Episode 215: Beyond the Bunny with Corinne Noble

When it comes to KidMin Easter egg hunts, we seem to be doing the same things, the same way, for the same reasons - but without the same effectiveness. This week's conversation with Corinne Noble will have you laughing, nodding in agreement, and taking notes on how to reach families effectively, both at Easter and year-round.

Get your free Easter lesson from Brite by Awana at britecurriculum.com/Easter. Connect with Corinne and her amazing KidMin resources at kidmincorinne.com and on socials @KidMinCorinne.

Transcript

Hannah Augustine (00:00)

Every spring, churches across the country are pouring time, volunteers, and budget into Easter events. And the question is, are we creating moments that point families clearly to Jesus, or are we just hosting another seasonal attraction?

Today, I'm joined by Corinne Noble, founder of KidMin Corinne, and we're talking about Easter outreach, specifically how to move beyond the traditional egg hunt and create something deeper with lasting gospel impact.

Corinne has helped churches really rethink outreach strategy in a way that's intentional, sustainable, and genuinely centered on the gospel. And today she's going to help us think differently about Easter. So if you've ever wondered, are we doing this just because we've always done this? This is a conversation for you.

But as a children's ministry leader, we know your desire is to help your kids develop biblical literacy so they can follow Jesus for life. And that's why the team at Awana developed brite, gospel-centered curriculum for babies through elementary-age kids. With brite, kids are going to learn the story of the Bible, creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, as they walk through the Bible chronologically every year. Each passage and character, from Old Testament to New, is connected to the gospel, pointing to Jesus as our Redeemer, Savior, and Lord. You can download a free brite Easter lesson for preschool and elementary at britecurriculum.com/Easter. That's britecurriculum.com/Easter. It's a great way to start your Easter prep. We are getting close at the airing of this episode.

But Corinne, I would love to start here. You actually did a post that, in my eyes, was viral. I don't know what's actually viral in social media, but you had a ton of comments on this. It was really cool just to see everybody's opinion. You were talking about the egg hunt, and where does it fit? Should we be doing it? So starting off, what's not wrong with an egg hunt, but what's maybe missing when we're focusing on an egg hunt at Easter?

Corinne Noble (02:13)

I was definitely talking about my personal opinion of how I really just don't like egg hunts. Now that I'm not on staff in a church, no one's going to get mad at me for saying it. Honestly, I just don't like them, and I kill them if I can at the church that I'm at. Egg hunts in and of themselves…I'm not saying that, you know, Easter eggs are evil or of the devil or anything; not going there.

But I think that the issue is, we've been doing it forever. Like you said, a lot of times there is a good heart behind it. What's not wrong with it? We think it's going to be a good outreach. We think we're going to get a lot of people to come because it feels like something that's safe, and for unchurched people, it's not so churchy, and people will come and we'll get a chance to invite them back to our services. So I think that there is a good heart behind it.

But I think there are also maybe some wrong motives and wrong perspectives around it as well. It's definitely a “we've always done it this way” mentality type of an event. We've been doing it for decades. I think it used to be more effective and successful than it is now. And I think some of it is just that we've moved away from it being gospel-centered. I think that's the biggest issue.

Sometimes, people are trying to bring the gospel to it. And as I said in my post, I'm okay with it if we're bringing the gospel to the actual event. And there are ways to do that. But a lot of times what I'm seeing is we're taking the gospel completely out of this event. And it's just a really big money, time, and resource sucker. And honestly, all we're doing is handing out a little invite card and saying, "hey, come back to church." But there's no gospel present.

There's just a lot to unpack here.

Hannah Augustine (03:59)

I love it. You know, my dad was in marketing, so when I see someone trying to sell to me or trying to hook me, like “get this free thing,” I know they want me to buy something after I get the free thing. So I always feel like, “haha, I didn't buy the thing. All I did was take your free thing.” And I think sometimes that's how people approach an egg hunt. They're like, “haha, I'm not going to come to your church, but I got to bring my kids to a free outreach.” And I'm not saying people are evil and thinking that, but…

Corinne Noble (04:08)

Yeah.

