Home Children's Ministry Leaders Children's Ministry How To's How to Be a Hero to Your Children’s Ministry Team

How to Be a Hero to Your Children’s Ministry Team

We all do do things to build our team and make sure they are ready for the ministry that supports our vision. Doing things such as equipping and developing leaders is critical. That is some of the deeper responsibility that will result in a thriving team.

But there are things we can do every week that will help our team thrive—and result in you being their hero! Here are a few ideas:

How to Be a Hero to Your Children’s Ministry Team

Show appreciation tangibly.

We all appreciate our team, but too often we don’t actually show it. Show them! It could be an intentional pat on the back and thank you, a personal, hand-written card (hands down the best way to show appreciation), public recognition or some other creative way you choose. Here are 9 Ways to Say Thanks to Your Team

Solve problems.

One of the quickest paths to influence is to solve people’s problems. In your ministry—if it’s anything like mine has been—you have dozens of problems come your way every week. Finding ways to be a problem solver will carry you a long, long way with your team. You don’t have to be the one who actually implements the solution, but find a way to get it solved (resource them, delegate a response to someone on your staff, direct them to the place to find the answer, etc.).

Do what you say you’re going to do.

Is anything more frustrating to a volunteer than to give of their time, energy and resources based on something you said was going to happen, only to see it not happen because we didn’t follow through? I don’t think so. Follow through and follow up and you will gain followers.

Be someone others want to be around.

I am shocked at the attitudes of some children’s ministry leaders. Yep, it’s a hard position. Yep, there are lots of challenges. Yep, we are under appreciated. And, yep, we are usually under-resourced. If we get over it and fix our attitude, many of the “problems” will disappear! No one wants to be around, support or invest in leadership that’s negative, complaining and depressing! You get the idea.

Make it about relationship, not requirements. 

When someone volunteers on our team or works on our staff, they place themselves under certain obligations—requirements. It’s important that those are fulfilled, and that there is accountability for them. But when we make our interaction about those requirements, we relegate our ministry to tasks to be completed. Pursue a relationship first—get to know your team for who they are, invest in them personally and appreciate their value as a person—and the requirements will follow.

I get it—being a hero is not our goal! So don’t do these things for that purpose. Do them because they are the right thing for a leader to do … and see your influence soar to hero levels!

What do you do to be a “hero” to your team?