Episode 108

David Carpenter on Social Media for Youth Ministry

00:00:00
/
00:33:49
Your Host
Tags

About this Episode

πŸ”₯ [FREE] Hybrid Ministry Strategy GuideπŸ”₯

https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

πŸ’₯[CUSTOM] Hybrid CoachingπŸ’₯

https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

======================================
DESCRIPTION
Church Youth Pastor, David Carpenter, shares how he teaches the Bible to his teenagers and lays out his complete digital process.

The amazing thing about David's strategy is that it not only looks great online, but it's incredibly cost effective.

David is a digital discipleship genius, listen in!

======================================
πŸ““SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/108

//YOUTH PASTOR FACEBOOK GROUPS
https://www.facebook.com/groups/493666560814931
https://www.facebook.com/groups/youthpastorsonly

//DAVID'S CANNON M-100
(This link does create a small commission for our channel)
https://walmrt.us/3W0Fu4g

//FAST & AFFORDABLE GRAPHIC DESIGN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

//HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
Do it all on your phone!
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

//DAVID'S CANNON 70D
(This link does create a small commission for our channel)
Camera: https://walmrt.us/3xGoMiN
Lens: https://walmrt.us/3LkIZxu

//NICK'S LINKTR.EE
https://linktr.ee/clasonnick

//BRADY SHEARER - PRO CHURCH TOOLS
https://prochurchtools.com/

//DAVID ON SOCIAL
[CHURCH ACCOUNTS]
https://www.youtube.com/@Harrodsburg.Students
https://www.instagram.com/harrodsburg.students/
https://www.tiktok.com/@harrodsburg.students
[PERSONAL ACCOUNTS]
https://www.facebook.com/dlcarpen140
https://www.instagram.com/davidleecarpenter/


πŸ‘‰ STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

======================================

πŸ†“ FREEBIES πŸ†“
πŸ“… "The Full Hybrid Ministry Strategy"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

πŸ–₯️ "My 9 Favorite DYM Resources"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

πŸ“¨ Full Proof Recruiting Email
EMAIL: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/recruiting-email

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

======================================
πŸ› οΈTOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

BEST DYM RESOURCES
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

--------------
πŸ•°οΈTIMECODES
00:00 Who is David Carpenter?
02:59 What is your current youth ministry social media?
07:16 What exactly do you do?
14:19 Digital Discipleship for Cheap
16:48 The Easiest Content for Youth Pastors to Create
20:34 Don't Be Afraid!

--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT
00:00:01:02 - 00:00:25:04
Nick Clason
What's going on, everybody? Hey, I got another interview style episode for you today. This time it is with David Carpenter. He's a youth pastor in Kentucky, and I came across David through social media, I think, in like a youth pastor, only or doing type style Facebook group. He was talking and answering a question about social media. And so his answer intrigued me.

00:00:25:04 - 00:00:45:21
David Carpenter
I clicked on his profile and I saw that David is very much leaning into a digital and hybrid ministry experience in his church and in his ministry. So I reached out and I scheduled an interview. And so, without any further ado, I have the exclusive David Carpenter interview for you to check out here on the Hybrid Ministry episode.

00:00:45:21 - 00:01:08:00
David Carpenter
If you find this helpful in any way, I would love it if you would subscribe, like, and share it with a friend, but without any further ado, check this interview out between myself and David Carpenter. I'm here with David. David, what is up, man? How are you doing this morning?

00:01:08:00 - 00:01:26:11
David Carpenter
I'm doing great. I am recovering. We're in the middle of a VBS week right now as we're recording this.
So some of I'm sure if some of you all know how that goes and, we're, you know, kind of making it through, but it's it's a good time and it's a good week. So now we're doing it. VBS at night, church or VBS in the morning. Church. Yeah, we're VBS at night. okay. And I'm, I'm crazy youth pastor David.

00:01:26:11 - 00:01:38:16
David Carpenter
So I, you know, get stuck up on the stage and then do crazy dances and jump around and, and the like. So that's kind of the kind of the rhythm, at least once a week in the summer, that, that we're in. But yeah, it's a good time.

