Parent of Teen Ministry Evaluation

Just finished up an evaluation of our parent of teen ministry.  I would love to see our parenting ministry to be one of our strongest ministries.  As a youth pastor I know the youth ministry would benefit greatly from a strong parenting ministry.  My prayer is that we are simply a compliment to a parent's toolbox of discipleship of their teen.  Parent ministry is part of youth ministry.  The trick is getting parents involved and building an effective parent ministry with parents ministering to parents.

Purpose:

To assist parents in the discipleship of their teens and to provide an avenue of fellowship and connections between parents.

Strengths:

• Parent Pod during the summer months providing weekly fellowship and providing some resources for follow up to the youth’s lesson during the week at home.
• Monthly newsletter with resources and event calendar
• Weekly update e-mail
• Occasional e-mail links to resources
• Parent page on the youth web site with helpful resources and online event calendar
• Annual parenting seminar

Weaknesses:

• Not meeting regularly outside of the Parent Pod
• Not much involvement/volunteering in the ministry.  Example - Helping with events, etc.
• Not getting much feedback from parents on the resources, web page, newsletters, etc.
• Not seeing many parents of teens bringing in other parents of teens 

Ideas:

• Calendar a quarterly meeting for the Parent Pod for the rest of 2009
• Find a Parent Pod coach, a parent to be the point person for the ministry
• Build a team of event/activity parents from the Parent Pod
• Create a survey for parents to find out what resources we provide are helpful and what they would like to see more of.
• Include some resources and tips on reaching out to other parents in our communications with our student’s parents.
• Get parents input on the topics/scripture for us to study at Contagious Youth
• Connect parents with  other parents through a Connections group that does a study on parenting teens
• Track which classes the parents have taken and encourage them to complete all the classes of NHCU
• Pastors to attend some Parent Pods this summer and share some tips in involving their teens in discipleship; missions; ministry; worship; fellowship
• Create  a parent facebook page where parents of teens can get together and share prayer requests and resources with each other

Family Matters

This morning I got to preach in "big" church.  Below is my outline.  I'm guessing the podcast will be up later in the week.

Nags Head Church values families.  Why?

Family Matters

• We Value Families at NH

Family is God’s Idea

Genesis 2:23-24 

 Family is all about commitment.  

We know that in God’s design children are a special gift from Him.

Psalm 127:3

Parent’s Responsibility

Exodus 12:24-28 

There are at least three parenting priorities we can glean from these verses:

Model – v. 24-25

 Luke 6:40

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. 

Define and Communicate – v. 26-27

When our children are small it is easy to communicate the Sunday school answers.  But What do you do parents when your middle schooler or teenager asks you,  “Dad, why do you believe the Bible is true?”  What answer do you give?

Are you able to define to your child what you believe and communicate your belief system to your child?

We get an example of how to define and communicate what we believe in Deut 6:6-9

Let me put these verses in the new Andy standard version:

Define and Communicate God’s Word to your kids.  Tell them often, over and over, repeat it because we all know it takes a while for something to sink into a kid’s head and then make it to his or her heart.  God’s Word should be part of who we are and we should talk about Him when we sit around the house, when we ride in the mini-van (captive audience), when we tuck them in at night and when we wake them up in the morning.   Hang it on the fridge, post it on the mirror.   Make God’s word the fabric of your home, the joists, studs and rafters of your family, build your family on God’s Word.

Obey – v. 28

More is caught than taught.  

Our Church’s Responsibility

The current Barna study indicates that nearly half of all Americans who accept Jesus Christ as their savior do so before reaching the age of 13 (43%), and that two out of three born again Christians (64%) made that commitment to Christ before their 18th birthday. One out of eight born again people (13%) made their profession of faith while 18 to 21 years old. Less than one out of every four born again Christians (23%) embraced Christ after their twenty-first birthday. 

Train and Equip  

Ephesians 4:11-13

11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Assist Parents in Discipling their kids

Ephesians 6:4

4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Serve

Which Sunday morning ministry team are you serving on?

Tomorrow at NHC

Tomorrow's worship gatherings at NHC will be totally different than usual.   I'm stoked about tomorrow and we will be having a "first" at NHC.  

On top of that tomorrow is Mother's Day and my kids have a rockin momma.

I'll be bringing the message in big church, Family Matters, I'm looking forward to that and will post the outline here on the blog tomorrow night.

No Contagious Youth tomorrow night so the students can spend extra time with mommy on her day tomorrow.  Several of our YM team are moms so they need the day off.  It's good to do stuffs like that for your volunteers because they are super special and without a YM team you are "toast" because you can't effectively minister to the students.

Happy Birthday Twins!

Happy 4 month birthday to the twins!

They are both doing great, packing on the pounds.  Both are reaching and grasping toys.  Both have great smiles and laugh and make cool baby noises.  These past 4 months have flown by!!

