15 Common Challenges About Parent Ministry

At Ministry to Parents, our mission is to help churches connect with the families in their church and community. Like…we literally spend our work hours talking and dreaming about it. Because we do, we get the *privilege* of listening to you, the church leader who is reaching beyond the student to their families. We do this by asking our M2P Members about the pain points within children and youth ministries. Every year, you share in droves. So today, we offer you, the church leader who has scoured the internet for days and landed upon our site in hopes of learning more, the top 15 common challenges about parent ministry that we’ve learned from church leaders.

We’ve broken down the challenges* into three categories by asking our members 2 questions.

“What are your parents top five pain points?”
“What are your top five pain points as a church leader?”

Parents Pain Points

Leading Their Kids Spiritually/ Discipleship/ How To Talk About Spiritual Things
Technology, Technology, and, you guessed it, Technology 🙂
Busy/ Time Management/ Calendars/ Schedules
Anxiety
Navigate culture

Church Leader Pain Points (Personally)

Spiritually leading myself
Self-Care
Caring for my family
Time management
Expectations/ Responsibilities

Church Leader Pain Points (Professionally)

Volunteers, volunteers, and all things volunteers
How to engage, connect, inspire, and support parents
Juggling all the responsibilities/ How to balance work-life
Budgeting time & money
Casting a vision

Our members come from over 7 countries and 42 states. They are a diverse group of denominations serving people with various socioeconomic statuses, yet they still have much in common regarding challenges about parent ministry.

As you read these lists, we hope you can find a place where you belong. Much like Elijah in I Kings 19, it may seem lonely where you are, but there are thousands of other ministry leaders, just like you, who want to lead their children and youth ministries with the family in mind. You are not alone. Hold on to what’s stirring within you, and keep looking for the tools to help you accomplish what you envision.

Cheering you on,

~The M2P Team

*Our members listed these challenges for 2020. Along with them was COVID, a continuous theme interweaved throughout it all. Technically, we could call this post “16 Common Challenges…,” but we didn’t include it because it’s not a recurring theme every year. Let us pray and hope it will not be.