00:01:38:11 - 00:01:45:16
Nick Clason
Yeah. We've all been there. We've all been. Yeah, we've all been there, just, you know, part as part of the gigs.
How goes. So, Well, that's awesome. I'm excited that you guys are having a good week. I hope that you're getting, at least some sleep. And I hope that your coffee this morning is strong so that you can recover. Well, it is VBS know, but I, I came across David, I think, in like a DYM or youth pastor's only or something like that Facebook group.
and someone had asked some sort of question about social media or something, and, you replied, I have no idea what you said, but I started creeping on you and your profile, and I just saw a lot of different, like, videos and like shorts and reels and stuff like that. and it was more than I was used to for, I guess I would say like the average or like or standard youth ministry, social media that I saw.
And so because of that caught my attention. and so I followed you and or became friends with you or something on Facebook. reached out to you and, and chatted a little bit. But I'm excited to have you on here today, because I'd love to know, you know, what is like your as it stands today, in your student ministry at your church.
Like what is your current sort of like social media or digital presence? What does it what does it look like? What do you what do you aim in for? And how's all that going?

00:02:51:04 - 00:03:16:19
David Carpenter
Yeah. well, I appreciate you asking and obviously honored to to be here. And we connected on, on that, question. And, you know, I started doing social media stuff when I was probably shoot 14 or 15.

00:03:16:21 - 00:03:46:04
David Carpenter
my dad was a pastor. And obviously, I'm sure lots of pastors kids out there know you get roped into doing things. And he was kind of an early innovator and had started doing a weekly YouTube show for our church. This was probably back in 2012, 2013, and I wanted to increase the views on it. So I created a Facebook page for it and kind of started to put together a logo for it and, and try to find ways to increase its, viewership and things like that.

00:03:46:04 - 00:04:15:09
David Carpenter
And kind of got my feet wet doing, you know, video editing and social media stuff at that point. But, instead of ministry, you know, we are looking at social media as an opportunity to disciple our students, but also as a, an outward opportunity to disciple, you know, literally people across the world, and, you know, practically that looks like a couple different things.

00:04:15:11 - 00:05:00:16
David Carpenter
platforms we use, we use, YouTube. We put our regular, weekly ministry teachings on podcast form. we use TikTok and we use Instagram, which is connected to a Facebook account. Our students don't engage there much, but, we, we share some of that stuff because I think it helps to keep parents connected, but, kind of a shift in the mindset going into it for us is, is that opportunity for discipleship that, you know, we are producing teachings and content that, man, it it's kind of already done and we have the opportunity to capture it and record it and then redisplay it, to potentially an audience that

00:05:00:16 - 00:05:21:21
David Carpenter
was missing on a Wednesday night or an audience that may, may never be able to come to our church. and so, you know, kind of, for you, probably about a year ago, we, we started thinking about ways for our church and our student ministry to really maximize, digital, you know, opportunities to reach people and, and disciple people.

00:05:21:23 - 00:05:41:03
David Carpenter
And over the last year, we've been kind of rolling that out and stepping into that over time. because we want to make sure that we can do it in sustainable and continuous ways. But, yeah, it's it's really just it's it's an opportunity for discipleship and for us to tell the story of our church, for us to tell the story of our state of ministry.

00:05:41:05 - 00:06:06:18
David Carpenter
people love stories. And, when, when we have the opportunity to share the stories of what Jesus is doing in the lives of our students or, or just even ways that our students are connecting and and enjoying their teenage years in a healthy Christian community. we feel like that's a win.

00:06:06:18 - 00:06:32:09
Nick Clason
So, yeah, no doubt, the most recent episodes, that I had, I had are like, year long resident on here.
And it was interesting because he mentioned the value that like, our social media sort of like presents and, and just philosophy and strategy, the value that it brought to like our attendance and our students are actually like in the room. Right. Because a lot of times, a lot of times I think it's like, we view it as like a replacement for the kids that were not at church or, for the kids that aren't even there yet.