That's a really good point.

Yeah.

Hannah Augustine (04:26)

…what we're hoping to happen, which is that they will come to church on Easter Sunday, usually doesn't. And again, there's ways, like you said, to get creative, and figure out how you can incorporate the gospel. Are you having those one-on-one conversations with people as they come? Yes. But also starting to ask, is this working? Or is there a sacred cow that maybe we need to let go and say, “hey, this is something we've always done?”

Corinne Noble (04:30)

I know this is a little off script, but you mentioned a couple of things I think are really important to talk about here. One of them was the whole bait-and-switch type of thing, where we're doing an egg hunt, it's free, come get the free candy and everything. But people see through that. One of the things that we're learning about Gen Z parents as well as millennial parents is that they are looking for authenticity and they're looking for relationships. So does it feel authentic when we're doing this bait-and-switch thing? I don't think it's working with these new generations. That's one thing I thought of. 

The other thing that you mentioned was those one-on-one conversations. If we're going to do these big outreach events, whether it's an egg hunt or something else, even at any other time of the year, we need to be focusing on one-on-one relational conversations, because that is probably the one thing that is going to make someone come back to our churches, is having a really good relational connection with someone. That is what, again, millennial and Gen Z parents are looking for. So those are some shifts that we really need to make when we're thinking about outreach.

Hannah Augustine (05:53)

I love it. At a church I was at for a season, we had moved away from the egg hunt. We offered two different options. Number one, we would partner with our city, which did a huge egg hunt. They put it all on. We would show up, help run it, volunteer, hand out waters, and then we would walk around and just pass out invitations and pray with people. 

That was a win, right? Because we're not making a huge financial investment. We didn't run the event. The bonus was we were also supporting our city. We're there helping them and doing what we can. So developing a relationship there, and then still getting to have those conversations and wear the shirt and all the things. There is brand recognition in the sense of, "these people are very kind. They go to this church,” etc.

Hannah Augustine (06:40)

And then on Sunday, Easter Sunday and all the services leading up to it, we would do a small egg hunt outside. So there was an opportunity for families to feel like, "I can come to Easter service and there's going to be a couple of fun photo spots for my family and a mini egg hunt for the kids." So even just thinking through, if you have to do an egg hunt, can you work outside of the box and find some ways to do it so that you're more effective?

Corinne Noble (06:55)

Right.

I've seen that, you know, the big community-wide egg hunts and then churches coming and being a part of those. I think that is the most effective thing that we can do as far as partnering with an egg hunt, is partnering with our communities, because that's one of the reasons why I don't think egg hunts are worth spending the money and time on, because there's so many of them all over. At least here, there's a community one. There's one in my neighborhood. There's one in my city. There's one at every single church down the road.

We're really not providing or meeting any kind of need. So how could we partner with something else that's already going on? I think that's great. And then pour into our services as well.

Hannah Augustine (07:47)

So turning the conversation, when you think about Easter outreach done well, what would you say would define it?

Corinne Noble (07:52)

Man, that's tough. It's very subjective. I just don't think the big blown-out events that are just attractional are where it's at anymore. I think they still may get - people don't love it when I say things like this - but butts in the seats or people on the property, okay? If that's your only goal, they're still getting people on your property. They are still getting maybe butts in the seats or whatever. 

But what we're not really seeing is the return on the investment. They're not coming back to our churches, they're not coming back to our services. It isn't just that we're trying to grow our churches or our numbers, but if they're not coming back to our churches, we're not getting to invest in them, we're not getting to present the gospel to them, we're not getting to help them meet Jesus. To me, that's not it. I don't think that that is successful.

It's something I've tried to explain to several different lead pastors that I've worked for. Numbers are not everything. I think success looks like actually having those one-on-one conversations, building relationships, and actually connecting. Even if you connected one or two new families and you had made a really good impression on them, you shared the gospel with them, you put stuff in their hands that made them feel equipped and loved and resourced, that would still be better than a thousand people who showed up and most of them left disgruntled and just had candy and never came back to your church. I think we just have to think it's not all about numbers. It really is more quality over quantity. That's how I see it.

