Kids Ministry Event Planning: 4 Mistakes to Avoid

I’ve got a confession to make: Not all of my ministry events have been successful.

I’ve run volunteer trainings, community fall festivals, a modified VBS and plenty of other events, big and small. Some went well, but many have not (and others have straight-up bombed).

What was the difference? After some honest (and humbling) review, I can truthfully say that some of my events were unsuccessful because I didn’t follow one or more of the four main components below.

My “Why” Was Unclear

Every event you plan should have a clear “why,” which means you should be able to tell someone, in a sentence, the reason behind the event.

Of course, we can give a million reasons for doing something, but aligning your potential event with your ministry’s vision, mission and values gives your “why” more focus and weight.

I once met with a burnt-out kids director juggling a wide range of events. I asked her why she was running so many, and she said, “Because the pastor wants the kids ministry to host at least 10 events a year.” When I asked why he wanted that specific number, she couldn’t really tell me. From the little she shared, it seemed that the church leadership just wanted to keep up with other churches in town.

Hosting an event because other churches are doing so is not a good reason. Those churches don’t have your church’s specific vision, gifting, membership, resources or values.

Your events should be an overflow of who your church is and how it can uniquely serve the community in which God has placed you.

Acts 17:26-27 says God determined the allotted time and boundaries of where people live so they would seek Him. He placed your church in a specific time and place to serve specific people so they would seek Him. Don’t host an event out of pressure to keep up. Do it because you believe it fulfills your church’s purpose and meets a real need.

Before planning a new event, write down who it’s for, what you hope it accomplishes and why those outcomes matter. That will help you decide whether to host it at all and how you’ll measure success once it’s done.

I Didn’t Create a Clear Planning Path

I’m an ideas guy. I have deep convictions, and those convictions give way to some unique (and sometimes unrealistic) ideas. Ideas remain just ideas unless they have a timeline and a plan. I’m good at putting my ideal event on the calendar, but the planning part is much harder. I would typically procrastinate or let details slide.

If you’re like me, here’s a path of questions to get your planning moving:

• • Outcome: What do I hope this event accomplishes?

• • Experience: What experience leads to this outcome?

• • Program: What actions or programs create this experience?

• • Resources: What do I need to pull it off?

• • Logistics: What roles and responsibilities are necessary?

• • Time Frame: When should each element be completed?

That last stage of the path is critical. You start with the event, work backward, break into achievable parts then schedule when each part must be completed.

For our Fall Festival, we reserved inflatables, food trucks and a petting zoo eight to 12 months out because those book fast. We didn’t start recruiting until two to three months out, and we didn’t promote until the month of the event. The need or complexity of each element determined the time frame in which it needed to be done.

I’ll admit I’m strong on the first three stages, but I tend to veer off course toward the bottom three. That’s not because I don’t think they matter, but because I lacked the patience or humility to finish them well. This leads to the next step I’ve often forgotten or forsaken.

I Didn’t Let Others Hold the Babies

Babies? Yes, babies. When you plan an event, you’re invested. You’ve prayed over it and thought through what it could accomplish. That makes it hard to let go of any part of it.

This is one of the biggest hurdles to healthy events. One person tries to carry the weight of the entire thing, so if they misstep, everyone feels it. If you want a healthy event, you’ve got to let others hold your babies, those precious elements you hold so dear.

One shift that has helped me is to stop seeing the people I recruit as detached volunteers and start seeing them as owners. Some will own more aspects of the event than others. For example, the act of recruiting could (and often should) belong to someone else, at least in part.

For a VBS, let someone own recruiting for specific stations. You could recruit the station coordinators, and they can recruit their own workers. Letting others hold the babies puts less weight on you, giving you freedom to actually experience the event, leave less exhausted and evaluate it more clearly afterward.

That said, don’t delegate so completely that you carry no responsibility. After all, they’re still your babies. Check in with your volunteers (or co-owners) and make sure things are getting done well and on time. You don’t have to micromanage, but you still have to lead.

I can think of events that flopped because I tried to do everything myself. Then there were other events that flopped because I swung too far the other way and wasn’t involved enough in what I’d handed off. That’s why I find the “co-owner” language so helpful. I don’t have to own it all, but I still have ownership.

I Measured the Wrong Outcomes

You can establish your “why,” build a planning path and share ownership in prep and execution, but if you don’t rightly evaluate the results, you won’t know if the event actually succeeded.

Say you host an outreach event for unchurched kids in your community. Everything runs smoothly, and more kids show up than expected. But as you evaluate, you realize the majority already attend other churches. Nothing’s wrong with this on its own, but your event was designed to reach non-churched children. That tells you something might have been off in your advertising leading up to the event.

Numbers matter, but not always. Parent or volunteer trainings, for instance, are better measured by growth in skill or character development weeks following the event.

In short, don’t set a “why” for an event and then evaluate a different metric. Success is determined by the event’s purpose, not anyone else’s yardstick.

I hope you’ve learned from some of my event-planning mistakes and can host your next event with clarity, confidence and joy, and without feeling overwhelmed or burnt out.

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