Bridging the Gap
Over my 12 plus years in full-time youth ministry, I have encountered all sorts of highs and lows. Of the many lows, the one that I have experienced to be most hurtful and harmful is the communication and relationship gap I have seen between parents and children. As a parent of 4 young ones, I know that most parents do not actively seek to destroy their children in any way. Although there are always a few bad seeds, I have seen so many great relationships between parent and child. Nonetheless, it happens. As I have been dealing with one closer to home lately, I have tried to examine what my role as a Youth Pastor is in this.
As I have been processing, I have come to the conclusion that as a Youth Program we have to address this communication gap between parents and children. I know that we are not the savior here and by addressing this potential gap as there will still be miscommunication and problems between children and their parents. But, like a previous resolved issue I had with not talking about the sex and dating topics, if we fail to address this and offer ways to help and encourage, I believe we are doing a disservice to those in our church and outside of it as well.
So, I am now brainstorming ways to bridge the gap between parents and teens. One of the things we are going to do is to address this gap at one of our Sunday Night gatherings in January. It goes along with a Series Katie came up with and we've entitled it "What Parents and Teens wish each other knew". As Katie and I are just beginning to plan it out, one of the parts that I would like to see happen is that we give the parents and teens (who come together to this event) an opportunity to talk about life and what is going on. I know this doesn't sound "life-changing" or "new", but in my area (Northern VA), people are extremely busy. Parents work 2 jobs or the mom and dad both work full-time. Students play in sports, involved in clubs, play in the school band or do all 3. It is a busy lifestyle here which means that parents and teens do not get an opportunity to just sit down and talk anymore which could cause a possible communication gap between the two parties.
A few months ago, I asked a parent of 4 whose children are all high school and older how she survived the teenage years without her children getting into a bad crowd or in trouble with the school or the law. She said that one of the key things they did as a family was to have dinner together each night. What a novel concept - have dinner together as a family!! Just kidding, but seriously, a simple thing like having dinner together opened the door for them to talk and stay involved in each others lives. I think by giving students and their parents an opportunity to talk, especially if they are not talking at home, helps them bridge that gap between them.
Now, this is just 1 idea that I had and am still thinking through what else we can offer parents and teens. But what about you? What are you doing or can you do to bridge this gap?
TAKE A MINUTE and...
- Brainstorm ways you can help teens and parents bridge the relationship and communication gap. What are things you have tried or heard that works? Talk to other youth ministers and see if they have any ideas and/or if there is a way you all can do an event together.
- Talk to some of your students and parents and see what are things they need and would like to see you do as a Youth Minister (please note, just because they believe you should do x,y and z does not mean you have to do x,y and z). By you doing this, it gives you a pulse of where your parents and students are in regards to this issue.
If you have an idea that you have seen work, please post it as a way to encourage others bridge this gap.
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Follow Up with Students
If you went to Church when you were in elementary school, do you remember when your Sunday School teacher would give you all handouts to give to your parents that highlighted what you learned in class? I remember them because now, as a father, I am getting them from my daughters.
What are the main purposes of those handouts? Carolyn Covert, the Children's Ministry Director at my Church said that the purpose of those handouts are "to enforce the lesson they learned that day." Different teachers may expect different things for the students to do with those handouts, but hopefully two actions will become of it:
- The children will look at it throughout the week as a way to reinforce what they learned on Sunday
- Parents will sit down with their children and go over it together. What a great way for parents and children to do together! Parents get to know what their children are learning and it is an activity they can do together as a family.
If reinforcement is the key, then why, when students reach the middle and high school grades, do we stop giving out these handouts? Most likely it is because they are no longer age appropriate. If Youth Pastors handed out papers to their youth, odds are that most youth will probably trash them before they even reach their parents. So, does that mean that there are no effective ways to follow up with the youth to reinforce what they learned on Sunday? Of course not! But, it does mean that we have to be creative in how we do follow up. Handouts that talk about little Jimmy and the Toaster that talks probably wouldn't work well with middle and high school students.