00:06:32:09 - 00:06:57:17
Nick Clason
But he was like, no, it I thought it enhanced like the experience for the kids are already there, which was like an interesting like I'd seen it too, but I hadn't like, I hadn't come to that sort of like conclusion, like he had. So I because I do think the argument a lot of times that I feel like either we face as youth pastors or even just like me with this podcast, it's just that there's not enough time, and we need to focus on the kids that we have.

00:06:57:19 - 00:07:16:08
Nick Clason
And so to hear you say like, this is not this is an opportunity. This is a way for us to lean in with the kids that we have like that I agree with I would agree with that. And so get like get specific here, like help, help us out, help people out. Like what exactly do you do? Like what camera do you use?

00:07:16:08 - 00:07:38:00
Nick Clason
What like software are you using to edit. Like what's your because you're a real youth pastor with a real job, with real responsibilities, with real messages to write and programs to create, like, how are you, involving digital media into that? And like, what's your workflow with all that? Because it feels like it would probably be a steep learning curve or just a lot of extra work.
And maybe it is, but like, what are you doing? What's helping you out? What's what are some shortcuts? Maybe that might be out there.

00:07:38:00 - 00:07:55:02
David CarpenterYeah. Well, first, I think what you said is completely true, that it's it is an outward facing thing, but also one, I think sometimes where we as preachers assume that people come and listen to us.

00:07:55:03 - 00:08:27:07
David Carpenter
I speak to our students on Wednesday nights for about 18 to 22 minutes. Sunday morning there's a, you know, 28 to 32 minutes. And we think they probably remember everything we said, right. Like they they wrote the notes. They've got it in. They've already applied every one of these points. You know, it was all iterated. And I remember my great illustration and one, you know, when, when we're including things that are reflecting on the teachings, I think that reinforces and reminds those who were in the room and also, things like we did a post on our social that did really well a few months ago of, yeah, a picture of a student taking notes,

00:08:27:09 - 00:08:44:03
David Carpenter
and the post was all overlaid on the photo of the student was the notes from Wednesday night, some of the notes that we'd given them, and then in the caption was information. What? Why do we encourage students to take notes? Why do we give out handouts and and give an opportunity to teach culture in in those moments? So it definitely is for the kids in the room too.

00:08:44:03 - 00:09:06:21
David Carpenter
But yeah, practically speaking, we, from, September, August to May, we regularly gather for student nights. Our church takes the month of June off, and then we come back in July with some different programing on Monday nights. But for those student nights, we capture those, I capture those from our soundboard straight into GarageBand. It's nothing fancy.

00:09:06:21 - 00:09:27:24
David Carpenter
I think if you listen to podcasts, you're probably smart enough to go get a it's a I think it was an $8 adapter that is a board out to a usb-C in. And I just record the audio of the speaking. and we do podcast for the reason of one number one demographic for podcast listeners is like 12 to 22.

00:09:28:01 - 00:09:43:13
David Carpenter
I heard somewhere. And so our students and student aged people are listening to podcast. And also I use those as a resource for our parents always encourage our our parents to stay connected. If you listen to the podcast as a parent, hey, you can listen to what your student is learning and stay engaged and connected to our students in that way.

00:09:43:17 - 00:10:03:11
David Carpenter
So we have audio in that way. And then we as a message is beginning. Our church is not a very big church. We're in a more rural area. We're about an hour, 45 minutes an hour south of Lexington, Kentucky. and so we have a canon in 100, which is not a super nice camera. it's an outdated model.

00:10:03:11 - 00:10:27:06
David Carpenter
I think the 200 came out a couple of years ago. So this is a post post, you know, model camera. and we set it on a tripod high enough that it's pretty well over the students head, and we record those and, get a long form video of the message. and that goes on YouTube and that, that again, the primary purpose of that is for our parents to have a way to connect.

