Here are a few ideas that we have done over the past couple of years.

Hope it gets ideas going for others.

1) Opener: True Love by Phil Wickham… We did this song to open our Easter Services with an accompanying video and production that moved from black and white into a surge of color (through lights and media)

True Love Opener from Mike Hadley on Vimeo.

2) Opener: Life in Technicolor:

Life In Technicolor from Travis Wermedal on Vimeo.

3) Offertories (Specials):

- Another Hallelujah (Lincoln Brewster)

- Praise the King (Condy Morgan)

We’re so excited… this year we’re taking a bunch of rock songs (U2, Coldplay, Lifehouse, Shinedown, OneRepublic… and more) and created a rock opera out of them, telling the story of the Prodigal Son, which will quickly segue into how Jesus’ death and resurrection gave us the way home.

http://www.youwaitfor.me.

We have a teaser promotional page up now (more to be added later):

We’re going to do two worship songs up front, an intro/offering by the senior pastor, the rock opera, the message and then a closing worship song.

Something else that’s important… we design our Easter services for visitors, so sometimes the more mature believers mourn a more traditional celebration service. This year, we’re making Palm Sunday a big event as well, sort of celebrating the victory of Easter a week early. It’s going to be a great 1-2 punch!

reposted from MEDIASALT.

God has wired me to dream big when it comes to brainstorming ministry events. When it gets to the point where the response from fellow brainstormers is usually “but how could we ever pull that off,” I know we’re right where he wants us to be.

Case in point, the pre-Easter ministry event we held this past weekend at all of The Chapel campuses, Kids Day. This was the second annual Kids Day, but we were looking for a bigger draw than last year — the remarkable factor.

“Gibby” from iCarly?

For the past year or so my wife and I, and our two year old, have been watching Nickelodeon’s iCarly. About eight months ago, just by happenstance, I found out Noah Munck (Gibby) is a professing Christian. God immediately laid it on my heart we needed to bring that guy to Chicago for Kids Day.

The Ask

After a little more digging I found out Noah’s dad, Greg, is the Executive Pastor at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills, CA. I got in touch with Greg, and he was very gracious we wanted Noah to help with a Kingdom event. (Found out later this was Noah’s first big public meet and greet, etc. It’s really cool that it got to be for ministry!)

Greg had Noah’s agent get in touch with me, and we worked out all of the details and sealed the deal.

Testimony

Someone at each campus location held a 15 minute Q and A session with Noah. The questions were fun and eventually funneled down to a chance for him to share his testimony and how being a Christian influences his work.

We got great feedback from this. One mother said, “My kids and so many of their friends were really inspired by ‘Gibby’s’ story.”

Meet and Greet

After each Q and A, Noah signed autographs (on glossies we had printed with his website and our church logo and website) and had photos made with kids and adults alike.

Indoor Carnival

Noah’s appearance was just one part of Kids Day. Another big draw was the free indoor carnival. Each campus had several inflatables in the worship area, games, reptile petting, cotton candy, and popcorn. Kids were given passports to have stamped at each activity station. The first 100 to fill up their card got a free t-shirt.

Promotion

Here are the various ways we got the word out about Kids Day.

• Word-of-mouth
• Corporate sponsors hung posters and gave away flyers.
• Websites made for Kids Day at each campus:  Example: http://www.libertyvillekidsday.com. They include one-click options for sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and email a friend.
• Facebook ads for each Kids Day website.
• We got into most of the school districts. This meant we were able to put a rave card in every child’s hand. Some schools only have a “digital backpack,” so our event was listed on their website. (We were denied access to a few also.)
• Town websites posted Kids Day on their community calendars.
• Newspaper event listings in print and online.
• We got in touch with all of the local mommy blogs and mommy groups (some through meetup.com).
• Noah gave it love on his twitter account.

The numbers…

It was a great day all around. Noah is a cool kid with a huge heart for ministry. His parents were awesome too.

