Help Visitors Find Your Church This Easter

This Easter, some people might want to visit your church. This Holy Week, some out of town guests may want to visit your special services for holy week. You don’t know who they are.

God has given them spiritual thirst that propels them to seek a church. They don’t know where they want to go. So what do they do? They likely search the internet first. Will they find your church website? If they do, will they see your service schedule for Holy Week Easter?

What happened to me when looking for church in an unfamiliar city. I was in South Florida, visiting family and we wanted to attend a Christmas Eve service. Since my family had recently moved there, they were unfamiliar with any place to go, so our search was wide open. We did two things:

We asked a friend for a recommendation. When I asked him where that church was, he said 'use Google to find it'. So I went to Google and typed: “Presbyterian Church [insert city name here]. After all, I am an ordained Presbyterian pastor and every now and then would like to visit another church in my tribe.

The church my friend recommended did not appear in the first ten entries. I had to ask my wife what the name of the church was. Once I found the name, I could only find it in Google if I got the right name.

This church doesn’t have its physical address on its home page. That might help improve its appearance in Google for “Presbyterian Church [insert city name here]” With just a few small fixes they could rise to the top of Google quickly.

Does your church come up number one in Google for various keywords like your denomination and city? Maybe even for “Holy Week Services Richmond” or “Easter Sunrise Service Panama City.” What days and time are your special services?

Because it was Christmas time, we were looking for service times for Christmas eve. It wasn’t on the home page. It wasn’t on the calendar. It wasn’t even in the on-line newsletter. I couldn’t even find their regular service times on Sunday.

If you are having special services, can visitors discover it on your website? Hint: That information should be front and center in your home page.

We didn’t go. Since we couldn’t find the answer to our question at the website, we moved on with our search. Ultimately, because of some other scheduling conflict that materialized about 3 pm in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, we didn’t get to attend any church on Christmas Eve.

What can you do this Holy Week and Easter Sunday? My experience at Christmas left me wondering. How can your website help visitors find your church for special services? Are you planning special sunrise services this Easter? Are you planning special services for Holy Week, like Maundy Thursday, or Good Friday?
Make sure that information is front and center on your website for the week or two leading up to that event.

You don’t know who God might lead to your church. Perhaps someone hears the Gospel for the first time. Perhaps someone needs to come back to the Lord. Perhaps a new visitor who is moving in from another town.

Help them find your church as God prompts their spiritual thirst this Holy Week and Easter.

Reprinted by permission from Chris Walker, EvangelismCoach