5 Ways to Help Parents Lead Their Kids To God

5 Ways to Help Parents Lead their Kids to God

There are very few ways to serve others in this world that are more fun and impactful than working with children in your local church. Whether you’re a “professional” receiving a paycheck for your leadership in the children’s ministry, or a volunteer that is paid in smiles, goldfish crackers and high fives, working with kids to help them develop spiritually is simply fantastic. However, the amazing world of kid’s ministry has changed over the years and many churches realize hitting the bullseye of ministry effectiveness needs to be reconsidered.

For years, effective kids ministry was all about what happened inside your church during Sunday School, kid’s church and midweek programming. If on-campus events were organized, fun and going well, folks felt successful.  Now, many more churches are realizing an important truth: It’s not enough to just do well with the time we have them at church. Think about it: if kids came to everything your ministry does in a given week, you may have just 3 hours per week (or less with today’s attendance patterns) to engage them in discipleship activities.  This amount of time is simply not enough to adequately teach boys and girls how to love God, to hear and recognize His voice, and to learn to obey what He says. Even if your leaders knock the ball out of the park in their teaching environments every week, the culture kids live in today overwhelms them with many other messages and entertainment options to “wash away” the efforts you and your leaders have made.

The shift churches are making is to be ever more intentional about partnering with parents. To partner with parents you do have to ensure the ministry programs you are providing in your church are faithfully teaching God’s Word, but you also need to have intentional plans to position parents as the spiritual leaders of their kids.  In addition to teaching kids the Gospel and how they can respond to it, it’s vital for dads and moms to see themselves as a pastor to their own children.

If you are at all like me, sometimes we know we need to do something new, or make adjustments to something we are already doing to bring new life and energy to an area of the children’s ministry. Here are five ways to help parents lead their kids to God I hope will be helpful to you.

1. Pray—This one may seem like a given, or even a cheap way to be able to list five ways instead of only four, but it’s not.  Children’s ministry leaders can get so busy doing ministry and working hard, we can sometimes forget to pray. Now, I’m not talking of the prayer of desperation children’s ministers pray at times. “Lord, pleasssssse send me more workers. Today. If not sooner.”  Ever prayed that one?  The prayers I’m referring to are short times set aside to seek God’s leadership about this specific topic of helping parents pastor their kids.  Pray for ideas, but also pray for divine appointments where God orchestrates opportunities to speak with parents about their kid’s spiritual growth.
2. Encourage—Every week when you are in your church environments, speak to parent and let them know you’re praying for them and their kids.  Regularly communicate with parents to let them know they can do it.  Encourage them to keep trying to lead, even if it seems awkward or the kids don’t like it. A lot of kids don’t like brushing their teeth but do you know many parents who just give up and let them get away with it? The fact is: we all need encouragement from time to time.  Be a force of encouragement for your families.
3. Equip—Assume for a moment this blog post is about helping parents take their kids fishing. If they have no fishing equipment, it doesn’t matter how inspiring your effort is, they can’t go fishing. The same effect is in place for the true topic of this post. Dads and moms have Bibles usually, but there are literally hundreds of helpful tools and resources available. You are the perfect person to make them aware of what’s out there to help them lead their kids.  In many cases, you and your church will be able to obtain and put these helpful tools right into their hands for use at home. Decide to become an expert on the tools parent need to pastor their kids. Regularly show them easy ways they can be successful in this important effort.
4. Challenge—Your church has entrusted the children’s ministry to your leadership.  Leaders have to say hard things at times.  You may be one of the only leaders in a parent’s life who has the opportunity to speak the truth of God’s Word to them. Take time to teach what  family ministry passages like Deuteronomy 6:4-7 mean for their family.  Challenge parents to think differently about what happens at church.  Help them see how spiritual activity in the home and at church complement one another. Illustrate the time disparity between the hours at church and the hours away from church.
5. Repeat—Once you’ve plugged the first four into your ministry mindset, commit yourself to repeat these things with determination and consistency. There will be times you wonder if any parents are listening to you, but don’t lose heart!  Continue showing families the vision of what it can mean for their kids if they will begin to see themselves as the primary leaders for their kids spiritual growth. The goal to keep in mind is to see kid’s grow into spiritual champions. You and your children’s ministry leaders are important, but the involvement of parents is vital.

