Preach A Compelling Easter Sunday Message

Easter Sunday is the most important Sunday of the year as we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. There will be so many people at church: new people, unchurched people, relatives of attenders, people who haven’t attended in a while, and your church family. There’s a lot happening on Easter.

There are several things to consider while working through your Easter message. Keep it short and simple, just focus on the resurrection. Put a lot of effort into your message before that weekend and be sure you’ve internalized it. Give as much thought to getting your guests to come back as you did to your message. Plan the following Sunday’s message or new sermon series, use a promo video to invite people back, and talk about it at the end of your Easter message. The next Sunday’s service should be similar to your Easter message: clean, consistent in sermon length, and have the same type of music set. 

In this episode of Hello Church! we examine the significance of the Easter Sunday sermon and how to craft it, and the importance of your next sermon series as you are inviting your Easter visitors to come back to learn more about Jesus and be part of your community.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Hello Church! Podcast
1:51 Importance of Easter Service
3:36 A Few Things to Consider for Easter Sunday
4:57 A Few Things to Consider About Your Easter Message
11:13 An Example of How to Create Tension for Your New Series
12:51 What Happens After Easter Sunday
14:29 What Are You Doing Following Easter

Resources Mentioned

https://hellochurchpodcast.com/easter

Full Transcript

Wade Bearden:
Welcome to Hello Church. We’re so glad that you’ve tuned into this very special Easter episode. I’m Wade Bearden.

Justin Trapp:
And I’m Justin Trapp. And like Wade mentioned, today we’re going to be talking through. Now season two, Wade, it’s all about the sermon-

Wade Bearden:
Yeah, all about the sermon.

Justin Trapp:
… all aspects of preaching and writing sermons and preparing sermons. Today is a special Easter presentation, if you will of season two about the sermon. We’re going to be talking through how to craft, and things to consider when working through your Easter message. And I’m excited about today. I think it’s going to be a fun conversation.

Wade Bearden:
Yeah, and we want to ask you a question. We want you to comment on YouTube or maybe hit us up on Instagram @hellochurchpod. Here’s the question. How long do you think the Easter sermon should be? Leave your answer in the comments. I’d love to get your thoughts. 20 minutes, 30, 40, 50, whatever it is, we’d love to get your thoughts on that.

Justin Trapp:
And we do have something free for you, and we think this is going to add a lot of value to this conversation today. And we produced a series of videos, trainings with Pastor Luke from Redemption Gateway in Mesa, Arizona. And it’s a series on your best Easter ever, and it’s completely free. And we are just incredibly proud to partner with Pastor Luke on this series. And so you can go to hellochurchpodcast.com/easter, and that’ll take you to the landing page there and you submit your email and we’ll shoot you over those download links. Make sure you take advantage of this. This is a great Easter training. I believe it’s three videos and you’re going to really, really find a lot of value in it.

Wade Bearden:
Yeah. So let’s go ahead and jump on in. Easter Sunday is such an important service. It’s probably the most important service on a Sunday for a church. We’re celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. It’s just incredibly special. As a pastor too, you probably feel this burden or this need to write a great message because there are going to be a lot of people, there are going to be new people who’ve never visited your church before. There’s going to be unchurched people who come with relatives who attend your church.

And then also there are going to be a lot of people who have visited your church over the last year or two years, but haven’t been there in a while. So it’s going to be a full service, a lot of new faces. And you want to make sure that you present the gospel, you tell the Easter story in a compelling way because the story is compelling. It’s life changing, it’s world shattering, and you want an opportunity to share that story and then also invite people to be a part of your community, to come back next week, to join a small group, to give their hearts to Christ. So there’s a lot happening on Easter Sunday.

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, and Easter is really unique in the sense that Easter is one of the biggest services of the year. And then you have Christmas, which is a very well attended time of year as well for churches. I think the difference with Easter though, is a good Christmas series is four to six weeks long. With Easter, it’s usually Easter Sunday, right?

Wade Bearden:
Unless you’re more liturgical, then you can kind of continue the series. But even then, people show up for Easter Sunday. Majority of people are going to be there on Easter Sunday versus the rest of your Easter series, if you choose to do that.

Justin Trapp:
Here’s a few things to consider for Easter Sunday, Wade. The spike in attendance, every church is going to see a spike, right?

Wade Bearden:
Yeah.

Justin Trapp:
The spike in attendance isn’t just all new people, I would say there will be new people for sure, but a lot of the people coming are just, they’ve been coming throughout the year, everyone just commits to come, to attend at the same service.

