Best day of the week for FPU?

[finallyonboard]

Hi All,

We got the go-ahead from our pastor to move forward in planning and scheduling FPU at our church!:c:

Our friends are coming over tonight for dinner and FPU discussion, and we'll need to noodle on dates. Has anyone had any better luck with one night of the week over another?

TIA!

[BzyBee DH]

I would recommend a night that the church offers nursery, child activities, etc...(for obvious reasons)

It has worked well here to be an alternative class for the mid-week services

[Roy Randolph]

What will work for our Church will not necessarily work at your Church. In our area Sunday nights at 5PM work best, one because we are way out in the suburbs, and most people don't get home from work until 6:30 or 7 in the evening and then try and make a 2 hour class, well hasn't been successful for us. But it might work for your area.

Another reason 5 PM Sundays work great for us, is because AWANA's is held at the same time, this is a huge benefit for those in our class with kids. Because of AWANAs is only 1:45 in length we have to limit our class to 1:45. Makes it tough on the Dumping Debt Session which the video is 90 minutes.

It depends heavily on the demographics of your local area, I might suggest you hand out flyers with a survey of the best times for those that would like take the class, that is what we did when we first started.

[finallyonboard]

Thanks, good points guys.

Roy, so did you loosely schedule with Dave's folks? And how did that work with getting the dates published on line? I really like the idea of polling. We'll likely be arranging for child care just for the FPU class. Which is something to consider...I should check in with who I have in mind to be the care giver and see what her schedule might allow.

[JimFPU]

One thing we did was just picked a night that worked for us. There will always be something that will make it so some people can't come, so we just picked one. Our church is really small and has little to offer during the week (except FPU Tuesday nights!!) We have talked about moving it to another night next time, but God still blessed the class with 11 newbies and 2 alumni taking the course!!!

[fulltimemama]

We haven't led a class but I can tell what did not appeal to us. Some classes were on Sunday mornings at churches - like at 11am. That's our church worship time. Some had Wednesday nights duringtheir other activities, but we volunteer at our own church for those childrens activities.

We attend on Friday evenings from 6-8 and childcare is provided by some of the church members. They are paid by someone but I don't know who. We've never been asked for money to cover it and it was advertised as free. I guess the church provides the money or something.

One note on childcare to anyone planning FPU! Find out the ages of the children coming or set an age range. We have the oldest kiddos and the childcare is in a toddler room. It makes things a bit challenging. The ages of kiddos at our FPU are 9, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 18 months, I think. It would be helpful to have them split up with something planned to do (movie, game, something). We bring movies every week because the selection is limited. Anyway, we are grateful for the childcare so I don't want to sound like I am whining. These are issues we are considering for when we teach FPU.

BTW, anyone heard of teaching it somewhere besides a church? Has any other location worked well for you?

FTM

[JimFPU]

I did it at work once. Worked OK, some folks even brought their kids (when spouses came) and they just played or colored or what ever. It was much more challenging, but we did it!

[finallyonboard]

Jim, we have a small church too...it is encouraging to see your numbers! I'll be praying for some great participation both from our church body and from the community. And you're right - you can't please all of the people all of the time.

FTM, thanks for the ideas on the kids. Our DS is 3 and our God daughter (whose parents are the friends that we're putting it together with) is 18 months - so I have little kids in mind...great reminder that bigger kids could need something fun to do too. And on timing, I totally agree - Sunday mornings are worship time for us - that wouldn't fly at our church.

[Roy Randolph]

Thanks, good points guys.

Roy, so did you loosely schedule with Dave's folks? And how did that work with getting the dates published on line? I really like the idea of polling. We'll likely be arranging for child care just for the FPU class. Which is something to consider...I should check in with who I have in mind to be the care giver and see what her schedule might allow.

Well the Best thing you can do, like Jim said is pick a schedule that works best for you after all if it wasnt fo you the class wouldnt be held. So go ahead and pick the time and get it listed on Dave's site as soon as possible, the earlier the better.

In regards to polling we ask on our "home made" sign up sheets during our first couple of class's would other nights be better for you. We tried Monday nights and Wednesday nights based on feedback, none of those where as successful as Sunday nights at our Church. And we have even considered having it early Sunday mornings, our Church has two services, so IF we where to do it would be done so that those wishing to go to our 11 AM service could do so. However, we are sticking with what works best for our Church and area, 5PM Sundays.

So in the beginning you might have to try a couple different times but you will find out what works best for you.

Ad remember there is NEVER a "perfect" time every time we have class we hear why Sundays are not good, or Mondays or Tuesdays etc, that is why you need to do it when you can do it and those that can attend can attend. Those that cant, well, just cant.

Hope this helps you and good luck with your class!

[finallyonboard]

Thanks Roy! That helps a lot. :wtg2:

I'm getting really excited to get the ball rolling!

[carolm]

Our church is big into the small group thing and there is childcare almost any night of the week available at church.

We did it on Tuesday nights one semester. It was okay. Had about 10 people in it. There was about 15 in the Wednesday night class that same semester.

We've done it on Wednesdays since. That's when it was done the 2 semesters before too. We've had some people come on Wednesdays from other churches as well. We don't have Sunday night church but there are small groups, home groups, cell groups whatever, that generally go for years at a time so it's not a good time for our church.

DH ran into a couple who took it last spring before they got married. They have three couples that want to come to FPU. He encouraged them to BRING them with them. There are three couples from DH's work who want to come as well. DH talked to another friend for about an hour and a half yesterday [she locked her keys in the car and he had a AAA card and they were in the same place...]. She may take it. If so, my sister might [they're friends] and it would be a good thing for her [this is the girl who asked my recently bankrupt dad for advice b/c she knew she wouldn't like ours *sigh*]. We're excited about that [except they're kicking us out of the big room with the projector :(].

The night you choose will always work for some people and not for others. The Tuesday night group we did didn't work for choir folks who wanted to come, for instance, because choir is on Tuesdays...

Just some thoughts :).
Carol

[Roy Randolph]

Our church is big into the small group thing and there is childcare almost any night of the week available at church.

We don't have Sunday night church but there are small groups, home groups, cell groups whatever, that generally go for years at a time so it's not a good time for our church.



Our Church has a lot of small groups as well. Several classes ago we had a small group that meet at the same time as our FPU class. They all voted to attend the FPU class as their small group for the full 13 weeks. And so many blessing came from them doing just that.

[finallyonboard]

Well, we decided on Monday nights :) We're going to co-coordinate with our frineds and we decided to take the advice of choosing something that works for us. Our dates are already posted on the DR site (Sept 10th is our start date). I'm so excited that we're full steam ahead now!

Thanks for your input everyone!

[money_clown]

Reading this thread inspired me to finally take the next step & apply to be a coordinator at my church. I've been considering it for a while, but never got beyond considering. We'll see what happens.

[finallyonboard]

Best of luck Money Clown! You may want to read the thread I started in this forum asking for just general "what to expect" info. Everyone here has been so helpful and supportive.

[yellobelle]

We took an FPU class on Sunday afternoons. It worked great for us because dh works 6 days a week and doesn't get home til late. I agree, you just have to do what works for your schedule. Childcare is a must: we had to pay an extra $30, but that was well worth it.

We loved our class so much that we didn't mind spending dh's only day off there. I even prayed that my baby would be born on a Monday, so I would have enough time to recover before the next class. Ended up on a Thursday, so we had to miss a class. Another couple had a baby and still didn't miss at all.

We will probably end up doing the class again sometime. If the coordinators get a large class, we've also talked about helping with discussion groups.

Lindsay