For the months before Easter, the primary focus of many churches is on how to get the most people possible to the Easter service. With a tremendous amount of work and effort, Easter is often a fantastic success in terms of numbers of people attending. However, for most churches the following Sunday is often a big disappointment, with few of the new people from Easter coming back the following week. Here are 5 tips that will help you make sure this doesn’t happen at your church.
1. Use a connection card at the Easter service – few visitors will come back without follow-up / make sure you take prayer requests on the card.
2. Tell people what you regularly do – many churches forget to share basic information such as the time the church regularly meets.
3. Tell them what your church can do for them – be sure to tell them in your bulletin, on your website, or with an additional, upbeat publication, what you offer for their children every week.
4. Follow-up immediately – A follow-up email, postcard, or social media connection within the week after Easter makes a powerful impact.
5. Invite visitors to interact outside of church – One suggestion for this tip came from a church that hosted a “latte with the Pastor.” They would send visitors a follow-up with two free coupons for lattes along with a note that said they could be used to join the Pastor at the local coffee shop any Thursday from 3-5 pm. The visitor was invited to come and ask “any question they wanted to about the Christian faith.” The response was tremendous.
The tips here do take effort, but they make certain that the tremendous amount of work you do to prepare for Easter results not only in a fantastic Easter service, but in continuing contact with your guests and a much greater possibility of them coming to know Jesus.