I love the element of drama in children’s ministry. Though many of us would love to have a great drama team show up each week, and present the lesson live to our classes, often a volunteer children’s leader simply doesn’t have volunteer staff who can devote that much time to learning scripts each week. On a smaller scale, we have had great success bringing different “characters” into our services to help reinforce the lesson of the day. Adding a character is easy because:

Any character can participate in any lesson.

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As volunteer leaders we often are cautioned not to bite off more than we can chew.  So the obvious answer is to let more people have a piece of the pie.  It’s easy to get caught up looking for the right person to step into major roles; a nursery director or a preschool teacher.  Rarely do we intentionally look for the smaller, less traditional roles.  For example, do you recruit for a nursery holiday decorator, an internet researcher or a preschool photographer? There isn’t a task that is so small that you can’t share it with someone else.  And, almost any gifting that a person has can be a blessing someway in children’s ministry.

Here are some reasons to share even slivers of the pie:

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Recently, Whitney George shared a great post about how Church on the Move writes a new series for their children’s ministry. You can check it out here.  That post started me thinking of how often a volunteer kidmin with a small budget finds limited choices for curriculum, prompting them to write their own. That was my situation when I first starting writing our curriculum. One option that I have used several times is to tie a series to a recently released movie. Since I didn’t have the budget, and I certainly don’t have the talent myself, to create amazing graphics, I could use the movie’s merchandise. The advantages are that there are often many items available that can be used for decor, games, object lessons, and prizes. It’s even easy to find inexpensive items that you can send home with each child as a reminder of the day’s lesson.

For example, we wanted to do a series emphasizing that God is always with us. We illustrated it using scenes from Toy Story 3 and our kids came away knowing that God is with us, to infinity and beyond! Just a quick run to Walmart and we had plenty of props readily available for our lessons and games. And the movie was full of situations that mirror our lives with God. Andy was going to a new college, and our kids often go to a new school or new class. In those times, God is with us. When the toys are facing the blaze at the landfill it brings to mind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego facing the fiery furnace. Again, God was with them. Andy decision on keeping his toys for himself or giving them away, lends itself easily to teach generosity like the widow of Zarephath, and God will always be with those who care for others.

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As a volunteer children’s pastor at a young church plant, I have lots of dreams. Dreams of working all day on children’s ministries. Dreams of taking my team leaders to lunch to brain storm the next event and, of course, dreams of playing with the toys that will be in my future office! But many of the dreams that I have that are the most compelling are Orange dreams. And many of my Orange dreams are common to us who agree that the family and church working together can accomplish much more in the lives of children, than either can alone. I am still young enough at being Orange that I have some fairly basic dreams.

I still dream of coordinated curriculum that teaches the same lesson to every age so families can “talk as they walk” and everyone is included in that conversation. And I still dream of a parent’s website that will, with one easy click, direct parents to a wealth of information specifically targeting the greatest issues their children face, both in their spiritual and physical development. I dream of video parenting classes that families can watch any time from the church website, if they couldn’t be at the church at the time of a parenting event. I dream of having all my families on twitter so I can share short notice opportunities that their family could enjoy. I have dreams of family fun events, parent training days, fun Saturdays at the park and anointed prayer times involving all our families. I think these dreams are common to the minds of most early stage Orange leaders.

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My very first step into Children’s Ministry was teaching a class in our Wednesday night girl’s program.  Our church ran complete programming for elementary-aged boys and girls during the mid-week adult Bible study.  I loved those classes. They were amazing small group times that developed relationships and were a great venue for discipling children. It was what every church did. It was all we knew at the time.

Evaluating it’s effectiveness was fairly easy.  You just looked at the wall chart and saw who had stickers all across their line, and who didn’t.  Typically, 20% of the class had earned every badge and corresponding sticker for the year.  Another 40% had earned about half the stickers, and the remaining 40% only had 1 or 2 of the 12 from the year.  40% were not being served by this system.

