Tips for Making Christmas Parties an Outreach Tool

Written by David Francis

Thousands of Sunday School classes will gather for parties at Christmastime. These are wonderful occasions to exercise the purpose of fellowship. Also, they can be great tools for outreach if you are intentional about doing so.

Finding Them, Keeping Them

Here are a few tips:

Invite every member, every associate member, and every prospective member. Ask them to bring something if the rest of the members are doing so. This helps build commitment.
Prepare and wear name tags. Buy some festive ones, using red and green markers. If possible, have someone who prints well make a tag for each person as they arrive. Print the first name as large as possible!
Plan a fun activity. One year, the men in our class made ornaments, which we auctioned off to benefit the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. We still use the one we “bought” for $100 - a glittery floppy disk! (Some newer members did not know who Lottie Moon was, which provided a learning experience, too.)
End on time. Christmas is a busy time of year. Children may need to be picked up or babysitters taken home. This will establish an expectation for future parties.
If your party is successful, follow up with a strategy as soon as possible. Maybe a party in February around Valentine’s Day. Josh Hunt has developed an entire ministry around the idea of Fellowship Evangelism. Check out his website at http://www.joshhunt.com for more ideas.

David Francis is LifeWay's director of Sunday School. His latest book is Connect3 - The Power of One Sunday School Class. This is the fourth installment in the 3D Sunday School series following I-6 Invite: A Six-Lane Strategy toward an Inviting Sunday School and The Discover Triad: Three Facets of a Dynamic Sunday School Class. David has previously served as Minister of Education at First Baptist Church, Garland Texas, and currently teaches a preschool class on Sunday mornings.

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