parent ministry | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts When Parents Attack

How do I handle parental complaints? Easiest question ever!

STEP 1 Ignore them as long as possible. Parents can wait! Hey, you’re enjoying well-deserved time off playing Halo 4 after The Extreme Best Overnighter in the World™ (T.E.B.O.W. for short). The best way to ignore critical parents is to follow this handy advice:

• If the complaint arrives via voicemail, ignore it. The upset person is at least 50, so help him or her take a technology baby step by waiting at least 48 hours to respond. But if the person name-drops a key elder or deacon, call back immediately.

• If the complaint comes via written letter, toss it. Snail mail? Did a mystical portal drop me into 1974? After a few days, simply throw away the letter. Then claim it must’ve been “lost in the mail.”

• If parents complain via text-message, reply ASAP. This is true especially if they’re likely to start a social-media insurrection. Jam out a quick apology, promising to make everything right.

STEP 2 When you do talk to disgruntled parents, accept no responsibility. Have a scapegoat handy (a convenient college-age hipster is perfect). Be ready with key deflections to indicate the situation was “out of your hands” and you’re “totally disappointed, too.” Then hope no videos surface of you laughing during the incident. Keep these clever excuses ready in a pinch:

• “I wish someone had made me aware of this right away.” Redirection places the blame back on parents. For a solid follow-up, work in this one: “I guess we’ll never know the truth now.”

• “I’ll deal with those people immediately.” Was it your choice to play that R-rated movie? Was it your call to duct-tape a freshman to the ceiling? Who knows? With careful word play, parents will never know, either.

STEP 3 Drive a wedge between parents and teenagers. “Divide and conquer” is a biblical concept, so undermine parents whenever possible. Roll your eyes when Dad isn’t looking. Exchange knowing glances with kids to show how out-of-touch their parents are. Pacify adults long enough so you can plan The Next Big Thing That Will Change The World Overnighter Extravaganza™ (T.N.B.T.T.W.C.T.W.O.E. for short).

By now I hope you get the idea: Do the opposite of everything you’ve just read and you’ll handle complaints well. They’re a tough but necessary part of your growth as a leader. Jump in quickly, take responsibility, and repair the damage. Blessings on the journey!

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2013 issue of Group Magazine. Don’t get the magazine yet? Hit this link to subscribe and get in on the action today!

2 View Comments May 1, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Free eBook from LeaderTreks for Mission Trip Parents

Leadertreks has released a great free eBook to help and engage parents when their students go on a mission trip. Grab it today!

All programs and trips have short comings in youth ministry and one of them for student mission trips is that parents are not involved. Mission trips are better when parents work hand and hand with youth workers. In Helping Parents Connect, Doug Franklin outlines how parents can be involved in their students’ mission trips before, during, and after the trip. This tool is designed to get you involved from the beginning and to help parents grow with your kids through this experience.

JG

Add Comment May 1, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Resolving a Conflict with Staff

There’s nothing more challenging interpersonally than dealing with a serious conflict with someone on your church staff, or a volunteer in a key position in your ministry. The temptation would be to let time heal it, or hope that the tension would simply go away on its own—but fight those feelings because conflict in the church, especially on a team, has to be dealt with well in order for genuine progress to be made.

Can’t we all just get along? Actually, no, and that’s probably a good thing because it forces us to tackle conflict in a God-honoring manner. Here are some steps to move toward resolution when you find yourself in conflict with someone on staff.

Be the bigger person. 
Someone is going to have to lead with humility—might as well be you. How would this relationship change if you decided to take action and humble yourself (right or wrong in the matter that caused the division, either way), and begin a conversation to rebuild trust and love? Until someone does this, any progress will just be an outward act covering up a pain-filled heart. Unresolved conflict eats away at your job satisfaction, your vision, and your heart. Don’t let it happen!

Take a small step forward. 
A simple note, gesture, or gift can go a long way. Could you find an excuse to give them a small token of your love for them—even if it’s never acknowledged or reciprocated? Continually take small steps forward—mixed with time this is a powerful way to break down walls.

Talk them up to other people. 
People can usually sniff out when someone is in tension with another person—in fact, most churches specialize in spreading that information around gleefully, it seems. When you talk positively about the person in conflict, you are disarming the potential for a greater divide in the church, and not forcing people to take sides. Plus, it is surprising (and won’t take long) for word to get back to that person, too!

Pray for healing. 
Too often the “right” answer is to pray for the situation—in this case, it’s no different. You have to ask God to mend what is broken and heal what areas are infected. Conflict between people who work together every day can, and has, claimed many churches—don’t let yours be one of them!

Re-read yesterday’s article.
And by the way, a whole bunch of what we wrote yesterday concerning dealing with a disappointed parents can also apply to resolving conflict on your ministry team. Here’s an example:

Kurt: “Josh, I can understand why you FEEL threatened by my physical stature.”
Kurt: “In fact, Josh, other people on our team have FELT the same way.”
Kurt: “Here’s what I’ve FOUND: As long as you don’t tick me off…you have nothing to be afraid of.”

See…It’s simple!

Who do you need to take a small step forward with today?