Hannah Augustine (09:27)

That's great, and even thinking through the most effective way to do a community event. Maybe not doing it when everybody in the city is doing it. Say, “hey, let me offer something in February when there's maybe not any local events,” or “I'm going to do a parenting workshop.”

Adding value, something that maybe isn't being offered somewhere else. And saying, “hey, I want to equip you, I want to invest in you.” Giving them opportunities, yes, to get on your property, because that is some of the battle, right? Helping people know you exist, helping people get in the doors and feel comfortable in your building, but then also creating an opportunity for those conversations.

I know what we have found is that egg hunts, fall festivals, some of these big market events, even Christmas things like a snowball fight or whatever you might want to try to do, it's very difficult to have that impact. 

The only time I've seen it done while at a fall fest, I was at a church in Springfield that would do a presentation. It was like a skit and it was all out, really cool, like fun, theme, puppets, all that. Then they would do a gospel presentation at the end. I loved that because they gave the option for people to come and do all the fun things. But if you need a few minutes in the warm, you know, before you go back out and trick or treat, come in and watch this presentation and then you can get to know Jesus.

You may be out there and you may say, "hey, I know how to make egg hunts work." That is great. We're not saying, don't ever do it again. But we are saying rethink the why and how.

Corinne Noble (10:51)

Yes.

And I will say, I have done egg hunts and I actually have done them very successfully. I really wanted to share this story. I did this glow egg hunt when I was in Texas at nighttime. Again, like you're saying, at a different time. It was like on a Wednesday or a Thursday night. It was totally random. It went really well. I mean, it was very well-attended compared to other ones we'd done.

We did do what you're saying. We did a gospel presentation. We brought them in. It was very fun. It was upbeat. I juggled while I did the gospel presentation. Everything was fun, but the gospel presentation was there, and it wasn't overly long. People weren't upset, and then we did the glow egg hunt. We did all these invites back and everything. I still don't know how successful it was at getting a lot of new families to plug into our church, but it was very successful and the gospel was present there.

Hannah Augustine (11:25)

That's amazing.

Corinne Noble (11:43)

But then - I have to share this - I wanted to bring this event to Arizona, because Arizona people are going to love this because it's very, it's very warm here, and they're going to love a nighttime event outdoors. This is going to be great. This was about seven years ago, back when Facebook events were big. I don't know if you guys remember, but you put something on Facebook, promoted it, and the whole entire world would see it, right? Not a thing anymore.

But we did that, and like thousands of people RSVP'd in the community. We're thinking, this is so great, but it's free, right? And usually only like a third or a fourth of people that RSVP to a free event are actually going to show up.

No, wrong. Like literally the whole entire world showed up. I don't even know what the count was, but it was completely insane. We had lines down the street, nowhere to put people, nowhere for people to park.

We had plans for getting people's information. We couldn't get their information because there were so many people, and people were mad. The lines were so long.  So we're just trying to wade them into the gospel presentation. There's not space. People were wall-to-wall, people were overflow, people were outside. It was crazy. 

So we went forward. We did the gospel presentation, even though it was crazy. Honestly, there's so much that I can unpack here, but we didn't have enough candy. We didn't have enough eggs. We didn't have inflatables. We didn't have enough of anything. We literally were sending people to Sam's Club to go buy stuff.

From one perspective, this was an extremely successful event because we had tons of people show up: amazing. But from another perspective, we were not prepared for this. So I will say, always be prepared for there to be way too many people who show up, okay guys? We were not prepared, and we had so many people who were angry and upset. 

Honestly, even though we had thousands and thousands of people there, I honestly think it may have hurt us for people coming back to our church. But you're going to love this. I went to staff meeting the next week, and I'm prepared for just like everyone to say, “wow, this was a disaster. Like this is horrible. What can we do?” And they say, "it was a success. It was amazing. So many people came." The perspective was so different. I felt it had been a total failure, and everyone else thought it was just like this blowout success. And there I was being like, “this isn't it.” 

