Welcome and thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m thrilled to have Marty Sawyers with us today. Marty is the executive pastor at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Arizona.

Cornerstone Christian Fellowship is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It has a lot of activities for the family with a very practical, biblical message. As the Executive Pastor, Marty oversees all staff and is part of the executive team which oversees every part of the church.

Communication breakdowns are a fairly common challenge in all types of interpersonal relationships, including ministry, and can be linked back to causing most problems. Marty is talking with us today about how Cornerstone has tackled the challenge of improving the communication culture among its staff.

* Find the problems. // The first evidence that the communication culture needed work among the staff at Cornerstone was a general sense that something wasn’t right. Marty says they did the Best Christian Workplace Survey, which is a standard 55 questions regarding the workplace, plus Cornerstone could add a few extra questions specific to them. The survey revealed some consistent themes that needed to be addressed. The biggest issue was that the staff just wasn’t talking with each other very well, both up and down, top to bottom, and side to side.

* Examine the problem. // Not everyone may realize there is a communication issue, but if some people on the staff are saying it, it should be looked at closely. Approach it ready to listen and admit, “We have a problem, so let’s talk about it.” At Cornerstone, everyone was sent off in their divisions and asked a series of questions. The executive team wanted to know what people thought it would look like to have a healthy culture of communication from top down, between ministries, and on their own team. They also asked about some specific examples of the existing issues. After compiling the data and looking for trends, they developed a couple of focus groups among the staff.

* Include everyone in the solution. // It can be difficult to get honest because no one wants to put themselves out there. As a result, no one on the executive team led the focus groups. An outside HR consultant was brought in, which provided a feeling of security and comfort. Staff were able to open up and share things they might not have said to Marty or other staff members. Marty knew as people felt safer being honest, it would contribute to a better communication culture – one where the staff understood the executive team really wanted to listen to them. As Cornerstone began implementing strategies to address the existing issues, Marty emphasized how important it is that the staff be a part of the solution. Everyone needed to own the steps the church as a whole was taking to improve the culture.

* Communication reminders. // Very practically speaking, when a decision or change is made, Cornerstone now makes sure everyone who needs to hear about it does. Sometimes it’s just a matter of casting vision and helping people understand why a decision was made rather than just sharing what the decision was. The staff wants to get on board with these decisions and be a part of supporting them. Remind your staff leaders to communicate with their team. Explain that while a decision may be more impactful to a specific department, it does affect the entire church. That constant conversation and sharing with your team keeps spreading the vision and will help people feel included.

You can learn more about Cornerstone Christian Fellowship at www.cornerstoneonline.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show,

We are just heading into the largest giving period of the year for charities across the country. In fact, 30% of all charitable giving will be done during the month of December. [ref] Many nonprofits have been working, for months, on the plans for these last 31 days of the year.  Their strategies and tactics have become almost stereotypical; you can see the marketing machines turn up the pressure to encourage people fund their causes:

The “gift” catalogue where you can purchase a goat and somehow send it to a kid in a developing country.

Social media barrages of heart warming stories delivered with an elegant ask to fund the mission.

Multiple direct mail pieces landing at the perfect time to encourage you to help with a special project that launchs soon.

We’ve talked in other places about the importance of designing and executing a year end giving campaign. Over the years we’ve been attempting to help churches add it to their funding flywheel, in order to increase the generosity of their people and we’ve seen a 10-15% increase in giving in several churches. Here are a few examples of resources, which are designed to help your church raise additional resources in the last 45 days of the year:

8 Phases of Effective Christmas Giving Campaigns

6 Important Reasons to Work on Your Church’s Christmas Generosity Campaign in the Summer

60-page Digital Magazine on Generosity

If you haven’t planned a full year end giving campaign – you’re probably too late. But there is one tactic you need to plan now.

Effective year end giving campaigns needs to be thoughtfully planned out and elegantly executed. If you don’t have one planned out at this point and you attempt to rush it you would be risking doing damage to your donor relationships. But don’t worry there is one tactic you could still pull together and see it encourage more generosity as we approach the end of the year.

