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Newsletters
A newsletter is a wonderful way to communicate with your youth group. While it may take some time to make up a good issue and print it out, it is well worth the effort. It doesn’t necessarily have to be published on any kind of a schedule or time frame. On the other hand if you are one for having everything organized, the young people will know they can expect an issue the 1st Sunday of each month or whenever your publication date is.
If you didn’t finish up your Sunday school lesson or if you got into a discussion that you didn’t have time to finish, you can use your newsletter to complete the matter. Have an issue on your heart? Sometimes by typing it out in the newsletter you can say what you feel.
Keep it simple. There are a number of desktop publishing programs that are easy to use. You can just print out something in a couple of columns on an 8 ½ X 11 sheet or get a little fancier and fold it down to make a four page 5 ½ X 8 ½ issue.
Whichever format you use be sure to make your paper personal. Young people like to see their names in print. Keep abreast of what is going on in their lives. Scan the local newspaper and reprint things that pertain to them like honor roll lists or other school happenings.
Include some humor but never embarrass anyone. Think about the young person you are writing about.
Be sure to check out your local Bible bookstore, there are numerous books with clipart and other newsletter helps available. Also the internet is a good source for humorous anecdotes and little “fillers”.
- Community or church calendar
- Sunday school commentary
- Birthdays
- Community happenings
- Space for the pastor
- Use a story and scramble some of the words or maybe an article about the students and scramble their names
- Have a joke corner
- If they sing a special or take part in a service mention it
- At Christmas time personalize your paper by putting each student’s name on a copy. Be sure to have a few generic copies for visitors
- Be sure to include their names a lot in your issues
- For Father’s Day and Mother’s Day try a matching game between parent and child and scramble the names
- Missionary names and addresses
- Bible quiz or questions
- Whet their appetites with upcoming events
- With a digital camera it is easy to add pictures of church activities
- Short reviews of books of interest to young people
- List last week’s Sword drill or contest winners
- Bible riddles
- List of upcoming Sunday school lessons
- Church elections
- Local church trivia
- Try doing an article about your youth group and use initials instead of names and let them guess who you are talking about