Description: This program includes all of the details to help you create a well-planned e-mail campaign that will engage, teach, and encourage young adults to get involved in the season of Advent.
Get Ready
- Prep Time: Three-four hours to research Advent/Christmas activities in your area that may interest young adults, pull together descriptions of any activities at your own parish, gather prayers and “fast facts” from the Internet, organize your Advent e-mail campaign so you have the core of every Advent e-mail prepared. You’ll then need only a short amount of time (maybe 30 minutes) to format and send each e-mail.
- Volunteers Needed: One or two. One person might be responsible for writing the e-mails and another person can send them or the same person can be responsible for both.
- Supplies: If you don’t already have one, you need an e-mail contact list for all of the young adults your ministry works with (See tips for this in “Publicize the Program” below). If your list has less than 50 e-mails, you simply need a standard e-mail account to send messages. If you have a larger list (more than 50), you should use an e-mail marketing service like MailChimp, which is free (if you’re sending out less than 12,000 e-mails/month).
- Who is this for? All young adults who are part of your young adult ministry. Be sure to add any new young adults to your e-mail list throughout Advent.
- When is a good time for this? This type of e-mail campaign is especially meaningful during Advent, Lent, and special Novenas. Specific to what time of day you should actually hit “Send” on an e-mail: We suggest picking a regular time to update young adults on Advent activities, say, first thing each Monday morning during Advent. There are different theories about the best times to send an e-mail (e.g., early morning = good, Friday afternoon = not so good). You can do more research, but the most important thing if you’re just getting started is to be consistent.
- Publicize the Program:
- Make announcements in the parish bulletin and Facebook page that your young adult ministry is growing its e-mail list and planning a special e-mail campaign to help young adults connect to the spiritual side of the Advent/Christmas season. Invite people to sign-up in person after Mass or even share a special young adult ministry e-mail (e.g., stpaulyoungadults@email.com) with them so they can send you their names and e-mail addresses.
- You might also want to print up small cards that you could hand to visiting or new young adults that they could fill out and hand back to you. Ask for their names and e-mail addresses, and it might also be nice to have their physical address and phone number, too, in order to follow-up in the future.
- Be sure to put out sign-up sheets at events so young adults can share their contact details there.
Prayer for Program Planner: Dear God, help me to reach young adults where they are. Guide my words that they may find your spirit in something as simple as an e-mail. May these messages connect young adults to you during the season of Advent and beyond. In your name I pray, Amen.
Community Building: When you make e-mails inviting, fun, and colorful, you also make the spiritual events that you’re describing, and church itself, seem more accessible. Things as simple as using casual language start to build a sense of community and belonging that transfers from the virtual to the physical.
