Planning Easter Worship Services

Planning a Special Easter Season

As ward and stake councils plan how to make this Easter season more Christ-centered, it might help to discuss some questions like the following:

• What can we do so our Easter celebrations help all feel a desire to draw closer to Jesus Christ?
• How can we intentionally worship the Savior in the weeks leading up to and following Easter Sunday?
• Who might participate in our Palm Sunday services, and how can we help them have meaningful opportunities to serve?
• How can we reach out to friends, neighbors, and the local community and help them feel welcome at our Palm Sunday celebrations?

Prepare Palm Sunday Worship Services

For Palm Sunday, you might consider some of the following ideas:  

• Plan a special program for your sacrament meeting or stake conference. These examples can help you get started.
• Invite your sacrament meeting or stake conference speakers to focus their message on the Savior. Teachings and testimonies about how the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ affect us personally can be especially powerful. You might also consider assigning Christ-centered sacrament meeting talks for the weeks leading up to Palm Sunday to help the congregation spiritually prepare for Easter. 
• Make music an important part of the program. This list of songs might help guide your planning.

In addition, modest and inexpensive flowers in the chapel can help create a joyful and reverent atmosphere (see General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 35.5.7.6).

Invite Friends and Neighbors

The following ideas might help with inviting friends and neighbors to celebrate Palm Sunday: 

• Create a banner or pass out invitations to help all feel welcome. View printable banners and invitations.
• Organize an interfaith choir that will perform on Palm Sunday. 
• Ask members and friends to help with decorations and with planning a simple Palm Sunday social gathering. This gathering can be a wonderful opportunity for members and visitors to get to know each other.
• Consider using your ward webpage to publish and share your Easter and Palm Sunday worship services and activities.
• Work with your weekly missionary coordination meeting and ward council to plan how to invite those of other faiths this year.

If stake conference takes place on Palm Sunday, local leaders are encouraged to post signs on meetinghouse doors directing visitors to the conference if held in a different location. It may also be helpful to include information about how to participate virtually.

Extend the Easter Experience

President Jeffrey R. Holland taught, “The Crucifixion, Atonement, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ mark the beginning of a Christian life, not the end of it.” (“The First Great Commandment,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2012). The following ideas may help Church members and friends build on their Easter experiences: 

• Plan an activity or service project shortly after Easter that is focused on Jesus Christ.
• Invite those you serve to continue their study of the Savior’s Atonement, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. View Easter related talks and topics.
• Encourage others to form a resolution for how they can continue to draw closer to Jesus Christ. 

Through the Resurrection, Jesus Christ defeated death, pain, suffering and sin. He invites us—His disciples—to continue the work He began. As we strive in our everyday lives to lift the weary, heal the broken, and “comfort those … in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9), we help share the hope and peace made possible by that glorious Easter morning when the Savior rose from the tomb. May this be a time of spiritual renewal for each of us as we seek to follow Him more faithfully and help to build His kingdom.