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10/03/09--15:04: 13 Ways Your Church Can Show Christmas Kindness (chan 1354442)

1. Stuffed stockings. Take a cue from Open Air Ministries Philadelphia and partner with other local churches to distribute overflowing stockings to low-income families in your area.

 

Each year, Open Air invites elementary students the church normally reaches—as well as other families in nearby low-income neighborhoods—to attend Christmas stocking outreach. Last December, nearly 40 churches contributed 2,500 stockings stuffed with toys, candy and children’s Bibles, and volunteered at nine inner-city locations.

 

“The stocking outreach is a great foot in the door to the community,” says Joe Toy Jr., evangelist and Open Air’s founder. “It gives us a way to meet our neighbors and then discover what other needs they have so that our ministry can enter their homes and become part of their lives.”

 

 Through the Christmas stocking outreach, Open Air has grown its ministry to elementary students, bulked attendance at area church plants and fostered relationships with several urban and suburban churches.

 

2. Christmas tree giveaways. Work with a local Christmas tree lot and school to buy and deliver free Christmas trees. Ask the school and your church to recommend families to receive the trees and a decoration box, including lights, ornaments and a tree topper.

 

3. Christmas on a Budget. Host a communitywide event called Christmas on a Budget. Feature money-saving tips, creative do-it-yourself gift solutions (Warning: don’t turn the event into a commercial for products) and a financial expert who can answer questions about credit card debt. Ask a family who stopped exorbitant Christmas spending to talk about the experience, how they approached it and what they learned.

 

4. Global Christmas. Defeat the Christmas spirit of consumerism and host a gift fair, featuring presents you can give to various families and communities in need—locally and abroad. Every Christmas, The Shoreline Church of San Clemente, Calif., hosts “Shops at the Shoreline,” featuring a shopping catalog and booths from ministries around the world.

 

The church coordinates efforts with global ministries to prepare the catalog, asking how they can partner with them for the holiday season. More than 20 ministries were represented in 2008. Shoppers can purchase everything from a cow for a family in a Third World country to gifts for local Birth Choice centers.

 

Each year, The Shoreline raises several thousand dollars to support global ministries.

 

5. Airport shuttle. Airport parking fees can sometimes amount to as much as $100. Offer holiday travelers free shuttle service to and from the airport. Ask families to sign up in advance and enlist a coordinator to track reservations and pickups.

 

6. Christmas camp. Offer free childcare to your community on Friday and Saturday nights—prime times for company Christmas parties and holiday shopping. Organize a crafts station where children can create homemade gifts for their families and friends.

 

7. The joy of Christmas. Help families stretch their holiday dollars by providing food baskets and children’s gifts. For 14 years, St. John’s Episcopal of Wake Forest, N.C., has served families in need with its Joy of Christmas packages.

 

In September, the church provides school guidance counselors registration forms to distribute to families perceived to be in need. The families are encouraged to complete the forms and return them to the church. St. John’s members and guests then coordinate to provide and deliver Christmas gifts for each child in the family, a holiday meal, grocery store gift cards and pantry items.

 

“Some of these families have a tough time making ends meet or are unable to purchase gifts for all their children,” says coordinator Carolyn Stoklas. “Through this ministry, families who would otherwise be stretched with hardships during Christmas find blessings instead.”

 

8. Fido-sitting. Encourage people in your church to offer free pet- and house-sitting services to their traveling neighbors.

 

9. Holiday taxi. Provide Christmas and New Year’s shuttles to those returning from holiday parties. Distribute fliers at area clubs and other party venues and encourage organizers and bar tenders to send a text message when a ride is needed.

 

10. Free firewood. Help cut utility costs and secure permission to give away cords of firewood outside local grocery and home stores, as well as Christmas tree lots.

 

11. Mall Christmas. Rent out space at your local mall and host your own Christmas shopper outreach with free gifts, fun activities and free holiday portraits. Encourage shoppers to use the photos as inexpensive Christmas gifts for relatives or as Christmas cards. Set up tables and chairs for a relaxing environment and invite guests to attend your Christmas services.

 

Vineyard Christian Church of Flushing, N.Y., was previously near a heavily trafficked mall, so the church rented out mall space one Saturday in December for a concert and other holiday entertainment. Gradually, a crowd gathered to listen to the music, watch a short drama and sign up for a raffle for Christmas gifts. The church also offered free coffee and tea, free holiday portraits and children’s activities.

 

The raffles and photos were, by far, the most popular attractions, says Community Outreach Coordinator Jordan Chao-tao Wu. As a result of the mall festivities, a few guests that day attended Vineyard Christian’s Christmas services.

          

12. Packages for the troops. Contact the United Service Organizations to send packages to troops serving overseas. Fill each package with necessities and comforts from home: cards and letters of thanks, phone cards and a Bible.

 

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03/12/10--19:03: Valentine’s Day Events (chan 1354442)

Join in the season of love at Valentine’s Day by hosting events that not only celebrate Christian marriages, but also recognize those who may find the holiday difficult.

