As the pastor, the reminder “Sunday’s coming” may bring feelings of elation or dread. To be fair, most pastors live week-to-week and much of their waking time is spent with an eye toward worship. It might be an overstatement to say we’re obsessed by the weekend, but for most of us, it’s not much of an overstatement.

On the other hand, almost no one else in your church shares your obsession, especially not those sitting in the pews. While you’re planning worship on Tuesday, you’ll be “lucky” if the average church member will even pick up a Bible on their own volition, let alone think much about the upcoming worship service.

While you plan worship this week, you’ll be lucky if any church members even think about the upcoming service.

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Wouldn’t it be great if our church members invested some time in preparing for worship before they got there? While there are no guarantees, here are some ways to help get your parishioners thinking about Sunday … and you may discover that some may even start coming prepared!

1. Tuesday: Post a Facebook update on the church’s page. Be sure to use a relevant image and an intriguing title [related: Creative and Effective Sermon Titles]. As of this writing, Facebook “likes” images that are 1200 x 630. If you’re creating your own images, set the resolution to 150px for the best display.
2. Wednesday: Send an email to your membership with the same graphic and title, but include the Scripture reference. Encourage them to read the passage that evening and reflect on it.
3. Thursday: Write a two paragraph blog post for the church’s website that touches on the highlights of the sermon. Spur them on to deeper thinking by including one or two questions for them to consider.
4. Friday: Send a mass text to all your church followers and remind them to invite someone to join them for worship and this week’s message (include the catchy title).
5. Saturday: (1) Paste the link to your sermon blog post into a Facebook post (and be sure the sermon image is prominent), and (2) Send an email to your membership that includes both a copy of the weekly church program (bulletin) as well as the link to your blog post. Invite them to review the materials as they prepare for Sunday worship.

With some practice, you should be able to write the blog post in less than fifteen minutes and grab an image in five minutes or so. Total investment time for the week should be less than thirty minutes.