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Watchnight service

A watchnight service at a Lutheran Christian church on New Year's Eve (2014)

A watchnight service (also called Watchnight Mass) is a late-night Christian church service. In many different Christian traditions, such as those of Moravians, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Adventists and Reformed Christians, watchnight services are held late on New Year's Eve, which is the seventh day of Christmastide.[1][2][3][4] This provides the opportunity for Christians to review the year that has passed and make confession, and then prepare for the year ahead by praying and resolving.[5] The services often include singing, praying, exhorting, preaching, and Holy Communion.[2][6]

Watchnight services can take the form of Watchnight Covenant Renewal Services, Watchnight Vespers services, Watchnight Vigil services, or Watchnight Masses.[7] As Watchnight services bring in the New Year by glorifying God, they are seen by many Christians as being preferable to "drunken revelry" in popular cultural celebrations that are commonplace in some localities.[6]

In addition to Christian denominational traditions, the ethnic traditions of Koreans and African Americans have a strong tradition of New Year's Eve watchnight services.[7][8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ephraim2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference DM2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bangsar2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference RCAN2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ James Ewing Ritchie (1870). The Religious Life of London. Tinsley Brothers. p. 223. Retrieved 28 December 2011. At A Watch-Night Service: Methodism has one special institution. Its lovefeasts are old-old as Apostolic times. Its class meetings are the confessional in its simplest and most unobjectionable type, but in the institution of the watch-night it boldly struck out a new path for itself. In publicly setting apart the last fleeting moments of the old year and the first of the new to penitence, and special prayer, and stirring appeal, and fresh resolve, it has set an example which other sects are preparing to follow.
  6. ^ a b Anna M. Lawrence (5 May 2011). One Family Under God: Love, Belonging, and Authority in Early Transatlantic Methodism. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812204179. Retrieved 28 December 2011. In 1740, Wesley started watch-night services for the coal miners of the Kingswood area, offering this nocturnal worship as a godly alternative to spending their evenings in ale-houses. The watch-night services consisted of singing, praying, exhorting, and preaching for a number of hours. Wesley meant to establish it as a monthly practice, always at full moon to keep the meeting well lit. In America, this service often supplanted times of traditional drunken revelry, like New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve.
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference DM2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Black was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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