Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

Best Practices for Emailing the Parents of Your Youth Ministry Students

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 256

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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.
If you have an episode idea, please E-Mail us at MinistryCoachPodcast@gmail.com!

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You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#047) Youth Pastors and Parents - Best Communication Tips


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Speaker 1:

This communication is part of your reputation. It's part of your identity. It's part of your brand, how parents are going to talk 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 a number at the DMV. Today, we're talking about the best practices for emailing the parents of your youth ministry students.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Ministry Coach podcast where we give you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast track the growth and health of your youth ministry.

Speaker 1:

My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and today is brought to you by our communications. Pastor at North Coast Church. Welcome.

Speaker 2:

Yes, she's not here, but I will speak for her.

Speaker 1:

Her name is Kara and, wow, she came into one of our student ministries meetings last week and she has such a good pulse on all the communication that goes out from us as youth pastors and reads every single thing that we send to parents. And she came into our meeting and was like hey, can I give you guys some tips on some best? And she was amazing, just wanted to give us best practices for parent emails and I thought this is so relevant to youth pastors. I don't want to just keep it in our little meeting. I'm like I got to share it with our audience because kind of just wanted today for us to look at the communication we're sending out or maybe we're not sending out and see how we can make it more parent user friendly to get our point across. So if you're not sending out any parent communication yet, why not start? You know parents need to know what's going on and we've talked about this before. The reason we want to send out communication every week is because there is a difference between pushing and pulling communication. So, like Kara so eloquently put, she says you know, when we only list things on our website or maybe our social media or something like that. We're asking parents to pull information and they do the legwork and they find and click and scan. But pushing information is where we conveniently give parents every single thing they need to successfully get their kid involved in our youth group and we do the work for them. And the reason that's so important and that I didn't realize until I became a parent myself, is that there are so many action items that parents need to accomplish, like having a child in school or involved in any activity is almost like a part time job for you. There's permission slips, there's waivers, there's orientations, there's permission slips for random events that come up, or it's just like you're always having to be on top of like upload this form to this, so the easier we can make it for parents.

Speaker 1:

I think leads to more success in terms of a turnout for an event, for a camp, consistent involvement in our youth ministries, because students maybe don't always remember the details. Perfect example we're eating dinner tonight and I ask our daughter hey, are you going to sing at the Padres game with your show, choir, guitar class or 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 to go back and like, hey, I swear, her teacher sent me something and I need to go back and look because they don't remember stuff. So we really need to be the voice to the parents. So for me, my weekly communication is I send out one email a week to parents and that's my one day yeah.

Speaker 1:

I always send it out on Mondays and Kara reads it before it gets sent out, and I'll get to that in a second. But it's my one shot. You know you get one shot at communication, so make it count.

Speaker 2:

You can't be like sending all these addendums all week long Like wait, actually this, All right, you can't be like sending all these addendums all week long Like wait, actually this all right, you know like you just get one shot one, you know, for parents to participate in your email.

Speaker 1:

So here are the tips that Kara gave us, which I was like man, this is good stuff. So she had a suggestion which I actually 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 keep on our information table that people can pick up anytime. I like having that out for new families, something to hand them. But also I put ours online, you know, just on our website, chaosjhcom, if you want to see what that looks like. She recommended a calendar that everyone can subscribe to, which I thought was really brilliant, and I don't know a ton about subscription calendars, but the fact that she threw that idea out made me feel like I need to investigate that more like. Is that something that would be super easy for parents to just subscribe to our calendar so that it's just always available for them?

Speaker 2:

Do you know, kind of like, how that works? Is it like, yeah, that's what I mean? I?

Speaker 1:

don't know. I'm just like whoa, she kind of blew my mind, so I bring that up because I'm like somebody out there 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 you email parents, you know you want to lead with positivity, like something positive. We don't want this to sound like just a robot wrote it and it's very policy based and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

So, for example, she said, like say you're at camp and you can't have student services because all your staff is gone, all your resources are gone, so you have to cancel your class for that weekend. She said, instead of saying something like no student services this weekend? Well, that's true, there aren't. Well, instead of wording it like that, she said always lead with a positive language of students can join the adults this weekend, or students. There's a special student section, you know, in the back. We'll have a leader there. They can all sit together. If your child's coming without parents which is very, very common for our church I have students come without parents all the time. So that, how are we wording things? Does it sound like a drag?

