Children's Church: Using Volunteers

Children’s church is a great way to introduce people to your children’s ministry. Over the years our use of volunteers in children’s ministry has moved from a few long term volunteers to our current format of volunteer teams. Our children’s church is for kids in Kindergarten through the Fourth grade, and so our volunteers can be kids in the Fifth grade and older. Our teams are a mixture of preteens, youth group members and adults of all ages.

We have four teams that server for one complete school year. We take the summer off and recruit new team members during the off months. Each team serves one week of the month. To make things easier to remember, team one always serves on the first week of the month; team two always serves on the second week of the month and so on. If we ever skip a week, for say a holiday, then that team does not serve that week. This schedule let’s everyone plan ahead for their time of service. Some of our volunteers serve in other ministries during the worship hour and our consistent schedule allows them to easily arrange the schedule in their other areas of service.

Depending on how we are formatting our children’s service, we have recruited volunteers in a couple of ways. The years that we were doing consistent themes throughout the year, we recruited volunteers for specific characters. For example, in our space theme, a volunteer was able to sign up to be a live actor in the role of the ship’s captain. This year, our themes are changing about every six weeks, so volunteers signed up for their choice of jobs. This year they could sign up to be puppeteers, actors, backstage directors (this was the only role reserved for adults only), audio/video techs, tappers (the sit with the kids and help keep them focused by “tapping” them on the shoulder), videographer, and song leaders.

The bulk of our children’s church teams our teenage boys. They are always excited to be helping in children’s church. In years past I was always trying to find fill-in’s for team members who were out. Now, I regularly have teens waiting in the hallway to see if someone doesn’t show up so they can help. Another great thing I see is families signing up to help together. One of this year’s team consists of a dad and Fifth grade boy who are doing puppets, mom is our backstage director and the youngest son is in the audience. Their teenage son is also involved, but he chose to serve on another team.  I also have a husband and wife whose daughters are grown serving together on a team as a tapper and audio/video tech.

As much as I would like to have teams practice before performing together, realistically it’s just not possible to get all of team members together in advance. Instead, I have scripts for team members at our Wednesday night service or I mail/email the scripts to them on Thursday. I strongly encourage everyone to read through their scripts prior to Sunday. When team members arrive to the children’s church room following Bible classes, they meet together in a nearby classroom and read through the scripts together. Then they find their puppets and change into any needed costumes. By this time we have finished our praise and worship time and are ready for the first skit.

Each week, I list the team number and the members of the children’s church theme in our church bulletin. This is a great reminder if they’ve forgotten and also a good form of recognition of their service in the children’s ministry for the rest of the church. This year, for the first time, I plan to have some social and appreciation events for all of our teams. Over the years, I have found that youth and adults who serve on children’s church teams also become involved in other areas of the children’s ministry.

A couple of key things I stress with team members each year is taking serious their commitment to serving in the children’s church. I work to remind all team members of their upcoming week to serve, but also stress that it’s a member’s responsibility to let me know if they are not going to be there. Over the years I’ve noticed that’s it’s mostly adults that don’t show up or kids whose parents take them out of town unannounced. I have had a teenage girl drive three hours one Sunday morning to be back in town to fulfill her commitment. Another young teen regularly has his parents who often help serve at another church in town drop him off so he can serve in children’s church. I work to keep our skits fun, current and tied to Biblical concepts that benefit the kids and the team members.

Our current format has built a strong, dependable volunteer team that enjoys serving together. Our children are also benefitting from seeing youth and adults serving together and worshipping with them. In next week’s post I will be discussing the material we use for curriculum in our children’s church.