The Easter Basket Business Give-Away

Guidelines for Easter Basket Business Give-Away

Overview: The purpose of this outreach is to create evangelism bridges in your relationships in the community surrounding your church. Businesses often display candy at their counters or in their break rooms. This connection between your church and each business is quick and simple, but continues to give throughout Easter week. The object of this outreach is to place Easter baskets full of candy with church connect cards. Preparation time depends on how many baskets (from just one to many) you intend to give away.  It only takes a few minutes to drop off a basket and explain what the gift means and can be done by a person, a family, a Small Group or a church. If your church has a special Easter service, you may want to print enough connect cards that invite the business staff and customers to Easter services.

Step One: Four Weeks: As with all successful outreach events, this one begins with prayer and with a vision of how to connect believers with their neighbors and create evangelism bridges the good news can cross over. Identify the businesses and organizations and how many baskets (and what different sizes since some businesses are bigger than others) you will give away. Recruit your serving team and assign the preparation. You will need baskets, cellophane, ribbon, Easter grass, pre-wrapped candies and “connect cards for each candy pack. You will also need a list of businesses to assign to each serving team member.

Step Two: Two Weeks: Prepare your baskets for the outreach. Have them available for pick up by the serving team at a specific time in the week at the church office. If this is a big church event with a lot of baskets, you can assign them on Sunday morning prior to Easter to be delivered that day or Monday morning at the latest.

Step Three: One Week before Easter: Deliver the baskets to the businesses. Explain that you want to present this gift basket to their business to use however they like as an appreciation gift for being an important part of their community. Suggest they leave it on the counter to treat their customers, or place it in their employee break room to treat their staff. Give the owner a connect card and thank them for allowing you to serve them.

What to Expect/What to Say:  Expect the unexpected with this outreach. Remember that businesses are used to being “tapped” for donations by churches a-l-l t-h-e t-i-m-e! You giving them something is novel, to say the least. They may or may not place the basket on their counters, but they will very likely accept it and thank you for it. If you can speak with the owner and thank them for being such an important part of the community, do so. If not, thank the employee you leave it with.  Let them know that you and the church want to give back to the community like this because God has given you so much! Ask if they have plans for Easter Sunday, and invite them and leave a connect card in their hands. If you see the conversation going in a spiritual direction (a createvangelism moment) ask about their faith; find out how you can pray for them and listen for questions they have about God and church.  Be ready to explain why we serve like this for free (God gave us His free gift of Jesus, so we give ourselves away, too.)  Don’t be surprised if someone you serve shows up for church next weekend.