Event Planning

How to Prepare the Church Facility for an Event

Hosting a special event at your church requires a few extra steps than Sunday services.  As you start the planning process, include these steps to prepare the church facility for the event.  #1 – Reserve the room(s) Each ministry department likely hosts a few events throughout the year. The last thing you want to do is double-book rooms or even the entire church facility. If you don’t already have a room reservation system, now is the time to look into putting one in place. You need to make sure the facilities team knows what you need for this event in plenty of time for them to support your efforts. #2 – Gather event details The facilities team will need several essential details as they plan to support this event:  #3 – Allocate time for setup and tear down Don’t just reserve the rooms for the time of the event. Depending on how extensive the décor and setup are, you may need to reserve those areas for the day (or more) before the event. Also, allow sufficient time after the event to restage the rooms for weekly services and clean the church facility. #4 – Arrange for staff to be present You might need someone available to run the sound, video, and lighting. You may also need facilities staff to let you into the building on an early Saturday morning or to lock up the church afterward. Also, consider whether you’ll have members of your church security team at the event.  #5 – Ensure proper climate control This is something to discuss with your facilities team when you ask to reserve room(s). Depending on how they manage the central heat and air, they’ll need to arrange to have the areas of the facility you’ll use property heated or air-conditioned. They might recommend using certain rooms that are covered by the same HVAC unit to save on energy costs. #6 – Conduct a church facility walkthrough Especially if this event will attract first-time guests, you want to make sure you’re making a good first impression. Walk through your church facility starting in the parking lot: Approach the church building: Walk inside the building: If you’re providing childcare at this event, walk through the children’s areas: Work with those responsible for each area (facilities, children’s ministry, etc.) to freshen up the church as needed. You might arrange a volunteer church beautification day a week before the event to spruce up areas that need extra attention. Special events are a great way to disciple your congregation and attract new people to the church. With intentional planning and working together as a team, you can pull off excellent events that draw people closer to Christ.

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4 Tips for Fall Event Planning Success

As crisp fall air prepares us for the colder winter months, fall events get us ready for the Christmas season. To prevent last-minute chaos and stress, it’s time to start thinking about how to get ready for your fall schedules. Fall event planning doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Here are four simple tips to help you get started. Tip #1: Leave Breathing Room While it’s tempting to plan events that cater to every possible demographic represented in your community, the result of such an effort is likely burnout and a lack of excellence. To prevent this, cut back on the number of events you host. By leaving some white space on the fall event calendar, you can put intentional focus on the activities you choose to keep. Tip #2: Start Planning Now An event with a 50-plus attendance list is going to require more than a week or two of planning. Ideally, you’d start planning any church-wide event six months in advance. This provides sufficient time to develop ideas, shop for bargains, and get volunteers committed to serving at the event.   Assign someone to be the event planner for each event.  This individual should talk with all departments involved to determine what tasks they’ll need to complete for a successful event. Tip #3: Connect with Local Schools Leading up to the back-to-school season is a great time to connect with local school administrators. Ask for input on how your church can support them. It’s also a great way to expand your church’s community outreach. Talk with teachers in your congregation to see what they need going into a new school year. Rally the church to support them in practical ways. Also, consider conducting an outreach like a school supply backpack drive or a coat drive for underprivileged kids.  Tip #4: Build Volunteer Teams Start building your volunteer queue by inviting members who aren’t active volunteers to serve at an event. This gives them a chance to experience what it’s like to serve. It also provides you the opportunity to see where each individual would fit best in a longer-term role. Additional tip: After the event, send thank you notes to volunteers and ask them to join specific volunteer teams. Preparation is the key ingredient in pulling off a successful year of church events. Your fall calendar is going to set the tone for the months to come. Start strong by planning early, building your teams, and making connections now. **Looking for more church event planning tips? Check out The Church Event Planning Toolkit for a proven process for planning successful, not stressful, church events.**

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How to Quickly Plan an Amazing Vacation Bible School

