Building a Leadership Team with Volunteers

Tomorrow is the beginning of a 2 day retreat for my Children's Ministry Leadership Team.  It's the first retreat I've done since being at First Pres and I am super excited! Before I post the details of our retreat, I thought I would give you all some details about our Leadership Team here at First Pres!   My Leadership Team at "FP" is made up of 8 amazing women (1 staff and 7 volunteer) who go above and beyond on a weekly basis in our Children's Ministry.

 Makeup:

• 4 of the ladies on the team also serve in our Awana Ministry
• 2 of them serve in our Sunday School Ministry
• 4 of them help facilitate our Check in Stations on Sundays/ Wednesdays
• all of them help me plan special events, serve in Vacation Bible School, and sub where needed in other ministries. 
• 7 of them have children in our ministry
• 1 of them is a grandmother of children in our ministry
• The one who is a paid staff member is our Nursery Coordinator, who serves 15 hours a week scheduling childcare and supervising our Nursery on Sunday mornings and Wed. nights. She is also the director of our weekday preschool program, where she serves 30-40 hours a week, so she is a very busy lady and invaluable to me! 

Purpose:
      The purpose of this leadership team is to support the Children's Ministry Director (me) with prayer & leadership, provide practical help for ministry projects, and provide vision for the long range range direction of the "Great Adventure" Children's Ministry at FP.   Because we don't have a large staff of PAID personnel at FP, this team of volunteers makes up for that by going above and beyond in so many ways.  They are passionate about Children's Ministry and see themselves as called to serve in these rolls, just like a staff member would.

What we do:
      We normally meet once a month for long range planning, and preparing for upcoming special events, but there is rarely enough time to really dig deep into the areas that we really need to talk about.  Our normal monthly meetings are held on Wednesdays (once a month) from 11:30 - 1:00.  Everyone brings their own lunch (most of them are coming directly from a Bible Study at our church, so they're already on campus).  But because they're all super busy moms and wives, they need to scoot out, pick kids up from school, etc. and we never really finish our meetings!

     About every 3 months we have an evening meeting at my house or someone elses' house, in order to give us a longer time to work, give us a more casual atmosphere for fellowship and team building (and food!)  This also allows those on our team who work during the daytime to attend.  It's a challenge to find meeting times that work for everyone, so we try to make sure we have our meetings on our calendar 3-5 months in advance. During times of the year like VBS, we have VBS planning meetings INSTEAD of Leadership Team Meetings.  We also don't meet during the month of December.

     Our agendas consist of

• Reviewing and evaluating events that just occurred
• Looking at upcoming events and making sure all the "t"s are crossed and "i"s are dotted...
• Praying about any problem areas in our ministry
• Dividing up tasks and responsibilities for upcoming projects. 
• Keeping the vision of our church in front of us and working hard at moving forward in the direction of reaching children for Jesus and turning them into lifelong Christ followers.
• Brainstorming potential volunteers for our ministry (I don't know as many people as we all know combined, and I cannot RECRUIT as many people as are needed to fill an Awana, Sunday School, VBS, Nursery, Camp, and Children's Choir ministry, so it takes ALL of us working together to recruit, train and build up our team!) 

     If you already have a huge staff of paid staff members in your Children's Ministry Department, how can you apply some of these ideas?  I would encourage you to form a "Parent Partner" team... a group of parents who can provide wisdom, prayer, and encouragement for you and your paid staff. Perhaps they can become the prayer partners for your volunteers.  It's so important to keep the needs of parents and families forefront as you are planning and developing ministry programs.

    If you do NOT have a paid staff, or have a very small paid staff (like me), your leadership team is VITAL. First, write down WHY you want to have a leadership team (it will be hard to ask people to join you if you don't know what you are asking them to do).
Second: pray and ask the Lord to show you who you should talk to.  (Start with 2 or 3 key leaders who will agree to meet with you for coffee or lunch, one at a time,  and ask them if they would pray about joining you.)
Finally, give these people a few week to pray about this decision.  It's not something to be taken lightly.  It's a big commitment, and Lord willing, they will be with you for years to come, and help you build your ministry, and see FRUIT.

I would also add that it's ok for people to step down... don't ever make people feel guilty if they need to step aside.  Life changes, kids grow up, and new ministries emerge.  Those people who have stepped down from the Leadership Team are still wonderful friends, wonderful volunteers in some of our ministries, and they provide wisdom and perspective for me quite often.  By leaving those doors open, I know I have deepened my prayer support, and those folks are the advocates that all of us need in the area of Children's Ministry!