10% of all charitable donations will be given during the last 48 hours of the year. That’s $625 million an hour for the last two days of December. A total of $30,000,000,000 in such a  short period of time. [ref]

Send an email to all of your people during the last 48 hours of the year, asking them to invest in the mission of your church.

That’s the tactic. Sending an email to your church community, in the last two days of the year, will encourage your people to give to the good things that are happening at your church. It also reminds people, when they are thinking about their last-minute giving, of the amazing ministry your church has performed and inspires them to be included in the plans.

3 Reasons People Wait Until the Last 48 Hours of The Year to Give

Taxes // Clearly, people wait until this time of year because they are reminded of the fact that gifts given at this time of year can be written down against their income tax.

Businesses // Related to taxes, many business owners need to wait until the end of the year to observe how their businesses performed financially so they can plan their giving in such a manner that it minimizes personal and corporate taxes.

Procrastination // People can sometimes be lazy.

We are just heading into the largest giving period of the year for charities across the country. In fact, 30% of all charitable giving will be done during the month of December. [ref] Many nonprofits have been working, for months, on the plans for these last 31 days of the year. Their strategies and tactics have become almost stereotypical; you can see the marketing machines turn up the pressure to encourage people fund their causes:

The “gift” catalogue where you can purchase a goat and somehow send it to a kid in a developing country.

Social media barrages of heart warming stories delivered with an elegant ask to fund the mission.

Multiple direct mail pieces landing at the perfect time to encourage you to help with a special project that launchs soon.

We’ve talked in other places about the importance of designing and executing a year end giving campaign. Over the years we’ve been attempting to help churches add it to their funding flywheel, in order to increase the generosity of their people and we’ve seen a 10-15% increase in giving in several churches. Here are a few examples of resources, which are designed to help your church raise additional resources in the last 45 days of the year:

8 Phases of Effective Christmas Giving Campaigns

6 Important Reasons to Work on Your Church’s Christmas Generosity Campaign in the Summer

60-page Digital Magazine on Generosity

If you haven’t planned a full year end giving campaign – you’re probably too late. But there is one tactic you need to plan now.

Effective year end giving campaigns needs to be thoughtfully planned out and elegantly executed. If you don’t have one planned out at this point and you attempt to rush it you would be risking doing damage to your donor relationships. But don’t worry there is one tactic you could still pull together and see it encourage more generosity as we approach the end of the year.

10% of all charitable donations will be given during the last 48 hours of the year. That’s $625 million an hour for the last two days of December. A total of $30,000,000,000 in such a short period of time. [ref]

Send an email to all of your people during the last 48 hours of the year, asking them to invest in the mission of your church.

That’s the tactic. Sending an email to your church community, in the last two days of the year, will encourage your people to give to the good things that are happening at your church. It also reminds people, when they are thinking about their last-minute giving, of the amazing ministry your church has performed and inspires them to be included in the plans.

3 Reasons People Wait Until the Last 48 Hours of The Year to Give

Taxes // Clearly, people wait until this time of year because they are reminded of the fact that gifts given at this time of year can be written down against their income tax.

Businesses // Related to taxes, many business owners need to wait until the end of the year to observe how their businesses performed financially so they can plan their giving in such a manner that it minimizes personal and corporate taxes.

Procrastination // People can sometimes be lazy.

Welcome back for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m happy have Darin Yates, the executive pastor from Crossroads Community Church in Cincinnati.

Crossroads Community Church is 22 years old, starting with a group of 11 people and eventually growing to the 10 locations it has today. Being one of the fastest growing churches in the country brings a number of challenges, and Darin is here today to talk with us about developing next generation leaders to keep up with the church’s growth.

* Prepare for the complexity and responsibility. // One of the things contributing to Crossroads being the fastest growing church in the country was a merger with another church. This immediately added three additional locations to the ones Crossroads already had. During this process, their consultant told them they would be crossing some thresholds that would make the process even more challenging. Very few multisite churches have more than eight campuses, and it becomes extremely complex when you hit this point. With growth there’s always a lot of responsibility that comes with it.

