Here are some reasons to do a big event.
Give students that have never come to your youth ministry a reason to show up.
Get students that have not attended in a while to come back for that evenings services.
Give your hard-core Christian students a reason to bring a friend with them to church.
Give your volunteers something to rally around, pray for and be excited about.
How to use events to build momentum in your ministry.
Put the BIG event at the end of a teaching series.
Take three weeks to preach on reaching out to the lost before the event.
Use the BIG event as the first service in your new teaching series.
Have something else exciting or extra going on in your service the following week.
Follow up effectively with your first time visitors.
Get your first time salvation students plugged into a discipleship program right after the event.
Top questions to ask yourself before doing your event.
Why are you doing the event?
What is the event?
What is your goal?
What is your follow up plan?
What is coming up after the event?
Is what we're doing really a BIG event or just a special service?
Pastor George's top three ways to do a big event.
I have the honor of serving one of the greatest pastors, teachers and outreach guru's of all time. Pastor Willie George is a master at crafting outreach events that not only draw large crowds, but have an eternal impact in the lives of people. Here are the three things he teaches on how to do a Big event.
Develop Your Plan.
What is the service going to be? Who is going to speak? What is the music going to be like? Are you going to have special give-a-ways? What is your budget? What is your goal? (Having a goal is important because, if you aim for nothing you'll hit it every time.)
Build Anticipation.
Take 3 to 6 weeks advertise. Start off slow, then as the days and weeks go by build more and more into your advertising campaign. Do flyers, T-shirts, Videos, Drama's, etc to build anticipation toward the day of the event.
Equip Your people.
The best advertisement is your people getting out there and spreading the word. Give them flyers, ask them to canvas the areas they live in, wear T-shirts on certain days, or do facebook and myspace pushes. Have them fill out cards with the list of friends they are going to bring to the event, then you as a staff take copies of those cards and pray over those names for weeks before the event. However you do it, equip your people to bring in the lost for your outreach event.
These are just a few tips on doing a BIG event.
Please email me on some of the BIG events you have done this past year, I'd love to hear them.