Home/Posts/communication
19 Aug 2024

Building Strong Relationships with Parents and Guardians

By |2024-08-05T13:47:39-07:00August 19th, 2024|communication, Parents|1 Comment

I heard a youth pastor recently say that youth ministry would be easy if it weren’t for the parents! I know it can often feel like we are ministering to very willing students who are parented by flaky parents. I’ve certainly felt like that over my years of student ministry. But now that I’m getting older and have students in my own ministry, I’m beginning to see that those flaky parents just needed a little help from their youth pastor, especially since that parent is now me!

Here are some tips to help you build strong relationships with parents and better minister to them and their students.

Communicate Well and Often

I have seen youth pastors send out an email that announced for the first time that a retreat was happening in a month and that a $200 per student fee was all it took to sign up! As a parent, I realize I need much more time to plan things! As a youth pastor, try to make sure that you let parents know when big events will be as soon as possible. Fall retreats need to be communicated as soon as summer wraps up. Things happening in the spring should really get communicated in December. Summer camp and mission trips must have save-the-dates sent out sometime in January!

This comes from a parent who loves to hear about things frequently. Don’t just think one email is enough. Communicate regularly! It would be great to send a weekly email to parents reminding them of big and small events and even the teaching series you’ve got going on. The more you communicate, the more trust you build!

Host Parent Meetings

As a parent of teenagers, I can often feel like I’m alone in this endeavor. What helps me out is knowing that other parents are also parenting their students and going through the same struggles as I am! Parent meetings are a great place for parents to see that there are others in their church who are having the same issues.

You can also use parent meetings to remind parents of upcoming big events, let them meet their kids’ small group leaders, and get them involved in what’s happening in the student ministry! I always liked to host these during the big season beginnings—one in the fall, one in the spring, and a much more informal get-together in the summer.

Provide Parents Resources

The most frequent question I would get as a youth pastor from parents was usually something like, “Do you have any resources to help me with…?”

Knowing what resources I could send to parents was such a help for the parents who came up to me at that time. As a youth pastor, you are an expert in students. Because of that, you probably see many resources that deal with what students are going through. Keeping a list on your phone of books, podcasts, and blog articles dealing with specific issues will make you look like a rockstar when a parent has an issue they are struggling with. I have always liked highlighting resources like this during parent meetings and emails!

The more we communicate to parents and show them that we are student ministry experts, the more trust we will build with them as we minister to their students. And the more trust we have with parents, the easier time we will have ministering to their students!

19 Jan 2024

Sidekick: Adults Love It Too!

By |2024-01-19T08:36:57-08:00January 19th, 2024|communication, Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog, Teaching, Teaching/Programming, Technology|3 Comments

It’s no secret that when we created Sidekick, we had youth workers in mind (they are our favorite, of course!), but recently, my wife (Cathy) and I were asked to teach a course at our church called Intentional Parenting (based off a book by the same name we wrote back in 2018). We had an idea that the course would be popular, but we had no idea we’d have hundreds of parents seeking advice each month! It’s been a whirlwind, to say the very least!

After seeing how much students love the new interactive features (such as live voting) in Sidekick, we decided to see if adults would feel the same way, and—spoiler alert—THEY ABSOLUTELY DID!

For the past few sessions, throughout the teaching, we’ve been sprinkling in questions like this:

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

And, even though we knew it would be a hit, we were BLOWN AWAY by the response! Cathy and I have taught this curriculum in many different settings over the years, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the most engagement we’ve ever seen with a group of parents!

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about the parents in our course since we started integrating Sidekick Live Polls throughout our teaching content:

  1. They are more attentive – Since they know I might ask another question at any time, I genuinely think they pay more attention to the material we are presenting.
  2. They’re having more fun – I can’t even tell you how much I love their response when the “Show Live Results” feature is enabled. It’s not uncommon for people to cheer as the results come rolling in!
  3. They’re more likely to come back – I don’t need a lot of research (although it certainly is out there!) to tell me that people who enjoy an experience are more likely to come back a second, third, or even fourth time. That’s EXACTLY what we’re seeing right now with Intentional Parenting.
  4. They’re more likely to bring their friends – I’ve seen this in youth ministry over and over again, but this is one of the clearest examples of this happening with adults I’ve ever seen. Couples who attend one session are inviting their neighbors. Plain and simple: People want to attend engaging events.

Now, before I close out, there’s one more really important thing that I realized during our most recent course. It’s in the picture below. See if you can figure out what I’m talking about:

(click image to enlarge)

It’s right there at the bottom of the screen. I’ll zoom in to help:

(click image to enlarge)

During the session, I asked what grade parents would give themselves based on how well they show affection to their children. And 5% answered that they would give themselves a big ole F. I can say with 100% confidence that most of those parents would never have admitted this if they weren’t able to answer anonymously.

You see, Sidekick doesn’t just promote engagement, it gives people the chance to be honest without facing immediate judgment. You can absolutely be sure that the next words out of my mouth after this poll were different than they would have been had we not done the poll. Because of what we learned with this poll, I was able to pause and tell those parents that they aren’t alone and that simply by attending the Intentional Parenting course, they were already taking steps in the right direction. I’m not going to say it solved all of their problems, but you could actually feel the sense of relief in the room.

And none of this would have been possible without Sidekick.

Blessings,

Doug

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

8 Jan 2022

Letter to Parents as We Start 2022 in Our Youth Ministry

By |2022-01-08T14:40:20-08:00January 8th, 2022|communication, josh griffin, junior high, junior high ministry, Parents|58 Comments

I just sent out a parent email as we kicked off our new series, My Myself and iPhone. I couldn’t be more excited for this! If it helps/inspires/prompts you with a letter of some sort to your parents, here’s mine:

Hey JHM Parents!

Welcome to 2022! What an incredible and wild ride we had in 2021- we’re excited about the plans to help partner with you in building a faith that lasts in your teenager! Here’s some AMAZING opportunities coming up that will help you as a parent, challenge your teenager and I hope encourage both of you as you journey the New Year together:

FOR STUDENTS: JHM Life Groups Session 2 Kickoff
THIS Wednesday @ 7pm (for 10 weeks)
Students meet all together for a quick bit of fun and games then we separate all over the church campus for small group time to share God’s Word and share about our lives together. Throw in some snacks and a couple of caring adult leaders and you have the perfect Life Group night! Not signed up? Here’s a quick shortcut to get your student in a Life Group!

FOR PARENTS: Intentional Parenting w/Doug Fields
THIS Wednesday @ 7pm (all 10 weeks)
You do NOT want to miss this! You will walk away from these weekly sessions encouraged, engaged, and relieved! Doug and Cathy Fields share weekly (while the kids are in their JHM Life Group!) some strategies and ideas to be intentional, make memories and build a strong connection with your son/daughter in these challenging years. It’s in the Upper Room, right above the Mariners Cafe. Not signed up? Here’s a quick shortcut to get yourself in before it fills completely up!

THIS WEEKEND: Me, Myself and iPhone
THIS SATURDAY/SUNDAY @ all JHM services in the Youth Building
This Christmas I went from Xbox on my 4K television to our new Oculus Quest 2 VR headset then walked my dog (kinda really scrolled on my iPhone the whole time) then came home to watch a Netflix show on my iPad. I mean … there are LOTS of screens and LOTS of temptations and influences in our lives! The next 4 weeks we’ll dive into biblical principles that will help teenagers navigate screens – whether they have their first phone or not.

Let’s have a great 2022 together! As always, feel free to reach out if we can be of support to you in any way.

Blessings,
Josh Griffin
JHM Pastor
Mariners Church

Go to Top