00:10:27:08 - 00:10:47:19
David Carpenter
I don't have any visions of, of those, you know, going viral or making me famous. it's, you know, those are we're getting 2 to 6, eight views on those videos. but, you know, it's it's so that we have a digital record of it. And then, those get split into my goal is always two short form clips that go on TikTok and Instagram.

00:10:47:19 - 00:11:10:15
David Carpenter
And if you can get them short enough YouTube shorts a week. as a way to reiterate, I reiterate, there's a word in there somewhere. I probably reiterate. There you go. That's the one. our teachings on Wednesday night, to connect back with those students and obviously to disciple people who, you know, they may be near to you, but are far from out or need encouragement in their faith.

00:11:10:17 - 00:11:32:20
David Carpenter
so that's pretty practical. I use Premiere Pro. I've always used Adobe products. it's but the what we do, I mean, you I feel you could get a YouTube video, of your teachings. You could use a phone and a, digital recorded mic, like a, phone in usb-C mic, especially if you've got a light, you know, new model phone.

00:11:32:22 - 00:11:53:09
David Carpenter
if you're not in a large space, this as your space gets larger, it's the lens being able to zoom in on the space that you're in. But it's not fancy technology. the church has invested $10 in an an adapter to record the audio, and now we just, we got better quality from the board straight into to a laptop.

00:11:53:10 - 00:12:16:05
David Carpenter
So, I mean, so that's that's kind of the we build out from there because, we can stay consistent with that, especially through the school year. the other things we're doing is, we show up with a camera to everything we do. I use a canon, I'm sitting here looking at it. I think it's a. Let me look, let me tell you, for I like to.

00:12:16:07 - 00:12:36:00
David Carpenter
It's a 70 day. I couldn't reference a 7080 or an 80, but with a 70 to 200 lens. I'm not a photographer. about two and a half years ago, I started taking pictures. And I've gotten better over time. You can put that thing in auto, and if you take enough pictures, you can get a couple good ones.

00:12:36:04 - 00:12:52:17
David Carpenter
Some. Some will look good, right? Yes. Exactly right. If you can get a couple good ones in focus, and we have leaders now that, you know, of course, like when I'm, when I'm speaking or on stage playing a game or something, I can't get those pictures. I tell them, hey, just this is how you focus it and do your best.

00:12:52:17 - 00:13:11:01
David Carpenter
And they always, you know, I've got multiple leaders who can come out with a couple good pictures. Those are great to have for your YouTube thumbnails and Instagram Reels covers. And then also just having a photo library, is helpful for for to stay consistent. That's one of the most important things I feel like with social and success in is consistency.

00:13:11:01 - 00:13:34:23
David Carpenter
And I think for people like us who work, you know, a full time job as a student, pastor, youth pastor, that's probably the greatest challenge. So building rhythms into your regular weekly life to prioritize social is important. And I think that's kind of what you are in doing what you're doing, trying to encourage people towards. And something I would definitely Amen.

00:13:34:23 - 00:14:00:06
David Carpenter
Yes and amen with what you're doing to say, hey, we are busy, but the five ten hours a week that it takes to, you know, record and and put a message on YouTube, cut it up into some clips, maybe find another way to to post on social once another week, once. Once a week. Twice. Like it's worth it because you are connecting to your kids where they already are.

00:14:00:06 - 00:14:20:17
David Carpenter
And it's an incredible mission field. It's an incredible opportunity. And, and I think it it's one of those things where sometimes we think, well, if I had time, I would, but it's like, no, this is something we need to make time for. Digital discipleship, should should be a priority, especially, for people reaching, you know, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

00:14:20:19 - 00:14:40:05
Nick Clason
Yeah. Dude. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. You said, like, so many things in there that, like, I like I feel like I've been saying, you know, so, like, the first thing of which is, like, you spent $10 to get better audio. And so because one of my arguments that I feel like a lot of youth pastors have is like, we're not the main room, we're not the main auditorium.

