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16 Sep 2021

Are You Proactive Or Reactive With Parents?

By |2021-09-15T20:11:04-07:00September 16th, 2021|Leadership, Parents, Small Groups, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks|4 Comments

It really is interesting how many parents drop off their students and never meet the people they are dropping off their student to be with for two hours a week. It’s also really interesting for how many leaders have not reached out to know parents of their students.

We have an incredible opportunity to not only minister to our students, but their families as well.

We all have heard stories of students who first started coming to church, got saved and then their families started to attend as well. When we are intentional with our students families, we can really partner with parents/guardians because they are with their students the other 166 hours during the week compared to our 2-3 hours.

This is why in this season we have been really challenging those who lead small groups to be intentional about reaching out to, not just the student, but their families as well. We should be making the first move. We want to be proactive in making the first connection.

Here is the ask of our leaders: Make one connection per week with one family.

If you go on Yelp and look at reviews, most of the time you will see the negative ones. Why? Because when things are good, people don’t really write reviews because they don’t think about it. No one talks to the manager at a store when things are going well. People only tend to write reviews when they have a bad experience. People only ask to speak to a manger when something is wrong.

Same with parents. It could be all good and no one will say anything but far too often we are reactive with parents. When something happens, thats when we make the first connection with them. We are already starting in the negative.

When we are proactive, we can start to build relational equity, build up the positive and IF something goes down, we already know the parents/guardians. It will not only set your ministry up better but your volunteers to win with the families as well.

What could this look like?

  • For some families, they might come to church, so just physically meeting them and knowing their name and getting their cell phone number would be a win.
  • For some, just letting their parents know how awesome their kid is after group or through email throughout the week. Parents love to hear how awesome their kids are.
  • For some, you might be close to their family and be invited to dinners. Do it. Any time you can be with the family, it’s a good thing.
  • Take 30 seconds and send them a text asking how they are and how you can pray for them specifically. You will be amazed how simple and powerful that is.
  • Shoot an email updating them on what conversations and group has been like (obviously keeping the confidence of your students) but parents love to be in the know.
  • Connect with the parents/guardians via social media. Most of GenZ parents have it. It could be an easy way to share a story or make a connection with them.

As we have been pushing this with our small group leaders it’s been awesome to see the proactive relationships blossoming.

@justinknowles3

26 Jan 2017

Tales from the Small Group

By |2017-01-26T13:02:06-08:00January 26th, 2017|Leadership, Small Groups, Youth Pastor Life|0 Comments

I offered to just buy the coffee table from the host home family. 

Why, you ask? Because one of the small group members managed to discreetly carve his initials in it during our short stay in their home that night. When we went for snacks, he went to town.

We needed small group volunteers so desperately I asked the senior pastor to work it into his message. Do you know how many new volunteers we got that Sunday? One. But after the background check … zero.

There’s “that one kid” in my youth group, sometimes I think I have a whole youth group full of them. That one kid who constantly farts during prayer. Giggles every time there’s even something with the least bit of junior high innuendo. Constantly redirects each conversation to his sick cat. When it comes time for prayer requests forgets to mention his cat.

I love to run milk and cookies to each small group at least once a year. Just a little drop in surprise to encourage the home and give them a little treat. It was so fun and everyone loved it! Until a bunch of the kids got sick because I hadn’t factored in the lactose free, gluten free crowd. Next year, I’m just bringing everyone a box of raisins.

The video clip we used from Tommy Boy was debatable in the first place, I’ll give you that. But when the intern that trimmed the footage accidentally let it go too long, our students were introduced to some new words their parents weren’t excited for them to learn. Is resignation with one “s” or two?

One of our small group leaders who was in college thought it would be fun to take some boudoir pictures. If you don’t know what boudoir pictures are … don’t Google it! Just know that if one of your 20-something volunteers thinks it is OK to do that, and posts them on Instagram, then they probably shouldn’t be volunteering in your youth ministry.

Small groups are messy. Any time you get in the mess with students some of that mess is going to get on you. But they’re SO worth it. So this week, as you serve students in small groups … as you sand down the coffee table or write an apology letter for that video clip, as you scour the store shelves for cookies that taste like tree bark and almond milk, as you do your best to recruit and train qualified volunteers … know they are worth it. That life change happens there on a weekly basis. That these students have no idea just how good they have it.

Serve your small groups faithfully this week. They are SO worth it.

And Lord, please help that one kid’s cat to feel better. Amen.

This article originally appeared in the January 2017 edition of Youth Worker Journal edition. Check them out here.

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