Coming Back to Different: A Conversation Recap

When planning children’s ministry during a pandemic, there is no lack of anxiety and concern. For more than a year, children’s ministry leaders have wrestled with how to keep their kids, parents and volunteers engaged. As we all come to the end of a challenging Awana season, we know that another one is just a few months away. What can you do now to plan and prepare for a new — and stronger — ministry program in the fall?

Awana recently hosted an online webinar to help ministry leaders plan for their fall ministry and mobilize their volunteers for reengagement. The free event, Coming Back to Different, was moderated by Ross Cochran, creator of Resilient Disciples Podcast. Roundtable speakers were  children’s ministry thought-leaders Awana President and Chief Strategy Officer Matt Markins, Cynthia Dixson, Sam Luce and Esther Moreno.

Following the event, Ross dedicated a podcast to the conversation. You can also listen to the full replay of the event, some of which is highlighted below.

COVID-19 Has Been a Time to Reset and Rebuild

Despite pain and difficulty of operating during a pandemic, COVID-19 has offered churches an opportunity to slow down and evaluate their ministry efforts.

Cynthia Dixon, children’s ministry director, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church, in Dallas: God has given us an opportunity to reset. All the things we could have done, should have done, tried to do. … It’s a time to orchestrate a plan. What is your goal post COVID?

Sam Luce, global pastor of families at Redeemer Church, in upstate New York: There is no simple decision. The mental difficulty of trying to go forward and disciple people in a ministry in a context none of us has been in before is incredibly difficult.

Cynthia: Maybe we need to change our prayer life thoughts to, “God, what do you see for us to do in this moment. … Send the people you want for this particular moment,” because everyone who did the moment before may not be for this season right now. God’s Word doesn’t change, but His methods may change. Though He gives a vision, he gives a provision to the vision.

Esther Moreno, a host of Children’s Ministry Today on Fishbowl Radio Network and national children’s ministry speaker: Every church is not created the same. This is why it’s so important to understand the culture of your church and to understand where your parents are … and what they’re struggling with. So many people have lost jobs in this season. What can we produce to meet them at their deepest need? 

New School Versus Old School

The pandemic ushered in virtual church gatherings. But the tried-and-true ways should not be abandoned. 

Esther: It’s so important that we realize that the season forced us to go where the digital natives … already were. We have to be careful because spirituality can be threatened by digital technology, but I am a firm believer that we still need to embrace [it]. We still do what we can to make sure we stay connected with Him and glorify Him, and maybe do a different format, as well.

Cynthia: There is concern about losing people to online: If you make your in-person service so alive and interactive, you probably won’t lose those people. But you have to allow people to be cautious. It may take them a moment to come back, but you have to provide them a platform both ways.

Everybody’s not an in-person person. We have this virtual platform to grab those people. In this day and age, in-person might not be the way to get them. Let’s do every mode necessary. If I lose a person to virtual, so what. I still have them getting the Gospel [online] because ultimately it’s about the Gospel and not about our feelings about being in a building. 

Sam: So we have to say this is the new reality that we have to wrestle with. We paint this picture of excellence, and sometimes small churches can’t do that and so they almost feel discouraged. We’ve been going more old school, sending letters to kids and doing things that helped us in the past that we forget about. We can show up on the front door of the families in our ministry and we can say, “Listen, here’s the thing: God loves you.” It’s about living life together — life on life.

Cynthia: You can go to their house, drop off an info packet, take a picture and post on social media. Get connected to the families online, make phone calls, send them a card in the mail.

Sam: You’re just trying to survive Sunday. But this is where we come in and say here’s us being the church, here’s us loving you in such a way that we point you to Jesus over and over and over again because He is our hope, He is our joy, He is our life. He is everything to us. 

Esther: Whether you are in person or online, there are still ways to go forth with the spirit of excellence — because He wants us.

Making Disciples

For many years, the goal has been how to make parents the disciplers of kids. COVID-19 revealed to our speakers how much work they needed to do in this area.

