The Student Ministry Debate: In-Person vs Digital

About this Episode

Join Nick Clason and special guest, Josh Boldman, "The Best Programming Specialist" in America, on the Hybrid Ministry Podcast as they dive into "The Student Ministry Debate: In-Person vs Digital." Explore fresh youth ministry ideas and strategies for balancing hybrid ministry to effectively engage students in both student ministry settings.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Great Debate
01:11 The Challenge: In Person vs. Digital
02:58 Clarifying "Hybrid"
04:42 5:00 Countdown
09:12 Opening Worship Song
16:35 Host Moment & Announcements
22:00 Game - Where's the Ball
30:35 Lesson: With a Killer Response Time
37:34 Online vs. In-Person: The Power of YouTube
41:54 Other Miscellaneous Hybrid Ideas

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What is up, everybody? Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, I am going to be talking with my friend Josh Goldman. He works over at Download Youth Ministry. He does all the stuff with sidekick and he does, stuff with co-leader and Josh, honestly, I believe is one of, if not the greatest programing specialist for youth ministries in America.

00:00:23:19 - 00:00:43:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm really excited for you to hear it because some of his ideas are absolutely fantastic. But what we're gonna do is we're going to be debating between in-person and digital, and you're going to see me try to lean everything back towards hybrid. And what we're doing is he's bringing a youth ministry programing sheet and he's saying, this is what we're doing.

00:00:43:13 - 00:01:02:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How do we make it digital? How do we, honor the people that might be watching online and more? I try to say, how can we make it hybrid? And so for those of you who are new here, hybrid is taking your in-person, taking your digital and finding a way to meet that intersection. And in most cases, I think that is at the intersection of students cell phones.

00:01:02:01 - 00:01:11:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you're going to see that this debate between digital versus in-person. So welcome to the show, the one and only Josh Boardman.

00:01:11:12 - 00:01:23:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well what's up everybody. I'm here this morning with my good friend Josh Bullman. And we have a little bit of a unique idea. So Josh, tell the people what we're doing okay.

00:01:23:01 - 00:01:30:29
Josh Boldman
So as anyone watching slash listening knows, Nick Claussen is all about the hybrid ministry, right?

00:01:30:29 - 00:01:53:19
Josh Boldman
Making sure that the people that are at home are still connecting with what's happening in the room. Yeah. I spent most of my ministry, like, developing, and leading services in the room. And then, you know, Covid happened and things got crazy, and we we did a full pendulum swing to where, like, we did everything online. Yeah.

00:01:53:20 - 00:02:02:13
Josh Boldman
And then we came back and suddenly it was like, wait, are we still doing online or are we like, what are we doing? You know? And so it was the constant challenge of

00:02:02:13 - 00:02:11:27
Josh Boldman
trying to not just, create something in the room and just stream it, right, like, make it more interactive. So yeah. So today

00:02:11:27 - 00:02:12:18
Josh Boldman
what

00:02:12:18 - 00:02:19:29
Josh Boldman
we're doing is I have got a service that I've created for in the room, and I'm going to walk us through it.

00:02:20:02 - 00:02:26:26
Josh Boldman
And Nick is going to in real time because he has not seen it. Now you guys gotta know, I offered. I was like,

00:02:26:26 - 00:02:48:05
Josh Boldman
dude, do you want this ahead? And we could just fake it? And he's like, no, no, too much integrity. Way too much. Yeah. And so he's going to try like as we go to, we're going to think through each, each section and try and figure out what is it that we can do to make this something that people who are not in the room, you know, but the students at home.

00:02:48:07 - 00:03:08:03
Josh Boldman
And I'm curious, Nick, if this is, you know, maybe something we look at is, is it if they're watching live or even if they're watching later, like, how does that impact, well, your ability to participate.

00:03:08:03 - 00:03:11:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So yeah, and to be clear, like the way that I define hybrid is like it's the it's the two pieces.
So your in-person plus your digital and it's like them coming

00:03:11:17 - 00:03:11:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
together.

00:03:11:27 - 00:03:19:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so there may be elements I think a little more what I might try to do is like take, take what is going on in the room and find a way

00:03:19:22 - 00:03:44:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to allow it to exist beyond that moment. Yeah. Or find a way to intersect a student, like in a spot like their phone that will that will last beyond that, the time that you dismiss them to go home so they can take it home, like youth ministry, typically pre-digital, could only exist in the few hours that our church doors were open.

00:03:44:04 - 00:04:13:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so now we have the advantage of being able to access sometimes it's, you know, a curse versus a blessing, but we have the advantage of being able to access and have conversation with and disciple our students at a time that Wednesday night programing or Sunday morning or Sunday night programing isn't happening. And how can we take what we're doing in the room and offer it to students beyond that moment, or even in your place in what you were saying, maybe even as a replacement of it?

00:04:13:22 - 00:04:28:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, like Josh said, I haven't seen any of this. I am a little nervous right now. Like earlier I was like, I'm fine, but now I'm a little nervous as I like get together. I got to be totally honest. I'm like, there are parts of it. Or I was like, oh, I can totally see how this is going to work.

00:04:28:05 - 00:04:42:24
Josh Boldman
And then there are other parts where I'm like, I don't know what he's going to do, how this is going to. Yeah. So bear with me. Stream of consciousness. And it may not be perfect and polished, but that's okay. That's what we're here for. So all right, let's do it. What is the first part of your service?

00:04:42:24 - 00:04:44:09
Josh Boldman
The five minute countdown.

00:04:44:13 - 00:04:45:20
Josh Boldman
Right. Okay, so we've got

00:04:45:20 - 00:05:19:08
Josh Boldman
students are in the room, they're playing nine square, they're playing gaga ball. They've got they're not paying attention to the countdown. Nobody cares what like someone spent a lot of time creating a countdown. Yeah, but ultimately no one cares about until it, like, reaches 10s. But there's there's a lot of interaction happening. And so, like, trying to think through is there is there something where we're trying to connect with students that are not in the room, or is there something we can do in the room to help students know, hey, it's not just you here.

