Parent Newsletters have always been an important, but difficult aspect of my ministry to kids. I’ve done a lot of different things over the years: monthly/quarterly Top 10 lists, flyers, simply referred everyone to our website, weekly letters, etc. For the past three years or so I’ve landed on theParentLink.com and it has been super helpful. Here’s how it works.
- It comes in three formats: PDF, Word, and Publisher.
- There’s a children’s and youth ministry version.
- It’s 4 pages long.
- Page 1 has a short article with parenting tips and insights.
- Page 2 has activities that families can do to connect with Jesus and each other.
- Page 3 has info on movies, music, and games coming out for kids.
- Page 4 has a calendar for your ministry to put important dates on.
Their service is $80 a year. I’ve been using theParentLink now for about three years and I love it. Currently I don’t mail them out but post them on our blog (usually a page a week on top of ministry-specific events). Here’s a breakdown of how we schedule updates to parents on a typical week:
- Monday – Recap of what we did this past weekend.
- Tuesday – Top 1 to 5 events for families to keep on their radar.
- Wednesday – A parenting tip/resource (OrangeParents.org or theParentLink.com)
- Thursday – Encouraging tweet about the importance of parents/CM/volunteers
Click here to download a free sample.
What tips and tools do you use to communicate with parents in your ministry?
Jeff McClung 
Looks sweet! What’s gotten the most feedback for me recently is sending the upcoming events calendar in an ical or .ics file so that parents can sync it directly with their existing internet calendar. I can even program in the reminders for them. I feel like it has been super effective.
Great idea Kyle! I need to start doing that with iCal and Facebook.