Five Best Practices For Your Easter Strategy

Easter is arguably the biggest day of the year in the life of the church with only Christmas as its nearest competition.

So, what is your Easter strategy?
Will you take advantage of the window of opportunity that Easter provides, or will your lack of preparation block the way?

From both an attractional and incarnational perspective, are you intentionally putting into place those critical pieces to capture the spiritual curiosity of people?

Firm up and implement

Best Practice 1.
Cover all your bases in your hospitality quotient. Do not assume your leaders know what to do, rather, instruct your leaders on hospitality and guest follow-up. Make absolutely sure your frontline, best leaders are motivated, engaged and visible in the lobby, in the pews, in the greeting areas, in the parking lot and near the coffee pot. This is a good time to go over your strategy with them and the practical yet professional steps they must do on the Monday after Easter (sorting out the real prospects) for effectiveness. If you don’t have a firm strategy, call me. Don’t bother your guests on Easter afternoon. They are with family and you should be too.

Best Practice 2.
Direct mailing to those on your prospect list and in your community.Use oversized postcards and / or pastoral letter on church stationary. Keep you invitation brief and crisp not wordy. Be specific.

Best Practice 3.
Submit your Easter services and times to your local newspaper and church newsletter. Request your ad be place on a featured Easter section or the classified section. Add color if you can.

Best Practice 4.
Submit a change to your church ad located on the church page of your local newspaper. Easter is probably the only time of the year in which the unchurched read the church page.

Best Practice 5.
Strategically plan your preaching beyond Easter Sunday by launching a new message series on Easter. Here’s why?

Give the unchurched something extra when they can come Easter Sunday. Emphasize the added benefit to their interest when they get in on the beginning of a message series? By doing this, guests and those invited by church members will have the option of returning to hear other messages. The expectation is more likely to be met if they hear the first installment. It gives guests an incentive to return and they will appreciate your forward thinking.


Here is my angle: Capture interest using a word that we all can't stand right now---BAILOUT! Give guests and those invited by our church the option of returning to hear other messages. They are more likely to return if they hear the first installment. It gives your guests an incentive.

So it hit me like a ton of bricks. The resurrection of Our Lord is “Christianity’s Biggest BAILOUT”! By the way, this is original with me and one of the few good ideas I’ve come up with lately.

The sermon titles for the series are as follows:
Easter Sunday, April 12 Christianity’s Biggest BAILOUT!
Sunday, April 19 How To Be Sure You’re A Christian
Sunday, April 26 Keys to Christian Growth
Sunday, May 3 Getting Up After Falling Down
Sunday, May 17 Christian In A Non-Christian World
Sunday, May 24 Where Do I Go From Here, God

By strategically planning your preaching calendar and your service, and being aware of the numerous ways you can impact the first-time guests that Easter will bring, will advance you down the road to maximizing this big day. Preaching a stand -alone message or from the Lectionary is what 95% of church pastors will do this Easter. Be different. Be in the 5% percentile. With a stand-alone message they are not hooked and left wanting more.

By launching a message series on Easter, you will lead your guests to feel like they have shown up on a Sunday when things are just beginning to rock and a new chapter is beginning in your church. Sound good so far?

Additionally, this gives you as pastor the opportunity to challenge those first-time guests with the incentive to return. Challenging guests has more influence than getting too fancy with your worship, the music and maybe even the breakfast.

So, now that you have read this far in the blog, let me ask again. What is your Easter Strategy and where are you in the process? Which pieces of the strategy needs tweaking, revision, or scrapping?

Email your comments to me at bwinders53@cablerocket.com or enter you comments on the blog site.