The Countdown to Christmas Ministry Checklist

The Countdown to Christmas is on! Didn’t it seem like just the other day that it was “Back to School” night? Time flies by and as Christmas approaches, ministry starts to get real intense because Christmas is one of the biggest events of the year. There is so much going on from work parties, school gatherings and celebrations to your own family obligations. But, over the course of December, there tends to be much more than just Christmas Eve and Christmas day services that happens for Churches.

The month of December can be filled with a ton of great opportunities for you and your Church. Why? Because just like Easter, Christmas tends to be one of the times when people are most open to hear about Christ and the gospel. They are most likely to bring children to events or come to a Church service. So, you want to make this time special and want to provide opportunities for families to discover God, maybe for the first time.

Hopefully you have started preparing for Christmas already, as there is lot to do. But, regardless of where you are in the process, this Countdown to Christmas checklist will help you make sure you have everything covered this Christmas.  Here are some specific actions you can take.

The Lead Up to Christmas

Pray. That’s right, I said it, pray! It is the thing we always know we should do, but what we tend to overlook. Before you get going on any plans or strategy with the last few weeks before Christmas, you need pray. When we pray we are giving control over to God and ask Him to guide our every move or decision. When we pray we are Trusting that God is going to do so much ore than we can every imagine.

My encouragement would be to start by praying for your team, your Church, and people to discover who Christ is this Christmas season. Also, create a prayer list for your team and send it to them via email so they can be praying with you. Finally, pick a few people each day that you are ministering to or are your volunteers and text them asking how you can be praying for them today. It’s a great way to start.

Check out this video talking about this in a little bit more depth.

Cast Vision. Just because it is Christmas time and there is a lot of emphasis on Christmas doesn’t mean you don’t need to be casting vision. In fact, it is the perfect time to do this with those who attend your Church and your volunteers. Encourage people to be praying for the lead up to Christmas, the services and for opportunities for them to share about Jesus or the different events or services happening at your Church. You can watch this video or click this blog post about the value of casting vision to your volunteers and those you are ministering to.

Here are a few groups of people you can be casting vision to:

• Prepare your disciplemakers, volunteers for all the possibilities that lie ahead for you and your Church during this time of year. Encourage and inspire them, as well as give them the tools to know what to do and how they can go and make disciples.
• Prepare your congregation. Here you are encouraging people who attend your Church to be personally inviting their friends, family, co-workers and neighbors that events, activities and Christmas services. Why? Because we are all called to go and make disciples. We are all called to share our faith with others. So, you can provide them tools for how to do that. This can be in the form of training sessions, videos or some other form of communication that will help equip them to share their faith and invite others to what is happening at your Church.

Make a list of all your Christmas activities. Before you can really address updating your newsletter, email messages, website and social media channels with what is happening, you have to first make a list of all that is happening in and around your Church this Christmas season. And you have to make sure everyone on Staff and your key ministry leaders and volunteers know what are they, where are they, who are they for, and what their role is for those. Staffers and key ministry leaders should be in the know, even if they don’t have a part in a specific event. Make sure you get all the details so you can update all your communications.

One of the ways you can help keep your volunteers and Staffers informed of what is happening and the different opportunities to serve is to create a list and use a site like Sign up Genius. It makes it easy for people to sign up and serve the events you have going on

Christmas Events

Christmas is such a magical time of year. There is music playing, holiday tv shows and movies playing, along with a ton of festive decorations that go up. It is a time of the year that the world seems to celebrate and rejoice, even if they are not Christians. Because of this time of year is celebrated by so many, it provides your Church or ministry a great opportunity to put on events that draw people in and engage with you. For example, here are a few Christmas events you can put on over the holiday season:

