Youth workers can feel frustrated by parents who only seem to show up when they want to complain. However, moms and dads have a much higher stake in kids’ lives than we do, and parents are a more important spiritual influence on young people than we are. So what can we do to partner more effectively with parents? That’s what we asked these experts:

Jim Burns, founder and president of HomeWord, has a heart for bringing help and hope to struggling families. He’s the author of several books, including Partnering with Parents in Youth Ministry.

Mark DeVries knows from experience that partnering with parents is a critical component of every youth worker’s job. His book Family-Based Youth Ministry helps youth workers do this more effectively.

Diana Garland, professor and dean of the School of Social Work at Baylor University, has a background in social work, which gives her unique insights into how youth workers can partner with families. She’s author of Family Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide.

Marv Penner is a respected adolescent researcher, youth pastor and family counselor who passionately believes that ministry to teens must include ministry to their parents. He is author of Youth Worker’s Guide to Parent Ministry.

Youth Worker Journal: Has youth ministry been conceived as operating independent of family?

Jim Burns: We’ve had the right motives to help kids grow spiritually, yet we’ve missed the “helping families succeed” component. If young people have healthy faith conversations at home, they’re more likely to stay in the church when they graduate from high school.

Diana Garland: Youth ministry has made the assumption that the way to attract young people is with other young people; so yes, it’s been conceived separately, even to the point of having worship services in which people are divided by age.

Marv Penner: When age-specific ministries began, parents were actively involved in the lives of their kids. Because parents have always felt somewhat inadequate in guiding their adolescent children spiritually, when the church came up with youth ministry, parents breathed a sigh of relief. The other side of this involved insecure youth workers who found satisfaction and identity in displacing parents.

As a community of youth workers, we developed a “Messiah” complex. We felt like we were rescuing kids from parents who were culturally incompetent and relationally weak. This created the youth ministry culture we had in the past when it was youth workers against parents. That isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Parents are the primary spiritual influencers in their kids’ lives.  

YWJ: What theology of family can help guide youth ministry?

Jim: The Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…” Every morning and evening it’s quoted in an Orthodox Jewish home. It teaches us to live faithfully for God with fidelity to Him. It teaches us through whom (parents) and how our faith is transmitted. It tells us how to practice and welcome His presence in the home.

Mark DeVries: Deuteronomy 6:4-9: This is really saying that parents—or whomever kids wake up with and sit down with—are [the ones] who have the greatest impact. The family is the primary socializing unit. I don’t think the biblical context is always the nuclear family. When Deuteronomy was written, the context was about extended family living around them. The biblical model is that parents were never meant to do this by themselves.

Diana: All of us, when we accept Christ, are promised the gift of family. Cross-generational, adoptive families point us to the good news of the Kingdom of God.

YWJ: What are some of the biggest issues facing today’s families?

Jim: Today’s family often has only one parent living in the home. It comes from a multi-cultural background. It’s more dysfunctional and busier than any previous generation. Youth ministry can be a great resource to parents in the areas of understanding the rapidly changing culture and resourcing parents to help make spiritual formation part of their job description.

Diana: The impoverishment of our young people. The ultimate impoverishment is having nothing to give. Don’t define children by what they want to be when they grow up, which says they’re nothing until they have a career. Children are not our future; they’re our now.

Marv: The vast number of kids growing up in single-parent families feel abandoned, neglected and disenfranchised. Families have tried to replace relationships with things. Fatherlessness and dads who are so tired they have nothing to offer their kids—[these are just some of the problems]. In all this, the natural tendency of youth pastors is to cast parents as the enemies and themselves in the role of the white knights who rescue these kids. What we really need is for youth workers to develop empathy for parents.

YWJ: How can youth workers create a ministry culture that encourages parents to serve alongside them?

Jim: The best way to embrace parent involvement is to have other parents do the recruiting. Every youth worker needs a Gail. Gail was the mom who volunteered her time to work with parents. She called them, invited them and recruited them. Because she was one of them, they responded better to her than me. Find your Gail.

