Easter

The day in the Christian calendar that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter is the most important day in the calendar. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21; therefore, the date varies from March 22 to April 25.

Source: Glossary of Terms on InfoServ, a ministry of United Methodist Communications, the official information service of The United Methodist Church.

Learn more about the Easter Season

• Ash Wednesday
• Lent
• Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday)
• Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday)
• Good Friday

Easter Resources

List from United Methodist Church resources for the Easter Season:

Devotional Resources

Find devotions and meditations to help you during this season of preparation.

Devotions and meditations

• Upper Room Online Daily Devotional
• Lenten and Easter meditations from UMW
• Reflections and features from Global Ministries
• Upper Room Daily Reflections
• How Beautiful (2013 Lenten devotional guide from Society of St. Andrew)
• Bread on the Way to the Cross (UMC.org meditation series)
• Lenten Photo-a-Day Challenge

Articles

• Lenten reflection from Bishop Rosemarie Wenner
• 40 Ideas for Keeping Lent Holy
• 7 awesome ideas for Holy Week and Easter
• When keeping Sabbath, simply rest
• Got ashes? Chicago church takes Lent to the streets
• Pastors debate value of Lenten sacrifices
• Lent: A Time to Fast and Pray
• Read and reflect throughout Lent (Suggestions for Lenten reading)
• Lent 101
• Simplicity: A Lenten Path
• Lent: Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!
• Time for Change: Reflections on Lent and Easter
• Where Does the Term "Good Friday" Come From?

Family Resources

Discover ways for your family to celebrate Lent and Easter.

• 2013 Family Study for Lent
• Making Ash Wednesday Accessible for Children
• Stewardship Nuggets for Families and Children: Family Lenten Offering
• Coins for Lent
• Observing Holy Week in the Home
• Easter Devotional for Families
• Sharing Easter with Your Children

Worship Resources

Find liturgies, prayers, and lectionary and preaching helps for the season.

• Ash Wednesday Resources from GBOD
• Lenten Resources from GBOD
• Planning for Worship during Lent, Year C
• Preaching Through the Season of Lent
• Creating Lenten Spirituality Centers (video from Central UMC, Florence, S.C.)
• Rethinking stations of the cross
• New ways of praying at Lent
• Lenten worship displays provide focus
• Connecting Worship and Daily Living in Lent
• Living Lent: Focus on Conversion and Baptism as You Plan Your Lenten Services
• Worship displays provide focal point during Lent
• What should we do about singing "Alleluia" during Lent?
• Water and Ashes Do Not Mix!
• Contemporary Service for Ash Wednesday

Holy Week and Easter

• Maundy Thursday in an Alternative/Emergent Mode
• Maundy Thursday worship planning helps
• How Shall We Observe Good Friday?
• Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley: A Tenebrae Service
• The Great Vigil of Easter
• A New Great Thanksgiving for Eastertide

Study Guides

Involve your small group in a seasonal study.

• Upper Room Lenten Study Guide 2013
• New studies for Lent 2013
• Keeping the Faith: Contemporary Spiritual Practices for Contemporary Christians (Study for Young Adults Northern Illinois Conference)
• The Miracles of Jesus (online Lenten retreat)
• Journey to Hope (Intergenerational study and sermon series from Rethink Church)
• Forgiveness (Reflections and activities from Interpreter Magazine and UMC.org)

Videos

• Desktop Meditation: A Lenten Journey
• Chuck Knows Church: Shrove Tuesday
• Chuck Knows Church: Ash Wednesday
• Chuck Knows Church: Lent
• Rethinking Stations of the Cross
• Good Friday Cross Journey
• Easter Church Drama
• Easter Cross Walk

Take action

• One Great Hour of Sharing
• Buy Fair Trade items to ‘act justly’

Easter 2013 is nearly upon us! What a fantastic season in the life of our church and in North Texas. To help celebrate this and to help draw attention to the events at your Church, the Conference Communication team has a number of ways to help, but we NEED your participation!

Easter Advertising Campaign

The NT annual conference will advertise in various media outlets during this Easter season including but not limited to: Print, Online and Radio.

Church Easter Service Listings

Participate in Easter Advertising Campaign

To be included on these listings (as above), YOU MUST fill out the Easter form here: http://www.ntcumc.org/Easterform or if you have participated in an Easter or Christmas Advertising Campaign in the past your church is already listed in the system and all you need to do is update your listing. To update your listing send an email to ticket@churchbuzz.org and we can provide you with the information to update the listing. First Time Church Easter Listing Update Church Easter Listing

Also, here is a tip. To optimize your own church’s Easter service pages on your website, we highly recommend you name your page and optimize the page for this term

your city, tx | Easter Church Services

If you need further assistance with submitting your Easter information, or optimizing your website for this, please email our Webmaster Patrick Steil at patrick@churchbuzz.org for additional help.

Your Easter To-do List

1. Make sure your Easter events and worship times are setup on your church website.

2. Submit your Easter Event info for the Conference advertising destination pages or update your current listing but sending the information to ticket@churchbuzz.org.

Questions? Please contact me and I will be glad to help!

Your Conference Webmaster
Patrick Steil Email: patrick@churchbuzz.org

Additional Easter Resources

2013 Dates

Ash Wednesday - February 13, 2013

Palm Sunday - March 24, 2013

Easter Sunday - March 31, 2013

Lent and Easter

Lent and Easter Resources at UMC.org

Easter 2012 is nearly upon us!  What a fantastic season in the life of our church and in North Texas.  To help celebrate this and to help draw attention to the events at your Church, the Conference Communication team has a number of ways to help, but we NEED your participation!  If you are the Communications Director or webmaster for your Church, please read all the way through this very important document!

Easter Advertising Campaign

The  annual  conference will advertise in various media outlets during this Easter season including but not limited to:

Print

• The Dallas Morning News
• Sulphur Springs SSNews
• Sherman - Herald Democrat
• Wichita Falls - Times Record
• Denton Record Chronicle

Online

• Facebook, Guidelive.com, Dallasnews.com, Timesrecord.com, The News network (a network of 1500 websites that place banner ads based on geotargeting and demographics of the users)

Radio

• Radio Disney

Print ads that will look similar to these below, but will have a custom URL such as NorthTexasUMC.org/Easter. 



When the visitor goes to the URL listed in the advertisement or they click on the Facebook/Google Ad, they will see a “landing page” that looks like the following.



Note the list of cities.  The user will click on the city that is closest to them to expand the view to something like this:



Each ad will use specific URLs which will direct visitors to find YOUR church Easter event listings.  To be included on these listings (as above), YOU MUST fill out the Easter form here:  http://www.ntcumc.org/Easterform.  So this is the #1 thing your church needs to do ASAP!

Also, here is a tip.  To optimize your own church’s Easter service pages, we highly recommend you name your page and optimize the page for this term


If you need further assistance with submitting your Easter information, or optimizing your website for this, please email our Webmaster Patrick Steil at patrick@churchbuzz.org for additional help.

Your Easter Todo List

1. Make sure your Easter events and worship times are setup on your church website.  
2. Submit your Easter Event info for the Conference advertising destination pages.

Submit your Easter Event info
Questions?  Please contact me and I will be glad to help!

Your Conference Webmaster
Patrick Steil
Email: patrick@churchbuzz.org