130 congregations sign up for
Christmas newspaper ads

More than 130 congregations have signed up for free Home for Christmas newspaper advertising in December.
The total is 100 more than took part in the advertising effort last year.
The ads are to run in various regional daily newspapers across Southwest Texas Dec. 23 or 24. The ads are intended to promote attendance at Christmas Eve candlelight services.
The advertising supports the annual conferencewide Home for Christmas outreach and public witness campaign. The eight-week effort, which kicked off Oct. 30, is designed to motivate United Methodists to invite friends and neighbors who don’t normally go to church to Dec. 24 candlelight services.
Church members then continue the disciple-making process with those who come.
The outreach campaign, built on prayer, follows a step-by-step plan of invitation and follow-up. Publicity, advertising and other promotional activities support the invitation efforts.
Twenty congregations have purchased special Home for Christmas items to enhance their outreach. These items, supplied by a Denton advertising agency, include special worship bulletin covers, direct-mail postcards, billboards, doorhangers and yard signs.
Kyle UMC, for example, reports using yard signs and local advertising to boost awareness of Christmas Eve worship.
First UMC, Marble Falls, has put up a 14-by-48-foot Home for Christmas billboard along U.S. 281 to promote its Christmas Eve services.
The final weeks of the Home for Christmas campaign coincide with a national United Methodist TV advertising effort. It is run by the General Commission on Communication in Nashville, Tenn., as part of the denominationwide Igniting Ministry hospitality and image campaign.
The Home for Christmas outreach campaign is detailed in a 146-page Igniting Ministry Campaign Workbook for the Southwest Texas Conference. The Communication and Public Witness Office distributed the workbooks to pastors in 2002 and 2003.
The campaign book also includes planning guidance for United Methodist Open House Month in September and Bring a Friend Sunday during Lent.
The Board of Discipleship is sponsoring the Home for Christmas outreach campaign for the sixth straight year.
The 15 congregations that submitted follow-up information last year reported a 33 percent increase in Christmas Eve worship attendance—despite a surprise snowstorm in many Southwest Texas communities.
Home for Christmas is one way the conference tries to empower ministries in local congregations so they can offer Christ to all.
Congregations in the North Texas Conference are also involved in Home for Christmas outreach during December. The North Texas Conference pioneered the outreach effort in 1998.