August 28, 2025 • 26 mins
Start the school year strong and grow a healthy, thriving youth ministry...if you'd like to work with us, be sure to check out GrowYourYouthMinistry.com *** Your youth ministry emails aren't just delivering information—they're building relationships, shaping your reputation, and creating trust. When parents feel valued through thoughtful communication, they're more likely to engage, participate, and recommend your youth group to others.
Today's parents are overwhelmed with commitments and communications. They're juggling permission slips, deadlines, and logistics for multiple children across activities, sports, and schooling. Your ministry emails can either add to their stress or become a welcome relief. Beyond mechanics, remember that communication is also a ministry. Your emails provide opportunities to share what students are learning, demonstrate your values, and even share gospel truths that might reach unchurched parents.
Want to transform your parent communication? Listen now to discover how intentional parent communication can become your student ministry's strongest asset rather than an administrative afterthought. Your emails aren't just words—they're just one more bridge between your youth ministry and the families you serve.
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We love hearing from you all and we do our best to provide powerful and insightful youth ministry content on a weekly basis to be that coach and mentor you may not have, but desperately need.
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You may also enjoy these episodes:
(#047) Youth Pastors and Parents - Best Communication Tips
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This communication is part of your reputation.
It's part of your identity.
It's part of your brand, howparents are going to talk about
you, how parents are going tofeel about you, whether or not
they recommend you to otherpeople.
They don't want to feel like anumber at the DMV.
Today, we're talking about thebest practices for emailing the
parents of your youth ministrystudents.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach podcast where we
give you weekly tips and tacticsto help you fast track the
growth and health of your youthministry.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen
Laskola, and today is brought toyou by our communications.
Pastor at North Coast Church.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, she's not here, but I will speak for her.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Her name is Kara and, wow, she came into one of our
student ministries meetings lastweek and she has such a good
pulse on all the communicationthat goes out from us as youth
pastors and reads every singlething that we send to parents.
And she came into our meetingand was like hey, can I give you
(01:17):
guys some tips on some best?
And she was amazing, justwanted to give us best practices
for parent emails and I thoughtthis is so relevant to youth
pastors.
I don't want to just keep it inour little meeting.
I'm like I got to share it withour audience because kind of
just wanted today for us to lookat the communication we're
(01:38):
sending out or maybe we're notsending out and see how we can
make it more parent userfriendly to get our point across
.
So if you're not sending outany parent communication yet,
why not start?
You know parents need to knowwhat's going on and we've talked
about this before.
(01:59):
The reason we want to send outcommunication every week is
because there is a differencebetween pushing and pulling
communication.
So, like Kara so eloquently put, she says you know, when we
only list things on our websiteor maybe our social media or
something like that.
We're asking parents to pullinformation and they do the
(02:23):
legwork and they find and clickand scan.
But pushing information iswhere we conveniently give
parents every single thing theyneed to successfully get their
kid involved in our youth groupand we do the work for them.
And the reason that's soimportant and that I didn't
(02:43):
realize until I became a parentmyself, is that there are so
many action items that parentsneed to accomplish, like having
a child in school or involved inany activity is almost like a
part time job for you.
There's permission slips,there's waivers, there's
orientations, there's permissionslips for random events that
(03:08):
come up, or it's just likeyou're always having to be on
top of like upload this form tothis, so the easier we can make
it for parents.
I think leads to more success interms of a turnout for an event
, for a camp, consistentinvolvement in our youth
ministries, because studentsmaybe don't always remember the
(03:31):
details.
Perfect example we're eatingdinner tonight and I ask our
daughter hey, are you going tosing at the Padres game with
your show, choir, guitar classor whatever?
I don't know.
I'm like well, when is it?
Do I buy tickets?
I don't know when it is.
I'm like okay, so now I have togo back and like, hey, I swear,
her teacher sent me somethingand I need to go back and look
(03:53):
because they don't rememberstuff.
So we really need to be thevoice to the parents.
So for me, my weeklycommunication is I send out one
email a week to parents andthat's my one day yeah.
I always send it out on Mondaysand Kara reads it before it gets
sent out, and I'll get to thatin a second.
But it's my one shot.
(04:15):
You know you get one shot atcommunication, so make it count.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You can't be like sending all these addendums all
week long Like wait, actuallythis, All right, you can't be
like sending all these addendumsall week long Like wait,
actually this all right, youknow like you just get one shot
one, you know, for parents toparticipate in your email.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So here are the tips that Kara gave us, which I was
like man, this is good stuff.
So she had a suggestion which Iactually I don't even do.
I had never had occurred to me.
Maybe for our audience it has,but I send out a calendar like I
publish a hard copy that I keepon our information table that
people can pick up anytime.
(04:53):
I like having that out for newfamilies, something to hand them
.
But also I put ours online, youknow, just on our website,
chaosjhcom, if you want to seewhat that looks like.
She recommended a calendar thateveryone can subscribe to,
which I thought was reallybrilliant, and I don't know a
ton about subscription calendars, but the fact that she threw
(05:15):
that idea out made me feel likeI need to investigate that more
like.
Is that something that would besuper easy for parents to just
subscribe to our calendar sothat it's just always available
for them?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Do you know, kind of like, how that works?
Is it like, yeah, that's what Imean?
I?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
don't know.