Follow up and reinforcing with students is important for a variety of reason. Most importantly, if we are in the business of life transformation (which is what I think we do, right?), then we cannot expect life transformation to happen just on Sundays. Life transformation happens when we help them process and apply what they learn on Sundays throughout the week. In addition, when we follow up and pursue the students, it shows them that we care about them and their well being. In a world where students go through a roller coaster of emotional relationships with their peers, it is great for them to have a steady adult-friend relationship in which they know we care about them and who they are. As Youth Pastors we have to find ways to take what they hear and follow up with them throughout the week. But, how do we do that?
I use 4 different ways to follow up with students and reinforce throughout the week. The first way is a devotional blog I do each week. Each Sunday morning, I will cover a topical series (currently, we are focusing on the Sermon on the Mount and challenges Christ had for us in his sermon). Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, I post a devotional based on the message so that the youth can rediscover the principle again, just in a different format. This way, the message and application are reinforced when they do this online devotional. I believe this works because we live in a digital world where students spend countless hours on the internet. By creating this devotional blog, my hope is that instead of looking up scores on ESPN or Youtube videos, they can do something more productive by being challenged in Christ and review what they learned earlier in the week.
The second way I follow up and reinforce is similar. I record my messages and upload them as podcasts on iTunes. As with the blog, I am taking a media platform that the students are very familiar with - iTunes/podcasting and put our weekly messages on it. Unless you have been living in an underground layer for years, it is hard to walk by any number of students and not see a variety of iPods or mp3 players. Students love them and practically everyone has them. If they do not have an iPod, most people have computers that they can easily download your message to their computer and listen to it from there. This way, they can review what they heard on Sunday and the application/challenge can be reinforced.
Setting up a blog and/or podcast for FREE are easy to do. For a free blog, you can go to either www.blogspot.com or www.wordpress.com. For a free podcast host site, go to www.podomatic.com. If you want your messages on iTunes for easy downloads, you will then have to go iTunes and submit your podcast. It takes a few days for them to approve it. Do not be intimated about setting these up. They are fast and easy to do!
The third way is to have students share how God is impacting their life. At the end of each message, we discuss a challenge for students to take with them and apply to their life. As our leaders follow up with students throughout the week, we are challenging them to apply what they heard and to see if someone would like to share about their experience to the other students the following week. What we are looking for is someone who earnestly sought the Lord that week and be able to share how it went. When you have students share about experiencing God in their lives, it inspires others to do likewise. As Rick Beckwith, the Senior Director of Field Initiatives for Young Life said to me, “if we are constantly having kids share what they are learning, how they are being changed, so that becomes ‘normal’, then those who are just letting it go in one ear and out the other will start to feel left out.” Having students share is a great way to reinforce what they learned the week before as it shows that students are doing something about it and desire to be impacted and changed.
The last way is to encourage leaders to be following up with students throughout the week. I believe that this is the most effective way as it promotes the incarnational ministry style that Christ modeled. As much as I love these other ideas, you cannot process with another student or get that great face-to-face time that is needed through a blog, podcast or even someone sharing. It is only through this valuable personal time with a student that real ministry can get done. This can happen through regular contact work or in small groups. What is important is leaders getting together with students to help reinforce teachings and to walk through life with the students. When we are able to do this, life transformation begins to happen.
These are four ways that I have found to be successful in following up with students and reinforcing what they are learning.
TAKE A MINUTE and...
1. Brainstorm different ways you can follow up regularly with students. Although some ways may be better and more effective than others, think outside the box and look for new ways to follow up with students. Then, try them out to see how effective they can be.
2. Try a blog! Again, it’s quick and easy. If you want to look at my examples, goto:
- Devotional Blog - http://tompounder.blogspot.com
- Podcast - http://tompounder.podomatic.com
What are ways you all are using to follow up with youth? Post them so we can all benefit and try them out.
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Brainstorm Time: PARENTS!
As a father, my wife and I see books like these, "Family Devotions" and "Devotions for Kids" by Tyndale. The point of these books is to get families together by doing a devotion and talking about Christ together as a family.
