Summer Parent Newsletter Project

Josh on June 4th, 2009

One of our summer interns is working toward his bachelor’s degree in journalism, so I got excited about a project that has been a part of HSM off and on in its history: a parent newsletter. In my 5-year plan, it is unfortunate this has to come so late in the game. But Rome wasn’t built in a day and we need to refine our discipleship process and follow-up plans before we stretch outselves to thin. But what if someone could own it for the summer, and we see where it goes from there? It sure beats 2011, when I think we’ll actually have the horsepower and volunteer involvement to pull it off right.

Now we’re good about printing calendars and planning events, but communicating beyond that to parents? Not so much. Keeping them in the loop about teaching series? Not really. Arming them with discussion questions and support for discipleship at home? Nope. But that’s about to change!

So it looks like we’re going to do a summer parent newsletter – just 3 issues, actually. PDF via email, and printed copies spread in key places at the church. We’ll use The Parent Link (youth edition) as a basic foundation, then run with it. Here’s part of the writeup from his proposal:

The newsletter would be a simple yet effective medium for keeping in touch with the parents in our ministry. It would give them something tangible to bring them up to speed with HSM’s events and learn about upcoming activities available for their high school students.

Because this is a monthly newsletter, it would allow us to go into more detail than usual about the special activities that occur on a month-by-month basis. In addition to previewing upcoming events, the newsletter would reflect on activities that took place in the past month, with photographs and accounts and stories from students. This would add a personal touch to the newsletter, bringing the experiences of HSM students to life in print.

JG

Comments (2)

Mike at 5:25am June 5

I don’t know if you guys thought of this (I’m sure you did), but one of the things I add to our Parentlink is a Q & A area based off what we’re teaching. This allows parents to know what’s being taught and creates conversation in homes. Our goal is that the big themes we talk about will be further unpacked and applied by families. I think a lot of parents just appreciate knowing where we’re heading in our teaching.

Andy Lawrenson at 7:10am June 6

We have been using the parentlink for a couple of years now and like it. By the questions I am asked I wonder how often parents actually read it.
We e-mail it in pdf and also post it on the parent page of our web site.

I also send a weekly e-mail to parents with some discussion questions and the text for the next Sunday’s youth group gathering so they can do some family devo stuff during the week and then our weekend group builds on the parent’s discipleship of their teen.