The Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt
Guidelines for Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt
Overview: The purpose of this outreach is to create evangelism bridges at an event in your neighborhood or the area surrounding your church. In this event, you will hold a party for children outside (yard, park, etc.) that will allow you to serve your neighbor families and share the Good News with their kids.This is a very personal touch that offers an extended time to build friendships and often leads to longer term relationships. This outreach is done on the Easter weekend, Easter Sunday or Saturday and lasts around 2-3 hours. Add extra time for clean up if it is at the church. If the event is a “big church” outreach, begin planning six weeks out so you can have all the people and resources in place for Easter. If you choose to do a “festival” event in conjunction, see Createvangelism’s “Festival Outreach” plans.
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 park, yard, lot or area of your neighborhood that can host the Easter Egg Hunt and Party. Recruit a few families to assist. If you are doing this as a “big church” event, this will be the time to initiate your promotion. Send flyers home with your children on Sunday morning and they can invite friends in their neighborhood or school. Advertise in other ways appropriate to your church.
Step Two: Two Weeks: Plan your activities with your team. You can have a craft or two (age appropriate) and refreshments to give away. Prepare plenty. A game before the egg hunt builds excitement for the main event. If you want to color eggs before hiding them, plan on extra time in the kitchen. Most use plastic eggs and include prizes like candy or coins. You can even have prizes for each winner in each age category. For smaller events, now is the time to begin promotions. Post a flyer in common areas of you subdivision, and hand out flyers to friends and families in the area. Kid-to-kid promotion is most effective. (You can even ask the kids to bring their own basket.)
Step Three: One Week: Prepare all of your craft resources and assign tasks (leading game, using the empty egg to tell the story of the Resurrection, bringing refreshments, etc.) to yoru team. Take a moment to pray for the children and families coming and for any names you might have missed inviting but need to be there. Remember: resurrection life is offered to all through Christ Jesus!
Step Four: The Event: Have the serving team meet a half hour early to pray and set up. Greet each family and invite them to join in for round one of refreshments. Have tables set up for crafts, and make this your first project. Take time to help, compliment, and relate the crafts to Easter. Take time to build friendships as the kids work on crafts. Move toward the game(s) and celebrate with the winners. While this game is going on, have adults and older kids hide the eggs. At the end of the game, gather in a circle, hand out baskets, and send them out. (Our kids always liked hunting them again and again. So plan for two or three official hunts,) Award prizes each time for each age category (1-3, 4-6, 7-9). On the final hunt, gather the kids again and tell the Easter story (ask all the parents first if they would allow their kids to participate; if not, have a special craft they can work on during the story.) Have a last round of refreshments, and thenk them for coming.
What to Expect/What to Say: Expect conversations with parents to ge to know them better. Relax and enjoy friends and be sure to spend time with each parent. Talk about the neighborhood and what you can do together to help make it better. Plan on a future time to have coffee or another event (Fourth of July, cookouts, kids day excursions, etc.) Redirect conversations that become critical; show much grace and wisdom in your words.
As you connect, be sure to ask questions about their family, activities, faith; find out how you can pray for them and listen for questions they have about God and church. Be ready to explain why Easter is so important to you (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.