00:05:19:08 - 00:05:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's yeah, there's more than that going on. Yeah. So one of the things about five minute countdowns that I actually hate, and I know that as talking to a guy who works for Download Youth Ministry, and that's where a lot of the money is made and a lot of five minute countdowns are sold. I actually prefer, which, by the way, talking to you right now, let this be an unofficial sidekick feature

00:05:43:09 - 00:05:44:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
request.

00:05:44:18 - 00:05:58:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Because right now in sidekick, you can, you can loop your announcements, right? You can loop some, like, graphic slides. And I actually prefer that to be the five minute countdown with

00:05:58:07 - 00:06:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just the five minute countdown overlaid in the corner, so that all of the announcements that you're announcing and trying to let your students know about are happening, is being seen on the screen.

00:06:11:03 - 00:06:22:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because if you think about it, if if the majority of people don't start paying attention to the screen until it's down to less than a minute, they missed all of the stuff that was looping ahead of time.

00:06:22:16 - 00:06:37:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the stuff that's looping ahead of time is the stuff that you want them to know about. And so whether it's hybrid, whether it's digital only or whether it's in person, like whatever you're announcing, I think you should leave that stuff on the screen as long as humanly possible.

00:06:37:20 - 00:06:56:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you're able to put a little five minute countdown in the corner or even across the middle, but I try to design my slides in such a way that I think, like, all right, I'm going to do the left corner of this time and keep stuff out of the left corner. And so then we may have like our current series graphic, we may have an upcoming events.

00:06:56:02 - 00:07:13:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like at the time of recording, we got our costume party coming up and Christmas is on the horizon. So those types of things are there. But woven in my announcements, I might try to do, well, I what we do right now is like, I advertise our online baptism

00:07:13:19 - 00:07:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
course, which is a YouTube playlist. And there are so many times, like almost all of my slides at this point, have a QR code to you.

00:07:22:24 - 00:07:42:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Do you remember when the QR code was dying? Like, yeah, no one used it. So lame. Like, I remember having this conversation in a church staff meeting where it was like we could put a QR code on it. And I remember some would be like, does anyone use those? And the answer was no. Yeah. And then but now

00:07:42:25 - 00:07:46:18
Josh Boldman
how else would we get the menu at restaurants like this?

00:07:46:20 - 00:08:14:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think I had the same meeting because at during Covid the question was how do we communicate things without handing things to people and passing germs? Yeah. And I suggested a QR code and I quote from our communications team, we will never use a QR code. And I kid you not, not two weeks later, what was on the screen, because it was the only way to do it and it made a comeback.

00:08:14:00 - 00:08:35:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I actually I've always thought QR codes were brilliant. They didn't get adopted early on, but now they're back and they make so much sense. So yeah, we have a subscription to like a QR code builder. I get like 160 different like unique QR codes. And so I abuse that. And so oh yeah, our baptism course, our text list like all of these things.

00:08:35:11 - 00:09:05:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if a student during the five minute countdown, isn't playing nine square and they're kind of sitting already in the service or don't have anyone to talk to or something on the screen, does happen to sort of like catch their attention. They can pull their phone out. They can scan the QR code and they can get to it later, whether that be signing up for our text group, which will allow them access, or us access to them to send them encouraging messages or even just announcement type things, or even like discipleship related things like, hey, I'm ready to take a next step about baptism.

00:09:05:08 - 00:09:12:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let me explore more about that through the baptism playlist. So all right, so there you go. That's what I would do. All right.

00:09:12:18 - 00:09:17:19
Josh Boldman
So at zero, usually what we'll do is we'll, we'll jump right into

00:09:17:19 - 00:09:17:29
Josh Boldman
the first

00:09:17:29 - 00:09:31:12
Josh Boldman
song. Right. And so our, our group, we had a live band. So that was, I mean, I, you know, it's one of those things where every time you talk about having a student band, this could go one of two very different ways.

00:09:31:15 - 00:09:51:29
Josh Boldman
And I will say, like, I've been really blessed to be at churches where, we had a really good, like, solid student led band that, I mean, had a, a track record of what I would say is in the neighborhood of 82%, like, okay, this is going to be a four out of five that it's going to go, well, so like so it would, it would hit pretty well.

00:09:51:29 - 00:10:08:10
Josh Boldman
And that was kind of in the room that was like the, the oh, oh we're starting like you know, so everybody's like getting getting into their seats getting music hits. Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean obviously in the room you got lyrics on the screen, you got we got, you know, some cameras going and stuff like that.

00:10:08:11 - 00:10:31:02
Josh Boldman
So yeah, like for, for worship on the live stream for people after like, are you like, is there anything different that you feel like you can do to set up to help again, the room feel like they're a part of what's happening at home and vice versa. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ideas. Let me first say, Josh, you might find this surprising.

00:10:31:13 - 00:10:55:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I've been in youth ministry for 14 years, and the church I'm at now, I've been here two years. This is the first church in. You know, I guess by the time I moved here is, like, 12 years. So my first 12 years of ministry, I did not have a regular live worship band. Oh, yeah. Everywhere I've been prior, like, for one reason or another, the band didn't really, like, Take Root.

00:10:55:17 - 00:11:15:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I didn't try to kill it, but I also didn't have a massive like, that's not my bent. I'm not a worship guy. I can't play any instruments. And so I'm not trying to get that thing up and off the ground. And so for sure, I've had we've had worship at camps and retreats and at like one off worship nights and stuff like that, but not on like a regular, like rhythm.

00:11:15:09 - 00:11:38:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so let me just say to those of you out there in the majority of churches, right, like that, probably don't have a live stream, let's just be honest. And they may you might not even have quality like music means to pull off worship like I feel is. I mean, you know, you can be the judge of this, but I feel as though I did really good youth ministry for 12 years without a band.

