6 Children's Ministry Essentials

A Quick-Access Guide

Dick Gruber

• Publisher: Gospel Publishing House
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781607314769
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This collection of articles is written by some of the finest practitioners in children's ministry today. Each has a proven track record of providing training, help, and encouragement to those who serve children around the world. You'll find their insights understandable, valuable, and applicable. The contributors come from large and small churches. They hail from urban centers and rural settings. All have cut their teeth in the trenches of children's ministry. Each provides unique viewpoints, teaching, and inspiration for the children's leader of any sized community or church. Each of the six chapters contains a wide variety of articles that relate to a singular topic of discussion:

• Nursery and Preschool
• Gender-Specific Children's Ministry
• Spirit-Empowered Children's Ministry
• Outreach and Evangelism
• Kids and Grief
• Volunteers

Here you'll discover a wealth of ministry-tested ideas. Some will be familiar; others will challenge you to take a step of faith. This isn't an all-inclusive book for the children's minister; it's a primer for the one who has served only a few months and a reminder for those who have served many years.

CHAPTER 1

nursery and preschool

IN 2005, I joined with a team to plant a church in my community in Pennsylvania. In an effort to insure that our nursery was established with high standards, I visited several local church plants. Each was meeting in a school, as we would be, and each had developed their version of a portable nursery. I observed friendly people in every case and in two out of three, poor security, badly used furnishings, and garage sale toys. I would not have trusted those nurseries with my grandchildren.

Kathy and Don were new parents. They attended our church just a little bit longer than their four-month old newborn had been on planet earth. They toured our nursery to insure that it would be a pleasant, safe environment for their precious firstborn daughter. After experiencing our nursery, one of them shared, “We love the nursery. It’s so clean and the people are so friendly that we will definitely trust them with our daughter.”

Parents like this place a trust in the church nursery and its workers. Before they can relax in church and enjoy a baby-free Sunday morning, they must be assured that the nursery staff will care for their child in a safe, clean, and positive environment.

My friend Sandy Askew used to tell me that evangelism in a child’s life begins in the nursery. The nursery and then preschool are places where a child first develops a love for God’s Word and feelings about family, the church, and the gospel. This is where loving workers begin to reinforce a growing pre-evangelism vocabulary. Then, when children are old enough, they have the tools to make that first commitment to Christ.

I remember a dad named Jason in one church. He served in the three-year-old classroom. Jason sat on the floor and played guitar while children danced and sang all around him. One dad volunteered to work in the class because of what he saw when Jason ministered to those precious children.

Our nurseries and preschool rooms need teams of loving, joyful, well-trained servants. The men and women in these rooms must be the best and brightest. First impressions made in these crucial years will determine the future and eternity for these children. Just as much care, prayer, and planning is necessary to oversee these areas as the children’s church and clubs. —D. G.

Three Tips for Effective Nursery Ministry

MARK ENTZMINGER

When it comes to nursery ministry, most church leaders focus on creating a safe environment where parents feel comfortable leaving their children during church. However, the importance of the nursery ministry goes well beyond creating a safe environment. In fact, I believe it’s the best place to establish a foundation for spiritual growth for kids.

There’s no denying that the first three years of a child’s life are the most critical time period for personal development. Between conception and age three, a child’s brain undergoes an impressive amount of change. At birth, it already has almost all of the neurons it will ever have. It doubles in size in the first year, and by age three it has reached 80 percent of its adult volume.¹

Here are three things you can do to maximize your opportunity to establish a foundation for spiritual growth in your nursery ministry.

1. Be intentional with visual stimulation: The remarkable visual abilities of newborn babies highlight how rapid prenatal brain development occurs. Newborns can recognize human faces, which they prefer over other objects, and can even discriminate between happy and sad expressions.

How can you be more intentional with visual stimulation in your nursery? Remind nursery volunteers to smile and make eye contact with babies and toddlers throughout the time they are in your care. Look for ways to incorporate visual activities in your lessons with toddlers.

2. Incorporate audio learning: There’s not a lot of audio interaction with babies in most nursery environments. However, intentionally communicating with babies could be one of the most valuable things your volunteers do each Sunday.

Babies experience a lot of sensations, especially hearing. According to one study, during their first year of life babies can already respond to language preferences including the difference between the language spoken by the parent and a foreign language, the voice of the mother and a stranger, and words of significance and insignificance.²

What does this mean for your nursery ministry? Be sure to incorporate audio learning with the babies in your care. Tell Bible stories. Pray blessings over the child. Sing worship songs or play worship music.

3. Create consistency: The nursery is often the area of ministry with the least consistency when it comes to volunteers and the Sunday morning experience. While you might not be able to change your approach to nursery ministry overnight, there are some things you can do to create a consistent environment for kids. Be consistent in the songs you sing and stories you tell. Adequately train volunteers about the importance of stimulating babies and toddlers with God-filled interactions. This will increase the likelihood that these behaviors and emotional responses will be imprinted on their minds. What can you do today? Ensure every worker understands the importance of their role.

http://kids.healthychurch.com/healthy-ministry/three-tips-for-effective-nursery-ministry

Does Your Church Maintain a Welcoming, Fun, and Safe Nursery?

CINDY GRANTHAM

A nursery can be a raucous place! The crash of toys, little babbling voices, and even crying are heard at various times—even all at the same time. How can you and your nursery staff instill confidence in your church families and visitors so they feel comfortable and confident in leaving their precious little ones in your care? Paying attention to the following areas will leave nothing but the most positive impression.

