The summer
months are often considered a ‘down time’ in church life. At King’s we increasingly
use those weeks for preparation to make sure that we have a strong start to the
church year in September and what comes beyond. While the rest of us are in summer
holiday mode there is a certain group at King’s who already have Christmas in
mind!
Christmas,
and more particularly our Christmas Carol Services, provides a mega opportunity
to reach out to our local communities! Planning, preparing and rehearsing for
the eight Carol Services we currently put on over
that weekend in December goes on throughout the autumn, even while we are seeking
to build momentum with the start of the church year in September. Last year we
saw 2800 people come through our doors over that single
weekend, many of them visitors.
Thousands of
Christmas Carol Service flyers will be printed – this is our predominant way of
advertising the Carol Services. They are
given out to all our small groups who will deliver them in their localities and
we have them available on Sundays when people will take them to give to friends
and family. There will also be a big
poster on the front of the building and we will deliver flyers to homes in the
area – that covers our advertising.
One of our
former elders was a School Governor at a local primary school - it provided an
arena in which to reach out to others. Every year, as Chair of Governors, he
sent all the governors an invitation to our Carol Services. These went with a
card saying ‘thanks for all your support this year and here’s an invitation to
the Carol Service’. At that level it’s
sowing. It’s surprising just how many
people who are now involved in the life of King’s made their first visit to
King’s to a Carol Service.
Because we
get an increasing number attending our multiple Carol Services we plan them
carefully. There is a carefully thought out theme and although we will do one
or two other songs, it’s predominantly traditional carols. We’ll have a drama and Bible readings and I
will speak. At this event we’re not asking for responses - we’re just
presenting Jesus; we’re just presenting the Christmas story and there would be
an invitation to attend the next Alpha course programmed to take place just
after the New Year. The Carol Service is not a revolutionary event in terms of
presentation, it’s the traditional approach people like – singing ‘Hark the
herald…’ is what they expect - and that’s what we do. We also aim to put on a
high quality event with great music so we will have an orchestra as well as our
usual band and a choir of brightly-dressed, smiling King’s people!
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