Easter is Over. Now What?
The Christian church just wrapped up one of the busiest weekends of our year. Community outreaches and egg hunts and extra services and cantatas and new volunteers and sunrise services and special sermons and stage sets and spare folding chairs all combined into a spring stew of stressful details.
And now it’s done. And you’re still a bit on the exhausted side. Your feet haven’t quite recovered from the extra steps you took. Your mind hasn’t fully processed all of the conversations you had and all of the guests you need to follow up with.
But as another weekend looms on the horizon, there’s a question that deserves to be asked: now what? Easter-as-an-observance won’t be back for 355 days. That’s 50 kind-of-normal Sundays between now and then. 50 Sundays to take your foot off the gas and get back to business as usual.
But should you?
I’ve been a part of many conversations over the last few weeks about the prep involved for Easter weekend. At our church and thousands of others, no detail was left undone. Every quality-control check was indulged. Special touches were added, and all of it for one weekend.
And it’s true: your attendance won’t be the same this weekend as it was on Easter. Not all of the first-time guests that showed up last week will show up again this week. Or maybe ever. But some of them will. And new guests will join them. And I have this crazy belief that those folks deserve your attention to the details they’ll see and experience for the first time, as well.
Easter may be over. But the celebration of the resurrection continues. So this weekend, don’t give yourself a pass just because your “Super Bowl” has passed. Instead, rally your volunteers to the front lines again. Plan for first-time guests again. Pay attention to the details again. Point people to the cross and the empty tomb again.
You gave your best last weekend. Do it again this weekend. The church of Jesus deserves no less.
