Building Toward Easter

[John Dobbs]

Searcy suggests the following to build toward a great Easter service:

1. Build toward Easter with publicity. He mentions mass mailings, newspaper ads. He suggests promoting Easter itself rather than the new series that will be started. At Forsythe we will have some banners out front inviting the community to worship with us on that day. We also will have postcard invites for our members to hand out to their friends and families.

2. Build toward Easter by encouraging personal evangelism. Everyone should be challenged to invite two - three unchurched friends. To encourage personal evangelism Searcy suggests:

- Tools - putting tools in the hands of everyone to use (such as invite cards and prayer cards).

- Training - suggests the Sunday before Easter a sermon on inviting friends and loved ones to church.

- Timeliness - people usually do what is urgent. With Easter approaching rapidly, time is of the essence.

3. Build toward Easter by spiritually preparing self and staff. Staff needs to be involved in inviting friends. Suggests a fast on Good Friday asking god to bless the Easter outreach. 

Would you like to comment on these suggestions or make some of your own?

John

[John Dobbs]

Ah... guess I wore everyone out on this! That's ok!

BTW, I am asking my church to join us in a fast on Good Friday ... one of the prayers should be that God would work through us to reach the lost ... especially any we become acquainted with on that day.

[James Nored]

John, you didn't wear me out! I just haven't gotten any sleep the last few days. Let me respond to these three points.

1. Build toward Easter with publicity.
We have a High Pointe brochure that we are mailing out to the community. It will be a 15,000 mailer. Whenever you mail something out, you want to have something specific that you are inviting them to. Easter is a perfect special occasion. I'm hopeful that our brochure mailer will stand out from all of the Easter postcards.

2. Build toward Easter by encouraging personal evangelism.
We will print up an extra 2000 brochures for members to hand out to their unchurched friends. At Liberty, we also asked people to pick out 2 people that they would pray for, invite, etc., and we had a special prayer night in which we prayed for these names.

3. Build toward Easter by spiritually preparing self and staff.
We will be specifically inviting our neighbors that we are friends with. Our girls also have an evangelistic heart (I wonder where they got that from? I'm brainwashing my kids . . . ), and they love going out and handing out brochures in our neighborhood!

These are good, basic suggestions. Sadly, many churches do not do any of these things, missing out on some great opportunities to reach new people for Christ.

[John Dobbs]

Thanks James! Loved reading about all of these efforts and ideas. Especially about your girls and their zeal for God! Hope you get some good sleep soon, something we all need!
jd

James Nored said:

John, you didn't wear me out! I just haven't gotten any sleep the last few days. Let me respond to these three points.

1. Build toward Easter with publicity.
We have a High Pointe brochure that we are mailing out to the community. It will be a 15,000 mailer. Whenever you mail something out, you want to have something specific that you are inviting them to. Easter is a perfect special occasion. I'm hopeful that our brochure mailer will stand out from all of the Easter postcards.

2. Build toward Easter by encouraging personal evangelism.
We will print up an extra 2000 brochures for members to hand out to their unchurched friends. At Liberty, we also asked people to pick out 2 people that they would pray for, invite, etc., and we had a special prayer night in which we prayed for these names.

3. Build toward Easter by spiritually preparing self and staff.
We will be specifically inviting our neighbors that we are friends with. Our girls also have an evangelistic heart (I wonder where they got that from? I'm brainwashing my kids . . . ), and they love going out and handing out brochures in our neighborhood!

These are good, basic suggestions. Sadly, many churches do not do any of these things, missing out on some great opportunities to reach new people for Christ.

[James Nored]

Thanks, John. We started printing our bulletin in color last week, and Emily, our 5 year old gathered up about 20 extra bulletins after worship. My wife, Becki, asked her what she was going to do with these bulletins. She said, "I going to give them out to people at school who don't know God." I almost cried when I heard that. Teach 'em while they are young!

[John Dobbs]

wow...that is so sweet. Good parents and a Good God.

James Nored said:

Thanks, John. We started printing our bulletin in color last week, and Emily, our 5 year old gathered up about 20 extra bulletins after worship. My wife, Becki, asked her what she was going to do with these bulletins. She said, "I going to give them out to people at school who don't know God." I almost cried when I heard that. Teach 'em while they are young!