Vacation Bible School brings kids together every summer for a fun-filled week of adventure, crafts, and learning God’s Word. If your church is offering its own program this year, here are a few steps on how to pull off an amazing VBS even if you haven’t started planning yet. Step #1: Decide on the Basics Before you do anything, choose the when, where, and how of your VBS week. This checklist will help to keep you focused on the basics: Step #2: Gather a Planning Team Now that you’ve created the outline of your plan, assemble a group of staff and volunteers for your VBS planning team. A handful of team members should be enough, but it’s a good idea to gather individuals with an interest and passion for VBS. Step #3: Create the Plan There are so many elements that go into planning any event, especially one that lasts an entire week. To help you stay organized, try breaking down your “to-dos” into categories like these: Communications This includes creating graphics for promotional materials, website updates, online event registration, video announcements, and anything else that requires some form of digital or printed communication. Work with your church’s communications team to develop a plan to invite those in the congregation and community. A comprehensive plan should consider Facebook ads, billboards, announcements on local news outlets, as well as outdoor signage at your church. Facilities Most likely, your VBS program will be held on location at your church. If so, discuss which rooms you will need for the week. Based on the curriculum you’re using, provide details on how each room should be set up with tables, chairs, audio/visual, and craft material. Also, address whether or not you’ll want any additional signage throughout the facility. Food What kind of meals and snacks will you be preparing each day? Create a menu and make sure you have enough people with food handler permits to help prepare the food.  Include a field in the registration form to ask about any food sensitivities and create a process for how to ensure those are followed during VBS. Decor Referring again to your curriculum, as many have themes, determine what decorations you’ll need for the main stage, classrooms, and central areas of your church. Volunteers Make a list of the volunteer roles needed to prepare for VBS (setting up the week or weekend before) and throughout VBS week. Tips to getting volunteers: Additional Materials Hands-on crafts and activities are a major part of the VBS experience. They also come with a list of materials. Figure out what supplies you’ll need to purchase for these crafts or any other take-home items, such as a Scripture-verse-of-the-day card. Emergency Protocols Every event, especially one involving children, needs a safety plan in place. Be sure to have adequate first aid supplies and procedures, security, and emergency evacuation plans. Other Considerations Though each church’s VBS program is different, here are a few common considerations as you finalize your plan: Step #4: Work the Plan Your plan is set, now divvy up tasks amongst team members and set deadlines for each. I recommend using a project management tool — such as Asana, Teamwork, or Basecamp — to communicate deadlines, track progress, and provide additional information to your team in one centralized location. Step #5: Enjoy a Successful Vacation Bible School Week One of the first rules of event planning is to be flexible. Things happen and not everything is going to go off without a hitch. Because of this, it’s a great idea to set up a Command Center where staff and volunteers can come to ask questions and get help troubleshooting issues throughout VBS week. Step #6: Celebrate and Recognize Phew! You just pulled off an amazing VBS week! Celebrate your team’s success by hosting a party for all your VBS staff and volunteers. This can be a simple dinner-out to close out the week or a small gathering with yummy goodies and a huge “thank you” to everyone involved. And be sure to recognize your hard-working team in Sunday’s service! Step #7: Conduct a Lessons-Learned Meeting Though your program will mostly be successful, it won’t be perfect. Invite parents, volunteers, and church staff to join you for a meeting to discuss what went well and what to improve upon for next year. Step #8: Create a Vacation Bible School Planning Notebook If you used this plan this year, then you’ve already got your plan for next year. Organize all planning documents, vendor contracts, volunteer job descriptions, and other key items in a notebook or binder to make planning next year’s VBS week that much easier. As you get into these warmer months, which typically come with a host of summer activities, camps, and events, remember that Vacation Bible School is an opportunity to connect with church members and non-church members in a relaxed, exciting environment. If you make it fun, they will certainly come. If you’d like a step-by-step guide to planning church events of any size, check out The Church Event Planning Toolkit book. At only $14.99, it’s an inexpensive resource that can save your church time and money. Get your copy today.

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Special Considerations for Outdoor Church Events

