If you are a kids ministry leader, you want your kids ministry to be excellent, creative, and most importantly, reaching families for Christ. You also probably want to keep finding new ways to get across Biblical truths in creative and innovative ways to the kids in your ministry. Sometimes, though, it’s a struggle in itself to maintain a level of excellence with the nuts and bolts of your ministry (by studying your curriculum, planning events, and even just recruiting enough volunteers for a Sunday morning). You want to create new, and creative ministry tools and experiences for families, but how in the world are you supposed to find time and energy to dream, brainstorm, and innovate?
Here are some tips to help get you started down the path of innovation:
- Find your purpose. Everything in your kids ministry should be rooted in your purpose. Like at CentriKid, our purpose is rooted in Scripture–everything you see at camp will flow from God’s Word. Before you innovate, be sure you know what you want to accomplish. Write that purpose down somewhere that you’ll see it daily.
- Schedule Time to Innovate. Go ahead. Put some time on your calendar each week to simply sit, think, doodle, and brainstorm big ideas that you want to see happen in your ministry. If it’s not scheduled and routine, other things will overtake it, and you’ll never have time to dream. Simply put 30 minutes to an hour each week on your calendar, grab a cup of coffee, and get to dreaming!
- Don’t give up! You can do it! The nuts and bolts of your kids ministry SHOULD definitely be taken care of and sometimes will take away from the chances you have to innovate. But don’t give up! You can definitely allow your creativity to influence your style of kids ministry leadership, and if you keep trying, God will use you and your innovation to continue to make the gospel clear to kids.