web01.fireside.fm Fri, 01 May 2026 22:42:50 -0500 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Church Community” https://www.hybridministry.xyz/tags/church%20community Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500 Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To cater in a digital ministry way to an online focused ministry audience. Reaching Millennials, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha is going to require us to rethink some of the ways we do church. Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick en-us episodic Digital Discipleship made easy Nick Clason Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To cater in a digital ministry way to an online focused ministry audience. Reaching Millennials, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha is going to require us to rethink some of the ways we do church. Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick no Digital, Online Church, Hybrid Ministry, Church, Meta, Gen Z, Millennials, Digital Marketing, Church Marketing, Youth Ministry, Student Ministry, Nick Clason, Digital Ministry, Church Social Media, Youth Ministry Social Media, YouTube for Church, YouTube for Youth Ministry, TikTok for Churches, TikTok for Youth Ministry, Instagram for Churches, Instagram for Youth Ministry, Facebook for Church, Facebook for Youth Ministry, Cell Phone Usage at Church Nick Clason nickclason@hybridministry.xyz Episode 196: Lock-Ins: Ministry Gold or Total Disaster? https://www.hybridministry.xyz/196 f5e38c94-7322-4aa4-b0d6-311b9d51f619 Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500 Nick Clason 196 Lock-Ins: Ministry Gold or Total Disaster? full Nick Clason Lock-ins... is there a more polarizing youth ministry topic? Should you do them? Are they valuable? Or are they the worst idea ever? In this episode, two youth pastors go head to head, and you get to decide! 20:08 no Lock-ins... is there a more polarizing youth ministry topic? Should you do them? Are they valuable? Or are they the worst idea ever? In this episode, two youth pastors go head to head, and you get to decide! Take Advantage of Andrew's FREE Lock-in Planning Session: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/contact [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link 🌸 SPRING SEASONAL SOCIAL PACK https://www.patreon.com/posts/spring-seasonal-151263940?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/196 //Lock-In Survival Guide https://www.patreon.com/posts/10-year-veterans-146449370?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link 👉 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?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link -------------- 🕰️TIMECODES 00:00 Pro or Anti Lock-in? 02:16 The Argument Against Lock-ins 05:14 The Busy Youth Worker’s Guide to Social Media 06:12 The Argument For Lock-ins 09:11 What Do You do if Kids don’t like boardgames? 10:56 Are Lock-ins only effective for Middle Schoolers? 12:16 What are the “risks” vs the “rewards” of a lock-in? 14:29 Do Lock-ins affect your Sunday morning attendance? 16:43 The Final Argument FOR Lock-ins 18:00 The Final Argument AGAINST Lock-ins 19:09 You decide - who won? -------------- TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason (00:01.102) Well, what is up everybody? Here I am this morning with Andrew and my new friend Ellen. Good morning everyone. How are we doing this morning? Ellen Partridge (00:10.995) Doing good. Nick Clason (00:12.802) Hey, are you guys, do you have coffee yet in your systems or is that long gone? All right, okay. They're doing pretty good, right, Michigan State? Andrew Jansen (00:12.964) Doing fantastic. Ellen Partridge (00:16.771) We're on the first cut. Go Spartans. Yeah, not as good as Michigan, which is a bummer, but... Andrew Jansen (00:23.46) They're doing good. Nick Clason (00:25.73) Mm, yeah. And this will drop after March Madness, so we'll all know. Comment down below, like how Michigan did. know, Michigan State, not Michigan. But I'm excited because today we are debating pro lock-in versus anti lock-in. And based on the two people that you see on your screen here, you can probably already tell who's pro lock-in. Andrew Jansen (00:33.591) it. Nick Clason (00:50.9) and who's anti-lock-in. And so I'm just so excited for you guys to get to, not only get to know these two amazing people, but also hear their positions on this. And so by random draw that happened off screen that you're gonna have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Ellen, you get to go first. So one minute on the clock for you. Just introduce yourself, help the people understand your context, where you're at, how long you've been in ministry, all these types of things. Ellen, are you ready? Ellen Partridge (01:18.751) Absolutely. I'm ready. Nick Clason (01:21.58) Alright, take it away. Ellen Partridge (01:23.455) All right, everyone, my name is Ellen Partridge. I serve as the central pastor of students at Thornton Apple Valley Church. We are centralized out of Hastings at Michigan, southwest Michigan. And we are a multi-site church, but I've been in ministry for very close to two decades now. And we're in a rural context and a multi-site context. So things are a little bit different for us versus just the single site. And when I think about lock-ins, the thing that always comes to mind is the Halt analogy. If you're hungry, if you're angry, if you're tired, what are the things you shouldn't do, which is make decisions. And so we're gonna put students in a room where they are locked in together. You got the ones who, I have a kid in my youth ministry who at camp asked me if I could move our bedtime up to 9 p.m. I let him know that wasn't a thing, but you've got those kind of kids, and then you've got the kids who have snuck in. all their energy drinks and are going to be up till four in the morning. And those kids that are up are going to be picking on the kids that don't want to be up, that want to be sleeping. And then you've got a lot of that interpersonal conflict that is going on within that. And you're putting that all into a giant space where you're having to entertain them and or keep track of them as they are, you know, coming up with all of these grand ideas of how they're going to use their time. And I remember back to my youth group days, our youth ministry actually met in a old YMCA building, and for some reason, they did not lock the doors to the locker rooms, and then that locker room led to a empty pool. And I can't confirm or deny if there were children conceived in that pool, but there probably were. And it was coming from opportunities where we did lock-ins and they let us all throughout this building with lots of classrooms, lots of spaces that should have been locked that were not. And so from that perspective of hungry, angry, tired, lack of ability to, you know, keep an eye on all the students and all the places, I am very anti-lock-in. Nick Clason (03:43.896) Well, there you go. Andrew, she blew past introductions just straight into arguments. Brother, she's coming for you, right? Like she is coming in hot. So, Ellen, great argument. Man, I hope no students, babies were conceived in that pool. I don't ever want to swim there. Andrew. Andrew Jansen (03:49.24) yeah, just right past it. Yeah, she went right past it and that's okay. She's coming in hot, yeah, for sure. It's okay. Ellen Partridge (04:10.12) Me too. Andrew Jansen (04:12.365) Yeah, it's gross. Nick Clason (04:13.838) Tell us why Ellen's wrong and why lock-ins are a great idea. But first, give us a little bit of intro as you go. Are you ready, my friend? Let's go, take it away. Andrew Jansen (04:28.345) ready. Yeah, hit it. My name is Andrew Janssen. I am a middle school pastor in Manhattan, Kansas. Sorry, a couple years ago, we did play Michigan State and I know you probably knew that but we have nothing to talk about sports wise, hardly at all right now. So that's okay. But I love K State. I love serving in Manhattan. I am 36 years old. I've been a youth pastor for 10 years and I really love getting to be in Manhattan, getting to work with college students that invest in middle schoolers. That's kind of my passion. And man, I love lock-ins. just, it works within the context of our church is about 1900 people and we work with multi buildings on our campus, but not multi-site, but. It is just set up in a really easy way to execute and make lock-ins happen. And especially in our season right now where we have, and it changes, we have college students that graduate, but we have like 17, 18 youth coaches right now. And a lot of them enjoy staying up super late. And so it just really worked in this season to be able to have enough people there for a safe lock-in to happen. Middle schoolers are crazy and love staying up all night, love getting to be like, you can be at the church besides Sunday and Wednesday. And just, it was just really, really awesome. We did a New Year's Eve lock in and they just have so much fun. There's opportunities for fellowship, board games, long extended times that maybe you don't get that opportunity to play through an entire game of exploding kittens or taco cat. Mahomes cheese pizza, not taco cat goat cheese pizza. We all know Mahomes is the goat. But we play taco cat Mahomes cheese pizza and you get through two rounds and it's time for youth group to start. So we get to play through those games, have those conversations and invest in the students moving forward. Nick Clason (06:40.494) Great. All right, well there you have it. Like there's, each of you have laid down the gauntlet with your position, right? Andrews is based upon board games. Ellen's is based upon pools being present. And so with those two things in mind, plus everything else, do either of you have a question for the other that we can debate in a little bit more of an open forum? Andrew Jansen (06:55.097) You Ellen Partridge (07:10.974) All Andrea, I got one for you. So what do you do with the kids who are not your board game kids? What are your other activities that you're able to do? Because it sounds like you're pretty board game heavy. So how are you keeping the other kids occupied that are not interested in your board games? Andrew Jansen (07:27.929) Absolutely. I have, I try to make sure that every single second is accounted for at a lock-in. We have intentional time where it's like, they get to choose. We have our youth building has like carpet ball, foosball, ping pong. We have not a Nintendo switch too, but two Nintendo switches, which is kind of confusing, definitely. But so we have like Mario Kart and Smash Bros going. Nick Clason (07:49.902) That could be confusing, Andrew Jansen (07:56.882) I really try to get them away from screens as much as I can because we all know that battle. yeah, trying to have every single second with like some sort of activity, some sort of competition tournament. The last time I was on with Nick, we talked about the Assassin's like meta ongoing game that happens throughout the evening and having things like that where there isn't an opportunity to be bored. really, really is effective with middle schoolers. Because once you were right, once they're bored and exploring and they find a pool and we know what happens next, like there's just something about an empty pool. So, but with middle schoolers, that's not so much like the sneaking off and having that happen. I think that's more of a high school situation, but I just try to make sure every single second is accounted for. And that kind of helps with, you know, not having that boredom. board game time for the students that don't like board games. Ellen Partridge (08:57.362) And notice you keep saying middle school. You're not mentioning high school. So are you saying that lock-ins are only good for middle school or would you do one with high school? Nick Clason (09:06.072) Good question. Andrew Jansen (09:06.325) I would, that is a great question. I would do a, I would do a high school lock in for sure. I think that you do run that risk. They are a little bit more like, I can kind of put on the dad voice like the, Hey, what are you doing? And they'll just like freeze as a middle schooler. They still, you know, we'll listen to authority when it yells at them. So with high school, they're kind of a little bit more independent, a little bit more calloused and a little bit more. Like on their own I consider I always use this analogy of like middle schoolers are like dogs and high schoolers are like cats Like dogs are just happy that you're there and happy that you see them high schoolers. You kind of have to earn that relational like equity and I would say yes have a lock-in with high schoolers, but only do it if you have the resources and the adult volunteers and also if you're like this group is just like, this is a crazy group of high schoolers. It's not always a green light for that specific group of high schoolers if you just feel like that wouldn't be good. Does that make sense? Ellen Partridge (10:16.934) Yeah, it's good argument. Nick Clason (10:18.464) Andrew, you got a question for Ellen? Andrew Jansen (10:22.763) Yes, what do you feel is, like, I want you to tell me what is the, like, risk reward trade off where you feel like, hey, this is too risky to have a lock in for this type of reward. Ellen Partridge (10:35.422) Mmm. Ellen Partridge (10:45.35) Yeah, it's a great question. I would just say I'm a big fan of like doing late night activities, hanging out super late. The thing that gets me and where I feel like the risk comes in is once you hit that one, two, three, four a.m. that even, and you mentioned that you've got college leaders. I don't live in a college town and so I mostly have adult leaders. And so for me, I know my adult leaders are not gonna be on their A game coming into that situation. And so for me, the risk in my context is a lot higher that my leaders are gonna start maybe losing their minds or going stir crazy or sleep deprivation is gonna kick in. And it's gonna lead to students, because they're curious, ending up doing things that they don't need to do. And so for me, I would rather do a thing where it's like, hey, we're hanging out till midnight. Your parents are picking you up. and then maybe we do something again the next morning because then I know they're getting sleep, my leaders are getting sleep, and it also means that I'm not putting them at risk, I'm not putting my leaders at risk. And so for me, there doesn't seem to be necessarily, yes, there's the connection reward, but I wonder if that's always overshadowed by the sleep deprivation, the angry, hangry situations that can come up and also, I worry for my adult leaders that they're gonna say something out of their own sleep deprivation or frustration after telling the same kid eight times not to do something, that it may end up ultimately hurting a relationship that was good, and then they make a good relationship with someone that they had a bad relationship with, and so you're kind of at a net zero, is kind of how I look at Nick Clason (12:32.078) I just feel like the ultimate fact that like, I would rather sleep in my bed at two o'clock in the morning. Like that's my strongest argument for anti-lock-in. Just shooting straight. Plus I enjoy Saturdays and if I am doing a lock-in, I don't know. Also, Andrew, question for you. Do you ever notice that your Sunday morning attendance is affected post a lock-in weekend? Andrew Jansen (12:32.345) Definitely fair. Andrew Jansen (13:02.165) for sure. I mean, I tell my youth coaches, like, hey, you were just at church for 15 hours. It's OK for you to sleep in. I'll be there because I work there. And students, a lot of times parents will bring them and they might fall asleep or something during a message. Nick Clason (13:04.027) hahahaha Nick Clason (13:13.787) Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Nick Clason (13:28.622) Yeah. Andrew Jansen (13:29.079) Yeah, think it happens. There are definitely repercussions to having a lock-in, but I just think that there's just a lot of... I've seen so many good things and good conversations and relationships start at lock-ins, and it's just with a certain unchurched group of students, it's just an easy invite. It's just an easy win to get them there. Nick Clason (13:45.091) Yeah. Nick Clason (13:50.382) Yeah, which and I hear you like Sunday morning, it's like, okay, like, yeah, they didn't come on Sunday morning, which is like the senior pastor's goal. But like we had a lot more effective and fruitful time than like them sitting through a sermon or whatever, like through the lock-in and you know, the times I have done lock-ins, like it's almost always one of the number one most attended events from friends. Like we get, we would have some of our biggest. Ellen Partridge (14:12.242) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason (14:16.75) numbers and biggest reach, you know, as far as outreach is concerned. So I definitely do see like both sides for sure. So those of you listening, you're about to get your opportunity to vote. Ellen, you went first last time. Andrew, we're gonna put a minute on the clock now for you. Give us your final one minute strongest argument why Y lock-ins. Are you ready, my friend? Take it away. Ellen Partridge (14:30.173) All right. Andrew Jansen (14:42.008) I'm ready. Lock-ins are definitely the easiest first step in the door with a church. If you have the right resources, if you have the right volunteers, and you have a solid game plan going into it, you know your group of students. I think middle school or high school, it is an easy invite for the unchurched students. And that is kind of the lens in which I plan a lock-in. I don't have the whole bait and switch. Like we're going to talk to them about Jesus Christ, their Lord and savior first thing, and then just have the rest of the lock in. It is, hey, building connections, being intentional and teaching the students. That's why we're doing this. Like, Hey, we're doing this so you can bring that friend, start that relationship. And so that they associate church with fun, with safe, with They feel welcome and feel like they belong. There's something different happening here. And our hope is that continues on. Nick Clason (15:47.81) Great, almost a buzzer beater, but not quite. All right, Ellen, you get the final word, final say, anti-lock-in. Go ahead, take it away. Andrew Jansen (15:50.839) Almost. Ellen Partridge (16:00.572) All right, as fun as lock-ins can be in the memories that are made, the risk of students having bad memories, whether it's a leader who loses their cool, it's another student who says something they wouldn't have said because they're sleep deprived or because they're overtired, to me just doesn't equate to the reward. I am much more on the side of let's do a long. evening event where maybe we can start at six or seven and parents are picking up at midnight. So we're still getting that opportunity to connect with them, to have those great conversations, to have an opportunity for them to invite their friends. But at the same time, when it hits two, three in the morning, our leaders and our students are home in their beds, getting the sleep and the rest that they need. And hopefully, because they had a great time. We're gonna be able to see them on Sunday morning and they're able to stay plugged into that larger church community opposed from being just separate from the youth ministry. Nick Clason (17:05.023) Nice, nice. Another almost buzzer beater. Well, there you have it, my friends. You have your pro lock-in versus your anti lock-in debate. And so you guys get to be the decision makers. Those of you watching, let us know, comment down below. But without any further ado, we're gonna get out of here. For Andrew and for Ellen, I'm Nick. Thanks for watching everyone. See you next time. youth ministry, youth pastor, church leadership, student ministry, lock-in debate, church events, youth group games, ministry strategy, church growth, outreach ideas, student engagement, youth ministry podcast, church programming, middle school ministry, high school ministry, church safety, volunteer leadership, youth events, church culture, discipleship, student leadership, ministry burnout, church innovation, youth group ideas, Christian leadership, church community, ministry risks, church events planning, youth outreach, faith conversations Lock-ins... is there a more polarizing youth ministry topic?
Should you do them?
Are they valuable?
Or are they the worst idea ever?

