Open the Doors | How Holiday Celebrations Bring People to Christ

February 25, 2025 ∙ by vmbernard ∙ in This Month's Issue

Story by Amanda Blake

Seventh-day Adventists are celebrating holidays—specifically Easter and Christmas—more than ever before, and several pastors within the Columbia Union Conference say these special days create an ideal time to offer hope and the story of Jesus to the community. So, how are churches taking the focus off of the bunny and jolly old man to share God’s love?

Did Early Adventists Celebrate Easter?
Michael Campbell, historian and director of North American Division’s Archives, Statistics, and Research, explains that Easter, unlike Christmas, does not hold a notable spot in Adventist history.

Following the Protestant ethos of the 19th century, the church’s pioneers avoided Easter due to its significance in the Catholic liturgical calendar. However, in the 20th century, as Easter gained a more public presence across the nation, its Catholic connotation weakened, and more Protestants began to observe it.

A Christmas program in the 1880s in the Old Tabernacle Church According to Campbell, Adventist Easter celebrations have become more common over the past 30 to 40 years, with passion plays (dramatizations of Jesus’ death and resurrection) gaining traction in the 1990s, especially on Adventist university cam- puses. He and several others note that, in recent years, an increasing number of Adventist churches have been organizing holiday programs—both for Easter and Christmas.

However, although Adventist Easter celebrations are on the rise, some Christians view the holiday as entirely pagan. Many claim it started as a heathen fertility celebration, got its name from the Babylonian sex goddess, Ishtar, and thus should be avoided. Today, those alleged pagan connections may seem ancient, distant—but what about the Easter Bunny and the painted eggs, which were historically symbols of fertility? Are Adventists who celebrate Easter uplifting the wrong message?

In Campbell’s assessment, the argument that anyone who celebrates Easter consequently adopts paganism is “scanty.”

He says, “There’s fertility celebrations that you’ll find in a lot of different religions around the world, especially among pagan religions.” So, the argument is, “by celebrating the one, you’re somehow embracing some kind of pagan ideology. At best, that’s fallacious.”

Campbell similarly spoke about opposition to celebrating Christmas in his 2020 Adventist Review article and podcast episode, “Christmas In Our Adventist Past,” where he stated that early Adventists celebrated Christmas, and Adventist pioneers viewed the holiday as an opportunity to uplift Jesus.

In the 1962 book, Ellen G. White Statements Related to the Observance of Christmas and Holiday Gifts, many of her quotes cast light on the church’s general advice concerning Christmas: Focus on Jesus, give generously to the Lord’s work, and use the season to do good.

Family Traditions or Religious Obligation?
Ilona Nalli, who attends Chesapeake Conference’s Martinsburg (W.Va.) church, grew up viewing the holidays much differently than many Adventists in America. She was raised Catholic in Poland, where, she explains, Easter and Christmas are treated with high and equal importance. In fact, people celebrate both holidays over multiple days and sometimes go to church several times a day for different activities. Nalli shares that Polish culture, history and the Catholic church are deeply intertwined.

“As a child, I don’t think I understood which activities were our family traditions versus what was our religious obligation,” she says.

Nalli explains that the Polish keep a long list of Easter traditions. The one she finds most interesting is the “communal food prayer.”

She explains, “Everyone makes a small basket of food with bread, eggs—it’s Poland, so some meat— as well as spices like salt and pepper, and some horseradish, which is then used for the soup called barszcz. And a small lamb molded out of sugar.”

Families decorate their eggs, then take their baskets to church on Saturday, place them in front of the building, pray and, on Easter Sunday, they enjoy the food together.

When Nalli came to the United States to study, a group of young people drew her to the Adventist faith and into a deep relationship with Jesus. During her conversion experience, Nalli was surprised to learn that Adventists didn’t regularly hold special services on Easter and Christmas.

Image by Mariya Muschard from Pixabay Today, Nalli uses the Easter and Christmas seasons to reflect on that relationship. She views holiday traditions far differently now than she did as a child and is glad the church is starting to emphasize holidays more.

“When it comes to tradition, I also now have a clear line between what our family traditions are and what the true meaning of Christmas and Easter is,” she explains. “So mainly, I avoid giving symbolic meaning to any activities that we do. So, if we do color some eggs for fun, that is all it is. It’s a fun activity that we can do as a family on a day that is not Easter. I want my daughter to grow up knowing the true meaning of Christmas and Easter.”

She concludes, “[Holiday programs] give people an opportunity to learn about God in different ways,” she says. “Not everyone is ready to come to church right away and listen to a sermon. I know I wasn’t.”

Holiday Programs Build Bridges
Pastor Erwin Nanasi, who holds a doctorate in Worship Studies, believes Adventist holiday programs help fulfill a need: to show the public that Adventist church members connect with God, not only in truth, but also in spirit. Adventists also want to bask in His presence, just as Mary did at Jesus’ feet. “Who is not going to benefit from a greater revelation of God’s grace and love and kindness?” he questions.

