Parents Night Recap

I love Thursdays for so many reasons.  Thursdays are basically my Friday because it's my last day in my church office (my weekend is considered Friday and Saturday), and because I get to share what I did the night before in my Wednesday night program with all of my wonderful blogging friends.  The highlight of my Thursday morning is sitting down to write about what we did the night before.  

With that being said last night was Parents night!  Parents night is one of my favorite theme nights and we have it on our schedule twice during the AWANA year (once in the fall and once in the spring).  Last night was our fall parents night and we had this highest percentage of parents in attendance that we have had since I started parents night a year and a half ago.  We had roughly 70 % of our parents there last night participating with our kids. 

This is the postcard that I sent home the week before and uploaded to our social media pages to remind everyone of what we had coming up.  This has got to be one of my favorite postcards that I've made yet.  I love the look of the chalkboard and the simplicity of the whole design.  (It says tomorrow because I changed it the day before to upload to our social media pages.)

One of the reasons that I host parents night is to give parents who don't usually attend our church the opportunity to connect with our workers, myself, and our church staff.  I hosted a cupcake party early to give parents the opportunity to connect with our Pastor and play with their kids in our pre-service activities.  

Parents are encouraged to participate in every activity that we do.  When we say our pledges I have kids come up with mom & dad to lead the pledges.  Parents play on their kids team during game time, listen to their verses, and sit in on their council time.  The kids absolutely LOVE having their mom and dad there participating with them!  

At the close of the night I give some highlights of what we have coming up the rest of the semester, and I invite a member of our Leadership Team to talk to the parents and invite them to our services on Sunday.  

I'd strongly encourage everyone to have some form or type of parents night on their schedule.  I have learned that I can't ignore the family aspect of children's ministry.  I have to find ways and events to combine both and this is one way that I can invite the whole family in and give everyone an opportunity to hear about Jesus. 

If you host a parents night I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

Yesterday, I hosted a link-up of all of your Thanksgiving ideas and if you didn't get to link up you can still go here and share your Thanksgiving crafts, recipes, traditions, etc...