As a Children's Ministry influencer, I have heard it said time and time again that numbers don't matter in Children's Ministry. Now I've never been one to rock the boat, but could it be that our lack of numbers have caused us to rely too heavily on this idea. The truth is numbers will always matter in Children’s Ministry as long as growth matters in the Kingdom of God. Regardless of the size of your church, we should always be pushing for progress in areas of growth. We cannot allow the sizes of our churches or the lack there of to keep us stagnant when it comes to going out into our communities to reach Judea, Samaria, and the outer most parts of the earth. So let me ask you some questions.
Every Sunday, how many kids are supposed to be in your classroom?
What do you need to do as a team to ensure you are meeting those numbers?
Why are you down 3 Sundays in a row?
What’s happening in your city?
What’s happening in the lives of your kids?
What’s happening in your children’s ministry department that is causing children and families to avoid you?
These are all critical questions you have to ask yourself. You have to know why the numbers are increasing and decreasing. For a paid ministry person, this is in large part why you are there! You are the one responsible in understanding the management and leadership necessary to take the department to the next phase. Don’t get so caught up in photocopying papers, or cleaning out supply closets that you miss the boat on leading. Don’t be so consumed with distributing handouts at the door or stirring koolaid that you miss implementing the necessary management skills to build healthy teams. Know your role and understand your numbers.
It’s when you start to gain an understanding of your numbers, you gain an understanding of how effective you truly are vs. how effective you think you are. So how effective are you when it comes to reaching children and families right there in your community? The reality is, there are churches that have grown into multi-site locations because they have a keen understanding of how to reach children and families. Do you? The reality is, there are churches that are continuing to grow even in the midst of a pandemic. It's time to WAKE UP church!
Know today that God hasn’t given you anything he doesn’t intend for you to grow and cultivate. If he gave you a facility that holds over 500 children, then you and your team has to believe without a shadow of a doubt that you are capable of meeting that threshold and with the advancements of modern technology, it has never been more possible to reach digital natives right where they are, but your vision must be clear, and you must consider what it’s going to take to meet the demands of your vision.
As you position yourself to reach tomorrow’s generation, Remember, “it’s not all about the numbers”… But that doesn’t mean that numbers don’t matter. There’s more that you can do. Don’t let low numbers prevent you from being all that you can be, should be, and will be. Start being better today by knowing your numbers because numbers matter!