Kerry Ray on doing ministry like Jesus did, and how technology has changed the way we ministry and communicate to teenagers in Gen Z and Gen Alpha and beyond

SUMMARY
In this episode Nick sits down with his friend, and YM360 General Editor and Content Director, Kerry Ray. Kerry is a veteran with over 3 decades of experience in church ministry, all in student ministry. Kerry and Nick talk about the ways in which technology has changed and shaped the ways of doing ministry. And Kerry also talks about the importance of going to a teenager's "turf" or showing up in their life, relationally.
Come hang out with us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Or grab show notes and transcripts at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

SHOWNOTES
YM360
http://www.ym360.com
MINISTRY TO PARENTS
https://ministrytoparents.com/
MY YOUTH MIN
https://myyouthmin.com/
EPISODE 016 ON HOW THE IPHONE CHANGED THINGS WITH DERRY PRENKERT
https://merry-swamp-3547.fireside.fm/016

TIMECODES
00:00-02:49 Intro
02:49-05:55 Kerry's Intro and Experience
05:55-09:12 What it's like no longer being in the trenches of ministry
09:12-13:44 What was life in ministry like before the cell phone and after?
13:44-16:22 Is technology what created FOMO?
16:22-21:00 What is contact work?
21:00-32:58 Can we use technology to our advantage in ministry efforts?
32:58-34:27 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast, episode 19. We've been doing 19 of these. I can't freaking believe it in your catcher. It might be 20, because we posted as Double Zero pilot. I kind of hate when people do that, and then I, I went and did it. So, anyway, uh, as always, I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And today you're in for a treat because number one, I'm not just gonna ramble in your ear holes the entire time, like I have been for the last several episodes, but two, I'm bringing on one of my really good friends. His name is Kerry Ray. He is the director of editing and publications right now at YM 360, which is, YM Youth Min, right? Youth Ministry 360. And he has 30 years of church ministry experience, particularly in the student ministry and youth ministry space.

Nick Clason (00:58):
So, let me caveat all of that to say this is a ministry podcast, not specific in particular to youth ministry. However, that being said, um, you know that I am a 12 year youth ministry veteran, and so a lot of my connections and conversations come in the youth ministry space. And so, um, I just will caveat all this to say that today is going to be a very youth ministry centric conversation. Um, but all of it is going to be couched sort of in, uh, digital, right? And, and so what Kerry is gonna be talking about, um, and what I did is I, we had an interview and it went really well, and it went really long. And so I decided, I think I'm actually gonna bite, uh, split this up into two more bite size pieces. And so, episode one is gonna come out this week, episode two, or part two of this, I should say, is gonna drop on Thanksgiving Day, so you can enjoy it on the way to your, um, grandmother's house over the river and through the woods.

Nick Clason (01:59):
So in this first part in particular, he's gonna talk a little bit about his experience, um, what he's seen and how he's seen digital play a role in that. And then he talks about, um, a thing that I first learned from him, but he says he's still primarily from young Life called contact work, right? And if you've been around this podcast at all, you've known, we talked about showing up where they are, um, which is what Jesus did, honestly, right? He, he showed up where we were, he put on skin, he became human. And so that's what he talks about, and he kind of gives the basis for it and why it's important. Um, and so that's gonna be today. Um, so hopefully you enjoy it. And so, without any further ado, we're gonna get started. And you'll notice just how well I am as a host when we plan this thing, when you hear how we get started. So here we go. 3, 2, 1. Check it out. Hey,

Kerry Ray (02:50):
Is whoa gonna go first on,

Nick Clason (02:53):
Man? Come on. Doesn't even listen to instructions.

Kerry Ray (02:57):
I did. I thought you said, I'll do a thing later. And then you go ahead and introduce

Nick Clason (03:02):
Yourself. I'm keeping all this in. This is Kerry, everybody. Kerry, introduce yourself to the tens and tens of listeners that I have.