• Pictures with the Santa. Yes, we all know that Christmas is about the birth of Christ. However, if you are looking to attract non-Christians to an events, having pictures with Santa is a fun way to do that. Parents LOVE to get pictures with Santa. You set up times for families to come in and get FREE picture with Santa. You can get a cute backdrop or create one at your Church so that when families come in they are greeted by the elves or Santa’s helpers and take pictures. Then, you can send them their FREE pictures. With that email, you can also include an invite to Christmas Eve and Day services. Offering this service for free is a huge benefit to families.
• Breakfast with Santa. Just like taking pictures with the Santa, doing a breakfast a few weeks before Christmas can be a fun way to engage and encourage your community. Put together a Buffett or pancake breakfast one Saturday morning leading up to Christmas, have some games and coloring pages for children to do while they wait for their picture with Santa. This could be a great way to invite people to one of the Christmas Eve or Christmas day services at your Church.
• Christmas Shoppe. This could be done in a variety of ways. You can provide a Christmas shopping time for little children to come in and buy gifts for their parents or make gifts for them. Or, you could do this as a ministry to a less fortunate community in your area where you collect gifts from people (new donated gifts) and kids come by and select gifts for their parents. You can have a wrapping station and play some games with them, as well. As they leave with their presents for their family, make sure you invite them back to Christmas Eve and Day services.

Online Opportunities.

People experience Christmas in a variety of ways. There are a lot of online opportunities you can minister to people online this Christmas season. Here are some ways you can best be prepared online.

Update your Website and Social Media. Making sure your website and social media platforms are all updated is important any time of year, but, in particular, Christmas is a must! The average non-Church are more likely to come to your Christmas services than almost any other time of the year, so they will no doubt be checking Google for a list of local Churches in their area to attend. That is why it is so important your website is updated. Update your information on your website with all the your Christmas info front and center so it is impossible to miss. And, update your social media. Make sure all of your info is correct with the right service times and other activities on it. Whether you have a Communication Director or not at your Church, you can still check out your Church’s website and make sure your ministry events are on the site and all the information is updated. Here is a video highlighting the value of this.

Create Facebook events for your events. If you have a Communications or Social Media Director at your Church, make sure he/she knows what ministry events you all have and that they create Facebook events for them. If you don’t have a person in charge, you can simply create and event page for your event from your personal Facebook account. While you want to make sure your website is fully updated first, having Facebook Events highlight all the different events your Church is putting on this Christmas season is very important.

Create and Share Videos. Video is valued content these days. Whether it is on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook, there is true power there to reach people. You can create videos to do devotionals, share special Christmas music, share a promotion for your services or something else entirely. They can be 60 seconds long (great for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels) or 7-20 minutes long (perfect for YouTube and Facebook). The more videos you can do, the better chance you can reach online attendees and those in your local community. If you are not sold on doing videos to share, here are 4 reasons why you should do a video and 5 ways you can improve your short form video.

Facebook Ads. The reality is that Facebook ads are not as effective as they used to be. However, they are still effective. People may not Google Search for Churches but they could stumble upon your Church on social media. That is why you can use Facebook to place ads about your Christmas events or services. Even if you do these ads a week or a few days before them, it is still a good to do some Facebook ads. One tip to consider, video always works a little better than still photos. If you can do a video ad, that could be extremely effective. If not, a photo or a set of carousel images could be effective, as well.

Utilize Snapchat. Teenagers and young adults are huge fans of Snapchat. They use it regularly to message their friends. And because it is a popular app on their phones, there are two strategic ways you can utilize Snapchat this Easter.

• Geo Filters. Geofilters are images that you overlay on your snaps. They are extremely popular and people use them to send to people to share where they are and what they are doing. Snapchat has a series of these geofilters no matter where you are at. However, there is a unique benefit to them for Churches. You can actually use them to promote your Church service or event. Churches can use these Geo Filters in the weeks leading up to Christmas to promote Christmas services at your Church. People can send Snaps to their friends using a “Come with me” image to your Church. Learn how you can create them here.
• Context Cards. These can be found on Snaps that are sent to you that are tagged with the Snaps’s venue-specific Geofilters, or any Snap that is public on the ‘Our Story’ feed. You will know which Snaps have Context Cards when you see the “More” text towards the bottom of the Snap you are looking at. When you swipe up on “More”, Snapchat will first provide basic info including the name and category. Encourage people using Snapchat to use Context Cards when they share a Snap from Church to their friends, especially leading up to Christmas. This “brand exposure” can help people think of your Church when they look at going to Christmas services this year.

