Church HR, Staffing & Child Safety

Interviewing Volunteers for Children's Ministry

Published 2026-10-07 · Church HR, Staffing & Child Safety

Short answer: interview every volunteer who will have access to children, in person, using the same questions in the same order. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough. Cover why they want this role, their history with minors, how they handle a difficult child, how they respond to rules and supervision, and their reaction to your boundaries. Then write down what they said. The interview isn't a formality between the form and the start date. It's the layer that finds what neither the application nor the background check can.

The application is filled in. The check came back clean. The references said lovely things. So the interview feels like a courtesy, a chat over coffee to say welcome and hand over the rota.

Treat it that way and you've skipped the only screening step where you watch a person respond in real time. Good volunteer interview questions church leaders ask out loud do something a form never will: they show you what happens when a question lands that the applicant didn't prepare for. The application gives you the prepared version.

It's also the moment your standards become real to them. How you run this conversation tells a volunteer more about how seriously your church takes child safety than any policy document will.

What the interview is for

Three jobs, all distinct from the rest of the process.

It tests the application. You have their written answers in front of you. Asking the same ground aloud shows you whether the story holds its shape, and it gives them an easy chance to add something they left off a form.

It reveals attitude toward rules. This is the big one. Child safety systems work because ordinary people follow small, unglamorous rules: two adults in the room, doors open, no private messaging with a minor. The interview is where you find out how someone reacts to being told those rules apply to them personally.

It sets the tone. A volunteer who has sat through a serious twenty-minute conversation about supervision understands that this church notices. That understanding is itself a safeguard.

Set it up properly

Two interviewers, not one. It protects the interviewer, gives you a second read, and models the two-adult principle you're about to describe.

Somewhere private enough to talk honestly and visible enough to be appropriate. A church office with a window in the door is exactly right.

Twenty to thirty minutes. Long enough to get past prepared answers, short enough that volunteers don't resent it.

The same questions for everyone in scope, written down, asked in the same order. The moment you vary the process by person you've lost the ability to compare answers, and you've created a fairness problem you didn't need.

The questions

1. Why do you want to work with children specifically?

Open with this and listen carefully. Good answers tend to be about service, about a gift, about a season in their own life, about the church. Answers that are entirely about the applicant's need for the role, whether that's belonging, significance, or access to a particular age group, are worth a second look. Nobody is disqualified by an awkward answer. You're gathering, not judging.

2. Tell me about your experience with children and young people.

Where, when, in what capacity. Compare against the application. Gaps aren't sinister on their own; unexplained gaps are worth asking about.

3. Have you served with children in another organization? How did that end?

Ask both halves. Then ask directly whether any organization has ever asked them to stop working with minors. This question is on your form already; ask it again out loud and watch how it's received.

4. What age group do you prefer, and why?

A preference is normal. What you're listening for is the reasoning. Someone who wants one narrow age group and can't say anything about it beyond the age has given you a thin answer to a question that usually produces a rich one.

5. Describe a time a child was difficult and how you handled it.

Ask for a real instance rather than a philosophy. Then ask what they'd do differently. You're listening for patience, for a sense of proportion, and for whether discipline reads as control.

6. What would you do if a child told you something serious about being hurt at home?

There's no wrong answer that involves telling someone. There is a wrong answer that involves handling it privately, promising to keep a secret, or investigating it themselves. Use it as a teaching moment as well as a screening one. The correct answer is that they tell the named person immediately, and that the church doesn't delay a report to the authorities while it makes up its mind. What counts as abuse or neglect, and who is required to report it, is defined by state statute rather than by your policy, so the training that follows this interview should name the definition your state uses (Child Welfare Information Gateway, Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect).

7. Our policy says two approved adults are present whenever children are in a room, and no adult is ever alone with a child out of sight of another adult. How does that sit with you?

This is the question the interview exists for. Nearly everyone says it sounds sensible. Listen for the small resistance: *it seems like a lot for a church this size; that must make things awkward; surely not for people you know.* None of that disqualifies anyone. All of it tells you what to supervise. The mechanics are covered in the two-adult rule, and it's worth having read that before you ask.

