It’s that time of the year – Christmas is only a month away. We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, and then it’s a race to Christmas – it will be here before you know it. Here are three ways your group can thrive, not dive, during the busy Christmas season:

1. Plan a group Christmas fellowship and invite guests – many of you already do this, but don’t forget to include your group’s prospects! It’s easy to focus on inviting your regular attending group members, but remember that during the year you’ve seen a number of people come through your Bible study group in search of a new “home” for Christian community. Don’t forget about them at the holidays. Many would come back and participate in a fun, social event, especially if it was hosted by someone in your group at an off-campus location.
2. Encourage group members and guests to attend your church’s Christmas Eve services – Dr. Thom Rainer recently released a blog post on 9 trends taking place in Christmas Eve services (click here to jump over to that blog post). Two of the trends he mentioned are that Christmas Eve services are becoming more important each year, and that they are increasingly being attended by non-church members. Encourage your group members and prospects to sit together, or perhaps to go and share a meal at a restaurant before the Christmas Eve service.
3. Don’t take a Sunday off if your church takes a Sunday off – depending upon which day of the week Christmas falls, a growing number of congregations do not meet for Bible study, but instead have a “worship only” Sunday. If your church takes off a Sunday, why not encourage your group members and prospects to go to a holiday movie or some other event on that Sunday afternoon or evening? Take advantage of the “time off” and invest it in a different way that makes sense for your group.

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