At The Orange Conference  2012, I led a breakout centered around this idea of:  How does a youth pastor connect with parents of students?

Over the course of 2011-2012, I really tried hard to find practical ways for youth pastors to connect with parents since it is so difficult and many youth workers are intimidated to try it out.  So after many conversations with many different youth pastors and relying on my past experiences, I compiled a list of practical ways to reach out to parents.

I argued that connecting with parents is not about taking one big step.  It’s about taking many small, intentional, and strategic steps.  It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with disengaged, engaged, involved, invested or aware parents.  The goal is to get any type of parent to take one step in the right direction in order for them to connect with your youth ministry.

Connecting with parents is the first effort in partnering with parents in student ministry, which is why the connection process is so instrumental.

Connecting with parents in small daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly steps

DAILY

• Act like every parent wants to connect with you.  God cares about parents so youth pastors need to care.  If we don’t believe parents want to connect with our student ministry, then we will start to blow off the parent connection.  It is more about having a mindset that parents are primary. It is more about believing in them rather than putting on a program for them. Believe that parents want to become better parents and they want the best for their teen.

•  Deliver on promises.  Believing in parents and delivering on your promises are the two things that will get you more trust and respect with parents.  Whatever you communicate or promise, please deliver on.  Conclude youth group when you say you will.  Arrive home from camp when you say you’ll be home.  For example, when our youth group would come home from winter camp I would call one parent and let her know we were on our way home and give her an ETA.  This appointed parent would call all the parents letting them know of our ETA.

•  Protect teens.  Safety is going to be parents #1 concern.  Parents are entrusting you with their teen, so think like a parent.  Think through best ways to protect and keep their teen safe.  Complete background checks.  Update and revise medical and liability release forms yearly.  Stop the pranks, hazing, gossip and bullying.  Have insured and reliable transportation.  Make sure students buckle up.

•  Return ALL calls and emails.  Youth pastors hate the phone, but moms love the phone.  So if a parent contacts you via email or phone, call or email them back!

•  Respect parents.  Parents are the primary influence– this is demonstrated in not only sociological research but in the Bible.  So you got to respect the parent’s authority, perspective and rules.  For example, when the youth ministry has it’s little sexy sex series, let parents know what will be talked about.  Plus give parents an option to talk to their student about sex before some crazy 20 something youth pastor with a faux hawk informs them about virginity.

•  Commit to praying for parents.  This is so easy, but one of the hardest things to do.  I simply pray over my parent roster.  Nothing facy just a quick prayer for the health and wealth of the whole family.

 WEEKLY

•  Get to know parents and meet with them.  Youth pastors need to know parents as people, before parents know us as pastors.  Knowing your families story will help you meet their needs as a family.  Do contact work like you would do contact work with students.  Meet parents where they are at.  If a dad wants to meet at 5am.  Do it.  And dress accordingly.

•  Create great environments for teens.  Develop contagious environments so students have a great experience and want to come back.  Parents love when their son and daughter love to do something other than playing video games or going to the mall.

•  Communicate, communicate…reiterate.  Communicate in multiple mediums.  Try to find ways to integrate multiple mediums into one.  Whenever communicating with parents do three things: inform, equip, encourage.

•  Invite parents with a purpose.  Plan an event where you are intentionally and strategically encourage parents to come to youth group.  Having an open door policy is great, but most parents will not come.  Have a plan on how you invite parents because parents need a reason to come into your student ministry environments.

•  Be seen.  Be seen on Sunday morning.  Be seen either before, during or after church servie.  On Sunday mornings parents are on your own turf, so expect to use a good chuck of your time to connect with parents. Be seen after youth group.  Go into the parking lot and greet parents as they are picking up their kids.  Be seen in the community i.e. sporting events, grocery store, coffee shops, mall etc.

MONTHLY and QUARTERLY

•  Training for unchurched and churched parents.  Create events that any parents can attend.  Family issues are a felt need for any parent.  Get licensed Christian counselors to host a seminar.  Get your more committed and engaged parents to help plan and orchestrate the event.  The goal is to get your disengaged parents to come so you can connect with them, so do an event that appeals to them.  I had a lot of success doing parent events outside of the church walls.

  Regardless of the size or style or cultural setting of your church, the issue of family is universal. -  Joiner, Reggie. Think Orange pg.  229

•  Listen.  Listening = humility.  Parents love to talk, so shut your mouth and listen to their concerns, thought and ideas.  Send out a family assessment surveys so you can get an idea of what families are needing and wanting from their local youth ministry department.  This assessment will give you great feedback and data on what your families are needing from their local youth ministry department.

