When David Staal shows up for work at the weekend services at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, it’s “game on.” Between one Saturday night service and two Sunday morning services, he will oversee 1,000 children’s volunteers and 3,000 kids in Promiseland, the megachurch’s children’s ministry.
“Our mission is to make Promiseland the best hour of every child’s week,” says Staal. “To do this, our ministry has to be safe first and foremost. Safety is one area you can’t ever compromise on or the whole ministry is at risk. You need to bat a thousand every time.”
The center of an expansive, open-air foyer for Willow Creek’s main auditorium features an indoor waterfall. A staircase leads down to the base of the waterfall, which is the entry point to Promiseland. It’s here you’ll find Staal warming up for the game.
“Before every service I stand in the same place and pray, ‘God, keep our kids safe today.’ Hundreds of parents have entrusted us with the most important thing in their life. I think they deserve that we give everything we have to keeping their kids safe.”
Game Time
Parents with kids in tow stream down the stairs like the water gently cascading alongside them. Two to three dozen families will head to the infant to two-year-old area where they’ll scan their plastic IDs. They’ll be issued matching numbered tags with a colored circle sticker indicating their child’s small group that day.
At one end of the hallway, a plastic fence has been set up to give crawling infants plenty of space to move around and yet still be secure. At the other end, where 12- to 23-month-olds are stationed, another fenced-in area gives them plenty of space to roam around.
Staal, the author of three books, including his new release, Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan) says, “We give a lot of thought to the logistics of securing each area. If you can give a child a secure space to explore and play, you eliminate the need to continually say, ‘no, no.’ We set boundaries that we know are secure, and they are free to move about within that area.”
Speaking of setting boundaries, don’t even think about trying to get past the check-in desk without a nametag. If it’s not perfectly obvious that you’ve got a child in Promiseland, you will be redirected to the proper area faster than an airplane caught traveling in a no-fly zone.
“Every week, I upload a list of names onto my Palm Pilot of adults who are not allowed to enter Promiseland,” says Staal. “Often it’s because there’s a restraining order against a parent. One time a father insisted on seeing his child in Promiseland. I knew he was on my restricted list, so I had to walk over to him with two security team members and ask him to leave. He challenged me for a second, but then thought better of making a scene in front of his daughter. As the ministry director, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep these kids safe.”
While the infant zone is subdued and calm, the three-year-old area is a hive of activity. Three veteran children’s workers “own” their check-in area. When parents scan their plastic ID cards, these men can immediately see when their child last attended Promiseland, or if they have any special needs. With enthusiasm and efficiency, they type in pertinent information on the parents’ whereabouts in case they need to be summoned.
“Up until three years ago, we used a paper system for check-in,” explains Staal. “Churches that don’t have an electronic check-in process can essentially use the same process of providing matching color-coded tags for parents and their children.”
The check-in process is one of the primary safety strategies Willow Creek and many other churches use. It’s imperative that a church has a child’s emergency information on record, plus any additional information, such as allergies or medical conditions. The check-in process also ensures that each child will go home with the correct adult.
Down another brightly lit, curved corridor, you can hear four- and five-year-olds squealing, singing, running, and chattering excitedly. Fencing secures the entire entryway, and a slide provides the only way into the room.
“The slide provides a fun, inviting entry point for the kids,” explains Staal. “But more strategically, it creates a one-way valve that doesn’t let people in who shouldn’t go in, and it doesn’t let kids out. Now, of course, on the back side of those rooms, there are exit doors with alarms. And parents are always welcome to participate in Promiseland with their child. But they need to check-in first.”
As you move through the ranks of Promiseland, the rooms get bigger and more sophisticated. From two-year-olds on up, every large group room includes its own tech booth for lighting and sound. And yet each of the rooms is designed with safety in mind.
“The way our rooms are designed, there are no hidden areas, no dark corners for an opportunist to sneak into or away with a child,” explains Staal. “We have adequate numbers of workers in each room who aren’t buried under tasks and whose purpose it is to watch everything that’s going on. This is key. No matter what size church you are, you need to have at least one adult whose job it is to roam the room and keep tabs on what’s happening. To me this would be a non-negotiable in a children’s ministry.”
Recruiting Players
Other than specializing in crowd control, how does a children’s ministry of this size ensure kids’ safety? And what principles can churches of all sizes take away from Willow Creek’s program?
According to Staal, the only thing between your kids and possible danger is your volunteer staff. This makes the screening and selection process a critical component for ministry safety.
Here’s how the process works at Willow Creek. Everyone—even volunteers who make a low-level commitment to serve in Promiseland—are required to fill out an application. The volunteer application indicates which area a person is requesting to serve in, and it asks direct, relevant questions that explore their past.
“We want to discover anything that might hinder us from carrying out our mission in a safe, productive way,” says Staal. “Applications are completely confidential and are kept under lock and key.”
