Mother’s day is the third highest attended service of the year for many churches. Men, women, and children who do not regularly attend services will honor their mother by attending church with her on Mother’s Day. This makes Mother’s Day a great opportunity to plan a special service or event to draw the community to YOUR church to hear the gospel.
How To:- Step 1. Plan, Plan, Plan
- Step 2. Get The Word Out
- Step 3. Prepare Materials (free templates)
- Step 4. Make Mother’s Day Special
- Step 5. Follow Up with Guests
- Step 6. Meet and Reflect
1. Plan, Plan, Plan
A quote attributed to Allen Lakin, a time management author, says it all, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Planning is everything when it comes to events, and a great Mother’s Day service is no exception. Take time to gather a planning team, set your goals and a timeline for success for your Mother’s Day event.
Gather a Team
A team brings together multiple views, offers creative ideas, and breaks up the heavy workload into smaller, more manageable pieces. Teamwork enables you to do far more than you could ever do on your own. Ask for volunteers who would like to help with the Mother’s Day event. You can start with a brainstorming session about the theme, goals, and great ideas for the service.
When it comes to delegating tasks and choosing leaders for smaller groups, make sure that you choose those on whom you know you can depend. Break up the event into smaller jobs, and assign them to individuals or team leaders; event promotion/outreach, decorating, meal planning and prep, etc.
Be sure to have frequent planning meetings along the way so you can all be of one mind, and tackle any problems that may crop up along the way.
Set a Goal
In order to measure your success, you need to set a goal of what you are hoping to achieve. Is your goal to lead at least one person to Jesus? Have a record attendance to hear the gospel? To grow in membership from this Mother’s Day event? An offering amount goal? Or to get your whole congregation involved for one day? By setting a goal you are able to measure whether or not your event was a success.
Plan a Timeline
After you have your plan figured out, set a timeline leading up to Mother’s Day. Your team members will need to know exactly what is expected of them and have a deadline for when their tasks should be accomplished.
Google Calendar is a great tool to use when setting up this timeline. You can set Google Calendar to send notifications and reminders to you and your team to help keep everyone on track.
2. Get the Word Out
Once you have your plan in place, and are chugging along towards your goal, it is time to start promoting your Mother’s Day service. Make sure to start the promotion early, at least 6-8 weeks before your event. If your event is to be particularly large, start your promotion even sooner.
Encourage your congregation to help spread the word about your Mother’s Day event. Not only will this get them excited about it, but it will make the job of promoting the service a whole lot easier for you and your team.
Provide easy ways for your church members to share the event by having the information on your website, social media, and on printed materials.
Church Website
Set up a special page for your Mother’s Day event on your website. Include any pertinent information someone may want to know before deciding to come. Make your Mother’s Day event sound fun and inviting. You can write short posts, or “teasers,” about the event, but leave some mystery to it so people will have to come and see what is going on.
Social Media
Make posts about your Mother’s Day service on your social media pages. Add links to your website where you will have all the information on the event. Social media is a great tool to use because it is super easy for your church members to share the event with their friends and family. The more you post and share the more people you will reach.
Outreach Materials
Door hangers are useful for outreach as they allow for the human element when going door-to-door, yet can easily be left if the knock is met with no response.
Postcards are also beneficial because they will make their way into people’s hands quickly with a lot less effort. Yet they can also be passed out by hand making them a versatile choice and again adding the human element.
Whatever outreach materials you decide to use, be sure to order them at least 5 weeks in advance. That way there is time to have them printed and in your hands before you need to get them into the community. If you end up missing the 5-week mark, be sure to ask about the production and shipping time, and have the job rushed if needed.
3. Prepare Materials
Guestimate how many guests/attendees your Mother’s Day event will bring in. You will need to know in order to purchase enough materials for everyone in attendance. Once you have a number of attendees in mind, do an inventory of the materials you will use.
Offering envelopes are especially important to keep track of as they are used each week. A highly-attended service like Mother’s Day may cause you to run out before you had even realized you were running low. Check your offering envelope stock, and if needed, reorder them at least 3 weeks before Mother’s Day.
Connection cards or visitor cards and welcome packets are an important part of the guest experience. They are a valuable source of information for your guests and allow you to gather information on which you can follow up. Be certain you have enough on hand for any guests you may have. Order more of these materials if needed.
Bulletins are a highly used material as well, so be sure to account for visitors when you order or print your bulletin covers for Mother’s Day.
We have a free Mother’s Day template set of visitor cards, offering envelopes, bulletin covers, and gift tags. Download the zip file, make any edits you need, then print.
Free Mother’s Day visitor card template download.
4. Make Mother’s Day Special
There are so many possibilities to make your Mother’s Day service or event unique and special. The great thing about it is you don’t have to pick just one thing, you can make your service special in so many ways. Here are just a few ideas:
Decorate the foyer with a beautiful backdrop and hire a photographer to take family photos.
Host a tea and luncheon, and have the children help serve their mother.
In the Sundays leading up to Mother’s Day, have teachers get videos of their students telling what they love about their mom. Edit the videos together, and show it on Mother’s Day.
For a few more ideas on how you can make Mother’s Day special for your church, check out our article: 7 Great Mother’s Day Ideas for Your Church.
5. Follow Up With Your Guests
Once your Mother’s Day event is over, if it went well, hopefully, you will have collected a lot of contact information from your guests. Don’t let all this work go to waste. Think of your Mother’s Day event as an investment. You invested lots of time, effort, and money to get these people in the doors, and God blessed your work. It would be unstewardly to neglect following up.
Send your guests a postcard or letter thanking them for coming. Ask them if they would are interested in a relationship with Christ, more information about your church, church membership, or a personal visit. You can also add them to your email list for future church events.
6. Meet and Reflect
After your event is over and your team has had a week to rest after the event, gather your planning team and reflect on how your Mother’s Day event went. Ask these important questions:
- Did you meet your goal? If not, why?
- Was your goal overreaching/underreaching?
- What went well?
- What did not go well?
- If you were to do this event over again, what would you have done differently?
- Did you have enough help?
- Should you do this event again next year?
Use the experiences and insight you gained from this event when you plan future events. And since you are already in the mindset of Mother’s Day, this would be a great time to get a jump on planning next year’s service.