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Written by Admin
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Friday, 20 August 2004 |
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The following are great ideas to get you started in a form of Family-Based Youth Ministry. By adopting just one idea you will be creating a ministry that focuses on teens and their parents. - Once a month, once a quarter, once a year plan a meeting that includes the parents. At this meeting the parents are not spectators (hopefully your youth are never spectators in your youth ministry). They are as much a part of the meeting as your youth are week to week. Provide a creative time for the parents to share their faith with their child in a non-threatening way.
- Provide a library of good (hint: good!) resources to strengthen your parents as they parent.
- Organize Parent Support meetings. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse says that if a family works on at least 10 of their 12 items they can protect their child from negative behavior. Those 12 items are: Monitor what your kids are watching on TV; Monitor your kids use of the internet; Put restrictions on CDs they buy; Know where your kids are after school and during weekends; Be told the truth about your teenager's whereabouts; Be aware of your teenager's academic performance; Impose a curfew; Make it clear that you would be "extremely upset" if your teen used marijuana; Eat dinner with your teen six or seven nights a week; Turn the TV off during dinner; Assign regular chores for your teen; and Have an adult present when the teen comes home from school. That gives you enough meeting ideas to last a year or more.
- Make sure the events you want parents to attend are quality and worth their valuable time.
- Provide Moms & Pops Stuff monthly for them. Include calendar information of the youth ministry with plenty of details.
- Respect Family Time with your youth ministry calendar.
- Use the giftings of your parents in the youth ministry. You could use what they have to offer and they will feel empowered as parents to be recognized as useful by the youth worker.
- Do not give parents the job of crowd control or chaperoning (unless it is their gifting). Parents do this job enough. When they are a part of the youth ministry, they need to be free to learn and be blessed like the youth.
- Take the parents of each youth out to lunch, one family at a time. Ask them to share their dreams for their son or daughter. And just listen.
- Plan a meeting with just the parents of your rising 6th and/or 7th graders. The reason for the meeting is you want to be a part of the parents spiritual game plan for their new teen. This will excite the parents who have already put thought into this as they are embracing life with their new teen. Some parents will not have even thought about this but will even more so appreciate you inspiring them to make a game plan.
- Prior to the meeting, you will prepare how the youth ministry can fit in overall to be a resource to the parents. Prepare to be as detailed as you can. At the meeting set the tone to be one of brainstorming. For brainstorming meeting tools, read Holy Wow (Jeff White). Have all the parents share their plans, their wishes, their steps on how they wish to get there or got there (if they have older children). You share your part. Then together make out a mapable game plan.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 May 2007 )
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