“After we get an application,” Staal continues, “Donna, our director of security, and Dana, her assistant, look over every word of it. If they feel someone’s a good candidate, they’ll do a background check. If that’s clean, they’ll arrange an interview. If a person gets through the interview process, we do a ministry reference check and a personal reference check. Even if I refer someone for a position in our children’s ministry, Donna and Dana will still call me as a reference and document my responses. We don’t short-circuit our recruiting and hiring process for anyone.”
“The application process deters a lot of people. Because we ask a lot of personal questions, a child predator would have to lie on the application, hope that their background check doesn’t show anything, hope their references check out perfectly, and then face two interviewers who have the gift of discernment. Does this process guarantee we’ll never recruit a bad worker? Nothing is 100 percent. But the steps we use weed out the opportunists.”
Staal is quick to point out that processes and policies are only as good as leaders are willing to follow them 100 percent of the time. “If family or friends offer to serve, you can’t let them in the back door. We put everyone through the formal process. Following procedures consistently takes away the awkwardness of asking people you know to submit to a background check. You’ve got to bust through the awkwardness. I tell people, ‘Here, I’m the children’s leader; I’m your friend second. I can’t violate our policies and procedures based on who you are. These are in place for the kids.’ You have to bat one thousand on safety, and it takes radical commitment.”
Who’s On First?
Besides carefully selecting the volunteers that work with your children, another effective but often-overlooked way to promote safety is to have clearly defined positions for your volunteers.
“In Promiseland, we have volunteers whose job it is to roam the halls,” explains Staal. “We call these people ‘Lennies,’ based on the periscope toy in the movie Toy Story. It’s their job to keep their heads up to see what’s going on everywhere. We rely on them to be our eyes, watching for impending trouble.”
Besides Lennies, there are “coaches”—individuals charged with monitoring everyone in the classrooms. Division Leaders make sure every classroom is fully staffed. They continually do headcounts and ensure that there’s the correct ratio of kids to adults. Volunteers can then be repositioned as needed.
“My job on Saturday and Sunday is to walk around the entire ministry area,” says Staal. “I talk with people, and say hi to volunteers, but I’m also looking for doors that need to be shut, people who aren’t supposed to be in Promiseland—I’m constantly assessing the safety of every area. I’ve got a reputation for walking around with my eyes roaming the whole ministry at all times. It’s critical that every children’s ministry have someone serve in this role. Occasionally, I’ll jump on a computer and help with check in, or I’ll hop into the toddler room if they’re short on volunteers. But mostly I try to be the eyes and ears for protecting our kids.”
It can be a struggle for any church, large or small, to recruit and retain enough volunteers. Willow knows this well. With 300 volunteers needed for each service, they are always searching for new applicants.
“We have 250 small-group leaders in Promiseland,” says Staal. “That’s a big number, and people always say, ‘Oh, it must be great to have so many volunteers.’ But you’ve got to remember the needs—one volunteer for every two kids in infants, and then many more to cover all the other age groups. But God always provides us with what we need. I’ll pray, God, it’s no secret to you how many volunteers we need. Please bring us exactly what we need to serve our kids today. Somehow we always get by without ever compromising the kids’ safety or shortcutting our procedures. That’s just not an option.”
The Playbook
At Willow, the children’s ministry exists to help kids become Christ followers and to teach them how to follow Jesus the rest of their lives. Everything they do is focused on accomplishing this goal—even the safety and security policies.
“By being rigid on our policies and procedures on the front end,” says Staal, “we can allow for more flexibility with the kids during our class time, and this is what allows us to really minister with them. Take the three-year-old room, for instance. Once kids are in the secure area, they are free to have fun. If we didn’t secure the area like we do, we’d have to spend our energy reining the kids in and saying, ‘Oh no, you can’t go there, stay here, don’t do that.'”
These principles have nothing to do with a church’s size, Staal notes. Willow’s policies and procedures have evolved over time, and have been tested for effectiveness.
“Our manual is several inches thick,” says Staal. “They’re not just rules that were made up one day. We’re always looking at the best practices, and our attorneys keep aware of changing laws that affect our procedures. They continually review our policies—everything from how we do check-in and check-out to what we do when a kid is sick. We just don’t take any chances.”
As hundreds of families are streaming out of Promiseland, children chirping and parents chattering, Dave Staal keeps a watchful eye by the base of the staircase near the waterfall, making sure no children dart up the stairs without their parents.
As he says goodbye to that morning’s first group of Promiseland students, volunteers have already moved into action, readying the entire ministry space for the next round of children. And again, another prayer goes up to heaven—God, please keep our kids safe.
Marian V. Liautaud is Your Church Media Group editor. Janine Petry is a freelance writer in Illinois.
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