Let me suggest something bold: your events don’t struggle because people don’t care. They struggle because you didn’t give them enough time to care.
Too many churches operate in “last-minute mode.” A youth event is announced two weeks before it happens. A prayer night gets thrown on the calendar three days in advance. A conference for the whole community gets marketed with the same timeline you’d use for a potluck.
Leaders are often frustrated when event turnout and engagement are low. But the issue isn’t necessarily the event itself. More often, the real problem is the planning.
To help you avoid this cycle, I created a free Church Event Planning Guide you can use to map out your events and stay ahead.
Internal Events: Serving Your People Well
When it comes to internal events (things primarily for your members, volunteers, or small groups), the biggest mistake churches make is treating them casually.
Here’s the truth: your people are busy. Families have sports schedules, work schedules, and life schedules. If you want them to prioritize your church event, you need to give them time to prepare.
Timeline for Internal Events:
- Planning completed at least 4–6 weeks ahead
- Announce at least 4 weeks out
- Weekly reminders
- Final push in the last 5–7 days
This doesn’t take a fancy marketing department. It just takes discipline. Write it on the calendar early and communicate it clearly.
Seasonal/Community Events: Reaching Your Neighbors
Now let’s talk about those seasonal or community-based events like back-to-school drives, fall festivals, Thanksgiving baskets, or Christmas outreaches.
These events don’t need a full year of promotion, but they still need more planning than a typical in-house meeting.
Timeline for Seasonal/Community Events:
- Planning completed 2–3 months in advance
- First announcement 6–8 weeks out
- Weekly promotion
- Final push in the last 2 weeks
This gives your members enough time to invite friends, and your community enough time to engage.
Trust is built on preparation. When people see that you’ve put thought, time, and care into your event, they feel like it’s worth attending.
External Events: Building Trust with Your City
Finally, let’s talk about large external events like conferences, revivals, and community outreaches.
These aren’t just for your church. They’re for your city. And your city does not live on your church calendar, which means you need a much longer runway.
Timeline for Large External Events:
- Planning completed 6–12 months in advance
- Save the Date announced 6 months out
- Promotion launched 3 months out
- Weekly promotion in the final 4–6 weeks
- Final push in the last 5–7 days
Why so long? Because these events aren’t simple. They take time to build. You may need to coordinate with venues, vendors, and sponsors. You’ll likely have to recruit and train volunteers. You also need margin for when things go wrong (because something always does). And most importantly, your community needs time to hear about it, talk about it, and decide to commit.
The bigger the event and the broader the audience, the longer the timeline needs to be.
The Core Principle
If you treat a community conference like a small group meeting, you’ll get results that match that level of preparation. And if you treat a small group meeting like an afterthought, you’ll keep wondering why people aren’t engaged.
Here’s the principle I want you to adopt: The bigger the event and the broader the audience, the longer the timeline needs to be. Last-minute events, no matter how powerful the content or good the intentions, will feel unimportant if they’re communicated late. But when people see you’ve invested time, care, and preparation, they’ll believe it’s worth their time too.
Next Step
Most churches don’t just have a marketing problem. They have a planning problem.
When you fix the calendar, you fix the communication. And when you fix the communication, you fix the engagement.
To help you get started, I’ve created a Free Church Event Planning Guide designed specifically for church leaders. It will help you map out your events, plan your marketing, and finally get ahead of the schedule.
