Redesigning a beloved annual event for a church that had outgrown it.

Event Type: Community Event / Large-Scale Production
My Role: Lead Producer
Scale: ~1200 attendees; one combined outdoor service and party replacing three separate service-tied events

Background

Church & Chill began in 2016 as an after-church picnic for a congregation of 50 to 75 people. By 2024, Renaissance Church had grown to regular Sunday attendance of 1,000 across three services, with special occasions drawing 1,500 or more. The event had grown alongside the church, but its format hadn’t kept pace. Three back-to-back services meant three separate parties, each one celebrating in its own silo, with attendees largely limited to the people they already knew from their own service time.

At its core, Church & Chill was always meant to feel like a reunion. The existing format was working against that.

Goal

Reimagine Church & Chill from the ground up: replace three separate service-tied events with one combined outdoor service and one large party, bringing together congregants and their guests from all three services in the same space at the same time for the first time.

Strategy

The first challenge was the venue. Our regular location couldn’t accommodate a single combined service at this scale, and the event needed to be fully outdoors to take advantage of summer weather and create the open, relaxed atmosphere the new format called for. I took the lead on identifying and securing an alternative space, calling around and visiting multiple sites to assess each one against the vision before landing on a school courtyard in the same neighborhood as our usual Sunday venue, secured through a partnership with the New York City Department of Education. That meant navigating permits and coordinating directly with DOE and school site staff through to final approval.

The courtyard gave us something our regular venue never could: one large, contiguous outdoor space where service and all activities could coexist without dividing the crowd across an auditorium, a gym, a cafeteria, and a small courtyard.

From there, the production work was in the details of the day’s flow. We trimmed the service runtime from 75 minutes to 60, then designed a deliberate transition from worship to party. After service, attendees were enlisted to move their own chairs off the turf, clearing the space for what came next. A live cover band played through the transition while food trucks opened across the grounds, giving people time to settle, eat, and find each other before a DJ and emcee took over for the dance party. We brought in 800 rented chairs and encouraged attendees to bring blankets and portable seating, giving the event a relaxed, picnic-style feel that matched the spirit of the day.

Results & Impact

The reimagined format delivered exactly what it was designed for. For the first time, attendees from all three services shared the same space, the same music, the same food, and the same afternoon. Long-time members reconnected across service times, and newer attendees met people they had never encountered despite attending the same church for years.