Despite shovels, pushing and patience, the 6 inches of snow that fell on Lawrence overnight made Christmas Day 2009 a white one. For motorists, though, such as these stacked up at Ousdahl and 23rd streets, the whiteness wasn't exactly a dream come true.

According to membership associate Kay Koch, the last time Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt., canceled services was when a storm blew off two of the church’s steeples in March 2006. Despite blizzard-like conditions, the church held Christmas Eve services last week.

The phone calls had been coming in as fast and furious as the snow.

Is it happening? Is the service still starting at 7 p.m.? Will you be there if I’m there?

The Rev. Don Layne had his coat on and was ready to answer every ring in one swift movement out the door and into a brisk Christmas Eve night.

That is until the National Weather Service made a move of its own: issuing a blizzard warning.

Suddenly, Layne knew he’d have to do something he’d never done before in more than a decade as a religious leader: cancel a major holiday service.

There would be no carols. No families packed in, dressed to the nines with holiday cheer in their eyes. No candles winking in the sanctuary at Unity Church of Lawrence.

No Christmas Eve service. Not in 2009.

“If they hadn’t issued the blizzard warning? I’d have been here. That was the only thing that made me stop and think,” says Layne, who lives 50 miles away from where he holds court as the interim minister for Unity, 900 Madeline Lane. “I don’t cancel special services — because they’re special. If they weren’t special, then we weren’t doing them. You can’t make up a special service, it’s not like I can make it up next week.”

Soon, the coat came off and Layne and his staff hit the Internet, blasting an e-mail to the 300 or so people on the church’s mailing list:

Canceled! Unity Church of Lawrence Christmas Eve Service. Please stay home and be safe.

One of the busiest nights of the year for dozens of Lawrence’s churches, big and small, was snuffed out before the first candle was lit. The toll? Thousands of dollars in pass-the-plate funds lost, memories unmade and countless folks missing out a yearly tradition. The next day, several churches also canceled Christmas Day services, and even services for the following Sunday, Dec. 27, were affected as Lawrence dug out of more than a half-foot of snow.

A disappointment

The Rev. Tom Brady had never, in 22 years in the ministry, canceled a service, let alone a Christmas Eve service. But he couldn’t ignore the wind, snow and ice that would make it a truly treacherous drive to either of First United Methodist Church’s campuses — downtown at 946 Vt., or out west at 867 Highway 40.

“Advent is a four-Sunday season of preparation that leads up to the birth of Christ. Christmas Eve is the night we truly celebrate that birth,” Brady says. “It was a disappointment to say the least, but still the right thing to do.”

The decision to cancel did come at a cost much greater than a shuttered church. Brady estimates that about $10,000 was lost by the canceling services — money that would have been raised through collection donations and used to support the church’s missions ministries. Those missions include campus, inner-city and evangelism ministries.

Brady sent out an e-mail to parishioners, hoping to soften the blow, saying, “If you had planned on attending Christmas Eve, and usually make an offering, I would encourage you to still do so. Any gift that is dated on or before Dec. 31st will count toward our Christmas Missions Offering. Even if it comes in later, it will still be applied to 2009. Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated.”

Across the river from First United Methodist, Rod Hinkle also had a decision to make. His 10 p.m. Christmas Eve service is the largest of the year for North Lawrence Christian Church, 647 Elm, with more than 100 people packing the pews. While Hinkle was sure God would provide for any funds lost by canceling the service, he wasn’t sure the snow would be as kind to his parishioners as they slipped behind the wheel.

“Many of our people are elderly and we could not justify taking a chance on anyone’s injury,” Hinkle says. “The church will not be hurting financially for our people are faithful and dedicated stewards of God’s gracious gifts.”

Giving it a go

Of course, some churches did go through with Christmastime services. Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt., provided two Christmas Eve services but canceled Christmas Day activities, and across town, First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, held its 6 p.m. service, but canceled its 10 p.m. service.

In the farthest reaches of west Lawrence, the Rev. Mick Mulvany preached to nearly 2,000 people during Corpus Christi Catholic Church’s early service. By the time midnight Mass rolled around, the crowd had dwindled to 140 people and crews worked well into the wee hours of the morning to get parishnors out of the snow-blanketed parking lot.

Early the next morning, Mulvany had to call a tow truck to get out of his driveway and pointed in the direction of the church, 6001 Bob Billings Parkway. As he carefully navigated the roller coaster-like hills to the church, he fully expected to not see a single soul at the 9 a.m. Christmas service, which usually welcomes 600 to 800 people. This year, the crowd was much closer to his prediction — 14 hearty souls made it to church to hear Mulvany give his sermon in a Kansas University sweatshirt and jeans.

“I had Mass sort of in the form of a ‘nursing home’ Mass,” Mulvany says. “I had no music, we basically did the Mass and got people back in their cars and said, ‘Please get home safely.'”

Across the street from the darkened downtown campus of the First United Methodist Church, parishioners were trickling into Plymouth Congregational at 925 Vt. The house was packed for the early 6 p.m. service, but by the 8 p.m. service, attendance was cut by a third. And some of those who did go to that service had to enlist the help of the church’s ministerial staff to get out of the parking lot, says member Kay Koch.

Not that Koch was there to help dig folks out. Despite being the church’s membership associate, a.k.a. the woman in charge of welcoming and retaining new members, Koch wasn’t able to make it to Plymouth for a night that usually sees more than a thousand people pass through its doors. She was snowed in, watching the scroll on the television run through a barrage of Christmas Eve closings from the couch in her rural Jefferson County home.

Though she couldn’t be there, Koch says she wasn’t shocked the church still planned to go through with its services — the only time she can ever remember a canceled service was when a storm came through in 2006 and took off the building’s steeples just hours before Sunday services.

“It took that for our services to be canceled. And other than that, I don’t remember ever canceling,” Koch says. “We hold it, even in really, really bad weather, it’s just about like KU.”

Of course, there was a plus side to the cancellations. All those candles purchased specifically for last Thursday’s services? They won’t be burning up all the funds from year-end offering plates in 2010.

“Well, we do one every year. So, they’ll be here for next year, all ready to go,” Layne says of the candlelight service. “It won’t be coming out of our budget for next year.”