* Focus on leadership development. // The biggest issue with explosive growth is always leadership development. As Darin explains, “We have way more opportunities than leaders who are ready for those opportunities.” At Crossroads they are constantly on the lookout for people who can handle responsibility, whether they are paid staff, unpaid staff, or volunteers. Staff is taught to give away their jobs and hand over real responsibilities to unpaid staff and volunteers. This never leaves people without a job, because there is always more work that comes up! Getting people involved in the church in this way helps Crossroads find their next level of leaders, and then the church can do more. Develop people to handle responsibility that they didn’t think they could, and help them stretch and grow beyond their current capabilities.

* Share your learnings with younger leaders. // Darin sees younger staff among the church who are making the same mistakes he made when he was young. He believes it is selfish of him not to convey his mistakes and successes to the younger staff to help them learn and grow. So he asked his staff to tell him the top leaders they have under the age of 35. From that list he picked 16 of them and started meeting with this group once a week to share stories. This includes talking about past failures and successes, and answering and asking questions. They meet about an hour a week and Darin asks them what is going on in their life that will be helpful in leading the church. Before a team can really get to a high performing status, you need to know why are you there, who you are, who is your team, what is your purpose, who is doing what, what is your accountability. Use any system you want to look for efficiencies and weaknesses to develop more productivity.

* Allow the group to grow or change. //Darin stresses to his group that this is for them, so they can stop anytime they want. Recently, all of these people now have grown to have their own groups that they work with, which brings new questions from them in developing their own leaders. Use the question time for really connecting with your group. Listen to what concerns your group has and what challenges they are facing, and develop their leadership and capacity for responsibility within that context.

You can learn more about Crossroads Community Church at www.crossroads.net.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to 

Welcome back for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m happy have Darin Yates, the executive pastor from Crossroads Community Church in Cincinnati.

Crossroads Community Church is 22 years old, starting with a group of 11 people and eventually growing to the 10 locations it has today. Being one of the fastest growing churches in the country brings a number of challenges, and Darin is here today to talk with us about developing next generation leaders to keep up with the church’s growth.

* Prepare for the complexity and responsibility. // One of the things contributing to Crossroads being the fastest growing church in the country was a merger with another church. This immediately added three additional locations to the ones Crossroads already had. During this process, their consultant told them they would be crossing some thresholds that would make the process even more challenging. Very few multisite churches have more than eight campuses, and it becomes extremely complex when you hit this point. With growth there’s always a lot of responsibility that comes with it.

* Focus on leadership development. // The biggest issue with explosive growth is always leadership development. As Darin explains, “We have way more opportunities than leaders who are ready for those opportunities.” At Crossroads they are constantly on the lookout for people who can handle responsibility, whether they are paid staff, unpaid staff, or volunteers. Staff is taught to give away their jobs and hand over real responsibilities to unpaid staff and volunteers. This never leaves people without a job, because there is always more work that comes up! Getting people involved in the church in this way helps Crossroads find their next level of leaders, and then the church can do more. Develop people to handle responsibility that they didn’t think they could, and help them stretch and grow beyond their current capabilities.

* Share your learnings with younger leaders. // Darin sees younger staff among the church who are making the same mistakes he made when he was young. He believes it is selfish of him not to convey his mistakes and successes to the younger staff to help them learn and grow. So he asked his staff to tell him the top leaders they have under the age of 35. From that list he picked 16 of them and started meeting with this group once a week to share stories. This includes talking about past failures and successes, and answering and asking questions. They meet about an hour a week and Darin asks them what is going on in their life that will be helpful in leading the church. Before a team can really get to a high performing status, you need to know why are you there, who you are, who is your team, what is your purpose, who is doing what, what is your accountability. Use any system you want to look for efficiencies and weaknesses to develop more productivity.

* Allow the group to grow or change. //Darin stresses to his group that this is for them, so they can stop anytime they want. Recently, all of these people now have grown to have their own groups that they work with, which brings new questions from them in developing their own leaders. Use the question time for really connecting with your group. Listen to what concerns your group has and what challenges they are facing, and develop their leadership and capacity for responsibility within that context.

