Giveaway Month

This outreach event idea is great for inviting more of your communityÕs youth to attend your ministry. (The first time we did this, our youth group size basically tripled from the Òmonth beforeÓ to the Òmonth after.Ó)

The premise is simple: instead of doing one time giveaways to invite youth to come out to your event, why not stretch it out over an entire month of giveaways? This way, teens are given 4 to 5 weeks of interaction with your youth group rather than one week, and hopefully allows them to make friends and get into a habit of coming.

Here's how it works. We're a small church plant and have absolutely no budget for our youth ministry, but we've been able to get a couple people and/or organizations to donate cool stuff allowing us to pull this off.

Designate one month of the upcoming year as a “Giveaway Month”. Have students bring a really cool prize and a few smaller ones as well. For example, an iPod Nano, a digital camera, a hot video game, or a few gift cards work great. (DonÕt forget to take advantage of the youth ministry storage closet: grab some of the previous yearÕs summer camp Frisbees or DVDÕs to round out the package.) Finally, some other really cool gifts are right there in your church: the lady who own the salon in town who can give a free haircut, or the guy in your church who runs the auto shop that can supply a free oil change.

Then, promote the ÒmonthÓ well in advance. Get your students excited about it.

The giveaways are done in the form of a drawing. Simply put the names of students in a hat and draw out a certain number of winners each week (all depending on the number of new students you have and also the number of prizes you have). Students MUST be present to win. If one of your regulars brings 2 friends, not only does he get his name in the hat, but he also gets TWO MORE slips of paper with his name on them, thus upping his chances of winning!

If you program this right, 60-70% of the students will keep coming back. While you have them at your youth ministry, you may want to share Christ.

Idea by Kyle