Here youth leaders, parents and young people can ask a team of experts questions about issues facing youth.

Here youth leaders, parents and young people can ask a team of experts questions about issues facing youth.

Answer from Norman Jameson
Director of communications for Baptist Children's Homes:

Baptist Children's Homes offers a variety of services ranging from maternity homes to highly structured environments for teenage boys. For more information, call (800) 476-3669 or access the Baptist Children's Homes web site at http://www.bchfamily.org.

How do we best minister to this kind of family situation?
Mari Wiles
Knoxville, Tenn.

Answer from Hal Melton
Director of youth ministry coordination for N.C. Baptists:

Mari, it sure is good to hear from you! It has been awhile since your days of ministry in Fayetteville. I'm glad the "net" has opened up another avenue for communication for us.

Parenting teens is a profound joy for me. As a youth minister for 22 years, I understand my two better now than I ever did when they were children. My developmental studies have allowed me the privilege of seeing around and through some of the adolescent mazes that our family, like others come across weekly. However, I feel that most parents do the majority of their reading and gathering of "how to" information during the preschool and younger childhood years. They need to spend the same amount of time and energy on understanding a healthy relationship between teen and parent.

You have pointed out a difficult situation common to many youth ministers - feeling like she or he must be the one to set boundaries, define values and encourage moral behavior. While the church is a place where these are taught, our traditional models of education assume the home has done its part before the child gets to middle school and high school. I do not have any magical answers. I struggle with this problem in my church's youth ministry, too. But I know we need to begin strategizing how to deal with the challenge on two sides: the youth and the parents.

First of all, you have identified the subjects as members of your youth group. Youth hopefully attend church because they want to be there. They may feel that the youth group is a place of acceptance / belonging, fun, security, growth in understanding self and God and developing a world view that causes them to follow Christ in witness, ministry and missions. Now they may not be able to articulate all of the above, but I do feel teens have more reasons for being involved at church than just social.

That being said, any organization that leads / teaches youth must have clearly defined and communicated behavioral ground rules. The fewer and broader in scope the better. One idea is to formulate guidelines around the fruit of the Spirit found in Galations 5:22. Another - if your public school system has handouts on character education, you can base your rules on the same values...examples: honesty, respect, courage, self discipline, perseverance, integrity, responsibility, kindness and good judgment.

When basic life support is missing in the home, I think youth will seek it in other places. The pastor / staff, youth ministry council, parents group and teens must all have ownership of the guidelines and work together to establish expectations. The toughest part is deciding on consequences for misbehavior and administering discipline. The broad ownership of rules coupled with consistency and lack of favoritism will help tremendously should the need for enforcement come to pass.

Now to the root problem - the parents. It would be wrong to stereotype this entire group as "scared to death" but some are.

While it may not show on the outside, moms and dads of teens fight a constant battle inside with many things...their own memories of adolescence, paranoia,< realistic and unrealistic dreams for their children, insecurity in being mom/dad, fear of an unpredictable world for their children and adolescent-like mid-life struggles are just a few. While all of us agree that being a "youth" is tough, we must also realize that this is a very hard time in which to be raising teen children.

I think many parents have decided that being a parent is too hard, and the role might result in hurt feelings / relationships with children that cannot be repaired. They saw their own parents try this method and want a different approach. The name of the one you have pointed out is "friendship".

I think all parents should strive to be a "significant other" to their teen - a person who is respected and looked up to, whose advice can be trusted and whose love is assured. However, this does not mean "friend" in the sense of "equals". It means "family" in the fullest sense of the word - one in which love is so strong and responsibility so keen that fair expectations, confrontation, celebration and discipline are clear expressions of that love.

You hit the nail on the head when you asked, "how can we best minister to this family situation?" It is a family ministry...one where the youth ministry structure is geared toward parents as well as teens. Richard Ross' old book (which may be out of print) Ministry with Youth and Their Parents shed the initial light on the fact that modern youth ministry must meet the needs of both groups. Here are a few quick suggestions with which others have had success in ministering with parents:

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