These Youth Ministries Are CRUSHING Social Media (You’ve Never Heard of Them)

These youth ministries are crushing social media, and here’s the thing…. You’ve probably never heard of a single one of them.

Today, I’m breaking down 5 accounts that are absolutely crushing social media right now — and more importantly, I’m going to show you exactly why their posts work.

Because here’s the truth… it’s not about having a big church, a big budget, or a full media team.
It’s about strategy.

And if you stick around, I’ll show you how you can start applying the same ideas this week — even if you’re starting from scratch.

These Churches are Crushing it!
https://www.instagram.com/lexumcyouth/
https://www.instagram.com/impactfindlay/
https://www.instagram.com/harrodsburg.students/
https://www.instagram.com/wakymc_stumin/
https://www.instagram.com/crosscreekstudents/

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/201

Bracket Episode: Links in Video Description
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntXEQG8KW0o

Opus Clip
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

Mic Guide (in Act 4 “The Execution Layer”)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/hybrid-ministry-151264417?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

[FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

🌸 SPRING SEASONAL SOCIAL PACK
https://www.patreon.com/posts/spring-seasonal-151263940?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Andrew Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsFhry-v_Tg

👉 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

--------------
🎉 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

--------------
🛠️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.patreon.com/posts/9-amazing-dym-142425755

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

//HYBRID MINISTRY MEGA GUIDE
Everything I've ever learned in one blog post [FOR FREE!]
https://www.patreon.com/posts/hybrid-ministry-151264417?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Youth Ministries that are crushing social media!
0:22 Church #1
03:22 Church #2
05:13 Church #3
07:10 Church #4
09:07 Church #5
10:54 How Can You Do this?

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:02:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These youth ministers are crushing it on social media, and

00:00:02:29 - 00:00:03:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you've probably

00:00:03:18 - 00:00:04:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
never even heard of them.

00:00:04:17 - 00:00:04:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Today

00:00:04:26 - 00:00:22:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm breaking down five accounts and why their post types are working. It's not about big budget. It's not about being flashy. It's about strategy. And if you stick around to the end of the video, I'm going to share with you how you can unlock that, even for your own context of the first one you've probably never heard of is Lexington United Methodist Church.

00:00:22:12 - 00:00:40:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
My friend Todd is over there, and I love what Todd's doing. First and foremost, Todd was in a youth ministry leader cohort with me and Todd has been, diving into social media and trying to make his youth ministry and student ministry a little bit more hybrid. So, the first post type that I like is this

00:00:40:07 - 00:00:40:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one.

00:00:40:13 - 00:00:52:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Check it out.

00:00:52:21 - 00:01:03:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you look at this one in his algorithm here, you'll see that it has, 165, likes it's pinned. You can see to the top of his profile,

00:01:03:12 - 00:01:15:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
which means it's probably his best performing post. But what I like about it is look at this like it's not even a difficult post for anyone to do. It's a voice over.

00:01:15:12 - 00:01:56:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's him and to students, and it's a cell phone camera. And it went crazy viral. And so Todd's just having fun filming content with students in his ministry. The second post type that I like, from Todd, is this one.

00:01:56:06 - 00:02:04:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But not like that.

00:02:04:11 - 00:02:22:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Three times I mode on.

00:02:22:06 - 00:02:57:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh, man. Okay, so here's what I love about this. This is a bracket style. And, you've heard us talk about it on this podcast a bajillion times. I'll link down below. Some free or, cheap bracket options that you can use. But like, look at the commitment to the bit like Spud Sinner, esp and he's got, like, graphics, he's using AI, he's got a whole bracket on his wall and he's using, like, stats and analytics, and he's just going for the like, bracketology bit and vibe, which is one of the things we've done in our context as well.

00:02:57:11 - 00:03:16:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He's just having fun, like he's just having a good time. And to be clear, like, these are just two posts that I cherry picked out of Todd's, repertoire here. Absolutely nothing like, you know, he he does serious stuff too, so don't come at him, but like, he's just having a good time with the students. And that's what I love about how simple this is.

00:03:16:28 - 00:03:34:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like that one. Obviously a little bit more involved, a little bit more committed to the bit. But I bet you if you ask Todd if his students enjoyed the potato bracket, I think he called it Starch Madness. They probably would. And it's a lot because of what Todd's doing on social. The second church. I want to introduce you to is impact.

