100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry

100 Best Ideas to Turbocharge Your Preschool Ministry

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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.