How to Make a Kidmin Mission and Vision Statement

Habakkuk 2:2 Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.

If you haven’t made a vision or mission statement for your Kidmin, there’s no better time than now.

I’ll start with mine.

Revival Fire 4 Kids Mission Statement: Revival Fire 4 Kids equips children’s pastors and churches to lead children into revival and a radical relationship with Jesus Christ.

Revival Fire 4 Kids Vision Statement: Revival Fire 4 Kids seeks to minister to children, families, churches, and those who minister to children through consulting, teaching, holding children’s revivals, and providing resources. We do this in these four ways.

Revival Fire 4 Kids Children’s Ministry Consultant Services: We go to local churches for two weeks to mentor and coach them as they plan an effective ministry for children.

Children’s Ministry Workshops: We go to local churches and conferences to train children’s teachers and workers.

Fired Up Revivals and Kid’s Crusades: Fired Up Revivals and Kids Crusades are exciting, energetic Children’s Revivals to lead children into the presence of God where they will be fired up to be saved, sanctified, Spirit filled, and serving God.

Resources: Revival Fire 4 Kids seeks to provide resources and curriculum to help your ministry through our blog and our online store.

Definitions: Before you can make a vision statement and a mission statement, you need to understand what they are and how they are different.

Mission Statement: Purpose for existence. Why does your ministry exist? What are your core values? Vision statements may change, but a good mission statement shouldn’t.

Vision Statement: States what the ministry will be doing. How is the ministry going to carry out the mission in the future. This statement may change from time to time.

Practical Help: Books have been written to describe how to make mission and vision statements. I’m not going to go into all the information available out there, but if you need help with your vision and mission statements, here are some online resources:

50 Example of Church Mission Statements

30 Plus Examples of Church Vision Statements

How to Write a Church Mission, Vision, and Values Statement

Take Your Time: It may take you a while to come up with effective mission and vision statements. Once you’ve made your statements, it may take months of years before you’ve perfected them. You may want to do some reading about them before you complete your statement. Here are a few good books:

The Wilder Non-profit Field Guide to Writing Mission and Vision Statements

How to Create Memorable, Practical Mission, Value, Vision and Business Philosophy Statement for Non-profits

What Next: You could create the greatest mission and vision statements known to man, but if you don’t do anything with them, it’s a waste of time. Here’s the steps you should take after you have these statements.

Write them down on index cards. Then place them on your desk in a clearly visible area. That way, you’ll review the statements often.

Whenever you have an idea for your ministry, compare it with your mission statement. Does your idea reflect what your ministry exists for or is it just a good idea that won’t help your ministry fulfill its purpose.

Memorize your mission and vision statements. That shouldn’t be hard since you’re reviewing the index cards often.

Communicate your mission and vision with your ministry team. Mention it at the beginning of every meeting and correspondence. Encourage them to memorize it.

New Years Resolutions for Children’s Pastors

Here are some New Years Resolutions for Children’s Pastors to consider making.

1 I will make my relationship with God a greater priority than the ministry God has given me. I do this knowing I can’t introduce children to God when I don’t spend any time with Him.

2 I will be filled with joy this year knowing that the Joy of the Lord is my strength.

3 I will ask God to help me love children who irritate me and cause behavior problem with the same love He has for them.

4 I will first ask for a revelation from God before I deliver any lesson or message to my students.

5 I will pray and seek God’s guidance in what direction to go in my ministry instead of just jumping on board the latest fad I learned at a conference. I will seek God for a word and make sure I focus on that word throughout the year.

6 I will review policies and procedures to make sure students in my ministry are in a safe environment.

7 I will disciple my workers and develop a children’s ministry team instead of being a Lone Ranger in ministry.

8 I will provide opportunities for children to experience God by giving them opportunities to minister, emphasizing worship and discipleship, and providing altar ministry at the end of every message.