I'm just like whoa, she kind ofblew my mind, so I bring that
up because I'm like somebody outthere knows what this is and I
haven't done the research yet,but I'm like man, a subscription
calendar kind of blew my mind,so I'd like to follow up with
her about that.
And then she says when youemail parents, you know you want
to lead with positivity, likesomething positive.
(05:51):
We don't want this to soundlike just a robot wrote it and
it's very policy based and stufflike that.
So, for example, she said, likesay you're at camp and you can't
have student services becauseall your staff is gone, all your
resources are gone, so you haveto cancel your class for that
(06:13):
weekend.
She said, instead of sayingsomething like no student
services this weekend?
Well, that's true, there aren't.
Well, instead of wording itlike that, she said always lead
with a positive language ofstudents can join the adults
this weekend, or students.
There's a special studentsection, you know, in the back.
(06:35):
We'll have a leader there.
They can all sit together.
If your child's coming withoutparents which is very, very
common for our church I havestudents come without parents
all the time.
So that, how are we wordingthings?
Does it sound like a drag?
Like darn it.
No student services thisweekend.
But just what is thealternative?
(06:56):
What's the option, what's thepositive there?
And so she says when you'reemailing parents, you need to be
clear, concise and organized.
So she recommends using shortdescriptive subject line to just
get the point across of exactlywhat this email is going to be
about Summer camp packing listor youth group.
(07:20):
And I always put the date inthe subject line so that they
know that it's a new email.
So you know the name of ouryouth group is chaos, so it's
always chaos August 19th 2025.
So, they're like oh, this iswhat I need for this week,
because, again, parent emailsjust get stacked and stacked and
stacked and I don't know aboutyou, but I'm like wait, which
(07:42):
one I know like obviouslythey're an order of what's new,
but I'm like is this the same asthis?
And did I already click on this?
Parent teacher conferences it'slike, wait, is that new?
Or is that the same parentteacher conferencing that I've
already been working with and on?
So new or is that the sameparent teacher conferencing that
(08:02):
I've already been working withand on?
So giving them that fresh datereminds them this is the one for
this week and it's not going toget buried.
And then she always recommendsputting the most important
information at the top.
She said keep in mind, peoplescan your emails.
They do not read your emails.
She's like they're going to skimand they're going to pull out
what is relevant for them andwhat's the most important
information.
So you always put the mostimportant at the top and I
(08:24):
always like to put it inchronological order, meaning
what is coming up the soonest.
So if I'm going to tell youabout the all overnighter small
group competition night, theall-overnighter small group
competition night and the datesfor 2026 camps.
It will be exactly in that order, because this one's coming up
first, then this one and thenthese are things.
(08:44):
Hey, if you're still here andyou're want to write those camp
dates down.
You know you have the option todo so, but you keep in mind
they're not going to read thesethings like oh, let me get a cup
of coffee and read my wonderfulemail that.
I'm so excited it's going to beskimmed.
So break the content that youwant them to read into short
(09:05):
paragraphs or lists or boldedhighlighted things.
So it's easy to skim because alot of them also are reading it
on their phones.
So the format you needsomething to pop out at them
instead of just being one biglong text.
It's so funny when you readsomething on your phone it looks
(09:26):
like a ton of text and it'slike going on forever.
And then you read on yourcomputer you're like oh, that
was like a paragraph or two youknow, but if most likely they're
in the pickup line or waitingin line or doing something and
they're skimming your email ontheir phone, so make sure that
it's in little chunks that theycan see, instead of just one big
(09:48):
long body of text.
So keep in mind the chunks andthe organization helps them
receive the information better.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, it does, you had mentioned, so you send out
one per week and then your likesubject line for the email is
kind of like the broad, likeoverview of the email.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Is that what I'm so my subject line is usually like
chaos, august 19th 2025.
If it's just my weekly email,if there's something I need them
to grab onto to, I'll put thatin the email, like you said
summer packing list yeah, isthat a totally separate email so
you will send more than oneemail, maybe on a
week like that yes, and that isonly to people who are signed up
(10:30):
for summer camp, so that's likea separate thing that was just
sort of an example to show likeI'm telling you exactly what you
need and if this oh, that'swhat I've been waiting for, the
packing list right.
So like if it's the weeklyemail and there's something
extra that I need to add inthere, like chaos.
August 19th 2025 SOSapplications due you, you know
(10:55):
if it's like ah, like, this isthe like really important thing
you can't miss.
I might put that in the subjectline as well.
I don't do that very often, butif it's like shoot, like this
is a really big deal, or likesignups are live, like for an
event people have been waitingfor, and it's like it's coming
and now and then I'm gettingemails Where's the signup thing?
I haven't seen it, oh, and it'slike it's coming.
(11:15):
And now and then I'm gettingemails where's the sign up thing
?
I haven't seen it, oh, it's notlive yet.
And then when the email comeswith the link to sign up for an
event, I'll add that to thesubject line so they know this
isn't just another email this isthe one I've been waiting for
if that makes sense, it does.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
yeah, because, like you're saying, you get so many
emails, parents get so manyemails from schools and if you
have more than one kid andthey're going to more than one
school, it's double the emails.
And then, once we found outlast year, once your child is
now in middle school and they'renow having, you know, seven
teachers instead of one,sometimes you get seven emails
from the teachers.
(11:52):
They usually don't send out aton, but you still you'll get
those, like here's the mathteacher, here's a science
teacher, here's just like here'sthe principal, here's the vice
principal.
