Undercover Evaluation of Your KidMin

Evaluating your childrens ministryis one of the most important responsibilities you have as a KidMin leader (see alsohere&here). There are many different ways to evaluate, but one of the most effective (and fun!) is to invite anIncognito Inspectorto your childrens ministry.

What is anIncognito Inspector? Its something akin to the secret shopper idea. Its someone you bring in to interact with your childrens ministry in real time and offer constructive and honest feedback on the elements of your childrens ministry that you ask them to inspect. You will want to find someone that:

• your childrens ministry team will not recognize
• is willing to be bold in carrying out the assignment
• knows something about what a childrens ministry should function like (another KidMin person or a parent)

Heres how to do it:

1. Invite someone you know to be theIncognito Inspector. It should be someone with kids willing to actually interact with your ministry as a family. My sister was the perfect fit to be myIncognito Inspector. She has 5 kids aged 2 to 10 (so they were put into multiple classes). Her oldest is a high-functioning autistic boy, and 3 of them are adopted (1 from China & 2 from Uganda). Shes been around the church her whole life and shes willing to create challenging circumstances for my volunteers (more on that later).

2. Walk through theIncognito Inspectorprocess ahead of time. This might include (but certainly isnt limited to) having theIncognito Inspector:

• attend a typical service, completing the visitor process and placing the kids in the classroom (in other words, participating in the typical process as a visitor)
• provide feedback (verbal feedback or a rating system whatever works best for you) on typical interactions from the experience (were the volunteers friendly & helpful?; did the volunteers know answers to questions?; was it easy to find classrooms?; was the check-in process understandable & easy?; etc.)
• create some challenging situations for the volunteers (for example, try and pick up a child without the check-in tag to see how the volunteers handle it; asking volunteers difficult questions to see how they respond; or other challenges which create situations you would like to get feedback from).

3. Carry out the evaluation, remembering to:

• never abuse the participation of the children;
• never put the volunteers in an embarrassing or compromised situation;
• never risk the safety of anyone.

4. Debrief with theIncognito Inspectorabout their experienceget feedback about what you specifically talked about evaluating and also about other observations and thoughts they can contribute. And be sure to show them your gratitude with a free lunch, gift card or some other form of thanks.

5. Share your findings in a fun and instructional way with your team (single out those who did well for public praise; speak generally or privately about negatives that need to be improved upon).

I would encourage you to use theIncognito Inspectormethod of evaluating your childrens ministry. You might be amazed at what you find out!