Christmas cards: a new spin
As you can see at left, our 2006 Christmas cards are now in stock. There's a bit of a new dimension to them this year. (No, they don't come with 3D glasses.) We've put a URL on the back of all the new cards pointing people to our “Is there more to Christmas?” web site.
Why have we done this? Well, every year we wrestle with how much of a Christian message to put in each card and how strong or subtle to make it. Will the message make the card too hard to give to a non-Christian friend or family member? Generally, we solve the problem by producing a range of cards that allows our card-sending customers to choose what card best suits the people they are sending to.
But what, we thought to ourselves, if the decision as to how much Christian message to receive was left to some extent in the hands of the card recipient. So if they are intrigued by the card, they have a choice to read a bit more. That's where a web page comes in really handy.
So we created a very short extra message on the web site, just prompting people, still quite gently, to consider the real meaning of Christmas. Perhaps even to read the Christmas story (and its ‘postscript’ of Jesus life, death and resurrection story) by downloading a free copy of Luke's Gospel.
We think that means we can say a bit less in some of the cards, but aim to intrigue people and arouse their curiosity—leaving the decision to find out more in their hands, rather than foisting a Christian message on them.
See what you think.
Tomorrow we present some ideas of how individuals and churches can use Christmas cards and the new Christmas WordWatch booklet to do some evangelism in the lead up to Christmas.