Sam: For so long, a church has measured bigness and how many people come. And we have to look at what we’re measuring. What we should measure is how many disciples are discipling other disciples? We have to change the way we equip people and families.

We have to be better disciplers of parents, better disciplers of our volunteer team, better disciplers of our staff in such a way that they understand … not just how to pull off an event, but how to do that in such a way that they model the beauty of Christ. How do we make Jesus look beautiful to those who are leading rather than just try to pass information to them. What does a discipler look like in the context of your church?

Cynthia: We require parents to be on the Zoom call and do the activities and lessons with the kids. You have parents who typically, in the past, dropped their kids off. Now they’re engaged and now they see what took place with their kids. Now I have a potential new volunteer. This is another way you’re training your parents. 

Esther: We discovered we had missed the parents when it came to discipling. It was important for us to understand where they are and meet them there and constantly find out what they need. People need to know you care. Some are on social media. For them … you have to comment on their kid’s soccer game, and that makes them feel like a million bucks, ya know?

I think so many of us miss the boat when it comes to really sitting down and talking about what you’re going to do to create an environment to proactively reach parents and change the culture. Try this: come up with a vision and then break it down into smaller goals for the month. This is what we do, in a structured format, in order to truly create that change. 

Define Reality, Give Hope

As it pertains to vision casting with volunteers, Matt suggests there are several things a children’s ministry leader can do now to prepare for the fall.

Matt: We all have key objectives in our ministry: like help kids come to know Jesus and be saved and take steps closer to him weekly as disciples, engaging the Scripture, memorizing the Bible, having experiences to live out their faith and grow closer to Jesus. Parents have their desired outcomes. They have a vision of their kids’ future; they want to see their kids flourishing in their faith, following Jesus for a lifetime and living on mission for Him.

We have this children’s ministry team, this child disciple-making team. And they are helping us steward, manage and lead this ministry to make all of this happen. Now is the time to do these three things to mobilize this group of volunteers and reengage them for the fall.

1. Establish your guiding coalition, a group of key people around you that’s going to pray with you, get down on their knees and faithfully be with you to help get your team reengaged. This coalition will help you define reality and get a real feel for what this season has been like for your people, emotionally, spiritually, physically. 

By asking questions, your guiding coalition will help you understand what your key equipping needs are. If my people need X, then I need to have a plan to be able to come alongside of them and help meet that need.

2. This guiding coalition has to be ready to inspire, lift the eyes of our people. We’ve got to cast vision around the objectives and the outcomes and the vision that we all see for the future of our children who are going to be the future of the Church, engaging the culture and leading the church. We’ve got to give hope and say [to the rest of the team], “We’re here; we want to be here. Can you be a part of helping this church — because of the Gospel, because we want to make disciples. Can you help us get here, to get ready by that time?”

3. The third thing is to equip your team with the necessary things they need to get ready to be fully reengaged for this fall. 

Beyond that, based on the custom plan you have for your church to get from here to there, pay attention to what other churches are doing. Join different Facebook groups and really listen to what other churches are learning along the way. You have your custom plan, but there’s also probably a common pathway for what other churches are learning, as well. 

Letting Go of the Good

Our roundtable guests acknowledged that to set the vision, provide hope and equip needs, you also may need to let go of what you love and identify what’s most valuable. 

Sam: Especially at this time when volunteers are at a premium, we have to say, “Is this event helping us to accomplish the purpose of our church of discipling kids and discipling parents and discipling families?” If the answer’s no, then you have to either come up with an alternative to that or you have to just let it go.

There are some things we do just because we like to do them, just ‘cause they’re fun. They’re tradition. There is nothing wrong with that. We want our kid’s ministry to be fun. But what we want — more than anything — is our kids to love and to trust and to treasure Christ. If they do that, then we’ve succeeded. 

This past season has not been easy, but the next one doesn’t have to be hard if you follow the suggestions of these roundtable speakers. Learn more of what they discussed by watching Come Back to Different in its entirety, and listening to the follow-up Resilient Disciples Podcast and have a stronger children’s ministry program this fall.