Here's the athletic some of it'soverlapping information, some
of it's totally separate andthen, without fail, it's always
when you're like oh I need.
What was the date of whatever?
And you go back to look, it'slike I have no idea which one of
these 47 000 emails is thatinformation buried in.
(12:14):
So yeah, I can see why.
If you kind of put that in thesubject line then it could kind
of be like oh, that's the oneyeah, if it's that really big
juicy piece of information rightnow that they need and you're
probably going to get to this,so maybe I'm jumping ahead, but
I know you do a really good jobof like.
Every email has all the upcomingdates yeah so it's not like
here's the one time I emailedout about small group night out
(12:39):
and then weeks go by and youdon't put that date in there and
someone's like wait, what wasthe date of that again?
Was it in this email?
No, was it in this email?
No, it's like you're alwaysgoing to have it in every email
somewhere down there.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So yeah, that's a good point.
So my mainstays of my emails,things that are stagnant always
on there are my camp dates, whenI mean it's a quite a while
until we're going to camp again.
They've been there for months.
And the other thing that saystagnant on there is a link to
(13:12):
our website.
So I always have that so thatpeople can have direct access to
the calendar.
Again, that's an example ofpushing information to them so
they're not like wait, what isthe website called?
Again, juniorhighministrycomyou know, like.
So it's like there you go, youcan always be directed straight
to the website and you willalways know the camp dates.
So those are the most importantthings.
(13:32):
And then in my signature Ialways have my cell phone number
too, so that if there issomething they need to call or
text about, they have furtherquestions.
There's nothing worse thangoing to like a school website
or a church website and you'retrying to get a hold of one
person and then they direct youto the main office and then that
(13:54):
I don't know their extension.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
And now I'm leaving a voicemail, or it's after hours
and maybe you, like, really needto get ahold of them.
It's like well, your officehours are eight to four, monday
through Friday or whatever, andthis is Saturday and I need to
know something for Sunday and Iguess I just can't call anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I mean, and I would just love to quiet your fears
about giving parents yourthey're, they are too busy, they
don't really want to conversewith you.
They will ask you threequestions what time is the event
?
Where is it?
What do I need to bring?
And then you can say boom, boom, boom, copy paste it.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Read the email, read the website.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Or yeah, the other day I directed a parent to the
website.
He said hey, here's the barebones of the details.
For complete details, Don'tforget to go to the website.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And I did.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So it's just nice that they can.
You know how you like to reacha live person who's living and
breathing.
They do too.
And don't be afraid in 21 yearsof youth ministry I've never
had a parent abuse thatprivilege.
They don't like they're.
They're not waking up thinkingabout how they can ruin your
(14:59):
life.
Ok, so just trust that they'regoing to be cool, ok, and it's.
It's fair the type of work wedo, the type of life on life,
and how we're so knee deep inlike these people's life and
taking them places and doingthings.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I mean they're entrusting their children with
you.
Least you do is give them acontact.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I mean when our kid goes on a field trip for school.
I feel so much better knowing Ihave the teacher's cell phone
number and she'll send mepictures throughout the day, or
you know like I can ask like aquick question, like it's just
so nice.
So blah, blah, blah.
Anyways, let's move on tonumber two.
We're going to talk about tonea little bit more.
We started out talking aboutthat like keeping it positive,
(15:44):
and so we're going to flush thatout a little bit more.
So the tone of your emailshould be warm, professional and
encouraging and remember you'rewriting this to parents, not to
students that uh, communicationacross.
And so Kara made a point to saylike we use very inclusive
(16:06):
language, and by inclusive shemeant again the whole, like that
clinical policy feel versus awarm tone.
Here's an example you mustversus we're excited to.
So it's like you must be hereno later than 7 am on the dot
(16:31):
when we leave for camp or youwill be left behind.
Now that's how sometimes I feel, like please, don't be late.
We have a really big scheduleand please don't be the one who
makes us late, but instead, whydon't you just say we're so
excited to see your student atseven o'clock am, so that we can
keep our schedule?
We have so many fun thingsplanned and we want to make sure
(16:52):
we get to all of them.
That's a lot different than youmust be here per our
conversation.
Remember when you talked aboutper?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
our conversation.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So we want to keep it friendly.
You know, we aren't a place ofbusiness and we aren't the DMV
and we aren't like ministryrobots.
Like keep that warm, friendly,human tone and here's how you
can think of it as well.
I don't know about you guys,but I have a lot of students who
come to my events, come to myministry and come to my camp,
who are from non-Christian homesand unchurched parents.
(17:28):
But the parents like my programand they're like something free
and awesome to send my kid toon a Tuesday night.
Sign me up, and this is anopportunity to minister to those
parents.
You know, like there's such abig difference.
Like I called the school officethe other day asking for
something and I kept leaving amessage and nobody was calling
(17:50):
me back.
Nobody was calling me back andthen finally I got a hold of a
live person and she was soaccommodating, she was so
reasonable, she was so friendlyand it just made me feel so like
it gave me just good feelingsabout the school in general, and
I already did.
I love our kids school but itwas just like put such a good
(18:10):
like it's.
This communication is part ofyour reputation.
It's part of your identity, it'spart of your brand, it's part
of your how parents are going totalk about you, how parents are
going to feel about you,whether or not they recommend
you to other people.
