Christmas prep: Facebook Live

Like it or loathe it, Christmas comes around every year!

In one of our Lunch with Leaders Facebook Lives, Rachel Turner tackled the topic of how to make your Christmas events as impactful as you can.

You can watch the video here and we have added notes below.

Rachel suggests asking yourselves four questions as you plan to help you refine what you do.

1. What is the whole picture?

Churches will have different services and events and many will have an idea of how they want them to relate to each other. Rachel gave three examples of what that might look like:

• As a journey: the different events will take people through a cohesive narrative leading up to the wonder of Christmas day. If that is the case for you, where your events fit will influence their content.
• As a pick and mix: some churches provide a variety of events and services so that people can pick the ones that appeal to their personalities and preferences. In this case you’ll need to consider who your event is for and how you will make that work for them.
• As ‘routes in’ to church and Christmas: in this example, events will be targetted for different groups within the church – for example, an u5s tots group, an outreach group, the elderly – with the aim that they come and are drawn further in.

Whatever your church’s approach is, you’ll need to decide if you want to be part of that.

2. What is our vision?

Rachel suggests having a very specific vision for each service and event so that it has impact and things aren’t lost in a general melee of possibilities.

To illustrate this she had three examples of specific visions so you can see how it would shape how you plan your event. Having a clear vision will give your event maximise impact.

A service for community families

A service for families of all ages

A service for under 5s and their families

3. What are the hindrances?What are the hindrances for you and for the people you will invite. Identifying these will help you refine / adjust / change the vision.

Hindrances for you might include things like the venue not being great for moments of peace, not having enough volunteers to make it happen, not being able to afford the props you’d love.

To work out the hindrances for the people you’ll invite, think about two questions:

• What might stop them coming? This could be it’s at the wrong time of day / it clashes with other events / the venue might feel intimidating
• What might stop them engaging? This could be using a complex liturgy, their believing kids have to be quiet in church, not knowing how to pray, singing unfamiliar carols.

4. What is the next step

Think about Christmas as part of a whole journey for people.

What happens before that would give you an opportunity to invite them to Christmas? Are your Christmas invitations available at your Light Party? How can you encourage parents and carers of your toddlers to come along?

Can you use Christmas as an opportunity to rekindle relationships – with your infant baptism families, or those who came to Alpha last spring, or the community that comes to your board game evening?

Then, for Christmas, think about what is the next step spiritually or relationally for these people, and plan accordingly. How can you equip and facilitate those next steps?