Publisher Invites Local Churches to Join in New Christmas Effort
The publishing division of a Christian ministry has launched a nationwide effort to provide churches with a creative and cost-effective way to reach their communities with the gospel this Christmas.
Through the churches that join the "Share the Good News of Christmas" campaign, Crossway Books hopes to reach one million homes with the gift of God's Word.
"Ideally, a church will decide to adopt Share the Good News of Christmas as a way of reaching out to friends and neighbors during the season when people are most open to visiting church," commented Crossway executive vice president Geoff Dennis, whose publishing company is a division of Good News Publishers.
"But even if the recipient doesn't attend a church during the Christmas season, they'll still have an opportunity to be impacted by God's Word," he added.
Churches that participate in the campaign will have to opportunity to purchase Crossway's Share the Good News of Christmas gift bags in lots of 50 for $1 a piece. Each gift bag includes an ESV Outreach New Testament Christmas Edition, a Christmas tract written by best-selling Christian author and minister Max Lucado, thirty days of free access to the ESV Online Study Bible, and a customizable invitation to Christmas services or a special seasonal event.
Though Christmas is still four months away, Dennis said the publishing company has already been hearing about "all kinds of creative ways" churches around the country intend to utilize the Share the Good News of Christmas bags, including church choirs who will use them to invite people to their Christmas musical program, and large Sunday School classes that will host neighborhood Christmas parties and pass them out in the neighborhood as they go Christmas caroling door-to-door.
"The driving passion behind the Share the Good News of Christmas program is to reach a massive number of people with the gospel and God's Word this Christmas," commented Crossway president Lane Dennis, who - along with his son, Geoff, and Crossway editorial department vice president Allan Fisher - is one of Crossway's visionaries.
"My prayer and my dream is that we would reach a million homes this Christmas," the older Dennis added. "We can only begin to imagine what an amazing impact for eternity this could have - if tens of thousands would come to know Christ as their Savior this Christmas as a result of this partnership in the gospel."
A sample Share the Good News of Christmas gift bag is being made available through local Christian retail stores across the nation.
More information about the program and gift bag contents, and resources to promote the program are available at www.goodnewsofchristmas.org.