00:11:38:19 - 00:12:02:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I and I don't even know, like in a, you know, in a typical youth service, it's what it's a little more like geared towards outsiders. Oftentimes I don't know that getting up there and singing about the blood of Jesus is often the most welcoming thing for an outsider. And so sometimes you may be shooting yourself in the foot, all in an effort to try and copy what you think youth ministries should be doing, which is worship.

00:12:02:24 - 00:12:22:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you can program around worship. It's going to require a lot more creativity, which is essentially the basis of this episode. Like finding ways to be a little bit more creative with your programing and whatnot. So I'll only say that as an encouragement. Don't feel like you have to jam a worship band into like a space if it's not working.

00:12:22:12 - 00:12:47:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not fitting the context isn't right, whatever the case may be. Yeah, I've always felt like we we were at places where we tried doing the, you know, the lyric videos, you know, that kind of thing. And it would, it would work in like seasons. But there were times we were just like, okay, this feels like we're showing them a video that they are begrudgingly watching for.

00:12:47:07 - 00:13:04:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, 5.5 minutes. And then they sit down and it's like, okay, well, if it doesn't work, doesn't work. Like don't, don't force that. Yeah, that I think that probably hurts more than it helps if it feels like you're forcing it. Yeah. So take back to answer your specific question about what to do

00:13:04:07 - 00:13:11:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
about worship. Like, I will say when I'm thinking about in-person versus online, online,

00:13:11:25 - 00:13:20:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in my opinion, is a fantastic content delivery system like podcasts, sermons can be podcasts, sermons can be YouTube videos.

00:13:20:27 - 00:13:32:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like that is what the internet is made for, right? What in person is made for that the internet can't always overcome is certain things like community. And one of those things I think it has

00:13:32:02 - 00:13:37:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a hard time overcoming is live, in-person worship, shoulder to shoulder like

00:13:37:23 - 00:13:47:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
they're watching during Covid, watching worship online, versus watching worship in the room was a completely different experience.

00:13:47:04 - 00:14:06:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I sat in my recliner. I did not stand. I did not sing. I maybe like sung under my breath. But you know, I'm not getting up in my living room and like, worshiping like I would at church. And so that is, you know, one of the, in my opinion, advantages of in-person, I will say a couple ideas.

00:14:06:16 - 00:14:29:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One, during Covid, our church, I thought was fantastically innovative and our worship was not just like a band on a stage. It was like they were shot almost like a music video. And especially during Covid, all the individual musicians, like, they recorded all their parts and then they sent them back and then the editors, like, spliced it all together.

00:14:29:03 - 00:14:46:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Wow. It was so good. And of course, that wasn't sustainable. But when they pulled the plug on that, I was that that wasn't a youth ministry thing. But when they pulled the plug on that, I thought that was a big, big mistake because it was very good. And they went back to like an easier route. And I felt like it.

00:14:46:01 - 00:15:09:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It took away some of what made our online presence pretty, pretty good. Oh, yeah. But for the kids in the room for the hybrid, like, hey, how do we, like, let this, this attitude of worship live beyond, I mean, very simply, like, you can create a greatest hits like Spotify playlist of all the best worship songs that you and your students that they love.

00:15:09:15 - 00:15:28:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I especially like to do this for camps or retreats. I'll create the playlist even ahead of time, and I'll like float it out and I'll sneak it out via like our text lists, our social media so that people can grab Ahold of it. And so even if in the room, if you wanted to have one of those little Spotify, it's not a QR code, but it's similar to it.

00:15:28:01 - 00:15:38:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like you scan Spotify's version of it and you can join the playlist, and, you know, even be cool. I'm come with this idea on the fly. You could create like a collaborative

00:15:38:18 - 00:15:49:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
like playlist, like our church's favorite worship songs, and it's a public playlist. And anyone with a Spotify account can go in and they can add their favorite worship songs.

00:15:49:13 - 00:16:02:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then you just got to keep that kind of front and center, like, hey, throughout the week. Like, hey, don't forget we got this, you know, collaborative worship playlist. If you know you want to worship God throughout this week, take a listen. Nice I like that. Yeah.

00:16:02:14 - 00:16:16:19
Josh Boldman
Something something that we did, during Covid was we would ask at the end of the service to, say like, hey, if there are songs that really speak to you like we want to do, you know, we want to lead you in those songs.

00:16:16:19 - 00:16:29:26
Josh Boldman
So it was kind of like a, hey, this week, let us know what songs you'd like to do next week, like that kind of a thing. I mean, I, I don't know that that was like super, super well-received, but it was, it was something. Right? It was at least something that that allowed a little bit back and forth.

00:16:29:29 - 00:16:39:13
Josh Boldman
Yeah. So we, we, we usually do one song, ready to tap, and then we would go into our hosting time. So where we, we would have two

00:16:39:13 - 00:16:53:18
Josh Boldman
volunteers, usually an adult and a student. If not it would be two adults. And you know, the I will be the first to say it was always hit or miss like every time.

00:16:53:25 - 00:17:10:02
Josh Boldman
And you know, because you're always like, oh that person's personality, you know. Yeah. It's like because you get because like people who are super nervous on stage. I totally get it. But it would be like you'd sit down with them, be like, they would want to know what is the what is the content of the announcement? Right?

00:17:10:03 - 00:17:21:17
Josh Boldman
It's like, okay, well, I can tell you that, like, for sure, we'll make sure you got that. And for them it was like as long as I know the information, I'm good. And it's, you know, there is there is more to this game than that, friend. But yeah,

00:17:21:17 - 00:17:28:03
Josh Boldman
one of the ways that we found to kind of help that process was we started doing the wheel of announcements.

