Lent is a busy time for church offices—there are double the services each week, pre-service dinners before midweek services, and, of course, Easter Sunday after the end of Lent! Oftentimes, church workers can forsake their own Lenten reflections because of the busyness of the season.
While we can’t minimize the number of events you host or emails you send out during Lent, we can minimize your stress by helping you plan out your communication schedule. Today, we’re outlining how your church office can prepare for Lent by scheduling your communications in advance, and we’re giving you recommendations for content timelines and more!
If your church is doing a standalone Lenten sermon series (outside of the Lectionary), you’ll need to ensure that you have everything ironed out before you start your communications. Pick a name, schedule your Scripture readings, and make a graphics package. Or, have all of this taken care of with a Lent worship series package from CPH, featuring sermons, notes, Bible studies, and children’s messages.
We recommend having this finalized several weeks before Ash Wednesday. Having all of these assets completed before you start the promotion process will ensure that things run smoothly.
As part of your Lenten promotion plan, you’ll want to update your website to advertise whatever events and services you have going on during this season. Whether you add a section to your homepage, create a standalone page, or add a banner across your site, we recommend putting it up on your site three weeks before Ash Wednesday and updating as necessary throughout the season (e.g., for Holy Week and Easter Sunday).
Like it or not, social media is a crucial part of any church marketing strategy. But it doesn’t have to be a headache! By planning and scheduling out your content ahead of time, you can essentially set it and forget it.
We recommend scheduling your content as far in advance as you can. Here are some example posts you can create using your sermon series graphics package:
Email marketing is an important form of church communications, especially if many of your members don’t regularly use social media. If you already send out a weekly or monthly email newsletter, you can just add in a section about your upcoming Lenten schedule, including dinners and midweek services.
However, you could also send out a dedicated weekly email for Lent, encouraging your members to reflect on a specific topic or verse and reminding them of upcoming services. Remember: Use your sermon series graphics package to create custom email headers that match your theme!
We also recommend scheduling these emails as far in advance as you can, just to make your life easier!
Download our free resource kit to get checklists, guides, and other media to help prepare for Lent!