What is in Kelvin's Head?

12 tips to get people to come to Christmas Services

17/12/2015

Earlier this year, I won a competition. Someone had published a new plugin for WordPress that allows you to fairly easily publish google maps with your own points of interest on them. As a way of promoting the plugin, the competition was to offer a year’s license to the top 20 people who came up with an idea for using it. My idea (which wasn’t really rocket science) was to use it to build a map of where Christmas services are taking place. I won one of the licenses with this suggestion.

I remembered that this week and decided that I’d better make good on my competition entry. I downloaded the plugin and started to build a map of the services that are taking place in this diocese on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year according to the data that I could find available on those churches’ websites. You can find the map at the bottom of this post.

Having taken a look around the websites of the churches in the diocese, there’s a few things that I think are worth saying.

The truth is, there are hundreds of people who are going to be using the internet (often through their mobile phones) this week to try to find Christmas services to attend. This is the time of year when people are most likely to just want to attend church. People will just turn up. If they like what they discover, they are likely to turn up again next year. Or even next Sunday. It is the primary time when people will be predisposed to turn up to church. If we do care about mission, then this week matters hugely and as always, the three big mission themes that so often get ignored (worship, web and welcome) are absolutely key.

Here’s a few tips for getting people to come to church at Christmas using the internet

1 – Put your Christmas Services on your website.
2 – Put the details on the front page either with an obvious link that says “Christmas Services” or right there, right on the front page itself.
3 – Put the address of the church, with a full postcode right on there too so that people can use sat-nav technology to find the church.
4 – As our Lord said, “Don’t hide your light under a ~~bushel~~ pdf”. If you put the details in a pdf and upload that to your website, far fewer people will see them. Similarly with making pretty graphics of your Christmas services. The reason this doesn’t work without plain text is that search engines like google can’t see your Christmas services and lots of other people will never find the details either. Oh, and flash based websites are so last century. Don’t. Just don’t.
5 – This year at Christmas take some nice, good quality photographs of the church when it is decorated so that you can use the pics online next year, if not this year. Try to include pics with people in them. You want either close ups of the crib/decorations or pics of people with Christmas Trees in the background – that kind of thing. You don’t want pics of an empty church.
6 – If you use social media then link to it from your website and link to your website from your social media stream.
7 – Use social media. Just use it.
8 – Remember that people out there make their judgements on what they see online and not what you know to be happening. You can have the best all singing, all dancing children’s service in Christendom but if there’s nothing about it online people will say, “What a shame that the church doesn’t do things for children at Christmas, where shall we go instead?”
9 – If your website doesn’t work on a mobile then start to plan for next Christmas by upgrading it as soon as possible. More people search for information using mobile devices than desktop computers now and it is only going to rise. Easiest way of doing this is a website built with a content management system like WordPress running a responsive theme. Responsive means that the theme adjusts to the size of the screen that people are looking at it on. It matters very much indeed now as Google will rank pages lower if they are not responsive.
10 – Make a new year’s resolution to learn something about Search Engine Optimisation. Sounds technical but isn’t really – just means that you have a website organised so that those search engines can point more people towards your website when they search for things. Again, WordPress is a good answer along with an SEO plugin such as the one published by Yoast.
11 – Remember that people search using their own words and not your words. Don’t expect people looking for “Christmas Services” to click on “diary”, “lectionary”, “events” or “calendar”. Again, don’t hide your information but bring it right out into the open.
12 – Remember that your website is primarily for people who don’t come to church and that they are actually already reading it. Yes, really.

Now, on to the map.

It is colour coded. Those churches in red had their Christmas Services easily available on or from their front page. Those with purple markers had the information available but it took some work to find it. Those in blue had websites with no Christmas info that I could find. Those in yellow were churches where I couldn’t find a website at all.

There will be gaps and mistakes – I did this fairly quickly last night. I’d be very happy to include information that is missing if anyone wants to drop me a line. If you do want an update, tell me gently – and remember just because information doesn’t appear here it doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. It just means that I couldn’t find the information – and that’s the point. If I couldn’t find it easily then the chances are lots of people won’t find it.