9 I will not teach children to be good. I will teach them to know God. There’s a difference.

10 I will evaluate every area of my ministry to see if it follows the other nine resolutions. This may mean we play less games or get rid of snack time. It might mean replacing a teacher who “doesn’t get it.” I might need different curriculum. I might need to nix some “sacred cow” programs. Whatever I need to do, I will make the difficult choices.

10 Things to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

At some point in every overworked children’s pastor’s life, he or she will become overwhelmed with a number of major issues and projects at one time. Summer is one of the busiest times on the children’s ministry calendar and can make a children’s pastor want to run away to some tropical island that doesn’t have children.

Help is on the way. Here are ten things to do when the pressure of an overloaded schedule bears down on you.

1. Make A To Do List: Write down everything you need to do no matter how small or large. Just having it written down in black and white will relieve some of the pressure because you don’t have to remember everything.

2. Pray Over The List: Before you start tackling your to do list, lay hands on it and pray for God’s wisdom and guidance. Prepare to be amazed at how much this will help.

3. Cross Off Unimportant Items: Look through the to do list. Cross off anything that doesn’t have to be done. You may want to color code your puppets and alphabetize your object lessons, but you don’t need to do that. Say no to the perfectionist within you. But don’t stop there. Any projects, events, or meetings that aren’t essential should also be crossed off or rescheduled for when you have more time.

4. Procrastinate: Write a new to do list of items that can wait until this crisis period is over. There are things that need to be done but can wait. During crunch time, only do what you have to do now. After making your procrastination list, file it. Then write on your calendar the date you’ll pull out the wait to do list.

5. Delegate: This is the time to rally the troops. Check every item that can be done by someone other than you. Then call in your family, friends, and children’s ministry team and be brutally honest. Tell them you’re in over your head and need their help during this short-lived busy season.

6. Prioritize: Look at the list you have left. Group like jobs together to make them easier. Then number the list in order of importance.

7. Limit Interruptions: Tell friends and co-workers you’ll be unavailable except during certain times. This will give you large chunks of time to get busy on the to do list.

8. Have Fun: After tackling some of the jobs, take a break and do something relaxing and fun. When you get back to work, you’ll be relaxed and better able to handle the stress.

9. Take Care of Yourself: Exercise and healthy eating help you keep down your stress levels which will help you work faster and be more productive.

10. Unwind: After the crisis period, take a little time to yourself to unwind before tackling the jobs you put off. It you don’t allow yourself downtime, you may find yourself burning out.

5 Reasons to Advance Plan for Sundays

To many children’s pastors are guilty of Saturday night marathons to prepare for their Sunday children’s church lessons. It’s easy to let the time slip away. After all, preparing for children’s church isn’t the only thing on a children’s pastor’s plate. Not to mention, many children’s pastors work second jobs and have families to take care of.

As hard as it might be, Saturday preparation for the following Sunday should consist of only two things: reviewing the material and getting your resources ready. You should spread your lesson preparation out throughout the week into bite size pieces. If Saturday really is the only time you have, try planning for two Sundays this week. Then you’ll be prepared a week in advance from this point forward.

Here are five reasons it is important to advance plan for Sundays:

Preparation: You can’t get the whole gist of what God has prepared for the students in one day.

A Word from the Lord: You need time to seek God so you can have a word from the Lord every time you minister.

Creative Ideas: You may have a creative idea at the last minute. Then you won’t have time to get everything together, and you’ll be frustrated you couldn’t use that awesome idea.

Emergencies: Emergencies do sometimes happen. Then you’ll be spending all night getting ready or you’ll resort to ministry on the fly.

Workers: You won’t be able to recruit other workers to be a part of what you are doing if they have to wait until Saturday night to get their assignments.

Planning for the New Year

Some children’s pastors and churches plan for their year in January. Others do it in September. Even if you’re a September planner, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate your plans in January. Here’s some tips for planning your year.

Pray. God knows what He wants to accomplish this year through you in your children’s ministry. The most effective ministers follow God’s plan.

