15 Tips for Equipping Your KidMin Team

Children’s ministry training doesn’t always need to be an event. Discover 15 ways to sneak in training when volunteers and teachers least expect it.

In kidmin, we always have so much to do with so little time. Let’s talk about the ever-present need to train volunteers. When can you fit that in? The world tells our team members that a packed calendar is a sign of success. So when will they attend training? Besides, training events sound optional. Must volunteers really attend those every time?

When can you train? On Saturday? No, that’s soccer-baseball-water-ski-family day. Okay, how about Sunday? Pleeease! They’re jammed! Could you schedule it during the week? Wait! Weeknights are full too.

Sound familiar? Time-crunched families and volunteers are the norm today. So maybe children’s ministry training doesn’t always need a set time, place, or agenda. Instead, you can sneak in training when volunteers least expect it.

These 15 children’s ministry training ideas can refocus your time, energize your team, and mobilize teachers and volunteers to remain faithful to their calling!

15 Training Tactics for Children’s Ministry

1. E-Team

First, realize you don’t have time to meet personally with each volunteer. So create an “E-Team” to be in charge of encouraging and equipping others. Meet with your E-Team to develop a quarterly game plan so everyone on your team receives encouragement. Use these criteria to select E-Team members: creative, supportive, sensitive to people in need, and detail-oriented.

2. Coffee Break

Does someone struggle more than most with the lesson? Meet with that person one on one at a coffee shop. Share several ideas for a successful Sunday school class time. Help the volunteer work through four to six weeks of totally awesome lessons. Then follow up each week to ask how a specific lesson went.

3. Success Stories

Use play-by-play videos or digital photos each Sunday to show great things that are happening in classrooms. You can play the video as children arrive or post photos in hallways. Volunteers will not only learn from one another but will be encouraged to see they share similar challenges with others.

4. Party Time

Throw a planning party for Sunday school teachers to celebrate individual successes and the things people are doing right. It’s the ultimate volunteer training because they’ll learn from each other.

5. Snack Time

Bring in leaders from other churches on Sunday morning to mingle with your team during a continental breakfast or coffee break. Your guests can ask your volunteers questions to help you assess who’s struggling (because sometimes they won’t tell you) and what’s working (because sometimes we get home-blind and don’t see all the good things).

6. Conferences

Send teachers to a conference, and make sure they drive together. Their discussions before and after the event are sometimes even richer than the conference itself. It’s especially helpful for conference attendees to wrestle together with how they’ll apply what they learned.

7. Tag-Team Training

Match new recruits with experienced volunteers for one class. Then have the new recruits share what they’ve learned. This is a great way to get your veteran teachers—who may feel they can’t learn anymore—to learn how to transfer their years of knowledge relationally.