One of the best ways to reach the community we serve is to offer families what they can not do on their own or may be way more complicated to make happen on their own like…

CPR/Basic First Aid Training – Contact the local American Red Cross and get on their schedule for a Sunday afternoon or Saturday morning. Local scouts, parents, and local businesses need CPR and basic first aid training. Roll out the hospitality red carpet, get registration information to build your community database, and make your space bright, clean, and warm. Contact the local daycares and local businesses to let them know you will be offering it with a face-to-face invite.

A Last Gift of Love – Organize a basic informational meeting or four separate mini 45-minute- to 1-hour gatherings with an attorney about the laws on wills and powers-of-attorney; a financial planner about beneficiaries; a funeral director about what to do when a loved-one dies; local senior services; life, health, long-term-care insurance instruction. Promote this to young families by letter or postcard to help begin the conversations of taking care of their parents as well as their children. So many of my local church’s young parents are dealing with these issues right now and they don’t even know where to begin. When my mother-in-law passed away suddenly several years back, I was so grateful for prior general conversations with a congregant who was an estate attorney to help us know where to begin. I am forever grateful.

Driving Practice – Put out a dozen orange traffic cones and offer driving and parking practice or a space/time for families in the evening in your large parking lot. Offer water bottles and lawn chairs for chatting. Be sure to offer a prayer over the learner’s permit and the driver’s license when it’s earned. What a milestone to share with a local family! Promote with yard signs.

Playground playdates – offer a regular, intentional time for preschool children to come to play with their parents/grandparents when you can be there to let the kids play and make space for conversations about what every preschool parent deals with such as nighttime routines, picky eaters, pediatricians, where shoes are on sale, etc. Set the time for 1 hour – 1.5 hours and offer a prayer time to close out your time together. Over time, regular routines, growing trust relationships, enjoying some laughter. Not a drop off, but rather a drop in. If you have a preschool or daycare, you’ll have easy promotional avenues.

College/Job Application skills – enlist the help of a college professor who might be in your church for their partnership.

Home Improvement Classes – enlist the help of a general contractor in your church to teach basic home improvement skills for kids WITH their parents and grandparents for measuring, leveling, hanging drywall or spackling, painting, trimming bushes, community container gardening.

Each one of these can neighborly extend the love when you….

• Purchase honorarium gift cards for your instructors at local businesses and tell the business why you are purchasing the gift cards. Shop local and let the local business know you will be sending someone their way with the gift card. 
• Shop local. Find a mom & pop or local family business to support. These are the folks who are feeding their families directly from your business. Come from a place of generosity rather than ‘what can you give me?’

• Find out when the local community will be offering a farmer’s market (spring/summer) and holiday parade (summer/Christmas) and go through the paperwork to walk in the parade or offer a ‘station’ in the kid’s area. Find the community calendar online for your town and invest in a plastic A-frame sign or table cloth with your church or children’s ministry logo to set up then prepare to chat with folks about their lives wearing a church t-shirt. Use a local vendor for your t-shirts.
• Discover the ‘walking’ schedule of the local neighborhood nearest your church, then invite a couple of church members (Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but rather two, three, and up to seventy) to join you for a walk. Load up a rolling cooler with iced down freezer pops, safety scissors to clip the tops, and a side trash bag to collect the empties. Stroll as you roll and start some conversations fully intending to make some new friends of your new neighbors as being a frequent walker in the neighborhood. You can’t walk every neighborhood, but you could certainly dedicate March & April to one and learn it deeply.  Pray for each home you walk pass and consider writing a blessing on the sidewalk (not their driveway UNLESS you know them, then by all means!).

Gentle Reminder: Registration will probably be last minute and may be small. Do it anyway to build trust with your neighbors that your yes will be yes and your no will be no. If you promote it, do it. Promote it at least 60-days out with the understanding that it may take families a while to budget their time to build in the margin to make the registration. 

We all need new friends. We all need a good walk. We all should be learning new things. We all learn better together.

What other ideas do you have to be a good neighbor?

Dr. Lawson Murray published a blogpost entitled, “Developing a New Plan for Children’s Ministry” last November addressing many of the hot topics in today’s local church regarding ministry with families. Children’s ministry people rarely get seats at the tables where decisions are made about these hot topics yet they will respond with excellence. So we set a table especially for those who serve in ministry with children and families with in-person and online seats to chat about several of the hot topics mentioned in Lawson’s blogpost.

With great thanks to our host Tambryn Freund at Dunwoody UMC, a ten-minute limit to each topic, and the great note-taking skills of Vic Harmon of Alpharetta First UMC, the following amazing insights from the kidmin champions who took a seat at the table will be guiding my planning in 2022. 

Hot Topic Table Notes:  Remember We Are BETTER TOGETHER!

Why should we develop a new plan for children’s ministry?

#1 Children’s Ministry is NOT a priority
• If the church leadership focus is on 40s, 50s, 60s-year-olds, that is the perfect demographic for Grandparents since the average age of a first-time grandparent is 47 years old. We can focus on providing ministry to Grandparents and their grandchildren.
• First time grandparents are seeing the value in spiritual development for their adult children and grandchildren.