Speaker 1:

Like darn it. No student services this weekend. But just what is the alternative? What's the option, what's the positive there? And so she says when you're emailing parents, you need to be clear, concise and organized. So she recommends using short descriptive subject line to just get the point across of exactly what this email is going to be about Summer camp packing list or youth group. And I always put the date in the subject line so that they know that it's a new email. So you know the name of our youth group is chaos, so it's always chaos August 19th 2025.

Speaker 1:

So, they're like oh, this is what I need for this week, because, again, parent emails just get stacked and stacked and stacked and I don't know about you, but I'm like wait, which one I know like obviously they're an order of what's new, but I'm like is this the same as this?

Speaker 1:

And did I already click on this? Parent teacher conferences it's like, wait, is that new? Or is that the same parent teacher conferencing that I've already been working with and on? So new or is that the same parent teacher conferencing that I've already been working with and on? So giving them that fresh date reminds them this is the one for this week and it's not going to get buried. And then she always recommends putting the most important information at the top. She said keep in mind, people scan your emails. They do not read your emails.

Speaker 1:

She's like they're going to skim and they're going to pull out what is relevant for them and what's the most important information. So you always put the most important at the top and I always like to put it in chronological order, meaning what is coming up the soonest. So if I'm going to tell you about the all overnighter small group competition night, the all-overnighter small group competition night and the dates for 2026 camps.

Speaker 1:

It will be exactly in that order, because this one's coming up first, then this one and then these are things. Hey, if you're still here and you're want to write those camp dates down. You know you have the option to do so, but you keep in mind they're not going to read these things like oh, let me get a cup of coffee and read my wonderful email that.

Speaker 1:

I'm so excited it's going to be skimmed. So break the content that you want them to read into short paragraphs or lists or bolded highlighted things. So it's easy to skim because a lot of them also are reading it on their phones. So the format you need something to pop out at them instead of just being one big long text. It's so funny when you read something on your phone it looks like a ton of text and it's like going on forever.

Speaker 1:

And then you read on your computer you're like oh, that was like a paragraph or two you know, but if most likely they're in the pickup line or waiting in line or doing something and they're skimming your email on their phone, so make sure that it's in little chunks that they can see, instead of just one big long body of text. So keep in mind the chunks and the organization helps them receive the information better. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it does, you had mentioned, so you send out one per week and then your like subject line for the email is kind of like the broad, like overview of the email.

Speaker 1:

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 that in the email, like you said summer packing list yeah, is that a totally separate email so you will send more than one email, maybe on a

Speaker 1:

week like that yes, and that is only to people who are signed up for summer camp, so that's like a separate thing that was just sort of an example to show like I'm telling you exactly what you need and if this oh, that's what I've been waiting for, the packing list right. So like if it's the weekly email and there's something extra that I need to add in there, like chaos. August 19th 2025 SOS applications due you, you know if it's like ah, like, this is the like really important thing you can't miss.

Speaker 1:

I might put that in the subject line as well. I don't do that very often, but if it's like shoot, like this is a really big deal, or like signups are live, like for an event people have been waiting for, and it's like it's coming and now and then I'm getting emails Where's the signup thing?

Speaker 1:

I haven't seen it, oh, and it's like it's coming. And now and then I'm getting emails where's the sign up thing? I haven't seen it, oh, it's not live yet. And then when the email comes with the link to sign up for an event, I'll add that to the subject line so they know this isn't just another email this is the one I've been waiting for if that makes sense, it does.

Speaker 2:

yeah, because, like you're saying, you get so many emails, parents get so many emails from schools and if you have more than one kid and they're going to more than one school, it's double the emails. And then, once we found out last year, once your child is now in middle school and they're now having, you know, seven teachers instead of one, sometimes you get seven emails from the teachers. They usually don't send out a ton, but you still you'll get those, like here's the math teacher, here's a science teacher, here's just like here's the principal, here's the vice principal.

Speaker 2:

Here's the athletic some of it's overlapping information, some of it's totally separate and then, 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's like I have no idea which one of these 47 000 emails is that information buried in. So yeah, I can see why. If you kind of put that in the subject line then it could kind of be like oh, that's the one yeah, if it's that really big juicy piece of information right now 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 job of like.

