Well-Equipped Volunteer: Train & Grow Your Children's Ministry Volunteers

I have written about teaching one thing elsewhere on my website. I talk about it in training seminars. It’s an important concept for teachers to understand and to practice.

Those of you who serve in the nursery may feel that you are simply babysitting. You may even wonder what kind of training or support is available to you since you just look after babies.

Let me encourage you! You are not just babysitters! You are vital members of the children’s ministry team and deserve just as much support and training as other volunteers.

So, in this post, I want to talk about teaching 1 thing in the nursery.

First, the concept of teach one thing is simple. When planning and teaching your lesson, plan and teach one central truth. Deciding ahead of time what central truth you want to focus on helps you plan activities, teach a succinct, focused lesson, and helps you with the direction to take application time discussion.

Now, obviously you don’t teach lessons in the nursery, but the concept of teaching one thing still works really well.

Get together with other nursery volunteers and brainstorm 12 key Biblical truths. These will be your central themes.

Having 12 key Biblical truths allows you to focus on one per month. Repetition is important, especially with younger children. So, choose one per month and focus on that theme every Sunday for that month.

Some examples of key Biblical themes are “God made everything,” “God loves you,” “Jesus is God’s Son,” “Jesus saves us.”

Once you have chosen 12 key Biblical themes, schedule them for the year and then build some activities, ideas, and prayer requests around it.

Make a poster with the theme of the month in big letters and pictures that highlight that theme. Hang the poster of the month at a crawling babies level and let them interact with the poster. As you notice a baby looking at the poster, point to it and read it out loud.

Here’s an example – for the month of November your key theme is “God is big!”

A song you can sing in the nursery is “My God is so Big.”

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do!
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do!
The mountains are His, the rivers are His. The stars are His handiwork too!
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do!

An activity idea could be playing blocks. Build a big tower and say, “That is big! Wow! God is bigger! God is big!”

Pray with the children, “God, You are a big God. You are big enough to take care of us. Thank you for taking care of us. Amen.”

Throughout the morning in the nursery, find ways to talk about your key theme with the children. Read the poster, sing songs, pray with the children, talk about it as they play.

Use the opportunity you have when serving in the nursery to help the children in your care build a Biblical vocabulary and build a strong foundation of Biblical truth.