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 | Jonathan’s Resource Ezine |
Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
| In This Issue |
- Featured Article: Not With My Kid You Aren’t! How Do I Earn Parents’ Respect?
- Another Free Resource You Can Use: On Fire like Bar BQ- An Object Lesson, Talk, and Small Group Questions
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| Featured Article: Not With My Kid You Aren’t! How Do I Earn Parents’ Respect? |
October 18, 2005
Ever wondered how we can get parents to trust us with their “baby” … that’s what Steve-o was wondering:
- Jonathan,
How do you earn parents respect and support?
Steve-o, Quad Cities, Illinois
This question is kind of timely in my life. Most of my life I’ve been on the “youth worker” side of the coin. But now I’m experiencing the “parent” side of the coin-just a couple of years ago my own kids entered the youth program at our church. And I’ll be brutally honest… I’m not ready to trust my “babies” to just any goatee-wearing college kid that happens to bear the title “youth pastor.”
That may sound harsh, but that’s the way many parents feel. Please understand, I’m all in support of the youth ministry at my church. But if I don’t see some responsibility and discretion out of the person I’m entrusting my kid with, I won’t be letting the leash out very far.
So that brings us back to your question: how do you earn trust and respect? There are numerous ways that we can do this with parents. Here’s just a few that, as a parent, I think stand out as pretty important.
THREE PRACTICES THAT BUILD TRUST AND EARN RESPECT
1. Discernment: Make wise and safe judgments
Safety speaks volumes to parents. This is difficult for some of us because we’ve just come up with a brand new creative idea for catapulting a junior high student from the balcony of the gym to a pool of Jell-O below. “It’s gonna be off the hook!” we proclaim. Unfortunately, you won’t be off the hook when 86 pound Cameron breaks both his femurs!
We can be creative without being stupid. When in doubt, leave it out. If you don’t know if it’s wise for kids to race down the stairs sliding on upside-down tables… don’t do it (I’ve done it- it was fun until I hit the bottom. The table stopped… I kept going.) It only takes one law suit to kill a youth ministry. And more importantly, it only takes one unnecessarily hurt kid to lose the trust of every parent in the church.
I remember a buddy I worked with who always put safety second to opportunity. He would cram 23 students in a 15 passenger van (“Hey man, I make them shove two to a seat belt!”) and let piles of kids zoom down the snow hill on one inner tube. I remember justifying those things myself. I also remember watching one of my kids being loaded into a “Life Flight” helicopter on the side of a snow hill.
Safety needs to trump fun, always!
Maintaining a good “staff to student ratio” is one way to help preserve safety, especially on trips and events. I use the ratio of one adult to every 5 junior high students and one adult to every 7 high school students. I don’t just provide that ratio, I require students to stick with my adult staff for safety.
I’ll never forget my experience with a group that learned this lesson the hard way. It was a weeklong trip to numerous amusement parks with a few hundred kids. They were pretty relaxed about the staff hanging out with kids. Before the trip I remember some of the staff arguing that kids did NOT need to be with one of the adult staff at all times in the amusement parks. (“Come on, these kids don’t need to be duct taped to our legs! They go places by themselves all the time. They’re going to hate us if we make them stay with an adult!”) So they just provided a few meeting times throughout the day to check in, and that was that. Needless to say, we had two absolute tragedies occur in one of the amusement parks, one of them being a rape (Yes, in the amusement park. A girl left her friends to go hang out with a “cute” new guy she met.) Imagine the youth pastor in charge of this trip standing next to a Sheriff, calling the father of a 13 year old girl and explaining what happened to his daughter. Both tragedies would have been avoided if students had been required to stay with the adult volunteers. But the leadership had made the decision to do otherwise… and they were dead wrong.
Requiring kids to stay with staff not only provides safety, it provides opportunities for quality time between our volunteers and kids. And that’s what ministry is all about. Always take advantage of any opportunity that your volunteers can be hanging out with kids.
Unfortunately, discernment is not the only practice we need to do to build trust…
2. Reliability: Do what you say you’re going to do.
Let me state it another way… when you say you’re going to do something, you actually do it!
