The Practical Aspects of Running Local Church Events

Local church events help bring a church to life, and life to a church. Consider the following practical aspects - mission/purpose, planning/management, people and safety.

Events are a fantastic and vital part of church life. Whether it’s a camp, public festival, community fair, carols by candlelight, training event, concert, youth rally or a dozen other types we are talking about – events help bring a church to life, and life to a church.

Some events are relatively small and simple, others are huge and complex. So how exactly do we go about planning an event? What are the practical aspects of running local church events? What are the non-negotiable issues to consider? Let’s talk about the four main areas of event planning.

Mission and Purpose

There are lots of questions to be resolved when it comes to church events. We will talk about safety and insurance, money and volunteers, and venues and marketing. None of those things are as important, however, as purpose. If the event we’re talking about doesn’t have a strong reason for being, then everything else is a moot point. We can explore this question of purpose through three classic questions: “Why?”, “Who?”, and “What?”

Purpose matters most. Why are we considering this event? Is it to nurture a sense of community? Training and skill development? Evangelism? Discipleship? A celebration of an important event? A seasonal event like Carols? An important fundraiser to support the mission of the church? Establishing the “why” of our event is vital. Articulating the “why”, in a way that gets people excited about it, is critical. “Why” matters enormously.

Church Strategy & Mission

The “why” of the event itself matters, but so too does its connection with your local church mission, vision and strategy. Events take significant effort, and serious resources, and demand a lot of our people. Making sure that we’re going to spend all that effort and energy on an event that fits with our church purpose and objectives is an important consideration.

That consideration alone might be enough to cause us to ask big questions about whether a traditional event we’ve undertaken is a wise use of our resources. Sometimes we start with an event for all the right reasons, but over time it becomes a habit and a tradition that no longer fits with the mission and purpose of the church itself. Your events have to serve both their own purpose and contribute to the larger mission of your church. That’s the first question to answer.

Who is it For?

A big part of answering the “why” question, is considering “who”: Who is this event for? Who are the people we want to be part of it? What are their hopes, needs and expectations? Does our event, location, activities, timing, costs and objectives fit with the people we are hoping to serve or invite? Have we asked them?

The other aspect of “who?” is to reflect on who is running the event. What are our gifts, skills and abilities? Do we have a solid leadership team? Sufficient volunteers? Are we biting off more than we can chew?

What to Do?

Contemplating the why and who of an event naturally leads us to the next question: “What?” What is the event we’re planning? What activities should it include? Tackling this question leads us to reflect on different church event ideas, different event formats, locations, dates and so on. The big blocks can come relatively easily: we want to organise a church camp, or a carols service, or a fundraising morning tea. Those are answers to “What?”.

The rest of our event planning concentrates on the final question: “How?”. How do we go about organising the event? How do we plan? How do we manage finances? How do we find enough volunteers? How do we tackle safety? These are the issues that will take up most of your time in church event planning – but make sure you figure out the “Why?” (including the “Who?” and “What?”) first.

Planning and Event Management

Once we have determined to go ahead with a local church event, planning swings into top gear. Naturally, the more complex the event the more detailed the planning required, but each aspect we’ll not below needs at least some consideration – even for the simplest event.

Planning and Project Management

Putting together a detailed event plan is a wise approach. Detailed planning helps you make sure that you don’t miss any key issues, and helps to ensure you have the right logistics, facilities, equipment and people in place.

Do we have a solid leadership team?

Planning also helps if you want to replicate an event the following year or scale it up and down. And it helps stay on track with your preparation, ensuring each of the key components of your preparation is achieved in a timely manner. There is a good reason that the old maxim “failure to plan is planning to fail” holds true. Whether you opt for a simple spreadsheet, or a detailed project management approach, putting in place the right level of event planning is key.

Insurance

Insurance is an important aspect of life today. Insurance helps you make sure that your leaders and your church are protected in the event of an unfortunate incident or accident. Insurance doesn’t excuse us from taking safety seriously (and we’ll cover that in more detail shortly), but helps in the worst-case scenario. Make sure that your existing insurance covers the type and scale of event you’re running. Some church events will need additional insurance too – so an early conversation with your insurer or denomination will help you figure out what insurance coverage you have and need. At the very least you may need to make sure that the event is approved (and recorded in meeting minutes) by your church board or council, to ensure it falls under the church’s existing policy.

Finance

The financial aspects of running local church events can vary enormously depending on the nature of the event. There may be substantial costs if we are hiring the venue, equipment, transport or staff. There may be products being sold and cash being collected. There may be ticketing to manage. The purpose of the event may be fundraising. Each of these elements adds complexity to the financial management of the event. Ensuring you have a suitably skilled finance person as part of your team and the support of your church treasurer will be of utmost importance. There are practical aspects to consider as well. Having EFTPOS equipment or cash management facilities on the day is something to plan ahead for.

