100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry

BOOK: 100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry
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100 Best Ideas to Turbocharge Your Preschool Ministry

Copyright © 2013 Group Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher, except where noted in the text and in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Credits

Contributing Authors: Eric Echols, Gina Franzke, Dale Hudson, and Barbara Price

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.
All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-4707-0434-6

eBook created by Integra.

Introduction

Preschoolers: Who Are They?

1.     What Every Preschooler Needs From Your Team!
2.     Watch Me Grow
3.     Look at Me
4.     The Gender Question
5.     Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
6.     Kids Are So Smart
7.     I Want My Mommy!
8.     Imagine That
9.     Small Talk
10.   Daniel Has Left the Building
11.   ‘I’m in Training’
12.   Digitykes
13.   There’s a Reason
14.   Peer Pressure
15.   The Angry Child
16.   Doers of the Word
17.   They Know My Name
18.   Let’s Play!
19.   Hello, God
20.   Soak It Up
21.   What’s Going On in There?
22.   Special Delivery
23.   Over and Over Again

Preschool Ministry

24.   Get a Clue From
Blue’s Clues
25.   Play-Schoolers
26.   I’m Going to Be a Big Kid!
27.   Special Events: Not Just VBS
28.   May I Have Your Attention, Please?
29.   Preschool Praise
30.   Characters Wanted
31.   Praying for Your Preschoolers
32.   Did a Big Fish Really Swallow Jonah?
33.   Yeah! It’s Worship Time!
34.   Teach Me the Bible
35.   The Cure for Puppet-Phobia
36.   The Needs of the One
37.   Dreaming Big in a Small Space
38.   The Greatest and Truest Story
39.   The ‘So What’ Factor
40.   Lessons From Playhouse Disney Live
41.   Making Every Moment Count
42.   Passing Traditions ‘Up’
43.   Seed Planters & Kingdom Illustrators
44.   The Second-Service Solution
45.   Flannel Graphs or MacBooks?

Preschool Ministry Environment

46.   Ready, Set, Grow!
47.   Honor Thy Ratios
48.   Emergency Evacuations: Are You Ready?
49.   Parent-Friendly Preschool Spaces
50.   What’s That Smell?
51.   Labels That Stick
52.   Safety First
53.   Show Us Your Sign
54.   Organize, Organize, Organize!
55.   Centers Are Central
56.   Space: The Preschool Frontier
57.   Child-Size Me
58.   How Green Is My Preschool?
59.   From Distraction to Interaction
60.   Go Big With Décor

Preschool Ministry Volunteers

61.   4 Things Your Preschool Volunteers Need
62.   Can You Hear Me Now?
63.   Profile of a Passionate Preschool Volunteer
64.   The Power of the Spoken Word
65.   Wanted: A Few Good Men
66.   Making Disciples? Sweet!
67.   It’s Personal
68.   Thanks a Million
69.   Supply and Demand
70.   Get It, Got It, Good!
71.   Lifetime Commitment or Lost for Life?

Preschoolers’ Parents

72.   In Line to See Santa!
73.   Partnering With Parents
74.   Social Media and the Preschool Parent
75.   Bringing Back Parents
76.   The Unhappy Parent: Handling Confrontation
77.   The Welcome Wagon
78.   Planting Spiritual Roots at Home
79.   Reaching Parents of Preschoolers
80.   Help! I’m a Single Preschool Parent!
81.   Millennial Parents: What You Need to Know
82.   The Proof Is in the Pudding
83.   Working With Adult Ministries
84.   We’re in This Together
85.   The Trust Factor
86.   Friday Night Out
87.   Play Days and Away Days

Preschool Ministry Leadership & Vision

88.   Not the Baby Sitters Club
89.   Do You Have a GPS for Your Preschool Ministry?
90.   Show Me the Money: Budgeting in Preschool
91.   Beyond Background Checks
92.   Is Your Cup Overflowing?
93.   Envision Your Preschool Ministry
94.   The Barometer
95.   Planning Your Priorities
96.   Building Blocks
97.   Boo-Boos, Bumps, and Bruises
98.   Keep Dreaming
99.   The Administrative Blues
100. Lead Like a Preschooler

About the Authors

This weekend I’ll have the privilege of baptizing a fourth-grader who attends our church.
She loves Jesus with all her heart.
In fact, she recently started a Bible club on her own called “That’s the Spirit.”
She chose the name to reflect how God’s Spirit is working in her life.

When she was 3 years old and the family wasn’t attending church, this precious girl asked to go.
Finally her mother succumbed to her daughter’s pleas and took her to church.
After a few years, the family was reached and their lives were changed...and it all began with God working in the heart of a preschooler.

Studies show that we become much of who we are in our preschool years.
A child’s spiritual formation begins in this critical, formative stage of life.
We must be equipped and passionate about preschool ministry!

This book is all about helping you reach and minister to preschoolers and their families.
The strategies, ideas, and philosophies you’re about to read flow from hands-on preschool ministry experience.
We’ve seen them work, and we believe they can work for your ministry as well.
Go through this book with your team.
Have open discussions and strategize together about how to take your preschool ministry to a new level.

A healthy, growing preschool ministry is a great indicator of a church that’s healthy and growing.
To put it plainly...a turbocharged preschool ministry will result in a turbocharged church and turbocharged families.

We thank God for you and your heart for preschoolers and their families.
May he infuse your life and ministry with a fresh touch, new vision, and creative strategies.
We believe with you that your best days of preschool ministry are just around the corner!

Dale Hudson

Director of Children’s Ministries

Christ Fellowship Church

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

Preschoolers need 11 things from your ministry team—put them all together and they spell
preschooler
.

P
rayer
—Nothing of eternal value will be accomplished in preschoolers’ lives without prayer.
God can do more in seconds than we can do in a lifetime.

  • Pray regularly for the preschoolers in your ministry.
  • Encourage your team to pray through their preschool ministry rosters.
  • Pray with the children each weekend.
  • Teach the children to pray. Some of the sweetest, most genuine prayers that have ever been uttered came from preschoolers.
  • Call parents and ask them how you can pray for their children.
  • Put a prayer verse on the wall in each preschool room—a unique prayer for this year in a child’s life. Pray it each week for the children in that room.
BOOK: 100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry
11.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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