Promotion Weekend & Volunteer Update

For all children (infant - 4th grade) who registered for the 2010-11 school year, Small Group assignments have been completed and parents should receive an email by tomorrow.  We had over 900 children (not counting the Fusion programming) registered across all 3 campuses.  What a great opportunity to reach the hearts of the next generation!

We're excited to see that we already have nearly 700 regular volunteers (full time or sharing a responsibility) in Children's Ministry, and I thank all of you who are involved in serving regularly on campus during our weekend worship services.  There is no doubt that we are celebrating the servants that will have a Kingdom-level impact!

However, we want to make everyone aware that of a situation that we are facing.  We are short about 105 Children's Small Group Leaders, with less than two weeks until Promotion Weekend (August 14 & 15).  For those of you who are not serving regularly (on a rotation on Saturday nights or Downtown, or at least twice per month elsewhere), I would like to encourage you to do so.  This will be a blessing to you, be a model for your children, and give you the chance to serve others.

If we are not able to find teachers, we will be closing several classes each week.  We will make every effort to place children in other age-appropriate classes, but our ability to do this is limited.  We will make priority for new guests (folks that have come to Grace within the last few months) and people who are serving on campus that week.  Guests and volunteers can check in immediately, and just before the service time, we will check on space in other Small Groups, up until the class capacity.

Of course, our hope is that we will not have to turn away any children, but we are left with little choice if we do not have volunteers.  It is important to understand that we are volunteer-limited, not space-limited.  In order to have a safe and meaningful Small Group experience, we limit the maximum number of children that can be in each classroom.

These are the areas that we currently have a shortage:

• Saturday Night
• Nursery:  we need 11 more individuals to serve on a 3-team rotation
• Preschool:  4 (out of 6) classes will need to be closed once every three weeks
• Camp Grace (1st - 4th grades):  3 (out of 5) classes will be closed every three weeks, and 4 other classes have only 1 leader
• Pelham Rd - Sunday
• Nursery:  4 (out of 16) classes will be closed about twice per month, and 3 classes have no leaders
• Preschool:  6 classes (out of 28) will be closed about twice per month, and 2 classes have no leaders
• Camp Grace (1st - 4th grades): 9 classes (out of 26) need at least one more leader
• Powdersville
• Preschool:  8 classes have only 1 adult leader, and 1 class has no leaders
• Camp Grace (1st - 4th grades): 3 classes have only 1 adult leader
• Downtown
• Nursery:  Need 2 individuals to serve on a 3-team rotation
• Preschool:  Need 1 more individual to serve on a 3-team rotation
• Camp Grace (1st - 4th grades):  Need at least 1 leader, but may need 3
• Students or Adults:  Need at least 6 to serve in Quest (either at 9 or 10:15 AM)

We are excited about the opportunities that we have this fall, and for the nearly 700 volunteers that we have on the Children's Ministry team.  Please let us know if you have any questions, or if you would be willing to serve regularly, or to at least "share" a class with someone else. You can contact:

• Joey Espinosa (jespinosa@gracechurchsc.org) for Pelham Road campus
• Kathryn Sanders (ksanders@gracechurchsc.org) for Powdersville campus
• Nicole Snyder (nsnyder@gracechurchsc.org) for Downtown campus