Planning and hosting a Family and Friends Day at your church is a fantastic way to unite your family and friends and cultivate community. It helps get more people to join your local church service while making it fun and meaningful for everyone.
You can take a handful of steps to successfully organize a Family and Friends Day at your church. This will help members fellowship and share their faith with their near and dear ones to lead more spiritual, enriching lives.
Here are five steps to help you plan a Family and Friends Day at your local church.
1. Build Momentum for the Family and Friends Day Program
Once you set a date for the Family and Friends Day program, get your church members to list potential guests on a card or piece of paper. The list should include all the family members and friends your church members wish to invite.
Then, start making weekly announcements until the event arrives. Pastors can lead from the front by discussing their invitations with their friends and families during their sermons.
Believers can also volunteer and create Family and Friends Day program templates and other marketing materials for people to give away. PosterMyWall is an amazing budget-friendly online graphic design tool that even design amateurs can use to produce customized, professional-looking collaterals.
Ensure that your volunteers have clear, streamlined tasks. This will prevent confusion about who’s doing what and help you keep everything on track.
These activities will build Momentum in an organized manner and get church members excited about the program, helping them get into the mood and spirit of things.
2. Assemble a Welcoming Team
The second step is to review and assemble your welcoming committee. Select people who are friendly, personable, and love to connect with others. Get a team of greeters and ushers ready to welcome your visitors. Get a group of greeters and ushers prepared to accept your visitors.
Ensure they are well-trained and give them all the tools necessary to make visitors feel welcome, including brochures and event schedules. PosterMyWall has some gorgeous templates that can help you make the process easier.
Establish a method for getting contact information so you can follow up with them after the service. The process should be as easy as possible so that your welcoming team does not spend too much time collecting visitors’ contact information.
While at it, look at your church building or meeting space with fresh eyes and make it look clean and presentable. New visitors should have a positive first impression of your church and congregation.
3. Equip People With Tools To Invite Their Families and Friends
Announcing the event early enough is important so people get ample notice. This will give your church members enough time to think about people they’d like to invite and allow new guests to arrange their schedules accordingly.
You should also make it easy for your church members to invite their friends and families by printing and distributing flyers and invitation cards. They can share these materials with their loved ones or on social networks like Facebook.
Many church members find it easier to invite friends and family if they have invitations to share digitally or as hard copies. Ensure they’re bright and attractive and include all the essential information. Avoid overcrowding your materials with too many details they don’t need.
When you have limited too many people, the last thing you want can show up and be uncomfortably packed together. If your venue is small and cannot accommodate too many people, ask for RSVPs. You can also consider holding additional services to host more people.
Finally, don’t forget to create an event on your church’s Facebook page and post suitable graphics about the event. This will make it even easier for church members to know about Family and Friends Day while spreading the word.
4. Start a Sermon Series on Family and Friends Day
The Day of the event offers a great opportunity to launch a weekly or monthly sermon series about the Great Commission, the importance of evangelism, and similar themes. Since there will be many newcomers, it is also a great time to talk about salvation and other core gospel messages.
Ensure your guests know about the series by creating posters about your sermon series. Feature it on your website, social media accounts, invites, and newsletters.
You can also encourage more personal reflection about your messages by asking small group leaders to discuss them during their gatherings. This will help ensure that your members receive further guidance as they assimilate spiritual messages on a more individual level.
5. Plan Your Follow-up Event
While planning your Family and Friends Day, organize a follow-up event so new visitors can continue their first steps in the faith with pastoral guidance and fellowship. Plan a social event in the next few weeks and prepare invites.
Inform people on Family and Friends Day about the follow-up event to reduce the need to invite them all over again so that they know it’s an extension of the same event.
Here are some ideas for follow-up events:
- Schedule one-on-one sessions with volunteers who can share the Good News, answer questions about Christianity and pray with them.
- Host a meet-and-greet with the pastor and his family.
- Invite them to join a small discipleship group so they can grow in the faith.
- Offer coffee and light snacks to encourage people to stay and mingle.
Conclusion
Family and Friends Days at churches help bring more members into the church and encourage them to be part of the community while growing in faith. Plan the event well and use Postermywall’s templates to spread the word by creating attractive, professional-looking invites, posters, and other graphics.
