Church Marketing Sucks

This year Christmas presents a peculiar wrinkle in your church communication plans: One of the biggest holidays of the year falls on one of the most-attended Sundays of the year.

Rather than a perfect storm that could bust your seating capacity, this confluence of dates could leave your church empty and echoing for Christmas. It’s an issue that comes up every few years, most recently in 2011 and 2005. You’ll face it again in 2022 (and then not until 2033).

So how should your church deal with Christmas falling on a Sunday? Business as usual? Scale back? Make Christmas Eve even bigger? We asked a few church communication pros what how they were planning to deal with Christmas landing on a Sunday.

Big Christmas Eve

“We plan to have five Christmas Eve worship services on December 24,” says Crystal Kirkman, the communications director at First Christian Church in Decatur, Ill.

“We haven’t been the church that does Christmas Eve services,” says Evan Courtney, the family life pastor and communications director at The Fields Church in Mattoon, Ill. “[But] this year we’re changing our focus. We are doing Christmas Eve services and all of our marketing will point toward it, and we are wanting it to be a community Christmas Eve service, where anyone in our community who doesn’t typical go to church would feel welcome.”

“We’ll do a production of sorts on Friday and Saturday,” says Michael Buckingham, the experience pastor at Victory World Church in Atlanta.

Most churches we talked to are putting their focus on Friday and Saturday nights, while taking Sunday off.

Low-Key Services on Christmas Sunday

While most churches are taking Sunday off, some are offering more laid-back options on Christmas Day.

“We are opening one central location for people to come and pray and take communion if they want to come to the church as a family,” says Gerry True, the communication arts pastor at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.

Crystal Kirkman’s church is offering an unplugged worship service on Christmas Day, featuring her lead pastor and his wife, who are former professional musicians.

“This also allows the rest of the staff and band members to enjoy Christmas with their families,” Crystal says.

Online Options for Christmas Sunday

Some churches are turning to technology to deal with Christmas falling on a Sunday.

“For Christmas Day we will not have services on campus but will pre-record a 30-minute Christmas service to broadcast on our online campus,” says Kelvin Co, the creative arts pastor at The Oaks Fellowship in the Dallas Metroplex area.

“We pre-recorded a 15-minute message with Max Lucado in Bethlehem at the Church of the Nativity and will provide that to families through all of our streaming platforms to watch on-demand in their homes,” says Gerry True.

Remember Your Team

The crush of Christmas services can be especially hard on staff and volunteers. That’s why many churches are opting to scale back for Christmas Day. While Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, so does New Year’s Day, which can make the week after Christmas a challenge as well.

Evan Courtney’s church is taking off both Christmas and New Year’s for the sake of their volunteers.

Business as Usual

And still other churches will stick with the normal Sunday plan. Celebrating Christ’s birth on Sunday when we remember his resurrection can be a special moment.

More:

However your church deal with Christmas falling on a Sunday this year, we’ve got plenty of resources to help:

• Check out God Rest Ye Stressed Communicators: Planning Christmas for Your Church for more Christmas help.
• We’ve made a list of all our Christmas ideas, resources and examples—and checked it twice.