CHAPTER 7
DEEP PARENTS: “OFF MY BACK” OR “ON THE TEAM”?
Chap Clark
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 1 (DISCERNMENT): NOW?
The Story of Mytown Community Church (a fictitious church that could be somewhere near you)
The members of Mytown Community Church have always prided themselves in “caring about our youth.” Parents are active and vocal in constantly pushing the church to get its act together and maintain a “solid” youth ministry program. The church, however, had never before had the luxury of a full-time youth director. So when Josh arrived, everyone was excited. Finally, they had a youth director with a youth ministry degree from a Christian college. He was everything they’d hoped for—mid-20s, good speaker, funny, “cool,” and passionate.
Josh used his charisma to develop a fairly high-energy program with events that most kids enjoyed. Soon after arriving Josh moved his office next to the youth room, which allowed him to come and go as he pleased through the seldom-used side door of the church office building. He recruited a handful of volunteers to “help him do his ministry,” but made sure he was in charge of the “important things”—speaking, vision-casting, decision-making, and handling money. After several months on the job, Josh felt as though he had developed a pretty successful and fruitful ministry.
But the honeymoon began to fade—and fade fast—sometime early in Josh’s second year. He heard murmurs that a few parents were “concerned” about some of his decisions. He was so busy being with kids and planning the programs, however, that he figured his successes would cancel out any problems people may have with him. As the months went on, Josh developed an independent and (to some) somewhat “stealth” style of doing his job—spending lots of time with students and a few leaders but avoiding anyone who might “become a problem.” Unfortunately, to Josh, that meant parents.
DEEP DESIGN PROMPT
It didn’t take long for a few of the more vocal parents to start a movement to ask questions about some “weak spots” in the youth ministry program. These parents felt they were protecting the kids of the church. Josh saw it differently. He felt the ringleaders were out to get him. So he simply kept his head down, avoided the “troublemakers,” and did the best job he could—hoping the parents would ease up eventually.
They didn’t.
Some parents decided to meet to discuss the “youth ministry situation.” They expressed concern that Josh was giving more attention to local athletes and neighborhood students than to the church kids. These conversations began to pick up steam, and soon rumors were flying that Josh was a “lone ranger” who “does his own thing” and “isn’t accountable to anyone.” As the gossip intensified, Josh circled the wagons with his closest supporters and virtually ignored everyone else in the church. The latest tiff was sparked by the accusation that he wasn’t returning phone calls, and when he did respond, it was by e-mail, avoiding any direct conversation.
When the senior pastor finally talked to him, Josh said responding to calls by e-mail was “more efficient” in light of all he had to do. In his exchange with the senior pastor, who had done his best to support him, Josh became more negative about church parents who “don’t get it” when it comes to kids or youth ministry. Josh wanted his boss to back him up because, after all, he was the adolescent expert in the church. The pastor recognized that many students were growing in their walks with Christ, and most parents felt good about the ministry. But the voices of concern were loud enough that he had to do something. Seeing a major storm building on the horizon, Josh’s pastor arranged for a face-to-face meeting between Josh and the parents.
The meeting was a disaster. From the beginning it was obvious that feelings ran deep for many of the parents, and they wanted to make sure they were heard. Feeling misunderstood and unfairly accused, Josh came into the meeting ready to defend his education, training, and track record. In less than 10 minutes Josh and the parents became polarized, with one parent finally storming out of the room, loudly vowing to “get that kid fired.” It never got better, and Josh was gone by his second June.
Reflection on Mytown Community Church
In my years of youth ministry leadership, I’ve heard the story of Mytown Community Church countless times. I once received a paper from a student that was entitled “How to Get Parents off Your Back and on Your Team.” The entire project (which didn’t receive a stellar grade) reflected a view of parents and youth ministry similar to Josh’s at Mytown Community. Parents were described as a “necessary nuisance” youth workers have to deal with in order to survive. The paper intended to describe a strategy for vocational youth workers that would entice and keep parents in line with the youth ministry’s plans, goals, and structure. But the project was simply a more creative and proactive response to the same attitude prevailing at Mytown Community.
