The following discussion and responses were originally posted in the Teachers Lounge.

Question Posted by Hilary S

It's just me at the helm, help!

I'm a volunteer trying to run the WoRM.

Answers

Posted by Jan S...

Perhaps there are people in your church who would not feel comfortable teaching or making a Sunday morning commitment, but who would love to contribute "behind the scenes". Someone who can send email or help gather supplies and prepare rooms could go a long way toward sharing the burden and the joy. (see Teacher Recruitment Ideas & Skit)

Consider writing up a job description (see Rotation Job Descriptions) that outlines what you need in terms of support. People are more likely to volunteer if they know exactly what is needed, what is expected, and who they can call on for help or support if they get stuck. Then ask your curriculum committee (or someone else) to help you brainstorm names of folks who might fit the bill perfectly. Next, make a personal invitation to that person, and give them the job description. And of course during the entire process, keep in prayer for the right persons to be a part of the team.

The truth is that you cannot do it alone, especially if you are the only one who believes in/wants rotation to happen in your church.

Also, be sure you are not holding on to your leadership and idea so tight that people don't feel valued or like they have anything to contribute.

Hilary S. - Replied
Thank you for replying and being so encouraging. We did set up Workshop Coordinators just 2 weeks ago and these people will be in charge of each "room" either finding/maintaining supplies themselves or getting someone else to do it. We did not feel we could also have them find the leaders because that bombards "staff" with phone calls and requires too much"I'll have to get back to you" kinds of conversations. So that job falls to me as well as sending lessons out, preparing hard copy, schedules...

How does it actually work out there in an "unpaid" situation might provide me some helpful hints.

Jaymie Derden replied:

I'm a volunteer Children's Ministry Coordinator. We are in our 4th year of rotation. 

Rotation is not a lone-ranger project and one of the fastest ways for it to fail is to try to do it all yourself!

That being said, there are some things that need to be administered and coordinated to make it run smoothly. I believe in giving people clear guidelines and expectations. Everyone is too busy these days. I have found that most people will rise to the occasion when you are very clear about what you need and expect. (MOST people!) Job descriptions are important for all involved. (shepherds, teachers, curriculum team folks, etc.)

HOW WE'RE ORGANIZED

We have a Dream Team, a curriculum design team, that meets monthly.

I do the background prep, and look through our stash of accumulated resources to try to make it easier for our individual team members. We have one person per workshop who serves on the team. We do ask our team to recruit workshop leaders. It really helps spread out that workload and broadens the search. When our team turns in their lesson they are supposed to turn in the name of their teacher and any conflicts with the upcoming dates that the teacher may have. Then I put together the final schedule. I make the copies and distribute to the teachers. This would be a great job for another volunteer to do, or if you have a church secretary who has time to help, that's another possibility.

Amazingly, it usually works quite well. We have had a few people come and go off this team over the last 4 years. I have learned to be a little more forgiving in my expectations of myself, as well as others.

We purchase or use rotation.org lessons several times a year to give our team a break. We occasionally do a review Sunday or special art project on 5th Sundays. I spend a lot of my time supporting and encouraging this team, because without them, we would not be doing rotation! They are the lifeblood of our program!

I actually spend a great deal of time being the Rotation Cheerleader at our church. I try to celebrate as much as possible the good things that are happening. We print out pictures and make periodic displays of children's work and children at work. That helps maintain the excitement of how much the children are learning. We send out a monthly newsletter to parents and kids. That would be a great job for a volunteer to do for you. We also post information and pictures on our church website -- www.state-street.org -- Click on G.R.E.A.T. Adventure. You might find a techie person who could do that for you.

What we haven't done is have workshop room coordinators and I really wish we did. I think one good idea is to keep your Room Design Team together after the initial fix up of rooms is done. Then you've got a group already committed to those rooms and you can call on them when you get new ideas about things you'll want to add. Prevents having to pull a brand new group together -- or even worse -- do it yourself! About quarterly we have Clean Up Days and I invite parents to come and help organize and spruce up our rooms. I go through and make a list of everything that needs to be done in each room (from dusting, to organizing cabinets, cleaning windows, cataloging videos, etc). Then I assign 2-3 parents per room and they work until the list is completed. It's fellowship time and gets the rooms clean too!

