Are you ready for Easter Sunday?

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone to the Unfiltered podcas.t Lee Stephenson here - vice president Church Planting with Converge, local church planter in Orlando, Florida.

Danny Parmelee: I'm Danny Parmelee. I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica. And today I'm not in Orlando. I am in the Nashville studio. We'll call it that. "Nashville Studio." Not my basement.

Lee Stephenson: Well, that's like all of Nashville, right? We love technology. It allows us to record in different places, and at least be able to see each other. So hey, we're just around the corner, Danny, from a pretty major moment in any church. Let alone a momentous moment for church planters. And that's Easter. You know, we've talked about in the past, encouraging church planters specifically, like don't launch on Easter. If you're going to launch in that Spring season launch a few weeks prior to Easter. Because if you play it right, you can kind of get a double bump of momentum. But for those churches that are already maybe their year one, year two, maybe even year five, going into Easter this season, now's the time to be kind of fine tuning those last details. What are a few things that you know, let's say two weeks before Easter that a church planter needs to be thinking about? And even preparing their church for in order to make the most out of the Easter season?

ory is we launched January of: 2005

Lee Stephenson: And where was your attendance prior to that? So, was it 30?

Danny Parmelee: No, we launched at 125. And so, it was like a slide downwards. And here's why I say that. Context is very important in the sense of because we were a younger church, everybody went home. So, depending on the age of your congregation, and because we were downtown, it didn't have the same feel as a, you know, traditional suburban church where you also get a bump in attendance. We had the reverse. And the same thing that we learned for Christmas Eve. So, my first advice for all guys is just to, you know, have realistic expectations. For some, there will be a significant bump. But for others it actually may decline depending on your people. The problem was is because I wasn't ready for that it was kind of a shock to my system, and maybe even a little bit of anger at the team. Like why are you abandoning? Where it's like, you need to understand that tradition will always trump mission. In other words, like if people have been going home to their parents' and having Easter with them, or with Grandma and Grandpa, that type of thing. So, just to kind of mentally prepare for that. At the same time, you do have opportunity to reach people who don't currently have a church home. So, I think that that's... You know, obviously I don't want to poopoo saying Easter just because of our own experience, but there's going to be a few out there that are listening where they might not have that same bump that everybody else will type of thing. The other thing just as a general in that you know I want to hear from you and just your experience with stuff is that sometimes we get so focused on Easter that we forget about the follow up. So, before even as you're planning your Easter services, think of the week after and the week after that. In other words, when all of a sudden you have these new people come because you know hey, it's Easter I need to go to church. And maybe they just moved to the area, and you happen to be the one that sent out the flyer and they're checking it out or whatever. What will you invite them to next? Don't just let this become a thing where you're now this person's Easter service. But hey, Easter was great, but I want to invite you to a brand-new series. You know, new event, next steps or that type of thing.

Lee Stephenson: Love it. Well, unlike Danny, our church grew every single Easter.

Danny Parmelee: You're awesome. We're not. I get it.

Lee Stephenson: But I agree with the follow up. I think sometimes that easily gets overlooked. And I think an easy way to help train your team and train your own thinking towards the follow up and how do we maximize momentum is don't start a series on Easter. You know start the series the week after. Easter - you just need to preach the resurrection and what the resurrection means for us. And give people an opportunity to make some type of new commitment. But then have the follow up. So maybe it's, Hey, we're gonna go into a relational series. Think felt needs of your community. Because all of a sudden you have an attentive audience. And so how do we connect who we are as a church that actually is relevant to the felt needs of all those people that walked in maybe for the very first time, this Easter? Start the series the following week. And this is where if you have the opportunity to like, bring in key personalities. If you have somebody in your community that, you know, people would like, "Oh, I'll come back to hear them." I would even spend a little bit of money to continue that momentous kind of movement coming out of Easter. But again, the relational pull. Follow up. From an individual standpoint's good. If you can slow people down on Easter Sunday as well. So, if it's photobooth opportunity. Maybe a special food thing. Anytime that you can slow it down, it will just build the energy and help people feel like, “Oh, there's something going on here. I want to be a part of this.” I would say even pre-Easter...past or like, you've got to get your mindset to thinking about the fact that there are a lot of people that may have some little bit of church background. Or de-churched people that are coming because a family member invited them or they have no other option, they gotta come with Mom. Like, how am I going to connect with them? And making sure that the service actually is done in a way that makes sense. And it connects to where they're at. And I find like, I spend more time trying to figure out a few key jokes on Easter and how to get people laughing before I bring in the punchline because it brings the walls down and makes them you know... And so, I'll spend even a couple of weeks working on that.

Danny Parmelee: It does take you some extra work to come up with any funny material.

Lee Stephenson: It does. It does.

Danny Parmelee: Okay, so you said one thing that I do not want to pass over because we might take it for granted. But I've been in situations where it has been taken for granted. If you don't preach the resurrection, on Easter Sunday, I am disappointed. I don't want to shame and guilt people, but I'm going to shame and guilt people, right? If you don't preach the resurrection, you have a major, major problem. And we can get so focused on egg drops and you know, bring in you know, doing fun and cool stuff to try to draw a crowd. But you have to preach the resurrection. So, you said that. I just want to re-emphasize that. Now this is unfiltered so I'm going to throw something out there, Lee, that I don't even know if you and I have discussed that much. But yay or nay on live baptisms or baptisms in general, on Easter Sunday. Go.