Obviously, this works and is a great idea for families with young children as it allows them to spend time together and be encouraging each other in Christ. But how do you encourage this same kind of time together in families with tweens and teens without it being "lame"? Is there a way to do this? Also, do the parents with youth in your program know what you all are doing (curriculum) so that they can be engaging their youth at home? If so, how do you communicate that to them?
So, if you want to post back your comments on these 2 questions, I think we could have some great encouragement for each other as we attempt to be more effective in ministry:
- How do we encourage time together in families in which they are spending time talking about Christ?
- How do we communicate with parents what our curriculum is so that they can be engaging their children at home and following up/reinforcing the teaching points and application?
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Surround Yourself with Parents
“Parents? What do we need parents for? They are just going to try to control what I do and turn a fun event into something boring. Teens will NOT want to come to an event where their parents are.” That was my mentality for the first 5-6 years of my youth work. I never really wanted parents to be involved as I felt it was my job to take the burden off of them and support them in their efforts to raise Christlike teens. Have you ever felt that way?
I wish I could say that my mindset instantly changed once I got to Cedar Run but it did not. However, my mentality began to gradually change once I got there to the point now where I have consistent parental involvement in our youth program.
What changed? My thought process. In the years before, I kept on looking for reasons why parents should not be involved and how they would negatively impact our group. But, as a non-mega-church, I had to stop looking at the negatives and start looking at the positives. If we were going to have the impact I desired, I realized that we needed parents to be more involved. As I had parents more involved I saw the benefits they offered.
Some of the benefits I have seen having parents involved were:
- They could be a positive role model, showing teens that parents do care and are involved, in a healthy way, in the life of their children
- When asked, parents step up and are reliable. Parents want to help. After all, they help with sport teams, school activities and community events. Why wouldn’t they be able to help with church stuff?
- By having parents involved in some way, it promotes your event and hopefully you will draw more students to whatever you are doing.
- It takes the burden off of you to do one more thing. For instance, providing food for an event. If parents help out, you can focus on other details of the event rather than wondering how you are going to get the right amount of food.
The benefits of having parents involved are there. The question is, are you utilizing them? For me, a simple change in my thought process has made all the difference.
Two Kinds of Involvement
I believe there are 2 kinds of parental involvement you can have. The first one is General Involvement. This is where any parent can participate and help out. There are plenty of opportunities for this kind of involvement to take place. If you need snacks or drinks for a youth event, you could have any of your parents help you out. Another way they can help is for special events. For example, in order to make our Super Bowl Bash a no cost event, we have parents provide all the food. Not only is it home-cooked and better than take-out, but then the parents get to see the huge turnout and see, if just briefly, our ministry in action.
Another way parents can help you and your ministry is by supporting your family. That’s right, I said it, supporting your family. Youth Pastors and Ministers work odd hours and days, but that is our calling. In the same way, parents have callings too and it might just be to serve you! Imagine that, someone serving you for a change. I have had numerous offers by parents who actually wanted to babysit my 4 beautiful daughters for free or offer a meal, especially during a rough week. We have to allow these ministers to serve us. Do not let pride get in your way of them serving you. However, I do want to caution you, do not try to take advantage of other’s spiritual gift and hospitality. I know we do not get paid much, but that is no reason to take advantage and abuse the goodness of others. Remember, it is ultimately the Lord who will meet all your needs (Philippians 4:16). Allow parents to support you AND your family, but we wise in not taking advantage of their generosity.
The second kind is Core Involvement. Core Involvement is a group of parents you select to help you. This is NOT for everyone. These are parents who are strong supporters of the youth program and are ones you have built a relationship with. In addition, these are parents who:
- Are caring individuals who support you and want to help and serve you and your family
- Have a healthy family life (as healthy as can be known – no family is perfect, but hopefully you can identify families that are more healthy than others)
- Have excellent spiritual lives – you will benefit from their conviction and commitment to Christ
The purpose of your Core Involvement parents is two-fold. First, they are to help you process ministry issues, decisions and direction. At non-Mega-Churches, it is highly unlikely that you will have multiple staff to bounce ideas off of and process information. By having these parents, you will be able to process these issues and decisions that come up with others who want the best for the program. Keep in mind, though, that you are still the ultimate decider on issues. You want parents involved but you have to be the one who has the final say. Otherwise, as great as they may be, these parents may feel that they choose the direction of the program and you could have a whole new set of problems on your hands.
