Across the world, churches are getting ready and planning to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus! I hope your church has an incredible Easter service to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus!
But I have a question for you:
As a pastor, I know what it takes to plan Easter. It takes an all-in approach from your staff, key leaders, and volunteers. It takes many hours, much mental preparation, and emotional buy-in. If you are like me, it is an incredibly fulfilling experience to bring your best on Easter Sunday. Usually, however, the day after is a pretty low day for me. I’m typically exhausted from what I have just put out and done. What makes it even more difficult is this truth: the next Sunday is only 6 days away! The Sunday’s just keep coming!
Let us help you.
We create 40-day challenges that have done-for-you materials that can continue to carry the momentum you gained from Easter weekend! Last year, a church in Florida launched one of our 40-day challenges directly after Easter and they grew their worship attendance by 60%. Not only did it grow during the challenge, but they were able to maintain this growth. Now, they are getting ready to enter into a second 40-day challenge after Easter this year.
By the way, we are offering up to an extra $250 off our already discounted prices from now until March 9th. Email us at hello@redletterchallenge.com for more info.
After an amazing, but exhausting Easter, our 40-day challenges provide up to 692 hours of done-for-you work. That’s the estimated time we believe it would take for you to come up with a similar experience for your church. And, by the way, that’s just for first drafts only. Our team has literally spent thousands of hours on each 40-day challenge and we’ve had more than a thousand church complete one of our challenges.
By launching a turnkey 40-day challenge that is done for you and has proven results, you can approach Easter with the full “all-in” planning that you need. You can also feel confident in continuing the momentum you build on Easter without driving yourself crazy as a pastor or drowning the rest of your team. It’s healthy for church staffs and pastors to have some occasional down time, and using a turnkey sermon series complete with kids curriculum, small group materials, graphic packages, and sermon manuscripts, should give you the ample time you need to rest and recover and still deliver a powerful 40-day experience. Click here to see how we calculated the 692 hours.
Many churches are still offering both a hybrid of in-person worship and a digital expression as well. Our 40-day challenges bring unity not just to the entire church on Sunday’s but also Monday-Saturday as well. Especially in a hybrid world that we are living in, churches have been loving how our resources bring unity to their whole church. These challenges not only unify the digital and in-person church experiences to feel like one church family again, but provide unity across all ages, races, and economic levels as well. It turns out that Jesus is incredibly unifying!
We recommend a 4-week promotion time before a 40-day challenge. Using the Easter services to promote a 40-day challenge is incredibly effective.
Churches that have used our challenges in the past have been amazed at how quickly people will jump in and participate. Giving people the opportunity to jump into something that day will create movement. You could consider how to be generous with the resources and give away free books or discounted books. Giving them a resource and a next step that is fun and exciting will make them more likely to attend, engage, and return to your church (in-person or digitally) the following weeks. For more on promotion and distribution, check out this short video here.
After Easter, depending on the year, there is usually a 6-8-week period across most of the country (coinciding with the school calendar) that is one of the higher attended and engaged times of the church calendar. This represents a great time-frame to rally leading your people into the summer. It’s extremely wise and good stewardship to plan series you feel could be most effective, quite simply, when you are able to engage with the most people. For more on the best times to launch a 40-day challenge, check out this short video here.
On Easter, the focus is on the resurrection of Jesus and what this means for all of us. We are saved by God’s grace and receive eternal life. While God’s grace assures us of heaven, it also invites us into a real relationship right now with Him as His disciples.
Our resources push people to the words, habits, and life of Jesus and give real practically, daily challenges that will help them become greater followers of Jesus. People will be so moved by His resurrection on Easter that the best next natural step is to do what He says to do.
Ready to launch?
We hope so and would love to partner with you.
Currently we have three different 40-day challenges: Red Letter Challenge, Being Challenge, and Forgiving Challenge.
Red Letter Challenge uses the words and commands of Jesus to help identify five targets to help people become greater followers of Jesus: Be, Forgive, Serve, Give, and Go. This was our original book and we believe offers an incredible discipleship path that is easy to remember and fun to engage with.
Being Challenge explores the life of Jesus to help identify five keystone habits that Jesus practiced to help Him connect in relationship with God: Commit to Community, Study Scripture, Prioritize Prayer, Seek Solitude, and Choose Church. Since Covid disrupted so many people’s habits and rhythms, it’s important we point people back to the habits of Jesus to help them grow in their relationship with God.
Forgiving Challenge invites its readers to go on a 40-day life-changing journey that leads to total freedom. Those participating in this challenge will go through all five phases leading to freedom: Sin, Confession, Absolution, Restoration, and Sanctification. We will discover how God’s forgiveness brings real freedom. Now, we who have been forgiven, can go and forgive others!
For more on these three 40-day challenges and which one could be right for your church, check out this short video here.
Wanting to learn more? You can watch a series of short training videos here or read the blog entitled “Everything you need to know about launching a church-wide challenge.”
We are launching our next big wave on the Sunday after Easter (4/16/23) and would love to have your church in the next wave. We are offering an extra incentive right now up to $250 off. If you have any questions, or want to receive those greater discounts by 3/5/23, please email us at hello@redletterchallenge.com.
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