Christmas church services: getting the word out in good time
For many churches, December is the month when the most people come looking. Families who haven’t been since last year, neighbours who fancy a carol service, grandparents visiting for the week and hoping to take the children to a crib service. Most of them will search online first, often only a day or two before.
Whether they find you depends largely on work done in November. This is the timetable we would suggest for the weeks ahead.
Settle the details first
Before anything is published, get the list agreed: every service, every church, date, time and who is leading. In a circuit this usually means gathering information from a dozen stewards, so ask early and ask once, with a simple table for each church to fill in. Carol services, crib services, Christingles, Christmas Eve communion, Christmas Day and the Sunday after all belong on it, as does any church that is not holding a service and is joining a neighbour instead.
Then check it against the plan. Christmas is exactly when a special service gets arranged locally and never quite reaches the circuit office.
A timetable for the season
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Early November | Collect every Christmas service from each church and check it against the plan |
| Mid November | Publish the full list on the website, with every church’s services clearly dated |
| Advent Sunday, 29 November | Share the list on social media and in the notices, and put the posters up |
| Early December | Post each church’s main event on its own, with a photograph from last year |
| The week before Christmas | Share the times again, and pin the list to the top of your Facebook Page |
| 23 and 24 December | A final reminder, with any weather or parking information |
Let the website do the heavy lifting
Your website is the one place everything can be found together, so it should hold the complete, correct list. Social media posts, posters and notices can then all point people to it. A few details make a real difference.
- Put the Christmas services on the front page from mid November, not tucked away in a news archive.
- Write the day as well as the date. ‘Thursday 24 December, 11.30pm’ is much harder to misread than ‘24/12 at 23:30’.
- Say what each service is like. ‘A short, informal crib service for families with young children’ helps a nervous visitor far more than ‘Crib Service’.
- Include the address, parking and whether the building is step-free.
- Take the list down, or turn it into a thank you, in the first week of January.
On a Chrestos website with Planmaker, services added to the plan appear beside each church automatically, so the special services only need entering once.
Search engines and maps
Many people will never reach your website at all. They will type ‘carol service near me’ into their phone and look at whatever appears on the map. If your church has a Google Business Profile, add the Christmas services there as events or posts, and check that the address and details are right. It is free, and it is often the first thing a visitor sees.
The ‘find a church’ listing on the Methodist Church website is worth checking at the same time, along with local community websites and the parish magazine if your church contributes to one.
Don’t forget the people who aren’t online
Everything above is about the internet, but Christmas is also the season for a printed card through neighbours’ doors, a poster in the post office window and a notice in the local paper. The people most likely to come to a carol service because a neighbour handed them a card are often the people least likely to be searching online.
For more on keeping everybody included, see our article on helping members who aren’t online.
A calmer December
A little planning now means fewer phone calls on Christmas Eve asking what time things start. If you would like the service list to appear on a screen in the church foyer as well, Digital Signage can show it alongside your other notices, and we are always happy to help you set it up.
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