This past month we decided to do something different at Rel Community for one Sunday night. We invited all of the parents to come with their students. We were motivated by our desire to team up with parents in ministry, and our desire to encourage them in the day in and day out challenge they have raising up their kids in the way they should go. Still, we didn't know exactly what the response would be. We put a high value on supporting parents from our student ministry and community so we decided it was something we had to do.
So we put announcements in the bulletin, the e-newsletter, and spent a whole month announcing it to students and giving them take home cards to give to their parents. We prayed a lot that parents would show up. We also prayed that it would be an encouraging time for our parents and our group leaders.
I can't speak for everyone on the Student Ministry team, but I for one was pretty nervous about the Parent night for a couple of reasons. First off, there is unfounded, but pretty inherit fear that most Student Ministers have of parents. I know it is pretty ridiculous, but I'm guessing that its the same kind of feeling that teachers get at times at Parent and Teacher Conferences. It only takes a few times of getting blindsided by a parent to get a little bit apprehensive. Student Ministers and Volunteers spend so much time and passion investing in students' lives, and sometimes parents will unsuspectingly blow us out of the water. It doesn't happen all the time, but it definitely happens, and the scars we get from us can easily affect how we interact with other parents. So not only was I nervous that some of our group leaders would get hurt by a well-intentioned parents words, I also had another fear. I was worried that students would choose not to come because they didn't want their parents to be there.
I spent the week leading up to Parent Night giving my fears up to God and joining other Student Ministry Team Members in prayer for the night. What God did on Parent night was incredible. We had over 35 parents show up and take part in the evening. Not only that, but we also had over 70 students there that evening. Not only did they show up, but everyone participated in the evening's events. We played a HUGE game of Parents vs. Students Dodgeball and nearly everyone played. After that our students taught their moms and dads the Cupid Shuffle, and everyone had a blast!
For our group time that evening we split up our group leaders. Half of them went with their normal group of students, and the other half went to meet with their group's parents. In our parent group time we got to know everyone, shared our biggest fear for our sons and daughters, shared our kids biggest successes, and really just tried to encourage the parents in their God-given role. We ended the night by praying for each other in our circles. It was truly incredible.
One of my favorite parts though was what happened afterwords. I kept getting approached by parents and by group leaders who wanted to say how much they enjoyed getting a chance to interact with each other. Group leaders said they loved hearing form the parents, and the parents kept thanking the group leaders for what they did. On the way home from Rel Community that night I got two phone calls. One was from a group leader. I was worried that someone had said something hurtful or something like that. That wasn't the case at all. They were just calling to say how much fun being with the parents had been. The other call was from a parent. They wanted to let me know how blessed they were to have a ministry for their kids that also wanted to help and encourage the parents. What a blessing those two phone calls were!
Its been a couple weeks since Parent night, and everybody already wants to do something like it again. I talked to some mom's who were at the church the other day, and they said they could hardly wait until they got the chance to come again. I asked them if it would be hard giving up a Sunday evening to come to more Parent Nights. They didn't even hesitate. They said they would be there in a heartbeat. I think God's trying to tell our Student Ministry something. We have loved working alongside of parents, and we are definitely going to be making more opportunities to do it more!
Here is a video to give you a little taste of what the evening's activities were like:
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