Steve Bowman was serving on the Greeting Team when he was asked to take a visiting family to a Kids Community room.
Steve and his wife, Heather, who served in the baby room, had just a 2-year-old son at the time. So when Steve was asked to take the new family to the first grade room (this was in the old Food Lion building before Blue Ridge built our current building), he was at a loss.
“I just looked for kids the same height, and thankfully I picked the right room,” Steve laughed.
Now, Steve is one of the leaders of the Check-In Team. These servers not only key in children’s names and print tags each Sunday, they welcome new families and provide a familiar face to those who regularly attend. And they specialize in Kids Community — so they know a lot about each room.
“I’m a people person,” said Steve, who is a missionary by vocation (with Wheel Power). “From day one I try to make families feel comfortable and be a familiar face where they can feel like they know somebody the next time they return.”
Steve and the Check-In Team members understand that it can be intimidating to visit a new church.
“I try to get to know the kids. I look at their shirts and talk about the characters. I try to make a connection,” he said. “I find something that lights up their eyes.”
Going to the classroom with a new family, Steve focuses on the child. But walking back, he turns his attention to the parents and their questions.
He wants them to know that we are serious about the safety of their children. One of the methods we use is with our check-in tags. Each week a randomly generated number is printed on the child’s name tag and the parent's tag. The child’s name is never printed on the parent’s tag, so no one else can find their child’s tag and then pick him/her up. The teachers match the parent tag to the child’s tag each week.
Steve also wants parents to know that the third tag, with just the child’s name on it, goes home with a teacher or small group leader who will pray for that child and his/her family that week.
For new families, Check-In has begun printing an extra name tag for them to pray for the child and their family.
The Check-In team prays before each service that God would prepare their hearts to love on the families He brings through our doors. They want to make families feel as welcome as possible. With about 600 children being checked in each week, they want to be intentional to be efficient, but more importantly caring.
Steve remembers a family who came for the first Sunday and then he remembered them the next week. “They said it turned our big church into something smaller — it felt like home.”
“We only have 30 seconds sometimes with a family,” Steve said. “So we pray that we will make it count.”