7 Ways Churches Can Prevent Burnout in Children’s Ministry

2. Offer Adequate Training

Every now and then, a church may find a leader or volunteer who is already highly trained and experienced in some form of teaching, education, pediatric medicine, or child development. These kinds of ministers, though rare, can provide valuable wisdom and experience to a children’s ministry. In most cases, however, most children’s ministry volunteers are average people with a heart to serve. They are parents, teenagers, and retired elders. Not every volunteer is an expert in working with children and youth. That should not be the sole requirement for service. 

Of course, biblical teaching should be reserved only for those with the proper theological training and covering from pastoral leadership. However, setting your children’s ministry up for success often involves providing early and up-to-date training to those looking to join the ministry team. 

Adequate training accomplishes several things:

1. It affirms the importance of children’s ministry by outlining the responsibilities of caring for Christ’s little ones. 

2. It communicates to parents and the church that children’s ministry seeks only the best leaders and volunteers to care for their children.

3. It gives time to thoroughly vet, screen, and background check prospective team members.

4. It defines the pastor’s values, mission, and vision for children’s ministry.

5. It provides practical resources to equip and prepare children’s ministry staff for ministry.  

6. It creates opportunities to disciple children’s ministry leaders. 

7. It offers covering and accountability.

With adequate training, a children’s ministry team will be better equipped, prepared, and confident to serve the needs of its children. 

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3. Ensure Proper Staffing

If there’s one factor that almost always contributes to burnout in children’s ministry, it’s a lack of adequate staffing. Not unlike a teacher who struggles to manage an overcrowded classroom, a children’s ministry that does not provide adequate staffing will inevitably push or stretch its team to its limit. Individuals may be able to carry a larger load for an occasional event or season. Over time, however, the responsibility that comes from only a few adults trying to effectively (and safely) care for large numbers of children can quickly become overwhelming. 

Ensuring adequate staffing prevents anyone from having to do or carry too much. It also prevents volunteers from being put in situations they do not feel prepared for or trained to handle. If one leader struggles or show signs of burnout, there are others who can step in, provide support, and help pick up the slack.  

Not every church can afford to pay a full-time children’s ministry staff. Some cannot afford to pay anyone to run their children’s ministry. Most churches rely on some combination of paid employees and adult volunteers. Sometimes, children’s ministry will need to ask the pastor and congregation for help when more staff is needed. In other cases, children’s ministry may need to cut back, combine services, pool resources, or offer limited childcare until it can provide adequate, properly trained staffing for the services it wants to offer. Doing so not only benefits everyone involved but ensures that no volunteer, staff member, or leader is forced to do or carry too much, thereby mitigating the potential for burnout. 

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4. Rotate Responsibilities

One of the first jobs I had after graduating high school was working as a ride operator at a popular theme park. Most days, I was assigned to the same ride, a slow-moving shooter game that required only a few people to operate. That meant standing in the same position, pushing the same button for anywhere from eight to twelve hours. These were some of the longest hours of my life. Thankfully, I would occasionally get the chance to work a much larger, more complex flight simulator that required nearly twenty people to operate. With that ride, I had more freedom. I could work different positions, rotate, and never be stuck doing the same thing all day. At the end of my shift, I felt more refreshed and ready for work the next day. After the other, I was exhausted and just wanted to go home and sleep.

The parallels to children’s ministry are not perfect, but hopefully the point is clear. Sometimes, rotating responsibilities can help keep a team fresh and rejuvenated. Sometimes, individuals may need a break from ministry, time away to rest or serve in a different ministry, or the chance to receive a training refresh. If staffing allows, volunteers should alternate weekends of service. If not, allowing individual team members to perform different tasks, lead different activities, or occasionally work with different age groups (with support and supervision) may create enough movement to keep the team passionate and energized about serving. 

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5. Encourage Regular Church Attendance

For over fifteen years, I served faithfully in children’s ministry at our church. However, shortly after my wife and I moved and settled into our new home church, I realized something unsettling. I hadn’t sat through an actual church service or worshipped with adult Christians in over three years. That was because, for over a decade, I had spent nearly every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night serving in our children’s ministry. It was all I knew. As a result, I began to experience the hallmarks of ministry burnout. 

