How Our Youth Group Doubled in 3 Years

In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast, I share how our youth group doubled in just 3 years using simple hybrid ministry strategies that any youth pastor can apply. You’ll learn practical tips for increasing youth group attendance, retaining volunteers, engaging parents, and building a student ministry that makes more and better disciples of Jesus. Whether you’re leading a small church youth group or looking for big youth ministry ideas on a budget, these proven hybrid ministry strategies for youth pastors will help your ministry grow.

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/166

//STUDIO TOUR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVT1xvh9-5k

INTERN BUDGET
📊 [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

YOUTH PASTOR BUDGET
🍂 FALL SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fall-seasonal-137477671?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

*🦸 HYBRID HEROS GET THE PACK FOR FREE! *
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry

SENIOR PASTOR BUDGET
📋 "PICK NICK'S BRAIN" Coaching Call
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

✅ CHURCH COMMS DONE FOR YOU
Hire me to run your church website, social media or communications!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

//TRY OPUS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

👉 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

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🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick

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🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
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

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 We Experienced 2x Growth using this!
02:01 How we got here - The Hybrid History
07:00 The Intern Budget Option
08:12 The Youth Pastor Budget Option
10:57 The Senior Pastor Budget Option

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I posted this way and

00:00:01:23 - 00:00:03:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
this often for the last

00:00:03:06 - 00:00:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
three years. And here's

00:00:04:13 - 00:00:34:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
what happened on YouTube alone. We've had over 6000 views, 4000 plus hours of watch time, and over 900 subscribers. That's awesome success online. However, it doesn't just stop there. We've experienced 100.6% growth in our youth ministry in that exact same amount of time while we've been posting like, okay, here's a good news I am real life boots on the ground youth pastor.

00:00:34:01 - 00:01:02:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I also have to do things just like you like write a message, recruit volunteers, meet with my senior pastor as well as dream up, create, and post on social media regularly. Now if you do this, I will say that you'll experience 100.6% growth. But there are many additional benefits to this strategy. Things like attendance obviously being one of them.

00:01:02:22 - 00:01:23:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But you'll also see an uptick in student ministry volunteers, an uptick in your parent ministry. It can increase your leader, retention, and you'll have the ability to lean into your true calling as a pastor, where you get the opportunity to equip the saints for the works and acts of service, which actually we talked about in my last video linked right here.

00:01:23:18 - 00:01:44:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And here's the thing. I can help you do it. I have three different tiers of help available. Like if you're on the intern budget, I can give you completely free rundown version. If you're on the youth pastor budget for less than $6 a month, I have an option for you there as well. Or if you have the Senior Pastor Cadillac option, I'll do it for you.

00:01:44:08 - 00:02:08:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is where the parent and the leader piece really comes into play in that final option. Don't forget there are some chapters listed down below so that you can jump ahead to the part of this episode that makes the most sense to you. Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. So I've been on staff here at this church exactly three years and in the exact same amount of time.

00:02:08:23 - 00:02:31:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Just like I said in the intro, we've been posting with this rhythm. In fact, when we started, we were posting all of our long form messages to YouTube and we were doing so with just a cell phone camera. In fact, as soon as I moved here, I bought the brand new Google Pixel nine Plus Pro so that I could use it for social media and for its its camera purposes.

00:02:31:15 - 00:02:59:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They were telling me at the time that it was the best phone on the market, and so we were using it. And that was our that was our primary avenue. Bought a couple of different like microphone options to pair with the camera. And that was it. That's all we had and that's all we used. And so we would post not only long form YouTube messages, but also all of our short form content, which, speaking of short form content, we were posting three times per day on social media.

00:02:59:03 - 00:03:34:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
My goal at the time was aggressive growth, and I had just moved here from Chicago. And I had just, you know, for the previous about six months or so, been kind of dabbling in the tick tock Instagram Reels realm and was learning that three times a day was aggressive. But it also, you had more bites at the apple for an opportunity to be seen, you know, at the time, the kind of go on on those platforms TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts was get as many bites at the apple so that you have more chances to be discovered, to be seen, and then to go viral.

00:03:35:00 - 00:03:54:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This my strategy has since shifted a little bit. And, you know, of course we'll get into that. But then we were filming any of these pieces of content just in and around our space. So in offices or in like the lobby or like even just main on the street, like anywhere we found any of our other, like, staff.