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There is no doubt about it.  Parents have influence over their children.  Whether you want to admit it not, for good and for bad, planned and unplanned, a parent’s influence will be felt and lived out in their children’s lives.  This is especially true when it comes to a child’s spiritual development.  There is an old saying that postulates that “Faith is not taught.  It is caught.”  Though it may not be entirely true, I think there is some truth in that statement.  No matter how much you teach kids about Jesus and the Bible on Sunday morning, in the end their faith is much more likely to mirror the faith of their parents that they see lived out in front of them day in and day out.  For parents who resolve to be intentional in helping their children grow in their spiritual development, this influence can be directed for more effectiveness.

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Whose Idea Was This Anyway?

As children’s leaders, we often schedule a full time passion in a part time calendar. There just isn’t enough time to get everything done that our hearts want to do.  And with the availability of so many great ideas for ministry through social networks, the idea base grows by leaps and bounds while our available time frame stays the same. My passion for kids knowing Jesus causes me to want to try to do everything possible to help facilitate those relationships. But there simply isn’t enough time in my day (or night) to do everything. The more I see, the more I want to do, and all too often, the more I feel disappointed in myself for not accomplishing it all. It’s dealing with that disappointment, and sometimes, shame, that has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I try to do my best, give it all I have. But many times, all I have isn’t enough to do all I would like. And I feel like a failure in those times.

What I have learned is that I have to discern whose idea it was to start with: mine or God’s. I have lots of ideas. Some are better than others. Some I truly believe are inspired by God. Some are simply the result of too much coffee and too little sleep. Most are good ideas that would be great for our children’s ministry. But, there are a few that I know are God-ideas. Those are the ideas that come with a deep tug at my heart. Those are the ones that stop me in my tracks, or jump off a page. Those are the ones that I have to make top priority. And, I believe, those are the ones that Phillipians 4:13 will cover, (more…)

One of my favorite perks of being in children’s ministry is getting to attend conferences from time to time. I love kidmin conferences – or breakfasts, or luncheons, or training sessions. I love talking with other kidmin about connecting kids and Jesus. I love listening to speakers who encourage those in ministry to new levels of understanding and service. I love listening to teachers explain their new perspectives on reaching and relating to kids. I have done this long enough to know that there are thousands of ideas that I haven’t heard or tried yet, and I want to hear them all and try them all.

However, there is one potential downside to excitement about soaking up all this new information.  In my zeal to know all that I can, and to learn all that I can, I may easily spend all my free time learning, and never take what I have gleaned and put it into action. It’s as though I have become a colander instead of a cup. Very little is retained that can be shared with someone else.

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Sometimes God speaks in the strangest of places and through the strangest of circumstances. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise, in His Word, He spoke through a donkey, from a burning bush, and from a bright light on the road to Damascus. Today is really no different, God speaks sometimes at strange times or through odd circumstances. But we have to make sure we hear Him.

In the busy lives and times of the volunteer, we are well served to do everything in our power to become sensitive to the voice of God. As our lives seem to go in many directions at once, He often speaks in places and times that we aren’t expecting. He uses events and circumstances to speak specifically to us and to inspire us. We just have to make sure that we are listening. We have to tune our ears to hear His voice above the rest of the noise of our world. Otherwise, we rush right on to the next task on our list and we may not hear Him.

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Recruiting is a  continuous process in children’s ministry.  As volunteer leaders, it’s vital that we have others join our team to accomplish all that needs to be done.  If I were a full time children’s pastor, I would schedule time each week to take people to lunch, or meet them at Starbucks, or treat them to Marble Slab, just to have a chance to sit and talk and get to know them.  Relationships that are established in those kinds of times, enable us to share with others the opportunity to serve in areas that match their giftings and personalities.

But I don’t have time to go to lunch, rarely get to Marble Slab, and don’t get to Starbucks as much as I’d like.  More often, my conversations with potential Momentum Kids team members are snatches of sentences, quick comments on vacations or their kid’s sports accomplishments, and the occasional church luncheon when I can sit and talk with one family for 20 minutes.

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