Christmas & Advent Tools
Christmas & Advent Outreach Products |
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POPULAR CHRISTMAS PRODUCTS
Christmas Postcards
Invite every home in your community to your church for Christmas - Choose from 2 sizes of eye-catching postcards.
Indoor and Outdoor Banners & Signs
Attract and welcome visitors with colorful banners and signs. Choose from multiple sizes, materials and display options.
Canvas Prints
Update the look of your church with beautiful, inspiring wall art - choose from Canvas Prints or Quick Change Art with Frames.
Bulletins
Connect your Christmas visitors to all the ministries in your church with a professional, informational bulletin shell.
Gift Books
Get more visitors when you offer them a gift for visiting at Christmas! Also great for empowering members to give to their family and friends.
Church Campaigns
Keep visitors coming back this season by launching a multi-week Advent sermon series and small groups.
Want a completely custom Christmas Product?
Outreach offers four ways to order products to accomodate your church's needs. The Christmas/Advent order deadline depends on which method you use to order—as well as the type of product you order. Cutoff date depends on product. Expedited shipping charges will apply.
Stock ("As Seen") Orders
Deadline: 4 - 11 Calendar Days Before
Many of our most popular products are available to purchase "As Seen", without making any changes. These "stock" products ship from our warehouse fast.
Customize Online Orders
Deadline: 4 - 11 Calendar Days Before
Use our online customizer to add or edit text, upload images, or included a logo to any design. These products are printed on demand and ship fast.
We Customize Orders
Deadline: 10 - 16 Calendar Days Before
Let our talented design team customize one of our products for you. "We Customize" products require a longer lead time than "Customize Online" products.
Upload Your Own Artwork Orders
Deadline: 4 - 11 Calendar Days Before
You upload your own design, Outreach does the rest for an incredible low price! These products are printed on demand and ship fast.
Featured Christmas Designs
Your church is already planning great services and events this Christmas-season. With a custom postcard from Outreach, you can spread the word to every home for only pennies a postcard!
- Guaranteed lowest price and on-time delivery*
- Choose from over 200 Christmas designs
- Two postcard sizes to choose from
- Easy online-customization 24/7 - use our easy online editor to add your own text, images, map and logo, FREE! Or we can design for you or you can upload your own design!
- Every order over 5,000 includes 200 free postcard handouts
- We will help you get your non-profit postal permit - free!
- Targeted, demographic mailing lists with lowest postage available - learn more
Outreach Offers Your Church:
Decorate your church with coordinated banners for the Christmas season. Indoor banners are essential tools for greeting and directing Christmas-season visitors, as well as inspiring members with seasonal truth and scripture. These beautiful banners can be used to decorate your lobby, hallways and worship center and will set the mood for Advent and Christmas. Choose from hundreds of Christmas designs in multiple sizes, including singles and sets. The suites are designed to go together for maximum impact. The Advent banners could be introduced each week during the season or displayed all at once. Every banner can be customized with your logo or event information. Choose from 4 banner sizes and a variety of stands.
NEW HOLIDAY SUITES:
COORDINATED TOOLS FOR YOUR WHOLE CHURCH!
These three Christmas Suites provide your church with festive tools to ATTRACT visitors and WELCOME and INSPIRE everyone who enters your church this season! Each of the three suites features a custom postcard
invitation, custom outdoor banner, a welcome indoor banner and an inspirational indoor banner.
Available Christmas Suites: White Chalk Christmas,
Blue Layer Paper,
Stamped Christmas
ATTRACT your community with Outreach postcard mailers and outdoor banners
WELCOME your community with bold and vibrant banners in our most popular sizes
INSPIRE them with hand-picked scripture banners
Click on your preferred design to see the full product selection:
White Chalk Christmas, Blue Layer Paper,
Stamped Christmas
WHITE CHALK CHRISTMAS DESIGN SUITE
Decorate your church for Christmas with this eye-catching suite that goes with any color decor. Use the postcards and invite tools to reach your local neighbors. Use the outdoor banners to attract passerby traffic and share info about your upcoming services. And the indoor banners add the perfect finishing touch – tying it all together and letting your visitors know they’ve found the right place!
