Besides being safe for kids, the church nursery should be a vibrant, colorful, kid-friendly area. The nursery is no place for “untouchable” furniture or decorations; it needs to have lots of touchable textures that are easy to clean. A tough prescription you say?

Not really.

Decorate the church nursery with your kids in mind. Take a kids’ eye view before getting started with your decorating plans. Add your safety knowledge and you’ll have a winner!

You may choose to go generic with the decorations. That is decorating without a specific theme. Just clean, colorful shapes and images that interest kids or may be a plethora of Bible images. Most nursery leaders I know choose a neutral theme for the walls and carpet but pick a specific theme, like Noah’s Ark for the decorations. Using themes makes it easier for donors to know what to give and themes excite the actual workers too.

Try these decorating themes when decorating your church nursery or pick your favorite elements from each.

Block, Blocks and More Blocks

Lego toys are fun, for boys and girls. Legos don’t just come in teeny tiny pieces, the toy company offers the large variety too. Go for a building block theme for your nursery. Create a written motto like, “Building On a Good Foundation” or “Building Our Futures With God.” You could be “The Builder’s Nursery.”

Decorate cribs and changing tables with solid, primary colored sheets and blankets. Put all the red linens in one area and all the blue in another. Buy large block tables with sturdy legs for toddlers to play at. Have plastic tubs of large blocks for building and creating. Cardboard blocks are fun for house building too. Paint or trace images of Lego builders or characters on the walls.

Flower Garden

A flower garden nursery decorating theme is a fun way to personalize your ministry. Start with a soft green color on the walls to represent “God’s Garden.” Paint tall flowers with long 3 and 4 foot stems on the walls. The painted blooms are the perfect place to add children’s photographs of the children who visit.

Use floral printed linens and colorful flower shaped rugs on the floor. Hang tissue paper butterflies from the ceiling high and out of kids reach. There are tons of other garden details you could add too like painted flowers on trash cans or stapling plastic white picket fence to the bottom portion of the wall. Do secure the fence tightly to avoid children’s fingers getting stuck. You may wish to put the fence outside the nursery on the walls leading to the room.

Need More Ideas? You can read our advice on gathering nursery supplies and keeping your church nursery clean. You can also leave a comment below to share your ideas with other readers.

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2. Writing A Church Nursery Manual In A Small Church
3. 7 Reasons Why Your Church Nursery Service Is Vital To Your Church
4. Seriously??? Making Disciples in the Church Nursery?
5. Does Your Church Nursery Make a Good First Impression?

You 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)

Related posts:

1. Church Nursery Volunteer Worker Guidelines (job description)
2. God Is In The Church Nursery

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)

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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Related posts:

1. God Is In The Church Nursery