It's just the craziest thing. Yes, the gospel was present and it was an insanely awesome event, had there not been like 10x too many people there to enjoy it. 

Hannah Augustine (13:59)

I love that.

I think that's such a good perspective, right? Because depending on how you're measuring it, it was a success that you had all these people come and you ran out of supplies, which a lot of times, we're really excited about [running out of supplies] because that means so many people came. But then when you step back and from your perspective, you're going, “no, not good. We ran out of supplies. We couldn't capture information. We couldn't have the one-on-one conversations because we were inundated with people.”

Corinne Noble (14:14)

I was out there among the people hearing the conversations, and the conversations were not good. That's the thing. I'm out there trying to patch it up, but I heard so many people upset. It was more than I could possibly, you know, fix honestly, personally.

Hannah Augustine (14:47)

My goodness. That's one for a book one day. You're not alone if you have an egg hunt failure. We've all been there.

Corinne Noble (14:52)

I think if you've done an egg hunt, you've had an egg hunt failure.

Hannah Augustine (14:58)

Oh my - the injuries - I mean, seeing kids, they are funny, you know, you open the gate and let them go and they're running…it is wild!

Hannah Augustine (15:07)

How do we, whether we're doing an egg hunt or whatever we're going to do, how do we design Easter outreach with follow up in mind from the beginning? How can we have that approach?

Corinne Noble (15:11)

Obviously, we do want to be capturing information. Obviously, we have a lot of options to capture it, even ahead of time, electronically, via cards and all of that. But I think a lot of times we're better at capturing the information than we are at actually planning to follow up.

 I think a big thing for me is, okay, I want to follow up with kids, and I want to follow up with parents. So I love sending out physical mail postcards to them, whether this is from an egg hunt or an outreach event, or even just from Easter Sunday, because you're going to have your biggest attendance you really ever have all year on Easter Sunday, whether you have an egg hunt or not; honestly, it's just true. So we want to go the extra mile and reach out.

I love to send postcards to all the kids. I started doing this thing, and I have a freebie on my website. (I think I have two of them, actually.) People love these. They're color-your-own postcards that you can send home with kids. So you mail it to them, or you can send it home with them physically, either way, but kids love to get mail. So if you can mail it, even better. They color it, and then they bring it back and they turn it in, and they get a prize the next week.

So you're encouraging them to come back. You're giving them something they can color and use. I think kids love to get mail. I mean, they don't get mail. So that's just a really fun thing. I have little boys, they would be super excited to get something like that in the mail, color it and bring it back.

Hannah Augustine (16:08)

I love that.

Corinne Noble (16:35)

And then we also want to follow up with parents, whether that's via text...Phone calls are kind of [not great], don't call millennials and Gen Z. We're not picking up the phone. But we're trying to follow up with parents - talk with them one-on-one as much as we can on those Sundays, whether it's you or a volunteer - but follow up with them either via email or text or something through the week, or even mail. I know mail used to be dead, but I feel like it's actually back, because people don't get a lot of personal mail. But again, personalize it, write a little personal note on it.

If you have hundreds, thousands of families you're going to have to reach out to, assemble a team. I like to do this around VBS, around any big event. Assemble a team. There are lots of older people who are retired. There are teenagers. There's people who would sit down and write little physical notes, put stamps on things, and send them out. And honestly, this doesn't have to be just one person. It's just somebody making a personal connection. So I think assembling that team ahead of time, talking with those people, getting that follow-up plan in place so we're not just capturing information and then forgetting to actually do anything with it.

Hannah Augustine (17:37)

I really liked the idea of the postcard even to an adult, because you're right, people love getting a note. And I think that's where planning ahead and being ready on Easter Sunday. You as the leader of your ministry do not want to find yourself in the three-year-old room for the entire service on Easter because now you're not meeting families.

Nothing wrong with being in the three-year-old room, but you're not meeting families. You're not developing that relationship where you can then follow up and actually say like it was great to meet you, you know, I loved getting to know you. I loved - whatever it was that you can follow up in that postcard. Then think through, does your church have a coffee shop that you could provide a $5 coupon for when they come back? I personally would come just for the coffee. I'll come grab a coffee! Why not? 

