Get ready for Christmas
Millions of people will use A Church Near You this December - and 80% visitors to the site are there for the first time. This offers a huge evangelism opportunity for local churches.
You can use A Church Near You to promote your services and events this Christmas – all for free.
List and tag your services and events today.
Follow our step-by-step picture guide below, or watch our video demonstration.
1. Log in
If you’re not yet an editor on A Church Near You, register first. Then log in, find your church on the site and choose 'Edit this church' from the church's menu to request access. More information on how to become an editor.
2. Open the editor menu for your church
On desktop, the easiest way to open the editor menu for your church is to hover over 'My Churches and Benefices' in the top menu and click the name of the church.
On mobile, to open the editor menu, choose 'My ACNY', then tap the name of the church, then tap the three stacked lines in the top right, then tap 'Edit content'.
3. Under 'services and events', choose 'add new'.
On desktop, choose 'services and events' from the editor menu and then click the orange 'add new' button.
On mobile, tap the three stacked lines top right to open the menu, then tap 'Services and events'. Then tap the big 'Add a new event' button that appears on your screen.
Tip: 'Services and events' is under the 'Edit content' menu heading.
4. Write a title and description
Make it clear in your description that everyone is welcome and try to stick to words that someone who hasn't been to church before would understand.
Tip: Show your title and description to a friend, colleague or family member who isn't a churchgoer, and ask them if they understand it and whether it sounds welcoming.
5. Select your tags and then be sure to click 'Change tags'
When you get to the 'tags' section of the event form, choose the 'Change tags' button, check the relevant tags, including the tag 'Christmas' and then click 'Change tags' (yes, again!) at the bottom of the screen.
Tip: Don't forget to click 'Change tags' after you select the ones you want.
6. Select 'one off event' and fill in the date and time
Usually, our Advent and Christmas events are 'one offs' that do not repeat. The event listing form defaults to offering you the settings for a repeating event, so switch to the 'one off' tab to enable you to list a one-off event.
Tip: Once you have filled in the start date and time, the finish date and time instantly auto completes to be one hour later on the same day. However you can amend this as needed.
7. Press save at the bottom of the form.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and press save. You have now successfully listed your service or event.
Log in and add your Advent and Christmas services and events now.
If you have any problems or need any help, please get in touch.
Wait, there's more!
While you're logged in, also visit the Resource Hub within AChurchNearYou. It offers useful free Christmas downloads, including music tracks, graphics and posters.
Our video generator tool in the Resource Hub allows you to add your own text to a short Follow the Star video. You can then use the video on your ACNY page, social media accounts and even for church screens!
Head to the Resource Hub.
Advice on images for your event
It's optional, but when you set up your event you'll see there is an option to add an image to your event. You can upload one from your computer. Or, if you have images you have put in your AChurchNearYou.com image library you can pick one of those to illustrate your event.
For event images on AChurchNearYou.com, any landscape rectangle image works, it will be cropped to a 2:1 ratio if it isn't already that size. This cropping isn't usually a problem for photos where the 'action' is in the middle of the photo. However, for some graphics, to avoid cropping you might want to create them exactly sized to a 2:1 aspect ratio (twice as wide as it is tall), and minimum 536x268 pixels, we have a Canva template for this.
If you want to use the same graphic as we used in our example shown in the mobile phone image at the top of the page, you can get that in the Christmas branding section of the Resource Hub.
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