Young Leaders vs Older Leaders: Who Connects Better?

Volunteer Leaders are so crucial to a healthy youth ministry.
But as you recruit, should you focus more on older leaders?
Or younger leaders?

In this debate style episode we have two leaders make their case on both sides of the aisle!
Let's dive in, together!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Do older or younger leaders connect better with students?
01:32 Meet the Older Leaders vs Younger Leader Debate Contestants
04:38 Older People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
07:09 Younger People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
09:43 Can you clarify the emotional stability for older volunteers?
10:52 How should a busy youth pastor respond to social media?
12:54 Do younger people ever prove to be less reliable?
17:08 Closing Arguments

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.062)
What's up everybody? Here we are. I am with Jacob and Tyler. Gentlemen, how we doing this morning?

Jacob (00:07.712)
Doing good. It's good.

Tyler Johnson (00:08.579)
Doing so good.

Nick Clason (00:09.93)
Have we both already had coffee or is that after this is over?

Jacob (00:15.057)
I just finished my cup, so I'm all set.

Nick Clason (00:17.18)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (00:17.454)
I had tea because I'm a tea guy.

Nick Clason (00:19.708)
Hey, there you go. Who knew? The more you know. Comment down below your favorite brand of tea for Tyler. But we're going to let each of you have a moment. I don't want to get too far into this without you guys letting us know who you are. So by random draw that happened off camera and you're just going to have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Jacob, you get to go first and introduce yourself one minute on the clock. Are you ready, sir?

Jacob (00:19.826)
Yeah.

Jacob (00:48.273)
Yeah, yeah, I can do a lot in a minute, let's do it. All right, yeah, my name is Jacob Hayes. I'm a student pastor for the chapel in Wisconsin. So I work with our three campuses in Wisconsin and our main campuses in Whitewater, which is UW College Town. So I get a lot of college students and it's fun to work with them. And yeah, it's just been great. See, I did it in under a minute.

Nick Clason (00:50.218)
All right, let's go.

Tyler Johnson (01:08.02)
you

Nick Clason (01:11.85)
19 seconds what a right I don't think any youth pastor has ever come in that short on their time, but my friend Impressive stuff right there Tyler the bars been set bro

Jacob (01:19.858)
There you go.

Nick Clason (01:27.56)
Alright, are you ready Tyler? Let's go!

Tyler Johnson (01:28.974)
I'm so ready. I will take more than 19 seconds because I read that in debate it matters to take your full time. So my name is Tyler 2 Wall Johnson. The rest of that context doesn't need to be known because I don't think I can tell it in the remaining 40 seconds that I have. I am currently in Fort Wayne at Christ Hope Ministries and Church.

I have only been here for about a year. was at my previous church for about eight years and I have had a fair balance of both young and old volunteers in the ministries. And so as I come today, ready to bear the fight and the voice of the older people, as there was another person in our retreat that the three of us had had recently who strives to be an older person.

Jacob (01:54.899)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (02:20.556)
I cannot wait and so I am ready to defend the old today. Done.

Nick Clason (02:27.41)
Nice, great work. wait, I got distracted. There we go. I almost didn't give you credit for that because I laid the remote down.

Tyler Johnson (02:37.101)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let it be known that it was about 56 seconds.

Nick Clason (02:40.714)
Strong work, man, both of you strong work. All right, well, now that we thoroughly know everything and we know the bare minimum of Jacob's life, let's get this show on the road. So once again, by random draw, Jacob, since you went first on the last one, that means Tyler, your position that you're getting two minutes to argue is that older people are better youth ministry volunteers.

Jacob (02:51.398)
Okay. Okay.

Nick Clason (03:10.282)
and you're about to have two minutes on the clock. Are you ready?

Jacob (03:11.346)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (03:14.54)
I will take one minute and 59 seconds.

Nick Clason (03:16.99)
Alright, well then my friend, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (03:20.522)
Yes, I am here to debate that for older volunteers, here's number one. They bring long-term faithfulness and not just energy. They model a future version of faith. They're often more emotionally stable. I do say that as a once young person, kind of middle-aged. What is 30? Am I young middle-aged or am I old young? I don't know. That's for later. I'm in my debate time.

