Parental Involvment - How to Get Them Involved!
Having the parents involved in your youth ministry is so important! You can’t have an effective youth program without them in some way! Some parents seem to be more willing and/or able to help than others. Here are some things that you can do that might help and allow other parents be just as much a part of the group as the other parents.
One thing I have found useful is to have sort of a beginning of the year get together with parents and kids. You can do it kind of like how schools have an open house night. Kids and parents who haven’t been in your youth group yet will feel better and more comfortable in my opinion. This way you can talk to your parents and see what they would like to do and so forth.
Something else that I have found to be useful is to give your parents kind of survey of what they would like to do or help out with when it comes to your group. You can either find a list to copy for your parents or you can make one. I think that making one is much easier because you can add things that are personal to your group. A simple Word document will do.
This list of things that your group needs should be more of what your group’s needs. Different groups have different needs. Chaperon help, help bringing food if you have snacks or meals at your meetings, help with ministry ideas, praying behind the scene, helping car pool, or whatever else your group needs help in doing.
I’ve put an example with this article to help give you a head start if you are stuck. I will say that it helped me out a ton! That way I had a hard copy of what different parents could and would help out with and I could pull it out at different times when different events came up. Feel free to use what I’ve put here and add or delete what you feel is necessary for your youth group!
Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. – Proverbs 17:6
Toilet Paper Outfits
This is an easy and fun game to kick off your fall youth ministry. All you need is a roll of toilet paper for every two students.
How it works: Have everyone partner up and then give each team a roll of toilet paper. Once everyone has gotten one. Give them 5 minutes to come up with the most creative outfit that they can do. Have some of your youth volunteers be the judges to see who wins the contest.
Below are a couple pictures to give you some ideas:
How to Interview at a Church
In my last two posts I wrote about my visit to a church in Iowa and that I was interviewing with them. I first wanted to say that out of 3 candidates that they narrowed it down to, I was told last Wednesday that they offered the job to one of the other two guys that had interviewed besides me. I was a little shocked based on how well everything went, but I’m ok with the decision as I prayed that the right thing would happen and so I will be staying put here in Montana for now.
With that being said, I did want to follow up and give you some information about interviewing with a Church.
Here’s what I would like to discuss:
- What questions to be prepared for
- What questions you should ask
- What Red Flags to look for
- When to talk about the salary
- Do’s and Don’ts
What questions to be prepared for: In a general answer to this…be prepared to answer any question regarding youth ministry. I really liked how they decided to ask questions. They asked scenario based questions so that I could give them answers to real situations that I have experienced. Let me give you an example: “If a student approached you and shared with you about a sin struggle they were having, how would you handle that?”
Other questions they may ask:
-Explain how you do youth ministry.
-What do you enjoy about youth ministry and what frustrates you about youth ministry?
-What’s your spouses role while you do youth ministry?
-What do you like to do?
-How would you say students respond to you?
-What is your plan for recruiting leaders to help assist you in the youth ministry?
What Questions You Should Ask: It’s important not only for you to answer the search teams questions but also for you to be able to ask some questions back to them. This is actually fun because you can get a feel for how well they know what’s going on in the youth ministry or the church.
Here are some questions to ask:
- Give me some positive things and some negative things that you have seen in the youth ministry.
- What was the reason/s that the last two youth pastors have left?
- Explain what your church worship service is like.
- Are there any expectations outside of the job description?
What Red Flags To Look For: You may find yourself in a situation that seems good, but after interviewing you may find some things that might cation you from accepting a youth ministry job. Here are some things that I would say to proceed with cation or even rethink about accepting the position:
- We’ve had 3 youth pastors in the last 3 years.
- After reviewing the job description you’re not sure if Jesus could do the job.
- While doing the interview and seeing the church you get a sense that you wouldn’t fit there.
- The last youth pastor was terminated because of a serious problem (sexual misconduct, stealing, or attacking someone)
When To Talk About The Salary: I think it’s great when church’s are forth coming with the salary, but when they don’t mention this upfront, then the appropriate time to talk about salary would be after they offer you the job, however, if the church has a lengthy process, it would be ok to inquire about it your 2nd or 3rd interview to see if if would be adequate for you to be able to live. It’s just never been a good thing to ask them right away how much they pay the youth pastor before anything else.
