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Are you looking for some fun and unique graduation gift ideas for gifts to give to your graduation seniors in your small church? Or perhaps your church doesn’t really make a big deal over graduation and hasn’t given out gifts before. Consider rethinking the importance of acknowledging this milestone in the life of the kids in your small church.
Unique Gifts Are Perfect For Your Celebratory Sunday
Giving a gift can convey a powerful message that recognizes the importance of their academic achievement, but allows the recipient to see that their church family supports and values them. A graduation gift can also be a symbol of God’s love through the church family. It can reassure your graduate that being part of the family of God means you do life together, celebrate milestones together, and pray for each other along the journey.
Imagine what an impact you could have on this child’s life, especially at a time that can be intimidating and anxious, to have the security of knowing that their small church family is supporting them in prayer along the way.
So here are 5 unique and fun ideas to honor your grads this year!
5 Best Graduation Gift Ideas For Any Graduate In Your Church
1. A Gift Card Album
Invite people in your small church to bring in gift cards to restaurants and stores that the grad might frequent over the next year. If you know they are planning on attending college, do some research as to what’s available near the campus. Sandwich shops, pizza joints, and coffee cards are always a good bet. Online shopping like Amazon, Target, or Walmart for supplies are also a good idea.
Get a small photo album and place the cards in the pages. Invite the givers to make out a small card to place on the page with their gift. The church would need to cover the cost of the album, find a volunteer to put the cards in the pages and wrap the gift.
By putting the gift cards all together it makes a big statement to the receiver-as well as being a practical place to store the cards.
2. Care For College Basket
If your grad is planning on attending college in the fall, this is a fun gift to equip them for life on their own. Prices will vary depending on how much you put in their baskets.
- A Laundry Gift Bag – In fact, place all the items for this gift in a laundry bag. Include supplies like dryer sheets, fabric softener, detergent pods, a stain stick, and don’t forget the roll of quarters!
- A Snack Attack Basket – Fill a laundry basket (useful container) with a variety of snacks, candies, breakfast bars, microwave popcorn, water add-ins, and protein drinks. Great for those late-night study breaks!
- The College Cookbook – This gift will take orchestrating with your small church family. Give members note cards. Ask them to write out simple microwaveable or hot plate meals that a college student could easily put together. Ask them to fill out an additional card with a prayer or words of encouragement for the students.
- A Snail Mail Card Keeper – get several assorted greeting cards for birthdays, etc., and place them in a box, along with stamps and a list from the family of birthdays/ anniversaries in their home.
3. Wireless Portable Charging Station
The reality in small churches is that some years you will only have 1 person graduating and therefore can give a little more money towards a gift. We all know that kids can’t live without electronics and they need to be charged. Parents want to make sure that their students have fully charged phones so they can keep the lines of communication open!
We recommend a portable charging station that’s small, easy to put in a backpack, and easy to use. In this age of technology, staying online is important!
This gift can run in the range of $30-$75, depending on the brand and functions of the device.
4. A Personalized Prayer Journal
Prayer journals are a great gift idea. They are useful, readily available, and encourage spiritual connection. We suggest you take it one step further and make it personal for your graduate. Give opportunities for families in the church to write on a page in the prayer journal. Jot down a verse, words of encouragement, or a prayer for the honoree.
Encourage each family to sign up to pray for the student at a certain time of the month, i.e. the Smith family will be praying for you the second week of each month.
Imagine what an encouragement this would be, to know when people are praying for you. This is such a gift of love and support.
This gift costs very little, ($6-$15) but is a huge investment of the heart!
5. Creative Cash Gifts
Okay, who doesn’t like getting good old cash? One size fits all, right? Everyone needs it, it can help with practical needs, and can fund extravagant items too. Giving cash isn’t always the most elegant presentation, but if you do a little online research you can find some easy and creative ways to make your money gift truly outstanding!
First, you will need to collect the gift money in advance, whether by taking a special offering or having people bring in envelopes on a certain day, or perhaps you would prefer that the church makes the gift.
Once you have the money, have a couple of volunteers put the gift together.
- We have seen a pizza box with cash in the shape of a pizza, labeled: You Can’t Have Pizza Without Some Good ‘Dough’!
- The ‘endless’ roll of money that is taped together, rolled, and placed in a tissue box, with the label: Don’t Blow It All In One Place!
- Take jars of Play-Dough and empty them. Wash them out, roll your bills, and place them inside the jars. Place a sticker on the front that reads: Everyone Needs A Llittle ‘Play-Dough’ Sometimes!
As you can see there are numerous ways to make this gift unique and fun. Find one that fits the personality of your grad!
Tips For Giving The Graduates Their Gifts
It’s so encouraging for the graduates in your small church to be honored in front of their church family. Inviting them up at the end of a service to present them with their gift, acknowledge their achievement, and encourage the entire church to support them in prayer is very meaningful. This is also an opportunity to invite extended family to come to the church service that day and could be a testimony to them of this teen’s commitment to the Lord.
Consider hosting a luncheon after the church service to celebrate the milestone. Be sure to include the cake! This allows connection and relationships to be built within the church family in all generations. Encourage people to bring cards to put in a basket for your grad. Making a photobooth for creating memories would be a fun addition to the event.
Prayer is always a very moving way to support and demonstrate your love for the graduates. A church family prayer circle, where everyone gathers around the grads as a symbol of the church surrounding them with love and future prayer as well. Make a Prayer Wall or Bulletin Board Of Prayer where members can post written prayers for the grads and reminders that they will be prayed for. Post a few pictures of the grads at different church events to add a decorative reminder of who you are lifting up.
Finally, if you have a creative team or individual that could put together a video to show during the service, it would be fun to include clips of people in the church wishing them well and giving advice for the future, combined with snapshots of the grads through the years, including silly memories of course! This makes a great segway into the pastor giving a short devotional and challenge to the graduates about living for God and the future.
Connecting With Graduates
So as you can see, honoring the graduates in your small church doesn’t have to be expensive or labor intensive, but by connecting with the heart, it can really have an impact on this child for years to come. Being seen and valued as an important part of their small church family can be so vital to the emotional and spiritual well-being of our kids.
We hope that these ideas were an inspiration for your small church to honor grads in some way. We would love to hear what you did and how it impacted your guests of honor. Share it with us on our Small Church Ministry’s Facebook Page, we’d love to celebrate it with you!
Read More:
21 Unique Ways To Honor Graduates In Your Small Church