We ask our teachers to get the supplies for their own workshops. We have accumulated such a large supply of stuff that this helps prevent duplications and saves $$. If something is very unique and unusual, then we will provide that for the teacher. (for example, I had to order some special beeswax and oil once and we made the game wheel and game board for our games workshop) We provide a Teacher Tips handout that goes over all their responsibilities. Each teacher gets this with their lesson plan.

You might try to divide up the administrative job into several different mini-jobs and look for people to do those tasks. Or you might see if you could find another organizer who would partner with you to share the job. You could alternate months or simply divide up the tasks.

Rotation is a very volunteer-intensive ministry, but well-organized, it is a wonderful way to plug in many different people with a variety of gifts. That will just strengthen your ministry! In the first 2 years of doing rotation, we increased the adult participation in our children's Sunday School by 760%.

Jaymie Derden

Hilary S. replied...

Thanks you for your responses. We are currently assigning one person per rotation -- not writing very much ourselves -- yet. I do like the State Street UMC website -- will pass on this link to our techie for some ideas. I like the idea of clean-up days and "room dreamers". These two might be a way of recruiting more people. It can be stressful when it falls to the same people to carry the burden. My spouse is all for putting the "worry" ie responsibility where it belongs! I try to do that--but then I don't have a paid job and so it's often easier to do it myself.
This website has been a blessing.

This is a glorious task -- teaching the Word to others. After all, it's not just the kids who are learning. We don't have adult Sunday School yet, so I consider this one of the teaching grounds for all of us, in whatever way we take part.

Jan Snell replied...

Look for ways to ease preparation and teaching load....

1. If you have Sunday School at the same time as Worship, reduce the number of workshops you offer by making WORSHIP with Family one of your workshops.  

As well, reduce the total number of Sundays you need to recruit for by doing some special events (such as a Bible movie for all), and taking a breather during the summer. Burn out doesn't help anyone.

2. As mentioned above, invite people specifically for a specific task- the personal touch is important. For example, for one of your rotations, invite the Sr. High group to plan and lead it. Or make teaching a requirement for Confirmation.

3. Make sure people understand what their time commitment is. (3 Sundays? 5 Sundays?)

4. Talk with clergy/leadership about what importance the church should place on children and families. If Sunday School is during the worship service, and teaching means missing worship, that creates a bigger challenge for recruiting help. (this is a longer-term look at solutions, I know).

5. Invite people to participate according to their gifts/interests, as opposed to the fact that they have children. A grandparent who loves woodworking could be a wonderful workshop leader, ministering to kids while sharing a skill that is important to him or her.

6. Lesson plans/prep: Are you writing your own/adapting lessons from rotation.org? Consider the Writing Team lessons (they are usually more complete and explanatory), or purchase Rotation curriculum from Cornerstones of Potters.

Finally, trust that whatever you do, you are doing your best, and that God's word will be heard by the children in spite of all of our challenges!
Blessings
Jan Snell

The following discussion and responses were originally posted in the Teachers Lounge. LOTS of great suggestions here!

What to do?: Teachers/shepherds just putting in time (not on fire).

Trish originally posted:

We are struggling right now with the shepherds and teachers being prepared and devoted to the kids. Most of them are just doing their good duty and serving. I am thankful we have people to fill the positions but I don't feel like anyone is in it for the kids and I think our kids are suffering from it. Anyone have ideas or suggestions? 

Rhonda replied:

It's always difficult to know the dynamics of a particular situation we aren't involved in, but hopefully, something one of us mentions will help you solve what's often a "cyclical" problem in every Sunday School.

• How long have the current volunteers being teaching? People wear out. How do you give them breaks? How do you infuse new folks?
• Possibly a "leadership" issue; having training and materials ready for the leaders in order for them to have ample time to prepare
• A motivational issue; do the teachers/shepherds have regular exciting "pep-rallies" to keep the excitement built up
• Are the teachers/shepherds challenged and/or motivated to be creative as they plan?
• Has training been provided to help them grasp the vision?
• Does the church as a whole look at Rotation as a church-wide ministry? (i.e. Do all members feel invited and welcome to be involved in providing needed supplies and materials and participating in Rotation? Do the members see the ministry as a powerful way of instilling the WORD in the hearts of the children?

