3. Build a special website
If someone has to click through 15 pages of your website to find your Christmas services, they’ll probably give up. And even if you put it on the home page of your website, it’s still a church website.
We started building custom sites a few years ago for our Christmas services and have been thrilled with the results. Here’s this year’s version.
Again, people have Christmas on their mind, and when the site looks like Christmas and there are free tickets available (see below), it’s easier for people to say “I’m in.”
Sites like this don’t have to be expensive. Get a teenager in your church to design one. Or for a thousand dollars or so, you can have a basic site put together.
Find an easy to remember URL (like ChristmasEveInTheCity.com or ChristmasInMidland.com) that makes your site more findable, local and shareable.
4. Experiment with multiple service times
Not everyone can make it to your ‘one’ service. This year we’re doing eight services over two days (the 23 and 24) in four cities.
Yes, those are long work days for staff and volunteers, but you can reap a harvest all year long from that investment.
We always offer more than one service time, because the reality is that different families have different needs. Young families seem to prefer earlier services so they can get their kids to bed early or have dinner together. Retail workers need a later service.
This year at our broadcast location, our services will run at 1, 3, 5 and 7 p.m. At our three other locations, we’ve picked the middle to later service times.
The reason? Providing multiple service times gives multiple families lots of opportunities to attend and to invite their friends.
5. Stretch Yourself and Experiment
To be honest, pulling off Christmas services in four cities is going to stretch our team. But it’s a good way to test out new venues, new places and new communities in which you might one day have locations.
Sometimes stretching yourself calls out the very best in people, challenges them to invite and it can bring your church into communities in brand new ways in a season in which people are already looking for events to attend.
Sounds like a great combination to me.