00:14:40:05 - 00:14:56:02
Nick Clason
So we don't have like the live stream gear. We don't have all that type of stuff. And like, you know, you just made the case, like, you don't have to have all that. Like, you can just put a camera up in the back of the room, like one of the strategies that we recommend, here on this podcast is like just sitting down like pre filming your messages.

00:14:56:02 - 00:15:25:05
Nick Clason
But if you don't even have the time to do that, like you can do it, David did. And just put a camera in the back of the room, capture your audio. And that's even one less like step of extra work, you know, and like you were saying, and it's interesting when you talk about like, having a digital library, like, that's a fantastic resource for down the road, because you might be counseling a kid, or kid might come to you with a particular issue and you're like, I've actually like studied that in Scripture.

00:15:25:05 - 00:15:45:09
Nick Clason
And like, I have that information and I've packaged it in like a sermon. It just was like two months ago. But like you have the YouTube link, let me send that to you. Because maybe they weren't there, maybe they weren't coming to your church yet, or maybe they whatever the reason, right, that were to your point, they just don't remember it because our teachings aren't as valuable as we hope and think that they they would be.

00:15:45:09 - 00:16:09:17
Nick Clason
And there's so there's really is so much like I agree, so much value in creating like a digital, a digital library far beyond what we can possibly think or imagine. I think. And you, if you start now, that begins to build and compound on itself, you know. So if let's say you're hearing this in the middle of this summer and this year, you're like, I'm going to start capturing my messages and posting them on YouTube.

00:16:09:19 - 00:16:27:19
Nick Clason
By the end of the school year, you have a full year library worth of content. So like David said, just you gotta find the time like it's it's we it's no longer an option anymore. I don't think I think you can keep doing it and you probably won't get fired, right. You can keep living life in your very like analog youth pastor way.

00:16:27:23 - 00:16:50:05
Nick Clason
And with all the irons in the fire like that is a way to keep doing the job. But I think we yeah, as youth pastors, can be more effective if we choose to invest in, engage and lean into what this digital space has to offer. For sure. David. What? if anything, is there anything that you're like, I would love it if we could get to this spot.

00:16:50:07 - 00:17:10:15
Nick Clason
Like, these are some of your, like, goals or dreams for your digital stuff, but your youth pastor and you haven't, you know, but legs all the way under it yet or, you know, it's it's a down the road sort of project that you'd like to see. Certainly. you know, obviously you want to continue to work to upgrade the quality of the, the content you're putting out.

00:17:10:17 - 00:17:35:00
David Carpenter
I would love to, lean into, more conversation, type content for YouTube and podcasts and even, you know, using those on social. We did a series, in the month of February. we call it All My Friends. And we sat and took three weeks. I interviewed, a couple different people, two of them. One week it was two of our students, two of our graduating seniors.

00:17:35:00 - 00:18:09:22
David Carpenter
And those videos are our best videos on YouTube. bar none, you know, and did so well. And and it's, you know, it's telling those stories. Yeah. I think people really like that. So content like that and, and more, student driven content, I think is the place we're going. And for your busy youth pastor, man, lean into, you know, your students, your students, our content creators, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are born into a world where they are all create content.

00:18:09:24 - 00:18:31:24
David Carpenter
I mean, go watch a seven year old kid. I go to the gym and my the my gym owner, his daughter, I think she's 7 or 8 and she walks around the gym with a digital camera and makes pictures and videos and, and edits and stories of, you know, her and all her, you know, people at the gym.

00:18:32:01 - 00:18:55:17
David Carpenter
They are all doing it. Yeah. Ask them, lean into them. And that's kind of a space that I would want to grow in. Is is including and and using our students, in that ministry, as, as a way to include them in the discipleship process online and also to, to tell their stories.

00:18:55:17 - 00:19:16:17
Nick Clason
And that's so good. And, you know, you use Premiere Pro, I use Premiere Pro.
So, like, you might hear a couple of guys on this podcast be like, man, it's like, I don't know that I'll have access to it. Like everything now is so accessible. Like I did a whole week's worth of daily recap videos off of my cell phone with cap cut a year ago. And like Canva, you know you can use Canva Pro and do tons of stuff on there.

