I've been on staff at my current church for 2 years. When I arrived, I found what I believe to be an oddity. We actually have 2 paid employees that provide care in our nursery. The only up-side to me is that you know the nursery is staffed. But what drives me crazy is the fact these two ladies are never in church, never in a Bible study, and are not growing. I believe we should staff our nursery with parent volunteers but our ministerial staff is no so excited about the idea (some of it is the issue that it's always been this way and the paid workers parents are long time members of the church as well as these 2 ladies depend on the supplemental income). Any ideas how I could present a positive transition from paid to volunteer? Or, does anyone else have this problem at their church? Just wondering...thanks for any suggestions.
Paid Nursery Staff
(3 posts) (3 voices)-
Posted 5 months ago #
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The fact that they are long time members, but don't attend or connect, should definitely be addressed. Although, that's not positive :)
I can only suggest casting a vision for why you want volunteers, not just in the nursery but throughout children's ministry. It sounds like the church leadership is a little scared to upset some members and that should be settled first. Meaning, the ministerial staff needs to fully support your decision before you take it to anyone else.
They may not be fit for other roles, but you could consider still paying them, and transitioning them to leadership roles, or administration/preparation roles during the week. Meanwhile, you could replace them with volunteers in the nursery.
Posted 5 months ago # -
We actually have 2 paid staff members for our nursery as well as group of a rotating volunteers to assist them. There are a couple of reasons we decided to go with the paid staff. 1. With that age group, we found that having one consistant person staff the class each week was invaluable considering the greater needs of caregiving requirements. That consistant person knows each child's/family's needs, allergies, feeding & sleeping routines, etc. This is very comforting especially for new parents. 2. We were having difficulty staffing those classes with volunteers. With that age, we can't just stick anyone in there and it is impossible to do what we do with the older children as far as combining classes or getting substitutes.
With this being said, both of the paid staff are plugged into small groups and once per month,we staff it to allow them to join in the Community Worship Service. This may not work for every church, but it has worked well for us. It simply did not work for us to try to staff it with rotating volunteers each week. Hope that helped.Posted 5 months ago #
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