Point to Jesus this Easter
This video is the free webinar we hosted to help churches and individuals to Point to Jesus this Easter, you can watch now, and check out our ideas and resources below.
Here at 10ofThose we want to help people to reach out in their communities with the good news of Jesus, and what better opportunity to do that than Easter?
We’ll think about 3 distinct groups of people, core, congregation and community.
The core group are those who are regular attenders of your church, Christians who are committed in their faith, and seeking to grow in their relationship with God.
The congregation group are those who are linked into the church and it’s ministries, but who may be sporadic attenders and their faith may be unclear.
The community group are those who are outside of these two groups. You may have no direct link or contact with them, but there are still ways we can reach out to them this Easter.
Core – Ideas
Devotionals
Lent, just like Advent, is a time for reflection, and presents us with a great opportunity to seek out daily opportunities to get to know God better. Choosing a time like Lent to start a new habit of family devotions could be great motivation.
Lent is 47 days in length, 40 when we take out the Sundays.
Devotional Dippers (Prayer/Names of God/Key Bible Words )are great for families, and with 40 dippers in a pack are a great option for Lent. Just pull out a dipper, read the verse, question, and prayer, and discuss in as much detail as your family feels appropriate.
Darkest Night & Brightest Day is a unique two sided book, which looks at the events leading up to Jesus’ death, followed by the resurrection and events through to Pentecost. Designed to be read for 7 days up to Easter Sunday, and 7 days post Easter, it would also work as a weekly devotion throughout lent, and then in the weeks up to Pentecost Sunday.
A Jesus Easter is another option for family devotions, covering 30 days (start the month before Easter, or start at the beginning of Lent and have some wiggle room) it starts in Genesis, and traces through how Jesus’ death and resurrection were always God’s plan for salvation.
These small devotions, Who is Who and Trust God and Don’t be Afraid, each 40 days, would work well for teens who are not in the habit of doing daily devotions.
The Grand Tour would be a great way to get teens to focus on mission in the run up to, and the weeks following Lent. 90 days will take you from the first Sunday in Lent, all the way to Pentecost Sunday, inspiring young people to have a heart for local and overseas mission. Written by AsiaLink, each day focuses on a different country in Asia.
For the whole church we recommend From Glory into Glory. New this year, it looks at John chapters 13–21, and runs from Ash Wednesday through to the Sunday after Easter. There is a real benefit to reading together as a whole church, which is why we make it available from as little as £1 a copy.
If you missed last year’s Lent devotional you can also pick up a copy of Forgiven, Tim Chester, which uses Hebrews as the focus. Again, available in bulk for churches to enjoy together from just £1 a copy.
A lovely visual way to meditate on God’s word this easter is with Reflections for Easter, 16 hand crafted postcards, displayed in an elegant beech display stand.
If your church are looking for a more practical course for Easter, then Learn the Gospel, or Come and See would be a really great option.
Learn the Gospel seeks to equip Christians with a clear understanding of the gospel, that they may share it well.
Come and See uses 10 sessions to ground people in the theology and history of mission, leading to a church that understands and is passionate about spreading the good news.
Congregation – Ideas
Pancake party – whether it’s your primary group, or youth club, pancakes tend to be a great opportunity to invite people into the church. Make it a ‘bring a friend’ week, or invite families in and have a pancake flipping race, there are so many ways to engage around this, but don’t forget to explain the origins of lent, and also what it is we’re getting ready for!
Lent Bags – Why not bless families with a lent bag containing weekly activities to do. It could be a simple prayer or craft for each week, and an invitation to an Easter service or event. Running a competition or encouraging people to bring completed activities to the final event is a great way to increase engagement. Perhaps you could encourage your families to write out 40 things they can do to show love to others during lent. Together @ Home have created a great PDF if you can’t think of what you could be doing.
Easter Parties – At your final session before Easter you could pass out invitations to any special services or events going on, or invite parents in to watch a recap of what the children have been learning this term. This could be a great opportunity to come alongside parents from outside the church, and hand out both children and adults resources which share the gospel.
Top Kids Resources for Easter
Love Came Down Activity book, for 4–7s, provides an overview of Genesis to Revelation using John 3:16 as a basis.
Gospel Activities is a great book for 7–11s, with colouring, spot the difference and various other activities based covering the Easter story. (We even have copies in Ukrainian)
Great Kids Giveaway Books
It was so encouraging to hear from Tim about a family who commented at Christmas that they had read their Easter book almost every night since being given it.