Decide your emphasis. You can’t do everything well in one year even if you have elements of various things, so it’s a good idea to emphasis one thing a year. Here’s some themes you may want to choose from:

Evangelizing and Outreach: Plan events to reach out into the community. Have salvation messages in Children’s Church. After you’re sure your students are saved, teach the how to witness to their friends. Have special Fun Sundays to give your students opportunities and incentives to invite their friends to church.

Discipleship: This may be the year you decide to emphasis discipleship to your students. Teach them the importance of learning Biblical principles. Take time to teach children to pray, and have special prayer meetings for children. Also take time to equip you children to do ministry.

Benevolence: You may decide to focus on benevolence this year. Have your children collect food and coats for the poor. Do fundraisers to provide toys for children at Christmas. Take your students to nursing homes to minister. Or you may want to teach your students about missions and give the a missions project to work at.

Worship: Worship is an important part of the Christian life. What better way to start the year than to help students focus on worshipping God with their lives and learning to offer a sacrifice of praise.

Develop Your Team: An important part of an effective children’s ministry is teamwork. Many children’s pastors have a hard time finding workers. If this is true with you, you may want to spend this year developing a team. This link has some tips for recruitment.

Decide What to Teach. Once you’ve decided your theme for the year, decide what you’re going to teach the children. Much of it should be related to the theme. Plan which lessons to teach throughout the year.

Plan Events with a Purpose: Each event you plan during the year should have a purpose. Keep the theme for the year in mind as you plan events. Here’s a link to help.

Decide how to finance your ministry. Now that you have a plan, you need to decide how to finance your plan. Most churches have some kind of budget for children’s ministry. Talk to your pastor about it. If the budget isn’t sufficient, you may have to resort to fundraisers or have people in your church or local businesses sponsor your events.

Schedule your Calendar. Don’t just add the events to your calendar, add things you have to do leading up to events. Give yourself plenty of planning time in case there is an emergency. Here’s a post about planning systems.

Resolutions for Children’s Pastor – #5 Create a Policy Manual

A policy manual is something every church should have, but few follow through on this. Here are some good reasons to have a policy manual.

Worker Qualifications:

If you settle for any warm body to work in your children’s ministry, it will cause you more problems than lack of workers. Set the bar higher for those who will minister to the children in your church, and you’ll attract quality people. This goes against the grain, but it works. If you don’t believe me, try it for one year. Let the congregation know only those who meet the qualifications need apply. Mention that you’re doing this because you want only the best working with the children, and see what happens.

One qualification should be that only those who are fully devoted Christ followers can work in children’s ministry. No matter what, don’t compromise on this. Someone who is a carnal Christian or who plays games with Christianity is not someone you want your students looking up to as role models.

Other qualifications can include church membership, water baptism, devotional life, screening, and mandatory teacher training.

Health:

It’s so much easier to tell a parent whose bringing a child with a 103° fever into your class that you can’t accept the child if you have a written church policy in place. Parents can handle you saying you have to follow the church policy rather than you don’t want their child there.

Safety:

Safety policies need to be in place. These include teacher/student ratios for each age group. If a teacher has too many student to handle, with a policy in place, she can alert an usher who knows what to do.

Another good policy that is needed is what to do with restroom breaks. No child should wander around the church hallways unsupervised. For nursery, you’ll want policies for how to change a diaper. Rubber gloves and a bleach spray bottle should be standard for every church nursery.

One of the most important policies to have in place is how we release children to adults. It used to be we could just let the children go when church was out. That’s no longer the case. With so many divorces and estranged parent, not to mention predators, we need to be careful how we do this.

Parents:

Attracting parents is a great reason to have a policy manual. Parents want to know you’re taking care of their children properly. They’re more likely to attend a church they trust with their children.

Church Growth:

You may think you don’t need those policies in place because you’re a small church. It’s easier to put policies in place and get church members use to them while your small. Then you’ll be ready for church growth.

Child Abuse:

Every church needs a written child abuse policy. This isn’t just a good idea. It’s vital to protect your students, your workers, and your church. Here’s some things you’ll need to include.

