[WARNING: Satire alert!]
Lots of church
insiders speculate beforehand and brag afterwards about the Easter worship
attendance. But in my almost 20 years of
ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I’ve simply never known
for Easter attendance to be all that great.
Oh sure! There’s the odd visitor or two. But I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of a
congregation that gets consistent growth in worship attendance for Easter!
I’ve wondered for
years why this is, because everyone seems to talk about it. Really?
There are more people in worship for Easter? I mean sure, CLERGY talk about it. But they seem to bemoan the people who attend
as if it’s obligatory to “see and be seen” in worship. We even have “name-brands” for these people,
like C & E’s or “Chri-Easters.” But
the truth is, worship numbers during Easter are abysmal. They don’t go up; they plummet!
It turns out, to
the dismay of regular church-goers, Easter is not just a Sunday. Easter is a season. So, by the end of the season, the “losses”
begin to add up (just like they do for the Phillies). In the same way, most congregations immediately
begin charting a DECLINING worship attendance on Easter Sunday—like buying a
new car that depreciates as you drive it off the lot (or the Phillies on opening
day in the 7th inning). The
downward slide is completely inevitable.
I mean we chose to locate Easter during Spring and they don’t call it “Spring
Fever” for nothing! Most churches suffer
a catastrophic bout of Spring Fever every year—just look at the worship
attendance numbers!
But this may be because
Easter attendance always begins with a bang and stratospheric attendance for opening
SUNDAY that begins declining as soon as the liturgy reaches the
benediction. And with Spring Fever and “carburetor
Sunday (when everyone tunes up their lawnmowers), the numbers totally fall
off.
Look. Believe me.
I know that if more people understood that EASTER was really a
commitment of 7 weeks, they wouldn’t get our hopes up by showing up on Easter
SUNDAY. And then this whole matter of
charting an attendance decline could easily be turned around. At least, we’d have a fighting chance!
Sure, I know. It’s a big expectation for regular church
goers—who attend almost every week of the year—to put on a full-court press of
church attendance for Easter. I mean,
Easter is the LONGEST liturgical season, outpacing the 6 weeks plus of Lent and
nearly doubling up the weeks of Advent.
And surely, we can’t expect our Easter activities to compete well with
the NCAA’s “March Madness,” the opening of Baseball season, the impending NHL
and NBA playoffs, and for the love of discipleship—NASCAR and spring
football!
Still, we might
have a fighting chance if we risk giving up Easter SUNDAY. Consider, the Easter SEASON almost always
brings with it Mother’s Day, Graduation Sundays, and sometimes, even Memorial
Day weekend—all times when just as many people may want to be seen in
church! And, if we got people off the
Easter SUNDAY habit, and on to an Easter SEASONAL habit, we COULD make this worship
attendance thing go in the right direction!
So, Brothers and
Sisters, Friends, I’m PLEADING here. We
need help. We’ve got to stop bringing
people to Church on Easter Sunday and start forcing (err… I mean) “INVITING”
PEOPLE to join us for worship THROUGHOUT THE EASTER SEASON!
We need non-weekly
worshipers to step up their game and help us, too! We need people skeptical of regular church
attendance to come in and make a difference if only for these 6 or 7 weeks! We need weekend warriors to give up the
early-season lawn mowing and trade sleeping in on Sunday mornings for naps
during NASCAR racing during Sunday afternoons!
We’ve got to STOP the Hallelujah Chorus, and START Hallelujah Chorusii
(that is, many choruses)!
Now, I know
already that this approach promises to be radical and completely
counter-cultural and in some circles even a bit heretical. But I’ve been challenged recently to start
trying new things and doing the unexpected.
This sounds out of the park, but I assure you it’s totally Biblical. There’s really no reason to be in Church on
Easter SUNDAY. Mark 16:6 says it plainly—even
Jesus isn’t in Church on Easter SUNDAY:
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.
[Because if you’re
reading that line in church, several times, trying to make your Easter-y point,
you keep saying to your people, “you’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth …he is
not here (the plain reading of which must mean, he is not in church)!”]
So I say, if it’s
good enough for Jesus, “why not?” Why
not take Easter Sunday off, and improve those attendance numbers. Plan to turn the trend around, by making
Easter SUNDAY the “low Sunday” in worship attendance. Have contests and prize-giveaways for people
who DON’T come to Church on Easter Sunday.
Take up the conversation with your church officers, let it become like
the State of the Union where some of the cabinet is present, but not all of
them—draw straws and cast lots for the Session members who have to attending
the obligatory Easter Sunday service and make sure everyone, Everyone, EVERYONE
else shows up for the remaining six Sundays of Easter!
As one of my
favorite Canadian comedians is always saying, “Remember, I’m pulling for you—we’re
all in this together!”
© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and
Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania
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