I think every church has at minimum a perceived value of kids and families. What churches do is the difference between perceived and actual values.
There are a few things that churches do many times without realizing it that in my opinion make kids ministry a perceived value and not an actual value.
1. Have a church choir – There is no greater kids volunteer killer than an adult choir.
2. Have Adult sunday school going on at the same times as kids sunday school – I think teaching being done in small groups or doing sunday school different is the solution to this one.
3. Have childcare for every function in the church and make it the kids pastors’ job to find help and oversee it. – Doing this burns out the very volunteers you need to make the weekend impacting as well as bog down your kids ministry with more administration.
4. When the amount of kids coming means more than the quality of the experience and the amount of life change – measure your wins carefully and purposefully.
Are all the above bad in and of themselves. No. To me they just say that kids and families are not one of our main things and thats fine. I just think that churches need to clarify more because no one can value 20 things. There is a huge difference between perception and actuality.
If children and families are a value in your church do what you need to, to empower your Kids team to turn perception into reality.
Great Post Sam. I am glad that I am at a place that values families and I feel for those that aren’t.
Great post. I had been a Childrens Pastor at a church where the kids were always the last thought. They had so many meetings, functions, events, etc…and I always had to find childcare. It totally burned out the volunteers, and also meant that they never got to attend any of the special events. As we know, its hard enough to find 100% committed volunteers anyways…oh and who wants to become a new volunteer when they see how burned out they will end get. Anywho, I now am a Childrens Pastor at a church where children are definitely not an afterthought. Children are so important to me, and its nice to have that same feeling coming from the “top of the chain”.
I haven’t yet worked at a church yet that didn’t say, “Kids are a top priority here.” However, I have worked at several churches where in reality, kids were no where near the priority. They were meaningless words. I don’t thing the leadership was intentionally deceitful, just ignorant to what kids as a priority really means. You know its a problem when everyone in the church “knows” that kids are a priority, yet all the key leaders in the children’s ministry come to you on a regular basis becasue they are struggling with trusting leadership because they don’t see any evidence of their words.
I don’t care if a church doesn’t want kids to be a priority (I won’t work there). Just don’t say they are and not prove it with your actions and resources. Man, do I have some stories.
Great stuff guys.
My whole purpose in doing this post was not to say this means you love kids this doesn’t nor was it to pile on churches. I love the local church. I want to see every local church do better and be better at reaching people far from God.
My goal was to put some tangible things out there to say maybe for some kids guys out there who can’t say it themselves. These things make ministry to kids hard.
Great post!
when my wife and I began leading our children’s ministry, we weren’t given any help, or support, whatsoever. We have both worked extremely hard to get the leadership of our church to take our ministry seriously and we are starting to see some great changes.
We now have leadership on board with our vision, but the culture of the church is such that it’s going to take a long while until the congregation is actively supporting our ministry as well.