In this episode, two youth pastors go head to head, and you get to decide!

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SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/196

//Lock-In Survival Guide
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Pro or Anti Lock-in?
02:16 The Argument Against Lock-ins
05:14 The Busy Youth Worker’s Guide to Social Media
06:12 The Argument For Lock-ins
09:11 What Do You do if Kids don’t like boardgames?
10:56 Are Lock-ins only effective for Middle Schoolers?
12:16 What are the “risks” vs the “rewards” of a lock-in?
14:29 Do Lock-ins affect your Sunday morning attendance?
16:43 The Final Argument FOR Lock-ins
18:00 The Final Argument AGAINST Lock-ins
19:09 You decide - who won?

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.102)
Well, what is up everybody? Here I am this morning with Andrew and my new friend Ellen. Good morning everyone. How are we doing this morning?

Ellen Partridge (00:10.995)
Doing good.

Nick Clason (00:12.802)
Hey, are you guys, do you have coffee yet in your systems or is that long gone? All right, okay. They're doing pretty good, right, Michigan State?

Andrew Jansen (00:12.964)
Doing fantastic.

Ellen Partridge (00:16.771)
We're on the first cut. Go Spartans.

Yeah, not as good as Michigan, which is a bummer, but...

Andrew Jansen (00:23.46)
They're doing good.

Nick Clason (00:25.73)
Mm, yeah. And this will drop after March Madness, so we'll all know. Comment down below, like how Michigan did. know, Michigan State, not Michigan. But I'm excited because today we are debating pro lock-in versus anti lock-in. And based on the two people that you see on your screen here, you can probably already tell who's pro lock-in.

Andrew Jansen (00:33.591)
it.

Nick Clason (00:50.9)
and who's anti-lock-in. And so I'm just so excited for you guys to get to, not only get to know these two amazing people, but also hear their positions on this. And so by random draw that happened off screen that you're gonna have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Ellen, you get to go first. So one minute on the clock for you. Just introduce yourself, help the people understand your context, where you're at, how long you've been in ministry, all these types of things. Ellen, are you ready?

Ellen Partridge (01:18.751)
Absolutely. I'm ready.

Nick Clason (01:21.58)
Alright, take it away.

Ellen Partridge (01:23.455)
All right, everyone, my name is Ellen Partridge. I serve as the central pastor of students at Thornton Apple Valley Church. We are centralized out of Hastings at Michigan, southwest Michigan. And we are a multi-site church, but I've been in ministry for very close to two decades now. And we're in a rural context and a multi-site context. So things are a little bit different for us versus just the single site.

And when I think about lock-ins, the thing that always comes to mind is the Halt analogy. If you're hungry, if you're angry, if you're tired, what are the things you shouldn't do, which is make decisions. And so we're gonna put students in a room where they are locked in together. You got the ones who, I have a kid in my youth ministry who at camp asked me if I could move our bedtime up to 9 p.m. I let him know that wasn't a thing, but you've got those kind of kids, and then you've got the kids who have snuck in.

all their energy drinks and are going to be up till four in the morning. And those kids that are up are going to be picking on the kids that don't want to be up, that want to be sleeping. And then you've got a lot of that interpersonal conflict that is going on within that. And you're putting that all into a giant space where you're having to entertain them and or keep track of them as they are, you know,

coming up with all of these grand ideas of how they're going to use their time. And I remember back to my youth group days, our youth ministry actually met in a old YMCA building, and for some reason, they did not lock the doors to the locker rooms, and then that locker room led to a empty pool. And I can't confirm or deny if there were children conceived in that pool, but there probably were.

And it was coming from opportunities where we did lock-ins and they let us all throughout this building with lots of classrooms, lots of spaces that should have been locked that were not. And so from that perspective of hungry, angry, tired, lack of ability to, you know, keep an eye on all the students and all the places, I am very anti-lock-in.

Nick Clason (03:43.896)
Well, there you go. Andrew, she blew past introductions just straight into arguments. Brother, she's coming for you, right? Like she is coming in hot. So, Ellen, great argument. Man, I hope no students, babies were conceived in that pool. I don't ever want to swim there. Andrew.

Andrew Jansen (03:49.24)
yeah, just right past it. Yeah, she went right past it and that's okay.

She's coming in hot, yeah, for sure. It's okay.

Ellen Partridge (04:10.12)
Me too.

Andrew Jansen (04:12.365)
Yeah, it's gross.

Nick Clason (04:13.838)
Tell us why Ellen's wrong and why lock-ins are a great idea. But first, give us a little bit of intro as you go. Are you ready, my friend? Let's go, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (04:28.345)
ready. Yeah, hit it. My name is Andrew Janssen. I am a middle school pastor in Manhattan, Kansas. Sorry, a couple years ago, we did play Michigan State and I know you probably knew that but we have nothing to talk about sports wise, hardly at all right now. So that's okay. But I love K State. I love serving in Manhattan. I am 36 years old. I've been a youth pastor for 10 years and

I really love getting to be in Manhattan, getting to work with college students that invest in middle schoolers. That's kind of my passion. And man, I love lock-ins. just, it works within the context of our church is about 1900 people and we work with multi buildings on our campus, but not multi-site, but.

It is just set up in a really easy way to execute and make lock-ins happen. And especially in our season right now where we have, and it changes, we have college students that graduate, but we have like 17, 18 youth coaches right now. And a lot of them enjoy staying up super late. And so it just really worked in this season to be able to have enough people there for a safe lock-in to happen.

Middle schoolers are crazy and love staying up all night, love getting to be like, you can be at the church besides Sunday and Wednesday. And just, it was just really, really awesome. We did a New Year's Eve lock in and they just have so much fun. There's opportunities for fellowship, board games, long extended times that maybe you don't get that opportunity to play through an entire game of exploding kittens or taco cat.

Mahomes cheese pizza, not taco cat goat cheese pizza. We all know Mahomes is the goat. But we play taco cat Mahomes cheese pizza and you get through two rounds and it's time for youth group to start. So we get to play through those games, have those conversations and invest in the students moving forward.

Nick Clason (06:40.494)
Great. All right, well there you have it. Like there's, each of you have laid down the gauntlet with your position, right? Andrews is based upon board games. Ellen's is based upon pools being present. And so with those two things in mind, plus everything else, do either of you have a question for the other that we can debate in a little bit more of an open forum?

Andrew Jansen (06:55.097)
You

Ellen Partridge (07:10.974)
All Andrea, I got one for you. So what do you do with the kids who are not your board game kids? What are your other activities that you're able to do? Because it sounds like you're pretty board game heavy. So how are you keeping the other kids occupied that are not interested in your board games?

Andrew Jansen (07:27.929)
Absolutely. I have, I try to make sure that every single second is accounted for at a lock-in. We have intentional time where it's like, they get to choose. We have our youth building has like carpet ball, foosball, ping pong. We have not a Nintendo switch too, but two Nintendo switches, which is kind of confusing, definitely. But so we have like Mario Kart and Smash Bros going.

