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Survey: Churches Lack Adult Help With Kids

Orginally published on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 5:00 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Research has repeatedly highlighted the vital role adults play in the faith development of children. Yet churches are still having a hard time finding adult volunteers for children’s ministries. A recent survey by Pioneer Clubs – a Christian ministry program serving over 3,000 churches and over 140,000 children throughout North America – revealed that 75 percent of churches struggle with leader recruitment…

“Adults have time. However, they won’t invest that time in children’s programs unless they believe that children’s ministry is a priority with eternal significance,” said Judy Bryson, president of Pioneer Clubs, in a statement.

The survey of 275 adults in leadership positions in Pioneer Clubs confirmed the vital role adults play when it comes to children and faith. Findings showed that 69 percent of the leaders “agreed” to “strongly agreed” that an adult other than a pastor or parent influenced their faith development.

Not only do pastors and parents help shape children’s faith, but Sunday school teachers, club leaders and other adults have a significant impact on children’s spiritual lives.

“Adults, who have on-going relationships with children, such as a club leader or Sunday school teacher, make a critical difference in children’s faith foundation. A low adult-to-child ratio lets such relationships thrive,” explained Bryson.

But many churches are experiencing high adult-to-child ratios.

“Leaders are very important in children’s lives. Yet we know from the feedback that finding those [adult] volunteers is a challenge,” said Pioneer Club spokesperson Louise Ferrebee. “Based on what we hear from people, it is an ongoing challenge.”

In the meantime, the surveyed adults admit that their own faith was shaped at an early age.

According to the report, 71 percent said they “agree” to “strongly agree” that their “understanding of faith was fundamentally shaped by childhood religious experiences.”

Still, only 48 percent see it as their responsibility as Christians to share their faith with children. At the same time, 71 percent said they like seeing a child understand how the Bible relates to daily life and 69 percent said they want to be part of a child’s spiritual development.

“As Christians, we are all called to nurture the next generation of believers,” said Bryson. “We can’t hope that ‘someone else’ will shoulder the burden. If we fail to foster a child’s Christian faith, something else will quickly fill the spiritual void.”

SOURCE: The Christian Post
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061205/23865.htm

See more great stories at The Christian Post’s website...

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There are 4 Comments:

Posted by

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 10:29 AM

--"But many churches are experiencing high adult-to-child ratios.”

What is considered a balanced adult to child ratio?
Posted by

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 2:26 PM

How about the teens? Get them involved in ministry! if they have accepted Christ as their personal Savior, they have gifts from the Holy Spirit!

You might ned to be selective, but you’d be surprised how many of them are willing and wanting to help, they’re just waiting for someone to ask.
Posted by

Sunday, October 28, 2007 at 8:48 AM

Judy Brysons statement is probably the key statement in this whole article. Churches that position their children’s ministry as simply a support ministry or second tier ministry will always suffer from low volunteer numbers. Unless church’s make the children’s ministry their HIGHEST priority, they will never see acceptible volunteer numbers. So many churches dedicate their time, staff and financial resources on building small groups. For the most part that’s ok if that’s the church’s vision. It’s essential however that these churches progressively but aggressively filter those descipled in those small groups into serving. The children’s and youth ministries should be first on the list of places to serve. For the churches that put their children’s and youth ministries on the top of the list...I solute you!
Posted by

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 4:42 PM

For many adults today, nurturing children’s faith life is just one more drop-off scheduled activity, like soccer practice or piano lessons. They think they’re involved, in that they’ve made the huge, Byzantine schedule and done the taxi driving. But the actual passing on of the faith- well, that’s for someone else to do. Churches also don’t punish lack of attendance- so every institution that does (traveling youth sports teams, cheerleading, you name it) comes first. In so many families, church is the default setting for what they do when there’s not a higher priority event happening. It’s always there, the child doesn’t lose a ‘starting position’ if they don’t come- there’s just no urgency about it all.

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.