00:17:28:04 - 00:17:47:02
Josh Boldman
You I love that sidekick. And and and the the best part, right is you can you can game the system. Right? You can tell it which was so we would have like, say if there were four announcements. That's too many. You know, I'd say three max. Yeah. But like so whatever number of announcements there were, we would always have one more.

00:17:47:04 - 00:18:09:18
Josh Boldman
And that wheel wedge was always like, everyone gets $100, you know, whatever. And so like, you have to make sure that the person in your booth, oh, man, you have to trust that person or, that could cost you dearly. Yeah. Like, oh, man. But it was great because it really was random. Yeah, but it would.

00:18:09:18 - 00:18:29:15
Josh Boldman
But especially when it would get down to the last two wedges and it was like half the wheel is everyone gets $100. And the other was like, you know, church picnic or whatever, and you spin it and it just like slowly goes. It's like, oh, you know, and it was great. Like, but it kept, you know, because the students in the room, they don't care about half the announcements you're giving.

00:18:29:15 - 00:18:43:21
Josh Boldman
But it was kind of fun every time it would pass the $100 thing, you know, that they'd want to see it. And so we would just change it to a new thing every week. And sometimes it would be they'd win a prize or there would be like, you know, something embarrassing that the person on stage would have to do.

00:18:43:24 - 00:19:05:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But that's a different way to gamify it so that it's more interesting than I've episode that talked about, like, stop posting announcements to social media like, no one cares and no one is getting on social media to know what's going on in your youth ministry. They'll they you do want them to know like it's just you're using it's the wrong like medium for it.

00:19:05:17 - 00:19:30:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so a lot of times in the same way we do announcement times of this service in our church, like we do need to get these things across. Yeah. But I think that like, you know, this isn't a direct answer to the question, but like, how how do you hybridize your announcements or like, how do you get your announcements across in like a, a different way than just like the host moment or the announcement moment in your planning center service rundown?

00:19:30:00 - 00:19:49:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like you, you use the mediums all all throughout the rest of the like, all throughout the rest of your like repertoire that you have to your advantage so you can post those. I do say you can post announcements to social media. You just have to be creative with it. Like one of my favorites is. I'll follow the link down below.

00:19:49:28 - 00:20:07:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But like those transition style videos. Have you seen the one where the dudes getting speared in the back by like a bull, and then people are diving into like, their rows of chairs? Like, yep. Do those like, get your you can still tell people on social media about what's going on your church. Just make it actually creative.

00:20:07:19 - 00:20:25:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't just post your cooked up Canva graphic like no one. All right, you ready? You ready for some? I just thought like this. Like yes. Head right is right. So, so you could during your announcement time, you could record that video with your students, like. Yes. So that would be in the moment. You're like, hey, here's what we're gonna do.

00:20:25:24 - 00:20:43:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We got this thing coming up. We want to let everybody know about it. Here's, you know what it's going to be like, let's let's do this real quick. And yeah, just and you know what else? Like what else could you do? You could, random name generator. Your your contestant, you could, then get them up there and then what does that do.

00:20:43:01 - 00:20:44:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's a nod to your socials.

00:20:44:17 - 00:21:01:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so while you're announcing, you throw a graphic on screen that says we're social, it's guy QR codes, a link tree of all of your social handles. And the people in the room like, hey, go follow this because we're going to post this tomorrow. And that's been like, I'm going to, that's one of the things we've done in our youth ministry.

00:21:01:29 - 00:21:24:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We've created a social team and a social challenge component of every night of our youth ministry. And so students know they can go into our studio. We have a studio like it's bougie. All right, I get it. You can see the tour down below, but like, they know they can go in there and they can get on camera with their friends, and then eventually they're going to be the star on our social media.

00:21:25:02 - 00:21:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it helps create like a little more appetite for it than just the youth pastors being like the the talent on social media. No one wants that, right? Unless we're looking stupid. Are you saying we're not as cool as we think we are? Is that okay? It depends how you think of yourself as true. You know, if you have a, if you're like very self-aware, then you probably know you're not very cool.

00:21:50:03 - 00:21:58:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're in your 30s or 40, to be honest. Okay. So then we transition into a game.

00:21:58:02 - 00:21:59:13
Josh Boldman
And this was

00:21:59:13 - 00:22:17:10
Josh Boldman
always like, so we had two different things that we we've tried off and on. One is the winner of the game gets to spin a wheel for a prize and it's just numbers on a wheel. And then we had like shoeboxes and it was like, you know, you win box number seven and then you get the box, open it up.

00:22:17:10 - 00:22:34:02
Josh Boldman
And it's either a great prize or terrible prize, something like that. I love that, and I'm probably stealing that. Now that you just said that, is it. Honestly it was pretty cool. Like and that's like a YouTube video right there. That's like Ryan's world, you know. Yeah. And it wouldn't let you do is it let you not always have to keep buying awesome prizes?

Josh Boldman
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Because oh man it was. And what you so like at the very beginning we would tell people like you know, so like we, we change them out every quarter or something like that and it would be like, hey, just so you know, in these 12 boxes, there are, a $10 Apple gift card. There's, you know, you know, just you tell them kind of, hey, here are a couple of the big things are in here.

00:22:55:16 - 00:23:13:12
Josh Boldman
Yeah. And then just as you get it, you know, one week, person rolls, number five. Great. They get box five. So then you just take that one off the list, and so you don't even have to, like, buy a new prize every week. You just have to have it all loaded upfront and you just put like, old crap that's laying around your church into those boxes, too.

00:23:13:13 - 00:23:34:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So good, so good. Right? It could be any. I mean, just honestly, anything, it's a mug, anything good. Right? It says you're voted most likely to need coffee. Like. Oh, yeah, that one that is, the other thing that we started doing was we do we did the impossible shot. Yeah. So yeah, the deal is like the traditional

00:23:34:15 - 00:23:41:04
Josh Boldman
impossible shot has always been like, if you are here for the first time or you were the person who invited that person for

00:23:41:04 - 00:23:44:12
Josh Boldman
the first time, you get to take a shot at this impossibly small target.

