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How friendly is your ministry to parents?

May 20, 2013 by doug 1 Comment

Last week we had our 2nd annual FAM Conference. It was a great event and there was a lot of talk about how ministries can become more family-friendly. Here’s a few notes I took from conversations. I’ll share more later this week.

1. OVER COMMUNICATE
Life is busy in the home! Teenagers have a lot going on in their life and parents have an incredible task attempting to balance all the different demands on their time. Make the commitment to help your families and clearly communicate with your parents. Make it a goal to try to over communicate. Let them know about upcoming events (which doesn’t mean the week of the event), content that’ll you’ll teaching on, ministry successes, changes, costs, activities, etc. Your communication doesn’t have to be long, but it should be consistent and clear and speaks to the parents’ world. Learning how to plan well will make this much easier.

2. SPEAK HIGHLY OF PARENTS
We’re on the “same side” with parents, so make sure to take every opportunity to speak highly of them when you’re around teenagers. Resist the urge to join in when a teenager is verbally bashing his/her parents. Rookie youth workers may try to “build a bridge” with a teenager by trashing parents (i.e. “parents just don’t understand”)…but it doesn’t work long-term. Keep your integrity and speak highly of parents.

3. SPEAK HIGHLY OF THEIR KIDS
Affirmation is a great gift to a parent! Each time you see a parent, try to pass on some time of verbal encouragement about their son/daughter. Parents love to hear great things about their kids and when it comes from someone who knows them and really cares about them, the affirmation is even more powerful. Returning home from camp this summer is a great opportunity to brag to parents about their kids and set a positive tone for post-camp family conversations. There are few things more rewarding to parents than hearing good words about their kids. This is a powerful gift that doesn’t cost you anything.

More ideas coming later this week.

When it comes to being family-friendly, what are your intentional actions? Share them here.

Filed Under: Family, posts, youth ministry Tagged With: affirmation, Communication, Family-friendly, ideas, parents, summer camp

What makes your church family friendly?

May 16, 2013 by doug Leave a Comment

I’m currently at our FAM conference (held at APU) and we’re gathered with a bunch of people who care deeply about the family who are trying to figure out what it means to come alongside families and better care for and help them.

We’re not selling a program for leaders to “buy-into”… rather we’re talking about what it might look like for a church to better help families. We are looking at the values of…

STRONG marriages
CONFIDENT parents
EMPOWERED kids
HEALTHY leaders

We are asking these types of questions:
1. What would a church “look like” if its leaders cared deeply about these values?

2. What if the church could make a 1% change in the divorce rate? Imagine if that single 1% change became a reality–that one change would impact millions of kids.

3. What role is the church supposed to play in the life of the family?

Question: What are the questions you’d be asking? Share them here.

Filed Under: Church, Family, Leadership, posts Tagged With: APU, divorce, FAM Conference, family ministry, Family-friendly, Leadership, marriage

Make a decision… it probably won’t last

May 12, 2013 by doug 1 Comment

I like infographics a lot!

When I saw this particular one on logos it made me think of the amount of time that I’ve worked in two churches–11 years in one and 18 in another. My experience has been that when you’re in one location for a long time that you’re able to observe a lot of change. There are times when it feels as if a certain decision is so important that you’ve got to get it right. I’m guessing that’s the case of these original logos–they probably felt like each logo was a “done deal.”

Here’s where my mind went–instead of getting paralyzed by indecision… pull the trigger. Make the decision. It’s probably not a decision that will last forever… chances are good you change it soon. Most of your leadership decisions are not final.

Logos Evolve 4 Should A Logo Be Timeless?

An illustration by the team at The Logo Company

[ht: logo people.net via www.churchm.ag]

Question: what typically keeps you from making important decisions? Share it here.

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