How to End the Year Well: Prepare for a Unique Christmas

By Ben Bradley, BCI Communications Director

Have you made plans for how you will end the year well in 2020? Considering all that we’ve gone through this year, it would be easy to be content with congratulating yourself simply for surviving this year. Maybe you’re tempted to huddle up with your closest family and friends to wait out the rest of the year without creating any more problems. You may simply be holding your breath in the hope that next year everything will finally return “back to normal.”

2020 BCI Annual Meeting Report

The end of the year is definitely an opportunity for church leaders to plan for great things next year. But if we move on to 2021 too quickly, we’ll miss the opportunity to re-focus our attention and energy on what’s most important. Make a plan to thrive and not just survive the rest of the year by preparing for a unique Christmas, staying on mission, and growing in giving.

How can you prepare for a unique Christmas as a church leader? Here are a few things to keep at the top of your list along with a few recommended resources.

Plan for Outreach

Christmas services are among the most evangelistic events of the year. Along with Easter, it’s one of two opportunities for members to invite both believing and non-believing family with a reasonable expectation that they’ll accept. Sadly, the pandemic is still a reality that will prevent many guests and visitors who otherwise would have accepted an invitation to attend in-person services. Hopefully, most of your members have returned to in-person attendance or watch online but let’s not be content to “reach the reached.” Instead, consider how you can personalize and add value to your worship services and outreach activities.

Make your event a pre-produced video for the whole family; something that will warm the hearts of the older folks and hold the attention of the children. Be creative.
Add authenticity and a personal touch to your online services options by utilizing various members during your service (or have them send in video) and encourage them to invite friends to watch online.
Ask friends and family how your church can be praying for them and start an old fashioned “prayer chain.” Collect a list of practical needs from neighbors and friends in your community to be shared with the church.

Listen: Reimagining Christmas – Episode 164 | The Unstuck Church Podcast

Celebrate Advent

Advent may have already begun this last Sunday but it’s not too late to prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth. Advent is a season of preparation that has grown in popularity among Baptists in recent decades. Shifting your energy from “one big service” to “a season of celebrating Christ” is one way of responding to the diminished evangelistic opportunity of the traditional Christmas service. How can you devise your Advent calendar to invite participation from your community and not just your congregation? Here are a few ideas.

Invite your community to participate in Advent online. Promote an Advent email that community members can sign up for on social media. Write an email for each day or week of Advent and send the email to your new friends. Invite one of your church members to choose a scripture and write a short devotional message for each email.
Make your worship program available on-demand starting mid-December so people can watch it at their convenience. Don’t wait until Christmas Eve to release your program.
Build connection into your worship program offering as well. Plan a second “Start the New Year Right” program to release the day after Christmas going into the new year and have some resources folks can download that will help them begin the year right. Perhaps link to some Bible reading plans or some devotional series that Lifeway may offer.

Read: The Wonder of Advent Devotional

Resist Distraction

Keep the first thing first: focus on Christ this Christmas. It is said often and yet we often need to be reminded. Spend your best time thinking, talking, praying, and preaching about the most important thing: Christ. We will be tempted to divert our focus to all the trending, noteworthy, and newsworthy topics and events of the year. Let’s decide to put Christ first in everything we say and everything we do. In doing so, with so competition for our attention, we will magnify our Savior that much more.

Remember: Jesse Tree Ornament Set

Resist the urge to coast through the rest of the year and take on a bit of risk this season. Will we just try to do it the same way we did it last year? Or will we take advantage of the great opportunity in front of us to reach the unreached? Let’s not be content to provide a nice experience for the most committed attendees. Let’s reach out to the unreached in our communities and help them take their next step toward Christ.