00:03:54:21 - 00:04:18:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But eventually we built a full studio, which is actually the room I am sitting in right now. And over time, we've progressively spent more on gear and on set design and budget for it. But to start, it was a pretty basic studio build. We spent a little bit on paint and, you know, some wall treatment type options and some tchotchkes for shelves.

00:04:18:19 - 00:04:38:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that was it. I will actually post full, tour studio link down below if you're interested in that, along with much of the gear that we use for that. But I would say one of the key shifts was once we had our studio built out, I had a resident shout out to my good friend Caleb Flywheel.

00:04:38:00 - 00:05:01:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Maita, who had this idea, because we were posting long form pieces of content, for all of our messages on YouTube. So that was myself and any, anyone else on staff that was, that was delivering a message that was being posted to YouTube. He wanted to see more students in long form on YouTube. So he created this idea this weekly social challenge.

00:05:01:23 - 00:05:22:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He would film it on Wednesday night, in long form, in horizontal mode, and then he would edit all day Thursday and post a social challenge by the end of the day Thursday. It was a great idea. It's a great concept, but it was cooking his Thursdays like he never got anything else done except for just working on, you know, social challenge stuff.

00:05:22:20 - 00:05:41:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we eventually, adapted and shifted that strategy to be where we captured the majority and the lion's share of our student based short form content. We would do it in the studio any single time that we met on Wednesday nights. And I've detailed an outline that in previous episodes. So make sure that you subscribe and go back and listen to some of those.

00:05:41:12 - 00:05:59:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But here's the thing that you might be thinking as you hear this, you might be thinking, this sounds both overwhelming and hard, and I just want to let you know that I have, recently yesterday, a guy on my team came to me and he said, I am over budgeting my time. And as a what do you mean by that?

00:05:59:04 - 00:06:20:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, I'm giving myself like two hour blocks of time and it's not taking quite that long. And right now he is owning the majority of our social media content. I've shifted into a little bit of a new role. I've given him a lot more to do with with editing and posting and what he is saying in his own words, and I would I would echo this to be true.

00:06:20:01 - 00:06:38:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What I've learned is once you learn how to use some of these platforms and some of these programs, it's not as time consuming as you might think it is. The learning curve on the front side might feel steep, but once you get up over that hump, the actual maintenance mode of some of these things isn't as difficult as you think.

00:06:38:17 - 00:06:58:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And as I as I outlined in my last episode, you can hand over as much of that as you feel comfortable to your students. So let me share with you the three different tiers of options and solutions I have that you can lean into this hybrid strategy, which for us gave us two growth in a three year period of time.

00:06:58:12 - 00:07:25:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let's chat. Let's check it out okay, so you have the intern budget. How do you get started? Well, I would recommend hopping down in the description to grab my 100% completely free e-book. In my original iteration, you heard me say, if you're listening to the contact section of this that I posted three times per day, I've scaled that back, but it's still two times per day, which is still an aggressive growth strategy and mindset.

00:07:25:09 - 00:08:00:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I'll just be honest, one of the main reasons that I post that aggressively is because we film enough content that I have enough things to keep my feed going and being posted, but it's a lot of students and it's a lot of leaders, and so a lot of custom content for our student ministry. But I even recommend now, and I've done it and I've seen it in some coaching relationships that I've had that if you post three times a week, if you're starting completely from scratch, it's still a good strategy to lean into from a hybrid ministry standpoint.

00:08:00:08 - 00:08:21:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so link down below is my 100% completely free e-book. And if you want the start from scratch version, if you want the hey only post three times per week, then I recommend this next one, which is the youth pastor budget. And I can get this all for you via my Patreon account and my four seasonal social media pack.

00:08:21:23 - 00:08:39:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day as a youth pastor, scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.

00:08:39:03 - 00:09:02:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts. See? See? Here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.

00:09:02:11 - 00:09:22:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12. Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.

00:09:22:20 - 00:09:44:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. So as you just heard, the fall season of Social Media Pack is here. Go grab it. Go download it. It is the youth pastor version of this budget 1799.

00:09:45:03 - 00:10:07:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, in and on top of that, if you head over to my Patreon and you become a $4 a month member, you will not only receive that pack for free as a part of that membership, but you'll also then be subscribed to a weekly bonus podcast where I sit down on a microphone every single week and I explain and I outline and I flesh out all that we did.

