Fearing bombings and shootings by Islamic militants, some Christians in Indonesia are abandoning traditional churches in favor of more unorthodox but secure confines, such as hotel ballrooms and office blocks.
With foreign governments warning of holiday terror attacks, tens of thousands of police officers will guard churches in the world's most populous Muslim nation. Metal detectors will be in place for most services and armed escorts will accompany parishioners, church officials said.
"It puts us at a lower risk for being a target for religious persecution," said Pastor Steve Lunn, originally from Seattle, whose International English Service holds worship services for 1,000 people in a downtown Jakarta office building.
"People tell me they feel safer," he said. "The facility itself is not the most important thing. It's just a place to gather. The most important thing is being together and worshipping God together."
The vast majority of Muslims in Indonesia practice a moderate version of the faith.
But attacks against Christians, who form just 8 percent of the population, have increased since ex-dictator Suharto's downfall in 1998, and amid a global rise in Islamic radicalism. Suharto enforced secularism as part of national security policies.
Four years ago, suspected militants from the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group bombed 11 churches on Christmas Eve, killing 19 people.
The group was also blamed for the 2002 nightclub bombings that killed 202 people on the resort island of Bali, a 2003 attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta and a blast at the Australian Embassy in September.
This year, more than 140,000 police will be deployed at churches, shopping malls and hotels where Westerners gather during the Christmas period, a police spokesman said.
"People are still afraid," said Pastor Hengki Ompi, whose church was attacked earlier this month by suspected Muslim gunmen on the central Indonesian island of Sulawesi. "We hope the attacks stop so we can celebrate Christmas without fear."
Plans to build new churches sometimes draw violent protests from Islamic groups, which view them as an attempt to convert Muslims. Church leaders also say a 35-year-old decree requiring neighborhood approval before new places of worship can be built is being used to discriminate against them.
Rev. Ruyandi Hutasoit has eight churches in office towers in Jakarta and a ninth that was closed following protests from Muslim radicals. His drug rehabilitation center and seminary were burnt down by Muslim mobs in 1999.
"We have a church but it's empty. It's not fair," said Hutasoit, whose Church of the Shining Christian will hold Christmas services in a hotel this year.
Some church leaders say these obstacles are understandable given the country's Muslim majority, and acknowledge Muslims face similar problems in the few pockets of Indonesia where Christians dominate.
But others say the restrictions reflect a growing intolerance of religious minorities.
"We have a lot more liberties than say Afghanistan and Pakistan ... but the fact is that Christians are second-class citizens," said Pastor Bill Heckman, a Dutchman who has tried for six years to build a church in Jakarta.
Sporadic fighting between Muslims and Christians in central and eastern Indonesia has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands since 1999.
Muslims say evangelical Christians are partly to blame for rising religious tensions. They say hundreds of foreign-funded evangelical groups use churches in Muslim-dominated neighborhoods to convert locals - a claim some Christians acknowledge is true.
In response, the government has proposed a law that would bar Indonesians from attending religious ceremonies that do not reflect their faith - making it much harder for them to switch. It also would criminalize interfaith marriages and adoptions.
Christians are lobbying the government to scrap the 35-year-old decree that it makes it difficult to build new churches - but the government says it's necessary to maintain religious harmony. Muslim groups say abandoning it would contribute to the "Christianization" of Indonesia.