Easter is one of the highest attended days for churches around the world. Churches do not have to put much effort into the marketing and promotional part of Easter. Often in Western culture, Easter is when people who don’t regularly attend church come. It is also cultural for extended families to attend church together. So, churches can expect to have a record number of guests on Easter.
But just because there doesn’t have to be much outreach doesn’t mean a church shouldn’t put in the effort. Easter is a time when people who are seekers or those who have walked away from being part of a local church will be more likely to come if they are simply invited. Easter can be leveraged to breathe life into a church and to see sustained growth if the proper strategy is put in place. However, most churches do not capitalize on the opportunity to connect these new guests to the life of their church. They simply do not retain their Easter guests, and their church attendance shrinks back to the number it was before the big day. So, churches need to have a strategic follow-up plan for how to retain guests on Easter.
Here are 4 ways to retain your new Easter visitors:
1. Give them a Preview
Some churches choose to do an Easter production on Easter Sunday. The biggest issue with this is that the new guests don’t know what the church will be like if they come the following week. The church can be creative on Easter and go for the “wow” effect, but they also need to carefully weigh the amount of energy, money, and time it takes to put on a production in proportion to keeping their visitors on Easter. Guests want to know what they will experience the following week. This is especially true for guests who haven’t been to church in many years or those who have never been to a Christian church. The key is to give them a preview of what they will experience from the children’s environments to the sermon and the music.
2. First-Time Guest Cards
The First-Time Guest Card (FTGC) is the bread and butter of any Sunday, especially a big Sunday such as Easter. Without an FTGC, the church cannot follow up on that guest to help them get connected to the life of the church. One of the best methods is to let all first-time visitors know that there is an area to go to in order to exchange their First-Time Guest Card for a gift. This can be called the After Party. The After Party is simply a time for the pastor or staff to greet the guest, give them a gift, get their card, and answer questions. This After Party area needs to be visible and in the traffic of guests, and should be announced at some point, if not multiple times, during the worship experience that day.
3. Post-Easter Connect Strategy
A church should have a 3-4-week strategy to connect new guests that came on Easter. The key to any strategy, and especially this type of connective strategy, is intentionality. It will take the pastor and team’s intentional focus on communicating clearly with each individual guest in order to make this a success. You can use the following strategy as a guide.
Four-Week Strategy to Connect New Guests
Week 1: A Guest Meal for All New Guests
This guest meal needs an R.S.V.P, and it is the perfect opportunity for the pastor to share the vision and values of their church, eat a meal with new guests, and then at the end have Serve Interest Cards to give each person. When the person fills the card out, they get a free gift or an amazing dessert in exchange. This will help the pastor and staff have cards to follow up on people who are interested in connecting to the church. The focus is to help them find a serve team.
Small groups are essential but the key difference between a small group and a serve team is that the serve team is helping someone contribute back to the church. The attendance and response to this event will be the key to determining whether or not Easter was a success. This is where people connect to the life of the church to serve, become part of a small group, and ultimately can be discipled to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.
Week 2: Child Dedications
This is another opportunity for new (or newer guests) to invite their friends and family to see their children get dedicated to the Lord. This should be a special part of the service and a gift should be given to each family. This is an announcement that can be made from the stage in the weeks leading up to the child dedications.
Week 3: Water Baptisms
Water Baptism is an amazing way to help new attendees take a very important next step in their faith journey. This also brings excitement to the church. The people getting water baptized will also be inviting friends and family to their special day. A church could have a birthday-themed day with food and celebratory decorations. This is also an event that needs some stage announcement time as well.
Week 4: Mother’s Day
This will be an amazing opportunity to reach and connect people if the correct strategy is used. (See below.)
4. Utilize Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day is another excellent day to get new people to come back and bring their family. One great hook is to have free professional family portraits provided for all those who attend that day.
The sermon should be geared towards the unchurched family members who will be coming. Most pastors focus the sermon on the moms that day. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but there may be a better way to leverage Mother’s Day. Mothers are usually the ones bringing their family to church. They have prayed fervently and know that their family will do them a favor by coming to church on Mother’s Day. So, this day should be used to honor moms by speaking to their unchurched family.
The sermon could be geared towards church hurt, skepticism of God and church, or something practical to help someone in daily life overcome an obstacle. This is a day of outreach and connecting all in one. The free professional family photos are a way to get them to come back as well. By having one photo per family printed and at the back of the church in the following weeks will give more incentive for those families to come back. And if after four weeks the photos are still there then that’s an easy reason to follow up.
The key to a successful Easter will be the execution of the post Easter follow-up strategy. Every church knows that they will have new guests. The church that takes advantage of connecting these new guests with a simple but intentional strategy will be the church that leverages Easter properly.
