With five days left until Easter, we have our Passion Week poll hot of the press.
Surprisingly, only 3% of your churches place their strongest focus on Good Friday. I expected Friday night Passion plays and the convenience and opportunity of Friday (as opposed to Sunday morning) would drive this number higher. I imagined wrong.
The majority winner is the 50% of you whose church places the most marketing emphasis on Easter. I can’t say enough about how great Easter is, so kudos to you guys.
20% of you really emphasize both equally. There’s something great to be said about this, as the two events must both exist for Christ to be Lord. And let’s never lose the history and true meaning of Passion Week.
Finally, 27% of churches in our incredibly reliable and extremely scientific poll gave up marketing for Lent. I don’t think Jesus did much marketing in the wilderness for 40 days, so I think you’re following a good strategy!
This week, we look at the flood of recent billboard campaign news and see what our loyal readers think is the way to go.
Lastly, what exactly is your church doing for Easter and Good Friday? Easter egg hunts? Pictures with the Easter bunny? A mock funeral for Jesus? Comment now!
C. Michael Pilato
April 3, 2007
Our Easter season (at Plaza Baptist Church in Charlotte) began last week with a mind-boggling deviation from some bazillion-odd years of tradition — our Easter cantata was not performed on Easter Sunday!
[pause until gasps sufficiently fade]
It’s crazy, I know, but I think the relatively new senior leadership here might just believe that a concise, stirring sermon will have a greater effect on visitors than the latest installment from Dennis and Nan Allen.
But seriously, Easter weekend at PBC is pretty happening. Our church is in Charlotte’s NoDa arts district, which contains at the moment this strange demographic blend of lower-income older and minority families (who’ve been in this ‘hood for decades) and the young, upwardly mobile hipsters that have been gentrifying this suddenly hot area of Charlotte. So, we’ve got a little bit of something for everyone going on. Saturday there’s an Easter egg hunt for the community at a local park, then a showing of The Passion later that evening. Sunday starts off with a sunrise service, a breakfast fellowship, then Sunday School and finally the morning worship service.
And, going back to the purpose of this site, we’ve done door hanger marketing for these events (containing — among bits of informative matter — jellybeans, easter eggs and dog biscuits) to the nearly 600 homes in the region. Fun stuff!
Geoff Brown
April 3, 2007
As a liturgical church (Episcopal) we do the whole Triduum Sacrum “by the book”: Maundy Thursday footwashing and stripping of the Altar, Good Friday (the Hours, plus 1/2 hour organ music for reflection before the 7:30 PM Good Friday ritual), Great Vigil of Easter Saturday night (New Fire, first Eucharist of Easter), Festival Eucharist (8 AM and 10:30 AM on Easter).
And then the choir, the organist, the Altar Guild, the Flower Committee, the hospitality volunteers, the ushers, the Ministers of Communion, the acolytes, and the clergy collapse. We’re a tiny parish, and this week is “all hands on deck”.
We also do lighten things up a bit, with Easter egg dyeing for the kids (parish and neighborhood) on Easter Saturday morning, and an Easter egg hunt during the coffee hour on Easter.
This is THE big season of the year for us, and we pull out all the stops (including advertising in the local newspaper). No billboards, though!
Sean
April 3, 2007
Our church has service every night this week to remember the events of each day. This is the third year we’ve had “Passion Week” services. I guess you could say we are recognizing each of the days equally, with more emphasis on Friday and of course the Joy of Sunday. Friday focuses on the crucifixing, Saturday we have a reverse advent(symbolizing the darkness of Saturday) and then a celebration on sunday
Wilfried
April 3, 2007
Like the poster above, we do the whole Triduum Megillah, as it were. The Good Fri. liturgy is in the middle of the day (as it should be, sniff), so attendance is rather light. So we throw in a Tenebrae Fri. evening just for good measure.
You left out the Easter Vigil as an option, so I didn’t quite know how to answer. That’s easily the biggest service of the year, with bishop, baptisms, confirmations, etc. etc. Easter Sunday is nice to, but clearly second fiddle to the former (and by the time we get to it, everyone is ready to pass out anyway).
Geoff Brown
April 3, 2007
Wilfried —
Here is a real marketing question: how do you attract a Bishop to a major service like Easter Vigil at your parish? At my old NYC parish we had a retired Bishop on staff, so it was no big deal; he was in the procession almost every week — heck, we even had Archbishop Tutu visit us annually there — but in a tiny parish out in the boonies, no matter how cutting-edge we may be, and no matter how fast we may be growing, we have a heck of time getting the folks in the purple shirts to come see us, especially for the major Feasts.
I guess this question really becomes: how do you market your church WITHIN your own denomination?
st. Mars
April 3, 2007
Mock funeral for Jesus? Interesting…does anybody do this?
OK…I have always attended very modern churches & I am learning all the time about different historical traditions….
…does anybody really do a funeral for Jesus…weird concept..
I did find online the ‘mock funeral’ of fish for the ‘return of feasting’… http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACalend/EasterSat.html
…I am always interested in non-tradional creative evangelism..
Mean Dean
April 4, 2007
I dunno guys – perhaps it’s my Eastern Orthodox roots – but isn’t the entire week a good opportunity to annouce Christ born, Christ crucified, Christ risen again?
Wilfried
April 4, 2007
Sorry, I can’t help you there. We’re in NYC, so as you know, with the ecclesiastical bureaucratic behemoth known as 815 around the corner, bishops are a dime a dozen in these here parts, and I imagine it’s not too hard to drum one up for a middlin’ prominent parish. Though this year I’m tickled that we’re getting Frank Griswold, who was a parishner while he was presiding bishop. The church up the street is getting ++Katherine. Yeah, we’re spoiled in NY.
Mean Dean
April 6, 2007
Ah but Wilfried – having lived 10 years in NYC in a past life – you must agree that those Christians whom do attend church for more than social and/or political reasons are hard-core and probably the type that make Easter an everyday event in their hearts.
Mark Ahrens
April 8, 2007
I’m the Media Leader for Grace Lutheran Church in Huntington Beach, California.
We had a Good Friday service called “Service of Darkness & Shadows.” The choir sang traditional Good Friday songs and the reading of the Passion account from Luke was divided between the songs. After each reading, a candle was estinguished and we turned down the lights in the room. The service ended with the stripping of the altar and the pastor walking one last candle out, leaving everyone in complete darkness. A soloist sang “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord.” People exited in silence.
On Saturday morning, we had an Easter Egg Hunt and Yo-Yo Show featuring “The King’s Yomen”(that had a biblical message) at the site of our schools.
On Easter, we had two choir-led worship gatherings at 8am & 9am and two praise gatherings at 10am and 11am. Our gatherings are normally 1hr 15min, but we shorten it for Easter to fit more services in. Our normal attendance is 600 between our two regular Sunday gatherings, but we estimate 1350 visitors today.