Kerry Ray (03:10):
Hey, tens of listeners. My name is Kerry Ray. I am the director of publishing for Y M 360 in Birmingham, Alabama. Uh, YM 360 Youth Ministry 360. Uh, before that, uh, this is my first year actually as a director of publishing, whatever that means. Uh, I did, uh, before that, I did, uh, right about three decades in the student ministry seat, um, in multiple denominations of churches, in churches, multiple states, uh, different sizes, churches, different size, not sizes, different size churches, um, multisites single sites, uh, single sites that wanted to be multisite, uh, . I've been, I've been around the block and, and seen a lot of things, man. Um, but yeah, I've been in the youth ministry for right at 30 years. And, um, this was my first, actually at the time of this recording, this was my, this last Easter was my first Easter, uh, in, in here in 2022, was my first Easter in 30 years, not to be on staff at a church.

Kerry Ray (04:15):
So it was quite the different thing to sit in there as a regular person who could see all the things going wrong, but uh, was not responsible for, for fixing any of them. Um, and so it was great. It was, it was really great. Um, it's weird now on Saturday nights after, you know, you get in a routine for 30 years. Uh, Saturday nights are kind of a weird thing because you go to church on Sunday mornings, but you're not going to work, you know, to do all the things. Um, so, and you go with a family on, on a Sunday morning, it's whole thing. Just a different world, man. So I've, uh, like I said, I've been, I got to wife 360 in October of 2022, um, and started a, a new thing. We, we work in, uh, Y 360, if you don't know, we're, we're part, um, publishing.

Kerry Ray (05:06):
And, uh, we create content for student ministries, youth ministries, all over the world to use. Um, and we also do camps. We have a, a generate by Y 360, uh, which does camp all across different locations. We had this last summer, summer of 2022. We, I believe we were in 20, 23 or 24 locations, um, running camps, 20. We had three different teams spread out all over. Uh, so it was great. My, my section of that, we create all of the, uh, written material, all the devotional material, all of the, um, all the written material for camps. Um, so yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's very different. And then I get to, uh, coach student ministries, youth pastors, all across the place. Um, I've been doing that for around seven years, so, yeah. Nice. Yeah. Lot of fun. Lot of fun.

Nick Clason (05:59):
So let me ask you this, just, this isn't one of the questions I sent you. I'm already going off script, but, uh, do you enjoy Saturday nights and Sunday mornings not being responsible for stuff, or is there like an element of you that misses it at all?

Kerry Ray (06:15):
Oh, absolutely. I think anytime you do something for a significant amount of your life, um, there's a part of you that missed that, um, that misses, um, you know, just being around and, and, and knowing all the faces and knowing who's where. And, um, yeah, there's just part of it that you kind of miss a little bit of it. There's some part, and maybe this will make sense for some of you listening who've done anything for a significant amount of time, there's parts that you miss that you don't know why you miss, or you don't even know what you miss. You just say something's weird and off and just seems a little different. Um, yeah. But yeah, there, there's pieces and parts. There's definitely pieces and parts that I don't miss.

Kerry Ray (06:56):
You know, I don't miss, you know, being gone all day on a Sunday. Um, I don't miss, um, I the whole getting to be a part like you go as a family and do stuff with as a family, uh, that's really brand new. Yeah. Um, and, and it's, it's been great. My, my kids, I, my wife and I have two kids. We have an eight year old and a 14 just turned 14 a couple days ago. And so this is such a significant time in both of their lives mm-hmm. that it is great to be, you know, just a dad and not a staff member. Um, and to get, to get to sit in, I'll tell you, you know, a little bit of a confession. It's also difficult. Um, we're at a smaller church now, and, um, having been in large church ministry for so long, um, now that my daughter is participating in ministry, and, you know, that ministry is, you know, trying to figure itself out and mm-hmm. and, and go through all the, you know, all the growing pains of, of a growing ministry. And I'm sitting on the sidelines and thinking, gosh, , that's awkward. I can help that, but I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna white knight, you know, come in when my, on my high horse and, and quote unquote fix it for them. Especially with,

Nick Clason (08:16):
You're fixing it as the YM 360 guy. Are you fixing it as Madison dad, as dad? Are you fixing it as a church volunteer? Like, what, yeah. What's

