This morning I sat in the dentist’s chair as he scraped, drilled, and
picked among other things. I knew what
the end result was to be...however I had no clue how he was going to get
there. I tried my best to just relax and
trust him (and pray that I didn’t hear any of these things come from his mouth). In essence, I placed the fate of
my teeth in his hands.
This is what parents do with us in our youth ministries: they put the
spiritual well-being of their children in our hands. Not completely and exclusively of course, as
we youth ministers are supposed to complement and supplement the faith
formation that is hopefully taking place at home (and in some cases at school).
But while their kids are at our youth gathering, prayer group, or
service outing...the buck stops with us.
For better or for worse.
Here are four ways that we can better minister to and with parents:
1. Provide regular updates. Parents
have every right to know what is going on with their children. For the most part, parents are grateful for
what we are doing as youth ministers and therefore don’t necessarily need to
know every detail of every gathering.
However, regular correspondence with the parents will go a long way
towards earning their trust. It could be
in the form of face-to-face meetings, emails, phone calls, newsletters, or a
regular place in the church bulletin.
The parents will be more apt to support us and our ministry if they are kept
in the loop.
2. Earn the right to be heard. I’ve
written at length before about the importance of earning the right to be heard when working with teens. That is, they
won’t care how much we know until they know how much we care. The same principle applies to parents. Admittedly, this will look different for
parents than it does for teens - we simply are not afforded the same
opportunities with parents with respect to time. But we can earn their trust through our work
with their children. If they sense that
we are competent, reliable, and most importantly, authentic and genuine, they
will feel more comfortable with us and more likely to support us.
3. Ask them for help. Sometimes
parents are willing and able to assist but they just don’t know how. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a
little help from them especially given the time and energy you devote to their
kids. For example, I’m aware of many
churches that have parents (as opposed to the youth leaders) prepare the snacks
for the youth ministry gatherings. Not
only will parents feel more invested, the snacks will likely be of better
quality. That’s how our parent ministry
got started at my home church – I think the parents were sick of me feeding
their kids Tang and potato chips. Sad
but true.
Another example is getting parents to drive to outings. They might actually prefer to drive their own
kids...and in many cases their vehicles are nicer than the youth leaders’. :p
4. Pray for them and with them. It
seems obvious that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. It’s sometimes challenging amidst the busyness
of ministry, but I encourage you to carve out some time to pray for and with
parents. As part of the religious
education program I run at my home church, the parents meet in a side room to
pray, talk and eat while their children are in class. As a result, they feel a part of the parish
community and are always willing to help.
We should never underestimate the huge responsibility that we have as
youth leaders. Parents need to be able
to communicate with us, rely on us, and trust us. When parents entrust their children into our
hands, opportunities arise to serve together and further strengthen the
community.
After all, many hands make light work!
Clayton
Imoo is husband to Gail and father to sons
Sean Isaiah and Jacob Isaac and daughter
Kayla Marie. He has served as the Director of
the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver for the
past ten years, helping parishes develop their
own youth and young adult ministries. When not
doing ministry, Clay enjoys spending time with
his family, playing music, playing sports,
playing naptime, and writing blogs on topics such as
family, faith, and the Vancouver Canucks. Learn
more about him at http://www.claytonimoo.com or follow him @claytonimoo
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