Three Simple & Easy Ways to Increase Christmas Eve Service Attendance

December 10, 2024•2 min read

Statistically Christmas is one of the highest-attended worship services of the year. It often brings those that attend infrequently, those that only attend on Christmas and Easter, the regular attenders, guests and family of regular attenders, and some seekers from the community. With some simple and easy strategies, that attendance can grow exponentially. Here are three ways to increase your church’s Christmas Eve Service(s) attendance.

Invite the Community

While this might sound silly, not everyone in your community knows they are invited and welcome to attend your Christmas Eve services. Consider placing a special roadside banner in the church lawn. Ask church leaders to place invitational lawn signs in their respective lawns. Send out direct mail postcards to your neighbors. Place door hangers in your neighborhood. Post on social media and event sites. The invitation should include date, time, and that all are welcome. Consider including a background picture that denotes the theme, style, or focus of the service and what is available for children. Ensure the invitation is both intentional and authentic with relatable, non-churchy messaging.

Convenient Time

Often the Christmas Eve service time is set based on tradition. (i.e., “We always have our Christmas Eve service at 7:00 pm on Christmas Eve.”) Consider the best time for not only your existing people, but more importantly for those you are trying to reach. Over the past few years, we are seeing a shift to service times being held earlier in the day as extended families are gathering in the evenings. People often travel on Christmas Eve, so some are even offering Christmas Eve services on December 23rd or the morning of the 24th. This is a time to listen to the greater community and plan accordingly.

Invite People on the Fringe

With worship attendance frequency continuing to decline, this is an important time of year to intentionally invite people who are at the fringes of your congregation. This would include infrequent attenders, attendees/members who have stopped coming, guests who have visited in the past six months, and people who participate in church ministries (food pantry, diaper bank, community dinner, etc.). Send a postcard invitation. Have some church leaders with the gift of relationships and hospitality call them. The invitations should be friendly and compassionate without any shed of guilt or pressure. You might even consider asking some of the “fringe” people to participate in the worship service in meaningful ways (light the Advent candles, help with communion, light the outside luminaries, etc.).

With these three simple and easy strategies, the attendance at your Christmas Eve services will likely increase. In the previous blog, we focused on increasing the number of returning guests during the Advent season. While this current post focuses on increasing attendance at your Christmas Eve Service(s), be sure to incorporate the tips from that previous blog also to ensure a fruitful and vital Advent season.

Christmas Eve Service

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

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