10. Sunday School Kickoff: Mentor Relationships
To encourage children to serve and to train them to be leaders, we invite children to team up with mentor teachers in the kindergarten department. Each mentor teacher works with a child, builds a relationship with the child, and provides an opportunity for the child to actually teach the mentor teacher’s small group during class time. We give the children special name tags to set them apart from the younger children. And we give them special recognition at our annual volunteer appreciation event.
Samme Rousopoulos
Indianapolis, Indiana
11. Sunday School Kickoff: Crafting Parents
If you’re not looking forward to all the crafts you’ll need to coordinate for the upcoming school year’s lessons, use this fall kickoff idea to get some help.
Ask a few parents of children in your class to periodically help prepare crafts for your lessons.
Make a list of future lessons and corresponding crafts. Assign each parent a different craft to prepare, gather supplies for, and teach to the children. Encourage parents to come up with new crafts if they don’t like the crafts in their lessons.
This brings fresh ideas to your class. And children love having their parents in the classroom. It also encourages parents who might want to help but aren’t sure how to get started.
Post a sign-up sheet so you give teenagers and college students the chance to sign up, too. And remember to send thank-you notes to all helpers and volunteers.
Here’s another idea: Parents who don’t do crafts (like many dads) may want to plan and lead games instead.
Deedra Mettlen
Liberty, Texas
12. Sunday School Kickoff: Photo Recruiting
We discovered a great way to impact our church members during recruiting time for our new church year. Because most people don’t see all our children together at one time, we decided to show people what a great group of preschoolers we have.
Using our church’s digital camera, I took a photo of each of our 145 preschoolers. We then downloaded the photos to the computer and enlarged each one to an 8×10 print. We mounted each photo on a brightly colored sheet of paper and laminated the mounted photos.
Near our front entrance, we made a display using all the photos with the slogan “Here are 145 good reasons to serve in children’s ministry! Get the picture?”
This display was a hit! I heard many people say, “I didn’t realize we had that many preschoolers!”
Janet Butler
Independence, Missouri
