A Cure for the Easter Monday Blues
Good morning 2×2 readers.
It’s a new day! Christ is risen!
Prediction: This coming Sunday will be the week with the lowest church attendance of the church year. (Pastors call it Black Sunday.)
There is always a letdown after the long Lenten season, Holy Week and glorious Easter.
We pause to digest that Easter dinner—along with all the scripture paraded by us in the last few weeks—and start to think, “Now what?”
For many small churches the post-Easter weeks, soon to be followed by the distractions of summer, are depressing—a reminder of just how difficult small church ministry is.
Our Cure for the Post-Easter Blues
2×2 took most of last week off. Holy Week/Easter plans had us pretty busy. We are sure most 2×2 readers were on overload, too!
We are now thinking ahead to the long season of Pentecost only a few weeks away.
Here is 2×2’s plan.
Something Old!
2×2 now has three years of resources on our website. 2×2 will organize them by topic and lectionary. Readers will be able to find a resource for any given purpose more easily.
This may involve some disruption as we restructure our website—which has grown like three or four Topsys! The technology has changed during the last four years, too. So much more is possible! So please bear with us!
2×2 will continue to improve the slide show resources we started only a couple of months ago. These have 250 viewers when posted and seem to grow even after their liturgical significance passes. This is not a bad statistic for a new offering that has not been promoted! As a new offering there will be some experimentation with formatting to make sure they are as versatile for different uses as possible.
We’ll continue our weekly adult object lessons.
Something New!
What’s the Number One thing holding congregations back from using social media?
Content creation.
Creating content is work even for churches with large churches with a dedicated ministry staff. Small churches often have minimal professional leadership—which is guaranteeing their doom unless they find a way to reach out—which is difficult with part-time and volunteer readership. Catch 22!
But there is a way (maybe even a few ways!).
2×2 now has three years of experience and 1000 posts!
We’ll start developing content for congregations to use in their social media campaigns using a weekly editorial calendar that any church (ANY CHURCH) can use and adapt to its own ministry.
The plan is to provide sharable content. Congregations will be encouraged to use the provided content “as is” to adapt for their existing community and grow their neighborhood presence and influence.
Congregations will have access to an editorial calendar to guide their online ministry. This basic structure, easily augmented and adapted for individual congregational use will provide the framework for any congregation’s online presence. From our experience this is 80% of the work—a major barrier to online ministry will be removed.
It will be another 2×2 experiment. An ambitious experiment!
So watch 2×2 as we launch this new congregational service. Use it free of charge! Let us know if it is helpful. Add your ideas on how to make it more useful.
Thanks, 2×2 readers. Remember, every Sunday is a celebration of Easter! No reason to feel blue!
Christ is risen, indeed!