You can learn more about Crossroads Community Church at www.crossroads.net.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to 

Why isn’t your church growing? So many church leaders are wrestling with that question. They are looking at the dynamics of what’s happening in their church and trying to sort out where the “problem” is.

Is it that your church doesn’t have enough first-time guests coming through the front door? Or is it that people are falling through the cracks and not sticking & staying at your church? Diagnosing the issue doesn’t need to be complex and convoluted. This is an answerable question!

As I’ve worked with churches across the country pondering over these issues (and more importantly trying to find a solution to it), I’ve bumped into these sure signs that are evident in churches that aren’t seeing enough first-time guests arriving at their church. Is your church seeing these dynamics at play in your church?

You Don’t Have More Guests than the Average Attendance in a Year

Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn in their book What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church share this key insight: If the church is growing, you’ll need more guests each year than you have people in your total average attendance. In other words, a growing church of 500 will need more than 500 guests in a year.

Do you know how many “first-time” guests you have at your church? Getting a clear understanding of this aspect is the starting point in understanding if your church needs to “open the front door wider” and attract more guests. One proven way to do this is to offer your guests a gift in exchange for their contact information. (Here’s a post with a lot of ideas for gifts for your first-time guests.)

You need to track this information for at least 4 to 6 months before you can get a sense of where it’s landing. As you keep a closer eye on this over time, you will start to see where the trend is landing. Below is a quick reference table to help you see what your “new here” guests weekly average should be based on the size of your church:

If your church is averaging this size ….

… you should be averaging these many guests weekly.

100

2

200

4

500

10

800

15

1,000

20

Christmas Eve Attendance Doesn’t Double Your Average Attendance

This is a persistent trend that I’ve seen time and again in growing churches. Prevailing churches typically see at least twice as many people on “big days” such as Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday. If your church isn’t attracting those sorts of audiences, then you might be missing an opportunity to impact your community.

Big days are important to your outreach strategy because they represent a unique opportunity in that your people are more likely to invite their friends, and their friends are more likely to attend. There are just some weekends when people are more in the mindset to attend a church like yours and you need to leverage those opportunities to see people connected with your church.

I used to look down my nose at churches that went out of their way to do something “flashy” on these Sundays. I falsely thought that those churches were just trying to boost their numbers. I was so wrong! I missed out on the opportunity to see people get connected with the teachings of Jesus! Don’t miss this opportunity in your community!

“Messy People” Aren’t Showing Up in Your Pastoral Care

Churches that are making a dent in their community and seeing “unchurched” people come into their community will see an increase in the pastoral care demands. The fact is,

Why isn’t your church growing? So many church leaders are wrestling with that question. They are looking at the dynamics of what’s happening in their church and trying to sort out where the “problem” is.

Is it that your church doesn’t have enough first-time guests coming through the front door? Or is it that people are falling through the cracks and not sticking & staying at your church? Diagnosing the issue doesn’t need to be complex and convoluted. This is an answerable question!

As I’ve worked with churches across the country pondering over these issues (and more importantly trying to find a solution to it), I’ve bumped into these sure signs that are evident in churches that aren’t seeing enough first-time guests arriving at their church. Is your church seeing these dynamics at play in your church?

You Don’t Have More Guests than the Average Attendance in a Year

Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn in their book What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church share this key insight: If the church is growing, you’ll need more guests each year than you have people in your total average attendance. In other words, a growing church of 500 will need more than 500 guests in a year.

Do you know how many “first-time” guests you have at your church? Getting a clear understanding of this aspect is the starting point in understanding if your church needs to “open the front door wider” and attract more guests. One proven way to do this is to offer your guests a gift in exchange for their contact information. (Here’s a post with a lot of ideas for gifts for your first-time guests.)

You need to track this information for at least 4 to 6 months before you can get a sense of where it’s landing. As you keep a closer eye on this over time, you will start to see where the trend is landing. Below is a quick reference table to help you see what your “new here” guests weekly average should be based on the size of your church:

If your church is averaging this size ….

… you should be averaging these many guests weekly.