The Now of youth ministry and parents assumes that youth ministry belongs to youth workers, and parents just need to get with the program. Parents can be a pain, the thinking goes, so what’s the best way to handle them?
But this fundamentally flawed perspective can undo even the best youth ministry programs. When committed parents feel disconnected from the spiritual development of their 11-to 18-year-olds, they get nervous. If they feel like they’re being ignored or placated by those in charge of youth ministry, they may respond with destructive behavior. The issue comes down to how parents feel when they are shut out of their child’s spiritual journey. Let’s take a quick look at just three of the many ways this kind of attitude toward parents can impede even the best youth programs.
When parents are seen as people to placate—or even manipulate if necessary—in order to do the work youth ministry is “supposed” to do, this will inevitably create distance between parents and youth workers. Parents will become everything from complacent and uninvolved to frustrated and resentful. In the long run none of these options helps foster deep youth ministry. When we see parents as potential problems to be strategically handled, we cannot help but feel like we must take over the discipleship role. When we believe parents don’t really belong anywhere near the center of our ministries, and we have to placate them into joining “our” team, we will invariably communicate to students that their parents don’t really matter all that much. Unfortunately, we know the opposite is true about the hearts and needs of kids—their parents matter, and ultimately they matter a whole lot more than youth workers. Many parents already feel the tension and heartache of losing touch with their kids, especially during high school. When we communicate, even subtly, that parents don’t matter (using phrases like, “they don’t get it,” “they don’t understand you,” or “they are out of touch”), we deepen the divide that neither parents nor adolescents really want. Instead of being an advocate for family healing and wholeness, we can easily end up doing damage and bringing more strife to already fragile and tenuous relationships.
Hindering God’s transformation: Our attitude toward parents can make or break a youth ministry program over the long haul.
Hindering God’s transformation: If we treat parents as outsiders, or problems, or unimportant, that ultimately hurts students.
WHEN PARENTS ARE SEEN AS A NUISANCE…
- Parents are treated as a roadblock, causing distance between the youth worker and parents.
- We place ourselves as the central discipleship figure for students instead of the parent(s) and the church.
- We communicate to students that their parents don’t matter much anymore.
7.1
In far too many churches and parachurch organizations, parents are Now seen as necessary supporters to the youth ministry, but also as people who get in the way all too often. Sooner or later parents will begin to resent this attitude, and cracks will form in the church. Could there be a deeper way to view the relationships between parents and youth workers?
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 2 (REFLECTION): NEW?
When it comes to the relationship between youth workers and parents, the fundamental question we must ask is what do developing adolescents need in terms of adult nurture and guidance? Although it’s clear that peers play an important role in the developmental life of teenagers, research has shown that a network of adult relational support, committed to the long-term care and growth of adolescents, plays a profound role in providing the kind of relational support they need to grow into the people God created them to be.35 This network, however, is clearly secondary to the impact of a child’s family, in both positive and negative ways.36
What adolescents need, then, is the intersection and partnership of parents (or at least one parent or caretaker) available and focused on them as individuals, and adults representing the church and committed to their spiritual and life development.37 Research has shown that youth workers can play a part—sometimes a vital part—in the spiritual development of teenagers. But parents play a much greater role over the long haul for the vast majority of kids.38 To provide the best possible environment for spiritual growth to take place in adolescents’ lives, parents and youth workers need each other.
Social science research points to the need for a focused partnership between parents and youth ministry, but what does the Bible say? Or, to put it another way, how is God asking youth workers to respond to and work with parents?
Depending on what Scripture passage you look up, or even whom you read or listen to, you can easily come away from the Bible being fully convinced in one direction or another about parents’ places in youth ministry—they are either esteemed as partners or strategized as potential obstacles. And when these two polar-opposite viewpoints ignore or deny each other, they become deep ditches that cause us to fall off the path God laid out for us. Let’s look more carefully at these two extremes, or ditches, of parents and youth ministry.
DITCH 1: Jesus, my friends, and me
The ditch on one side of the road is the dangerous belief that parents don’t matter—all that matters to God is our love for him and our commitment to his body, the church (meaning for most teenagers, the youth ministry). Jesus himself is the one who seems to say parents don’t matter in one’s spiritual life. Take this statement, when Jesus was told his mom and brothers were outside of the house:
Research: Parents and other committed adults in partnership are adolescents’ best chance at healthy growth.