New Book to Check Out!

 

Are you a reader?  I love to read books that challenge my thinking about the way I do ministry.  I really love to read in general and believe that part of developing as a leader is in being a reader.  Remember the saying school, “readers are leaders?” I decided to work at being a lifelong learner by reading books of all kinds.  I like history, biographies, fiction, leadership books and books that will help me in my chosen profession, children’s ministry.

I was privileged to be a part of an early look at the material in the new book coming out from Awana next week. The fine folks on their team undertook to ask some hard and very relevant questions about children’s ministry philosophy and practices.  What they’ve discovered and packaged in a digestible way has the possibility to seriously rock your world!  I believe you’ll be encouraged and challenged by what they’ve found.

I’ve attached the introduction and first few pages of the book to this post and hope you’ll take the time to check it out.

TheGospelTruthExcerpt

 

 

 

4 Leadership Phases You Need

I’ve been thinking a lot about recruiting and staffing of the teams you have to have in place to do kid min better and better.  Shocker, right? A kid’s minister thinking about recruiting and volunteers!  Alert the media.  

We’re constantly thinking about the people we need for our team to be complete (or more accurately, completer). There seems to always be another spot to fill, doesn’t there? I’ve been trying to concentrate my efforts and focus on some simple principles that have helped me and might be helpful to you.  

We need to be continually growing and moving forward.  Don’t fall prey to the traps of mediocrity and satisfaction with super easy goals. You are a leader! You have been entrusted with providing quality experiences and discipleship and people are looking to you to lead them.  Don’t fail them.  Even when you dont feel like it, actively lead.  Hopefully one or more of these phases of leadership.  

Think of these phases as independent leadership actions that all point toward the same result.  You will find times these phases can be implemented during a volunteer training meeting, during a one on one with a leader, or something you demonstrate while teaching kids.  

1. Phase 1: Inspire a shared vision. The responsibility for the ministry may very well end with you, but constantly talk about a vision of ministry that is successful because of the combined efforts, prayers and sacrifices of each leader. The “buck stops here” applies in terms of taking on criticism or answering concerns, but you should equip as many people as possible to do the work of the ministry.

2. Phase 2: Equip others to act. Empower your leaders, all of them, to make decisions in their particular place of service.  It’s not healthy, or practical, to try to be the only one giving the yes or no to questions your ministry leaders can answer for you.  The point is to duplicate yourself into your team so the answers they give and the decisions they make mirror what you would.  The more freedom and trust you give to your team the more your leaders will grow.  Growth is good, ya’ll!

3. Model the way to act.  Set the right example for your leaders to follow.  Be present and visible when your volunteers are hard at work. Jump in and work hard with them, even when you’d rather go check on another room or ministry area.  When dealing with a difficult child or parent, keep emotions in check and stay positive.  Each interaction handled correctly in front of a watching volunteer has an impact.  The more things you model the correct handling of, the more leadership credibility you gain.  Leadership is influence, and you are constantly needing to influence your team.

4. Encourage all along the way. Cheer for and thank your team members often.  Write notes and send cards.  Even your most seasoned and skilled team members still need to feel you be appreciative of their efforts.  Compliment team members in front of parents, in the bulletin or program.  Mention volunteers by name when speaking before your leadership boards, deacons and your pastor.  Take all the complaints for yourself but share the glory with everyone! Ministry is hard.  You know that already, and your team members aren’t immune from the difficulties just because they’re volunteers.  In fact, it may be harder on your team members because they have other life responsibilities you don’t have.

Commit yourself to working on these phases of leadership.  Consecrate yourself to the Lord to become the best leader possible, so your ministry to kids is the best it can possibly be.  I’m praying for you!  

Kid Min Tip of the Day: Handle Challenges Correctly

 

Don’t be that guy, or that girl.  What am I talking about, you ask?  I’m talking about the guy or girl in a leadership position out there who totally botches and mishandles a challenge they’re facing in ministry.  Yesterday, I heard a ton of media reports about the now former head basketball coach at Rutgers University.

