How I Became a Children’s Ministry Leader

The story of how God led me into teaching, leadership, and serving children

Sometimes it’s hard to know if God is leading you to teach, but then there are times when He makes it really clear. I was a young pastor’s wife and mom of five in 2006 when we took our kids to our church’s big annual campmeeting near Nashville, Tennessee. We were new to the conference, and I didn’t know anyone.

Since I was new, they hadn’t asked me to do any specific jobs, and I had not been assigned a position or class to help in, but someone told me to ask around and see if any departments needed help.

I’m still not sure how this was possible, knowing what I know now, but I walked around the campus to different departments and asked other leaders if they needed help. No one offered me a job. Their responses went something like, “I don’t think we need help right now.”

If you aren’t familiar with campmeeting or your church organization doesn’t run an annual church campmeeting, it’s like a great big vacation Bible school for kids and adults with classes and meetings for folks of every age – from newborn babies to believers in their 90s. Our campmeeting lasts for 10 days, with 4 days of preparation and setup before the meetings start. Since my husband is a pastor, we spend a full 2 weeks at campmeeting every year.

So, here I was, a young mom, looking for ways to help, in a place where I knew basically no one. My youngest child was three years old at the time, and the older kids ranged from 15 years old, on down. The older kids went to find more pastors’ kids to hang out with, and I took my youngest two back to our dorm room to take a nap.

I remember lying down and thinking about how much I wanted to teach kids, but at that time, no opportunities had presented themselves. I was a homeschool mom and a writer. I’d been writing for years and running my own website for several years at that point, but I had never written children’s programs.

And it was that afternoon I felt inspired to open my laptop and write my first children’s program. I titled it Out of Egypt and the idea was that the children would follow Moses through the book of Exodus.

I can’t remember how many days I worked on it, but I completed the first draft. Now I just needed God to open the door for me to teach.

We don’t always know what God has in store. I had no idea that my first children’s program would live on my computer for more than two years before I had the opportunity to put it to the test.

Sometimes, when God calls us to something, we just need to take the first step and wait to see what God does with it. Don’t assume God doesn’t want to use you if a door doesn’t open right away. Have a willing heart – a heart that says, “Here I am Lord, send me.” so that when the time is right, you are ready.

Two years went by, and my husband and I were at our summer minister’s meetings when Debbie Wint came up to us and said to my husband, “We need a bus driver for the primary department at campmeeting.” She wanted to know if he was interested in shuttling the kids from the lower campus to their classes each day.

Enthusiastically, I said, “Do you need a leader?”

Debbie looked at me and said, “As a matter of fact, we do.”

And I responded, “Good, because I’ve already written a program!”

That was 20 years ago now, and I’ve been teaching the children at campmeeting ever since. It’s one of my greatest passions in life, and I look forward to teaching the kids every single year. I write all of my own programming, including elaborate, immersive, and engaging set designs for my classroom, with an average of 75 – 100 kids in my class each day during campmeeting.

Teaching children in a way that shares the gospels and impacts their lives for the glory of God has been the greatest honor.