The title says it all. We just join another small church in our new home. It's like walking into Grandma/Grandpa house time 50. It's an older church with sprinkles of younger families in it. The oldest child is 17 and graduating this year and the youngest is Kindergarten. There about two dozen children. My oldest who is 13 is the second oldest child member of the church. This is a great little church with a daycare/preschool program. The talk is how to bring in the younger crowd. We joined because of the friendliness the church and motivational pastor. I have been asked to head the Outreach which isn't much right now. I have ideas and Pastor and husband are standing with me, it's just getting the rest of the members (older) to go with some of my ideas. Right now my husband and I are trying to come up with ideas for bringing in the younger families. Looking for ideas. Our church is located in a decent part of the city but still mostly low income. Like in front of the church is an okay moderate living but behind the church is low income apartments. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I am typing this quickly because I have two boys waiting patently for to give them one of the laptops so they can play a computer game. Thanks anyone for ideas.
Young families will come when there's something for their kids. Some youth you may get alone, because they're big enough to come on their own, but some families of middle schoolers may come to check it out before they drop their kids off.... One thing our youth enjoyed when they were getting the group starting to build, was movie night. Good wholesome movies on dvd in the church hall, like the Kirk Cameron ones, (I'm sure others here can name some other suitable ones), 8 Seconds, the ones from that movie-making church I can't think of the name of right now.... Anyway, with popcorn/snacks, sitting around dicussing the movie after, and a little bit of contemporary Christian music and a short message and prayer, makes a good evening. Maybe not every week (you'll run out of movies, and the "new" will wear off), but maybe once a month? One thing our church does, is a "social hour" after the home football games. They call it The Fifth Quarter. Food/snacks and Christian music in the fellowship hall after a home game. In our tiny town, though, we alternate home games with the Catholics -- their church and ours have the most convenient church halls. We used to do a Kids' Klub after school every week for K-5th grades. There were fun kids' Bible songs, some kind of game/activity, and some sort of lesson, and snacks, all in the space of about an hour! Kind of like an abbreviated VBS but without the decorations or themed crafts.
