Lent Day 44 - Easter

I’m going to say something here that has the potential to really rub some people the wrong way. I hate Easter. Before you show up at my door with pitchforks and torches, let me explain. I don’t hate what Easter represents. I’m all for that. Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Great stuff. I hate what that day has become. And, no, this isn’t going to be another Christian bemoaning the Easter Bunny and candy and all of that. I’m actually talking about what Easter has become in the Church. That’s why I hate the day. 

I’ve spent most of my life in church. I’ve been everything from a disgruntled child being forced to come to a weary staff member. I’ve seen so many different approaches to Easter - good and bad. I’ve been a part of so many Easter activities. I’ve been the one responsible for some very cringy components of the Easter season. So I’m not saying I’m innocent in this whole process. I’m saying that right now - where I am in life - I’m disgusted by Easter. 

When you work at a church, you quickly learn some important things. The biggest attendance days are the Sunday closest to Christmas, Christmas Eve, and Easter. The biggest giving days are the week between Christmas and New Years (counts as basically an extra Sunday - tax write offs), Christmas Eve, and Easter. The granddaddy of them all is Easter. That is the day that everybody and their mom are going to church. Usually because of their mom. People get dressed up in their finery and show up for the first time since last Easter. Churches know this. And they want you to go to their church. So a scramble happens to try to attract as many people as possible. I don’t have historical figures for when all of this went completely crazy, I just know what I’ve been witness to - up close and from a distance. 

When I worked at a church, my job was minister of propaganda. (That wasn't my real title; I just usually say that because it is funny and closer to accurate than the real title.)  I had other responsibilities too, but let’s just say that was my main gig. It took up most of my time, and it was the biggest chunk of the budget I oversaw. What does that position entail? I was responsible for creating and producing the weekly bulletins, monthly newsletters, graphical components, and other advertising elements. If it was a printed element for that church, I made it. Billboards. Newspaper ads. Street adjacent banners. Bulk mailing pieces. That was all me. Creatively, it was a fun job. I enjoyed the work, and I was very proud of some of the things I generated. I wasn’t always proud of the cost, and I wasn’t always happy with the projects. I did my best to keep costs low, and I would voice my concerns when possible. But my job was to do what I was told. So I did.  

When I first started working for a church, it was 1996, and things were different then. People still read newspapers and used the yellow pages. Al Gore had barely invented the internet yet. People who did have it still had to hear that beeee-eeeee-grrrrrr-zzzzzzz-rrrrrrr-pppppp- beeeboh - beeeeboh when they signed on. So most of my efforts involved print media. The local paper always had church listings, which was exactly what it sounds like - a list of churches. Then they offered regular ads, which our church usually also purchased regularly. Then on Easter, they had a special church advertisement section. Churches could spend a small fee to have a business card sized ad that was crammed in with all the other business card sized ads. Most of them were some variation of text on a blank background. One year, we bought four of those spots, and I inverted the text and background. So it was white text on a black background, and it was four times bigger than everyone else's. Guess which ad REALLY stood out. Yup. Another realm that churches would dive into for Easter was bulk mailing. If you’ve never run a bulk mail campaign, you may not know what goes into it. A company will hire another company to put together a bulk mail list. You can set any parameters you want. Every house in a zip code or three zip codes or ten zip codes. Or you can reduce that by going for certain sized households. Recency of purchase. Household income. There are countless combinations. Each level of classification you add on costs more money. Just pulling zip codes is far cheaper than also asking for households with children that make over $50,000 a year. (It is really scary how much information was for sale even back then.) Then the bulk mail company will send you the list, which you print off onto labels. You get the printed piece you want to send all done. Then you call in an army of old ladies to come and put the labels on the mailers. There are all kinds of rules as far as sorting the mail into bins to take to the post office. All of that can be avoided if you just pay the company that sold you the addresses to take care of the whole shebang, but - again- every additional service costs money. A nice balance is to have your print company take care of labelling and sending the mail - that’s what we did sometimes in a different church I worked at. 

