Here is a list of volunteer expectations that I have been using for our church nursery. We don’t have a formal church nursery worker manual, but these guidelines have several ideas for safety that move in the right direction. I do not use the term ‘job description’ in the document. We want our people to think of their work in the church nursery as a ministry or service to the Lord. Feel free to use these in your church or leave a comment to help me revise them in the future. You can download this as a word document: Church Nursery Worker Guidelines
When I first introduced these, I called a meeting for all church nursery workers. It was a process of re-teaching what many of our best volunteers already knew. Do these guidelines solve all our issues? No, but they set clear expectations and help the church nursery minister more effectively.
Church Nursery Volunteer Worker Guidelines (job description)
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Service Titles: Nursery Volunteer (Babies & 1s), First Steps Leader (2s & 3s)
Ministry Purpose: Your role is to provide safe, secure, nurturing, clean and efficient care to our children. Your ministry responsibilities include playing with the child or directing his play, reading to him, praying for each child, exhibiting Christ-like patience and love, and relating the events of the day to the lesson and theme in words the child can understand.
Service Expectations:
- Arrive 15 minutes before scheduled service time.
- Pray! Pray! Pray! Pray individually for children as they play, as they listen to the story, and for the other caregivers as you work together.
- Every child’s diaper should be changed before parent’s pick up. Potty training children should ‘try’ at least once.
- Oversee the check-in process. All children should have name stickers on their back. All cups and bags should also be labeled.
- Oversee the check-out process. Parents will need their “ticket” to claim their child. If they don’t have they will need to wait for the Children’s Minister before the child is released.
- Clean and straiten the room after the children leave.
- Report and concerns or ideas for improvement to the Children’s Minister.
- Attend occasional Early Childhood Ministry meetings.
Interacting With Parents:
- Always thank the parent for bringing their child. It is our privilege to serve them
- Always smile (even when you are tired)
- Always tell the parents about any diaper or feeding events
- Always follow dismissal plan
Teaching Little Ones:
Early Childhood is best time to build a God-centered worldview for children. We have provided age appropriate teaching material for all Early Childhood Ministries. This material is easy to prepare and use. Instructions are written in the curriculum. Here are some suggestions. If you need additional help see Tony or Kellie.
- Integrate the biblical truth or theme into the activities the children are doing. Take advantage of every opportunity to make the truths “real” to the children, repeating them over and over, applying them to anything normal around them.
- Example: “Do you see the elephant in the puzzle? God made elephants. What else did God make? God made everything!”
- Your role is to teach the children a short Bible lesson each week. It is important to be able to express excitement, energy, and love for God’s word when sharing the story and its principle. It is to be taught as truth, not as just a story.
Please sign and date if you agree to these expectations.
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Although I’m over the 1st – 6th grade children’s department. I deal alot with the nursery. I have a question. One of the nursery guidelines we have ( we have a small church- abouth 150 members) is that children that are not of nursery age not come into the nursery. we offer children’s church for 2-7 years of age. One of the parents insists on bring her 4 and 3 year old to the nursery when it is her turn to volunteer, instead of sending them to children’s church -HELP!!!
Melissa – It sounds like you only have two options: find another volunteer or make a policy exception. We allow it unless there is a problem or overcrowding. But it seems like most kids prefer children’s church.
Thank you for the insight; I plan to share with the other volunteers at our meeting tonight. The 7 points help to put things in perspective.
I like the ideas and information I have read today. I am particularliy interested in learning more about the process of signing children in and out of the nursery using the ticket method. How does this work? Thank you and God Bless You
I am in charge of the nursery at our church. Sometimes it does feel like a thankless job but when you see the child’s face light up with a smile when you walk into the room it makes it all worth it. When you call each child’s name in prayer you begin to bond with the children. Many children are being raised by grandparents and have no direction. I have a few of these children in my care. these are challangeing children but with prayer you can do it. I ended up adopting a child from our nursery like this. Now that she has slept in the same bed every night for the past few years her behavior has changed. All children need to be loved. Remember you are not going to change a child 30 minutes in the nursery. You can however be the light that the child needs once or twice a week. Show love and remember to keep the love in your tone of voice.
We are writing policies in my policies it says no one but parents and the nursery can be in the nursery at any time. How can we enforce this without offending families who have siblings to those who use the nursery. We serve between the two service 100-200 people in our church.
Praise God! I am thanking our Almighty God for He used this site to provide us information, teaching ideas and inspiration that will help us to be more effective and effecient sunday school teacher of our church here in Bacolod City, Philippines. I was challenge to serve more in this children ministry where i can use my gifts of teaching, talents, abilities and skills.
More power and Godbless us all.
Sincerely yours,
Khu
Joy, we have the same hurdle; dealing with siblings to those in the nursery. We’ve been allowing their older siblings, but we are bursting at the seams and looking for ways to reduce outside traffic without offending anyone. Looking forward to hearing some feedback on this one. This website is a tremendous blessing to me!
Hi Tony. I find your articles very instructive. I am a female Nigerian. I used to be with a big church where the children’s ministry was structured and I was a teacher.Sometime ago my husband and I moved to another town where we have a smaller branch of the church.
The problem is this – the church does not have much space for a children’s church. I thought we could make do with outside but 95% of the children live in the area and are always distracted by friends or other people they know passing by.
The church’s budget is so stretched that building an addition to the main church is out of the question for now. I tried having Bible clubs on weekends but it didn’t work out. Parents need thier children at home to help out with chores and other errands.
I would be grateful for any suggestions you can give. Thank you.
Abiose
Hi Tony, I really appreciate this article.I am a sunday school director in Burkina Faso and this will help me reorganize our nursery
Blessings
Thank you! What a blessing! I am a missionary in Mexico and my ministry is the nursery at church! Its so crazy somedays, today i was at the end of my rope, until i read this.
Great
God bless you.