Church events for kids

[sorcha6]

Hope this is in the right forum…
Hi -
Lately our priests at church have been talking a lot about how in 20-30 years our church will have no more members because everyone is so old. They keep saying we need to get the younger crowd (my husband and I our in our 30s, so like us I guess) in with kids to keep our church open. Yet no one is doing anything about it.
Let me say - this has been our family church for generations. My grandmother was baptized here, married here, had her funeral here. My parents were married here. I was baptized, married, and had my daughter baptized here. I really cannot imagine seeing it close.
I ran the first VBS (vacation bible school) in almost 40 years over the summer. The families and children loved it. The priests and older members did not. They thought the kids were too loud, unsafe and it was too expensive (we were in the red for about $100 which we borrowed from the huge CCD fund that no one uses).
I do a lot of volunteer work at my daughter’s school, through Girl Scouts, and at my own school. I have decided that I’m going to give up this volunteer work at the end of this school year and devote my free time to bringing more families into the church. We have a CCD program, but no Youth Ministry. I want to start a Youth Ministry.
That being said, I know I will meet a lot of resistance, but it is very important to me, and I know I can make it successful and bring families into the church.
I just need some ideas on different events I can present to our priests when I talk about my plans. I’ve come up with VBS for different school vacations, a night right after Thanksgiving where we have pizza/movies for the kids so parents can go Christmas shopping or just have a night to themselves, Candy Bar Bingo, a Christmas pageant (we have an awesome kids choir), a car wash, and making Valentine’s cards for the elderly in our church. I’d like to offer babysitting training and retreats for the older kids - oh, and my dad is the Confirmation teacher so he can help with the older kids.
My friend’s church has the kids go into the CCD room in the basement during Mass on Sunday for “Children’s Mass.” They come back right before communion. I really don’t care for that idea. We always grew up enjoying Mass as a family. I don’t want to have to go that route, but my friend says it brought it tons of families when they started doing it. How do you feel about that?
Any other really fun ideas that will draw in kids and families? Something with a church theme or a service aspect would be awesome.
Any other advice would be welcome too - Thank you!!

Beth T.

 

[white_sheep]

How about doughnuts? I used to pick which parish I was going to this week based on whether or not it was doughnut week.

This is what happens when everyone kills their kids with birth control pills.

None of the good non-birth control using Catholics I know like those ideas, but rather hate them. So it seems the ideas are to bring in the wrong crowd, whose children won’t be practicing Catholics anyway. The right crowd is already in the pews. The answer is to convert more Catholics to Catholicism.

 

[Xantippe]

Hope this is in the right forum…
Hi -
Lately our priests at church have been talking a lot about how in 20-30 years our church will have no more members because everyone is so old. They keep saying we need to get the younger crowd (my husband and I our in our 30s, so like us I guess) in with kids to keep our church open. Yet no one is doing anything about it.
Let me say - this has been our family church for generations. My grandmother was baptized here, married here, had her funeral here. My parents were married here. I was baptized, married, and had my daughter baptized here. I really cannot imagine seeing it close.
I ran the first VBS (vacation bible school) in almost 40 years over the summer. The families and children loved it. The priests and older members did not. They thought the kids were too loud, unsafe and it was too expensive (we were in the red for about $100 which we borrowed from the huge CCD fund that no one uses).

**Oh my goodness.

How about having lunch with a priest or priests from the parish and connects the dots between what they’ve been talking about (the need to reverse the greying of the parish and keep it from being closed) and your VBS?

$100 is nothing, especially if the CCD fund easily covered it.**

I do a lot of volunteer work at my daughter’s school, through Girl Scouts, and at my own school. I have decided that I’m going to give up this volunteer work at the end of this school year and devote my free time to bringing more families into the church. We have a CCD program, but no Youth Ministry. I want to start a Youth Ministry.
That being said, I know I will meet a lot of resistance, but it is very important to me, and I know I can make it successful and bring families into the church.

**I know this is not a happy thought, given your long history with this parish, but perhaps your energies would be more warmly welcomed elsewhere?

It’s worth a try, but it sounds like this parish has a death wish.

If I were you, I would have a mental deadline for how long and how hard I was prepared to swim against the tide. **

I just need some ideas on different events I can present to our priests when I talk about my plans. I’ve come up with VBS for different school vacations, a night right after Thanksgiving where we have pizza/movies for the kids so parents can go Christmas shopping or just have a night to themselves, Candy Bar Bingo, a Christmas pageant (we have an awesome kids choir), a car wash, and making Valentine’s cards for the elderly in our church. I’d like to offer babysitting training and retreats for the older kids - oh, and my dad is the Confirmation teacher so he can help with the older kids.
My friend’s church has the kids go into the CCD room in the basement during Mass on Sunday for “Children’s Mass.” They come back right before communion. I really don’t care for that idea. We always grew up enjoying Mass as a family. I don’t want to have to go that route, but my friend says it brought it tons of families when they started doing it. How do you feel about that?

