Hi there ladies, I wanted to know how did you all start a nursery ministry in your church? I have 3 babies now, and now its the time. What is most important in doing this? If you have ever had to do this.
Although I did not start the ministry - what they do at THE HILL is that the parents take one Sunday a quarter to handle the nursery. We have a series of volunteers that work with the babies but we require that each parent be responsible at least once, and that they spend at least 10 minutes in the nursery on the first time their child comes. We have a good number of babies...
I was the nursery coordinator for our last church for 2 yrs. The way I did the nursery is I emphasized that it is a ministry to children and the parents.I had to pray a lot because I was working with volunteers.
I had approximately 10 ladies to volunteer and they served every 10 wks.I explained that every 10 wks they were serving Jesus and not baby-sitting. This church was a smaller church and everyone knew everyone so security wasn't a problem. In a larger church we had been at, we had beepers to give to the parents and they returned them when they picked up their child.(Only they could return it or we didn't let that child leave.)
We also put videos witha tv combo and asked people to volunteer Bible based videos. We had tapes and cd's so we could sing with the older ones and have a teaching time. We had snacks and juices.
I created a form for the parents to fill out on their child so that we knew if they needed a blanket or pacifier to rest with or if they had any food allergies, It also helped with visitors when we did visitation.
