Sorry that you haven’t heard from us much this week, but we’ve been getting ready for this little thing called the Drive Conference!
Today is the big day and I just sat in on a pre-conference session and listened to Billy Phenix unpack a big picture view of our strategy to partner with parents from birth to high school. I won’t be able to highlight all breakouts, but thought you would like a peak into this one!
Here are a few things he shared:
Take advantage of optimal times to partner with parents.
We tend to focus on three times. Creating consistent weekly environments to build relationships, significant milestones to celebrate together, and transitions from one stage of life to the next.
Initiate a partnership with parents during the preschool years.
Most new parents are looking to the church for support. We look to offer them a consistent environment, tools that make it easy to talk about God at home, and a celebration event that reaches out to new parents and establishes that partnership.
Invite elementary parents to play a central role in the spiritual development of their child.
The transition from preschool to elementary can be a doozie! Pay attention and create environments to give parents and kids the information they need. We do this at Kindergarten Konfidential.
We also partner with parents through JumpStart, Family Birthday Celebration, and KidStuf. As you can imagine there was a wealth of insight shared on these topics. I don’t even know where to begin!
Support parents of teenagers as their relationships change and their students become more independent.
Our primary point of communication with parents is from their small group leader. Parents look to small group leaders as another voice who will help their child navigate through these years. We leverage relationships and communication to help parents connect to what we’re talking about with students in small groups.
We also communicate to parents around events and at the beginning of the year. I’ve attended the “Freshman Open House” and enjoyed meeting my daughter’s new small group leader as well as received a CD to listen to after I dropped her off for a weekend camp. This CD was to help me know what she was going to be talking about experiencing while she was away. Both of these were effective for me as a parent!
So, you can see we are off to a great start! If you aren’t at the Drive Conference this year, I hope you will try to join us next year!
May 4th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Good STuff! Thanks for sharing!
May 9th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
I attended the Drive Conference this last week and gained a ton of insight. I am the Children’s Director and oversee everything from 0 to 5th grade. I heard a lot about the different roles, but I was wanting to see if you have a complete list of the roles in your children’s ministry. I know I sound like a big nerd, but I would love a flow chart. I am going to spend some time restructuring our staff and volunteer roles and this would be very helpful. Anything you have that could help? Thank you.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:55 am
Hi Jody!
I will get to work on this suggestion and post it in the next few weeks. I don’t have it in a very blog friendly layout at the moment.
Thank you!
K
May 11th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
We are almost 6 year old church with 4 campuses and 5th to open in August. I am the Children’s Ministries Director for all campuses. I have a very clear God inspired directive to start a Family Worship service. We will begin to offer it on the 5th weekends. Can you offer any direction in this unchartered territory for us?
May 12th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
You are welcome to email it to me at jody@peopleschurch.tv. Thank you.
May 16th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Hi Debbie,
My first question is are you planning to start the family service at all 5 campuses in August? If so, you are a brave woman!
Here are the main things that I would consider first:
1. What content will you use? I know that 252 Basics offers a family component to their curriculum called FX. You can look at it here http://whatisorange.org/252basics/. Creating content is a big deal and this decision will drive the rest of what you do.
2. What kind of space to you need? Stage? Sound? Set? Room location? Answering this question will determine where money needs to be spent and where creative ideas need to be focused.
3. Who will you need? I would decide what characters, musicians, technical help, crowd control volunteers etc that you need and begin recruiting for the right people for the teams.
To be totally honest - I wouldn’t even consider starting a family service until I had these three questions answered and some of these decisions made with my team.
I hope that is helpful!
K