By RAHN ADAMS
MORGANTON, N.C. (Dec. 31, 2025) – Like that time the crazy guy groped his mic stand on the campaign trail, this past year has sucked so badly that I’m looking for a watchnight service to attend tonight. I need some hope for a change. Call it what you will.
You’re probably asking yourself, what in the H-E-double hockey sticks is a watchnight service? Well, it’s kinda like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, but without the late Dick Clark’s ageless charisma (because he’s still dead), without real rock ‘n’ roll, just fake rock called contemporary Christian music or praise hymns, and without the boyish charm of Ryan Seacrest.
But it does take place on New Year’s Eve, though in a church or cathedral with lots of singing and praying. It sometimes follows a light communal meal called a lovefeast, usually only coffee or tea and cookies—more of a love-snack, if you ask me.
What will attendees be watching for tonight? According to Wikipedia, the watchnight service “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.” Make confession? Hmm. That could take a while.
And what was that last thing, after praying? Resolving? No, no, I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions anymore. At my age, I figure it’s too late to change my ways. This old dog ain’t learning any new tricks.
Actually, change has been on my mind lately—that is, whether or not people can see their own faults and try to improve themselves. I often quote the late Jimmy Buffett, my favorite beach bum and poet, who once said, “Just remember, assholes are born that way, and they usually don’t change.” The older I get, the more truth I see in that statement.
That realization is funny, coming from me, a Baptist preacher’s kid—not because of the profanity, but because evangelicals tout a “simple plan of salvation” that is supposed to both redeem and transform sinners. That’s what I was taught, anyway. And it was how all of the worship, watchnight and revival services that I attended as a boy ended. Their closing moments were always a come-to-Jesus altar call, or invitation, to the tune of a soft and tender hymn like “Just As I Am.” It worked on me.
I remember that Friday night at my dad’s little Baptist church like it was yesterday. The longtime pastor of the big Baptist church in town was the week-long revival’s guest evangelist, and he had just finished preaching from the Book of Revelation about the Second Coming (of Christ). He had reminded us that we wanted to be there at the Pearly Gates with all our loved ones when the only honor roll that matters is called up yonder.
Don’t put it off any longer, he said, standing down front. This is the last night of our revival. You may not get another chance. You may die on your way home tonight. Step out of that pew, dear friend, and walk on down the aisle to the altar, where I’m waiting to lead you to the Lord. Come kneel here and pray with me. Come and be saved.
And so that’s what I did. I would have done almost anything he said right then—do cartwheels down the aisle, stand on my head in the pew, bark like a dog. Why? Because fear has that effect on a seven-year-old boy with abandonment issues.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I really liked that man then, and I have fond memories of him now. He was a fine preacher and a good man. His blonde, curly-haired daughter was one of my classmates at school, and, in fact, she was sitting right beside me in church that very night. We had been passing notes during the sermon, which, to be honest, we’d both heard more than once before. Eternal damnation is a go-to sermon topic for Baptist preachers. It’s money in the everlasting bank, especially if the evangelist is good at issuing invitations.
But fear alone shouldn’t be one’s motivation to do or say anything. A person shouldn’t make life decisions based primarily on fear.
I know what you’re thinking—that this is when I say that love is the answer, that all we need is love, or that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, because it’s something we have much too little of, and that everything will then be, as my dad used to say, hunky-dory.
No, that isn’t it, either. We need to start using our heads, as well as our hearts. We need to use the brains we were blessed with, whether by Intelligent Design or by Natural Selection. We should resolve to start acting like scientists and apply some method to the madness of our lives.
So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people can turn themselves around, just not on a dime. Maybe change occurs over longer periods of time, over weeks or months or years. Maybe that change is apparent only over decades or generations, when we can finally step away from the stress and strain of day-to-day living. Like historians, we can then see where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re headed.
Maybe I can sit and contemplate all those weighty things tonight if I can find a good watchnight service to attend.
Again, according to the collective consciousness of my favorite online encyclopedia, “[w]atchnight services gained additional significance and history in the Black churches in the United States, since many African Americans were said to have gathered in churches on New Year’s Eve in 1862, on what was called Freedom’s Eve, to await the hour when President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was to take effect on 1 January 1863.”
Like those 19th-century, Civil War-era gatherings, maybe this evening’s watchnight service will be full of anticipation, and maybe the change that comes in 2026 will also be significant and historic, in our case bringing back the hard-fought rights and freedoms that have slipped away faster than we imagined possible.
Maybe tonight will mark yet another Freedom’s Eve, this one for the 21st century.
We can hope.