100

2

200

4

500

10

800

15

1,000

20

Christmas Eve Attendance Doesn’t Double Your Average Attendance

This is a persistent trend that I’ve seen time and again in growing churches. Prevailing churches typically see at least twice as many people on “big days” such as Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday. If your church isn’t attracting those sorts of audiences, then you might be missing an opportunity to impact your community.

Big days are important to your outreach strategy because they represent a unique opportunity in that your people are more likely to invite their friends, and their friends are more likely to attend. There are just some weekends when people are more in the mindset to attend a church like yours and you need to leverage those opportunities to see people connected with your church.

I used to look down my nose at churches that went out of their way to do something “flashy” on these Sundays. I falsely thought that those churches were just trying to boost their numbers. I was so wrong! I missed out on the opportunity to see people get connected with the teachings of Jesus! Don’t miss this opportunity in your community!

“Messy People” Aren’t Showing Up in Your Pastoral Care

Churches that are making a dent in their community and seeing “unchurched” people come into their community will see an increase in the pastoral care demands. The fact is,

Hey everybody, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Clay Scroggins from North Point Community Church.

North Point’s vision is to create a church that unchurched people love, and they filter everything they do through this lens. They want to create the kind of environment and atmosphere which unchurched people would find enjoyable and drawn to, even if they don’t believe or agree with everything they hear. North Point has several campuses, as well as strategic partners around the world, and Clay leads the original campus in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Clay leads in the shadow of senior leader Andy Stanley, and this first hand experience of leading and influencing when you’re not in charge drew him to write his book, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority. Clay is with us today to talk about leading from no matter what seat you’re in and how to develop influence when you don’t have authority.

* Lead from where you are. // Everyone can relate on some level to wanting to lead, but maybe not having the authority or title in order to make final decisions. But titles aren’t everything. Some leaders have a lot of title and authority, but we don’t consider them great leaders because they lack influence. Then there are great leaders who don’t have a big title, but they have a lot of influence. Don’t believe the myth that you have to wait till you’re in a position of authority to really lead. We can lead from whatever seat we’re in. The key is cultivating influence.

* Have the right posture. // You may have great ideas to lead your church into the future, but knowing how to approach the people above you with the power to make these things happen can be daunting. Clay’s first bit of advice is to have a posture of humility and curiosity. You can’t come across as, “I know I’m right, everyone else is wrong.” Other people in your organization know things that you don’t know and see things that you don’t see. Everyone has different experiences and knowledge, and so it’s vital to recognize that and be open to everyone’s input as you present your ideas.

* Be prepared. // So how do you present an idea to the leadership above you? You can’t be an amateur. Become an expert on the subject matter you’re presenting. Do your research and be as educated as you can about your idea and how to move forward. Prepare a professional presentation. As Clay notes, “When you go into a meeting, the best idea doesn’t usually win the meeting. The most baked idea usually wins the meeting. Any idea that’s spent a little time in the oven, it usually wins.” Thinking through all aspects of your idea and having the research to support it can help you find influence when you are presenting possible solutions.

You can find Clay’s book How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority at Amazon and other book retailers. You can reach Clay through his website www.clayscroggins.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of the...

Hey everybody, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Clay Scroggins from North Point Community Church.

North Point’s vision is to create a church that unchurched people love, and they filter everything they do through this lens. They want to create the kind of environment and atmosphere which unchurched people would find enjoyable and drawn to, even if they don’t believe or agree with everything they hear. North Point has several campuses, as well as strategic partners around the world, and Clay leads the original campus in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Clay leads in the shadow of senior leader Andy Stanley, and this first hand experience of leading and influencing when you’re not in charge drew him to write his book, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority. Clay is with us today to talk about leading from no matter what seat you’re in and how to develop influence when you don’t have authority.

* Lead from where you are. // Everyone can relate on some level to wanting to lead, but maybe not having the authority or title in order to make final decisions. But titles aren’t everything. Some leaders have a lot of title and authority, but we don’t consider them great leaders because they lack influence. Then there are great leaders who don’t have a big title, but they have a lot of influence. Don’t believe the myth that you have to wait till you’re in a position of authority to really lead. We can lead from whatever seat we’re in. The key is cultivating influence.

