Why Your Check-In Area Matters
In most churches in the United States, there is some form of a check-in system for the families who participate in their children’s ministry.
Check-ins are a practical and efficient way to collect information from families and help people drop their children off quickly (something late-arriving parents much appreciate). Most importantly, check-in stations help provide security for the children in your care.
A lot of what I see when it comes to innovation and improvements in check-in systems has to do with cutting down lines and keeping people from waiting, and short lines are always good.
However, if you only see your check-in in terms of smoothly moving people from one place to the next, you are missing an opportunity.
Whether you have a large or small space, your check-in area acts as a hub for your ministry — at least from the perspective of your parents. Think of it as a train station. While very few people stay there, everyone moves through there.
Your check-in areas are an opportunity for vision and relationship. Think about it for a minute. How a parent or child experiences the check-in can:
- Get children and their parents excited about church.
- Encourage parents to trust your ministry with their children.
- Allow you to get the information you need from families to better minister to them.
- Get children to their learning environments quickly.
While I won’t go so far as to say your check-ins make or break the church experience for a family, leaving them to chance is a missed opportunity.
So what can you do to make the check-in experience a positive one for the families who pass through? Here are a couple of suggestions:
Think People Before Place
When I talk about an excellent check-in experience, I am always talking about people first. The people you have greeting your families at check-in are the most crucial element to the check-in experience.
Great people can save a poor environment, but even Disney-level decor can’t save a negative encounter with a person.
Choose people with a warm personality and an eagerness to serve to work in your check-in areas.
You don’t need to recruit extroverts exclusively. You should have a mix, but everyone needs to be willing to engage with the people who come through your door. It is more important that an individual is observant of and responsive to a family’s needs than that an individual just talks a lot.
Teach check-in volunteers to do things like greet children first. When you greet children, you greet their parents. Have them get down on the child’s level and look them in the eye. If you ever wonder why children get scared of your ministry, try looking at your ministry areas from your knees. It is an entirely different perspective.
Equip check-in volunteers with your ministry’s mission and purpose. Distill it down to a couple of sentences for them to share with families. Keep it simple, “At our church, we tell children about Jesus’ love for them and others.”
Make sure check-in volunteers are confident in their knowledge of your safety and security policies. Also, they should know precisely where all the different age groups begin and end their time in the service.
If you have age-specific children’s worship, I often like to say, “We have worship, teaching, and application. Just like you get in the adult service, but we do it in a way children can follow and apply.”
During check-in, parents don’t need a theology lecture or a dissertation on educational learning models. They need to know their children are safe and that they are doing something meaningful. You can cover all of this with your check-in people.
Many churches are going to check-in stands that a parent can do by themselves. I think this is great because it frees your check-in team to focus on connecting with people. However, don’t fall into the trap of letting a computer be the first connection point for your ministry.
Think Vision Before Advertising
Another temptation is to make your check-in area into a giant billboard for your latest event. While it is good to promote what you are doing, people walking through your check-in are not stopping for long. If they see something, it needs to be vision-based.
Vision is not something you do once and move on. As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar used to say:
“People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”
If you have only a few seconds of attention from the people who pass through your ministry, give it to the vision of your ministry. Every time you get a chance to tell a person how you point children to Christ, you solidify your ministry in their minds and their hearts.
It might mean a new volunteer or advocate for your ministry.
Your check-in area can be just a place where kids get name tags or, with a little thought, it might be a lot more. So whether you have a bank of self-check-in stations or you still do it in a notebook (which I have seen done well in a very large church BTW) give some thought to what your check-in experience might be with a little effort.
Kidmin Accelerator explores creative, innovative, and practical ideas that help Children’s Ministry Leaders.
