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Sunday School Kickoff: 15 Fantastic Fall Ideas for KidMin

13. Sunday School Kickoff: Reminders That Stick

Part of our volunteer recruitment each year includes preparing a written job description for every position in children’s ministry. In each job description, we list the mission of the job, the responsibilities, the preparation needed, and the training events that are part of the commitment.

Letting people know at the beginning about training sessions is very important to us. So this year in addition to listing the training dates on the job descriptions, we’ve also made little stickers for volunteers to put on their calendars that’ll remind them of the training dates.

We don’t have a large budget, so we just use mailing labels and Microsoft Publisher software to make the labels. Each label contains the name of the event, the date, and the time. We give a set of stickers to each volunteer. All volunteers have to do is cut them apart and stick them on their calendars. This is our way of informing our staff well in advance, and it helps volunteers fulfill their commitments with excellence.

Lori Salomo
Ballwin, Missouri

14. Sunday School Kickoff: Whose Policy Is It, Anyway?

One important idea for your fall kickoff should be ensuring safety in your children’s ministry. Here’s a fun way to get your volunteers to become experts in your ministry’s policies and procedures.

You’ll need:

  • Several copies of your volunteer handbook.
  • One hat or bowl with several slips of paper, each containing a challenge that your handbook addresses, such as “You’re out of construction paper,” “Two children get in a fight, and one gets a bloody nose,” or “A parent tells you Johnny is deathly allergic to peanut oil.”
  • One hat or bowl containing slips of paper listing movie and TV genres, such as soap opera, low-budget action movie, western, or infomercial.

Form groups of four. Have each group draw one slip of paper from each hat or bowl. Instruct groups to first find the solutions to their ministry challenges in their ministry handbooks. Once group members find the solution, their next job is to create a skit to present their findings using the movie or TV genre they drew.

Give the groups 10 minutes to prepare. Then have groups present their skits one at a time. After each skit, provide any other pertinent information that may have been missed in the drama. Your volunteers will have a blast and will actually read their handbooks.

Note: Don’t explore certain policy matters with this exercise. Avoid discussing your child abuse reporting policies and other sensitive subjects with this activity.

Larry Shallenberger
Erie, Pennsylvania

15. Sunday School Kickoff: Hook, Line & Sinker

Throughout each year, we use a theme from that year’s recruitment time. This year we’re using a fishing theme. The following are just a few ideas we’re using to carry out this fun theme.

  • Affirmations: We have a fishbowl with a sign that says “Fill Our Tank” at our children’s ministry information table for parents and children to write positive comments about teachers or other workers.
  • Training: We’re promoting teacher-training events as Fish for New Ideas sessions. We’ll encourage our volunteers to have the patience of fishermen, to know the fish they’re trying to catch and to have their tackle clean and ready.
  • Decorating: We’ll decorate with obvious fishing items and use fishing Scriptures, such as the paraphrased Matthew 4:19: “I will make you fishers of people.”
  • Outreach and Discipleship: We’ll “cast our nets on the waters” in outreach. And for discipleship, we’ll “go to deeper waters.”

Shelly Atkins
Roanoke, Virginia

This article about Sunday school kickoff ideas originally appeared here.