Nick Clason (07:49.902)
That could be confusing,

Andrew Jansen (07:56.882)
I really try to get them away from screens as much as I can because we all know that battle. yeah, trying to have every single second with like some sort of activity, some sort of competition tournament. The last time I was on with Nick, we talked about the Assassin's like meta ongoing game that happens throughout the evening and having things like that where there isn't an opportunity to be bored.

really, really is effective with middle schoolers. Because once you were right, once they're bored and exploring and they find a pool and we know what happens next, like there's just something about an empty pool. So, but with middle schoolers, that's not so much like the sneaking off and having that happen. I think that's more of a high school situation, but I just try to make sure every single second is accounted for. And that kind of helps with, you know, not having that boredom.

board game time for the students that don't like board games.

Ellen Partridge (08:57.362)
And notice you keep saying middle school. You're not mentioning high school. So are you saying that lock-ins are only good for middle school or would you do one with high school?

Nick Clason (09:06.072)
Good question.

Andrew Jansen (09:06.325)
I would, that is a great question. I would do a, I would do a high school lock in for sure. I think that you do run that risk. They are a little bit more like, I can kind of put on the dad voice like the, Hey, what are you doing? And they'll just like freeze as a middle schooler. They still, you know, we'll listen to authority when it yells at them. So with high school, they're kind of a little bit more independent, a little bit more calloused and a little bit more.

Like on their own I consider I always use this analogy of like middle schoolers are like dogs and high schoolers are like cats Like dogs are just happy that you're there and happy that you see them high schoolers. You kind of have to earn that relational like equity and I would say yes have a lock-in with high schoolers, but only do it if you have the resources and the adult volunteers and also if you're like

this group is just like, this is a crazy group of high schoolers. It's not always a green light for that specific group of high schoolers if you just feel like that wouldn't be good. Does that make sense?

Ellen Partridge (10:16.934)
Yeah, it's good argument.

Nick Clason (10:18.464)
Andrew, you got a question for Ellen?

Andrew Jansen (10:22.763)
Yes, what do you feel is, like, I want you to tell me what is the, like, risk reward trade off where you feel like, hey, this is too risky to have a lock in for this type of reward.

Ellen Partridge (10:35.422)
Mmm.

Ellen Partridge (10:45.35)
Yeah, it's a great question. I would just say I'm a big fan of like doing late night activities, hanging out super late. The thing that gets me and where I feel like the risk comes in is once you hit that one, two, three, four a.m. that even, and you mentioned that you've got college leaders. I don't live in a college town and so I mostly have adult leaders. And so for me,

I know my adult leaders are not gonna be on their A game coming into that situation. And so for me, the risk in my context is a lot higher that my leaders are gonna start maybe losing their minds or going stir crazy or sleep deprivation is gonna kick in. And it's gonna lead to students, because they're curious, ending up doing things that they don't need to do. And so for me, I would rather do a thing where it's like, hey, we're hanging out till midnight. Your parents are picking you up.

and then maybe we do something again the next morning because then I know they're getting sleep, my leaders are getting sleep, and it also means that I'm not putting them at risk, I'm not putting my leaders at risk. And so for me, there doesn't seem to be necessarily, yes, there's the connection reward, but I wonder if that's always overshadowed by the sleep deprivation, the angry, hangry situations that can come up and also,

I worry for my adult leaders that they're gonna say something out of their own sleep deprivation or frustration after telling the same kid eight times not to do something, that it may end up ultimately hurting a relationship that was good, and then they make a good relationship with someone that they had a bad relationship with, and so you're kind of at a net zero, is kind of how I look at

Nick Clason (12:32.078)
I just feel like the ultimate fact that like, I would rather sleep in my bed at two o'clock in the morning. Like that's my strongest argument for anti-lock-in. Just shooting straight. Plus I enjoy Saturdays and if I am doing a lock-in, I don't know. Also, Andrew, question for you. Do you ever notice that your Sunday morning attendance is affected post a lock-in weekend?

Andrew Jansen (12:32.345)
Definitely fair.

Andrew Jansen (13:02.165)
for sure. I mean, I tell my youth coaches, like, hey, you were just at church for 15 hours. It's OK for you to sleep in. I'll be there because I work there. And students, a lot of times parents will bring them and they might fall asleep or something during a message.

Nick Clason (13:04.027)
hahahaha

Nick Clason (13:13.787)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:28.622)
Yeah.

Andrew Jansen (13:29.079)
Yeah, think it happens. There are definitely repercussions to having a lock-in, but I just think that there's just a lot of... I've seen so many good things and good conversations and relationships start at lock-ins, and it's just with a certain unchurched group of students, it's just an easy invite. It's just an easy win to get them there.

Nick Clason (13:45.091)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:50.382)
Yeah, which and I hear you like Sunday morning, it's like, okay, like, yeah, they didn't come on Sunday morning, which is like the senior pastor's goal. But like we had a lot more effective and fruitful time than like them sitting through a sermon or whatever, like through the lock-in and you know, the times I have done lock-ins, like it's almost always one of the number one most attended events from friends. Like we get, we would have some of our biggest.

Ellen Partridge (14:12.242)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (14:16.75)
numbers and biggest reach, you know, as far as outreach is concerned. So I definitely do see like both sides for sure. So those of you listening, you're about to get your opportunity to vote. Ellen, you went first last time. Andrew, we're gonna put a minute on the clock now for you. Give us your final one minute strongest argument why Y lock-ins. Are you ready, my friend? Take it away.

Ellen Partridge (14:30.173)
All right.

Andrew Jansen (14:42.008)
I'm ready.

Lock-ins are definitely the easiest first step in the door with a church. If you have the right resources, if you have the right volunteers, and you have a solid game plan going into it, you know your group of students. I think middle school or high school, it is an easy invite for the unchurched students. And that is kind of the lens in which I plan a lock-in.

I don't have the whole bait and switch. Like we're going to talk to them about Jesus Christ, their Lord and savior first thing, and then just have the rest of the lock in. It is, hey, building connections, being intentional and teaching the students. That's why we're doing this. Like, Hey, we're doing this so you can bring that friend, start that relationship. And so that they associate church with fun, with safe, with

They feel welcome and feel like they belong. There's something different happening here. And our hope is that continues on.

Nick Clason (15:47.81)
Great, almost a buzzer beater, but not quite. All right, Ellen, you get the final word, final say, anti-lock-in. Go ahead, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (15:50.839)
Almost.

Ellen Partridge (16:00.572)
All right, as fun as lock-ins can be in the memories that are made, the risk of students having bad memories, whether it's a leader who loses their cool, it's another student who says something they wouldn't have said because they're sleep deprived or because they're overtired, to me just doesn't equate to the reward. I am much more on the side of let's do a long.

evening event where maybe we can start at six or seven and parents are picking up at midnight. So we're still getting that opportunity to connect with them, to have those great conversations, to have an opportunity for them to invite their friends. But at the same time, when it hits two, three in the morning, our leaders and our students are home in their beds, getting the sleep and the rest that they need. And hopefully, because they had a great time.

We're gonna be able to see them on Sunday morning and they're able to stay plugged into that larger church community opposed from being just separate from the youth ministry.

Nick Clason (17:05.023)
Nice, nice. Another almost buzzer beater. Well, there you have it, my friends. You have your pro lock-in versus your anti lock-in debate. And so you guys get to be the decision makers. Those of you watching, let us know, comment down below. But without any further ado, we're gonna get out of here. For Andrew and for Ellen, I'm Nick. Thanks for watching everyone. See you next time.

]]> Lock-ins... is there a more polarizing youth ministry topic?
Should you do them?
Are they valuable?
Or are they the worst idea ever?

In this episode, two youth pastors go head to head, and you get to decide!

Take Advantage of Andrew's FREE Lock-in Planning Session:
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Pro or Anti Lock-in?
02:16 The Argument Against Lock-ins
05:14 The Busy Youth Worker’s Guide to Social Media
06:12 The Argument For Lock-ins
09:11 What Do You do if Kids don’t like boardgames?
10:56 Are Lock-ins only effective for Middle Schoolers?
12:16 What are the “risks” vs the “rewards” of a lock-in?
14:29 Do Lock-ins affect your Sunday morning attendance?
16:43 The Final Argument FOR Lock-ins
18:00 The Final Argument AGAINST Lock-ins
19:09 You decide - who won?

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.102)
Well, what is up everybody? Here I am this morning with Andrew and my new friend Ellen. Good morning everyone. How are we doing this morning?

Ellen Partridge (00:10.995)
Doing good.

Nick Clason (00:12.802)
Hey, are you guys, do you have coffee yet in your systems or is that long gone? All right, okay. They're doing pretty good, right, Michigan State?

Andrew Jansen (00:12.964)
Doing fantastic.

Ellen Partridge (00:16.771)
We're on the first cut. Go Spartans.

Yeah, not as good as Michigan, which is a bummer, but...

Andrew Jansen (00:23.46)
They're doing good.

Nick Clason (00:25.73)
Mm, yeah. And this will drop after March Madness, so we'll all know. Comment down below, like how Michigan did. know, Michigan State, not Michigan. But I'm excited because today we are debating pro lock-in versus anti lock-in. And based on the two people that you see on your screen here, you can probably already tell who's pro lock-in.

Andrew Jansen (00:33.591)
it.

Nick Clason (00:50.9)
and who's anti-lock-in. And so I'm just so excited for you guys to get to, not only get to know these two amazing people, but also hear their positions on this. And so by random draw that happened off screen that you're gonna have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Ellen, you get to go first. So one minute on the clock for you. Just introduce yourself, help the people understand your context, where you're at, how long you've been in ministry, all these types of things. Ellen, are you ready?

Ellen Partridge (01:18.751)
Absolutely. I'm ready.

Nick Clason (01:21.58)
Alright, take it away.

Ellen Partridge (01:23.455)
All right, everyone, my name is Ellen Partridge. I serve as the central pastor of students at Thornton Apple Valley Church. We are centralized out of Hastings at Michigan, southwest Michigan. And we are a multi-site church, but I've been in ministry for very close to two decades now. And we're in a rural context and a multi-site context. So things are a little bit different for us versus just the single site.

And when I think about lock-ins, the thing that always comes to mind is the Halt analogy. If you're hungry, if you're angry, if you're tired, what are the things you shouldn't do, which is make decisions. And so we're gonna put students in a room where they are locked in together. You got the ones who, I have a kid in my youth ministry who at camp asked me if I could move our bedtime up to 9 p.m. I let him know that wasn't a thing, but you've got those kind of kids, and then you've got the kids who have snuck in.

all their energy drinks and are going to be up till four in the morning. And those kids that are up are going to be picking on the kids that don't want to be up, that want to be sleeping. And then you've got a lot of that interpersonal conflict that is going on within that. And you're putting that all into a giant space where you're having to entertain them and or keep track of them as they are, you know,

coming up with all of these grand ideas of how they're going to use their time. And I remember back to my youth group days, our youth ministry actually met in a old YMCA building, and for some reason, they did not lock the doors to the locker rooms, and then that locker room led to a empty pool. And I can't confirm or deny if there were children conceived in that pool, but there probably were.

And it was coming from opportunities where we did lock-ins and they let us all throughout this building with lots of classrooms, lots of spaces that should have been locked that were not. And so from that perspective of hungry, angry, tired, lack of ability to, you know, keep an eye on all the students and all the places, I am very anti-lock-in.

Nick Clason (03:43.896)
Well, there you go. Andrew, she blew past introductions just straight into arguments. Brother, she's coming for you, right? Like she is coming in hot. So, Ellen, great argument. Man, I hope no students, babies were conceived in that pool. I don't ever want to swim there. Andrew.

Andrew Jansen (03:49.24)
yeah, just right past it. Yeah, she went right past it and that's okay.

She's coming in hot, yeah, for sure. It's okay.

Ellen Partridge (04:10.12)
Me too.

Andrew Jansen (04:12.365)
Yeah, it's gross.