They don't want to feel like anumber at the DMV and this is so
strict youth ministry but theywant to feel like you and that's
(18:35):
what we have to do.
Assume that parents want topartner with you.
You know that they're ready forthat and even if you're having
to address an issue, you know,know if something's going on
assume they want to partner withyou and we don't need to like
get overly clinical andprofessional right off the bat,
but puts guards up it totallydoes, you know, and I've made
(18:55):
that mistake before you know,because I think sometimes we're
afraid of parents and we feelthis like you're in trouble kind
of thing and we feel like,almost like when you're a really
young youth pastor, there'sthis unspoken tension that
sometimes you view parentsalmost like the enemy.
(19:17):
And I've heard youth pastorstalk about parents like that,
like kind of just roll theireyes.
Oh, parents, parents and I'msure all of us have had bad
experiences with parents.
We've all had bad experienceswith students.
We just deal with a lot ofpeople and you can't just lump
them all together and be like,oh well, we got your kid.
(19:40):
No, we don't need you.
You know you have to build abridge.
You have to see this as afamily ministry and you're
ministering to the whole family,not just you know the kid only.
You know that you won't getvery far when it comes to your
communication.
How to be effective, be actionoriented and you can provide
(20:01):
next steps for them.
So make it clear what do youneed from them.
Is there an action step here?
I need you to RSVP by this date.
I need you to fill out this.
Here is the link.
So we're always doing thelegwork.
We never make them hunt foranything.
Do you need to attach somethingto this email?
Do you need to put a link inthis email?
(20:22):
Do you need to put a specificdeadline in this email?
So, whether or payment or whatdo you need from them?
Make it very clear not onlywhat you need, but how they can
accomplish that for you.
So send them everything theyneed to do the job.
They don't need to go to yourwebsite and click around, Just
send the document and then youcan end kind of with a quick
(20:47):
recap you know if needed, buthopefully you're clear and
concise enough that you don'tneed to do that and then some
bonus tips.
I would highly recommend thishave someone proofread your
email and double check all datesand times.
Oh yes.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Because that's when your addendums come in.
It's like, oops, actually it'sthis day I've done that so many
times.
Where you put the wrong day onsomething, it's so embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Now everyone's confused.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Confused yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And well, I'll get to that in a second.
But the things you want peopleto look for obviously grammar,
spelling, but also tone, feeland our senior pastor.
He's like if you send me to awebsite, you have one shot for
that information to be correctand updated.
If it is not, I am never goingback to check again.
(21:41):
Well, maybe this time they'veupdated it.
So that's the slippery slopewith a website, because if you
are not on top of it and itlooks like it has cobwebs and
nobody's been there since 2002,you know you want to make sure
that if you're directing trafficthere, that your stuff's
together.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Right.
So yes, have somebody proofreadthe dates, the tone, the
spelling, the grammar, all ofthat where you can actually send
an email out as a preview.
Oh, but you can send it toyourself.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's interesting to when you're writing an email,
and even if you read it in whereyou're writing it, it's
different than when you send itand you're previewing it as if
this is exactly what it lookslike for someone All of a sudden
, you'll be like, oh, thatdoesn't make sense, I don't know
.
I've noticed that at least whenI've used services like that,
it's like, oh, that actuallydidn't come across clearly.
(22:50):
I don't know if your theservice you guys use has that
option, but, um, I get my ownemails because our daughter is
in the ministry.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So, I'm listed as a parent and I get them which is
really nice, Cause I always knowcause sometimes I'm like did it
go through.
But yeah, and if you are not aweekly, if you don't feel like
you need weekly communication,if you're just copying and
pasting and sending the samething over and over again maybe
because your youth group doesn'tmeet that often or you don't
(23:17):
have much going on she saysmaybe it doesn't need to be
weekly communication.
If it's just like this is thesame thing over, and over and
over again.
For me it's always differentevery single week because I send
the talk sheet that we're goingto use in our small groups to
the parents so they can followalong with our discussion.
So that part alone would alwaysbe different.
(23:39):
And I want parents to know thisis what we're talking about.
We're not just like playinggames the whole time and when
your kid gets in the car and yousay, how was church Would you
guys talk about?
And they say nothing.
You know that's not true,because we are.
We are talking about good stuffand I want parents to know that
I feel proud to share that withthem, so that, and again, that
(24:03):
whole idea of this could be aministry to parents too.
Sometimes when I look at thecontent of our talk sheets and
I'm like if just one parent readthrough this, they know the
gospel and they could look upthese verses, or they could read
these verses.
It could be their little Biblestudy.
And who knows, Maybe I'mreaching one person that all of
(24:25):
a sudden realizes, oh, all roadsdon't lead to heaven, Like all
roads don't lead to God.
I've always been taught thisyou know, and who knows?
So for me that makes it worth it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, and we actually did an episode kind of going
even deeper on this subject awhile back.
It was kind of just overview ofall communication to make sure
that parents are in the loop, sonot just emails, any form of
communication, whether it'smailings and things like that.
So make sure you check it out.
We'll put it in the descriptionbelow, all right?
This is the community commentof the day.
This comes from one aaron rife,just aaron rife.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I don't know why I said one um, that was gonna be
my next question the one andonly aaron rife.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Uh, this comes from the episode we did recently
about the youth group tour andshe said this was so awesome.