Communications and Marketing

Developing a communication and marketing plan is a vital aspect of many church event planning. A communications plan helps you get the story of your event out, letting your congregation, community or other participants know about it. You’ll concentrate on the “why” your event matters, as well as the when, where and how to book in or participate. Your communications plan might also include community liaison (if the event has the potential to impact neighbours) along with team and volunteer recruitment.

One of the important aspects of a communications plan is timing. Working out how early to start promoting an event and how often to remind people helps make it possible for your prospective participants to be well-organised and do their own planning to get to the event.

Activity Planning

Once you have the big-picture planning in hand, you’ll want to ensure that the smaller details are being mapped out as well. Many church social events or church community events include a number of smaller activities – sometimes run by different groups of people. Make sure that those responsible for each activity are underway with their own planning. Make sure they’re thinking about the facilities, supplies, equipment and leaders that they need. Work out and stick to a timeline for activity planning, including how activity leaders communicate with the main organising team, keeping them appraised of any issues being encountered.

Venue

Depending on the nature of your event, you might have significant planning with respect to your venue. Making sure you have the necessary bookings and approvals is the starting point. Beyond that, you’ll need to consider any access, travel and traffic flow issues and the venue map/layout for your event. You’ll likely need to consider final preparation and setup (event planners will call this “bumping in”) together with any pack-up, cleaning and leaving (you guessed it, “bumping out”). Whether you’re using your own local church facility, or renting a third-party venue, a good relationship with the venue/facilities manager will make your life much easier in the long run – so prioritise keeping the venue manager informed as your planning progresses.

Permits/Approvals

Approvals, permits and legal requirements can be an important consideration. You may need to be in discussion with your local council, or in the case of larger events, your state government. Make sure you understand permit and approval requirements well in advance so that you can give sufficient time and attention to them. Some permits or approvals will have cost implications too, so factor those into your event budget. Food preparation, sales and service is one example where there might be quite varying requirements for different local councils. Alcohol sales or service, while rare at a church event, would be another.

Partners

The final aspect of planning we highly recommend for your local church event is to do with event partners. Are you working with another local church? With your denominational bodies? With other community groups? With your local council? With local businesses? If that’s the case, make sure you schedule regular catch-ups to make sure that each of the event partners is on the same page when it comes to event preparation.

People

If the purpose and planning of an event are vital to ensure its success, so is the third P: People.

Participants

No event will be a success without participants. We already pre-empted this when we talked earlier about the “who” of an event and about your approach to marketing and communications. Keeping your ideal participants in mind at all times in the lead-up to an event will help you plan and execute well. At every stage of your preparation, keep these people in mind. Where are they travelling from? What are their needs with respect to your event (physical, food, safety, emotional, spiritual, financial)?

Leadership

Almost every event will have some level of leadership required and that’s definitely true for local church events. Whether it’s the behind-the-scenes planning and coordinating team, the up-front leaders on the day, or those leading individual activities, having the right team in place is crucial. We’d encourage you to consider what sort of event committee is required, particularly to maximise the planning, preparation and follow-up stages. Pay close attention to how you recruit for these roles.

The right on-the-day leaders can make or break an event. A confident, energetic host will help bring your event to life, and a well-prepared hospitality team that can respond to guest needs can elevate an ordinary event to something special.

The other important aspect of leadership is to make sure you liaise well with your church council, board or leadership team. Keep them informed, draw on their skills and wisdom, and invite their participation as appropriate.

Volunteer Recruitment and Training

Many events rely on volunteer teams to run well. Whether that’s a kitchen or BBQ team, a ticketing or welcoming team, or even a cleaning team making sure your venue stays in tip-top shape throughout, volunteers are critical. Work early and actively to recruit volunteer team leaders. Work with those leaders to identify the number of team members and the skills they’ll need in their team. In larger events, managing a volunteer team becomes a significant task and you might want a dedicated person in your event. Consider things like team uniforms, team training, and any important licences, skills or qualifications your volunteer team might need (see the Safety section for more).

Outside Contractors

For larger events, it becomes increasingly likely that you’ll work with outside contractors. Some examples might include caterers or food vans, activity providers, entertainers, venue staff, bus/travel companies and so on. Clear, timely and effective communication matters. Ensuring your contractors have suitable insurance cover or licences for their work matters. Checking hired equipment is safe and fit for purpose matters. Ensuring your event can meet its financial obligations to your outside contractors matters. And, of course, making sure that your outside contractors have the skill, and the right attitude and character to contribute to your event matters a great deal.