"Fred" is a happy little dude.

Looks like "Wilma" is happy and "Fred" is working on something

Love his smile!

Big brother is awesome.

I think I'm in trouble

"Fred" standing up doing his meercat impresson

Did I mention I'm in love with another girl besides my wife?

Please continue to pray for us as we work on raising the money with those who want to partner with us by investing in these babies' lives.  God has blessed us with two more wonderful children through the miracle of adoption.

Parents Modeling a Passionate Pursuit of Christ

I'm still chewing . . .

 Yesterday's Post

I was wondering this morning how many parents have even taken the time to stop and think about what their child's purpose?  I'll be honest I didn't think about this until this seminar.  I think about my children's future, I pray they come to know Christ and follow after him but never really gave much thought to their purpose.  

For years I have been observing other parents with their children.  I think it is safe to say that many think that their child's purpose is to make good grades, be the best on the athletic team, just be happy in life, be "successful",  but I have only observed a few who have the view that their child's purpose is to become more like Christ.  Some parents get so caught up in the wrong priorities that the passionate pursuit of our Savior gets placed on the back burner.

I hope my kids do their best in school, I hope they give it their all if they play a sport, but more importantly I pray my children become like Christ.

Where will they learn how to become more Christlike?  They should learn from me, I should be their model and I should be modeling Christ to them.

Luke 6:40

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Something to Chew On

A couple of weeks ago I attended a parenting seminar we had here at NHC, Principles for Parents, a seminar led by Herb Owen of Cherrydale Baptist Church .

This week I'm chewing on this thought from the seminar:

God's purpose for my children is that every day they should become a little more like Jesus Christ.  It's important to recognize that this purpose is not accomplished in a year, during childhood or even during a lifetime.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . .

Romans 8:29

Middle School Ministry

assail

Have you ever had a middle-schooler tell you about losing all of her friends, or that she doesn’t think she can keep on living? Have you ... Read More

Twitter in Church

Interesting article from Time/CNN

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895463,00.html

Church in a Box

Because our church has many guests at church on Sundays it's interesting to hear some of their thoughts and impressions and questions.  Many of our guests are tourist on vacation and I have to give them props for going to church while on vacation.  Since there is such a variety we get a variety of impressions and questions.

"I thought this was a Southern Baptist church?" - we are but with a small "s and b"

"What time is your traditional service?"  - an assumption that because we are SBC we have two different styles of worship services.

"Multiple services divide the church" - actually it brings our church together as we do what it takes to accomplish our purpose

"Is the music always this loud?" - interesting, I didn't find it to be loud

"This doesn't look like a church." -  it's not the church it's just a building the church is the people

"What time is Sunday School?" - we don't do Sunday School we have small groups that meet throughout the week

"Why don't you sing hymns?" -   We do:  

hymn |him|nouna religious song or poem, typically of praise to God or a god : a Hellenistichymn to Apollo.• a formal song sung during Christian worship, typically by the whole congregation.• a song, text, or other composition praising or celebrating someoneor something : a most unusual passage like a hymn to the great outdoors.verb1 [ trans. ] praise or celebrate (something) : Johnson's reply hymns education.2 [ intrans. ] rare sing hymns.
The point is this:  Too often we try to package church in such a way that it looks, sounds, smells a certain way and if it doesn't fit into our package then is must not be church or must not be right.  Church is something we can't box up, we can't package church.  God's plan is to use the church to build his kingdom.  The kingdom is made up of all different kinds of people.  Since there is a huge variety of people to reach that means there will be a huge variety of churches.  Our church reaches folks the church up the road can't reach and vice versa.  No matter the shape, size or style, church should be a place we plug in and serve (ministry) and share (missions).

Extreme Home Makeover Tonight

Watch for Mish and me on the show tonight.

Volunteers are Great!

I have been off of my sabbatical for a week now.  It's nice to be back in the office and I'm looking forward to teaching about stress tomorrow night.  

While I was gone for over 60 something days the youth ministry at NHC kept trucking.  Our YM team of volunteers ministered to students fantastically.  Without them I'm not sure how well the sabbatical would have been or if it would have happened at all.  Turning partners in the church loose to do ministry is what it is all about.  I love watching folks discover their SHAPE and then dive in and serve their Savior and church.  It's a huge blessing and the YM team rocks!

Tonight I was blessed again by another volunteer, Kit, a member of our nursery team, dropped by our home with a chocolate pound cake.  The whole Lawrenson family is enjoying it (well the twins aren't because they have no teeth yet).  Kit is a blessing to me as she serves each and every Sunday in our nursery.  Her commitment to be there each week has made the difference in some tiny lives as they became comfortable being dropped off by mommy and daddy in the toddler room.  The nursery team at NHC rocks and they are a huge blessing to my family.