So many great ideas will flowfrom this.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Thank you, you're welcome, erin.
I hope you did get a lot ofgood ideas from that episode,
and can you update us on whatyou did with that?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
yeah, and what, what great I'm just curious because
I'm like, ooh, what sparked foryou?
Yeah, I want to know Definitely.
Well, thank you guys, thank youAaron, the one and only Aaron.
We thank you guys for watchingand listening and we'll see you
next time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Today we're talking about the best practices to
email the parents of your youthministry youth group.
Today, we're talking about bestpractices for emails going out
to your parents of your youthministry students.
Today, we're talking about bestpractices to email the parents
of your youth group.
This communication is part of your reputation.
It's part of your identity.
It's part of your brand, howparents are going to talk about
you, how parents are going tofeel about you, whether or not
they recommend you to otherpeople.
They don't want to feel like anumber at the DMV.
Today, we're talking about thebest practices for emailing the
parents of your youth ministrystudents.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach podcast where we
give you weekly tips and tacticsto help you fast track the
growth and health of your youthministry.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen
Laskola, and today is brought toyou by our communications.
Pastor at North Coast Church.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, she's not here, but I will speak for her.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Her name is Kara and, wow, she came into one of our
student ministries meetings lastweek and she has such a good
pulse on all the communicationthat goes out from us as youth
pastors and reads every singlething that we send to parents.
And she came into our meetingand was like hey, can I give you
(01:17):
guys some tips on some best?
And she was amazing, justwanted to give us best practices
for parent emails and I thoughtthis is so relevant to youth
pastors.
I don't want to just keep it inour little meeting.
I'm like I got to share it withour audience because kind of
just wanted today for us to lookat the communication we're
(01:38):
sending out or maybe we're notsending out and see how we can
make it more parent userfriendly to get our point across
.
So if you're not sending outany parent communication yet,
why not start?
You know parents need to knowwhat's going on and we've talked
about this before.
(01:59):
The reason we want to send outcommunication every week is
because there is a differencebetween pushing and pulling
communication.
So, like Kara so eloquently put, she says you know, when we
only list things on our websiteor maybe our social media or
something like that.
We're asking parents to pullinformation and they do the
(02:23):
legwork and they find and clickand scan.
But pushing information iswhere we conveniently give
parents every single thing theyneed to successfully get their
kid involved in our youth groupand we do the work for them.
And the reason that's soimportant and that I didn't
(02:43):
realize until I became a parentmyself, is that there are so
many action items that parentsneed to accomplish, like having
a child in school or involved inany activity is almost like a
part time job for you.
There's permission slips,there's waivers, there's
orientations, there's permissionslips for random events that
(03:08):
come up, or it's just likeyou're always having to be on
top of like upload this form tothis, so the easier we can make
it for parents.
I think leads to more success interms of a turnout for an event
, for a camp, consistentinvolvement in our youth
ministries, because studentsmaybe don't always remember the
(03:31):
details.
Perfect example we're eatingdinner tonight and I ask our
daughter hey, are you going tosing at the Padres game with
your show, choir, guitar classor whatever?
I don't know.
I'm like well, when is it?
Do I buy tickets?
I don't know when it is.
I'm like okay, so now I have togo back and like, hey, I swear,
her teacher sent me somethingand I need to go back and look
(03:53):
because they don't rememberstuff.
So we really need to be thevoice to the parents.
So for me, my weeklycommunication is I send out one
email a week to parents andthat's my one day yeah.
I always send it out on Mondaysand Kara reads it before it gets
sent out, and I'll get to thatin a second.
But it's my one shot.
(04:15):
You know you get one shot atcommunication, so make it count.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You can't be like sending all these addendums all
week long Like wait, actuallythis, All right, you can't be
like sending all these addendumsall week long Like wait,
actually this all right, youknow like you just get one shot
one, you know, for parents toparticipate in your email.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So here are the tips that Kara gave us, which I was
like man, this is good stuff.
So she had a suggestion which Iactually I don't even do.
I had never had occurred to me.
Maybe for our audience it has,but I send out a calendar like I
publish a hard copy that I keepon our information table that
people can pick up anytime.
(04:53):
I like having that out for newfamilies, something to hand them
.
But also I put ours online, youknow, just on our website,
chaosjhcom, if you want to seewhat that looks like.
She recommended a calendar thateveryone can subscribe to,
which I thought was reallybrilliant, and I don't know a
ton about subscription calendars, but the fact that she threw
(05:15):
that idea out made me feel likeI need to investigate that more
like.
Is that something that would besuper easy for parents to just
subscribe to our calendar sothat it's just always available
for them?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Do you know, kind of like, how that works?
Is it like, yeah, that's what Imean?
I?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
don't know.
I'm just like whoa, she kind ofblew my mind, so I bring that
up because I'm like somebody outthere knows what this is and I
haven't done the research yet,but I'm like man, a subscription
calendar kind of blew my mind,so I'd like to follow up with
her about that.
And then she says when youemail parents, you know you want
to lead with positivity, likesomething positive.
(05:51):
We don't want this to soundlike just a robot wrote it and
it's very policy based and stufflike that.
So, for example, she said, likesay you're at camp and you can't
have student services becauseall your staff is gone, all your
resources are gone, so you haveto cancel your class for that
(06:13):
weekend.
She said, instead of sayingsomething like no student
services this weekend?
Well, that's true, there aren't.
