mediasalt

Tis the season! The season where we as church creatives and communication staff don’t sleep and fly by the seat of our pants. Oh wait, that’s all seasons!

ChapelChristmas.org (visit site)

My church, The Chapel, creates a Christmas minisite every year to support Christmas Eve services for all campuses. This year was no different, but the build timeframe was shorter — One week. We just launched last weekend, so the paint is still drying.

Let’s take a look at some important elements to consider.

1. Prominent “Times & Locations” via Jquery Slidetoggle

Since we have 4 campuses, multiple service times, and over two days, it’s hard to make times and locations front-and-center without using Jquery. This way it stays at the top of each page without pushing the rest of the content out of view.

Each campus is listed with times, address, and a link to driving directions through google maps.

2. Video Invite from the Pastor

Like we discussed last week, sometimes people need to make a personal connection to the pastor. Seeing a side of them, separate from preaching on the weekend, is a good way to engage folks who might otherwise feel very distant from pastors and churches in general.

3. Social Sharing

Across the top of each page, and on a red ribbon-like effect, we list three outlets to share the site through social media — Facebook, Twitter, and via email (through a free service: http://www.freetellafriend.com).  Icons provide by Deviant Art.

We’ve noticed a little over one-third of our visitors come via referral from Twitter or Facebook. It can be the hardest thing in the world for folks to make the jump to ask a co-worker, friend, or family to attend Christmas services, but they’ll post it all day long on their social networks.

4. Daily Thought

Last year we had full-length devotions. This year we decided to scale back and display the weekly devotions we already include in our weekly printed programs. Folks can read these daily, and even subscribe to the rss feed.  This is powered through Tumblr.

5. Share the Gospel

This is a biggie. You’ve got to share the story of Christ’s birth and death, and God’s purpose in that for our lives. This is the true Christmas story.

“The story of Christmas is not just a sweet story meant to give us a reason to give gifts during the holidays. Jesus was born and lived so that he could help us rediscover God.”

6. Invite Tools

In addition to providing social sharing tools, we also provide two items folks can print out to spread the word about Christmas Eve services — poster (hang up at the office, coffee shop, etc.), and Christmas card inserts.

7. Volunteer Call to Action and Signups

Through the help of conditional routing and form fields, provided by FormSpring, we have a form available for folks to see and volunteer for the various opportunities during the services.

8. Provide the Fun

Instead of just providing coloring or activity sheets for kids, in the past, we took it a different direction this year.

• Asking folks help us decorate the services by cutting out their own snowflakes (Operation Snowflake).
• Christmas greeting uploads (BIG HIT), via flash.
• A Christmas iMix of The Chapel staff favs.
• Desktop and iPhone wallpaper of the Christmas Eve services logo and web address.

Other church Christmas minisites

Here’s a handfull of other Christmas minisites.  Can you suggest any others not listed?

• http://christmasatsaddleback.com
• http://southsidechristian.com/christmas09.html
• http://www.simplechristmas.org
• http://www.thesimplechristmas.com
• http://www.willowcreek.org/christmas

What about your church?

Is your church providing a Christmas minisite?  Why or why not?  What other promotional elements work for you and your community?