Church Hymns
Use them to promote your church
And raise funds.

Using church hymns to aid your fundraising is a very obvious thing to do.

The best thing is that it doesn't matter whether you have a choir with voices like angels or a cat's chorus, there are still loads of ways to raise some money and have a bit of fun at the same time. Just use your imagination!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

An evening recital by your choir or congregation is always popular and can bring in great revenues either through ticket sales or donations. Many congregations also contain talented individual singers or musicians. Persuade them to put their gifts to good use.

Recordings of favourite church hymns are always popular. There are plenty of companies who can offer various deals whereby you retail CD's etc to your congregation.

If you have a great choir why not look into making your own recordings. This doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. There are an increasing number of small independent recording and media companies who will be able to advise you.

Some entrepreneurial tech savvy churches are already getting into filming their choirs singing, and even recording whole services for pay to view download.

Why not produce a book of church hymns. This really is not complicated and once again many companies specialise in producing this type of fundraising book for organisations.

With the majority of hymns being so old there are few problems with copyright. Spending a little time compiling and editing a really nice book specific to your church can be a great project for building your church's community.

How about getting individuals or families to sponsor a page containing their favourite church hymn? A nice touch might be to have them write a short paragraph for inclusion in the book explaining why those particular hymn lyrics are special to them.

Another popular idea might be to include children's drawings illustrating some of the hymns.

If successful the whole idea could also be used for other books for your church: Christmas carols, psalms, even prayers; or maybe a combination of them all.

This might be a regular feature of particular services or a one off choral event. Letting other congregation members know why a certain hymn's lyrics are special to you all helps build stronger ties with your friends and enhances feelings of community.

For a sponsored event with a difference why not have 12 - 24 hours of choral singing. Organise a simple relay of singers and lay on plenty of throat sweets!

Organise an evening where your choir sings 10 - 20 hymns to the congregation who all award marks for tune, hymn lyrics, mood etc. At the end total up the scores to find your church's Top Hymn.

Invite members of your congregation to write new verses for old favourites reflecting their own lives and experiences.