Jacob (03:42.345)
. Thank

Tyler Johnson (03:50.955)
Here's one of the probably the biggest that I have seen more personally outside of just reading from my notes and it's this. There is more ownership with the maturity, not just ownership of the ministry, but there's ownership of the tasks that they have. Not only do they see the ministry as their own or maybe their small group as their own and the ability to without asking permission or even sometimes without asking how.

Nick Clason (04:01.514)
Hmm.

Jacob (04:13.129)
.

Tyler Johnson (04:18.508)
They're going to go in and say, like, you know, they're going to grab the lunches. They're going to grab the coffees. I don't have to hold their hand for some of that. At the same time in ministry, if they are teaching a lesson, if they are preparing small group questions, it is theirs. They want to own it. And they might want feedback over some of that, but they're going to have ownership of it. In the same way, finally, there's a lot of ownership of their faith. As a young adult, even a young

Jacob (04:36.369)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (04:47.052)
volunteer. I do believe someone is supposed to have a Paul and a Timothy at all times, even into their older years. But there's a lot of times that that those 20 somethings, they are still looking very heavily towards their Paul. And so with the the 40s, I would say arguably older ministry volunteers is probably 50 up. They they have experienced that mentorship role and are more willing to be the Paul than needing to be the Timothy. Done.

Nick Clason (05:18.782)
Fantastic, strong work. Jacob, the bar has been set, my friend. He brought in the Bible and everything, so it's now time for you.

Jacob (05:19.344)
There you go. That was good.

Jacob (05:25.413)
Here we go.

Tyler Johnson (05:28.446)
shoot, I should have used the Bible.

Nick Clason (05:33.5)
It's that time for you to argue your side of the aisle, though you guys are friends. You once were friends. Will you still be friends after this, Jacob? Two minutes on the clock. Take it away.

Jacob (05:35.44)
Here we go.

Jacob (05:45.85)
Go for it. Yeah, so I want to clarify before I offend anybody that's 35 or older, that I'm 29, so 30 and above is still in the older mark for me. But I think there's something that younger volunteers provide that can't be replicated anywhere else. And that first thing mainly is just proximity. Proximity to culture, life stage, proximity to what students are actually experiencing right now.

You know, they remember what it was like to sit in the cafeteria awkward wondering about what they're going to do with their lives. Not 25 years ago with a completely different generation, but just a couple years ago. I think the other thing that it provides is you get you get volunteers. Students look to those younger volunteers and they see a hope, not just a hope that's like, man, 45, 50 years from now, this is where I can be. But there's a hope of OK, faith can actually survive past high school like.

faith can actually thrive in a college setting because I'm seeing college-age young adult students or young adult leaders actually engaging and figuring it out. And they don't have all of the answers completely. But I also think that that provides a comfortability of freedom to the students that go like, hey, it's okay if I'm not hitting college-age and I have all of the answers because they're still trying to figure out what they're gonna do. And that's okay, it's a process. And they can kind of have hope in that. And then the younger leaders can speak into that a little bit for them and give them a sense of,

going be okay, you've got time to process some of these things and they can do that together. I think the other thing is that it builds a leadership pipeline. know, for all the pros that Tyler's talking about, for the older volunteers, you don't get there without some of the without starting at some point. And so you got to start as a young leader, use the skills that you have at the time and then work your way up to a place where you can be a a Paul instead of just a Timothy. But also remember that

Tyler Johnson (07:31.562)
you

Jacob (07:34.745)
Paul called Timothy when he was super young into a step of ministry. It wasn't that, let's get you to a certain age, but it was right there in that moment. Done.

Nick Clason (07:45.086)
Great. So each person, each member of the defense, I don't know, this isn't court, has presented their side. Does anyone have a clarifying question for the other person to try and understand their side of the argument maybe a little bit better?

