Buy a bus shelter for Christmas
Churches across the diocese are being invited to join in a nationwide advertising campaign in the run-up to Christmas. Churches can sponsor a bus shelter that would carry a special poster of the nativity, over the last three weeks of December, with the message ‘Christmas Starts with Christ’.
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Your church can buy a poster for a bus stop near you for £105 by entering your postcode at www.ChurchAds.net. Radio ads to accompany the campaign can also be sponsored.
Mike Elms, from ChurchAds.Net, said: “If churches all over the country buy 2000 bus shelters and fund 2500 airplays of the radio commercials, the campaign would be seen or heard by around 60% of the UK population. Imagine the impact that will be created by this powerful gospel proclamation.”
Recent research by Theos reveals that only 12% of adults know the facts of the Christmas story in any detail. So, to keep Christmas focused on Christ, we need to constantly tell the story of his birth in ways that engage positively with the public.
Visit www.ChurchAds.net to download free posters.
Christmas Radio Adverts to be heard on Leeds' Radio Aire FM
Meranwhile, churches in Leeds have joined forces to place a series of Christmas radio adverts on one of the region’s biggest commercial radio stations. For two weeks, from this coming Saturday, December 12th until Christmas Day morning, four humorous, 30 second long, Christmas adverts will be transmitted up to ten times each day on 96.3 Radio Aire FM which transmits from Leeds across West Yorkshire.
The humorous, fast paced, commercials, inviting listeners to come to church at Christmas, have been produced by ChurchAds.net – the successor to the Churches Advertising Network. ChurchAds.net has also produced striking bus shelter posters of the holy family which are starting to appear on bus shelters throughout the country. Both the bus posters and radio adverts include the message, ‘Christmas starts with Christ’.
In total, the Leeds churches have pledged £1700 for the adverts to be played 111 times. According to Rajar figures, they will be heard by an average of 138,893 adults of 15+ within the transmission area. The churches who are supporting the transmissions include Anglican, Methodist, Salvation Army, Baptist and Independent congregations who have pledged between £25 and £300 each.
The Revd John Carter, Press and Communications Officer for the Anglican Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, who has co-ordinated the Leeds initiative, said that there was a lot of enthusiasm among local churches. “Church leaders recognise that these adverts will be heard by a large number of young people who may have nothing to do with church. In a very direct, attention grabbing and humorous way they get over some of the Christmas story and directly invite listeners to come along to a Christmas service. I have been overwhelmed by the generous response from churches, a sign of how effective they think these adverts will be.”
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Research this year by the think tank, Theos, reveals that 85 per cent of people agree with the statement that "Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country." But it also showed that only 12 per cent of adults know the Christmas story in any detail – and the figure drops to just 7 per cent among 18-24 year olds.
The four adverts will be heard by 14 per cent of the available listening population in West Yorkshire. They can also be heard online at www. churchads.net. Devised by professional advertisers to be played throughout the country, they cleverly and light-heartedly set the nativity in the context of a soccer match, a horse race, a police car chase and even the Christmas pop chart countdown. At the end of each advert listeners will hear the invitation “‘why not be part of the action at church, this Christmas” or the strap line, “Christmas starts with Christ- see you in church”.
Bishop Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, says: "This year's atheist bus adverts backfired (for the atheists) by putting God on the public agenda and provoking people to ask if he is there. Well, Christians now have a chance to say a firm and confident 'Yes, and he looks like Jesus! Christmas is his festival.'"
To listen to the adverts visit www.churchads.net/2009/radio.html