An essential part of kidmin is connecting with kids.  I’ve written a lot about connecting with parents and even more about volunteers but never connecting with kids.  I guess it’s because it’s intuitive for me and for many of the leaders I interact with regularly.  But now that I work with mainly adults, I see that not every adult connects as easily as I do. 

So, here are 4 things I do to connect with kids every time I’m with them.

As the leader of your ministry, people are looking to you to set the direction for your ministry.  That direction may have come from your pastor or leadership, but it’s your job to communicate it to your team. 

You’re fifteen minutes into your kidmin service.  Your volunteers are all busy taking care of the kids who are here.  Just then, a flustered parent shows up with 3 kids in 3 different age groups, and she needs to check them in just so she can get a few minutes of respite and Jesus. 

It’s definitely an inconvenience for you, and a disruption to what’s happening in the service. But what to do? 

My last post was 6 places you’re losing your volunteers. That’s a lot of places, but there is one key thing you can do to hold onto your volunteers no matter how long they’ve been serving with you.  And that is to provide a place for them to live out their purpose.

One of the biggest challenges in every ministry, not just kidmin, is that you always need more volunteers. The maxim "never stop recruiting" exists for a reason. Turnover is constant, which means recruiting never really ends. But simply finding more people doesn't solve the problem on its own. You have to retain the volunteers you already have.

I've been in ministry for many years, and one thing is certain: technology has changed a lot. I'm not old enough to have used a mimeograph, but I know what one is.

What I've noticed over the length of my ministry is that I keep coming back to the same hardware and software to get the job done.