Whose Baby Is This?
This week at Vineyard Campbellsville Church, we are launching our new check in system for kids. This is our church's first time using any check in software for Sunday kid's church. Before this point, we have been a small family church where everybody knows everybody. You know what I mean? At some point, we grew to 400+ people and our kid's wing started busting at the seams.
One day, in the nursery, I was picking up my baby and all of the workers were pointing to a child I didn't know and asking, "whose baby is this?" It's not their fault. They are diligent, loving nursery volunteers. Someone (probably a visitor) just sat their baby down at the beginning of service and didn't talk to any of the workers. It was busy. Babies and parents everywhere, giving instructions about bottles, diapers, and dropping off supplies. Just like every other Sunday, there were cryers who didn't want to leave their mommy. The nursery volunteers were trying to distract the young ones and make them feel comfortable. The nursery workers weren't at fault. The parents weren't at fault either. They were visitors. They didn't know what to do. They assumed that you could just drop off your baby and head back to your seat in adult church.
This was the week that we realized that a check in system was vital. Our church has grown so fast that we no longer know everyone. Sometimes we don't know which kid belongs to which parent. You never know what legal issues are at hand. We live in an age where families don't always look like a Mom, Dad, and kids. There are divorce issues, blended families, grandparent parenting, foster parenting, and many other things to consider. With our check in system, the parent designates what adults are allowed to drop off and pick up their kid and NO ONE ELSE is allowed. This keeps our families safe and protects our church from unwanted lawsuits and liabilities.
Another benefit of checking your kids into Kid's Church is the data collected. When your parents complete their first registration form, you collect the address, phone numbers, email addresses, ages, and grades of the kids. You also collect food allergies, special issues, and other pertinent information that the parent wants to provide. There is nothing worse than handing a 2 year old a juice box that they are allergic to.
What about this issue? We have had problems with our 3 year old not wanting to participate in his church preschool class. Instead of listening to the lesson, he wanted to throw a big fit in the floor. What is a teacher to do? They just marched our son out into the adult auditorium and brought our screaming kid to us. That's what we want them to do. As parents, we want to handle the discipline of our young preschooler. However, in order to bring our kid to us, the worker had to know who we were, where we were sitting, and then interupted every adult listening to the sermon and the preacher trying to focus on what he was going to say next. With the check in software, you receive a family number that remains your number as long as you attend the church. With this number, we can easily call parents back to the kids wing to pick up their kid for a diaper change, crying, or discipline issues.
Our kids are important. We want to keep them safe. We want to be a safe place for families. The Kids Check In Desk is the family's first introduction to our kid's ministry and we want them to know that we love them, we love their kids, and we respect their safety.
Check out our Kids Check In Software on our website. https://www.kidsministryteam.com/checkin
*Photo by D Sharon Pruitt