Helping Parents in Pain
I watched with two horrified parents as their seventeen-year-old stood on top of her bed holding a butcher knife and screaming at us. The mother was crying; the father was so mad I thought he was going to get a gun. Somehow—I really don't know how, except by the power of God—everyone got calmed down enough to go sit in the living room. This was not the first time I had been called to actually negotiate peace terms in a home. Sometimes communication completely breaks down. Parents are ready to tell their children to leave because of a total disrespect for authority. Teenagers are ready to run away, or perhaps already have. On the opposite extreme was a mother who called me just before a choir tour. Her daughters were mature, stable Christians, assets to our group. The mother expressed her concern over our planned beach trip while on tour. How would the girls dress on the beach? I could tell she was carefully weighing every word I said, trying to decide whether to allow her girls to go on tour. She was a concerned parent. She cared about her girls and the youth ministry. Was her concern overprotective or not? Whether the question centers on an activity (should the group sponsor an all-night party, or a Christian rock concert?) or the influence of certain types of kids attending the youth meetings, the concerned parent will keep your phone ringing. Sometimes this person has failed to get the desired action from the youth sponsor or youth pastor and is trying an end run through you. Still, he or she deserves a hearing and honest consideration of concerns. Parents are the oft-forgotten team members in youth ministry, the forgotten chapter in books about youth ministry. Frequently we leave them to struggle by themselves in a world ...
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