Invite
Welcome and Inspire
SEE IT IN ACTION
BLUE LAYERED PAPER DESIGN SUITE
Everywhere you look these days, you can see handmade papercut designs. With this on-trend design, you’ll be sure to inspire your regular attendees and welcome new guests! The postcards and invite tools will help you reach your local neighbors. The outdoor banners are the perfect way to attract passerby traffic and share info about your upcoming services. And the indoor banners add the perfect finishing touch – tying it all together and letting your visitors know they’ve found the right place!
Invite
Welcome and Inspire
SEE IT IN ACTION
BLUE LAYERED PAPER PRODUCTS
STAMPED CHRISTMAS DESIGN SUITE
This trendy, retro-inspired suite is perfect for the church that embraces old and new! Use the postcards and invite tools to reach your local neighbors. Use the outdoor banners to attract passerby traffic and share info about your upcoming services. And the indoor banners add the perfect finishing touch – tying it all together and letting your visitors know they’ve found the right place!
Invite
Welcome and Inspire
SEE IT IN ACTION
STAMPED CHRISTMAS PRODUCTS
A new way to update your church! These large stickup adhesive banners adhere to any smooth, flat surface, and can be removed without harming the paint or wall underneath! Great for classrooms, lobby areas or worship center walls.
Top Sellers
Big 20 Piece Christmas Art Gallery
Invite your community into your church for a unique Christmas experience - telling the story of Christmas through canvas art prints.
It’s a great family outreach - your church can set up the display the first week of Advent and invite people to tour the exhibit with their family, so children and adults can learn more about the story of Jesus’ birth together!
This collection contains twenty 18” x 24” canvas prints, each beautifully depicting key moments in the miracle of Jesus birth, and includes descriptive cards to go with each print. Quantities are limited so order early!
Multiple Ways to Display:
Set up your gallery of prints along a hallway, in a classroom or worship center or on a free-standing display wall.
Order Now
Included Canvas Prints:
Zechariah and the Angel
Gabriel Visits Mary
Mary Visits Elizabeth
Joseph's Dream
His Name Is John
Bethlehem Journey
Jesus is Born
In the Manger
Shepherds with Their Flocks
Angels Announce the Birth
Shepherds visit Jesus
Simeon Sees Jesus
Mary and Child
Wise men Enter City
Following the Star
Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh
Fleeing to Egypt
Family in Egypt
Return to Nazareth
Jesus Views His Mission Field
EXCITING NEW WAYS TO GET BACK INTO
THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS THIS SEASON!
So many people are looking to get back into the true meaning of the Christmas season, and your church can help by doing a powerful, Advent themed series. Our five-week church campaign kits come with everything you need to plan a church wide campaign including sermons, small group study materials, books, and other essential outreach tools.
Click on the campaign kit below to start transforming your church sermons today!
A Three-Pronged Approach To Christmas Outreach
Christmas is just around the corner (where did October go?!) and if you’re like most churches, you’ve already started putting your service and event plans in place. But have you thought about how you will invite visitors to come?
Recent studies show only half of Americans plan to attend church on Christmas, which means having a full house on Christmas Eve is no longer guaranteed. So what is the best way for your church to see the most visitors this year? It’s time to plan a multi-pronged strategy to ensure you are effectively reaching out. Here are three strategies that, when combined, provide you the best opportunities:
- Personal Invitations - Your regular attenders are still the best way to invite neighbors to church. People trust those they know for recommendations on auto mechanics or dentists, so why not a church? Studies show that 80% of un-churched people will come to church if a friend invites them. However, church members can be reluctant to step out and do the actual inviting, so it’s a good idea to make it as easy as you can.
- Provide small invitation cards with basic information for your Christmas Eve service times so your members can hand them to neighbors, post the on bulletins boards, or give them to business people they work with regularly.
- Create an event that is “invite-able”. Make sure your Christmas events are designed with visitors in mind. Try to plan something that will appeal to your community and their tastes and style, and keep your events free of too much “Christianese” and insider language.
