Anniversary Celebrations

Tips for Celebrating Your Church's Anniversary

The approach of an anniversary is a good time to look back and celebrate your congregation's founding, its history, and its ministry to the community. This time of celebration can be a time for nostalgia and fun, but also a time for serious reflection and spiritual awakening. It can prompt members to reflect on the past and then look forward to the future with renewed vision, hope, confidence, and commitment. The very fact that your church has continued through 10, 25, 150, or 250 years says something very fundamental to the world: where two or more are gathered in Christ's name, God's presence is assured. Can you think of anything more appropriate to celebrate? Each congregation is unique and has its own interests, styles of worship, and abilities. Consider the following ideas:

Get organized

• Form an anniversary committee.
• Request budget money from session for the celebration.
• Host an auction to “rent” your pews. Renting pews was a common practice for raising money in American churches before the modern system of pledging. You could designate the money raised for a special cause.
• Create and maintain an anniversary calendar or timeline for both the committee and the congregation.

Research and investigate your history

• Contact the PHS reference staff for information about the society's holdings of official records and other materials relating to the history of your congregation.
• Deposit official records at PHS and have them digitized at a subsidized rate.
• Organize a cemetery tour to learn about some of the founding families of your church.

Fill historical gaps and share your findings

• Record oral history interviews with long-time members of your congregation. Transcribe selected interviews and make a booklet of memories to distribute. This may be a project your youth group would enjoy as it draws the generations together.
• Write an updated church history. Get tips here.
• Ask members for pictures from past church events. Use these to create a slide show, display, or narrated video.
• Consult with your church musician or choir leader on the choice of a “heritage hymn” or anthem for your congregation. Or, based on the history of your congregation, draft new lyrics for use with a favorite hymn.
• Write a series of historical minutes to present during worship services throughout the year. They can be about events or people in the life of the church.
• Use the church newsletter or bulletin to commemorate the anniversary of significant events in the church’s past.
• Design a “heritage banner” that incorporates images and symbols of your congregation’s past and its hopes for the future.

Request an anniversary certificate and congratulatory letter from the PC(USA) Stated Clerk 

Contact:

Meg Rift, Executive Assistant to the Stated Clerk
PC(USA)
100 Witherspoon St.
Louisville, KY 40202
Email: Meg.Rift@pcusa.org
502.569.5965