If you're like me, you've been planning your summer calendar all year long. Planning out trips...pricing...researching. Making sure we fill the summer with plenty of activities that will keep our students growing in their faith.

Then the summer arrives. And you're constantly reminding parents and students about event dates. Your phone is blowing up with questions about when...where...how much.

So today I want to give you an idea of a way to keep your summer calendar in front of your parents and students on a daily basis. By the way, this idea comes from Andrew Howell, youth minister for the Regency Church of Christ in Mobile, AL.

If you use Photoshop (or any program like it), create an image 1136 x 640 pixels (for iPhone 5 screen size), find or create a background that is that size, and put your big dates for summer events on it. Export the file as a JPG or PNG file. Then either attach the picture to a Twitter/Facebook post or text/email the graphic out and encourage your parents and students to either save it to their photos on their phone or set the graphic as the lock screen on their phone.

You can also take this same graphic and have it printed either through a local printing company or through a website like Vistaprint.

It's cheap. It's practical.

If you have any questions or need any help, send us an email to [email protected].

Hope you have a great summer!

-- Eric Gray