1 From Chaos to Clarity: What’s So Different About Sustainable Children’s Ministry?

From Chaos to Clarity

What’s So Different About

Sustainable Children’s Ministry?

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

In a rapidly changing world, thriving congregations are nearly ten times more likely to have changed themselves than are struggling congregations.

When I was eight years old, we started attending a new church. My mom told me I would be going to “children’s church” (and that I was going to love it).

There were puppets, skits, and games. My mom was right. I loved it. For an eight-year-old, what’s not to love about a party? Every. Single. Week. I laughed, made friends, and learned Bible Aerobics. (It was the early ’80s!)

But beyond the party, I discovered something else. In children’s church I learned to love Jesus and to know that—no matter what—he loved me too. During those years I learned to sing to Jesus at night before I went to bed. I learned that God is real, that he is not just the God of the universe, but my God too. In children’s church it became normal for me to love God with all of my heart.

When I was ready to age out of children’s church, Mrs. Geni, our children’s pastor, handed me a piece of paper. She said, “I think you can do this.” She could see the curious expression on my face.

“I think you can teach younger kids,” she said with a grin.

I was eleven years old.

Over the next week she coached me on delivering a lesson for kids. And that Sunday, I shared that lesson with a dozen or so first through fifth graders. The text was John 17:17 (I still remember it to this day).

Over the next six years, Mrs. Geni spent hours upon hours sharing her love for Jesus and children’s ministry with me. I also came to love all the aspects of children’s ministry that made kids beg their parents to come to church every week.

When I graduated from high school, I pursued training that would lead to a career in children’s ministry. I wrestled with some tough questions in my early adult years, and always found that same Jesus I met in children’s church was faithful.

Failure to Launch

I started my first full-time job in children’s ministry in 1998. I had just received my master’s degree, had been married barely a month, and was fully convinced that my life’s work would be in children’s ministry. This was my moment.

My new title was Elementary Coordinator. I was stepping into a very large church, replacing the previous elementary coordinator, who was to train me and then be my part-time assistant.

I couldn’t have been more excited! I had an endless stream of so many ideas; I felt so ready, so well-equipped for this job.

As Shari, my now assistant, trained me, I realized how big this little elementary coordinator job was. As I learned the ins and outs of the job, I was quite sure that if Shari ever truly left me on my own, I would be totally lost in all the disconnected tasks.

There were lessons to read, supply lists to make, volunteers to recruit, calendars to fill, church staff meetings, children’s ministry staff meetings, supplies to purchase, visuals to make, thank-you notes to send, and don’t even get me started on the clunky check-in system that literally made me sick (more on that later).

I began to dive into my responsibilities. I absolutely loved any chance I had to be with kids and connect them to Jesus. Worshiping with a room full of children was the highlight of every week.

But when Monday rolled around, we almost always had something to discuss in our children’s ministry staff meeting. And more often than not, I found myself on the hot seat for something I had said or done.

Those meetings started to get old quickly. I was working sixty-plus hours a week. My new husband was traveling all week and only home on the weekends. I was working all weekend, every weekend, only to feel like a tremendous failure when those staff meetings rolled around. My disconnected list of tasks seemed to grow every week, compounded by an endless parade of last-minute changes to the weekend plan. I knew my pace was simply not sustainable.

At the time, I blamed my bosses for making all the last-minute changes, for not appreciating all I was doing, and for just about everything else in my life that wasn’t going as I had planned. No one else seemed to understand how hard this job really was. In just a few months I was transformed from a spunky newlywed to an angry, hurt woman living on the edge of tears most of the time.

Looking back, I realize that I had walked in with many assumptions, expecting the church and children’s ministry to have some basic systems already in place (though at the time, I couldn’t have told you what those systems even were). This was a large and well-respected ministry. How could so much not be in place?

Little did I know, the church was expecting me to develop and implement those very systems. Like most children’s ministry leaders, I assumed, without even knowing it, that the ministry would thrive with a reasonable amount of joyful effort. Instead, I realized that a lot beneath the surface was missing, and ministry had begun to suck the life out of me. I found out later that I was not alone. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

During these first few months in ministry, I became known for being incredibly disorganized. Our shared office space (mostly my desk and underneath, behind, and in front of it) looked like an explosion at a toy store. It seemed like balls were dropping left and right.

