Planning Your Kidmin Team Training

If you haven't placed a volunteer training on the calendar yet this year, then this episode is for you. Amber walks you through the why of training, plus practical tips to get you started. 

Recommended resources mentioned in the episode:

Intentional Children's Ministry: https://shop.renewanation.org/products/intentional-childrens-ministry-how-your-church-can-disciple-children-with-a-lifelong-faith-in-jesus-pre-order-to-be-released-january-2025

Bring in a Speaker: https://familyministry.org/speaking/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to the Kidman Huddle of Amber Pike. Where children as ministry leaders get equipped, encouraged, and empower to disciple with intentionality, growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. How often are you training your team? Now, if you've read Intentional Children's Ministry or you've heard me talk, you will know that we have a goal in children's ministry. It is to see boys and girls become lifelong disciples of Christ. That is why everything we do, every minute that we have in children's ministry must be led with intentionality. We don't have a minute to waste. Well, helping us to accomplish that goal is our team. Do your team, do they know what your goal is? Are you setting them up for success? So I think I tell this story in the book. If not, I've told it in a breakout. Years ago, I was just in need of a VBS teacher. Like, didn't have my regular teachers, please help. And I had someone who'd been helping at VBS, but never in a teacher capacity, and someone brand new. And I'm like, awesome, you guys are set to teach VBS. Here is your packet. Here's the stuff you need. See at VBS, basically. And thankfully, um, that person was like, hold up. We don't know what we're doing. You've got to train your team in so many things, but especially in how to do what they're supposed to do. If you don't train them, you're not setting them up for success. Which means realistically, you're going to lose a potentially great volunteer because who wants to be part of a sinking ship, right? Nobody. So training our team is so incredibly important, but sometimes we don't know how to do it. We haven't done it. So that's what this episode is going to be all about. I'm going to help you walk through, think through how you are planning your kidmen team training time. Um, but you need to start you with that goal. We want to see boys and girls become lifelong disciples of Christ. So, of course, we want to train our team so that they can help do it, to help this to succeed, to help point boys and girls to Jesus. We want them to be great teachers or craft leaders or game leaders or small group leaders or birthday card filler outers, whatever role they have. They need to understand the why behind your children's ministry. And your training meeting is will help you accomplish that. But then it's going to help set them up for success, making sure that they know all the things that they need to know. They are keeping kids safe and secure and leading with excellence because we want to see that so that we can see kingdom work happening, lives being changed, spiritual growth happening, all that good wonderful stuff. All right, so we're all on the same page. So, step one in planning your training meeting is the when and the how. How are you going to train your team? When is this going to happen? And you have some options. And all of this, everything that I'm going to talk about, it comes down to you knowing your team. So, do you have team members that would show up for an in-person event? Awesome. Then you need to plan an in-person event. Do you have team members that are probably not quite there yet for an in-person event? Do you have such a massive team that you don't think you can handle all of your team in one place? You have to figure out the when and the how of the training before you can kind of do the other stuff. So this could look super different in a million different ways, a million different contexts. I do recommend that you have at least one in-person training in a year. Your team needs to be together. You all also need to know who all is serving where. Let's say I'm in the preschool room every week. I might not know that super awesome volunteer that I might be able to actually learn a lot from that serving in the third grade room. In-person, awesome. You also just let's face facts, you are probably not going to get a hundred percent participation in an in-person event. So, with any form of training options that you choose, I would recommend have a backup. So if you are doing this in-person, maybe you're also recording it and it can be watched later. Um, in addition, maybe you have like the bullet point document that gets handed out, which if you have listened to me before and you know I'm all about learning styles and layering them and learning smart. So as a visual learner, I would love for that document, even if I'm in the in-person training meeting, because I like to see it in front of me. So a couple of options. You've got that in-person training meeting. Maybe you're gonna have a video-based training meeting. Maybe you want to send out not something once a year, but quarterly or monthly. You're gonna send out a short little snippet. Maybe you want to do a book club. Hey, I have a really cool book that I recommend for that book club. What does training look like for you and your team? Is it going to be a flyer that you put in their hands and they scan a QR code to get to the YouTube video that you made? Are you having a quarterly meeting in which you are providing child care and food because your leaders are people with families and lives and those are complications? So think about those sort of things. When are you scheduling this in-person thing? Is it during the weekday when most of your people are at work? You're not going to have good attendance. Is it after church on a Sunday? Well, does this put a tax on maybe single-parent families who now need something to do with their kids? Or, like in my situation, if I was supposed to go to an in-person meeting that my husband and kids weren't going to go to, I then have to make sure that they're being fed because my husband can't cook anything. Those are