We had a BIG meeting with all our coaches and small group leaders this past Sunday. If I’m completely honest I have to admit that I was a bit nervous to communicate the necessary change we needed to make, and only could make it with their help. The purpose of our meeting was to cast vision and create momentum for our summer programming. In the past, we have worked crazy hard to recruit from areas outside our children’s ministry (college, singles, student ministry, etc.) to give some of our 
existing leaders a break during the summer months to recharge in hopes that they’d jump back in the game in the fall to serve another year! Well, the feedback we get from parents EVERY summer is our kids are reluctant to come in the summer. We always theme the summer BIG and pour a ton of creative energy into making it EXTRA fun! But, there is a missing link…OUR LEADERS! We do such a good job connecting kids into consistent relationships through small groups 10 months out of the year that when we throw it out the window in the summer our kids feel it. The bottom line is, our leaders, are our GREATEST resource. Without having completely unrealistic expectations and still wanting to give our leaders a little flexibility in the summer we came up with a solution. History tells us our numbers are down during the summer with school out and vacations, camps etc. So, we asked our leaders to pair up with another leader in their room and split the summer in order to cover the whole summer AND still creating familiar faces and consistency for our kids.
Most people don’t like change! When leading change, here’s what we like to think through:
1. How do we present the problem and help our team to FEEL the need for the change?
2. How do we cast vision for what COULD be?
3. How do we cast vision for and communicate a CLEAR new plan/solution?
We would love to know how your summer programming works. Do you run into these same issues? What does that look like for you and your team?
Post written by: Mandee
May 19th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
We have had summer teams of volunteers for 2 of the 3 years our church has been around. Last year was the first year we really changed up for summer by doing the Super Heroes series. This year we’re doing Live it Out from reThink.
Unfortunately we have not built a strong enough small group culture to have the issues you are facing. That is our #1 priority for our elementary environment in the fall. The biggest challenge we face is having 3 services very close together (9:00/10:15/11:30). That leads people to go to whatever service they feel like going to each Sunday.
This fall we will work hard to cast the vision for small groups and do our best to encourage parents to commit to one service. We also have to work hard to prepare our leaders for the move so we’re ready.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Nick, It really sound like you are aiming towards doing all of the right things. We struggled for a few years getting parents to commit to the same service. We had to really OVER communicate to parents. The other thing that we did is put their child in a “visitor” small group if they came at the wrong hour, since their small group leader wasn’t there and then we would call the parents during the week to explain the process. Took some time, but we’ve finally got most parents on board.
Are you guys moving into a new building?
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Hey Kendra,
I like the idea of calling parents during the week. We have not been able to implement the “on-deck” visitor group idea yet but hope to in the fall. Do you make calls all the time or did it finally get to a point where the system works without need calls?
We are in a lease that runs out in Feb 2011. We have been looking for other locations (buildings, lease, land) and have come up short so far. It will be good when we move, particularly for children’s ministry space because our % of cm space compared to adult space isn’t enough. We can fit more adults but couldn’t fit their kids past a certain point.
Thanks!
May 25th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Hi Nick,
We still call them if they attend the wrong hour because we feel like they might not have the information about attending one service hour. We have to make MANY fewer calls and it’s mostly to the occasionally new family who doesn’t know. It is still in our printed material and we say it every year at promotion time, but we don’t communicate about it nearly as much. Again, many fewer calls now than we used to have.
What a great opportunity to move into new space! I always love that phase of growth. It’s great news to hear that your children’s area is growing. In many ways churches grow through their Children’s Ministry Department. Praying you find the perfect space and that God opens many doors.