Eight Ideas for Back-to-School Outreach and Church Activities

August 31, 2016

New year, new classes – kids are back in school and church ministries are starting up too. Church teachers and leaders are always looking for creative ways to help their students learn. It’s also an incredible opportunity to reach out to your community. Many congregations sponsor drives for supplies and clothes to outfit returning students.

Here are some innovative outreach ideas and ways to use music, video and media in your Bible lessons, Sunday school lessons and children’s activities:

  1. Use music to engage children, manage their moods and emotions and develop music awareness. If they are extremely excited or unmanageable, play slow tempo music to help calm their emotions. If they seem lethargic, you can play up tempo, peppy music.
  2. Play classical or instrumental music in the background as they enter the classroom to introduce them to different types of music.
  3. Use music to reinforce learning. Music can facilitate younger children learning each other’s names, as well as Bible stories and memorize scriptures.
  4. Action songs or finger plays with music help illustrate stories for younger children.
  5. Educational Pizza – school budgets are often too slim to buy the fun incentives that encourage students to grow academically and avoid discipline issues. You could turn your volunteers into pizza missionaries once a quarter. They collaborate with a local inner-city elementary school to sponsor quarterly pizza parties for exemplary students. The United Methodist Communications website provides an excellent article on more back-to-school outreach ideas.
  6. When media and curriculum are integrated, children learn better. Multimedia resources can include computer-based activities, PowerPoint presentations, CDs, DVDs, video games and projected images.
  7. Using media in a lesson promotes active learning. Children can operate the computers or DVDs themselves, and it’s a springboard for more open discussion. Press the pause button often and talk. You don’t want them to just watch the video without participating.
  8. Copyright issues. Utilize blanket copyright licenses for the easiest and most cost effective way to make sure you are legally using music and media material. CC’S PERFORMmusic and WORSHIPcast Licenses provide comprehensive music performance rights coverage for churches and ministries.

If you’re wondering whether or not your church children’s programs make the grade when it comes to copyright compliance, we have a fun and simple interactive test you can take to find out. We’ve taken 31 years of our experience in the Christian copyright business and created a FREE tool – The Copyright Report Card, to help your church lower its risk.  You’ll find some very useful information and practical solutions that you can quickly incorporate. It’s a great way to assess where you’re doing well, and where you may need to improve your coverage. When you finish taking the test, you can print it out and call one of our copyright experts at 1-855-5SOLVER (855-576-5837) to answer any questions you may have.

CCS’s Founder and CVO, Susan Fontaine Godwin is an educator and long-time member of the Christian arts community with 30 years of experience in the Christian media industry, church copyright administration and copyright management. Susan is an author and speaker and frequently writes for several Christian magazines and online publications. She serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Mobile.

About Christian Copyright Solutions: CCS’s quest is to help churches and Christian ministries “do music right.” CCS is an expert on church music copyrights and our primary focus is providing licensing and clear educational resources to churches, as well as representation, administration and advocacy for copyright owners. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, and is not legal advice or a substitute for legal counsel.

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