things to think about when you're thinking about when to host a training meeting. If you have multiple services, you can't really use a service time because someone's always serving. When is this going to work in your schedule? Look at your people, look at your availabilities, plan it. So pick that date of when this is going to happen. Make the plan, assign a date to it so it's not just a beautiful dream and a wish. It becomes a plan to put in motion. Once we have that date and we figured out if we're doing live or digital or book club or whatever, what are you training on? This is when it's so key to know your leaders. But there are two things that I think should be a non-negotiable every single year in your big training meeting or at least once a year. I think safety and security becomes a yearly training piece. How are we checking kids in and out? How are we making sure that kids are going to the right parents? How are we honoring custody agreements? How are we recognizing signs of abuse? What are our procedures when XYZ happens? Even the, you know, what do we do in case of a tornado, in case of a fire, in case of an intruder? Moms and dads will not leave their kids with you if they do not feel that they are safe. This needs to be a yearly training piece. Now, every year, am I going to go like crazy in-depth on this and make this an hour-long section? No. My onboarding process hopefully has that really good in-depth training on this. And every year I'm just doing a refresher reminder. So, for example, in my vacation Bible school leader training, I always do a piece on recognizing the signs of abuse and what our reporting procedure looks like. Now, praise the Lord, in 20-something years of BBS and children's ministry, I've never had to follow that procedure. It's never been needed. But I've trained my leaders because we are living in a fallen world full of sinful people and stuff happens. Pausing for just a second to encourage my small church people. Sometimes, small church, we think this wouldn't happen to me. It doesn't matter. I don't need check-in or security, all of that. Wrong. You do. I'm coming to you as a small church who had a pastoral staff member arrested on an FBI sting. I feel there's been a couple times, honestly, in the last few years, where I have warded off a potential predator because I've recognized some warning signs, because I've had training, uh, because I'm being observant, and because we are following procedures. It can happen in small churches, in big churches, in mega churches. Always, always, always be aware, be vigilant, put those policies and procedures in place and enforce them. So that's why this is a non-negotiable every single training, safety and security. You can have all of the best plans on paper, but if your team is not executing those plans, one, something could happen to a child, and we do not want that. Um, and then two, you could lose families because if their kid is not safe, they're not leaving them for you to care for and teach. So safety and security, yearly non-negotiable. Um, I am also going to do a yearly kind of flyby recap on how to lead a child to Christ. That's what we're here for, right? We are here to help boys and girls become lifelong disciples of Christ. So I need to make sure that all of my team is familiar with that. It is different than leading an adult to Christ. So I have my pastor sits through this in our VBS training. He has led who knows how many adults to Christ, but leading a child to Christ is different. They're cognitively at a different spot. So I'm gonna do this as a training piece every single year. Probably not super in-depth for my team, but I want to make sure that refresher course reminder, um, especially any new people, that's gonna also be part of my onboarding process. If you need a little help on this, if you go to renewination.org, I have a blog post. It's in the our Renewanation Review magazine on leading a child to Christ, some tips, recommendations. Yes, train your team. Um, so what else is happening in your training meeting? Well, specifically to your church, what do you need to tell them? That's gonna be part of your training meeting. So if your training purpose is for um how we are greeting kids, we're using their names and we're smiling and we're being warm and welcoming, that's one of my training pieces. How many training pieces will I have in a meeting? Well, it depends on what I need to cover. I'm gonna have those super quick, you know, not super quick, but those touch-on refreshers on leading a child to Christ and safety and security. But then what else do I need to cover as far as the daily, weekly operations of my ministry? What are the things that my team is not doing that I need them to start doing, especially specifically for us? So are we launching a new curriculum? Am I just doing a curriculum overview? Hey, here's where we are, here's the events we have coming up, here's some tips for VBS, that kind of thing. And then pick a training topic. What will help your leaders disciple boys and girls better? So here are five things that I think make excellent topics that are just the amount of things you could cover in these five topics have got you covered for a couple of years. There's the the topics are so wide of a gambit. So, one, teaching techniques. You have teachers who are teaching, whether it's large group, small group, midweek, Sunday school, all the options. So, any of your teachers, are you helping them to become better teachers? Kind of with this, you know, teaching techniques can a lot of times alleviate some behavioral problems or some wiggly kids. So maybe you need to show them some teaching techniques. Maybe you're buying a new supply for them to be able to use or encouraging them to do something. So maybe I'm buying story sticks for all of my teachers and we're doing a little workshop on how to use story sticks once a month to make our Bible lessons come alive. Maybe I'm gonna show them a new magic trick. Maybe I have seen that a lot of my teachers are resorting to playing some YouTube videos to teach the story, and I don't want that happening. So we are going to go through different ideas on how we can make the Bible come alive and not rely on video. Teaching