4 Ways to Make Easter Hospitality the Pattern for the Year
…Easter season can be the launching pad for more intentional visitor welcome throughout the year. In many churches, Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day are the three times of year when…
Search Results: Lenten and Easter (66)
Should You Add Another Easter Worship Service?
…churches polled was for Easter attendance to be 80 percent above their normal average. Easter is a critical time for reaching others through worship. One question to ask is whether…
Creative Lenten Activity Encourages Reflection
…time for Easter Sunday. Following the Easter season, families were invited to take their crosses home with them. In our instructions, we encouraged families and groups, in age appropriate language,…
Reengaging People During Lent
…needed to participate in a Lenten study, join a small group, and attend Holy Week and Easter services. A sign in my office, visible behind me during Zoom meetings with…
Why Limit the Celebration of Easter to Just One Sunday?
David Manner says that many churches attract new attendees with the lure of Easter but then quickly leave the subject. He asks, if Easter really is the foundation of our…
Two Church Developers’ Experience with Funding New Church Starts
…Roswell (988 on Easter) at Roswell UMC and Higher Ground (134 on Easter) at McEachern Memorial UMC. The “parachute drop” In North Georgia we rarely use the parachute drop, at…
How Best to Use Overflow Worship Space on Easter
…Welcoming Church, a Lewis Center video tool kit resource Should You Add Another Easter Worship Service? by Lovett H. Weems Jr. 4 Ways to Make Easter Hospitality the Pattern for…
Planning for Attendance Seasons in the Church Year
…plans to be attentive to Easter attendance simply because “we always have a big crowd on Easter.” And while some churches do not conduct Christmas Eve services, others are having…
Easter Vigil Brings the Story of Salvation to a City in Need
The Easter Vigil service is all about remembering and reliving our story of salvation. Usually we do this within the confines of a sanctuary. But last year, the multi-site church…
Thanking God It’s Good Friday: Intergenerational Children’s Ministry
…congregations, drawing together participants and volunteers from across the congregations. Those who participate in TGIGF can be invited to join you for worship on Easter Sunday, for the annual Easter…
Resurrection as a Call to Action
…staff says we can’t allow our Easter celebrations to divert attention from the challenge of renewing the church. Drawing on the biblical narrative, she writes that Easter is not an…
What if Your Church Had No Building?
On the weekend of my first Easter as a church planter in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, I made the drive from my house to a local city park. It was Saturday,…
A New Start in Lent
…is limited to the Lenten season, so even if it does not go as planned it will not be devastating. Taking the right risk during Lent can create a new…
The Lent Challenge
…Easter. Churches can be frank and gracious at the same time by talking about what people have experienced in Holy Week worship over the centuries and how much such worship…
How a Creative, Justice-Oriented Stations of the Cross Called a Community to Action
…an interactive website. Starting on Ash Wednesday, a new station was released every three days, ending on Palm Sunday. Then, starting on Easter Sunday, a new station was released every…
Why Some Ministries Need to Die
…go. For example, when I first came to Calvin Presbyterian Church, I got to see the wonderful Easter Sunrise Service that the church had been doing for years. The youth…
50 Ways to Increase Active Engagement
…spirituality formative, rather than exclusivelytask-oriented. Emphasize small group participation during Lent. Choose a Lenten study curriculum for use by all small groups in the church. Publicize this study opportunity widely…
Honoring the Context of a New Ministry Setting
…back to Easter. This pastor, who had previously served in smaller churches, failed to understand the challenges of Easter confirmation experienced by the new church and without appropriate consultation made…
Palms in the Park on Palm Sunday
During the Easter Season, the First United Methodist Church in New Braunfels, Texas, launched an outreach event in the heart of our city. Our goal was to take our worship…
Connect Community Events to Worship
…Hundreds of people attended, but almost none of them came back for Easter service. Then we decided to have the Easter egg hunt following our services. Attendance doubled! Our worship…
Resurrection Hope and the Response to COVID-19
…many churches to embrace new and innovative approaches to ministry in this time of uncertainty and travail. Our Lenten journey this year has been dominated by fear and anxiety, disruption…
Drive Thru Ashes
…church. Christmas and Easter are such times. And for many people, Ash Wednesday is another time of latent spiritual memory. It provided a great opportunity to minister to many of…
Missional Engagement: It’s All About Relationships
…Examples might include an Easter egg hunt during the Lenten season, an annual clothing giveaway event, or a community yard/garage sale. How would the nature of that event change if…
4 Ways to Make Christmas Eve Hospitality the Pattern for the Year
…Christmas season can be the launching pad for more intentional visitor welcome throughout the year. In many churches, Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day are the three times of year when…
5 Things to Avoid and 5 Things to Accent at Your Christmas Eve Service
…the church. And it is usually a well-attended service, second only to the worship service on Easter Sunday. What are some things to avoid and some things to accent as…
A Two-Point Charge Launches Satellite Contemporary Worship
…Maryland. Launched at an Easter Sunday service with 160 worshippers, “Jacob’s Well” has continued to draw at least 100 people almost every week since, with an average of five to…
50 Ways to Increase Worship Attendance
…faithful inviting and witnessing. Distribute to members simple printed invitations during the Christmas and Easter seasons that they can give to family and friends. Print at the top of the…
What’s Your Church’s “Ladder”?
…started an annual Lenten mid-week luncheon series on health and healing designed especially for health providers of the city. No longer did they see themselves or did others see them…
Leading the Church in the Face of Coronavirus
…The uncertainty of “transition periods” in the church’s life can be regarded as a kind of “wilderness” journey. It’s appropriate that it coincides with the Lenten season. This is a…
Coffee, Kids, and Chaos
…pick apples. Special simple craft projects were offered around the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Halloween was celebrated with a costume parade and themed snacks, and Easter…