Lee Stephenson: My personal preference is no. I like sharing testimony. So even for this Easter in our church plant like we're gonna have three recorded testimonies of three different individuals in our church in the last three months have had a major moment where the Lord has challenged them, or they made a decision to follow Christ. And we work that into the worship set. We're very, very careful to make sure it's not about Oh man, our church is so great! It's about, Man, this is what God has done in my life. And so, we're really, really focused on making sure the glory is God-directed not church-directed. And I think that's an important distinguishing mark to make sense. I like doing baptisms following Easter. And keeping it separated so that way the message just stays clear. But we always do a gospel presentation and asked for a response on Easter.

Danny Parmelee: On Easter. Great. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. And would say exactly the same thing. Not doing the actual baptisms on Easter Sunday but if you can incorporate even just one testimony. Powerful. And if you can do video because it's just controlled and you don't want to...

Lee Stephenson: You know exactly how much time.

Danny Parmelee: Type of thing that way is just really powerful. Because I mean it is and I get it and we've done you know baptisms within service and there's power to that. But with the audience, it's there to just make the whole service baptisms can be sometimes just confusing or weird or whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of my vote. I'm not saying an absolute not. I think, you know, sometimes there's a time and a place for it. But my preference is and especially with a young church plant not doing baptism services on Easter.

Lee Stephenson: Just simplify the service. Even from the standpoint of the sermon. I would look at shortening the normal sermon. You know, so like, I typically will only preach 25 minutes on Easter. And part of it is recognizing people's attention span isn't what it used to be. But at the same time, I want people to go, "Man, I can sit through that, like I'd like to come back." And help them realize like in specifically in our context, there's a lot of traditional models of church and ethnic models of church that people have experienced. And so, the fact that they can come to church, and it's not two or three hours long just blows their mind. And we can give them a good experience. The other thing I would want to encourage pastors to think through is how are you preparing your people to invest and invite? That it's not all about, like, if you're going to do a direct mail, this is the time of the year, it's not a bad thing. Because especially in a church plant world, like a lot of people... You just got to get the word out that you even exist, and that this is an option for Easter. So, leverage social media. Leverage Google ads. Even if you're going to spend a little extra - do a direct mail. This is the time of year you want to do that. But the biggest win is training your people to think outside of the box. Like, who are you inviting? And make it almost like you're an anomaly in our church if you don't invite somebody. And there are creative ways to do that. I mean, you could... The way that the sermon series you do leading up to Easter. But we started prepping four weeks, pre-Easter. “Hey, Easter is around the corner, I want you to begin to pray. I want you begin to think.” And then two weeks before Easter, we're actually... I'll be preaching on the fact that Jesus is the light of the world. And we're going to create a moment in the service where we have a big map on the stage. And we're gonna have people come up and kind of pin on the map where they live, if they're willing to reach their neighborhood for Jesus. And it just creates this monumental image in their mind of, "We're for our city. Or we're for our region. And we're gonna do everything we can to reach these people for Jesus."

Danny Parmelee: That's great. Okay, one other thing you said, but you just passed over it really quickly. Gospel invitation. So, preach the resurrection. But now that you've teed it up, it has to be a clear invitation. Even if you're uncomfortable with doing it. You figure out how to say, "Alright, it's decision time. If you'd like to make the decision." Whether that's raise your hand. Whether that's fill out a card. Whether it's come up front. This is your time to actually make a very, very clear presentation and invitation and opportunity for people to respond. So, the one other question I'll throw out there, Lee, is, what about communion on Easter Sunday? Yay or nay?

Lee Stephenson: Nay. That's a Good Friday moment. And so, if you're going to do a Good Friday experience or a Good Friday service, include communion in that. Easter's focus is resurrection. And communion, it's got a different focus. That's on the death of Christ and what happened because of the cross. Let's keep Easter what Easter is meant to be. So, that's my opinion.

Danny Parmelee: Yes. Now, according to Jesus... No, I'm just kidding. But what I will balance that on the other side is sometimes communion is your greatest way to have gospel invitation. So, I'm not... I can't even remember if we automatically did it because we did the second Sunday of each month. So, maybe when it fell on it, we did. When it didn't fall on it, we didn't do it. But for those of you that are still kind of thinking through your service, the other part of it is depending on the type of kind of religious area where... So, we were heavily Catholic and Lutheran background where communion was part of every single week. So, if they went to a church and there wasn't communion, it was just like, so awkward. So, there can be a positive on that side. So, again, you know, Lee and I, there's not an exact way, yes, you should or shouldn't do baptisms. Yes, you should or shouldn't do communion. But those are some of the different things that you want to think through of the positives and negatives. And negatives can be that sometimes communion can get really long and difficult, and you know, whatever, as well, too. So those are all the different things you got to think through the service.

Lee Stephenson: And I think I would caution church planters. Like, if you're going to do communion, on an Easter, you've got to give ample time to actually explain what the importance of communion is. You know, like, you've got to think that through versus just throwing it in, in the midst of the service.

Danny Parmelee: Yes. 100%. And that goes to what you were saying as far as reducing sermon time. So, you're still going, “Okay, this is a person's first experience. We're in it. We're adding testimonies. Okay. Communion, we don't want to just rush through it.” Where you even place it in the service. All those types of things to kind of think through.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah. And when it comes to planning that Easter service. I mean, I would encourage churches, you need to start minimum of two months before, if not three months before.

Danny Parmelee: So too late on hearing this, on this podcast.

Lee Stephenson: Yes. But I mean, thinking through the details of the service. Like, are we going to do a special creative moment or something of that sort? You really want to have those things locked and loaded way before you get to the week of Easter. Well, good conversation. Good luck. We're praying for you. And Easter is one of those times of year that it can be a momentous moment. And we pray such for each and every one of you. Thanks for tuning in everyone. This has been the Unfiltered podcast. Until next time, keep it real.