How to Help Your Church Staff Catch Your Kidmin Vision

I hate 3D glasses.

Not dislike. Not “don’t care for them too much.” Not “could take them or leave them.”

No, I HATE 3D glasses.

Wanna know why?

If your answer is “No” then I probably lost you at “I hate 3D glasses” and you have probably already stopped reading.

If your answer to that questions is “Yes” or even a mildly interested, “Sure, I’ll give you a couple of more lines to explain yourself before I skip to the stuff in bold, unsubscribe to your blog, or go to WordsWithFriendsCheat.com to try to salvage my latest game,” then I thank you.

The reason is pretty simple: My eyelashes are too long. Whenever I put on a pair of 3D glasses my eyelashes bat against them like those giant, old raggedy towels at the Chevron car wash. You probably can’t tell to look at me but I have the eyelashes of L’Oreal supermodel. They look like this, but whenever I wear glasses they feel like this.

It’s a perfect storm when you think about it: Long Eyelashes + 3D Glasses That Need To Be Close + Guy Who Gets Easily Annoyed = Movie Going Disaster.

All of these three components need to work together in harmony, much like the Umpa Lompas in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, to get the best results. And in order to build a More-Than-Babysitting Kidmin Image with the other staffers at your church you need to do the same thing too.

Here are the 3 elements every Children’s Ministry needs to have so everyone on staff can catch the vision for what they really are:

1. Display stories of life-change
God is working in your Kids’ Ministry. I don’t need to know much about you to know that. But does the rest of your church staff know? When was the last time you emailed to let them know about a kid who accepted Christ on the weekend? When was the last time you shared in staff meeting how God brought a family back from the brink? When was the last time you put together a video montage kids getting baptized in the last year (this one is harder to do but powerful)? If you staff’s not hearing it from you, they’re not going to hear it from everyone. Give them some stories about your Children’s Ministry that are worth spreading.

2. Do for them what you wish they would do for you
A lot of Kidmins do #1 OK. It’s this one that most tend to struggle with. Think about the things you wish other staffers would do for you. Maybe it’s cleaning up after themselves. Or offering to help out at VBS. Or maybe it’s helping you to figure something out on the computer that’s got you stumped. Whatever it is you wish they’d do for you, do that for them. When you know someone is going to use your space after you, make it look better than you found it. If you know of a big event that a fellow staffer is trying to put together, offer to help. If you see someone struggling with something on the computer that you know how to do, take time to help them do it. Paul said it this way:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” – Galatians 6:9-10 (NIV)

3. Dish out thanks for what they do do (some pun intended)
We’re good at asking for help, but we’re not so good at thanking people for it (and we wonder why they don’t offer more). Even if it’s something small, go out of your way to give a genuine thank you to them. The more someone goes out of their way to help you, the more you should go out of your way to thank them both publicly and privately. Gratitude increases the chances that they’ll have a positive attitude about helping you out again in the future.

3D glasses are not cool. Never have been. Never will be. But taking these 3Ds into your church may be one of the most powerful things you every do for your Children’s Ministry.

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