Scripture: The Bible seems to both support and discourage parents’ involvement in the spiritual development of their kids. How do we decide what to do?
He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48–50)
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ words are even more pointed:
Then, responding to the large crowds who were following him, Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25–26)
On the basis of a few selected passages like these, some in youth ministry have developed a kind of “all that matters is my love for Jesus” mentality that almost always translates into a ministry style that communicates faith as individualistic and only to be experienced with those I naturally trust. For adolescents, this means a handful of leaders and friends, with parents and other adults taking a marginal role at best. This “me and Jesus” attitude excludes parents in a way God never intended. Jesus’ point is that our call to be his disciples must be so central to who we are and how we live that no one else will get in the way of that commitment. By taking certain statements alone—out of context from the rest of Scripture—some people have mistakenly assumed that God doesn’t really care about how other people contribute to our lives as disciples. When this view is emphasized to the point where student disciples think they only need Jesus and a few friends, God’s plan for the body of Christ and life together in community is ignored and our program and attitude lands us in a ditch.
History: Youth ministry has historically fallen into the trap of preaching an “individual discipleship” that excludes the need for others, including parents, to contribute to the maturity process.
DITCH 2: My family is my church
The ditch on the other side of the road is one where parents are seen as the “primary disciplers” of their children, even through adolescence. Although this perspective has lost some steam in recent years, it still has quite a hold in many traditions and churches, and is sometimes defended by family ministry advocates. As the movement toward family ministry became more central in youth ministry discussions, 39 and as the homeschooling movement became more mainstream, many saw youth ministry as taking kids away from their families. Those reacting to the abuses of youth ministries’ independence, especially as it related to parents’ authority and leadership in kids’ lives, used Scriptures such as these to prove their point:
“These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live…
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:1–9) 40
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” (Ephesians 6:1)
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” (Colossians 3:20) 41
When these verses are used to diminish the role of youth ministry in kids’ lives, the common explanation is that whenever the Bible talks about children, parents are the ones who are responsible to lead them. In this ditch, parents’ roles in the discipleship of their children become overemphasized to the point where other adults, including paid and volunteer youth workers, are seen as potential obstacles to healthy growth in Christ. This interpretation of selected passages seems to ignore the necessary role other people play in all levels of spiritual development and discipleship.42 The Bible makes it clear that we need one another to function as God intends.43 When a philosophy of raising children (and adolescents) ignores the need for a greater community beyond the nuclear family during the discipling process, youth lose out on God’s plan for their development. This ditch hurts kids because God never intended any of us to go it alone in raising our children.
The Middle Path: Youth Workers and Parents Need Each Other to Minister to Students
While the Bible passages the two camps quote may seem contradictory at first, upon further careful reflection they are shown to be complementary. Jesus repeatedly warned that life is found only when we center our lives on him.44 But he also said the one command he has for us is to “love one another” (John 15:12). To love Jesus first does not contradict the biblical truth that we need one another.
History: Some parents have used the Bible to debunk their kids’ need for peer and nonparental adult influence in their spiritual development.
The irony is that both ditches share the same fatal flaw: each group has decided it is the essential element that will lead adolescents to Jesus Christ. Those in the “all kids need is Jesus” ditch see the youth worker as the primary broker of kids’ relationship with Christ, often at the expense of parental nurture. On the other hand, those in the “our family can handle it” ditch view the rest of the church, including youth workers, as a hindrance to their work with their kids. In reality, the Bible affirms that parents need other adults (and therefore youth workers), and the church (in the person of the youth workers) needs parents—and kids need both. Children and adolescents need their parents to protect, nurture, and guide them in all areas of their lives, including their spiritual growth; but at the same time, God’s people throughout history have expressed their faith as a community where there is a common bond and a shared story. This community, in fact, is actually called “family” in the new covenant Jesus came to bring—we are God’s family, and we belong to and need each other.45
Looking theologically at the issue of parents in youth ministry, it seems there’s no doubt that we’re called to walk between these ditches. It is true, both in the Bible and in what we know about development, that parents are key players in the lives of children. And it is also true that the vast majority of students will experience a more lasting impact from parental involvement in their spiritual lives than from anything youth ministry can offer.46 When the body of Christ (the church and those who represent it—youth workers) and parents of adolescents work together, students have the best opportunity at discovering the Christ-centered community as the place where they will always be welcome in an often cold and hostile world.