Nick Clason (04:13.838)
Tell us why Ellen's wrong and why lock-ins are a great idea. But first, give us a little bit of intro as you go. Are you ready, my friend? Let's go, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (04:28.345)
ready. Yeah, hit it. My name is Andrew Janssen. I am a middle school pastor in Manhattan, Kansas. Sorry, a couple years ago, we did play Michigan State and I know you probably knew that but we have nothing to talk about sports wise, hardly at all right now. So that's okay. But I love K State. I love serving in Manhattan. I am 36 years old. I've been a youth pastor for 10 years and

I really love getting to be in Manhattan, getting to work with college students that invest in middle schoolers. That's kind of my passion. And man, I love lock-ins. just, it works within the context of our church is about 1900 people and we work with multi buildings on our campus, but not multi-site, but.

It is just set up in a really easy way to execute and make lock-ins happen. And especially in our season right now where we have, and it changes, we have college students that graduate, but we have like 17, 18 youth coaches right now. And a lot of them enjoy staying up super late. And so it just really worked in this season to be able to have enough people there for a safe lock-in to happen.

Middle schoolers are crazy and love staying up all night, love getting to be like, you can be at the church besides Sunday and Wednesday. And just, it was just really, really awesome. We did a New Year's Eve lock in and they just have so much fun. There's opportunities for fellowship, board games, long extended times that maybe you don't get that opportunity to play through an entire game of exploding kittens or taco cat.

Mahomes cheese pizza, not taco cat goat cheese pizza. We all know Mahomes is the goat. But we play taco cat Mahomes cheese pizza and you get through two rounds and it's time for youth group to start. So we get to play through those games, have those conversations and invest in the students moving forward.

Nick Clason (06:40.494)
Great. All right, well there you have it. Like there's, each of you have laid down the gauntlet with your position, right? Andrews is based upon board games. Ellen's is based upon pools being present. And so with those two things in mind, plus everything else, do either of you have a question for the other that we can debate in a little bit more of an open forum?

Andrew Jansen (06:55.097)
You

Ellen Partridge (07:10.974)
All Andrea, I got one for you. So what do you do with the kids who are not your board game kids? What are your other activities that you're able to do? Because it sounds like you're pretty board game heavy. So how are you keeping the other kids occupied that are not interested in your board games?

Andrew Jansen (07:27.929)
Absolutely. I have, I try to make sure that every single second is accounted for at a lock-in. We have intentional time where it's like, they get to choose. We have our youth building has like carpet ball, foosball, ping pong. We have not a Nintendo switch too, but two Nintendo switches, which is kind of confusing, definitely. But so we have like Mario Kart and Smash Bros going.

Nick Clason (07:49.902)
That could be confusing,

Andrew Jansen (07:56.882)
I really try to get them away from screens as much as I can because we all know that battle. yeah, trying to have every single second with like some sort of activity, some sort of competition tournament. The last time I was on with Nick, we talked about the Assassin's like meta ongoing game that happens throughout the evening and having things like that where there isn't an opportunity to be bored.

really, really is effective with middle schoolers. Because once you were right, once they're bored and exploring and they find a pool and we know what happens next, like there's just something about an empty pool. So, but with middle schoolers, that's not so much like the sneaking off and having that happen. I think that's more of a high school situation, but I just try to make sure every single second is accounted for. And that kind of helps with, you know, not having that boredom.

board game time for the students that don't like board games.

Ellen Partridge (08:57.362)
And notice you keep saying middle school. You're not mentioning high school. So are you saying that lock-ins are only good for middle school or would you do one with high school?

Nick Clason (09:06.072)
Good question.

Andrew Jansen (09:06.325)
I would, that is a great question. I would do a, I would do a high school lock in for sure. I think that you do run that risk. They are a little bit more like, I can kind of put on the dad voice like the, Hey, what are you doing? And they'll just like freeze as a middle schooler. They still, you know, we'll listen to authority when it yells at them. So with high school, they're kind of a little bit more independent, a little bit more calloused and a little bit more.

Like on their own I consider I always use this analogy of like middle schoolers are like dogs and high schoolers are like cats Like dogs are just happy that you're there and happy that you see them high schoolers. You kind of have to earn that relational like equity and I would say yes have a lock-in with high schoolers, but only do it if you have the resources and the adult volunteers and also if you're like

this group is just like, this is a crazy group of high schoolers. It's not always a green light for that specific group of high schoolers if you just feel like that wouldn't be good. Does that make sense?

Ellen Partridge (10:16.934)
Yeah, it's good argument.

Nick Clason (10:18.464)
Andrew, you got a question for Ellen?

Andrew Jansen (10:22.763)
Yes, what do you feel is, like, I want you to tell me what is the, like, risk reward trade off where you feel like, hey, this is too risky to have a lock in for this type of reward.

Ellen Partridge (10:35.422)
Mmm.

Ellen Partridge (10:45.35)
Yeah, it's a great question. I would just say I'm a big fan of like doing late night activities, hanging out super late. The thing that gets me and where I feel like the risk comes in is once you hit that one, two, three, four a.m. that even, and you mentioned that you've got college leaders. I don't live in a college town and so I mostly have adult leaders. And so for me,

I know my adult leaders are not gonna be on their A game coming into that situation. And so for me, the risk in my context is a lot higher that my leaders are gonna start maybe losing their minds or going stir crazy or sleep deprivation is gonna kick in. And it's gonna lead to students, because they're curious, ending up doing things that they don't need to do. And so for me, I would rather do a thing where it's like, hey, we're hanging out till midnight. Your parents are picking you up.

and then maybe we do something again the next morning because then I know they're getting sleep, my leaders are getting sleep, and it also means that I'm not putting them at risk, I'm not putting my leaders at risk. And so for me, there doesn't seem to be necessarily, yes, there's the connection reward, but I wonder if that's always overshadowed by the sleep deprivation, the angry, hangry situations that can come up and also,

I worry for my adult leaders that they're gonna say something out of their own sleep deprivation or frustration after telling the same kid eight times not to do something, that it may end up ultimately hurting a relationship that was good, and then they make a good relationship with someone that they had a bad relationship with, and so you're kind of at a net zero, is kind of how I look at

Nick Clason (12:32.078)
I just feel like the ultimate fact that like, I would rather sleep in my bed at two o'clock in the morning. Like that's my strongest argument for anti-lock-in. Just shooting straight. Plus I enjoy Saturdays and if I am doing a lock-in, I don't know. Also, Andrew, question for you. Do you ever notice that your Sunday morning attendance is affected post a lock-in weekend?

Andrew Jansen (12:32.345)
Definitely fair.

Andrew Jansen (13:02.165)
for sure. I mean, I tell my youth coaches, like, hey, you were just at church for 15 hours. It's OK for you to sleep in. I'll be there because I work there. And students, a lot of times parents will bring them and they might fall asleep or something during a message.

Nick Clason (13:04.027)
hahahaha

Nick Clason (13:13.787)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:28.622)
Yeah.

Andrew Jansen (13:29.079)
Yeah, think it happens. There are definitely repercussions to having a lock-in, but I just think that there's just a lot of... I've seen so many good things and good conversations and relationships start at lock-ins, and it's just with a certain unchurched group of students, it's just an easy invite. It's just an easy win to get them there.

Nick Clason (13:45.091)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:50.382)
Yeah, which and I hear you like Sunday morning, it's like, okay, like, yeah, they didn't come on Sunday morning, which is like the senior pastor's goal. But like we had a lot more effective and fruitful time than like them sitting through a sermon or whatever, like through the lock-in and you know, the times I have done lock-ins, like it's almost always one of the number one most attended events from friends. Like we get, we would have some of our biggest.

Ellen Partridge (14:12.242)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (14:16.75)
numbers and biggest reach, you know, as far as outreach is concerned. So I definitely do see like both sides for sure. So those of you listening, you're about to get your opportunity to vote. Ellen, you went first last time. Andrew, we're gonna put a minute on the clock now for you. Give us your final one minute strongest argument why Y lock-ins. Are you ready, my friend? Take it away.

Ellen Partridge (14:30.173)
All right.

Andrew Jansen (14:42.008)
I'm ready.

Lock-ins are definitely the easiest first step in the door with a church. If you have the right resources, if you have the right volunteers, and you have a solid game plan going into it, you know your group of students. I think middle school or high school, it is an easy invite for the unchurched students. And that is kind of the lens in which I plan a lock-in.

I don't have the whole bait and switch. Like we're going to talk to them about Jesus Christ, their Lord and savior first thing, and then just have the rest of the lock in. It is, hey, building connections, being intentional and teaching the students. That's why we're doing this. Like, Hey, we're doing this so you can bring that friend, start that relationship. And so that they associate church with fun, with safe, with

They feel welcome and feel like they belong. There's something different happening here. And our hope is that continues on.

Nick Clason (15:47.81)
Great, almost a buzzer beater, but not quite. All right, Ellen, you get the final word, final say, anti-lock-in. Go ahead, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (15:50.839)
Almost.

Ellen Partridge (16:00.572)
All right, as fun as lock-ins can be in the memories that are made, the risk of students having bad memories, whether it's a leader who loses their cool, it's another student who says something they wouldn't have said because they're sleep deprived or because they're overtired, to me just doesn't equate to the reward. I am much more on the side of let's do a long.

evening event where maybe we can start at six or seven and parents are picking up at midnight. So we're still getting that opportunity to connect with them, to have those great conversations, to have an opportunity for them to invite their friends. But at the same time, when it hits two, three in the morning, our leaders and our students are home in their beds, getting the sleep and the rest that they need. And hopefully, because they had a great time.

We're gonna be able to see them on Sunday morning and they're able to stay plugged into that larger church community opposed from being just separate from the youth ministry.

Nick Clason (17:05.023)
Nice, nice. Another almost buzzer beater. Well, there you have it, my friends. You have your pro lock-in versus your anti lock-in debate. And so you guys get to be the decision makers. Those of you watching, let us know, comment down below. But without any further ado, we're gonna get out of here. For Andrew and for Ellen, I'm Nick. Thanks for watching everyone. See you next time.

]]> Episode 144: How I Recruit Awesome Youth Volunteers that Stick https://www.hybridministry.xyz/144 374542ec-2ab7-46f0-b63a-8655f78e99ad Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0500 Nick Clason 144 How I Recruit Awesome Youth Volunteers that Stick full Nick Clason In this episode, Nick sits down with one of his best friends, and also, boss, and they discuss volunteer, not only recruiting, but also how to create such a strong volunteer team that volunteers would never choose to leave your team. Be sure to stick around for the surprising strategy that actually keeps volunteers on the team longer! 36:30 no In this episode, Nick sits down with one of his best friends, and also, boss, and they discuss volunteer, not only recruiting, but also how to create such a strong volunteer team that volunteers would never choose to leave your team. Be sure to stick around for the surprising strategy that actually keeps volunteers on the team longer! 📊 [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book ✅ CHURCH COMMUNICATIONS DONE FOR YOU https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/144 LINKS EVERYONE’S CALLED TO YOUTH MINISTRY, THEY JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET https://www.leadertreks.org/product/everyones-called-to-youth-ministry/?srsltid=AfmBOopjL0EcxJ7aqwuXWiyd0z77tkUIsMPqfIA4dgVOHCPIIdNg32GE //CONNECT WITH DARREN https://www.facebook.com/darrensutton.mi https://www.instagram.com/veteranyp/ 👉 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.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 -------------- 🕰️TIMECODES 00:00 Meet My Boss & Friend, Darren Sutton 01:02 35 Years in 35 Seconds 04:10 Shocking Bar Raising Leader Strategy 05:33 What if Leaders Don’t Respond? 07:56 Start Recruiting Leaders from Scratch 19:33 How do you keep good leaders? 21:57 Conducting Leader Debriefs 25:45 A Complete List of Roles 31:20 Final Encouragement -------------- TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:01.036) We've recorded so many podcasts together. I don't even know how I feel like we're supposed to Well, everyone here we are. I am with my boss, Darren Sutton, who has his youth ministry till I die shirt on, which I was wearing yesterday. So I'm glad that we coordinated this. But I wanted to get on here and I've been working for Darren now for five years, two different places. Darren Sutton (00:04.982) Welcome back. Darren Sutton (00:20.691) Thank you. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.72) And aside from having written a book, I would also say practically speaking, Darren has a lot to say about volunteers. But Darren, first, tell us a brief overview. Distill your 35-year youth ministry journey down to 35 seconds. But why in that did volunteers become such a thing for you? Darren Sutton (00:53.484) Yeah, I don't know if I can say that in 35 seconds, but I will say this. I was pretty much the Lone Ranger youth pastor who would just grab chaperones when I was absolutely desperate for adults to be in the room or whatever. I would have adults lead Bible study classes and go to summer camp with me and the stuff where you know you can't do everything, so you have them there. But I didn't realize the... extent of needing people to carry the mission forward and to lean into their own calling until I was about maybe 10 years in and we were having our yeah we were having our third baby and my lead volunteer was like I can't do this and you need you need more people you're not doing this right so my wife basically was like listen you're you are Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:32.354) Did something happen? Darren Sutton (01:48.29) fantastic and you have lots of adult leaders, but you're not equipping them for ministry. You're just having them hold down the pieces that you can't hold down and they have more to offer than that. And you're not, you're not giving them, you know, the runway to do that. And that changed everything. It totally transformed my whole philosophy about why we use volunteers and how we keep them and why that matters. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:57.676) Mmm. Mmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:03.98) Yeah. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:16.982) Okay, so yeah, so like I would imagine that, you know, average youth pastor listening is like, you know, they have that mentality, right? The volunteers are a necessary like evil, I don't wanna say, you know, but like they just, know they have to have them. There you go. They're a necessary component, but maybe like, maybe they don't even know what to do with them. Darren Sutton (02:36.088) Component. Let's go with component. They're necessary component. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:46.028) You know what mean? like that, would imagine maybe some of that was your story too. Like maybe control a little bit, but also like, what do I even do with these guys? So yeah, so how did you, before we dive into kind of the recruiting conversation, how did you mentally release yourself and be able to trust that you could actually hand off like meaningful things to said volunteer? Darren Sutton (02:53.294) You worked for me, you know part of it was control. Darren Sutton (03:13.89) Yeah, great question. This, I mean, you know, this is gonna sound like a no brainer, but 25 years ago it wasn't. I started writing job descriptions and I just sat down and said, okay, if I was handing off deeper parts of this, or if the people who were already serving were gonna own it the way I wanted them to. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:23.96) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:35.0) Yeah. Darren Sutton (03:37.58) What did I want that to look like? Like, what did I want them to do? Part of the struggle is that I wasn't recruiting them to anything other than filling the spot and hanging out with kids. And so if I wanted them to be at football games and, you know, choir performances, and if I wanted them to be writing cards to kids who weren't there, and if I wanted them to be reaching out to parents on the regular and all that, I needed to spell that out, and I hadn't done that. And so I was doing all that part, and they were just showing up. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:46.978) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:01.261) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:05.622) Yeah. Darren Sutton (04:05.866) And as soon as I kind of raised the bar and said, here's what I really need you to be doing in this role. If you love Jesus and love students and you want to make an eternal impact, it looks like this. It changed everything. So job descriptions were my number one thing. And again, that sounds a little bit like a no brainer now, I think for a lot of people, but we weren't doing that back then. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:25.962) Yeah. So and then they did they did race to the challenge, right? Were you nervous that they wouldn't or couldn't or didn't have the time to or was there any of that? Darren Sutton (04:31.902) yeah. Yeah. Darren Sutton (04:37.71) You know, I don't remember being nervous about it as much as I was just, was at a point in my ministry and in my family life where I was like, they have to do this. You know, so it never dawned on me, I think, and also young and arrogant. Like it never dawned on me that anybody would say, I don't want to do that. And to their credit, nobody did. Like everybody rose to the challenge. And I really think that Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:56.802) Sure. Darren Sutton (05:07.32) we sell the body of Christ, not volunteers, they're the body. We sell the body short when we assume that they won't invest more. Give them a chance to show you that, right? And if they do, then you know, like they might be better suited for a different role in your ministry, but this role with the job description as it's written, they're just not good for that. And it also gives you a great entry point for a conversation when you do need a leader to level up. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:18.348) Hmm. Yeah, that's good. Darren Sutton (05:37.078) to say like, listen, here's what we signed on for. Help me understand what's a struggle for you in this. Because it seems like these components aren't happening. And I'm just wondering, is that because you're unsure of what to do? Is that because you don't want to do that? You've had bad success with it? Like, help, teach me. Teach me what this, you know, where the holes are here. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:41.944) Hmm Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:56.672) Mm, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:00.844) But then you have, like you said, have teeth, right, a little bit to go back if volunteer's not performing and there's nothing more awkward than trying to fire someone who's not getting paid. So. Darren Sutton (06:04.152) Yeah. Darren Sutton (06:10.798) I'm sure. Helping them find their fit in the body of Christ. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:17.46) Yep. So, okay, so aside from, you know, someone just buying your book, which is linked down below in the description, obviously. Darren Sutton (06:25.514) hey, thanks. I don't even know if I have a link to my book. Yeah, probably. Maybe the three people who bought it are done with it. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:27.956) Yeah, well, we'll scrounge it up. It's on eBay or something. What? So if you're if someone's just, know, regular old youth pastor and they're like, just like, OK, I hear you. Yeah, I'm doing too much. I'm spinning my wheels. Job description, maybe step one. Step two. Let's talk recruiting like because you. you may not even have any leaders to write a job description for. So help someone start. Just rattle off the best recruiting strategies, methods, ideas, and I'll take notes for our own ministry as we're trying to also recruit some people. Darren Sutton (07:00.908) Yeah. Darren Sutton (07:08.172) Yeah. because there are always holes. Well, where I started was I'm not a big fan of cattle calls from the pulpit or anything like that. Yeah, that's a struggle. Yeah, or you don't get anybody because nobody listens during announcements. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:21.686) Yeah, the youth need volunteers. You're gonna get weirdos. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:29.047) Yeah. Well, it's a plural you, right? So it's like, you all interested? And so the individual you assumes one of the other ones is gonna take it and they're off the hook. Darren Sutton (07:36.118) Yes, exactly. So let me tell you guys, so here's what I did, Nick. Like I, you're right. The individual ask is everything. And I don't mean a fly by, you know, I don't mean a fly by conversation in the hallway on your way to the bathroom. I mean a sit down, real talk. but it takes a minute to get to that, right? Especially if you don't know everybody in our current context, the student ministry is literally a across a creek from the rest of the building and so. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:07.372) Yeah. It's one of the most distant locations I've ever served and I would imagine the same for you. So us being a part of the rest of the life of the church, we have to be incredibly intentional to overcome that for sure. Darren Sutton (08:16.588) Yeah, for sure. Darren Sutton (08:22.27) Exactly. And that's true everywhere, especially if your facility or the space that you occupy is siloed from the rest of the church. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:31.372) Yeah, because it's great to have the youth space, but that their inherent challenge of that is you're in the youth space and not, yeah. Darren Sutton (08:37.132) Yeah, it's a youth space. Yeah, it's a youth space. So if you're not a youth, you're not in it. So, yeah, the first thing I did was I went to my senior pastor and said, our students need more visibility. And, you know, in in that church, like where this whole philosophy of how I handle volunteers was born, my space was was attached, but it was up and to the back on a second floor in the far corner of the property. Right. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:50.253) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:06.06) Yeah, so was separated. Darren Sutton (09:07.362) Yeah, exactly. Like you would see kids coming down from the upstairs and be like, my gosh, I'm glad I'm not serving up there. And that was it. So we started using students to take the offering, serve communion, do greeting. And I just, you know, kind of poached a dozen of my highest capacity students and said, let's help the church understand why youth ministry matters. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.334) Right? Yeah, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:31.405) Mm. Darren Sutton (09:31.854) And that didn't require them to be on the platform. We did have some on the platform. We had some students doing worship. We would occasionally do a youth night or youth day at church where students would speak and, or I would speak and all of that. starting there was actually the most critical, I think, the most critical component because people started seeing teenagers. And it's a little bit like, you know, trying to acclimate people to wild animals. Like you got to get them a little bit close while they're in a cage and then you stick a little, you stick your hand in the cage and then you're in the cage, you know? And so that was the start of it. Also helping my senior pastor catch the vision that student ministry is not babysitting. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:07.682) Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:18.04) Yeah, how do, can you talk about that for just a quick second? how do, I would imagine, you someone might be listening and they're like, oh yeah, I love that, but I'm either A, getting or I'm anticipating that I would get pushback. How do you lead up in that? Darren Sutton (10:32.994) Well, if you're anticipating, stop doing that. Like give them a chance to say, you're a babysitter. But also I think storytelling is the most critical component. We had this kid come in, let me tell you this story about this student who shared their faith at school and not necessarily about what student ministry is doing in the building, but what student ministry is doing outside of the building. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:35.992) That's good, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:41.105) Heh. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:51.405) Hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:59.608) That's good. Darren Sutton (11:00.908) you know, was super helpful. It also helped that I had a very open senior pastor. You know what? I didn't turn my phone off. Sorry, Nick. You probably couldn't hear that, but I could. Okay, sorry. Are you editing this? I'm assuming you edit. All right, I'm gonna go back then. It didn't hurt that I had just a really open senior pastor. I think he hired me with the babysitting mindset, but it didn't take him long to see that student mystery could be way more than that. So I was fortunate in that way. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:11.224) That's good. No, I heard it. It was great. It was a great sound. I mean, I will, yeah. Yeah, okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:34.548) Mm. Yeah, that's good. Darren Sutton (11:36.3) So once we had students kind of operating around the building, it made it way easier for me to go up to randos and say, hey, so and so told me you'd be great. Or I'm gonna out myself with some really shallow things. I'm just gonna say. So if we were in worship and I saw folks who I felt like were truly connecting with worship. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:52.856) lol Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:04.663) Yeah. Darren Sutton (12:05.132) That mattered to me, not because we had a worship ministry, but because I felt like those people were intentionally trying to connect with the heart of God when we were doing, you know, church. And so I just started introducing myself and doing a slow kind of a slow ask. Some might call it chess, where I would, I know you would, you know, where I would just go introduce myself. I'm a student pastor. Hey, just, you know, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:07.703) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:12.354) Hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:24.472) I would call it chest. Darren Sutton (12:32.429) appreciated your investment in church today or whatever. And then a of weeks later, I asked them how they were doing. Like I would start trying to build a relationship knowing that my end game, which didn't always work out, but my end game was to get them involved in students. The Lord might've had a different end game and sometimes he did, but I did that. I made sure that this was easier. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:57.282) So this is everyone's permission to keep your eyes open during worship. Darren Sutton (13:01.228) Yeah, 100 % 100%. And you know, not to say that hands raised means anything because it doesn't, but I looked at people and went, look, their hands up. They're volunteering. Another thing that was again, a little easier in the context I was in, I got involved in a in a connect group and a life group Sunday school class, whatever your know, whatever your church calls it. And while Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:07.884) Yeah, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:11.584) you Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:22.614) Yeah, A D group. I wanted to keep rattling them off but my brain went completely dead. Darren Sutton (13:31.534) While that didn't, I wasn't necessarily pulling people from that group. That group of all kind of young parents, it was early in our ministry, like they were the movers and shakers in our church. And so they were talking up the student ministry. I was able to talk it up in my small group. And then the last thing I did was done a little bit because I... Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:47.949) Yeah. Darren Sutton (13:59.936) you know, because I just felt stubborn about it. We had a set of senior adults in our church who were fantastic. I mean, you know, they did everything. They did all the serving. We had a Wednesday night meal. This is a long time ago. We a Wednesday night meal and they cooked the meal and they ran the kitchen and they just did everything. And I intentionally started developing relationships with those ladies. and started trying to get them involved in doing some things. And I have always kind of felt like senior adults make some really great student ministers. And so I was intentionally going after them and there was a lady, her name was Belle. Belle was a little bit of your typical cranky church lady. And I said something about, you know, being involved in student ministry or whatever. And she was like, I'll never work with students. And I just went. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:35.028) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Darren Sutton (14:55.148) before I die, you will, whatever it takes. And so a little bit, I would target people, I think that way. don't, target's probably not the right word, but I would just, I would set my sight on somebody that I really wanted and I just kind of wouldn't let it go. Didn't harass. Sometimes that took a long time. It took me maybe like three-ish or four years before I finally got Bell to start something in students. And by the time we were, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:04.152) lol Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:09.089) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:22.861) Yeah. Darren Sutton (15:24.84) She was all in like she was hosting D nows at her house and you know all kinds of stuff. So I just think that it is not being afraid to ask, making sure that your students are visible so that people know that teenagers don't bite. They're not scary and then not counting anybody out. I mean from from 21 we are our age range started at 21. We wanted to give kids some separation from student ministry, but from 21 to death. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:28.258) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:36.482) Mm-hmm. Darren Sutton (15:54.208) It didn't matter who you were, parent, not a parent, old lady, college student. Like we would go after everybody and did. just never, I never met a person that I didn't think was called. And you know, my dad, yeah, I think there was a book title and a full philosophy. And I just wouldn't, I mean, I took no for an answer. I didn't try to get people to serve who didn't really didn't want to. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:54.242) Yeah. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:02.476) Yeah, that's good. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:08.29) Some might say there's a book title in that. Darren Sutton (16:23.148) but I wouldn't take no as the first answer. So Belle said no and I was like, well, will you make sandwiches for Wednesday night? We didn't need sandwiches for Wednesday night. We already have Wednesday night supper, but she did it. You know what I'm saying? She started there. And then I would get some of those key students and say, hey, you guys make sure and thank Ms. Belle for these sandwiches. so, you know. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:33.431) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:43.032) Well, and I think there's a, probably a principle in there of like, if you only ever like recruit to the need, then when the need is great, then your anxiety is high because you have like a lot of, a lot of need and a lot of holes to fill. But if you're always have your eye on this sort of like recruiting or onboarding mindset, even if you are onboarding them and there's nowhere to put them, like it's better. Darren Sutton (17:10.733) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:12.044) to have an overabundance, a wealth of riches, than to just be like, well, I'm fully staffed, quote unquote, right now. But in a few months you might not be, and then again, you're like, man, I'm failing again. So I think the good principle is for anyone in youth ministry who feels like they're struggling with volunteers, just start asking people and keep asking them. Darren Sutton (17:14.091) percent. Darren Sutton (17:35.852) never, it didn't matter how full I was, I never told somebody no. And in that church specifically, and in several of my churches, like I would have every spot full and I would be creating roles because I just wanted to make sure that people who wanted to be involved in the next generation could be. