Did my title surprise you? No, I’m not questioning the reality of the resurrection or whether Easter was originally pagan or any of the usual questions that pop up this time of year. Instead, I want to question some things we take for granted on and leading up to Easter that deserve more thoughtful examination.

The other day while on a run, I admitted to my husband, a pastor, that I struggle with Easter Sunday. Worried that he would think he’d married a heretic, I hastened to explain that I love the Lord and gospel we celebrate on Easter. To my surprise, though, he said that understood and felt the same way.

You might think we struggle with Easter because it is a busy holiday for ministry workers. But my husband and I love our vocations and are not afraid of hard work. What we both dislike about Easter Sunday is its proclivity toward pretense.

People who never attend church during the year show up to give God his annual hour, to appease faithful parents, or simply because it’s still the social norm. Families who are not particularly close pose for photos in their best outfits, which they later post with the obligatory “He is risen!” caption. Churches are packed, but the week after—not usually.

If you give me the choice between fifty-one ordinary Sundays with my church family or Easter Sunday with a crowd of well-dressed strangers, I’m going to choose the ordinary Sundays every time.

Do I sound like a horrible curmudgeon? I am sorry if I do. People coming to church after long absences a good thing. Families gathering in harmony is a good thing. Churches opening their doors and welcoming newcomers as Christ has welcomed them is a good thing (Romans 15:7). Celebrating Easter is a very good thing.

But you know what is also good? Going to the gym. And you know what you have to do in order for going to the gym to be worthwhile and enjoyable? Go more than once. Go regularly throughout the year—not just on January 1st when Planet Fitness offers their annual $1 membership deal.

My husband and I often feel like Easter Sunday requires us to treat church like Planet Fitness. We feel pressured to put on our best services and cater to visitors who are willing to part with no more than one hour of their year.

We discussed this at length as we ran and, out of this conversation, I have five questions for regular church members and five questions for once-a-year attendees.

Questions for All-Year Congregants

1. Do you invite non-Christian friends and family to attend Easter service with you?

If so, that’s wonderful and I hope you keep doing it. But I also hope you’ll read and reflect upon my next questions.

2. Do you invite non-Christian friends and family to join you any other time of the year?

It is easier to invite people to join you on Easter Sunday; even nominal Christians and outright nonbelievers consider going to church on Easter as “the thing to do.”

But just as going to the gym once rarely leads to physical change, going to church on Easter only is unlikely to produce genuine or lasting spiritual fruit. It is unlikely to soften hearts, change minds, or strengthen convictions. If our heart is really for our loved ones to know Jesus, we should not expect one Sunday to change their hearts. It can happen—nothing is impossible for God—but I’ve seen more lives transformed through steady, week-after-week participation than by all the shine and shimmer of once-annual Easter productions.

Invite your friends to join you on Easter. But also invite them to join you the Sunday after so they can see what church really is about when the lilies and photo booths are gone and the congregation returns to its usual worship, study, and fellowship.

You might be surprised to find that your church’s mundane weekly gatherings prove more attractive and transformative than special services.

3. Why not invite friends and family to join you on Good Friday?

I’ve noticed three interesting things about Good Friday and Maundy Thursday services: 1) they are rarely promoted with the same gusto as Easter Sunday, 2) they are primarily attended by mature Christians rather than annual visitors, and 3) their messages and worship tend to be much deeper.

So why don’t we invite friends and family to join us for these services? When we only invite them to Easter, we risk them hearing only half the story. We risk offering them what Bonhoeffer famously called “cheap grace”—grace without cost, forgiveness without the cross.

Maybe that’s why so many people are comfortable only attending church on Easter. They get a predictable “Your sins are forgiven and death is conquered!” message without ever being forced to reckon with what this cost Christ and what accepting Christ will cost them.

Don’t leave your loved ones with half the story. A half-truth is an untruth, after all.

I would go so far as to suggest that if your loved ones are only willing to come with you to one service a year, it should be Good Friday and not Easter. They’ve heard about the resurrection before, but have they been confronted by the cross?

4. Why do you invite friends and family to join you on Easter?

Most likely, you invite friends and family to join you on Easter because you want to introduce them to Jesus or because want to worship alongside those dearest to you. These are both wonderful motivations.