Research: Kids need both their parents and the greater body of Christ—including peers and youth ministry workers—to grow as disciples.
Your ability to work well with parents depends first on your attitude toward them. Parents can sense how much you value their input and involvement in the ministry and whether or not you’re sincere in the way you deal with them. You may believe, for example, that you have a pretty solid perspective of the value of parents, but if you don’t make sure parental involvement permeates every aspect of your ministry and program, parents will start to distrust you. When you announce a new midweek afternoon Bible study for middle school students at the church, but don’t think through the transportation needs for kids of working parents, some parents will be deeply affected, and even hurt. Even those who aren’t inconvenienced by this decision could see you as a youth worker who doesn’t care about the needs and realities of today’s families.
To have a deep ministry with parents, we must do more than work on our surface attitudes and resulting programming and structure. We also must be aware of other external factors that can cause a problem with parents, even when our attitudes and programming are on target. Three of these factors are your own life stage, the history of your church, and the way you organize your ministry.
Your Life Stage
The simple fact is that the average youth worker has never been through the labyrinth of raising a child through adolescence. As much as it might bug us to admit it, we need to be honest about this: there really is no way we can truly understand what it means and how it feels to be a parent if we’ve never been one. Trying to deny this or convince parents that you know more about kids (and remember: to parents, theirs are the only kids who matter) will drive a wedge between you and them that could be insurmountable. So if this is you, swallow hard, and come in as a humble and respectful support, not a hero who knows students better than their parents.
Experience: Most parents don’t believe that youth workers who’ve never raised adolescent children have much to say to parents about parenting.
The History of Your Church or Organization
History affects us—even if we had nothing to do with the events of the past. We have to account for this fact as we attempt to make a difference. A few years ago my friend Brook bought a coffee shop that had caused a major fire in a strip mall. For the next three years, the other tenants in the mall blamed Brook for the fire, even though they knew logically that he’d not been involved. His only recourse was to slowly yet proactively build bridges of trust, allowing people to see he was different from the previous owner.
If you’re in a church or organization that has created some bad blood with parents in the past, follow Brook’s lead—don’t try to defend yourself before people know you. Come alongside parents, communicate well with them, and structure a ministry that includes them as partners. When problems arise—and they will—and people start bringing up the past, make sure you stay the course of love and inclusion. Over time, being different will win over even the people who were most burned in the past.
The Organization of Your Ministry
When you begin a new ministry (or revamp a current one), the first thing to do is to create a group of people (mostly parents) to walk with you as you implement your ministry. Several youth workers are now using an idea called the Vision and Support Team (VAST) to fulfill this need.47 (We’ll look at VAST more in the Who section of this chapter.)
VAST is much more than a parents council. All too often a parents council ends up being little more than a rubber-stamp group that’s called upon to support blindly whatever the youth leader wants. To be on the Vision and Support Team, people have to demonstrate a commitment to all students the ministry is called to reach (including those who don’t currently call the church home). While parents are strongly encouraged to serve on the team, they would participate not as a “parent of one,” but would be encouraged to share in the visioning as well as the implementation of that vision.
Experience: Regardless of how strained the parent-youth worker relationship was in the past, you can overcome that history by taking time to build bridges and win trust.
In addition to a leadership body that includes parents and functions as a partnering and accountability board, the most important way to organize your ministry around a commitment to partnering with parents is to ask them to help you. Build friendships with parents. Invite criticism and feedback. Do a yearly survey of parents and follow up with a report of the results. Send notes and letters regularly to keep the lines of communication open. In general, make sure that the way you go about your work reminds parents that they are vital partners in the student ministry.
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 3 (OBSERVATION): WHO?