Alison Brewis’ most recent rhyming book, The Topsy Turvy King, is a perfect book to give out this easter. Jesus confounds the disciples expectations of what a mighty King would be like, and the story helps children to realise that Jesus isn’t the type of king they may expect, but he’s exactly the king they need.
Top Giveaway Books for adults
New this year is 3 Days that Changed the World from Roger Carswell. Written evangelistically, this short book talks through how the three most significant days in history are those when Jesus was crucified for our sins, was buried, and then rose again triumphant from the grave, having conquered both sin and death.
A favourite for many is Your Verdict on the Empty Tomb, a helpful book giving evidence for, and perspective on Jesus’ resurrection. Our guest Tim Wilson talked about the impact of this book on someone who then began to attend their church.
We also have a number of other suitable evangelistic titles including Divine Comedy: Human Tragedy, Easter the Greatest News, Heaven How I Got Here and The King, the Cross and the Meaning of Easter.
For all of your events we would love to see those taking part able to take home a book or prize which will continue to point them to Jesus long after the event has finished. These amazing books can all be bought for as little as £1 a copy.
Community – Ideas
When thinking about how to reach out further in your community sometimes we have to be creative. What will be successful in one area, may not in another.
Our top suggestions for Easter:
Easter Experience
Using 6 stations or locations children and families explore the easter story, with hands on activities or acted out portions of scripture. This could be done in your church, or taken on the road to local schools.
Lost Sheep Trial
If you have a team of knitters who can make a small flock, you can then hide these around your community to be found. If you’d prefer you could have people from your church put up a sheep poster in their window, and see how many people can find them. Those taking part could be offered one of our rhyming gospel books, The Lost Sheep.
Easter Treasure Hunt
Plan a treasure hunt around your church grounds, or a local park ending with a prize pack including a book which shares the gospel, and some sweets or treats.
Easter fun day
If you have the man power you could host a fun day with free activities (face painting, simple games, bouncy castles etc) and a short talk, and including invitations to your normal ministries and services.
Handel’s Messiah
Whether you are able to hold your own performance of The Messiah, or hand out tracts at a public performance of it, the opportunity it presents is not to be missed.
Craft Event
If you have someone who is suited to running a craft event for people to come along to– whether planting a garden tomb plant pot, baking and decorating a simnel cake, or painting a canvas, simple free events like these can be an effective platform for the gospel.
Easter Cards to care homes
Sending a hand written card to each resident in a local care home, with a tract enclosed, is a very simple way of impacting a large number of people who may otherwise get no outside contact. I also suggest getting a large box of chocolates to give to the staff along with a thank you card for their hard work.
Go day or Open air work
If your church doesn’t currently engage in any open air work in your local town or city, then a ‘Go day’ as described by Roger is a great idea. Starting with prayer and some simple training back at the church, followed by time spent giving out tracts and perhaps a simple literature table is a great way to start conversations and come alongside people in your community.
Thank you gifts for service providers
Having a small evangelistic book to give away along with some chocolate at Easter is a great way to show our service providers like delivery drivers, milk men, window cleaners etc, our thankfulness, and also highlight to them that Easter is a significant time for us.
Life Magazine Distribution
This high quality magazine contains a mixture of evangelistic content and other articles. Included are testimonies, money saving advice, gospel tracts, household projects, activity pages for adults and children as well as other evangelistic articles. We also can arrange to have your details printed onto the magazine and distribution by Royal Mail when ordering for your postal area.
We’ve even put together this amazing value Easter Giveaway bundle of books for adults and children, to enable even those on the most modest budget to be able to share the good news.
Gospels, New Testaments, Bibles and Foreign language scripture
Obviously, we would always encourage people to have portions of scripture available, and we have some really economical options available.
Follow up
Once Easter is over, how will you be following up your contacts?
For adults we recommend The Word One to One, Hope Explored and Christianity Explored.
What about the Coronation?
The King’s Coronation presents us with further opportunities to share the gospel and interact with people in our communities.
Whether it’s taking part in a street party, big lunch or other community activity, we suggest using God Save the King, a specially produced Coronation tract widely. Who will be King is a tract for children explaining the Two Ways to Live gospel outline, and our new book, The Topsy Turvy King is also perfect to highlight just how different Jesus is to the kings of this world.
We hope you’ve found this helpful, and we pray that many would be pointed to Jesus this Easter.