00:19:16:17 - 00:19:34:24
Nick Clason
And because you're nonprofit, if you're church, it's free. You know, Canva, Canva for, nonprofits is completely free, but they'll give you like the pro, the pro version of it. And so like, you don't have to have all of these, like, higher level skills that you used to have to have, like the barrier to entry into this stuff is is so much lower.

00:19:34:24 - 00:19:53:11
Nick Clason
And you're so right. Like, our students absolutely eat this stuff up and probably want us to just get out of the way and let them do it anyway. So we should just we figure that out. All we gotta do is put a little infrastructure around it. Form.

00:19:53:11 - 00:20:18:13
David Carpenter
Yeah. I mean, what better thing could we do than like, really as student pastors?
What what better, greater opportunity we have then to empower students to step into ministry and to see their life as ministry? They're on social. They they're just like, we we want to encourage them to see their high school basketball team as a ministry. So we would we should do encourage them to see their digital life as a ministry.
Right. It's it's not that we put it in a compartment but that all of that we all of the things we do, our ministry and opportunities to share Jesus and and what better thing could we do than to teach our students that and to include them in that, that

00:20:18:15 - 00:20:55:23
Nick Clason
you're you're so right on that. Well, David, any other sort of like thoughts or words of encouragement that you would have, like, you have opportunity here to like, talk to some other youth pastors, people in church ministry like, you know, what what would you as you look out across the landscape of youth ministry and probably, if you're like me, the lack of digital integration that is existing like what? What would be your like final words or just, you know, final encouragement pieces to to other youth pastors?

00:20:55:23 - 00:21:20:05
David Carpenter
Yeah. You know, I was, I'm a great resource for, for anybody listening. of course, you know, these resources here. I looked at your Linktree the other day, and, I mean, gosh, some incredible resources you've got for for student pastors on there, for a digital resource.

00:21:20:05 - 00:21:45:20
David Carpenter
And also, I would encourage people to look into pro church tools. Brady here, I listened to his podcast every week. And and he is giving out, I mean, just free stuff. he did a, a poll on his Instagram, a couple months ago and asked, you know, these are church creatives. These are people like you and me who value church using digital, you know, marketing and digital opportunities to reach people.

00:21:45:20 - 00:22:18:05
David Carpenter
Jesus. And he asked those churches how many of them their church has a TikTok page. And of those people, 10% said yes. and I you know, you mentioned that group on Facebook of youth pastors only. and I think every time I see someone and it may have been even in that post that we connected on ask about TikTok, I see so many comments of, well, TikTok is just, you know, naked people or dancing people or, or or music that we wouldn't want our students to listen to or whatever.

00:22:18:07 - 00:22:56:23
David Carpenter
And, you know, my courage would be, don't be afraid to step into new things. as in terms of digital, you know, digital outreach, as a student pastor, as a student ministry. you know, when I came to, to this church, our, our ministry was very young, lots of middle schoolers, fewer high schoolers. And with that, fewer of our students had social media, like, a lot of our consistent students weren't on Instagram, they weren't on TikTok.

00:22:57:00 - 00:23:25:12
David Carpenter
And I think sometimes we could think, well, our students aren't even there. Why would I even invest into that? The one there's students in your community who are there, and two, you know, we're we're not affirming everything on something by putting our presence there. There's bad stuff everywhere. You know, our kids grow up and go to college.

00:23:25:14 - 00:23:42:08
David Carpenter
And guess what? I tell our kids all the time, hey, when you go to college, if you want to get into something, you can find it there, right? Your parents can only protect you for so long. And that's true in a lot of digital spaces. If you want to find, sinful things in on the internet, it's not really hard to do.

00:23:42:09 - 00:24:03:22
David Carpenter
All right? We're all mature and old enough to know that that's true. So our choice is either to be afraid and hide and say, well, if I'm not there, I'm not encouraging anybody to go there. Or we can say, hey, there's lost people there. There's people that are far from God there. And I mean, shoot, the way that TikTok's algorithm prioritizes locality.