Empower Digital Missionaries and Champions. Digital Missionaries are people who use social media to share about Christ. They can share through writing, video, audio, photography, and other online tools. Digital Champions are people who love social media and love sharing about what your Church is doing online. They can share it through their own social media accounts or they can also share it on community pages, highlighting events or activities your Church is doing that the community may enjoy. Empower Digital Missionaries and Champions. Find out who these people are at your Church and mobilize them to minister to people and share about what is happening at your Church this year. Send them weekly updates on all that is happening and encourage them with different ways they can minister online. The more they know about what is going on and how to minister online, the more effective they can be.

Digital Discipleship Opportunities. 

• Text Group. Create a text group you send daily encouragement to a group. In these text groups you will send day people get a new text message daily that gives them a Bible verse and thought to challenge them. It’s a great way to encourage people you are ministering to. There are a lot of great messaging apps your Church can use. For instance, Remind or Text in Church are great and easy to use. Another text group you can form is one where you start a text group with 10-12 people and act like a daily chat group where you are sharing encouragement throughout the day. This could be done on Apps like Signal, WhatsApp or regular SMS Text Apps.
• Facebook Group. I started an Online Life Group on Facebook entitled “Countdown to Christmas” and it had the most people ever in one of our Online Life Groups. We started this on December 1st and went all way through Christmas day. We would share scripture verses, devotional thoughts, fun crafts or treats familes could make and Christmas music and hymn. Posting once a day is sufficient but posting a bit more would get more people to engage. The Christmas season is a very special time of year. There are plenty of things you can post about to engage others and encourage them.
• Online Bible Study. There are lots of great Christmas themed Bible studies you can start up and be part of. And the great thing is that you don’t have to create all the content. There are great Bible study apps like YouVersion that have thousands of Bible Studies you can look through and choose to be part of. The best part about apps like YouVeriison is that you can start a Group Online Study where you can invite friends and people in your Church or ministry to it. In the YouVersion Bible App there are ways you can have discussions after each reading and devotional time. Here is a quick tutorial on how to create an Online Bible Study through YouVersion.

Next Steps and Follow Up

Be Prepared for Next Steps (Online and In Person). This is very important as a lot of people come to Christmas services just because that is what they are “supposed to do”. Unfortunately, many people do not normally come back the following week. That is why it is important for your Hospitality Team and Chat Hosts to have clear next steps that they can share with others. Make sure your attendees have every opportunity to connect and take a next step.

• Connection Cards. These cards allow people coming to your Church an opportunity to learn more about your Church. But, they also allow Churches to learn more about the people attending. What do they like and what are they interested in. This is a simple first step people take when they want to learn more about your Church. Make sure you have a digital card set up so that either in person or online attendees can simply click a link to fill out the form. You can even have a QR code that people can can.
• A “Meet the Pastor” Meet Up. While it may seem “old fashion”, people still like to meet the Pastor. You can do this in person or online, but it would be best to do it that day. If people have to come back to meet the Pastor, they are less likely to do so. This can be with the Senior Pastor, Campus Pastor or another Minister who is good at connecting with others. Here, the Pastor can share the mission and vision of the Church as well as answer questions they may have. It doesn’t have to be a long, but it could be a great next step for people to take. It is more personable than a connection card.
• Discipleship Opportunities. While people attend Christmas services for a variety of reasons, it is the hope that those attending will hear something during the service that will cause them to want to learn more about Jesus. Have a few different discipleship opportunities for them to learn about while they are at the service. These could be Online Bible Studies, Life Groups or other Groups available that you can share links or a QR code with.
• What’s Next. People come to Christmas and Easter services because they are special and unique days. But, they don’t have to be. What is something that you, as a Church, can celebrate and bring people back for? Some Churches have guest speakers the following week to share or highlight a special, upcoming event. Have that information ready for people so you can invite them to come back.
• Service Opportunities. There are a few things we know about service. The younger generation (Milennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha) love to get behind a cause. In addition, we know that when you serve others, you grow in your faith and feel good about doing something for others. Provide service opportunities for people to connect with. It could be service around the Church or an event that you are doing such as a mission trip or a community service outreach you are participating in. Provide service opportunities to help people connect.

