Pastors across Georgia are rejoicing over a tremendous Easter weekend. I’ve already talked with several pastors on the rainy post-Easter Monday and they are riding high, and I am sure you are as well.

Pews were packed.

Praise and worship were fervent.

Offering plates were full.

And when it came to preaching, there was great liberty and power.

By the way, here’s a heads up… Sunday is coming again in a couple of days.

The post-Easter blues are created by great expectations followed by a return to pre-Easter normal. One friend I talked with this morning expressed his wish that people would come to church every Sunday as faithfully and expectantly as they did on Easter.

Sadly, most won’t.

As leaders, we need to own the fact that some aspects of the post-Easter blues are the results of our mindset and practices. We fall back rather than ride “the big mo” of momentum forward. Don’t settle for anything less than better.

Here are three ways to prevent that first post-Easter Sunday from being “back to normal.”

Prepare more.

Most churches roll out the red carpet in bigger ways on Easter than on other Sundays. The choir and worship teams rehearse longer. Extra preparation for a large crowd and an increased number of guests is done. The pastor feels the self-imposed burden of preaching that “sermon of sermons”.

For this coming Sunday and every Sunday, don’t do less but rather do more.

You may be thinking, “But usually this week sees the return of only the regulars.” And that might just be true because all you prepare for and expect are the regulars.

So, be intentional in increasing the entire Sunday morning experience to an even higher quality standard than you did for Easter Sunday.

Now that the crowd may be a little more manageable, take this opportunity to fine tune every aspect of Sunday worship, from guest reception to child care to facility preparation to the worship experience to your online presence to follow-up.

If you haven’t listened to our podcast of Tom Clegg’s presentation on this topic, do that this weekend right here.

Pray harder.

The church I attend started a special emphasis on praying for those we would be inviting to Easter worship. I can remember being prompted to pray even more for my pastor as he prepared to preach. We corporately prayed for the many people who would be attending worship for the first time this year or for the first time ever.

We had a full house in every service over the weekend. But then again, it was Easter Sunday.
So increase your faithful praying. Continue to plead with God for the souls of the lost. Lift up your pastor as he prepares to preach. Pray over the parking lot, the pews, the Sunday School/small group meeting areas, the childcare areas.

Make every Sunday a Sunday where you anticipate God answering the faithful, fervent prayers of His people in ways “exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

We cover a not-to-miss prayer evangelism strategy in our 6E Strategy deep-deep dive here.

Preach better.

Most of us preachers have this self-induced pressure in preparing to preach on Easter.

If we say that every Sunday is equally special, we still tend to treat Easter like it is “more” equally special.

Yet in all actuality, we are challenged in scripture to view every preaching opportunity with the highest regard.

I wrote an Adrian Rogers quote in one of my Bibles:

“I must preach today as though it is the last sermon I will ever preach and the last sermon the people will ever hear.”

The post-Easter Sundays are a great time to raise the bar on our prayerful preparation in preaching. Don’t work for the same experience of preaching on Easter, but rather work for the same expression.

I trust every Georgia Baptist pastor has very high regard for the tremendous calling to preach the gospel.

Yet we must agree that there are times, with the demands of ministry, we do less than due diligence not only in sermon preparation but prayer preparation for preaching that sermon.

Preach faithfully. Preach powerfully. Preach expectantly.

One of my favorite Easter quotes is: “If you limit the reality of Easter to just one day a year, you will live the other 364 as though you worship an un-risen Savior.”

Make sure the reality of our triumphant, risen Christ is expressed in every reality of your life and ministry. Sunday is coming in a couple of days…treat it even bigger than the last one.