Help! We Only Have a Few Families!

How do you grow your church from one or two families, or even no families? In this episode, Amber walks you through how you can grow your church and gain families. She shares how she has grown her church from a few families, some of which were ready to leave, to the upcoming problem of where to fit all of the children. 

Check out the resources mentioned in the episode:

Intentional Children's Ministry: https://amzn.to/4ts8eCE 

Top 50 Bible Lessons About Ordinary People in God's Extraordinary Plan: https://amzn.to/48j3JBU

Kidmin Coaching: https://familyministry.org/childrens-ministry-coaching/

*Some links are affiliate links. I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. 

Transcript

Amber Pike (00:01.062)
Welcome back to the Kidmin Huddle. So I am seeing this question a lot in the Facebook group, some variation of how do we get more families to our church or small churches? We've got like one or two kids. How do we gain more? How do we keep families? How do we grow? Is this you? Have you asked this question? If you are small church, I think this is especially pertinent. I'm seeing this a lot right now and

I can say I know the answer. Now, obviously, your contacts might not work, but I can tell you what did work for me. The church that I'm at now when we started going there there were three families two of which were ready to leave because it wasn't what they needed for their kids. Now this is the church that my mom has gone to for like 40 something years. It's the church that I was born and raised in but it got to the point there's

No children's leader. There's no children's programming. And I'd been telling my mom for years, like families might visit, they might stay for a while, but then they're out. And they would go to a church that had some programming for kids. And I kept telling her, I'm like, if you all want families to stay, if you want to grow, you have to have something for your kids.

Well, they didn't for a while or they had little bits here and there. So then I came and waited a little bit until I was able to take over and we went from three families to seven. And this past Sunday, I had four visitors. What's the difference? Well, if you want families to grow, if you want your church to grow, if you want visiting families to come and stick around,

It's not about what events that you can have to draw them in. It's not about how do you get them to find out about your church because that's like step four. The step one is what are families coming to? So the Smith family, come, they visit your church, they're new to the area, they come in. What makes them want to stay or come back? There needs to be programming for their children. Quality.

Amber Pike (02:18.038)
discipleship programming. I don't mean that you are going to pass out some coloring sheets and puzzle time. I don't mean that you are just making sure that the kids are quiet, not in the sanctuary. That's not quality discipleship programming. If you want families to stay, if you want your church to grow, what are you offering their kids to grow them in their faith? This more than anything,

is how you grow. And I can say this with absolute certainty. So think about intentionality. One, you gotta make sure that everything's safe. So imagine a visitor walking in.

What's happening? How do they know that their child is safe and cared for? Who has access to their kids? All of these things, safety and security is up there in importance with sound doctrine because we can't teach them the truths of God's word unless mom and dad feel safe that your kid is safe, right? They need to know this. So, all right, I'm walking you through it. Here's what we do.

You need to have someone in charge. Whether this is a volunteer position, a staff position, whatever, someone's in charge. This can be a team, but you all are talking a lot and you need a safety and security policy. Here is the steps that have been taken to vet our workers, our volunteers. Here's who has access to our children. And here is how we're making sure that boys and girls are safe. We have their information. We are...

you know, aware of custody issues, check-in, check-out, health issues, all of those things. So this could be you're using a church management check-in system like planning center, or KidCheck, sorry, KidCheck. Or this is old school pen and paper. That is what I do. So if I have a family that visits because I'm a small church and I don't have the money or wifi for KidCheck. So I have a paper form. Hey.

Amber Pike (04:35.34)
I'm so glad you were here. Here is the information about Children's Church. So we start church worship and then when the sermon starts, we all go. I'm the children's leader and we go over to the building across the way and we have our own service and then you will pick up from over there. Here is the form. I would love to have your kids join us. If you would fill this out and hand it to me so I have the important information about them. We take safety and security very seriously.

The look on parents' faces, especially in small church when I give them this form, it's like a relief, like wow. Because I'm not giving you my kid unless I know my kid's gonna be safe.

Safety and security, what's your plan? Then what is happening with the kids? 

So you created this safe and secure place for kids, but what are you teaching them? So as a parent, if my kid goes to church and they, it's an hour service, and they are disconnected from the church body, they're over in their own area, and what I hear about for my child is a bunch of play, a bunch of snacks, non-related to the lesson activities, like putting together a puzzle.

or playing games, that's not reason for me to stay. I want my kid to be discipled. I want them growing in their faith, hearing the truths of God's word. That needs to be happening if you're wanting families to stay. Now, this gets challenging if you're not a paid staff, right? If you are part of a volunteer team, like how do you do this?

What if you don't have kids there every week? How do you provide consistent programming if there's not kids every week? You still have to do it. So you need to find, you know, look at your budget. What monies do you have? What resources do you have? Find what you can use that is intentional, that is deep. I really recommend my top 50 book. Super easy to prepare, but it's intentional. It has depth.

this needs to be happening. So let's say you don't have consistent kids. Well, every single week you are going to be ready.

You might not teach that lesson. Guess what? You're ready for next week then. Be ready, be prepared. Do not be in that position of, there's a kids here. Okay, I gotta go find a Bible story to read. I need to make some coloring pages. No. You're preparing. If you're praying for families, show that you have faith that that prayer is being answered by being prepared. So you have your programming in place. You have your lesson in place and you're ready to do it.

Amber Pike (02:06.43)
You're consistent. You're there. You or your team, you're there every week to provide this quality programming that is intentional. is discipling. When families begin to see this, when they begin to see, wow, my kid, you there's stuff for my kid and my kid is learning and they're having fun and look, wow, they know this verse and they learned this. They're growing in their faith. That makes a family want to stay. Then what happens? Then they tell their friends.