#2 No Collaboration in faith formation
• Pre-pandemic some schools allowed a Bible Club before school
o Find a Christian teacher/PTO parent who is willing to head it up and find a way into the schools.
• Misconception of collaboration: programming for adults and programming for the kids doesn’t equal collaboration
• Get your local school calendar and find out about school events to piggyback or creatively support
o We need to know what’s in the rhythm of our community, so find out what the local school is doing, and pick a different lane.
o Example: If the schools are doing a “Santa Shop” then we don’t need to also do one.
• During events, take time to pause and create space for adults and their kids to chat. Model what faith-based conversations can be like, and show them it isn’t as scary, difficult, or time consuming as they thought.
• Make your presence known in the community
o Support teachers, families, etc.…

#3 Program Driven vs. Relationship Driven
• People say they want it to be the way it was, but do they really? Parents are exhausted with change, so even though we keep wanting to change things for the better, there has been some push back to just go back to the way it was.
• During the last couple of years, parents have put themselves on the backburner, so what if we do something to encourage lingering time and community building for parents.
o Like once a month offer coffee/hot chocolate outside the kid’s area, to invite parents to hang out for a little bit, while some of our volunteers work the room to connect with parents.

#4 Resources and Tools are not flexible!
• Sundays are no longer sacred, because extracurriculars and jobs are done all the time now.
• How can we meet families outside of Sunday Morning? And is it worth it?
o Focus on building community with adults
o Once a month, take parents to lunch, while the kids are in school and talk about everyday things, focus on building connections.  This also works for dinners if parents work during the day.
• Very short-term Bible studies (3 weeks)
o Keep it short, 1-1 ½ hours.
o Set the boundary that if you want time to chat come 30min early, because once it’s time to start we have to start.
o Example: 5 Love Languages of kids
§ Week #1: What are the 5 Love languages of Kids?
§ Week #2: How to know your child’s love language?
§ Week #3: How to keep it going at home?

#5 Parents are not taking a lead role in faith formation
• GIVE GRACE to parents because teaching faith formation was not modeled for them
• GIVE GRACE to yourself because how to equip parents for faith formation was not modeled for us
• Partner with the Associate Pastor or Adult Leaders and work together to model faith formation.
• Family Events! Share the responsibility of faith formation within family events with other areas of the church.
• Get Grandparents to share the lessons they learned in parenting to new or younger parents.
• Keep trying! If we model this now, we will see the fruit in this next generation.

#6 Intergenerational Ministries are limited
• When children participate in worship services all people know is children singing. We now have to reteach what it means to have children in service.
• Invite 50s, 60s, and 70-year-olds to volunteer while parents are with their kids
o Example: Advent Craft event, parents want to be/need to be with their children while doing crafts, so invite the 50s, 60s, 70s, to volunteer to lead the stations, so that parents can have that time learning alongside their child.
• Incentives for kids to take notes in worship
o Coins and treasure
o Blackout Bingo of words to listen for in the worship service

#7 Nursery (this topic has been the hottest since last fall as all churches are struggling to staff church nurseries)
• How do we get people to work? How much do we need to pay?
• Safe Sanctuaries doesn’t say they have to be paid, just trained
• The salaries most churches pay nursery workers is a social justice issue; we must respond with great generosity and it’s true value as a ministry, not just a support. 
• Partner paid staff with volunteers
o Paid staff does the diaper change, disciple, check in, feeding, etc. while the volunteer plays with and/or interacts the kids and parents/grandparents
• Short-term commitments
o Asking, “Can you serve 3 times in the next 3 months?”
• Appreciation as we would a volunteer with such valuables as gas gift cards to offer additional financial support if unable to increase per-hour pay
• Paid Compensation to specialized skills such as Nursery Hospitality 
o Not paid hourly, rather paid a stipend
o Show up 30min before and stay 30min after, plus 2 hours during the week to follow up with families and to check in and see how they are doing with monthly hospitality coaching.

Last Thoughts
• Go to Sunday School classes and ask them to sponsor Volunteer Appreciation, then follow up with Sunday School class about who it went to.
o Always give credit to who sponsors, tag them on social posts. Or if they don’t have social media, print the picture and give it to their Sunday School class
o Example: if a Sunday School class sponsored a lunch for your volunteers, have a sign that said, Lunch is Provided by _______Sunday School Class, and have attendees take a photo with it, and that’s what goes on social media.
• Find people in the church who have specialized skills like beautiful handwriting and invite them to participate in a way that fits their skills.
o Example: Give them a list of families with addresses in October that your ministry is sending Christmas cards to and ask them to hand-address each envelope. Then each family receives a handwritten card from your ministry at Christmas.

Children’s Ministry champions are the most creative and adaptable disciple-makers on the planet. They are active in the trenches with the families we serve as well as the families we seek to serve. They are knowledgeable and wise. The next table for hot topics will be set on the west side of the North Georgia Conference in February. I can’t wait!

