Why Big Events Feel Overwhelming (and Why They’re Still Worth It)
- Tony Kensinger
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
Is it time to plan your next event?
If your first reaction is excitement mixed with anxiety, you’re in good company.
Big events have a way of doing that to us. There’s always one—or two, or three—on the calendar every year.
Some you look forward to.
Some you wish you never had to do again.
Some you volunteered for.
And some you were volun-told you were in charge of.
Whether it’s VBS, a summer camp, a harvest party, Trunk-or-Treat, Christmas, or Easter, the pattern is the same: big expectations, limited time, and the quiet pressure to pull it off well.
Here’s what most leaders won’t say out loud: Big events often feel overwhelming long before they feel exciting.
You might be thinking:
I’m not an event planner, I just love kids.
Other churches do this bigger and better than we ever could.
I don’t know enough about marketing, timelines, or logistics to make this great.
And if you’re serving in a mid-size church, comparison can creep in fast. You see what larger churches are producing and assume that’s the bar -even when your resources, team size, and budget are completely different.
Before you spiral, let me say this clearly:
Feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean you’re unqualified. It means you care.
Successful big events don’t just happen. They are built intentionally, over time, with clarity and preparation. And the good news is you don’t have to do everything big to do something meaningful.
Some of the most impactful events I’ve ever seen didn’t win awards or break attendance records. They created space for kids to encounter God, for families to feel welcomed, and for volunteers to discover purpose.
That doesn’t require perfection. It requires intention.
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is assuming that confidence comes after everything is figured out. In reality, confidence comes when you break a big event down into manageable pieces instead of staring at the whole thing at once.
That’s where most of the stress comes from -not the event itself, but the lack of clarity around why you’re doing it and who it’s really for.
Before you worry about themes, volunteers, marketing, or schedules, there’s a more important question to answer. It’s the question that determines whether an event energizes your ministry or drains it.
That’s where we’ll go next.
In the next post, we’ll talk about why every successful big event starts with a clear target and why aiming at nothing almost always leads to frustration.
Because when you know why you’re doing something, the how becomes much less intimidating.
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