I have been trying over the past few months to come up with resources that can help our parents be more connected to what we do on Sunday and enable parents to connect with their kids during the week.
What I have tried that hasn’t worked so well in our church culture:
1. Parent Blog –
2. Parent Twitter account –
3. Handouts on Sunday –
I am very excited to be trying out a couple new ideas next month.
1. One monthly Godtime card vs a weekly Godtime card 252 basics provides – I got this idea from Kendra (BTW she has one of my best kids ministry blogs on the web) I tweaked it a bit for us. I added scripture memory and a place for parents to sign off they they did this with their kids so their kids can in turn get points to our Uptown store. I also changed the icons a bit.
The reason i like this is because I believe less is more. I think sometimes parents are overwhelmed by amount of handouts so my thought is if we give them 1 handout a month that is more colorful and has a built in incentive for the kids may help.
GODTIME_POSTCARD FRONT GODTIME_POSTCARD_BACK
2. I am going to make a CD where I explain what the kids learn each week in Uptown and have some basic applications step parents can take to help their kids walk out what they learned that week.
This idea came from a volunteer and I think it’s a great one. It is cheap and should be effective because it’s more than a paper that parents can listen to while shuttling your kids all over the place.
Sam,
Great ideas! We use the 252 Basics as well. I love the idea of the monthly God Time card andI agree with your less is more philosophy. I'll also second your comments on Kendra's blog. It is one of my favorites.
Love it! Thanks for sharing!
No prob. See you in a few weeks!
This looks great! Love the color changes and adding Say It! Great idea!
We are thinking about starting a parent blog — would love to know your experience with this.
I'm working on the Baby Dedication piece today for ReThink. Should be released at Orange Conference. BabyD is another great way to partner with parents.
Great post – thanks for sharing.
kendra
I got the link from Kendra's blog. I downloaded it and tweaked it for us in illustrator. I am not sure if she is going to do them every month or only for last month because of the 5 faith skills. I plan on doing them every month for the next few months at least and will keep doing them if parents find them useful.
Sam, love these ideas! Especially your monthly handout. I even love the look and style of what you did. We're totally going to use it for The Kids! Thanks…
PJ
You should be able to use the pdf and tweak away. Let me know if you need the .ai file.
great ideas!!! I'm already using 365 family concept so we're not sending home materials with parents who are not going to use them. Another thing we have tried is monthly FX time in the adult worship service. We usually present an application tool commercial, review/quiz families on the previous month's virtue and do one of the more fun intro skits (like name that Vir-Tune) to launch the new month's virtue. Getting people who are not parents wanting to participate!
Sam,
Great ideas! We use the 252 Basics as well. I love the idea of the monthly God Time card andI agree with your less is more philosophy. I'll also second your comments on Kendra's blog. It is one of my favorites.
Thanks for the comment Wayne appreciate the feedback and enjoy your blog as well. I need to be better at leaving comments on it. 🙂
Love it! Thanks for sharing!
This looks great! Love the color changes and adding Say It! Great idea!
We are thinking about starting a parent blog — would love to know your experience with this.
I’m working on the Baby Dedication piece today for ReThink. Should be released at Orange Conference. BabyD is another great way to partner with parents.
Great post – thanks for sharing.
kendra
Speaking of Orange I am looking forward to meeting you this year, I'll make sure I find you and say hi. I really appreciate all you do for Kidmin you are a blessing.
Kendra,
I love this new God Time card. Is this something that is going to be available for me to print each month? I want to start using it but just wanted to check to make sure I can keep it up. Where is the best place to find it and download it? Thanks for all your hard work.
Kelly
Director of UpStreet
Wiregrass Church
[email protected]
Sam- Love your take on the God Time cards. We are starting the month card too. Kendra's blog is so inspiring. I am so glad there are people like her (and you, and Kenny and Matt… could go on and on) out there so willing to share their creativity.
Have you see on Justyn's blog he does the Friday 5- five minute video on You Tube (or one of those sites). I always thought that was a cool idea I would love to do.