Across all five campuses, and void of “pastor math,” here are some key numbers from Kids Day. Not bad considering it snowed more than two inches the morning of.

• 4,000 people in attendance including children, students, and adults.
• Over 2,000 attenders who weren’t Chapel regulars.
• Over 2,000 clicks from Facebook ads.
• Noah signed approx. 1,500 autographs.

Extra Goodness

• Noah taped the audiences for the Kids Choice Awards while he was here — See it on YouTube.
• Sample Poster from our Libertyville Campus. (The look was created by Lauren Murrell, Eric’s very talented wife!)
• Banner at the Barrington campus
• Kids Day iMix on iTunes.
• Several folks posted their experiences to YouTube including this person who attended the Lake Zurich event.

The Easter season at The CORE starts with Lent. We are Lutherans and like any good ones, we like guilt. I say that only half jokingly some days. Regardless, we do remember the season of Lent.

That means we have Wednesday evening services that focus on the Passion of Christ as well as the Sunday services.

On Wednesdays this year we are visiting “The Lenten Museum.” Each week we uncover a new artifact which tells another small piece of the Story of Christ’s suffering and death. This series will culminate on Easter Sunday. For us, it provides a fresh approach to the Story that we hear every year. Last year, we looked at the people you meet on the way to the cross which was also a fresh approach. We feel it is important to review, remember, and learn from the Passion Story every year, but also recognize that in order to do so we may have to look at it through a new lens.  To drive home the museum idea we have a “museum” of sorts set up at each of our campuses. Each week we add the new artifact. We also have “tickets” that people receive after each Wednesday service. On one side is a ticket looking image. The other side is a piece of an image, sort of like a puzzle. The end result is a beautiful resurrection themed image which reminds us of the end result of the whole Easter season – hope. We always look for tangible ways to put the message from the service in people’s hands, and this is one way we can do that.

Our Sunday series during this season is “Bloodlines.” We are looking at the bloodlines that flow to the cross (genealogy, history, prophecy, etc) and the blood lines that flow from the cross to us. It is always good to go back and look at the Story from beginning to end. For the people we serve it provides a greater appreciation for what God has done and continues to do for us.  Easter Sunday itself is to some degree a typical Sunday. Easter and Christmas for us are not extra special outreach events. Outreach for us is a way of life, it’s built into the rhythm of our organization and is something we pray God injects into the DNA of our people. We are still discussing the exact details of our Easter Sunday service, but our Christmas Eve service this year was not over the top, it was the exact opposite. We went totally acoustic and toned everything down. For us, that was powerful. Not sure what that means for Easter Sunday yet.

Our little church of 300 has grown to almost 2000 in the past 5 years, but our programming staff is still just me and 2 part time people. So we do it all with volunteers, and on that level I have the best people anywhere!

We began meeting back in December to decide on the theme for this service. Drawing on learnings from a conference we attended, we are not doing a ’stand-alone’ Easter service this year, but using Easter Sunday to begin a new series instead. We are using Tim Keller’s book, “The Prodigal God – Finding Your Place at the Table,” as the basis for a 6 week series and all-church life-group study that will begin on Easter Sunday. It is a fantastic, 6 week study of the parable of the prodigal son.

Since our message is not specifically Easter oriented, when our volunteer brainstorming team began meeting to plan the programming, we wanted to make the 1st half of the service explode with the hope and joy of Easter. Since we don’t have a video or dance department, but since we have great musicians here, we decided to lean into what we do best; worship and music.

Due to our smaller size, one trick we have learned over the past couple of years is to lean into elements that others have created and make them our own. Last year we took the “He Has Risen” video that Willow Creek had created (towardwonder.com)and stripped the sound track from it so we could do it live. We created a sound track with a click to it so the band and vocals could accompany it live. Then we put 3 drummers with large bass drums across the front of the stage, back lit them, and added live vocals, etc. It was a powerful opener and created an awesome opening to our service, but it didn’t require us to have a video department to create it.