As you can imagine, all of this costs money. The list costs money. The labels cost money. The old ladies don’t cost money; you can bribe them with cake and coffee. The printed piece costs money. And that piece can vary wildly depending on if you are doing a standard mailing size, using one color or two colors or full color, utilizing any special inks, including anything like magnets or stickers. You can spend as much as you want. Each bulk mail piece in that era routinely ran hundreds or thousands of dollars. The problem was that most of the larger churches in the area had all discovered bulk mailing at the same time. So if you were unlucky enough to live in one of the desired zip codes, you could get a dozen church mailings or more in the week leading up to Easter. There was too much noise, too many choices. It happened every time a new frontier of advertising opened up. In the newspaper, every church would place an ad. So it was hard to stand out unless you did something crazy like invert your print colors and pay for four ad spaces. Then things moved to banners planted outside the church on the side of the road. Until everybody did that. Then it was bulk mail pieces. Until everyone did that. Then internet ads. Small signs placed all over town and in church members’ yards. Door-to-door campaigns with door hangers and bands of teenagers scaring the crap out of little old people. It isn’t any different than trying to launch a restaurant, a new TV show, a movie, or a shoe. Advertising is all about standing out in a crowd. With the bulk mail pieces, when we first started we got away with one color post cards. But by the time I was done working in churches, we were doing multi-folded pieces with metallic inks and enclosed giveaways. Even with that, the chances are good that most people just chucked all of the pieces in the trash. 

In conjunction with the advertising, the church has to have something worth promoting. With so many churches fighting over the same clusters of neighborhoods, just a regular old sermon and music won’t cut it. So churches create bigger and bigger spectacles to draw people in. They would book regionally or nationally famous singers. They would put on a special concert or play or musical. They would bring in live animals. Have an Easter egg hunt. Put on a carnival. The race was on to top each other - aiming to get enough of a leg up to pull in the most guests. I will often mention “dropping10,000 eggs out of helicopter” to people. They’ll laugh and then see that I’m not laughing. “Wait, is that a real thing?!?” Yup. I’ve seen multiple churches put together a giant event on the church lawn (or local park) and drop thousands of eggs from a helicopter hovering overhead. It is really hard to top an egg-dropping helicopter. I haven’t worked at a church for a while now - at least 14 years. But every Easter, I still drive through our neighborhood and see the street signs and church banners promoting giant events with egg hunts and concerts. I see ads on Facebook. I throw away a half dozen mailers. I see friends touting what their church is doing on Easter weekend. I saw one this year advertising a Good Friday service - often considered the most somber service of the year - where a band was going to be playing. The font for “Good Friday” was much smaller than the name of the band, and a good quarter of the promo piece was made up of five hipster looking gents with smirking faces. Felt kind of like a clash of messages. 

I have a problem with the extravagance of it all. I have a hard time justifying the cost. I have a hard time rectifying the promotion with the message. Too often, the stuff that churches do to promote Easter feels like the crowds on Palm Sunday than the mourners on Good Friday. Let me lay out my concerns.

