the Monday Morning Debrief: Parents Will Respond

For years and years I have tried to do Information Nights with parents to share with them the vision and direction of the Student Ministry.  And for years and years, parents just don’t show up.  Sure we get some parents here and there, but every year I’ve done one, I’m always surprised by the lack of turnout.

However, last weekend, the Children’s and Student Ministry teamed up for a Social Media Information Night to talk about the dangers of social and online media.  And guess what?  Parents came!?!  It was amazing to see how many parents came out to hear this presentation.

So here are the lesson(s) learned here?

1. Parents care very much for their kids.  This seems like a “duh” moment but honestly when parents feel concern for their children and want to protect them, they are all ears.
2. Parents WILL come out to Info nights…as long as it is relevant to their lives.  I don’t know why I never saw this before.  Maybe being a parent has enlightened me to this but parents are busy as it is.  They don’t need to come to something they don’t really care about.  Sure they care about a student ministry program, but they don’t need to go and find out all the information they can get from your weekly emails or other information.  They want to know things that are important to them in a very busy world
3. Bring in an expert.  As Ministers I know we try to be the expert on things that we talk about.  However, there are some issues that having a trained, professional expert speak really pays off.  And parents want to know that if we are talking about something we have someone knowledgeable talking about it.  Our expert was an FBI agent working in this field.  That immediately gave our Information night parent credibility.

So, 3 great lessons I learned about information nights and parents.  What about you?  What have you learned over time when you have done information nights for parents?  Do you do them much?  Are they successful?  What would you add to this list?

I know that after this weekend’s experience, we are already looking for that next night to do with parents.