EmailYou must have clearly written church nursery manual regardless of your church’s size. In this article, I want to offer some tips and point you to other resources that can help you develop your own church nursery guidelines.
Ideas For Church Nursery Manual
Know your church culture. Many smaller churches will express skepticism or distrust to a written church nursery manual of policies and guidelines. This is normal and should not surprise or offend you. Small congregations typically have a much higher natural trust level among the membership because nearly everyone is related or long time members. But don’t use this as an excuse not to create guidelines for your church nursery.
Even little churches should have clearly written expectations. You will have to accommodate this attitude by writing a smaller manual. Even so, it is important to get something in writing that you can build on later. If your church nursery manual is not consistent with the culture of your church, your volunteers will ignore or resent your efforts.
If you are in a small church, do not copy and paste from a mega church nursery manual. For my church, we have a one-page set of guidelines that we post in every nursery or early childhood ministry room. I would like to expand this later. But for now, we cover the basics and try to model the more advanced items.
Balance trust and accountability. Writing down your expectations can change the dynamic of your church nursery. It can also damage relationships if not handled correctly. You must find ways to affirm your existing volunteers and assure them that you do trust them to provide care for the nursery.
At the same time the church nursery manual initiates a system of accountability and may offend a small number of workers. It is essential that you meet with nursery volunteers in small groups or individually to explain the new guidelines and assure them that “no one is in trouble.”
Some Resources For Writing A Church Nursery Manual
- Download my one-page Church Nursery Volunteer Worker Guidelines (job description)
- Encourage your nursery volunteers with my article titles God Is In The Church Nursery
- Excerpts From Another Church Nursery Manual (PDF)
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Hello. My church used to have a fairly good church nursery to put kids in, but here lately, like in the past year and a half, the nursery has gone terrible. There is no curriculum, like music or sign in sheets or anything at all anymore. I was recently drafted to help fix it up, but I am only 17, and I am new at being aloud to actually help out with things like that. If anybody has any advice, I would really be thankful for the help. thanks.
Hi,
I would like to read your one-page Church Nursery Volunteer Worker Guidelines (job description), but the link is broken. Do you think you could post it or email it to me.
Thanks,
Melissa
Here’s the link
http://ministry-to-children.com/church-nursery-guidelines/
In our past church – it was Southern Baptist – I worked with the lady who was the regional director of children’s ministries to write some guidelines. I had a newborn in the nursery at the time, so I felt it was reasonable to ask that only certain people could bring her out of the nursery after the service. I made cute paper cut-outs for each baby with vital info to hang on the wall by their diaper bags with a place for parents to write any special instructions. One lady objected b/c our church was little and we didn’t need anything that “complicated” and the pastor scrapped the whole thing.
That was one of the last straws before we left a bad situation where the pastor was wishy-washy on everything.
I have just stepped into a nursery administrative role in my church, which is a fairly new church. We are in a situation where we have to put together and tear down everything every service (the nursery is in an office space). Do you have any ideas/tips that could help in this area. They would be greatly appreciated!
I wish I had seen this sooner. :(
Are you still in the same situation? Have you found a system that works?
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