I am anxious to share the details of our Children's Ministry RETREAT in my next blog post. Stay tuned!   

Celebrating Staff Differences

Staff Retreat in Malibu

If you are a Children's Director, Children's Pastor, or Children's Minister, you obviously work on a staff of other ministers besides yourself.  You might work with a Senior Pastor, a Music Minister, a Youth Pastor, and a variety of others.  You might serve on a staff of 5, 10, 20, or 50.  You might be part time, full time, or volunteer. And your Children's Ministry might be large enough to have other staff in your Children's Ministry department, such as an Early Childhood director, Nursery Director, Children's Worship Leader, etc.  But the point today is that there is a mix of personalities, gifts, leadership styles, experiences, core strengths, and a number of other variables.  It would take a very big excel spreadsheet to figure it all out!  I've been blessed to work beside many other pastors and staff members with many strengths, but also a great deal of personalities to figure out.

It is so important for staff members to KNOW each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to be able to serve together most effectively.  I would recommend your staff taking some time together to go through the "Strength Finder" tests, and study the book Living Your Strenghts together (which utilizes the Clifton StrengthsFinder) by Albert L. Winseman, Donald O. Clifton, and Curt Liesveld.  We've spent approximately 9 months at First Pres discussing, dialoguing, and embracing our strengths, and getting to know how to work alongside those we are in ministry with, while understanding that THEIR strengths are different than MY strengths!  (And vise-versa.) "What a concept, right?"

Another extremely helpful book for the children's pastor is Lead the Way God Made You by Larry Shallenberger. I have been through many ups and downs in my various ministry positions, and when I am at my best for the Kingdom, it's when I am freed up to "lead the way God made me."  That means, I have other people around me to pick up the areas where I am not as strong.  I love details. I love planning, I love communicating.  I love helping others catch the vision of where we're going and helping them climb aboard! I don't really love painting scenery, shopping for snacks, or, I really hate to admit this, cleaning up and putting things away after VBS!  (This would not come as a suprise to you if you saw my resource room right now.)

In a perfect world, I could have all the gifts and all the strengths needed to be the perfect Children's Director.... but this side of heaven, that probably won't happen. So in the meantime, it's VITAL that I find, train, and surround myself with others that are strong where I am not as strong!   By discovering how I'm wired, and how I lead, I can ask God to give me those on my team that fill in those gaps (we usually surround ourselves with people who are LIKE us, but that's not the secret to building a strong ministry.)  Remember your calling... "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."  Ephesians 4:12-13

Rob Biagi Fall Kick Off

This past weekend at First Pres we had our "Fall Kick Off"  .... which consisted of a Tri Tip BBQ Battle, a Pie Bake Off, our Coffee Bar being open, Ministry tables throughout the campus for people to talk to ministry leaders, Dennis Agajanian doing his thing in an outdoor concert set up, and then the big event...  Rob Biagi concert in our Activity Center for Kids and Families.  If you aren't familiar with Rob and his music, I encourage you to check out his website and take a listen!  www.thatrobguy.com  Rob and I have known each other for about 10 years.  We had a mutual friend who introduced us when he used to lead Children's worship at Mariner's Church in Orange County.  Since that time, he has done family concert events for me about 4 times. He is able to come  with a full band or just his tracks and background singers/ dancers.  This time he brought his wife Kathleen, and 2 daughters, Julie and Natalie.

Electronic Sign in front of our church

Normally for our Fall Kick Off we usually do a "fair" type of atmosphere on a Sunday afternoon with a BBQ and bounce houses/ water slides etc so parents can see our fall schedule, sign their children up for Awana or Choir, or Upward Basketball, or whatever else we're doing.  This year we decided to do our Kick Off on Saturday evening, to invite the community, have GREAT FOOD, and GREAT MUSIC, and lots of fun, and then invite  people to come back on Sunday morning to see us in our "regular clothes" and experience what First Pres is like on a normal, fun, Christ filled Sunday.  I invited Rob Biagi to come and be our guest and do a kids/ family concert.  He had never been to First Pres before and had only been to Bakersfield one other time about 6 years ago, so our people had not heard of him.