Kerry Ray (08:26):
Your role, right? Or are you fixing as the guy that quote unquote knows it all right. So, you know, you don't, you don't wanna be that guy. Um, so yeah, it's, it's just been, it's been weird. That's, that's kind of the honest thing is to have done a thing, and I think this is true at anything, not just ministry, but having, you know, if you were, if you were a cabinet maker and you walked in and people were, you know, fumbling around with a hammer trying to build a cabinet, and you're just biting your, you know, biting your closed fist, going, oh, no, that's not how you, you do it . Um, so it, it's that, I mean, and not saying that they're not doing a great job. Um, they are, they're doing well in figuring it out. They're just, you know, figuring it out. Um, and they're going through some, some growing pain in that process. So yeah, that's, that's what we're doing as a family right

Nick Clason (09:13):
Now. So I'm, I'm curious, Kerry, like two or three episodes ago, I'll link it, you know, in the show notes, but I had, uh, my friend d Pinker on, and we talked about, um, how he, he has a similar longevity track record that you do, and he talked about how the invention of the iPhone was a pretty monumental, like, milestone marker for him in youth ministry. Like he kinda remembers ministry before the invention, um, and widespread use of the iPhone, and then post the invention and widespread use of the iPhone. Do you have, would you say you have a similar, um, experience with that? Like, did you, did you notice that being a pretty big milestone thing in student ministry and in your career noticing how students interacted? Did that change things? Did you, um, have to program or think about things differently because of technology and it's, you know, interwoven into the culture?

Kerry Ray (10:11):
Um, honestly, I, I think the iPhone changed not programming so much as it changed, um, advertising. And I know that's a big no-no word. You know, in the church world, you're not supposed to see the things you're doing as a quote unquote product or something you are promoting. Um, but you are, you're, you're promoting a thing, um, come be a part of this, whether it's a camp, a Wednesday night, a Sunday morning, you are trying to tell people this is a thing we have, um, otherwise you're sitting there by yourself. Um, and so I think it changed, I think it changed dramatically how we engaged with, with students. Hmm. , um, I don't think so much at all. It, it really changed programming. Um, but it definitely changed the way we engaged. It definitely changed, um, the level of intentionality that you had to put behind, uh, promotion and how you promoted and how you celebrated.

Kerry Ray (11:15):
Uh, it also gave you kind of an open door, you know, whether you want it to be or not. A lot of youth ministry is word of mouth. Yeah. Um, I always used to kinda call it the skating rink effect when I was a kid. You know, the skating rink was, was a thing. , sadly, that'll show you my age. The skating rink was a thing, and we didn't, in middle school specifically, you didn't know why it was a thing. Yeah. You just knew that's where everybody was. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, but it was word of mouth, you know? It was, it wasn't the, the skating rink when I grew up, the skating, it was called fun time, skate land. Uh, it wasn't that fun time. Skateland had this giant marketing, you know, this this monumental system or this, this thing that they were doing. They were like, come to fun time.

Kerry Ray (12:01):
It was just, it was word of mouth. And the middle school, you know, that that's where everybody was going on on a Friday night. They were going to fun time. And you talked about it in the hallways, and people do, and I think in cinema ministry, whether we want it to be or not, it, it's always been a word of mouth. You know, I'm, you know, why do, why do so many kids show up to this one event, this all nighter that you do? Well, because the word got out that these people are going and the other people wanna go. And then it snowballs into this thing. Um, and I think the word of mouth became digital. Word of mouth. Um, and you could, you could digitally have a megaphone to, to broadcast that thing versus just relying on word of mouth. Yeah. Um, and so that changed the game.

Kerry Ray (12:47):
So it changed. Um, the only thing I would say in programming, uh, uh, that it would change was that you had to be, or you started to be a little more intentional about recording the things that you were doing mm-hmm. and putting them out there for people to see later. Yeah. Uh, and to advertise with. Um, that's probably the only way it really changed. And I would say it changed programming. It would just, Hey, we want to capture certain things. And so we would talk about, as a team, uh, what are the things we wanna maybe capture tonight and, and broadcast so that people can see it and try to leverage the fomo, you know, the, the, that FOMO piece mm-hmm. is, is a real deal, the invention of the iPhone, Instagram, now TikTok, um, even, even be, you know, be real. It is that FOMO piece of what's happening in the moment. Who's doing what, Ooh, I wanna be a part of that. Mm-hmm. , that's what changed. I think that's what changed.