Screening For Workers: Every worker in your church needs to be interviewed and asked hard questions. They also need to have a background check. Every worker – even Aunt Emma who has been at your church since she was a baby. There’s a reason for that. If your church is ever sued because a worker abuses a child, they’ll ask if all workers have been screened and had a background check. If they have, the suit probably won’t hold up in court.

Report Every Sign of Abuse: Stress this to your workers. It doesn’t matter if they think the child might be accusing someone to get attention or if they think they may be overreacting. That’s not the worker’s call. Child abuse agencies investigate every case and if there’s nothing to it, they don’t mind being put to the trouble. That’s what they’re there for.

Have a policy about how to report possible abuse. That means you either have the worker make the call and report to you what happened or you have the worker come to you and you make the call. Which ever you decide to do, make sure somebody calls the proper agency.

If you don’t know where to start, Revival Fire For Kids has a complete Children’s Ministry Policy Manual download is available to buy for a small price at this link.

7 Vital New Years Resolutions for Children’s Pastors

Most children’s pastors I know make resolutions to be more organized, the have more events, to be more productive, etc. But here’s some vital resolutions most children’s pastors neglect to make.

Spend time with God that has nothing to do with your ministry. Children’s pastors work hard to find a word from God every week for their ministry. But your ministry isn’t the only part of you God wants to deal with. Resolve to spend time with God this year just to be with Him.

Take time off. If you’re constantly working harder at children’s ministry and never taking time to relax, you will get burned out. Even Jesus took time away from ministry.

Get healthy. Exercise. Eat Right. Get plenty of sleep. Even small steps toward getting healthy will give you the energy you need to effectively do ministry.

Spend time with your family. Have date nights with your spouse that nobody can interrupt. Schedule family nights. Your family is your most important ministry.

Decide what events to cut. You don’t have to have children’s ministry events every month. Decide which ones are effective, and cancel the rest.

Take time to dream big. Don’t get in the rut of always doing Children’s Ministry the same way. Set aside time for you and your team to dream up new ways of doing ministry.

Mentor others to take your place. The most effective leaders are those who duplicate themselves. Train up leaders to do what you do so you can accomplish more.

Christmas Program Rehearsals and Cast Parties

One important aspect of planning an effective Children’s Ministry Christmas Program is having a good rehearsal schedule. A good rehearsal schedule won’t tire the kids and parents but will have enough practices to make sure the children are comfortable with their parts.

Weekly Practices: These practices are for every child in the program. They should start no later than the beginning of October. Some churches start practices in September. During most of the practices, the choir director should teach the songs everyone sings. If there are any lines that everyone shouts out, the drama director should teach these. The last four to six weekly practices should run through the entire program so the children have a feel for what to expect and when they sing each song. Depending on what’s best for your church, you could have these practices during Children’s Church, midweek class, after church or one evening a week. These practices should be an hour long.

Soloist Practices: Every child who sings a solo or duet should get together at least two or three times with someone who knows music (doesn’t have to be the choir director, but it can) to go over his or her solo. These practices don’t have to be long. They can be for fifteen minutes before or after church.

Drama Practices: These practices are for children who have speaking parts in the program. The children should have a deadline when they have their parts memorized. After they’ve memorized their parts, they should practice at least once a week. The practices should only last a half hour to an hour. If they’re any longer, the children will become bored.

Dress Rehearsal: There should be two dress rehearsals, one a week before the program, and one the day before. The rehearsal on the day before should be mandatory for everyone and should include scenery and props. It is important to have sound and light technicians at these practices.

Cast Party: The final countdown for the Christmas program has begun. How will you get the parents to bring the children to the final dress rehearsal? Have a party for the children after dress rehearsal. You could take them skating, sled riding, or Christmas Caroling. Have pizza or Christmas cookies and hot chocolate for snacks. Remind the parents and children that only those attending dress rehearsal can go to the party. Children are as stressed as children’s workers during rehearsals. A party will allow the children to let out some of that stress before the play. It will also give them the opportunity to bond with their Christian friends.

