Often my pastor encourages us in the fact that “people are down on what they aren’t up on.” With that encouragement comes the reminder to be redundant in communication. For larger events like camps, VBS, or church wide festivals, you’ll want to hit all 10 of these. For smaller events, I would suggest tapping into the 5 that will most likely bring you the most fruit for that particular event.

1. Email: Email is still wildly popular, but is slowly being supplanted by other forms of social media as the communication method of choice. The effectiveness of this is very dependent upon the culture of communication of your people.
2. Newsletters: Church wide, volunteer, or parent. Get the word out in all of them.
3. Worship Guide/Bulletin: Make sure the average church attender who is prone to not be in the know has an avenue to see your events.
4. Facebook: Invite people to events, swamp them with info about your event through your feed, or write a post about it to share with your friends.
5. Posters: Put 11×17 or larger posters up on visible areas. Doors to kids ministry space, bathroom entrances, stairwells, prominent bulletin boards, plaster them with posters!
6. Word of Mouth: Call people. Ask them if they’ve heard about the event or are coming to it as you see them on Sunday mornings when you chat in the hallway. Recruit several noteworthy volunteers to personally invite 5 children or families to your event.
7. Blog: Does your church have a blog? Put it on there. Do you have your own Children’s Ministry blog? Put it on there!
8. Twitter: There aren’t many of my families plugged in to this yet, but if your church is in a more metropolitan area, this avenue will prove useful for you. Create a hashtag for your event or ask people to retweet your announcement.
9. Handouts: I’ve found that giving a postcard out to parents as they pick up can be a very effective “kick off” announcement leading up to an event.
10. Phone Tree: Yes, people still use phone trees. They are still useful b/c it puts a verbal message into the ears of most people in your ministry.

The church insurance company, Guide One, is offering a free 42 page PDF about church safety practices. All you need to do is give them your information and email address (yes…you will probably get some mailers from them) and they send you a link to download the file.

This guide is pretty helpful, covering topics such as facility and employee safety with large sections devoted to safe environments for children, background checking, and considerations during off site trips.

The following is a guest post from Cassi LeTourneau, a mom and author of Treasure the Rain.

If I could visit every single church around the country (maybe even the world) I would. I’d bring a stack of books with dog-eared pages, highlighted paragraphs and notes scribbled in margins. I’d sit across a little table from you, coffee in hand, and we’d walk through the needs of your church and how you might begin to address them. We’d share whatever knowledge we have of special needs, ministry, and God’s call in our lives (please know that my knowledge is fairly limited…but my God is definitely not!). I’d probably remember at the very last second that I wanted to pass along a couple of resources—and I’d quickly write them on the back of a napkin before praying for you, your church, and your community. And then we’d go our separate ways…friends for life because that’s kind of how I work.

That is my heart. To reach families in my own church as well as individuals and families thousands of miles away. I want to see these precious children, their families, church staff, and volunteers as well as entire communities blessed in ways they never would have imagined. If special needs ministry is on your heart—and my guess is that it very much is—start praying. Ask God to open doors.

Here are a few resources, in addition to Free CM Stuff, that you might look into:

Joni and Friends

The Inclusive Church

Ministry to Children

Keep in mind inclusion will look different for each and every congregation. I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all plan for special needs ministry. There are definitely “best practices” that can be gleaned from churches with existing special needs ministries and from resources such as those listed above. For now I will offer the following thoughts to help get you started.

• Communicate Your Ideas. Present your ideas to church leadership in a clear, concise way. Your Pastors, Elders and Children’s Ministry Directors have a lot on their plates. A lot. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t love to see a special needs ministry in place—it just means they may not have the means to see it through personally.

• Research. Provide them with a summary from the research you’ve done. Statistics along with success stories might be a great place to start. Just the Facts! Compile statistics along with examples of what other churches are doing. Remember that where you are headed, others have gone before. And many of those people are committed to seeing special needs ministry impact individuals and families far beyond the walls of their own churches. Check out these special needs statistics from the Inclusive Church Blog to give you a boost.