Nick Clason (13:45):
So would you say before that, that fomo for someone my age, who's only done ministry in an iPhone generation, is fomo a recent phenomenon since the invention of technology and things like that? Or was that always a part of it? Now you just can see it with your own eyes that you Oh, you're right now missing out.

Kerry Ray (14:07):
Yeah. No, FOMO has always existed. Um, it wasn't called that, but you know, there was always that, you know, nobody wants to be left out. Everybody wants to be, um, they did say it for hundreds, hundreds of years. They've been saying for years, you know, that, um, when you walk into a building, but think about yourself anytime, iPhone or not, you walk into a restaurant in a busy time of the day for a restaurant mm-hmm. , and you're the, there's maybe one other person in the restaurant. There's something inside of you that goes, it could be the greatest restaurant ever. It could be the best food, best atmosphere, but there's something inside you that intrinsically goes, huh, yeah, something's wrong. What's wrong with this, this ? And, and I think that's, I think that's who we are as, as human beings. When you walk into a store, there's nobody shopping there. When you, when you go to a gym and you work and there's, you're what, what's midnight? That's if you're doing it in a time where typically there would be people there, whether we walk into a church now, um, and there's, you know, there's nobody really attending. You go, huh? When you walk outta that, you don't say, you know, man, that was great. You go, man, that was great. I wonder why nobody goes.

Nick Clason (15:27):
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, right? Cause none of that's based on the actual content maybe. Nope. Of like, oh, that was a great message I really resonated with, or whatever. Like what you're noticing is like the social equity landscape of like, what's going on around you, looking around, no one's there. And

Kerry Ray (15:44):
It is a thing, and it is a thing. I think that thing has always existed. And I think whether it's the iPhone or social media, um, has just exacerbated that and made it, yeah. A more prominent thing turned the volume up, if you will, uh, has made it a more prominent thing, more obvious thing. Um, the, but I think it's always been there. Uh, I think it's, you know, when you were eight years old and didn't get invited to a birthday party and you knew other people did mm-hmm. , that's, you had fomo, you were missing out. Um, I think that's just a, a human thing.

Nick Clason (16:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So you and I connected, you were at a church in Cincinnati. I was at a church in Cincinnati, and we were on the doorstep of working together. Um, and so in that process, I guess, I mean, I guess it was even formal. We had formal interviews and stuff. Um, you explained to me, uh, a thing that, I don't know if you came up with this or coined it or whatever, but you called it contact work. Um, so explain a little bit to our listeners, like what that is, where it comes from, maybe the theological or biblical basis for it. Um, and, uh, like then I wanna kind of explore, is that type of work, is that type of ministry, is that possible more and more as we enter into this digital space? But first of all, give us just a little bit of like a background of like, what is it, um, what are you talking about with contact work? I think when I heard it, I never heard it called that, but it was very intrinsic to me. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, this makes sense, right? As a youth pastor, like, this is what I'm trying to do. I just never kind of put this label to it. So explain that a little bit.

Kerry Ray (17:32):
Yeah. Well, I definitely did not, uh, coin the phrase contact work. Um, that is, um, I served for a while, um, in young life, and that is a, that is a big, big piece of young life. If anybody's listening who has ever been a part or knows anything about young life, contact work is one of their core tenants. Um, they put a lot of, a lot of energy and effort and strategy

Nick Clason (18:00):
Into Andre good at contact work. That's, that's probably what they're best, I would say.

