It’s only taken me ten years to finally start having an annual calendar.  In my early days, I mocked youth pastors that I thought were too obsessive about details to plan that far out.  Talking with Mark DeVries at the Ignite conference last January really challenged me in this area, though – and finally woke me up to the reality that in my church context, with the amount of competing calendars and events, it was a disservice to parents to NOT give them an annual calendar.

So all that to say, some time in the next couple weeks I’ll be rolling out a complete events and programs calendar going from July, 2011, through June, 2012.  What I’m particular excited about is the above graphic; it’s actually going to be a magnet that should be arriving any day now.  It’s not the complete calendar – just the major dates.  My message to parents will be something to the effect of, out of all of our events (which they will be receiving on the full annual calendar), these are the ones that I’m asking you to mark on your family calendars now and make a priority.  I’m excited about it being made into a magnet because my thought is that parents can have it on the refrigerator as a convenient reminder, and students can have them inside (or outside) their lockers at school.  Hopefully it’s a great resource for parents and students!