100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (29 page)

Leadership can make or break our preschool ministries.
To be effective leaders, we need to take some cues from the preschoolers we lead.
By matching our leadership with preschoolers’ key characteristics, we can take our ministries to the next level.

Choose curiosity over apathy.
First of all, preschoolers are naturally curious.
Spend longer than 30 seconds with a 4-year-old and you soon realize that they question
everything
.
They’re extremely inquisitive.
They want to explore, discover, and learn.

As a leader, apathy will kill your curiosity and take away your ability to be innovative.
If you’re apathetic you can’t come up with new ideas and creative solutions to the problems you face in ministry.
Apathetic leaders conform to the way things are.
Curious leaders ask questions such as “Why?”
and “What if...?”
to discover what can be.
They challenge the status quo and explore new ways of doing things.

Choose adaptation over stagnation.
Preschoolers adapt to their surroundings.
I watch this happen every Sunday as new kids enter our preschool ministry.
They may be reluctant at first, but it doesn’t take long before they’ve settled into their new environment.
Their fear of the unknown may slow them down, but it doesn’t stop them in their tracks.
They have an uncanny ability to change and adapt.

Your ability to change and adapt will determine your effectiveness as a leader.
Our ministries become stagnant when we refuse to change.
Most of us are reluctant when we face changes, but fear of change turns our reluctance into resistance.
When we resist change, it stops us in our tracks.
Instead choose to embrace change and adapt to it.

Choose risks over retreat.
Preschoolers are constantly making progress.
They’re maturing, growing, and developing.
Preschoolers don’t retreat from challenges but take risks to solve their dilemmas.
The notion “it can’t be done” isn’t in preschoolers’ minds.
They’ll use their imagination to make the
impossible possible.
You’ll rarely, if ever, find an idle preschooler.
They have two speeds...they’re either going full steam ahead or they’re sleeping.

Leaders make progress.
Leaders don’t back down from challenges; they creatively figure out ways to overcome them.
One of the most common reasons we retreat from a challenge is to avoid failure.
Because we don’t want to fail, we allow the notion “it can’t be done” to become commonplace in our thinking.
We avoid the necessary risks that would make our ministry to preschoolers better.
Taking calculated risks in our ministries is what makes great things possible.
Without taking risks, we can’t make improvements in our ministries.
Without improvements, we’re not making progress.

To become great leaders in our preschool ministries, we need to learn from those we lead, choosing curiosity over apathy, adaptation over stagnation, and risks over retreat.
As we allow these preschool characteristics to infiltrate our leadership style, we’ll begin to see God lift our ministries to new heights.
Our questions will bring clarity, our adaptation to change will melt away our fears, and our risks will open up new ways of doing preschool ministry.
So begin today to lead...like a preschooler.

—Eric

Eric Echols
is pastor of ministries at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Georgia, overseeing preschool, children’s, and student ministries.
He’s also involved in church strategy, leadership development, and unity of purpose.
An innovative leader, Eric uses his team-building abilities and creativity to positively impact the church.
Eric’s passionate about seeing churches reach their kingdom potential.
Eric is married to Nicole, and they have three kids: Samuel, Emma, and Wilson.

Gina Franzke
oversees girls’ and women’s Ministry at Cross Church in Springdale, Arkansas, where she’s served for 20 years—she served the preschool ministry there for 19 years.
She has a bachelor’s degree in family studies and child development from Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma.
Her passion to put the Word of God into the hearts of his people is a driving force in her life.
She and her husband, Ed, have two daughters: Meredith, 15, and Katelyn, 11.

Dale Hudson
has served in children’s ministry for more than 23 years.
He is the director of children’s ministry at Christ Fellowship Church in South Florida.
Dale was voted one of the 20 Most Influential Voices in Children’s Ministry.
His website,
relevantchildrensministry.com
, provides ideas, insight, and content for leaders.
Dale and his wife, Pamela, have been married for 23 years and have two sons: Josh, who is 22, and Caleb, who is 18.

Barbara Price
has served in every capacity of children’s ministry and was director of early education at Memorial Road Church of Christ from 2003 through 2009.
She’s currently an adjunct professor at Oklahoma Christian University, teaching classes in children’s ministry.
She also works for the Intergenerational Faith Center at Oklahoma Christian, a grant-funded program whose purpose is to provide practical applications for developing healthy and intentional practices to assist families in faith-development.
She and her husband, Jeff, have two children, Sydney and Beau, and have resided in Edmond, Oklahoma, for the past 33 years.