Has anyone solved the issue with inspiring our members to volunteer?  In 9 years as a disciple, I've seen it as an on-going challenge..

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I help with the children's ministry in our church.  In the past month - I have seen about 6 people come up to me and ask to be put back in the rotation.  Only thing that has changed is Our minister is really talking about the children and the NEXT GENERATION.  It is and will always be a work in progress.  However that being said.....If you look closely at your ministry I think you will NOTICE that service is a problem overall and the only reason we see it is KK does have a need to staff classes every week/service.  Please JOIN our KK group as we discuss ideas.

Thanks

Kathy

cool...I met Frank Williams a couple of weeks ago, (at least I think it was him) at Pre-teen Camp.  That's a cool letter he wrote, I might use it at our workshop in our upcoming rotation.

Yes....that was Frank....He enjoyed Camp and really came back with deeper convictions!

I think tha kfallonmackie stated it perfectly

"If you look closely at your ministry I think you will NOTICE that service is a problem overall and the only reason we see it is KK does have a need to staff classes every week/service"

As a 1 of the co leaders of our KIDS KINGDOM we changed the rotation to only 4 months. We also try to include the BT leaders in choosing out the volunteers for the next rotation as they are the ones that know their people the best.

We also include our kids kindergarten on up in service for the months of July and August ( August we normally have outside services the entire month)

South Sound Church Of Christ

YUP volunteers are becoming less lately.   I am in Bakersfield, CA and we have about 35+kids (if all of them show up).  I know one thing that I try to do is regularly encourage, encourage, and encourage not just with words, but small tokens of appreciation  to the teachers.  We are using the Team system here and is working out ok.  We have 3 teams and each team takes turn on Sundays.  SO on any given Sunday a team would serve 2 Sundays.  People were saying that 3,4,6 months was too long to be out of service.

I've had snacks in the morning for them, I've given them certificates of appreciation in service, not after they complete a rotation, but for anything, so the church can see their sacrifice they do for the kids.  Did you know that there is an Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Sunday (I think it is in October).  I had children share about KK and their teachers, we had a girl sing a special song, and I passed out a small very very inexpensive gift.  (a picture of all the kids--I took it to Walmart and they made it into a calendar and at the botton it said "the best teachers, teach with the Heart"

We have a hard job, because we are trying to help the kids love Jesus and learn about Him, as well as get the adults motivated and inspired to be there.    Good thing for this forum.  We will learn alot from eachother!!!! Take care everyone.

Hi Jorge-- I was your daughters counselor at Pre-Teen Camp..... it was great to meet her, at such a young age she really inspired me to know that our young kids here in Bakersfield can truly have a heart for God.  Tell her I said HIIIIII.

This has really been on my heart lately as I try to find a way to serve KK without being out of service for 4 months. I feel strongly about serving (my kids are grown but know how important it was to me when they were younger), but getting no fellowship before or after church for an extended period is very challenging. Our church doesn't meet all together on Wednesdays and has no cohesive singles ministry, so Sunday is our only chance to connect. 

What are some ways other ministries address this issue?  

I understant perfectly what you are speaking about. In our church, we usually have meetings on Wednesdays besides Sunday ones. BUT NOT DURING SUMMER! And that was just the time when I enlisted to KK))) My group left the meeting before I was free from KK. And our Bible Talks at that time were usually picnics without any teaching. Oh, what a problem time for my faith it was! But actually the situation encouraged me to look for the teaching myself. I started actively asking other disciples what the teaching was, asked them to write down the sermons for me, started visiting meetings of other regions.

When later I became a singles group leader, I paid more attention to those who were in KK, came to see them during the meeting interval, passed the teaching to them and so on.

I think, since you are the one who misses the church meetins and the teaching, it's your responsibility to seek for the way out, but you as well may remind your leaders that you need their help in that - more encouragment, extra teaching from them or smth. like that

I hope this time of service will only make you grow in your faith, not fall! Wish you all the best

We have two teams of teachers that serve alternate weeks (6 month terms).  That way they can still go to church every other week.

