Everyone involved in church leadership knows Easter is the biggest Sunday of the year. However, I think many churches make a HUGE mistake this time of year.
Many churches put on big events pre-Easter. These gatherings inflatables, cookouts, Easter egg hunts, and egg drops. These events often create a big splash with high visibility and attract large crowds. There are two problems here:
- Easter does not need a big event prior to its weekend services. EASTER IS THE BIG EVENT!!! Easter does not need any help.
- Churches put so much effort into pre-Easter events, they have little left for post-Easter activity. Many pastors and staff take vacations. The volunteers are so exhausted on Easter Sunday they are not nearly as effective as they need to be. Once they survive Easter they go home and take a long, long nap.
I have an alternative suggestion. Churches should take all this energy, strategic thinking, financial resources and staff and volunteer efforts and put it into POST-EASTER ACTIVITY!!! The following are just three of the benefits:
- Once again, Easter is the big event. It does not need any help getting people to show up.
- Your staff and volunteers are more refreshed and better equipped to serve large numbers of guests.
- The biggest reason – A post-Easter event gives your first-time visitors and unchurched attendees a reason to COME BACK!!! Let me show you an actual example.
The First Baptist Church of Woodstock (Ga) is one of my favorite churches in America. As you can see in the image above, the church along with Real Momentum, is putting on Man Church six days AFTER Easter.
Smart churches make reaching men a primary focus. They know if you reach the man you are very likely to reach the entire family. Man Church will feature red meat, grills, charcoal, upbeat Christian music, bacon (everything is better with bacon), many other surprises and a leadership message delivered from their incredible senior pastor Johnny Hunt. Tickets are $10 and every man is being asked to bring 10 other men. I am so fired up about this event I may even show up and I do not even go to church there. If I do, expect a live blog from FBCW and Man Church!
Churches put a lot of emphasis on pre-Easter activity. There is nothing wrong with this. I just feel it would be a healthy conversation for your leadership team to discuss putting all their efforts into post-Easter activity so Easter visitors have a reason to come back.
Your thoughts?
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