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Add Comment April 1, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Free ParentMinistry.Net Seminar with Mark Oestreicher

ParentMinistry.Net is hosting a free webinar this Tuesday, February 26 at 2 pm (Central) by Mark Oestreicher. Marko has literally written the book (A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the Teenage Brain) on this topic. You can go here to sign up and feel free to invite your parents to sign up as well!

JG

1 View Comments February 25, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Parent Ministry Resources

Parents Ministry, Family Ministry, or Inter-generational Ministry whatever you want to call it seems to be the hot button topic in youth ministry today. From mega churches who are learning about it to smaller country churches who have been doing it forever but want to get a fresh perspective on it, we all cannot debate it’s place in our job description or its value on the spiritual development of our students.

While there are many different theories and strategies out there, I’ll give you an insight to one that has taken off at our church. When I hold a parents meeting I cannot get more than three or four sets of parents there at the same time. So the nifty resources I get for them only make it in the hands of a few parents. So how to get the other parents resourced became a priority. So I designed a nice looking resource table, placed it in the church foyer, and since then I cannot keep the resources on the table. I could make guesses as to why it works, our parents want help but they want it anonymously or they don’t want the other parents thinking they don’t have it all together but the fact of the matter is the resources are going out with great results. I’ve had a ton of parents call me to discuss this or that from a book or article so as long as its working I’m good with that.

In case you were wondering what the top resources are at our church, here ya go:

1: “A Parents Guide to Understanding Teenage Brains” by Mark Oestreicher (by far the most grabbed book on the table. I cannot keep this one stocked up!)
2: “A Parents Guide to Understanding Teenage Girls” by Mark Oestreicher and Brooklyn Lindsey
3: “A Parents Guide to Understanding Teenage Guys” by Mark Oestreicher and Brock Morgan
4: “99 Thoughts for Parents of Teenagers” by Walt Mueller
5: “A Parents Guide to Understanding Social Media” by Mark Oestreicher and Adam McLane
6: CPYU Digital Kids Initiative Articles by Walt Mueller and CPYU (I print one up a month, put it in handout format, and make copies)

The key to this idea, like anything in ministry is the follow up. When I talk to a parent I ask them if they grabbed any resources lately and if they say yes I ask which one they’ve enjoyed and we talk about it. Plus all of our parents know if they have any questions with the resources that I am always there to help.

Kevin Patterson is the youth pastor at Dawson Springs First Baptist Church in Dawson Spring, KY. Be sure to check out http://www.lifeintheymfishbowl.blogspot.com/ to regularly get in on his learnings, too!

3 View Comments February 24, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts 5 Things Every Youth Ministry Volunteer Needs to Know

Really enjoyed this post over on pastors.com from Greg Baird called 5 Things Every Kid’s Ministry Volunteer Needs to Know. Almost 100% of it transfers over to youth ministry easily – thought I would send you that way to read it today. Here’s 3 of them to get you started:

1. They are not babysitters.
Of course, most would agree with you about this. Unfortunately, many times they don’t act like it’s true. Volunteers need to truly understand that they are here to make an eternal impact in the lives of the kids they are serving.

2. Their ministry needs to flow from their relationship with God.
Following on from #1, it’s important for our team to understand the importance of their own relationship with God. And it’s important for us, as leaders, to understand that children’s ministry isnot just about discipling children, but also about discipling our volunteers. Are you checking on the spiritual health of your individual team members?

4. Connecting with parents is critical.
Volunteers need to know that, while what they do is critically important, it’s not what will make the biggest difference in the spiritual lives of kids. What the parents do will make the biggest difference. But parents often need (and usually want) to connect with what’s happening at church in order to make the spiritual investment at home.

JG

2 View Comments January 17, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Free Ministering to Parents Webinar with Jim Burns

Just saw that ParentMinistry.net is hosting a free youth worker seminar with Jim Burns near the end of the month – Thursday, January 24, from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM CST to be specific! Looks like you don’t have to be a member of their site or anything to attend – just sign up for Ministering with Parents and grab one of the spaces before they’re gone. Sweet.

JG

Add Comment January 8, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts What’s Happening with Saddleback’s Parent Ministry

I’m pretty excited about where we get to take our parent ministry in the coming year. Kurt Johnston (Saddleback’s Student Ministry Pastor and my boss) and I recently met with the guys over at ParentMinistry.Net and started to talk about using their tools and resource to help us boost our parent ministry. With as much as we’ve got going on we can’t seem to get a ton of traction really empowering parents. Time for a change!

As we’ve evaluated our ministry and made some D6/Sticky Faith transitions (read more on that here) we also realized we were doing a great job of informing parents, but not really equipping and resourcing them. And as a parent of a 5th grader myself, I’m pretty excited about the Rites of Passage Experience to use as a dad!

Here’s some of the ways I’ve thought about using the ParentMinistry.Net resource – stay tuned for more details as we roll stuff out in 2013:

Communicating monthly with parents via newsletter (we’ve done this for a while)
A free resource of the month offered to parents (started this last month)
Creating a “web hub” of monthly online training seminars
Making the Rites of Passage available to parents
Physically gathering parents together a couple times a year (hit and miss for us in the past)

For a while we’ve focused on a couple important audiences: ministering to students and empowering volunteers. I hope soon we can say we do a great job of equipping parents in the future, too!

JG