Without being there, it's hard to know. I know it's scary and the results can be intimidating, but I tried something once that paid off in the end. I’d suggest praying about this one first to know if it’s the right thing to do. Everyone involved in a particular ministry was invited to a meeting. We sat down at a "roundtable" and I explained that I realized the ministry needed to be improved. (They chuckled, but I later found out several were stunned that I would acknowledge it in a group.) I explained that the leadership realized there needed to be changes and we wanted input from the people who were involved. 

(A few of us had paper ready to record things so we could remember what was discussed.) You'll have to trust these people and they'll have to trust you if you are going to get them to open up here. 

Q: What are the problems that you see that we need to correct? (If you can get someone to talk here, you'll get LOTS of ideas.) When things began to be repeated, we moved on. 

Q: What are your ideas for solving these problems? (At this point, go back to your notes and name a specific problem, asking for ideas on how to take care of a specific situation.) Warning: the group will probably start listing problems again. When that happens, you simply say something like, "I see your point. How can we solve that?" "What are your suggestions for us to improve in that area?" "Have you thought of ways that might work better?" etc. 

Conclusion: Thank them; explain that you appreciate their input and suggestions; you’ll try to see how many of the ideas can be put into place to improve things. Something might be mentioned at the meeting that someone else would like to take responsibility for. For example: “The noise in the computer room is distracting.” If someone comes up with an idea of making sound absorbing partitions to place around the computer stations, and actually volunteers to construct them, write this down and tell this person you’ll contact them in the next few days to see how you can help. (You can’t afford to drop the ball at this point if you want your workers to realize their importance to the ministry.)

If you are brave enough to try such a meeting, you have to follow through or everyone will realize they’ve wasted their time. While you don't have to and won’t be able to implement all suggestions, you need to acknowledge the value of the wisdom in the suggestions. You want workers to understand their value and how important their contributions are. I've always found that pride and ownership on the part of a volunteer worker usually motivates them to a higher level of commitment.

I’m anxious to hear the response of others to your question.

Kim H responded:

I recently had the same problem and I handled it with much of the same tools that Rhonda did: honesty, group assessment and then some brainstorming to help figure out what needed to fixed and how. The most important thing that I did though was hand off some of the ownership of "fixing" things to the people that responded. By allowing them to be part of the process their attitudes changed and they become an essential part of the ministry.

Lisa wrote:

Try and find out what might light their fires.

Do they have a favorite Bible story that they'd love to do? Are they avid craft people with a particular skill you could work into a lesson? What are they passionate about, that they would like to pass on to the next generation?

Finally, whatever you communicate, do it out of care and love for your adult leaders as much as for the care and love of the children.

Peace,
Lisa

I did the same type of process at the beginning of the year with the teachers, but instead of presenting "problems" I approached it from the angle of "checking their pulse". I asked questions like "what's working?", "What's not?", etc. It was a very productive meeting, and no one felt like there was a problem (even though there were several). 

As mentioned before, follow-up is essential. 

Blessings,
Julie Burton

Jaymie suggested:

I do my best to encourage them in many little ways. I include them in newsletters that I send to parents and kids. At least every couple of months I send a special note of encouragement and thanks to shepherds. I send them birthday cards, Thanksgiving cards, Christmas cards, Valentines... sometimes with little treats. I make a point to regularly "brag" on them and let them know how important they are to the consistency and relationship-building of our ministry. They are supposed to send cards to their kids 4 times each year and when they do that, they get lots of positive reinforcement from parents and kids, too! Shepherds and teachers have an evaluation form for every rotation. (of course many do not turn them in, but those who do, I make sure to thank and follow up on any comments they make). 

One thing I've just started doing that I think will have a big impact is to share some of our pictures that we take during our class sessions. If there is a particularly good picture of a child or shepherd or teacher, I make an extra copy and send it with a quick note to the individual. 

I also try to put up pictures of each rotation on a display board each month. Everyone LOVES pictures. I put them on scrapbook pages and then at the end of the month stick them in our scrapbook. (I'm currently looking for a volunteer to take over scrapbooking duties!)

One thing I've learned is that mInistry is all about relationships! I tend to want to focus on my relationship with the kids and their parents, but as the leader of our children's ministry team, I have to intentionally nurture my relationship with all the adults who are involved, too! My goal is that I will nurture them and they will nurture the parents and kids! (not quite there yet but we're making progress!)

Blessings on your ministry!
Jaymie