[google_maps id=”14760″]

My very grateful thanks to Chris Lema for running the original competition that brought me the Maps Builder Pro plugin and to Matt Cromwell for releasing it. It is fantastic. I wish there were a lifetime access deal for purchasing it as I happen to hate annual subscription licenses but apart from that, this is one sophisticated mapping plugin that is very easy to use and there’s a ton of things I can think of doing with it.

UPDATE – 18 December 2015
There have been a couple of updates since the map was originally published.
All Saints’, Bearsden get a Red Pin of Righteousness – I had been looking at a version of their previous website though how I accessed it, I’ve now no idea.
St Oswald’s, Maybole get a Red Pin of Righteousness – They’ve moved the details of their Christmas services out of a jpg file and into plain text.
St Bride’s, Hyndland get a Red Pin of Righteousness – They’ve now got their Christmas Services right on the front page.
St Augustine’s, Dumbarton move up to a Purple Pin of Plausability – their details are there but it still takes a bit of work to find them.

chris lema, Christmas, christmas services, church websites, Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway, tips

10 responses to “Where does the Church of Scotland stand?”

Robin

21/05/2013

I understand your sentiments, but both on this issue and on the ordination of women in the Church of England the weary words of Mrs Boyle in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ in reply to her son, who scorns the Irish Free State and wants an Irish Republic or nothing, are inclined to come to mind:

“To be sure, to be sure — no bread’s a lot better than half a loaf.”

Reply
Nick Brindley

21/05/2013

I think you’re right to think this is a disastrously wrong-headed attempt to avoid having to think the issue through, although we may not agree on what would be involved in such thinking (almost nobody agrees with me!)

I think we need to revisit some pretty fundamental problems on the nature of the moral authority of the Bible, the meaning of “salvation” and what ministry is to make any real progress with this issue and there appears to be depressingly little appetite to do this in a spirit of mutual trust and of trust in the leading of the Spirit guiding our interpretation of scripture

http://loveswork.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/failing-to-be-biblical-reflections-on-church-of-scotland-sexuality-debates/

Reply
Frank keefe

21/05/2013

This is what happens when you water down Gods truth so the secular world will think what a progressive church you are.When a small secular wedge is pushed under a church door you can bet a larger one will be pushed under it in the not to distant future.I believe a liberal minded church like the Church of Scotland is more dangerous to the Christian faith than atheists like Richard Dawkins and his followers. Jesus found it hard to convince the Pharisees of their misguided beliefs if He walked our earth today He would find those modern day Pharisees in the Church of Scotland even harder to convince.

Reply
1. Rosemary Hannah
  
  21/05/2013
  
  Well, there you go – I think the exact opposite – that Jesus, who plucked corn, and healed, on the Sabbath, would be out partying tonight with all sorts of disreputable people. The Pharisees were the people who stuck rigidly to the law, breaking it even as they kept it. Jesus was the one who re-interpreted it.
  
  Reply
  1. Frank keefe
    
    21/05/2013
    
    I find it amazing how those who look for sin to be accepted would try and use Jesus to back them up.First Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.The Pharisees abused Gods law with their legalism.Its why He said about the rescue of a sheep on that day.He didnt re-interpret it He was showing them how it SHOULD BE KEPT as God ALWAYS intended it.Its the church who is doing the interpretation and Jesus certainly wouldnt be “out partying” such disrespect of our Lords holiness is often the way with liberal ” Christians” Instead of the church being a light to the world that worlds darkness is putting out that light.
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      21/05/2013
      
      Bless you for your faith, Frank. May it bring you happiness and joy.
      
      Reply
Graeme Cowie

21/05/2013

It’s a fudge, no doubt. And one which, far from preserving the “traditional” Kirk actually serves to undermine it in a number of ways, particularly concerning the status of “doctrine” and who gets to determine what it is, or at least what practical meaning it is for something to be “doctrine” rather than merely a personal religious sentiment. Explicitly to permit complete deviation from “doctrine” by congregations is not very Presbyterian, and the “traditionalists” either didn’t seem to realise that, or they care about preserving substantial doctrines at the expense of, well, what makes the Kirk the Kirk.

