Best Easter Ever: Removing Roadblocks

One of the easiest ways to make an immediate impact on your Easter Sunday services is to take the time to remove the roadblocks to participation. And here’s what I mean: getting first-time guests (and even your members) to sing along, actively worship, go to class, or participate in offering is difficult enough. Sometimes we get in our own way by creating roadblocks — little hindrances that make someone say, “This isn’t worth the trouble.” If you want to see your participation improve on Easter (or any Sunday), follow these tips:

Update Your Signage

Sometime guests don’t make use of the nursery, kids’ ministry, or coffee station because they simply don’t know how to get there. Before you start seeing dollar signs and say, “Well, we just can’t afford that before Easter,” let me tell you a secret — bad wayfinding signage is worse than having no wayfinding signage.

So the first step is simply eliminating anything that doesn’t make it absolutely clear where something is located. If you can’t afford to replace the signage, simply roll the directions into your pre- or mid-service announcements.

The biggest question you need to ask yourself is this:

Could a visitor, without assistance, find their way around to various points of interest?

As much as you’ve worked to train your greeting staff and first impressions team, the reality is that many guests won’t ask if they can’t find it. If the answer to that question is “no,” you have work to do before Easter.

Check and Double-czech Your Media

Your media team is the most visible element of your service. They’re more visible than the pastor, worship leader, or musicians combined. Once the projector is turned on, they’re front and center (literally) on your platform. Because they’re so central to the service, here’s a few ways to make sure they don’t block participation.

Make sure lyrics are laid out in an easy-to-follow (and read) format. Don’t feel the pressure to follow the “latest and greatest” trends here. Just because one-line-at-a-time works for Hillsong, it may not work for your assembly.

Instruct your media team to switch lyrics early enough so people can easily follow along and keep singing. My general rule of thumb is that you should switch to the next screen while the worship team is singing the last line, with about 4-5 words left. The human brain is amazing and will remember those last few words even after they’re gone. But if the next line isn’t up when the praise team starts singing the words, your guests will clam up.

Finally, make sure you’re giving your media team plenty of time to enter new lyrics. Don’t walk in 15 minutes before service on Easter (or really any Sunday) with a new song. Modern lyrics are… lengthy, and not giving your media team the proper time to type them all in will lead to misspellings and errors.

Make it Easy to Participate in the Offering

Your guests are going to want to support your church. (And why shouldn’t they — you’re awesome!) Be sure to plan for those guests who want to give, but pat their pockets and realize they have no cash with them.

Givelify’s research team has established that the average church will see approximately a 5% increase in giving on Easter Sunday. You can boost that to 30% or more by having an easy-to-use digital giving solution in place.

Getting started with Givelify, the #1 app in the world for church giving, is easy and takes just minutes to set up. You can get started for free (there are no monthly fees or contracts… ever), and start receiving donations the same day. For more information, visit givelify.com.

Want more tips on how to have your best Easter Sunday ever?