This may sound simple, but it’s a rare quality in many youth workers today. It might be exemplified in areas as small as, “We’ll have your kids back at the church at 10:00 p.m.” This takes discipline, organization and experience. Discipline because you need to stay accountable to the clock, organization because you need to plan the proper time to accomplish everything in time, and experience because you need to know how long it actually takes for 36 junior high students to gather at the meeting spot, load up in 7 vehicles and travel back to the church from the mini-golf resort. All this- just to do what you said you’d do.
This may also be demonstrated in your weekly program. If you say that the program starts at 7:00 and ends at 8:30, then make it do just that. I know I’ve been to youth events where parents were standing around at the start time wondering where the youth leaders were. (They were picking up shaving cream for the game- “Geez, the line at the grocery store was long! What’s the big deal?” How about 23 ticked off parents who’ve been sitting in minivans for 15 minutes wondering where the heck the irresponsible youth pastor is.) The same can be true for the ending time of our programs. I know because my kids had a youth leader who frequently ran 12 to 15 minutes late every week. It drove us nuts. We had to pick up one kid from this program and another from Karate across town. We had the timing down, but a 12 minute delay meant my son standing alone outside in his Karate uniform at 8:30 at night. Many youth workers don’t understand this. Parents do.
Reliability may also be seen when you say you’re going to provide certain elements in your curriculum or program. If you state that you’re going to provide outreach, growth and leadership opportunities… all three need to be provided. Don’t just say “leadership opportunities” unless you have a game plan to do it. Let parents know that “the student leadership team will be kicked off in October” and “the monthly service project will be on the first Sunday of every month.”
We need to do what we say. It’s a wonderful thing to be believed.
3. Constant communication: Keep parents in the loop.
It’s a good idea to have a parent meeting every year. Unfortunately, these aren’t always well attended, but they are still vital to provide so that you at least communicate the “effort to communicate.” At this meeting you can share your purpose, your methodology, and even recruit some help. (Recruiting help from parents and an attitude of “join us anytime” shows them you have nothing to hide.)
It’s also good to create an avenue of regular communication with parents, at least monthly, if not weekly. One way to do this is by providing a regular “email update”- little reminders about upcoming events, programs or activities. Some youth workers publish incredible newsletters with ministry highlights and stories. This is great, but don’t feel like it is a necessity. Just make sure you provide parents with basic updates of what’s coming up, when, where, and how much it costs. These emails help parents get to know you and the program. In addition they can provide parents with necessary contact information so they can get a hold of you and ask questions.
A quarterly calendar of events is also a big help. This gives parents notice of upcoming events so they can plan around their own family calendar. Even in the days of Outlook and Palm Pilots, nothing beats a good old fashioned hard copy of the “Quarterly Youth Calendar” sent via snail mail so that they can hang it on their fridge.
Communication makes parents feel “in the loop.” It’s very important.
FINAL WORD:
Respect is usually earned, not given. Parents will be watching you from the moment they meet you. They’ll note the way you dress, they’ll observe the way you drive, and they’ll especially detect the way you make their kid feel. There’s no doubt about it, your actions and decisions are under scrutiny.
Open up the pathways of communication with parents. Do what you say you’re going to do. And prove yourself to be wise with the care of their children. These practices will help you earn their respect because your actions are worthy of their respect.
When parents entrust you with their kids, God can use you to make an impact in their lives.
Jonathan McKee is president of TheSourceForYouthMinistry.com and author of the new book “Do They Run When They See You Coming? Reaching Out to Unchurched Teenagers.” (CLICK HERE FOR THE BOOK) Jonathan speaks and trains across the country and provides free online resources, training, & ideas for youth workers at www.TheSource4YM.com | Another Free Resource You Can Use: On Fire like Bar BQ- An Object Lesson, Talk, and Small Group Questions |
Looking for some curriculum or “object lessons” for your weekly program? The following “object lesson” can be used to engage students in dialogue about the importance of Christian “fellowship,” specifically small groups. If you use small groups every week, this is a great discussion to encourage them in the importance of these groups. The discussion includes everything you’ll need for your weekly program: an opener, small group questions and a wrap up.
DISCUSSION OPENER:
Do you ever Bar BQ?
