Connecting With Kids Throughout The Week
How do you connect with the children in your ministry throughout the week?
How do you connect with the children in your ministry throughout the week? One way we did this was by asking each volunteer to take just a couple minutes after Sunday service to write a postcard to a child. We provide postcards and pens in Crew Card Folders, they pull out a pre-addressed postcard, jot down a quick note, and then stick it right back in the folder. We mail the postcard for them on Monday morning, and kids are PUMPED to receive mail from their leaders at church.
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Now you might be thinking, that seems like a lot of logistics. How in the world am I going to keep up with who gets a card and who doesn’t? Will my volunteers know what to write? How do I keep up with that many postcards?
Well don’t fear. We’ve got a plan for you.
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Use a separate file folder system for each age group/classroom. Using a list of the children in your ministry, write each child’s name on a postcard and place all cards in the file folder. Each Sunday, your volunteers look through the folder and pick out just one postcard. They write their note, then drop the postcard right back in the folder. As part of your Monday routine, pull out all of the postcards with notes on them, address them, pop on a postcard stamp (which are cheaper than regular stamps, so high-five for being budget-friendly), and boom, 15 kids connect with your ministry throughout the week, and it only took a few minutes of your Monday.
You can even use the name “Crew Cards” to help volunteers write their note, with each letter of the title giving an idea for something to write about: C-Congratulate, R-Remind, E-Encourage, and W-We missed you!
Crew Cards take some time to set up on the front end (and to get your volunteers on board) but the rewards and the happy smiles from kids are so worth it. It’s a small sacrifice to make for helping kids know they’re thought about and prayed for by their leaders at church.
Using Crew Cards, you can encourage kids throughout the week and help them build connections with their leaders without doing all the work and all the writing yourself!
The free printable comes with:
Step-by-step instructions
Helpful links to the labels and postcard printing sites
Design ideas for postcards
Printable Crew Card Labels for the file system
Other tips for making Crew Cards a success
Brittany Nelson is a former children’s pastor and the creator of DeeperKidMin.com, an online hub of downloadable resources made FOR children’s ministry leaders BY children’s ministry leaders.
She works to support children’s ministry leaders around the world by sharing resources and encouragement that grow kids deeper in their faith. Her other adventures include being a mom to the 2 sweetest little girls, reading as many books as she can, volunteering in children's and youth ministry, and drinking lots of herbal tea. She one day hopes to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon dressed as her favorite princess, Belle.