Many churches host events outdoors to take advantage of the beautiful weather and host events they couldn’t manage indoors.  Activities for VBS, outdoor concerts or worship nights, and Fall Trunk-or-Treats are just a few examples.  If you’re planning any outdoor church events, here are a few things you should consider to make them a fun and safe experience for everyone involved: #1 – Offer shade and cold water People can quickly get overheated in the summer heat. Depending on the event, it might make sense to set up tents and other shaded areas so attendees can escape the sun for a few moments as needed. Also, make sure participants have access to cold water so they can stay hydrated and cool. #2 – Develop an inclement weather plan Since weather forecasts aren’t always accurate, you’ll need to decide now how to proceed with the event if the weather isn’t favorable. If your church has an indoor gym or other large open room, that could be an ideal backup location for this event. Another issue to consider is if a storm occurs after the event has already started outside. Who will monitor the forecast? Who makes the call to have everyone move indoors? Where will you have people take shelter if there’s a dangerous storm approaching?  #3 – Provide security Anytime you get a large crowd together, it’s wise to consider the potential security risks and plan accordingly. If your church already has a security team, they need to be a part of the planning process for this event. Determine how many security team members you’ll need for the event, including whether you’ll hire any off-duty police officers. Also, consider if you want to have an ambulance stationed on church property just in case someone has an emergency. Contact your local first responders to see what they can do.  #4 – Give parents additional information Notify parents ahead of time if event activities could result in wet or dirty clothes. They may want to send their children in older outfits and provide a change of clothes as well. Parents will appreciate knowing this beforehand, so they aren’t unpleasantly surprised when they arrive to pick up their kids. #5 – Look into special event insurance Contact your church’s liability insurance provider to determine if your existing policy covers special events. Some insurance companies may require you to buy a special policy for larger events. Check into this at least a month before the event to make sure you’re covered. Outdoor events can be a great way to bring your church family together and attract people from the community to engage with your congregation. With a bit of careful planning, you can create a safe and fun event.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Planning for Easter

Planning an event takes time, teamwork, and lots of organization. Planning for Easter celebrations requires a bit of extra attention. Instead of surfing the web for various tools on how to plan for your Easter weekend, we thought it would be helpful to have one checklist to lead you through the entire planning process. We’ve gathered everything you need to know into one comprehensive guide to help you plan an incredible Easter for your church while also being able to pause and reflect on the season yourself. #1 — Plan Your Plan A part of planning for Easter includes creating the planning process. Follow these seven steps to pull off an amazing Easter service. Choose a Leader First things first, decide who will be in charge of coordinating Easter at your church. Make sure it’s someone who has event planning skills as well as time in their schedule. The Senior Pastor, for example, probably shouldn’t be the one handling Easter logistics, as crafting the sermon and approving the high-level plan is the SP’s focus. Whoever is in charge will need to coordinate between ministry departments — worship, children, youth, service, security, facilities, communications, etc. —  to keep everyone on the same page and working toward the same goals. Don’t forget to pull in the accounting, communications, and facilities departments. They tend to get overlooked but they can have a huge impact on the success of Easter services and events. Having one person coordinating tasks is also helpful in preventing several departments from doing repetitive work. Determine the Scope There are so many things to explore when it comes to planning for Easter celebrations. Once