Home for Christmas ads
planned for TV, radio, papers

Southwest Texas residents should be seeing and hearing lots of United Methodist media messages over the next two weeks.
Advertising to support the Home for Christmas outreach and public witness campaign is to run on 15 cable TV networks, on at least one Rio Grande Valley TV station, on seven Southwest Texas radio stations and in several regional daily newspapers before Christmas Eve.
The General Commission on Communication in Nashville, Tenn., plans to start running 824 30-second commercials on 15 national cable television networks Sunday.
The messages, which are to continue through Dec. 24, invite viewers to “find your path, share the journey.”
The spot shows several people following various trails and encountering others. The different paths eventually lead to a common destination—a revelation of God.
The ads end with the line: “Open hearts, open minds, open doors—the people of The United Methodist Church.”
United Methodist congregations in Boerne, Corpus Christi, Del Rio, McAllen and Seguin are scheduling custom-made Home for Christmas commercials on local cable TV systems. In addition, First UMC, McAllen, is buying time for its 30-second invitation to Christmas Eve candlelight services on KRGV TV in Weslaco.
Those Home for Christmas TV commercials were produced by the Southwest Texas Conference Communication and Public Witness Office.
That office is buying radio commercials Dec. 11 to 22 on stations in Falfurrias, Fredericksburg, Liberty, LaGrange, San Antonio, Schulenburg and Yoakum.
The 60-second radio ads, produced by the Nashville-based communication commission, say that “if you’re searching for meaning in life at Christmas, meet us at The United Methodist Church.”
The commercial closes by directing radio listeners to www.umcswtx.org to find a United Methodist congregation near them.
The Communications and Public Witness Office is currently negotiating for ads in several Southwest Texas daily newspapers.
Those ads, planned for Dec. 23, are to list times for Christmas Eve candlelight services at 98 United Methodist congregations.
Ads are planned for the Austin American-Statesman, Brownsville Herald, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Valley Morning Star (Harlingen), McAllen Monitor and San Antonio Express-News.
Final newspaper ad decisions are awaiting approval of a grant from the Southwest Texas Program Priority Fund.
The multimedia advertising campaign supports the annual confer-encewide Home for Christmas effort. The eight-week campaign, which kicked off Oct. 29, is designed to encourage 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, prescribes a step-by-step plan of invitation and follow-up. Publicity, advertising and other promotional activities support the invitation effort.
The Board of Discipleship is supporting the Home for Christmas outreach campaign for the seventh straight year.
Home for Christmas is one way the conference tries to empower ministries in local congregations so they can make disciples of Jesus Christ.
Congregations in the North Texas Conference are also involved in Home for Christmas activities this month. The North Texas Conference pioneered the outreach effort in 1998.