as I shared in the last segment, literally at one point in our nation’s history, 1828, Webster’s Dictionary tells us there were no holidays as we know it. You’ll only find the word there of holy day, a day set aside to celebrate some event. Oftentimes, we will think of those holy days as Easter and Christmas, and in fact, they really are holy days. But other days that are set apart are also holy days if we perceive and utilize them in a creative way and thinking about our purpose as believers within church, if you’re a pastor or elder, and actually taking every opportunity possible to reach out and to invite people to come under the understanding and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

One individual in scripture that did this, you may, well, you probably remember this example, but Jesus met this little guy named Matthew. He a tax collector, right? He actually wasn’t a little guy I was thinking of, I get the guy’s name right, but I’ll come back to me in a minute. But Matthew, see, Matthew was one of the first ones that Jesus approached. He was a tax collector despised that nobody liked tax collectors, but Matthew followed him. And then scripture tells us that he decided to actually have an event, and he invited all his tax collector friends to meet Jesus. Now that makes sense. And who did he invite? He invited the people that he knew and they came and for what purpose? Well, to come onto the presence of Jesus and they hear the gospel there. Well, that’s what it ought to be. So in many ways, that’s what we’re advocating here about using holidays, holy days as ways of bringing people to Jesus. Now, Jamie, throughout the calendar year, they’re not just the Holy, holy Days, Christmas and Easter as an example, or Family days, father Day, mother Day and Grandparents Day as an example. But there are other national holidays that churches could recognize and make a legitimate connection. Share with us today a little bit about some of the things that you’ve done in the past that God blessed.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, I always looked at days like Veterans Day and Memorial Day, 4th of July, and even recently, the 20th anniversary of nine 11. People are already thinking about these days. One of the reasons is they may get a day off because of them, but their days that you can leverage and say to people, Hey, do you know people in the military? Do you know people who have served our nation or maybe even who lost a loved one and we’re going to invite them that day and maybe have a little bit more of a patriotic day, a patriotic theme. But when I stage those holidays or those special event days, I made sure that the person who was speaking could give testimony, personal experience, story. They had something to tell that related to that day. They were a special interest type of a person. I had met along the way, Sam, a former general in the armed services, and he had a tremendous testimony of how he moved up the ranks.

He had so many different stories about serving in the military, but at the end of the day, it was because of his faith in Christ and how that was strengthened during his military years. Well, I didn’t have him come and speak. I interviewed him instead of having a regular sermon, and I promoted it that this general was going to be with us and we’re going to talk. Well, man, I tell you, they came out of the woodwork military people because they say, Hey, this should be interesting. This is something relating to me. And again, 4th of July, we would do events for our community. We did when 4th of July landed on a Sunday, we had a block party at our church and we shut down the streets around our church and threw a barbecue and invited the people to come and had some fun things, patriotic things, but it gave our people a reason to invite them. And so taking advantage of those national holidays and communicating that is a powerful way for people to be able to invite people who they know.

Sam Rohrer:

And Jamie, that’s a great illustration. Another thing that I know you did, and you are not the only one who did it, but I know that you did it well because I was there and I observed it, but it was the idea of an emphasis of related to national holiday, but this wasn’t quite that, but it was to recognize those involved in national things, and you called it civil government Sunday, where you could reach out and invite people who were involved in anything from police officers to county commissioners to Walt, whatever, and that was very successful. Tell us about how you did that.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, in the same way, Sam, I didn’t necessarily need to have a holiday, but one of the holidays or one of the special days in our calendar, every year is election day and people want to get elected. And that means that whether we like it or not, the fact of the matter is politicians and elected officials want to get around people who vote. Well, I discovered this about probably 30 years ago, and I wanted to really minister to elected officials, but I also wanted our church to, because there are servants in the civil government who we need to honor and we need to show our appreciation. So school teachers and school board and firemen and policemen and city council and county commissioners, mayors, congress people, state representatives like yourself. And we would have a day in our church’s calendar of civil government Sunday, and we would invite people and we would tell our people in our church that if they knew people who served in the civil government that they could invite them and should invite them.

