Rewriting job descriptions on the fly

Today, our staff team ~ Matt, Jen and I ~ spent the whole day [from 9:30 to 4:00] turning some of History Church's challenges into incredible opportunities. We learned this week that one of our church's families is moving to Florida, and another family is vacationing all summer long... leaving us with 0 elementary age kids beginning in July.

I don't care what other church planters say about the necessity of children's ministries, God has flat-out refused to build our elementary-age ministry, no matter what we've tried to do... people, money, staff. He just absolutely does not want us to have one right now.

So this afternoon, we rewrote Jen's job description on the fly and decided to pour everything into where God is currently blessing us right now ~ babies, infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Jen spent tons of time at Disney at her stint with Campus Crusade in Orlando, so her plans for the aesthetic environment are incredible.

By choosing to invest in the younger kids, we know we are discriminating against any older children we might draw through the summer... but this is a necessary evil of being excellent at a few things, rather than mediocre at many. The good news... Matt pointed out... is that even if we do nothing for elementary age kids in the meantime, we'll have a killer ministry in just 3 years.

Comments

[Russell Knight]

I enjoy reading your blog. Our plant is 30 months old and we have the same situation regarding children's ministry. Our nursery/toddler/preschool ministies are overflowing,but we have only 2 elementary age kids. How do you minister to this age bracket when the numbers aren't there?

[Ben]

thanks russell... yeah, we figured we wouldn't even try... at least right now.

[Shannon Reynolds]

just some encouragement we did the same thing last summer and it really helped. just the focus on the worship environment helped more than anything as well as resources going to the place where they can do the most good. we have now started back with k5-5th environment and we have between 7 and 15. we used to only have 2 and one of those was mine.