Introduction
Introduction
Mark DeVries
Confusion always precedes learning. . . . Life’s grand prizes are guarded by confusion. . . . And really, isn’t it true that right before we know the answer we always don’t know the answer.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
We were finishing up our last visit to historic Midtown Church. It had been an incredible eighteen-month journey. The youth ministry had gone through an undeniable transformation—the youth pastor now felt empowered, a full volunteer team was working together with a well-defined vision and goals, and the culture had shifted from chronic negativity to unbridled enthusiasm.
We were sad this would be our last visit. Then Pastor Janet asked an odd question, “Can you do this same thing for our children’s ministry?”
I paused, uncertain. I knew next to nothing about children’s ministry, and I was pretty sure the rest of our Youth Ministry Architects team was in the very same boat.
She saw my uncertainty and spoke before I could:
“Listen, it’s not really the children’s-ministry-specific work that we need help with. We don’t need help with crafts or VBS or getting toys for the nursery. Those are things we have down. What our children’s ministry needs help with—and desperately—is things such as building volunteers; developing a check-in and follow-up process; creating a parent ministry; designing a great communication plan; finding ways to invite more young families into our church; establishing a clear vision, direction, goals, and structure—that kind of thing. Isn’t that what you do?”
I was still pausing. At that point Youth Ministry Architects was still a young ministry. We had worked with less than one hundred churches, helping them build sustainable youth ministries. Youth ministry was the world I knew and understood.
For my entire adult life, thirty-six years of it anyway, youth ministry had been my focus. Some would even argue—I would be one of them—that my first church hired me to do youth ministry way before I was an adult myself. (Some of you who have had the privilege of working alongside a youth minister like me may know exactly what I’m talking about!)
Finally, I answered, “You know we know next to nothing about children’s ministry?”
“Right.”
“And you still want us to work with your children’s ministry?”
“Right.” She was smiling.
And so on the unassailable strength of Pastor Janet’s smile, Children’s Ministry Architects was born.
Our staff understood how to build sustainable ministry systems. But we also knew that we had to have someone with children’s ministry expertise to join our team, and quickly. Little did we know of an entirely separate story going on in Texas.
Enter Annette
Annette Safstrom was two years into building a children’s ministry at a new campus of a multisite church in Texas. Unbeknownst to her, the leadership of her church had brought in a group of consultants to secretly observe and evaluate the church’s ministries on a Sunday morning.
I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that Annette was devastated by the report she received. Despite having well-trained teachers in place ready to welcome children right on time, despite having a game plan in each classroom that created a warm and exciting experience for children, despite the fact that children were having the time of their lives, the report identified a few unexpected issues.
There was a first-time visitor child who used foul language in one of the classrooms; the interim check-in station was in an awkward location; and the new building lacked the kind of “flash” and “pop” that more innovative churches might have for indoor play. They didn’t have the same exciting toys, slides, or décor that families in that suburban area had come to expect from newer churches. So in addition to getting to work addressing some of the challenges raised by the evaluation, Annette got curious. So she did what curious people do. She turned to Google.
She googled “church consultants,” not even knowing a week before that such a thing existed. She said, “I ran across all kinds of websites—almost all of them featuring well-educated, stuffy looking, old, white men—until I found Youth Ministry Architects.”
On the Youth Ministry Architects site, she found a copy of my book, Sustainable Youth Ministry. Being a stuffy-looking old man myself, what a relief that she saw the book before my picture! Annette downloaded Sustainable Youth Ministry that night and read the whole thing in two days.
Later she told me, somewhat embarrassed, that she cried through much of the book. Having felt the pressure in previous churches to focus on flash over substance, she felt like the book had put words to the longing she had to build a ministry that didn’t depend on expensive gimmicks to do faithful children’s ministry.
Within a few years, we had more churches asking for help with their children’s ministries than we could have ever imagined. And Annette was leading the charge.
Then one day, when Annette and I were working on a project together, she got a mischievous look on her face and said, somewhat unflatteringly, “You know, Sustainable Youth Ministry is good and all, but . . .”
She made it clear that some of the principles in Sustainable Youth Ministry don’t transfer naturally to children’s ministry. For example, she said, children’s ministry does not tend to attract the stereotypical “superstar” or pied piper like youth ministry does. In 
Before our conversation was over, we agreed that Sustainable Children’s Ministry needed to be written and that we should write it together.
Here, in this introduction, is the only place in the book where you’ll hear my voice directly. Once you turn the page to 
About the Book You’re Holding
Though the principles outlined in this book will set you up as a children’s ministry leader to be much more creative in your ministry than you’ve ever been, this is not a book of creative ideas to bring more flash and pop to your ministry. If you are in need a book of clever crafts or cutting-edge ideas, there are lots of them out there, but this is not that book.
If you are looking to build a foundation for your ministry that will be standing long after you are gone, you won’t be disappointed. Flash and fizz are fun and can be very effective at attracting young families, at least one time. But without sustainable systems beneath the unforgettable moments, the impact is almost always short-lived.
Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and philosopher, said in the third century BC, “Give me a place to stand, and with a lever I will move the whole world.”
Sustainable Children’s Ministry offers you that “place to stand” and shows you the levers you’ll need to get things moving, to create change that you might never have thought possible before in your particular context. It’s a book written primarily for the children’s ministry professional, whether part-time, full-time, or volunteer. It’s also written for senior leadership and the volunteer teams taking responsibility for their church’s ongoing ministry to children, birth through fifth or sixth grade.
Annette will introduce you to a number of ministry tools that can, like levers, multiply what you are able to do on your own. Annette offers the picture of trying to pull out a nail with our bare hands instead of using the claw of a hammer. It’s an apt depiction of how often children’s ministry workers burn themselves out, not for a lack of effort but for a lack of the appropriate tools.
We realize that these ministry tools are not and will never be the reason we do what we do. You can certainly invite kids to experience the love of Jesus without using these tools, but they hold the potential to vastly expand your impact (without vastly expanding the amount of effort required).
When every kid who attends your fall festival has an opportunity to connect with a leader by name, you expand your capacity to connect more kids to Jesus in a sustainable way. When every volunteer is well-trained and coached, fewer children and families wander away from your ministry. When every visitor feels safe, welcomed, and connected, there’s a better chance those children and families will stay around and live into a lifelong love of Christ.
Here’s how the book is laid out: In
In 
In chapters ten and eleven, we’ll give you a roadmap for navigating the complex waters of church politics and family ministry.
And in 
The good news is that we’ve made most of the mistakes for you. Hopefully, learning the principles of this book will keep you from having to make them.
Throughout these pages you’ll meet quite a cast of characters—pastors, volunteers, children’s ministry professionals, and a few courageous practitioners willing to take the risk of trying out a more sustainable approach to ministry. Ordinarily, to protect the identity of those whose stories we tell, we have adjusted names and details but kept the essence of those stories in tact.
As you read, should you want to talk further with either of us, don’t hesitate. You can reach us at [email protected] and [email protected].
Let’s get started.