Easter is fast approaching and for the church it is one of the most exciting weekends of the year. This is that one weekend that we set aside to celebrate the greatest even in the history of the world – the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is also the best opportunity that we have all year to share the good news of Jesus to many people. More people will come to church on Easter weekend than any other time of the year. So we need to leverage this opportunity to its fullest.
For many years we would make the hub of our Easter promotion putting ads in the newspaper and sending out mailers. But last year we took a paradigm shift and decided that if the number one reason people visit our church is because someone invites them, then instead of spending our promotion monies on newspaper ads and mailings, let’s instead use those monies to help equip our people to make it easier for them to invite their family, friends, co-workers and neighbors.
We did this last year when we designed a special “coffee-style” invite that had inside of it a coupon for a free beverage at Sheetz. This worked wonderful and resulted in the largest weekend attendance in the history of our church with over 2,370 people in attendance. This year we are trying another creative idea that we believe will help to equip our entire church family to be able to invite people they know, especially their neighbors, to our Easter services here at Grace Church this year. We have had made up 1,000 yard signs (like the ever popular campaign yard signs) that simply say this:
FACE YOUR FEARS
www.6fears.net
Face Your Fears is the name of our 6-week message series that we are beginning on Easter as we look at how to deal with 6 real fears that we all face. The first fear that we will talk about on Easter is the fear of death. The website, http://www.6fears.net/, is a special website that we have put together that is designed specifically to draw people to our series and to invite them to attend.
Here is what we are hoping will happen. We would like to see every family that is part of our ministry put one of these signs in their yard 4 weeks prior to Easter weekend. If you own your own business, we would love to see you take a sign for the yard outside your place of business as well. Imagine what will happen for 30 days prior to Easter as people drive around our community and see dozens of these signs every day? We believe curiosity will win out and they will go to our special website where they will be invited to attend Easter at Grace.
And imagine how this will impact your neighbors? When they see this sign in your yard we believe they will either ask you about the sign or they will themselves go to our special website where they will be invited to join us for this practical series that will share that we can have hope even in the midst of our fears. I think many of you will also be surprised at signs that you see in your own neighborhood in front of houses that you had no idea attended here at Grace Church.
This Sunday, March 7th, is when we pass out these yard signs so be sure to get yours!
For many years we would make the hub of our Easter promotion putting ads in the newspaper and sending out mailers. But last year we took a paradigm shift and decided that if the number one reason people visit our church is because someone invites them, then instead of spending our promotion monies on newspaper ads and mailings, let’s instead use those monies to help equip our people to make it easier for them to invite their family, friends, co-workers and neighbors.
We did this last year when we designed a special “coffee-style” invite that had inside of it a coupon for a free beverage at Sheetz. This worked wonderful and resulted in the largest weekend attendance in the history of our church with over 2,370 people in attendance. This year we are trying another creative idea that we believe will help to equip our entire church family to be able to invite people they know, especially their neighbors, to our Easter services here at Grace Church this year. We have had made up 1,000 yard signs (like the ever popular campaign yard signs) that simply say this:
FACE YOUR FEARS
www.6fears.net
Face Your Fears is the name of our 6-week message series that we are beginning on Easter as we look at how to deal with 6 real fears that we all face. The first fear that we will talk about on Easter is the fear of death. The website, http://www.6fears.net/, is a special website that we have put together that is designed specifically to draw people to our series and to invite them to attend.
Here is what we are hoping will happen. We would like to see every family that is part of our ministry put one of these signs in their yard 4 weeks prior to Easter weekend. If you own your own business, we would love to see you take a sign for the yard outside your place of business as well. Imagine what will happen for 30 days prior to Easter as people drive around our community and see dozens of these signs every day? We believe curiosity will win out and they will go to our special website where they will be invited to attend Easter at Grace.
And imagine how this will impact your neighbors? When they see this sign in your yard we believe they will either ask you about the sign or they will themselves go to our special website where they will be invited to join us for this practical series that will share that we can have hope even in the midst of our fears. I think many of you will also be surprised at signs that you see in your own neighborhood in front of houses that you had no idea attended here at Grace Church.
This Sunday, March 7th, is when we pass out these yard signs so be sure to get yours!
6 comments:
Dear Pastor Scott,
Just wanted to let you know what happened with the Face your Fears yard sign I picked up after Church yesterday.
I went home after church yesterday morning and put the sign in the front yard. about 20 min. later as we were getting ready to sit down to lunch my son came into the living room and anounced that the next door neighbor was at the property line and looked like he was trying to see what was in our front yard. About 1 hour later our phone rang and it was our neighbor saying he can't take it any more he could not read the sign from where he was and he and his wife were curious to know what it meant. So I gave him the web site and told him what I knew about it. Meanwhile he repeated the website out loud to his wife so she chould look it up right away. He also asked if you were on TV and that gave me the oportunity to tell him about the Web cast of our services.
We have been living next to these folks for about 12 years and have asked them to church maybe 2 times without sucess but this is the first time they have approached us about spiritual things. Please pray for them. They are great neighbors and our family has grown to love them as our own. It would be great if we could see them grow in thier spiritual lives.
Thanks,
TK
Thanks TK! That is a very exciting story. I have already heard other stories as well where in the first 24 hours of these signs going up, people from Grace were being able to have conversations with their neighbors about what FACE YOUR FEARS was all about. I will be praying for your neighbors to come to Grace Easter weekend!
I think we should have a contest to see who can find the most "Face your Fear" signs in yards in their neighborhood. Especially from people they never knew went to Grace!
Brillant idea - the grand prize cna be going to see Penn State play in the NCAA tournament - Oh, that's right, they won't be in the Big Dance again this year!!!!
well Scott! Thanks for the support!
Only joking
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