Years ago, our early childhood, elementary, and youth teams created their own curriculums. They operated largely independent of each other and focused on different topics at different times.
But after much research and strategizing, we realized we could be more effective if we aligned our student and kids ministries. We created our Content Development team, a unified group that spearheads our spiritual development content and keeps our various age groups aligned.
We still have individual teams that lead the direction for each age group, but the Content Development team supports them with the curriculum and teaching resources they need. This structure has allowed us to align all of our weekend curriculum and student ministry programming to teach the same monthly topics. So now every age group might learn about 'hope' in the same month, even if the way that message is taught is different or more complex for the older kids.
By pulling the teams together through vertical-alignment, we’ve also been able to identify and establish set outcomes we want to see in students graduating at each stage of development:
What we've learned:
Teams can accomplish more together than they can apart. Analyze your staff structure for opportunities where your teams can support each other on common goals for the benefit of your ministry.