Sometimes, though, I wonder whether other motivations creep into our invitations. Perhaps we are worried about sitting alone while everyone else is surrounded by their picture-perfect families. Or perhaps we secretly want to show off our picture-perfect family or large friend group. Maybe we just want a nice family photo for once and Easter is a good excuse to get one.

You should enjoy celebrating with your family and you friends. You are free to wear a nice Easter dress if you’d like and snap a few photos to mark the occasion. These are all perfectly fine—even good—things.

But be on guard. Don’t let these things become your primary motivation. Parents, be cautious that you don’t compare your family’s appearance to others. Grandparents, be careful not to compete over whose family fills the most pews. Young men and women, abstain from checking to see whether your “He is risen!” photo gets more likes than those of your peers.

Keep inviting people, but keep checking your heart as well.

5. Do you know who your family is?

I’ve heard church attendees declare, “Family first!” as their reason for skipping Sunday services. Now, I am not saying that you should miss important family events when they fall on Sundays; that is a matter of personal conscience.

However, Jesus himself is clear that while family is important, it does not actually come first in his heavenly hierarchy. Indeed, if we are in Christ, he gives us a new family. We are adopted as sons; now, other Christians are our brothers and sisters. This new family born of Christ’s blood supersedes even our blood relatives. Our nuclear family remains important—recall how Jesus cared for his mother even from the cross—but we are actually called to prioritize the Body of Christ (John 19:26).

This is shocking. Our culture lifts up “faith and family” on supposedly equal planes but, in practice, family usually takes precedence. But Jesus completely disrupts this notion when he says:

“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

– Matthew 12:48–50

Those who do the will of God are closer to us than non-believing family members. This is not a popular thing to say, even among Christians, but it is true. And what is the will of God? Among other things, it is that his people would gather together regularly for worship, teaching, and fellowship (Hebrews 10:25).

Our truest family is not necessarily the people we drag to church on Easter. Rather, it consists of those we sing, serve, study, and pray with week after week.

This truth is both convicting and encouraging. Realizing that our ultimate family is the family of God in Christ, we ought to be on the lookout for lonely “family” members. Even as we bring our relatives and friends to church on Easter, let’s not let Christian brothers and sisters sit by themselves, feeling awkward and alone. Instead, remember that they are your first family now; sit with them, invite them to brunch, take a celebratory photo together.

Realizing that our truest family is made up of other believers is also encouraging for those of us who feel alone on Easter. It can be painful and even embarrassing to sit by yourself when everyone else is surrounded by their children, cousins, neighbors, or friends. But remember that you are not an orphan; you are right where you need to be. God has given you sisters and brothers and adoptive grandparents and probably an eccentric uncle or two.

Take heart, lonely Christian. After Easter, when all the visitors go back to their lives beyond church, you will look around and see your true family worshiping and learning beside you. Your family reunion is coming.

Questions for Easter-Only Attendees

1. Do you attend church on Easter because it’s “the thing to do”?

Many people go to church on Easter simply because it’s “the thing to do.” It’s like turkey on Thanksgiving; whether we like turkey or not, it’s just what we eat on the fourth Thursday of November.

But attending church on Easter is a much more serious matter than eating turkey on Thanksgiving. It demands thoughtful, honest examination. We cannot treat it as “the thing to do” with no questions asked. In the words of poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?”

I hope that whether you are a Christian or not, you agree that as rational human beings, we should examine our behaviors and underlying beliefs. We should pursue consistency between our convictions and our actions.

To that end, I encourage you to keep reading.

2. Do you attend church on Easter for your family?

Probably the main reason people who do not attend church regularly go on Easter is for the sake of their families. Maybe you don’t want your widowed mother to sit alone, so you tag along. Maybe your grandparents were persistent about inviting you, so you go to appease them. Maybe you don’t go with your family, but you make sure to text them a picture of you at a church—any church—so they’ll be reassured about the state of your soul and stop praying for you.

If you go to church on Easter out of a genuine desire to honor your family, this is a good thing and I commend you for it.

At the same time, however, I’ve seen firsthand how once-a-year attendance sparks initial joy followed by profound disappointment and confusion. Christian parents are thrilled to see their grown children at church but then grieved to realize it was, once again, only for Easter. It was not indicative of any real, enduring faith after all.

This begs the question: is going to church on Easter only actually honoring to your family? Or is it perhaps misleading them about the state of your faith—or lack thereof—and thus further wounding them? Are you filling them with hope only to let them down when you do not come back until next year?

