Church Video Ideas:  CHRISTMAS: Now is the Time!

Orginally published on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 7:58 AM
by Todd Rhoades

It’s a subject I’ve been blogging about a lot lately. Christmas will be here before you know it and the time to start planning was last week. I don’t have to tell you – Christmas is the main time of year when your church will see the most guests walk through your door. My own in-laws never go to church, but they don’t miss the Christmas Eve service at their local church. There’s something very special about that time of year and we as Church leaders need to be very sensitive to that and intentional about tapping into that ministry potential...

I’m not even talking about numbers. I’m talking about real opportunities for ministry. There are so many hurting and lonely people in our communities. Sadly, there are people that are one step away from suicide each Christmas season. What we consider special, warm, fuzzy and nostalgic, others consider depressing, sad and almost unbearable. For some it’s a painful reminder of how lonely they really are. They remember Christmases of long ago – family events and gatherings, opening gifts with their parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts. Now they may look around to an empty house and wonder what went wrong.

Right about now, many of you are thinking: Hey, I thought this was a tech guy writing a church tech column…how does this apply? It applies in light of how we plan and prepare for the holiday season. These are the days, friends, when your church staff and creative planning team should be gathering to discuss ways to make Christmas count this year. Ways to capture the joy, wonder and nostalgia of the season, while at the same time offering love, hope, grace and peace to all who may stumble (literally) through your door.

As one involved in leading and planning worship, I like to go all out for the big two (Christmas and Easter). We, as a staff, have always put more into those two holidays than anything else we do all year. Of course, we want consistency and wish we could hit a homerun every week, but we really bring our “A game” for the big two holidays. Here are a couple of words of caution.

KNOW YOUR PEOPLE
If your church attracts those ages 50 and up and you try to modernize your Christmas services and sing Christmas carols like U2 would sing them, it will probably not go well for you. Trust me – I tried. I looked out one year and my heart was broken. I saw grandfathers, uncles and parents that just wanted to sing familiar carols with their kids. They weren’t connecting at all to the modern sound and edgy atmosphere we had created. After that disaster, the next year I planned a completely traditional “Lessons and Carols” service for our Christmas Eve service and it was a tremendous success. People absolutely loved it! Maybe traditional would bomb in your setting and you need to go the modern/edgy route – go for it. The point and principle is to know your people and plan accordingly.

By the way, if you need a free template for a “Lessons and Carols” service, click HERE for the one I came up with and used at my church. Take it, tweak it, customize it and use it however you like.

MEDIA HELPS PEOPLE CONNECT
Another word on Christmas: Regardless of whether you go traditional, contemporary, modern, edgy or liturgical, I think you can creatively and effectively use media. There are a TON of great media resources available to the Church. Each year I write a “Christmas Media Review”, which I’ll be doing again this year and you can read here in this column. To check out last year’s click HERE. Mind you, many new Christmas resources for 2006 are coming out soon, but this will at least let you know of ones that were out as of last year. One final word…

SET THE MOOD
Candles are great at Christmas – very classy. Many churches light an Advent Candle each week. Brainstorm about ways to do that creatively. Change what they read as they light the candle. Change who lights the candle. Shake it up. Maybe add visuals on the screen while the people read their part and are lighting the candle. Many companies make some pretty cool looping backgrounds of snow falling. That’s right: snow. Try dimming the lights, having some candles lit, a Christmas CD playing (Manheim Steamroller is pretty sweet) and snow falling on the screens as the people are walking in.

I hope I have just lit a fire and I trust God to fan it into flame. Take these basic thoughts and ideas and run with them. Do your own thing, but don’t wait to the last minute to plan out what you’ll do during the month of December – there’s too much at stake!

FOR DISCUSSION: How are YOUR Christmas plans coming?!

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©2006 – Greg Atkinson (www.churchvideoideas.com)

Used by permission from author. All rights reserved by author.

Greg Atkinson lives in Dallas with his wife and their three small children. Greg served previously as the Director of WorshipHouse Media, after having served as a worship pastor for 11 years. He is the Founder of Multisensoryworship.com and Co-Founder of Wasteland Creative, where he continues to consult, teach and write about worship, media and creative communication. You can connect with him through his daily blog, Church Video Ideas, his podcast, Creative Synergy, or his email: .

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  There are 2 Comments:

• Posted by
  Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 3:06 PM

  I agree about making Christmas a great warm fuzzy service, but I think the “Christmas visitors” are drying up. Most of the people who visit at Christmas are, in my experience, visiting family in your area or something. Easter is still a great time for visitors, but Christmas much less so.

  And my Christmas plans are coming along pretty good. We’ll start rehearsing in the next couple weeks for a musical dramatic piece we’re doing. I’m psyched…

• Posted by
  Sunday, November 05, 2006 at 11:45 AM

  Christmas Eve is STILL the biggest time for NON believers to attend.......Easter is when the absent church members will show up.......

  Unfortunately we live in a world where for MANY people, Christmas is NOT the “most wonderful time of the year”......They have lost a job, lost a parent or spouse to death or divorce, lost the kids, struggle with bills, seen life give them a bad turn..........May I suggest a “Blue Christmas” service.......a quiet, meditative service, built around the hope Christ brings into our lives in the middle of a oppressive, difficult, hard world......

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