Follow up. This might be the most important thing you do this Christmas season. No matter how much you prayed, casted vision, or how great your events were leading up to Christmas was, if you do not follow up with the connections you made, all the work you did will be for not. Take the days after Christmas to regroup and distribute who needs to follow up with what. Hopefully you already have processes in place, but even if you don’t, get the staff and key volunteers together to process who will do what and by when. The sooner you follow up, the more effective it will be.

Simple Reminders.

Be Intentional. Christmas is a busy time for Church Staffers and volunteers as they have have a lot on their plate. But, think strategically and be intentional. If ministries are hosting Christmas events, are they just events or are they intentionally planned out events. Is there a call to action in these events that people who attend will get an invite to come back to Christmas services at your Church? Are volunteers serving being prepped to have intentional conversations with people? Be intention in all you do leading up to Christmas so you are not wasting your team’s time in a stressful time of year.

Have fun and enjoy the season! That’s right, all throughout December it can be stressful, so make sure you have fun. Enjoy the month of December. Don’t let the Christmas spirit slip away so have some fun with your friends and family.

Make sure your volunteers have fun, too! As mentioned above December can be stressful…not just for you BUT for your volunteers as well. Email, text or message them some funny memes, Christmas questions, Bible verses or other inspiration to encourage them over the Christmas season.

Make Christmas Eve memorable…for your volunteers. Serving and helping out on Christmas Eve, a family focused day, can be time consuming and stressful. So, as the main leader, make sure you make Christmas Eve memorable for your volunteers. You know your volunteers the best, but maybe have selected food for them to eat while they volunteer, get them Santa hats to wear or encourage them to wear ugly sweaters while they serve, maybe play some fun trivia with them over the time they are serving. The opportunities are endless of what you can do, just do something. Watch this video for some ideas.

Keep your focus on Christ. The Christmas season is a very busy time of year and our focus can be on anywhere OTHER than the birth of Christ. There are a variety of ways you can do this.

Conclusion

Christmas is an amazing time of year! And, it is one of the best opportunities your Church and fellow believers have to share about Jesus. If your Church wants to reach your community for Christ and make an eternal impact, there are many things you can do. It starts with prayer and asking God to help you determine what is best for your Church and community. Just because another Church is doing something, doesn’t mean you have to do that or that you shouldn’t do it. Do what you feel best that the Lord is leading you to.

The countdown to Christmas can be very stressful, not just for you but for volunteers and many others as well. However, it doesn’t have to be. As God leads you, be open to different activities you can host and prepared to welcome people and follow up with them. Use this checklist as a guide to help take the stress off a little so you can be productive and enjoy this time of year, while also making meaningful connections that can impact eternity.

What do you think? Is there anything else you would add to this checklist to help December be an a stress-free, enjoyable time as well as one filled with opportunities fulfilled for your Church? Share your thoughts below or social media when you post. 

Looking for for Bible software or resources for you or your Church? Check out Logos! They have so many great resources. Click this link you can get some good discounts on their products

Interested in being a Digital Missionary or want to learn digital tools to expand your reach in ministry this year, join the Digital Bootcamp Facebook Group!