• Share a story. Don’t have a success story to share? They are out there—I promise—but if you’re like me, I didn’t know where to look and what I had at the time were stories of heartbreak. Stories of families being turned away…church after church informing them their children weren’t welcome. Stories of people being isolated from the one place they should feel most loved and accepted. So those are the stories I shared.

• Be consistent. Become familiar with your Children’s Ministry policies and procedures. If there is not currently a “Safe Kids” policy in place I highly recommend that you work with your Children’s Ministry Director to implement one. It is my opinion that this should be mandatory for all churches/Children’s Ministries (with or without a special needs ministry). Applications, criminal background checks, references and training…these basic safe guards should be non-negotiable when working with children.

• Step out in faith. Don’t think you have to have everything in order before sharing your heart. You may not have all the answers—or know exactly what special needs ministry will look like for your church—but what you can share is your heart! And when you boldly share your vision for inclusion you just might come across someone with a God sized vision of their own; waiting for someone like you to step out in faith and give voice to a need that is all too often overlooked.

• Cast the wider vision. With the blessing of church leadership, share your vision with the entire church body! This can be done in a number of ways. We chose to reserve ten minutes during each of our three weekend service times. We shared a brief video, were interviewed by one of our Pastors and encouraged everyone to visit us at a table in the foyer after service. For a sample on how to do this, check out this post, especially the document at the bottom.

• Recruit. Survey your church members. Look for needs that can potentially be met as well as people who might be experienced in a particular area (i.e. medical professional, special needs educator or someone with ministry/event planning experience). Don’t be afraid to recruit support from the secular world as well. Pediatricians, special education teachers, etc… These dedicated professionals have a heart for children even if they don’t necessarily share your faith. And what an amazing opportunity to model the love of Jesus!

• Manage volunteers and families. Provide a basic intake form for anyone interested in volunteering and for families of special needs children. Here are a few examples to get you going.

• Train. Offer an Orientation/Training day. For us that consisted of:

1. A (free) CPR class offered by a church member who responded to our announcement in service.
2. A brief video introduction to special needs ministry. One great option is “The Father’s House” by Joni and Friends.
3. The opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves and share their heart.
4. The option to attend our mandatory Safe Kids Training that evening (other training dates were available).

If I could leave you with just one thought it would be to remind you that special needs ministry is about relationship. Get to know your volunteers. Get to know your families—I would urge you to spend whatever time you can getting to know these parents and their sweet children.

Remember – parents are your best resource when it comes to caring for their individual child. Be sure to provide them with a thorough intake form where they can share vital information about their child. Listen to their questions and concerns and be completely upfront about what you can and cannot offer.

If you run into bumps in the road—ask someone who’s been there. If they can’t help you—ask someone else. Ask until you find someone who can. Just please—don’t give up!

About the Author: Cassi a wife deeply in love with her husband, a mom incredibly proud of her boys, and a girl forever indebted to Jesus. She started her blog, Treasure the Rain, as a place to share her heart and hopefully a little encouragement “through the rain.”

Recruiting volunteers is a true art form. Some of us are really good at it and some of us are really bad. This article is for my friends out there who will readily admit they are lousy recruiters. Your team is suffering because you just don’t know how to bring in excellent people by making an effective “ask.”

First of all, let me say that recruiting volunteers effectively has nothing to do with conniving people into something they are not interested in. It has everything to do with allowing people of varying gifts the opportunity to make those gifts come alive in the proper setting. This is Ephesians 4:12 kind of work.

If you want to make an effective ask, you need to shoot for the EMMY.

E–Explain: Explain who you are and what your role is within the church. Tell them what is going on in your ministry and the specific reason for your call. If they know who you are, just give them a short update of your ministry.

M–Motivate: Let your passion for the ministry come through in your voice. Take a moment to describe why what you are speaking to them about is important. Describe for them the reasons they came to your mind for this specific task or why someone else recommended that you call them. You should definitely be smiling during this part!

M–Map Out: Provide them the exact details regarding what you had in mind. Be sure to include start and end dates, commitment level, required trainings and other material that would be beneficial for them to know as they consider the position.