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:40.087) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:47.928) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:54.7) Yeah. Darren Sutton (17:54.894) And I tried really hard to not enlist them to a position, but to enlist them to a vision, to a purpose and what their life could mean, even if all they were doing is making sandwiches. And sometimes that's what it was, right? I don't have a spot for this person, but hey, could you go shopping for me on Tuesday? I would find things for them to do so I didn't have to tell them no. Because you might be fully staffed today and tomorrow, you know, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:02.102) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:10.828) Yeah. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:20.342) Yeah. Darren Sutton (18:24.848) your leader has a parent who has to move in with them and their whole life changes and they need to step out. So I never counted on being fully staffed. And when I was fully staffed, I felt like I was always kind of back filling with the people who were the next to step in. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:41.58) Yeah. So that's a flex, being fully staffed or being so staffed that you have volunteers that you're just like making stuff up. So that leads to like, in my opinion, the next sort of like big bucket of this conversation is like, how do you, how do you keep good leaders so that they don't dip out on you? Darren Sutton (18:51.255) Yeah. Darren Sutton (19:03.405) Yeah. Yeah, 100%. You know, I think this just happened because a little bit it's my personality bit. I wasn't being intentional about this. I just felt like, you know, as I knew that volunteers were important and that part of my job was shepherding them and it wasn't just about hanging out with the kids and you know, all of that. So I was very... Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:15.512) You Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:26.306) Right. Darren Sutton (19:32.066) what's the right word? Pastoral is the only word I can think of. I knew my job was to shepherd them. It wasn't just to enlist them and get them sitting in front of teenagers, it was to help them along. So, you know, I... Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:39.159) Yeah. Darren Sutton (19:48.148) I'm pretty good at sending notes of appreciation and not generic notes. Hey, I saw you talking to this kid. Hey, I heard a parent say this about you. Hey, you know, so that they would know that what they were doing was being seen. And I think that's a piece of it. know, gift cards go a long way, even if it's five bucks to Starbucks, because we all know five bucks isn't going to buy anything at Starbucks. But it's not that it's not that it is. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:01.826) yeah Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:15.625) Mm-hmm. Darren Sutton (20:15.936) it is noticing them that matters, right? I was a little bit of a bulldog, absolutely insistent on leader training. Not necessarily to make them better, but to make them better, but more to build community among our leaders so that they didn't want to leave. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:24.971) Hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:33.048) Mm. Darren Sutton (20:36.91) Often volunteers who serve in students sacrifice a community group of some sort in order to serve so they don't have that. And a lot of times when they don't have that or they don't sense the feel of community, they'll dip so they can go be in their own Sunday school class or, you know, life group or whatever it is. And so I even though we weren't that we weren't doing Bible studies together every week, I wanted them to feel like, man, if something happens, my student Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:43.052) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:55.607) Yeah. Darren Sutton (21:07.044) team has my back and so and you know this because you work with me I'm pretty intentional still to this day about making sure that those leader training times are as much about building community and connection as they are about becoming a better you know volunteer. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:08.152) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:19.544) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:23.041) Yeah, for sure. Darren Sutton (21:24.416) And then I'm a big fan of not recruiting people until death. So we actually recruit to a cycle. So we're gonna ask you to step in here and we're gonna ask you to go until this point. And then if you wanna step out, we'll embrace you and be sad when you go, most of you. You you occasionally have that one leader where that ending date really helps you. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:37.536) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:43.606) Yeah. Darren Sutton (21:49.966) what you said earlier, like kind of helps you fire somebody. Like, hey, it's coming to the end of your term, thanks so much. Like, here's a Sunday school class for you to go to, you know, whatever. But largely, it was an opportunity for me to be more mindful and intentional about recruiting division. So if they didn't hear it any other time, once a year in the kind of re-recruiting phase, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:53.431) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:56.856) Yeah Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:07.233) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:16.823) Yeah. Darren Sutton (22:17.33) They were going to be reminded of what they were doing. It was an opportunity for me to say, tell me, tell me what to struggle. What? How can I help you? Do you still love this role? Is there another role that you've seen other people performing in that you would like to try out? Would you so they don't feel like, hey man, if I say yes to leading this, you know, home group, I'm going to be leading it until I die. Yeah, exactly. You know. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:26.295) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:31.894) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:38.018) I'm stuck for life, yeah. But I think that might give some youth pastors listening hives, because they're already feeling strapped with leaders, and then they get good ones and they're like, wait, you give them an end date? And the irony in that is that doing that, again, I won't put words in your mouth, but doing that helps them feel like seen and appreciated and that you value them. so rather than them leaving at the end of the term, Darren Sutton (22:55.148) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:11.562) they like immediately re-up and come back. Darren Sutton (23:13.612) Yeah, yeah. And the truth is when you're when you have equipped them well, they know what their mission is. They feel supported by their community. They don't want to leave. We we in all kinds of different ways for the last 25 years, I've tried to give my volunteers breaks, whether that was a bucket of time like, hey, everybody's off in the summer and we'll take care of it. Or, know, what we currently do is Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:32.311) Mm. Darren Sutton (23:40.672) a day off about every six-ish weeks where we just say to our volunteers, don't come, the student ministry's got it, students got it, you know, whatever. Giving them those moments basically to come up for air helps them stay in the water a lot longer. So yeah, we do give an end date, but I have only had a few people take advantage of that. And when they have, it's never been because they didn't want to do student ministry anymore. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:44.343) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:54.413) Yeah. Hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:09.89) Right. Darren Sutton (24:10.228) It's always been because my life circumstances have changed and I need a break. And, you know, the other piece of that that is helpful is when life circumstances do change, most of them won't dip until they get to that end date. And so even though their trauma, you know, whatever it was, their job change, their, you know, sickness, their parents or kids or whatever happened in November. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:15.074) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:34.367) Mm. Yeah. Darren Sutton (24:39.63) They know they committed until June 1st and they're going to say occasionally, occasionally, you know, to be a good pastor, you're going to say, listen, I know your life is upside down right now. Uh, just go ahead and step out. Like let's take a break. And then you're going to bring in, you know, somebody who's on the bench, who's been begging to be involved, who you've got in a, you know, maybe a less influential position, but who's ready to step up. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:41.666) and they'll still ride it out. Yeah, that's good. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:49.409) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:52.78) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:03.35) Yeah, so real quick before we leave, let's just make a big list of volunteer roles that are a little bit, because I think, again, Average Joe, Normal Youth Pastor, Normal Youth Ministry in America, every volunteer that they have is to lead discussion, small group, school, whatever you want to call it with students. Darren Sutton (25:29.134) Yeah, for sure. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:31.064) But there's a million other things and some people don't want to do that. Like we have a guy on our team right now who's awesome. He's like, I don't want to lead a Bible study, but he loves teenagers. He's like fun at heart. You know, like he's, he's the type of guy you'd want on your team, but he, he felt disqualified because he's like, I'm not equipped for that slash don't want to do it. And so like, to your point, there's a million things you can do. can make sandwiches. So what are some over the years, you're 35. Darren Sutton (25:53.112) Right. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:00.28) plus years of experience. What are some of the different roles that you've had created, invented? Like give us some of the funniest best ones you got. Darren Sutton (26:09.102) Oh, I don't know. I have some that you couldn't do anymore. You know, I mean, I love that the, you're just going to show up at their like, you don't, you don't have to lead a Bible study, but I want you to show up at every single basketball game this kid has, you know, as just kind of a, you know, a big brother figure. You know, we had a lot of over the years had different Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:12.024) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Share those two from the the crypt. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:29.464) Mm. Darren Sutton (26:39.53) spots had a lot of rec space. and so, you know, listen, I don't want you to do anything except play basketball. That's all you have to do. Play basketball and talk to students. you know, we also had the proverbial like set up chairs and, you know, come in and create, you know, new student, new student guest kits and, know, that kind of stuff. Probably the funniest one that we had was, in one church that I was in. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:41.816) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:48.534) I love that job. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:00.684) Yeah. Yeah. Darren Sutton (27:09.224) our student center was a kind of refabbed pavilion on the back of an acre and a half plot. So the church was at the front right and the student ministry area was at the back left and no lights, barely electricity. We threw up fake walls. We had window units kind of shoved in the corner and you know, as janky as it could be. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:16.578) Okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:23.755) Yeah. Darren Sutton (27:38.478) and so every week we would have fire ants that were building in the building, right? Like building these nests in the building. So we had our, our guy who would come in and kill the fire ants every week, and sweep it all out. That was his only job. Like he didn't want to hang out with students and all that, but he felt like that was a contribution he can make. had people in that same church, like one of the ways that we Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:53.046) You Darren Sutton (28:05.814) kind of lighted the path in the middle of the night to that back area where with tiki torches. And so we had folks who would come in and, you know, light the tiki torches and sweep the pathway off and, you know, that kind of thing. So those were kind of unique. We had for a time, folks who would be, you know, kind of the bus run, except in their vehicles, we, don't do that anymore. Just generally for ministry safe purposes, but Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:10.359) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:28.941) Right. Darren Sutton (28:31.822) Their only job was to pick kids up and drive them back and forth to church. They didn't stay in the youth ministry. didn't, but we gave them like in that job description, here are some questions you can be asking when kids get in your car to get the conversation going and you know, make sure you meet the parents and you know, things like that to help them be a little bit more invested in real life with kids. Had some volunteers whose main job was to reach out to parents. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:37.016) Yeah. Darren Sutton (28:59.886) and make sure that, you know, hey, we know parenting teenagers is tough. Is there anything the student ministry can do for you? That was their only job to just keep a list of parents would love this. Parents would need that. And they pass that over to me and I'd figure out what we could do and you know, what was a really stupid idea we had to throw away. So some stuff like that. Once, you know, this one is selfish, but was important. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:07.672) Hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:18.136) Yeah, nice. keep going. Darren Sutton (29:27.694) uh, more important than I realized, I think at the time, uh, I enlisted somebody to pay attention to my kids. Uh, your job is and not just mine, but in that, in that church, just mine. But if we were in our context, we're having multiple staff members, it would be staff kids. Uh, but I, I was like, you know, my kids sacrifice a lot for me to be in student ministry and they were not teenagers yet. They were, you know, I don't know, 11, nine and seven, they were young. I just said, can you Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:35.063) Uh-huh. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:42.646) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:53.708) Yeah. Yeah. Darren Sutton (29:56.792) Can you just notice my kids? Like they're here a lot. They sacrifice a lot for ministry. Their dad's a pastor and so I'm sure that they're they need adults who are not their pastor. You know as well and your your jobs to just notice my kids and they crushed that like our kids to this day feel like those people are their grandparents even more than their actual grandparents. So that's another one. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:02.263) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:10.028) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:21.4) It's cool. Yeah, that's cool. Darren Sutton (30:25.21) You can come up with everything. Host homes and sandwich makers and so many ways to get people close enough to see what Jesus is doing without them having to lead a Bible study ever. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:27.832) . Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:37.335) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:43.512) Yeah, that's good. So, okay, last thing. Talk to the youth pastor who's struggling, floundering, drowning. Find a word of encouragement about the importance of leaders and maybe just a basic for them next step. Hey, if you're gonna do anything, first thing to do is just do this. Don't feel overwhelmed by all of this. Maybe you don't have the... Capacity to get a fire ant guy yet. Okay, that's fine But speak speak to that speak to the guy who's just like man. don't leaders are killing like it's just the hardest, you know part of my job, whatever like Encourage them for a second Darren Sutton (31:22.712) Yeah. Well, let me just say first, it's not your job. That's not your job. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. And he's very clear in scripture that we all have a part to play. and that our job as pastors is to equip the saints for the work of service. Our job is not to make sure we have plenty of volunteers, not to make sure every hole gets filled. Our job is just to equip the people that the Holy Spirit brings. We can be more proactive in bringing them, but the Holy Spirit is the one who quickens their heart to be involved. So that's not your job. Your job isn't to convince them. Your job is to shepherd them and to give them an opportunity to step into what God is calling them to do. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (31:39.352) Mm-hmm. Darren Sutton (32:04.718) Don't take the whole burden on yourself. And I mean that in two ways. It's the Holy Spirit's job and also you have some people, you definitely have some people who care about student ministry who will help recruit for you. You utilize that, whether that's other staff members, folks that are currently on your volunteer team, a parent who just happens to take a particular interest in what's going on in student ministry. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:20.792) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:31.224) Teenagers. Darren Sutton (32:32.364) Yeah, for sure. 100 % ask a kid who they think would make a great youth leader. They'll have a list guaranteed. So. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:34.519) you Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:38.742) Yeah, yeah. I had a teenager one time go and list the head usher on his own. Yeah, I was like, well, I'll talk to him too. But it was great. Darren Sutton (32:44.891) Poach them from other ministries? I love it. That's fantastic. But just don't feel the burden that it's all on you and don't feel the burden that it all has to happen right now. For me, it was a slow, kind of a slow burn into that whole idea that volunteers could be more and I needed to ask them to do more and be more. That took time. And it's not a foolproof, like, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:16.502) Yeah. Darren Sutton (33:21.322) I mean, we serving in church right now and across from this podcast, there's a big sheet on my door that lists every volunteer hole we have right now. And we have a lot. There's probably 20 people on there that we need to fill. So, you know, you're always going to have the need. You can't let the holes be what drives you. You've got to let the people who are in the room, you know, a little bit. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:31.384) Yeah. Yeah. Darren Sutton (33:47.384) be what drives you. So, and it's totally doable because Jesus wants those kids even more than you do. And he's gonna raise up the people that are needed to help get them where he needs them to be. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:48.984) That's good. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:01.304) Nice, that's good. All right, anything else? Did we get it all? Darren Sutton (34:05.312) Yeah, think we, I mean, I'm sure we didn't get it all, but we got, you got all I got. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:08.28) Well, that's a lot it's helpful so where do people find you Darren? Darren Sutton (34:18.03) listen, I'm everywhere. I'm, I'm almost like the Holy Spirit everywhere you are. am, I'm on all, I'm on all social stuff. if you're, yes. Well, actually I can't, you can't say that anymore. I deleted my account after it banned. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:22.039) Woo! That's scary. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:29.738) including band TikTok. If you'd like to send... It's back, it's back now. Darren Sutton (34:38.464) I know I'm trying to decide like, listen, I had so this whole podcast, I had so much time open up in my life that I'm like, maybe I don't want to, I'm not sure if I want to, if I want to take it back. But yeah, I mean, you know, Insta and Facebook and Twitter and you know, all that, I have a blog. everyone's called the youth ministry.com and, I'm not, you know, I have, I'm just like you. I'm an in the trenches youth pastor. So if you're looking for a regular, like, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:42.712) You Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:56.856) Nice. We'll link it down below. Darren Sutton (35:08.184) podcast and a blog post. I don't do that. But I've been in this thing for a few minutes and I'm not planning on going anywhere. And so I love talking to you pastors. And if you ever need a guy who has made as many mistakes as you feel like you're making, you can reach out. Cause I got a whole list. Lots of stories. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (35:24.856) You There you go. That's big right there. All right. Well, hey, for Darren, this is Nick signing off. See you guys. Darren Sutton (35:33.944) Bye guys. youth ministry, volunteers, recruiting, engagement, church community, leadership, retention, job descriptions, ministry philosophy, volunteer management, youth ministry, volunteer management, community building, pastoral care, leadership training, youth pastor encouragement, diverse roles, volunteer appreciation, recruitment strategies, supporting volunteers In this episode, Nick sits down with one of his best friends, and also, boss, and they discuss volunteer, not only recruiting, but also how to create such a strong volunteer team that volunteers would never choose to leave your team. Be sure to stick around for the surprising strategy that actually keeps volunteers on the team longer!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Meet My Boss & Friend, Darren Sutton
01:02 35 Years in 35 Seconds
04:10 Shocking Bar Raising Leader Strategy
05:33 What if Leaders Don’t Respond?
07:56 Start Recruiting Leaders from Scratch
19:33 How do you keep good leaders?
21:57 Conducting Leader Debriefs
25:45 A Complete List of Roles
31:20 Final Encouragement

