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I recently had a conversation with a children’s minister friend about communicating with parents in the fall. She lamented that she had important details for parents: promotion dates, new leader introductions, room assignments, fall festival details, etc., but no one was paying attention. We briefly chatted about the merits of text blasts vs. stage announcements vs. mass emails vs. take-home flyers (I know you’ve had that same conversation many, many times) before landing on the unavoidable conclusion: autumn is ridiculously noisy.
I’m not talking “crash of football pads under Friday night lights” noisy or “middle schooler learning the French horn for the first time” noisy. I’m talking about the onslaught of communications fighting for people’s attention during a very busy time of year. Every classroom email, PTA announcement, and rec league deadline seems urgent and loudly demanding of our immediate consideration. How could we possibly communicate our Trunk or Treat candy donation needs when SOCCER TRYOUTS ARE COMING NEXT WEEK!?
It’s not that no one is listening. It’s that every family is suffering from the same affliction, A.A.I., or Annual Autumnal Inundation. Okay, maybe I just made up that condition, but families are suffering nonetheless. So many organizations are holding so many events that well-meaning parents constantly feel three steps behind. In this reality, your communications easily get filed under the category of “One More Thing to Worry About.”
There is a better question to ask than How do I communicate to families in the midst of all this noise?
Do the families in my church need one more email this fall? That’s a fair question to ask, but not the one I’m thinking of.
Should Trunk or Treat be on my calendar this year? Closer. It’s far too common to just copy and paste events from year to year without much strategic thought. I still think there’s a more important question, though.
Are my efforts centered around forming disciples? Now we’re talking.
We can either compete with the culture or transcend the culture. One direction leads to exhausted busyness resulting in little fruit, and the other leads to intentional efforts to help kids belong, believe and become. The answer is clear.
When I got my first kids ministry job many years ago, I was given a directive: Host at least one kids event a month. Parents in that rural church family appreciated an active schedule that got their kids out of the house with regularity, and this was the rhythm established by my predecessor. I kept up the pace, for a time. It was fine, I guess. But there was no strategy to these events. Kids came and laughed and saw friends and usually argued about who was cheating in whatever game we were playing, but there was no intentional strategy to help them become anything. If eternal transformation did occur, it was simply because God is good and much smarter than me.
There’s a better way to help kids become more like Jesus this fall.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Give every event a purpose. What do you want to accomplish in this season? What is the reason for the stuff on your calendar? Are you talking about that in your planning time, or are you lost in the preparatory weeds? Maybe you are stirring up a heart of service through a family service project or developing a sense of belonging through an upcoming kindergarten welcome party. If you can’t identify how it contributes to formation, it’s worth asking whether it belongs on the calendar.
Choose fewer things. A few focused things will be more meaningful than lots of activity. Families learn fast. If they attend something that doesn’t seem to be purposeful, it will be hard to convince them that the next thing matters.
Think about the home. If formation is the goal, programs and events can’t carry the load. It doesn’t take any extra scheduling to encourage parents to build faith talks, spiritual practices and discipleship experiences into their weekly rhythms at home. Are families busy? You bet. But they still have to drive to that softball tryout, right? Maybe they want your help to know what to talk about or listen to on the way there.
Build a fall rhythm instead of a fall frenzy. Consistency greatly helps your communication and execution. If something is important for the sake of child discipleship, plan to do it annually. Then your families will know that every September they will engage in the important conversations that help their kids grow in faith. Routine and repetition communicate to parents that these rhythms are valuable and have an important place in your child discipleship strategy.
Ask hard questions. Calendars get busy for a very good reason: We love our events! Those kids were so cute in their costumes at the Trunk or Treat last year and Mr. Bob somehow turned his pickup truck bed into an entire pickleball court! With these events, it can be tough to ask really hard questions, such as:
- How is this event helping our kids belong, believe and become?
- Is there a better way to engage families with this time and these resources?
- What’s driving my planning, formation or tradition?
Let’s face facts: The fall will be busy. There will always be soccer tryouts, school concerts, football games, PTA emails and a hundred other things competing for a family’s attention. This fall, let’s resist the temptation to measure our ministry by how much we do and instead ask whether what we do is helping kids become more like Jesus.
The goal isn’t a busier calendar, a bigger event or higher attendance numbers. The goal is child discipleship. The win this fall, and every season, is to help kids belong to Jesus, believe in His truth and become more like Him.
