By Chuck Peters
My friend, Harold, emailed me yesterday to ask my opinion on a volunteer strategy for the kids ministry at his church. He asked whether I think it’s better to have adults serve on a rotation or for longer stretches of time. This post is a copy-and-paste of my response to Harold’s email. I thought it might be valuable to you too.
One of the biggest takeaways we drew from the research we published in our book, Flip the Script, is the deep need that Gen Z and Alpha kids have for belonging. As a generation, they don’t trust corporations, denominations, institutions, or accreditations. They don’t listen to a teacher or adult leader just because they have a clipboard or a microphone. They need to feel seen, known, wanted, welcomed, and valued by their teachers and leaders. The old saying may seem trite, but it’s true: they don’t care what we know until they know that we care.
Building Trust Through Consistency
Building relationships based on my TRI formula—Trust + Respect = Influence—is essential. Before we can have any real influence on a child’s or student’s life, they need to know us and trust us. Kids arrive at our ministry times either ramped up or shut down, and they cannot listen or learn until they regulate and assimilate so they feel emotionally safe. It is only when they feel emotionally safe that their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds will be open to hear what we have to say.
Each time kids arrive to find a new, different, unknown leader, their emotional safety has to be reset.
Why Rotational Volunteering Falls Short
In light of our research, I have a strong opinion about what we should ask of our volunteers. I believe that having a cast of adults who serve on a rotation out of obligation is counterproductive to discipleship. Biblical discipleship is a process of walking together and talking together (see the Shema in Deuteronomy 6). Paul told the church at Corinth to “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” This cannot happen outside of a consistent, two‑way relationship.
As I travel and speak at conferences around the country, I have been challenging church leaders to cast a new vision for what we look for in our volunteers. I call them 5C leaders. I want my volunteers to be:
- Committed
- Consistent
- Connected
- Christlike in character
- And people who care about kids
Kids Need the Same Faces in the Same Places
In addition to the TRI factor, the consistency of our adult leaders becomes even more important when we consider current attendance patterns. Some kids attend every other week or just one week a month. As kids become more inconsistent in their attendance, we need our adult leaders to be more consistent in theirs.
Kids need to see the same faces in the same places. They need leaders who notice when they are gone and who celebrate them when they return. Leaders on a rotation don’t know who was present last week or who is missing this week. If a child attends inconsistently, a leader serving on a rotation may only see that child once a quarter—or less. The rotation approach undermines a child’s ability to look to an adult leader as someone who truly knows them and cares about them.
Serving in Streaks and Seasons
My recommendation is to ask volunteers to serve in streaks and seasons. Will they serve every week for a year? For six months? For a 13‑week quarter? The longer the streak, the better it is for building relationships.
When it comes to connection and influence, the math is not in our favor. If an adult serves one hour a week for 13 weeks, the total potential hours of relational connection is just 13. If a child attends every other week, that drops to just six or seven hours of influence. That is not much time to build relationships that truly influence kids in their faith.
Why VBS and Camp Matter So Much
I am also a huge proponent of having those same 5C leaders serve at VBS or go to camp as chaperones. Camp and VBS are relational ministry microwaves. A five‑day, three‑hour‑a‑day VBS packs 15 hours of relational ministry into one week. That’s the equivalent of three to seven months of relational connection if a leader only serves on a Sunday morning.
For our children—and our middle school and high school students as well—the depth of discipleship we can hope to achieve is directly proportionate to the consistency of our leaders.
Every Child Deserves a Champion
There is a famous TED Talk by public school educator Rita Pierson in which she said, “Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.”
If the importance of relational connection is true in public education, how much more should it be in our churches? Every child in your church deserves a champion in your church. I am calling kids ministry leaders to raise the bar on our expectations for volunteers. Having an adult present to read a lesson from a piece of paper is not an effective way to reach kids. They need 5C leaders who can become godly, spiritual influencers in their lives.
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