In that case, you’re not really honoring your family; you’re appeasing them. It might be better to cut the yearly pretense altogether.

3. Do you attend church on Easter for yourself?

One benefit of our postmodern age is that people are regaining an understanding of themselves as spiritual creatures. Materialism is no longer satisfying. The prevalence of phrases like “spiritual but not religious” indicates that those who do not claim a particular creed still value and desire spiritual nourishment.

So people go to church on Easter because it seems like a spiritually healthy thing to do—and it is, but only if it is the beginning of an ongoing commitment. Spiritual health is not so different from physical, emotional, mental, or relational health in this way. Again, going to the gym once will not build lasting strength or endurance; more likely, it will leave you feeling sore and discouraged.

We all know that we cannot achieve physical, emotional, mental, or relational health through sporadic actions, so why do we treat our spiritual health with such laxity? Why do we think that going to church once a year will do the trick?

Now I want to speak directly to those who consider themselves Christians but only go to church once a year: Do you enjoy going to church on Easter? Or does it feel like a chore? Maybe it feels awkward, like everyone else is having a great time, but you’re just going through the motions as best you can.

I’ve noticed that only people who exercise regularly seem to enjoy it; it’s not that they were born with a love for running or weight lifting but, rather, that their diligence gradually produced delight. People who do not like working out tend to be those who do not work out often or have yet to discover that habit tends to produce happiness—not the other way around.

It’s the same with church. Even if you know Christ, you might not enjoy church until it becomes central to your life. If you view church as an “I’ll get there when I feel like it” sort of thing, don’t expect to enjoy or benefit from it when you do finally go. But if you prioritize church weekly, you may be surprised how quickly it becomes a source of genuine joy and strength.

4. Do you attend church on Easter for God?

I suspect there are few through-and-through atheists out there. Most people seem to at least concede the possibility of a “higher power,” even if they do not want to be specific about who or what that higher power might be. And I suspect that most people—if they are honest with themselves—fear that they have not given this “higher power” the attention he deserves.

And so the nominal and the agnostic turn up on Easter, attempting to satisfy a deity who might or might not be there and who may or may not be unhappy with them.

It seems that many people treat going to church on Easter like paying a small, once-annual insurance fee. Yes, it’s a bit awkward and inconvenient, but on the off chance that there is a higher power and he is displeased, this might help smooth things over—right?

If that is the sort of deity you believe in, why would you go to a Christian church on Easter? The God we worship as Christians is very clear that he does not want only an hour of our time once a year; he wants all of us. I am reminded of the following verses in Amos, where God addresses his half-hearted people:

“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?”

– Amos 5:21–25

Listen, if attending church on Easter is the result (or beginning) of genuine faith, by all means go! Come! Join us! And keep going. Keep coming. Keep joining us as you get to know our Savior, who gave his all for us.

But if you have no intention of coming back until next year, why are you going at all? Such a lukewarm gesture cannot satisfy a jealous God—a God who made you and loves you and wants your whole heart.

5. Are you being intellectually honest?

Let’s return to the idea of self-reflection. When you attend church only on Easter, do you know what your actions are saying? Are you being intellectually honest or are you living in a fog of cognitive dissonance?

Whether consciously or unconsciously, when you only attend church on Easter, you signify through your actions that you believe Jesus died for you but not strongly enough for you to live for him.

These are blunt words, but they are true and you may need to wrestle with them. Jesus is a welcoming, loving Lord but he is also clear that you are either with him or against him.

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

– Matthew 12:30

When you cut through the egg hunts and bunny costumes, Easter isn’t a game. You cannot afford be halfhearted. “The fence belongs to Satan,” as the saying goes.

If you profess Christ, do so in word and deed. Prioritize gathering with his Body throughout the year. Live with integrity—literally, wholeness and consistency.

If you do not claim Christ as your Lord and Savior, why are you celebrating his resurrection and salvation on Easter? Why signify with your actions something you do not actually believe?

Conclusion

I genuinely want every person who reads this blog to go to church on Easter. But I also yearn for everyone who reads this blog to stop living in dissonance and find true harmony between profession and practice.

Reader, come to church on Easter Sunday—whether it’s your first time, it’s been a long time, or you’re there every week. But I entreat you to also come back next week. Christ’s resurrection is not just good news on April 20th, 2025. If we really believe in his death and resurrection, this belief must inform our entire lives—not just an hour once a year.