It’s the most wonderful time of the year! 

No, I’m not talking about Christmas or Thanksgiving (I’m a no Christmas until after Thanksgiving person). 

I’m talking about planning for the next year.

I know I’m weird like that, but I look forward to the meetings, vision casting, and planning of the next year with great anticipation.

Whether you’re weird like me or hate having look at dates and times until you go cross-eyed, I thought I’d help by giving 

6 steps to make next year’s ministry calendar.

1. Get a paper calendar and a pencil

In November, it’s relatively easy to plan for January, but if you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do in October of next year it’s a little harder. This is why I start all my planning with a paper calendar and a pencil. It allows me to move things around and adjust as new information becomes available. 

Doing it this way became invaluable in 2020 when COVID messed everything up.

As I’m filling it out, I like to start with the things I can’t control and then move to things that I can, which leads me to my next point.

2. Look at the school and federal holidays

Before you start putting in your events and initiatives, look at the local school district and federal holidays first. You can’t control when the kids are going on Spring Break or move President’s Day to August for convenience.

Put those holidays in your calendar so you’re not working against the culture.

One time I tried to a big missions fundraiser the Sunday before Spring Break. It failed. Not because I didn’t advertise it, but because half my kids were out of town.

On the flip side, when I was planning for the Youth and adults to take a missions trip together, I knew Spring Break would be a great week for everyone to go.

You want to leverage these days to your advantage instead of working against them or worse, being surprised. As much as possible, I avoid putting Big Sundays on federal holiday weekends when most everyone is off.

Sometimes school calendars are not readily available, especially if you’re looking at next year’s dates. In this case, look at the previous years and make you best guess. They don’t like to change often, but when they do, they give a lot of notice.

3. Look at your district calendar

I’m part of the Assemblies of God and our governing board creates events for all the churches in the District (think States) to participate in. These are things like summer camp, fine arts competitions, and youth conferences.

I always like participating in these events because they do all the work, and all I have to do is show up with a group of students.

Also, as a kids pastor, VBS is a big deal and couldn’t function without the help of teenagers. I always work with my youth pastor to make sure I don’t put VBS on the same week they’re at camp or on a missions trip.

4. Write down conferences and personal development

After I’ve put in federal and school holidays and district events, I now look at personal development conferences and retreats.

Investing in my growth is a big deal, so I want to make sure I go to at least one a year. A lot of times this is one of the biggest items on my budget so getting permission early will help ensure I get to go. Also buying tickets early usually gives you a discount, which is always good.

5. Put the big rocks in first

Now that all of those things outside of your control are put in, you can finally put in your events and schedule.

Before getting all excited about throwing things in there, section off some time for yourself and your family. 

If you don’t, you’ll fill it with other things. Even if you don’t know what you’re going to do, put it on the calendar. Next to God, the most important things in your life should be your health and your familial relationships. They should get first dibs on what’s going on in your life.

Next put in your biggest events. From a kidmin perspective these may be:

• VBS

• Egg Hunt

• Fall Festival

• Mission Sunday

• Move up Weekend

• Parent meeting

• Christmas special

Once I have all these events penciled in, I’m ready for the big meeting with the NextGen team and/or the whole staff. My last church called this meeting Calendarpalooza, which I thought was hilarious.

For the last several years, I’ve invested in a large wall calendar that we’ll put all the church’s events on. Working month to month, the big calendar helps us make sure we’re working together and not cluttering it for busy families.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go back to the days where there were 5 different ministries putting on 5 different events on the same day advertising to the same family. It’s too much. It hurts the ministry and will burn out your congregation.

Do what you can now to avoid schedule conflicts and you’ll have a lot less stress throughout the year.

6. Work backwards

Now that you’ve put in all the big rocks and cleared them with the main church calendar, it’s time to work backwards. I talked a little about this in this post about planning events back in July.

By working backwards, I mean start with your event and then think about all the other things that have to happen before that event arrives.

For example, I know VBS next year will be sometime in June. This means I need to have some workdays and training meetings in the weeks before, maybe into May. It follows then that I need to start talking about VBS at the beginning of May or even as early as Easter.

If I’m going to start advertising on Easter, I’ll need to have all my graphics and marketing materials ready in March.

But to nail down the details for VBS and order supplies, I need to meet with my VBS lead team in early March or February.

But before that, If I want to know what to pitch to that team, I’ll need to order my curriculum in January.

That’s 6 months before the event, and now I have all the dates for my training meetings, work days, when I need to order supplies and supporting media and much more.

I take all of this information and put it on my calendar. Eventually, I make the move to digital and set reminders for each planned item on the first day of the week it needs to get done. This allows me to accomplish a lot more without letting things slip through the cracks.

This whole process takes a few months for me to complete, but not consistently. I’ll work a little on it and put it down for a week or two to focus on the end of the year events. My goal is to have everything confirmed, entered into the digital calendar, and communicated to my parents and volunteers by my Parent Meeting held at the end of January.

I’ve found this planning to be invaluable. My events are better attended, the three groups I lead are well informed, and I’m able to focus on what’s in front of me and not what’s happening 6 weeks down the road.

I hope it helps you too. Happy planning!

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