In Good Hands

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

Taking Ownership: Lessons from a 9 Year-Old and Club Penguin

 

Last month, we had our good friend Karen over just a couple of weeks before she moved to Kelowna to begin employment with Disney Interactive.  When Karen told me that she would be working on the popular game Club Penguin, I told her that Jacob plays that game all the time.  Within a matter of minutes, we had set up a date for Karen to come over to our place to eat and then play.

Needless to say, Jacob was very excited for the opportunity to teach someone – and an adult at that – everything he knew about Club Penguin.  He counted down the days to Karen’s visit and he could barely contain his excitement when the day finally arrived.  After a delicious dinner (prepared by Gail of course), Jacob showed Karen the ins and outs of the game for the better part of two hours.  It was a great visual: Jake the eager 9 year-old as teacher and Karen the willing grown-up as obedient student.

Jake took complete ownership of his task: he prepared for Karen’s visit very diligently and even strategized a systematic order of how to show her aspects of the game.  The end result was a win-win:  Karen left more confident about the game, and Jacob was affirmed in his knowledge and enthusiasm.

Naturally, it got me thinking about youth ministry (surprise, surprise).  In particular, I thought of three ways that youth ministry leaders can give ownership away (or in essence, let others take ownership) in order to strengthen their youth ministries.

1.  Letting Your Volunteers Take Ownership
Being a Lone Ranger youth worker will only get you so far. Despite how charismatic or capable you are (or think you are), eventually you and your ministry will plateau.  It’s amazing what can happen when you let your volunteers take ownership; when you provide a variety of responsibilities to your volunteers and when you encourage risk-taking.  They will feel affirmed and supported.  They will feel more invested in the ministry and will want to see it succeed.  They’ll likely go the “extra mile” so to speak.  And they’ll want to tackle new challenges with newfound confidence.

Our volunteers are ordinary people in the hands of an extraordinary God.  They want to know that what they are doing is indeed making a difference.  Letting them take ownership will go a long way towards that.

2.  Letting the Parents Take Ownership
Asking parents to help does not mean you are relinquishing control of your youth ministry.  Rather, it’s a sign you are reaching out to them to be actual partners in the ministry.  There’s nothing wrong with asking for a little help from them especially given the time and energy you devote to their kids; parents are often very willing to assist but they just need to be asked.  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.

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.

 3.  Letting the Teens Take Ownership

Remember, good youth ministry is not just ministry to youth and for youth – it’s ministry with youth and by youth as well.  Thus, it’s imperative to give young people an opportunity to take ownership in the ministry.  For instance, there are many ways that a young person can get involved at Mass:  lectoring, alter serving, greeting, ushering, and singing in the music ministry.  All of these roles are vital to the celebration and their involvement is a wonderful witness to the entire parish community.

Also, you could task some youth with coming up with a skit, game, prayer, or testimony for one of your gatherings.  By giving young people roles in our ministry, they feel valued as part of the community and they are developing crucial leadership skills.  And in many cases, they might do a better job than you or your team would do!


I encourage you to consider these three simple ways of letting others take ownership in your youth ministry.  After all, if it works for a 9 year-old, it surely should work for us.

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   

Emulating Mary’s “Yes”: God Doesn’t Call the Qualified, He Qualifies the Called

Last Monday, March 26 was the Annunciation, the Christian celebration of the announcement by the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ. Despite being a virgin, Mary would miraculously conceive a child who would be called the Son of God.

As my friend and colleague Tom East said so well, “I think this is an important day for us as youth ministers. We have the chance to be like Gabriel and bear God’s message of love and promise to teenagers. We speak on God’s behalf as we tell a young person: you are beautiful inside and out, and God has a plan for your life. What a privilege, this ministry we share.”

Last week's feast day gave me a chance to spend some time reflecting on my calling as a Catholic youth minister. Continuing the thoughts expressed by Tom, not only do we have a chance to be like Gabriel, but we are also like Mary.

We may struggle with our calling sometimes, especially when things don’t go as well as we like. We fret about numbers. We worry about logistics. And we stress about our talk or teaching falling flat.

But we can learn a lot from Mary, especially in her faithfulness and trust in what the angel Gabriel was saying. We, like Mary, may consider ourselves unworthy or unqualified. But we are comforted knowing that God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called!

And it’s not just the trust and faith that we have for ourselves. It’s the same trust we have when we defer an important teaching to another youth ministry leader, it’s the same confidence we have in allowing a grade seven student greet the Archbishop at Spirit Day, and it’s the same faith we have that we are indeed making a difference in the lives of young people.

We are blessed indeed, we are truly highly favoured. And it has nothing to do with us…it has everything to do with God.

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30).

So when we’re asked if we like what we do or if we feel we’re making a difference…may our answer always be a resounding “YES!”


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.  Learn more about him at http://www.claytonimoo.com or follow him @claytonimoo

Going Slow with Dr. Low

My name is Rob Low and I'm a Spiritual Life Coach.  One of the main focuses of my ministry is helping people to slow down, stop, wait, listen, retreat and rest in God's presence.  Without this kind of reflective and prayerful practice many of us simply keep spinning our wheels at top speed and miss some of the growth and learning opportunities God brings us daily.

This is especially important for youth workers and youth themselves.  Most youth and youth workers run at a pretty fast pace.  Life is busy and full; ministry is demanding; friends, family, church, school and jobs take a lot of time and energy.  God understands this and is with us in these ventures and in the midst of it all He invites us to rest - to rest in Him.  And this is just not an invitation for those who are tired and worn out, this is an important invitation for us all because it involves our very salvation and strength:

"...In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..."
 ~ Isaiah 30:15

• Do you have an over all attitude of repentance or do you just repent from specific sins from time to time?
• Do you ever spend time in rest and quietness or do you fill your time with as much noise, people and activity as possible to fill the lonely moments?
• Where does your salvation come from?  Resting in God or working harder yourself (or perhaps a bit of both)?
• Are you feeling strong these days?  What do you need to ask God for today?

Don't make the mistake many youth and youth workers make - filling their life as full as possible so not only is there no time for quiet time with God but seemingly no need because we feel full and satisfied with other things.  Stop, look, listen...slow down and join Jesus in His teaching and example of Sabbath Rest.  Jesus, of all people, was very busy, active and successful in His ministry but he regularly modeled rest and retreat as He pulled Himself aside to seek intimate, life-giving moments with His Father.  God loves spending one-on-one time with us; are you taking Him up on His invitations?

For more information on Dr. Low or his Spiritual Life Coaching Ministry click on his website or his blog.