10 Ways to Maximize the Outreach Effectiveness of Your Church’s Christmas Musicals

Written by Gary Hardin

We are learning ways to maximize the annual Christmas musical performances for evangelism and outreach.

Here are 10 tips based on our experiences. Any size church can benefit from these suggestions.

1. Clear the Church Calendar

• Clear the church calendar for rehearsals, stage setup, the actual performances, and some “down” time afterward.
• Schedule the Christmas musical at a time when the most people can be present.
• Consider the dates schools dismiss for Christmas holidays and when most of your congregation and community will be traveling.
• Do not schedule weddings in the sanctuary for 3 weeks before the performance.

2. Commit to Excellence
A Christmas musical portrays the story of Jesus and presents Christ to the audience, so honor the Lord with an excellent musical performance. The quality of the singing, drama, stage design, sound, publicity pieces, and childcare all speak volumes about your church’s commitment to excellence.

3. Know Your Purpose
Educate your musical cast and crew about the evangelistic opportunities your musical gives them to present the gospel. Make sure the church understands that the Christmas musical is an evangelistic event.

4. Consider Multiple Performances
Offering multiple performances will help you reach more people. We attract the most prospects and unchurched persons at our Friday and Saturday night performances. The Sunday night performance seems to be more attractive to our members.

5. Promote the Musical as a “Gift” to the Community
Our church’s calendar planning each year includes a variety of evangelistic outreach events. The Christmas musical is our biggest outreach event. When we speak to our congregation about the musical, we deliberately call the musical our church’s “gift to the community.” This simple statement carries two benefits.

• It shows our intention to use the musical as a tool for drawing unchurched persons to the performances.
• It holds the cast and crew accountable for excellence. If they know their singing is a gift to someone, they want their gift to be a worthy one.

6. Use a Publicity Mix

• Four weeks before the musical we print “free tickets” our congregation uses to invite their unchurched friends to the musical. The free tickets show the dates, times, and location of the musical.
• We print letter-sized full-color flyers on card stock. Our people place these colorful flyers on bulletin boards in our area.
• Each year we send out a colorful direct mail piece to every person in our database (members and prospects). The mailer encourages people to “bring a friend.”
• Our local newspaper has a couple of “free” sections in which we place announcements about the musical.
• We also buy newspaper display ads each year that run a few days prior to the musical.

7. Register Everyone Who Attends
We include a registration card inside the printed musical program. A few minutes before the musical begins, I  stand before the congregation, extend a welcome, say a prayer, and ask everyone to register their attendance by using the card. We do not receive an offering at our musicals, so we ask the congregation to leave their cards on the pews as they leave. Later, an usher gathers the cards and takes them to the church office.

We add these names to our computerized prospect database and code them as “Christmas musical attender.” Throughout the year we mail information to these persons about events and activities in our church. In December we make sure they receive a mailer about our upcoming Christmas musical. I send an electronic greeting card to guests who give us their email addresses on the registration card. Click here to Send a Free e-Card.

8. Extend an Invitation
At the end of each presentation of the musical, I extend an invitation for people to receive Christ. I do not use a “walk forward” invitation but a card response, instead. These are the same cards referred to earlier in this article. Persons attending the musical use the cards both to register their attendance and to record spiritual decisions. The staff and I follow up on the card responses.

9. Serve Refreshments Afterward
Each year we enlist a team of persons to host a refreshment and fellowship time after each performance of our musical. We serve simple punch and cookies, but we do a nice job of decorating the fellowship hall and tables in a Christmas theme. This fellowship time serves two purposes.

• The congregation is given an opportunity to speak words of affirmation to the cast and crew.
• Our people are given an opportunity to build brief but positive, first-impression relationships with unchurched persons in a non-threatening setting.

10. Pray for God’s Blessings
Several months before our Christmas musical presentations, a group of special prayer warriors bathes the musical in prayer. I enlist these persons behind the scenes. In addition to their praying, our printed Wednesday Night Prayer Guide lists the musical as an item for prayer. The church staff and I pray for the musical in our personal devotions. The singers, drama team, and other members of the cast pray for the musical after each of their rehearsals.

Each year, as we present the musical, we watch God do “above and beyond all that we ask or think.” Eph 3:20 (HCSB)

Gary Hardin is pastor, Crossroads Community Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Courtesy of Let's Worship Magazine.