Speaker 2:

Every email has all the upcoming dates yeah so it's not like here's the one time I emailed out about small group night out and then weeks go by and you don't put that date in there and someone's like wait, what was the date of that again? Was it in this email? No, was it in this email? No, it's like you're always going to have it in every email somewhere down there.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, that's a good point. So my mainstays of my emails, things that are stagnant always on there are my camp dates, when I 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 say stagnant on there is a link to our website. So I always have that so that people can have direct access to the calendar. Again, that's an example of pushing information to them so they're not like wait, what is the website called? Again, juniorhighministrycom you know, like.

Speaker 1:

So it's like there you go, you can always be directed straight to the website and you will always know the camp dates. So those are the most important things. And then in my signature I always have my cell phone number too, so that if there is something they need to call or text about, they have further questions. There's nothing worse than going to like a school website or a church website and you're trying to get a hold of one person and then they direct you to the main office and then that I don't know their extension.

Speaker 2:

And now I'm leaving a voicemail, or it's after hours and maybe you, like, really need to get ahold of them. It's like well, your office hours are eight to four, monday through Friday or whatever, and this is Saturday and I need to know something for Sunday and I guess I just can't call anybody.

Speaker 1:

I mean, and I would just love to quiet your fears about giving parents your they're, they are too busy, they don't really want to converse with you. They will ask you three questions 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:

Read the email, read the website.

Speaker 1:

Or yeah, the other day I directed a parent to the website. He said hey, here's the bare bones of the details. For complete details, Don't forget to go to the website.

Speaker 2:

And I did.

Speaker 1:

So it's just nice that they can. You know how you like to reach a live person who's living and breathing. They do too. And don't be afraid in 21 years of youth ministry I've never had a parent abuse that privilege. They don't like they're. They're not waking up thinking about how they can ruin your life.

Speaker 1:

Ok, so just trust that they're going to be cool, ok, and it's. It's fair the type of work we do, the type of life on life, and how we're so knee deep in like these people's life and taking them places and doing things.

Speaker 2:

I mean they're entrusting their children with you. Least you do is give them a contact.

Speaker 1:

I mean when our kid goes on a field trip for school.

Speaker 1:

I feel so much better knowing I have the teacher's cell phone number and she'll send me pictures throughout the day, or you know like I can ask like a quick question, like it's just so nice. So blah, blah, blah. Anyways, let's move on to number two. We're going to talk about tone a little bit more. We started out talking about that like keeping it positive, and so we're going to flush that out a little bit more. So the tone of your email should be warm, professional and encouraging and remember you're writing this to parents, not to students that uh, communication across. And so Kara made a point to say like we use very inclusive language, and by inclusive she meant again the whole, like that clinical policy feel versus a warm tone. Here's an example you must versus we're excited to. So it's like you must be here no later than 7 am on the dot when we leave for camp or you will be left behind. Now that's how sometimes I feel, like please, don't be late.

Speaker 1:

We have a really big schedule and please don't be the one who makes us late, but instead, why don't you just say we're so excited to see your student at seven o'clock am, so that we can keep our schedule? We have so many fun things planned and we want to make sure we get to all of them. That's a lot different than you must be here per our conversation. Remember when you talked about per?

Speaker 2:

our conversation.

Speaker 1:

So we want to keep it friendly. You know, we aren't a place of business and we aren't the DMV and we aren't like ministry robots. 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 my ministry and come to my camp, who are from non-Christian homes and unchurched parents. But the parents like my program and they're like something free and awesome to send my kid to on a Tuesday night.

Speaker 1:

Sign me up, and this is an opportunity to minister to those parents. You know, like there's such a big difference. Like I called the school office the other day asking for something and I kept leaving a message and nobody was calling me back. Nobody was calling me back and then finally I got a hold of a live person and she was so accommodating, she was so reasonable, she was so friendly and it just made me feel so like it gave me just good feelings about the school in general, and I already did. I love our kids school but it was just like put such a good like it's. This communication is part of your reputation.

Speaker 1:

It's part of your identity, it's part of your brand, it's part of your how parents are going to talk 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 a number at the DMV and this is so strict youth ministry but they want to feel like you and that's what we have to do. Assume that parents want to partner with you.

Speaker 1:

You know that they're ready for that and even if you're having to address an issue, you know, know if something's going on assume they want to partner with you and we don't need to like get overly clinical and professional right off the bat, but puts guards up it totally does, you know, and I've made that mistake before you know, because I think sometimes we're afraid of parents and we feel this like you're in trouble kind of thing and we feel like, almost like when you're a really young youth pastor, there's this unspoken tension that sometimes you view parents almost like the enemy. And I've heard youth pastors talk about parents like that, like kind of just roll their eyes. Oh, parents, parents and I'm sure all of us have had bad experiences with parents. We've all had bad experiences with students.

