WYSIWYGFor church, Easter is HUGE! Obviously the day is significant for spiritual reasons, but its one of those big days of the year where everyone and their brother comes to church. I know that there is a huge temptation to go over the top for Easter since it is such a special day with so many special visitors. However, I’m not sure that we shouldn’t try to resist that temptation.

I’ve been there. My church has rented out the sports arena (definitely a cool experience) and we’ve done the special theatrical productions in the kids services. I’ve seen that each year sometimes the thought comes to mind, “What are we going to do this year to top last year.” Although this is fun, is it false advertising? We have 20-30% more people attending who we’d love to have come back, yet if they came back they’d experience something different than they did when they came on Easter. The first impression might have been great, but the second impression could be a let-down.

I like the churches that begin a new series on Easter Sunday. It’s kind of like the cliff-hangers we love (or hate) on TV. We get a great new audience on Easter Sunday, but with an “excellent” service that leaves them begging to come back next week we communicate that “this is who we are and what you see is what you get.” Yeah, it’s Easter and a great platform for this special day. But there’s a huge crowd out there who hears the same “Easter” message every year on their “once a year visit.” Maybe changing things up would give us a greater impact on these fringe visitors!

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