•  Value organization.  Youth pastors are horrible at administration and organization.  But in order to win over parents, organization is essential.  Get a strategy and get organized.  If you aren’t organized, find someone who is.  I had a lot success recruiting moms who knew know to administrate like no other.  Parents need to know you have all the details figured out.  Create calendars and newsletters that inform parents about your plan and direction so they are in the “know”.  I never had a parent tell me I was giving them to much information.

•  Get parents early.  Connect with parents right when their son/daughter is assimilating into your student ministry.  Get parents in the elementary to middle school transition.  And get parents in the middle school to high school transition.  A parent is very open to connect when their son or daughter is moving into a new phase of teenage life.

•  Find others who can help you.  I am not a parent.  So I never pretended like I could relate to parents.  So I found parents who could help me.  Plus parents hang out with parents and know the landscape of parenting a teen.  In fact, I heard about one youth pastor who wanted to connect with parents so bad, he hired a parent to ONLY connect with the parents within his youth ministry.  Also  empty nesters can be a great resource.

Bottom line remember 3 things:

1.  Get parents to take one small step in the right direction to connect with your youth ministry
2.  These small steps will exponentially transform your parent partnership and connection.
3.  Celebrate the small wins because connecting with parent is hard.  So when a parent connects with you throw a party for yourself!

Questions:

How do you connect with parents of students in the midst of your choatic youth ministry schedule?

What are some creative ways you have connected with parents?  

Real world youth ministry is messy, raw and sometimes very heartbreaking to see the pain of today’s teen.  Youth ministry can be really painful if you truly empathize with hurting students.  Youth pastors that open their own humanity to student are making the students’ suffering their suffering.

The Problem:  There is a tendency that the longer youth pastors are in youth ministry, the less emphatic they become towards today’s teens.  Recent studies show that medical students score progressively lower on empathy tests the further they get into their training and medical practice.  Both doctors and pastor are called to help the hurting.  Do you think this same study on medical students is true for pastors who work with students?  Can training and experience be a cause for NOT showing empathy? 

Think about it…..a veteran youth worker has seen and heard it all so it may be easier not to care as a way to cope.  Or the youth pastor is disenfranchised with the church system and doesn’t believe the church can offer up true healing for today’s teens.

My Questions:  Can the church literally beat empathy out of youth workers? What are some causes that cause youth pastors not to care?  Can youth pastor for whatever reason stop caring and not show students mercy?  Why in the church world it is so much easier to pretend like you care?  How can youth pastors keep empathy while working in youth ministry?

My Final Thoughts:  I love hanging around with younger and newer youth pastors because they care so much!!!  They are fresh out of training or are in their first ministry assignment and they are so fired up!  I decided very early on in my youth ministry career that I would never turn away from students’ suffering.  I side with Andrew Root’s (Andy is a Youth Ministry Prof at Luther Theological Seminary) thinking in Relationships Unfiltered.  Andy states:  One of the goals of youth ministry is to be human beings who seek to be human with and for others in the power of God who has become human for us all.

I am VERY curious:  Can experienced and seasoned youth pastors eventually stop caring?

The greatest thing for me at The Orange Conference is connecting with old friends and making new ones.  It fires me up connecting with youth workers/youth pastors that understand:

-  parents are the primary influence of a student’s life

-  students also need more non-parental committed adults who care, love and cheer them on in this complicated thing called:  life

-  how to reach this unchurch next generation of mid to late adolescents

This year’s Orange Conference theme is game changers.  So the conference will be filled with content and stories about defining moments that have transformed the way people do ministry.  Also Orange will be debuting some amazing and new resources for orange minded ministry leaders.  My personal favorite is the new book:  LEAD SMALL by Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas.  LEAD SMALL offers up best practices for leading a Small Group, and provides encouragement for the everyday heroes who play a key role in implementing the Orange Strategy.

But if you will NOT be attending The Orange Conference this year…. don’t worry The Conference will be live and well documented all over the intra web.

BLOGGERS
I would highly recommend checking out these (Orange student pastor) bloggers.  They will be blogging live at The Orange Conference.

Tom Shefchunas: UthMin.net | CoachShef

Michael Bayne:  Michaelbayne.net

Tom Pounder:  Ministry Blackboard

Ben Kerns:  Average Youth Ministry

Ben Read:  Intentional Student Ministry

Ryan Millard:  RyanMillard.com

Paul Mannino:  Orangedad.com

Terrace Crawford:  Terrace Crawford.com

The official list of Orange Conference bloggers Click here

This blog wont be live at the OC12, but this is a great Orange youth worker blog– to check out:  Stuff You Can Use

BACKSTAGE
Tune in to www.OrangeLeaders.com Wednesday night through Friday afternoon to catch the opening session, Family Experience Showcase, backstage interviews with many of our speakers, and perhaps most exciting to you, giveaways! Jared Herd, Matt Mckee and myself will be hosting the backstage extravaganza.  Click here to stream The Conference.

