OUR COMMITMENT TO PARENTS OF YOUTH
As a team of people in ministry for and with your 6-12 grade children, we want to commit three things to you: Communication, Appreciation, and Resources.
COMMUNICATION
Communication needs to be a two-way street to have an effective ministry. We will communicate most often in the following ways, and we ask that you try to utilize these methods as well:
- We will send a monthly newsletter with news of upcoming events and fundraising opportunities to parents. If you are not receiving our emails, please send a current e-mail address to luke@s1umc.org.
- We will regularly update our website info (www.s1umc.org/students)
- We will text information on updates/cancellations/emergencies. If you would like to be put on our notification list, please text Luke @ (716) 560-6643.
APPRECIATION
We know that it can be very difficult to get a “thank you” from our teens, so we want to say it for them. THANK YOU!! We understand that being a parent of a teenager is a full-time job and we want you to know that you are appreciated.
- We understand that YOU are the parents and WE are not!! We know that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church. Therefore, we want to be your cheerleader because we understand that parenting teenagers is a difficult task.
- We also understand many families work with a narrow budget and tight schedule each month. Out of respect for this, it will be our goal to limit big events to once a month at most and to do all in our power to keep event costs to a minimum by utilizing fundraisers to defray costs.
- If your youth comes to talk to us about something, you can trust that we will not speak negatively about you. We seek to encourage family communication.
RESOURCES
We will do all that we can to provide you with resources that can assist you through the ebb and flow of parenting a teenager in today’s society.
- Our website and monthly newsletter will have helpful articles and links to resources ranging from how to transmit faith to your teen to understanding youth culture to warning signs of drug abuse or suicide. Listed below are several fantastic sites.
Parent Resources (Click the links below)
- The Center For Parent/Youth Understanding – excellent source of info on current youth trends
- Homeword – great site full of advice, blogs, devotionals, etc. relating to parenting and families
- Focus On The Family – tons of parenting and relational content
- PluggedIn – good site for movie, television, music, game, and book reviews
- Common Sense Media – another media reviewing site
- ParentCue – solid parenting blog written by youth ministry veterans
- Crosswalk – good website with biblically-based family content
WE NEED YOUR HELP
Being involved is one of the most important things you can do to assist your child’s Christian journey. One way to get involved is to volunteer with S1UMC YTH. Volunteers are what make our ministry thrive, and we are always looking for new adult leaders. This will also give you an opportunity to set an example for your student as to what it means to serve others with your time and resources, just as Christ did. Please consider different ways that you can serve the ministry to further the kingdom. We very much appreciate your consideration to do so! If you are interested, please email luke@s1umc.org for further information.