Wade Bearden:
It’s like whenever you ask a pastor, “Oh, how many people attend your church?” They’re always like, “Well, 500, but they’re not all there at once. It’s only about 300 normally. But then we have 500 people.”

Justin Trapp:
The McDougals and their 12 kids were out on vacation last week, and then the Smiths have been out.

Wade Bearden:
But everybody there, that number-

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, everybody’s there.

Wade Bearden:
… that number is there on Easter Sunday. It’s really important. And then you also want to give as much thought to getting people back and I alluded to this earlier too is, you want people to be a part of your church community. You don’t want them to just show up on Easter Sunday and leave. And so you want to share the gospel, but you want to also send this invitation to be a part of this community, to come back to worship with us next Sunday, to join a small group, its so important. And that’s why like I mentioned, there’s just so much pressure and there’s this burden because it’s like, “Oh man, I really want these individuals to come to Christ, to be a part of this church community.”

Justin Trapp:
Yeah. So here’s a few things to consider specifically about your Easter message. And the first one is, what is preached is more important than who is preaching. When you officiate a wedding, we’ve all done the weddings and been invited to be the minister for a couple that you know kind of, right? Or I had someone call the church and they didn’t know me from Adam, but they just needed a minister to show up. And so I didn’t know these people. That’s actually the great part, right? Because they’re not there. No one is there to see the minister. They’re attending to be a part of the ceremony, right?

Wade Bearden:
Yeah. Have you ever done a ceremony and it goes really well and you’re really funny, and people are like, “Whoa, that that’s really great.” They don’t really expect to remember anything from the ceremony. When you’re preaching on Easter, the message is the most important aspect of it. Now, I think it is good for pastors to maybe share some personal stories or details about their life, so new people can kind of learn more about them. But it really is, it’s about the Easter message. And so that’s what you want to focus on.

You want to focus on what really matters. And the second point too is also keep in mind that there’s going to be a lot of distractions. People are coming and they got up early to get dressed up-

Justin Trapp:
Sunday best, Easter best with the hats.

Wade Bearden:
With everything-

Justin Trapp:
Wearing my white shoes, finally.

Wade Bearden:
They’ve taken time to check their children in for the first time, that they had to fill out all those forms because they’ve never been there before. Well, here’s what I’ve noticed too-

Justin Trapp:
Family pictures.

Wade Bearden:
Family pictures. I’ve noticed too, that people are more likely to bring their children and babies into the service than normal, which is really great. But if that stuff throws you off, you just got to keep in mind, there’re going to be distractions. So what does that mean? That means you got to put a lot of work into your message before that weekend. You need to make sure you’ve internalized the message. You need you to make sure that you’ve worked hard to think through what you’re going to say, to preach to the Bible so that when those distractions come, which they do, it’s life, it’s cool, it also reveals the vibrancy of your church, you’ll be ready, you’ll be prepared.

Justin Trapp:
Another thing is to keep your message simple and short. And we did ask earlier, how long do you think the Easter sermon-

Wade Bearden:
Did we just ask them? And then now we’re telling them the answer?

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, and here’s why. So if you search Google, Easter sermon tips, that’s the search term, you’ll get just a buffet of articles written from very smart people from all over. And we see a lot of great input. But two of the common themes we see or the common tips throughout the majority of these articles are, keep your message simple, keep it short, keep it sweet, right? Because like you mentioned earlier, there’s just lots of distractions, a lot happening. Be precise. You’d rather have a really solid 20 minute message, than a mediocre 35 minute message.

Wade Bearden:
Yeah, and it’s so important, and to be clear on what you want to say, to talk about the resurrection. And then here’s what a lot of people forget is the application of that. Okay, what does that mean for us today? If you can be really clear, and I think that’s what makes Easter, it’s hard sometimes, but it actually makes it easier sometimes because we all know what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about family or finances or this and that, we’re talking about the resurrection of Jesus. If you can just focus in on that, it’s going to reap dividends.

I would also encourage you, this is our next point, is to use stories of life transformation. So I mentioned the application of Easter. So what does Easter mean for us today? Walk through how the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, has transformed the lives of the people around you or has transformed your life. Say, “Hey, this is what it’s all about. This is why we celebrate Easter, because of God’s work in the world.”