Somehow, I had managed to complete graduate school while juggling four part-time jobs, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how to get done everything that needed to get done to run a healthy, sustainable children’s ministry. My learning curve was steep and bumpy.

The last straw for my boss happened on a busy Sunday with lots of moving pieces. (Are there any other kind?) I had forgotten to print out attendance sheets to check in the over two hundred kids who showed up that morning. When they arrived, I wasn’t ready. And the next day, I was in hot water.

It was an easy mistake to make since the office and children’s classrooms were in totally different buildings. But on the heels of other details that I had missed, I had earned myself a three-month probation. Too many balls were dropping, and yet I was working sixty to eighty hours a week. I had somehow gotten myself into an impossible job.

The probation was my wake-up call that I had to start thinking differently. I determined to figure this (dis)organization thing out. Over the next three months I became laser focused on learning. And many of the strategies I’ll share with you were mined during that tenuous three months.

One of my first discoveries was that this job would never fit neatly into nice little boxes. No matter how large or small your ministry is, the list of skills you’ll need might include

A Second Chance

I made it through probation without losing my job, but I was still burned out, disillusioned, and just plain sad. Eventually, I quit my position, frankly not even sure if I wanted to go to church anymore.

By God’s grace, we ended up staying in the church. We had two beautiful baby boys. Though our new house was thirty-five minutes from the church, we made the drive every week. But when our church planted a new campus just three miles from our house, we jumped at the chance.

Before long, the new pastor asked if I would take on the children’s ministry. I quickly told him no! It had been five years since I left my job in children’s ministry, and I had no intention of going back. That ship had sailed.

I knew what the job of children’s ministry was like, and I had no interest in turning my life upside down again. By now, I had my own active family to consider.

When I got home that Sunday, my stomach was churning. I just couldn’t quiet the uneasiness. I mentioned it to my husband, and he said, “Well, you should have told him yes. It’s your calling, and you turned it down.” I knew that he was right, but my vow was to never put myself in that situation again.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I felt torn. I couldn’t stop thinking about how hard I had worked before, and how tired and hurt I was in the end. I remembered how so many of my most faithful volunteers, the ones I called on every time I was in a pinch, eventually burned out too. I didn’t want be part of something like that ever again. I wanted to make sure that if I were to go back and work for the church, I wouldn’t be putting our family at risk.

So with a combination of terror and excitement, I called the pastor and told him I had changed my mind. A few days later, I met with the pastor and other church leaders to discuss the details of the job and the children’s ministry. The meeting lasted about five hours! (There’s a chance maybe I came to the meeting a little overprepared.)

Since this was a brand new campus, I had a clean slate, and I wanted to set up a solid structure this time, something that could hold together without me scurrying around plugging every hole myself. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t walking blindly into the same issues I had faced before.

This time, we began differently. Very differently.

What Was Different

We began by creating the systems that would make it possible to support exponential church growth. Sure, there were times when we were stretched thin and struggled to find enough volunteers, but we also made it our mission to protect our volunteers from undue burden that could lead so easily to burnout.

After three years, I handed off the director’s position to Shari. We had worked hard on the parts of the ministry that no one was going to notice. There were times that even the church leadership didn’t understand all that was in place behind the scenes or why we had decided not to implement some of the flashy “wow” practices found in other large churches.

Initially, my pride was a little hurt when things got better after I left! When people would tell Shari what a great job she was doing (and, of course, she was), she would point to all the hard work we had put into setting up the foundation for ministry. Without those foundational systems, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the installation of an indoor playground or oversee a two-day fall festival that would rival any small-town fair. And through it all, she had the freedom to see her son play high school football, even on Thursday nights when there were demanding programs going on at church.

A Study in Contrast

My two experiences in children’s ministry couldn’t have been more different. All my great ideas, combined with a total lack of systems and structures in my first position, left me overworked and overwhelmed. I was actually helping to create a crushing toxicity in the ministry culture.

