As we prepare for one of the most highly attended weekends of the year, it is important to pause and make sure we are ready for the new families who walk through our doors. Let’s look at 5 easy ways you can make it a better experience for first time guests. Be early! Make sure you are in position and have fully prepared for class before parents begin to drop off children. It does not send a
All parents hate germs. They absolutely don’t want their little ones to get sick. At the same time, many parents want their children to come to class, even when they are the ones carrying germs! How do you help keep your children (and grown ups) healthy and communicate to parents what the limitations are? A well-communicated well child policy is a great answer. 1. Determine what symptoms or illnesses you can not allow. Here is a sample
Teaching a large group of children can be intimidating, but it is such an awesome opportunity. When preparing, here are seven things that you should NOT do when trying to engage a large group of kids. Thou shalt not… 1. Hide behind book/paper. If you have a paper or book in between you and the audience, you are setting up an automatic barrier. It feels safer, sometimes, to have something to hide behind or to have something
In just a short time we’ll be welcoming our new baby. Here are a few steps I’m taking to get our ministry ready for my time away from the office. If you’ve had a similar experience, we would love to hear how you got ready. Leave a comment below to share your story with other readers. 1. Identify everything that needs to be done before you go and while you are out. Make a list. Well, probably
New mamas are the epitome of the nervous parent. Often the church nursery is the first place where they release their precious little one to someone else. They are torn between desperately wanting to go be a grown up and guilt of being away from their little one. By recognizing their apprehension, we have the opportunity in the church nursery to address the questions that are weighing on new mothers’ minds. 1. Can I trust these workers?
In this workshop, you will learn the basic process of creating a lesson plan for your children’s ministry. Before you start, you can print this page and use the lesson outline below to take notes. 1. Identifying your purpose. a.Who are you teaching? b.What is the context? c.How many kids? d.What length of time? e.What is the main truth you want kids to get? 2. Key Basics a.Your truth needs to be on the kids’ level. b.Everything
In this 18 minute video workshop, you’ll learn why misbehavior happens and how you can stop it before it starts. Feel free to download the workshop notes to review and share with your team. Leave a comment below sharing your favorite behavior management ideas. More Resources The following links will help you and your team learn more on this topic. Check out our related workshop from Jenny about creating a discipline plan for your ministry. Read How to handle
In this 21 minute presentation, you will learn the 9 steps for organizing major events in your children’s ministry. You can download the notes from this workshop, PowerPoint or share the video with your team using this link. http://youtu.be/ssvIek3PkA4 Group Discussion Leave a comment below to share your response to this training. For example, you could discuss a recent major event in your church and how these steps may have improved the outcome. More Resources The following links will help you learn more about
This online training workshop (20 minutes) will help you develop a consistent plan for dealing with behavior issues in your ministry. You can download the session notes or watch the video with others from your ministry team. Workshop Notes: Developing a Discipline Plan for Your Children’s Ministry Misconceptions about Discipline Discipline = mean, harsh, strict Kids don’t like rules. We can’t discipline at church. If we discipline kids won’t like us. Why discipline is necessary: Four basics of a
Lots of churches use paid childcare workers in lots of different ways. Some use them on Sunday mornings to make sure the nursery is covered. Some use them on Wednesday and/or Sunday nights. Some cover special events or Bible studies. Regardless of how you use them, it can sometimes become quite the chore to manage that part of the ministry. Here are seven tips for effectively managing paid childcare workers. 1. Have specific job descriptions – make
Philippians 4:19 tells us that our God will “meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” What an awesome verse. Did you notice that it said “ALL” your needs? Do you think this even means your need for nursery workers? If we believe that God provides for the needs of His church, then we should expect every church has people called to minister in the nursery. Here are some groups that we have
Recently our community experienced a great tragedy in which it was revealed that an individual who was highly respected and trusted had been living a life of unbelievable sin for decades. Yet again, a trusted leader who claimed to be a believer in Jesus had broken trust with an entire town. Our world hears these stories over and over. In this case, it was a highly esteemed teacher. In many cases it is a pastor, a youth
