It's over. Easter has come and gone once again. I am sure you spent lots of time preparing for it. From Easter egg hunts to making sure you had enough volunteers in place to preparing Easter crafts the kids would do for their parents, it was a busy weekend with lots of moving parts.
Now that it is over...actually it is not over. One of the most important parts of Easter is still ahead of you.
It is follow up.
If you want to see your church grow and reach more people, follow up after Easter is a necessity.
Here are some steps you can take to follow up after Easter. Do these well and you will see fruit come from it.
Follow up with first-time guests' families.
There are lots of ways you can do this. A letter from the pastor? An email? A phone call? A text message? Do something to make sure guests feel welcomed.
Make sure you stay balanced when it comes to follow up with families. Do too much and you will overwhelm them and come across as pushy.
Send a postcard to kids who were guests.
It's a bigggggg deal for a child to get mail. As adults, it seems like we get 3-4 credit card offers a day in the mail. But kids hardly ever get mail. So getting a letter is huge for them.
Write out the post card with something specific about that child. Making it personal by mentioning something unique about the child will take the note content to a whole other
Follow up with people who served for the first time.
You probably had some people who signed up to serve just at Easter so you would have enough volunteers for the larger crowds.
Circle back and invite them to join your serving team on a full-time basis. I've had as high as 85% of Easter volunteers join our team full-time by doing this.
Send a thank you note to your volunteers.
It's a big deal to serve on Easter. For many volunteers, it involves adjusting their schedule so they can serve and still have time with their family, eat their Easter meal together, etc.
Without volunteers there would be no Easter service.
Debrief.
Sit down with a team of people and ask these kinds of questions:
What went well?
What do we need to adjust or change?
What do we need to add?
What should we not do again?
How can we make this experience better for families?
Your turn. What follow-up steps are you taking after Easter? We'd love to hear about your insights, thoughts and ideas in the comment section below.