What are some curriclulums or activities your churches have offered to support the family and parents? What things do you do to strengthen the "family friendliness" of your churches? Just curious. We want to start off on the right foot.
Right now we're working on a BIG family barbeque to wrap up our Kids' Crusade...
The kids' deal is going to be a Friday and Saturday evening, then the barbeque is the following Sunday afternoon after the service...
DH and our SP are going out to the different businesses in the area to get sponsorships and food donations (they're planning on either renting or getting donated a moonwalk for the kids!). We're going to have peppy music playing through our sound system, and do some games for the whole family...a water balloon toss, some relay races, stuff like that.
Our board has released $$ from the church's general fund in case our business sponsorships fall short, so that we can make it absolutely free...just our gift to the community, and our way of letting people know we're in town and we're in business!!
We've done lots of things in the past - but my favorite curriculum has been theWacky Tales by Frank Peretti. Yes he's the guy who writes scary Christian books - but his children's series is awesome and he's soo funny!! I also painted the room to be kid friendly - looks like Skittles because I sponge painted in rainbow colors. The older ladies who borrow the room Sunday nights - hate it - but hey - there's two other rooms they could go to that are plain! ha Our only problem now is we're not drawing families - but folks whose kids are out of the house.
We had an abundance of ideas to reach out to families when we were in a larger church, but $$ becomes an obstacle when you are smaller. You want to make your presence just as known and the hard part with us right now is our new facility (they just built it) but they built it too small. You can comfortably seat maybe 30. We are crowded in there with almost 40 adults and more to come. We are looking for a building to rent and have room to grow in that wont be a budget breaker. Back to the family deal. For smaller numbers lots of cookouts and potlucks sounds like the winner here. I've been spending alot of time on lifeway's website is there a major site for the assembly of god or some other thing you've sfound that incorporates the fullness of the spirit with the same excellence as lifeway does for the sbc? How do you break the mental barrier that your church has to be a certain size before you feel legitimate inthe community? OUr has been here over 20 years but feels like a new one becuase they are basically rebuilding after asplit two years ago and us as new pastors and all. I was raised in a small church (30 adult members) until 6 years ago. THen went to a church with over 700 members so it was a big change. Now shifting back to the samll thing is hard becuase I am used to a bigger budget and more excellence and I want to set a new tone for the things we do. Pointers and helpful hints please!!!! VBS is in two weeks!!!!
Fellowship the living daylights out of those people! We had to do that here, even in a larger church - to bring things together when we first came.
Do dinner together at least once a month (everybody). These don't have to have a large budget...do some church dinners...have the people over to your home in smaller groups...
Picnics, BBQ's, swim parties, etc. These are all low budget things...
Cassandra I think one of the most important things in just coming to a church is to just love them to pieces and build that bond that is so needed between pastor & people.
Thanks again for your wise counsel on this subject. Dh and I have been talking about ways to become connected with our members being that we are just starting out. We have been painting and setting up our new place, and that has been a bonding experience that we will never forget, but now of course, we additional opportunities to love on the people besides Sunday adn Wednesday.
I think that we are going to do as you suggested, at least one per month. Thanks.