techniques, awesome. So many options. You can even have them, you know, make it interactive and get them in in groups and help them brainstorm or give each group a Bible lesson and help them come up with creative ideas and share it with the class. So many options, right? But teaching techniques, that is that's the meat of the kids coming to church is hearing the Bible lesson. So we need to make sure that we're doing it well. Well, are you training your teachers to do that well? Are you giving them all the things that they need to be able to be a great Bible teacher? No, train them. Number two that I think would make a great training topic is relationship building. I think ministry happens out of the place of relationship. I've got story after story of relationship making a big difference in children and children's ministry. Are your leaders ministering out of relationship? Are they using kids' names? Are they greeting them on their level? Are they listening to them? Are they instead standing on the phone on their phones in the back of the room during pre-service? Are we training our team on what we want them to do, how to build relationships with kids and why? This is kind of a vision casting training piece, but also maybe they need some super practicals. Hey, I want nobody on their phones. I want you guys on the ground playing with the kids. You're at this table, you're at this table. Here are some ideas. Maybe you buy some. Let's say you've got 15 minutes of pre-service while kids are being dropped off on your midweek. So you buy some new things that the leaders can use to engage with kids, and you show them all the cool new things that you've bought in casting the why of building relationship with kids. Share a personal story, share some statistics. Yes. Number three, the world that our kids are living in. Man. So currently this is February 2026 when I'm recording, and that is a much different world than when I was a kid and when you were a kid, and kind of even when my kid was a kid. The world that our kids are growing up in is so increasingly anti-God. Are your leaders aware of this? Do they know what we at church are combating? This kind of goes into the why of everything needs to be done with intentionality because that world is crazy indoctrination against God. And we are the truth and the light. But if you have volunteers who are not in the thick of raising kids, they might not know. Maybe you go on a little uh photo taking spree. Go to your local library. You'll be surprised what's on the new release. Um, pull some of the stuff from your parents about what kids are getting exposed to at school. Look up some of the top video games and YouTube people and just all the stuff that kids are being exposed to that is so anti-God. And remind your leaders that this is why we do what we do. We are teaching them the truth and the light of God's word. And we need to help give kids a firm foundation, like in Matthew 7, so that they can stand on the foundation of the world, of the word, not the world. They can stand on the foundation of the word when the world comes at these kids. Teach them about the world that their kids are growing up in. Number four, biblical worldview. The Barna study found that four to eight percent of American adults have a biblical worldview. If we do the math, that means that a large majority of your volunteers do not completely stand on the authority of God's word. So, how can we expect our volunteers to teach children how to stand in the authority of the word of God if they themselves do not believe it? We need to teach our leaders biblical worldview. Maybe you're going and picking up Josh's book, Biblical Worldview, and you are dividing it up in every training time, you're going to give them another resource. How do we know that God created the world and it wasn't made by evolution? How do we know that we are all one race? How do we know that we are made in the image of God? Oh man, that identity issue? What happens when one of our kids comes in and says they're changing their pronouns? How do we answer biblically? Are you training your leaders on how to stand firmly on the authority of the word of God in all of these issues? Our kids are facing these issues. Our parents have questions about these issues. How well are your volunteers equipped for this? On biblical worldview, especially, this is one that your training piece maybe doesn't have to be you. If you don't feel comfortable or confident, maybe you're just putting some great resources into their hand and encouraging them or you know, bribing them to read it. Like the Renew Nation Review magazine Answers in Genesis has just tons of apologetics, worldview articles and podcasts, um, not podcasts, like YouTube videos, tons of stuff. You can check out the Biblical Worldview show. It's a video podcast. It's got like, I don't know, 40-something episodes. Um, Alyssa Childer's Mama Bear Apologetics all have different things that you could go and look at. We desperately need to make sure that we are making sure that our leaders stay in the authority of the word of God. We do not want them teaching children incorrectly a view of God's word. So we need to be actively making sure our leaders know this. And then a number five topic that I think would be great is partnering with parents. Man, it is mom and dad's job to disciple boys and girls. They're the primary disciple makers. So how are we partnering with parents as ministry leaders? So this could look like how, what is our plan? And we're training our leaders. If we have a super awesome thing that's supposed to go home every Sunday, how are we making sure our leaders know that they're supposed to do this and why? See, a lot of our kidmen training is that why piece. Why are we doing this? Is it just because Miss Amber's a little crazy and she says we are? No, there's a purpose behind her madness. We have this take-home thing because of XYZ. So training on them on how to partner with parents, maybe equipping them with resource lists when parents have questions. Remember, everything in ministry doesn't have to be you. These leaders, they're the ones loving on, encouraging the parents. Maybe you spend a week making adult, our parent happy mail kits for all of your leaders. And