I continue to reflect on what made our 50th anniversary celebration so successful. Our district superintendent gave us a great compliment saying that he could not think of another church that had used an anniversary celebration so well to move the church forward. So I want to write down for the sake of others what I believe helped us to make it happen.
Intercede for the celebration
Looking back, I believe that one reason our celebration was blessed was that we have been praying for it for all these 30 months that it has been in process. It has been a frequent topic on the Wednesday intercessors list. It has been a subject for prayer by the pastors in their weekly meetings. It had been a topic for LBA (Local Board of Administration) prayer times too. Our focus has been that we might lift up Jesus in this celebration, that we might celebrate his faithfulness and grow in faith and expectancy for the future. Our prayer was that the 50th celebration would help to launch the church into its next decade well.
Advertise and Invite
This should go without saying but it doesn’t. So many times in the church we have planned and executed excellent programs but failed to advertise them and generate invitations to them. We seem to assume that if we plan a good service, people will hear about it and decide to come. But that is so not true. Research shows that invitation is what helps people attend, and the more personal the better. For our 50th celebration weekend, we used multiple ways to advertise and invite; our lighted highway sign, bulletin, letter from the pastor, mass mailing to 4000 households, website, blog and Facebook. We also created an invitation specifically for people to give their friends. As pastor, I personally contacted all the previous pastors by phone as well. I encouraged the congregation to invite others too. Did the strategy work? Absolutely, the celebration service had the highest attendance we have seen in many years, probably the second highest in the church’s history.
Don’t put all the eggs in one basket
While we put a great deal of emphasis upon the celebration service and made it the center of our 50th Anniversary Celebration, it was not the only event that people looked forward to. The build-up of events on Saturday included a parsonage open house, a fancy Meet-and-Greet reception at church, and a concert and testimony program in the evening. This program worked well for us since music is such a large part of our church services and many people are very gifted in it. Then after church we had a catered dinner downstairs with a light-hearted short program. We invited people to contribute toward the dinner but made it clear that we wanted everyone there no matter what they could contribute.
Make it personal
There were many ways that we tried to make the 50th celebration very personal. One was a slide show with many pictures from the history of the church. There was the usual collection of photo albums. A third was an anecdotal history written Facebook style. This latter was a great idea but it was surprisingly hard to persuade people to write short memories for it. But the result was effective and interesting reading. At every event of the three weekend emphasis, we recruited individuals to give planned testimonies of what our church meant to them. We also asked for testimonies online. At the dinner we recognized people who came to the church in each decade. We also identified surviving charter members and relatives of charter members. In addition, the many people who volunteered all had a personal part in our big weekend. Over the three weeks, lots of different people shared the pulpit, the platform or the microphone. There was a big bulletin board with baby pictures for people to identify. All this helped make the weekend very personal for everyone.