A collaborative carol service
It all started with a prayer meeting, which generally makes for a good beginning. It was a special prayer meeting in which three of the church’s teenagers had helped to run the evening. At the end of it the three of them asked to speak to me about an “idea”. “We want to help you run the carols by candlelight service”, they said. As one of the more traditional services in the church’s calendar, and the one service in the entire year which attracts more guests than any other, it was an unusual request. However, it was an offer far too good to refuse.
After an initial planning meeting where it was decided to take the unprecedented step of raising money through a cake sale after a carol service, the young people chose between two alternative Tearfund campaigns. The one they chose was ‘Home for Christmas’, and that is when the hard work started. They designed a leaflet, made an appeal, recruited readers, baked cakes and encouraged others to do the same. At that planning meeting an initial fundraising target of £400 was made (almost 4 x more than they had ever made by doing such a thing before) but we decided to “round it up” to £500. The church leadership then stepped in to say that Christmas morning’s collection would be added to the total. The church were told that 400 cakes were needed, to be delivered in advance of the service.
- Over 450 cakes were made
- Over £800 was raised
- Gift aid plus the Christmas morning offering will send this considerably higher
These three young people prepared for the service, participated in the service, and worked hard after the service (with the help pf others) to reach and exceed their target. Their transparent enthusiasm and their undiluted desire to do something good was clearly infectious.
This was an experiment which I would gladly repeat.
