OUR PROGRAMS ARE TOO CROWDED
Your Question:
“We have too many children for the facility and the number of CM team members. How can we handle the large number of children with our current facility or CM team?
The Issues:
Having too many children is a nice problem! This means that the parents are comfortable with leaving their children in your care; but if the ministry groups are too crowded, it can cause trouble. If you are grouping your children in age groups, you might consider switching to a large group setting, or grouping several age groups in a larger room. If you don’t have any larger rooms that are accessible to the CM, the only other option might be adding an additional worship service. Both overcrowded rooms and adding an additional service are complicated. Considering “what’s best for the children?” might help you decide what to do.
Scripture Foundation:
“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:6
Short Answer:
Having too many children for the size of your CM team and your facility is a challenge that needs to be “bumped up” to your pastoral supervisor or senior pastor. This challenge is too big for you alone to face. Yes, your supervising or senior pastor may tell you to “figure it out,” but at least you have communicated your concerns. If you truly have too many children for the size of your facility, adding more CM team members won’t solve the challenge. This issue could cause problems that the parents notice. If this happens, they will undoubtedly go right to the senior pastor with their complaints. It is important to brief the senior pastor soon and often. As much as possible, place yourself under the supervision of the senior pastor. It is ideally his challenge since it might involve adding an additional service. If adding an additional service is the choice the senior pastor makes, you will now be faced with building a a new CM team to serve the children in the new service. Hopefully, your senior pastor asks you how long this will take and gets involved in supporting the recruiting process. If adding an additional service isn’t the decision he makes, then you will have to do the best you can with what you have. Ask God to help you analyze your use of the current facility. Are there rooms that aren’t being used? Are there non-load-bearing walls that can be removed to make two rooms into one larger one? Can you redesign your groupings in order to create a rotation of the children through smaller rooms? Can you use any outside areas (in good weather) to reduce the congestion in the inside rooms? Until the Lord opens up an additional service or shows the church leadership a new facility, you’ll have to be a determined, wise steward of what you have! For more help, click on the links below.
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