#THINKORANGE

(classroom pic brought to you by Public Record Office Victoria)

As of late, I have been asked: “if I want to become a youth pastor, where/how should I get my youth ministry education?”

My answer:  Excellent question.  There are formal and informal routes.  The formal routes are Bible college, youth ministry certificate programs and/or seminary, which are great routes—but in this post I am not going to deal with these formal routes.  Rather, I am going to speak more to the “hands on” education.  My goal is to unlock the youth ministry education available outside of classes, all around you.

At Fuller Seminary, during the summer of 2006, I was able to take one of my favorite seminary classes with Dr. Pete Ward called:  Church, Culture and Youth Ministry.  It was a summer intensive so we spent 10 days (6 hours per day) talking about three of my favorite things (youth ministry, church and culture).  In addition, Dr. Pete Ward was from the UK and for some odd reason, I am really fascinated by the UK culture in relation to youth ministry, so I was eager to learn from Pete in how youth work works in the United Kingdom.

Pete helped me:

• understand how to do youth ministry evangelism in a “post-Christian” context
• learn and respect the ins and outs of youth ministry history (1900s to 2000)
• comprehend how youth workers can engage and respond to culture without being afraid of it
• recognize why contextualization must be a top priority for any youth pastor
• think, seriously, about relational youth ministry and making sure to meet kids where they are at
• grow up as a youth worker
• by demonstrating how to do theological based youth ministry with strong practical application all while being culturally relevant at the same time!

Dr. Pete Ward is the Senior Lecturer in youth ministry and theological education at King’s College, London.  Pete has wrote:

God at the Mall:  Youth Ministry That Meets Kids Where They’re At ( my personal favorite.  this book should be on every youth pastor’s bookshelf)

Liquid Church

God Behaving Badly:  Media, Religion and Celebrity Culture

So just last week, I was re-reading God at the Mall and I thought to myself…….”I need to do a brief interview with Pete on my blog.”  I emailed him asking him if we could do an interview on my youth ministry blog. He immediately got back to me letting me know he would.  I was so stoked because Pete is such a humble and relational youth ministry scholar.  Dr. Ward has obviously shaped a lot of my youth ministry thinking, so I thought it would be fun to give my readers some exposure to the guy who helped me along the way.  Enjoy!

Q & A With Dr. Pete Ward

JZ:  Many national polls indicate Christianity in Britain is on very fast decline, which means Britain is probably very un-churched.  So what does youth work look like in a very unchurched Britain context? 

PW:  First I think the picture is very patchy.  There are very lively churches with some great youth groups.  That said there is now considerable effort being put in to find ways to reach out to young people beyond the church.  Often through community based or relational projects.

JZ:  Some times there is a significant gap between the culture of young people and the culture of the Church.  How would you encourage a youth worker to narrow this gap?  

PW:  There are issues here with how Church works and how young people might appropriate faith.  The key I think is to stay close to young people and also to be concerned to express faith in an authentic way – so dont sell out.

JZ:  Reflecting on youth ministry’s history, what are some key issues?

PW:  I think a key issues is that historically youth ministry has been the research and development department of the Church.  We do new stuff. That is exciting but it is also a responsibility.

JZ:  American youth workers are really starting to latch onto the insane importance of contextualization.  How have you been so successful in translating in-depth sociological research and theological concepts for an everyday, real-life youth ministry?  

PW:  Research, especially empirical research (empirical research is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience) is really important.  It helps us to understand better what is going on with young people and the wider culture.  This kind of understanding, alongside just being there in the place you are working in is basic to how we express faith in a context.

JZ:  How can youth workers avoid the dangers of contextualization?

PW:  I think fundamentally reading the Bible.  Not through already decided perspectives, but in ways that allow the Bible to recontextualize us.  Barth talked about the Strange New World of the Bible – that is kind of what I am talking about.

JZ:  What are some helpful ways to be a great cultural observer?  How can youth pastors become more culturally aware of what is happenings with today’s youth?

PW:  Start by seeking out what you admire and what you think is good.

JZ:  In American youth ministry, there is a lot of attention to the fact that youth ministries are not doing “enough” evangelism. In your book Growing Up Evangelical:  Youth Work and The Making of A Subculture, you ask the question of:  ….is evangelism essentially adolescent?  What do you mean by this question?

PW:  I am saying that the expression of faith we know as evangelicalism came from working with young people.  It is shaped by student ministry in particular.  This is a strength but also a weakness.