This coach was fired today after a controversy erupted around him regarding his treatment of the players on his ball team. Apparently, he has had a long running issue with controlling his temper when it comes to leading his team’s practices.  Video became available of his outbursts and quickly spread all over the internet. In a matter of hours it seemed, this story was at the forefront of all media, with the Today Show and Good Morning America running pieces about it.  

His employer, Rutgers University in New Jersey rightly decided to fire the coach yesterday morning.  One kid’s ministry tip comes from the way the coach acted: NEVER EVER put your hands on a kid or student who has been entrusted to you by your church and the kid’s parents. 

However, the bigger tip for me and you comes from the way this terrible situation was botched and fumbled by the Rutgers administration.  See, this problem with the coach has been known for some time.  A former Rutgers athletic department official reported this issue almost a year ago.  Very little was done as a result. A decision was made to fine and suspend the coach for three games, and the athletic director commented that he wanted to try to rehabilitate the coach, but very little else was done.  

Trust me: if you haven’t already seen the video, there is no way this coach should have been allowed to keep his job.  Many of the clips shown all across the country on various media outlets were the ones Rutgers officials were shown. 

I don’t know why the AD and college president made the decision they made, but it was an unfortunate choice for them.  They are being blasted for allowing this to continue after they had seen the coaches behavior.  There is no excuse for his behavior.  College basketball players may be tall and strong, but they’re still young kids, even though an 18 year old is considered an adult.  Their parents entrusted this coach to lead their sons and work with their sons.  They allow the coach to travel with them and spend hour upon hour together. 

The coach abused their trust in him.  The college abused the trust they had placed in them as an institution.  There is a lot of reason to believe from media reports they just didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences of this scandal brewing in their own gymnasium. I feel certain if they could do things over again, they might choose a different handling of this challenge.  

I see a similarity between this situation and our ministries to kids.  Parents trust us to lead and teach their kids like the parents of ball players trusted this coach and university.  We must never do anything to betray their trust. 

To ensure this never happens, you’ve got to be ready and willing to take challenges head-on and deal with them correctly.  It’s never fun, and we shouldn’t look forward to them, but when they hit, we’ve got to be ready.

Here are some tips that are on my mind today to hopefully help you be prepared to handle challenges correctly.

1. Handle challenges by keeping the circle of knowledge as small as possible. If the issue affects no one else besides the person involved, keep the circle of trust to the two of you (add one other trusted coworker or pastor if your dealing with someone of the opposite gender) and address the issue directly. The more people that know about the issue, the greater the possibility it will become an even bigger challenge. 

2. Assume the issue will likely become known at some point. This is one of the key failures of the Rutgers officials.  They either believed the video would never surface or seriously underestimated how bad the videos looked.  Either way, they weren’t prepared for what happened when others became aware of the problem.  In your church, stories, rumors, lies, truths and mixtures of all four can be passed around remarkably fast.  If something potentially controversial is taking place, you want to be the one that releases it to the people it will matter to most.  For example, if your nursery has had an outbreak of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, you should be proactive to report it and explain what it is and how you are planning to deal with it. 

3. Be Relentlessly Committed to Protecting Children.  You don’t have time to think about how you will deal with an issue regarding the treatment of children in your ministry. Unfortunately, there are going to be instances when you are told about a ministry volunteer who is a little too hands on in their discipline. The moment someone makes you aware of a problem, you need to act as quickly as possible.  You need to immediately ask for a meeting with the person and find out what’s happening.  You may find yourself in a position  where you have to fire a volunteer who has been working with kids for so long, his or her former students now have kids.  This stinks, but you have to do everything you can to protect children. 

4. Document everything. Send yourself and a trusted person email reports of what has happened and how you’re dealing with it.  Save all communications with the person or persons in question.  Eliminate as much hearsay and he said/she said by keeping meticulous records regarding these situations. 

5. Remember the right decision may cause pain, but will always lead to better things. If it’s the right thing to do, do it and lead your ministry through it.  Deal with the issue correctly and as soon as possible.  Only bad things come from waiting and allowing the issue to continue.

What do you think? Add in your suggestions for handling challenges in the comments below!