Two colorful sock puppets—one light blue with pink hair and a pearl necklace, and one yellow with a red tongue—stand on a stage framed by red curtains. The text "When your Kidmin Budget is Zero" is overlaid in white.

It was the great recession of 2008. My church had overextended itself financially and with the pop of the housing bubble, giving plummeted. Me, a new kids pastor, was left floundering. I went from having enough money to do pretty much anything to $75 petty cash replenished by what the kids gave.

Those $.50 offerings were tough. I lived this way for almost three years. But I learned some valuable lessons about ministry, outreach, and leadership.

If you’re at church where they cut your budget and everything is cancelled, I feel for you. It’s a tough place to be. And to be brutally honest this may be the early warning signs that your church is dying. Still, there are some things you can do. Not all hope is lost.

1. Get Scrappy

Necessity is the mother of invention. When you have all the people and resources you need, there’s no reason to rethink how you’re doing things. Momentum can be your best friend, but also your worst enemy.

So instead of focusing on all the things you don’t have, look around and be thankful for the things you do have. At my church I had a closet full of supplies from my predecessors. I had puppets, magic tricks, game supplies, and so much more. So, instead of buying a new object every week, I got really good at using what I had. I could run an entire month’s worth of lessons on $5 and a prayer.

So go through your closets and catalog what you do have. Ask for donations. Get crafty. As much as I love to use curriculum, I wrote my own. It took more time and the production values weren’t great, but I taught where the kids were. I also designed my lessons for what I had, instead of buying expensive things.

The big idea here is to not accept your fate. But rather acknowledge it and get to work. Your kids need to know about Jesus, and God has put you there to teach them.

2. Outreach Looks Different

My first year at this church I had a 5-thousand-dollar budget for VBS. But the next year at the height of the crash? Five hundred. There’s not much you can do with that, but you can do something. I can’t say that was my best VBS. In fact, I rate it as my worst. But that’s because I was stuck in the VBS box.

In ministry, we can get stuck in doing things the way they’ve always been done. Or worse, how everyone else does it. My Essential Kidmin Event Calendar is one of my most popular posts. But you don’t have to do an Egg Hunt. You don’t have to host VBS. You don’t have to Light the Night to reach people in your community.

There are other things that take less time, less money, and less people. Your effectiveness may be limited compared to the church down the street. But let them do their thing and you do you. You’re not competing with them. You’re working with them to reach the people in your area. You can reach people they will never be able to. So, get out there and reach them.

I suggest finding community events that you can partner with. You can set up a booth and pass out water or balloons. They may need volunteers to help with a parade. Your local homeless shelter may need people to serve soup. There are a lot of other options out there. Some of them can be family-friendly too. Your kids and parents can serve together. So many of our normal kidmin events center around kids play and parents watch. (link outreach)

Outreach doesn’t have to be expensive. It just needs to serve your community. Find a need you can meet and meet it. That may be more effective in reaching the lost than dropping a 500-pound pumpkin from a crane.

3. Fine Tune What You’re Doing

Since you’re not eating up all your time with outreach events, you should have a lot more time to focus on Sunday morning. So, focus on your kids and ask yourself, “what you can do better to serve, care, and teach them?”

During the recession, I put together a team of parents, teachers, and leaders and asked that question. That brain trust helped me come up with a lot of good ideas. I made my first policy manual. I defined my volunteers jobs. I set up my volunteer org chart.

But that was just administrative tasks. I also stepped up my pastoral care and follow up. I delegated tasks and responsibilities to other leaders. I cast vision for what could be.

I’d love to tell you that the church turned around. But during the Recession, my pastor contracted brain cancer and passed 18 months later. His sickness, compounded with our financial woes, expedited my church’s decline. I left soon after his passing.

But those skills and lessons I learned in those tough three years were vital to my future success at every church since. If you find yourself in a similar position, don’t lose hope. There are things you can do, it’s just going to look different than you originally planned. And who knows? It can be greater than you ever imagined.

Joseph didn’t plan to be sold into slavery. Moses didn’t plan to be exiled to the Desert. Daniel didn’t plan to be abducted by the Babylonians. But God used them anyway. Maybe God has you where you are “For such a time as this.” Don’t lose hope. Get scrappy, get creative, and trust those around you. With God’s help you can get through this.