Well, instead of wording itlike that, she said always lead
with a positive language ofstudents can join the adults
this weekend, or students.
There's a special studentsection, you know, in the back.
(06:35):
We'll have a leader there.
They can all sit together.
If your child's coming withoutparents which is very, very
common for our church I havestudents come without parents
all the time.
So that, how are we wordingthings?
Does it sound like a drag?
Like darn it.
No student services thisweekend.
But just what is thealternative?
(06:56):
What's the option, what's thepositive there?
And so she says when you'reemailing parents, you need to be
clear, concise and organized.
So she recommends using shortdescriptive subject line to just
get the point across of exactlywhat this email is going to be
about Summer camp packing listor youth group.
(07:20):
And I always put the date inthe subject line so that they
know that it's a new email.
So you know the name of ouryouth group is chaos, so it's
always chaos August 19th 2025.
So, they're like oh, this iswhat I need for this week,
because, again, parent emailsjust get stacked and stacked and
stacked and I don't know aboutyou, but I'm like wait, which
(07:42):
one I know like obviouslythey're an order of what's new,
but I'm like is this the same asthis?
And did I already click on this?
Parent teacher conferences it'slike, wait, is that new?
Or is that the same parentteacher conferencing that I've
already been working with and on?
So new or is that the sameparent teacher conferencing that
(08:02):
I've already been working withand on?
So giving them that fresh datereminds them this is the one for
this week and it's not going toget buried.
And then she always recommendsputting the most important
information at the top.
She said keep in mind, peoplescan your emails.
They do not read your emails.
She's like they're going to skimand they're going to pull out
what is relevant for them andwhat's the most important
information.
So you always put the mostimportant at the top and I
(08:24):
always like to put it inchronological order, meaning
what is coming up the soonest.
So if I'm going to tell youabout the all overnighter small
group competition night, theall-overnighter small group
competition night and the datesfor 2026 camps.
It will be exactly in that order, because this one's coming up
first, then this one and thenthese are things.
(08:44):
Hey, if you're still here andyou're want to write those camp
dates down.
You know you have the option todo so, but you keep in mind
they're not going to read thesethings like oh, let me get a cup
of coffee and read my wonderfulemail that.
I'm so excited it's going to beskimmed.
So break the content that youwant them to read into short
(09:05):
paragraphs or lists or boldedhighlighted things.
So it's easy to skim because alot of them also are reading it
on their phones.
So the format you needsomething to pop out at them
instead of just being one biglong text.
It's so funny when you readsomething on your phone it looks
(09:26):
like a ton of text and it'slike going on forever.
And then you read on yourcomputer you're like oh, that
was like a paragraph or two youknow, but if most likely they're
in the pickup line or waitingin line or doing something and
they're skimming your email ontheir phone, so make sure that
it's in little chunks that theycan see, instead of just one big
(09:48):
long body of text.
So keep in mind the chunks andthe organization helps them
receive the information better.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, it does, you had mentioned, so you send out
one per week and then your likesubject line for the email is
kind of like the broad, likeoverview of the email.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Is that what I'm so my subject line is usually like
chaos, august 19th 2025.
If it's just my weekly email,if there's something I need them
to grab onto to, I'll put thatin the email, like you said
summer packing list yeah, isthat a totally separate email so
you will send more than oneemail, maybe on a
week like that yes, and that isonly to people who are signed up
(10:30):
for summer camp, so that's likea separate thing that was just
sort of an example to show likeI'm telling you exactly what you
need and if this oh, that'swhat I've been waiting for, the
packing list right.
So like if it's the weeklyemail and there's something
extra that I need to add inthere, like chaos.
August 19th 2025 SOSapplications due you, you know
(10:55):
if it's like ah, like, this isthe like really important thing
you can't miss.
I might put that in the subjectline as well.
I don't do that very often, butif it's like shoot, like this
is a really big deal, or likesignups are live, like for an
event people have been waitingfor, and it's like it's coming
and now and then I'm gettingemails Where's the signup thing?
I haven't seen it, oh, and it'slike it's coming.
(11:15):
And now and then I'm gettingemails where's the sign up thing
?
I haven't seen it, oh, it's notlive yet.
And then when the email comeswith the link to sign up for an
event, I'll add that to thesubject line so they know this
isn't just another email this isthe one I've been waiting for
if that makes sense, it does.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
yeah, because, like you're saying, you get so many
emails, parents get so manyemails from schools and if you
have more than one kid andthey're going to more than one
school, it's double the emails.
And then, once we found outlast year, once your child is
now in middle school and they'renow having, you know, seven
teachers instead of one,sometimes you get seven emails
from the teachers.
(11:52):
They usually don't send out aton, but you still you'll get
those, like here's the mathteacher, here's a science
teacher, here's just like here'sthe principal, here's the vice
principal.
Here's the athletic some of it'soverlapping information, some
of it's totally separate andthen, without fail, it's always
when you're like oh I need.
What was the date of whatever?
And you go back to look, it'slike I have no idea which one of
these 47 000 emails is thatinformation buried in.
(12:14):
So yeah, I can see why.
If you kind of put that in thesubject line then it could kind
of be like oh, that's the oneyeah, if it's that really big
juicy piece of information rightnow that they need and you're
probably going to get to this,so maybe I'm jumping ahead, but
I know you do a really good jobof like.
