Before I had kids, I had parenting figured out. When I just had one very young child, I thought I was a parenting expert. As a 24-year-old youth pastor, I would look at the parents of my students and had all the best ideas of how I would parent my teenager better than they were. Their priorities were way out of whack, they operated out of frustration instead of a desire to disciple. How could they not get it?
By God’s grace, my views on parenting have changed, and I have grown to be much more sympathetic with parents of teens. Godly parenting is way more complicated than my younger self would have imagined. But at the time, my attitude and pride prevented me from engaging with parents the way I could have. I missed an opportunity.
Parents provide one of the biggest, most important supports in discipling the teenagers in our ministries. Partnering with parents allows us to extend discipleship beyond the context of our programming, and send it home—where it’s meant to start anyway.
Reasons Youth Ministers Miss Opportunities to Partner with Parents
There are several reasons that a youth minister might avoid partnering with parents. The first, seen in the story of a younger me above, involves a judgmental disposition. It might sound something like this: Why don’t those parent come to church? They are sending their kid to my youth group? Why does that parent invest so much in travel sports? Don’t they know they are sacrificing their child on the altar of extracurricular activities?! This kid doesn’t know anything about the Bible, why haven’t these parents been discipling their kids? Don’t they know that is their job?
Another reason might be the intimidation factor. Someone who is young and unmarried or married with no children might not have the slightest clue what it’s like to be a parent. This might make them feel that they have no business interacting with parents or engaging them at all. After all, at that point in life, some of those parents are old enough to be your parents!
We might also be less inclined to partner with parents because we are simply disinterested. We might not have much in common with them; they are old! We are more interested in spending time with students. That’s our job, after all. Talking to parents is somebody else’s responsibility. (Or so it seems.)
The Call to Partner with Parents
But despite all of the reasons you might not, there are a lot of really good reasons you should partner with parents. First, God calls parents to be the primary disciplers in the life of your students. God made the most basic institution of humanity the marriage and family unit. That means parents are called, before anyone else, to disciple their kids. Speaking of his own commands, God says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children…” Deuteronomy 6:7. In this passage, God exhorts parents to make teaching the ways of faith a constant part of their daily lives.
And this command bears out practically. Parents live with their children. You live with them when they are on retreats, but parents live with teenagers all the time! They will spend more than ten times the number of hours with their child each week that a youth minister will. They have the advantage of consistently seeing their children every day, and over a much longer period of time you would. Why not get in on that? If discipling students is your goal, then you will want to take every opportunity to see that happen, and partnering with parents is a great way to do that.
And finally, we should partner with parents because as people who love the gospel, we should want to help. The parents in your youth ministry might not all be as spiritually mature as you think they should be. They might not have all the right priorities. But that shouldn’t stop you from wanting them to grow. After all, we serve a Savior who died for us while we were still sinners. He knew we would fail time and time again, but he keeps on showing us his relentless love.
Practical Ways to Partner with Parents
Engage
One of the most basic ways we can help parents is by letting them know that we care. You do this by entering into their lives. There are some basic ways to do this: Know parents’ names, and talk to them when they come to pick up their kids during your midweek gathering. Get coffee with a parent and ask questions about their family life. Ask if there are ways you can be praying for them. Knowing the most basic things about the parents in your ministry lets them know that you care for them, and that’s the beginning of a partnership.
Encourage
While entering in is the initial step to partnering with parents, the decision to encourage parents, takes things further. Find ways to cheer them on. When a teenager makes an insightful comment in youth group, send a text message and let his or her parents know it’s clear that they are talking about Jesus at home. When students share about something going on at home, reach out to the parents to let them know you are praying for them. When you hear a parent ask a question about how to better disciple their children, go out of your way to expressknow how encouraged you are that they have a desire to do this! When parents are making any effort in the direction of discipling their children, they should be cheered on! Knowing that they share that goal with you is partnership.
Equip
Finally, we partner with parents by equipping them. Entering and encouraging them are both positive, but equipping means that you are resourcing them in their efforts to disciple their children. This can come in a lot of different forms. It can be as informal as meeting for a cup of coffee and talking about strategies for connecting with their son or daughter, or something as formal as a parenting class of some sort. It could be a regular email, a curriculum resource you make available, recommendations for family discipleship tools, or suggestions of how to pray with their kids. Anything that proactively seeks to inform the way that parents point their children towards Jesus is equipping them.
I missed an opportunity early in my ministry to fully partner with parents. But Christ is gracious! Don’t allow intimidation or judgment to keep you from this important opportunity, and don’t let feelings of inadequacy or guilt keep you from trying to be a partner to parents at your church. Imperfect youth ministers and imperfect parents can all be used by God in the lives of students. So let’s look to Jesus for help, and team up with parents to better point our students to him!
Rooted’s annual conference offers training and encouragement for youth ministers seeking to do gospel-centered ministry. Join us in Dallas October 24-26!