In the West Coast we “Bar BQ” … it’s a verb. Not in Tennessee. In Tennessee, “Bar BQ” is a noun. “Do you want to go get some Bar BQ?” It refers to shredded pork shoulder smothered in Bar BQ sauce, usually on a bun.
Where I’m from, in California, “Bar BQ” is what we DO to meat- any kind of meat. “Do you want to BAR BQ something tonight?”
“Sure. What are we Bar B Qing?”
In Tennessee you “grill” with that cooking contraption that we in California call a “Bar BQ.”
There are two kinds of Bar BQ’s (“grills” for you in the midwest). There are gas grills, or charcoal grills. Gas grills usually use propane to fuel a little blue flame which cooks your meat in no time at all. Gas grills typically are hundreds of dollars, but could cost thousands.
Die hard authentic Bar BQ fans will only use charcoal grills. They say that meat will taste better if grilled over charcoal. They are referring to the cheap little grills that you can get as inexpensive as $20. It’s basically a little black bowl full of briquettes.
(At this point bring up a bag of briquettes on stage with you and dump them on a stand for all to see.)
Let’s talk about some of this “authentic” Bar BQing.
As you can see, these little briquettes look like little black rocks. You just put them in a pile, light them… leave for about 4 hours (sarcasm), and then come back and pray that your fire is ready! Pro Bar BQers will keep putting their hand over the flame and telling you, “It’s too hot! It needs more time.” Or, “Not yet. Still not perfect!”
Here’s the interesting thing. Eventually, each of these little black rocks- these briquettes- get super hot and keep each other hot. They no longer look black… they are glowing with heat.
Funny… if you take one away from the rest of the pile, then it will cool down quickly. All the other briquettes that are still together will keep each other on fire- they keep each other useful for grilling some tasty meat!
I’ve never seen someone Bar BQing steaks over a single briquette. It doesn’t work. Briquettes need to stay together to generate the heat to Bar BQ.
TRANSITION STATEMENT:
That’s just like us. If we separate ourselves from other Christians that offer love and encouragement, we loose our fire. Then we aren’t useful.
DIVIDE INTO SMALL GROUPS:
Let’s divide into our small groups and talk about this.
SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS:
- (everyone) Let’s go around the circle and share our names and our favorite food to Bar BQ (grill).
- (everyone) How often do you get to eat this food?
- (a few people) The heat of a Bar BQ has to be pretty darn hot to cook food… have you ever felt the heat from the coals of a Bar BQ?
- (a few people) How do you think your small group can represent hot coals? (Remember what we just said above about being together or apart?)
- (a few people) Was there a time in your own life where you have felt like you were once “on-fire” but then you were removed from the rest of the “coals” and cooled off? How did this make you feel?
- (one or two people) Why do you think it is so difficult for Christians to try to be “on-fire” by themselves? Why is it easier to be “on-fire” in a group?
- Read Philip. 2:3-5 (NLT)
Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. [4] Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.
[5] Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had.
- (a few people) After reading this verse, what do you think one of your roles in a small group will be? (Not just looking out for ourselves, but looking out for others… being encouraging toward others and helping them keep “their fire.”)
- (a few people) How will doing this keep the others in your small group on fire?
- (everyone) Let’s go around the circle and share one thing we can do this week because of what we learned tonight.
(Share a personal story of when you separated yourself from church or other Christians and you lost your “fire.”)
We can actually learn a lot from this little black rock (hold up a briquette). It’s not very useful by itself, but it’s an incredible tool when it’s surrounded by others just like it.
We need to remember to surround ourselves with others who will help us be “on fire” for Christ so we can be useful for His purpose in our lives.
Written by KJ Stephens
CURRICULUM & JUMPSTARTERS PAGE
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Jonathan McKee
Jonathan McKee is the author of over twenty books including the brand new The Guy's Guide to FOUR BATTLES Every Young Man Must Face; The Teen’s Guide to Social Media & Mobile Devices; If I Had a Parenting Do Over; and the Amazon Best Seller - The Guy's Guide to God, Girls and the Phone in Your Pocket. He speaks to parents and leaders worldwide, all while providing free resources for youth workers on TheSource4YM.com. Jonathan, his wife Lori, and their three kids live in California.