A good friend of mine shared a story about when he was praying for an increase in his ministry. He heard God ask him, “What are you doing with what I’ve already given you?” If we faithfully steward the volunteers God has entrusted us with, He will meet and exceed our needs! In order for God to do His part, we have to make sure we are doing our part first.

It’s imperative that kids’ ministry leaders be intentional about defining roles and responsibilities for the various activities within the ministry. If you truly want to build a healthy ministry, each project should include multiple volunteers and team members who hold different responsibilities, but work together to guide kids in your ministry towards living more Spirit-filled lives.

Sometimes we overestimate our own creativity and cleverness. We think we’re so smart that we know exactly what we need to do in a given situation without consulting God or others. It’s a sad situation that I see repeated over and over in Kids' Ministry.

It’s a question I get asked on a regular basis: “How do you get folks in the church to volunteer when they think it is the children’s pastor’s job to do the ministry?”

Just the other day in a staff meeting, my pastor reminded our team of the power of recognizing someone by their name. He pointed out that in Romans chapter 16, Paul ends his letter in a very unusual way. After he concludes chapter 15 with a normal “the God of peace be with you,” he proceeds to add one more chapter where he lists more than 30 of his “co-laborers” in the gospel.

Many of us have a hard time accessing the volunteer pool at our churches. I have spent countless hours hosting events to no avail. At times it seemed that nothing was going to work; I would remain short-staffed and frustrated. But over the years I began to recognize that people were more fluid than fixed.