A youth pastor and parents partnership is essential for successful youth ministry. How well do moms and dads understand your role? How strongly do they support your efforts? Do parents realize their own role as spiritual leaders? Consider these insights about student ministry and what you need to convey to parents.
Few jobs are more exciting, goofy, heart-wrenching, and exhausting than being a student ministry pastor. As a youth pastor, I:
- Drank a small bottle of Tabasco sauce in one sitting. (That did not end well.)
- Counseled a teenage girl who became pregnant.
- Tried (and failed) to sleep on the floor of a bus traveling through the night for summer camp.
- Prayed with students to accept Christ for the first time.
- Watched students who grew up in the church walk away from it
Often the incredible highs and soul-shaking lows of student ministry happened in the same week. Just thinking about it now makes me want to take a nap.
But the most rewarding element of student ministry was working with parents. Few things were better than being in lockstep with a student’s mom and dad, seeing God use that to transform a life. A youth pastor and parents partnership can’t be topped!
At times, though, I wished I could have spoken freely to parents, without fear of offending them in an irreconcilable way. After a few years of reflection, here are 5 things I wish I had said to parents:
5 Thoughts on Youth Pastor and Parents Partnership
1. I’m a pastor, not a babysitter.
In my early days as a youth pastor, well-meaning adults asked, “Do you think you’ll ever want to be a pastor?” I looked at them with an expression ranging from “What do you think I do all day?” to “I wonder if I can get away with tackling you right here in the foyer?”
Yes, a lot of people grew up in church traditions that had a rigid pipeline for pastoring. But even if your youth pastor just went to Bible college (or, like me, majored in journalism!), that doesn’t mean they’re not a pastor.
As a 24-year-old baby-faced rookie, I sat in my car with a teen as he told me about his abusive, bipolar dad. I had to learn on the fly how to help him. I preached through the book of Jonah, verse by verse. And, yes, I obtained whipped cream stains in the multipurpose room. But some real pastoral ministry was happening around that!
Basically, youth pastors need to know that parents know we’re working hard for your kids. We take the role of spiritual mentor seriously. Few moments were more encouraging than when a parent took me aside or wrote a note saying that what I was doing for their teen mattered.
2. Please be on time (most of the time).
Most parents beat themselves up trying to drop off and pick up their kids on time, and everyone runs late occasionally. But in my program, some parents viewed an end time as a suggestion. It…wasn’t.
The amount of energy it takes to pull off a youth event—and then make sure those students aren’t making out in a dark corner—is immense. Often near the end we’re counting down the seconds until it’s over. Then we have to clean everything up, usually by ourselves. So please, as best as you can, be on time. That is a small but important part of the youth pastor and parents partnership.
3. Please don’t “undo” my work.
The most devastating part of student ministry for me? Feeling like I was a teenager’s biggest, or sometimes only, cheerleader. I poured every ounce of belief, passion, and encouragement I had into a student’s life. I tried to lift the cloud of depression or aimlessness, only to watch a parent’s first words be critical, demeaning, or bitter.
This happened far more often than I would have thought. Sometimes I’d compliment a student in front of his or her parent. Then mom or dad would undercut the compliment right in front of me.