Like many ministers in the church, I had a heart to serve. However, in my desire to pour out, I didn't allow myself the time to sit in God’s presence and be poured into. In neglecting worship, fellowship with adult believers, and biblical teaching, I had isolated myself from the rest of the church and deprived myself of the body’s resources, all in the name of serving. Before long, however, I wasn’t serving anyone because I no longer had anything left to give. I was burnt out. 

I wanted to think that this problem was unique to my situation. I’ve discovered, however, that it is not. For various reasons, many children’s ministry pastors, leaders, and volunteers aren’t given the opportunity to sit in service, worship with the rest of the congregation, or listen to the Sunday sermon. They are often too busy taking care of the children. 

Anyone serving in the church should be an active member of that church. They must be accountable and submissive to the pastor and his staff. They must also be fed, discipled, and instructed in the teaching of the Word of God. This happens, in part, by being an active and regular participant in the main service, which a good children’s ministry will encourage, if not require, its leaders and volunteers to attend. 

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6. Establish a Culture of Prayer and Support

Culture is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot when describing a healthy, desirable workplace. On the flipside, many people will cite culture as the reason they left a job. Serving in children’s ministry should not be a place where people feel isolated, used, uncared for, or unseen. An effective children’s ministry will create a culture that supports, disciples, and cares for its leaders and volunteers just as much as it does the children and youth they serve. That may seem like common sense. However, in a desire to serve, many ministries neglect or forget to care for their own ministers. 

One of the best ways to protect and support children’s ministry leaders is by establishing a culture of prayer. Hopefully, everyone involved in children’s ministry has sought the Lord in prayer before arriving to church. However, instead of praying separately at home or in the car, an effective children’s ministry team will pray together before opening the front door or welcoming children into their care. 

Team prayer not only ensures that everyone is on the same page at the start of each service, but it encourages the ministry team to see, support, and lift up each other’s needs before looking to serve the needs of others. It is very difficult for a children’s ministry leader or volunteer to experience burnout when they know they are seen, supported, and encouraged by their leaders and fellow ministers. This happens largely through prayer. 

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7. Encourage Occasional All-Family Services

To provide opportunities for people to worship and attend church, many churches offer multiple services throughout the week, even several services on Sunday mornings. Though well-intentioned, this trend may unintentionally segregate congregations by service, with the older generations attending the morning services and the younger members often going to the later, evening, or midweek services. 

In the case of children’s ministry, children rarely worship with their families anymore. They are dropped off, sometimes at a separate building, while their parents attend “big church” in the main sanctuary. 

To be clear, I am not arguing that children must sit with their parents or guardians for every service or that children’s ministry is somehow destroying the unity of the church. The goal of children’s ministry is often to provide age-appropriate teaching to children in an environment where they can learn, play, and grow alongside other children. It also allows parents to rest, fellowship, and worship with adult believers. 

However, one way to prevent burnout in children’s ministry is to occasionally pause or suspend children’s ministry to allow the staff and volunteers to rest or be with their families in church. Furthermore, by creating occasional all-family services, the church benefits from having families and believers of every generation present in the same building at the same time. 

Of course, working with children is certainly joyous work but difficult work at the same time. It requires passion, patience, persistence, energy, creativity, humility, and an ocean of grace. Not everyone has these qualities. Even those who do can still become overwhelmed, overutilized, and overworked to the point of burnout. Attempting to rebuild and restore someone who is already burned out, however, is not an ineffective strategy. The goal should be preventing members of children’s ministry from ever getting to a place of mental, physical, or spiritual exhaustion or defeat. The last thing any pastor (or church) wants is a congregation of wounded or exhausted members with no passion, energy, or desire to ever serve in the church again. This does not have to be the fate of children’s ministry or the church. 

With care, consideration, and above all, prayer and preparation, a wise, committed church staff can support a thriving children’s ministry and foster growth in its children, parents, leaders, and volunteers for years to come.  

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