At Connexus Church, where I serve, our Christmas service wins hands-down every year for both overall attendance AND attendance by unchurched people. Although from a theological viewpoint, Christmas will never be bigger than Easter, when we think of it in practical terms, our Christmas outreach is always bigger than Easter simply because the culture is paying more attention.
Our culture pauses for Christmas in a way it pauses for little else in the year.
TV and film celebrate Christmas in all of its expressions. Almost everyone decorates their homes, businesses and cities.
On December 24 and 25, the Western world comes as close to stopping as it ever does.
I’m not sure there’s any better time than Christmas to connect with those of your friends and neighbors who rarely, if ever, go to church.
Here are 11 ways to make Christmas your best outreach of the year.
1. Design an event for your community, not for your members
So what’s the biggest mistake many churches make each Christmas?
Simple. Too many churches hold a quiet Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service for members and leave it at that.
Others will do little to nothing special.
That makes Christmas the biggest missed opportunity of the year.
Unchurched people want to celebrate Christmas. Why can’t your church help them?
Here’s a hint: If you design your services with the community in mind, your members will love it too. Especially if their friends come and it changes their lives.
2. Brand the event around the community, not your church
One of the best decisions we’ve made in the last few years is to take our church’s name off the main branding for our Christmas services.
We simply use the names of the cities we’re in. So for Barrie, Ontario, we’re Christmas in Barrie. In Orillia, it’s Christmas Eve in Orillia, etc. Sure, we let people know it’s hosted by a church, but people are looking for a place to celebrate and we want them to know we can host them and their family at an event designed for the city.
We’re expanding our Christmas outreach this year into four cities that are within an hour of each other (which makes specific theming more difficult), so we’re using Christmas Eve in the City as a larger brand.
You can see the way we designed it here.
