“I’m having a hard time getting Chelsea to youth group. She says she doesn’t feel welcome there.”

I’m sure you have had these conversations with parents. The first thing you need to understand about such conversations is that they’re ultimately a very good thing. They show that parents are trying to get their children connected.

So how do we handle such opportunities? I recommend communicating these three important things to parents.

1. Parents must play a role. Every year at our eighth grade confirmation banquet, I stand up in front of parents and tell them that some of their children will connect right away and others won’t. In the short run, parents must play an active role in helping their children get plugged in. Fourteen-year-olds can’t drive themselves to youth group, so without parental encouragement, disconnected students will remain that way.

My friend and youth ministry trainer Steven Tighe makes this point: “If teenagers thought there was a way they could get out of attending school, don’t you think they would go to great lengths to do and say whatever they had to in order to get out of it?” Of course they would! It’s true (for some of them) for youth group. If students get the sense that involvement in youth group is optional, many of them would say anything they could to get out of it.

The key here, as with much else in youth ministry, is relationships. If students don’t have other youth or adults to whom they are well-connected, they will not want to come. The great catch-22 of youth ministry is that students who complain of not knowing anyone and not wanting to come to youth events makes it harder for them to get to know anyone.

In situations such as these, parents must require their students to do something. The alternative is to admit defeat.

2. Cliques are everywhere, but aren’t always bad. Another popular complaint is that your youth group is too cliquey. I graciously reply that cliques aren’t always bad. The only thing worse than a youth group with cliques is a youth group without any. A youth group without cliques is an indication that no one in the youth ministry is connecting at all. Their friend groups are all outside of the ministry, and they are just there marking time.

Yes, we must encourage those who have strong groups of friends to open up to new people, but sometimes the better way is to create new cliques or to get their students to an event that often will break cliques apart. Which brings us to point three…

3. Retreats, camps and mission trips are must-attend events. These are the most important, clique-busting, relationship-forming events we have in youth ministry. If parents get their children on one of these events, there is a much higher likelihood the kids will make a connection with someone and want to return.

More often than not, these events allow something mysterious to take place. Students who previously had no interest in spiritual things make a connection with another student or with a leader; or they take a renewed interest in worshiping God through song; or they develop a new passion for the Bible or for service. Something happens that never would have happened otherwise.

I never will forget hearing the parents of Cassie Bernall interviewed after she was killed in the Columbine shootings. Her demeanor had taken a sharply negative turn during her early teenage years, and they were concerned they were losing her. They forced her to attend a church retreat, fearful they actually might push her away even further; but they stood their ground and sent her on the retreat. When she came back, they saw a different person.

Or course, there is a danger of putting too much emphasis on camps and retreats, which is to create a reliance upon them. That’s why we must use these events to equip students for life between them.

At the end of the day, some students simply will not get connected; but hopefully it won’t be because we or the parents didn’t try hard enough.