It was a day of appreciation, day of honoring them, a day of acknowledgement. Elected officials came because they wanted to shake hands and make themselves known to a lot of people because they were being voted on in the months ahead. But whatever the case, it became a great day of outreach. But it also gave me a chance as a pastor or having a special guest like I had once with you and you came, is to talk about what does an evangelical Christian believe about certain issues that are happening in the culture? So we would share about what we believe about law and order, what we believe about marriage and family and abortion and all of those issues. But it was in the context of celebrating them, appreciating them, honoring them, praying for them, and highlighting it such. And that just grew and grew and grew. And our people became really good at inviting elected officials and civil government servants to our church each year for that special day.

Sam Rohrer:

Jamie, I remember several times being with you there before there was ever such a thing as an American Pastor’s Network or stand in the Gap, you did reach out. And actually one of our other co-hosts here, Dr. Gary Dahl, in his church, which is in the western part of Pennsylvania now, he has been doing the same thing for a long time. And I’ve been a part of that program where one time there were over 30 local officials that were there. There’s another pastor who has a number of network of stations here in Pennsylvania. Pastor Denny, Melanie is another example who does the same thing in his church. And Jamie, both of them. And likely you have been able to develop personal relationships with those in office. Denny and Gary, I know they have led a number of elected officials to the Lord. Well, that is exactly the purpose of outreach. Any example that you could share like that of input into somebody’s life?

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, it’s interesting. One of the things that flowed out of those civil government Sundays is that you do build a rapport. You do build a relationship. And whether they come to your church or not, in many respects, Sam, I became the only pastor that some of these politicians ever had and ever knew. And I remember sitting down with one in particular, a elected official who was going through a very difficult marriage situation. And I remember actually going to his office, sitting down with him, and both being able to speak into his life and him to unburden himself about some things and give him some counsel and insight. I didn’t have the opportunity to lead him to Christ, but certainly planted a lot of seeds. But Sam, just the fact that he was willing to open up and become very vulnerable and then you know this, having been in that world, politicians don’t share at that level. Having our civil government Sunday

Sam Rohrer:

Open that door. And ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you’re encouraged by what you are hearing, but it is not that hard. Matter of fact, it’s fairly easy, but it does take a little bit extra work. It certainly takes planning. The pastor, elder deacon, church leader of any type, consider doing something like this. There’s a lot of people out there that can help. And our website and contact here can help guide you through doing something maybe for the first time. Stay with us. We’ll wrap this up and just, well, as we wrap up today’s program, we’ve mentioned a number of things here. Dr. Jamie Mitchell and I, we’ve talked with each other, not a headline news item today as we often do, but this was a little bit of a departure as a way of well, providing well practical information. Well, it’s in a goal or a mission that we all have as believers, and that is to declare the gospel and to make disciples.

That’s a command of the Lord himself in Matthew 28. Oftentimes there are things that we could do, a lot of overlooked, I would say a lot of overlooked opportunities. And today’s emphasis is the idea that well think around the idea of holidays. Now, the word holy day, and we’ve talked about that the word was always at one point, holy day, then it was the, I mean the y and holy was changed to I, and then it became holiday, very secularized. But in the truest sense, it’s holy days. So we’ve talked here now about a couple things, and given some example, one is the very clearly holy days of observances, like Christmas and Easter, we’ve talked about family days. Well, family days should be holy days too, because family, husband, wife, mother, father, all of that is created by God. So it is holy by its creation.

