1. Have a Baby Parade
Parade Ideas - During the worship service(s), have the parents of each baby in your nursery carry infants or walk with toddlers in their very own Baby Parade.  Add some additional excitement by encouraging parents to bring the child’s favorite riding toy, while infants can be pushed in their strollers.  The riding toys and strollers can be decorated with colorful balloons and streamers. 

Enhance the Experience - If you have the technical capabilities, consider having the families go one at a time and display a photo with the baby’s name on the screen (using PowerPoint or some other presentation software).  Create a questionnaire for parents to fill out prior to the parade with cute and funny questions to be read as their children pass across the front of the sanctuary.

Present Gift – At the conclusion the questionnaire presentation about the infant or toddler, take the opportunity to present each family with a special gift.

2. Make a Video
Utilizing the digital photos you took this month, create a fun video to feature the babies, their families, and the workers in your nursery. Ideally, the photos will show babies (and adults) laughing, crying, making silly faces, etc. Use kid-friendly worship songs, such as you would find on the Veggie Tales Rock-A-Bye Veggie, for background music.

3. Present a Humorous Baby Day Presentation
Introduce the Baby Day theme to your congregation by presenting a funny, but touching presentation. You can use the suggested “Tell the Next Generation; Father Knows Best?” sketch.  A detailed description of the sketch is available in this packet.  The entire sketch and additional sketch resources may be downloaded at www.nazarene.org/babyday.
 
4. Schedule a Baby Dedication or Baptism
If possible, plan a baby dedication or baptism for the worship service on Baby Day. There is nothing more community-building than a baptism service. People of all ages love to be part of a dedication or baptism for children.

5. Host a Dinner
Host a dinner for the nursery families. Decorate the room with Tell the Next Generation! theme. For centerpieces, fill colorful balloons with helium. Tie together two or three balloons per table, and weight the balloons with a small bag of after-dinner mints for the parents.

6. Hold a Nursery Shower
On or near Baby Day, hold a fund-raiser at your church. Prepare a list of items needed for the nursery. Prepare small pieces of paper the shape of an infant’s foot with the names of the items on them.  Distribute them to the congregation, or prepare a display where an item to donate may be selected.  Have baskets placed near the display for those donating to return their items. 

7. Pray for Families with Babies
In preparation for Baby Day, hold a prayer service where people are encouraged to pray for families with babies and small children. On the day you celebrate Baby Day, encourage people in your congregation to “adopt” a family with a baby, and commit to pray for that family throughout the coming year. Take photos of the babies and their families present at your church on Baby Day. Then, attach each photo to a note card, and print the parents’ and babies’ names on the cards. If the families give permission, include contact information on the card. Let people draw one card each, making a covenant to pray for that family.

8. Host a Parenting Workshop
Parents of new babies often feel insecure about their abilities to get it “right.” Give them a dose of confidence by hosting a workshop just for parents. Consider providing them with a resource such as a parenting book. We suggest a book by Kathi Hudson, Raising Kids God’s Way. Go to www.amazon.com for more details.

Note: In the search box, type in the author’s name.  This book is included for the CLT Certificate in Family Life Ministries. For more information about the Family Life Ministries CLT Certificate requirements go to http://clt.nazarene.org/images/Forms/cltcatalog2007.pdf. 

9. Do a Service Project
Give your community of faith a service project to rally around. There are several charity organizations designed to help babies and children in need. Bethany Christian Services is an organization with a mission of honoring the sanctity of life through “caring for children and families worldwide and in your community.  Bethany offers domestic and international adoption, as well as other pregnancy and family services.  For more information on Bethany go to www.bethany.org.