00:23:44:19 - 00:24:07:03
Josh Boldman
And if it goes through, you win a prize. But we, we started doing is the winner of the game, got to take the shot. And so it even made it, like, more, you know, your chance of winning the game was small. Yeah. And then that makes you even smaller. And we would add every week, we would add to the bucket of what do you win if you get the impossible shot.

00:24:07:03 - 00:24:23:13
Josh Boldman
And so like you started out with it's a bunch of candy. Okay. Then it's like one of every candy and then it's like, all right, gift card, you know, and so you just kind of slowly build it, until somebody wins it. It was one of the things we did. But I'm curious, like, so the possible shot rate is, agrees it.

00:24:23:13 - 00:24:42:19
Josh Boldman
So we would like. That's what I set up in this one was winner of the game. And the game would be like, where's the ball? We're doing doing 100. Probably by the time this is out, we will have already done it. So. Yeah. So, signed up for next year. But, one of the things that I made was a, a game called Where's the ball?

00:24:42:19 - 00:24:59:09
Josh Boldman
Obscure sports edition. Yeah. And so it's like link down below. Go give Josh goodness. Yeah. No, it'll be actually, you know, it'll be free in sidekick. So if you, if you have. Yeah. It'll be one of those like click on the little free button at the top and the little red dot pops up and you're like, oh my goodness me.

00:24:59:12 - 00:25:17:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But it's like I need to look at that more frequently than I do. Yeah you do, I don't. Yeah, it's there's some good stuff in there. So the sports I've got are curling, I've got ax throwing, I've got, Oh, have you ever heard of cycle ball? No. Basically like soccer. But you play on bicycles.

00:25:17:27 - 00:25:39:14
Josh Boldman
Okay. Who's the front wheel of the bike to kick the ball? It's sane. Sounds insane. And I feel as though I would die. Horribly dangerous. The other one is unicycle hockey, which is exactly what it sounds like. And it is magical. But but that is, you know, I mean, so one of the things like that, what we when I first started making the where's the ball games, right.

00:25:39:14 - 00:25:44:24
Josh Boldman
That was very much you had to be in the room to make it work. But then with sidekick, we've done where it's voting

00:25:44:24 - 00:25:52:00
Josh Boldman
now. And so we worked really hard, especially during Covid and after, to make it wear our, when we were live

00:25:52:00 - 00:25:59:00
Josh Boldman
streaming that it was as low lag as possible. So people at home really could also vote in.

00:25:59:06 - 00:26:16:02
Josh Boldman
And we got it, you know, down to like, I think you can without too much trouble. You can get the lag down to like three four seconds. Not too bad. Yeah. And so we would do that where you could see on the screen, you know, people voting, that kind of thing. Yeah. But yeah, so we did that, but then so impossible

00:26:16:02 - 00:26:16:13
Josh Boldman
shot.

00:26:16:15 - 00:26:16:26
Josh Boldman
That

00:26:16:26 - 00:26:18:01
Josh Boldman
is a in the room

00:26:18:01 - 00:26:40:16
Josh Boldman
phenomenon. Yep. Is there anything we could you can do to make that, something that someone at home feels like they're able to connect with? Or is it really just a show? The highlight. And and they get to celebrate if it happened? Yeah. I mean, like, if it's a true live stream, which again, like I said earlier, not a lot of youth ministries have like full live streaming capabilities.

00:26:40:18 - 00:27:01:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So even what we do, what I recommend to a lot of people is like most people are not interested in tuning in to your full youth service, like, so we pre-record all of our messages for YouTube into like a 12 minute, like teaching type of deal. So like that's what I would recommend. Like that's what people are getting on YouTube in the internet for.

00:27:02:01 - 00:27:12:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Is there a way to reclaim a live stream impossible shot type moment like there might be like a sort of like voting type thing. Like, do you think that they

00:27:12:07 - 00:27:21:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
can get it or not? You're going to need a moderator in your chat to like initiate that poll. So like let's say you won and it's like, congratulations to Josh.

00:27:21:10 - 00:27:40:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Will Josh hit the impossible shot yes or no? And they can vote there in the poll like in the chat or something like that. I think like YouTube or maybe Facebook has some of that like functionality built in. But what I might do like a as an alternative to the impossible shot or depending on your game.

00:27:40:27 - 00:27:50:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. Like, one of my favorite styles of games is creating like, you can do like those, like sculpture, building types of games or like, let

00:27:50:14 - 00:28:14:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
students in teams create something together. And then you can, like, take pictures of all of them and they can vote on them either. Oh, I like that on sidekick live in the room or what we've done in the past is we've said, hey, these are going to be on our Instagram Stories, go vote on them, and then we'll announce the winner on Sunday, which is like our next meeting time or what I like that I like.

00:28:14:27 - 00:28:29:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the winning group will get a pizza party next week. Yeah. And so, you know, like, those are different. Those are just different ideas, obviously. So to answer your question, I would try to just create like, a poll type of thing. I think that's. Yeah. That's the best idea. I got the top of my head right now.

00:28:29:29 - 00:28:32:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's, but some other, like, ideas

00:28:32:06 - 00:28:56:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and let me jump in and say, in the land of prizes, another great like, free to you prize is, so we are our set up is, round tables. And so you oftentimes your table is your team in whatever sort of thing you're competing in game trivia, whatever. And so a lot of times we'll, let the winning team go sit in what we call the best seats in the house.

00:28:57:00 - 00:29:14:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we'll put some, like, couches in, like, nicer seats than, like, the tables there. And then we'll just stuff that area full of, like, snacks and drinks, and they get to sit there during like the teaching time. And oftentimes we have all the snacks and drinks on hand, and it's just couches that we have laying around, but they're nicer than tables.

00:29:14:07 - 00:29:32:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you can give students that opportunity. It's similar to like your your box of prizes type of thing. So it in the box are prizes. One of the things we learned was, I kept forgetting to refill the boxes and so, what we started putting in the boxes as as a prize was pizza party for your small group next week?

00:29:32:25 - 00:29:51:01
Josh Boldman
Yeah, yeah. Like, you know. So it's always like a hey, you want it right now, but you're going to get it next year. So it would get kids to come back next week. But also if like say that small group won and they had five kids that night, next week they're going to have 15. Like it's just it's crazy because they know like oh yeah we won the prizes.

00:29:51:01 - 00:30:09:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So and then you didn't order enough pizza ever. It's just so, you know you know it's something you'll see in the Facebook group a lot is the do I on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. How many pizzas should I order for a thing? I always order too much because then it's lunch for me for the rest of the week.

00:30:10:06 - 00:30:29:04
Josh Boldman
It's like, oh, they're good. That's how it. Yeah. The secret. I think that might be embezzlement. I'm not sure now that. Yeah, whatever. It's okay. We can cut that part out. Yeah. Whatever it, So there we go from there. We might, at that point do another song. But then we're going to go to a bumper video and you answer the lesson.

00:30:29:04 - 00:30:30:28
Josh Boldman
Now, the lesson that,

00:30:30:28 - 00:30:33:02
Josh Boldman
I'm doing this week is going to be,

00:30:33:02 - 00:30:39:01
Josh Boldman
on, Peter walking on water. Okay. And in the the idea is the big idea for it is

00:30:39:01 - 00:30:52:28
Josh Boldman
that your first step is meant to be followed by a second step. So it's like, the whole idea is like momentum, things like that. So the way that we would do this and we did this, and I can, I can send you pictures of how we did it.

00:30:53:01 - 00:31:16:29
Josh Boldman
We built this basically like this trough, and we covered it in plastic sheets. And then we put a tarp over that, and then we filled it with cornstarch and water, as you put it, at the right consistency. It's a it's a, it's a substance called oobleck or a non-Newtonian fluid. Okay. Which means if you just touch it it's liquid.

00:31:16:29 - 00:31:25:23
Josh Boldman
But if you hit it, it's solid, like it's crazy cool seeing it, right? Yeah. And so what that means is if you again, if you get the right

00:31:25:23 - 00:31:38:10
Josh Boldman
consistency, if you run on it, you can run completely on top of it. You will not see no way. But any point that you stop, you will sink right in like it's over.

00:31:38:12 - 00:31:58:28
Josh Boldman
And so what we would do is, is so yeah, that's the idea. Right? So Peter, Jesus calls him out on the water. He starts walking. It's working. But then as soon as he stops, he looks down. He starts to sink. And so Jesus gives him, you know, a bit of a, a talking to and, and so then, you know, then they he reaches out, pulls Peter back up, they climb back in the boat.

00:31:59:02 - 00:32:21:17
Josh Boldman
And so, what we're trying to tell the kids is like, hey, yeah, we want everybody to take a first step. You know? We all know what else we want. You. We want you to like. First step gives you momentum. Just keep taking steps like keep going. Yeah. And so, so the way we would end this service is in this is probably in the room going to be chaos.

00:32:21:19 - 00:32:40:10
Josh Boldman
And I'm I'm very comfortable with that especially like because it's so it's going to end with communion. Right. And so that which is not you know I've been in different groups where, where we've done communion every week. I've done groups where we do it like literally hardly ever. And, you know, and so this was one day where we did it every week.

00:32:40:13 - 00:33:05:07
Josh Boldman
And but what I would do is I would set that that, that trough up. So that students, in order to go and get the communion elements, get to run across the thing, to go get the cookie. So it's like, hey, that you're, you're chasing after Jesus, you're, you're taking this first step and you're not stopping. So like I said, you know, normally like communion is a fairly like somber time.

00:33:05:07 - 00:33:24:23
Josh Boldman
This would not be that because it would be a bit chaotic. But and they'd be taking their shoes off and they, you know, running across, but then, then they get the elements and they would take them right there, and then they then they go back to their seat. And so we would one we'd have to figure out stuff for the students to do when they're back in their seat.

00:33:24:25 - 00:33:59:26
Josh Boldman
Yeah. Because that, you know, it's going to take a minute. Yeah. They watching all that. But I mean, it wouldn't be like, you know, super, super engaging. But but the moment of running across, they absolutely loved it. Like, I mean, it was just the coolest thing ever. Yeah. So like but and then we would dismiss the small groups, but it's that that type of experience is, is really like a in the room thing, like because, because so one of the things I've always said about, like trying to be creative in your programing is like, you get to say yes to things that no one else ever says yes to.

00:34:00:02 - 00:34:10:06
Josh Boldman
And so like this. Like, in order to do this, we had to buy like 150 pounds of, of corn starch from like a food grade service company. Like it was just like they bring it in on a

00:34:10:06 - 00:34:16:17
Josh Boldman
pallet. It oh, it was crazy. Like it is absolutely insane. But no one is going to be able to do that at home.

00:34:16:24 - 00:34:34:16
Josh Boldman
I mean, they do it like, and so like one of the things is we would like walk them through, like, how did how to make it at home and at a very smaller scale. Yeah. I think it is one way to do that, but I don't know, like, I feel like in that moment that having an experience like that just like, creates a core memory, right?

00:34:34:16 - 00:34:34:26
Josh Boldman
It's like

00:34:34:26 - 00:34:54:15
Josh Boldman
the locks in there going to remember the teaching, if ever so slightly, because of the experience. It's just kind of like try and get your thoughts on yeah. What do you do to help someone who's either experiencing it later or experiencing at home? How do they how do they lock in that same that same idea? And any thoughts there?

