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!

In 2009 I wrote a series of posts on the “10 Commandments of a Weekend Experience”. As we draw near to Easter Weekend I thought that we could revisit these to make sure we are ready for guests…

See all 10 Commandments Here: http://bit.ly/aJ4OOA

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.

@JasonCurlee blogs at JasonCurlee.com and is all about influencing and developing others to make a difference in their world. He is currently a Campus Pastor for Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi, Texas. His blogs are about creating content that ministry leaders can find practical and inspirational as well as sharing the ministry principles and experiences accumulated since 1995. It’s about being innovative, unique, and creating content that can help you make a difference.

Being a multi-site campus at Bay Area Fellowship presents a unique opportunity at Easter Planning.  Due to the scale size and technology level of our “original” campus it is very hard to present a morning like they can pull off.  We have to think through our own planning on a campus/mulit-site level.  This is from the perspective of a multi-site campus averaging around 300 people in a 5,000 sq. ft. building.

Last year our campuses all sang one song that was exactly the same that had a video I created from the Passion.  This year going in we have not yet set down to plan it out as we are in the middle of potentially launching a new campus on Easter.

I thought I’d give you a perspective of how we are going to approach planning as a campus:

Leading Into Easter – The week before we are planning a 20,000 Easter EGGstravaganza.  We are trying something a little unique in that we will be doing this over all our Sunday services.  We are planning four services and will be looking to do 5,000 eggs at each time.  To spread the word we will be getting fliers into three different school districts.

The Whole Weekend – We are thinking outside of Sunday and what could be done on Good Friday or Saturday.  We are going to be doing a Good Friday service that will be geared around leading into the weekend.  We will be doing some video elements with slower worship as we reflect on what Christ has done for us through communion.  As the night goes it will turn into a celebration as we do baptisms.  Another thing you could do is have a prayer meeting leading into the weekend.

Easter Sunday – Sunday Morning will consist of some special music geared around the message of Easter.  With our style of doing ministry some of that will be high energy and slow worship.  We will add in some graphical and video touches.  I’m thinking of trying to find some video elements that will be creative for the Sunday presentation.  We will also choose a special song that will possibly be done at all our multi-site campuses.  Also at this point we will most likely switch from a week behind to using the Saturday night message from Pastor Bil Cornelius.

Size should not be an option…really nothing should stand in the way of you adding a little extra to Easter.

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

You can follow Evan here on twitter: www.twitter.com/evancourtney

At The Fields Church we feel that Easter, is an opportunity for us to tell the greatest story of humanity.
I don’t think anybody would disagree. Easter is when churches have the largest crowds.

Our question each year has been, “Are we reaching new people? Or is it just a Sunday when everybody ’shows up’?”
The greatest marketing tool that the church has, it peer 2 peer.
Yet, only 2% of attenders people invite someone to church in a given year.
That means 98% of attenders never invite anyone to the greatest story of humanity. – Thom Rainer – The Unchurched Next Door

Is it because they don’t care others?
No, I genuinely believe they do, they just don’t know how to invite.
So, as a church, we looked at how we could help our attenders to invite others.
What can we do as a church to help them invite their family and friends?
82% of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited.

Our theme for Easter this year is “Rescue.” We’ve created “Medic Kits”.
Cute right.
Two weeks before Easter our families will receive these “Medic Kits,” which are an envelope that will include items to promote Easter, and to provide offline tools for them to invite their family and friends.

Front

Back

6 x9 Folded Envelopes (VistaPrint)
Invite Cards (GotPrint)
3 Pack Crayon Boxes Bulk (Ebay)
Bulk Lifesavers (Ebay)

I was able to purchase all of these Bing and got cashback.

You can follow Matt at www.twitter.com/mattknisely

There are two times a year where we at Lawton First take it to a whole nutha level, to steal a phrase from Ed Young, Easter is one of those times.  Over the last few years, I have been asked about how we plan and how our creative process happens.  Its hard to quantify our creative planning and structure it into a blog post, but for all our series planning everything hinges on two key areas consisting of  “the creative planning/process” and “the experience.”

For us creative planning process consists of four stages we call, “the 4D’s”: Dream, Design, Develop, and Do.   For this instance Easter starts for us in early December with weekly one-hour dream sessions, where the creative team brainstorms ideas off key points from our teaching pastors.  This year after 13 series titles and roughly 12 hours of meetings we settled on the series name “OVERCOME.”  The series keys off of hurts and pains our people are experiencing and how they’ve overcame them through Christ.  By the end of January, we started the design phase where we outline key service elements from music to media and go as far as what an individual will experience as soon as they enter out building.  This stage also includes set design, many different graphical layouts and illustrations.  Just for Easter alone we have two highly detailed click tracks choreographed to dramatic video elements which took a month to create in addition to support media for our architectural projection which we have been working on for the last month and a half.  The fun for us begins in our development stage which we just finished and where we try to poke holes into our designs, artwork, set layout, programing and music.  The development stage is not for the faint of heart and usually a step most creative teams skip.

In the experience area of our planning we make sure that all elements from design, media, music, illustration, to message meet four key criteria: Diversity, Energy, Flow, and Connection.  These are unique to our house and because we are not only cross denominational and ethnic we need to be diverse on all fronts.  We know that energy of our worship and message need to be in unison or our people will disengage.  Which really makes the flow of our services really count.  We work really hard to make sure there is no dead space, because nothing kills an experience more than start stops.

No matter if you are a musician, technical operator, or production we strive to rehearse at-least one-hour for each minute of service; that may seem like a lot but we believe in excellence.  Finally our core value is being a relational body and connecting with one another and to god, so we work really hard to bring a laid back and welcoming feel to everything we do.

Once we have done all of that all we need to do is execute and do what we set out to do.