Thinking through some of those strategies. Could you do a follow up fun thing on the next Sunday? “Hey, not only will your kid get a prize from the prize box or whatever you're doing, but we're going to have a special glow day,” or we're going to have whatever special thing that you could do, or a Wednesday night event or something that's going to get them back in one more time to continue. Because building that relationship…

Corinne Noble (18:37)

Yeah, finding ways to invite them back. I think that is super important. I think there are two goals that I would say everybody should have for Easter weekend. It should be obviously presenting the gospel well and with excellence and not being focused on, if you've got an egg hunt happening that weekend or that Sunday, not letting that take the focus, but just bringing the gospel with excellence and making it fun,

Putting the focus on that, but also you and your team getting out there and having those one-on-one conversations, connecting with as many families and guests one-on-one, in person, as possible. Those should be the main goals of Easter weekend.

Hannah Augustine (19:28)

I completely agree. And even taking the time to look at your curriculum way in advance. Some curricula have great Easter options. We just talked about brite, and they've got a free Easter lesson. You may need to say, “hey, I'm going to add on for the Easter lesson because there are some things that maybe I want to make sure are represented.” 

One time I was working at Easter services, and I was at a larger church and was not in charge of curriculum. We got to Easter Sunday and I realized, “I don't think there's enough gospel in this. We need to add.” After the first couple of services, I went to my boss and I said, "hey, we're pivoting. We're going to do more because we need more of a gospel presentation here." And that's okay. Yes, the curriculum is there to help you, but it's there to help you. So go make sure it's what you need in your church.

Corinne Noble (19:56)

I love just doing something different, something unique. You're going to have a lot more kids. Again, whether you're doing some big blowout thing or not, you're going to have a lot more kids than you usually do. And doing something fun and unique and exciting is great.

I love doing stations on Easter Sunday. If you can make it happen, do the stations. Because I mean, honestly, when you look at the gospel, like the the death, the resurrection, all of that. It's a lot of scripture in the Bible. If you want to hit it well and you don't have a good Friday service to work with, it's a lot. Breaking that up into fun stations, presenting part of the story and then doing like little hands-on activity there, maybe a prayer station, maybe a snack, but you know, just doing something different at each station, gives you a chance to break up the biblical content and then do something fun and hands-on, then move on to the next one and get back into the biblical content without sacrificing the biblical content. I love to do something like that on Easter Sunday as well.

Hannah Augustine (21:08)

Absolutely. At the church I was a part of in Atlanta, we had started doing a resurrection experience where you would go from room to room. It was themed, and there was a room that looked like the garden, and there was a room that had the empty tomb. And I loved that because it was giving kids a chance to do something different. 

I also encourage you to be thinking through [attendance] We would have double our numbers. So if you're thinking, I'll just do small groups like normal, you may not be able to fit them all in a small group. So think through how you can accommodate  double or triple the number of kids you usually have in my classrooms. Do you need to split classrooms? Do you need to provide extra supplies? Think through all of those things so that it's successful. 

And then absolutely the follow up. When I moved here to Louisiana, my husband and I visited quite a few churches trying to find a home. We filled out guest info cards at all of them. Just on non-Easter, normal Sundays.

Most of them did not reach out. And it surprised me because I thought, my goodness…I'm a strong Christian. I'm not coming in as an unbeliever. And I was extremely disappointed. It helped us decide not to go back because they didn't even take the time to follow up with the card that we took the initiative to fill out. People are really going out on a limb to fill out their information and to do that. So steward that well.

Corinne Noble (22:21)

We're better at taking people's information than we are actually using it and doing anything with it. Honestly, like you're saying, parents are stopping and they're filling out all this stuff. And it isn't just for safety purposes. Obviously we want to be able to reach them, but we're not even using these resources that we've already asked for. We're not using them, and we're not following up. And I think that's just a big waste.

