When a church holds a seasonal or special event, initially we want to get lots of people to attend. But for a church that isn’t enough because we must always keep in mind that we are not just there to celebrate the various holidays, but to reach out to the community with the goals of helping unchurched people make a connection with the church, begin to come on a regular basis, come to know Jesus as Savior, and grow to Christian maturity.
We don't want to be satisfied with merely creating a great invitation and even with a great turn out at the event because as anyone who is involved in special events knows, attendance on the following Sundays, even if the seasonal celebration itself has a huge attendance, is almost always less than hoped for.
The problem is never because of the event itself—churches have figured out how to put on great events. Solving this problem is more complex than many churches realize but before we talk about solutions. . . .
First, a story that illustrates the importance of more than an invitation to events
This is a true story. Though the specific event discussed is Easter, the lessons learned from it apply to Fall, Christmas, and every other outreach event in the church. Here is what happened:
In one of my seminars I was talking about the importance of communications before, during, and after seasonal and special events. I shared how we not only needed to get everyone involved, but that we had to do much more than invite if we wanted the event to have lasting significance.
At the break, a woman literally came running up the aisle to talk to me.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said, “Now I understand what went wrong.” She then told me about a special Easter service at her church that was a huge amount of work and an equally huge disappointment in results. Here is what happened:
They were a new church plant and wanted to reach out to their community at Easter.
They were meeting in the grade school, but they wanted to grow and to do that committed to reach their community for Jesus at Easter. On faith, they rented the high school gym so they would have room for a huge crowd. They prayed hard and worked hard to get lots of community involvement.
They got it—merchants put up posters; the church got lots of media exposure. The day came and the church of under 300 had over 1500 at the Easter service held at the local high school gym.
They were so excited. They praised God for answering their prayers.
The next week back at the grade school, they set up hundreds more chairs, printed lots of extra bulletins. Additional ushers were recruited. They were excited to welcome all the new people they were sure would come.
They didn’t need to go to the extra trouble.
Almost none of the 1500 showed up. The woman who shared this was now between laughing and crying as she continued, “Now I understand what happened!” she said. She was the pastor’s wife and they had beaten themselves up emotionally for whatever had happened to give them so little lasting response. Maybe people didn't like them. Maybe the preaching was a turnoff. Maybe the music was boring. Maybe it was a huge Satanic attack—they didn't know what to think.
But now she understood what happened.
“We didn’t give them any follow-up material! We didn't give them ANYTHING that told them where or when we met regularly!” she continued, “Can you imagine how many people were probably wandering around the parking lot of the high school the next Sunday wondering what happened to the church? And we were miles away wondering where all the people were.”
She realized that a simple flyer or a business card that said something like “We are so glad you joined us today! Come back next week to our usual location…” with the church social media links, address, phone, map, times of service, some of the ministries offered would have made all the difference.
In addition, they hadn’t used connection cards during the service so they could follow-up and let people know where they were.
This was an extreme, but not unusual story
Though her story was more dramatic than most, I almost never see the necessary connection or follow-up publications given out at holiday celebrations or special events. Because of that lack of intentional follow-up, few seasonal or special event celebrations accomplish lasting results, not because people aren't interested in a further relationship with the church, but they may not know how to do that or what else the church offers.
One reason this happens is often that the church staff is usually so time-stressed and exhausted just getting the event put on that they don’t take time to plan and reproduce the connecting and follow-up documents that are essential to make the event have a lasting impact. And if someone thinks about them just before the event takes place there isn’t time to create them.
A strategy that works to be sure you have all the communications you need
Prepare your connecting and follow-up communications and the materials that you will give out to people at the event BEFORE you start to advertise the event.
I realize this seems counter-intuitive and you'll always have an excuse not to do it, but the purpose of outreach events is not to get people to the event only. The purpose of all your events is to get them involved in the church and introduced to Jesus.
The communications that will do that are of vital importance and easy to not do once the staff is involved in the last-minute preparations for the real event.
Following is an overview of what you need to create:
On your website: create timeless posts specifically written for newcomers, posts that link guests to more information about the specific holiday, such as questions about why Jesus is the “reason for the season” and why he needed to come to die for the sins of the world. If you do them ahead for different holidays, you can schedule them to go live on your website so they will post automatically and you’ll feel a huge sigh of relief as they come out.
Social media: though much of your social media content needs to be published during the time of the event, you can also schedule ahead material for core information and reminders about your church and follow-up links. If you use one of the social media scheduling programs, load it up, if you aren’t familiar with how to do this or the programs you can use to do it, this LifeHack article will help you get started:
Print media: The most essential piece of print you need for successful seasonal outreach is a Connection Card. This is an essential tool if you want to connect with visitors. Effective Church Communications has sets of templates that are done are ready to print off. CLICK HERE to go to them.
Additional materials that are useful, give these out at your event AND have the same information available on your website and remind people of these things through social media:
Information that tells people about some of the ongoing ministries in your church. Unchurched people often have no idea that churches have free activities for children or youth, groups for mom or recovery programs. you have a captive audience when people come to your seasonal event, don't let them leave without getting as much information as possible about what you do. You can do goodie bags with information cards inside; have people sign up for a drawing of a holiday-themed prize (big basket of whatever holiday seasonal goodies) and where you clearly state you "will keep in touch."
An explanation of the holiday itself: a brief history of Christmas, an overview of why Jesus came, or why did Jesus have to die on the cross, or again anything that references and explains the holiday. Add links to apologetic resources and an invitation to find out more. Don't assume people know that your church celebrates Easter because of the resurrection of Jesus if they grew up only knowing about chocolate and Easter bunnies.
An invitation to take the next step at your church. It is essential that you not only tell people what and where you do your weekly events, but also invite them to a non-threatening study perhaps related to the holidays or an event for information about the church or my favorite all-time idea on follow-up: enclosed 2 coupons for free lattes at the local coffee shop and invited people to “Latte with the Pastor” where they could come any Wed. afternoon from 2-4 and “ask any question they wanted about the Christian faith. CLICK HERE to go to TEMPLATES that share that invitation. You do need to scroll through the various ones for Christmas, it's near the bottom of the group.
How to maximize the power of these communication channels
Two words sum up how you maximize the power of these communication channels:
- Consistency
- Repetition
Consistency: you must be consistent is your message and how you present it each time through all the channels (print, digital, whatever). This means you use the same slogans, graphics, and colors in ALL channels. You do this so your message doesn’t get muddied in the mind of your audience.
Repetition: it takes not only numerical repetition (at least 7 times) for a message to click with your audience and for them to take action, but you need to repeat the message through all channels of communication: print, verbal, multi-media, social media for all your audience to get it the required times.
Remember though you will get sick to death of repeating the message, not everyone accesses the same channels, or they get busy, or they ignore some. Constantly remind yourself that NO ONE will see the message as many times as you do.
All the advice above is a tremendous amount of work
Some churches put on the same great events year after year for their community. Lots of people come to the event and love it, but seldom come back to the church. It does take a tremendous amount of extra work to do these the communications needed to accomplish more but the communications discussed are essential if you want to make the most of seasonal celebrations to make a lasting difference not only in the growth in numbers in your church, but in lives changed for eternity.
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions!