Family-based youth minstry discussion

Today I met with Gary from Northwoods to talk about how to get families more involved in student ministry. It was a great time. Gary has been doing ministry for years with children and is now overseeing the Jr. high and High school directors at Northwoods. As he is moving into this role he is really wrestling with what it looks like to have parents more involved in the ministry to their students. He's seen it work great in children's ministry and is passionate about seeing it work with students.

I was excited to meet with Gary because one of my projects on my sabbatical is working on a project to get more of our parents interacting with what we are teaching on Sunday mornings. When I return from my sabbatical I am going to present an 11 parent interaction sheet to coincide with our 11 week study of church history that I will be teaching.

I have no clue what it's going to look like or how it will be received, but I walked away more encouraged by Gary to continue to shepherd students believing that all that we do during the three hours we have our students each week should serve and support their parents who have them the other 165 hours.