Tyler Johnson (07:56.747)
you

Jacob (08:10.063)
Yeah, I'll go. Clarify a little bit on the emotional stability of older volunteers. I'm not saying I disagree. I just want to hear the specific strength that comes from as an older volunteer, because I think it's possible the younger volunteers can be in a place where they're emotionally stable. But maybe I'm missing the angle that you're coming from.

Tyler Johnson (08:21.194)
Yeah, I think that older volunteers can react less dramatically to maybe sometimes it's student behavior or something like that, as well as even when there are storms in their personal life, I think you'll see someone who's

Jacob (08:40.374)
Here you go.

Jacob (08:46.447)
Yeah, that's

Tyler Johnson (08:50.249)
keep a more calm sense in them more than when the storms of life are hitting a young person.

Nick Clason (09:00.648)
Tyler, you got one for Jacob?

Tyler Johnson (09:02.845)
I'm gonna come up with one, but I really liked Jacob's take. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't admit guilty, I'm just saying, it was a good point. Talk to me some about, obviously with the older crowd, took the stance of there's some high reliability.

Nick Clason (09:05.608)
Yeah.

Jacob (09:10.84)
Did he just admit on here that I won or we live over?

Nick Clason (09:16.126)
Ahem.

Tyler Johnson (09:29.917)
Talk to me about the lows of reliability in young people and if that has been an experience that you've experienced.

Jacob (09:36.093)
I mean 100 % although I would also argue that I've that I've worked with older volunteers who are sometimes just as as unreliable as as younger volunteers and so it's a little bit of a balance I think One of the things that all that I'll say and I'll push a little bit on the younger volunteers compared to older volunteers if I'm doing a and I'm hoping that all of us are in agreement that this is a horrible idea if I'm doing an overnight event right, I'm getting the young guys who can

pound two red bulls and eat Taco Bell and go run with the kids then get the older volunteers to go, hey, I need you to go run around for a whole night and interact. And so there's a little bit of an energy there that they can provide. And I totally agree. think there's the emotional stability thing is super important. I do agree. think older volunteers are a lot more calm, especially in situations where like we need calmness and direction in terms of crisis, both in our lives and then also just in the craziness of Wednesday nights, we need a little bit of calm.

Nick Clason (10:05.866)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (10:29.225)
you

Jacob (10:30.03)
But I think at some point you're not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to learn that, the young leaders, unless they're in it first and see the older people do it. And so they have to experience that so that way they can also learn how to get there.

Tyler Johnson (10:41.503)
I do, so what's really fun is talking about the overnight, right? Because we've all been there. Sometimes it's not about just the evening, it's about the recovery. I've known some young people who pounded those two Red Bulls and then afterwards, like the next day, they are a frail Victorian child on their couch.

Jacob (10:45.549)
Yeah.

Jacob (10:53.095)
Yeah, that's right.

Jacob (11:03.021)
True.

Tyler Johnson (11:03.857)
And some older people who are like, I got my coffee and I'm going to work today. And I'm like, you're insane.

Jacob (11:11.511)
Fair enough.

Nick Clason (11:12.522)
Well, and younger people have like sometimes their life lends itself better for recovery. They're like, I will be sleeping all day Saturday and it doesn't matter. And older people are like, I have a family and we have an upward basketball game that we have to be at at 9 a.m. You know what I'm saying? And so there's definitely like there's some of the availability piece of maybe like a younger person, but there's maybe some of the wisdom piece of the older person.

Tyler Johnson (11:30.407)
Absolutely.

Nick Clason (11:41.726)
Which is probably why this is a terrible argument to have a either or stance on, right? Like that's probably why it's helpful and beneficial to have a good blend of both, right? And so that doesn't make for a strong YouTube title, but it does make probably for good youth ministry to have a good blend of older volunteers and younger volunteers because you can certainly see the pros of both sides. And let's be honest, you can also see the cons.

Jacob (11:48.783)
Yeah.

Jacob (12:05.888)
For sure.

Nick Clason (12:11.89)
of both stances of the argument.