We also hold a pre-service worship for the teachers.  We start it 1 hour before church.  We sing a couple songs, have a 10-minute communion message, and then collect the tithe.  I usually lead it (my wife and I lead the KK ministry), but sometimes ask one of the male teachers to lead a song or share communion.  We try to make it last about 25 minutes so we have about 5 minutes for announcements or discussion of any KK issues.  Then the teachers have 15 minutes of prep time before the children are allowed to start getting checked in.  Unfortunately, we only get about half the teachers to come to this even though we've encouraged everyone to come else they don't get to take communion that week.

What our Region in the DFW Church does for KK is we have a Rotation Schedule that is basically mandatory for all parents to be in. The singles seem to be serving in so many other ways.

Not everyone in KK is in the Marrieds but since it is our kids that are in KK we should definitely be serving in this area. There is the occasional Teen, Campus, and Single but the vast majority are the Marrieds.

Our Rotation Schedule works out a lot better than it did before. I hated missing service for months at a time. Now I serve for a month - then am off for the next 2 months. So in a 6 month period I only have to miss the services 2 of the 6 months. Everyone seems to be a lot happier w/ this.

We have a rotation schedule going in Fresno, too, and it seems to be working out very well.  I serve in the 3rd/4th grade class with my husband one month, other couples serve the next two months, and then we serve again after that.  I was concerned with there being a lack of consistency but as long as those 3 teams stick with the same class, the kids get to know those teachers and appear to be happy.  The kids are encouraged by the differences in teaching styles, getting to know other teachers, and are happy their teachers are happy (my son's in this class and gives good feedback). 

We have about 60 adult members in our congregation and about 45 kids.  The kids stay in service with us until after communion (with the exception of the babies - 2 year olds class; they take communion after service).  We take about a 10 minute fellowship break where teachers and kids go to class. 

It used to be a challenge to get volunteers for children's ministry but it really isn't anymore.  You never feel like you've been out of church, although you miss out on the sermon (which gets recorded and can be heard later).  We've been doing it this way for several years now and it appears to be working just fine.  We've had to modify what gets used from the KK curriculum because there just isn't the same amount of time (about 30 minutes during the sermon).  So we usually focus on the Bible lesson and scripture memory, and make it a fun time.

Since we're all in one big room, we start out together with our own mini-service.  They sing songs, share good news, collect contribution, and then break to their own tables for about 20 minutes.  Our kids recently finished raising over $500.00 to donate to www.heifer.org  to donate a cow to a 3rd world country.  They were very excited about that. Now they're collecting to donate to a particular orphanage in Mexico.

Anyways, I think we just have to find what works for our particular ministries.  I know we believe that the children's ministry is the most important one in the church.  And thankfully our minister is in full agreement and was the one who implemented this plan a year ago. 

Gina

When I took over leading the Kingdom Kids ministry, in Edinburgh, just over a year ago I faced the same challanges.  What helped me was a comment made at a KK co-ordinators meeting in London a couple of months later.  What the speaker said was that if you state that there is a need for volunteers the usual reaction is: "What's wrong with KK that they are having to ask for volunteers?"  From that point I started developing some strategies to get round this problem.  The first was to talk about how much being in Kingdom Kids helps me grow spiritually.  Far from being a burden, I always see it as something positive and I share that with others.  I ask disciples what they feel that they are going to miss by serving in KK.  The usual response is that they will miss the sermons.  I tell them that I missed sermons every Sunday for three and a half years and grew spiritually more in that time than at almost any other time in my 21 years as a disciple!  We now have sermons on line so that should no longer be an excuse.  The second strategy is to see the talents in disciples and share how much they could help the children - again it is pointing out something positive.  The third strategy is to make sure that I spend time after the classes with the children so that they feel that I am a real friend to them.  Other disciples notice that and it gives me an opportunity to share how important it is to both them and myself - in other words, I am carrying out God's plan!