God loves the senior ministers whose portraits are on the wall in the church parlor, but God knows the real saints are the ones who care for children.
For almost 20 years, Julia Rassmann has been a big fun, big patience, and big dreams children’s minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. She solves problems I don’t know we have in ways I do not understand.
Brett Younger
When she recently decided to leave, we offered everything we could think of to get her to stay — Disney+, unlimited Goldfish, and a coffee cup that says, “Pray for me. I’m having a children’s lock-in” — but she wants to see what adequate sleep is like, so we are looking for a replacement for someone who is irreplaceable.
We have posted a job description that is full of boring stuff: “The Director of Ministry to Families and Children is responsible for the development, implementation, and coordination of programs and ministries to welcome, support, and disciple the families and children of Plymouth Church and the community.”
We use each of these phrases multiple times: “comprehensive, integrated strategy,” “design, implement, and coordinate,” and “recruit, schedule, and develop.”
We might be better off explaining the kind of children’s minister we do not need.
We do not want a children’s minister who:
- Leads children’s sermons meant to impress adults with the children’s minister’s cleverness
- Talks about Barbie in a peculiar attempt to be relevant
- Thinks Truth or Dare is a fine game for children
- Gets frustrated with parents who think their children should never be more than 6 feet away
- Assumes parents will pick up their children on time
- Insists on telling the wrong Bible stories (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, for instance, is not meant for 5-year-olds)
- Needs a recipe for s’mores
We could list the actual responsibilities, although it might look odd on an official job description.
Our children’s minister needs to:
- Note vacation Bible school on the calendar with an exclamation point!
- Oversee the purchase and distribution of snacks to which no one is allergic
- Label leftover pizza in the church fridge, “Please eat this”
- Take many, many photos
- Recognize the value of children’s art
- Appreciate a good bulletin board
- Order glitter in bulk
- Know which art supplies are washing machine safe
- Repair angel and sheep costumes
- Hide eggs that 3-year-olds can find
- Do a passable Elmo imitation
- Know the difference between Bluey and Blue’s Clues
- Argue both sides of the Veggie Tales debate
- Know which Taylor Swift songs can be sung in church
- Remind us that God invented fun
- Love playgrounds
- Attend soccer games, gymnastics meets and dance recitals
- Keep up with birthdays
- Come early and stay late
- Greet children by the correct names, even the twins
- Oversee restroom returns
- Maintain a stack of medical release forms
- Recruit volunteers who do not know they want to volunteer
- Express appreciation to volunteers who want more appreciation
- Make friends with parents who own SUVs
- Take children to food pantries, clothes closets and soup kitchens
- Make the church a safe place
- Tell those who should not be around children they are needed elsewhere
- Clean up messes that never should have happened
- Listen to children
- Ask questions
- Encourage questions — even the ones adults cannot answer
- Understand what children are dealing with
- Help them make sense of life
- Teach them to be friends
- Include families that are on the fringe
- Pray for children and their parents
- Lead parents to fulfill their calling as parents
- Introduce 7 and 70-year-olds who should be friends
- Explain to the staff that children deserve our best
- Preach children’s sermons that are meant for children
- Push the minister of music to sing child-friendly songs
- Push the senior minister to speak to children’s needs
- Celebrate the joy of God’s goodness
- Make kindness look cool
- Teach the church to love children in a world that says “look out for yourself”
Churches need good children’s ministers because churches that love children are better churches. If we posted an honest job description for our children’s minister position, I wonder if anyone would send a resume to [email protected].
Brett Younger serves as senior minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.