Most important Sunday of the year?

I work at a church. If you don't care about a local church then you can skip this post. If you do I think you will at least have some thoughts to consider afterwards.

Which Sunday is the most important Sunday of the year for a church?

Most of us would naturally say Easter Sunday, right?

I would agree if I'm asking the question from a Theological perspective then yes, Easter Sunday is the most important.

What if the question is asked from a Missional perspective? Which Sunday is most important in a Church's effort to do what Jesus asked us to do..."Make Disciples"?

I would venture to say that the Sunday After Easter is more important in the life of a local church than Easter is. I have to give credit where credit is due. I didn't always believe this, but after spending a few years around some fantastic church leaders especially Don Wilson (ccvonline.com), I have come to understand this principle

If you work at a church and just finished a Good Friday, Sunrise, and extra services you probably don't want to read this. Go ahead and go back to Facebook it will be OK. My timing isn't that great on this one- most of us just spent so much time and energy making Easter AWESOME we can't imagine next weekend much less a weekend with energy and excitement. Trust me I know I took a nap yesterday and another one today...Easter makes me tired.

But what about all the people who came to your church this Easter?

What if they come back?

Will they find the JV team on display?

What are you doing this week to make them want to come back?

Too often as I interact with church leaders, both paid and volunteers, who look at the week after Easter as a coast week. Let's do the minimum and hope no one notices. I completely understand that you can't run the engine of your church at 7,000 rpm week in and week out, but trust me when I say that the weeks after a huge effort like Easter are not the weeks to let the engine idle. Next year do this for me, actually for the people far from God in your community, figure out the lowest months for Church attendance in your community. Let's say it's, February, then that should be your idle month. Not April. April seems to be a universal and natural growth period for churches. The trick is to figure out ways to make April even bigger, not February, the key to church growth is maximizing the big months and making them bigger.

This week at the church I serve we are kicking off a new series called The Story. Easter was a preview for The Story. Our hope and prayer is that some of the folks who dropped in for Easter are compelled to come back this next week and experience God in a powerful way surrounded in a welcoming environment. You can get some info on The Story here:
http://thestoryflag.com/
http://www.thestory.com/home

If a middle aged father of two who hasn't been to church in 4 years came to your church Easter weekend, how will you get him to come back this week?

If you define success as making all of your church people happy on Easter then you probably won't prioritize the family that only comes 2 or 3 times a year. What if at Easter you did things in such a way you actually motivated them to check out what happens at your church the other 48 weeks a year? The way I look at is that we can't really gauge the effectiveness of our Easter efforts until next Sunday when we see who comes back.

What will you do this week to capture the momentum God granted you yesterday?

Can't Fix Ourselves

This re-post has been edited from the original.

This lesson I'm learning about the inability to manage my sin is powerful.





It is confusing as well. Paul in Colossians 2 says human regulations have an appearance of wisdom "with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." 2:23


Does "self-imposed" mean I'm making myself worship or does it mean I worship myself? What do you think?


I have long understood this model of religion. I grew up in the Bible belt and the typical church wants it members to behave a certain way not be a certain kind of person. If you cuss, smoke, drink, fornicate, or run at church you may go straight to hell if Jesus comes back and catches you. No wonder we are leaving the church in droves after high school, what a happy message.

Think about it this way. Why do we need grace? Because we fall short of God's glory, right? Right. Well if I fall short of God's glory (which I do) then I don't just need grace once, I need it continually. Because the falling, it keeps happening.

Read the book Bo's Cafe, its a great story about how we can't fix ourselves.

http://www.boscafe.com/site/


Behavior modification does hold some value, yes I understand that. But we have to understand it is a tool not the goal. I have to learn this lesson over and over again. Remember if you could fix yourself then you wouldn't need Jesus and his work on the Cross.