Your children's ministry volunteers are priceless. So how do you keep them encouraged, inspired, and motivated? In her book Blueprints for Children's Ministry, Kim E. Bestian shares a helpful acronym, TIES, to help church leaders effectively lead, train, and retain their volunteers.
Through God’s guidance, the church provides leaders and sets them in place. These leaders Teach, Inspire, Encourage, and Send child ministry volunteers who have a passion for God’s little lambs. This TIES acronym helps pastors, Directors of Children’s Ministry, and Children’s Ministry Leaders to remember their primary responsibilities and to prepare workers in children’s ministry. This special TIES plan is derived from Hosea 11:4, “I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love.” Other translations use the words, “human kindness, with ties of love.”
To deliver information needed for a particular area of learning
To cast vision, excite, entice, and motivate into wanting to join in and participate
To coach and create a sense of approval, confidence, and continuance as support
To enable to go and do all that has been acquired
Because of His great love, God leads us with kindness, satisfies our human needs, and sets an example for us to lead others. Through Christian faith, we share and demonstrate kindness to others and wrap it all up with ties of love, which bind it all together.
Kindness or TIES of love include compassion, consideration, generosity, gentleness, helpfulness, sympathy, thoughtfulness, understanding, and most of all, mercy. Mercy is kindness to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Here are some examples of how to incorporate TIES of love in your children’s ministry program. The ideas are endless!
Above all, lead with love—the way God leads His people with the sort of kindness that we as humans need.
This excerpt was taken from Blueprints for Children's Ministry by Kim E. Bestian, pages 38–39, © 2017 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.