Easter for the Christian Church is the equivalent to the Big Game Sunday in American Football. Church services are more highly attended than any other time of the year, and the Church gets to celebrate the most important event in human history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This time of the year is what would be called, “low hanging fruit,” since people are already planning on coming. Easter is a perfect time to reach new guests and help people understand the Gospel clearly so they can give their life to Christ.
This sounds like the adage, “shooting fish in a barrel.” But many churches make a lot of mistakes when it comes to leveraging Easter for the Gospel. As a matter of fact, their church services return to normal attendance so quickly after such a huge boost that it is almost like Easter never happened. Pastors and church staff can easily make huge mistakes unknowingly that can cost them on Easter.
On the flip side, church leaders can make a few small adjustments to leverage Easter in powerful ways to boost momentum, engagement, and even attendance in the weeks following Easter. How? By avoiding seven key mistakes.
The 7 Worst Mistakes Pastors Make While Preparing for Easter
1) Not Enough Preparation Time
There is a 9-week window to leverage all of the Easter season. There are four weeks leading up to Easter to engage attendees with an invite strategy, the day of Easter itself, and then the four weeks following Easter to connect guests by helping them take next steps. Churches usually make the mistake of not having their Easter strategy ready in time. If a church is going to leverage the four weeks leading up to Easter, then they have to have all their print material ready for the congregation to start inviting people at least four weeks out from Easter. This means that a good plan for Easter needs to be solidified no later than 90 days out to give ample time for all the moving parts to come together.
2) Lack of Creativity
The second mistake pastors make is not enough creativity. Yes, it is very hard to preach the same message year in and year out while remaining creative. And the longer a pastor is at a church, the more creative they have to become. This means the message needs to be prepped in advance with creative elements.
If the pastor is not a natural creative, then they need to bring a team to help them. Creative elements include the sermon itself with illustrations, stories, and other additions that can bring it life. Creativity also includes the service elements. Pastors could consider adding a drama to the service, special songs, unique lighting, and even unique elements to help facilitate altar calls. One pastor’s Easter message was that Jesus was our bridge. He put a bridge at the front of the church, and during the salvation call, people had to walk across the bridge.
One forgotten part of the creative aspects of Easter are the children’s ministry environments. One church I know has breakfast with the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny tells the children that Easter is not about him and teaches them the Gospel of the Lord Jesus.
3) Not Utilizing an Invite Strategy
Easter is the perfect time for congregations to invite their unchurched friends and family. Each church should have a 4-week plan to engage the congregation with inviting their friends and family. An example of a successful system that has been reproduced in multiple congregations is as follows:
Starting Four Weeks Out
- Week 1: Yard Signs are available for congregants to put in their yards and businesses.
- Week 2: Invite Cards are passed out at the door on the way out so people can invite their unchurched friends.
- Week 3: Testimony Video of someone who was invited to the church by someone else and it made an impact. Invite cards are passed out again after service following the video to inspire the congregation.
- Week 4: The pastor or host on stage for that day takes the announcement time to talk about the “Top 5 Praying for You” cards. This can be the size of an index card. Each congregant gets one of the cards on the way in. During the announcement the speaker talks about the power of prayer and inviting.He invites church members to take time to write down the top 5 people they want to invite and pray for. Then they all pray together over those cards.
4) Choosing the Wrong “Win”
The win on Easter cannot be attendance only for the worship service or for attendance to some dramatic production on a day other than Sunday morning. The win has to be first-time guest cards and those who indicated they want to follow Jesus. The greeting team must be ready to help every first-time guest fill out a card and get a gift. This is because if a church doesn’t get the card, then they have no way to connect with that person. So, no matter how many people show up to a worship service, if there are little to no first-time guest or next steps cards to follow up on, then that is a surefire way to ensure that the church will not see sustainable growth or be able to make disciples.
5) Preaching to Christians Only on Easter
A lot of pastors make the mistake of preaching only to Christians on Easter. Easter is a time when congregants are inviting unchurched friends and family who do not know Christ. They either walked away from church or have never surrendered their life to Jesus. They probably have a lot of objections to Christianity and even the resurrection. This is the perfect time for a pastor to also use their pulpit to speak those unchurched friends and family members.
6) There is No Clear Call for Salvation
Many pastors fail to realize that people are there are on Easter who do not know Christ. This is quite contrary. There are many who are in attendance who need salvation. Some pastors give no clear call to respond to the Gospel, and others muddy it up with a very lax approach to a clear Gospel. Easter is the perfect time to not only preach on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus but to also give people the opportunity to respond to that message.
7) No Strategic Follow Up Plan Post Easter
Remember that there are nine weeks of the season of Easter: four weeks leading up to Easter, the big day itself, and also the four weeks after Easter to connect with new guests who attended on Easter Sunday. If the front end of this Easter “wave” is inviting and evangelism, then the four weeks after the Easter wave would be connecting and discipleship. After the church gets the first-time guests cards that is when the real work begins.
Easter Sunday is just half-time in the nine-week wave. No one in sports declares victory at half-time, yet many pastors want to do this for Easter.
For another example of a system many churches have used to connect new people to the life of their church, see “How to Retain Your Easter Visitors.”
The Easter season can be a phenomenal way to reach a multitude of people and breathe life into a local church. Too many pastors fail to leverage Easter by making these mistakes listed above. Churches know that God will send people on that Easter Sunday, but it is up to the Church to be a faithful steward of these guests by implementing a strategy to reach and connect them to the life of their church.
