Lost Child Plan: Every Church Should Have One

Article Overview

What would your team do if a child went missing during a service? This article walks you through a clear, step-by-step lost child plan that any church can use or adapt. It also explains why having a plan matters, using a real-world example to show how quickly things can go wrong. Keep your team prepared, your families confident, and your response calm and effective.

A lost child plan may not be the most exciting topic, but it’s one of the most important. Parents trust us with their kids every week. If a child goes missing, even briefly, your team needs to know exactly what to do. This isn’t the time for complicated plans or guessing. You need a clear, practiced response, and you need it fast. Being in the middle of the ocean is a bad time to learn how to swim.

Why Does Your Church Need a Lost Child Plan?

It doesn’t matter how big your church is or how many volunteers you have. Kids can slip away unnoticed in the time it takes to refill a coffee. It might be an innocent case of wandering off. Or it might be something worse.

In 2021, a woman abducted a 2-year-old from a church in Virginia. She walked out with the child during a service. Thankfully, the police recovered the child safely, but only after an AMBER Alert and 24 hours of searching. The church did not have a lockdown or screening process in place when the child disappeared.

That’s the kind of nightmare no one wants to live through. Having a lost child plan in place gives your team a way to act quickly, involve the right people, and protect every child in your care.

Warrior vs. Guardian Mindset in Church Safety

The Procedure We Use (And You Can Too)

We hope you never need this. But if you do, it’s better to follow a process than scramble to figure things out.

Before we start, let me point out 2 caveats:

1. Don’t get hung up on titles. It doesn’t matter what your particular church calls the position. The intention is more important here.
2. This is a framework. Modify it to what fits best for your situation.

Here’s the procedure we recommend to churches that we train:

1. Alert the Leader
   The first person to realize a child is missing contacts the kid’s ministry leader immediately.
2. Notify Safety and Lock Down the Kids’ Area
   The coordinator heads to the classroom to gather key details like the child’s name, clothing, last seen location, and who last saw them. The kids’ area should be locked down. No one gets in or out without approval.
3. Call 911 if Needed
   If there’s any sign of abduction or danger, call 911 before continuing the process.
4. Get More Volunteers
   The Safety Team should notify the leader of the Hospitality/Greeter team to get more help.
5. Notify the Parents
   If the parents don’t already know, alert them using your usual parental notification system.
6. Cover the Exits
   Volunteers go to every exit with a full description of the child and clear instructions on what to do if they see the child or someone leaving with them.
7. Search Inside and Outside
   Your search needs to be systematic. Teams check the parking lot and the surrounding area, moving inward. Others search from the last known location, moving outward. Start with closets, bathrooms, play structures, and under furniture. Any place a child could fit in should be searched. Children often hide when they’re scared or embarrassed.
8. Pastoral Staff is Informed
   They decide whether additional steps like a full lockdown are needed.
9. Support the Parents
   Don’t forget the ministry aspect. Assign a pastor or pastoral care volunteer to stay with the child’s parent or guardian. This person should offer calm support while the search continues.

Some Real-World Experience

It is very common for missing children to be found in or near where they are supposed to be.

As a deputy sheriff, I was assigned to one of our island communities. I responded to a call for a missing child. The family was vacationing at a beach home, and their 4-year-old went missing. After getting all of his description information sent out, I started organizing the search, starting in the last room he was seen in.

The boy’s mother was not happy. She loudly (and profanely) told me I didn’t know what I was doing and demanded Coast Guard boats and helicopters instead of wasting time searching the house.

You know where this story is going, right? We found him in the house. He had initially hidden to surprise someone. But when he heard his parents calling for him, increasingly more upset, he was afraid he was in trouble, so he stayed hidden.

Kids will do that stuff sometimes. They may be hiding out of fear of being in trouble. Or maybe they hid and fell asleep (I’ve seen that). The reason matters less than finding them as quickly as possible.

5 Essential Skills for Church Safety Teams

Keep It Simple and Review It Often

Your lost child plan should be written, shared, and reviewed regularly. Don’t keep it in a binder no one reads. Keep the steps short and direct. Make sure everyone on your team knows who to contact and what to do. Ensure that new volunteers in the kids’ ministry are trained on it. One suggestion we’ve used is to have the new volunteers’ peers help them learn it. That way, they are reviewing it themselves as they teach it to the new volunteer.

If you need to adapt this for your space, great. Walk through it with your team. Assign roles. Check your communication tools. Try a drill during a slower week to see where the gaps are.

Lost Child Plan: Final Thoughts

The goal is not to scare anyone. It’s to prepare your team to respond quickly and clearly. A lost child procedure shows parents that your church takes their trust seriously. It brings order to a moment that could easily spiral into panic.

You may never need to use it. But if you do, you’ll be thankful it’s there.

If you’d like to talk to us about helping your House of Worship create a comprehensive safety and security plan, contact us. We’ve helped churches large and small create these plans, and we’d be happy to help yours.

What You Need to Know

• Every church needs a lost child plan
• Keep it simple and clear
• Train your team and practice it
• Involve other ministries, not just safety volunteers
• Support parents as well as searching for the child