Your Community Needs Christmas More Than Ever
If ever there is a year to care about your community at Christmas, 2020 is the year.
We need some really encouraging moments in our lives. Everyone is hungry for Christmas to hurry up and get here. Like it or not, Christmas can signal better times ahead because the year of a pandemic will be coming to a close.
The churches that are going to win Christmas this year are the churches that find a way to serve their community, offer hope, and tell that story better than they’ve ever told it before.
Make It About Your Community
Tell the story of how your church helped the community during COVID.
Start now to compile video, pictures and stories from people in your congregation.
Did your church:
Help with your Food Bank?
Participate in the Big Spend in July?
Provide school supplies for back-to-school families?
Deliver groceries?
Chalk a sidewalk with pictures or positive words?
Innovate products or services for COVID?
Offer support groups for mental health?
Have families who posted their children’s colouring pages in their windows?
Help a single parent family with food?
Have a drive-by graduation or birthday?
Hold a drive-in church service?
Provide a drive-thru pick-up service?
Make calls to shut-ins?
Deliver Tim Horton’s to first responders or front line workers?
Run a playground summer fund day for the neighbourhood?
Host a Day Camp for the community?
Christmas has been about going to church to see big choirs, productions, lights, special effects, dramas, full parking lots, and overflow crowds. This year, Christmas is about the church going to the community and being seen as caring.
Tell Your Story Through Media
Even if you have to pay someone to make the video for you, this year is the time to spend the money.
Use the compiled media assets to produce a high-quality, 6 or 7-minute video with a heart warming story of how love wins. Use the video in your online and onsite Christmas service(s). Post it to your Facebook and Instagram pages and website.
Christmas by Thanksgiving
For your message series or Christmas Eve message, avoid using the word or anything to do with the theme “home.” We’ve all been locked up at home for far too long. So, no “Home Alone” or “Home for Christmas” tags.
Nostalgia wins every Christmas but especially this Christmas. Take people to a time when they really enjoyed life. Be encouraging and hopeful.
Start promoting your Christmas plans by Thanksgiving Sunday in October. Excite your congregation with what you CAN do in a world where we’re constrained by what we can’t do.
Your community needs Christmas more than ever. When you create memorable moments of hope, they’ll remember you, perhaps, forever.
Bob Jones is the founder of REVwords.com, an author, blogger, and coach with 39 years of pastoral experience. Bob is also an Advance Coach with the ABNWT Resource Centre. You can connect with Bob here.