* Have the right posture. // You may have great ideas to lead your church into the future, but knowing how to approach the people above you with the power to make these things happen can be daunting. Clay’s first bit of advice is to have a posture of humility and curiosity. You can’t come across as, “I know I’m right, everyone else is wrong.” Other people in your organization know things that you don’t know and see things that you don’t see. Everyone has different experiences and knowledge, and so it’s vital to recognize that and be open to everyone’s input as you present your ideas.

* Be prepared. // So how do you present an idea to the leadership above you? You can’t be an amateur. Become an expert on the subject matter you’re presenting. Do your research and be as educated as you can about your idea and how to move forward. Prepare a professional presentation. As Clay notes, “When you go into a meeting, the best idea doesn’t usually win the meeting. The most baked idea usually wins the meeting. Any idea that’s spent a little time in the oven, it usually wins.” Thinking through all aspects of your idea and having the research to support it can help you find influence when you are presenting possible solutions.

You can find Clay’s book How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority at Amazon and other book retailers. You can reach Clay through his website www.clayscroggins.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them per...

Churches that grow beyond 1,000 in attendance are today among a radical minority. In fact, 98% of all churches never reach this size. During my interaction with hundreds of churches that have been able to overcome this barrier, I have realized that they present several striking common characteristics. Correspondingly, effective and growing Kids’ Ministry is one of the things evident across the board in churches that have smashed the 1,000 barrier. These churches have invested both finances and leadership to lead their Kids’ Ministry to a healthy place where it constitutes an essential thriving aspect of the church’s ministry.

Kids’ Ministry is vitally important to build the strength of your church if you want to break the 1,000 barrier in the weekend service attendance. This might seem as a surprise to a leader who doesn’t spend much time directly engaged in Kid’s Ministry, so here I’ve pulled together a few reasons to stress upon its significance:

Kids’ Ministry Requires A LOT of Volunteers – A Very Good Thing!

Churches that break the 1,000 barrier have unlocked the super-secret that getting more people plugged into the church service drives the growth in attendance. People who are committed enough to the church to volunteer are thus bought into the Ministry vision and are willing to invest their most prized possession – time. Prevailing churches are looking for more ways to get the congregation plugged into the service and similarly a thriving Kids’ Ministry requires lots (and lots) of volunteers to make it happen.

Three things result in the process when someone decides to volunteer within your Kid’s Ministry:

Understand the Vision // Serving in the Kids’ Ministry in your church is a totally selfless act, which requires a strong connection between the vision of the church and the individual’s personal action. Only churches with a high level of vision casting at work are normally able to convert volunteers into this area. A growing Kids’ Ministry volunteer team implies that the church is thriving at explaining the “big why” behind everything they do which in turns drives the growth of the church.

They Tell Their Friends // Once someone starts to volunteer in your Kids’ Ministry they are bound to tell their friends. They’ve gone beyond just merely attending the church to making a conscious and willing decision to invest time, effort and energy into the church. The accompanying sense of accomplishment and pride is high, which in turn drives these individuals to share the Kids’ Ministry idea with their friends. We know that the church grows when people tell their friends about it and this gives another excuse for the people of your church to talk and share with their friends.

Kids’ Ministry Improves! // There is a positive upward spiral effect of adding more volunteers to your Kid’s Ministry. As more people start to initiate, get involved and serve – the ministry starts to improve and become even better, which in turn encourages more people to serve. This marked improvement drives more and deeper engagement with this aspect of your ministry, with increasing number of people joining the team.

I’ve seen lots of churches where the Kids’ Ministry department is somewhere around 50% of the total volunteer team. Growing your Kids’ Ministry team persuades people to see your church because it will help you engage a higher number of people in the mission of the church.

Kids’ Ministry is All About The Next Generation

Effective Kids’ Ministries are all about impacting the next generation. This sort of “next generation” thinking gets inherently woven into the fabric of the church as each generation turns to draw in the next. In the end, this drives innovation at the largest scale of the church. The focus being: “How we are going to reach those people who aren’t here yet?” Churches that break the 1,