Do’s and Dont’s:
Do’s:
-Dress up unless they say don’t because were casual (get a feel for what they want ahead of time).
-Be prepared by knowing information about them heading into the interview.
-Know your stuff (philosophy, scenario questions, your plan).
-Be yourself nobody likes fake.
-Ask questions that will help you get what you need to make a decision.
Dont’s:
-Over dominate the interview process by taking a long time to answer every question and chopping them off to ask your questions.
-Be a slob. It still does matter how you present yourself.
-Be quiet. This can be bad too.
-Share all your deepest and darkest sins.
-Be ungrateful. Man if you are havin some great ribs say THANKS!
I hope this process has been helpful to you and if you have more things that you would like to add to help those that are going to be interviewing with a church, then please leave your comments below. Maybe even tell a horror interview story for the rest of us.
Good Luck!
My Trip to Des Moines, Iowa
Here are a few pictures of the trip this past weekend and then I will discuss what my experience was. I will then do a couple of follow up posts on Do’s and Don’ts of an interview.
Above is the search team that I spent time with from about 4pm to 8pm. The time was spent with Q & A and eating some great food as you see below we had some ribs.
The next couple of pictures are where the church currently meets. They currently meet in a mall but are building a new facility a few miles away.
Here was my schedule:
4:50am - I woke up and got ready to get to the airport in Great Falls, MT.
6:22am - My flight left from Great Falls, MT to Denver, CO
8:10am - Arrived in Denver and ate some breakfast and hung out at my gate
10:15am - Flight took off from Denver to Des Moines, IA
12:47pm - Arrived in Des Moines, IA (1 hour difference from MST to Central)
1:00pm - Pastor Andy picked me up and we drove and talked for about 3 hours. During our time we chatted about some of my experiences and what I thought about youth ministry. He also asked what I liked to do. It was basically getting to know each other. I also was able to see his home, the church, the new church, and much of south east Des Moines.
4:00pm - Met at a home where search team gathered and we had some snacks and then the search team asked questions for probably 2 to 2 and a half hours. Most of the questions were scenario based questions so that I could give them specific examples of what I have done and experienced. Then we had some great ribs and treats. I was then able to ask some questions back to the search team. Then they asked me to step outside the home so that they could solidify their thoughts and impressions of me. I came back in and they told me that they would let me know this week on their decision.
8:00pm - Got to hotel room and was ready to sleep, but managed to stay up and watch Michael Phelps get his 8th Gold medal. I also called my wife to let her know my day and then went to sleep.
Sunday
7:00am - woke up got ready to go, ate breakfast at the hotel.
8:45am - Pastor Andy picked me up and we went to the church. Got to see everyone show up and watch the worship team practice. Got to see how people interacted with each other. I also got to meet the youth pastor that is leaving and spoke with him about stuff which was cool.
10:45am - Had to leave service to go to the airport to begin the journey back.
3:35pm - Arrived back in Great Falls, MT and wife and kids were there to pick me up.
The trip was really quick, but it was a good experience. I got to see and meet people and got a sense that I could work there if offered the job. I hope this experience helps you out if you decide to go into youth ministry or if you are maybe looking for a job in youth ministry. I will write more later.
Blogging About My Interview in Des Moines, IA
This weekend August 16th and 17th I will be in Des Moines, IA interviewing at Lighthouse Community Church for a full-time Youth Pastor position and I’m blogging about the process along with tips on interviewing with a church (hopefully I use my own tips).
I would appreciate your prayers as I would like the Holy Spirit to show me if this would be the place where God would have me to be a part of His kingdom work. I’m very excited about the possibility of doing youth ministry as a full time experience again.
I will be discussing with you the following about interviewing:
- What questions to be prepared for
- What questions you should ask
- What Red Flags to look for
- When to talk about the salary
- Do’s and Don’ts
I hope that my real life experience this weekend will help you in the future if you are thinking about applying for a full-time youth ministry position. I look forward to sharing with you.