And we talked about some of those, talked about some national days as an example, national Days like, well, the 4th of July or Memorial Day or Veterans Day as an example. But there’s another category just to show how prevalent and many opportunities could exist. And that would be something that Jamie, you’ve used the word one time forgotten holidays. Alright, that’s a good word. What are some examples of a forgotten holiday and how they perhaps could be used creatively as a means to provide outreach and opportunity for people to invite others in? And again, to share what the Bible says about life and living in a real practical setting.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, Sam, I always think of three specific holidays or special events in the calendar year that we sometimes overlook, but can really be a valuable tool for doing outreach. The first is Labor Day. Now this is end of the summer kind of day, the final weekend of the summer. A lot of people are away. However, sometime around Labor Day, maybe the following Sunday is to have a day where your people can appreciate and value and encourage either the people they work for or their bosses. And it just is simply just saying to them as, Hey, my church, in light of Labor Day being last week, my church is having a special day to honor employees and employers and having a whole day focused on the value and importance of work. And I don’t know if your co-labor or your boss or the owner of your business will come to church or not, but it’s worth the try.

And if they do, you can speak then, or at least have somebody share that day on the day of what does the Bible say about work, the value of work, how to give a hard day or a good day’s work? And I’ll tell you, employers and employees will appreciate that in light of that whole thing, Sam, the second unforgotten holiday is teacher appreciation. And that day happens later on in the spring where we’re to appreciate those who teach our kids. Again, I was pastoring a church that rented a school and I was unaware of this. And then someone said to me, a couple of weeks is teacher appreciation. We’re using these classrooms and disrupting these days. We should appreciate. So we did that. We did a teacher appreciation day. Some of the teachers from that particular school came. But that gave me an idea that, man, we have a lot of kids in this church and they go to all different schools and they have all different teachers and all of that.

And we invited them. And I remember my son invited one of his teachers and she came to that event. And I forever think to myself, boy, Ms. Andrews came to church and heard about Jesus because my son invited her to church. And the final one, Sam, is a month long thing. And that is, I would encourage pastors every now and then, they don’t have to do it every year, but every now and then to consider celebrating or acknowledging Black History Month in their church, especially if they are not a church that has a lot of minorities, or maybe it’s a more of a Caucasian type of a church, but to be just sensitive and to open up that side of our nation’s history. But here’s the other thing, it gives an opportunity for the pastor or to the church to find maybe ethically stronger churches, maybe some black churches in your community or your city, and to reach out to those churches and say, listen, we want to have a special day at our church celebrating African-American history.

And look, let’s be honest, we’re more of a white church and we need your help. Would you be willing to send a choir or a singing group or have maybe one of your pastors or deacons come and share a little bit about black history to our church, Sam, in this world where race and racial tensions are always ignited and on fire? What a great thing for a church to say, you know what? We want to be united. We want to show love and appreciation and unity with God’s people and celebrate that special month in a special way. We did it at our church and it was tremendous, a tremendous testimony to the community.

Sam Rohrer:

Alright, and I can imagine that it was Now, there was another reference that you made to talk about forgotten holidays. This is not necessarily forgotten. Maybe it’s a creative one. I think you called it a VIP Sunday. What is that?

Jamie Mitchell:

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting when doing all these different special days, someone just said, what about the important people in our lives? And an important people might be your doctor, your lawyer, your car mechanic, different people, a coach, and just couldn’t We do a special day that we call VIP Sunday where one of our church people can go up to a certain purpose and say, Hey, our church is having VIP Sunday. Would you please be my very important person and come with me that day? I would like to honor you. Now, Sam, I got to tell you what happened. I came up with this idea. I laid it for our church, we planned it. We said, let’s do it early on in the church calendar year, meaning in September when everything gets going again. And so September we pick the day. Now, I think the day was September 16th and it was 2001. Now why is that significant? Well, the Tuesday before was 911, and so my first VIP Sunday was the Sunday after 911. Not only did we have all of our important people in our lives, the church was packed because of 911, and it became a tremendous day of outreach.

Sam Rohrer:

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that some of what you heard today would be just a trigger to say it really is not that hard to be a little creative. But to think of building around holidays, holy days, honoring people, always a biblical emphasis. But to do so as a means of reaching out, inviting people in, sharing the gospel, bringing people to Christ, exactly what we should do. Go to our website, get more information. It’s all there. Thanks for being with us today.