Blog Archives

Ideas & resources to present a Friend Day

30/1/2015

Find resources and ideas to help you present a special Friend Sunday,
an 'I Noah Friend day', for your church kidmin.

When life is filled with children's ministry activities and programs, meetings, planning, organisation, training, and so much more, it's easy to merely focus on the tasks at hand. But it's also important to encourage children and families to reach out to others. Friend Sunday is a special service that celebrates friendships. Help children learn to be a true friend and invite someone to join them for this special 'I Noah Friend' event.

Tweet: Eight out of ten people say they’d visit church if someone invited them. Invite them - 'I Noah Friend day'.

Here are some resources and ideas that might help.

START WITH THESE DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES TO PROMOTE YOUR EVENT
A Friend Sunday event encourages your church to get excited about inviting friends, neighbours and co-workers to come to a special service. Many churches use the resources available from Outreach.com.

But, like us, you may also be wanting to promote Friend Sunday with your kidmin. You're more than welcome to use any of the materials that I've produced for this event.
* Download the Friend Day powerpoint. You can find the file below.
You can also find the Invitation powerpoint slide below. Download it, replace the content with your details and then print the slide, 2 to a page.
(Alternately, you can easily create your own using Smilebox. :) )

GIFTS FOR THE KIDS
We planned our special event for the recommencement of the school year. So, it was great to provide the children with some stationery that would remind them of our special 'I Noah Friend Day' whenever they used it. We were also able to find some stationery that featured Noah's ark- even better! But kids enjoy receiving these types of gifts at any time. We packaged the stationery to complement the theme. We made simple bonbons to present the stationery gifts. How?
Simply roll A4 piece of light card into a cylinder. Wrap the cylinder with clear or coloured cellophane. Tie a ribbon bow around one end of the cellophane. Fill the cylinder with the stationery items.Secure the other end of the bonbon with another bow. Print the labels below onto A4 paper. Cut in half. Adhere one label around each bonbon.

Follow New Chapter's board I 'Noah' Friend Day on Pinterest.

DECORATIONS & FUN FOOD IDEAS THAT EVERYONE WILL ENJOY
The story of Noah's ark provides great decorating potential for this special event. I even purchased a rainbow light to set the scene in our kidmin area. But check out the other ideas on my Pinterest board. There are some wonderful food ideas, too, that you can include in your special Friend Sunday morning tea or lunch following the service. We're going with gourmet sandwiches but cut into animal shapes for the kids and in keeping with our Noah theme. I ordered the fun animal cups that you can see on the Pinterest board,too. We're also going to serve rainbow fruit skewers and rainbow jellies, as just some of the wonderful food ideas. Check out the I Noah Friend Pinterest board for more ideas.

LESSON OPTIONS
Have you noticed that VeggieTales is releasing a movie, Noah's Ark? That would have worked so well for our special event!

Children's Ministry Deals has a couple of options, if you're looking for a lesson to correlate with this special event.

You might like to look at The Storms of Life.. teaching kids to trust God.It's a 4-week series and fully downloadable. The first lesson is a free sample.. see here

There is also another Noah series.. Noah- Teach kids to trust God. The first lesson is also a free sample one. See here..

And.. a free colouring page here..

CREATE A SPECIAL MEMENTO WITH A PHOTO BOOTH
Photo booths are very popular and you'll find it's not too difficult to create a photo booth for visitors and families to have their photos taken. It's a good idea, too, to use this as an opportunity to ask for visiting family's contact information, especially if you plan to send out the printed photo. You might like to include it in a special cardboard frame and include some church information when you send it. Be sure to ask if they're happy to sign a photo release form if you plan to use an photos on social media or include in a video recap the following Sunday.
I found these sites to be very helpful:
* Download the Photo Booth sign here. Print, frame and place on a table with the props.
* You'll probably want a backdrop for your photo booth. Party companies will have a number of plastic backdrops and you could find one with water ..here. I prepared a special I Noah Friend backdrop. You can download it and use it if you wish, although it is a large file. You will need to send it to a printer.
* Props. There are lots of free photo props available, though not so many with a nautical theme, which is what I was searching for. Check out these... then download and print. Cut them out and attach a chop stick or thin dowel.

Downloadable resources

i_noah.pdf
File Size:	16507 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

invitation.pptx
File Size:	627 kb
File Type:	pptx

Download File

friend_day.pptx
File Size:	1078 kb
File Type:	pptx

Download File

stationery_labels.pdf
File Size:	3134 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Make your ministry planning easier, this year.

7/1/2015

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Are you ready for the new year?

Along with the rest of my family, I've been enjoying some downtime- relaxing over coffee at a beachside cafe, taking in a movie with my grandkids, strolling along the beach early morning.

But my son relaxes in a different fashion- taking his young family to the hinterland and rainforest region via a rough 4 wheel drive track. My little granddaughter shook her head from side to side as she related the experience: 'Berrrry bumpy, Nannie!' But the mountain views were glorious. As I flicked through his photos, I was reminded of children's ministry.

A new year is an exciting new adventure. But it's easy to keep your eyes on the track in front of you, the daily and weekly tasks, and forget about the view- where you really are headed.You need to map out a plan for the months ahead before you find yourself caught up in the details of ministry.

I've designed a simple, yet effective ministry planner to help you organise the ministry year ahead. I really hope it will assist you as you think, pray and work through the goals you set for this year- 2015.

2015 Calendar
First, though, I've created a kidmin 2015 calendar that you might like to print and hand out to your church and kidmin families. You can print the calendar as is, but you might like to include additional information that you'd like families to keep handy: contact information, listing of your programs and the dates and times or general church family information. I've included contact information for my own kidmin calendars with a reminder to connect with us via social media. You can find the image file below to download and use.

Ministry Planner
I'm sure you will soon be meeting with other kidmin and church ministry leaders to discuss and plan the important events and programs of 2015.

The Ministry Planner Kit will provide you with helpful information for you planning plus pages to plan and organise aspects of your ministry year. Once these pages have been set up, you can refer to this information regularly to keep on-track with your goals and plans.

The Ministry Planner includes an overview of the year with seasonal events such as Easter, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, and the dates that these fall in 2015. You'll also find focus and interest ideas for each month: Talk like a Pirate Day, National Tree Day, Remembrance Day and much more. Note the relevant information on your planning pages.

A Ministry Planner overview of the entire year is organised as 2 pages with space to highlight holidays, events and programs for the year. It's helpful to set these out and ensure that there are not too many activities occurring in any one month but rather, spaced out over the year.

Individual Monthly Review pages enable you to list the focus for the month, your month's goals, prayer needs, tasks and notes. You can quickly review this information and include in your weekly and daily organiser. (See here)

Month of days pages allow you to list any important information for each or any days of the month. Print off one of these for each month of the year. You'll find it helpful for noting your programs commencement dates, days that volunteers will be unavailable, training sessions, meetings and other important information.

Check out some of the sample pages below. You'll find information below about how you can access this Ministry Planner yourself to start your new year in ministry well.

Just buy- download- print- use immediately!

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Purchase as a printed and bound book... price includes postage.

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