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:01.036)
We've recorded so many podcasts together. I don't even know how I feel like we're supposed to Well, everyone here we are. I am with my boss, Darren Sutton, who has his youth ministry till I die shirt on, which I was wearing yesterday. So I'm glad that we coordinated this. But I wanted to get on here and I've been working for Darren now for five years, two different places.

Darren Sutton (00:04.982)
Welcome back.

Darren Sutton (00:20.691)
Thank you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.72)
And aside from having written a book, I would also say practically speaking, Darren has a lot to say about volunteers. But Darren, first, tell us a brief overview. Distill your 35-year youth ministry journey down to 35 seconds. But why in that did volunteers become such a thing for you?

Darren Sutton (00:53.484)
Yeah, I don't know if I can say that in 35 seconds, but I will say this. I was pretty much the Lone Ranger youth pastor who would just grab chaperones when I was absolutely desperate for adults to be in the room or whatever. I would have adults lead Bible study classes and go to summer camp with me and the stuff where you know you can't do everything, so you have them there. But I didn't realize the...

extent of needing people to carry the mission forward and to lean into their own calling until I was about maybe 10 years in and we were having our yeah we were having our third baby and my lead volunteer was like I can't do this and you need you need more people you're not doing this right so my wife basically was like listen you're you are

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:32.354)
Did something happen?

Darren Sutton (01:48.29)
fantastic and you have lots of adult leaders, but you're not equipping them for ministry. You're just having them hold down the pieces that you can't hold down and they have more to offer than that. And you're not, you're not giving them, you know, the runway to do that. And that changed everything. It totally transformed my whole philosophy about why we use volunteers and how we keep them and why that matters.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:57.676)
Mmm. Mmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:03.98)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:16.982)
Okay, so yeah, so like I would imagine that, you know, average youth pastor listening is like, you know, they have that mentality, right? The volunteers are a necessary like evil, I don't wanna say, you know, but like they just, know they have to have them. There you go. They're a necessary component, but maybe like, maybe they don't even know what to do with them.

Darren Sutton (02:36.088)
Component. Let's go with component. They're necessary component.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:46.028)
You know what mean? like that, would imagine maybe some of that was your story too. Like maybe control a little bit, but also like, what do I even do with these guys? So yeah, so how did you, before we dive into kind of the recruiting conversation, how did you mentally release yourself and be able to trust that you could actually hand off like meaningful things to said volunteer?

Darren Sutton (02:53.294)
You worked for me, you know part of it was control.

Darren Sutton (03:13.89)
Yeah, great question. This, I mean, you know, this is gonna sound like a no brainer, but 25 years ago it wasn't. I started writing job descriptions and I just sat down and said, okay, if I was handing off deeper parts of this, or if the people who were already serving were gonna own it the way I wanted them to.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:23.96)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:35.0)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (03:37.58)
What did I want that to look like? Like, what did I want them to do? Part of the struggle is that I wasn't recruiting them to anything other than filling the spot and hanging out with kids. And so if I wanted them to be at football games and, you know, choir performances, and if I wanted them to be writing cards to kids who weren't there, and if I wanted them to be reaching out to parents on the regular and all that, I needed to spell that out, and I hadn't done that. And so I was doing all that part, and they were just showing up.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:46.978)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:01.261)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:05.622)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (04:05.866)
And as soon as I kind of raised the bar and said, here's what I really need you to be doing in this role. If you love Jesus and love students and you want to make an eternal impact, it looks like this. It changed everything. So job descriptions were my number one thing. And again, that sounds a little bit like a no brainer now, I think for a lot of people, but we weren't doing that back then.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:25.962)
Yeah. So and then they did they did race to the challenge, right? Were you nervous that they wouldn't or couldn't or didn't have the time to or was there any of that?

Darren Sutton (04:31.902)
yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (04:37.71)
You know, I don't remember being nervous about it as much as I was just, was at a point in my ministry and in my family life where I was like, they have to do this. You know, so it never dawned on me, I think, and also young and arrogant. Like it never dawned on me that anybody would say, I don't want to do that. And to their credit, nobody did. Like everybody rose to the challenge. And I really think that

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:56.802)
Sure.

Darren Sutton (05:07.32)
we sell the body of Christ, not volunteers, they're the body. We sell the body short when we assume that they won't invest more. Give them a chance to show you that, right? And if they do, then you know, like they might be better suited for a different role in your ministry, but this role with the job description as it's written, they're just not good for that. And it also gives you a great entry point for a conversation when you do need a leader to level up.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:18.348)
Hmm. Yeah, that's good.

