What To Do The Week After Easter

It’s the Monday after Easter and you work at a church.  What do you today, and what should you do this week?

Two words:  Follow up.

Make this week all about follow up – following up with those who attended, those who donated money, those who made decisions and those who served.  Here’s a few ideas on how to follow up with four important groups of people.

1.  Follow up with attenders.  

If you’ve written a form letter and are planning to send a copy to every guest, stop the presses.  You don’t read form letters – guests who visit your church won’t either.  Instead, send a personal, hand-written thank you note.  Include a very small card with your website address, or a little bit of information about the next message series, but make your follow up personal.

If you had a bunch of guests, get your staff, youth group, volunteer team or family to write these all at one time.  You don’t have to have it done by today, but do it within a week.

2.  Follow up with donors.

People who gave to your church didn’t’ make a financial decision – they made a spiritual one.  Jesus said our money and heart are connected, and whether they wrote a big check or gave $5, a first-time gift to a church is a big deal.  And you need to say thanks.

Ditch the form letter and send a thank you note.  Better yet, send this.  It’s the perfect combination of personal and powerful.  Thank people for their contribution, and let them know how their donation will be used.

3.  Follow up with decisions.

If someone made a decision to follow Jesus, you need to act quick to give them a next step.  But be careful…don’t load people down with options and action steps.  What’s the ONE THING you want people to do?  Whether it’s get baptized, join a small group or sign up for a class, you need a very clear action step for people who make decisions to follow Jesus.  Send them ONE THING to do.

If you captured contact information, call them.  Make your follow up as personal and as personalized as possible.  The days after someone takes a step of faith are crucial in the discipleship process.

4.  Say thanks to volunteers.

Don’t forget to thank all of the people who gave of their time to make Easter weekend happen.  There are volunteers who didn’t hear the message because they were serving families.  You have greeters who served across multiple services.  You have people who didn’t go to their mom’s church so they could serve.

Too many times, we think since we can’t send a significant gift card to everyone, we can’t send it to anyone.  But volunteers like it when other volunteers are recognized and appreciated.