00:10:07:16 - 00:10:32:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I basically go through our service order, and I talk about one things we could have done to be more creative and things that hit really well, and what we're doing on social media and how we're capturing certain things and all these different things. And so if you pair my bonus podcast with the social media pack, which again, reminder is free if you're a hybrid hero member, all of those things can be used to your advantage.

00:10:32:23 - 00:10:58:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
To get you started in this track of hybrid ministry. Listen, it's not here to help me get rich. It's really just here to help resource you and give you the foundation and the building blocks for what it takes to really, truly lean into a hybrid strategy, which again, as a reminder to our growth in the course of a three year period of time.

00:10:58:11 - 00:11:21:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, in both of those options, they're going to talk to you a lot about the value of your social media platforms. However, the real ultimate goal, I would say, is to find a way to post your weekly messages to YouTube. Now, if you have live streaming capabilities or at least live captioning capabilities, then that's a fantastic strategy. It gets the job done.

00:11:21:22 - 00:11:43:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We, both prefer. And also due to the constraints of not having, you know, camera capabilities in our main meeting room, we film our messages very similar to this direct to camera. We'll use a teleprompter at times and we will post those directly to YouTube. And at this point now we've built up our budget in order to be able to pay for editors to do that.

00:11:43:02 - 00:12:13:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But in the very early iterations, I was the editor. And you can use something like, you know, Adobe Premiere Pro Final Cut Pro, DaVinci resolve, or even something like Cap Cut to get the job done. But once you get a long form, like, posted version to YouTube, this is the senior pastor budget. If you need an editor or if you need someone to do it for you, I can either offer coaching, which is like a, an agreement for a set of time or I can do it for you in my communications.

00:12:13:21 - 00:12:30:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Done for you pack in my free time. Off to the side of me being a real life youth pastor, getting those long form clips is really helpful because then you can use an AI service like Opus Stock Pro to clip them up for you. They're not as good as if a human does them. But again, you're busy.

00:12:30:16 - 00:12:46:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You got things going on and, open Stop Pro is a really reasonable rate to kind of offer to do that. And it really does help flesh out and fill out your strategy, because if your strategy's all bunch of fun and games that you're doing with your students, that's great. Hopefully that's going to hook some viewers in your audience.

00:12:46:06 - 00:13:22:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then you also want to win, or at least, have the algorithm feed them some of your spiritual content as well. And that's where this really comes into play. And you can add the Patreon pack right on top of what this is, where, like, I'll be doing this for you. You can add in that Patreon pack, which will help help give you the, the coaching and the framework and the resources to hand this off to someone if you don't want to go all into this senior pastor budget option, if you just need to stick with your main youth ministry budget, here's what I would recommend.

00:13:22:05 - 00:13:47:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Of all of these things, lean in to the youth ministry budget option because it is $4 a month for the Hybrid Heroes bonus podcast tier, and that nets out to only $48 a year. Four times per year. You're going to get the social pack for free included in your membership. So for $48, you will have a fully locked and loaded social media hybrid strategy.

00:13:47:02 - 00:14:11:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And just as a reminder, that strategy is what led us to to growth in our student ministry. Now, once you start filming and posting your long form, messages to YouTube, that's really where you can start to see the parent rewards and the leader rewards and all of this, as I teased at the beginning, because you're posting your messages to YouTube and so parents can go watch it and see what their kids are learning.

00:14:11:08 - 00:14:36:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it's a great tool and resource in that regard. And also, leaders like we teach our message on Wednesday, but we also post the film YouTube adaptation to it as well. And so far, our leaders who lead a discussion based off the topic on Sunday morning, they have access to that teaching as well. And both of those are ways in which we've both, found incredible amounts of, like, help and resources to both our parents and our leaders.

00:14:36:11 - 00:15:00:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not no matter which of those options you choose. I want you to know this going hybrid is not the end goal. You know this. The end goal is to make more and better disciples of Jesus. Whatever your mission statement is, I hope it's rooted and tied to the great commission of Jesus. And this hybrid strategy is simply a strategy that sits inside this great commission from Jesus.

00:15:00:06 - 00:15:12:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so keep doing great youth ministry. Keep doing what you're doing, and if this can help you, I hope that it does. And I want you to know I'm rooting for you. So don't forget my friends. And as always, stay hybrid.