I love gifts! I love getting gifts, I love giving gifts. Giving is my love language for sure! That is why I love having a chance to give gifts to people. Christmas, Birthdays, Valentines day, Presidents Day. Maybe not that last one. But I love giving gifts to people. And they do not need to […]
Whenever I meet a fellow kids minister I start by asking about their church. Over and over I hear the phrase, “We are not very big.” “We don’t have a lot of kids in our ministry.” “We only have about 9 kids.” When did numbers become the only yardstick by which we measure success? There […]
If you have been doing kids’ ministry for any length of time, you have discovered that many do not see it as “real ministry.” This is false, of course, but people’s attitudes can still wear you down. As the leader, it’s critical that you not allow this to happen. You have to continue to encourage […]
My husband and I are looking for a new home church. It has been awkward, to say the least. We have been married for 7 years, and at least one of us has been working at a church for the entirety of our marriage. The church we were at had to close, but I never imagined […]
It just really erks me when people call my KidMin a daycare or babysitting. This just happened last weekend, thankfully I did not hear it but another teacher told me about this exchange. A parent was showing their friends who were first-time visitors where our Kids Ministry met. He introduced it by saying, “this is […]
One day I took a look at how we were training our volunteers, and I was not happy with what I observed. It seemed like I was so focused on recruiting new volunteers that I was not doing a good job training the new people we recruited. So I asked Aaron, a former restaurant manager […]
As you minister to the kids, you will grow as a leader. You are going to need a lot of volunteers to reach a lot of kids, so it’s critical that you understand leadership and that you grow in your leadership skills. Here is my list of the top-five leadership skills you need for kids’ […]
It’s one thing to lead followers and another thing to lead leaders. How do I get people to follow me who would rather be the leader, and why should I try to get people to follow me who don’t really want to follow? Followers are great at getting things done, but you will reach more […]
People are busier than ever. I used to train my volunteers at monthly meetings on Sunday night, but it’s hard to get people to show up for extra meetings. I had to figure out how to train my volunteers in small doses. Now, I do all of my training in three bite-size nuggets. 1. The […]
I have had several different jobs, and with that several different types of bosses. One of my jobs, I worked at a daycare. It was a well-respected daycare franchise, my bosses were very friendly and nice. But I only had a total of 2 hours of training, and by training, I mean they had me […]