00:34:54:15 - 00:34:57:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah for sure. So, once again, like I said,

00:34:57:23 - 00:35:15:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
there are certain things that in-person that digital can't do to like replace and frankly, vice versa. But this is a prime example. So here's the here's the shame. Josh. Like, this is why you're the best youth ministry

00:35:15:20 - 00:35:21:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
programmer in America. Because this what what a title, right?

00:35:21:08 - 00:35:46:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The fact is this, like if all your students are coming to in the room is a lecture style sermon, they can get they can 100% get that online. Right. And and it'll be better. Exactly. Let's call it what it is right there online. Somebody do it better if it's just lecture style. Yeah. And so again here's our strategy.

00:35:46:04 - 00:36:04:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If we were doing that I would totally do that in the room. We don't live stream. And so instead of trying to replicate a live stream moment, now if you were in a position where you had to do that, I think, you know, what Josh's point was, is I would I would try to get a camera on the actual like trough thing so that

00:36:04:20 - 00:36:07:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
people can watch that and then maybe encourage people

00:36:07:02 - 00:36:16:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
with like, text on screen to go get some element so that they too can take, you know, communion and then give them the opportunity if they want to build it.

00:36:16:08 - 00:36:34:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're not going to probably be able to do that, like right in the moment. Like, do they have enough corn starch? Do they have a bowl? Like, you know what I mean? Probably that. So what we would do in our context now is we would film a talk about Peter walking on water for YouTube, direct to camera, 15 minutes or less.

00:36:34:04 - 00:37:02:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Really, really highly edited. And so if I wanted to use like B-roll or anything like that from like The Chosen as I'm illustrating this Peter point, like that's going to be on screen, it's not just going to be me talking. We're going to use the medium of video that we have to our advantage and do certain things like so this isn't in the same vein, but one time I was talking about how like, God knows the big picture and on screen I said, does anyone know what this is?

00:37:02:04 - 00:37:19:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Comment down below if you know it. And there's like a super zoomed in like grainy, pixelated something or other. And then in the next frame it like zoomed out and you can see this like beautiful painted canvas. And the point I made in that was like God's painting a picture and you can't see the outcome. He's in control.

00:37:19:07 - 00:37:27:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're. And that's just an example. And you could do that in the room with like, a slide. But that's just an example of something that you can do with a

00:37:27:15 - 00:37:29:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
video. And so I

00:37:29:03 - 00:37:42:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
wouldn't try to recreate that moment because it's probably un replicating. Right. But I would create something that at the end of the day, your bottom line was the first steps, always

00:37:42:09 - 00:37:43:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
followed by a second step.

00:37:43:20 - 00:38:08:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think you can teach that and deliver that online for anyone who's not there. And that's again, one of the reasons we don't do like a quote live stream is because a we don't have the equipment, but if you miss out on it, you sort of feel like it's over instead. Like, what is YouTube great for? Like, I get on YouTube, I don't know about you, but I get on there when like, I have a clog in my sink and I search how to fix, clog and sink.

00:38:09:00 - 00:38:32:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like in the same way. Water heater based on YouTube and a skylight. See, I, I think I broke the law. I've admitted to doing this now twice. Yeah. Don't worry, that's the power of editing. But I'll probably leave it in. But, a student might get on and be like, ask a question. Like a tough question. Like, is such and such a sin?

00:38:32:29 - 00:38:52:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How do I grow my faith? How do I start making disciples? How do I whatever? And so that's what I'm trying to do on YouTube, is I'm trying to title and tag my videos in such a way that, like, they're going to be found in search from a teenager or anyone for that matter, but particularly a teenager who's asking big questions about life and about faith.

00:38:52:24 - 00:38:58:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you're doing one thing in the room. But online, they're both hopefully accomplishing

00:38:58:10 - 00:39:17:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
the same ultimate goal. And that's where I would say, like the the difference of hybrid hybrid is not just digital, right? It's both. And so a good in room experience is going to like be worth its weight in gold. We don't have to try to like replace it.

00:39:17:05 - 00:39:21:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What I will say a great hybrid experience for teaching.

00:39:21:03 - 00:39:29:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you haven't checked this out, one of my favorite resources, is like the YouVersion live events. And so in built

00:39:29:09 - 00:39:40:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in woven into the YouVersion Bible app, there's a section called live. And so you can make it be, quote live when your service is live. And you can put your outline basically in there.

00:39:40:28 - 00:39:58:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what's great about it is you can also link Bible reading plan. So always link a Bible reading plan at the end of any message. So like in that one I would link something about taking next steps like a 4 or 5 day Bible reading plan for a student to jump into if they wanted. And we always have a next steps form.

00:39:58:14 - 00:40:00:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We have a digital next steps form that

00:40:00:04 - 00:40:14:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just lives in perpetuity on our website. And so at the bottom second to bottom of my YouVersion live event, I put a link. So you ready to next step? Let us know. We want to take it with you. And then it's a link and it can go external. It can go external to anything.

00:40:14:04 - 00:40:36:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you can also link like camp sign ups or retreat sign ups or denial sign ups like you can you can link to anything. And that's a great way for a student hybrid to like take something and they can save that event and they can get back to it later. They can like take private notes on it. So it's something that they're in the room, but they're taking notes on their device.

00:40:36:01 - 00:40:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And now later, if they have a question or whatever they want to like continue on in their faith. Like, that's a fantastic we call it,

00:40:43:09 - 00:40:52:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
digital notes, like it's the YouVersion live events platform, but we like have branded it like digital notes. And as I said, it's QR code. So I just

00:40:52:04 - 00:41:01:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
swap the the same QR code and then our tables in our room we have a little like standing placard thing and it says follow along for the digital notes.

00:41:01:04 - 00:41:21:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Students can scan it and it'll pull open that week's YouVersion live event. So it changes every week based on that particular thing. So that would be a hybrid solution to like the content in the room. Your ending piece is fantastic, right? And so I don't think you want to try to like replicate that in someone's house necessarily.