• It all feels a little tone deaf. “We here at First Baptist Church of Saturn Springs will celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord with Spanky the Clown and his hilarious squad of monkeys! Come for the poo flinging, leave with an eternal relationship.” You may find that uncouth, but is it really so much different than a church bringing in a full-scale petting zoo? This is the most sacred of all Christian holidays. It is at the crux of the entirety of the Christian faith. For Christianity to mean anything, Jesus had to die and rise again. This is essential. It is weighty. It is humbling. The difficulty of it led Jesus to sweat blood while praying before it all went down. That seems a far cry from the Blue Angels doing loops over the church campus, spelling out “Yay Jesus” with their contrails. It’s like churches have gotten so into trying to get people into the building, they don’t think at all about how it comes across. It is tacky. It sends mixed messages. It is grotesque. 
• The cost is so high. I’m not talking about cost of the loss of respect. I’m talking about the actual financial cost. The thousands and thousands of dollars spent just to TRY to get people in the door. A lot of churches have an Easter line item in the budget where they just say, “We’re going to spend $20,000 this week. You don’t have to figure out how to work that into your regular budget.” At one church I worked, a group of children’s workers went to Orlando for a conference. They were wandering around in one of the tourist areas, and the minister in charge bought some fudge for the group. One of the members gasped at the cost, saying, “We just spent more on fudge than I give in a week.” Yes. It is easy to forget where that money comes from when you work at a church. That is the money that your members gave - usually because you hounded and guilted them into it, telling them it was required for them to be right with God. (See my recent post on Spiritual Abuse for more on that practice.) So these people - senior citizens on fixed payouts, college students with only loans and scholarships, young couples who don’t know how to pay for groceries - they are convinced they need to give 10% of their income to the church. So it can be spent on fudge. And bulletins. And bulk mailings. And a helicopter with plastic eggs. When I was on staff, I did my best to pinch every penny I could. If I could reduce a four color printed item to a two color, cutting the cost, I would do it. If I could bring the printing of newsletters in house, saving thousands of dollars while increasing my own workload, I did it. For most churches, though, when Easter rolls around, all bets are off. Spend as much as necessary.
• There is a fascination with pain. I haven’t even gotten into this part of the Easter season yet. I know that this is partially because of my own personal like and dislikes. I don’t like horror movies or gruesome media, so I already will shy away from some overly explicit offerings. But things like Passion Plays and Good Friday services - even The Passion of the Christ - it is like people revel in the physical torment that Jesus went through. I know that some people want to really connect with the full extent of the sacrifice, but at times it veers awfully close to a voyeurism of violence. Is it really necessary to be exposed to so much horror, especially when there is already so much horror available at all times? I may not know what it is like to personally experience a crucifixion, but I won’t know after watching a reenactment either. I’ve sat through many of these dramas by this point; I feel like I've got it by now. If you are a person who really wants to put yourself through that, that is your choice. At least don’t bully me if I don’t get the same benefit as you do.
• It doesn’t work. This is the dirty little secret about all of these Easter activities. The end result is  very little, if any, benefit to the churches. Remember, I’ve been on staff. I’ve been the one putting the numbers into the publications. There will be a huge bump on April 9. Huge offering, record-setting attendance. But April 16, the numbers will nearly be back to April 2. And within a month, any bump that was seen right after Easter will be gone. So what is the point? Why spend all the money, put on the whole show if there isn’t any long-term benefit? Here are some of the answers to those questions. 
• It shows the community we care. If we put on this huge Easter egg drop, it will be something for the community to show up to. It will build our reputation in the community. Okay, even if that was true - which it isn’t - so what? Why do you need a better reputation in the community? I’m sure some people will say that it means people are more likely to visit the church because it is respected in the community. Really, though, it is so that the church is seen as a good neighbor for, you know, when the church needs building approvals. And permits. That may be cynical, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You want to build a reputation in the community? Help the community. Not some dog and pony show a couple of times a year. But really pouring yourself into the community. Helping the less fortunate. Rallying behind people who are suffering. That isn’t flashy, though. It is easier to book a juggling clown flying a helicopter than to work a food pantry or a soup kitchen. A community doesn’t need you telling them you’re a good neighbor; it needs you to actually be one. They’ll know if it is true without you telling them. 
• The more positive interactions people have with us, the more likely they are to come to our church. Let’s call this the Apple approach. When I worked for Apple, they told us that it took people an average of seven interactions with Apple before they bought anything. So customers would come in and play with the phones or computers and leave. Then they would come back again and leave. They may come take a free class. They might come hear a concert. They may use a friend’s phone. Some combination of seven things on average before someone bought something. That’s why we didn’t care if someone came in and played around and left. We were nice and helpful, and we knew they would be back. So that is what the church is doing. If they put on Easter and a Christmas cantata and a 4th of July celebration and run youth sports and a preschool program … if the church puts all those things on, people will eventually start coming to the church because the church has become indispensable. Except that isn’t true either. For any given church, it is trying to reach two groups of people: people who are actively looking for a new church and people who aren’t. The people who are looking for a new church could be new to the area or they could be disgruntled with their current church. If a church was being completely honest, they would have to say this is the group they are trying to score. They want these people who are looking for a new place. Taking people who just moved into town is great, but this is not a huge number unless you are in a completely booming community. Taking people from someone else’s church is better. All of these programs and events are to show this group of people that our church is better than where you are going. The other group of people fall into the next point.
• We are trying to lead people to Jesus. In other words, we are trying to get that group of people who aren’t looking for a church to get saved and join with us. We are trying to save as many people as possible. That’s what Jesus wanted. Well, sort of. Jesus said to make disciples, which isn’t the same thing as “getting people saved.” Churches love to bandy about their numbers of salvations. This is the number of people who come down to the front and “pray a prayer” to “ask Jesus into their heart.” So on Easter Sunday, there will be a really emotional sermon or drama. Then in front of this audience of people who are never in church, the Pastor will pull at heart strings and urge people to “answer the move of the Spirit” onto their hearts. And invariably people will come forward. Then the church can rejoice that they had a huge attendance number and a lot of “decisions.” Most churches are terrible at what comes next. Again, it isn’t flashy. It takes a lot of time and energy without big flashing numbers to put on the back of the bulletin. It takes walking with one person for a long time, helping them understand what it means to be a Christ follower. I have had this argument with so many people over the years. “If it means even one person comes to Jesus, it is worth it. Are you going to say a life isn’t worth it?” Yeah. Yeah I am. Because there is no guarantee that person meant what they did. I’ve been in enough youth camps and Spiritual Emphasis weeks to know how easily people can be manipulated with the right combination of emotional songs and guilt and shame. And, as I said earlier, the numbers after Easter are usually the same as before. So where is the retention?  And is one person worth $20,000? Well, how many more could you have gotten if you had used that $20,000 for actual investment into the community? I have found that most overtly evangelistic efforts are just ways for churches to generate numbers. Like a bunch of trawlers heading out into the ocean, dragging up nets full of fish, and then dumping them on the beach so they can go grab more fish. 