Heart-to-Heart Talks
Host a one-day conference or a four- to six-week evening series on marriage. Encourage couples who, for various reasons, might not be excited about the romantic holiday to attend.

When Hearts Break
For some, Valentine’s Day is a sad reminder of spouses who have passed away. Remind them that your church cares. Buy devotionals about coping with grief and pass them out after the service.

Young at Heart
Enlist three or four couples active in your church—one newly married, one older with children and one with at least 40 years of marriage behind them—to speak to your youth close to Feb. 14. Encourage the youth to ask questions about dating, abstinence before marriage and the challenges of being married for many years. Have a mediator to curb inappropriate questions.

Warming Senior Hearts
Host a Valentine’s Day dinner for the senior adults—couples and singles—in your community. Consider teaming up with other churches for a citywide event.

—From Outreach magazine, November/December 2006





03/12/10--19:09: Help Families Create a Christmas Legacy of Giving (chan 1354442)

SEATTLE—The holiday gift-giving season is an appropriate time to involve children in charitable giving and teach them why the old adage, "It is better to give than to receive," is true. Here are five great ways for parents to lead by example and teach their children the true spirit of the holidays:

1. As a family, select a charitable organization you'd like to support. Use online tools like Charity Navigator. Give your children a budget and encourage them to decide how your family will donate to that organization this holiday.

2. Cherish the stories of your family. Have your children talk to their grandparents and write down the stories of their past. Create a book to share with the entire family or record it online through Story Corps.

3. Consider do-it-yourself gifts like no-sew fleece blankets that you can make with your children. Donate those blankets to a local homeless shelter. Find other homemade gift ideas at About.com's Family Crafts page.

4. Work with your children to create a coupon book for your neighbors that might need an extra hand this year. Coupons could include shoveling their sidewalk, watching their children or providing a meal.

5. Bake cookies or sweets with your children and deliver them to your local nursing home or school in need. Get started with this list of holiday recipes.

Devin Hermanson, a charitable giving expert and national director of World Vision's Gift Catalog, is seeing a return to meaningful giving through the Gift Catalog. Despite the recession, Gift Catalog sales are higher than last year's figures at this time.

"The holiday season can be a stressful time of year,” Hermanson says. “There are gifts to purchase and wrap, cookies to bake, and family and friends to visit, but when we pause to help our neighbors in need, we all experience Christmas in a more meaningful way."

For each item in World Vision's Gift Catalog, the giver makes the purchase in the name of a friend, family member or business associate. World Vision then sends special cards to those individuals, describing the gifts and their impact. Last year alone, World Vision's Gift Catalog raised $25 million and provided assistance to more than 500,000 people worldwide. The Gift Catalog launched in 1996, and while a goat ($75) is still World Vision's number one seller, there are many affordable items for $35 or less.

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.






03/12/10--19:17: New Year, New Leaf (chan 1354442)

Church Christmas events draw a crowd, but the beginning of the new year is also a strategic time for outreach. In January, churches typically attract true seekers: people who, in honor of the new year, have made a resolution to seek spirituality or Christianity in their lives. As a result, this season is an excellent time to offer seminars, classes or other programs designed to address your community’s felt needs. Consider these ideas:

(1) Simple Living
Offer a class in simple living. Promote it as the “Lifestyle Garage Sale: Getting Rid of the Junk.” Using life-mapping, priority assessments or other tools, invite congregation members and the surrounding community to simplify their lives and focus on priorities. Wrap up the class with a garage sale, encouraging people to not just unclutter their attics for the sale, but eliminate the other distracting “junk” in their lives as well. Donate the proceeds to a local food bank or homeless shelter.

(2) Fit for Life
Is your church building empty most of the week? Offer a weight-loss support group, senior health or regular fitness class (aerobics, Pilates, etc.) at your church and invite the community to attend. Your church can demonstrate its concern for the whole person—not only the spiritual.

(3) Exploring Christianity
Many excellent curricula are now available for leading seeker small groups. Offer a six-week class for people interested in exploring Christianity and promote it in your local paper with intriguing questions: Who was Jesus? How can you know for certain that you’re going to heaven? Make sure the classes are not high pressure; are open and honest; and are a welcoming place to authentically explore Christianity. Encourage worshippers to invite their friends, but the group should consist primarily of unbelievers.

(4) Financial Confidence
Hosting one-night or multiple financial management seminars for your community is another effective way to reach out. Relevant topics like getting out of debt, planning for retirement, saving for college and thriving as a single-income family are all subjects that, if well-promoted, will definitely draw a crowd. When your church shows your surrounding community that it cares about the issues that are important to them, you begin to build a platform for connection.



 
Each issue of Outreach is designed to bring you the ideas, innovations and resources that will help you reach your community and change the world. Check out our current subscription offer»







03/15/10--19:46: December 1: World AIDS Day (chan 1354442)

Engage in the fight against AIDS in your own neighborhood and invite others in your community to join you. Here’s how:

RAISE AWARENESS
—Use World AIDS Day to raise healthy awareness within your congregation about the local and global impact of AIDS by hosting a simple informational night.

