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!