What Would You Do... With 53 Days to go...

Today I need lots of advice... I had a lot of help from everyone when I asked last time, so here goes on various subjects...
1. RSVPs are the bane of my existence... I don't know why, but a lot of people just don't RSVP these days. It seems like people only let you know if they are coming, but rarely let you know when they aren't. And even that seems to be hit or miss. The shower was nearly impossible to get RSVPs back for. The problem arises with the wedding. As discussed before, our venue holds 175 people. We go to a church that has about 175 people, no problem you say? Not so fast, when you deduct for our family and friends, and the grooms family and friends that leaves room for about 70-80 church family. That didn't seem like a problem at the time; because there are fewer then that many people we thought we felt close to...It turns out when you are in ministry in a church, a lot of people feel close to you. Yes, we know just about everyone, but we didn't feel close to everyone... We now know we will need to book a bigger venue for Allison's wedding, but we can't do anything about the size now... As a result we were forced to create a "B List"... You know, the list of people we will invite when we start to get declined RSVPs in the mail... We have invited 169 people currently and have heard from 67 (64 yes, 3 declines) so far. We got a lot of the RSVPs in the first week after the invites went out, but they have dried to a trickle... I included a self-addressed, stamped envelope to ease the process, yet there are still so many lingering out there... I don't dare take people on their verbal RSVPs because so far I have had a couple tell me they can't go then RSVP yes... When I called to clarify they said the weekend in question opened up for them. I know that it might take people who have to travel longer to commit, since they need to look at travel, but do you think it would be tacky to call or chat with in person local people to see if they plan to come? I don't want to put people on the spot, but... What would you do?

2. Parents... When asked what the hardest part of student ministry is the answer is hands down, dealing with the parents... I know everyone knows what is best for their particular kids but we can't tailor the entire youth group around each family individual needs... It would be totally nuts to try... I feel like all of a sudden we are being bombarded by (well-meaning but) pushy parents...

First parent issue: Our youth group is for 13- college age. We had to define it by grade to make when they can start coming less crazy so before we were in charge it was decided 8th grade and up... Then just before we came they decided they would let in 7th grade on a kid by kid basis with the parents being fully aware that they may be asked to step out if they are not ready maturity wise at any time. That means on any given week we have "kids" from 12-21 in attendance... We do most things together as a group, worship, games, announcements, etc., but for the lesson we divide up into 7th - 9th grades and 10th and up... (and in the summer when we have more college age kids home we will do a separate study for them.) This is something new we started to meet the needs of the most kids... When we were all together for the lesson you have to "aim the lesson at the middle" meaning the oldest and youngest members were being left behind. Now, what if you think your 8th grade son is particularly "gifted" and wants him with the older kids? What if you are absolutely convinced of this? What if the youth leaders don't agree with you? And even if they did, made the decision to stick to the age parameters to keep other younger kids from wanting to do the same thing, putting everyone back where they started? Do you as the parent get mad? Do you go "over their heads" to the pastor and then the church leadership? Do you become the proverbial squeaky wheel? Now put yourself in our shoes? Do you back down to keep peace even though you know it's the wrong choice for the youth in question and the group as a whole? Do you think it is necessary to sit down with these parents more than once to explain your view? What would you do?

Second Parent issue: You are the youth leaders of a primarily male youth group. On any given week you have about 12-15 guys and 2-4 girls... One of the guys in your group comes from a single parent home that decided the best way to keep their oldest son from "dating" was to tell him at 14 that he had to be 16 to "date"... Now the boy just turned 16 and you, his mom are freaking out. You decide that the reason he wants to "date" so bad is because 2 of the 4 girls in the youth group are dating guys in the youth group (or in Allison's case, engaged to) and not because he is a normal, healthy, good looking 16 year old who has had a crush on one girl in particular for over a year. (And fortunately she happens to be a Christian too.) How do you deal with this mom who has decided to organize "outside" activities to go to and only invite the guys from youth group to attend? These are activities that we would happily do as a group, but for one reason or another we didn't find out about in time. How would you feel as a youth leader to find out either just before of just after the fact that one parent has in the past few months planned several things that 4/5 of your youth are invited to but you are never informed in advance and the girls are primarily the only ones excluded? She regularly has stuff at her home for "just the guys" but the activities she has organized (without our knowledge) are generally co-ed events when they get there, so it seems fruitless to exclude the few girls we do have and it does bother my husband and I that there is a parent out there for all intents and purposes planning youth group activities outside of the student ministry the excludes and not includes the girls (and a few of the guys who have sisters). Another issue is that this is a single mom doing this... If she wants "guy only" events doesn't it make sense to ask the male youth leader to plan these? (By the way, Paul does do some guy only stuff with them.) One of the guys from youth decided to confront this mom and ask her if they could include the girls and she told him she didn't want the girls coming to things she organizes specifically, which is why she doesn't go through us? What do you do?

Third parent issue: There are a few boys in the youth group who play the "Magic the gathering" card game. We have decided to be neutral about this. Do we approve and would we let our kids play? I don't know, but Paul looked into it and decided we have much larger fish to fry. We live in a part of the country where the majority of people do not go to church and I will even go one step further to say that most people here are either openly anti-Christian or apathetic towards us. Only about 1/3 of our kids and their parents go to our church and of the other 2/3rd a few go to other churches and most of the rest are the only member of their family going to church, at all. The high school age kids can name all the other Christians in their entire school. There are very few (less than 10%) and quite frankly, this card game is the least of our worries. We fight hard not to, but do "lose" kids to the "partying" crowd with some frequency and rarely win them back... Paul has decided to let the Holy Spirit do the convicting when it comes to this card game. We don't let them play the game at youth (not that they have asked) and if they have their cards with them we use the same rule we use for cell phones, and hand-held video games, put away during youth time. These boys go to a little shop in town that sells the cards and comic books and play "tournaments" once a month and have invited several of the kids they have met there to youth and a couple come regularly now... Here is the problem... One parent sees these cards as evil and not only wants them banned from youth but wants us to publicly take a stand against them. Paul said "no" and that we are trying to reach these kids not shut them out. This is the same parent who finds fault with any movie we decide to show and complained to the pastor that we serve too much junk food and allow too much "rough-housing" at youth... (Do I approve of these cards? No... I really don't. I personally think they are possibly somewhat occultic in nature and would not encourage my child play them.) Do you think we should take a stand on them or is it splitting (legalistic) hairs when the salvation of these kids and then protecting them from the sex and partying that is such an accessible part of their daily lives? What would you do?


So what is your advice? (I'll remember I asked.)


Thanks for listening,
rebecca d

PS... My husband has already made a call on all the above "parent issues" although they are not resolved since they all came up in the past week or so... I would just really like to hear where a wide range of people stand on these issues to see if we are on the right track... I will share the resolutions as we come to them in a later post.