5 Hacks for Streamlining Church Event Childcare
Being in kidmin, it’s natural for people to ask you to also provide childcare for events. It can be frustrating because that’s not what you signed up for. You are the kid’s pastor, spiritual leader, and discipler, not their babysitter. And yet, the requests still come, and the expectations are still made. Children’s ministry is not childcare, it’s discipleship.
“Children’s ministry is not childcare, it’s discipleship.”
However, it would be intellectually dishonest to say that part of our job as children’s ministers is childcare. We have more rules, training, and hoops for our volunteers to jump through than almost any other ministry. In many states, we’re mandatory reporters for suspected child abuse. We’re responsible for the children’s safety while they’re under our care. That’s all under the umbrella of childcare. But just because it’s part of our job, we don’t have to do it every time the church doors are open.
At my first church, my wife and I were expected to provide childcare for Thursday night choir practice. At first we were excited to do it, but after a while we realized it wasn’t sustainable. We realized that we needed to put our focus on more important things. So with the support of our leader, we were able to offload it to the music pastor and move on.
I tell you this story to let you know you don’t have to provide childcare at every event your church holds. In fact, I argue that in most cases you shouldn’t. Here are 5 hacks to make sure you don’t.
1. Do what your leadership asks of you
Before we dive in, you have to make sure your leadership is in support of you not providing childcare for everything. If they say you have to provide childcare or that you have to do it, then you need to do it. Part of being a leader and Christ-follower is submitting to those in authority. If they tell you to do one thing and you do the opposite, that’s rebellion. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it.
That said if your pastor does ask you to do something, that doesn’t mean you can’t offer other solutions. It’s part of leading up. Pushing back greatly depends on the personality, leadership, and mood of your leader. If they’re not open to ideas, then just do what they say. But if they are open to ideas, then it shows leadership, initiative, and wisdom to offer other solutions than the one they presented.
I like what Andy Stanley says, argue in private, but celebrate in public. It’s part of being on the team and supporting the overall mission of the church.
2. What’s the event for?
Now that your leader support you, it can be too easy to say yes to every time another ministry needs childcare. We don’t want to disappoint people and genuinely want to see their success. However, you only have so much time in the day to get everything you need to get done and if you’re watching kids all day, you’ll fall behind quickly.
So, the first question you need to ask is what is the childcare for? Is this an additional service? An outreach? A small group? A practice?
If your church is adding an additional service or Sunday School class around the normal service times, then you should provide not only childcare, but your own service. You’re in ministry and the center of your job is to provide children’s ministries the same time as the adults in service.
Alternatively, if your women’s Tuesday morning Bible study needs childcare, that is not within your job description. Yes, you’re providing a service for them, and many ladies couldn’t come if there wasn’t childcare. However, the care of those children does not fall under your ministry, but rather groups or women’s ministry, however your church is organized.
Does that mean you leave them in a lurch and all alone? No. On the contrary. There are several things you can do to support them without putting an added strain on your time.
3. Can the host ministry provide their own childcare?
In my story, I provided several solutions to the music pastor one of which was to find his own childcare volunteers. I believe that if the ministry wants to have childcare, they need to do the work to provide it.
Look at it this way, if you’re doing a volunteer training meeting and need to provide childcare, do you go to the women’s ministry or youth to staff it? You can ask them, but they can also say no. The ultimate responsibility falls on you. It’s the same for the other ministries needing childcare. The ultimate responsibility for providing childcare for their event falls on them, not the children’s ministry.
That said, they shouldn’t find have to find childcare workers alone. Make a list of possible volunteers, youth and adults, who may be willing and able to serve at their event. Then they have a group of people to call and recruit. It may take some time for you to put the list together, but in the long run it will save you hours of stress and frustration.
4. Vet the workers
Even if you provide a list of workers, the host ministry may have their own people they like to work with. Someone’s niece is great with kids and available, but they attend another church.
It’s your responsibility to make sure everyone who serves with kids is properly vetted. Whether or not Sister Susie’s niece can serve is up to you and your leadership. If she is, then you should still have her fill out a volunteer application with a background check. You need to meet with her to make sure she’s not crazy and will actually take care of the kids.
The list that you provide to the host ministries needs to be full of people you trust and therefore they can trust as well. You don’t want to fill it with people who are not going to show up, leave early, spend the entire time on their phone, or worse put the children in danger.
Making sure the kids are safe in your building should be one of your top priorities. You need to know the people who are serving at all times.
5. Prepare the room
Finding people to watch the children is one thing. Where they keep their kids is another. While it’s not your responsibility to find the people for the event, the rooms they will use are your responsibility.
I’ve served in churches where everything was kept under lock and key and getting into other ministry areas took an act of God. This is a scarcity mindset. Don’t be like that. Be as generous as possible with your space and supplies.
That said, you shouldn’t let the other ministries have run of your environments. This is the benefit of your vetted list. All the volunteers on your list should know the proper procedures for the room they’ll serve. They should know where everything is, how to serve snacks, proper diaper changing techniques, and how to properly clean up the room.
There is nothing more frustrating than walking into a filthy nursery that’s devoid of snacks on a Sunday morning because the worship department had an all-day practice and the worship team’s kids had to hang out in there, bored to death.
Set the expectations ahead of time. If they want to serve snacks, where do they come from? Do you provide them? Do they? Are the snacks approved? If they do use your snacks or any of your supplies does the host ministry need to replace what they used? What about clean up? Should they clean the room or is it someone else’s responsibility? Should they take out the trash or let that dirty diaper sit until Sunday? Do they know where the dumpster is? Can they access it?
These are just a few of the questions you need to have the answers to and communicated to the leader of the host ministry and their volunteers. You can’t get angry with people for unmet expectations when you’ve never made them clear in the first place.
Providing childcare for all of your church functions can be a pain, but with the steps I’ve outlined in this post, you don’t have to do every event. This frees you to work on the things that will have the greatest impact in your ministry and your community.