How to make your church events meaningful + church event ideas

church event ideas

Make your events meaningful             

Your leadership might have a lot of church event ideas and that’s a good thing! Church events serve as avenues for people within your body to get to know other better, church growth and outreach. The opportunities are endless!  

Events planned outside of Sunday morning worship in a relaxed atmosphere give people who may not be ready to come to church a chance to be around the body of Christ.

We don’t want to plan events for the sake of the event. Each event should be meaningful. Before putting together an event, whether it’s for the church body or the community, it’s important to identify a few things first to ensure that there’s purpose behind the vent. We want to be good stewards of our time and efforts, counting the cost before diving in.

 

Identify the “Why” of the event

Most events take planning, money, volunteers and a host of other resources. We want to be sure our events have a clear purpose. Is this event purely for church fellowship? Is it meant to reach a specific community?

It might be helpful to create a simple form for church leadership to fill out whenever have a new church event idea. Add a space at the beginning for them to explore the “why” behind the event. Without a clear purpose event planning can get messy. 

Here’s a link to the form I created for our church’s events.

church event ideas

Event Request Form PDF

 

Beyond this, be sure the “why” lines up with your church’s mission statement and values. This is a great way to weed out ideas that may be great but aren’t a good fit for your church.

 

Location & Cost

It may seem obvious, but location drives a lot of decision making in event planning: how many people the space can accommodate, accessibility, decor, what people need to bring, weather.

If you are using an event form, add a space for the budget. This dictates a huge part of what you can actually handle financially. Without it, spending can get out of hand and expectations may not be met. If it’s the first time you’ve budgeted for that event, simply make an educated guess and record the actual amount afterwards. When the event comes around again, you’ll have a clear guideline.

 

Identify the Target Audience

Who is this event for? Youth, seniors, young married’s? Knowing who your audience is will guide how and where you communicate this event. 

You’ll connect differently with your teens than you would with your seniors. An in-house event may only require church texts, email and flyers but you may want to extend promotion to digital marketing if the event is community wide.

 

How many volunteers will be needed?

Your volunteers are the most important consideration in event planning. In most cases, they make events happen. Consider how many events are going on the calendar to avoid burning out volunteers. If the event is a doozy, do you have the manpower to cover it without overworking staff?

It’s ok to say “no” to an event, even if it sounds like a great idea. Having a process and an event form in place allows leadership the time to consider the event and gives the initiator a chance to think through the details. It also shows that you’re committed keeping with the mission and purpose of the church.

 

Here are some church event ideas to get you going

Church picnic – Throw a church wide picnic at your location or a park that has a basketball court and volleyball net. Provide water and snacks.

Family Day – Throw up some bounce houses and lawn games after church.

Food Truck Sunday –  Invite food trucks to vend in your parking lot after service.

Date Night –   Offer a “date night” and ask the youth to babysit for a few hours. Our youth created “date night” packages with movie tickets and snacks. It was a hit!

Movie Night –  Play a family movie in the sanctuary or rent a screen. Provide popcorn

Volunteer Opportunities

Back to School Backpacks – This might be a need within your church body or you could partner with a local charity and put together backpacks for the first day of school. 

Food Drive – Set aside a month for people to bring in canned goods for a local mission you support.

Visitation – Visit hospice, care facilities & nursing homes.

Community Classes

Create a bridge between your church and the community and offer community classes.

CPR

Financial Peace University

Tax Prep

Basket weaving – maybe not :/

Workshops

Similar to community classes but may be driven more heavily by church leadership 

Parenting & social media

Marriage

Teen interest workshops

Interest based

Pure fun and outreach!

Powerlifting competition – we’ve done this!

Marital Arts

Fitness

Archery

Chili cook off

Hiking

Biking

Cycling

Camping

Create  Projects

Get the artists in your church together to create something beautiful. Creative projects may not just be paintings, but installments of photos, collages and multimedia art.

Mural Painting

Installments – Art piece or exhibit that line up with your next series

Share this article!

Hello

I'm Meridith

A mom and wife based in Arizona. I love good design and have worked in small churches for lots of years. Now I’m sharing my collection of sermon graphics and some things I’ve learned along the way.

Recent Sermon Graphics