you’ve chosen your leader, get a group together to determine the scope of your church’s capabilities. Will you include outreach events the week before, host an Easter egg hunt, or offer a breakfast gathering before service begins? You may even be thinking of putting on an Easter play. Write this out and talk it over with your department leads before moving on to step three. Finalize a Budget Creating a budget is such a crucial step to a successful Easter that we dedicated an entire blog post about it. For now, here are a few highlights: Find out if your church has a budget for Easter. If not, discuss money allocation options with your church accountant or executive pastor. From equipment rentals to decor to food, determine what your congregation will need in order to meet your scope. Draft your budget, including estimates, and send it to department leads for review. Create a Step-by-Step Plan Now that we’re counting weeks instead of months until Easter, it’s helpful to assign each task to a specific week to make sure it’s accounted for. Here is a high-level list of tasks by week leading up to Easter: Week 1: Finalize the overall theme and scope of activities for Easter weekend. This includes the sermon title, color scheme, themed décor, communion, food items, etc. Gather a planning team. Create and finalize a budget. Walk through the church campus and make a list of any repairs, clean up, or beautification work needed Week 2: Submit Purchase Requests for supplies, rentals, print jobs, etc. Finalize color scheme for Easter graphics. Determine if the church will do any outreach events leading up to Easter. Week 3: Order supplies needed for décor, guest handouts/gifts, etc. Order rentals (tables, chairs, sound equipment) Hire additional security personnel if needed. Create graphics for sermon slides, church website, social media posts, handouts, etc. Plan outreach events (if applicable). Determine volunteer needs (how many you’ll need in each role for Easter weekend). Ask for volunteers to help with church repair, clean up, or beautification projects. Week 4: Create social media posts and start scheduling them. Create Facebook ads. Finalize worship set list. Schedule worship team rehearsals. Ask current volunteers to serve during Easter weekend. Week 5: Recruit additional volunteers as needed (contact people who have served at events but not on a regular basis). Prepare volunteer instructions and training materials. Purchase supplies needed for Easter Sunday. Promote Easter services via Facebook ads, social media posts, and mass email to the congregation. Decide how to follow up with Easter guests and set that system in place. You may need additional volunteers to help with data entry or other follow-up needs. Week 6: Complete church repair, clean up, or beautification projects. Finalize sermon slides. Send any final print jobs to the printer. Encourage the congregation to invite others to Easter services. Week 7: Double check that all supplies needed for Easter Sunday were purchased. Conduct a service run-through. Conduct worship team rehearsal. Host outreach event if applicable. Put guest follow-up process into place. Put the Plan into Place Now that you have your weekly plan, assign tasks to the appropriate team member, making sure to emphasize the deadlines for each. It’s also a good idea to send email reminders to your team in the days and weeks before their task is set to be complete. When volunteers are likely dealing with a number of obligations outside of church, this is a great way to keep your church activities relevant and on track. Enjoy an Impactful Easter! If you have followed this list until now, you are ready to reap the fruits of your labor. Now, enjoy an impactful Easter! Review and Reflect Hosting a successful Easter celebration for years to come is only possible with a review of what worked and, most importantly, what didn’t. Sit down with your planning team and members of your congregation to determine what didn’t go quite as smoothly as you’d hoped. Learn from these lessons and plan better for next year. #2 — Recruit Volunteers Without a doubt, you’re going to need extra hands for Easter. By putting these tips into practice, you can start filling those volunteer roles now while adding to your regular volunteer team later. For a full discussion on working with volunteers in your church, take a look at my