Speaker 1:

We just deal with a lot of people and you can't just lump them all together and be like, oh well, we got your kid. No, we don't need you. You know you have to build a bridge. You have to see this as a family ministry and you're ministering to the whole family, not just you know the kid only. You know that you won't get very far when it comes to your communication. How to be effective, be action oriented and you can provide next steps for them. So make it clear what do you need 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 the legwork. We never make them hunt for anything. Do you need to attach something to this email? Do you need to put a link in this email? Do you need to put a specific deadline in this email? So, whether or payment or what do you need from them? Make it very clear not only what you need, but how they can accomplish that for you.

Speaker 1:

So send them everything they need to do the job. They don't need to go to your website and click around, Just send the document and then you can end kind of with a quick recap you know if needed, but hopefully you're clear and concise enough that you don't need to do that and then some bonus tips. I would highly recommend this have someone proofread your email and double check all dates and times. Oh yes.

Speaker 2:

Because that's when your addendums come in. It's like, oops, actually it's this day I've done that so many times. Where you put the wrong day on something, it's so embarrassing.

Speaker 1:

Now everyone's confused.

Speaker 2:

Confused yeah.

Speaker 1:

And well, I'll get to that in a second. But the things you want people to look for obviously grammar, spelling, but also tone, feel and our senior pastor. He's like if you send me to a website, you have one shot for that information to be correct and updated. If it is not, I am never going back to check again. Well, maybe this time they've updated it. So that's the slippery slope with a website, because if you are not on top of it and it looks like it has cobwebs and nobody's been there since 2002, you know you want to make sure that if you're directing traffic there, that your stuff's together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right. So yes, have somebody proofread the dates, the tone, the spelling, the grammar, all of that where you can actually send an email out as a preview. Oh, but you can send it to yourself.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting to when you're writing an email, and even if you read it in where you're writing it, it's different than when you send it and you're previewing it as if this is exactly what it looks like for someone All of a sudden, you'll be like, oh, that doesn't make sense, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I've noticed that at least when I've used services like that, it's like, oh, that actually didn't come across clearly. I don't know if your the service you guys use has that option, but, um, I get my own emails because our daughter is in the ministry.

Speaker 1:

So, I'm listed as a parent and I get them which is really nice, Cause I always know cause sometimes I'm like did it go through. But yeah, and if you are not a weekly, if you don't feel like you need weekly communication, if you're just copying and pasting and sending the same thing over and over again maybe because your youth group doesn't meet that often or you don't have much going on she says maybe it doesn't need to be weekly communication. If it's just like this is the same thing over, and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

For me it's always different every single week because I send the talk sheet that we're going to use in our small groups to the parents so they can follow along with our discussion. So that part alone would always be different. And I want parents to know this is what we're talking about. We're not just like playing games the whole time and when your kid gets in the car and you say, 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 stuff and I want parents to know that I feel proud to share that with them, so that, and again, that whole idea of this could be a ministry to parents too.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes when I look at the content of our talk sheets and I'm like if just one parent read through this, they know the gospel and they could look up these verses, or they could read these verses. It could be their little Bible study. And who knows, Maybe I'm reaching one person that all of a sudden realizes, oh, all roads don't lead to heaven, Like all roads don't lead to God. I've always been taught this you know, and who knows?

Speaker 1:

So for me that makes it worth it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we actually did an episode kind of going even deeper on this subject a while back. It was kind of just overview of all communication to make sure that parents are in the loop, so not just emails, any form of communication, whether it's mailings and things like that. So make sure you check it out. We'll put it in the description below, all right? This is the community comment of the day. This comes from one aaron rife, just aaron rife.

Speaker 1:

I don't know why I said one um, that was gonna be my next question the one and only aaron rife.

Speaker 2:

Uh, this comes from the episode we did recently about the youth group tour and she said this was so awesome. So many great ideas will flow from this.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, you're welcome, erin. I hope you did get a lot of good ideas from that episode, and can you update us on what you did with that?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and what, what great I'm just curious because I'm like, ooh, what sparked for you? Yeah, I want to know Definitely. Well, thank you guys, thank you Aaron, the one and only Aaron. We thank you guys for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about the best practices to email the parents of your youth ministry youth group. Today, we're talking about best practices for emails going out to your parents of your youth ministry students. Today, we're talking about best practices to email the parents of your youth group.