10 Standards of Excellence

What standard of living and behavior should be expected of those who serve in the children's ministry and are put before children as role models?

While none of us are perfect, serving and modeling Christ before children is a high calling indeed. Pastor Karl Bastian created the list below for his ministry years ago and has used it ever since. He calls it the "10 Standards for Excellence" that is expected of all volunteers to live up to in order to serve in the children ministry. The bar is high for those who are modeling Christ to our children!

This document should be given to every volunteer and can be part of a children's ministry volunteer manual.

Some churches find it helpful to have a volunteer sign this document to help them take the standards seriously. If an issue comes up that needs to be addressed or if a volunteer needs to be removed from ministry, this can be used to help explain biblically the reason they are being removed  from service, whether it is for a disciplinary break or permanent termination from their role. A tear-off section is provided so that they can keep a copy of the standards for their personal reference.

Other churches do not wish to ask volunteers to sign anything (after all, God doesn't ask us to sign the Bible, He just gives it to us!) so they just go over it with with every volunteer either in a group orientation or one-on-one and make sure each volunteer understands these are the expectations for volunteers in the children's ministry.

Each of the 10 Standards are supported by scripture to help substantiate that these are not just the leadership's expectations, but God's expectations of all believers. Our job as kids ministry volunteers is not only to instruct kids where to go, expect them to follow rules, and to teach the lessons, but to model the Christian faith in our lives and behavior.

Provided are two versions of a PDF - one version if you'd like volunteers to sign and return the document, and another if no signature is required. A Word document is also provided for editing to customize for your local church. Permission is granted for use in your local church, but this document is not to be published in any other form without prior written permission from the author.