guest post by Joe Montoya
What are you doing to help your team succeed? How do you define success? How does God define success? If you read into the context of Ephesians 4, God’s definition of success includes unity and the revelation of Jesus. One of your main roles as a leader is to promote unity in the church. To accomplish this, you must build up the individuals on your church team. Here is the New King James Version of verses 11-13, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Regardless of your specific spiritual gifting or office, you are a leader. Leader, your role is to equip and prepare people to serve the work of the ministry. Achieving corporate success will be the result of equipping the individuals on your team. This leads to a series questions that you and I have keep in the forefront when leading our teams.
What are you doing to help your members grow in their relationship with God?
•Are you having devotions?
•Do you plan out time for prayer?
•Does your scheduling help or hinder your staff and volunteers from attending adult services? Ditto for your teenagers serving on your team.
It is easy to become locked into the children’s ministry bubble and lose vision of the lead pastor’s vision for the entire church. Equipping is not just about skills. It is also a heart issue. Lack of vision and spiritual growth will likely lead to burnout. In contrast, can you imagine what we can do for God with a team full of leaders who have the right heart and skills to reach and equip our young people?
What are you doing to train your team?
•Do you have classes on teaching, puppets, salvation, prepping a room, etc.?
•Do you have training videos? Have you made a video yourself?
•Do you train your key leaders to give the hands-on training for new volunteers in the classroom?
•Do you regularly update your volunteer’s handbook? Does your handbook actually help your team operate orderly and efficiently in your department?
•Do you look for conferences and workshops from other ministries and organizations for your team?
It is difficult to train your team when your tank is empty. What are you doing to grow and develop yourself, so you can keep investing yourself into your team?Do not do this alone. Find a mentor if you do not have one. Keep up with your network with children’s ministry leaders from other churches.
Lastly, how are you building the team corporately?
•Is there a scheduled time for your teams to share life as well as huddle up for instructions?
•Is there a location in your building or campus where your teams can gather and socialize?
People who serve together, grow together. It is important to include time for fellowship. The point is for your team to be the church and not just do church. Equipping is the combination of hearts in line with God and developed skills to minister.
Go over these questions again. Turn your answers into goals. Break your goals into action points. Line your actions with the vision. Communicate this to your team. You could be in approaching a breakthrough in your ministry but always have a reoccurring challenge. What is it? Ask a question. What are you doing to build up your team? What are you doing to foster community? Share your successes.
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Joe Montoya is the Elementary Director of Real Kidz at Cottonwood Christian Center, Cypress, California.
Real Kidz ministers to 1600 children (birth to 12 years old) every week.
Joe is married to Shelley Montoya and have 3 children.
