Heart Transplant

It just really erks me when people call my KidMin a daycare or babysitting.

This just happened last weekend, thankfully I did not hear it but another teacher told me about this exchange. A parent was showing their friends who were first-time visitors where our Kids Ministry met. He introduced it by saying, “this is where the daycare is.”

Thankfully, I did not hear him, or I think actual steam might have escaped through my ears. I actually went home and cried a little.

I do so much more than baby sit a bunch of kids so that their parents can go and sit in the adult service.

I schedule and train our volunteers, I train up kids in ministry, I pray for every kid that enters into our building and I study and prepare messages.

So it made me think, I can continue with my pity party crying about how no one believes in my ministry like I do, or I can actually do something about it.

So, how do I transfer my heart for kids to the whole church?

I can think of several ways, in order of awesomeness:

1. Kids Take Over Service.

Now, I have found this to be the most effective. The most bang for your buck, so they say. Ask your pastor for a chance to take over the whole service. If you have a worship team in your KidMin, have them do the worship. If not, you could ask the worship team to learn one or two of the songs that you do in your KidMin. You would be surprized how many adults will enter in with kid’s songs. Puppets, Object Lesson, Drama skit, whatever you do in your KidMin, do it in the sanctuary with all the adults. The whole shebang! This is a great way to show your whole church the vision that you have for your KidMin.

As a plus, this is also a great way to get some more volunteers.

Now, the key to this is that it needs to be quality. So make sure you practice, practice, practice and when you feel like you’ve done enough, practice some more!

2. Kids song during the offering.

If your Pastor is not up for a whole service take over to ask if you could just do the offering song or a small 5-minute vision casting. This way you can still bring your ministry in front of the church without taking up a whole service. You could do an object lesson, have the kids sing a song, or just get up and talk about what you envision your KidMin to be.

This is a great way to just get up in front of the church. It is also a great way for people to see you. I know that I have a tendency to stay back in the Kid Min room on Sunday mornings. But it is vital that the church people can see you out of the Kids Church as well.

3. Family Service.

If the above ideas do not work. You could do a Family Service. Plan this on a Friday night, or another night where there is not a competing service. You could do a whole service, from beginning to end, showing the parents that you do so much more than just babysit.

4. Parent Open House.

Have one weekend where you host an open house at all your weekend services. So, have a normal service, as usual, but invite the parents to stay in KidMin. This is another great way to:

A) have parents see your ministry without adding another service for you.

B) Recruit more volunteers.

5. Coffee talks one-on-one

This could take a while to complete depending on the size of your church, but I love a good cup of coffee, so I am ok with it.

I think I might do this with the parent that made the comment about our KidMin being a daycare.

You can just sit down with them and tell them about your ministry. That it is so much more than just babysitting. This is also another great way to recruit volunteers!

Side note: It has never made sense to me to have a requirement for the parents to serve in KidMin. In my opinion, whatever it is worth, is that I want leaders in my KidMin who want to be there! I don’t just want a parent who is back there because they have to be. We could always use more volunteers, but I want them to want to be there.

When it really comes down to it focus on your ministry. Don’t allow how people think to impact what your attitude towards them. Do the best you can and trust God will change hearts needing to be changed.

Should what parents think about kids’ ministry affect what I do?

The short answer is no, it shouldn’t because I am doing what God called me to do.

The long answer?

It exposed pride I had in myself and the kids’ ministry. So, maybe the person who needs a heart transplant is me.

How do you do heart transplants at your church