Safety

Lots of your time in terms of church event planning is going to go into safety and for good reason. There are, of course, legal and legislative standards that any event or organisation has to meet, and church events are no different. Workplace health and safety, child safety, emergency management and so on are all important questions that we’ll get to.

We want to encourage you though, to see questions of safety through a broader lens than just that of compliance and legality. When you run an event, particularly a church community event, you are practising hospitality. You are welcoming people to something you have organised, at a venue you have arranged, to take part in activities you have planned. And when you practice hospitality, we want to encourage you to remember that you are practising mission. Hospitality is mission. And offering a safe, secure event in which there are no undue risks is good hospitality. We think it’s not going too far to say that running your event safely makes a big contribution to mission.

Risk Managment & Safety Planning

Risk and safety planning are fundamental to running a safe event. At its most basic, risk and safety planning involves four questions:

What risks does our activity or event involve?
What are the potential consequences of these risks?
How can we “manage” the risks by either reducing the likelihood of the risk occurring or the severity of the consequences?
Is the remaining (managed) risk acceptable enough that the event can proceed?

A risk plan is the documentation of that four-step process. The more complex your activities, of course, the more complex your risk and safety plans are going to be – but almost every activity or event has some level of risk. Many denominations will have risk and safety plan templates that you can use to help ease the process of planning, or your local church may well have templates available for you. There are some areas of risk and safety that require particular thought, so let’s note a few of them.

Food Safety

If your event involves any kind of food, then food safety is so important. If you have a team preparing food, you’ll need to consider various aspects such as licencing of your kitchen, skills/qualifications of those preparing the food, meeting the dietary requirements of your guests and so on. Liaise with your local council to make sure you meet any licencing needs. Your denomination may also be able to advise on suitable food safety training. Not to frighten you too much, but food safety is what stands between happy guests and a severe food-poisoning outbreak…not what we want at a local church event.

Child Safety

Ensuring the physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual safety of children and other vulnerable people should be your number one priority. Effective safety protocols, training and registration for your team are a non-negotiable part of running any community event. Your church will almost certainly have a child-safety policy and can support you in each step of this aspect of running an event. This is true for any event, and even more so for a child-focused event such as a camp or youth festival. Consider bringing a child-safety person into your event planning committee to help you keep this in focus.

Venue Safety

Offering a safe venue is vital too, whether you’re operating at your own local church facility, or working with an outside venue. You’ll need to stay on top of all the normal workplace health and safety issues. That might include lighting, trip hazards, electrical safety of equipment, sound levels and so on. Work with your venue manager or church WHS coordinator to make sure you have each aspect of venue safety in order.

Weather

Some events will have to consider the impact of adverse weather on event safety. If your venue is outdoors, then having a wet-weather alternative might be worth considering. Making clear and early weather-related decisions (including the dreaded “cancel” or “postpone” decision is good for your guests. Make sure you have considered this in your safety and risk planning and communications strategy.

Third-Party/Outside Contractors

We’ve already mentioned working with outside contractors – but it’s worth the reminder. Every aspect of your safety planning (venue, child safety, food, public liability etc) applies to them as well. Hire good people, with good safety systems.

Incidents and Accidents

No matter how effective your risk and safety planning and precautions are, there is always the potential for accidents. Here you’ll need to give attention to what happens in the event of such an incident. We recommend your event plan include consideration of:

Incident reporting and Management
First Aid (person, equipment, location)
Emergency management and evacuation plan
Access for emergency services
Event cancellation plan

If you’re running your event at your church premises, then much of this will already be in place. If your event is taking place at a third-party venue, or particularly a public location, then consider any specific planning you need here.

Security

It’s unfortunate but true, that we need to consider security at many events. Security includes consideration of the safety of people (your team, event participants, general public), and protection of venue and equipment. Depending on the nature and scale of your event this might be managed by your volunteer team, or by putting in place dedicated security staff. Be careful not to put your volunteers in security roles that they are not qualified or skilled to manage. Working with private security providers adds cost to your event, but doing everything you can to ensure safety – particularly at large or public events – makes that a necessary cost. For larger events, you will be well served to liaise with local police, ensuring they are aware of your event, plans and the systems you have in place.

It can seem overwhelming when we talk about the practical aspects of running local church events, and the list of things to consider is so long. We don’t offer this article to make it seem insurmountable, but to assist you in your church event planning. Events, as we said right at the beginning, are a fantastic and vital part of church life. Effective event planning helps lead to effective events. And effective events lead to effective mission.

Scott Guyatt is a writer, speaker, trainer, and facilitator who has served the church in Australia for more than two decades. Scott’s experience includes helping the church explore mission, discipleship and leadership practices in local communities across the country.