Instead of highlighting a specific youth worker or program, we’ve decided to pull together the best practices of several churches and programs in one composite youth ministry. Like the fictional Mytown Community Church that opens this chapter, First United Church exists in a variety of places and expressions, so we felt that putting it all together in one illustration would help you find a way to include the New insight in your program.
The Story of First United Church
When the new youth director arrived at United, the students were excited, but frankly, most of the parents were relatively neutral about him. Rob had never been a head youth minister before—he’d always worked as an associate youth pastor under someone else. But he was honest and open about his strengths and weaknesses. Although he was not a great speaker, the students who had spent time with him felt as though he genuinely understood them and cared. He was up front about his lack of organizational skills and the fact that he was at his best on a team, so he insisted on bringing one of his former interns, Katie, to codirect and partner with him.
Experience: Create an adult team, including some parents, to partner with you in developing vision and providing insight and support for the youth ministry.
The first thing Rob and Katie did was form a Vision and Support Team (VAST), a group of parents and other adults who weren’t involved as leaders but were nevertheless invested in kids’ lives. Rob and Katie’s desire was to design a ministry structure in which non-leader adults and parents were integrally involved in the major decision-making and strategic vision process of the ministry. Rob and Katie spent the bulk of their first year trying to get to know students within the context of their families, since they believed youth ministry means partnering with the parents and the church at large in reaching out to students. This included a student ministry letter sent to families every month, quarterly parent meetings, and parenting seminars (with the children’s and adult education departments) every six months.
During the second year, a group of parents became upset that their children were not responding to the youth programs and were starting to go to another church with a flashier ministry. VAST and Rob and Katie arranged a meeting with those who had expressed concern and invited the senior pastor and board chair to come. Rob and the head of VAST cochaired the meeting, opening with a reading from the Psalms and a brief time of prayer. The VAST chair then invited the concerned (and to some extent, disgruntled) parents to express their feelings and opinions, while Rob and Katie took notes. When the parents had finished, Rob and Katie thanked them for sharing their concerns and then restated them to be sure they’d heard the issues correctly. After that, the meeting moved into a free-flowing discussion about how to respond to the issues at hand. The parents left without a clean or clear solution, but with a sense of hope that the church supported them and cared about their concerns. They ended the meeting in prayer.
Rob is currently in his tenth year and is now the pastor of youth and families. Katie, a mom herself, is the high school director. The ministry is flourishing, parents are involved at all levels, and kids feel as though they are known and loved by the congregation as a whole. Although Rob is still an average speaker at best and remains somewhat disorganized, the church would do anything to make sure he and his family knows they’re valued and loved.
In the two churches we’ve looked at (which are composites of actual churches and youth workers I’ve known over the last few years), one youth worker (Josh) found himself in hot water because of his cavalier and dismissive attitudes and behavior toward parents (especially “concerned” parents!). Katie and Rob, on the other hand, began their ministry by proactively and strategically including parents at every level. When problems arose, as they will for any youth pastor, they not only had built the infrastructure for the best possible setting to deal with conflict, but they also dealt with conflict directly, adult to adult. A savvy youth worker, I suppose, could apply the strategy that Rob and Katie used—forming a Vision and Support Team, generating regular newsletters, organizing meetings and events for parents, and providing a welcoming atmosphere to air problems—without a heart that believes parents matter. But from my experience, this isn’t something you can fake. Either you believe that parents are partners, or you don’t.
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 4 (APPLICATION) : HOW?
Application Questions:
This chapter discussed youth workers at two churches with opposing perspectives regarding parents and youth ministry—Josh, the youth worker who saw parents as a secondary concern at best, versus Rob and Katie, who built their program around parents as partners. In what ways do you tend to act more like Josh, and in what ways are you more like Katie and Rob? When you consider the Bible passages included here (and others), where do you stand on the relationship of youth ministry to parents? What has been your experience working with parents? Have you had any conflicts with parents in your ministry? If so, do you feel as though you navigated them well? If the conflicts didn’t end well, how could you have handled them differently? What are three ways you can go deep in taking parents more seriously as partners?
How are we going to go deeper in our partnering with parents?
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