Random Ideas to Partner with Parents

As we host a workshop on Strong Cathoic Families this week, here are some random ideas to help your ministry be intentional about partnering with parents, adapted from Jim Burns' Partnering with Parents in Youth Ministry with some other additional ideas:

1. Bring in an expert to speak to your group of parents
2. Have a parents panel night
3. Have a youth panel night
4. Have a parent share his or her story
5. Have youth serve dinner to their parents
6. Have an evening committed to prayer for families and the ministry
7. Form parent support groups around the needs of the parents
8. Have a parent review a new parenting resource and share his or her thoughts with the group of parents
9. Distribute a list of helpful parenting websites/podcasts
10. Have a retreat just for parents
11. Connect parents with other parents who are going through similar issues
12. Communicate with parents clearly. Let them know exactly what's going on with the ministry
13. Immediately call parents to praise their children when they do something awesome
14. Take parents out to coffe and connect with them
15. At parent meetings, don't serve normal youth ministry food (i.e. pizza). Go all out and offer some good stuff, like chocolate covered strawberries.

Studies show that parents involvement in church and ministry is the biggest reason young people will grow to have faith as an adult. Let's get started!