One challenge of children’s minsitry is keeping parents up-to-date about all the things the kids are learning. I’ve heard of several approaches:
- Mailing a newsletter to parents
- Sending regular email to parents
- The weekly take-home flier
- Bulletin Boards
- Children’s Update in the worship bulletin
All these can be good, but my favorite is the last one I listed. It takes less time, reaches the most parents, and has the best chance of getting read every week. Plus the whole congregation will know what is happening with the children’s minsitry.
Leave a comment and share your best ideas for keeping parents informed about the children’s ministry.
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I like the idea of an update in the worship bulletin. It seems like this would work particularly well where the curriculum is consistent between age groups. Has anyone tried semi-regular meetings with interested parents? I’m curious what sort of turn out people have gotten for these.
I’ve found much success with my monthly newsletter. In fact, you can download the template that I use at
http://freecmstuff.com/downloads/administrative-forms-and-documents/
I place hard copies in 3 places: Elementary info area, Preschool info area, and main church info board. I also email a low resolution PDF to all parents whose emails the church has as well as every volunteer. The newsletter features a quick important dates list, several sections to highlight ministry events during the month, a few places for parenting resources, and a parenting article I write each week.
The newsletter is a good way to communicate along with the bulletin items. The problem is that with a church our size (and most churches big enough to hire a Children’s Pastor) there is not enough room in the bulletin to list everything you need parents to know!
One church I was at had a monthly newsletter. I found one of the best methods of communicating what God was doing in the ministry and our activities was to always have an upbeat article there. Like the bulletin, the entire church saw what was going on which helped create the ‘buzz’ which has ripple effects.