Today we welcomed children’s ministers from Cornerstone and many other churches from around the Greater Bay Area. We also pulled together all the Zone Volunteers and Staff for lunch, right in the middle of the conference. Here are some of the things we talked about:
Zone Children’s Ministry exists to Reaching kids for Christ and growing them spiritually. And it is out goal that the hour the kids spend with us, to be the BEST hour of the week!
In the past few week our staff (but perhaps mostly me) has been talking a lot about what that vision about Reaching and Growing really means. Also, I feel great about quickly moving back to some of our Core Values, the foundation of our ministry: Relationships. Relationship with Jesus, relationships with others in our church family.
One of the changes we have been working on is to split our paid staff team into two separate teams. One team will be focusing on the People (the kids, parents and volunteers), while the rest of the staff focuses on the Program side of things (curriculum, classrooms, etc). We’re getting close to the end of our transition period, and it looking really exciting!
Here’s what we are asking our volunteers to focus on:
- Be committed to making connections on the weekend, with kids, with parents and with other volunteers.
- You might be only adult a parent connects with on the weekend, the only person that they have a (albeit short) conversation with.
- You might be the only other adult a fellow volunteer talks with. Make the conversation about something.
- Hebrews 13:1 says that we at brothers and sisters in Christ we should keep loving each other as much as possible. We should encourage, Lift up one another and help one another. I always hate it when I find out late that one of our Cornerstone regulars has been in need or sick or in crisis and they didn’t want to bother anyone. What?!
Goals
There are a ton of things we should do better as our staff serves Cornerstone families, but here are just some ways that we working on as a staff to grow our children’s ministry in the next 6 or so months:
- Recruit, recruit, recruit
- Follow up on people – MIA people, new people, new volunteers
- Moving volunteers into additional responsibilities. Perhaps some of you (our intrepid volunteers) will be stepping up in a “coach” role here at Cornerstone or serving in some other leadership role?
- Communicate better with parents, kids and volunteers:
This blog
Handouts, etc.
- Curriculum enhancements (intentional development of the way we teach our kids, using the curriculum we use)
- Island improvements (do a better job hitting the educational potential for that 15-min. slot)
- Service opportunities for kids