Operation Christmas Child: a fantastic idea from one ECC Member that involves the congregation

All of you have the GREATEST IDEAS! Following our previous  article that featured Bulletin Inserts to encourage your people to  shop ahead for Christmas Child Boxes (CLICK HERE to go to it) one of our wonderful ECC Members sent me this email.

It shares a fantastic way a church does their Operation Christmas Child ministry, not only getting lots of boxes for the children, but involving the congregation in the project:

I absolutely LOVE OCC, (Operation Christmas Child, from Samaritan's Purse) so your inserts were especially great for me! In fact, I’m in charge of our church’s OCC efforts. Over the last 5 years, we’ve put together about 2100 boxes!

For these last 5 years, I’ve been able to secure a grant from an organization, as well as getting some $$ from our Outreach Team & Lutheran Women’s Missionary League group. I then take that $$ and shop the super-deep discounts throughout the year for school supplies, toys, clothing, etc. (it fulfills my need to shop without my husband getting nervous!).

Then, for 6 weeks in Oct. & Nov., we set up a “store” in one of our classrooms at church that’s open Sunday nights and other arranged times. Small groups, families, kids, etc. from church will come by, grab a shoebox (that’s already been wrapped by some great volunteers!) and go around the store and fill the box.

I ask them to either cover the cost of shipping a box, or donate items. It is just so great to see all ages fill boxes. (Last year, a teen boy went to fill a box for a girl, and I kept hearing him say “Now, what would a 5 year old girl like???” He spent about a half hour carefully deciding. I loved that!) In fact, just today, I got a letter from someone in Uganda, and it included a photo of him holding one of OUR boxes! I almost started crying!

From: Cathy K., Carmel Lutheran

PLEASE SEND additional ideas and we will organize and share them

I'm sure many of you have wonderful ways that you reach out to those with great needs at Christmas and many other times of the year. After reading Cathy's example and after watching the news tonight about the ongoing hunger crisis in Somalia, I realized that as communicators we can do a lot to help meet the needs of those around the world.

We can help with our communications that inspire and encourage people to give and we can then give concrete examples of where and how to give.

Sometimes creating these kinds of communications isn't easy, so Effective Church Communications will start a program to collect them, organize and host communications about meeting needs and make them freely available.

If you are interested in helping, CLICK HERE to go to the article that explains this.