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How To Get Started With Church Event Planning

Church events can cultivate deeper relationships within a congregation and attract more members of a community to the church. Hosting events can also put a tremendous strain on church staff and volunteers. Here’s how to get started with church event planning to increase event success and reduce stress for your team. Think of all the church events each year: Now, think back to the week before these events.  What does that week look and feel like?  Sound familiar? I’ve been there and have worked with churches facing the same challenges. However, I’ve also learned how to avoid those scenarios and have successful (not stressful) events. With a bit of proactive thinking, a standard process, and some disciplined effort, you can eliminate the last-minute chaos and experience events that exceed your expectations.  Here’s how to get started: Step #1: Create an Annual Church Event Calendar Events can be incredible ministry tools. Unfortunately, they can also drain your budget and burn out your staff and volunteers. It is possible, however, to get all the benefits of hosting events without all the trouble. How do you do it? Plan in advance. In fact, I recommend a year out.  You don’t have to create a detailed to-do list a year ahead, but you should at least decide which events your church will host for the year. By doing this early, your team will have time to get all their ideas on the table, discuss what events are best at each time of year, and determine whether or not you need to space the events out. Here’s how to get started planning church events a year ahead: 1) Put All Potential Events on the Calendar This is the fun part: Get a huge wall calendar (erasable is best) and write out every event you intend to host in the upcoming year. Have each ministry department leader put their events on the calendar and make sure you include all church-wide events.  If possible, include information about each sermon series as well. 2)  Conduct a Calendar Review Meeting Once you’ve written them all down in one calendar, organize an event review meeting. It’s important to have all ministry department leaders, the Executive Pastor, Senior Pastor, and ministry support department leaders (Finance, Communications, Facilities, etc.) participate in this calendar review.  3) Discuss the Calendar  At the calendar review meeting, address the details of each event you’re intending to host. Here are some questions to help you move along the discussion:  4) Evaluate the Workload Dive even deeper into your review discussion by evaluating the possible workload issues that could arise with too many events. Ask yourselves these questions:  Step #2: Establish a Budget for Each Event Next, you’ll need to create a budget for each individual event. Here’s a list of items you should account for when creating a detailed budget:  Marketing — To promote your church event, you’ll need marketing communication. This includes things like website design, logos, advertisements, flyers, and email newsletters. Guest Speakers — If you plan on bringing outside guest speakers to your event, you’ll need to account for honorariums as well as their travel and lodging expenses. Catering — Meals or snacks at events can sometimes take a huge portion of the budget. Consider asking for donations from local restaurants or having several church members make the food as a part of their volunteer service.  Equipment and Decor Rentals — This may include renting tables, chairs, three-way radios for communication, tents, sound and lighting equipment, etc. Signage — Most likely, you will need signs around the church campus to help event participants locate key areas.  Merchandise — If you plan to sell books, DVDs, or other items at the event, you’ll need to figure in your initial purchasing costs for these items. Security — For larger gatherings, you may want to hire off-duty law enforcement officers or other security personnel to ensure a safe event space.  Print Materials — Some extra print materials may include name tags, staff lanyards, workbooks, handouts, etc. Once you’ve created a proposed budget for each event, you’ll need to put it through your church’s review process. Depending on how your church handles the annual budgeting process, budgets for events may roll up into each department’s budget for the year. Regardless of how this is handled, you should review each event budget before approving the event to take place. If an event is too costly, it can often be scaled back instead of cut altogether. That’s why reviewing is such an important step to the budgeting process. Step #3: Assign an Event Planner to Each Event To effectively coordinate all the tasks related to making an event happen, you need a single person who’s responsible for keeping track of those tasks and each team member’s progress.  Otherwise, you’re hoping everyone is getting their work done on time instead of actually knowing that they are doing so. At this point, designate one person as the main event planner. By having an experienced event planner in charge, you’re able to avoid the headaches that can sometimes arise with events. For example, do any of these sound familiar?   But what exactly does an event planner do? Here’s a list of the main tasks an event planner will handle to make your event a roaring success. Identify the “why” behind an event Before getting to the details, a church event planner first wants to know the reason for having an event. This involves working with church leadership to determine the overall vision and scope of the effort. Here are a few questions the event planner will ask: The answers to these questions will drive all decisions about the event, so this is a vital step to complete. Lead the planning team An event planner may be in charge, but they aren’t the only person doing work. It’s their job to create and collaborate with a planning team (staff and/or volunteers) to identify the tasks required to make an event a success. Once

