I could not believe the chaos. Having been in children’s ministry my entire life, I had seen just about everything. Nothing, however, could prepare me for the disaster that was before me.

Seventy screaming children were out of control as they ran around a poorly lit room. Two dying projectors displayed low-quality video. Two lonely, exasperated volunteers eyed the exit, ready to make their escape. Three-year-olds cried in their seats as sixth-graders shouted across the room at each other. There was no learning. There was no ministry. Nothing was safe.

The next day, I sat with the senior pastor and presented a list of changes I felt would benefit the children’s ministry. Shortly into my presentation, the pastor stopped me.

“I know our children’s ministry is awful,” he said. “I just don’t know what to do. Could you lead it?”

So, I became the director of perhaps the worst children’s ministry in the country. Realizing the importance of the job before me, I created a plan to revitalize our children’s ministry.

The following six steps helped moved our ministry from failing to fantastic.

1. Communicate a sense of urgency. After attending the chaotic children’s service, I knew immediate changes were in order. Sharing my concern with the pastor helped generate support for implementing change.

2. Articulate a clear, simple vision and values statement. After talking with other church leaders, we decided on the following vision: We exist so that children will know Jesus, grow in Jesus, and show Jesus. We often summarized this further by simply saying, “Know. Grow. Show.” This memorable little phrase was highly portable and provided a clear vision everyone could understand.

Churches often underestimate the importance of creating a vision statement. Without a clear vision, confusion becomes common.

Your vision will help you prioritize your values. I identified four values that would help us achieve our vision: life-changing content, engaging services, excellence in the details, and safe and secure environments.

3. Get the right people on board. With our vision and values in hand, I looked for the right leaders to join my wife and me on our leadership team.

I approached Michelle about joining our team. Although she had never volunteered in children’s ministry, she was incredibly energetic and had great potential to motivate others to serve.

I then realized the importance of bringing in an ethnically diverse perspective. Our church celebrated its diversity; for our children’s ministry to be successful, we needed to embrace this value as well. Joan had faithfully served in children’s ministry for years and was well respected by everyone in the church. She proved to be the missing piece to our leadership team.

Churches often underestimate the importance of creating a vision statement.

The addition of new leaders brought new insight and ideas to our ministry. Their wisdom proved invaluable during this transition.

It is important to be strategic in selecting a leadership team. I intentionally chose individuals who would bring perspectives different from my own. I also looked for leaders who demonstrated flexibility, problem-solving skills, and a high capacity for growth.

4. Communicate the vision and strategies. With team leaders in place, I quickly realized the need to expand our volunteer team. I was desperately in need of additional volunteers, and the few volunteers we had were frustrated and discouraged. Most of them had little formal training and felt powerless to help. These overworked, underappreciated volunteers had been viewed as childcare providers, not children’s ministers. 

We decided to bring together our entire volunteer team for a team meeting. During this time, we shared with them our newly formed vision and values. We explained that we wanted to partner with them and empower them to teach the children. In addition, we wanted to lighten their workload by stripping away the tedious chores they abhorred and letting them focus on ministering to the children. We were not just sharing a vision. We were creating a new brand.

The response was overwhelming. Our volunteers came away inspired and began recruiting other volunteers to serve in children’s ministry. We started training our volunteers and celebrating victories together at team parties. Our volunteer numbers quickly grew. By inspiring, training and empowering our volunteers, we grew our team from two to 16 in just a few months.

5. Create wins. With our volunteer team rapidly expanding, I knew we needed a highly visible win to excite the entire church and bring awareness to the changes taking place in children’s ministry.

Our children’s facility was embarrassing. We shared a dark, cavernous room with the youth department. Meanwhile, a large, brightly lit gymnasium sat unused on our campus. I approached the senior pastor about transforming the gymnasium into a children’s ministry auditorium. He agreed.

To maximize the transformation impact, we kept the project a secret during the remodeling phase. Finally, on the opening day, we lifted the curtains and welcomed the parents and children into a state-of-the-art children’s facility.

Wide-eyed children walked around the facility in wonder as grinning parents followed closely behind. This win proved to be the turning point in our children’s ministry. It showed everybody we were serious about children’s ministry and that our children truly mattered. This was a highly visible win that the entire church celebrated.

Over the years, society has become increasingly impatient. People expect things to happen instantly. Unfortunately, a ministry does not change overnight. But quick, easy wins can help build positive momentum and create excitement about the direction things are going.

6. Assess and adapt. Shortly after taking over the children’s ministry, I began filming our services to see what we could do to improve. I was disappointed to find sloppy transitions, poor storytelling, rambling ideas and an uninspiring worship experience. Yet we used those observations to implement changes. And week after week, the services began to improve.

The only way to improve something is to identify what needs to change.

One year after I took over a failing children’s ministry and implemented a strategic plan of change, the ministry was revitalized and thriving. The students were engaged, the volunteers were active, and life-changing ministry was taking place.

By applying six principles of leadership change, we were able to revolutionize our children’s department and transform a church liability into a strength.