Every Children’s Pastor I’ve ever met wants to be amazing at what they do. But “being amazing” is vague. It’s hard to define what characterizes it even though we all recognize it when we see it. So what makes someone an amazing Children’s Pastor? Here are three signs all the amazing Children’s Pastors I’ve ever met have in common:
Direction
Amazing Children’s Pastors give good direction. They cast a compelling vision for where the ministry is going to their ministry staff, volunteers, church leadership, and families. They over-communicate what is happening in their areas of influence so everyone is on the same page. They also use different mediums in giving direction. Sometimes it’s in person or via a newsletter or social media. Other times it’s through YouTube and email. Regardless of the medium they make it their #1 priority to create a roadmap and make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing.
Preparation
Amazing Children’s Pastors know that just giving direction, as important as that is, is never enough. They also prepare their ministry with the right tools and systems to bring that direction to fruition. Whether that’s creating a handbook, orientation process, monthly training podcast, weekly newsletters, book clubs, or one-on-one coaching meetings with key leaders they do their part to help their teams and ministries be successful. And here’s the big key every Amazing Children’s Pastor knows: it’s not their job to do all the preparation, they just need to make sure it gets done. They spend the bulk of their time preparing leaders of leaders, with succession always on their mind.
Representation
Amazing Children’s Pastors represent. They represent the Children’s Ministry to parents. They represent the best interests of their ministries to church leadership. But they also represent families and the church leadership’s vision to their teams. They do great at communicating up, down, and side to side. They find out where their senior pastor is called to take the church and help the Children’s Ministry get on board. They make their teams and the church family cohesive in their approach to sharing the love of Jesus in their world.
What do you notice that Amazing Children’s Pastors do?
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Jeff McClung 