Tyler Johnson (12:14.44)
Yeah, and to be honest, I figured that was the point anyway, right, is to have the balance. even for the older people, the idea is not they are not just mentoring the students, they're mentoring the younger leaders. There's so much wrapped up. Jacob said it, there's a pipeline. You don't get to be the older volunteer without at one point probably being also the younger volunteer. And realistically, as the younger volunteer, as I was a younger volunteer,

Jacob (12:16.813)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:18.023)
You

Nick Clason (12:27.114)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (12:39.241)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (12:44.155)
There were volunteers that I looked up to that said, man, I want to do discipleship that way. want to do, man, I want to have their presence when my life looks like their life.

Jacob (12:44.301)
Sounds like I'm I'm winning now this thing

Nick Clason (12:54.652)
I was gonna say objection to the pipeline because like what's the point of a pipeline? You don't actually want them past 30. So like just burn them out bro and then.

Tyler Johnson (13:03.848)
Are you? I'm sorry, Mr. Host, are you taking a stance? I don't feel good about this.

Nick Clason (13:07.816)
No, I was just, I was just.

I was just playing a counterpoint. All right.

Jacob (13:15.353)
You

Nick Clason (13:18.014)
Final arguments, are we ready? So I believe since Jacob went first on the last one, Tyler, is that right?

Jacob (13:24.204)
That's right.

Tyler Johnson (13:30.001)
I went first on the last one.

Nick Clason (13:31.484)
since Tyler went first on the last one by random draw that you'll have to trust. Yeah, I'm pastor. Jacob, one minute on the clock to defend your younglings. Are you ready? All right, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (13:37.148)
You're a pastor.

Jacob (13:45.366)
Yeah, I'm ready.

Yeah, think, yeah, close that out. I think it's also like you see the students that get to see the younger leaders engage, that gives them a hopeful passion and you can plug those guys in when they graduate into your middle school programming, right? And then that's where they can learn even more. And so it's not just you have these students from...

It would be great. It would be a great world to live in if they if every single one of them came in in sixth grade and stayed until senior year, right? But we know that that some of them come in in their in their senior year or junior year or anywhere in that spectrum and you think well only have a certain amount of time right? Well these younger leaders can pour into these people and help them figure out their gifts. So maybe it's being called into ministry. Maybe it's being called into something else or jumping into serving in student ministry to see where they feel like where their spiritual gifts are right? And those can happen at a young age rather than going well I'll just figure it out when I'm 30 and go from there.

Tyler Johnson (14:44.966)
Thank you.

Nick Clason (14:45.256)
All right, well done. Let's round it out, Mr. Tyler. Older people are better than younger people as youth ministry volunteers because...

Tyler Johnson (14:51.174)
I'm ready.

Tyler Johnson (14:57.201)
The last point I want to make for older volunteers is the vision casting as well as the decisions they make are generational. There are times that think with younger people they planned sometimes as little as like they're ready for next summer, they're ready for the next summer conference, they're ready for the next big event. When a lot of the decisions in ministry that is done from some of the older volunteers is they are thinking the long term, they are thinking about the students when they're getting to their

late 30s, 40s, 50s, and how they can pour into them. They have that vision of the five-year plan and not the one-year plan. And I have found that incredibly valuable, especially when establishing a ministry for even me to go to them and have those long-term vision casting conversations about the ministry. Done.

Nick Clason (15:53.61)
Well done, there you have it folks. Old volunteers versus young volunteers. Let us know down below who won and whose side you're on. We should probably put like an old person emoji for one person and a child emoji. Yeah, yeah, then you, yeah.

Jacob (16:08.121)
And then put me

Tyler Johnson (16:09.657)
I just assumed that there was a filter you're gonna do in post that like I'm 90 right now.

Nick Clason (16:17.13)
Oh, I'm good, but I might not be that good, I mean. Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (16:21.336)
Okay, I'm just like, well, one, I kind of wanted to see it. I wanted to see like the really greys, like my grandfather had a very good head of hair even in his 90s. So like, I'm hoping that sticks. Yeah.

Jacob (16:24.142)
You

Jacob (16:32.978)
That sounds nice, that sounds really nice,

Nick Clason (16:34.154)
Way to rub salt in the wounds there,

Jacob (16:39.946)
That's right.