The second time around, we focused first on the behind-the-scenes parts of the ministry, which most folks didn’t even know were needed, and we enjoyed a well-paced, thriving ministry in a joyful, collaborative climate. I’ve come to see ministry structures as a lot like housework: no one notices it unless it’s not done. Putting foundational systems in place will never be urgent, but without them, everything becomes urgent.

In talking with hundreds of children’s ministry workers around the country, I have discovered that my first ministry experience is all too common. When we first start talking about systems in ministry, most people give us a blank stare. They know about curriculum and supplies, and maybe about newsletters and recruiting volunteers. Most don’t realize that they are working frantically because the fundamental structures for ministry are missing altogether.

The Telltale Signs of a Systemless Children’s Ministry

In this book we want to introduce you to the key systems that will allow your ministry to thrive no matter what stage you are in. But first I want to introduce you to some of the most common characteristics of systemless children’s ministries. See if any of them sound familiar.

1. Suffering from chronic volunteer deficiency (CVD). In 100 percent of the churches I’ve worked with as either a staff member, volunteer, coach, or consultant, recruiting and sustaining volunteers are some of the most important challenges to overcome. They suffer from what we have come to call chronic volunteer deficiency, which is driven by two common realities:

If you’re facing CVD, you’re not alone. You may be combining classes, leading a class every week yourself, using your own family to fill in, or closing classes because there are not enough leaders to go around.

The good news is that there is a cure for CVD. Dozens of churches have overcome CVD by working an intentional recruiting strategy (a recruiting system), one that is so much more than a bulletin announcement or a desperate pulpit plea. We don’t offer an easy, five-minute emergency fix. The recruiting system, like all the systems we’ll introduce you to, will take time and sustained effort. But churches who have worked this plan report having as many volunteers as they need.

2. Drowning in drama. I know you didn’t get into children’s ministry expecting drama to be a part of your everyday life, but the reality is that you can’t get around it. Without the right foundational structures, tiny problems can get blown out of proportion and quickly become personal.

Here is a simple example: Let’s say the DVD player in your toddler class is on the fritz. You are unaware that your volunteers are going without it for several weeks. Those volunteers begin to assume that you don’t care about their little class or even know what it is like to spend an hour and a half with twelve toddlers.

The reality is that you don’t yet have a system for learning what equipment is not working. The perception that you don’t care becomes reality, and something simple turns into something ugly.

3. Feeling chronically busy and overwhelmed. In children’s ministry there will always be busy seasons, with summers being especially challenging. Summers combine regular weekly programming plus VBS, camps, and mission projects, all of which happen—oh yeah!—while most of your regular volunteers are on vacation.

When I began my first full-time ministry position, I remember my pastor encouraging me by saying, “Annette, it’s just a season.” But after the season was over, we rolled into the next overwhelming season without a break. It was no longer a season but a lifestyle. Like a hamster on a wheel of constant activity, what was once energizing and productive crosses the line into a spinning ministry lifestyle that begins to eat away at your soul.

4. Being surrounded by negativity and anxiousness. Systemless children’s ministries often find themselves working in a climate of growing negativity and anxiousness. Take a look at your volunteers on a Sunday morning. Do they look stressed? They may be feeling anxiety about their roles. They may not be completely sure when or if they hit the mark, or what they need to accomplish to succeed. They may be scurrying around on Sunday mornings, frantic to get through their lessons.

When we hear things like, “If we just had more money . . .” or “why can’t we do it like St. Amazing Church down the street, with a slide for the kids to use to enter their classroom?” negativity and anxiety are not far behind. We can also observe our parents—are they excited or apprehensive when dropping off their kids?

When we ministry leaders are exhausted, our anxiety and negativity can accelerate and become contagious. If you hear yourself saying more negative things than positive, it’s time to change your script. We get to tell the story of our ministry. More often than not, we work hard to get a program launched or an event covered, and then we immediately look ahead to the next thing, without celebrating the successes we had.

An Open Invitation

We want to invite you into a journey of creating a new normal for your children’s ministry. These “normals” we’ve identified just now can be changed. And this book is designed to help you do it. Be encouraged. In the pages that follow, you’ll find tools to help you build the systems that will bless your church with a healthy, sustainable children’s ministry.

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