For Advent and Christmas 2023, we've updated AChurchNearYou.com to make it even easier for visitors to find your services and events. Your feedback is important to us, so we've made some changes based on what you told us about your experiences using AChurchNearYou.com at Christmas last year.
Add and tag your services
If you haven't already, now is the perfect time to list your services and events, using the tag 'Advent' or 'Christmas'. You can also use tags such as 'Christmas Eve', 'Christmas carols', 'Crib/nativity', 'Christingle' and 'Mulled wine' or 'Mince pies' to help people find the right service for them.
What's changing?
AChurchNearYou.com will again have a makeover for Advent and Christmas in line with this year’s ‘Follow the Star’ campaign. We listened to your feedback after last year and this year, you can choose, through the Marketplace, to opt in or out of displaying the Christmas branding on your church site. Other changes this year include:
- An extra field when creating a service or event labelled ‘Choir singers’ that allows you to add how many people you estimate will be singing our new composition of The First Nowell, plus a ‘#JoinTheSong’ tag for you to tag the service or event where the carol will be sung. This will allow us to estimate how many people and churches will #JoinTheSong nationally this year, creating a country-wide community of singers!
- On your church’s services or events page, there will be a panel highlighting your tagged Advent and Christmas events, as well as a separate page specifically for those events.
- At AChurchNearYou.com/christmas visitors will be able to refine their search using a drop-down list of seasonal tags and a date filter to find Advent and Christmas events in their area more easily than ever before. This special Christmas page will be promoted on our social media accounts during the season to help as many people as possible find services local to them.
- Improved search results for Advent and Christmas services and events, with a ‘share’ and ‘add to calendar’ buttons.
- We are automatically tagging any one-off services or events happening from 24 December with a 'Christmas' tag, to help your community find services.
- Finally, to save time, remember you can list your services and events at benefice level and choose which of your churches they should display on.
How to toggle the Christmas branding on and off for your church site
- Log in to AChurchNearYou.com.
- Open your church in editor view, so you can see the editor menu. Show me how.
- Click 'Marketplace' in the editor menu and find the Christmas branding tile.
Here you can click or tap the slider next to ‘Enable Christmas branding’.
Once you have done this, you will notice that all the pages on your church site will now display this year’s Advent and Christmas branding.
Note: All benefice sites will appear with a blue header and purple background regardless of the Christmas branding being toggled on or off. An example of this can be seen below:
Highlighting your church’s Advent and Christmas services and events
On your church site, you will notice on your services and events page, there is now a panel highlighting Advent and Christmas events. Simply click on the heading to see all the Advent and Christmas events happening at your church.
A new Advent and Christmas search and results page
At AChurchNearYou.com/christmas visitors will be able to refine their search using a drop-down list of seasonal tags.
Once a primary search has occurred, users will be presented with a list of Advent and Christmas services and events. Here they can choose to:
- Refine the search even further using the date filter or secondary tags.
- Share an event from the results list via Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Email or simply copying the link to another platform.
- Add the event to a calendar of choice.
Need help?
We have a step by step guide to listing your services and a demonstration video.
If you have any problems with this or need help with editor access or approval, don't hesitate to contact us for help.