To an extent, though, you could see it coming. I think the traditionalist wing sensed they would lose if it was a straight choice (unfortunate phrase) between 2A and 2B, and so tried to push for something that retains a symbolic attachment to historical doctrine whilst letting liberals have the lion’s share of the cake they want, which is to be able to ordain those in committed same-sex relationships and to be done with it. I know for a fact that a fair whack of liberal commissioners were swayed by 2D (not including my parents, who are CofS ministers who voted with option 2A), many seeing it as a way of letting the traditionalists have some sort of phyric victory whilst in fact enabling ministers to be in civil partnerships without any lasting problems. It is much more likely that 2D will make it through Barrier Act procedure now that it’s got the traditionalists’ name on it, and notwithstanding the extra year it’s going to take to turn it into a proper overture, I think the consensus of the Kirk is that they really want to stop talking about this.

The new system ought to be fairly robust once the Legal Questions Committee have had their teeth dug into it. The clear intention was conceded by the movers that they did not intend for Presbyteries to be able to discipline or annul decisions made by Kirk Sessions seeking to be allowed to appoint ministers in civil partnerships, and for a lot of liberals (and actually, a lot of those on the conservative wing too) this will be seen as a critical part of the compromise if it is to be laid to rest. My only real concern is that if the traditionalists are for any reason unhappy with the implementation by LQC it could lead to the whole debate re-opening in GA 2014.

It’s clearly not enough for many liberal ministers, elders and members of the Church of Scotland, for whom this still presents a partial sense of “separate not equal” for congregation and minister alike, and it probably makes it more difficult for the theological position of the kirk formally to be moved away from same sex relationships being sinful, now that the “practical harms” are in a significant sense out of the way, but by Church of Scotland standards, it’s a major step forward for a very broad church, and one which has probably saved it from a major schism (though a handful of churches may still leave over and above The Tron and Gilc South). For those of us in the Kirk 5 years ago, this would have been virtually unthinkable, and momentum has picked up since the Rennie case 4 years ago. The good fight goes on, and hurdles remain, but if it gets through Barrier Act procedure I think the practical objectives, in a Kirk which already offers substantial liberty of personal opinion in matters of doctrine which do not enter into the substance of faith, have largely been met, albeit in a roundabout way.

For more of my thoughts on this matter, see:

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/church-of-scotland-religious-progress.html

and

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/presbyterianism-cracking-at-seems-cost.html

Reply
Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

22/05/2013

And it still does not properly address how LGBTQ people (single or in civil partnerships) will be dealt with (dealt to?) when they offer themselves to Presbyteries as feeling called to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. Will they be asked about their orientation? Questioned? Interrogated? What responses will allow them to or prevent them from pursuing that call?

Who is this Albert Bogle anyway – is he about to become the first to be beatified by the Kirk and for what exactly? By-passing (even disregarding) Kirk “Order”, convincing his important friends to let him bulldoze ahead and his less important friends to print off 700 and something copies of a Deliverance which is incoherent and unimplementable.
Off to read Revelation for other signs of The End Times…
.

Reply
Peter W Nimmo

25/05/2013

Kelvin, you make lots of good points in your post. But just to clarify- what is the doctrine and practice of the Scottish Episcopal Church on this issue? Does your doctrine approve of persons in civil partnerships being clergy, and is that put into practice?

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  25/05/2013
  
  Yes – there are quite a number of clergy in civil partnerships. In England, Anglican clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to declare that they are “celibate”. That isn’t the case in Scotland.
  
  The pension scheme in Scotland recognises Civil Partnerships by giving such partners the same benefits as wives or husbands in marriages. Civil Partners also are treated in the same way with regard to housing as a straight spouse if a relationship breaks down.
  
  Any candidate for ordination who is in a Civil Partnership is expected to be honest about that at selection.
  
  The bishops of the church announced a few years ago that they would not consecrate anyone as bishop who was in a Civil Partnership. They were clear at the time that this was a moratorium. However it is not clear to me whether that moratorium still stands. I do expect there to be questions about that at the coming Synod.
  
  Reply