You have spent countless hours researching mission partners, locations, service opportunities, fundraising, and travel arrangements, and you finally feel like you have the perfect mission trip for your students. From your perspective, it’s a trip that will benefit your partners, while providing appropriate challenges for teenagers to step out of their comfort zone in sharing the gospel. What could go wrong?
Unfortunately, a poorly planned parent meeting can undo some of your work, cause unnecessary stress, and negatively influence student involvement. On the other hand, a well-planned, careful, and informative parent meeting, can help a trip flourish. Good communication about trip details may lead to more student involvement and trip volunteers as parents catch the vision and want to participate.
Mission Trip Meeting Timing is Everything
Before we discuss the nuts and bolts of the parent meeting, you’ll want to figure out when to hold it. Meetings need to take place well in advance of the mission trip. Figuring out the magical number of weeks or months before depends a lot on whether it is an international or domestic trip, whether it requires a lot of fundraising or minimal, and when the mission agency needs a deposit. Most important, host a parent meeting only when you know the trip’s details like the back of your hand. In other words, an open question time at the end of the meeting shouldn’t cause you anxiety.
Following are three phases of holding a parent meeting. There’s one thing youth ministers should do in every phase, and that is pray, pray, pray. A mission trip is not just a seven- or 10-day commitment; it is the culmination of months of preparation, fundraising, meetings, and more. You and your team need to depend on the Lord.
Providing a prayer guide for your parents and students can prepare their hearts and minds to serve. Urge them to pray for the ministry partners you will be serving alongside (Phil. 1:3-6). Encourage them to pray that the Lord would give each person on your trip compassionate hearts for the lost (Matt. 9:36). Finally, pray together that God would send additional workers out into the harvest field before and after your group serves (Matt. 9:38).
Before the Trip Meeting
Create a Timeline
After all your research, you’ll have some critical dates that you must communicate in an easy-to-read timeline for parents. Important dates to highlight include future meetings or training, fundraising dates, and deadlines for payments and forms.
Get Support from a Mission Agency
There’s a good chance the partner you are working with can provide you with important information that will be helpful to share with parents, especially FAQs, safety information, lodging and staff details, and what happens in case of emergency while on the trip.
Take Time to Prepare
Review your trip presentation and anything you might print to share with the parents. Have someone on your staff, youth volunteers, or a few select parents review it and give feedback. Exercising professionalism will go a long way toward the confidence you’ll need in your meeting. You could also consider inviting one or two of these trusted people to take part in presenting alongside you, which demonstrates a sense of teamwork in the leadership of the trip.
During the Trip Meeting
Share Stories of God at Work
Share a personal story of how God used a mission trip in your life, or how he worked through a past team to meet spiritual and physical needs. Even better, ask a parent, church member, or former student to come and share a testimony. Hearing specific stories about kingdom impact demonstrates how this trip can strengthen both students and local partners in their faith in Jesus.
Speak Directly to Parents
Holding a meeting with parents is very different from meeting with students. You will need to focus on details like safety, fundraising, and sleeping arrangements that are less interesting to students. Typically, parents want to support the trip and be your ally—but you need to help them feel comfortable with where you are going, who is going with you, and how their students will serve. Think like a parent and anticipate what their questions will be beforehand.
Have an Open Question Time
You will inevitably forget something that you wanted to communicate or even, in preparation, miss something that parents want to know. Give a reasonable amount of time for questions so parents feel they have asked everything they want.
Point Them to Jesus
Keep reminding parents that the trip is a way for their students to share the love of Jesus with others and to learn cross-culturally from fellow believers. The mission trip is not primarily a cool experience, a fun time, or about getting a stamp on a passport; it is about joining what God is doing through his people in another location and supporting their efforts to share Christ.
After the Trip Meeting
Continue to Communicate
Follow up with all the details in a nicely packaged email, including your slides, timeline, and links to appropriate websites and forms. Include the next step everyone should take following the meeting.
Create a Communication Hub
Consider creating a one-stop place for parents to find all mission trip info. This could be a page on your church website devoted to the trip, or a Google document where students and their families can access all trip information, forms, and updates.
As we lean into our calling to partner with parents, a thoughtful informational meeting can start a mission trip off on the right foot. We can support parents as they do the important work of discipling their teenagers in preparation for the trip. The more understanding they have of what the trip is all about, the better able they are to pray with and for their students while also encouraging them in the gospel.
Communication is critical throughout the process before, during, and after. Remember, it is an honor and a significant responsibility when parents entrust their students to your care on a trip like this. They want to see that you take the responsibility seriously. At the same time, remember the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” As youth ministers, our role is to be faithful in the responsibilities God has given us. But it is always God’s work to give growth to our students’ faith in him. Be faithful in preparing, and then watch to see what God will do in and through your students through the work of his Son.
Looking for more practical tools for youth ministry? Rooted Reservoir offers training videos for youth ministers and other church leaders, as well as Bible study curriculum and an illustrations bank.