Justin Trapp:
Yeah, and I know that having baptisms as a part of your Easter service isn’t directly related to preaching your sermon, but actually goes well with the sermon, from death to life. It’s a real life in the flesh illustration of what you’re about to speak or what you just preached about, so that’s something to consider. Another thing to consider is really about the following week, right? The follow up to Easter. Everyone is going to have a natural bump for Easter. You’re just naturally going to see that bump in attendance, naturally going to see that bump in energy and the lobby level will be a little louder, Easter Sunday, just all the talking, all the new families or families that hadn’t been in a month. And so you want to really work really hard to think through, how can we get everyone to come back next week? Make a part of your Easter metric, not just, “Hey, we had 324 people this Easter Sunday. This is our biggest Easter Sunday ever.”

Make a metric for the following Sunday. The Sunday after Easter, let that be an important metric for you as you consider. And one of the things you could do as it relates to your message is you could say, after you close out the service or at the end of your message, you could say, “Hey, next week, I’m starting a series.” And it could be a series really on anything. But I think I would encourage you to do a series that you feel like’s going to take those people that are new in Christ, next steps. Let’s say they chose to accept Christ. What do we do now? Or you could say, “Hey, we had the most people ever this Easter Sunday. Let’s invite those people back and let’s do a more topical series,” because we know we’re going to have a lot of people in the building.

Maybe it’s on relationships, maybe it’s on marriage, maybe it’s on grief, whatever the case may be. Do something that you feel like’s going to resonate with everybody. And at the end of your Easter message, sort of give a promo, cut a promo for that series or that message. And don’t give away all of the points. Just try to build tension. Try to build curiosity. Try to ask questions. Let’s say you’re going to do a series on forgiveness, for example.

I’m not saying you should after Easter, but you could say at the end of your message, “Hey, have you ever had somebody hurt you? Have you ever had somebody turn on you? They stabbed you in the back, unexpectedly. Maybe they wronged you. They spread gossip that was so hurtful and lied about you. Have you ever experienced that? Next week, I’m going to be talking to anyone that has experienced those things. I’ve experienced some of those things in my life, and I’m going to be sharing how we can work through forgiving those people, even when that’s the last thing that we would ever want to do. And we’re starting a new series next week. And so I’d encourage you to be…” You don’t want to say, “Hey, we’re starting this new series called…”

Wade Bearden:
Karate Chop.

Justin Trapp:
“Karate Chop.”

Wade Bearden:
Next week.

Justin Trapp:
Next week. Cut the video, boys, cue the video. And it’s just like karate chop graphics, that doesn’t build curiosity or attention for anyone. It makes us feel good, like, “Oh, that’s fancy. We created some fancy artwork,” but that doesn’t really connect. So try to, again, and I’m blaring the point here, try to make part of your Easter metrics, one of the metric needs to be how many people come the next week?

Wade Bearden:
Yeah, and a good rule of thumb is to spend about 50% of your time on Easter Sunday, 50% of your time in the whole planning process for what happens next. And one of those points you need to put in there is a follow-up system. How are you going to follow up? There are a lot of different ideas, whether it’s mailout or phone call or text message or email. Whatever it is, just have a system in place, to where when you get all that contact information, people aren’t like, “Oh, what do we do? And who’s going to do that?”

You say, “Okay, we already have the individuals in place. We already know what we’re going to do. We’re going to give them a gift, or we’re going to give them a call or whatever. We’re going to make it happen. And here are the people that are going to do it.” So spend 50% on Easter Sunday, 50% on what comes afterwards. And if you focus on that, I think it’s really going to pay huge dividends and help people to be included and help people to come back to your community, your church community.

Justin Trapp:
And I’ll say this, and this is our final point here, but the week after Easter, should be clean and organized, just like Easter Sunday was. And that’s really a challenge to us as communicators. We say, “Hey, how long should the Easter sermon be?” But what we’re really seeing is how long should the sermon be, right? Because you don’t want to preach a 20 minute sermon on Easter, and they come back the next week and you’re 45 minutes. They’re just like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened?” So you try to be consistent with your sermons, with the worship set, with the service overall, with the whole experience for new people, especially, because that’s going to make a big difference in whether they come back the following months or weeks.

Wade Bearden:
We hope that these tips have been helpful. Make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube if you haven’t done so already and comment on YouTube or maybe send us a message through Instagram, HelloChurchPod or on Twitter #HelloChurchPod, and let us know what you do to prepare for Easter or the weeks coming after Easter.

Justin Trapp:
And we do have that free Easter series, it’s your best Easter ever with Pastor Luke. It’s going to be at hellochurchpodcast.com/Easter, or if you’re lazy like me, you can just click it in show notes and it’ll take you straight to it.

Wade Bearden:
There it is.

Justin Trapp:
We appreciate everybody joining us for Hello Church, we’ll see you next time.

Wade Bearden:
See you.