We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our latest book, Super Sunday: Planning Easter for Your Church. The book is available in print and digital formats, and you can save a buck when you buy during our launch week.
To celebrate and help churches everywhere get ready for Easter, we hosted a live hangout with Kelley Hartnett, Kelvin Co and Kevin D. Hendricks. We talk about how to plan, promote and survive Easter:
Guests
- Kelley Hartnett spent a decade working in established churches and helping to launch new ones. She’s been a frequent contributor here, contributed a chapter to Super Sunday and often writes on her own blog.
- Kelvin Co is the creative arts pastor at The Oaks Fellowship in the Dallas area. He wrote the foreword for Super Sunday and contributed another chapter. You can keep up with Kelvin on his website.
- Kevin D. Hendricks is our editor and writes his own bio (hi!). He volunteers at his church and contributed several chapters and edited Super Sunday. He likes to read (a lot) and blog.
Insights
- Seeking God First: “Instead of coming up with our own plan and then asking God to bless it, we need to change the approach and first ask God what the plan is. … All our creative work needs to be in submission to God. … Before I tap into all my super powers, first and foremost: what does God want to say to my church, to me? My work needs to overflow from that.” -Kelvin Co
- Getting Started: “Start at the very beginning by reading the Easter story and reading it again and reading it again. Because if you go straight to what are the creative elements and how are we going to promote it and what’s the cool new new thing we’re going to do this year and how are we going to make it even bigger and better—that’s likely not what God is after from you. God wants a fresh retelling of the story, but the story is already there. There’s no purpose in losing your mind before you even begin. For me, that was the first bite, to center myself in the story itself.” -Kelley Hartnett
- Delegate: “Execute that plan and equip the people. Do not get those two things reversed because when you start executing people at Easter it doesn’t go very well.” -Kelley Hartnett
- Equip Your People: “Your most powerful tool is always relational evangelism. The people of your church inviting their friends and inviting their neighbors to come to church.” -Kelvin Co
- Model Success: “Leading up to Easter, celebrate the win. Show them what success looks like. Here’s this person, they invited a friend, their life was changed—whatever testimony you can share from relational evangelism.” -Kelvin Co
- A Compelling Lifestyle: “If we put all our energy and effort into relational evangelism toward Easter and Christmas Eve, I think we’ll be missing out and we’re not challenging our people enough to remember that it’s not just about these two big events in our church, it’s about living a lifestyle that honors Jesus and is curious and compelling to people and makes them wonder what is it about this church thing?” -Kelley Hartnett
- What’s the Plan: “It’s all about planning. If you’re going to try to do this flying by the seat of your pants, you’re going to lose your mind.” -Kelley Hartnett
- Focus on the Main Thing: “A lot of our Easter stress has more to do with making sure none of the other balls in the air drop while we’re dealing with Easter. So do what we can ahead of time to let go of the things that really don’t matter during that season.” -Kelley Hartnett
- It’s Not All On You: “Kill the do-do head. The more you do, the less you lead. The biggest cause of stress is if you’re trying to do everything yourself. Look for leaders, look for somebody else who can help drive or run some of these things.” -Kelvin Co
- Take Care of Yourself: “Please take care of yourself. Just because it’s the ‘Super Bowl’—it’s not worth the sleepless nights and all that. The quality of your ministry is only good as the quality of your personal ministry and your ministry at home. My prayer whenever it gets busy is God gave me enough time to do what I need to do.” -Kelvin Co
More:
- Learn how to plan, promote and survive Easter with our new book, Super Sunday: Planning Easter for Your Church.
- Join our Courageous Storytellers membership site for more Easter resources to help your church.
- Get even more Easter help with our collection of ideas, examples, tools and more.
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