By: Chuck Peters
Have you ever seen a commercial featuring a delicious-looking hamburger, then ordered that same burger in real life, only to be disappointed? Maybe your job in KidMin feels a bit like that. Perhaps you got into kids’ ministry because you discovered a passion or giftedness for teaching the Bible to children. You love interacting with kids and seeing their eyes light up when they understand God’s love for them. That part of the job is fun and fulfilling! Why would you not want to do that full time? It’s only after you are in the role that reality sets in. Most kids ministers spend just 5%-10% of their time interacting with kids. Some less than that. The rest of the job, the other stuff, is what you might call administration: the meetings, planning, recruiting, training, curriculum purchasing, vision casting, budgeting, and working with adults.
For many of us, this part of the job can feel overwhelming and stressful. But don’t worry, this article is here to help! Let’s look at 10 top areas of administration that you can use as a self-assessment to help you see what you are doing well and identify areas that you might need to work on.
1) Get *Be* Stay Organized
Like it or not, your organizational habits and cleanliness are seen by others as an indication of your competency and reliability. Here’s the principle: Don’t be the hot mess of your church staff! Be on top of your time, your tasks, your desk, your storage spaces, your communications, and your teaching materials in a way that displays your care for detail. Cleanliness breeds confidence (plus, you’ll be able to find things you’re looking for a lot faster)!
2) Clarify your WHY
Many kids’ leaders are ministering without a clear focus. They know the where, when, what, and who of their ministry slots, but very few can articulate a clear and compelling WHY for their ministry. You need to identify YOUR why. Your why is your purpose, mission, vision, and reason for your ministry. Everything you do hinges on your why! It helps you clearly and quickly explain the unique benefits of your ministry to families, recruit the right volunteers, and it serves as a target and a filter for decision making. If you don’t have a strong mission/vision/values statement that is contextualized for your ministry, work on that right away.
3) Take Control of your Time
Our time to teach and influence kids is short! They grow up and leave our ministries quickly. Others move away or change churches. We need to steward our time well with a sense of urgency and purpose. When it comes to your work week, you may not know where your time actually goes. I recommend conducting a personal time study. The best way to do this is to open a spreadsheet in Excel® or Google Sheets and record everything you do throughout the day and the number of hours it takes.
List the tasks and activities in one column and the hours in the next column. Log your tasks and your time every day for a week. You may find that you spent 10 hours preparing Bible study lessons, 6 hours cleaning and resetting rooms, 8 hours in meetings, etc. Total the number of hours you worked that week. Maybe you put in 57 hours in your 40-hour week.
As a next step you can select the task and number fields, click Insert, and Chart. Choose a pie chart and you will get a visual representation of the comparative sizes of your effort by task. Another click will insert percentages of time for you. Once you see where your time is going, you can evaluate if you are spending too much, too little, or the right amount of time on each type of task.
4) Tackle Your Tasks
Take ownership of your own tasks and to-do list. Know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and, after your time study, estimate how long things take to get done. Assign time to your tasks at the start of your work week. Block time on your calendar for meetings and recurring tasks. Block off time for working on things like organizing your resource room, writing your newsletter, making social media posts, messaging volunteers, and planning for VBS. Consider two methods to help you accomplish hard things:
- Eat the Frog . If you have to eat a frog (yuck) do it first thing on Monday morning. The sooner you do it, the faster it’s done. Don’t procrastinate or avoid big difficult tasks. Do them first and avoid the dread that comes with delay.
- 1-3-5 Method. Organize your tasks to accomplish 1 big thing, 3 medium things, and 5 small things each day. Plan your work, then work your plan.
5) Build a strong team
You aren’t meant to minister alone. We all need help carrying the load of a big job. In Exodus 18, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, advises Moses to select reputable, trustworthy, respected helpers from among the people, to train and equip them, and to empower them to make smaller decisions themselves, then bring only the bigger problems to Moses. The principle is to delegate so you can elevate. Look for partners who will be committed, consistent, connected, Christ-like in character, and who care about your kids. Recruit them using your WHY. If they buy your why, they will stick with you longer and serve more deeply. No one is looking for more to do, but everyone wants to be part of something meaningful. Choose your team carefully and prayerfully. And make sure to surround yourself with people who have different strengths than you.
6) Choose Content Carefully
What we teach matters! James 3:1 warns us that not many should become teachers because as such “we will receive a stricter judgement.” That’s a sobering reminder that we will be accountable to God for what we teach our kids. Do your homework to make sure the materials you use are doctrinally and theologically sound. Review sample sessions, crowdsource in Facebook communities, ask other churches what they use, and teach the gospel clearly so that you do not inadvertently and unknowingly teach heresy. Get to know the reputation and qualifications of the people and companies that create the content you teach. Choose a resource that will carry your kids through their time in your ministry so that as they grow physically, they also grow spiritually.
