Partnering with Parents

When I first started in ministry, I knew that partnering with parents was vital but it felt daunting to me because I was not a parent of a teenager. I wasn’t always sure how to help parents in my ministry. But I had a great resource in my father who had been a student pastor my whole life. There were many conversations in the early years that revolved around working with parents.

I want to share a few things my dad taught me and allow you to hear from him too. Whether you are single, married with young kids, or teenagers, an important part of your ministry is to the parents. You must take an active role in ministering to them and involving them in the ministry.

Proverbs 22:6 says…
Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The first thing that we must remember with parents is that we are partnering with them not parenting. We are training parents in today’s culture so they can train up their child. To do that you must understand the types of parents you have and their DNA so we know how to best communicate and partner with them.

Types of the parents you deal with…

• Absent – Not there (if they are in the building they never come around)

• Helicopter – Overprotective and scared

• Lawn Mower - Attempt to shield their children from any kind of adversity

• Challenging – Constantly questioning you for good or bad

• Cheerleaders –Biggest Supporters

*Something to keep in mind: Cheerleader parents can make you feel great but they aren’t always going to challenge you.  Having challenging parents can cause you to stop and think in a way that helps you to grow personally in ministry and even helps grow the ministry as a whole. You need a good balance of both in your ministry.

Parent DNA

• Personality: people-driven, task-driven, introverted, extroverted

• Spirituality:  believer or non-believer, new believer, growing believer, spiritual giftedness

• Family Dynamic (parent): nuclear family, blended, remarried, divorced, single never been married, adoptive

Taking into consideration the type of parents you have and how they are wired is going to help you know how to communicate in a way that helps you partner with them. Keep in mind there is no cookie-cutter way to minister to parents. How you communicate and partner with one parent may not work with the next. This is why you must know the dynamics of the parents in your ministry and have several ways of communicating, equipping, and partnering with them.

Consider these questions: How do you view communication?  Is it just information out or is it a platform for parents to respond?

If there is only one-way communication then you can’t truly be partnering with them because partnering takes communication from both parties.  

In communicating with parents, there must be a good mixture of mass communication and the personal touch for partnering to be effective. Let’s first consider mass communication. Emails, texts, social media posts, and apps, like Remind, allow parents to have access to important information and are great ways to send resources to help equip your parents. Using more than, if not all, of these, is key because of the dynamics of the parents. One may never check an email or social media. While others don’t care for mass texts or app notifications. That is why it is important to have a variety of ways to send mass communication.

Your emails, texts, posts, etc. don’t always open the doors for conversations. There will be times when you need parent feedback on the ministry.  Parents will also need to be able to know they can contact you in different seasons to help with something they may be going through with their student. This is why there must also be personal touches like phone calls, coffee or lunches, and going the extra mile with some of the most challenging parents.

How to incorporate personal touches into your weekly routine…

Phone calls: Set aside time every week to make phone calls to parents. Come up with your criteria for how you will prioritize who to call. Make sure to balance calls to parents whose students are always there or you see personal growth in and those who haven’t been around or seem to be struggling.

Meeting with parents: (By Eddy McBroom) Early on in ministry I made it a priority to meet with parents. My goal was to get to know each of the parents in my ministry so that I would have a good foundation for helping them train and equip their students. This also allowed me to share my heart for students and invite them to be a part of the ministry.

Being intentional in meeting with the parents built the relationships I needed to fully help both the parents and students during the time they were in my ministry. It also helped me understand the dynamics of the family and how they did things. Not every parent was interested in meeting with me but I made sure they knew I was available if they ever wanted to meet. There were also parents I met with multiple times and ones I only met with once. But no matter how many times I met up with parents, they knew my door was open if they needed to talk because every stage of a teenagers’ life brings a new adventure.

To incorporate this personal touch into your ministry, you need to set aside blocks of time to meet with parents. You also need to budget money for each week, in case your meeting is over coffee or a meal. Once you have set those up then start scheduling and no matter what don’t let anything else replace that block of time. If you don’t have parents to meet with then use that time for parents by making phone calls, collecting and sending resources to them, or praying for them by name. You can also do a parent conference once a year to encourage, challenge, equip, and allow Q&A.

*If you don’t have time because of the size of your ministry to take on all the phone calls and meetings. There is value in training your leaders and holding them accountable to connect with parents. They can become the liaison between you and the parents.  They can let you know when there may be a situation arising that would require some more personal communication from you.

Going the extra mile: There will always be at least one difficult parent in ministry. Be proactive in showing them you care. Go out of your way to find them at church and see how they are doing. Seek to work out ways that make them feel confident about letting their student participate. Give them a heads-up when you know something might rattle them so they can be prepared.

Remember: Intentional time Focused on Parents Is never Wasted Time!