2 Steps to Prioritize Your Church Events

While it might not be Grand Central Station, your church has a lot going on, with teams of volunteers and staff to make it all happen. The healthy tension between encouraging your teams to "dream big" regarding ministry opportunities and having enough time and promotional space to support it all is real. So, how do you prioritize your ministry activities?

Levels of Support
Each activity requires different energy, resources, and promotion levels. Establishing a ministry support guide can help your ministry directors, pastors, and support teams determine together the support these activities require.

Before we move forward, let me set some context. When I use the phrases "full support," "limited support," and "self-support," I'm referring to personnel and promotion rather than whether your church or leaders should or shouldn't be supportive of ministry activities.

Here are three support levels. Depending on your church size, you may or may not provide every service listed under each level. 

Level 1 (Full Support)
Events that receive full support are typically church-wide, would appeal to a large segment of the church, and would be viewed with a higher significance level. With full support:

• The event would be promoted heavily throughout all communication channels.
  
  
• The facilities team would fully support rooms, resources, set-up, personnel, and cleaning as scheduled.
  
  
• The Audio/Visual/Lighting (AVL) team would fully support the event with systems and personnel.
  
  
• The food services team would support the event with food and beverage service and necessary personnel based on the event reservation.

Level 2 (Limited Support)
Events that receive limited support wouldn't have a broad appeal but significant enough for some promotional, AVL, and food services support. With limited support:

• The event would receive limited church-wide communication conducive to the event scope and reach, while the ministry would do some of its promotion through appropriate channels.
  
  
• Facilities Team might offer basic support of rooms, resources, set-up, and cleaning as scheduled.
  
  
• AVL team provides basic support for the event with systems but without personnel.
  
  
• Food services would support the event with food and beverage service based on the event reservation.

Level 3 (Self-Support)
Events that receive the self-support designation would be small in scope and light in potential participation. These events would typically not require promotional, AVL, and food services support. With self-support:

• Your communications personnel could help give tips on how to promote the event.
  
  
• Facilities Team would offer basic support of rooms, resources, set-up, and cleaning as needed.
  
  
• The ministry provides its own audio/video equipment to meet its needs.
  
  
• The ministry provides its own food and beverages.

Qualifying Factors
Establishing criteria can help you and your team determine the level of support each event would require. Assessing needs often becomes more intuitive as you apply these qualifying factors consistently.

1. Audience Scope: What is the potential reach of your event? How many people could attend? The number of participants can indicate the level of support.
   
   
2. Audience Demographic: Consider who potential event participants are and how they relate to each other or the makeup of your congregation. For example, if a younger congregation hosts an event for widows and widowers, that demographic might be much smaller than if you led an older community. Likewise, fewer students may attend if you lead an older congregation. If your event is for women, the potential is likely over half of your congregants, requiring full promotional and other support.
   
   
3. Rooms & Resource Needs: Does the event require using your entire facility or just a tiny room? Larger rooms require lighting and audio support, whereas smaller rooms may not. An off-campus typically doesn't need audio/visual help unless it's a church-wide event like a picnic.
   
   
4. Ministry Exposure: Is the event or activity a newer initiative, effort, class, or campaign? Starting a new work may require more care and attention until it becomes a part of your church culture and increases awareness. Established activities may require less attention through promotions.
   
   
5. Schedule: Consider the other activities around the one you are managing. Creating competition between church activities is unhealthy. At our church years ago, our leadership team planned two significant events simultaneously. We had a dynamic speaker coming in from India to hold a conference. At the same time, we hosted a rodeo all week long as an outreach to the community! This mistake introduced unnecessary competition between ministries. What were we asking our congregants to do? Avoid unnecessary tension by exercising good planning skills. Otherwise, you split your congregants' attention and your team's support capacity.

More Art Than Science
All events are distinct, with differing objectives and outcomes. How to prioritize your event support comes down to your church's mission and what's vital for your congregation to thrive as a community and as people of faith. These levels of support and qualifying factors provide a framework. Let me know how it helps.

Want to learn more about how to better manage your communications workflow? Let's talk!