I do like nurseries for tots (we are enjoying the heck out of one that serves 0-3), but I agree that older children (especially 5+) belong at Mass, unless there is some special reason for them not to be there (especially disruptive behavior because of neurological problems, for instance).

Any other really fun ideas that will draw in kids and families? Something with a church theme or a service aspect would be awesome.
Any other advice would be welcome too - Thank you!!

Beth T.

Best wishes!

 

[Xantippe]

This is what happens when everyone kills their kids with birth control pills.

Eh, but this parish doesn’t seem to LIKE kids at all.

 

[white_sheep]

Eh, but this parish doesn’t seem to LIKE kids at all.

That’s why there aren’t any. The problem is that the people have cut themselves off from God, and that is why there is no life there. A culture of desolation in the heart and in the home leads to desolate, empty parishes. They need to come back into the light and feel God’s love, feel the freedom of obedience and the peace of being Catholic, and become Catholics again. If they do that there will be no problem filling their pews.

 

[Xantippe]

That’s why there aren’t any. The problem is that the people have cut themselves off from God, and that is why there is no life there. A culture of desolation in the heart and in the home leads to desolate, empty parishes. They need to come back into the light and feel God’s love, feel the freedom of obedience and the peace of being Catholic, and become Catholics again. If they do that there will be no problem filling their pews.

Not necessarily. A lot of older people just don’t like being around kids, even if they’ve raised large families and are otherwise faithful Catholics.

 

[MyNameIsDan]

It looks like you’re targeting a very large crowd. It might be a good idea to narrow your focus. Maybe it will be worthwhile to consider focusing on one group (such as the family) or age group first, then working it up from there. You said you want to start a Youth Ministry but you seem to be looking at other things involving a variety of age groups. I think you might also be mixing the idea of getting people to come to church and getting people to stay in church. I don’t mean to shoot your ideas down, but I’d just like to weigh in then give you my suggestions (which you can also disregard if you think they are no good – you probably know your parish, the attendees, and the youth better than I do). If you have a babysitting thing going on at church; that’s all it will be. A baby sitting site. When you’re thinking of a movie night for kids, it comes off as you thinking of the parish as being a dump site for parents to relax. It would be nice to leave it as being a movie night for all – if parents want to come, they are welcome. Also, it offers a chance for the kids to interact and get to know each other. I’d suggest avoiding pitching it to the priests like you did to us (it sounds like the parish is a place to leave children). The car wash might bring some people together, but it won’t be a big crowd and I don’t know if the young ones will want to do that. It also seems to indicate more of a need for money than it is about trying to get youth.

Parishes in my city are looking to open up addiction/drug/depression support programs. If you’re looking for something for the adults (and mature youth), this might be worth considering. It is a corporal work of mercy and is a good way to bring others into the fold. I’m 22 and I’d be interested in joining if my parish opened one up.

Also, if there was a book club at my parish, I would love to join. I’m part of the Catholic Student Association at my university and some of us have expressed interest in putting together a book club; reading Catholic works and discussing them. This would be great for even high school aged youth who are really curious about their faith, and it would be great for the more mature youth (or even adults if they wanted to join). Some readings may be: YOUCAT, Theology of the Body, The Confessions, etc.

Once you get a Youth Ministry started, that’s another story. One of the youth groups I know of at one parish have a Saturday Night Roundup; the youth get together once a month on a Saturday night to play games which I believe revolves around a certain Catholic theme. I went once and plenty attended. Every year, they also have an event called ThinkFast: devp.org/en/thinkfast

Right now, they’re trying to fundraise to go to World Youth Day. They’re really working as a team.

As you can see, all these revolve around some part of the church. Whether it seeks to participate in the corporal works of mercy, to strengthen relationships among youth parishioners, to learn more about the faith; all of these are directed in theme to the church.

I think it would also be a great idea to invite over a student from a catholic student’s association at a nearby university to your parish, or a person from another youth ministry from another parish who could help facilitate it with you for a year, a half year, or some period of time. Or you can ask them if they know anyone in their group that would be interested. They can help advertise the forming youth group to the youth in your parish so that other people in the same age range as them won’t be intimidated or shy to join. I’m keeping in mind that when you say youth, you mean people in their teens to late 20s. But the definition is somewhat unclear; I’ve just seen youth here to be up to late 20s.

If you’re looking for ideas for those 30 and up, I’m sure there are many more ideas for that age group because they are more mature. An idea for that was the drug/addiction/depression help. That may also suit the youth if they’re mature enough or it may not, but I think it’s a great idea for people in their 30s to be involved in.

I wish you all the best in trying to engage the youth. I’m really happy you’re trying to get something like this going. If this were to get rolling, I’m sure it would help many people and mean a lot to them. Thanks for thinking of the youth.

