The cross is empty, the tomb is empty and – on Easter – churches are full. Alleluia!

Over the past few weeks I've been reflecting on the Easter Sunday experience, both from an in-person and an online perspective. For most of us, there were a lot more people in attendance than usual and many of them may have been people you haven’t seen in a while – or ever. There was special music and more musicians, and more flowers and other décor. The staff was busy and you recruited more volunteers. Everyone was probably a little dressier than usual – ladies and girls in Easter dresses; men and boys in Easter suits. You may even have had a special meal or brunch for everyone.

Now – what about the weeks after Easter? Easter Sunday is definitely an important Sunday in the year of the Church, but it’s not the only Sunday. Every Sunday is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, even the Sundays during Lent. What if every Sunday at your church had the same attendance and engagement as Easter Sunday? (If they do, I’d sure like to hear about it!) What if Easter led to a higher average weekly attendance or higher engagement on your website and social platforms for the rest of the year? Let’s see how that might play out.

CELEBRATE!

First and foremost – celebrate that you were able to share the news of the resurrection with so many people. Celebrate that God provided resources and energy and wisdom to help you conduct services on Easter and host as many people as you did. Celebrate the many talents of the individuals that came together to share their special calling in God’s kingdom. Celebrate the challenges you faced and overcame, or at least endured.

EVALUATE

We’ve been told experience is the best teacher. Actually, it is evaluated experience that enables us to learn. After every weekend, and Easter weekend especially, take some time to review how things went. What worked? What didn’t work? What needs work? What needs to go away? What needs to be added? Going through these exercises together will strengthen your team and help you grow in faith and be the hands and feet of Christ.

If you were to plot the weekly attendance for your church over the course of a year, you probably wouldn't learn anything you didn't already know - there is a spike in attendance on Easter and Christmas, and maybe, a bit of a bump on Mother's Day and Father's Day. Then, attendance drops off during the summer.

Visits to church websites follow the same pattern - they peak at Easter and Christmas. Internet searches for 'church' and 'jesus' also peak during Easter and Christmas. So do searches for 'ham' and 'eggs' - but of all those, 'church' has the highest search volume over the entire year, worldwide.

On-site activities definitely require more effort and resources than your website and social media pages do in preparation for Easter. Know this, though – your website and online profiles saw just as large an increase in visits and interaction as your worship space did. How well did they perform? How could they have done better?

Everyone attending services or watching online was looking for something. Everyone visiting your website and social media pages before Easter was looking for something. It’s fair to assume that people visiting your website came there as a result of a search, probably for “Easter services near me”. Let’s not just assume – let’s look at some things that are measurable. To give yourselves some benchmarks and a basis for comparison, look at these for the past year, excluding Easter, and for the week preceding Easter.

• What was the average number of visits to your website each week to your website?

• How many times did you appear in search results each week?

• What were the most common search terms that were used where your website was among the results?

• How much time did people spend on your site during each visit?

• How many visitors were new visitors? returning visitors?

• What were the top 3 visited pages on your site?

On average, you have less than a minute to convey your message and answer their questions. So, when they land on your website, how easy is it to find answers to their top questions (search terms)? Visit the top 3 pages on your site and see how long it takes to read each of them.

What are you measuring, and why? What things would you like to know about the people visiting your church, your website, viewing your social media posts, and reading your emails? Having ways to measure results provides ways to evaluate the steps you took. We want to go beyond the numbers – number of attendees during worship services, number of website visits, and number of social media post likes. Those are the ‘what'. Be sure to focus on the 'why'.

DEDICATE

Your website and social channels can be an active part of your ministry – when you dedicate time and resources to them. Deliberately dedicate time, people, prayer, and financial resources to reviewing and updating your Easter message well in advance of next Easter.

It will be much easier to show up in search results next Easter if you have related content on your site all year long. Update it as the day approaches – Easter service times should only be listed in the days and weeks leading up to Easter Sunday so your regular worship times are accurate.

I'm pretty confident if someone is searching for a church to attend on Easter or Christmas they will find one. Will they experience something that will bring them back to church the following week or in the middle of July? Make a note to ask yourselves these questions throughout the year with this in mind - it is our mission to bring the church to more people, not just bring more people to church.