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.
Now that I've been a lead pastor for a year, I see things differently than I did before. I spent most of my career in the kids' pastor chair, and I thought I understood what it would take to sit in this one. I'd heard other senior leaders talk about the weight of the role, and I thought I got it.
In my last post, I wrote about how different things look from the lead pastor's chair. While much of the work is familiar, there are some important differences that most lead pastors never fully see. That's the genesis of this two-part series.
This week I'm speaking from my own experience as a kids' pastor, along with some honest feedback I gathered from several kidmin Facebook groups. Next week, I'll flip the script and share what lead pastors wish their staff, and specifically their kidmin leaders, understand.
In about a week from this writing, I'll mark one year as a Lead Pastor. It's been a long road to get here. I spent 15 years as a kids' pastor, then served at two more churches as an executive pastor before God called me to this role.
Now that I'm in the big chair, I can say with confidence that things look different from here. I'm just as busy as I was in kidmin, but the scope, the worries, and the challenges are bigger. From what I've observed in other leaders at this level, I know I'm just getting started. Still, I wanted to share five things this first year has taught me
So, you have a bunch of kids in your kidmin under the age of five. How do you divide them up safely, securely, and happily? By age? Birthday? Ability? The third Sunday in October?
Resources
This downloadable kit will help you develop and deploy an effective volunteer onboarding process.
This kit gives you a kids registration card, check-in procedures, and a guest letter for parents. All of the documents use word except the registration card, which uses Photoshop.
This registration card will help you collect your guests information as well as advertise your next big event.
5 field-tested and approved service templates to help you have the best service in a variety of contexts including Sunday mornings and mid-week programs
This Excel planner will help you keep track of the songs you sing each week and every song you sing in your ministry.
You can use this incident report to collect a clear, objective log of an injury in your ministry.
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.