Your team had done all this work and is ready for the big day: your musicians have held extra practices, your folks in children’s ministry are excited to welcome larger crowds than normal, and your sermon has been polished and perfected. There’s no doubt that various teams in your church spent the past few weeks working hard in order to prepare for Easter.

After all that hard work, you lean back in your chair and think “what can I do to ensure that we have a large crowd with us on this Sunday morning? Are people going to come?”

Easter really is the biggest of big days as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. With that in mind, Easter also happens to be one of those Sundays where your people are more likely to invite their friends, and their friends are more likely to attend. It’s an incredibly important day as we are inspired to impact our communities. For this reason, people tend to wonder if there’s some last-minute trick they can pull off to increase their Easter Sunday attendance.

Some leaders tend to think about advertising on Facebook at the very last minute with a view to help boost their attendance. Now, Facebook has made the interface super easy to use, and it is amazing how quickly they can get money out of your budget into their coffers!

However, I think most churches should refrain from advertising on Facebook at this time of year. Sure, Facebook can provide a way of reaching new people, but there are at least three reasons why I think your church shouldn’t be running Facebook ads for Easter.

Churches grow because your people invite their friends

A recent study found that only 2% of people in most churches invited a friend last year. [ref] Is it any wonder then that the vast majority of churches in our country aren’t growing? The fact remains that the difference between churches that are growing and those that aren’t is that growing churches simply have more people inviting their friends to attend.

The predicament with Facebook ads is they typically target an unknown audience, or at least two or three relationships removed from people that actually attend your church. The algorithm is specifically built in order to find people who are similar to those within your church. It might sound like an interesting method for reaching out to people who may want to attend your church—but when was the last time you saw someone make an important, life-altering decision based off an ad floated by while they were scrolling through a feed on Facebook?

Facebook advertising is essentially about interrupting and attracting the viewer’s attention. Let’s face it: Facebook users are looking to be entertained. The choice to visit your church probably doesn’t fit into that campaign when approaching/targeting people’s decision-making matrix.

As opposed to searching for a new audience of people who have no connection to your church, most churches should be focusing on the people right in front of them and finding a way of engaging them to invite their friends. Give your people the tools they need to invite their neighbor, friends, and families to attend. You’ll see larger dividends in growth as well as in spreading the message of Jesus when you actually help people invest in their closest relationships.

Facebook advertisers would love the access you have.

Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. We see a “new” tool like Facebook and wonder how we can leverage it for reaching our community.