When it comes to impacting the lives of youth, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church (F.A.B.C.) Youth and Young Adult Pastor Fred 'Chip' Luter, III.'s background is outstanding. But, it was Pastor Chip's professor in seminary school who inspired him to broaden his experience and develop the Parent Summit. “It was really a conclusive moment that day because I realized I put a lot of money and time investing into reaching students, but I don’t think about how I can equip parents to play that major role when they are the ones who will be in their kids’ lives a lot longer than me,” says Pastor Chip.

Hoping to encourage parental involvement and clear the lines of miscommunication between parents and children, Pastor Chip and the Youth and Young Adult Ministry at F.A.B.C. in New Orleans, Louisiana, initiated the F.A.B.C. Parent Summit in January of this year.

Parents, grandparents and educators gather eagerly at F.A.B.C. every three months to listen attentively to guest speakers share techniques on building a spiritual bond of communication with their adolescents. "The motive of this Summit is to encourage, equip and engage parents to disciple their children for Christ. First, the speaker encourages, then they equip you to be a praying parent. And lastly, they engage, so parents can get engaged and practically make this work,” says Pastor Chip.

First Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor of F.A.B.C. Fred Luter, Jr., was the first invited speaker, and he delivered a phenomenal lecture on ‘the critical role of parents to the development of children.’ The next guest speaker, Mrs. Elizabeth Luter, blew attendees away with her speech on ‘being an actively praying parent,’ and recently in July, renowned speaker Dr. Calvin Mackie gave a motivational lecture, addressing 'the cultural influence parents have on society in raising their children today.' However, Pastor Chip says that the focal theme of every Summit this year is for parents to find ways to pray with and for their children. “Because as you pray with and for them, you are able to build that spiritual connection.”

Let’s face it. Children are inquisitive, and they are easily influenced if educators and parents are not there to properly guide them. With the advancement of the media and social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, Pastor Chip feels that it is more critical than ever to discuss with parents how to converse with their children about social networking and ‘sex-texting.’ “One of the problems we discovered about our youth is that they’re getting all this information about sex from outside the church. And those of us in the church, we feel that we have the best place to talk about this because God is the creator of sex.”

Pastor Chip says that the Parent Summit is an outlet for parents to speak with experts and share their experiences with other parents. “The thing is that sexual education is happening whether they (parents) want to believe it or not. They (children) can learn sexual education through their phones and Facebook than ever before. So, we wanted to give some time during our Parent Summit that would allow some of our parents to learn how to tackle these issues,” says Pastor Chip.

Here are seven (7) quick tips that were proposed at the July Summit to assist parents in building a spiritual pipeline of communication with their children:

1.) Make your child feel comfortable when speaking with you. Parents should be receptive.

2.) Put systems on your computer, where you can block obscene websites, or have e-mail notifications sent to you if someone is on an inappropriate site in your home.

3.) Parents must mandate and manage the cell phone. If needed, get rid of the data-plans on cell phones. Remember, you are paying the bill.

4.) Ask what’s going on in your child’s life. Get involved. Just being present and letting them know that you are here is all it takes most times.

5.) Facebook and Twitter have their pros and cons, but regulate your child’s times on these websites.

6.) Parents don’t force your will on your child. Apologize for putting so much pressure on your kids.

7.) Finally, continue to pray for your children. Through prayer, parents are acknowledging and experiencing the presence of God in their lives and their children's life.

After the great receptiveness and participation throughout the last three forums, Pastor Chip and the F.A.B.C. Youth and Young Adult Ministry are excitedly awaiting to host the next Parent Summit, which is scheduled to be held in October at F.A.B.C. “We plan to do this indefinitely. There’s no stop to this! We make the forum accessible and practical, so parents don’t feel intimidated and will be motivated to attend the conference again," says Pastor Chip.