Church 50 Year Anniversary Celebration Ideas

[tootallll]

Our church was started as a mission from another existing local baptist church in 1957. The church will be celebrating its 50 year anniversary in January 2008 and I was wondering what ideas you all had on how to celebrate this event.

Some of the ideas I have so far are:

>Try to find an order of worship from back then and use it as the order of worship for the service.
>Recruit former choir members to sing era songs.
>A barbershop quartet song
>Invite former pastors and worship leaders to participate.
>A church re-dedication.
>Create slide show of old pictures.
>Local media advertisement.
>Mailings to former church members.

Although our congregation is small at this time (70-80). Over the years I estimate at least 10-15,000 different individuals have passed through it's doors.

Just wondering if you all had any other suggestions???
Thanks!
Mike

[wordsmith]

When First United Methodist Church in Redding, CA, celebrated its 125th anniversary, we did all of the things you mentioned, and then some. We updated a 100-year history of the church to include the most recent 25 years of history, we enlarged, framed and displayed a gallery of photographs of former pastors dating to 1873 when the first Methodist circuit riders established a Sunday School in this brand new community.
We had a celebratory gathering on Saturday evening with a slide show, we created a walking tour of downtown Redding showing the various spots where our congregation has met during the past 125 years, we also had a catered dinner for about 200 folks immediately after the Saturday gathering.
On Sunday, we had celebratory worship services with former pastors speaking, a rededication of the sanctuary and entire facility, and a pot-luck luncheon between our 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services that was well attended.
We then encouraged all of our groups -- choir, men's group, women's circles, etc. -- to find ways to celebrate all throughout the year. We are culminating this year-long celebration next month, so we aren't done yet.
it has been fun.
Our photo directory this year will include all of the historic photos and written history of the church, and should be a real keepsake.
Hope this gives you some additional ideas.

[kbob]

I'd second the still and video archive idea...maybe make some motion vids from the stills.

Also, interview as many long term members families, with memories of the old days etc...

Lastly, try to get letters of commendation, declare a "abc church day" etc, from your local politicos.

[hussra]

Originally Posted by tootallll

Our church was started as a mission from another existing local baptist church in 1957. The church will be celebrating its 50 year anniversary in January 2008 and I was wondering what ideas you all had on how to celebrate this event.

One of our nearby churches celebrated their 600th anniversary back in 2003 and had quite a range of events - http://www.knowleparishchurch.org.uk/600th.htm has details of some of the things they did. I was particularly taken with the way they spent quite a bit of effort pointing things away from themselves to fundraising for World Vision (a Christian relief and development charity) instead.

Best wishes,

Richard

[pianomandan]

My church had their 50th two years ago. One thing newer churches have is living charter members. In addition to the 'usual' things which you already listed, we had a designated portion of the service dedicated to letting them speak.

We also dug up a time capsule and enjoyed displaying / viewing its contents. Interestingly, we did not bury a new one for the future.

Our actual Sunday service did not have many 'extra' people, but we also had a bunch of stuff happening Saturday, which many former members participated in.

[tootallll]

Great ideas! Any others? All of your ideas are just what I was looking for. Guess we have our work cut out for us...we really want to make it special...thanks so much!
Blessings;
Mike

[ysdyoung]

We celebrated our 82 Church Anniversary last year with a special service and we had colored ribbons for every 10 years. White for less than 10, blue, for 10 years, green for 20 years, yellow for 30 years and so forth. We gave plaques, certificates to the 50+ year members. I created a bookmark with the past and present pastors and a picture of the church and the motto/slogan on it for a keepsake.

Hope this helps.

Sean

[kbob]

we're celebrating our 20th in december-so, you want to help as as a dress rehearsal for yours? wink wink....

[Sysmom]

I don't know what your budget is, but consider some things that could be used as keepsakes.

A mug?
A calendar?
A set of collector trading cards with church history on them?
In the low end of the budget, make something yourself which can be used for one, a bookmark?

[Smob]

I asked a similar question a couple of months ago about our 25th anniversary. See
Church Anniversary for some more ideas for this great community.

We are making our event got for an entire year, highlighting different past and present ministries each month. We are hoping that by bringing forwards some of the things that worked (and didn't work) in the past, we can better meet God's plan for us.

Our hope is not to just focus on the folks who where here for the last 25 years, but to focus on where God will take us for the next 25. Our theme is something like "Our eyes on the past, our minds in the present, and our hearts focused on Jesus" (still in work).

In the true Methodist tradition we have set up a steering committee to guide the program with subcommittees for special focus - the main celebration event in April, multimedia, history, and public relations, who are the implementers. Each month the steering committee will meet with the subcommittee leads to visit progress on current activities and refine the plan for a month in the future.

[mci44]

the church i grew up in is celebrating it's 50th in 2009. my father is on the committee so he has been telling me some of the ideas they are doing. They are interviewing all of the living charter members. Then they will use the videos as research for a book they are writing about the church history. Also, the videos will be used for "history" moments in the time leading up to the event in 2009.

I really like the idea of using your celebration as a way to minister to others. What better way to celebrate than to help others!

[Godslittlediva]

My church will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year and I am on the
Committee to organise it. If anyone has any Ideas it would be much Appreciated. We currently already have a good list of ideas like, Worship over the years, founding members support and attendence, we are inviting past members, having a sit catered down dinner, a tour aroud the facility and how it has changed over the years, a church lunch, gift bags, gold decorations, the youth intervieing the older members of the congregation.... But we want this to be really special, so the ore ideas the merrier