Easter Sunday 2024—Online preparation tips

Easter Sunday church services are one of the biggest events of the year for any church, and it’s an incredibly important opportunity to engage your community! It’s also the best time to make the truth of Jesus known by sharing gospel content and expanding your reach to first-time visitors.

How can churches prepare for a successful Easter service that connects with guests and members alike? Here are 10 tips for getting your digital tools ready to effectively engage your audience on Easter Sunday and beyond.

1. Update your church website & mobile app

Your church’s website acts as the digital doorstep to your church, introducing new visitors to who you are. Your church app is more like your church's living room, a place where people can gather to listen to sermons, have conversations, sign up for small groups, and go deeper in their discipleship journey.

Making sure your site and church app are up to date and easy to navigate gives regular members and newcomers a convenient way to learn about your mission, explore ministries and programs, and become part of your community.

For the weeks leading up to Easter, be sure to include information that makes it very clear:

  • Where your church is located
  • When services are happening
  • What to expect when visiting the church
  • Why they should be excited to come & visit

2. Create dedicated Easter webpages & app tabs

Adding an Easter page to your website and an Easter tab to your app keeps the focus where it should be leading up to Easter. Use engaging Easter images to set the mood and add relevant media to build excitement. Help your community know what to expect during Easter-specific events, where everything will take place, and how service times might vary from your normal schedule. These details can go a long way in making a great first impression with new visitors, and will also be helpful to your established community that celebrates with you year after year.

3. Add digital connect cards & bulletins

Digital bulletins and connect cards are also important tools to add to your mobile app and website. Connect cards (or “visitor cards”) allow you to connect with online visitors on or before Easter, as well as giving you the opportunity to stay connected long after Easter. Digital bulletins allow online guests to know current and upcoming events, and adding them to your app and website is much more accessible and cost-effective than printing out hundreds or thousands of paper bulletins.

Reach more people this Easter with live streaming

4. Reach your audience with live streaming

Even for those who are unable to attend your service in person, watching your Easter live stream can bring them into the celebration and help them feel like they’re part of your community. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to stream your Easter service online to your website and mobile app—and setting up syndication to Facebook Live and YouTube Live is simple as well. Subsplash Live allows you to reach the broadest audience possible while sharing the wonderful Easter experience with your online community!

5. Share special events

It’s not uncommon for churches to mix things up with their weekly schedules around Lent, Good Friday, and Easter. And in this day and age, everyone will be looking to your digital channels for the most current information. One of the best ways to make sure your community stays up to date with changes or additions to your service times is by adding special events to your church’s website and custom mobile app.

Managing your events calendar through the Subsplash Platform makes this process as simple as possible. With just a few clicks, your new events will automatically update across every device and channel! Plus, sharing is automatically enabled so that your community can share your events on social media, through text messaging, and more directly from your app or website.

Add Easter Sunday media to your app and website

6. Upload Easter content & media

A powerful way to get your community ready for Easter is by uploading and sharing your sermon videos, audio, and media. Regularly updated media on your website and custom mobile app encourages your audience to stay engaged. You can also create a custom reading plan focused on Easter Sunday Bible verses. Creating daily video and audio podcasts with short Easter-focused messages is another great way to regularly connect with your community and build up to your community-wide celebration on Easter Sunday.

Looking for free inspirational resources to help prepare for Easter celebrations? Download our free Easter Media Kit to get beautiful, customizable graphics and videos to take your Sunday services to the next level!

Just like anything you create in the Subsplash Dashboard, one-click publishing puts your Easter media items everywhere all at once—your mobile app, TV app, website, and more. This seamlessly allows you to get meaningful content in front of your audience regardless of their location or device. 

7. Promote your app

Make sure your community knows they can stay connected with you in the midst of their busy lives through your custom mobile app! Your app can act as a valuable companion to your Easter service, where people can fill out a connection card, take notes, give a donation, and go deeper in community.

You can help people get your app onto their devices with announcements from the stage, slides during services, social media, and links to the app stores from your website. If you’re already using the Subsplash Platform, simply log in to your dashboard to start using the App Promo web integration—another great tool that makes it even easier to bring in new app users this Easter and beyond!

Promoting your app again on Easter weekend is especially important for reaching any first-time visitors, who will now leave your Easter service with a powerful tool to stay connected with meaningful content and important information about your ministry.

How to use Easter push notifications

8. Utilize push notifications

Push notifications are an effective tool for fostering connection, reaching your community directly on their mobile devices, wherever they’re located. They’re an efficient, immediate, and accessible way to inform your audience!

Before Easter, you can send push notifications with event reminders, Easter Bible verses, inspirational Easter quotes, and more. Here are some examples of how to use push notifications to engage your community before Easter. Feel free to copy, paste, and customize these messages to set up your own push notifications in the Subsplash Dashboard! 

  • “We’re collecting cans for our Lenten Food Drive! Learn more and donate here.” 
  • “Check out the new Easter tab in our app to stay up to date on what we have in store.”
  • “Don’t forget to join us for an Easter egg hunt tomorrow at 10 a.m.”

After your Easter weekend services, simple messages—“Thanks for celebrating with us on Easter! We’re so glad you could join us”—offer encouragement and prompt visitors to return for another service. Be sure to include media items, like the sermon, or a giving link if you want to remind your audience about recent messages or give them the opportunity to donate.

It's also a good idea to schedule recurring push notifications to remind people of upcoming services each week. You can even include links to your website, live stream, and other content.

Create relationships this Easter with Subsplash Messaging!

9. Connect your community with group messaging

Easter is a great time to give your church a new home for communication that builds connections. Whether sharing a prayer request, coordinating small group leaders, or simply discussing a recent sermon, adding Subsplash Messaging to your mobile app or web browser helps create authentic relationships among your community. You can easily centralize your communications in one place by offering unlimited messages and channels, file sharing, emojis and animated GIFs, along with built-in privacy and security.

With all of the excitement that the Easter season brings, it’s easy to lose track of all of the conversations happening across various social media platforms and text messages. This is why Subsplash Messaging quickly becomes an essential communication tool for your church community. For example, with a couple clicks, you can create a dedicated channel for your Easter service teams, allowing them to plan, coordinate, and stay connected in real time. This allows you to follow conversations and know exactly where to look for up-to-the-minute information. 

10. Set up online giving

While Easter guests are not usually expected to give to the church, they may feel inclined to make a donation while visiting. However, most people do not carry much cash or checks anymore, so it’s imperative to offer them online giving options. On average, churches see a 32% overall increase in donations after they start offering online giving.

Adding Subsplash Giving for your church this Easter is quick and simple, and it enables your church members and guests to show their generosity in supporting your mission. With Subsplash Giving, your church community can give anytime from anywhere through your church website, mobile app, and text giving—all with no monthly fees.

Easter is a wonderful time of year to honor the resurrection of Christ and to spread the good word! We’re honored to partner with you during this season and beyond to increase engagement, expand your reach, and make more disciples.

If you’re not already leveraging the power of Subsplash One, [.blog-contact-cta]let’s chat![.blog-contact-cta]

Already a client? Get more ideas about how to maximize the Subsplash Platform by scheduling a free consultation with your Client Success Manager! 

Author

Jeff Harvey, Guest Author
www.subsplash.com

Jeff lives in Austin, TX and is a husband, father, and bonsai enthusiast. He’s served churches for over 20 years as a pastor, teacher, and missionary. He also holds a MBA from George Fox University and is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

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