One of my favorite quotes of all time is “It is a sin to bore a kid with the Bible“. I don’t know who originally said it, but I saw it long ago used in an ad for curriculum. I completely agree. We have the most exciting story of all time to tell, yet Sunday School does not generally have the reputation for being fun. How can we change that? Here are six steps to help bring
There’s a lot of music out there, but it always feels like a challenge to find songs that your kids will actually sing along with. Lots of people have different purposes when selecting music. My purpose is simple. I want kids to worship Jesus. Worship can be fast and jumpy or worship can be soft and slow, but I just want kids to worship. Heres the criteria I use when selecting songs: 1. Simple words: if your
Do you notice the trend that many families are choosing to attend Sunday School every other week? For most churches, kids’ attendance is more and more sporadic as their lives get busier and busier. There are a few strategies that we can use to encourage kids to attend Sunday School. Click here to share your own ideas with other readers. 1. Notice when they are NOT there. I’m always amazed by the response by kids and families to
How many times have you thought, “My pastor just doesn’t get it” or “my pastor just doesn’t care about kids’ ministry”? Do you struggle with feeling supported by your pastor? I think we all do from time to time, and some of us feel that way all the time. Most pastors are not wired in a way where kids are their first priority. But most pastors are the same in that they really do want your ministry
Do you need a sample job description for a children’s minister? Then check out our basic template below. It is easily customizable for your church or situation. For example, you might include more specific duties and lines of accountability. Please leave a comment below to share your own ideas for making it even better. Position: Children’s Pastor Qualifications: – Born again Christian who feels a call by God into ministry – Love for children and families –
We recently posted an article on managing behavior in your children’s ministry. This post takes some of those tips a step further to help the most active kids in your ministry. Read the suggestions below and then share your own ideas in our comment section. 1. Show love anyway. Hyperactive kids can be frustrating. They don’t listen. They are always fiddling with something. They usually are messing with someone else. They are running. Always running. You say their names
Working with kids is the greatest task in the world, but it is also exhausting! Anytime you are in a room with children, you can be a minute away from chaos. There are no magic answers, but there are certainly some tricks that can help you keep control of the classroom. 1. Be over-prepared. The more ready you are, the more in control you will be. Know your lesson inside and out so that your face is
Starting in a new job is intimidating anyway, but a new job in a new church with new people can be overwhelming. There are things that you can do right away that can set you up for success in ministry. There are also things that you can do that can get your ministry set off on the wrong foot right away. 1. Pray hard. You have likely prayed hard through the entire process of accepting this ministry
Choosing curriculum is a huge decision. There are so many options and there can be so many different facets to consider. Publishers always put their best foot forward, but how do you know if their materials are best for your church? Here are some important questions to ask as you evaluate curriculum. 1. Do you know what you need? Before you look at a single page, you need to have a very clear idea of what your
Last week a reader asked us for advice on comforting a mourning child. She wrote about her close friend and ministry leader who was dying from cancer – they expected the Lord to call her home this week. She asked, Do you have any material that would help us deal with this loss to our children? My main goal is for the kids to “KNOW” that our friend is in heaven with Jesus! I want them to find
“Can you hear me now?” was made famous by cell phone commercials, but do you often feel like asking that to the parents in your ministry? It causes great frustration when we have important information to share and we feel that no one is hearing us. Sometimes, though, we cause our own problems. The follow communication mistakes are certain to get your message ignored. Click here to add your own to this list. 1. Overload with messages
In today’s world we have more options than ever for how to communicate. However, does it ever feel to you like it is harder than ever to get your message through? We have discovered that one of the greatest challenges is that each of the parents in our ministry pays attention to different modes of communication. Some only read what comes in on their smartphones and some don’t even carry a cell phone. Some see every piece
