Easter · start about 6 weeks out

The Easter Media Plan

Four weeks of work that make Easter morning feel prepared, for the people visiting it for the first time.

Easter brings more first-time guests than any other Sunday of the year. Most of them have already decided something about your church before they park. They looked you up on a phone, at night, probably from bed, and what they found either answered their questions or left them guessing.

Here is the part that catches most teams off guard. Almost nothing a first-time guest needs from you is creative. They need a service time they can trust. They need to know where to put the car. They need to know what happens to their four-year-old, and whether anyone will ask them to stand up and introduce themselves. The design matters, but it matters because it carries that information without making them work for it.

So this plan starts six weeks out and works in that order. The heart of the season first, because that is what everything else is in service of. Then your own people, because a personal invitation still does more than any post. Then the visitor, whose whole experience begins on a phone screen days before they ever see your building.

The plan

4 blocks of work, starting about 6 weeks out

Week 1

Say what Easter means before you say when it starts

Start with the heart of the season and nothing else. No service times yet, no parking map, no invite graphic. Give your church a week of hearing why this Sunday matters before you ask them to do anything about it. This is also the week your visual direction gets set, so decide the look now and stop relitigating it in March.

A single Easter key art: one image, one typographic treatment, sized for a sermon slide, a web banner, and a square social post
A pastor's letter or short video, two minutes at most, on why your church observes Easter the way it does
One social post carrying the theme with no logistics attached to it
The Easter date and service times confirmed in writing with everyone who will need them later, even though you are not publishing them yet

Week 2

Make it easy for one person to invite one person

The most effective Easter invitation is still someone saying a name out loud. Your job this week is to remove every reason not to. That means an invitation your people are not embarrassed to send, that carries the details so they do not have to type them, and that works in a text message rather than only on a wall.

A share graphic sized for a phone, with the service time and address readable at thumbnail size
A short shareable video, under thirty seconds, that works with the sound off
A printed invite card if your congregation actually hands things to people, and honestly skip it if they do not
A one-screen page on your site the invite links to, with times, address, and a map, and nothing else competing for attention
A two-line script your people can copy and paste into a text

Week 3

Tell a visitor exactly what will happen

This is the week you write for the person who has never been in your building. Assume they know nothing and will not ask. What time to arrive, which door, what happens with their kids, how long the service runs, and what they should wear. Answering these plainly is not beneath the design. It is the reason the design exists.

A 'what to expect' page on your site: arrival, parking, kids check-in, service length, dress
A parking and entrance graphic that reads as a map rather than an announcement
A kids check-in explainer, written for a parent who is nervous about handing over a child to strangers
A short walkthrough video shot on a phone, from the parking lot to a seat, so a visitor has already seen the building once
Updated hours and Easter service times on your map listing and anywhere else your church appears online

Week 4

Build the excitement and close the last gaps

The final stretch is momentum plus cleanup. Post the countdown and the anticipation, but spend the same energy checking that every place a stranger might look says the same thing. Conflicting service times are the most common way a prepared Easter still feels unprepared, and they are almost always found in a place nobody thought to check.

A countdown series for the final week, each one carrying the time and location
A single pinned or featured post with all service times in one image
An email to your list with times, parking, and the what-to-expect link
A cross-check pass: website, map listing, social bios, voicemail greeting, building signage, and any printed piece still in circulation
Volunteer-facing assets: a parking team map, a greeter script, and a run of show with times
Your capture plan for the morning itself, so you leave with photos and clips instead of wishing you had

If Easter is closer than four weeks away

Most people reading this are not six weeks out. That is normal and it is workable. Skip the plan and do these, in this order, and stop when you run out of time.

First, make the service times correct everywhere a stranger could find them. Website, map listing, social bios. This is the highest-value hour you have and it needs no design work at all.

Second, publish one page or one post that answers arrival, parking, and kids. Plain text is fine. A visitor would rather read an unstyled paragraph that answers the question than admire a graphic that does not.

Third, make one share graphic with the time and address readable on a phone, and put it in your people's hands with a sentence they can copy. One good invite asset beats a full set you did not finish.

That is the whole emergency version. If you get those three done, Easter morning will feel prepared to the people who matter most on it, and the rest of this plan will still be here next year.

Get the follow-ups

Want this as a series of emails?

The plan above is the whole thing and it is yours either way. If it is easier to work through one piece at a time, we will send it as a short series so each part arrives when you need it.