As the Andy Williams song (Youtube) tells us, this really is the most wonderful time of the year. But, like everything else in 2020, the pandemic is making us re-think how we do Christmas services and events.
(verse 3) There will be services for reserving and childcare for serving. Families wary to go. Because of scary Covid stories and tales of the gories of viruses long, long ago.
Enough lyrics rewriting.
We have had a number of churches calling to think through with us how to make Christmas services safe in light of Covid-19. Specifically, here are the problems that need solved.
- Limited registrations for multiple services.
- Managing child check-in room capacity.
- Using Text-to-Church to register.
We have done blog posts and Knowledge Base articles throughout the year on these, but this one will bring them all together in one place to help you make this a safe Christmas.
Limited registrations for multiple services. Here is the Knowledge Base article on How to set up reservations for groups of people. I call it the "Party of ..." feature and it's perfectly designed to make it simple for people to reserve their family's spot for a Christmas eve service or event.
Create a registration for each service and then place links for each on your website. To register kids, create a childcare group for each service and link it to the corresponding group. Here is an example of one church's webpage with links to each service.
Managing child check-in room capacity. If you are concerned about childcare rooms reaching their safe capacity as kids are checked in, this article on Room count, capacity and how to close rooms when they get full will guide your setup.
Using Text-to-Church to register. As you may know, interacting with the database through texting is a major part of our technology stack. Why not use it to help people register for a Christmas eve service? Depending on your needs, you could use text-to-register. Just create a keyword as part of your registration setup and give it to people to text to register.
But, if you have multiple services giving out a keyword for each service would be a challenge for people to remember and use. In this case, you will want to use Text-to-Link. Just copy the URL of your web page with the services listed. Then use the Add Link button on the Text-to-Church page (Communicate > Text > Text-to-Church) to attach the URL to a keyword of your choosing.
It is our prayer that these features might serve you and your church well so that you can worry less about administration and more about the most wonderful time of the year.
(verse 4) There'll be much mistletoing. And hearts will be glowing. When loved ones are near. It's the most wonderful time. Yes, the most wonderful time of the year.
