Youth Worker's Guide to Parent Ministry: A Practical Plan for Defusing Conflict and Gaining Allies
180
Youth Worker's Guide to Parent Ministry: A Practical Plan for Defusing Conflict and Gaining Allies
180Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780310242161 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Zondervan |
| Publication date: | 02/17/2003 |
| Pages: | 180 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.50(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Youth Worker's Guide to Parent Ministry
A Practical Plan for Defusing Conflict and Gaining AlliesBy Marv Penner
Zondervan
Copyright © 2003 ZondervanAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0310242169
Chapter One
Assume Teens
Have Parents
Acknowledge the Existence and
Importance of Parents
"The intensity of emotion around even the most
fundamental family issues has been divisive
and discouraging to many."
"The picture of a parent-most often a
father-is consistently used to help
us understand God's nature."
1 ACKNOWLEDGE
The starting point for all effective parent ministry is to acknowledge the existence and importance of parents in the lives of all students. To acknowledge simply means to consciously admit a truth exists. The way most churches are programmed, we often don't see kids with their parents, so it's easy to forget that parents are part of the picture. We have to make a conscious effort to see kids as more than just members of our small group or confirmation class and to remember they're also members of a family.
We can get frustrated when we realize the first level of building a parent ministry is rooted in attitude, not action. We want to mix mortar and pile on bricks. But we don't establish solid family ministry by planning an event or teaching a Bible study. Instead, we create a solid foundation by getting the right perspective: seeing teens as sons and daughters and recognizing the inviolable link with family that is the primary force shaping their lives.
Acknowledge the Existence of Parents
Common sense and basic biology tell us that these kids who mysteriously appear in our youth rooms or in our study groups on cue each week must have come from somewhere. Unless we still buy the stork story, we know there must be a parent or two out there.
Because we are committed to relational ministry, we may see our relationships with our students as being the most important. (Notice the possessive language we use to reinforce our importance in the lives of our kids.) We look for ways to establish relationships with new students in our communities. We develop strategies for introducing the gospel into those relationships. We commit ourselves to being consistent, authentic, humble, teachable, and available in our relationships with them. Ministry is all about finding a way into the hearts of students so they can see Jesus in us. We pray for them and carefully monitor their friendships. We rejoice with them in their successes and weep with them in their disasters. We become what sociologists call significant adults in their lives. There's no question about it. We are important people to the kids in our care! But we're not the most important people.
We easily assume parents are diminishing in importance because of the natural adolescent tendency to talk about them in negative terms as they pull away to establish identities of their own. It's easy to see parents as incompetent, blundering buffoons if we listen to family stories told from the adolescent perspective. It's easy to forget that parents have been given the primary responsibility for the nurture and care of their children. But when we determine a ministry to parents is valid, we start by consciously acknowledging their existence.
Acknowledging parents means-
We don't make decisions on behalf of kids without consulting their parents. We don't give advice contrary to advice given by a parent.
We remain sensitive to the rhythms and realities of family life as we plan our programs and activities.
We don't set ourselves up as surrogate parents even though our egos might enjoy the role.
We look for ways to strengthen the bond between parent and child rather than allowing or promoting deterioration.
Exceptions to these practical principles are rare. In cases of genuinely dysfunctional families, certain moral and legal obligations factor in. (See Ministry with Abusive, Unhealthy, or Highly Dysfunctional Parents on page 163.) As a general rule of ministry, remember, teens have parents already!
Acknowledge the Importance of Parents
I usually love fireworks. It's great to sit back on a warm summer evening with the sky exploding and watch the reflected colors dancing on the water, but some of the wildest fireworks I've experienced haven't been the 4th of July variety. They've been generated in discussions around issues related to family definitions, family ministry, and family dynamics. I'll give you a recent personal example.
Our task seemed huge but manageable, given the incredible range of ministry experience that sat around the table that weekend. I was part of a national task force on family ministry. Our job was to get a nationwide perspective on the issues faced by families and then to assess strategies being implemented by various churches and ministries. Perhaps we could learn from one another.
The group of 10 was made up of people from a variety of ministry settings and denominational perspectives, but we held our faith in common so it felt like we had a comfortable starting point. The chair led us through the customary hi-how-are-ya's and then pointed us to the first of a dozen agenda items that would guide us through the two days we had to work together. It was a 30-minute introductory item identified innocently enough as Defining the Family. You can probably guess the end of the story. After two full days on Item 1, we were no closer to consensus than when we had begun, and we had seen a fireworks show or two unlike what any of us could have anticipated. We couldn't even agree on what a family was, much less how to meet its needs.
The intensity of emotion around even the most fundamental family issues has been divisive and discouraging to many who have thought about family ministry. Theology, politics, and pragmatics all play a part. A lot is at stake and everyone seems committed to promoting his or her own perspective. However, in spite of all the passion and the apparent lack of agreement, we have some good reasons to preserve, strengthen, and support the family in any way we can.
Recognizing those reasons gives us a solid foundation for building a ministry to parents that strengthens their hand and equips them for ministry to their own kids. Here are three solid, biblically based benefits that accrue when we do all we can to strengthen the role of parents in the lives of their children.
A wise parent coaches children in basic life and relational skills.
Most social scientists agree that one of the primary functions of the family is to socialize children into the culture they're born into. This simply means to teach them the values, traditions, norms, and mores expected of healthy, productive adults. Much of this learning is solidified during the teenage years. Adolescence is an ideal time to develop the critical skills of interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, emotional management, collaboration, responding to authority, and mutual respect and consideration, to mention a few. The committed, safe, and loving context of a healthy family is an ideal place to learn and practice these skills. Sadly, just about the time these lessons can be implemented, some families are beginning to come apart.