“So, Mr Smart Guy, what do you suggest then?” Glad you asked. My TED talk will outline a fourteen step plan … Seriously, though, I would suggest two things: Be Genuine and Be Like Jesus. That’s all. Look, if you want to put on a party for you and your church to celebrate Easter, who am I to tell you that isn’t something you should do? But don’t try to make it look like some big community-driven effort. Don’t try to sell it as an outreach. Call it what it is. Say you want your families to be able to hunt Easter eggs. Be genuine. If you genuinely care about people, go show that. Don’t call yourself a caring place unless you ARE a caring place. There are so many people out there hurting. There are people who have been laid off by a company they have spent years sacrificing for - who are about to be unable to pay their bills for the first time in their lives. There are single mothers out there who are working multiple jobs, never resting, and STILL are still not able to make ends meet - they can’t buy their kid shoes, can’t update their wardrobe, can’t get them into your cheap sports program. There are parents with special needs children who just need to have someone to walk alongside of them for an hour a week. There is a gay teenager who got thrown out of their home. There is a divorced husband who never saw this coming. There is an immigrant who thought America was the solution, but who has only felt hatred since he arrived legally. Jesus talked about how we should take care of widows and orphans. Paul talked about helping the poor as a demonstration of our commitment to Jesus. John wrote about how people will know we are Christians by our love - not by our ability to put on a kick-ass Easter party. Our church in Orlando shocked us at the first Christmas Eve service we went to when they announced that the offering during their services would 100% go to a service organization in the community. They gave away the second biggest offering they got all year. Then our church in Texas stunned us by doing the same exact thing. Then they topped that on Easter by allocating the entire Easter offering to their Special Needs ministry. The biggest offering of the year was always earmarked for that group that most churches run screaming away from. That’s the kind of stuff we should be doing. You want to spend $20,000 on Easter? Use that money to stock up your food pantry. Or give it to single mothers in your church. Or underwrite the local soup kitchen for a couple of months. Or build some houses. Or refill your empty benevolence fund. Those thing are more in line with what the Church should be doing on Easter. If your church is serious about doing all the things it claims to be serious about, let its actions demonstrate that. Give. Serve. Love. Heal. Restore. That’s what Easter is all about.