8. We ask new attenders to be part of the church for about six months before serving with children. Is that a problem?

For a new applicant this is a fact you're delivering, not a question. How they take it matters. Impatience is common and human; persistent pressure to bypass the six-month rule is one of the few genuinely useful signals in the whole process.

9. Is there anything in your background that would concern a parent here?

Direct, calm, near the end. Say plainly that disclosure doesn't automatically disqualify anyone, and that a false answer does.

10. What questions do you have for us?

Volunteers who ask about the children, the curriculum, the other leaders and the training are engaged with the work. It's also your chance to describe the supervision they'll be under, so nothing is a surprise in month two.

Questions to leave out

Don't ask about health conditions or disability, marital or family status, national origin, religion beyond your church's own membership and doctrinal requirements, or age beyond confirming legal adulthood. Those are the categories federal guidance for employers treats as off limits at the inquiry stage, and they make a sound floor for a volunteer interview even where the church's own obligations differ (EEOC, Pre-Employment Inquiries). The religious carve-out is real and it's narrower than people assume, so it's worth knowing where it starts and stops (EEOC, Religious discrimination).

Be careful with arrest history as distinct from convictions. What you may ask, how far back, and at what stage varies by jurisdiction and can differ between volunteers and paid staff. If you're unsure what applies where you are, that's one short conversation with a licensed attorney rather than a guess you then repeat several hundred times.

Don't improvise questions in the room, either. The whole value of a structured interview is that it was structured before anyone walked in.

Write it up the same day

A short form, completed by both interviewers before they leave:

• Date, who was present, role applied for.
• A line under each question.
• Anything that gave either interviewer pause, in the words used.
• The recommendation, plus the reason: approve, approve with conditions, hold, or decline.

Keep it with the rest of the screening file, access-controlled. Notes written a week later are memory; notes written the same day are a record.

How churches get this wrong

Skipping it for people everyone knows. The most common exception and the one that removes the standard. If the pastor's family and the board go through the same interview, nobody else can object.

One interviewer. Halves the read and leaves the interviewer with no witness to what was said.

A chat instead of an interview. Warm, unstructured, and produces nothing you can compare or file.

Asking the boundary questions apologetically. If you signal that the rules are an embarrassment, you've taught the volunteer that they're optional.

No notes. The commonest audit finding in a screening file, and the easiest to prevent.

Interviewing after they've already started. Then it isn't screening; it's paperwork about a decision already made.

Treating one bad answer as disqualifying. Weigh the interview alongside the application, the references and the check. One clumsy sentence from a nervous person isn't a pattern.

Common questions

Do we interview everyone, or only new people?

Everyone in scope, including long-serving volunteers, when you first put the process in place. Run it as one announced round for the whole team so nobody feels singled out, and start with the leadership.

How long should it take?

Twenty to thirty minutes. Longer than that and you're counseling rather than screening.

Who should do the interviews?

Two trained people, usually the ministry leader plus one other, and never the person who personally recruited the applicant. Keep the pairing consistent so the questions are asked the same way every time.

Can we do it by video call?

For a remote or relocating applicant, yes. In person is better because you see more of the interaction, so keep video for genuine exceptions rather than convenience.

What if the interview goes badly but nothing is disqualifying?

Say so honestly and place them somewhere with less access while they get to know the church. "Not yet, and not in this role" is a legitimate outcome, and having somewhere else to serve makes it a kind one.

Does this replace the background check?

No. Screening is four layers: the reference calls and interview, the application, the waiting period, and the background check, all sitting under weekly supervision. Each one catches something the others miss. Drop any single layer and the system leans on the ones that remain. The check also carries obligations the interview doesn't: if you run it through a screening company, there are written authorization and notice steps attached to using the report in a decision (FTC, Background Checks: What Employers Need to Know).

Twenty minutes, twice a year

For most churches this is a couple of evenings a year. The cost is small and the return is the one thing no form gives you: a real conversation, on the record, with the person you're about to put in a room with children.

Ask the same questions every time. Write down what you hear. Then supervise anyway.

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