Every email has all the upcomingdates yeah so it's not like
here's the one time I emailedout about small group night out
(12:39):
and then weeks go by and youdon't put that date in there and
someone's like wait, what wasthe date of that again?
Was it in this email?
No, was it in this email?
No, it's like you're alwaysgoing to have it in every email
somewhere down there.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So yeah, that's a good point.
So my mainstays of my emails,things that are stagnant always
on there are my camp dates, whenI mean it's a quite a while
until we're going to camp again.
They've been there for months.
And the other thing that saystagnant on there is a link to
(13:12):
our website.
So I always have that so thatpeople can have direct access to
the calendar.
Again, that's an example ofpushing information to them so
they're not like wait, what isthe website called?
Again, juniorhighministrycomyou know, like.
So it's like there you go, youcan always be directed straight
to the website and you willalways know the camp dates.
So those are the most importantthings.
(13:32):
And then in my signature Ialways have my cell phone number
too, so that if there issomething they need to call or
text about, they have furtherquestions.
There's nothing worse thangoing to like a school website
or a church website and you'retrying to get a hold of one
person and then they direct youto the main office and then that
(13:54):
I don't know their extension.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
And now I'm leaving a voicemail, or it's after hours
and maybe you, like, really needto get ahold of them.
It's like well, your officehours are eight to four, monday
through Friday or whatever, andthis is Saturday and I need to
know something for Sunday and Iguess I just can't call anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I mean, and I would just love to quiet your fears
about giving parents yourthey're, they are too busy, they
don't really want to conversewith you.
They will ask you threequestions what time is the event
?
Where is it?
What do I need to bring?
And then you can say boom, boom, boom, copy paste it.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Read the email, read the website.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Or yeah, the other day I directed a parent to the
website.
He said hey, here's the barebones of the details.
For complete details, Don'tforget to go to the website.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And I did.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So it's just nice that they can.
You know how you like to reacha live person who's living and
breathing.
They do too.
And don't be afraid in 21 yearsof youth ministry I've never
had a parent abuse thatprivilege.
They don't like they're.
They're not waking up thinkingabout how they can ruin your
(14:59):
life.
Ok, so just trust that they'regoing to be cool, ok, and it's.
It's fair the type of work wedo, the type of life on life,
and how we're so knee deep inlike these people's life and
taking them places and doingthings.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I mean they're entrusting their children with
you.
Least you do is give them acontact.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I mean when our kid goes on a field trip for school.
I feel so much better knowing Ihave the teacher's cell phone
number and she'll send mepictures throughout the day, or
you know like I can ask like aquick question, like it's just
so nice.
So blah, blah, blah.
Anyways, let's move on tonumber two.
We're going to talk about tonea little bit more.
We started out talking aboutthat like keeping it positive,
(15:44):
and so we're going to flush thatout a little bit more.
So the tone of your emailshould be warm, professional and
encouraging and remember you'rewriting this to parents, not to
students that uh, communicationacross.
And so Kara made a point to saylike we use very inclusive
(16:06):
language, and by inclusive shemeant again the whole, like that
clinical policy feel versus awarm tone.
Here's an example you mustversus we're excited to.
So it's like you must be hereno later than 7 am on the dot
(16:31):
when we leave for camp or youwill be left behind.
Now that's how sometimes I feel, like please, don't be late.
We have a really big scheduleand please don't be the one who
makes us late, but instead, whydon't you just say we're so
excited to see your student atseven o'clock am, so that we can
keep our schedule?
We have so many fun thingsplanned and we want to make sure
(16:52):
we get to all of them.
That's a lot different than youmust be here per our
conversation.
Remember when you talked aboutper?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
our conversation.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So we want to keep it friendly.
You know, we aren't a place ofbusiness and we aren't the DMV
and we aren't like ministryrobots.
Like keep that warm, friendly,human tone and here's how you
can think of it as well.
I don't know about you guys,but I have a lot of students who
come to my events, come to myministry and come to my camp,
who are from non-Christian homesand unchurched parents.
(17:28):
But the parents like my programand they're like something free
and awesome to send my kid toon a Tuesday night.
Sign me up, and this is anopportunity to minister to those
parents.
You know, like there's such abig difference.
Like I called the school officethe other day asking for
something and I kept leaving amessage and nobody was calling
(17:50):
me back.
Nobody was calling me back andthen finally I got a hold of a
live person and she was soaccommodating, she was so
reasonable, she was so friendlyand it just made me feel so like
it gave me just good feelingsabout the school in general, and
I already did.
I love our kids school but itwas just like put such a good
(18:10):
like it's.
This communication is part ofyour reputation.
It's part of your identity, it'spart of your brand, it's part
of your how parents are going totalk about you, how parents are
going to feel about you,whether or not they recommend
you to other people.
They don't want to feel like anumber at the DMV and this is so
strict youth ministry but theywant to feel like you and that's
(18:35):
what we have to do.
Assume that parents want topartner with you.
You know that they're ready forthat and even if you're having
to address an issue, you know,know if something's going on
assume they want to partner withyou and we don't need to like
get overly clinical andprofessional right off the bat,
but puts guards up it totallydoes, you know, and I've made
(18:55):
that mistake before you know,because I think sometimes we're
afraid of parents and we feelthis like you're in trouble kind
of thing and we feel like,almost like when you're a really
young youth pastor, there'sthis unspoken tension that
sometimes you view parentsalmost like the enemy.