Mark: Deliver results and tell stories about them. When you have your annual parent meeting, say, “I want you to know what kind of church this is. We have doubled the number of parents involved. We believe parents are keys to the DNA of our youth ministry. Thank you for making [youth ministry] happen.” The way you tell the story determines the direction of the culture. If you emphasize what you don’t have, the message gets out that the parents don’t care.

Marv: In a more intergenerational approach to youth ministry, parents will have natural connections into what’s happening. If parents are gifted, involve them; but ask their kids first. Evaluate parental involvement every year—with parents and youth: “Is this working?” If not, take a break or move parents to another area of ministry.

YWJ: How can youth workers help equip parents for their role as the primary spiritual influencers in their child’s life?

Jim: Part of the job description of every youth worker is to find ways to facilitate spiritual growth in families. Youth workers have to see their jobs as partnering with parents. Come alongside parents to equip, inform, encourage and engage them. Honor parents as the leaders in spiritual formation and support their efforts. Mentor kids whose parents are not Christians, and give them relationships with parents who are effective Christian role models.

Mark: Parents are already spiritually influencing their kids. Help them feel the power of that. Declare a moratorium on complaining about parents. Walk alongside parents as they do the difficult job that God has given them. If parents know we’ve built a bridge into their kids’ lives, then when they’re in crisis, they have a resource to come to.

Diana: It’s not about talking to our kids about spiritual things; it’s about living our faith with them. Engage in service together. I know of a family that volunteered at an inner city church on the condition that they could bring their kids with them. It was a relatively small thing, yet the conversation was profound in the spiritual development of the parents and the children.

Marv: Youth workers need to be thinking, “How do we relate to parents in a way that strengthens their hands?” Facilitate interactions between parents so they feel supported and prayed for and realize they are not alone. Equip without the “Messiah” attitude. Encourage parents. It takes 10 seconds to send a note that says, “You must be doing something right with your daughter.”

YWJ: Anything else we should know?

Jim: One of our many problems with family-based youth ministry is that we’ve been looking for the perfect program. Helping families succeed is not a program but a mindset that should permeate all aspects of our discipleship.

Mark: We’re living in a culture that systematically abandons this generation. We need to create lifelong, nurturing structures in which kids are webbed into a culture of nurturing relationships.

Diana: Historically, we’ve had Youth Sunday. Youth Sunday needs to be every Sunday. Have young people, children and older adults represented in the leadership of the church—in worship, in its business and in its committees.

Marv: The joy of collaborating with parents rather than competing with them is something too few youth workers have experienced. Because it really expresses God’s heart for the family, there’s exceptional joy for people on both sides of that equation.

We asked our RT experts to recommend some books and resources to help youth workers address the family component of ministry. Here are their top suggestions:

Mark Holman, Building Faith at Home: The Family Makeover with Christ at the Center (Regal Books, 2005)
Brian Haynes, Shift: What It Takes to Finally Reach Families (Group, 2009)
Mark DeVries, Family-Based Youth Ministry (IVP, 2004)
Jim Burns and Mark DeVries, Partnering with Parents in Youth Ministry (Gospel Light, 2003)
Diana Garland, Family Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide (IVP, 1999) and The Sacred Stories of Ordinary Families: Living the Faith in Daily Life (Wiley, 2003)
Chap Clark, Disconnected: Parenting Teens in a MySpace World (Baker, 2007)
Rich Van Pelt and Jim Hancock, A Parent’s Guide to Helping Kids in Crisis (Zondervan, 2008)
Marv Penner, Youth Worker’s Guide to Parent Ministry: A Practical Plan for Defusing Conflict and Gaining Allies (Youth Specialties, 2003)
Paul Tripp, Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens (PR Publishing, 2001)
Dan Allender, How Children Raise Parents: The Art of Listening to Your Family (WaterBrook, 2003)
Wayne Rice, Help! There’s a Teenager in My House: A Troubleshooting Guide for Parents (IVP, 2005)
search-institute.org, The Search Institute (Mission: to provide leadership, knowledge and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities.)
Faithink.com, Faith Inkubators (Mission: to incubate faith every night in every home.)
Homeword.com (Jim Burns’ HomeWord site)
Cpyu.org (Walt Mueller’s Center for Parenting/Youth Understanding)