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Planning for Christmas

How to Start Planning for Christmas: A Complete Guide

The Christmas season is many things: joyous, hopeful, magical, peaceful, and full of charitable giving. It’s also an extremely busy time for churches. As holiday events typically ramp up in the weeks before Dec. 25th, it’s a good idea to get a clear vision of your Christmas event schedule well in advance. And with most church event planning, the earlier the better is a good motto to adopt. To get you prepared for your busy season, we’ve gathered all things Christmas into one complete guide to help you plan a memorable, Christ-filled celebration at your church — whether it’s one event or many. Here’s our take on how to start planning for Christmas.  Step 1: Plan Staff Availability We all know that Christmas is a time when people who typically don’t come to church will make the effort to attend a service. This provides a great opportunity to minister to people you don’t normally get to reach. However, in order to plan and execute Christmas services well, you need the help of your church staff members. The challenge with this time of year is that many people, including church staff, want to visit their families for the holiday. To find the balance with your staff, consider these tips:  Start the vacation planning process ASAP Set a deadline for your staff to submit vacation requests for the holidays. Require that they include a plan to ensure their responsibilities are covered in their absence. This could include a list of key volunteer leaders who could step in for them at a service or another staff member who will be in town and is capable of taking over. Plan ahead without filling up the calendar December is full of Christmas parties, holiday outreaches, and family celebrations.  For the sake of your staff and volunteers, don’t bog them down with too many events. Schedule holiday outreaches and Christmas celebrations well in advance so people can plan accordingly. You don’t have to host a Christmas Eve service  You can celebrate Christmas the Sunday before and leave the week open for families to celebrate together. There’s no right answer on this one, figure out what works best for your church. However, don’t just do what you’ve always done without giving thought to what’s best for your congregation, volunteers, and church staff. Step 2: Begin Planning for Christmas Events Because coordinating extra Christmas activities requires extra planning, now is a great time to start preparing. Here are three tips to get you started: Coordinate with local nonprofits Do you have a few nonprofit agencies that you work with on a regular basis? If so, reach out to them to see how you could help them this year. Compile a list of these potential outreaches, decide what you’re going to do this year, then put those events on your church calendar to reserve the dates. Appoint volunteer team leaders Ask a few volunteers to see if they’d be willing to organize an outreach as its event planner. Introduce them to your contact at each nonprofit and have your volunteer be the main contact for that outreach. This volunteer leader should work with you to recruit and coordinate volunteers, organize donations, and lead the church event. Be available as a backup and gather updates from them, but let your volunteers take the lead as event coordinator as much as possible. As these volunteers prove themselves, they can make planning for Christmas (and other big events) much easier for everyone. Plan details of your Christmas services Decide if you’ll have a Christmas Eve service and/or a service on Christmas Day. Take into consideration when you and your staff will be able to take time off to spend the holidays with family (see Step 1). You’ll want to also to gather volunteers, which we’ll discuss in Step 3 below.  Step 3: Create a Volunteer Checklist Whether you decide to put on a huge Christmas pageant or a traditional candlelight service, you’ll need volunteers to make each service special for your congregation. This checklist will help you stay organized as you delegate to volunteers.  Determine how many volunteers, in what roles, you’ll need for each Christmas service. Recruit Early Ask your volunteers to start signing up now for specific service(s). Bonus tip: VolunteerSpot is a free and easy-to-use online tool for signing up volunteers. Attention to Detail  Document the order of your service, along with any special instructions you have for the volunteers. Prepare and Review Email the service order and instructions to your volunteers 1-2 weeks before the Christmas services. Review the information at volunteer pre-service meetings the Sunday before Christmas. Friendly Reminders Send a confirmation email to volunteers the day before they are scheduled to serve as a reminder of details and arrival time.  Always Have Backup For Christmas plays or more complicated services, train a handful of volunteer leaders. Make sure they know everything you know about the service so they can answer questions and provide direction when you’re not available. Express your gratitude Make sure you have thank you cards on-hand to send to volunteers within a week (or two) after Christmas. Step 4: Manage Preparation Stress Like a Pro! Stage design, volunteers, service planning, special programs, and more are all part of the hustle and bustle of the season. So, how do you manage all this activity and still feel some semblance of peace on earth and goodwill towards men? Here are a few tips to help: Tip #1: Pause…and Write If you’re running around trying to fix last-minute issues, fill those last few volunteer spots, and figure out why in the world your carefully designed stage décor keeps falling over, it’s easy to get into crazy mode. When that happens, you can’t think straight and will likely forget something important or miss the easiest, most obvious solution to a problem: Pause. Take a few deep breaths, pray for wisdom, and think. Write down all the stuff floating around in your head – whether it’s directly

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How to Budget for Church Events in 3 Easy Steps

Part of your responsibilities as a church leader is to be an excellent steward of church finances. Events tend to be a significant portion of church ministry. Therefore, it makes sense to budget for church events and monitor them closely. Here are three easy steps to budget for church events and keep your ministry on track for the year.  Step #1: Determine What Events You’ll Host This Year In a recent blog post, I mentioned the importance of planning church events a year in advance. The first step to planning in advance is to determine early which events to host throughout the year. Facilitate a meeting with church staff and put all potential events on a large wall calendar (erasable is best). This is a great visual that helps you see what the year might look like. Next, host a follow-up team meeting to review the calendar with department leaders, the Executive Pastor, and the Senior Pastor. Discuss potential workload issues for your staff as well as budgets for each event, which leads us into Step #2. Step #2: Create a Budget for Each Church Event  Next, you’ll need to create a budget for each individual event. Here’s a list of items you should account for when creating a detailed budget:  Step #3: Review the Budget Depending on how your church handles the annual budgeting process, budgets for events may roll up into each department’s budget for the year. Regardless of how this is handled, you should review each church event budget before approving the event to take place. If an event is too costly, you can likely scale it back instead of canceling it altogether. That’s why reviewing is such an important step in the budgeting process. Church event planning can quickly get out of hand if there isn’t a clear process. To help you stay focused, shortcut the budgeting process with this Event Budgeting Template (see below).

