Draw Kids to Sunday School with These Evangelism Ideas

How did you get involved with your local church? Maybe you grew up going to Sunday school there or a friend invited you. Or maybe you got involved because you found your church online or through a church event. Churches tend to focus their evangelism outreach on adults in an attempt to draw them to church, but there are so many ways to creatively reach out to the kids in your communities! In fact, parents tend to really appreciate it when you love their children well, so focusing your evangelism and church outreach efforts towards children is a great way to reach whole families. Here are four ways your family or church can reach out to the kids in your community and invite them to Sunday school through creative evangelism outreach.

1. Make Sunday School Invitations

First, to attract more kids to Sunday school, we want to encourage kids who are already involved in church and Bible programs to invite their friends. Make invitations with all the information about their Sunday school or after-school Bible club, and have kids think about friends they would like to invite while providing copies of the invitations to them. You can even make a Sunday school craft out of it and have the kids make their own personal invitations for their friends. It’s helpful to provide a small card with information like address, day, and time of the Sunday school or after-school Bible club that can be attached to these homemade invitations.

While we want to encourage kids to take part in evangelism within their communities, it’s important that you don’t reward kids for bringing their friends to Sunday school. We don’t want their friends to feel used by the child or like they’re more excited for the reward they’ll receive for inviting them, rather than the fact their friend came to Sunday school. Help kids get excited about bringing their friends for the right reason. If you’re going to reward them at all, wait until you’re in private later to give them kudos and ask if their friend had any feedback regarding their experience.

2. Use Face or Hand Painting for Evangelism

Another creative evangelism outreach idea to start attracting kids to Sunday school is to offer face or hand painting at your next local event or fair. Kids love face painting, while parents love a free activity for their kids at a fair. While the kid is sitting down, you can provide information for the families about your church or Sunday school, and specifically about your programs for children. One Child Evangelism Fellowship® worker in Kansas schedules booths at the state and local fairs to do free hand or face painting for kids, and it’s become an excellent church outreach tool for them. You can find inexpensive brushes and face paint online or at a local party supply store.

Face painting can be a great evangelism tool, too. For instance, if you are working as a team, one person can paint while the other shares the Gospel. You could even choose designs that use the colors of The Wordless Book to tell the Gospel story as you paint. If you have the resources, add some other games and crafts at your booth for kids to do as they wait their turn. This is a great time for people from your church to build relationships with the families that stop by and to invite the kids to join your Sunday school. 

3. Use Sports as an Evangelism Opportunity

A third creative evangelism outreach idea is to play off the Olympics or other local and national sports events. Did you like watching the Olympics as a kid? Stephanie, a CEF missionary in Tasmania, recognized that kids often get excited about the Olympics or other big sporting events, so she decided to use everyone’s excitement about the Olympics to reach out to new kids in her community. For the two weeks the kids were out of school in July, Stephanie set up a table at a local park handing out snacks, water, and Gospel Olympic wristbands that she and the kids in her Sunday school made. It was such a success that the kids in her after-school Good News Club® wanted to help too! You can see pictures and read more about this evangelism outreach in IMPACT Magazine by going to cefonline.com/impact.

4. Promote Your Sunday School at Events

Our final idea for evangelism outreach and to entice children towards Sunday school is to participate in a local parade or festival. Most children are incredibly excited for their hometown’s annual parades. Take advantage of the community coming together to raise awareness for your ministry and invite new kids to come to Sunday school! You can get creative and design a float, march in the parade, or ride in a fun car while throwing candy with invitation cards to Sunday school attached. Local festivals are also another place you can use hand or face painting for evangelism or to attract kids to your Sunday school. Or you could organize a game and prize booth, pass out snacks and drinks, or show an object evangelism lesson to share the Gospel. This is your opportunity to reach new kids for Christ, invite them to Sunday school, and love your community. Be sure to have some kids’ evangelism tracts from cefpress.com!

For more ideas on evangelism outreach or for stories of encouragement like Stephanie’s, check out CEF’s IMPACT Magazine at cefonline.com/impact. The IMPACT magazine is a free publication of CEF that tells the stories of ministry going out to children and their families all around the world. Subscribe today!