“How would it be ... if people actually knew us, not just for the things that we believe and do and don’t do, but how we worship?” he asks.

Nanasi serves as minister of music at Chesapeake Conference’s Spencerville church in Silver Spring, Md. In the spring of 2024, the church hosted its first Passion Week—with daily one-hour programs exploring the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, starting the Sunday before Easter and culminating on Easter Sunday.

On the first day, between 200 and 300 people attended, and the number only continued to grow. “We didn’t need to tell people to invite others. They just did,” he says.

Nanasi believes holiday programs such as Passion Week—structured, imbued with creativity and story-focused—can reach people with the truth in ways other church programs cannot.

“We don’t use the time to teach people why we’re different; we allow them to find that out organically through the Passion Week,” he adds.

“People long for something that evokes a sense of beauty or evokes a sense of, maybe, comfort when they’re grieving or when they have sorrow,” he explains. “I think today, our opportunity through music and art and worship can be an intersection where the people that otherwise would not be inter- ested in the truth ... can reflect on the beauty of His holiness and be appealed to.”

‘You Can Feel it in the Music and People’
Music plays a powerful role in Potomac Conference’s Washington Spanish Bilingual church’s Easter program, according to Associate Pastor Will Johns. The church, also located in Silver Spring, Md., hosts a bilingual service on Easter Sunday, and for

the past three years, members and non-members have packed the sanctuary. Last year, 50 to 75 attended in person and 273 households viewed the event online.

Washington Spanish Bilingual's 2024 Easter Program
“It’s just amazing how there’s something about Easter ... that really connects people with the good news of Jesus—the resurrection and power,” Johns says. “You can just feel it in the music and the people that are there. They’re just fully into the celebration.”

Washington Spanish member Margie Thomas, who helps lead the Easter program, explains that the church also hosts a kids’ fair and reception after the service, allowing members and guests a chance to connect.

Thomas believes that any perceived connection between Easter and paganism, such as the Easter Bunny, in fact augments the church’s need to get involved: The service can give the community a different perspective on the holiday.

She also thinks the Easter program has strengthened the church’s relationship with their neighbors. “I do feel like it’s a perfect opportunity for us to ... invite people into a space that doesn’t feel, for lack of a better word, threatening,” she says.

A Unique Opportunity to Connect
Holiday programs have also helped form connections between the community of New Market, Va., where Potomac Conference’s New Market church, Shenandoah Valley Academy (SVA) and Shenandoah Valley Elementary School reside. Approximately 1,500 guests attend the campus’ largest holiday event, Journey to Bethlehem (pictured, above), each Christmas season, where attendees walk through the “City of David” to witness the nativity story.

“The event was started in 2011 with the idea that stories bond people together. It bound us with each other and with those who experience the story with us,” explains Tammy White, SVA’s development assistant, with Reed Richardi, New Market’s lead pastor.

At Chesapeake Conference’s Dover (Del.) First church, Pastor Javier Scharon helps organize an interactive Walk Through Bethlehem experience (pictured, below). The event draws community members that he has never seen before. His church also holds a special Easter Sabbath service, and he says it’s during these two holiday seasons that he sees the most people in attendance.

Scharon personally believes that “celebrating the holidays, whether it be Christmas or Easter, if done under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, will definitely be an experience of spiritual renewal, spiritual strength- ening. But if you’re going to celebrate it the way that the world celebrates it, not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then it definitely won’t be.”

He adds, “I think that across the entire United States, culturally, the community will always be more open and more receptive to the Word of God during holiday seasons.”

Pastor Alberto Balio, director of Pennsylvania Conference’s Hispanic Ministries Department, echoes Scharon, adding that many churches, specifically Hispanic ones, often dedicate themselves to public evangelism during the Easter season, usually by organizing campaigns centered on the story of the cross.

He describes holidays as unique opportunities for Adventists to connect with a wide variety of individuals. Around Easter time, those who have begun studying with the church are even more willing to get involved, and those who don’t regularly go to church are more likely to attend, especially if invited by a friend.

Culture Impacts Celebration
Emeraude Victorin, a member of Allegheny East Conference’s Emmanuel-Brinklow church in Ashton, Md., especially loves Christmas, although she didn’t always celebrate it.

Victorin, a Haitian American, grew up in a religiously conservative atmosphere, which is common for Haitian Adventist households, she explains.

“We were always told growing up that we don’t know when Jesus was born,” she says. “We don’t know the date when he died and resurrected, so there’s no need to celebrate the same days that the world celebrates.”

Nevertheless, young Victorin felt drawn to Christmas, specifically holiday lights and decorations. Her mom, however, believed that certain objects, like Christmas trees, weren’t of God.

As a young adult, Victorin began attending Emmanuel-Brinklow, which celebrated Easter and Christmas with special services. Soon after, she studied at Andrews University (Mich.) and witnessed its Easter Passion Play.

Referencing Emmanuel-Brinklow’s holiday activities, she says, “It feels as if I’m in the right place to get the opportunity to celebrate.”

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Open the Doors | How Holiday Celebrations Bring People to Christ

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