Pray for and chat with your children’s/family ministry leaders.
Set the table for some facetime with your top, committed leaders who are the face, hands, feet, and heart of the ministry with families in your local church. Ask how they are. Ask what they hope for in the year to come. Invite yourself into their lives to partner with them to take the next steps in their discipleship.
Ideas: Pastability Dinner, tea, coffee, join their morning/afternoon walk.
Gentle Reminder: As church staff our job is to equip the saints for the service God has called them to do.
Ephesians 4:11-12

Pray for and chat with your littles.
Set the table for some facetime with the littles you serve.
Ideas: Play a game, ask what they got for Christmas, find out what they are doing on Saturdays.
Gentle Reminder: If the littles you serve are Christians, they are your full-on brothers and sisters in Christ with a full-on Holy Spirit. You’ve only got a few more months with your 5th graders before they transition to student/middle school ministry.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Pray for and chat with their bigs.
Set the table to be available to the disciple-makers in the trenches of your student’s every day.
Ideas: Ministry FB group posts, Family Resource station, Parenting workshops, arrive early and stay later in the Narthex.
Gentle Reminder: Partnering does not mean overloading their family calendar with church events, but rather ask good questions so you are aware of the rhythm of their days, weeks, seasons, etc. and plan accordingly.

Pray for and chat with your grandparents.
Set the table for intergenerational conversations, story telling, intergenerational social spaces and places. These saints of your church have stories to tell and every kid loves a good story.
Ideas: Add kid entries to the adult chili cookoff or bake sale, one-on-one invites for a very specific role, call them by name often in front of kids. Relationships are key.
Gentle Reminder: The average age of a first-time grandparent in the US is 47 years old. This generation is the team of worker-bees and well-trained super volunteers of 15 years ago so make their commitments shorter, smaller, super enjoyable, trustworthy, and resourced.

Pray for and chat with your church leadership.
Rev. Rhoda Howell is a prayer warrior. I’ve asked her for help with better prayer vocabulary to share with other family ministry leaders at a Children’s Ministry Hot Topic Table Chat in North Georgia last December. With her permission…..

• Pray that your antagonists may be blessed today. Period. That they may be wowed by God’s presence. Do this every day.
• Remember, they have hurts and wounds just like you. The antagonists have had to fight for their place at the table at sometime in their career.
• Give thanks for their year(s) of service in their area. Remember, that they have reasons for the way they do things, just as you do in your area. They have seen lots of changes…the good and the not so good and are shaped by all.
• Remember, some are a long way from the raising of or ministering to children. Let us not hold it against them.
• Ask God to send you encouragers. You need more than one.
• Pray for your pastoral leader. Pray specifically that he or she might hear God’s voice above all other voices, including yours. Remember, if someone is coming to you to tell you how to do ministry, there are probably a ‘gaggle’ of folks telling the Pastor that they don’t know how to do anything.
• Remember, the pastor is over the whole church and has to manage every single ministry, special interest group inside and outside the church.
• Ask questions instead of assuming. Ask the Lord for a Spirit of curiosity.
• Be open for unusual ideas. Resist setting up or speaking obstacles. Ask the Lord for a Spirit of YES.
• Don’t attend every fight you are invited to. You choose how you will rise to the occasion.

We just finished another ‘edited’ advent season. Not everything came back. Not everybody came back. Yet we gathered and celebrated in many creative ways, with creative themes, and even at creative times.

Well done.

Take a rest.

Before you close out Advent 2021, take a last look at the Advent celebrations posted by colleagues and on other children’s or family ministry Facebook groups. Go ahead and decide the one or two themes/events you really liked and reach out to the post originator and ask for their electronic support documents. Right now all of that documentation is at the top of their feeds and quite handy.

Set up a folder in your computer to hold the documents and pitch your idea to your leadership for approval in January. Don’t delay, because we know that Advent 2022 will be here before we know it. Looking ahead, Christmas 2022 falls on a Sunday and our local schools will be out for the entire week beforehand.

If the creative-base part is already set, you’ll have plenty of time to gather materials (I ordered two inexpensive snow machines in October which were sold out by mid November), make reservations (I’m placing deposits in January for animals for a Christmas-break drive-thru live nativity since school will be out, so I can choose two consecutive days anytime the week prior I can get animals), and get the push-back done earlier while all the challenges are fresh on everyone’s minds (I’m pitching a Children’s Campfire Christmas for the children’s service next year on Friday offering an outdoor option around our huge firepit and have time to prepare well for all kinds of weather rather than an indoor-production).

I’m still holding to the 2.5 year transition to a new normal that followed the Spanish flu of the early 1900s. The 2.5 year transition period has given me a baseline to plan for every possible scenario when putting things on the calendar. Advent 2022 puts us right at the end of that. Trustworthy pre-planning on my part will help me confidently offer a flexible and great serving experience for our littles and their bigs during one of the busiest times of everyone’s calendar year.

Jesus’ birthday is too important to wait until Advent is already here to start gathering information. Reach out to your colleagues about one or two of their specials and get the Christmas cheese-ball rolling, then look at it again next summer. 

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.'” – Luke 2:10