All Things Children’s Ministry That God Is Leading Us In

We are in the process of making some exciting changes in our Children’s Ministry that I wanted to share with you. Late last year Pastor Jeremy Martin and I pulled away for a few days to talk through ministry and ways to adjust to some of the growth we have had in the past year. A main focus was our Children’s Ministry. We were seeing that we needed to expand the leadership to be able to better balance the needs and care of our volunteers and kids.
 
While we were away on our ministry retreat we identified afresh why our Children’s Ministry is so important. We get to encourage and bless our kids – we get to point them to Jesus! We get to come alongside parents who so often need encouragement and prayer. We get to come alongside our volunteers and pray and care for them. There are so many blessings that come from the Children’s Ministry!
 
It became obvious that we needed to expand our leadership and Jeremy and I set to prayer about what that would look like. I am loving how the Lord answered this for us! In a few short weeks He has blessed us with new Lead Teachers for each classroom. Welcome with me these new Leads:
 
Wobblers Lead Teacher Grace Panknin – wobblers@summitridgechurch.org
Climbers Lead Teacher Danica Henry – climbers@summitridgechurch.org
Trailblazers Lead Teacher Lisa Hudspeth – trailblazers@summitridgechurch.org
Explorers Lead Teacher Jenny Hatchett – explorers@summitridgechurch.org


 
You can read a little bit more on our Summit Kids page. These Leads will be leading each classroom with training, caring, scheduling and overall ministry to their classes. God has blessed us in answering our prayers so quickly!
 
Another area we noticed was how many volunteers we needed each Sunday… it was unmanageable. We were going to need to increase the level of volunteers. Let me break it down for you this way:
 
Each Sunday Service we need: 9 adult teachers and 2-3 youth volunteers. That means we need a total of: 18 adult teachers and 4-6 youth volunteers EVERY SUNDAY! That works out to be 72 adult teachers and 16-24 youth volunteers. That is a total of 88-96 volunteers serving in Children’s Ministry. That’s about a third of our whole church needed to serve in Children’s Ministry. (As great as that would be, that’s not realistic.) We also had to recognize that having a different teacher every Sunday for a month doesn’t give a lot of place for ongoing ministry and care to the kids and parents. But we want to provide better care, we believe God has more for us! So that has meant we are moving to increase the serving of our volunteers from once a month to twice a month (cutting our volunteer needs in half!) and giving greater continuity and care for our kids and parents. We are quite excited about this change! And the feedback so far has been phenomenal! (Thank you to each of you who serve in our Children’s Ministry!)
 
These are the larger shifts we have made that I am thankful to the Lord for. It means greater care and ministry and discipleship! That’s a good thing. And knowing you church, you will jump right in and engage where He is leading us. I am grateful for that!
 
Maybe here is a good place to ask: Do you have any particular ministry you are engaged in? Now may be a great time to engage in a growing ministry. It’s a place where you will get cared for while you serve and minister to our precious kids at Summit. If you are interested just let Pastor Jeremy know.
 
I love you church and love how He is leading us!
 

Nothing On My Own,