8 Questions To Ask Before Planning Your Church Easter Egg Hunt

Hosting an Easter Egg Hunt is a fun and culturally understood way to engage families in your church and the local community around Easter. As we lead up to the weeks before Easter, and as many of you are frantically putting your last minute details together for your Easter Egg Hunt, here are eight questions to ask yourself to make your big event a success.

1. What is the purpose?

What's the purpose of your Easter Egg Hunt? Why are you willing to expend a Herculean effort, spend valuable resources, and exhaust your volunteers? Sit down and come up with a vision statement for your event, for example: "To connect with families in our community for the purpose of inviting them to Easter Sunday" or "To show our community that our church cares about them and wants to be part of their life." Make sure that your staff and volunteers know the purpose of the event so they can shape their interactions with guests along those lines.

2. When are you rolling?

If your purpose is to meet members of your community so you can invite them to your Easter Sunday Service, you may want to plan your event for the week or two before Easter so that you have time to connect with them throughout the week and personally invite them to your church. If your plan is for your church to create a tradition and be a part of your community’s Easter weekend, then the Saturday of Easter weekend is a safe call.

Do you have a foul weather plan? Can you do a modified Easter Egg Hunt inside your church? It might be a good idea to consider such a plan, especially after the weather that so many of us around the country have experienced this winter.

3. Do you have enough volunteers?

It takes a small army of volunteers to pull of a successful Easter Egg Hunt. Ask your Children’s Ministry volunteers to be a part of this exciting outreach event, but also other volunteer groups within your church to buy in. Your church’s Welcome Team or your Set Up Team and their leadership all possess unique gifts and perspectives that will be valuable to make your Easter Egg Hunt a success.

BONUS: Make sure your volunteers are easily identifiable. We’ve seen lots of churches give out shirts branded with their church logo as a Thank You gift to volunteers; this would be a great opportunity for volunteers to sport those t shirts so they can be picked out of a crowd.

4. Have you advertised effectively?

An event is only successful if people know about it and come. Connect with your church’s Media Department to create high quality fliers and advertisements for your event. Ask families and volunteers to be creative in how they use the fliers to invite friends and family to the big day. Create a special section on your church website with clear information on the location, times, and events of the big day! Include that URL on your advertisements so that potential guests can get additional information should they be interested. You could even record and post a video invitation to guests on your church website. Be creative and have fun with it!

5. Are your Easter Sunday promotional materials high quality and prepared ahead of time?

Don't miss the opportunity to make a great first impression to visitors by having high quality Easter Sunday promotional materials prepared to distribute to families at the Easter Egg Hunt. Be sure that everyone who attends your Easter Egg Hunt has information on the location and time of your Easter Sunday services. Also, be sure to include your church website on all handouts. Guests will check out your website before attending your church on Sunday.

6. Do you have activities for the entire family?

Invite leaders from your entire Family Ministry department to be part of planning for the Easter Egg Hunt. You could have an Easter Egg Pit for infants and toddlers (fill a toddler pool with Easter eggs and some bunny ears; every mom with an iPhone will love the photo opportunity!), an Easter Egg Roll (in addition to the Easter Egg Hunt) for elementary aged kids, and do some research on Easter Minute To Win It games for teens.

7. Do you have something for parents?

Parents know that they are a secondary thought in festivities like an Easter Egg Hunt, but it’s nice to have something special for parents. If you are hosting your Easter Egg Hunt in the morning, having coffee available so that parents can fuel up for the fun is always appreciated. If it's in the afternoon, sweet iced tea is always a great afternoon pick-me-up. Also, having volunteers who are designated to engage parents in conversation is a great way to build relationships and let guests know more about your church.

8. What’s your follow up plan?

Without a plan on how you are going to engage your guests after the event, hosting an event is worthless. Ensure that you collect information from your guests at check in so that you can follow up with them throughout the week and personally invite them to Easter Sunday at your church.

What questions do you think need to be asked in order to have a successful Easter Egg Hunt?

If you liked this, then you’ll also like 9 Ways To Encourage Your Church Staff This Easter.