creating consistent meetings for student ministry leaders
set expectations early: people love coming to meetings when they know there’s a specific purpose for it. identify exactly what the meeting will be about, and then communicate that to attendees well in advance. also consider the best ways to communicate. more and more, people aren’t checking their emails as often as they connect with facebook, twitter, or text messages. ask your team, volunteers, students, and parents what their preferred communication channel is, and gain permission to communicate with them in that way.
consider the task, then the people: who you invite to your meeting has a lot to do with what you want to accomplish. if the goal is to get lots and lots of raw ideas, cast your invite net far and wide. if, however, the goal is to land on some strategic decisions, consider who the best decision-makers are and make sure they’re there. there’s a time for general meetings where all kinds of personality types and skill sets are needed. more often, though, there’s likely a group of folks who would be specifically right for your specific meeting.
creating consistent meetings for preschool & elementary ministry leaders
identify your audience: as children’s ministry leaders, we often move from one meeting to another throughout the day. this non-stop flow can cause us to forget each meeting’s specific audience. before each meeting, identify whether the group includes volunteers, staff, coaches, pastoral colleagues, community leaders, or a combination of these groups.
create the environment: once you’ve identified your audience, create the perfect meeting environment for that specific group. as a children’s ministry leader, i always assume that people want to attend meetings with candy, loud music, crayons, and spinning lights. that’s a bad assumption. the first time i met with my senior pastor i brought him a box of crayons so that we could have fun taking notes! that didn’t work out like I had hoped. i learned my lesson, and the next time we met i brought fancy grown-up pens.
stay on track: it can be easy when meeting together to stray from the prepared agenda. something magical happens when children’s ministry leaders get together—they start talking. talking about their kids, their dogs, their car troubles, and their most recent home improvement projects. all of these topics are great when discussed during the allocated time. your attendees will be most encouraged to attend your meetings and give their very best when they know they can depend on you to efficiently lead through the set agenda.
Many thanks to wife and husband team- Amy and Kelly Dolan– teamed up this month to write a great article about building a better meeting for both preschool/children’s AND student ministry leader teams. You can read the original article and many more posts on building meetings by going here.
We featured this in our Ezine that you get as part of your premium YouLead curriculum. An Ezine is a great way to send out well-designed and focused information in an email to your key volunteers. There’s a way for you to create a mailing list and even a place for you to customize and add your own information besides featured content like this one. Check it out here.
