7 Tips for Leading Surviving the Holidays in Your Church

People often don’t realize just how difficult the holidays will be after a separation or divorce—until they’re blindsided by challenging emotions, insensitive comments, and large gaps in holiday traditions. 

But you can help them be prepared and even find a measure of peace this coming season by offering Surviving the Holidays. (A Surviving the Holidays kit comes with the DivorceCare 4th edition. If you do not have a kit, you can learn more and purchase one here.)  

1. Find volunteers 

Ask church members who may have experience with divorce in their family or who have a heart for this type of ministry. Consider reaching out to past DivorceCare participants and invite them to help facilitate discussion groups after the video (this is a great way to identify potential future volunteers for your 13-week group!). You could also have current group members help as greeters, parking lot attendants, snack table overseers, etc.

2. Train your volunteers

Once you’ve identified your event volunteers, it’s essential to help them feel prepared. Direct them to view the 6-minute online Surviving the Holidays training and answer the questions. You could do this training as a group or assign it individually. 

Your Surviving the Holidays leader’s guide is an essential resource for preparing your team.

• Review the event timeline
• Assign and share responsibilities from the “Before the event checklist”
• Walk through the event agenda
• Discuss the event tips and discussion tips

3. Order enough Survival Guides

All event attendees will need this book to use during the event. Make sure you order  enough Survival Guides to cover every potential attendee. 

4. Purchase supplementary materials (optional)

You might consider giving gifts to people who attend your event. And you could pass out invitations to your next DivorceCare group. Here are some supplementary materials that you might be interested in:

• Living Forward journals to give as gifts
• Leader’s guides for each facilitator, if you have a larger event

5. Promote your event

The first step to promoting your event is to “Create a Holiday Event” in the LeaderZone. That way, people searching online can find and register for your event using the search tool. Pro tip: Do this one month in advance, so hurting people can know that help is coming soon. 

Next, be sure to take advantage of the free promotional materials—videos, social media posts, full-color ads, business cards, etc.—in the LeaderZone.

6. Invite attendees to your 13-week GriefShare group

• Announce the dates, time, and location of your upcoming 13-week group, and encourage them to register right away. You can direct them to divorcecare.org/findagroup, where they can register for your group from their phones. You could also have a laptop available with someone there to help people register.
• Pass out DivorceCare brochures with your group information.
• Have preprinted stickers with your group info. Place one on each Survival Guide (see the template in the LeaderZone Holidays section).

7. Follow up after the event

Plan to send a thoughtful message to attendees on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Thank them for attending and offer encouragement and support. Let them know you are praying for them. It could be a personal note, card, email, or phone call.

“Surviving the Holidays for our community offers a safe place for hope and support where people can feel wanted and loved.” 

– DivorceCare leader