I have written about our kid’s worship services, I have shown pictures and yet again, I’m going to write more. Primarily, because this is a big part of what I do on Sunday mornings. If you would have asked me 3 or 4 years if I would be this involved in children’s ministry at church, you would have heard a negatory, good buddy. (throwing in some cb talk for effect!)
Now, however, this is something that I am working hard to make my part of it the best it can be. I started out by just filling in on sound, when needed…..the backup sound guy. Then we went to 2 kid’s services, so I became the regular early sound guy. Now we have 3 kid’s worship services and I’ve currently got me and 2 other volunteers, so we have all 3 services covered.
That’s a good thing, however the bad thing is all 3 of us are required to be there every Sunday. Not a big deal, we are all pretty reliable, but it is summertime and schedules are more hectic. I was out of town a couple of weeks ago and this coming Sunday, someone else is gone. We cover each other fine but here’s how my little brain works.
I’m thinking wouldn’t it be nice to have 6 people in a rotation, so all of us can rotate, one week on, one week off, or even one month on, one month off. So, that is my goal at the moment. This is not a quick proposition, most people don’t know how to run sound and most don’t know all the ins and outs of Easy Worship. Because of this, I’m not in a hurry.
As I have pondered this, I have determined that we don’t need highly technical people, the main thing I need is people who are eager to learn and people who are dependable. The 3rd volunteer, whom I just recently recruited, is a friend of mine and a couple of months ago, he was eager for the school year to finish up so he would be done teaching kindergartners. It just wasn’t his thing. Me, being perceptive, suggested he consider joining me on sound. I got where he was coming from because that was me, a year earlier. I was so done teaching 1st grade boys. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool to do, but it wasn’t where I was gifted. The area I’m volunteering now is where I need to be. So, my friend considered it and he is in now.
Just lately, I considered doubling up on the volunteers, so I have been on the lookout for people who are usually hanging around on Sunday morning and ideally, not currently serving elsewhere. Currently, I have 2 more people identified and willing to jump in. I made a mock schedule up the other day and with 4 volunteers, it gives each of us 1 week off every 4 weeks, but with 5 of us, it gives each of us 2 Sundays off in a 5 week period. Of course with 6, it covers each service equally. So at the moment, I have 5 willing and available people.
2 of us have been doing this awhile and are comfortable enough to train the newbies, so I hope to begin letting the 2 new guys watch in the next couple of weeks. Once everyone is comfortable running everything, then I want to bring more kids on board and train them on Easy Worship/iTunes. Ultimately, the role of the 5 or 6 adults will be to monitor sound levels, but primarily to oversee the kids in the hotseat and help guide them in starting and stopping the music, as well as keeping up with the words on the screen. Along with this, I want to incorporate a video camera into the mix, but I’m not sure of the logistics of that yet, as far as who will run the camera etc. but that’s like phase 3. Phase 1 is now, more volunteers, phase 2 is integrating kids into the mix, phase 3 is video, phase 4 is ??.
That’s my long term goal, I’m happy with the start. It’s in God’s hands and I’ll see where he takes it.