—Invite a guest speaker—a caregiver or someone infected with HIV/AIDS. After the speaker finishes sharing, have a moderated question-and-answer discussion.

—Provide attendees informational brochures and fliers.

RESPOND LOCALLY
—Identify opportunities to help those suffering from HIV and AIDS, including volunteering at a meal service, food bank, hospice or clinic. Contact local health services officials, hospitals or AIDS support groups to find ways to help.

—Adopt a local HIV/AIDS shelter. Identify where the shelter could use your church’s’ help. For example, offer to have quarterly service days on which volunteers make necessary repairs and maintain the grounds at the shelter.

RESPOND GLOBALLY
—Partner with relief organizations like World Vision or Compassion International to help people with AIDS and their children around the world.



 
These ideas first appeared in Outreach magazine, September/October 2007. Post a comment below to share what your church is doing. Each issue of Outreach is designed to bring you the ideas, innovations and resources that will help you reach your community and change the world. Click here to subscribe »







03/15/10--19:58: Super Bowl Sunday (chan 1354442)

In many communities, Super Bowl Sunday is little more than an annual migration to sports bars for alcoholic excess and hours of time away from the family. This year, promote a Super Bowl party that encourages dads to bring their sons for a time of fun and family-friendly male bonding. The party must be free and on church grounds.

No church member should come alone! Make sure you have a high-quality picture and a great view from every seat. You’ll also need an array of munchies, but make the event more interesting by serving a new course with every quarter.

First Quarter: 6-foot hoagies
Second Quarter: chili con carne
Halftime: hot wings
Fourth Quarter: build-your-own sundaes

Ensure that attendees have ample opportunity to meet the pastors and ministry leaders. Take photos throughout the day and collect contact information to send the pictures and an invitation to the next men’s, kids or students event.



 
These ideas first appeared in Outreach magazine, November/December 2007. Post a comment below to share what your church is doing. Each issue of Outreach is designed to bring you the ideas, innovations and resources that will help you reach your community and change the world. Click here to subscribe »







06/15/10--19:51: Christmas Eve Generosity (chan 1354442)

“At our Christmas Eve service, we gave away just over $6,000 to local widows, single moms and others in need,” says Lead Pastor John Weisman of Pleasant Valley Evangelical Church in Niles, Ohio. "Not only was it a joy for the recipients, it also broke open our hearts as a church family to be more generous, especially in tough economic times.”






06/15/10--19:54: Community Christmas Celebration (chan 1354442)

First Baptist Church in Lake Crystal, Minn., hosts an annual Community Christmas Celebration. The church serves refreshments and invites people in the community to contribute music and other talents.





10/24/11--17:58: Top 5 Christmas Eve Mistakes Churches Make (chan 1354442)

Every year I have to convince senior pastors that Christmas Eve offers a powerful opportunity to reach out to their community and introduce people to their church. I still get thank you notes from pastors who have discovered the potential of a well-planned and executed Christmas Eve service.

Is your church thinking strategically about your Christmas planning? As someone who works with churches throughout the country, I’ve seen numerous leaders making the same mistakes, specifically when planning and prepping for their Christmas Eve service. Below are my top five:

1. Give the staff Christmas Eve off.
This is a critical mistake that a lot of churches make. Christmas Eve offers prime opportunities to reach out to people. This could likely be one of your best-attended services of the year. It’s not the time to make do with a bare bones staff.

2. Offer only one Christmas Eve service.
Different time options give people a reason to say yes to an invitation to your service and afford them more leeway in their pre-existing Christmas plans. Even if you only have two services, one at 3 p.m. and another at 5 p.m., you give people a chance to come to church without forcing them to choose between a church service or dinner at Grandma's. By the way, Grandma wins every time.

3. Go ‘cutting edge’ creative.
At Christmas, people tend to want traditional, sentimental and warm over high-energy and creative. More people than you think are displaced from their families and are looking to make traditions of their own. You also create false expectations for the next visit when things are back to normal.

4. Don't have a message.
The No. 1 reason for whether or not people come back to a church they visited is how they felt about the preacher and the message. You don’t need an hourlong message, but teaching pastors should have a 20-minute message to engage newcomers and share their heart and teaching style.

5. Don't give them a reason to return.
The first of the year is just a week away, and often people’s New Year’s resolutions include “get back into church.” Promote a New Year's message series on Christmas Eve. Include the graphics and message titles in your Christmas Eve bulletin. Produce a QR code that takes people to a short video promoting the new series and inviting people back. You might be surprised by how many people take you up on the offer.

Maurilio Amorim is founder and CEO of The A Group, a media, technology and branding firm in Brentwood, Tenn., that started in 2001. In his role, he consults with some of the country’s largest ministries, leading churches and Christian publishers. Follow him on his blog or Twitter.

Each issue of Outreach is designed to bring you the ideas, innovations and resources that will help you reach your community and change the world. Check out our current subscription offer »