By Chuck Peters
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has turned ‘normal’ on its head. It has closed businesses, cancelled schools, and scattered churches.
Many of us feel as though our worlds and our ministries have been picked up by the ankles and shaken.
As we’ve scrambled to find our feet, we’ve had to look for new ways to do ministry, and we wonder how long this will last.
You may be filled with uncertainty about the future. You may not know how to move forward with any measure of confidence.
Maybe you’re questioning whether you should scrap everything you’ve ever done and initiate a complete reset on your kids ministry strategy. You’re not alone.
These are common reactions in this time of stress and uncertainty. During times like these, we need to encourage one another and lift each other up.
As Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.”
Here are three attributes to help you build your kids ministry on an unshakable foundation that will hold strong no matter what circumstances arise, so you can lead with confidence, even in uncertain times.
1. Family focused
To build strong ministries we need to actively equip parents and caregivers to have spiritual conversations with their own kids at home. To do this well, we need to invest in building relationships at the family level.
We need a strategic plan to support and encourage parents in a way that meets them wherever they are and sets them up for success.
Parents need to know we’re on their team and that we’ll be there for them as they lead their own families.
This can be as simple as sending an encouraging text message or being available to meet for coffee and care for their concerns.
But it also means coaching caregivers by identifying clear expectations for parental discipleship from Scripture and providing them with resources to have spiritual conversations with their children.
We need to thoughtfully and intentionally provide a variety of resources to families to help make these conversations easier and more effective.
That might mean providing digital downloads of Bible story videos or providing printable discussion guides and activity pages.
It could mean setting parents up with apps that coordinate with your curriculum. It could also mean providing simple conversation starters or prayer prompts.
However you approach it, the end goal is the same: to make it easy for parents to talk with their kids about God and His Word and to apply what it says to our lives.
This ultimately connects the whole family in a deeper relationship with Jesus.
2. Not limited by a location
If COVID-19 has showed us anything, it’s that ministry isn’t bound to a facility.
Nearly overnight many of us were forced to find new ways to connect with preschoolers, kids, and their families since we could no longer meet face to face in our regular rooms in our regular facilities.
As we adapted to these ministry implications, we realized (or maybe we were just reminded) that ministry can happen both wherever and whenever it’s needed.
We adopted a CFA, (no, not Chick-fil-A), but a “church from anywhere,” approach to ministry.
This flexibility is a key trait of an unshakable kids ministry. We must seek to be versatile enough to meet kids and their families where they are, going to them when appropriate, and always being with them in their journey.
Maybe you have a regular Sunday schedule in a classroom on your campus or some form of virtual meetings through a video platform, providing resource/activity bags to be used at home.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges with this CFA approach to ministry is finding ways to adapt classroom curriculum activities to be used in a social-distancing, virtual, or family context.
As of today, maybe your ministry now includes all of these strategies or a combination of them. Each of these examples and many more flow from a posture of not being locked into one location or way of doing ministry.
Be encouraged. Resist feeling constricted to the way things have always been. Be proactive. As you look ahead, consider new ways and places your ministry can take place.
As circumstances change, pray, find out where your kids and their families are, pray some more, and then create or modify your strategy to serve them that considers an unbounded ministry.
3. Volunteer honoring
In many cases, the stability of our ministry is directly related to the strength of our team. A volunteer team is strong when volunteers are equipped and encouraged.
As such, we’d be wise to invest significant effort and energy into an intentional strategy for equipping and encouraging our volunteers.
Equip volunteers
We should seek to provide thorough and complete resources and curriculum which align with our overall ministry strategy. Then we must train leaders to use resources to get the most out of them.
Help volunteers understand how to draw out key features of each resource and adapt resources to your specific ministry context/environment, when needed.
Equipped leaders are kept leaders. They’ll likely be more willing to continue to serve within your ministry because they’ll have the necessary tools and know you want them to succeed.
Also when you have a thoughtful plan for equipping volunteers, you’ll find that onboarding new volunteers is easier. Equipped leaders are a powerful asset to your ministry.
Encourage volunteers
The Bible commands us to encourage one another (Hebrews 3:13), but encouragement doesn’t often happen by accident. We must be intentionally, and even systematically strategic.
In our hearts, we know we value and appreciate those on our team, but does that appreciation move from our heart to our hands (and our speech)? Be an encourager. Build rhythms into your ministry calendar for celebrating volunteers.
But also make it a habit to regularly look for ways to individually say “thank you” to those on your team.
This can be a personal email or text message, a handwritten note or card, or a phone call. This effort must be sincere, and when it is, these somewhat simple acts will deepen relationships.
As relationships deepen, your team is strengthened. An encouraged team member will feel valued which is vital to an unshakeable ministry.
When volunteers are equipped and encouraged, they’ll be released to embrace their own calling within the ministry. Their service will be able to move from obligation to passion.
When team members are serving from their passion, they’ll “own” their ministry, become more committed and reliable, and will follow your leadership in both celebrations and challenges.
A challenge toward boldness
While we cannot control the circumstances, we can choose to respond in faith, not fear.
The truth is, we do need to re-evaluate our strategies in light of a changing, not-so-normal normal. We do need to question what we should continue to do and what we need to do differently.
But we need to be careful not to do so out of timidity. Let’s take care not to throw out the things that make our ministries strong.
We need to consciously purpose to build our ministries on unshakable ideas that will help them remain strong no matter what circumstance comes.
CHUCK PETERS (@_chuckpeters) is director of operations for Lifeway Kids. He is a graduate of Columbia Bible College. A creative person by nature, Chuck’s unique combination of leadership experience in media production, business, and ministry has caused him to become an unexpected fan of leadership, strategy, data, and analysis in ministry. He lives outside Nashville with his wife and four kids.