Seasons > Easter > Easter Decorations for the Church > Ways to Use Banners to Decorate the Church
Banners are a great way to dress up the church for Easter and make it feel more like a celebration. If you don’t do anything to make Easter Sunday distinctive, it will feel like every other Sunday. Therefore decorations can be an important part of making Easter special. Some churches hang banners year round, then for special occasions replace them with seasonal banners. It only takes a few minutes to hang a banner, so they don’t take as much time to decorate as other ornaments. If you make your own, you can choose the design that you want, and write the message with the emphasis you want to get across. Unlike flowers, they can be used year after year. Unlike stained glass windows, they are relatively inexpensive to make, so you can make new ones when you want a new look. I highly recommend the pattern books on the right, available through Christian bookstores, and online companies such as Christian Books and Amazon.
The front of the sanctuary is a good place to hang banners since this is where everyone gathers for worship--to let everyone know something special is happening. If it is not possible to hang them on the walls because of windows, pipe organs, etc, you can buy stands that sit on the floor and hang them from there. If you do hang banners on the walls, you will need curtain rod style hooks rather than picture hooks if the dowels have decorative ends (such as balls), that hold the dowels away from the walls.
Banners can also be hung in the foyer of the church to greet people as they come to church. Get inspiration from art museums, concert halls, or even movie theaters that hang huge banners or posters in the entryway to let everyone know a special event is happening. Another place banners could be hung would be in hallways--on the walls or from the ceiling above people’s heads, like a festive canopy.
Banners can even dress up Sunday school rooms, bathrooms or stairwells--anyplace there is a bare wall.
Seasons > Easter > Easter Decorations for the Church >Ways to Use Banners to Decorate the Church for Easter
Outside is another space to consider decorating where the spaces are even bigger than inside. One way to decorate without having to make one gargantuan banner is to hang a number of identical banners. Towns will sometimes do this around Christmas--they hang relatively small banners on street light posts lining both sides of the streets. Your church can borrow the idea but do it on a much smaller scale. Hang a series of identical Easter banners along the edge of the church property that runs beside the road, or up both sides of the driveway, or along a covered walkway. Nylon banners made for outside use are relatively inexpensive, so this doesn’t have to cost a king’s ransom.
Tips for Choosing Banners
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1.Make sure it is BIG! A small banner will look ridiculous in a large space.
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2.When deciding on the color, keep in mind the colors of the carpet and walls. You don’t want the colors to clash. Also, the color of the wall or background should contrast so the banner doesn’t disappear into the background--light banner on a dark background, dark banner on a white or light wall.
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3.The letters need to be big enough to be legible from a distance. If you have any question, print out a sheet of paper with different sizes of words and prop them up where the banner will be displayed. Go to the farthest distance possible and see which size can be read. There is no reason to hang a banner with a message if the people in the back row can’t even read it!
You will need to decide when to hang the banners. Here are a few options to consider:
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1.Hang them during lent and through Easter Sunday
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2.Hang them for 4 Sundays ending on Easter Sunday.
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3.Hang them from Palm Sunday, or Easter Sunday and leave them up through Pentecost.
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4.Hang them on Easter Sunday only (I think you know by now that I would not recommend this!)
The panels below show a novel way to hang the banners--each week add another banner that tells part of the Easter story. They can be images only, or they can be words only, or they can be a combination. If you prefer to put them all up at once, it will have an impressive visual impact.
Three weeks before Easter
Two weeks before Easter
One week before Easter
Easter Sunday
One week after Easter
Two weeks after Easter, or Pentecost