Since I have learned that First Pres does not take to brand new ideas quickly (they are not what you would call "early adapters") I knew I had to do an A+ job in the area of promotion and publicity. Here are some of the things we did throughout the summer to build up enthusiasm so kids and families would get excited about Rob coming:

1. We bought a dozen of Rob's CD's to give away as prizes throughout the summer and gave these away at several of our summer events.
2. We used Rob's songs, motions, and DVD clips in Sunday School during the summer to teach the kids his songs so that when he came this past week his music would already be familiar to them.
3.  We had Rob record a YouTube message just for our church to play in a morning service so they could see him/ hear him/ get a 1 minute taste of what a Rob Biagi concert would be like.Rob's YouTube message for First Pres Bakersfield
4.  We gave free tickets to 15 other churches in Bakersfield (to their children's pastors) so they could pump it up at their churches and bring kids to the concert if they wanted to.
5. We gave free tickets to our local Christian radio station so they could give away tickets on the air.  Obviously when they were giving away the tickets, other people would hear about the concert too and want to come!
6.  We made a Facebook Event so our people could invite their friends and help spread the word.
7. We posted in our local newspaper, radio stations, and those free "parenting" magazines in their calendar sections.
8.  We sold tickets at a super low price IN ADVANCE ($10.00 for a FOUR PACK) to encourage people to buy enough to give away to neighbors and friends.

Rob and his family rockin out at First Pres!

 We had a great turn out, especially considering most of the people in our church had never heard of this amazing, energetic, gifted Kids artist!  Now that they've seen him live, and experienced one of his concerts, I KNOW that next time we have him come we will have double the number of people we had this time!  Thanks again Rob!  You Rock!  "On We Go!"

Music, Ministry, and Kids... How do they fit together?

I am a huge music fan, (I was a music major before switching to Christian Education) and even considered going into the field of "Music Therapy" while I was still in High School.  I started playing the piano in 3rd grade, and the guitar in 7th Grade.  I began singing in high school, and sang in several wonderful choirs throughout college.  Then when I entered ministry I discovered something called "Children's Choir."  I was hooked!  To combine KIDS, MUSIC, and JESUS!?  Brilliant!   Teaching kids to sing, allowing them the opportunity to use their gifts and talents to bless and encourage the body, teaching them theology and Scripture memory through songs... again... genius!  Equipping others in the body to serve in Children's Choir or a children's worship ministry?  For some people, the thought of "teaching Sunday School" is scary, but they will "help" in music ministry.  I have seen moms and dads build props & sets, paint scenery, measure kids for costumes, sew angel robes, work backstage with microphones,even just come and collect money at the door ..... and I have been hugely blessed at seeing ministry happen because a team of people came together to make something happen that they couldn't have done on their own.  And have you even watched kids perform on stage in church?  Some are shy, others are wiggly, and in others you can see their confidence GROW right before your very eyes.  My own daughter had her first on stage "lines" in children's choir in about 3rd grade, and now she is a theater/ acting major at a wonderful Christian university.

APU Gospel Choir

I'll never forget the grandma that was bringing her grandaughter to choir, and because it was easier to stay and help than go home and come back, she volunteered to listen to the children recite their memory verses in the hallway (I always used to choose a Scripture passage for the kids to memorize that went along with the songs we were going to be singing.)  This older grandma received such a blessing from that "small" ministry... she expressed to me continually how she was the lucky one to be serving in that role.  When I think of her, I am reminded to never "apologize" for asking people to serve in ministry, and that no matter what the role, everyone who serves will be BLESSED.  The phrase "It is better to give than to receive" is not just a catchy saying... it's God's truth, it's God's plan, and it's true! (Acts 20:35)

Many churches don't do "Children's Choir" any more... which I understand.  We are often pulling families apart instead of pushing them toward each other by planning too many activities for kids.  It's hard to squeeze in Sunday School, Awana, Upward, Small Groups, Children's Choir, and any type of committee meetings or planning meetings into ONE FAMILY's busy schedule in one week... but some churches try to do that!  Some churches have opted to have a Children's Worship team learn songs, and choreography to the Sunday morning kids' worship songs and have them help lead in Children's Church or whatever your big celebration environment is called.  No matter what you do or how you do it... music is such an important part of Kids ministry.  There are so many gifted, energetic children's worship leaders out there.. so that even if you yourself are not a musician, if you have a CD player, a DVD player, or a projection system and a computer, you can have rockin great music for your kids on a Sunday morning!  Not only will you be helping your kids learn Scripture, theology, and develop their gifts for the Lord, but you're also giving them the tools and the value system of WORSHIP!  Of lifting up the name of Jesus corporately in praise!  What a great gift!
Check out:
Jana Alayra
Mary Rice Hopkins
Go Fish
Rob Biagi
Uncle Charlie
Yancy

Use their music!  Invite them to come to your church!  Recruit others to learn their music if you are not a musical person!   In my next post, we'll talk about our Rob Biagi concert, what went well, what I would do differently, how we did publicity, etc.