The fact is that, for better or worse, children learn their most important lessons about life and relationships from watching their parents. The haunting lyrics of "Cats in the Cradle," recorded by Harry Chapin, remind us that when it comes to family relationships, our children often grow up just like us: Through the years, a father is too busy to spend much time with his son. He makes hollow promises about the future. By the time the father wants to spend time with his son, the boy is busy with his own life, making promises about spending time together in the future. Unhealthy, dysfunctional patterns of communication are just as contagious as healthy ones.
The assumption that parents coach children in basic life and relational skills is beautifully illustrated in Scripture. Paul makes a profound point to the rookie pastor Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:1-2. He uses Timothy's family context as the framework for helping him understand the ins and outs of healthy adult relationships, in this case, the relationships Timothy has with members of his congregation. Paul basically says, "Listen, Timothy. If you're not sure how to treat the older men in your church just think of them as though they were your dad. When you're relating to the younger guys, think of them as your brothers. Older women should be treated as if they're your mom, and the younger women should be treated with the purity your sister deserves."
What Paul assumes (and other passages indicate he knew Timothy's family) is that young Tim had learned the important skills of human relationships in his own home. Apparently he had the kind of rapport with his mom and dad that gave him a model for how to treat older people in his church. His relationship with his siblings must have been such that the lessons learned could be applied in adult life.
When we live with an emerging generation that struggles to respond appropriately to authority and often struggles with basic community-living skills and when we see young adults who struggle with interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, and cooperation, we need to ask ourselves if perhaps they haven't had a good practice field on which to learn those skills.
The family isn't the only place such skills can be learned, but it can be the best place, especially for adolescents and parents who understand the value of family relationships. Healthy families mean that a lot less remedial work and relational damage control will be necessary later in life. That's an investment worth making.
An involved parent passes faith from one generation to the next.
Christianity is just one short generation from extinction. That's a point worth noting, but don't be overly alarmed. Frankly, it's always been that way. Each emerging generation since the beginning of time has had the same choice: to embrace the good news of the gospel or to ignore it. The challenge has been to find effective ways to communicate the good news to the next generation.
Faith lived out transparently and expressed authentically has a drawing power more potent than sermons and lectures. Jesus said our faith would be authenticated in our relationships with one another. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). The family context is a natural place for love to happen. A parent's godly life can be a profoundly effective means of demonstrating the reality of the gospel. Children are able to see faith applied in every circumstance of life. The closeness of family means that we see one another at our best and at our worst. Faith that takes root in the honest reality of family life has great potential to grow healthy and strong.
The fundamental principle that puts the responsibility for the spiritual formation of children into the hands of parents is firmly rooted in Scripture. When Moses called on parents in Deuteronomy 6 to impress God's commandments on their children, he described what that would look like in real life. He says, "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" (Deut 6:7-9). What Moses is saying to parents is to help children encounter faith in every life circumstance.
What a tragedy when just a few decades later "another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel" (Judges 2:10). Evidently the generation who, under Joshua's leadership, had seen God do one miracle after another had not communicated their faith to the next generation. The following years are some of the darkest in the spiritual lives of God's people. Examples of parents dropping the ball with their children's faith development can be seen repeatedly in biblical narratives: Eli and his sons, Solomon and Rehoboam, and David and Amnon to name a few.
A family-based ministry that sees parents as the primary spiritual nurturers of their own children could be the most effective evangelism and discipleship program ever devised. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. Nothing is more crippling to a child's faith than seeing the hypocrisy of a parent who consistently fails to walk the talk while pretending everything is okay.
God calls people into relationship with himself in a variety of ways; godly parents aren't the only means by which a young person can embrace faith and grow in it, but it's as good a way as I know. A youth worker who understands the importance of equipping parents to participate in the spiritual journeys of their own children will be facilitating a process that acknowledges God's heart for the family.
A loving parent is a powerful portrait of God.
Perhaps the strongest case for investing in parents and families has to do with how God presents himself to us. The Bible is full of metaphors that help our finite minds grasp spiritual mysteries. God himself is one of those mysteries. The picture of a parent-most often a father-is consistently used to help us understand his nature.
The Psalmist calls God a "father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5). Dr. Luke talks about his consistent and generous provision for his children (Luke 11:11-3). Paul tells us that we have such an intimate relationship with our heavenly father that we call him Abba-Dad (Romans 8:14-17). The writer to the Hebrews helps us understand God's discipline by using the picture of an earthly father (Hebrews 12:6-11).
Unfortunately, for many teenagers the image of parents has become twisted and distorted. I was recently praying with a student after a lengthy conversation together. She had expressed deep concerns about her relationship with God. She simply didn't know if he could be trusted. I began my prayer, as I often do, with the address, "Dear heavenly Father." I sensed her stiffen as I said the words. Through angrily clenched teeth she interrupted me with the contemptuous words, "You can call him anything, but don't call him father." Her picture of a father was negative, unloving, abusive, and distant.
And yet, something in the soul of every human being longs to experience a relationship with a strong and gentle father. As families continue to flounder and as fathers abdicate their roles in the lives of their children the rich imagery of the Bible has potential to lose its impact.
The Bible consistently reinforces the notion that the family is worth investing in and parents are worth supporting.
Continues...
Excerpted from Youth Worker's Guide to Parent Ministry by Marv Penner Copyright © 2003 by Zondervan
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.