Mother’s Day—IS a great Sunday for evangelism and spiritual growth—here’s how to make the most of it

Mother’s Day Sunday is the third-highest day for attendance in churches in North America, running slightly behind Christmas and Easter. Though most churches know this and work hard to make it a special Sunday, many miss significant evangelism and spiritual growth opportunities for that day—because of the day’s exclusive focus on mothers.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying churches shouldn’t honor mothers on Mother’s Day. They should; it is an important time to praise mothers and to thank God for them. What I’m recommending is that churches not make mothers their exclusive focus, but that they take advantage of the additional ministry opportunity made possible that day because of mothers. Here are three ways to do this, each of which will be discussed in more detail:

1. Evangelism opportunities: unchurched children and spouses
2. Honor moms by challenging them to pray–featuring One Mother’s Prayer
3. An opportunity to challenge your people to spiritual parenting

I’m doing three separate short Ministry Misc. Podcasts for each one

There is a downloadable, free ebook with this content, and links to other materials at the Bible805.com website and at the end of this post.

First, let’s talk about evangelism opportunities: unchurched children and spouses

The reason that churches are so full on Mother’s Day is not because it is the only time of year mothers come to church. Most of the mothers at the church are regular attendees. The reason so many people come to church on Mother’s Day is that the unchurched people in the lives of many mothers rarely, if ever, come to church, but they will come on this day to make mom happy.

This is a great evangelistic opportunity for your church!

Following are some ideas on how to make the most of it:

Ahead of time:

• Make it a priority in your planning for your staff to recognize that this is a tremendous evangelistic and outreach opportunity. Make this reality influence what you will say and what communications you have on hand, and what you will give out on Mother’s Day.  I’ll give more specific suggestions in a minute.
• Assemble a prayer team to pray, or add to your prayer list, requests specifically for the unsaved, unchurched, and straying family members who will come to church with mom on this day. Pray for sensitivity to their needs. Create attractive invitations for your members to give family members. Let the members of the church know that you are going to focus on VISITORS, not just moms on that Sunday.
• Check out One Mother’s Prayer, a handout that can inspire the power of Mothers (physical and spiritual) to pray.

• On Mothers Day

• As leader or pastors acknowledge the visitors who come on Mother’s Day to please an earthly parent and affirm it was a commendable thing to do. Follow that commendation with a lesson/sermon about how they have a heavenly parent who is longing for them come home in faith even more than their mom wanted them to come to church.
• Be honest, that one of the greatest pains in a mother’s heart is that her child does not know  Jesus as Savior. To be apart in life is hard, even as a child grows up, but to contemplate an eternity without those you love—one Sunday in church won’t make up for it.
• In your sermon, say for the mother what she would want to say to her child. Be honest that an eternity without Jesus means eternal separation from those we love. Acknowledge this is not easy to say, and it is not at all comfortable to talk about on this happy day, but to not say things that can make an eternal difference is not expressing love. Love is honest about the consequences of a life lived apart from God.
• I’m quite certain all the pastors listening to this will have much better ways of saying what I just suggested than what I just did—but I trust you get the idea. This may be the ONE opportunity you have to say for the moms what they want to say to husbands and kids who either don’t know or who have strayed from Jesus.
• Be brave, pray for tact and sensitivity, but preach the good news of Jesus.

Do more than preach—additional events can provide great impact and encourage visitors to return, here are some ideas

• In addition to the times of conviction, also have fun with visitors and make them comfortable in church—schedule a “Welcome to Our House Brunch for Moms and Adult Children” or an “Visit Your Parent’s Sunday School Class Open House” and do a sort of takeoff on Open House days at school.
• Schedule a very upbeat, outreach-oriented Ministry Fair for that day so visitors can experience and explore activities outside Sunday morning that your church does on a regular basis. For example, many single adults (the unchurched adult children who come to church only on Mother’s Day) often don’t have any idea that many churches have a fantastic single adult ministry.  A table with literature, food, and friendly people greeting strangers might be just the thing to get them to attend on a regular basis.
• For the unchurched husbands to see the men of your church around a literature table that talks about upcoming construction projects, work days, golf outings or sports events and that is staffed by men who reach out, welcome, and engage visiting spouses in conversation is an incredible gift to give to the mom who comes every Sunday on her own.
• Many people outside the church today like to volunteer for worthwhile projects. If your church has a Food Share, beach or community clean up, Habitat for Humanity build—any of these things can be great to invite unchurched members to join in. Feature them and invite visitors to join you

Let visiting family members know you want them to come back next week.

• Put a notice in the bulletin or on screens and announce from upfront that it would really make mom happy if they returned. You might say something like, “Want to know what will make Mom REALLY HAPPY this year for Mother’s Day? Tell her you are coming back to church with her next Sunday!”
• Challenge visiting adult children and spouses to make this Mother’s Day the most memorable one ever for their mom by giving her the gift of faith in Jesus—the one Mother’s Day gift that will give her joy forever.
• Be sure you have a clear gospel presentation, on how to become a Christian, in your bulletin and as a handout to take home. If you don’t have them, check out the American Tract Society web site for some excellent ones.
• Finally, in your bulletin, or program (and do be sure you have one) have a link on your website for those who would like to explore the Christian faith in more detail and have the contact name, text and phone number and email of people for unchurched and children of people they can contact confidentially if they have questions or would like to discuss your church, the Christian faith, or what a relationship with Jesus is all about.

Granted this is a very different approach to Mother’s Day, but if you plan ahead, pray lots about it, and work hard on it–Mother’s Day can have an eternal impact far outlasting the flowers you might give out…..and speaking of those flowers, more about them in another episode on Mother’s Day.

Here is the booklet with the content from the three podcast episodes and reproducible copies of One Mother’s Prayer. Click the image to download it.