Kerry Ray (18:04):
Oh, they're, yeah, they're excellent at it. And it's because they value it. It's such a high value, um, for them. Like I said, it's one of their core tenants. Um, it's such a high value that they do it well. Um, and so borrowing that phrase from those guys, um, I just learned it and saw it done really well and saw it valued. Um, and so I, I kind of adopted it into early on into, um, what I was doing, and it was, it was going where they are versus expecting them to come to you. Hmm. Um, contact work at, at its core is, uh, young life would call it earning the right to be heard. Um, but it is, or maybe you hear them say, um, doing things on their turf mm-hmm. , um, so to speak. But basically it is, it is going to where the students are mm-hmm. versus sitting and expecting them to come to you, and then you're putting in the time with them in their places where they feel comfortable and confident, and where they maybe kinda run the show versus your place behind these walls, behind this door where you're in charge and are expecting them to, to do certain, certain things. Um, contact, contact work. Oops, sorry. Contact work is something that is something that we have done for years. It's an expectation.

Kerry Ray (19:37):
Sorry, my headphones went out for a second.

Nick Clason (19:40):
Oh, no, you're good. Contact work is sounds great to me. So,

Kerry Ray (19:42):
Okay. Contact work is, is something that, um, I have, you know, expected is the best word to use of any staff we have I've ever had on, on a, on a church staff. Um, it is, it's that big of a deal. Um, for example, when I had interns and, you know, we were only allowed, you know, what, 15 hours with an intern mm-hmm. mm-hmm. 10 of those hours with contact work, and I would ask them to, you know, fill out a form that tells me where they were going, what they were doing, who they, who they hung out with and talked to. Mm-hmm. , it was that big of a deal. I wanted them to value it. Um, that's when I first started in ministry. Early on, we didn't call it that. Um, but that was my role. Um, I had an older youth pastor who kinda looked at me and sat me down and said, Hey man, I, I'm too old to go run with the Bulls. Um, so , I'm gonna ask you to do that, and I'm gonna expect you to be in the school. I'm gonna expect you to be the one at the games. I'll still be the guy preaching, but, and you know, teaching, teaching you how to do those things, but, you know, you're the guy that's gonna run around with 'em. You can call it Tide Piper, whatever you wanna call it, but it is going and building relationships with students, with teenagers on their turf where they are at instead of expecting them to come to you.

Nick Clason (21:02):
Yeah. I think, and I think, like for me, man, the basis really of me starting this whole podcast is realizing that, uh, digital can play a role in that. You know, I think for churches, a lot of churches, uh, get stuck into their, like, programming schedule. It's Wednesday night, Sunday morning, whatever, and not realizing that there's another 167 unclaimed hours that students are living life doing their thing. Um, you know, so that can obviously be done in person, but how would you say, have you seen that be either possible, or would you say like, yeah, that's not even really a possibility, uh, to show up on their turf in like a digital or more of like a hybrid type of way?

Kerry Ray (21:53):
Lemme back up for a second first, and I can say that one, it's, it's part of what we're called to do. Mm-hmm. , if you're in ministry, um, we're supposed to be following and living as Jesus did. And what you never saw in the New Testament was Jesus just sit still somewhere and say, you know, everybody come to me. Mm-hmm. , I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna sit here , you know, in Jerusalem. I'm just gonna sit here and expect you to come to me. He traveled, he, he went around from town to town, place to place sharing and talking. And part of that was, you know, just getting around the people. Mm-hmm. , um, the people that, you know, he came to this place to die for was just to be amongst and, and interact with those people. Um, and that's part of our calling we're, we can't just sit in a church.

Kerry Ray (22:43):
You could have the greatest program in the world, but you sitting in a church and just expecting people to come to you is one arrogant too. Mm-hmm. , it's foolish. Three, it's ineffective. Um, it just doesn't, it's not the thing you can't, that's not who you're called to be. You're called to, to be out and about. And with people, people, these students are, you're calling, they're, they're coming to know Christ is your calling. And, and it can't be, I'm just sitting here and the kids that get here, that's great. The kids who don't hate it for them, um, that that's not okay. Yeah. So let's start there. Uh, number two, um, it, it matters to your community. Um, you hopefully want your church, your ministry, your student ministry. You want that to, to have such an impact on the lives of the people in your community, no matter their age, that if it disappeared, people would care. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (23:40):
. Yeah.

