The Pastor's Guide to Mastering Event Planning
You might not see yourself as one, but if you're a church pastor, you're also an event planner. You work hard each week getting ready for planned public gatherings of people. That's the definition of an event planner!
Events can be big or small. Every event has its purpose and set of needs. Everyone craves human connection, and face-to-face events are an essential way of achieving that. What you do matters.
Over the next while, I will regularly be sharing articles on event planning. These resources will provide churches with tools to help meet current cultural and event industry standards, adding to the approach by which we work towards the revitalization of churches in Canada.
5 PHASES OF EVENT MANAGEMENT
There are five phases to event planning. In church, you most likely move through these phases regularly—perhaps formally or informally, with your team or on your own.
Research
Research is done prior to an event to help focus your efforts on what will produce the greatest impact, ensure that there is a market for your event, and help reduce your overall risk in holding the event. This includes deciding the purpose of your event, which should support the goals of your organization, determining your scope, and defining your target audience.
Design
The design phase is the time to brainstorm ideas for accomplishing your goals. During this phase, you hold meetings that involve brainstorming, mind-mapping, and other creative processes.
Planning
The planning phase is the most time-consuming and involved. This is where you coordinate people, details, suppliers, and tasks into systems that allow for organized execution.
Implementation
This is the phase where you're running the event. This is "show time," and you're using all the planning and systems that you created to put on a great event while responding to circumstances to reduce risk.
Evaluation
This phase, although easy to pass over, is vital to success. Evaluation will help you know if what you invested in the event was worth what was accomplished. It also opens the channels of communication between you and your audience, allowing you the opportunity to improve in the future.
Maybe your church wants to plan a big event, or maybe you're already holding events and want to improve. Either way, if you want to have better events, whether it's a Sunday morning service or a week-long conference, intentionally moving through these steps will help bring your event-based ministry to the next level.
If you're looking for more information on taking an event from start to finish, I am providing this version of my Event Management Plan, which is a comprehensive list of steps for professional event planning. Full details on each element of the plan are available in the Events Industry Council Manual, 9th Edition—the international standard in events for training and professional achievement.
Carissa works as Events & Communications Specialist with the ABNWT District of the PAOC. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from Vanguard College, Carissa started in the events industry at the Baptist General Conference of Canada in 2009. In 2012, she was hired at the PAOC ABNWT District, and in 2013, she earned her Event Management Certificate at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Carissa is now a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) with the Events Industry Council. She enjoys using her experience to help executive leaders accomplish their goals through events, marketing and top-notch administration.