The Wednesday Night services in December are odd.  Everyone is busy, overall attendance is low, and you have pressure to celebrate the season.  No matter where you serve in your church, with a little creativity and planning, you can make these nights fun, meaningful and outward focused.

The three ideas I’ll share today, I’ve used with great success at multiple churches.  They can be easily deployed for the whole church or just kids or youth ministry.  It doesn’t matter if you do just one or all of them.  The key idea is to create meaningful, family friendly events that serve your group and your community.

1. Christmas Party

One of my favorite parts of the Holiday season is all the parties.  You can have so much fun just being together.  Parties can be elaborate or just something small.  It doesn’t really matter as long as you bring people together.

At many of the churches I’ve served, we’ve had Wednesday night kids programming and the leaders of those groups want to have their own parties with their kids.  As the time came for the parties, trying to coordinate all the food and rooms needed became a hassle, so we combined for one big party.  The girls’ groups brought the crafts, the boys’ groups brought the games, and the leaders provided the food.  It was a ton of fun as they all met together.

As fun as the kids’ parties are, the real fun is when the whole church participates. We picked one Wednesday night and told people to wear their ugly Christmas sweaters.  We provided light snacks and games and activities for the tables to do together.  Then we played some stage games like Christmas Family Feud, build your own gingerbread house, and name that Christmas tune.  The ugly Christmas sweater competition is always a hit.  We had a great time and families were asking us to do it again next year.

2. Movie Night

The party may be too much for you, but a movie night can be super simple.  I’ve hosted these just with my children’s ministry and with the whole church and they were loved by all.  Watching a movie can be a touchy subject in your church and there are some licensing restrictions.  That’s why last year, I made a list of four great Christmas movies you can show that your kids will love.  You can see that here.  If you have a CVLI you should be able to show it at your church without issues.

One of the best parts of going to the movies is the popcorn.  Every church I’ve served had a movie style popcorn popper, but if yours doesn’t, you can always go to your local movie theater and ask for a donation.  Mine just started charging $25, but I get two 60-gallon trash bags full of popcorn.  That’s way better than what I can make in the microwave. 

3. Serve the Community

As much as I love parties and movies, Christmas isn’t about celebrating ourselves.  It’s about giving, and there are few better times to give back than Christmas.  One of my churches had a food bank so we would do a big food distribution.  We’d invite whole families to join in as we stuffed bags and loaded them into the trunks of the people who needed it.  It was great to watch parents and kids serve together.

Another church I served in created Christmas shoeboxes and distributed them to the nearby low-income neighborhood.  The Wednesday night before, we’d invite families to come in and help us stuff, wrap, and pray over each box.  Then later in the week we’d give them out.  The looks on those kids’ faces were priceless.

One year we did a big Christmas musical and invited the community to come.  We asked our congregation to donate a toy.  Before the musical began, we let the parents “shop” for toys for their children, and then we’d wrap and have them ready for pick up at the end of the night.

These are just some of the things that we did that made sense for our community and our church. I’m sure you can come up with your own ideas to serve your community. Regardless, I hope you find some way to serve your community and meet their needs this Christmas.

We’d do each of these three events throughout the month of December and take the Wednesday between Christmas and New Year’s off.  It took some work and planning, but it made the month memorable, fun, and outward focused.  Our congregation asked us to do it again, and we saw people come to our church and follow Jesus.  It’s a big win.

What do you do in December at your church?  Let me know in the comments!

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