Back in the Fall we experienced some lower than normal numbers that have been attributed to the flu that was so widespread. To say that we had lower than normal numbers was an understatement. We had over 300 kids who didn’t attend once in October that were regularly attending in August and September. We had leaders and volunteers call the families of every kid. We also began to promote the holidays with something we called the Crazy Christmas Countdown. Here’s what we did.

We totally decked out the Kids building two weeks before Thanksgiving and started 5 weeks of Christmas celebration. Every week was crazy sock week where kids with the craziest socks were recognized and maybe even won prizes. We had crazy and fun games in both early childhood and elementary that tied into the Crazy Christmas theme. Then as a cause for everyone to get behind, we gathered presents for families in need. We put a tree in our lobby covered with socks and ornaments (just simple laminated circles with Christmas socks on one side and a list of items for the gift bag on the other). By the second service of the first Sunday, the 100 ornaments gone which was very exciting.

All gifts were due two Sundays before Christmas which was just a few days before the Christmas party for refugees and families in need where the gifts would be distributed. That Sunday, the Kids lobby was filled with gift bags. It was pretty awesome.

By all appearances, the Crazy Christmas Countdown seemed successful. Although I think the leaders and volunteers had more fun with the socks, lots of kids were excited to wear their crazy socks. We provided more than enough gifts for the families in need, so that was great too. What was most important was that the trend of growth returned. I don’t really know if it was due to our efforts of Crazy Christmas Countdown, (actually I’m not really sure how we could measure it) but where October had been a month of decrease compared to the previous year, November and December jumped back to the 10-17% growth range over the previous year.

I’m still giving what we do for outreach a lot of thought. Not only do I want to help the community, but I want to transform the character of kids as well. But overall, I think we’ll do something like Crazy Christmas Countdown again. Anything that builds momentum during a time where attendance tends to sag is a great thing.

So, we’ve hit our problem head on. People get sick and there isn’t usually a lot you can do about it. They’ll get better and they’ll come back. However, at Gateway we’re reaching a demographic of people who might easily get into a habit of not coming due to sickness and have trouble getting back into that rhythm of coming once all is well again. It’s just the people we’re targeting. So here’s what we’ve done.

1. Phone call and email blitz. In Fellowship One, I ran this report. It essentially told me who my regular kids were and which ones were missing in October. It told me what the last service/room/date they attended. I had Fellowship One modify the form to give me cell numbers and email addresses of both moms and dads. We then sent this information on to our small group leaders and room leaders to call all the families that have been missing. The good news is that their absences has been for reason we expected… sickness.

2. Create some holiday momentum. Our Children’s Ministry has always been a selling point for our families. Generally the kids really love Kids Quest. We felt we just needed to remind the families and kids and do something a little special to get them interested in coming back soon. So we announced something we’re calling “Crazy Countdown to Christmas.” Essentially it’s some crazy Christmas fun wrapped around some fun Christmas styled games, five weeks of “crazy sock contests” and a great angle tree-like outreach to families in need in our community.

3. Promotion. Now that we have identified who is missing and why they’re missing and something new and fun to promote, we’re exhausting all our avenues of communication to get the word out. Kids don’t want to miss Kids Quest this holiday season. First we designed this postcard. I’ve got about 2000 cards to distribute to every child who attends the next few weeks. In addition, I’ve mailed this postcard to any child who has attended Gateway two or more times in the past 6 months. I really would have liked to sent this to every kid, but I didn’t have the budget for that. In addition, we have an email blitz this week, sending an email to the parents of every child who’s attended Gateway this last year letting them know about our Crazy Christmas Countdown.

So, we’ll see what happens. This campaign really isn’t very outward focused. it’s more of an effort to reconnect with those who have disconnected due to the flu. Again, there isn’t much we can do about the flu. If families are sick, we really don’t want them back (yet). However, this might help us recapture those who’ve gotten out of the habit.

The question I’m asking myself is, “how do we measure success?” We know that in October we were down 6% from last year where normally we are up 12-15%. Again, so many people are still battling the flu, we may not know the degree of success. Our attendance could go back up on it’s own even without these efforts. However, we’ll take a look at the numbers and see if we can determine anything that stands out.

I’m going to be looking at some trends from the past four years (since I’ve not been here long enough to have the history). However, I do know that the flu bug has been vicious here. H1N1 has ravaged the state of Texas and there are a couple other flu strains that have been affecting our families. We’ve even had to change our well child policy this fall (we ask kids not to come if anyone in their family has had the flu that week) since H1N1 is contagious even before you know you have it. So although we usually experience a little bit of a decline in October and November, we usually don’t see our numbers take this big of a hit.

Has anyone else had a noticeable attendance dip that was out of the ordinary (especially if you’re in Texas)? Let me know as this seems to be the best way gather information from others. Feel free to post as comments or email me privately at kenny@childrensministryonline.com.