Written Schedule: Make sure each parent gets a copy of the schedule of practices in writing. You also might want to send home reminders or call the parents to remind them of special practices and dress rehearsals. Let each parent know what you expect from them. Also, if you have a date children need to learn their parts by, let the parents know this. Be flexible, but have guidelines in place for missed practices. The more you communicate with the parents, the easier it will be to get the children to practices.

Rehearsal Supplies: Each parent (not child) should receive supplies to help the child practice at home including a script, songs, CD or DVD with the play, and costume and prop requirements. The sooner the parent receives these supplies the better.

Organization is the key to an effective Children’s Ministry Christmas Program.

How to Make a Program Outline

Every children’s church needs a program outline to be effective. Making a program outline is easy if you know how, but it can drive you insane if you don’t. Here are the steps to making a program outline.

1. Use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word. Some people attempt to use data programs with tables such as Microsoft Excel, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It makes things more complicated.

2. At the top of the page, list date, name of lesson, and memory verse.

3. Divide your page into 5 columns. Create columns for Word 2007 or 2010 using the Page Layout tab. Here’s a link if you can’t figure it out.

4. Label the columns.

First column labeled media name. If you use a song or a power point slide for a game, list the name of the media here.
Second column labeled track #. If you use a presentation software such as Easy Worship, list the number on the list for your presentation. If you use a DVD or CD, list the track number.
Third column labeled resources. This will show what resources you are using. It could be EW for Easy Worship, puppets, object lesson supplies, etc.
Fourth column labeled comments. This is where you list what you will be doing. For example: games, object lesson, skit, etc.
Fifth column labeled worker. Since you will hand out a copy of the program outline to each worker, the worker will know when he is supposed to do what.

5. After you set up your columns, add things you would normally do in a service to make things easier when you fill out the program outline. You might list opening, welcome, games, verse, praise and worship, offering, etc.

6. At the bottom of the page, delete column and list special instructions and supplies needed. This will make things easier when you gather supplies for the day. You might also want to record attendance and offering here.

7. Finally on the back of each program outline, after each service, write notes about what went right and what went wrong. These notes will help you evaluate your service.

Below you will find a generic program outline I use. Feel free to download it and change it to fit your children’s ministry.

Blank Program Outline

How Checklists Can Save Your Sanity?

Merriman Webster Dictionary describe checklist as “a list of things that needs to be done”. We all have to do lists we’d like to forget, but what I’m talking about is the kind of checklist that will save your sanity.

Creating checklists for every area of your ministry is a time saver. No, it really is. Imagine if you have an event you do every year, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a to do list for it. Create a checklist for it, then pull it out every year to see what needs done.

But checklists can be used for more than yearly events. You can use checklists for anything that needs done in children’s ministry. Checklists can be created for what needs to be done to set up children’s church, tear down children’s church, what teacher positions you need filled, and agendas for meetings. The vast array of checklist possibilities are endless. You’ll never be overwhelmed with items you forgot to do again.

Checklists can help you find workers. When somebody is willing to help in children’s church, it makes it so much easier for them and for you if you can hand them a checklist of things you need done. Workers won’t be frustrated because they don’t know what you expect. They’ll have a list in hand.

Checklists will help if you’re ever in a situation where you can’t be there. Imagine you’re sick, or you have a sick child, or you were just in a traffic accident. These incidents could bring most children’s ministries to a halt. But if you have a notebook of checklists that need done or how to do certain needed tasks, ministry can continue. Your pastor or assistant can pass the checklists along to the necessary people.

Try these checklists for a few months, and you’ll be amazed how they can regain your sanity:

Setting up for children’s church
Tearing down children’s church
Supplies needed for children’s church
Program Outline for children’s church
Lessons for the next 6 months
Checklist for VBS
Checklist for Fun Sundays
Teacher Meeting Agenda Checklist
Checklist for Christmas Program
Checklist for Outreach Programs
Checklist for Teacher Training

Leave a comment with some of your ideas for checklists.