Carols may be a traditional event for a church to run, but through different measures of innovation, these events have drawn visitors to church in their thousands this year. While many carols are hundreds of years old, this year's turnouts show that it is still hip to sing them at events which are for many churches, the main outreach event of the year. This week, we ask three different Sydney Anglican churches how carols led to a ripper catch of new Christmas connections.

A crowd of 5,000 flocked to Figtree Anglican Church's carols, which featured heart-throb and Neighbours star Dean Geyer, acclaimed musician James Morrison and popular children's entertainer Colin Buchanan.

The event included free showbags and facepainting for the kids, and activities for youth, such as basketball games.

Spurred on by new senior minister, the Rev Ian Barnett, who had organised two large-scale events in previous years at St Paul's Castle Hill, the church's connection with the local community started in February with planning for the December 13 event.

"We had a high level of sponsorship from the local community, because when we asked them to be involved, we could actually say "Look, there are some major artists coming' and because of the higher profile of those artists, they were willing to play a role in this year financially," he says.

Over $20,000 was donated to the church from community sponsors, which included McDonald's, and $30,000 was raised within the church for the event. Along with over $20,000 that was made on the day from products such as food, Mr Barnett believes Figtree will break even on its costs.

Crucial to the event's success was the ownership of the event by the whole church, from the leadership down, and this saw around 350 Figtree Anglican volunteers serve on the day.

"We highlighted that it was a team event, that it was a whole churchwide event and that we were doing this for the community at large, not just for our church," Mr Barnett says.

As a sign of this community focus, Figtree called the carols the Illawarra Community Carols.

"The current CEO of Wollongong Council, David Farmer, asked us the question "how much do you charge at the gate for people to enter', and we actually said to him, "it's a free event', and he couldn't believe it, especially with those artists there, so it's a great chance for us to give a gift to the community," Mr Barnett enthuses.

"Their carols was cancelled because of the recession, whereas ours happened in spite of the recession because Christians believed it was an important thing to do.”

In fact, the Council has approached Figtree Anglican to move the event closer to Wollongong next year after the Wollongong community carols was cancelled due to lack of funding.

Figtree used up to seven media to market the event, creating an Illawarra Community Carols website, and advertising on Southern Cross TV and radio,  as well as letterbox drops and banners.

Key to Figtree’s strategy is linking Carols, Christmas and January, inviting those who attend to all three events to roll the Christmas benefits over into guest services in the new year.

"That's when people are most open I think to asking questions about the year that they've had and what they're going to do in the future, and questions of a spiritual nature," he says.

"I believe every church, no matter how big or small, should certainly take ownership of those events. I think more and more we've handed them over to secular groups to run them, whereas I think it's important that we ‘steal them back’ a bit."

Hope’s good things came in a small package

However for Hope Anglican Church's first ever carols, senior minister Brian Tung had a small event in mind, with the goal of making locals familiar with the church's location.

Going along to another large carols event in the area has convinced Mr Tung even more that for Hope, a provisional parish in East Chatswood, a small carols event is the best way to connect.

"It was really hard for people who go to actually have any personal engagement (at the large carols)," he explains.

"Most people just talked over whatever the presentation was, people didn't really sing the songs, I think for most people it was just a family picnic. So I think from that I'm adamant that we want to keep it small."

Hope's carols were held on the first weekend of December, timed strategically to coincide with the graduation ceremony of the Chinese language school that uses on Hope's property on a Saturday.

As graduands and their families filed out of the building, they were met with pre-carols entertainment, which included a barbeque, craft, balloon animals and facepainting.

Mr Tung also says having Hope's carols before any of the other carols events in the area was also strategic, because "we didn't have to compete with the other events". 

For their 90-member congregation, the turnout of over 150 guests was significant " what's more, around 25 of these came back the first week after the carols.

Running a successful carols was no small thing for the largely Chinese congregation, many of whom would have never even attended a carols event before.

"It's an ethnic church so most people don't know a lot of the institutions in mainstream Australian society. So when I went to the church and said "Let's do carols', I think most people wouldn't know what that is," Mr Tung explains.

"What the church will tend to want to do is to replicate things that it's familiar with, so introducing the whole idea of doing things like that in the church " that was a challenge."

The church, which used the carols as part of its annual mission week, found the local Chatswood Mall to be a treasure trove for new contacts.

"In fact, we're so thrilled by what we did at the mall that I'm actually thinking that we're going to try to do that once a month. We had so many contacts through that," Mr Tung says.

Activities at the church's stand in the mall included church services conducted in the mall as shoppers wandered past, and a giant piece of calico where people could write their definition of the mission's theme " Hope.

"While they were doing that, we were able to talk to people a little bit about hope, and it wasn't very far to then say "while you're writing, do you mind if we take down your details?'," he grins.

Risky decision pays off

Sylvania Anglican Church decided to move their carols outside this year, in a bid to raise the profile of the event and incorporate families in the local area.

While unpredictable weather patterns caused nerves leading up to the December 13 event, and sound and lighting were harder to control outside, Mr Sampson says the move was a risk worth taking.

"There's just a different ambience that exists in an outdoor carols " people necessarily feel relaxed and feel like they can get up and move around," he says.

"There is a natural barrier for people to come into a building that doesn't exist on a lawn "  I think in people's minds, if they know it's an outdoor thing and it's not their scene, they know they can very easily drift away."

The decision paid off with 400 coming along to the event, only one-quarter of whom were from Sylvania Anglican.

As a prominent landmark known to everyone in the community, Mr Sampson says the venue " Sylvania Heights Public School " was also "familiar territory for lots of parents who have kids or who have had kids at the school".

In a bid to expand the horizons of the event in the local community, the church also invited local schools to perform at the carols.

Two choirs, a school band, and a string quartet including one of the local teachers, joined two choirs for the spectacular, having been invited by the church to perform.

And this looks like a legacy that will continue, as some of the children have been invited to play in the band at Sylvania's Christmas services. Already schools in the area have agreed to perform at next year's Carols.

"Music is a wonderful bridge for people, because kids who are into music are really quite passionate about it and looking for opportunities to perform, and their parents are by and large very enthusiastic about seeing them perform," Mr Sampson says.

"So carols leading into a Christmas service is a great way to make that connection with people."

Another first for the parish was performing carols at the local shopping centre, after management contacted several churches in the area asking them to participate.

Mr Sampson had originally called the centre to arrange a space for the church to hand out leaflets during their mission, which included students from Darwin on a National Training Event week.

"People were very positive about us doing that and I think that would have led to some coming along," he says.

Entertainment before the carols included a barbeque, jumping castle, facepainting, and icecream and coffee vans, while the carols event included a short talk, a drama and musical items.

Mr Sampson says carols fits nicely into Sylvania's Connect09 strategy, and is a prime opportunity not to be missed.

"Really, doing carols is arguably one of the easiest things you can do all year to connect with people and bring them under the sound of the gospel in some way," he says.

"We werent trying to go the whole nine yards last Saturday night, calling people to the front - it was more a community big group hug so that we leave them positively disposed towards us, so that they might come and check us out, which then is all about connecting," he says.