Close your summer out right
Have a bonfire, testimony night, or a slide show of all your summer activities. Maybe have a special worship night or a night where everyone affirms one another and points out where they shined this summer.
Plan with the end in mind
Get your Christmas Party on the church calendar and beat the rush. Make a list of what kind of student you want to have in three months or at the end of the school year and plan accordingly.
We did a time video time capsule and let kids talk about their goals and dreams for the year and we will show it at the end of the school year. This will be great for all our seniors this year.
If you need help planning, be sure to check out My Youth Ministry Playbook in my store. It’s currently on sale.
Kick off your season with a bang, a few weeks after school starts.
End of summer and fall are two separate things to me. I like clear lines between seasons. This is probably from living in Florida too long, where there were no seasonal lines. The only way I knew seasons were changing, was by what was on the shelf at Wal Mart.
I recommend having your kick off several weeks into the school year so kids can meet others, you can get to know them, and then plan the big event with them to invite their friends to.
Looking for a good kick off, try this
Have a W2W Strategy
What is W2W? It’s how you will you communicate with students between the W’s, Wednesday t Wednesday. How will you communicate with parents?
For students, try doing a one minute Instagram devotion every day or post a poll so kids can vote on various things. Have a texting service so you can send out a message to students and parents.
Have a printed as well as digital fall calendar
Be sure to hit up your local print shop, if you cannot make your stuff in house, and you’ll find some great options for putting out your flyers and calendars.
Be sure to take the time now to make digital flyers for download so parents can copy them and put them on the fridge.
Here are a few free online graphic creators, here and here for making your flyers, social media and slide graphics.
Get ahead of the game!
Meet with parents and find out what they need
We’d have an open house after service one Sunday and I used this day for meeting, informing and recruiting parents for the years events such as camps and trips.
Before this day happened, I would do a FB live video to my parents group to share my heart for the new year and to all them to share their ideas and what their kids need specifically.
Parents must have a voice in your ministry and you should give them every chance to communicate with you. Even the crazy ones.
Meet with school officials
Getting to know your school is important if you hope to make it your office away from your office. Here’s a few ideas.
Check with coaches to see if they need help
Check with the office to see if you can be put on a chaperone list
Offer your services as a photographer, videographer, or editor.
Offer your church for the football team to have pre-game lunch at (this has worked for me) or for the end of the year awards ceremony.
At least make sure the office staff knows you in case you go and eat lunch with some of your students.
To get more ideas like this in out inbox, be sure to sign up for the Youth Ministry Round Up newsletter.
Subscribe! Get be updated with resources such as articles, videos, and more!