A number of years ago, George Barna released one of the results of his studies where he found that over 46% of the random audience surveyed did not know the true meaning of the word "Easter."
I would imagine that statistic hasn't changed much if at all since then.
To most people, Easter is about bunnies, chocolates, and spring flowers. And though we enjoy those things, it's important to remember that Easter is about the pivotable event of cosmic history when the incarnate son of God rose bodily from the grave after giving his life as a payment for our sins.
I'm not writing this as a hand-wringing, oh isn't the world awful observation. For church communicators, it poses some serious challenges. Let's look at them along with some suggested changes.
We need to remember that our audience probably doesn't give the same meaning to religious terms we do
Let's get practical. In looking at many designs church communicators are sharing online, including the ones from some of the major marketing groups, it seems like the majority of them prominently feature the word "Easter" with a variety of designs often surrounded by flowers or colored designs. They all look good, but what do they communicate?
Taken out of the context of a church or the image being on a Christian marketing site, images like these could all be used to advertise an Easter brunch or clothing sale or any sort of spring event. We can't assume the term means anything more to people outside the church.
To those of us who love Jesus and celebrate his resurrection, the word Easter is filled with meaning. But we need to remember that the word alone does not have the same depth of meaning to many of the people your church wants to reach at Easter.
Be careful of bait and switch
None of us would do this intentionally, but if we are advertising happy, upbeat, Easter images and invite people to things like free brunch, a petty zoo, and egg hunt for the kids, when and how do we switch to what it's really about?
There aren't easy answers. You don't need to include the history of humanity's sin and God's careful biblical plan leading to the life and death of Jesus on your postcard. But I do think it helps if we give people an idea of what Easter is about when we advertise for them to come to our church events.
A few years ago I created the following invitation cards that might be useful. They are all available for free in the ECC TEMPLATES.
The idea behind them was to touch the needs or questions people have and to let them know that coming to the church Easter service might perhaps answer some of these questions. Below the pictures of the cards, I've put the text on them and you are free to use it however you want (email, social media, whatever) to share the real meaning of Easter.
To download the editable, free templates for these cards, go to this link: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/easter-templates/#toc-2
Here is the text that was on the cards:
How is Easter about the cross and a bunny?
It makes much more sense than you might imagine.
In many cultures, bunnies symbolize life, rebirth, and the tradition of a spring
bunny bringing gifts to children.
The cross, though once a tool for a
tortured death, because of Jesus, has
become the symbol of eternal life,
possible because Jesus rose from the dead.
The Easter bunny tells a story of abundant life, giving,
joyful living, pictures of the reality that Jesus made
possible on the cross.
Join us for our Easter celebration—we’ve got bunnies and candy for the child in all of us, but we’ll also share about the creator of bunnies, and all things joyful and life-giving—Jesus.
imagine the darkness between the friday jesus died and easter sunday—maybe it’s like your darkness now
how dark is your life?
have you lost your
job, security?
money, status?
friends, family?
health, happiness?
hope?
when jesus died, the disciples lost
their leader, healer, friend, future
they hid in fear, without hope.
but the dawn came on the third day
and everything changed.
It can change for you—join us this Easter
and let us share how.
Why Easter?
Music is inspiring and candy is delicious, but we’d like to invite you to a serious presentation and opportunity for discussion about the true meaning of Easter.
No gimmicks, fluff, or marketing an empty message.
We believe that Jesus lived, died, and bodily rose from death. We have historical, legal, philosophical, and scientific reasons why we believe this and we would like to share them with you.
Not to win an argument, but because we believe the eternal destiny of every person depends on how you respond.
Join us on Easter and find out more.
Looking for something this Easter?
We all are.
It may not be as obvious as a child’s search for candy and Easter eggs, but we all search for something often undefined, but never gone from the whispers in our mind when all around us is quiet.
To satisfy our search we collect experiences, toys, relationships, but after all that, often come to the same conclusion as did C.S. Lewis:
If I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
Easter is about the other world, the other life Jesus makes possible.
Join us this Easter to find out more.
BE FOUND
Most of us go through life searching for something—
Success
Love
Experiences
Self-fulfillment
….all good things, but seldom do we quit searching even after we find them.
The extraordinary news of Easter is that life is that we can quit searching and allow ourselves to be found by Jesus.
That’s what He died and conquered death for—to bring the creation He loved back into a relationship with our Creator.
This Easter join us and learn to rest and learn what it means to let Jesus find you.
Easter is about so much more than you can imagine
What do you think your life would be like if you believed in Jesus?
Boring? Constricted? An endless series of don’t do this or that? Intellectual suicide?
At Easter, consider. . . .
Christians claim that Jesus conquered death. If that’s true imagine what it would mean to become a friend and
follower of Jesus, Someone, totally and eternally ALIVE?
Someone who spoke and the worlds, galaxies, stars, and starfish, came into being?
Someone who, when he walked the earth, played with
children, was a great party guest, healed sick people, loved enough to die for all of us.
Challenging, exciting, never-ending and never alone—more than you can ever imagine is the life you can
discover this Easter, in Jesus.
Experience Hope
It seemed hopeless when the disciples of Jesus said,
“It’s been three days.”
Three days since they saw him
die.
Three days.
Three days may not seem like much, but it is an eternity
when every hope you had for the future died when
Jesus died.
What they didn’t know was that the morning of the
third day Jesus broke the shackles of sin and death and
is forever alive.
They just didn’t know it yet.
The resurrection is true.
Hope is alive!
Join us on Easter and let us share the good news of
hope forever with you.
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions!