Resources for inviting new moms to your group

Mom-E-Invite
The Mom-E-Invite is an easy way for you to invite moms to your MOPS group! Simply tell us which group you attend, insert a personal message and send the e-invite to all your mom friends!
Try this e-invite is over Mother’s Day: have a MOPS group Mother’s Day outreach, where moms where you can invite new moms visit your group.
Send a Mom-E-Invite Today!

NEW! Invite-A-Mom Cards are a free resource created for you to invite moms to your local MOPS group. With a brief introduction to MOPS, this professionally designed card has room to be personalized on the back with your local group contact information.
Ideas on how to use this card:
Hand out cards to each mom in your MOPS group. Ask them to invite a mom they know to your group!
During the summer: make sure that each mom is equipped with cards to invite/promote your MOPS group for the fall.
Pediatrician or OB-GYN office: leave a handful of these at your local doctor’s office for new moms.
Place Your Order and Invite-A-Mom to MOPS Today!*
*Orders are limited to two packs of 25 cards per order. If you are interested in ordering more cards than the maximum allowed, please explain in the order form. Requests will be approved on a case-by-case basis, as supplies are limited.

Following the Father's Commands

It's that time of year when we are bombarded with things that need to be done. At MOPS we're getting ready for the Leadership For Life Summit, nominating and interviewing new Steering Team members, planning Tea and Testimonies and seeking to end well. Some of us are involved in end of the year school activities, spring sports, recitals, spring musicals, and field trips. At church we're planning VBS, summer events, teaching Sunday school, on the praise team, women's bible study and more.

How do you know what you should be doing? There are so many opportunities for ministry and service. The following article from Prime Time With God was really helpful in pointing me in the right direction....


Following Only the Father's Commands
TGIF Today God Is First, by Os Hillman

Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." - John 5:19Have you ever thought about a typical day in Jesus' life? Perhaps He might have had questions like these, "Who am I going to heal today? Who will I visit today? Which person will I deliver from demons this day?" etc. The demands on Jesus' time were great. Yet we see that Jesus allocated His time very deliberately. We don't get the idea that Jesus was flustered or stressed from the activity He was involved in. He often sought times of prayer and reflection away from the disciples. His life appeared to have a balance of quiet moments and active ministry into the lives He came in contact with.

How do we determine what we will be involved in each day of our lives? What keeps us in sync with the will of our heavenly Father for the daily tasks He calls us to? Jesus tells us that He was only involved in those things the Father was involved in. Nothing more, nothing less. So often we determine our participation in an activity based on whether we have the time to do it or whether we desire to participate. The real question we should ask is, "Does the Father want me to participate in this activity?"

To read the rest of the article go to.....
http://www.churchgrowthmail.org/web/pageid/30781/pages.asp

MOPS Theme for 2007/2008

Mothers of Preschoolers
the HOME factor BEGIN HERE...GO THERE

In our homes of origin many of us learned the deepest lessons about relationship, developed life routines and acquired our tastes and preferences. And now, as moms, we long to create homes where our families can thrive and grow — and we can too.
Our homes must be safe places – physically and also emotionally safe. In them we bond, we eat and play and rest together, we decorate and provision our special home spaces. The theme the HOME factor: BEGIN HERE … GO THERE enriches our perspective and hones our abilities to create a cocoon of home.
But at its healthiest, our home experience should fill us and launch us into wider circles of investment and influence where we interact with our world. We return HOME to reconnect and refuel — but we’ll move from the HOME outwards to make a difference.
The heart of the HOME is also a picture of God’s desire to interact with us and deeply love us where we really live. He desires to make his home in our hearts. He expresses it this way in the theme verse: "...he lives with you and will be in you." John 14:17
Three key elements of this theme to explore throughout the year:
Our homes are where we bond, cocoon, build inwardly.
Our homes are where we refuel so that we can live fully in the world beyond.
Our homes are a picture of Jesus' dwelling within us.

Theme Resources and Graphic Elements
Key elements in the HOME factor: BEGIN HERE … GO THERE include simple houses representing HOME in all its diversity of size, shape and location. The butterfly represents the heart of the home, touching rooms with its glow and leaving the cocoon to soar. The earth represents our home planet, where we live in community.

Theme DVD

A 2007-08 MOPS International Theme DVD comes free to each MOPS group as a benefit of on-time Charter Renewal. This DVD will provide inspirational and practical tools to equip MOPS leaders to carry out the theme in their group. Use the Theme DVD at a Steering Team planning retreat. The Theme DVD will help your team understand the theme, simplifying theme-related planning so you can concentrate on relationships rather than details. Renew by April 30th and receive your Theme DVD in mid-May!

Dwelling: Living Fully from the Space You Call Home Book and Curriculum

Anchoring the theme is a new MOPS book and curriculum titled Dwelling: Living Fully from the Space You Call Home by Mary Beth Lagerborg, author and Director of Media for MOPS International. At the heart of Dwelling is the quest by the author to find the foundational principles for building the type of home we all crave – no matter what the home we grew up in is like, no matter what our current income or address. Through interviews, excerpts from literature, and her own experiences shaping a dwelling place for her family, Mary Beth helps us craft a home where we can live fully from our own private spaces. She then compels us to take all we gain into life in the larger world. Dwelling is warm, hopeful and practical.
The companion curriculum for use in MOPS groups will provide six video Home Tours plus additional resources for Discussion Group Leaders. Each tour will feature topics such as understanding and making room for different personalities, dining in, home as a safe place to make mistakes, comparing your home with others’, feeling trapped at home, decorating and organizing, having company and being involved in community.

Deeper Theme for Convention

The MOPS International Convention takes the annual theme a bit deeper for leadership training and spiritual enrichment of leaders. This year the convention theme is Dwell Well: Heart — Home — Planet, also based on John 14:17.

Some great publicity ideas

Want to get the word out about your MOPS group? Here are some tried and true ideas from MOPS groups around the country.

Growth Ideas

Our local hospital lets us put fliers about our MOPS group in the bag of freebies that they give to new moms.
MOPS of Spotswood Baptist Church, Fredricksburg, VA

We put “Please Join Us” signs in fast food restaurants with indoor play areas.
Our nearby grocery store let us tape our MOPS fliers on diaper packages.
Nearby churches without a group have our fliers available to their moms.

MOPS of Eastpointe Baptist Church, Jacksonville, FL

Our local real estate agents have included a flier about MOPS in their relocation packets.

MOPS of First Baptist Church, DeRidder, LA

Open House to Promote Group
We hosted a Mommy and Me Open House for moms to find out about MOPS and what it has to offer them and their children. We had simple activities (coloring, play dough) for the children while the moms mingled, talked and had snacks. Our childcare area was open for them to see where the children would be also. It was a great time for moms to come and meet other moms. The event was also a wonderful opportunity for MOPS members to invite friends without the commitment of attending a MOPS meeting.

MOPS of N. Phoenix Baptist Church, Phoenix, AZ

TEAM = Tell Everyone About MOPS
We encourage all Steering Team members and MOPS moms to be constantly publicizing our activities and promoting MOPS. We all carry business cards with meeting dates and telephone numbers for contact information.
We watch the newspaper for “new arrivals” and add the moms to our newsletter mailing list for the year.
We put a Mommy Dreams book and MOPS brochure in the hospital goodie bags.

MOPS of First Baptist Church, Athens, TN

Community Fairs

The MOPS group in Harlingen, TX (St. Albans Episcopal) met moms in their community by providing a Diaper Changing Station at a local festival. Volunteers worked a two-hour shift to distribute information to interested moms and keep the area clean. I would suggest having a rocking chair, some water bottles in a screened in area for nursing moms. Don't let any moms leave your booth with a MOPS flyer or card.

The MOPS group in Sonoma Valley, CA, (St. Andrew’s Presbyterian) had an “Old Woman and the Shoe” float to promote their MOPS group in the local parade!

Share what's worked for your group.