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Small Group Parent Meeting

February 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Ever since my friend Dennis mentioned doing this, I have been tossing it around in my head. He met with the parents of his small group guys to talk about what his small group was going to look like. Since I have 7th grade guys this year (which is their first year in my group), I thought it would be a great time to have a connect time with the parents. We had 4 goals for the meeting:

  • Keep it short. Parents don’t have a ton of free time, so we wanted to keep it under an hour.
  • Make it relevant. We wanted to talk about where we had been as a group in the past 4 months, where the guys are now and where we’re headed with the rest of the school year. We also wanted to give them a heads-up about some important topics coming up.
  • Don’t be a parent. Both my co-leader and myself are only 21 years old, and neither of us have kids of our own. The last thing we wanted to do was teach parents how to parent, because we have no experience at it. Let them parent their kids.
  • Don’t be a talking head. We wanted to encourage interaction and dialogue between us, the parents and each other. We didn’t want to fill the whole hour with just our words.
  • Be a resource. This was the big one. We wanted to let parents know that we are a resource and a partner with them as we lead their kids.

Overall, it went fantastic! We had a little more than half of our parents show up, some of which we hardly knew before the meeting night. There was great dialogue between parents, there was a lot of great information shared, but the biggest win for us was a comment one of the moms said. She told us that even though we see them every week at the curb as they pick up their student, they didn’t really know us very well. After having this meeting, they got a chance to talk to us and hear our hearts, which gave a greater sense of security for parents as they drop their kids off with us every week. Mission accomplished!

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Partnering with difficult parents

March 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Steven: The past 2 years more than ever, I’ve been wrestling with the frustration of trying to partner with parents who simply don’t have the same goals for their children as I do. Even reading back over that last sentence seems like I’m sounding pretentious and trying to say that I know more about parenting than my students’ own parents, but that’s not the idea I’m trying to get across.

Rather, it seems that I have one idea for how to challenge and grow my students, and some of the parents this year don’t seem to be as encouraging about it, some to the point that they discourage the kind of growth I’ve envisioned for their kids.

The challenge comes from this plain fact: Out of the 168 hours in a week, I usually only see my students for 2. That means they’re under the care and influence of their parents for the other 166. If there’s a parent that doesn’t share the same morals or values that I desire their kids to have, there’s absolutely no way I can win that battle.

Even if I have the best intentions of growing a student toward Christ, a parent can easily knock that down in a matter of minutes because they have way more influence on their kids.

To be honest, I don’t know what the solution to this problem is, other than simply focusing on ministering to students regardless of what the parental background is. I’m starting to accept that I’m not always going to get the kind of backup I seek from parents, but there’s one thing I know for sure: I don’t ever want to give up trying to get my students to hear my voice guiding them toward God.

Matt: This topic reminds me of children who come from divorced families and one parent has full-time custody and the other has every other weekend. When the kid is at the parent’s house with full-time custody there are rules to be followed and routines to be held up, but when you go to the other parent’s house, unless there is a lot of cooperation between the two parents, then all bets are off on following established rules and it becomes very confusing for the kids.

One thing we need to remember is that parents are the  authority in the student’s life. If we see that students are doing things that are un-biblical or just down right not acting in a Christian way we have a duty to say something but if the parents are not willing to enforce what we are trying to do then it seems like we are just spinning our wheels. It’s frustrating, but we also need to remember that we need to teach students to honor their mother and father. That is very biblical. We can advise, we can lead, we can be the example but we need to have parents also doing the same or it makes our job more difficult.

I have a student in my small group that wants to get baptized. The problem is his parents are not for it, they don’t see the point in it. I want to lead him to getting baptized but at the same time I need to teach him to honor his parents as well. I’m not giving up and it’s something that I keep praying about and asking God to give me direction in this area. That is one of the first things we need to do. Pray.

Second thing we need to do is talk with parents and let them know that we have two maybe three hours a week with a student. We can’t fix everything and we can’t teach everything in that small amount of time. We need their help. If you have parents who are church attenders and believers this will be easier than if they are not.

This is a topic that I don’t think there is any one answer for. Steven and I have suggestions and ideas but we would love to hear your input on this how you handed similar situations. Let us know here.

Filed Under: Parent ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A note to parents of teens, part 2

May 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

On Wednesday I posted a note to parents of teens. After that went live, I had a few people ask me to write a follow-up to that post addressing the question, “What steps you can follow to ensure that your child is on the right path toward having God in their lives?” To answer that question, here are a few things I think you can do as a parent to make sure your child is on the right track.

1. Talk to them. I hear about so many parents that aren’t involved in their kids’ lives, and then they wonder why they’re not connecting with the kids. Kids strive to be heard. They want to have someone to tell about their day, the funny thing Johnny did in class, the thing Suzie did that made them mad.

2. Don’t try to be their friend. There are a lot of parents who strive for their child’s acceptance. They want so badly to be the “cool mom” that they forget about their primary responsibility – parenting. First and foremost, your job as a parent is to do just that, parent. Kids have friends at school, they don’t need one more at home. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to be friends with your kids by any means. My parents are two of my best friends, but that’s because they chose to be parents to me first.

3. Don’t shy away from the uncomfortable conversations. Let’s face it, there are some conversations you don’t want to have with your kids. I don’t need to go into detail about what those conversations look like, but the important thing to remember is that those are discussions that need to happen. If you have a concern about something your child is doing, bring it up. Don’t let the opportunity pass by.

4. Make sure your child has a relationship with Jesus. This is probably the most obvious, yet in my opinion, the most overlooked. Families that have spent their whole lives in the church and have had their kids there since they were infants have a tendency to assume that their child has a relationship with Christ. We sometimes do this as youth leaders as well. Don’t let there be any doubt in your mind if your child has accepted Christ as their Lord. As a parent, this is the best thing you can do for your child to ensure a solid life foundation and an eternity in heaven.

Note: I definitely do not consider myself a parenting expert. I have never had kids of my own, and I don’t plan to for a long time. The information I write about is taken from two places: my experience with my own parents and parents of my students, and parenting series that have been put on at Saddleback Church.

Question: What are some other things you do to ensure your child is on the right track with God in their lives?

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