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And there will still be more ministry to do! Hopefully, you’ve planned for this before Easter, but if not, we got you!

The openness of so many people to step foot in the door of a church at Easter is a huge opportunity to help them take small steps toward community and hopefully, a relationship with Jesus. It’s so important to think creatively about what the next steps can be for guests and anyone ready to connect more. 

In addition, coming out of Easter, you have about 6-8 weeks before schools wrap up for the year, and some people become less connected with church life for the summer months. So, your primary goals should be to follow-up with as many people as possible then provide opportunities for people to take a step toward building relationships and making a difference.

So to start, here are some suggestions for follow up:

Follow Up

Personalized Notes

Your hospitality teams likely connected with a lot of guests or infrequent attendees on Easter Sunday. Any of those people that you were able to receive information from should be followed up with as soon as possible. Have someone from your team send a handwritten note, a text or an email and offer to have a follow-up conversation if they would be interested.

Social Media Follow Up

How can you create social media content connected to the specific CTAs from Easter Sunday? Maybe you had a reflection time and an invitation to follow Jesus during your worship service – how can you create content connected to this, then invite people to share their story?

Consider creating digital content that is also very focused on people’s needs in this season. How can you add value to people’s lives while your church may be fresh on the minds of many people who aren’t typically connected with a church?

Retargeting

If you ran any ads leading up to Easter on social media or your website, create another ad campaign that targets anybody who interacted with your content. These ads could be focused on a variety of things, but perhaps you’re starting a new group for people who are new to faith or you are starting a new sermon series about following Jesus that could be a good building block from Easter. Whatever the content is, creating new ads focused on people who have connected with you digitally on any level leading up to Easter is a very effective way to connect with many of your new guests or people who have been considering taking steps toward connecting with your church.

If you aren’t sure where to start with this, we would love to connect with you!

Relationships and Serving

The long-play of all this follow-up work is to help people build relationships and make a difference! These two things matter deeply to people and are worth inviting people into! Many times, people aren’t willing to dive into a formalized Bible study or small group, but people are often willing to connect with others over shared interests or pick up a shovel to serve their community with others.

As you’re following up with new connections or continuing to connect with additional folks in the community, here are some ideas for some great next steps you could point them to:

Activity Groups

What if you mobilized activity groups that were strictly that - activity groups. They would be focused on the interests of people in the congregation who want to reach their friends, neighbors and coworkers.

These groups could look like:

• Basketball/pickleball/tennis/softball/soccer/mountain-biking, etc. – Get people together in the church who love a sport, have everybody invite a few friends, pick a regular time/place, then plan to go out for dinner or invite people to your house after and build relationships.
• Coffee connoisseurs/beer lovers/foodies – Find people in your church who share a love for high-end coffee (maybe include pastries), good beers/cocktails, foodie restaurants, etc., then set a time/place, invite some other friends and build relationships!
• Arts Experiences – Gather people who share a love of different arts and choose some places and events. Go to art museums, concerts, outdoor exhibits, art festivals, etc. and then share a meal and talk about it. Remember, invite friends who don’t go to church with you!
• Farmers Market march – Get a group of people together to invite some friends and hit a different farmers market in your area every weekend. As always, grab lunch and build relationships with new friends.
• Outdoor Adventurers – Pull together your people who love to camp, fish, hunt and hike to invite their friends out on the next adventure. There’s nothing like a conversation over a campfire to build new relationships.

Strategically lean on some people who you know are good at connecting people, who love hosting and hospitality and who have specific interests that would connect with others. Mobilize (and resource) these individuals. As an incentive, you could even offer to pick up the tab on the first gathering!

Community Service Projects

Spring and summer are the ideal times to mobilize your church to serve the community. People love to give back, and they’re eager to get outside! Before you plan, be sure to reach out to your local partners, local community service organizations and local government agencies to ask what would be most helpful. Oftentimes, well-intentioned people jump in to serve when those resources could make a bigger difference in other ways.

Again, community service projects are a great way to invite people that are not part of your church. Encourage your congregation to invite neighbors, coworkers and friends to be part of it.

As a church, commit to funding the event with resources and a meal. This could be financed from church funds, or you could do a fundraiser in the church.

A couple tips: 

• Be sure to have somebody who is very administrative at the center of this type of initiative. There are a lot of details to track and this will make or break the effort!
• Hire a professional photographer to capture the event(s) so you can use this content to tell stories, promote later outreach efforts and share on social media.
• Try to find a way to do 2-3 between April and July. You might have a core group of people who will consistently engage in these, and it will help those relationships grow.

Work Day at the Church

Every spring, there is a ton of work that needs to be done on a church campus. Take a half-day on a Saturday this spring and invite the church to come out and work on campus! Practically, this will save you money in your facilities budget, but more importantly, it’s a great way to help your congregation get to know others at the church. As always, share a meal together when the work is done!

Looking for More Ideas or Need Help Strategizing?

Let our team know and we'd be happy to help!