Assimilating volunteers effectively is a huge part of accomplishing your ministry’s vision.
For more, check out 4 Steps to Assimilating New Volunteers in Children’s Ministry.
4. Teaching Standards
Do you equip teachers to maintain certain standards? If not, you’ll end up with inconsistent teaching that reflects how each individual teacher was taught. And most likely, it will be pretty boring. Guess what? Bored kids aren’t engaged. Kids who aren’t engaged aren’t learning. And kids who aren’t learning are highly unlikely to ever own their faith.
Children’s church guidelines for teaching really matter! Here’s an example of basic standards for equipping your teaching team.
Our teaching will always be:
- Engaging. We involve children in the learning process and let them explore and experience the lesson for themselves.
- Child-centered. Everything about our teaching and environment is appropriate for the age group.
- Relational. Knowing that the deeper the relationship the better the teaching, we create an environment that promotes and encourages relationships. Then we build our teaching around those relationships.
- Focused. We focus on a single objective in each lesson. All activities, games, stories and other components reinforce that objective.
- Applicable. Every lesson includes an application that kids can practice and use during the coming week.
Your ministry’s teaching contains the very message you want children to understand. Ensure their engagement by defining and equipping teachers with effective standards.
5. Facility Standards
This can be difficult because children’s ministry leaders often have little control over what facilities we’re assigned. The space may include rooms shared with other ministries or schools. We might meet in a room that can’t be modified. Or we may simply have no budget.
I’ve been in each of these situations, and they’re frustrating. But here’s what I’ve learned: First, make sure the environment is safe. Second, do whatever you can within your means to make it attractive and inviting to children.
After I created a facilities team (mostly people who couldn’t or wouldn’t teach), I rarely had to worry about it again. People love the idea of contributing to kids’ safety. Others enjoy getting creative with the facility and environment.