(19:17):
And I've heard youth pastorstalk about parents like that,
like kind of just roll theireyes.
Oh, parents, parents and I'msure all of us have had bad
experiences with parents.
We've all had bad experienceswith students.
We just deal with a lot ofpeople and you can't just lump
them all together and be like,oh well, we got your kid.
(19:40):
No, we don't need you.
You know you have to build abridge.
You have to see this as afamily ministry and you're
ministering to the whole family,not just you know the kid only.
You know that you won't getvery far when it comes to your
communication.
How to be effective, be actionoriented and you can provide
(20:01):
next steps for them.
So make it clear what do youneed from them.
Is there an action step here?
I need you to RSVP by this date.
I need you to fill out this.
Here is the link.
So we're always doing thelegwork.
We never make them hunt foranything.
Do you need to attach somethingto this email?
Do you need to put a link inthis email?
(20:22):
Do you need to put a specificdeadline in this email?
So, whether or payment or whatdo you need from them?
Make it very clear not onlywhat you need, but how they can
accomplish that for you.
So send them everything theyneed to do the job.
They don't need to go to yourwebsite and click around, Just
send the document and then youcan end kind of with a quick
(20:47):
recap you know if needed, buthopefully you're clear and
concise enough that you don'tneed to do that and then some
bonus tips.
I would highly recommend thishave someone proofread your
email and double check all datesand times.
Oh yes.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Because that's when your addendums come in.
It's like, oops, actually it'sthis day I've done that so many
times.
Where you put the wrong day onsomething, it's so embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Now everyone's confused.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Confused yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And well, I'll get to that in a second.
But the things you want peopleto look for obviously grammar,
spelling, but also tone, feeland our senior pastor.
He's like if you send me to awebsite, you have one shot for
that information to be correctand updated.
If it is not, I am never goingback to check again.
(21:41):
Well, maybe this time they'veupdated it.
So that's the slippery slopewith a website, because if you
are not on top of it and itlooks like it has cobwebs and
nobody's been there since 2002,you know you want to make sure
that if you're directing trafficthere, that your stuff's
together.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Right.
So yes, have somebody proofreadthe dates, the tone, the
spelling, the grammar, all ofthat where you can actually send
an email out as a preview.
Oh, but you can send it toyourself.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's interesting to when you're writing an email,
and even if you read it in whereyou're writing it, it's
different than when you send itand you're previewing it as if
this is exactly what it lookslike for someone All of a sudden
, you'll be like, oh, thatdoesn't make sense, I don't know
.
I've noticed that at least whenI've used services like that,
it's like, oh, that actuallydidn't come across clearly.
(22:50):
I don't know if your theservice you guys use has that
option, but, um, I get my ownemails because our daughter is
in the ministry.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So, I'm listed as a parent and I get them which is
really nice, Cause I always knowcause sometimes I'm like did it
go through.
But yeah, and if you are not aweekly, if you don't feel like
you need weekly communication,if you're just copying and
pasting and sending the samething over and over again maybe
because your youth group doesn'tmeet that often or you don't
(23:17):
have much going on she saysmaybe it doesn't need to be
weekly communication.
If it's just like this is thesame thing over, and over and
over again.
For me it's always differentevery single week because I send
the talk sheet that we're goingto use in our small groups to
the parents so they can followalong with our discussion.
So that part alone would alwaysbe different.
(23:39):
And I want parents to know thisis what we're talking about.
We're not just like playinggames the whole time and when
your kid gets in the car and yousay, how was church Would you
guys talk about?
And they say nothing.
You know that's not true,because we are.
We are talking about good stuffand I want parents to know that
I feel proud to share that withthem, so that, and again, that
(24:03):
whole idea of this could be aministry to parents too.
Sometimes when I look at thecontent of our talk sheets and
I'm like if just one parent readthrough this, they know the
gospel and they could look upthese verses, or they could read
these verses.
It could be their little Biblestudy.
And who knows, Maybe I'mreaching one person that all of
(24:25):
a sudden realizes, oh, all roadsdon't lead to heaven, Like all
roads don't lead to God.
I've always been taught thisyou know, and who knows?
So for me that makes it worth it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, and we actually did an episode kind of going
even deeper on this subject awhile back.
It was kind of just overview ofall communication to make sure
that parents are in the loop, sonot just emails, any form of
communication, whether it'smailings and things like that.
So make sure you check it out.
We'll put it in the descriptionbelow, all right?
This is the community commentof the day.
This comes from one aaron rife,just aaron rife.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I don't know why I said one um, that was gonna be
my next question the one andonly aaron rife.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Uh, this comes from the episode we did recently
about the youth group tour andshe said this was so awesome.
So many great ideas will flowfrom this.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Thank you, you're welcome, erin.
I hope you did get a lot ofgood ideas from that episode,
and can you update us on whatyou did with that?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
yeah, and what, what great I'm just curious because
I'm like, ooh, what sparked foryou?
Yeah, I want to know Definitely.
Well, thank you guys, thank youAaron, the one and only Aaron.
We thank you guys for watchingand listening and we'll see you
next time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Today we're talking about the best practices to
email the parents of your youthministry youth group.
Today, we're talking about bestpractices for emails going out
to your parents of your youthministry students.
Today, we're talking about bestpractices to email the parents
of your youth group.
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.