Podcast Episode #179
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With the Christmas season quickly approaching, we take time to discuss how to make the best use of holiday events and services. You will likely have more unchurched people in your services during the Christmas season that any other time of the year. These six tips will help you maximize your effectiveness during the holiday season.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- People are more open to be prayed for during the Christmas season.
- This is a great time of year to both be a blessing and remind people of the blessing that Jesus is.
- People who are not in church are more receptive to an invite during the holiday season.
- A Christmas Eve service is by far the easiest time of the year to get the unchurched to attend a service.
- Any time you have a church event, you should learn things that will help you in the next event.
The six holiday outreach considerations we cover today are:
- Pray for your community
- Pray for the hurting during the holidays
- Look for opportunities to minister
- Don’t forget the unchurched – especially on Christmas Eve
- Understand the power and limitations of special events
- Prepare for the next event
Episode Sponsors
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is a dynamic community of learners who are serious about ministry preparation biblical studies theological reflection and cultural engagement. Their faculty are gifted men and women who minister as much through research and writing as through local church involvement but their primary ministry is teaching and caring for students. Find out more about TEDS at Divinity.TIU.edu.
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped hundreds of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church. Find out more about Vanderbloemen Search Group by visiting WeStaffTheChurch.com.
Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
For those who attend during Advent, it is similar to Lent. Please read the portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah focusing on the coming Messiah. Additionally, use advent to remind people that they can return. Please don’t criticize those who attend near/on Christmas. Some may be hoping that the church people are feeling festive and won’t be as judgmental as they typically are or that they can hide in the crowd. Also, after Christmas, focus on the holy innocents, then the Epiphany and don’t immediately go back to the usual sermon topics. Let people confess and offer reconciliation (somehow). The immediate forgetting of the birth of Christ does not help anyone.
Where can I find the periscope on guest cards?
The link is in the post in the resources section. Right above the camel.
I am church plant and we meet out of a school, so having a Christmas eve service is not possible. So should the “emphasis” of a Christmas eve service be the Sunday before?