Making Easter A Time of Impact

By Nathan Camp

How would you like to break your largest record of attendance for your church?  What would it be like to preach to a packed house, or to have dozens of new visitors enter your church for the first time?  These are all viable questions to ponder, because there is a day built in to our calendar year which, if maximized, can result in record-breaking attendance for your church.  That day is Easter!

As Christians, we are always excited about Easter. It is a wonderful time to spend the day with family, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus!  However, as pastors and leaders in the local church, Easter is more than a day of celebration, it is also a great day to take ground for the Kingdom of God!  Easter represents the single-most important day of the year that first-time church visitors will attend a service. In fact, it is on this day that the hearts of 1,000's of people in your local area will be looking to attend a church for perhaps the first time in a year. This is the day when the Gospel is preached to the most people at any one time in America.  And the churches that are making a deep impact in their community often have one thing in common: they have learned to maximize Easter!  Having studied churches and church planting for years, it is apparent that the churches that maximize this surge in their local community's spiritual curiosity have several things in common. Neither money nor size are among their shared commodities, rather it is in how they handle the Easter season--the specific things they do during this important time--that awards them the growth so many churches long for during Easter.

Below is a quick list of the most important things that growing churches do during Easter. We pray that these actions will bless you and help you reach your community for Jesus.

Steps to Breaking a Growth Barrier this Easter 

1.    Recognize the Season:  There are times and seasons when the hearts of those in your community that are far from God are more open to the things of God. Easter is the most prolific season for this opening. In January, many pastors of growing churches will get out a calendar of the new year and quickly find when Easter is and begin to prepare their church calendar to make the most of this date. They understand the call to "lift up your eyes and see the fields are white for harvest."  Often pastors of non-growing churches fail to recognize the moment that is upon them. This year, join the ranks of those pastors who are leading their churches to grow by making much of Easter! Recognize the season that you are in and awaken to the opportunity that your church has to reach people for Jesus.

2.    Awaken Your Congregation:  The Scriptures talk of one putting a thousand to flight, and two putting 10,000 to flight. What it is talking about here is the exponential impact that a group of people can have when focused on a single task. This Easter, what would it look like if your entire congregation put its energies to bear on inviting the local community to visit your church for an Easter service?

Pastors that are leading growing churches have learned to use the weeks leading up to Easter to begin to speak to, preach to, and lead their congregations into an understanding of the value of the Easter season and it's potential for Kingdom growth. These weeks leading up to Easter, turn up the evangelistic temperature in your church. Remind the people of God's desire to use them to grow His kingdom, and awaken them to the moment that is before them as a church.

3.    Equip Your Congregation to Invite:  An additional common practice shared by churches that grow in the Easter season is that many of them prepare and equip their congregation to make inviting someone to church easy. Often times, this is as easy as printing "invitations" to your Easter service. What would happen if every member of your church had a simple invitation to your Easter service that they could give to people they meet, be it first-time acquaintances, co-workers, friends, or even family? This simple tool can help your congregation to step off the sidelines and get into the game.

4.    Use a Sermon Series to Grow Your Attendance:  A common mistake of churches is to do a one-time message on Easter. We think there is a more effective way to use the message on Easter Sunday. Consider starting a sermon series, beginning the first week on Easter.

Remember, the goal is not to have one big service and then to return to normal size. The goal is to reach people, who will in turn become disciples of Christ that steadily grow in their knowledge of God and in fellowship with others, which then results in an overall growth of attendance in your church. When it comes to the sermon, remember people are much more apt to come back AFTER Easter if the message they heard on Easter was the beginning of a series. That means, make your Easter sermon the first part of the series, being certain throughout the sermon to allude to what's to come in the rest of the series. This will help the Easter crowd desire to come back and hear the rest of the series.

An example sermon series could be called "Taking A Stand".  For Easter, you could talk about how Jesus "took a stand" and rose from the grave, while the next few weeks you could talk about men taking a stand for their families, families taking a stand in their neighborhoods, etc. The key is, when it comes to the Easter sermon, START a conversation, don't END one.

5.    Prep Your Team to be the Best:  We all drift from our vision. This is true of the church itself and the teams within it. Easter is a great time to assess and refocus your team to be the best at what they do. In preparation for Easter, walk through your church this weekend with the eye of a visitor - Do your ushers ush? Does your children's ministry look clean and safe? How is your parking? Signage?

As the pastor, walk through your church this Sunday and ask yourself, "If 50 new people do visit my church for Easter, will we be ready?" This is a great exercise that will help you get prepared to put your best foot forward.

6.    Think of POST Easter:  Most church planters who begin to think about maximizing Easter often forget about the week AFTER Easter. As previously mentioned, the point is not just to have one big service and then to deflate; the goal is to grow.  This means you need to have a plan for AFTER Easter. How will you invite those new visitors back? The critical issue is to be sure to collect data on the people who visit. We suggest using a Connect Card during your Easter service that will get personal data from each visitor.  This facilitates you in being able to send "re-invites" and thank you letters to them.

The season for growth

We are in one of the most important seasons of the year to see people come to Christ. It is possible to see your church grow and begin to make serious steps forward in growing the Kingdom of God. The key is making much of Easter! At StartCHURCH, we are believing for great things for your church this Easter season. May the Lord richly bless you as you take advantage of the tremendous opportunities afforded you during this important holiday.