At Cedar Run, I was blessed as we had some people who started, ran and held high positions in businesses in the area. They were well educated, successful and knew what it took to run a profitable business. In addition, they were huge supports of my family and me. So, I gathered these men (it started with 2 and eventually became a core of 4 after 2 years) and we began meeting together every 2-3 weeks to catch up on the latest news in the ministry, check in how they could help my family and me personally and how we are doing in fulfilling the mission of the youth program. Each area that we covered was important because it kept them up to speed on the latest news and it helped me process how to best manage the youth program. Having these men involved in helping me process has been invaluable to me!
If you do not have these types of people in your church, John Fontanella, from Gateway Community Church in Herndon, VA, told me the other day how he was tackling this issue. He is getting ready to enroll in an MBA program to help him be an effective manager of his youth program. What a great idea! As he explained his reasons, it made perfect sense as Youth Pastors are great at relational ministry, but management is not always our strong suit. As your ministry grows and your duties expand, you are going to need to focus more time and energy on management of people and direction and less on direct ministry. I know that relationships are the main reason we got into youth ministry, but if we overlook this key training and help, we will not be as effective as we can and should be. Whether you find a core group of men walk side-by-side with you or you decide to enroll in an MBA program, this can be extremely helpful. (By the way, John gave me the go ahead to for you all to email him with any and all questions about the MBA program - jfontanella@gatewaychurch.org).
Secondly, your Core Involvement parents help promote the youth ministry and events to other parents in and outside the church. I have found that even thought I have informative newsletters and send out weekly emails to parents, a good amount of parents still do not know what exactly we do and why we do it. Therefore, having this core team of parents adds just one more way for the parents to be hearing what is happening in the youth program. The great thing about this is that parents are hearing about this from excited parents! That goes a long way because they are not hearing it from me, but from a parent, just like themselves.
I believe that we all need a core group of parents to help us in our work. Whether it is a core group of men that help you process ministry or a group of parents (4-6) that meet every other month to go over upcoming events and news it does not matter. The key is that you surround yourself with some people to help you be more effective. This group enables that to happen.
Thinking Outside the Box
Have you ever thought about doing contact work with parents? That was thinking outside the box for me as I never would have dreamed or even desired to do contact work with parents. But, now I wish I could say that I came up with this idea. My Senior Pastor asked me to do this as he felt that this not only helps parents feel that they know what is going on in the youth program, it also allows me to get the pulse of the families in our Church and challenges they may or may not be having. It could be a simple phone call or email. Or, it could be a time where you go over and meet the parents and sit down with them. The point is that by doing this, you show them that you care about them and their needs. Plus, you may get some great insights on students and family issues that you would not normally have known about. As great as this opportunity may be, do not be offended if parents did not respond, maybe they do not have anything to talk about. The point is that you offered and by offering, you showed them that you cared.
As I have learned over the years, parental involvement is key to youth ministry. It may have taken some time to start using their help, but when you have the parents helping and committing time and effort into your ministry, you AND the student will be blessed.
TAKE A MINUTE and…
- Identify your needs and seek parents to help as part of your General Involvement. You may need admin help, food needs, planning help or something completely different. Whatever it is, identify your needs and seek these parents for help in those areas.
- Identify 2-3 parents who have a child or children in your youth program that can be apart your Core Involvement Group. They can come along side you and help you process and set the course for the youth program.
- Start doing contact work with parents of your youth. Ask them to coffee or lunch and share with them your vision and desire for students. Who knows, out of that time, you may have much more support from them now that you have spent time with them and shared your vision and heart. This has benefited me so much as parents feel heard and that you value them.
Like this? Hate this? Have thoughts? Post a comment.
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Past Posts
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Days 4 & 5
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 3
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 2
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 1
- GUEST POST: Beyond our Sandbox
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