Any director of Christian education, youth pastor, or volunteer will tell you that leading a youth ministry requires a high level of organization—from planning events to coordinating volunteers, it takes a village to raise up middle and high schoolers in the faith. As the lives of parents and youth get busier and busier, you need to find ways to effectively communicate with them, streamline your processes, and more effectively engage with these families.
Utilizing your church management system as a youth ministry management software is not only cost effective but also can help you stay organized and sane. Here are our team’s favorite ways a church management software can streamline your youth ministry.
Communications
Email Parents
When sharing important information with the parents of your youth, you’ll likely opt for email communications. Whether you’re sharing your upcoming monthly schedule, reminding them of an upcoming event, or sending out surveys for feedback, email is the best option.
Many church management softwares, like the Church360° Suite, allow you to send emails to specific groups of people, so you can easily communicate with only those you need to. Create custom groups for parents of kids in middle or high school, and you’ll never manually add email addresses again!
Text Students
It’s also not uncommon for DCEs and youth leaders to have text group chats with students to remind them of upcoming events or directly communicate with them about last-minute updates. Utilize your church management system to send bulk texts in just a few clicks!
Of course, you can also use this feature to communicate last-minute updates with parents, like event cancellations due to inclement weather, location changes, or timely reminders. But be careful not to overuse this feature; if you send texts for every small update, announcement, or reminder, your members will start to ignore them. Reserve texts for truly of-the-moment updates!
Event Scheduling
Keep your parents, staff, and youth on the same page with event scheduling within your church management system. Ensure that rooms in your building aren’t double-booked, events don’t overlap, and your staff is aware of who will be on campus.
If your church management software allows you to tag events, you can label them as middle- or high-school events, so your members are clear who exactly the event is for. This also gives your youth parents the opportunity to filter all calendar events to see all upcoming youth ministry events. With the busy schedules high schoolers have these days, it’s important to give families plenty of notice to get events on their family calendar.
Volunteer Coordination
Whether your youth ministry is completely run by volunteers or you only need them occasionally, you need to ensure you keep everyone organized and on schedule! Utilize your youth ministry management software to coordinate all of your volunteers—from who’s leading the devotion to who’s bringing snacks and soda.
You can also utilize these features within your chosen church management system to send mass communications to your volunteers for specific events. Let them know when they should arrive, what they should bring, and how long the event will last. You’ll keep everyone on the same page, allowing your events to run more smoothly.
Registrations and Signups
When planning any youth event, you need to know how many people are attending—especially if you’re providing pizza and snacks! Keep everything organized by encouraging your youth (or their parents) to register if they plan on attending, and to also register any friends they might be bringing. Once it becomes a habit of your members, you’ll see greater consistency! Don’t be afraid to send out email or text reminders to register in the week leading up to the event.
You can also coordinate parent signups, such as who’s bringing snacks or who’s driving students to an off-campus event.
Consent Forms
One of the most important parts of youth ministry is ensuring parents and staff are on the same page about events—especially ones that involve travel or any sort of special consent by the parents.
If you’ve been using paper forms to track these signatures and forms, it might be time for a digital upgrade. Utilize your church management software to streamline this process! Within a software like Church360° Members, you can create forms that are tied to specific events. With some creative thinking, you can repurpose a traditional form to allow parents to provide consent for their children to be driven by another parent or for similar situations.
You can also use these forms as covenants before a big event like a conference, where you want youth to agree to certain terms about their behavior and your expectations for them. You can include everything you’d usually include on a form like this—outlined expectations, with places for their digital signature and the date. Afterward, you can have an email copy sent to them and their parents.
Effortlessly implement these tips for your youth ministry with our member-focused church management software, Church360° Members. The first month is free!
