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