This year we are taking that same idea one step farther. One of the volunteers on our team brought a video of the opener that Hillsong used for their worship conference this past summer. (youtube, Hillsong

2009 opening, the 10 minute version) It is a 10 minute piece that combines video and photographs on the screen with a dozen snare drummers across the stage and full band. Eventually it goes into the song “With Everything,” a song our church LOVES. So we are re-creating that idea. We are creating our own video/photo piece that starts with words similar to what they used: Christ died. One sacrifice for all.

Etc. These words and photos show during the opening instrumental run which we will play live, with 4 snare drummers creatively lit across our stage. As the song, “With Everything” begins, the choir enters and the words on the screen shift to the Easter theme. “Christ died. One sacrifice for all. They laid him in the tomb. He is not here, He has risen!!!” As the song ends, our drama readers will read the Easter story from Luke 24 while the synth/drums/guitars rumble on the last chord.

From there the lights come up full and we are going into some new songs we’ve been using here that have the Easter theme woven into

them: Rise and Sing (Fee), Let God Arise (Tomlin), Shout Joyfully (BJ Putnam). Between the opening Hillsong piece (snare drums, video, Easter story) and the worship run, we’re hoping for a great celebration of Easter and what Christ has done, then turning it over to our pastor who will take us into the first message of this new series.

This is definitely taking the extra effort and time we are all committed to giving on this crucial day of the year for every church, but it also feels doable for a staff of 1 and a bunch of volunteers. I know that many of us who are reading pages like this are guys like me these days that need creative elements that can be done without a large church staff or budget. Hopefully this will give you some new ideas on how to do that!

I keep trying to do this whole planning easter thing – and it’s getting interrupted by the actual easter.  :)

We’re doing a major production for Easter called “The Chase”.  It’s all based on what we feel is most needed today in people’s lives – and that’s a message that they can apply today.  The tag line of “We’re all chasing something.  God never stops pursuing us.”  The Chase is a story of a man (through live acting, music, video) who is struggling with regrets and an overall feeling of unrest.  It’s not cliche – but very practical.  The whole thing opens on video and you see him running – but you don’t know if it’s from something or toward something.  Which is where we’re all at.  We’re going to show his life of good moments, bad ones, critical decisions, etc. and then go into a bunch of live music which flows into the worship sets.

If I’ve got one thing to add to the planning Easter – it would be this:  We’re advertising on Facebook instead of our normal direct mailers.  They’re the worst return on investment and you have no way of measuring their effectiveness.  The return is less than 1% and that’s only if you get someone to act on a direct request – coupon for coffee, free CD, etc.  So we’re going with Facebook – targeting people outside the church – and the beauty is – it’s about 1/3 of the cost of direct mailers.  We get instant feedback on what people are interested, track details and stats that aren’t available any other way.  It was a major shift in the thinking of some of our Exec pastors – because in their mind – “we built this church on mailers” but that was 9 years ago – and things have changed drastically in the last 9 months!  So it’s a “gamble” but it’s going to pay off.

One thing that is a great idea for #planningeaster is to make sure that the house is clean.
When you have first time guests coming over to you house you go the extra mile…here are some of the things you do:

- finally get that touch up paint out and cover the marks on the walls.
- make sure the bathrooms are presentable.
- clean (or at leats hide away) any piles of stuff.
- check and make sure the outside lights are working and that one light that flickers…yeah change that.

You get the point.
Guests are coming April 4th. Act like it.

You can can follow Blaine at http://twitter.com/blainehogan

At Willow Creek we’re still in the early stages for Easter 2010, but I thought showing you what we did last year might be helpful to others.

Let me know what you think in the comments:

http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/mini-movies/17115/It-Is-Finished

Welcome to planningeaster.com!  We’re excited you stopped by.  We’ll be posting ideas from churches across the country on creative planning Easter service ideas.  Stop by often to see new posts.  Want to share an idea?  Click on the “Share” button to submit your church’s Easter plan.  Thanks and happy hunting!