00:24:03:24 - 00:24:27:24
David Carpenter
There are people in your community, students in your community who are there. And even if you would not encourage your students to go create an account, there, you can still go reach people there. And we have the greatest message that's ever been told. And we have the greatest means to take that message to the whole world. Why would we be afraid?

00:24:28:01 - 00:24:49:00
David Carpenter
And that would be my encouragement. Man is, hey, don't be afraid, try stuff. And guess what? I made a post. shoot. It was on our I was actually on our church page and it did did well on Instagram and did well on YouTube shorts and flopped on TikTok. I mean, like seven views, like horrible, awful. and guess what?

00:24:49:02 - 00:25:27:04
David Carpenter
The sun still came up the next day and not everything's going to work. But don't be afraid. Step into digital spaces because there is an incredible opportunity to minister to students and reach students in those spaces. And so I would just encourage you, don't be afraid. Yes, we have discernment from the Holy Spirit. Yes, there is wisdom. And no, we don't have to say yes to everything, but be wise and be willing to step out and trust that God can take your, a message that that someone is listening is is teaching maybe to a room of of 15 students.

00:25:27:06 - 00:25:44:06
David Carpenter
And there's something you could say in that, or a guest could say in that, or one of your students could encourage somebody with and millions of people could be encouraged with the love of Jesus. And I mean, what, what kind of incredible opportunity is that? And why would we not lean into that in any way we could? you're so right.

00:25:44:06 - 00:26:12:16
Nick Clason
And, you know, TikTok was just the new one, but everyone else has figured out how to compete with them. Now. So Facebook, Instagram have reels and YouTube shorts. And so if you're like, well, my kids aren't on TikTok, well, if they're on Instagram, you can still make the exact same type of content. If they're on YouTube, you can like my I, I crack up because like my hours, I have parents who are like, my kids aren't on TikTok, but they're on YouTube more like they're on than they're watching the same same things, same stuff.

00:26:12:20 - 00:26:32:04
Nick Clason
You haven't done anything. They're just on YouTube now. So, yeah. you know, it's it's all that's the thing. Like I work at what I say is one of the most conservative churches, and so we have just as much parents or whatever who might be a little freaked out by some of these things. And, but YouTube seems to be like the safe one.

00:26:32:08 - 00:26:50:05
Nick Clason
You know, I'm like, well, on YouTube and, like, oh, yeah, that's fine. Like, because parents watch YouTube and you can watch it on your TV in your house because there's like an app for it on your all your smart TVs and stuff like that. And so like our executive pastor, his daughter, she's not social media but do watch all of our like YouTube stuff on their TV in their house.

00:26:50:05 - 00:27:11:09
Nick Clason
Like even the silly stuff that we do. Even like the little shorts in the games and stuff that we do on there. And so it's like you said, it lean into it because if that's where our students are, I think there's a stat from Pew. Like 95% of teenagers say that they will use YouTube. So if that's where they are, like, you're right, why would we not be there to get there?

00:27:11:11 - 00:27:28:09
Nick Clason
So get there. Well, man, I appreciate your time. David, where would be like, if people want to see all this stuff, I'll drop some of these things in the show notes. Like, how can they get Ahold of you? How can they, check out what you're doing on your churches and youth ministry, social media? let us know where where they can find you.

00:27:28:11 - 00:27:47:20
David Carpenter
Yeah. Our, our church is, everywhere. It's it's Harrodsburg dot church. So our seed ministry is Harrodsburg dot students. That's YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. You should be able to get to there. my Facebook and Instagram, our David Lee Carpenter. There's a lot of David Carpenters out there, so I put my middle name in there. You should be able to find me. and if I can help or encourage anybody along the way, I would love to do that. I'm thankful for you to to let me. Come on. And I hope it helps somebody bless somebody today.

00:27:47:22 - 00:28:44:24
Nick Clason
Absolutely. Hey, thanks for being on. Appreciate your time today. And we'll talk next time.