Volunteer burnout—that was the answer four local children’s ministry directors gave when I asked about the most challenging part of their ministry. I was collecting data for the church plant where I’d soon serve, seeking answers to questions like these: How do I run a children’s ministry? What makes a children’s ministry healthy? Seven years later, I’m sitting on the other side of the table, answering those sorts of questions for a new church plant, and I’m so thankful to the Lord that I can give a different answer. I define volunteer burnout as a chronic emotional or spiritual state of exhaustion from prolonged ministry demands. Numerous factors can lead to this state of distress. So rather than trying to identify a list of causes, I want to highlight four ways children’s ministry directors can help prevent their teams from burning out. 1. Clear and Saturated Mission Having a clear mission statement for your children’s ministry is vital. Volunteers need to understand why we’re doing something. However, we can easily proclaim a mission statement while failing to enact it. For example, if our mission statement is to point children to King Jesus, but our systems, training, and expectations aren’t geared toward practically pointing kids to Jesus, then the mission statement is just something we say, not something we do. The mission isn’t saturated. I want our team to understand that pointing kids to King Jesus involves far more than just the Bible lesson (not less than that, though). We can share the gospel as we comfort an upset child, as we partner with a parent whose child is struggling with respect, and as we show up to serve with the welcome of the Lord on our lips and in our posture. Some of my proudest moments as a director have been when volunteers share that it was a really challenging morning, but Jesus was proclaimed. If our measure of success is how the class behaved or how smoothly the teacher got through the lesson, volunteers will easily feel defeated. But when we serve with a shared mission to point kids to Jesus, we can be encouraged that we’ve fulfilled our mission, even when the crafts don’t get finished (or started). A clear mission statement will encourage the initial “yes” from a volunteer, but a saturated mission encourages volunteers to endure when the mission becomes challenging.  2. Volunteer Care The classroom isn’t the only challenge we face in serving the church. Challenges also come from life outside of church––like hardship, grief, injury, and busy workweeks. As directors, we need to intentionally steward our volunteers just as much as we steward the children we serve. We don’t want to be a ministry that just says we value our volunteers; we want to actively care for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. For example, we recently had a faithful couple who serve in our children’s ministry experience a great loss in their immediate family. The funeral was Saturday, and they were scheduled to serve on Sunday. The caring leader doesn’t ask if they’d like Sunday off. The caring leader tells them to take the day off and then rallies the team to share the burden of serving. There’s always a volunteer who needs the unexpected blessing of time off while another volunteer may benefit from being called into more. Some volunteers need to be encouraged, others need to be gently challenged. We won’t do this perfectly. And yet even in a missed opportunity, we have a secondary opportunity for forgiveness and humility. That too cares for the volunteer. We lead a team of humans, not a team of robots. Yes, we want to serve as many children and families as we can every Sunday—but not at the cost of a team member’s flourishing. When we care for the volunteer, we care for the children. 3. Discipleship as a Priority Training, teaching, and loving children should happen as an overflow of the volunteer’s spiritual growth, not be something that prevents it. Unfortunately, countless scenarios can occur where volunteers are overworked, filling so many spots in the nursery that they rarely get to fill a seat in the sanctuary or Sunday school classroom. It takes wisdom and relationship to know when a volunteer is feeling overburdened, and it takes planning to recognize when a volunteer is being overscheduled. We want to serve as many children and families as we can every Sunday—but not at the cost of a team member’s flourishing. I purposefully use a less efficient scheduling process so I remain entirely in the know about who’s serving, where, and how much. It’s cumbersome but worthwhile, because it helps me see if someone is accidentally assigned to serve four shifts in a row. If we want our volunteers to be more than bodies filling spots, we need to encourage their discipleship and regularly assess whether they’re healthy members of the church. If a volunteer’s spiritual health is at stake, we should close a classroom before asking her to serve. 4. Attentive Leader A common factor in volunteer burnout is the feeling of being alone in the classroom. This isn’t so much about overserving but about serving without the desired support from ministry leaders. Volunteers may express a feeling of going into the classroom and just trying to survive, or doing their best and feeling like they failed. Walking away from a morning like that can absolutely lead to exhaustion. Volunteers wonder, Am I doing enough? Am I just not good at this? Why is this always so hard?  In these situations, an attentive ear goes a long way. Lean in to hear concerns, struggles, and questions. Be a leader who honestly welcomes feedback and suggestions. Attentiveness, though, isn’t just hearing. It’s acting on what we hear. It means legitimately discussing suggestions, working hard to solve problems, and keeping the volunteer in the loop as you work toward solutions. Attentiveness isn’t just hearing. It’s acting on what we hear. Volunteer burnout is a real threat and possibility in every ministry context. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to become a reality. We don’t have to choose between caring for kids and caring for volunteers. When we care for volunteers, we care for the kids they serve. When we remember that the work of ministry is done for Jesus and by his power, we can develop a team of missionally minded, spiritually healthy men and women who point kids to the gospel.