In early December, I arrived at the office to find that someone had delivered a new calendar.  The pages were filled with seasonal photographs followed by white spaces representing all 365 days in the new year.  What will soon be filled with opportunities now represents only possibilities.

As you dream and pray about the kind of kingdom impact your church will have this year, consider the role that the church calendar will play in turning the possibilities into realities.  While a strategic church calendar can propel your church toward great impact, a sloppy calendar may create obstacles that hinder the level of impact you might have otherwise enjoyed.

As you begin filling in the dates this year, consider these principles to help your church reach maximum impact.

Principle #1 - Intentionality Increases Impact
Maximum impact occurs as a result of an intentional strategy that involves understanding the desired outcome and scheduling the steps needed to reach the goal.  As you begin the calendar planning process, ask questions that will define your intentions for the months ahead.   What will be a special emphasis for your church in the coming year?  What component of spiritual maturity would you most like to address?  What part of your church’s mission do you feel needs a sharper focus?

The answers to questions like the ones above will help you calendar with intentionality.  If increased evangelistic effort is the goal, your calendar should reflect opportunities for recruiting, training, and intentionally doing outreach and evangelism.  You may calendar a significant evangelistic event to which the unchurched may be attracted and easily invited.  

If growth in your Sunday School or Small Group ministry is desired, you will want to set aside a period of weeks during which the church is challenged, testimonies are shared, leaders recruited and trained, prospects/members contacted, classes re-organized or created, and the renewed ministry launched.  For a stewardship emphasis, you may calendar church-wide training and continuing education classes for those struggling with how to manage their personal finances.  An emphasis on prayer may call for a training conference, a special study, or simply setting aside periods of time throughout the year to pray.  Whatever you identify as a focus for the year, intentionally shaping your calendar around it will increase the impact.

Principle #2 - Information Increases Impact
Part of my past ministry responsibilities have included making announcements.   One challenge of this assignment is trying to give adequate promotion to all of the different opportunities happening within a small window of time.  When the calendar is excessively full, it becomes difficult to provide sufficient information often and effectively enough to motivate people to participate.

One church attempted to promote a large evangelistic event at the same time that an effort to define the strategic purpose of the church was being emphasized during a series of Sunday services.  The result of two great ideas competing against each other resulted in the attention of the church being divided and neither emphasis achieving maximum impact.  Your goals will be reached more easily when you can devote full attention to them through your promotion vehicles.  As you plan your calendar, avoid having good things compete for the attention of your people.  

Principle #3 - Insulation Increases Impact
The purpose of insulation is to separate what you want in from what you want out.  Once your calendar has been put into place, you will want to work hard to protect it from too many other additions.  As the year progresses, there will be other good ideas and opportunities that present themselves.  If they will distract from the purposes you are trying to accomplish and dilute the effective promotion of your calendared events, it may be best to save them for the next calendar cycle.

Choosing to insulate your calendar from last minute additions will allow you to enjoy greater impact from a variety of important ministries over a long period of time instead of limited impact from those same ministries in a compressed period of time.  Your church may also enjoy the freshness of different opportunities from year to year that a carefully planned and insulated calendar provides.

Principle #4 - Involvement Increases Impact
The church calendar is ultimately a tool for impacting the lives of people.  It follows that the more people who are involved in the opportunities you offer, the greater impact you are likely to have.  Good calendar planning must take into consideration holidays, school calendars, popular vacation times, and other factors that affect the involvement of your people.  There may be other conflicts specific to the industry or traditions of your city that make certain times of the year more appealing than others.  Calendaring in a way that has the likely availability and participation of people in mind is an important step toward achieving impact.  

A church calendar that is planned for impact does not desire only to pull off events, establish programs, or fill up newsletters.   Instead, your church calendar should indicate an intentional strategy and a heartfelt desire to reach people for Christ, help them mature in their faith, and see them unite together to make a real impact for Jesus.


David Bond is a member of the ABSC Evangelism and Church Growth Team.  He and Renee live in Bryant with their two daughters.  There is still room on his calendar, so email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .