How to Create a Winning Team Culture

Having a quality team is essential to effective Children’s Ministry. You can’t do it alone! We’ve talked about this in recent posts, including:

• 4 Steps to Assimilating New Volunteers in Children’s Ministry
• 5 Characteristics of a Great Children’s Ministry Team
• 9 Questions to Ask as You Raise Your Children’s Ministry Team

One of the most important elements to having a quality team is the culture in which they serve. Creating a winning culture is vital to success.

Here are four ways to create that winning culture in Children’s Ministry: 

1. Expect excellence The culture of your team will be shaped by the expectations that leadership sets for them. One of the most important expectations is the expectation of excellence. This should be an expectation for not only the work they do, but also for the attitude they maintain, the words they say and the relationships they develop. Together, this lays the foundation for a culture of winning. 2. Evaluate often. By evaluate, I mean always keep an eye on things. Yes, this applies to the quality of teaching, the condition of facilities and the engagement with kids. It also applies to keeping an eye on the people who serve.

• Are they doing good work? If not, why not? What equipping needs to be done in order to raise the bar?
• Are they maintaining a good attitude? If not, why not? What needs to happen for that to change?
• Are they building quality relationships? If not, why not? What can be done to facilitate and nurture those relationships among the team?

These and other questions like them need to be asked often. You need to keep an eye on the things that affect the culture of your team. 3. Empower as soon as possible. Responsibility boosts confidence. And confidence boosts culture. As you invite and equip new team members, empower them (which means trust them!) to do the job as soon as possible. Whatever level of responsibility they are capable of (a high schooler is going to be different than an experienced teacher) empower them for that responsibility as soon as you can. This requires a systematic process that you need to have in place for your team. 4. Encourage always. As the leader, your attitude largely determines the attitude of your team. Be their #1 cheerleader! Encourage them. Equip them. And encourage them some more. As you set the tone in this area and your team grows together through relationships, you might be surprised at how a culture of encouragement develops among your team. What have you learned about creating a winning team culture in Children’s Ministry? This article originally appeared here.