RELEVANT CHILDREN'S MINISTRY

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently created a Pastor's tool kit for children's ministry.  Another tool the kit includes is 10 ways Pastors can support their children's ministry.

I can promise you that your Pastor wants to do his or her best to support the children's ministry.  This tool can provide him or her with some practical ways to do this. 

My prayer is this will make its way into the hands of pastors across the country and world.

Here's the 10 ways... 

1. Help shepherd the spiritual and emotional health of your children's ministry staff. 
2. Help your children's ministry staff grow as leaders.
3. Meet with your children's ministry director at least once a month.
4. Encourage people to serve in children's ministry.
5. Encourage the people who serve in children's ministry.
6. Encourage families to get their kids involved in children's ministry.
7. Visit the children's ministry environments at least once a quarter and offer feedback, insight and ideas.
8. Be present at family events such as child dedications, baptisms, etc. and celebrate with families.
9. Rally the church to support big children's ministry events such as camps, fall festivals, etc.
10. Help your children's ministry director identify and remove growth barriers.

Recently I put together a Pastor's tool kit for Children's Ministry.  It will be used by our campus pastors to measure the health and growth of the children's ministry at their campus (we're a multi-site church).

One part of the tool kit is 12 questions the pastor can ask the children's director when they meet.

I wanted to share the questions with you as well.  They are great talking points when you meet with your pastor or the leader you report to.  They are also great questions to ask yourself on a regular basis.

1. How many new volunteers have you brought onto the team lately?
2. What are you doing to build relationships with volunteers?
3. What are you doing to care for volunteers?
4. Who are the volunteers you are raising up to be leaders of leaders?
5. How are you following up with guest families?
6. How many kids and parents have participated in the milestones lately?
7. What are some things that are going well right now?
8. What are some things you are working on improving?
9. How is our children's ministry attendance tracking?
10. What are some growth barriers we are facing in children's ministry?  How can I help you remove the barriers?
11. Are there any other areas of concern you have?
12. What is one thing that will help our children's ministry be more successful?

Here's 10 big questions about Children's Ministry....with my responses.

1. What should I be focusing on?
 If I had to be good at one thing in children's ministry, it would be building a volunteer team.  The success of your children's ministry rises and falls on the strength of the volunteer team you build.  Here's some tips for building a dynamic team.

2. What's the best strategy for equipping parents to lead their children spiritually? 
I have found the best way to impact parents is at key times in their lives.  These include when they are new parents, when their child starts asking questions about a relationship with Jesus, when their child is entering elementary school, and when their child is preparing to enter middle school.

These are times when parents come looking for help.  Have a class and time of celebration attached to each of these.  More about that here.

3. How do you know if a child is ready to begin a relationship with Jesus?
Here are a few ways.  They continue to bring up the subject on their own.  You sense they don't just "want" to invite Jesus into their life, but they know they "need" to invite Jesus into their life.  They also have a clear understanding of what sin is. 

Here's some help with leading kids to Christ.

4. How can we see our children's ministry grow?
I believe the way to see your children's ministry grow is to remove barriers that are hindering growth.  These can include lack of space, lack of volunteers, unwillingness to change, lack of vision, no follow-up strategy for first-time guests and more.

Take a hard look at your ministry and identify your barriers.  Then work toward removing them.

5. How can I keep kid's attention when I am teaching them?
This is not as hard as it seems.  One big, big key is to simply honor their attention span.  You've got about 1 minute for every year of their age.  So with 3 year olds, you've got about 3 minutes.

After 3 minutes, change and do something different.  This will re-set their internal clock and you will keep their attention.  Here's some more help for this.

6. Should we make church "fun" for kids?
The simple answer is yes.  The number one question parents ask their kids is, "Did you have fun today?"  Here's what they mean by this question.

Did they keep your attention?  Was it relevant to your life?  Did you get anything out of it?

If the answer is "no" then you'll have a difficult time growing your children's ministry.

7. How can I keep volunteers long term?
A great children's ministry team is made up of new volunteers and lots of veteran volunteers.  One big word that will help you keep volunteers long term...relationship.  Volunteers stay or go based on the quality of the relationships they have with the people they serve with.

Here's some help for keeping volunteers long term.

8. How can I get the leadership at my church to see the importance of children's ministry?
Here it is in a nutshell.  You've got to be the squeaky wheel.  Here's five ways to champion children's ministry in your church.

9. How can I get first-time guests to return?
The best way is to make sure they have an incredible experience on their first visit.  If this doesn't happen, it doesn't matter how much you follow up with them, the chances of them returning are slim to none.  Here's some help with this. 

That being said, having a follow up strategy helps a lot.  Here's a simple strategy that we've found to be effective.

10. How can I grow as a children's ministry leader?
One way is to do what you're doing right now.  Read.  Read books, blogs, articles, websites, and anything else you can get your hands on.  Here's 8 books I've read recently that have helped me grow.

Another way is to attend a conference.  There are lots of great conferences you can attend that will pour knowledge and inspiration into your life.  And with technology, if you can't attend a conference in person, there are online conferences available for free.  Here's a great online conference that's happening in October.

What are some other answers you've seen work for the questions above?  Share them with us in the comment section below.

What are some other questions you have?  Share them with us below and we'll be glad to connect with you.