00:41:21:10 - 00:41:36:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I think you could pre film that if kids don't make it or if a kid down the road comes to your youth minister that wasn't there that night or they weren't attending your church, you and they have a question about taking a next step. You can be like, hey, this is my favorite part about putting your stuff on YouTube.

00:41:36:03 - 00:41:48:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can like, hey, we actually have a fantastic teaching on it. I'll send you the link. It's right here. And you don't have to say, oh man, you should have been here last month. We did this really cool thing. Like they can still have access to it. So

00:41:48:27 - 00:41:57:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
some some that, I was thinking of with this particular type of thing is filming, like, a behind the scenes, like as you're making it, like.

00:41:57:05 - 00:42:12:25
Josh Boldman
Yes, it could be. It could be really power, even as students have run across it, like just catching them right at the end and be like, hey, can you would you? Yeah. How do you remember this or what? What what was this experience like? And just having like, you know, featuring a couple of them I think could could go a long way for sure.

00:42:12:25 - 00:42:36:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's one of my strategy. Like in my, like social media calendar, like Wednesday night, which is our youth night, I film just I post like a recap video of what we did. And so for that night, that's that might be what I do is just focus on the trough moment. Right. Or if you don't have anything that's as like unique or powerful as that, you can just get a little snippets of the whole night so you can get kids playing nine square.

00:42:36:22 - 00:42:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Kids worship in the band, worship being the the pastor teaching. And then you take, you know, 7 to 12 clips. You put them in something like TikTok, it'll auto cut it for you and boom, you got a post that takes you less than a minute. You know, I love it. So dude. So good. Look at us. Look at that.

00:42:55:13 - 00:43:20:09
Josh Boldman
We figured it out so good. This is really fun. Is that the end of your service? Yeah, well, I mean, we were dismissed as small groups. And there's something that we did there, that, you know, trying to engage outside of just the small group time was like we would send, discussion questions to parents, you know, like, or we and we had, like, a, like a reminder text sign up that was like, hey, here's what we're talking about tonight.

00:43:20:09 - 00:43:40:19
Josh Boldman
Here are three questions for the ride home or for the. Yeah. You know, and so whether a kid was there and on the ride home or if, you know, they missed that night, there's still you know, their parents still got a, you know, a conversation starter of some kind, I think was pretty good. And that's the advantage I've found in pre filming as well.

00:43:40:19 - 00:44:06:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's so many advantages. Like at first it was like so history for us like we did just Like you a full live like YouTube show during Covid. Like it was a youth group for YouTube. But eventually as restrictions lifted, that grew tired and people didn't wanna just get on sit behind a computer, a live stream, especially during the summer of 2020, they're like, I'm just going to go out where I can't catch Covid as long as I'm outside.

00:44:06:11 - 00:44:24:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's, you know, that started to engagement with that and the shininess of it. You know, initially it was like this really interesting thing. But by episode 28 it's like, yeah, kind of lost some of its luster. But there is still something really cool. It's like there was a teaching component, but it was all the way at the end of the video.

00:44:24:07 - 00:44:48:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when I came here and readjusted my thought process a little bit, I was like, the teaching is so valuable. Like, I want kids to be able to hear about the truth of Jesus, and I want them to be able to have access to it online. How can we do that? And so if some or some of the other kind of components that we did during Covid, but make it maybe a little more adaptable to 2022 and then those 2023, 24.

00:44:48:18 - 00:45:10:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's where we do our teaching longform on YouTube and everything else is shorts. I read something the other day, just like 90% of the internet's traffic now is shorts, TikToks or reels. And so that's what we film in our social challenges. We just film short content games or challenge style videos, and we let our students be the heroes in those stories.

00:45:10:18 - 00:45:33:23
Josh Boldman
And they love it. Like when they see one of their things posted, like the text meme, like, that was really good. And I'm like, yeah, it was. Nailed it. You know, my favorite. So I, our son is 16 and, and he has this thing that is a joke that he has started thinking is very funny. That he'll, he'll, like, start talking about something he saw online.

00:45:33:23 - 00:45:52:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And my wife would be like, well, like. And he's like, oh, don't worry, you'll see it on Instagram in three months. That's hilarious. You. And he's right. And, you know, he's 100% right. Because, you know, it's funny, yesterday I got a Facebook reel sent to me, and I had seen that on TikTok and then on Instagram and now.

00:45:52:16 - 00:46:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh, so that's even like, talk about lag, as you say. I'm just now finding out that Facebook has reels. That's right tastic. No. Yeah I no I knew that but no. But yeah, it's crazy. Well so then yeah small group like and I would encourage a small group leaders have group text and all of that is like ways the end of the day.

00:46:15:26 - 00:46:38:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The reason I'm so passionate about hybrid is not like, oh, it's cool and cutting edge in technology. It's more like this is an opportunity to reach students where they are and beyond your service moments, your service times. And so you can text them on a Thursday after school and ask them how that test went. You can text them on a Monday morning, even in a group and say, hey, I'm I'm praying for a great week for you guys.

00:46:38:29 - 00:47:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can send encouraging versus all things we just didn't have the ability to do before the invention of technology. And so I my challenge is just always encouraging churches and youth pastors to just not get stuck in the rut of only in-person. There's so much more that the world has to offer. And, and that the world, frankly, is already leaning into we as a church, churches has to find a way to catch up to it.

00:47:02:28 - 00:47:27:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So so good. Yeah. Sweet. Let's all we got. Anything else? Any final words, Josh? Drink your milk. You know, I feel like we've we've we've we've lost that one. You know, like, that was when, when I was little, they were like, drink your milk. You get strong bones. I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't feel like I've heard anyone tell me that in a long time, so I just want to share that.

00:47:27:27 - 00:47:34:18
Josh Boldman
Okay. Everyone else. All right. I will leave you with that wisdom. Until next time, everyone stay hybrid letter.