From spit-up to stinky diapers, to screaming kids with separation anxiety, you never know what will come with a Sunday in the nursery. While the nursery has its challenges, it is one of the most important ministries in your church.

It is easy for leaders to neglect the nursery ministry, because the small children there have short attention spans. However, these early years of our children’s lives are the most formative ones.

Here are three ways to create a nursery environment that will help build a foundation of faith for a lifetime.

Have a strong, consistent nursery team

Finding volunteers can be difficult, but the nursery needs the best of your volunteers — smart, caring people who love babies.

Consistency of volunteers is important as well, because infants need familiarity to feel comfortable. If you can provide a nursery staff that is consistent each week, it will help your kids who have separation anxiety to feel more comfortable. It will also give your volunteers the opportunity to build relationships with the children and their parents.

Parents will feel better about leaving their children in your care if they know the nursery workers. This builds the confidence of parents in your church to trust the children’s ministry as their kids move up in age groups.

While some churches are successful in finding volunteers for each week, others find value in paying staff members to ensure their nursery has the best people possible caring for their babies. Children’s ministers and nursery directors should talk with your church leadership about the importance of the nursery and ways to improve its staff.

Make the room inviting

For a variety of reasons, many infants struggle when separating from their parents. Your job as the nursery director is to provide an environment where children feel welcomed and safe. Environment is everything when trying to minister to infants. When children come into the room, they should immediately feel warmth and love.

You are laying the foundations of their faith, even at this early age.

There a few practical things you can do to improve the room environment. First, look at the colors of the nursery walls and the kind of decor you have. Do you have soft, warm colors that encourage comfort and peace, such as blues and greens? Or do you have bright, harsh colors that can make a child anxious, such as red, yellow and orange?

Infants are extremely visual, and having decals of animals or Bible stories on the walls can help your infants feel comfortable in the room.

Have toys already out and displayed for the kids to play with the moment they enter the classroom. If you can distract the children with toys, it will make their experience of entering the classroom more pleasant.

Also have children’s worship music playing in your classroom, and be praying for the kids as they enter the room. This helps set the spiritual tone. Pray, inviting the Holy Spirit into your classroom!

Invest in their spiritual growth

Discipleship for kids begins in the nursery. Children are never too young to start learning about the love and character of God. Having a nursery curriculum or a teaching plan is important, as you are laying the foundations of their faith, even at this early age.

Many nursery curricula focus on one major idea or Bible story for a month and have little soft toys and materials to use to teach that theme. If you are unable to purchase a nursery curriculum, there are some other ways you can be creative in investing in those small lives.

Using the curriculum of your older kids, pick a major theme for the month, and post that theme on a board. It could be something like “God is Love.”

Sing a song to the children, and recite a short verse. Even small things can have a lasting impact in their lives, as you are teaching them the character of God and how much He loves them.

Zechariah reminds us not to despise the day of small beginnings. God has big plans for the lives of those infants in your nursery. Though they are small, God can start doing an amazing work in their lives.

This was originally posted on, and is adapted from, the Healthy Church Kids blog.