Your May Resources Are Here!
School’s out! School’s out! Teacher let the kids out! No more pencils. No more books. No more teachers’ dirty looks!
The excitement is in the air. Do you feel it? School might not quite be out yet in your community, but it’s extremely close, and the anticipation is high. Welcome to what many feel is a crazy time of the ministry year. The school year is wrapping up, it’s getting warmer, camps/special summer programming is rapidly approaching, family/volunteer vacations are about to begin, and (believe it or not) the kick-off of a new ministry year is just around the corner. When it comes to your ministry, volunteers, the families you minister to, and your own family, there’s just a lot going on.
This month, the M2P team wants to encourage you to pay attention to a couple of things as the school year comes to a close. First, finish the school year well. Lots of families are celebrating lots of great things, and what you do in your ministry to intentionally support and celebrate those things can have a big impact on the families that you minister to. Second, as your kids and teens begin to make the move from one grade or ministry to the next, you need to have a churchwide plan to communicate and execute these transitions as smoothly as possible. There are things you need to pay attention to and do in order to set families up for the next season they are facing. It’s helpful to keep in mind and plan for the reality that parents often don’t know what’s coming around the corner, and this uncertainty (compounded by a fear of how to parent in a new stage of life) can create quite a bit of anxiety in themselves about their parenting (and about their kids or teenagers).
This month’s M2P resources focus on providing you with some tools to equip parents to help their kids and teens make the transition into this next grade or stage of life in a healthy way. Our blog articles, coaching video, online parenting class video, and the M2P Podcast will give you a picture of what you can be doing and give parents some ideas and encouragement along the way. Our toolbox resource will give parents an opportunity to mark a milestone moment and celebrate their kids and teens as they move out of one season and into another.
As always, let us know if we can do anything for you. We’re here to serve you as you serve the families in your church.
Your friends and ministry partners at M2P
The M2P Team
WHAT IS IT?
This month’s toolbox resource is another incredibly helpful “Real Talk Parent Guide” that you can leverage to encourage the parents in your church. Parents can utilize this resource to be more intentional when it comes to carving out some time with their kids and teens to reflect on the school year, celebrate what God has done, and look ahead to what’s next. Too often, families push right through these transitional milestone moments instead of intentionally taking the time to pause, celebrate, soak it all in, and prepare for what’s next. This “Real Talk Parent Guide” toolbox resource will help the parents in your church to set the mood, equip them with thoughtful questions to ponder as a family, and provide them with prayer prompts as they lead at home.
HOW TO USE IT
· Download the “Real Talk Parent Guide” and post it on your website.
· Email parents a copy of the guide or a link to it and encourage parents to set aside some time to have a family conversation.
· Print copies of the guide for parents to grab at church.
There are so many important milestone moments (both big and small) in a child’s or teen’s development and lots of movement from one thing to another. As the ministry leaders and volunteers who serve them, we have the opportunity to cheer families on, provide events to create/capture memories, and equip parents with the encouragement and the resources they need to effectively lead their kids and teenagers out of one season and into the next. In this month’s coaching video, we are encouraging ministry leaders and volunteers to do just that, and we give you a few things to think about along with a few practical ideas as you seek to help your church families navigate these milestone moments and life-stage transitions well.
Parenting can often create a lot of confusion, doubt, discouragement, and anxiety. This is especially true in the moments when parents are navigating their child or teenager transitioning from one stage of development into another. Year after year, these movements from the known to the unknown are often as scary as they are emotional for the parent as well as the child or teenager. The growing uncertainty in their parenting ability usually comes from parents not knowing what to expect in this new stage, or they hear nothing but rumors of how horrible it can be. This uncertainty can be compounded by a growing fear of how to parent in a new stage of life with all the changes it brings along with it‚ a new grade, a new school, new teachers, new teams, new friends, new challenges, and new expectations. Some of these “movements to the next” are more impactful, emotional, difficult, and anxiety-causing than others, but all of them are also opportunities to make an incredible impact on the life of the child or teen. This month’s Online Parenting Class video will offer some spiritual encouragement along with some practical ideas on how parents can lead their kids, their teenagers, and themselves through these inevitable transitions.
New blog posts coming this month:
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For Kids’ Ministry Leaders: “Leading Well Through Childhood Transitions” by Amy Diller
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For Kids’ Ministry Parents: “The Cheers and Tears of Transitions” by Amy Diller
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For Youth Ministry Leaders: “Successful Transitions” by Karin Sasser
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For Youth Ministry Parents: “Marking the Moment” by Karin Sasser
To view, click HERE.