Kerry Ray (23:41):
And to do that, you can't sit in your ivory tower literally and, and expect that to happen. You've got to go out and make some sort of impact, some sort of influence. Uh, and I think in the world we live in the, with the, um, deification, if you will, you know, all of the, you know, I am, you know, de deconstructing my, my religious experience. Um, people are weary. People are weary, people are leery I'll rhyme there. Uh, they're both, they are, they're, um, suspicious mm-hmm. of church. Like, what do you, you know, what do you want from me? Oh, you just want my money. Um, and we've got, if you're talking about students and general teenagers, uh, we've got, this is the first group generation that was raised by students who bowed out years ago. You know, statistically they're, they're called the nuns. N o n E S, not n u n S.

Kerry Ray (24:42):
But the parents are the people who were in student ministry, you know, maybe. And then they bowed out and their parents didn't, you know, didn't raise them in church. And so now they're having kids of their own. And, and so it's, it's blank slates. So you've got parents who don't know, who don't know church. You've got students who don't know church. Um, they're blank canvases. And so, uh, we are, should be out and about if nothing else trying to, trying to show and be the hands of Jesus Christ, the hands of beauty of Christ in these communities in which we are called the love administer to, um, digitally, um, I, I, let's be honest, we watched these last couple years with Covid shutting everything down. Mm-hmm. , we watched the churches who, and the student ministries who had embraced a, a different philosophy versus the come to me.

Kerry Ray (25:40):
Um, they transitioned better. I won't say, well, I will say they had, they made it through the Covid piece a little better mm-hmm. than the churches and the student ministries who lived in the come to us mentality. Um, but let's be honest, I think everybody struggled with it. Uh, because even young life, uh, who is excellent at contact work, I watched Young Life struggled to find themselves because they couldn't do that anymore. Yeah. They couldn't do the face to face interaction, and they had to try to do it in a digital format, and it didn't work as well. Sounds, um, it, it failed. Um, yeah. And it struggled. I mean, some of it, I mean, he, it kinda worked. Not really. I, I would say it failed. Um, even, you know, the big players in, in student industry, the people who were doing this, the guys out like, you know, um, fields and Josh, Doug Fields and Josh out in California went to a digital format.

Kerry Ray (26:38):
And I don't know, I, I haven't talked to these guys about it, so I'm gonna assume, but I, I would assume if you, you asked those guys, they would tell you that it was not what it was. Mm-hmm. , did they do the big digital thing? Well, sure they did. Yeah. But I don't, I don't think it was what it was before that. Yeah. I don't think they got the same interaction. It's a, it's a lot of work for a little payoff. Um, I know at the time of covid, I was in, uh, church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and our middle school ministry was tied to the weekends mm-hmm. , and it was kinda a show up to church, and you go to this thing, but our high school was built offsite. Um, and we had had multiple years where the students had built communities, it houses across the city, and those communities met offsite, and it was in that community that those students lived in with small group leaders that lived in that community that those students lived in.

Kerry Ray (27:33):
And those students were showing up and inviting people into this thing because it was their thing. Mm-hmm. , um, it was kind of their turf, but with our, uh, blanket over the top of it. Sure. It was, but it was still their thing. Um, and when Covid hit, I got to see firsthand middle school, they come to us, we shut that down for a little bit, then we tried to do it digitally. It just didn't fly. Um, it was a struggle to put, you know, 10 kids in the room, in, in a digital room, uh, high school. I don't think, if I looked at the numbers, and I tracked them every week, I think in total we lost two students. Wow. Two, why? And we actually picked up a few. Why? Because they had already built this community that was not attached to the come, come and see mm-hmm. ,

Kerry Ray (28:31):
It was, it was a community. So when we took that community that already existed and just moved it to a digital format, they, they still do the same people. It was still, it was built on a different thing. Mm-hmm. , it was centered around community and not centered around come and see Yes. Or come and participate. Yeah. Um, so it, it, it, it mattered. It, it changed. And I, like I said, I watched, um, during those, during the covid years, got to see, you know, there were plenty of churches that that died. There were plenty of churches that are still, you know, where a year out now when this is being recorded. And they are still struggling with putting the pieces back together. I don't think, I don't think ministry, I don't think church will ever quite be the same. Um, post covid. Interesting. But, and I think youth ministry is harder, um, because I think students got realize they didn't have to be there.

