I recently sent an email to the Mars Hill pastors who will be preaching on Mother's Day. I'm posting it here in case it can serve other churches and pastors as well.

Men, I know we just had a big Easter. For us, Mother’s Day is also a big day, historically, for attendance and a lot of visitors.

Here are some thoughts on your Mother’s Day service:

1. Have a woman lead or help lead worship.
2. Dress nice; say it’s to honor Mother’s Day.
3. If your mom is at a service, introduce her, bring her up, and honor her.
4. Honor your wife, bring her up, and introduce her. It’s really cool if she prays for your sermon after you honor her.
5. Keep the sermon short—there are tons of brunches and events.
6. Dedicate a lot of babies. People love to see babies on Mother’s Day.
7. Keep the music up-beat, celebratory, and happy.
8. For some women, infertility makes Mother’s Day a really tough time. Invite them to come for prayer after the service. Pray that God would help and heal them in their grief-filled journey, give his wisdom to know the next step, and give them the grace and ability to accept whatever his plan is for their lives.
9. For fun, at each service you could also hand out a nice gift to the mom with the most kids, grandma with the most grandkids, mom who is in town visiting from the farthest away, mom with youngest child, mom with oldest child, and so on.
10. If you want, you could also tap your budget to give a free book to every mom. Grace loves Wendy Virgo’s Influential Women, Carolyn Mahaney’s Feminine Appeal, and Jani Ortlund’s Fearlessly Feminine and His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy (on the Ten Commandments for training kids). You could also go with a parenting book.