00:03:34:08 - 00:03:47:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Finley. And Bree is the social media manager there. I know her boss, Scott, and. But Bree was in one of my youth Mr. leader cohorts. I want to show you this post from Bree and their church.

00:03:47:16 - 00:03:55:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I got a pizza delivery for a package. Johari. I am Tonka Johari, but I would never order a whole pizza for myself.

00:03:55:04 - 00:03:59:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm now taking you. I mean,

00:03:59:16 - 00:04:24:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This one's like. This one's so simple. Like, I want you to just notice, like, she probably found this voice over, and then she just recruited some students with her to, like, help perform this skit out, right? Like, just a great post. And then this one right here. This one went, viral, 22,000 views. This is during our, youth ministry leader cohort.

00:04:24:23 - 00:04:46:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, Bree, you should be leading this thing. Check this out.

00:04:47:02 - 00:05:04:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. I mean, look at this like, it's it's so easy. It's so simple. You've probably seen this before. It's a trend. They did it. It took off. Look at how much work it probably took. She wrote, what, ten of these little like prompts and then handed a phone to someone and said, go do this thing right. It's just before a youth group.

00:05:04:25 - 00:05:28:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's super simple. And they were rewarded with 22,000 views. Moving on to the third church here that you've probably never heard of is my friend David Carpenter at Harrodsburg. Students in, Kentucky and I ran across with David's dude on social, and David is absolutely crushing it on social media. He's in a modest and normal sized church.

00:05:28:12 - 00:05:35:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the dude is got some chops when it comes to, like, editing and stuff like that. But what I want you to see on this particular post is, look,

00:05:35:28 - 00:05:47:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
he's just like, this is the first, photo based post, right? And I remember when I was talking to David, I was like, how do you capture photos? He's like, I just got a decent camera, and I put it in someone's hands.

00:05:47:00 - 00:06:11:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I said, get after it. And he said, you're bound to get at least something usable, right? And so he's got this picture of this kid with his hands up, and then he uses this caption here, and then he says, yep, no youth ministry. Super simple. How difficult would this be for you to go through the archives of a post that someone has taken a picture of, find this and post it like

00:06:11:25 - 00:06:16:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
super easy, super simple, and then, furthermore, he has this one.

00:06:16:14 - 00:06:20:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These are.

00:06:20:10 - 00:06:39:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like this is a sermon clip. He sets a camera up in the back of the room. I asked him about it. He's like, I got a camera again. Paid like less than $500 for a decent camera. And he's like, I got like a a few dollar adapter, put it into the soundboard, and now I just take the audio, I link them up together, and then I create sermon clips from it.

00:06:39:21 - 00:06:50:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. We prerecorded our messages. And so I use that and then I use a service like opus clip down below, which you could also check that out. Check out the link if that's something you're interested in. But David, I know he just does this himself using Adobe Premiere

00:06:50:26 - 00:06:55:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Pro. He's got skills in it. And so he puts sermon clips together for himself, for his church.

00:06:55:16 - 00:07:09:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like this is so simple. It's pictures of your student ministry is picture of yourself, right. Once again no social PAC here. All students, all custom, all faces within your own context. You my friend, you could be doing this

00:07:09:05 - 00:07:16:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
semester number four. Like a Russa missionary church. My friend Andrew is on a cohort at one point. And he's actually been on the podcast before as well.

00:07:16:18 - 00:07:49:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'll link his episode right up here. Andrew, what I love about his, his videos is same thing. He just he just decided to start taking it seriously. So let me show you this first post type from Andrew.

00:07:49:08 - 00:08:07:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This one's funny because look at it. If you look at this, it says throwing items on my intern, I guess is what is item four? So this is a series post. So if you look back at, Andrew's, feed, you'll notice that he's done this before with his intern. So the two of them, they just have a blast filming content together.

00:08:07:24 - 00:08:09:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The other one I like

00:08:09:00 - 00:08:24:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
from Andrew's, church is this one. Check it out.

00:08:24:17 - 00:08:40:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So this is interview styles. When I, when I talked to Andrew, when I interviewed Andrew, he said this is like the main thing that they do. They send this dude around and he takes a little tiny mic and he interviews students with certain questions. And, this is one of the lowest hanging fruit. Easy things to do.

