I have a kidmin secret and it’s bigger than I hate crafts (link). I hate productions. Rather, I hate leading them. Even with this deficiency and being very vocal about it with my leaders and parents, I still got asked (more like told) to do it.
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.
Resources
This registration card will help you collect your guests information as well as advertise your next big event.
This downloadable kit will help you develop and deploy an effective volunteer onboarding process.
This Excel flowchart will help you see the structure of your volunteer team at a glance and identify recruitment opportunities.
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.
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.
One of your most valuable resources in your ministry is your volunteers. Especially in kidmin. You can’t be in two places at once, so you need other people to get the job done. And once you find those people you want to keep them in place.