10. Preach a message on personal evangelism the Sunday before Easter.
Laying a biblical foundation and creating a heightened awareness for personal evangelism with the immediate application of inviting someone to Easter will really pay off in the long run. In recent years, evangelism training in local churches has really been neglected. In making this part of your strategy, you create a new discipline so that great commission living becomes infused into the life of your church.
11. Deliver the best Easter service(s) to date.
You will need to communicate throughout the staff and volunteers that you want to put your best foot forward in this Easter service. Creating a sense of urgency and taking steps to raise the quality of your service will have a lasting impact on your church.
It is important that you raise the quality of the service, not dramatically change your service or try to create an over-the-top experience. Turning your service into a Easter Extravaganza can back fire on you. 1) It does not represent who you are on a normal Sunday. 2) It can create a letdown in your first time attendee who returns the next week. 3) In bringing outside speakers or worship leaders, you don’t improve. Nelson Searcy writes, “Make your Easter service excellent, but keep it normal. If you are the one who usually preaches, preach on Easter. Have your regular worship leader lead worship on Easter. The goal with your Easter service planning should be this: To provide a great, quality service that reflects what attendees will see the rest of the year. When you get too fancy in your efforts to capitalize on Easter, you step out of the realm of reality, and that can only lead to disillusionment.”
