Planning Christmas – Theme / Concept / Message

This post is part of a 5-post series on Planning Christmas. Be sure to also check out the great inspiration at PlanningChristmas.info.

Once we’ve determined your target audience, we can then begin thinking about what theme, concept, and/or message would be most likely to connect with that audience. Theme

In design, there are a multitude of themes that we utilize to reach various audiences. To name a few:

• grunge
• graffiti
• clean
• minimalist
• dark
• organic

Similarly, depending on our target audience, we can choose a theme for our Christmas services or outreach. Are we going to have a family carnival theme? Perhaps a warm and traditional theme? Do we want to do something modern and technical? Some themes will work better than others in various contexts.

Concept

We can develop a concept once we know our theme. For example if we’re going with the carnival theme, we might choose to do an entirely outdoor experience with hayrides through christmas lights, petting zoos, a live nativity, games for children, etc. Or, we might want to go with an indoor puppet show, craft areas, and carnival-type foods. If  our theme is more of a modern approach, we might do something similar to Grace Church’s Little Drummer Boy program or Church on the Move’s Thriller/Grinch production:

 

Message

Ultimately our concept and theme will all need to work together in order to convey the message, brand, and image that we want guests (and regular attenders) to walk away with at Christmas. It goes without saying that we want them to hear the message of the birth of Christ, but are there other messages we want them to walk away with as well? How about the message of hope or peace? How about a message of avoiding consumerism or materialism. How about messages about our church such as, “we value the arts,” or “we are all about families here?” All of these factors are important to consider before we launch into the busyness of pulling off the concept.

The point is, we need to think about our audience first, then our theme, concept and message.