- Challenge your entire church to step up, and then keep encouraging people to pray and invite. Use personal testimonies of people in your church whose lives were changed by a simple invitation as an illustration of what can happen. If people feel a part of a larger movement they are more likely to participate.
- Church Postcards- While your members are inviting their friends, take the next step to reach out to a larger group. The most cost-effective way to reach thousands of homes is through the mail. And while some people have written printed mail off as “old fashioned” and expensive, recent statistics show just the opposite:
- 90% of people check their mail every day and 77% of consumers sort through their mail as soon as they get it. (When was the last time you sorted through your emails like that?)
- 67% of recipients feel mail is more personal than the internet.
- 8% of people keep direct mail for future reference.
- Social Media - The third piece of your invitation push should be online - but not necessarily in the way you’d normally think. While your first instinct might be to post an invitation to your event and then ask your members to share it with everyone - that may not be the best method.
Direct mail is most effective when it’s kept simple, which is why postcards work. They are easy to read, can include eye-catching graphics and their size and shape make them the most affordable way item to mail. ( Click here to see some great postcard options for this Winter.)
Perhaps most importantly, every piece of mail is at least reviewed by the participant - and no matter if someone puts your postcard on the refrigerator or in the trash - they still look at it. Printed mail has a 75% brand recall (digital ads only have a 44%) - so chances are they will remember your church name the next time they consider coming to church. Want to know more about effective direct mail? Click here.
The average person spends nearly two hours a day on social media - and there are ads everywhere. Which means that people get desensitized to anything that even LOOKS like an ad. Approaching your posts from a different, more conversational angle, will boost engagement and get your post more widely read.
For example, a recent study showed that less people today believe in the key elements of the Christmas story (virgin birth, baby laid in a manger, angels announcement, wise men guided by a star) - so what would happen if your church created its own informal survey about the beliefs of your members and friends? It would probably get people talking and sharing - which is the whole point of social media!
Combining this type of conversation starter along with seasonal videos, attractive, thoughtful or inspirational messages, and an occasional event invitation will help make your social media page more readable and shareable. Learn more about regular social sharing and using social media for your church here.
Since you can no longer count on visitors to just show up on their own, the real key to having a successful Christmas outreach is to be intentional about reaching out to your community and then make your church as welcoming and friendly as possible.
Four Creative Ways to Reach more Church Visitors this Christmas
With the season fast approaching and only 46% of Americans saying they celebrate Christmas as a primarily religious holiday, this may be a good time to think through your church’s holiday celebrations. While everyone loves a candlelit Christmas Eve service, are there other events and services you could offer that would make your church more visible in the community AND increase the number of visitors this winter?
Here are four creative ways to rethink your Christmas plans:
- Take it to the streets - Often as church leaders we rely too heavily on having the community come to us, but what if this Christmas season you took your church out into your neighborhood to serve? Here are a couple ideas to get you started:
- Collect frozen turkeys and then take them to an apartment complex, mobile home park or senior housing area and give them out - be sure to also provide a small invitation to your Christmas services.
- Hand out hot chocolate, coffee or even cup-of-soup to commuters at the local mass transit station on cold winter mornings and/or evenings.
- Go old-school and take a group Christmas Caroling through the neighborhood around your church. Invite people to join the group and sing along as you go door to door. Or take a group to the retirement home to put a smile on the faces of seniors in your area.
- Share the story in new ways - Living nativities, drive-through nativities, movies about the nativity... they have all been done before, so how can you share the miracle of Christmas in a unique way that will garner attention? How about an art showing! The Story of Christmas is a 20-piece set of canvas-wrapped wall art that beautifully depicts key moments in the story of Jesus birth. This collection of 18” x 24” prints come with wall cards that identify the event depicted and help guide viewers through the story so you can invite families to tour the exhibit and learn about the real Christmas story together.
- Help parents - The holidays are a stressful time for everyone, by opening your facility and offering childcare you can help provide relief to parents. Here are a few ideas:
- Provide children’s activities like a Kid’s Craft Fair so parents can go to the mall, toy store or grocery store without the extra help of their little ones.