Kerry Ray (29:25):
Mm-hmm. , uh, the church kids stopped going. The, the non-church kids never went. Uh, and we had a generation now that has been raised at least for a couple of years, you think of a sixth grader, they went through sixth, seventh, and part of grade without ever being in a so ninth grade in that time where it's already hard to be a part of a community because you drive for the first time, you've got some freedom in ninth and 10th grade. Yeah. Depending on your age and your state, uh, you start having freedom, you start working, um, you start doing other things. It's already hard in the, in the youth industry world. For those of you listening to this that are in, in ministry, you know, that time is already difficult anyway. But now you've got a group who went three years without engaging at all mm-hmm. ,

Kerry Ray (30:08):
Uh, and then behind them is another group that went three years without engaging at all. And behind them is another group that, you know, hey, which is babies at the time. So it's going to be a difficult dig out. Um, and I think that that actually makes this contact work piece even more relevant. Mm-hmm. . Now to your question, if, can it be digital? I don't know. I, I have not seen that work super well. Um, now I will tell you this, we all know that, um, for a teenager, uh, when you, and I think of the friends we make, you know, they say, well, my friend, you know, you like, you think my friend that I play, you know, call on duty with, you know, that lives in California. You're like, you never, you, you live in Alabama, you don't know that kid , but you're like, no, I play with them every day.

Kerry Ray (31:00):
I, you know, I spend hours with them on a headset, you know, shooting people and, and you know, talking about stuff over the headset to them that is a real friend. Yeah. Um, that barrier has dropped mm-hmm. to us as adults. You know, I think, you know, for those of you that don't know, those of us, you know, over the age of, let's call it 27 ish, you know, we're digital. We're digital immigrants. Mm-hmm. , we're, we come with baggage of how technology works and how it should be used and utilized, and, uh, where our teenagers and below, or digital natives mm-hmm. , there's never been a time where they did not know technology. There's never been a time where social media was not interactive for them. Um, and so we as adults, as digital immigrants, let's use that instead of adults, us as digital immigrants, we look at, um, online friendships, online relationships, um, and go, that's weird.

Kerry Ray (32:03):
Um, that's not a thing. But to them as digital natives, that has always been the thing that has always been very real. Um, dating apps and, you know, swiping left and right. And I mean, that went from like a silly thing. Like, you know, this is those of us, again as digital immigrants, look at that and go, come on. Um, you know, you're just, you're just, you know, trying to find a hot dude or hot girl and hook up. But for them, they're like, no, I, I'm trying to find a relationship. I get to know people this way. Yeah. Um, it's, it's fascinating. Yeah. Um, so I think there is, there, there's gotta be a way for that to happen mm-hmm. , and we've gotta figure out this, and I'd go back to contact work. There's gotta be a way for contact work to happen in a digital context. But there is some, there is something to set for a loss of the, the face to face because the face to face is so significant.

Nick Clason (32:58):
Wow. Well, wasn't that awesome? I'm so excited for you to hear and learn from part two. Um, anything and everything that Kerry mentioned, uh, YM 360, my youth min, um, all those things. Um, and also Derry's episode. I'm gonna link all of those in the show notes, which you can grab a in your podcast catcher or be over at hybridministry.xyz. And I would really encourage you, because he said a lot of really good things. And if you're like me and you listen on 1.5 or two times speed, uh, you may have not caught it, or you're driving or you mowing the lawn or whatever you're doing, head to hybridministry.xyz and you can grab a full transcript of this episode so that you can have and use to utilize at your discretion. That's a thing that we do and produce for you, um, for a hundred percent free.

Nick Clason (33:49):
So we just wanna let you know that that is available there for you to check out at http://hybridministry.xyz If you found this helpful and I'm sure that you did, please give it a share. Send it to someone that you know, maybe in youth ministry, um, and leave us a rating or a review. That would be really, really helpful for us. We would love to, uh, hear that. So, um, we will chat with you guys next time. Excited to share with you part two of this episode. But until then, we'll talk again later by.