How do you get your student ministry to the next level?
John Maxwell famously has 5-levels of influential leadership and aspirational leaders should seek to grow their capacity all the way to level 5. Well, I would like to offer I think there are three levels of student ministry leadership influence. Level 1: Youth pastors who minister to students directly. Level 2: those who empower and equip adult volunteers to minister. And, level 3: those who encourage and mobilize parents.
It’s not always linear, but some of the highest quality youth ministers I know are finding ways to maximize the hours of discipleship a student can receive, which means discipleship starts at home. No amount of weekly small groups or programming can outweigh the opportunities to disciple at home. Parents need you in their corner, as much as their students do, and there is no better season than now to adapt and grow.
We are trying to innovate, too.
A year ago our Lifeway students training team got together and said, “we have to create something to help student pastors minister to parents who are spending more time at home than ever before with their teenagers. We need to be nimble, digital, and resourceful for those pastoring parents.” So we created something new to us, for you for parents. Parent Partner is our digital, subscription-based resource that provides fresh monthly content for you to send directly to your parents.
Parent Partner is customizable content. From you, for them.
One of the key features in our conversation to develop this resource was something that was customizable. We wanted to make content that takes your traditional parent communication to the next level. For us this meant loosening the grip and giving you what you needed.
Parent Partner is not a fixed resource but a launchpad. The easy-to-use templates help you create a cadence of empowering parents/guardians to engage in discipling their teenagers.
Helps parents turn four regular weekly family moments into catalysts for deep and engaging spiritual conversations within the home.
One of the best assets of Parent Partner is that it fuels faith conversations from parents to students, and you get to catalyze those conversations! There is something powerful, resonate, about a parent driving with a student and saying, “You know I was reading in Psalms this morning and I wanted to ask you…”
Parent Partner is completely scalable. Churches of 10 to 10,000 are using it!
Large church or small church, it’s a simple subscription that works for everyone. Whether you are managing more hats than you can wear or you have more families than you can keep up with, this is something that you can get behind because you are mobilizing moms and dads to do the discipling. You are teeing them up to hit home runs!
Here’s how some our friends are using Parent Partner to achieve next level student ministry:
Every Single Sunday
Prestonwood edits the fresh template every week, drops in the emphasis from our weekly small groups, and sends it out to parents via a text message service every Sunday @ 4pm. It’s a consistent setup for parents to pray and discuss with their students.
Jason M., Prestonwood Plano
1 Hour For 1 Week
Thursday afternoon is my time to set up for success. Thursdays I spend a little less than an hour on the Mailchimp email for the next week. I like to customize it and add our weekly calendar and some extra resources and stories. So that way I can spend Monday-Wednesday of that next week following up and encouraging parents to be engaging their students in the ways the Partner outlines. It creates conversational feedback that I never had before with parents. It’s a regular connection for me and them and it is blessing their families with dinner time and car time conversations. One hour a week creates a lot of value for me.
Josh White, Arrow Heights
Here’s what your youth ministry friends are saying about Parent Partner:
Parent Partner is a game-changer when it comes to youth pastors doing parent ministry. It is simple to use and it is simple for parents to use with their families. This resource truly helps parents apply Deuteronomy 6:4-9 in their busy world.
Jeremy B.
We love the resource! It is relevant discipleship materials.Thanks for putting this out. It is especially helpful during this time of quarantine. Thanks so much for doing this. Please keep doing what you do!!!!
Dudley T.
I appreciate the resource as an option for digital discipleship. I plan to continue to use it for the foreseeable future! It has added an angle of digital discipleship I believe is helpful to parents as they seek to take practical action in their primary discipling role in the home.
Jordan W.
Subscribe for $15.99 per month!
This unlimited license subscription allows you to utilize Parent Partner with as many families within your church as you’d like for the same low price.
