We hope you will join us for Rooted 2025 in Chicago, October 23-25. We offer a variety of workshops for youth pastors and parents, and this year, we are excited to offer “The Art of Building A Beautiful Children’s Ministry Team” taught by Melanie Beasley.
As a preview of Beasley’s workshop, we’ve asked her to write an article that can help equip Children’s Ministers in building their teams. We hope her words bless you in your ministry, and we look forward to seeing you in Chicago!
The crunch of popcorn crackles beneath your shoes. You weave through the bustling crowd and slip inside the red-and-white striped big top. The air is thick with the sweet scent of cotton candy, the murmur of voices, and the promise of wonder. Acrobats, clowns, and jugglers wait in the wings, ready to fill the night with joy and laughter. You find your seat, the chatter fading as the tent lights dim.
Suddenly, a single spotlight cuts through the darkness—not toward the center ring, but toward you. “Me?!,” you gasp. The audience turns. Your heart sinks into your stomach. You’ve been plucked from the crowd to step in as the ringmaster of the “Greatest Show on Earth.” As you rise and walk toward the blazing circle of light, your throat tightens. You mutter under your breath, “More like the Greatest Nightmare on Earth.”
Not So Hypothetical
We all know someone or have been someone who has served in a Sunday morning kids’ classroom without being trained or equipped. Like an untrained ringmaster, the mix of wonder and fright is all around. You walk into a space you have never been to before with no tricks up your sleeves, small fires burning all around you, and the weight of an elephant on your chest.
Over there, a kid is getting shot out of a cannon while a couple others are swinging from a chandelier. The ill-fitting costume you were issued doesn’t seem to cover the embarrassment of it all. And you wonder to yourself, why am I even here? I am not equipped to do this job.
As children’s ministry leaders, we don’t want this for our volunteers. It is imperative that we train and equip them. We first begin that work at “our first coffee;” called “our first coffee” because it must not be our last. If we want our children to be discipled through the vehicle of relational ministry, our serving teammates must be recipients of that same relational ministry. At “our first coffee,” we are able to establish a relationship. One that allows for curiosity, openness, feedback, and clarity. Not one that is transactional, as though we are agreeing to a business deal.
At “our first coffee,” we share our ministry objectives and what it looks like to deliver the goods – meet our goals. And in order to deliver the goods, we must give them the goods: scope and sequences, a ministry calendar, classroom schedules, emergency response plans, process and protocols, maps, and more. And lastly, a “what if none of this works out” plan, complete with a way of getting in touch with someone on our ministry staff if all else fails.
Human Resources
The real work of equipping our ministry serving partners doesn’t include ten steps to getting it all right or tips on managing a child’s behavior. It involves our humanity. Being in an ongoing relationship with our volunteers is key to making sure they feel ongoing support as they navigate what it looks like to grow in their knowledge and understanding of discipling young children. After all, serving in children’s ministry is about more than children’s ministry. It is about learning how to be an active member of the body of Christ.
So when a ministry serving partner is falling rapidly from a trapeze, be there so they can call upon you in distress. Whether you offer a word of encouragement, a solution, or lend them a listening ear, you are reminding them they are not alone. No teammate can best flourish as merely a part. They need a greater team. When we do the work of offering ourselves to one another in distress, we’re not just functioning as a net to catch them, but more like a trampoline to spring them back up into the privilege of serving the Lord and his church.
The Gospel For Us
As the church, we must do the work of discipling our children together, from our senior saints down to our youngest teenagers. It takes all ages and stages, ethnicities and cultures, abilities and gifts. We are the body of Christ. And we need one another to do the work God is calling us to do.
God is our Father. He is our hope. He is our perfector of faith. In Him, we are freed from our sin. He works in and through us to nurture the faith he and he alone gives to our children. May the volunteers we have the joy of serving alongside receive from us the grace, mercy, and care God generously extends. May we all remember that the Lord is always doing exceedingly more than all we ask or think (Eph. 3:20)