Right, think today churches grow in two ways. One, it's word of mouth. And then two, it's social media or the internet. So if I, and I can say this with certainty, when we left my last church and we were looking, okay, where are we going to go? I looked you up online. I looked up every church in my town of my denominational preferences and I ruled out most of them. So here's what I was looking for, like one,

What do you believe? Two, what is your pastor preach like? There is a little of what does the music sound like because I think there's very often there's inauthenticity in worship and it's a show and I don't like that. Like I am cool with, I am old school like pipe organ and sometimes there's not the right notes being sang so they stop the hymn and restart. I'm cool with that, it's still worship.

I'm also looking at what is your philosophy for children's ministry? Now I can say this knowing that there's not children's ministry on our website. Our website's not very good. But there are some websites that I looked up of churches in my town and they were talking about how the kids are watching movies in children's ministry. And I said, nope. What's there for your kids? When you have this quality programming where kids are being taught the truths of God's word, when discipleship is happening,

Family stay.

Amber Pike (04:05.314)
They invite their friends. Visiting families have a reason to stay. So then, we're multi-step solution here. Then we can begin to have events and activities that we can invite families to. I don't do kids events, I do family events. So this is an opportunity for families to come, for mom and dad to be trained, to be equipped in their role as disciple maker while kids are growing.

It's a way to invite people from the community and grow. You can get word of mouth happening, but going back to the first steps, if there's no programming, those events aren't going to be effective. Let's say you threw a rockin' VBS and a family came to check you out afterwards because VBS was that great, but there's nothing there for them on Sunday, they're not staying.

This is the answer to your question. How do we get families to grow? You have to have children's ministry programming. What are the kids being taught? You know, I think you need a person. It's that warm, smiling, friendly, friendly face. So we recently had, okay, we're going to do some math here. August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, nine months after VBS. We had a VBS family come for Easter.

I remembered their names. looked up the one I couldn't. I couldn't remember one of the kids' names, so looked it up. I'm so glad you're here. Then they got a follow-up postcard and two weeks later they're back again. There's programming. There's a person. There's that connection. There's that follow-up. But there's something for them to come to. Now this mom has also been tracking with us on social media. I'm posting things on social media. Social media is such a huge tool.

that you should be using to promote your ministry, but you have to have stuff happening to do that. So what if you don't have regular attendees? Maybe you've got like three kids that come every other week because of a custody situation. Well, those every other weeks, I'm posting about what we're learning. Not about how much fun we're having, but what we're learning. Show that there's depth. Show that there's discipleship happening.

Amber Pike (06:26.036)
This is what families want, that attractional entertainment, and it doesn't stick. So what if you had a jumpy at your Easter egg event? Tell me what's happening on Sunday, and I'm gonna tell you if I wanna stay. It's a lot, it is a lot my friends to make sure that you have the things in place, and it can be discouraging. Man, teaching a class for three kids is so much different than 100 kids.

I've taught Sunday school classes with one kid before for about, I don't know, six, seven months. I had one kid in my Sunday school class, my first church, preteen little preteen guy, Joshua, every week I showed up. I feel like there should be maybe, I don't know, a story about, let's say a shepherd and there was one sheep that went away and that one sheep was super important to him.

My friends, if you have one family at your church, praise the Lord, you've got a family. You have a family that's there. Your opportunity to pour into them, to equip them, to disciple them. If you have a thousand families, praise the Lord. But just because your numbers are small, that's okay. That's the place that God has you right now. Be faithful. Don't give it less because you have less numbers. That one family matters.

that one mattered to Jesus and it should matter to you. Now that doesn't mean that we can't be planning for more, that we can't pray for more for sure because we want more people to hear the truth of God's word. We want more eternities to change, but do it for that one. If you've got one family every other week, do it for them. But I do encourage you, you're not gonna grow unless you have consistent, deep programming.

I'm not staying at a church that's just playing with my kid. They could play at home, right? I don't have to get up that way. We want to disciple. We want to be intentional. It's like I wrote a whole book on it. Intentional Children's Ministry. If you're not sure where to start, that would be a wonderful resource for you. Intentional Children's Ministry. It's audiobook, ebook, physical book. I also do one-on-one coaching if you just need a little extra help getting started, especially small churches. My friends, this is my world, small church. Love it.

Amber Pike (08:48.78)
I prefer it. I love small church ministry. The same people who poured into me as a kid are now getting to pour into my kids and my nieces and I love it. Have that programming. Be faithful to what God has called you to even if you're just a volunteer. Just a volunteer is a silly phrase because man, you're volunteering for important stuff. Be faithful to what God has called you. Be intentional with the moments you get with whomever shows up.

seek God his direction and his blessing, prepare for more. So let's say you've got four kids, never have just four papers, always have six. If you start running out of room, start buying extra chairs and extra tables. I'm to this point, a church that had three families, two of which were ready to leave. I'm already thinking.

Okay, we have enough chairs, but we don't have enough table space and the room's getting really tight. So what do I do next? And I've got a couple of plans. I don't know that they'll let me bust out a wall, I'm hoping, but if not, we're gonna have to go to the fellowship hall and ask an adult class to switch with us. What a great problem to have. I showed up when there were three, showing up when there's seven families. I'll keep showing up when we get to 10 or 12 or however many.

Be faithful to what God has called you to. Plan for more. Be consistent. Be intentional. And my friends, what you do matters.

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