Parents: Not The Enemy
I can count on more than two hands how many times I’ve had disgruntled volunteers express to me their desire to involve more parents in their ministry or program. Though I do agree that it seems few parents take the same interest in their children’s spiritual lives as they do their extracurricular lives, I do take issue with this complaint. I rarely see a true desire for parental involvement but rather volunteers who are either desperate for help or who are struggling and angry and want ‘pay-backs’.
Maybe I’m a bit to stuck on principal but I think motive makes a huge difference here. I’m not interested in recruiting parents only to place them with volunteers who have agendas or misguided expectations. I’m not going to set up my new recruits to be a scapegoat for some imagined wrong.
To a point I understand the view some ministers get of the parents they serve. We struggle with their kids while they get to go to service. We watch them socialize in the hall while we wait to go home because they haven’t picked up their child. It’s easy to start thinking that things would be different if they were on our side of the fence. Parents would get a taste of their own medicine so to speak. Plus, we need more help anyway… it’s a perfect fit, right?
Parents can’t be both our enemy and our salvation.
(selah)
They are neither. We have a enemy. We have a Savior. We wage war against one (not flesh and blood) and we pray to the other (to send laborers). It’s not fair or in any way right to recruit parents under the curse of the former and the burden of the latter. When we as ministers, leaders and volunteers realize who our true enemy is and where our help comes from, then we are ready to welcome parental involvement with open arms.
But is it enough to simply involve them? (More on that in later posts.)
In the mean time… what is your experience? Have you ever been cornered by an eager volunteer with the “perfect solution” to your worker shortage? Have you yourself ever struggled with “hating-on” parents? Leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
I have had people tell me that the solution to all our staffing problems is to “require parents” to volunteer. I don’t see that as the solution. Although I urge all parents to volunteer, I’m sure that everyone has parents that they DO NOT want involved in their ministry. I’ve also had to let go of disgruntled parent volunteers who have felt pressured into helping and they have made sure that I know they are NOT happy to be there!
I think the main question to ask is: is it ministry or is it babysitting?? At our church we value ministry. And I know that the only true supplier of workers is God. Parents are a great source to search for ministers, but not all of them are going to be a good fit. Take what you can get, and then allow God to provide the rest! Being in Children’s ministry has been a journey of faith…trusting God to provide for each service. We have never had to close the nursery….because God is faithful!
Parents are not the problem, but they can be part of the solution.
I totally agree. Some of my best volunteers have been parents. But they were parents that God sent me… not ones who were required or forced. For me it’s not enough to just fill a position with a body. I want their heart there too! God will provide the rest! And the right people are worth waiting for!
I think finding the right parents are key – I picked two sets of parents (from the 15 or so I have available) and told them that I want our kids to be like them, and that I want their input in the program, as parents. They were families with higher than usual interest in their children’s spiritual development – I just gave them a wider sphere of influence and material to reinforce what they were already doing.
I’ve had a lot of people talk about the “requiring parents to do time in Kid’s Church” – I think this is, in LOST terms, the beginning of the end. Then it becomes about wrangling kids in order to provide adults with a childfree church experience, instead of a ministry to people within a family who are all on the same path, following Jesus.
Exactly! The right parents are key. Folks who want to be there… not those who have to be.