• Measuring Kidmin Success
Measuring Kidmin Success
There seems to be some confusion about what constitutes Success for the Children’s Minister. We all think about it. We want to be successful at what we do and be known for that success. I think part of this confusion comes from our American culture, which basically says…Success has to do with superlatives—biggest newest facility, increased numbers, more salary, bigger team, greater budget, better quality and grander quantity of resources, etc.
But for the Kidmin, success is really about our leadership—faithfully serving God, being a contributing team player with the staff, knowing kid’s culture, following the vision from God, being good stewards of resources, equipping and training volunteer leaders, reaching out to those without Christ and discipling children to be faithful followers of Jesus, empowering parents to be the spiritual leaders of their own children and trusting God to use us in a mighty way to expand His Kingdom. However, at the end of the day, we value that God just shows up in a powerful way in our ministries. It is all about a demonstration of God’s power. Can we take any credit for any of that?
Here are My Baker’s Dozen Indicators for Measuring Kidmin Success. Doing any of these items might mean you are on the right path for success. These indicators are just that—some indicators that might shape your reputation as a successful Kidmin.
Every ministry is different and all of these may not apply everywhere, granted, but you might find these helpful on a personal and corporate level.
1. Maintaining your own Personal Growth in devotions, worship and leadership is vital to any success you may achieve, without it you can fail. No one observes this success, but you!
2. Being available to be used of God as a Servant Leader to minister to others who need help and assistance. Success is not isolation.
3. Equipping those who minister to children with resources, training, evaluation and vision for the work. If you remove equipping, your ministry could be reduced to maintenance—child care and baby sitting. Kidmin success requires measurable equipping. Struggle with this equipping process.
4. Fix-it Specialist—one who can access what is broken and knows how to fix it, so the ministry works by design—not be default. Success looks like expertise in problem solving and planning.
5. Strategic Abilities: to activate passive leaders, to win over the critical and the negative ones (who have done all that before) and to process leaders and parents for ownership of their own felt-need programming. Success sure involves this one. It is measurable one person at a time.
6. Being a Specialist in your Children’s Ministry work, but a Generalist with staff—one who knows how to make a contribution to the whole church ministry. All win when the team wins.
7. Strategic Discipleship Program Menu that offers several graded options for helping young disciples to mature in Christ—a prime indicator. You must be successful in developing disciples. Somehow, it must be measurable and sustained.
8. Recruiting and Training: Secure as many volunteers as possible. However, your success may not be just recruiting, but rather casting a Kidmin vision so your leaders become passionate for children’s work now and later, even when you are gone.
9. Experience in Life-Long Learning to be on the cutting edge, so you can train and equip leaders. Try to expand your leadership and performing arts skills. This will enable you to encourage others in their skill set too. There is success in being teachable. Be open for input.
10. Management Skills: to process change, to influence others, to manage a growing program, to communicate with your leadership, to write clear goals, to execute your plans, to learn from every ministry, to appreciate and to celebrate the accomplishments of your team. God gets the glory! Success is bathed in these skills.
11. Expertise in Resourcing Parents to be the spiritual leaders of their children. Developing your Parental Partnership will garner success for you and the parents. But with this, it is the Kids who win, every time, all the time.
12. Designing Outreach on Purpose. Knowing what constituencies that you are trying to reach with the gospel and developing strategic programs to accomplish this is required. You cannot always expect your target audience to come to you—you may have go were the fish are. Success in outreach requires a sustained effort.
13. Exceeding the expectations of your Job Description by having high marks in your annual Performance Review. This is just about the lipmus test for the Kidmin’s success, except for that “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” the ultimate success, in my book.
There you have it—My Baker’s Dozen of Success Indicators for Kidmin. I am sure we could add a few more, but it is my opinion that if you are doing some combination of these, you will be known as Successful in the Kidmin world. Check the tape! See how you measure up with these indicators.
Something to think about…I guess you could say that I think success is…
- Long term, not short term
- Cumulative, not a one-time event
- Deep, rather than shallow
- Sustained, not erratic
- A Conclusion, not a process
- Reputation, not a first impression
- Measurable, more than subjective
- Faithfulness, rather than first attempts
- Teamwork, not independence
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