Keep us posted on how the 2 new things go for you.
-Teri
PS- Love the new look of you blog page.
Sam, love these ideas! Especially your monthly handout. I even love the look and style of what you did. We’re totally going to use it for The Kids! Thanks…
PJ
Just to be clear I only tweaked this it was Kendra's team at North Point that came up with it. 🙂
Sam,
How about sending a weekly Eyejot–http://www.eyejot.com to all of your parents. It's a video email. They can see a quick 1 minute video of what you want them to focus on in regard to follow up. The free version only allows a 1 minute limit.
Sounds cool i check it out. What kind of response are you getting from parents. Do they look at it does it help?
Hey, someone threw out this idea to me the other day… one of my volunteers who had visited another church. They said they'd seen the refrigerator door card turned into a rearview mirror hanger. That way the kids were trained to know where it went and it had review activities for the car. I really liked that idea a lot… I just need to find the deals on getting those printed and I'll share.
Good stuff Sammy.
Try " target="_blank"> <a href="http://;http://www.psprint.com” target=”_blank”>;http://www.psprint.com love those guys they do doorhangers and everything else.
So what did you do your editing in?
I used adobe illustrator
great ideas!!! I'm already using 365 family concept so we're not sending home materials with parents who are not going to use them. Another thing we have tried is monthly FX time in the adult worship service. We usually present an application tool commercial, review/quiz families on the previous month's virtue and do one of the more fun intro skits (like name that Vir-Tune) to launch the new month's virtue. Getting people who are not parents wanting to participate!
Awesome Bonnie, getting on the same page as your parents is not easy. I am still working at it. But by trying I believe you are ahead of the game.
very cool sam,
we used to do weekly hand outs but when they kinda just stopped we didn't get any complaints apart from one family who home school their kids and get heaps of the God stuff in there already… parents do have a lot thrown at them.
I heard an idea that we are going to try one of these days from Andy Kirk from Metro Church on the Gold Coast… they do a CD every month with daily devotions on it. He says it's really effective cos kids use it as an excuse to stay up that little bit later at night… but the message is getting out there.
I also love the car ideas.
Sam- Love your take on the God Time cards. We are starting the month card too. Kendra's blog is so inspiring. I am so glad there are people like her (and you, and Kenny and Matt… could go on and on) out there so willing to share their creativity.
Have you see on Justyn's blog he does the Friday 5- five minute video on You Tube (or one of those sites). I always thought that was a cool idea I would love to do.
Keep us posted on how the 2 new things go for you.
-Teri
PS- Love the new look of you blog page.
Thanks for the comment. I will keep you posted. Thanks for the blog layout complement.
I used adobe illustrator
Thanks Sarah, what do you do now to connect with families to replace the weekly handout?
Sam – I love the icons! (And I love the card that Kendra & Team came up with and you tweaked). I think I might start this too. It’ll be a good change from the past 4 years of the weekly GTC. Any chance I can get or have your permission to use the icons?
Thanks. Done!
Sure I downloaded them from this site. " target="_blank"> <a href="http://;http://dryicons.com” target=”_blank”>;http://dryicons.com they are free to use for anyone. Let me know if you would like me to send the .ai file
Sam, could you send me the .ai file for the icons. We are getting ready to go to the monthly GTC. Great idea! i rally like your postcard size.
Sam! Thanks for sharing these ideas. Our parent blog seems to be working for most, but there is probably 25% that don't go there at all. I love the CD idea. Will def. look at trying that out, too!
Thanks for the great ideas! I met with our team this morning and trying to work out how to incorporate everything onto one page. When you say it out loud, it makes so much more sense! Thanks again, Kathy
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Love it Sam! How is it working out for you?
One worked one didn't. I do the monthly take home and that works great the CD for the parents hasn't really taken off because I haven't had time to keep up with it. I do still want to do it when I can be really consistent perhaps in the fall.
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