Sorry about taking so long to post part two to this. Had finals a week ago and honestly this week, I've taken some time to focus on my family this week. But here is the long awaited Part 2 to SYMC's Ten Way to Bless and Not Cure Your Ministry's Parents!
#5: Create Spiritual Conversations in the Home
-See yourself as the spiritual matchmaker between parents and their students.
-let your parents know what their teens are learning at church. Not a huge list of Scriptures and sermon notes that they won't read.
-(Kevin) the way we integrate this in our ministry. We use SYM's LIVE curriculum for small groups, this has a parents email, which we print off and give to our parents. This gives them questions to ask their students to continue the conversation at home that go directly with our lesson. We are also working on take homes for our missions trip, DNow, and other events such as 30 Hour Famine to give parents more involvement.
#4: Serve Parents by being their Resource Broker
-Set aside some time in your schedule to mine really rich parenting resources and pass the nuggets to the parents in your ministry.
-Check out great sites like: Homeword, CPYU, Sticky Faith, Parentzilla, Mashable.com
#3: Help teenagers honor their parents
-Teach teenagers the power of honoring their parents and help them do it.
-Students don't do this naturally! (AMEN!)
-Treat parents better then they deserve, some students parents...well..aren't that great of parents, but they deserve to be treated good.
Ideas:
-awards night for parents
-video booth (have students record why they love their parents)
-Parent of the month: Have students write in why their parent deserves to be parent of the month. Show up at work with balloons, sweets, etc. Film it all and post it up on the net.
#2: Help parents spiritually lead their teenager
-teach parents their role as the greatest spiritual influencer in the life of their teenagers.
#1: Harness the power of symbols and ceremonies.
- In the Old and New Testament, God used symbols and ceremonies to pass down faith. You can help parents do the same.
-(Kevin) as a note on this idea and to tell you why this means so much to me. I didn't grow up Southern Baptist. The church I grew up in, when I was baptized, while I was still in the baptistry, your parents gave you your first communion (the cup was an olivewood one that I still have to this day) and prayed a blessing over you in front of the church. I remember this to this day. It's one of the fondest memories I have growing up. I can't remember what my dad prayed during the blessing, but I remembered they did it.
Parent Ministry is something that I'm really focusing on and really learning about. Expect a lot more to come on this subject.
Just Keep Swimming!
No comments:
Post a Comment