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How MEATy is your Curriculum?
Choosing a children's curriculum can be a daunting task. We begin all our children on the milk of the world, in the hope that we may also begin to feed them meat as we build on their understanding of God’s Word. In light of repeated New Testament analogies (1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Hebrews 5:11-14; and 1 Peter 2:1-2); concerning milk and meat (or solid food), I will use the acronym “MEAT”. The acronym MEAT is one tool you can use to evaluate the best curriculum for your needs based on four factors: message (doctrine), expense (cost), applications (uses with learners) and teacher-friendliness (ease of use). Message: Is the message doctrinally sound?…
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Reassuring Parents: What You Can Do
“Linda” (not her real name) came to pick up her eighteen month old daughter from the church nursery one Sunday. She saw her daughter sitting in a swing watching Barney. The other children in the room were playing or looking at toys on their own while the workers sat in rocking chairs. Linda felt uncomfortable with the situation. Shouldn’t the workers be engaging the children more often? What were they doing in the toddler room? Were they learning anything? She wondered if she should even expect a church’s nursery to have higher standards. How can you as a children’s minister or nursery director help alleviate Linda’s concerns? Encourage Linda to…
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Your Church Has Decided to Hire. Now What?
You’ve desired that it would be in the best interests of your local flock to hire workers for your church nursery. Your church has approved the hire, and has assigned to you to prepare a list of qualifications for a paid children’s ministry worker. What should they be? I’d like to suggest some basic qualifications. The worker should be a believer. I do believe that unbelievers can be converted to Christ by hearing the gospel while serving in children’s ministry, however, I hold that a believer instructing young children in the faith is an important part of the young child’s beginning spiritual development. If your church chooses to hire a…
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To Pay or Not to Pay, That is the Question
Whether or not to pay nursery workers to work on Sunday mornings is a minor controversy in children’s ministry. Many children’s ministries have volunteers working on Sunday mornings (and many of them struggle with having consistent volunteers). I have worked as both a paid nursery worker and an unpaid volunteer, so I believe I have some perspective from both ends. I’ll briefly review the pros and cons to each approach. The Church Nursery is Staffed by Volunteers Pros One less expense for the church, many are struggling. Gives believers in a local congregation an opportunity to serve in ministry Parents are more likely to know the workers, especially in a…
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Separation Anxiety and VBS
Separation anxiety can appear in infants as early as six months and may continue through the child’s first year. This is a difficult time for parents, children and caregivers! But with patience, love and understanding, it too will pass. Remember, your VBS program is five days in length for one week (assuming you are following the traditional schedule). The infant or toddler’s enrollment in this program represents a deviation from the child’s normal schedule and routine. Couple this with the absence of his parent (or parents) and small wonder the infant or toddler cries in fear and frustration! How should VBS workers treat separation anxiety? I have a few suggestions.…
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VBS in the Nursery? Seriously?
Some find the notion radical. Teach infants? Surely they would understand so little, if anything. Teach one year olds? Their attention span is so short that you couldn’t possibly teach a lesson. Teach wiggly, antsy, two year olds? It’s easier to herd cats. Vacation Bible School (VBS) has a history of being radical. Eliza Hawes (who arguably pioneered the idea of VBS) begin a six-week summer program which included Bible stories, games, verse memorization, nature study, cooking, and sewing for underprivileged children in New York City. Unlike most Vacation Bible Schools held today, Hawes held her program in an unusual location–not in a church, not in a school, not in…
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Volunteers: The Next Generation
A group of teenage girls from the youth group want to serve in your church nursery. “We love babies.” One of them assures you “and we babysit all the time!” You want to honor their desire to serve, but how can you best implement it wisely? You need to establish (if they are not in place already) a policy and procedure with regards to teenage volunteers. Sit down with your church’s youth pastor and ask for his or her input on which teenagers are most gifted with children. You can then establish limits on how often they volunteer (to encourage them to attend the church service and to have balanced…
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G.R.O.W.ing Volunteers
Now you have volunteers. Great! So how do you keep and maintain them? How do you keep their passion for serving your children’s ministry burning? Make sure you are providing for the four inner needs of volunteers. Feed the volunteers’ needs. Most children’s pastors and nursery directors are incredibly attuned to the needs of their children and the needs of the children’s ministry staff; they may not always take time to consider the needs of the volunteers: Grace, Relationships, Ownership, and Worth or “GROW”. Grace: just as grace has been given to you and to the children in your ministry, grace has also been given to your volunteers. One way…
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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Volunteerism?
Many children’s ministries desire to improve on how they work with their volunteers—how to recruit them, how to retain them, how to train them, how to deal with discipline or personality issues as they arise. Recruitment is probably one of the most common dilemmas. Many churches struggle with having enough volunteers. Some have enticed adults from the church service, begging them to help out in this room or that, others have engaged in accepting more lax screening practices in their desperation, and others may choose to downplay or fail to address common problems in an effort to keep their volunteer numbers up. It can be hard to hear “get someone…
