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Children’s Ministry Training Basics You NEED to Include for Volunteers

children's ministry training

Children’s ministry training is a hot topic. How (and how often) do you train your kidmin volunteers? Basic laws and safety guidelines are always changing. And so are the kids we minister to. So with all this in mind, are we truly equipping our leaders and volunteers to be effective in what they do?

For children’s ministry training, I’ve heard of online trainings, paper handouts, and actual meeting formats. The question I’m asked most often is “how often?” As with any program or ministry, I think it depends on your format.

For example, we operate in seasons. Our kidmin program runs traditional Sunday school and kids church from September to June. Then we switch gears to summer Sunday programming, with a separate team of volunteers. So our trainings are geared for the season in which people will serve.

Although I appreciate this model and love that my team does effective training for what is to come, the danger is losing the basics. We’ve discovered that as the seasons change, we update the ever-changing elements but sometimes fail to bring the basic elements along for the ride.

This is an easy mistake to make, especially if you have returning volunteers that you feel know this information already. Repetition is your friend, in this case.

Must-Have Basics of Children’s Ministry Training

Basic elements (must-know info regardless of when or where someone serves):

Seasonal elements (may vary depending on when people serve):
  • curriculum shift/how to prepare, etc.
  • format change
  • sets/skits/music
  • volunteer scheduling

Invest in Your KidMin Volunteers

Although some teachers have been in our children’s ministry for 30+ years, others are just starting. It’s no surprise that they’re equally curious about changes. If you poll faithful volunteers who’ve been there for several years, you’ll likely find that they enjoy the training and updates.
Teams like to know what you expect of them. When you as a leader put forth effort to train people and keep them current, they feel “invested in.”