 

[UbiCaritas]

Re the babysitting thing: I can tell you that one of the things that attracted us to the church we attend was the fact that they had (until we joined, it seems–go figure!) a night every couple of months that they called “marriage enrichment night” or something of the sort. Basically, parents could drop their kids off for about 3-4 hours for free and then go on a date, the idea being that date night/reconnecting is important to married couples’ relationships. It was brilliant!

Your VBS story reminds me of a parish my husband attended while a teenager. It was an extremely wealthy parish. The priest refused help fund the youth group’s service projects (a fairly minor expense in the scheme of things–think hiring a bus so they could do service projects, that sort of thing), but that same year dropped no less than a million dollars on a project to increase seating in the church. The project added a grand total of twenty seats. He was no doubt shocked when a lot of parents started going across town to a church that was rather more interested in having teenagers involved with it.

ETA: in terms of young adult (18-35) programs, a local ministry is really a model for what that sort of thing can be. The organizers are very dedicated, and arrange everything from regular ultimate Frisbee nights to theology on tap to Adoration evenings to prayer/bible study groups to carpooling to the March for Life to doing service projects for local churches or Habitat for Humanity. People are welcome to do any or all of the above, so no matter what their tastes are for activities, they’re sure to enjoy something that the group offers.

 

[MyNameIsDan]

Re the babysitting thing: I can tell you that one of the things that attracted us to the church we attend was the fact that they had (until we joined, it seems–go figure!) a night every couple of months that they called “marriage enrichment night” or something of the sort. Basically, parents could drop their kids off for about 3-4 hours for free and then go on a date, the idea being that date night/reconnecting is important to married couples’ relationships. It was brilliant!

Your VBS story reminds me of a parish my husband attended while a teenager. It was an extremely wealthy parish. The priest refused help fund the youth group’s service projects (a fairly minor expense in the scheme of things–think hiring a bus so they could do service projects, that sort of thing), but that same year dropped no less than a million dollars on a project to increase seating in the church. The project added a grand total of twenty seats. He was no doubt shocked when a lot of parents started going across town to a church that was rather more interested in having teenagers involved with it.

ETA: in terms of young adult (18-35) programs, a local ministry is really a model for what that sort of thing can be. The organizers are very dedicated, and arrange everything from regular ultimate Frisbee nights to theology on tap to Adoration evenings to prayer/bible study groups to carpooling to the March for Life to doing service projects for local churches or Habitat for Humanity. People are welcome to do any or all of the above, so no matter what their tastes are for activities, they’re sure to enjoy something that the group offers.

I take back what I said about the baby sitting thing. By the sound of what UbiCaritas said, it looks like it might be a great idea!

 

[pianistclare]

How does the parish get away with not offering catechesis for all age groups?
No Youth Ministry?
That’s a red flag. Doesn’t the Bishop require catechism fro all ages? What’s up with that?
Youth Ministry is not games and pizza. It’s class in a non-classroom setting.
Why won’t they offer this?
Who is the DRE? What’s their story?
And how many grades does Children’s Faith formation cover?
What about the Middle school. No Jr. youth group?
No wonder young families are not coming. They don’t offer anything fro their kids.

 

[cjd]

Eh, but this parish doesn’t seem to LIKE kids at all.

As one pastor has said to us many times, “If I can’t hear crying, the parish must be dying.” Even the older people have to recognize that. The survival of the Church isn’t in the elderly, it is in the kids. St. JPII was surely a model for that idea. Check out what World Youth day has done for the Church on the whole.

It’s a tough start to revamp your programs to attract young families and kids because you don’t want to scare the older people off. However, I find that in many churches, the problem solves itself because the older people go to the earliest possible Mass, before the families with kids can get out the door.

 

[Xantippe]

As one pastor has said to us many times, “If I can’t hear crying, the parish must be dying.” Even the older people have to recognize that. The survival of the Church isn’t in the elderly, it is in the kids. St. JPII was surely a model for that idea. Check out what World Youth day has done for the Church on the whole.

It’s a tough start to revamp your programs to attract young families and kids because you don’t want to scare the older people off. However, I find that in many churches, the problem solves itself because the older people go to the earliest possible Mass, before the families with kids can get out the door.

Or 5:30 PM.

You could offer $100 to each attendee at a 5:30 Sunday Mass, and young families still wouldn’t go to that particular Mass.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

You know, I was recently in a parish meeting with a parish across town. My current parish is the “family” parish in town and they wanted to know the secret. And since I am a transplant they wanted to know why I chose my current parish.when we went in, it was liturgically sound and packed with large families.

But they were tying to talk and talk and talk instead of just shutting up and acting. Talk is cheap. There is no great idea to be had. Just do it.

 

[petitfleur]

Eh, but this parish doesn’t seem to LIKE kids at all.

No kidding. Pro life is so much more than stopping abortions. You have to care about the kids outside the womb too.