1. Make your nursery attractive: Decor that is visually engaging and geared specifically for babies and toddlers lends professionalism to a nursery space. Make sure there are no safety issues such as open electrical outlets or cords hanging from blinds. Use bright but tasteful colors on walls, floors, furnishings, and equipment. Add fun toys and your nursery will make children feel welcome and will engage parents in your ministry.

2. Keep it clean: Pay detailed attention to safe sanitation procedures for the room’s surfaces and the toys. Ensure that the space is always clean and smells fresh. No one wants to leave their little one in a room that reeks with foul odors or harsh chemical smells.

3. Staff it well: Schedule adequate staff who are well trained. Every children’s minister should be aware of the state guidelines that determine your adult-to-child ratios in a childcare setting. Additionally, the staff should be properly trained on check-in procedures, parent contact guidelines, and basic first aid. Don’t forget to coach your staff how to greet parents and children. Consider that the nursery workers could be the first church members a visitor will meet. Remind the nursery staff to be friendly, confident, and to ask questions. Parents will feel more at ease when they interact with nursery volunteers who take time to be thorough and learn about the needs of each child.

4. Create a safe check-in system: A check-in system that garners confidence is a must. Many larger churches have elaborate electronic arrangements, but few smaller churches can afford a high-tech system. If that is the case in your church, you must still have a process in place that makes parents and nursery volunteers feel comfortable and protected. This should include name tags for the child and their possessions, information cards with a parent’s contact details, and a list of allergies and other vital data. Make sure your volunteers are able to contact parents during the service if needed. Lastly, don’t forget to have a safe system in place to match parents and children for pick up.

5. Pray over it: The most important thing children’s pastors can do for their weekly ministries is to pray. So many times we get bogged down in the business of preparing and doing that we neglect our divine appointment. The impact of surrounding your volunteers, church families, and visitors in prayer will impact both the concrete and spiritual worlds.

These are a few of the essential points for creating a nursery that puts parents at ease and offers a safe and fun environment for children. The week-to-week implementation is not difficult once the nursery staff is comfortable with the weekly procedures. Any amount of time spent creating a plan and training the workers will reap multiple benefits in the long run when parents and visitors sense the care, love, and prayer you have put into your nursery plan.

http://kids.healthychurch.com/healthy-ministry/your-nursery-impression

The Church Nursery Is the Foundation for Discipleship

MARK ENTZMINGER

When I talk with ministry leaders about the idea of cradle-to-grave discipleship, many assume I’m highlighting the importance of kids ministry in general. But is it possible that your church’s nursery is the most important place for spiritual growth?

Unfortunately, many churches see the nursery as a glorified babysitting service. Because we don’t see the tangible results of our efforts like we do in ministry to older kids, we can quickly start to believe the myth that the nursery doesn’t matter as long as babies are changed and happy when their caregiver arrives to pick them up.

Granted, newborns sleep most of the day, they can’t use language, and their motor skills aren’t honed. But this doesn’t mean they aren’t learning and growing. Could it be that the first few months and years of a baby’s life are the most significant for planting and watering the seeds of faith in that little heart?

Jeremiah 1:5 reminds us that God knew Jeremiah before he was born. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” We forget that a newborn baby already has nine months of life experience prior to birth. But Scripture isn’t the only place that talks about the importance of your nursery. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find thousands of articles that discuss how important the first three years of a child’s life are for spiritual development.

Could it be that we have underestimated the spiritual impact of nursery ministry?

How can you establish a foundation for spiritual growth in your nursery? Here are three keys to help you.

1. Don’t ignore the baby when you greet the parents each week. Because babies won’t smile right away or tell you what’s going on in their lives, it’s easy for volunteers to focus their attention on the parent or caregiver who leaves the baby at the nursery. However, interacting with the baby or toddler right away is important.

Whenever babies and toddlers are being dropped off, encourage your volunteers to make eye contact, greet the baby or toddler by name, and utilize appropriate physical touch.

2. Remember to engage with audio and visual elements. Babies’ minds are growing at the fastest rate they’ll ever experience. Their ears, eyes, movement, and touch are all taking in signals that are being imprinted on their brains.

Author T. Berry Brazelton explains that reading to children, responding to their smiles with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them—all of these further a child’s brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months.³ Rather than sitting in a comfortable chair and holding a baby and talking with other workers, encourage your nursery staff to read stories or sing songs to the baby. Use the name of the baby and make eye contact with the baby. Talk about the wonderful way God has made him or her.

3. Teach the importance of your nursery. There are hundreds of resources when it comes to maximizing the first three years of a child’s life. This is a critical time of development in the life of a baby or toddler. Your children’s leaders and nursery workers should all take time to learn and understand the minds of children. Develop a resource that teaches nursery volunteers about the valuable role they play and train them to proactively interact with babies in a way that will enhance spiritual growth.

http://kids.healthychurch.com/healthy-kids/how-important-is-the-church-nursery

Children’s Ministry Is Not Childcare … or Is It?

SPENCER CLICK

One of the great mantras of children’s ministry is that we aren’t childcare. But I think we need to reconsider that idea because part of our job in ministry is childcare.

Creating a safe and secure environment for the children in our churches is a vital element of this ministry—we need to treat the safety of the children entrusted to us with the same level of seriousness as local preschools, day care centers, and Chuck-E-Cheese! (These are all non-ministry locations that take child security seriously!) When we think in terms of childcare, safety, and security, we don’t belittle the ministry—we enhance it!

Frame it th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Nursery and Preschool
• Chapter 2: Gender-Specific Children’s Ministry
• Chapter 3: Spirit-Empowered Children’s Ministry
• Chapter 4: Outreach and Evangelism
• Chapter 5: Kids and Grief
• Chapter 6: Volunteers
• Notes
• List of Contributors