How To Engage With & Retain Your Easter Visitors

In the Christian world, there’s a category of churchgoers who fall into the “Easter and Christmas” category. These people may identify as a Christian, but only attend church twice a year. What keeps them coming back every year? It may be tradition, family, or obligation, but with the right perspective, they could be the very people on the brink of a whole new way of life.

Many pastors spend a lot of time thinking about how to keep these visitors coming back to church. How can you engage them in a way that gets their attention? Your Easter service may be a perfect time to do this. Easter is a beloved time of year - regardless of your faith walk - because, like Christmas, the traditions often have nostalgic value for people. But what if in addition to the tradition, your church could be an example of what Christian community looks like for these twice-a-year guests?

Here are some practical ways you and your church can celebrate Easter with intentionality for reaching your new visitors.

1. Practice giving yourself away in radical ways.

As a church body, it can be incredibly helpful to define your values. For many churches, something they claim to value is selflessness. But it's important to ask whether selflessness is actually something you remember and are willing to practice in big and small ways.

On busy holidays, when the parking lot is overflowing and there is not an abundance of spaces to accommodate the regular members and the visitors, your members have an easy opportunity to be selfless. You can encourage members to park farther away and either walk the extra distance; this can be a tangible and practical way of practicing radical generosity toward our guests.

Give up your parking space? It seems like a simple thing and yet, when you’re running late and it's humid and your kid is uncomfortable in their new Easter shoes, it may feel like a bigger sacrifice than it appears.

Encourage your church to practice similar radical ways of being generous. Giving up parking spaces, choosing the seats in the back of the sanctuary, consciously being last in the potluck line, or being the first to welcome visitors are all small things that will leave a big impression on a new person to your church. 

2. Remember to celebrate the season of Easter, not just the day. 

We celebrate Christmas as a season from December 1 to the 25th, but Easter doesn’t always get the same kind of attention. But the truth is Easter and the liturgical season of Lent before it has a rich history. It can be a time of reflection and spiritual formation. It might even be that programming in the weeks leading up to Easter will engage visitors who might otherwise only show up on Easter morning. Examples of this include a published devotional, prayer calendars in the church insert, or special music services.

3. Plan activities that emphasize community & encourage follow-up experiences.

In the same way that celebrating Easter as a season and not just a day can bring visitors to your church on a regular basis and encourage them to stick around, planning church activities that emphasize community is another great way to engage visitors. For adults with children, things like Easter egg hunts or church-wide meals provide tons of opportunities for moms and dads to find themselves standing next to visitors who might have come because they were searching specifically for an egg hunt for their child. Strike up a conversation, offer to invite them to lunch after or to your community group, or even exchange contact information to grab coffee later.

Look at Easter from a visitor’s perspective. When community is emphasized in your church, it gives guests a taste of what Christian fellowship is like. And the hope is that new people who come through your doors will want more of that, even after Easter is over.