Here are some ideas that can enhance your church, youth and young adult program planning.

1. Invite older church members to share what life was like when they were young. To make it more interesting, have their old photos made into slides and show them as they tell their story. Also have them share how they came into the church.

2. Invite curators from local museums, nature organizations or zoos to come and make nature presentations in your church. After the presenter is finished, you may need to bridge what has been said with Scripture. Make sure it ends on a spiritual note.

3. Plan an outing to a park or nature preserve and have an outdoor music fest. Invite a special guest musician to do a mini concert.

4. Encourage your grade school children to present a program. If you have a church school, ask the teachers to plan a vesper program that utilizes the children’s talents. If you don’t have a school, invite some of the children’s Sabbath School divisions to help out.

5. Use videos and films to highlight a particular topic or theme. For example: If you’re wanting to talk about missions, a good video to use is "The Wait of the World." It makes a strong appeal for getting involved in missions both at home and abroad.

6. Plan a discussion time that is patterned after a TV talk show. Invite a host to field questions and issues that are relevant to people’s spiritual lives. Encourage lots of audience participation. This is something you may even want to invite your community to attend. Make sure it is well organized.

7. Invite music and drama groups from the conference academy to include your church in their itinerary. Usually these groups have something to share and are looking for opportunities to do it.

8. Contact a nearby sister church and invite them to plan one of your programs. This is an excellent way for churches to get better acquainted, and they may ask you to reciprocate in the future.

9. Contact a local Jewish Synagogue and arrange for your church to visit for a Friday or Saturday evening service. In the past, this has been done by some Adventist churches with great success. It’s a great way to see the Sabbath through the eyes of others who value it as well.

10. Feature a number of church members and leaders in a short series of presentations that encourage sharing. You could do a series entitled: What Jesus Means to Me, and have members share their responses.

11. Arrange for a special week where members participate in reading the Bible through. Create a living room setting in your church sanctuary or foyer (use a rocking chair, lamp and table), and invite members to sign up for 15-minute time slots. Some may choose to do several together. Have members take turns coming to the church to read the Bible aloud, 24 hours a day until it is finished. You can time this so it ends on Sabbath morning at the beginning of the worship hour. This has been done in several churches with great success! It’s a neat way to bring your church family together and emphasize the importance of Scripture reading.

12. Plan a Sabbath where your morning worship services are postponed until vesper time. Encourage members to spend the day with family and friends in nature, helping others, and sharing God’s love. Invite them to a special service in the late afternoon to share how they spent the Sabbath and how it affected them. In larger churches have members break into smaller groups that are led by elders. Then, invite everyone to come together in a final session where selected ones share their group’s responses.

13. Invite your youth group to put on a skit. Teens need to be challenged to participate in the life of the church. Usually they respond when given latitude to express their creativity.

14. Create a reader’s theater with several members reading from a Christian story book. After you have found a good story, select various personalities to be read the parts to fit the characters. This can be very interesting and devotional.

15. Invite a Christian astronomer to come and talk about the stars and planets. After sunset, arrange for a small telescope to be set up so members can view the stars.

16. Network with others. Check with your conference Youth Director to see if he knows of special features outside of your area you could schedule (i.e. ventriloquists, Christian magicians, musical groups, and guest speakers).

At the time this article was written, Rich DuBose was Director of Church Support Services for the Pacific Union Conference and a producer of Christian web content.