How does your church website engage the youngest members of your church? It does not. It engages the parents of those members. So how do you reach them? With regular contact and reminders about the lesson that was started during Sunday School and how it should continue the rest of the week. Below are a few ways your church can incorporate Sunday school into everyday life.
I am very blessed to attend North Way Christian Community, which has a great children’s ministry. Not every church will have these resources available, so you might have to scale back a little. However, I feel that many churches can benefit from this as they will want their children to be engaged throughout the week and not just on Sundays.
Email Newsletter Ideas
Every Sunday I get a handout that tells me what my child went over that day, as well as what topics they suggested I touch upon during the week. They also include what will be taught the rest of the month. With that content already produced; there are three different Email newsletter options parents could sign up for:
Daily Notes
Every day your church could send out a reminder to parents about what they should touch upon during their family prayer time. You could poll your parents as to what time they most often have their family prayer time to determine when to send out this reminder. For me, it is in the evening; so a 6PM reminder Email would work best. I could read the pertinent Bible verses, and engage my children in the appropriate discussion. This may seem aggressive in its contact, but note that parents would opt in for this sort of reminder.
Weekly Reminders
This style of reminder would serve many parents by telling them what their child learn, probably on a Sunday night to remind them what their child learned about. This will remind parents shortly after their child is done with that week’s lesson at church as to what they learned. Parents can then tailor what they intend to talk about for the rest of the week based on that topic.
Monthly Digests
This is a newsletter that every parent in your kid’s ministry should sign up for. It is a regular reminder of what is going on with the church, but is not so regular that you get tired of it. A very real concern is not making your church feel like its spamming you with unwanted updates. A monthly newsletter about what your child is learning is certainly spaced out enough to nudge parents to continue what Sunday School started at their own pace and in their own timing.
Recycle Content
What sparked this article was a conversation with a youth ministry worker wondering if their work connected with their audience. After my article on repurposing content, I realized that my own church was producing a lot of great content that was not being utilized by other channels. They should be considering asking parents for signing up for reminders about these subjects, as personally I know I could benefit from all of them.
Action Item
What tempo of Email newsletter would benefit your church? Will your members embrace Email updates? Can you switch from printed material to Email content, and remind your audience that they have a responsibility in raising their children in the faith as much as the Sunday School teachers do? If so, ask your audience to subscribe to a pace they feel comfortable with; whether that be daily, weekly, or monthly. Then sit back and watch your audience grow and flourish.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Sudds
