In addition to direct mail, signage, fliers and other materials, promote your Easter service with an e-card that can easily be forwarded along with a personal note from your members.
27. Spring Cleaning
The week before Easter, host a huge, community-wide garage sale to benefit a local charity or cause. Offer a tax receipt to any donors and even offer to pick up larger items. Make it a fun community event by providing food, music and fliers promoting your church’s Easter week activities.
28. Egg-vitations
The Sunday before Easter, give children 10 plastic eggs with candy and an invitation for their friends and families to attend the Easter service. It is great to see children involved as inviters.
Set up an Easter-themed backdrop for pictures after the worship service. Give each person a connection card, including a website URL for accessing the photos.
30. Artists at the Foot of the Cross Gallery
Turn a multipurpose room into a gallery of crucifixion art, poetry and music created by people of all ages. Invite the community to participate.
Contact a local senior center or assisted living community and asked if your church may bring residents a nostalgic evening of the Irving Berlin classic film, popcorn and lemonade.
32. Messiah Live!
Host an evening of live orchestra presenting Handel’s oratorio. Engage your city’s orchestra.
33. Free Car Wash
Organize a car wash free of charge with no strings attached. Just leave a small Easter card with your church’s Easter worship activities in each vehicle.
Encourage everyone who attends your Easter service to bring canned food for a local food bank. Seeing the church serve others can offer unbelievers a different view of the church and ultimately cause them to be more open to hearing the Gospel.
35. Visit Nursing Homes and Jails During Easter
Send teams out to offer Easter celebration services at locations in your area with people who may not be able to make it to church—nursing homes and jails. Ask permission first, and provide a service complete with music, communion and a Scripture-based message. If a local church already has a jail ministry, partner with it for an enhanced service.
36. Baskets Benefit
Collect Easter gift baskets from local businesses and church members for a silent auction, benefiting a local charity.
37. Love Jars
Fill canning jars called “Love Jars” with brownie mix, attractively layered, sealed with a lid and covered with seasonal fabric. Then make a personal visit to the home of each of Easter visitor. Make it a nonthreatening, non-preachy visit that simply says, “We’re glad you came…. hope to see you again.”
38. Thank Public Servants With Easter Lillies
Instead of spending money on Easter lilies to decorate the church, buy lilies as a donation to local businesses, hospitals, law enforcement, schools, etc. Attach a small tag from your church: “With appreciation during this Easter season.”
Easter Sermons and Ideas for Outreach to Children
Here are a few powerful ideas for reaching kids with the message of Easter:
Teaching children about the Easter message isn’t exactly an easy task, but one ministry has simplified the approach, handing out bags filled with toys, candy, fruit, activity books and, most important, the Gospel message. Children are accepting Christ thanks to the bags, an initiative of Here’s Life Inner City. The urban ministry of Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), Here’s Life Inner City partners with local churches to distribute thousands of Easter bags each year to reach inner-city children.
