Get More Parents Involved
Kick Off Your Year Right
by Monty Lysne
Summer is moving by quickly, and before you know what hit you, fall programming will be here.
Take a tip from several churches across the country and plan now to have an exciting, meaningful kick-off to your confirmation year (or any ministry year, for that matter). Here’s how:
- Plan a kick-off event for all of your kids and their parents/guardians. Schedule it now. Make sure you have at least one other adult to help you run things.
- Don’t call it an “orientation.” You’ll be asking your audience to get excited about a great year of ministry, not start a new job.
- Get a postcard, church bulletin announcement, and email campaign going right after July 4th to get the event in the minds of your parents and kids.
- Plan the flow of the event just as you’d plan an H2H event night: 90 minutes, Opening, Presentation, Small Groups, Closing.
- At the Opening, start with some music (live or on CD), and compile a QuizBowl of ten questions about your church, your youth program, your community, etc. Have some good prizes on hand that parents might enjoy, too: movie tickets, restaurant gift certificates, etc.
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Why Choose Bible Song?
Bible as textbook and hymnal
http://www.faithink.com/Inkubators/biblesong2.asp
by Debbie Streicher
Are you making plans for the next Sunday school year? Now is the time.
Now is when we can send you Bible Song™ materials to place in the hands of a team to begin planning for September. And now is the time to begin inviting parents onboard letting them know they are the key faith role models for their children.
Why choose Bible Song?
- Bible Song addresses the Faith Inkubators beliefs dedicated to the health and welfare of all God's children and the whole Christian church, its congregations, families and children.
- Our mission is to equip church leaders to effectively train their congregations in holistic, biblical, theologically sound faith formation systems.
- Our goal is to catalyze a revolution in home-based faith education and spawn a home devotional movement across the church.
- The Bible is the only textbook you need for Christian education.
- We, as educators need to be placing the Bible in the hands of parents and their children.
- Scripture is learned in fun, easy ways.
- The Bible becomes a textbook and a hymnal.
What's new and exciting this year? All 60 theme sets for Bible Song (30 Old Testament and 30 New Testament) are available to you for unlimited use during 2008-09.
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Basic Needs
Building Relationships
by Debbie Streicher
“What’s the most important thing that should happen in Sunday school?” is the question I asked a group of Christian educators recently. Answers varied and I honestly was not trying to put people on the spot, but I often wonder how many times we stop and ask ourselves this question.
Yes, doing a craft every week is fun and keeps hands busy, but I believe we need to go beyond that and build intentional steps into our Sunday school small groups and set expectations for all groups to do the same. It can be uncomfortable to set expectations because there will always be comments, but the end result when one becomes intentional is astounding. Lives change not just for an hour each week, but 24/7.
Here’s a simple list of a few tips to insure small group time is quality time spent together every week…
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Free CD-ROM Sampler Now Available For Churches
Take a look at samples from our 2008-09 Christian Education products.
http://www.faithink.com/Inkubators/freesampler.asp
We now have a free 2008-09 Sampler CD-ROM for churches available containing a selection of content from all of our Christian Education products.
If you would like to take a look at samples from Faith Stepping Stones Family Ministry, Head to the Heart Confirmation Ministry, Bible Song Sunday School Ministry, or Faith Inkubators Seasonals Ministry (Advent, Lent, and Stewardship), click here to request your free CD-ROM. (Samplers are limited to one per church or Christian organization.)
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Kids Friendly
News from our friends in New Zealand
by Rich Melheim
Jill Kayser is a youth ministry revolutionary running a movement to make churches “Kids Friendly” in New Zealand and beyond. The energetic and visionary Faith Inkubators friend and partner publishes a resource rich e-newsletter “Hands On” filled with stories, ideas, and news church workers can use to help their congregations reach out to children and stand out in the community.
Jill collects practical programming ideas, best-practice methods and marketing approaches that can help congregations reach out to families and sends them out to her growing network of churches. She also trains congregations, pastors, youth workers, and church task forces in becoming more kid friendly.
Beth has gathered youth leaders from a number of denominational headquarters to host us August 8 & 9 on our way home from the “Faith Inkubators Down Under” tour. Take a look at Jill’s “Hands On” PDF e-newsletter if you’d like some tips of the trade from a friend on the other side of the world.
Rich Melheim is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Faith Inkubators. He can be reached at rmelheim@faithink.com or via his blog, The Melheimian Sabbatiblog, at http://faithink.blogs.com.
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