Bye for Now!
Carol

What is Home?

There are so many great Children's Ministry BLOGS out there, many that I read regularly, and gain insight and ideas from, that the thought of the world needing another blog is kind of silly... but this past year has given me much to think about, reflect upon, and many reasons to grow and stretch, so here goes... my attempt at journaling and reflecting on life as a single mom in Children's Ministry.

I moved away from Southern California about 14 months ago... and even though I am only 2 hours north of where I used to live, it sometimes feels like 2 days away. Bakersfield is very different than Lakewood, Long Beach, Norwalk, Cerritos or any other place I've ever lived. Not to mention how different it is from Atlanta where I spent 12 years. I've never lived anywhere this HOT. (If I hear the words "But it's a dry heat!" one more time..... ) I've never lived anywhere "alone" before, meaning that I came here as a single person without my kids and except for the 3 months my daughter was here with me this past summer, I am on my own. Several people have asked me within the past 6 months "Does it feel like home yet?" That took me back to a conversation I had with my pastor at my 3 month review. I remember very clearly asking him, "When does it start to feel like home?" He chuckled a little bit and said, "Longer than 3 months!" :)


HOME:

** a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.
**the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.

So now, as I approach the 1 year + 3 month mark, I have been reflecting on what makes a place feel like home, especially for those in ministry.

1. If you ONLY go to your office and church functions every day and then go home by yourself and repeat that pattern 5 days a week, then it won't feel like home... it will feel like a hamster on a wheel.
2. If you ONLY hang out with people from the place you are serving/ working, even if it's outside of the work environment it has a strange "twilight zone" sort of feeling.... like you just took work somewhere else but it's still work.
3. If you don't get to know any of your neighbors, the community people, etc. it won't feel like home.
4. I'm also leaning toward the belief that if you don't have ANY family nearby, and are somewhere totally on your own, even if you love the people, have made great friends, and enjoy what you're doing, it still might not feel like home.

I love my little house in Bakersfield. I love to decorate, rearrange things, and figure out where to put things. I love dreaming of the next thing I will purchase, make, or find to make it exactly how I want it to be. I also love the fact that because I live by myself right now, my house stays CLEAN! If I go to bed at night with a clean kitchen and an empty sink, lo and behold, the kitchen is still clean when I wake up in the morning! There is very little laundry (compared to former days), no oneb is asking me what's for dinner, and I don't feel guilty that I haven't gone to the grocery store for several weeks because there is still ham, tuna, or toaster waffles in the house. (and coffee). But outside of liking my house, is it really home? It's not the place my kids grew up. It's not the place full of memories of past holidays. It's not the place that people gather for laughter, movie and popcorn nights, lingering dinner parties at the dining room table, or even, someday in the future.... where grandchildren come to spend the night with Grammy.

For now, it's a place of refuge after a long stressful day in the office, or a day spent in ministry where I gave 120% and have nothing left to give.

My advice?
** Sign up for something, like a Bible study at another church, an exercise class, a ceramics class, a college course, or SOMETHING that is completely separated from your job or ministry.
** Force yourself to leave work at a normal hour and do something for yourself besides taking work home with you. (a hobby, a dinner date or a movie with a friend.)
** Schedule these things ahead of time, because if you don't, they won't happen and you'll be stuck on that hamster wheel of home/work/home/work/home and won't have any joy!
**Stop focusing on yourself and focus on the needs around you. Volunteer in an area that is NOT Children's Ministry related! (I could write pages on that, so I think I'll save that for another post.)
**Enter into life with a small group and be vulnerable. Don't talk about work or ministry. Share about YOU! Let people inside of YOU! You are a PERSON that God created with passion, likes, dislikes, humor, quirks, etc. You are a human BEING, not a human DOING. Don't just use your small group, or your group of friends outside of your ministry as a time to recruit volunteers for your ministry! If you do that too often, people will run when they see you coming! That's not really the goal here.

I haven't really decided whether or not Bakersfield feels like "home" yet, but that's ok. It's still a great place, full of wonderful people, and God is at work here. This is where He wants me, this is where He is using me, and this is where He is growing me to be the person He wants me to be.

Bye for now!
Carol