one time your training is on the importance of connecting with parents outside of church, and you are equipping your leaders with happy mail kits so that they can mail postcards to all of the parents throughout the next six months. That's time well spent. So that is just a couple of the topics you could choose. The sky is the limit as to what we're training on, but remember that why? What are the things that our leaders need to know so that they can be successful at helping us disciple boys and girls? We want to set them up for success. So my husband, he I don't know, 15-ish years ago, was switching roles and switching actually companies, still in the he's in the auto parts industry. He's a parts dealer. And he was switching to a new job. He was taking over as a manager and new system, new company, all of that. Oh, yeah, for sure. We we will have someone here. You're gonna shadow with this person, um, and and it'll be fine. It'll be fine. He got like half a day's training, and then the manager was just like gone. My husband was like pulling his hair out, like anxious. It was a rough situation to suddenly step in and be responsible for making sure that this store is running when you've not even been trained properly on how to use their system. Thankfully, he is awesome and smart and wonderful and he figured it out. But it's a really stressful time for our family because he was so stressed. Now, in a church world where it is not your budget, your family's budget on the line, you know what happens if you're not setting up your volunteer for success and they're all stressed out because they don't know what to do or how to fulfill that job? They leave. We don't want that to happen. We want to keep quality volunteers, so train them. Another thing, if you are doing an in-person training, I highly recommend adding an appreciation piece. If you have your leaders there for an in-person meeting, this is the perfect opportunity to show them while you're training them because you're already meeting, hey, I appreciate what you all are doing. You should have a volunteer appreciation plan that is enacted all throughout the year. You should have a plan on when you're doing this from the little cheesy, you rock our socks off, sock gift to birthday cards to whatever. But if you're doing that in-person meeting, that's a great time you could have like a candy buffet and talk about how sweet of a treat it is to serve with them and they can fill it up. I have a pie-themed one. And spoiler alert, next week I'm going to release a new breakfast-themed appreciation event. Now, that's a whole nother podcast on appreciating and a plan, but just know with a in-person training piece, that's an easy win. It becomes your table centerpiece, uh, little extra something, something they get to take home. Yes, um, but it also can be a separate standalone event. So, hey, check out my social media next week for the release of a new volunteer appreciation theme. But back to training. What do you need to train your team on this year? If you've never done a training before, the first thing that you probably need to do is train them on your policies and procedures. Safety and security. Here's how we do check in, here's what We're doing. Remember, the goal is you're setting your team up for success so that they can help you as you all are discipling the boys and girls at your church. Training is key. You've got to train your team. You can have little pieces throughout, one big piece. Pick and choose how it works for you, but sit down today. Yeah, I know that was a very like Kentucky way of saying today. Today. Train your team. Make your plan. What does it look like in 2026? We are just barely into the year. There is ample time for you to put multiple training touches on the calendar. What does it look like? Hey, a couple of resources for you. Um, since we're right around Valentine's Day, I do have at Family Ministry.org a cute little cheesy Valentine's Day resource. I think the cheesy ones are fun little touches. I do recommend, hey, know your team. I said that before. Maybe you passed out a survey. So you know their favorite candy bar or their favorite soda pop or whatever. We call it Coke in Kentucky, but I said soda pop in case you're not from Kentucky. Um, so you can grab that little Valentine's thing. Uh just fun way to love on them. I mentioned next week volunteer kit coming out. Um, hey, my book, Intentional Children's Ministry. Did you know that there's a whole chapter on volunteers and training them and appreciating them? You should check it out. And then lastly, what if you're like, man, yes, I agree with all this, Amber? It's so important to train a team, but I don't know what to do. I don't feel equipped. Um, I would love to just bring someone in to do all the work. Well, did you know you could bring me in to train your team? I would love to come talk to you about what that could look like. Um, I know I'm doing a virtual training for a VBS meeting this year in a couple months, and I'm really pumped about it. But hey, send me a message, apike at renewation.org. Um, Amber Pike underscore intentional kidman is my social media handle. Reach out to me. You can find out more information at familyministry.org. I'm I'm easy to get a hold of, but I would love to talk to you about training your team if I could be of any help. Um, intentional children's ministry makes a great training piece if you don't want to bring me in, but hey, there's a book. And hey, this podcast! Lots of training episodes. That's an easy win throughout the year. Just send them some podcast episodes. Hey, team, watch this. If you tell me you watched it, I'm giving you a$5 Starbucks card. It is totally okay to bribe your adults. We do it with kids all the time. Remember to always be casting that why to your team. We are not just childcare workers. We are not babysitters. We are kingdom workers, discipling boys and girls so that they can live out their faith in Christ. First, have a faith in Christ and live that out. Make sure that you are reminding your team of this, casting that vision, setting them up for success. And just like you need to be reminding your team of that, I'm gonna remind you, my kidman friend, week in and week out, what you do matters.