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How to Create a Church Event Request Form

Are you responsible for planning events at your church? If so, there are several pieces of information you’ll need before getting started. Setting up several meetings to obtain those details can be time-consuming. Instead, reach out to the ministry department (or senior leader) who’s hosting the event with a simple, yet comprehensive church event request form. Having a standard form to use in gathering information will save you time, and frustration, in the long run. Here’s what to include in a church event request form: Facilities Because you’ll most likely be using your church facilities for your event, it’s important to know as much as you can about where and when this event will take place. Start with these questions: Catering Most events involve some type of food or catering. Find out food and refreshment needs with these questions: Communications Getting the word out about the event is how you’ll reach your attendee goal. Gather this information to maximize your communications. Childcare If you have parents attending, providing childcare might be a good option. Security Talk with your church’s security team to find out what information they’ll need to determine an event’s security requirements. Here are a few questions they may need you to answer (the key here is to know if arrivals and/or departures will happen during daylight hours): Finances Make sure you know the overall budget for your event as well as how it’s broken down. These questions should get you the details you need: Event Registration Like communications, event registration is key to hitting your attendee goal. No matter how registration is set up, it should be a simple process. Here’s the main question you need answered: Volunteers Without volunteers to help with the event, you’re more likely to go over budget and become overworked. Here’s what to ask: How to Gather this Information Now that you know what questions to ask, create an online church event request form so you can send a URL link to the person requesting the event. Consider creating separate forms for each ministry department so they don’t get overwhelmed with the length of a consolidated form.  You can easily combine their answers into a single document once they respond. If it’s the requestor’s first time completing the form, you may want to fill it out with them as they get comfortable with the process. Also, make sure to explain to your church staff why you need them to provide all of this information. Most people don’t like filling out forms, but if they know WHY you need all this detail (and that by providing it now, they have a much better chance at a successful event), they’re less likely to complain about it. When to Gather this Information Ideally, your church leadership team decides what events to host a year in advance. From there, if you’re responsible for planning events, you should start gathering information at least 6 months before an event. Of course, more time is needed for bigger events and less time for smaller/less complicated ones. In conclusion, the church event planning process is going to go a lot smoother if you take the time to collect information about the event up front. To learn even more about pulling off successful church events, check out my book The Church Event Planning Toolkit.

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Top 5 Event Registration Tools

When it comes to planning church events, gone are the days of handwritten signup sheets and manually entering attendees into spreadsheets. With the use of online forms, you can now refocus your church’s attention to creating an impactful event for guests. If you’re gearing up for your next planning session, first check out these top five event registration tools to use for your church events. 1. Eventbrite Arguably one of the more well-known online event registration sites, nearly 800,000 event organizers used Eventbrite in 2018 alone. Some of its main features include professional event registration pages that are compatible on any device; organizer-friendly capabilities to collect registration information and email attendees registration summaries; and easy setup for different tiers of registration and discounts. Eventbrite also has a Facebook Integration function. This has proven to double registrations for free events and increase sales by 20 percent for paid events. Price: There are Essential, Professional, and Premium packages with varying functions depending on need. You can also try Eventbrite’s service for free before committing. 2. Planning Center Church events often require gathering several details about attendees and their needs at the event. Planning Center offers customizable options that allow you to create attendee types with their own pricing or special requirements. Using Planning Center as your church event signup also allows you to give attendees the option to purchase extras like T-Shirts, workbooks, or other special event accessories. There’s even a Church Center mobile app that congregations “can use to check in their families, give, join groups, manage their personal profile, and register for events.” Price: Planning Center is priced based on the number of attendees you’ll expect to register. Though there is a 30-day free trial, packages range from $14 to $199 per month. 3. Google Forms A survey administrative app, Google Forms has all the same collaboration capabilities as its other G-Suite siblings. It also has event registration options that allow you to collect email addresses, create polls and pop quizzes, and store all your survey data neatly in its app or viewable in Sheets. Just like the other G-Suite programs, Google Forms is free to Gmail users and allows other team members to add content in real-time. Price: Free! 4. Tithe.ly Events Tithe.ly was designed specifically with churches in mind. From simple registration forms to user-friendly online payments, Tithe.ly Events has everything you need for every type of event. Like other tools on our list, this online church event registration site has customizable features for age, merchandise, and multiple ticket types. Price: Tithe.ly has four plan options that range from $0, with no credit card required, to $99/month. Check out its pricing page to learn more about each option. 5. Your Church Management System (ChMS) Most church management software systems include the capability to create online forms for event registration (including processing payments). Check with the staff member who manages the ChMS for your church to see if it includes online event registration functionality. Price: This will likely be free since you’re already paying for church management software. With one of these tools in your repertoire, setting up registrations for your next church event should be easier than ever.

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