00:08:40:03 - 00:08:57:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like how difficult would this be for anyone for you to hand off to any volunteer, any student in your ministry? You grab a decent sound microphone link down. Below is my microphone guide and you take your cell phone camera look. There's like this light here shining through. Like it's that that's like that's just raw. Real. And like, you don't need polish.

00:08:57:00 - 00:09:13:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You don't need a studio. You don't need, like, an amazing camera with an amazing lens. You just need a cell phone. You probably have access to it. And then the fifth and final, one is I will humbly submit my own student ministry you've maybe heard of. If you've been listening to this podcast, let me give you a couple of examples of what we do.

00:09:13:21 - 00:09:21:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Number one, very simple.

00:09:21:25 - 00:09:35:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is a transition style video. It's so simple. You just take the video of the burger's thing and you link it to something back behind it. You try and match it up. So simple, so easy. And you're inviting students to your context, to your church.

00:09:35:28 - 00:09:40:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The second thing I'll submit to you, and neither this one here is not my idea.

00:09:40:13 - 00:10:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I've got to give a shout out to our resident Cody. He created a vlog style, video called disciples. He's a, disc golf, lover. And so him and our intern, they go through and they do different, like, disc golf challenges. And I will let you know, like, if you notice here, like, some of these have some pretty crazy views, 271 views.

00:10:04:13 - 00:10:22:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He also did a series style video similar to what Andrew did over at Walker Russo, where he shot, disc of like a different, number. So like day one, one shot, day two, two shots, day three, three shots over the roof of our building until he made it. And if he didn't make it, he was going to get his head shaved during our winter weekend.

00:10:22:24 - 00:10:41:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And he made it to like two days before something like that. And so, he went crazy on it. I'll link that video down below in the description so that you can see that one. But that was a really, really good series. And another great way just to reinforce this, on our our YouTube channel, which has all of our sermon series, but a different style of a piece of content.

00:10:41:12 - 00:10:51:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And again, like this is a good example. I'm the youth pastor. I didn't have any bandwidth or idea around this. He did. I said, go for it, man. Cut him loose and

00:10:51:29 - 00:11:04:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
he's owned it straight away. And so this is what you can do when you lean into hybrid. Once you start doing things, people will notice and they'll have ideas, and then you can just cut them loose to go do those things.

00:11:04:07 - 00:11:17:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And all of these are examples of my hybrid strategy. And I'll just be honest, like impact Todd's at Lexington. David's like, they're not following me. They're just leaning in to digital and

00:11:17:18 - 00:11:41:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
social media because they're trying to speak their students language. In fact, the goal of all of this church digital and social media. Brady Scheer, he recently closed down his daily social media pack because he said, we're in a new era of social media called the syndication era of social, and his contention is that it's transitioning from social to just straight up media.

00:11:41:26 - 00:12:01:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Here's the good news my seasonal social media pack helps blend the two between the set it and forget it. That's what he's sun setting in his in his business. He's like, we're not doing the done free stuff anymore. That's from a different era of social. But youth pastors are still busy and sometimes they just need help and they just need something that they can turn to quick and in a pinch.

00:12:02:01 - 00:12:22:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I'll give you some of those that you can fall back on. But more importantly, I will help coach you through and even give you assets for man on the street for transition style videos for Bible trivia. Whether you want to do interview style or whether you want to like do yourself selfie style video and spiritual content that's like Devo style, you don't need a camera in the back of the room like David.

00:12:22:16 - 00:12:46:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You just need a cell phone and you just take the script and you create devotional style content to, with or for your students on social media. If you look back through the ten highlighted posts of these five different churches in those accounts, every single one of them that was chosen had students or leaders as a specific person in the post.

00:12:46:28 - 00:13:06:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's not the Dunphy stuff that's offered anymore. That's not the era of social that we find ourself in. And so my PAC will help you if you become a $4 per month tier member, you will get that pack included, along with a weekly bonus recap podcast of my creative programing in my student ministry and what we're doing over on social media.

00:13:06:26 - 00:13:23:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I'm rooting for you. You can lean into this. You can have fun. The bar has never been lower, and it's never been easier for youth pastors to jump in on this. So if I can help, check it out down below. If not, rooting for you as you go and crush social media in your ministry moving forward. Blessings on you.

00:13:23:20 - 00:13:28:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And don't forget everyone as you are doing this throughout your week to stay hybrid.