Y–Yo: This is the time where you wrap up the conversation by encouraging them to pray about the opportunity. The “Yo” is to remind you to arrange a time to get in touch with them. If you really want them to serve, don’t leave the ball in their court to get back with you. Many well meaning people who would really would serve in the ministry get very busy and forget to call you for weeks. You do the follow up. Put it on your calendar, make a sticky note for your computer, spray paint a reminder on your cat…whatever, just call them back! Sometimes, fortunately, you will ask someone who will jump at the opportunity right in the middle of your conversation. In that case, forget the “Yo” and just praise God that they felt immediately called!

If you hit these four tips spot on, you will see your recruitment take some giant leaps and most likely see a vast improvement the excellence factor in your ministry. People will be more bought in, more motivated and confident about their service because you helped them become a right fit.

Do you have a staff team you work with or a volunteer team that works closely in ministry together? You may want to consider attending this free online conference to develop healthy church teams. If you are not familiar with Leadership Network, they are an organization that helps church leaders innovate in their context through publications, online content and events.

Register for this free online conference here.

Freedcamp is an online project management service. It allows you to assign specific tasks to users, set time lines and goals, discuss decisions and project direction and share files. I’m not sure how well this would work in a church with a close office system, but I do see that it can have value in event planning with volunteers. I can see this online help being very beneficial for VBS and camp planning as you enter the summer. Let me know if you used it and how it worked out for you.

Online whiteboarding is something that I just discovered. I have not used it in a real time setting, but I can see how it would have some collaborative uses. Online whiteboards allow you to draw, write, upoad and mark up photos and documents and share ideas without having to be in the same room. These allow you to invite only specific people into your “whiteboard room” and can even handle free conference calling and chat. I can see this being helpful in the following scenarios:

• Conducting an online training.
• Communicating about a trip a group is on.
• Collaborating with other Children’s Pastors on events or ministry ideas.
• Conference call with a speaker to show them various aspects of your event you want them to be familiar with.

You may also try Twiddla, a similar web service. Have you used something like this? If so, how was it either beneficial or cumbersome to you?

Last week I discovered an incredible tool that I think can have some great uses in children’s ministry. I have to thank Alison and Maggie for this one! It’s called Sign Up Genius and it allows you to create various sign up lists while tracking who is attending the event as well as what specific items the attendees will bring. I can see this being useful in a few areas:

• Signing up for a pot-luck training
• Letting people choose various items they would like to donate to a particular ministry or event
• Having a work day and allowing people to pick specific jobs they will do that day
• Snack/breakfast sign up for Sunday school

For what else do you think this service would be useful?

When I got to my new church, I found that texting was a main form of communication. If you are in that same boat, you may want to incorporate the services of GroupMe. GroupMe is a group texting and conference call service. You set up the group (it can even import your Google contacts), and then start texting away. You can get an app for your iPhone or Android device. Here are some uses I can see for this application:

1. Alert your teachers or kids worship staff of a last minute change at 8:30am on Sunday morning.
2. Send an encouraging or spiritually challenging note to a certain team.
3. Have teams of “subs” who will keep their phone on vibrate in the service. You can group text them if you need a few helping hands.
4. Get all of your parents on it and use it for up to date announcements.
5. Send out urgent prayer needs as you interact with people in gospel sharing and counseling situations (no names obviously!)
6. Set up a group conference call after attending a certain workshop or conference to discuss your findings.
7. Send weekly “best practices” tips to your volunteers.

I’m not big on pulpit pleas, but I do find a good deal of fruit in volunteer recruitment through a sweeping campaign each year. I do not just accept people on the spot (I’m big on interviewing, conducting personal asks, and placing according to passions and gifts). We use this campaign to educate the congregation about upcoming ministries and make sure new people know there is a great opportunity to serve kids. We allow people to show interest in a particular position and then follow up with them with applications, interviews, and orientations. Here’s what I am doing this year. I have packaged it in a generic fashion so that your church can use almost everything I will be using.

“Make a Difference” Recruitment Campaign

• 8.5 x 11 Logo
• 11 x 17 Logo (for wall posters)
• Adjustable Bulletin Insert
• Recruitment Video–Available here on Vimeo for download in HD MPEG (see below)