Hannah Augustine (22:51)

This applies to everything. This goes for VBS, this goes for any event you do. How are you following up and using that information? Probably don't add them to your weekly email list. They don't want that, not after their first visit. But planning, when is your next event? Could you send them a personal text? Say, “hey, we loved having you at Easter. We have VBS registrations open and we would love to give you 50% off as an Easter guest.”

Thinking through what you can do to help them connect with the life of the church. Invite them to something more tangible like a small group. It doesn't have to be just a Sunday morning. “Hey, we're doing a parenting class, we're doing a workshop,” we're doing whatever it is that's going to be low resistance and easy for them to say yes to. This is going to really help you as you're working on these outreach thoughts.

Corinne Noble (23:16)

If your church does VBS, I always have VBS registration up. I'm pushing VBS at Easter services. People don't come to church that often. So they're coming to church on Easter Sunday, most likely. This is your best chance to invite them to your VBS if you're doing that. So that's definitely something I always do. Always have VBS present and invite those families back to VBS.

Hannah Augustine (24:00)

I love it. Now, as we're wrapping up, if you could wave a magic wand and change how churches approach Easter outreach across the country, what would you hope to see in the future? 

Corinne Noble (24:12)

I would hope to see a lot less egg hunts - a lot less egg hunts. I've been on the back end, and it takes thousands and thousands of dollars and hours and hours and hours of time. I would love to see more of a focus on how we can make our Easter weekend services better and more excellent. How do we connect with families more?

If we're going to create a big family event, let's create a family experience that centers around Jesus and what it's actually about. The church has been trying to be the world for too long, and the church needs to be the church. People know that we believe in Jesus. They know that what we celebrate at Easter is his death and a resurrection. Let's celebrate that. Let's bring that. They don't need more of the Easter bunny. They don't need more Easter eggs. We can make it fun, but let's make it focused on that. If we're going to do events, let's focus on that and make it centered on what the church is about and what we really should be celebrating.

Hannah Augustine (25:09)

You're absolutely right. Let's not try to be the city or the YMCA or the local school that's doing all these events; let's be us. I think people will be okay with that. When there's not a bait-and-switch, and we're just being upfront: "Hey, we'd love to have you come and we're going to do X-Y-Z, and we're going to talk about this and it's going to be great." Find what works for your church, find what works in your community. It's going to look different in every context. Don't be afraid to ask for help from other churches. Could you come together with another church? This is about the kingdom. It's not about you growing your congregation. It's about people coming to know Jesus. 

Get creative, and figure out how you can be most effective. I know at the time of this episode, we're only a few weeks out from Easter. So is there one thing you could do now, but also as you think through next year and even as you prepare for Easter Sunday, keep some of these thoughts in mind.

Hannah Augustine (25:57)

Corinne, your perspective on all this is great. I'm so appreciative of your contribution to the KidMin world. Your resources are great. You just did, I think, a book giveaway. You're always providing some free resources and things like that. We love you. We're glad to have you in our world as one of our friends in kids' ministry. And they can find you on socials at @KidMinCorinne. Can you share your website for us where they could find you as well?

Corinne Noble (26:09)

Thank you.

Yep, it's KidminCorinne.com. So Corinne is tough to spell, but C-O-R-I-N-N-E, two N's. But everything's KidminCorinne.

Hannah Augustine (26:23)

I would love if you would close us in prayer as we wrap up.

Corinne Noble (26:34)

Of course. Lord, we thank you for today. We thank you for every leader that is listening to this podcast, wherever they are as they're planning for Easter. Lord, I pray that you would bless them, help them to find ways to make your gospel the center and make you the center of their Easter this year. Lord, I pray for all the families they're going to affect and they're going to get to come in contact with. Lord, that you would just speak through them and remind them that they have something that the world does not have. They have your Spirit. And that is so much more powerful than any candy or any Easter egg hunt that these families could attend. In your name we pray, amen.

Hannah Augustine (27:07)

Amen to that. Don't forget you can snag your free brite Easter lesson for preschool and elementary at britecurriculum.com/Easter, britecurriculum.com/easter, and we'll put that in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to like and subscribe, and you can find Corinne on social media as @KidMinCorinne. Have a great week.