SETTING UP A BOOTH AT THE COUNTY FAIR # 1

Tis the season for county fairs all over the country.  Some county fairs are going on with one major presence missing, the church.  The church must be very active in the community.  One outstanding and easy way to accomplish that goal is to set up a booth at your local county fair.  I want to give you some ideas that have helped me over the past 20 years.

1) Plan, plan, plan and plan some more.  You will fail in attracting people to your booth if you have no idea what you want to do.  The main focus for a booth is to reach people with the gospel of Christ.  And let me be the first to tell you that there is so much that can be done in that arena.  Your planning must have the focus on the goal of reaching lost souls.  It is essential to have your times of services but you must try to reach out to their hearts.  It is great for the community to meet your preacher but the main goal is for the community to meet up with Christ.

One of the first steps in planning is to find out what sizes are available at you county fair.  It is a waste of money if you have too much space and no plans to fill it.  It is also difficult to get your word out if your space is too cluttered.  Many booth sizes are six to eight feet standard.  Let's say yours is six feet.  Somewhere back at the building, set up a six foot table with all the information that you want to give out.  Get others in the congregation to give input as to the look of the table.  Ask them, "if you were passing by a booth like this would it attract you or repulse you."  Have them write out suggestions and place them in a box.  Then look through all the suggestions and (with an open mind) make the table better.  Go to the fairgrounds early and locate where you booth will be set up.  Make sure that if you need something plugged in that you have a power source nearby.  Take measurements of the space to make sure you have the right size that you paid for.

2) Pick a theme for your table.  You might be asking, "I thought that the gospel is the theme?"  The gospel is what you are trying to spread.  But if you have a theme then you will draw people to your table quicker.  Each year we have an overall theme to our booth.  Two years ago this theme came from our VBS, which was from Apologetics Press about the days of creation.  So we painted large boards as a back drop that had the days of creation on them.  We also were able to get some dinosaur eggs from Oriental Trading which the kids went crazy over.  This year our theme is "Walking with Jesus."  We are planning on giving out necklaces with "I love Jesus" on them.  Also, we have bags with "Walking with Jesus" printed on them.  I mentioned that we ordered stuff from Oriental Trading.  This is a great place to buy in bulk.  But as with anything, watch the prices.  Discount stores such as Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Ollies and the like might have similar items cheaper.  But no matter what having a give-a-way is a great way for people to remember you and the booth.  If possible place a sticker on the back of everything that you give out.  On this sticker have the name of the congregation, the address of the church building, a contact number and the times of services.

In the next article, I will discuss how to get people to sign up for Bible Correspondence Courses.  


To be continued... minister your message daily...