7) Analyze Everything
One of the best things you can do to set yourself up for success is to track all the data you can about the things under your purview. Keep track of Sunday School attendance in every grade using your own system (again, spreadsheets are your friend!), track the year-over- year cost of curriculum, track year-over-year VBS and camp costs and attendance, track how many hot dogs you give away at your trunk or treat, track how many glue sticks you go through each quarter, and how many coloring sheets you need to print for each service hour. Track how long big church runs each week throughout the year and whether that differs depending on who preaches that week. Don’t just track total K-5 attendance in your two services on a Sunday, or even the total for each hour. Track attendance by grade, age, and by boys and girls. The more detail you capture the better.
Once you’ve logged it into your spreadsheet (wink, wink), select the fields and insert a bar chart, or a line graph to let you see which things are rising and which are declining. Look for patterns and trends that you can use in planning for the future and creating next year’s budget. When it’s time to ask for more space, or more budget allocation, bring your trend charts to the meeting. Data informed decisions are dependable and defensible.
8) Steward Your Budget Well
One of the most important things to get on top of is managing your budget. It’s important that you have access to your approved, itemized budget allocations. I recommend keeping a copy of the file on your desktop so you can access it regularly as you manage your spending throughout the year. You may have a certain amount allocated for curriculum, VBS, or classroom supplies. Or, you may have an allocation for volunteer training and appreciation, or for taking leaders out to lunch or coffee. It’s important to know how much you have to use each year/quarter/month, and how much you have already used year to date. Prioritize your big-ticket categories first to protect the funds you need when they come around. Then manage your smaller allocations with more flexibility.
It’s crucial that you understand how budgets work at your specific church. You may need to seek approval for certain spends outside what’s scheduled, or you may have more autonomy to spend at your own discretion. In some churches, your budget for next year will be informed by your spending this year. If you are given a $2000 allocation and you only use $1500, you may find that your budget for the next year is reduced to this year’s actual spend. Learn the rules that apply to budget building and budget use at your church. Prioritize doing a good job on your expense reports. Keep good track of your receipts. Submit your report on time and document what each purchase is for. Taking photos of your receipts at the register is a great way to keep a digital record, as is requesting digital receipts via email when you can.
9) Partner with Parents
Kids ministry is family ministry. Parents are desperate for advice and resources to help. A recent study from the Barna Group found that as many as 83% of church-going parents say they feel ill-equipped to disciple their own kids at home. The most effective kids ministries include a strategic plan for equipping adult caregivers in the home.
Don’t wait for parents to approach you, build relationships with them, and offer resources proactively. Parents put a high value on clear and consistent communication. Whether you use email, text, social, or some other form of communication, let parents know where to look for communication and be consistent in your messaging patterns. Initiate relationships, communicate consistently, invite them in for parent training and into your spaces at appropriate times. While I am not a proponent of requiring parents to serve out of obligation, you may find that some parents would be excellent volunteers in your ministry.
10) Prioritize Safety and Security
Safety and security is an area that we cannot afford to ignore. It is important for you to stay up to date and on top of this. You need to have written security policies and guidelines. Review and update your policies and documents annually to make sure they are current. You are likely already running background checks on your volunteers (if you aren’t, you must start this immediately, running them on everyone with no exceptions). This is essential, but it is often not adequate as a single method of screening. It’s important to conduct an interview where you can ask questions that might help you discover yellow flags that might cause you to reject a volunteer before they are serving with kids.
One essential today is for you to educate yourself and your team around sexual abuse prevention. I highly recommend partnering with an organization like Ministry Safe to help you in this area. It is also important for you to have an emergency response plan in place so there are no surprises if a crisis arises. In all issues of safety and security policies, I highly recommend having your church legal counsel review and approve all of your policies, documents, procedures, and forms so that you are personally protected from liability.
Administration can feel intimidating, but it is a crucial and essential part of the job. If you feel that you are behind on the administrative part of your ministry, don’t be overwhelmed, and don’t try to do it all at once. Don’t neglect it. Chip away it. Recruit team members to offset your weaknesses, and above all, see it as ministry.
Chuck Peters is Director of Lifeway NextGen, overseeing Lifeway Kids and Lifeway Student publishing. He is the co-author of Flip the Script: Disrupting Tradition for the Sake of the Next Generation, and host of the ETCH NextGen Ministry Podcast. A graduate of Columbia Bible College, Chuck and his wife Cris have served in Preschool, Kids, Student, and Groups Ministry for many years in New Jersey, California, Florida, and Tennessee. Before joining Lifeway, Chuck had a prolific career in television and video production. He is a 3-time Emmy Award-winning producer, director, writer, and on-screen host. Chuck is driven by a passion to equip and inspire ministry leaders.
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