- Open your church on snow days so working parents have a safe place to take their children - offer a VBS type class to keep the kids occupied.
- Share a meal -Christmas can be a lonely time of year, especially if you don’t have loved ones who live nearby. Organize a holiday meal and invite singles, seniors, military personnel, immigrants or anyone who is without family to join in for a huge holiday potluck. Encourage people to bring their favorite holiday dish to share with their new extended family.
Christmas is all about giving and sharing God’s love with our broken world. By thinking outside the traditions, you may just find a new way to reach people this season!
Preparing Your Church for Holiday Visitors
While it may seem like the ministry year just got started, before we all know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here and your church will be caught up in planning special events, Christmas Eve services, and more. So before the crazy “holi-daze” set in, here are five areas of your church to review and update to help your Christmas visitors feel more welcome and comfortable at church.
- Your Greeting Team - Visitors to your church may be completely unfamiliar with churches in general and that is where a good greeter can help ease anxiety and make them feel welcome and comfortable. Your greeting team is important to making the best first impression, so make sure your team is well trained and on point as you enter the holiday season. Consider a group meeting to talk about the season and get buy-in from the whole team.
- Your Information Area - Similar to your greeting team, your information table needs to be staffed with friendly people who can answer questions and make your visitors feel welcome. It’s also
important to have the area clearly identified with a banner or sign.
Many visitors may be cautious about providing too much personal information on their first visit, so volunteers should be sensitive to asking too many probing questions. Instead, offer easy answers, helpful flyers or brochures, and a nice visitor gift.
- Children’s and Youth Areas - The most important thing to parents is that their children are well cared for, so extra attention to your nursery, children’s and youth rooms is an important step
in preparing for visitors. Parents want to ensure their kids are safe, rooms are clean and that any dietary restrictions are adhered to. It also helps to have an area that is cheerful, modern and fun. Fortunately,
there is a large selection of inexpensive tools you can use to turn a drab area into something fun and attractive to both parents and their kids. Click here to see great ideas for kids of all ages.
For nursery and small children’s classes make sure you have enough well-trained volunteers for the increase in attendance during the holiday season - especially for check-in and pickup. Provide parents with written information on your security measures, how you will contact them if they are needed during the service and the procedure for picking up their little ones.
For older kids, be sure you have planned to get new kids involved in activities and ask a couple of your regular-attending children to make extra efforts to befriend the new ones so they won’t feel left out.
- Interior Decor and Signs - Decorating for the holidays is a tradition not only in homes but also in churches. But when you are planning for visitors during the Advent season, not only should your church look festive, it should also be inspiring and informative. Fortunately there are inexpensive ways to both decorate your church and direct your visitors:
- Start with directional banners. Words like "Refreshments," "information," "Children," and even just "Welcome" give visitors the information they need quickly so they aren't left feeling lost.
- Add on inspirational banners for the season that feature scripture verses around the weeks of Advent or as stand alone verses about Jesus’ birth.
- Finish by decorating your hallways, seating areas or classrooms for the holidays. Tools like the adhesive wall banners or holiday themed Canvas Prints are a great way to give your walls an instant update without breaking the budget.
- Outdoor Signs and Banners - It’s easy to get caught up in making sure the inside of your building is ready for visitors but the outside is important too. If a visitor can’t find parking, isn’t
sure where to go, or needs physical assistance - they may turn right around and leave if the outside area isn’t accommodating.
There are a variety of tools you can use outdoors. Custom banners can share important service times to passing traffic. Attractive flag banners and light pole banners can make your parking lots more friendly and direct drivers to special visitor parking areas. Hand held greeting signs can be used outside to welcome people to your building, and connect them with a friendly face who can direct them to the worship center or children’s areas.
Take these few steps in preparation for the holidays and your church will be a more welcoming and festive place for your Christmas visitors.
Making Christmas Count:
How to Connect People in Your Community to Your Christmas Season Services
5 Ways Your Church Can Win At Social Media This Year
5 Ways to Maximize your Christmas Ministry
and 1 Thing to Avoid