Hello Brothers and Sisters in the Lord

Thank you for the replies. They mean more than you know.

This week we are looking at Easter, but not the programme or the sermon series. We are looking at the people who make it all possible. The ones who show up early, stay late, and rarely get a mention.

If that is you, this one is for you.

Have a blessed Easter.

Jackson Wong

The hot water urn was already on when I arrived.

Steam rising, water hot, cups lined up beside it. Nobody asked who did it. Nobody pointed it out. The urn was just there, the way it always is.

At Easter, everything is just there.

The chairs are in neat rows, enough for twice the usual crowd, because somebody arrived before anyone else and carried them out. The projection screen shows the right words at the right moment. The morning tea table reappears between services as if by itself.

Somebody's Sunday started before yours did.

Easter Sunday is the single biggest operational surge in the Australian church calendar. Around 3.5 million Australians attend Easter services nationally. For a church that normally seats 70, Easter morning can bring 130 or more through the door.

Double the chairs, double the milk, double the kids' ministry volunteers, coordinated by the same small group of people who planned it around their regular jobs.

And it falls on the long weekend. School holidays. The one time of year when a quarter of your regular volunteers have already driven up the coast or flown interstate with their families.

The people who stay absorb all of it.

And yet, more people through the door is worth celebrating. Some only come twice a year. CEO Christians, as they're sometimes called. Christmas and Easter Only. It sounds like a gentle joke until you remember that every person who walks in is someone God is still reaching for. Easter morning might be the one Sunday they actually sit still long enough to hear something.

The people who set up the extra chairs made that moment possible. Not because anyone asked them twice, but because they understood what the room was for.

Before you serve your church this Easter, let the risen Christ serve you.

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45

The tomb was empty and death did not win. Every person who walks through your doors this Sunday gets to hear that. So before you do anything else, stop and receive what Christ has done for you. Then go and serve from that place.

From that place, how you serve will look completely different. It is not an obligation. It is gratitude with sleeves rolled up. The hard work is real, and so is the love that compels it.

After Easter Sunday, find one volunteer whose name was not in the order of service / run sheet and thank them personally. Not a group message, not a general mention from the front.

A well-supported church is a stronger church. Sometimes that strength looks like one person with a key and an alarm code, first in to set up and last out to lock up, their car the only one in the car park at both ends of the day.

The Toolbox resource this issue is the Easter Service Planning Checklist. A one-page checklist covering communications, rosters, and on-the-day operations for your Easter services. Print it, share it with your team, or use it to debrief and improve for next year. Grab it below.