Darren Sutton (05:37.078)
to say like, listen, here's what we signed on for. Help me understand what's a struggle for you in this. Because it seems like these components aren't happening. And I'm just wondering, is that because you're unsure of what to do? Is that because you don't want to do that? You've had bad success with it? Like, help, teach me. Teach me what this, you know, where the holes are here.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:41.944)
Hmm

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:56.672)
Mm, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:00.844)
But then you have, like you said, have teeth, right, a little bit to go back if volunteer's not performing and there's nothing more awkward than trying to fire someone who's not getting paid. So.

Darren Sutton (06:04.152)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (06:10.798)
I'm sure. Helping them find their fit in the body of Christ.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:17.46)
Yep. So, okay, so aside from, you know, someone just buying your book, which is linked down below in the description, obviously.

Darren Sutton (06:25.514)
hey, thanks. I don't even know if I have a link to my book. Yeah, probably. Maybe the three people who bought it are done with it.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:27.956)
Yeah, well, we'll scrounge it up. It's on eBay or something. What? So if you're if someone's just, know, regular old youth pastor and they're like, just like, OK, I hear you. Yeah, I'm doing too much. I'm spinning my wheels. Job description, maybe step one. Step two. Let's talk recruiting like because you.

you may not even have any leaders to write a job description for. So help someone start. Just rattle off the best recruiting strategies, methods, ideas, and I'll take notes for our own ministry as we're trying to also recruit some people.

Darren Sutton (07:00.908)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (07:08.172)
Yeah.

because there are always holes. Well, where I started was I'm not a big fan of cattle calls from the pulpit or anything like that. Yeah, that's a struggle. Yeah, or you don't get anybody because nobody listens during announcements.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:21.686)
Yeah, the youth need volunteers. You're gonna get weirdos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:29.047)
Yeah.

Well, it's a plural you, right? So it's like, you all interested? And so the individual you assumes one of the other ones is gonna take it and they're off the hook.

Darren Sutton (07:36.118)
Yes, exactly. So let me tell you guys, so here's what I did, Nick. Like I, you're right. The individual ask is everything. And I don't mean a fly by, you know, I don't mean a fly by conversation in the hallway on your way to the bathroom. I mean a sit down, real talk. but it takes a minute to get to that, right? Especially if you don't know everybody in our current context, the student ministry is literally a

across a creek from the rest of the building and so.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:07.372)
Yeah. It's one of the most distant locations I've ever served and I would imagine the same for you. So us being a part of the rest of the life of the church, we have to be incredibly intentional to overcome that for sure.

Darren Sutton (08:16.588)
Yeah, for sure.

Darren Sutton (08:22.27)
Exactly. And that's true everywhere, especially if your facility or the space that you occupy is siloed from the rest of the church.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:31.372)
Yeah, because it's great to have the youth space, but that their inherent challenge of that is you're in the youth space and not, yeah.

Darren Sutton (08:37.132)
Yeah, it's a youth space. Yeah, it's a youth space. So if you're not a youth, you're not in it. So, yeah, the first thing I did was I went to my senior pastor and said, our students need more visibility. And, you know, in in that church, like where this whole philosophy of how I handle volunteers was born, my space was was attached, but it was up and to the back on a second floor in the far corner of the property. Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:50.253)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:06.06)
Yeah, so was separated.

Darren Sutton (09:07.362)
Yeah, exactly. Like you would see kids coming down from the upstairs and be like, my gosh, I'm glad I'm not serving up there. And that was it. So we started using students to take the offering, serve communion, do greeting. And I just, you know, kind of poached a dozen of my highest capacity students and said, let's help the church understand why youth ministry matters.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.334)
Right? Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:31.405)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (09:31.854)
And that didn't require them to be on the platform. We did have some on the platform. We had some students doing worship. We would occasionally do a youth night or youth day at church where students would speak and, or I would speak and all of that. starting there was actually the most critical, I think, the most critical component because people started seeing teenagers.

And it's a little bit like, you know, trying to acclimate people to wild animals. Like you got to get them a little bit close while they're in a cage and then you stick a little, you stick your hand in the cage and then you're in the cage, you know? And so that was the start of it. Also helping my senior pastor catch the vision that student ministry is not babysitting.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:07.682)
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:18.04)
Yeah, how do, can you talk about that for just a quick second? how do, I would imagine, you someone might be listening and they're like, oh yeah, I love that, but I'm either A, getting or I'm anticipating that I would get pushback. How do you lead up in that?

Darren Sutton (10:32.994)
Well, if you're anticipating, stop doing that. Like give them a chance to say, you're a babysitter. But also I think storytelling is the most critical component. We had this kid come in, let me tell you this story about this student who shared their faith at school and not necessarily about what student ministry is doing in the building, but what student ministry is doing outside of the building.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:35.992)
That's good, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:41.105)
Heh.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:51.405)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:59.608)
That's good.

Darren Sutton (11:00.908)
you know, was super helpful. It also helped that I had a very open senior pastor. You know what? I didn't turn my phone off.

Sorry, Nick. You probably couldn't hear that, but I could. Okay, sorry. Are you editing this? I'm assuming you edit. All right, I'm gonna go back then. It didn't hurt that I had just a really open senior pastor. I think he hired me with the babysitting mindset, but it didn't take him long to see that student mystery could be way more than that. So I was fortunate in that way.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:11.224)
That's good.

No, I heard it. It was great. It was a great sound.

I mean, I will, yeah. Yeah, okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:34.548)
Mm. Yeah, that's good.

Darren Sutton (11:36.3)
So once we had students kind of operating around the building, it made it way easier for me to go up to randos and say, hey, so and so told me you'd be great. Or I'm gonna out myself with some really shallow things. I'm just gonna say. So if we were in worship and I saw folks who I felt like were truly connecting with worship.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:52.856)
lol

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:04.663)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (12:05.132)
That mattered to me, not because we had a worship ministry, but because I felt like those people were intentionally trying to connect with the heart of God when we were doing, you know, church. And so I just started introducing myself and doing a slow kind of a slow ask. Some might call it chess, where I would, I know you would, you know, where I would just go introduce myself. I'm a student pastor. Hey, just, you know,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:07.703)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:12.354)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:24.472)
I would call it chest.

Darren Sutton (12:32.429)
appreciated your investment in church today or whatever. And then a of weeks later, I asked them how they were doing. Like I would start trying to build a relationship knowing that my end game, which didn't always work out, but my end game was to get them involved in students. The Lord might've had a different end game and sometimes he did, but I did that. I made sure that this was easier.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:57.282)
So this is everyone's permission to keep your eyes open during worship.

Darren Sutton (13:01.228)
Yeah, 100 % 100%. And you know, not to say that hands raised means anything because it doesn't, but I looked at people and went, look, their hands up. They're volunteering. Another thing that was again, a little easier in the context I was in, I got involved in a in a connect group and a life group Sunday school class, whatever your know, whatever your church calls it. And while

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:07.884)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:11.584)
you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:22.614)
Yeah, A D group.

I wanted to keep rattling them off but my brain went completely dead.

Darren Sutton (13:31.534)
While that didn't, I wasn't necessarily pulling people from that group. That group of all kind of young parents, it was early in our ministry, like they were the movers and shakers in our church. And so they were talking up the student ministry. I was able to talk it up in my small group. And then the last thing I did was done a little bit because I...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:47.949)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (13:59.936)
you know, because I just felt stubborn about it. We had a set of senior adults in our church who were fantastic. I mean, you know, they did everything. They did all the serving. We had a Wednesday night meal. This is a long time ago. We a Wednesday night meal and they cooked the meal and they ran the kitchen and they just did everything. And I intentionally started developing relationships with those ladies.

and started trying to get them involved in doing some things. And I have always kind of felt like senior adults make some really great student ministers. And so I was intentionally going after them and there was a lady, her name was Belle. Belle was a little bit of your typical cranky church lady. And I said something about, you know, being involved in student ministry or whatever. And she was like, I'll never work with students. And I just went.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:35.028)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Darren Sutton (14:55.148)
before I die, you will, whatever it takes. And so a little bit, I would target people, I think that way. don't, target's probably not the right word, but I would just, I would set my sight on somebody that I really wanted and I just kind of wouldn't let it go. Didn't harass. Sometimes that took a long time. It took me maybe like three-ish or four years before I finally got Bell to start something in students. And by the time we were,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:04.152)
lol

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:09.089)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:22.861)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (15:24.84)
She was all in like she was hosting D nows at her house and you know all kinds of stuff. So I just think that it is not being afraid to ask, making sure that your students are visible so that people know that teenagers don't bite. They're not scary and then not counting anybody out. I mean from from 21 we are our age range started at 21. We wanted to give kids some separation from student ministry, but from 21 to death.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:28.258)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:36.482)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (15:54.208)
It didn't matter who you were, parent, not a parent, old lady, college student. Like we would go after everybody and did. just never, I never met a person that I didn't think was called. And you know, my dad, yeah, I think there was a book title and a full philosophy. And I just wouldn't, I mean, I took no for an answer. I didn't try to get people to serve who didn't really didn't want to.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:54.242)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:02.476)
Yeah, that's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:08.29)
Some might say there's a book title in that.

Darren Sutton (16:23.148)
but I wouldn't take no as the first answer. So Belle said no and I was like, well, will you make sandwiches for Wednesday night? We didn't need sandwiches for Wednesday night. We already have Wednesday night supper, but she did it. You know what I'm saying? She started there. And then I would get some of those key students and say, hey, you guys make sure and thank Ms. Belle for these sandwiches. so, you know.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:33.431)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:43.032)
Well, and I think there's a, probably a principle in there of like, if you only ever like recruit to the need, then when the need is great, then your anxiety is high because you have like a lot of, a lot of need and a lot of holes to fill. But if you're always have your eye on this sort of like recruiting or onboarding mindset, even if you are onboarding them and there's nowhere to put them, like it's better.

Darren Sutton (17:10.733)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:12.044)
to have an overabundance, a wealth of riches, than to just be like, well, I'm fully staffed, quote unquote, right now. But in a few months you might not be, and then again, you're like, man, I'm failing again. So I think the good principle is for anyone in youth ministry who feels like they're struggling with volunteers, just start asking people and keep asking them.

Darren Sutton (17:14.091)
percent.

Darren Sutton (17:35.852)
never, it didn't matter how full I was, I never told somebody no. And in that church specifically, and in several of my churches, like I would have every spot full and I would be creating roles because I just wanted to make sure that people who wanted to be involved in the next generation could be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:40.087)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:47.928)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:54.7)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (17:54.894)
And I tried really hard to not enlist them to a position, but to enlist them to a vision, to a purpose and what their life could mean, even if all they were doing is making sandwiches. And sometimes that's what it was, right? I don't have a spot for this person, but hey, could you go shopping for me on Tuesday? I would find things for them to do so I didn't have to tell them no. Because you might be fully staffed today and tomorrow, you know,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:02.102)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:10.828)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:20.342)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (18:24.848)
your leader has a parent who has to move in with them and their whole life changes and they need to step out. So I never counted on being fully staffed. And when I was fully staffed, I felt like I was always kind of back filling with the people who were the next to step in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:41.58)
Yeah. So that's a flex, being fully staffed or being so staffed that you have volunteers that you're just like making stuff up. So that leads to like, in my opinion, the next sort of like big bucket of this conversation is like, how do you, how do you keep good leaders so that they don't dip out on you?

Darren Sutton (18:51.255)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (19:03.405)
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. You know, I think this just happened because a little bit it's my personality bit. I wasn't being intentional about this. I just felt like, you know, as I knew that volunteers were important and that part of my job was shepherding them and it wasn't just about hanging out with the kids and you know, all of that. So I was very...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:15.512)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:26.306)
Right.

Darren Sutton (19:32.066)
what's the right word? Pastoral is the only word I can think of. I knew my job was to shepherd them. It wasn't just to enlist them and get them sitting in front of teenagers, it was to help them along. So, you know, I...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:39.159)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (19:48.148)
I'm pretty good at sending notes of appreciation and not generic notes. Hey, I saw you talking to this kid. Hey, I heard a parent say this about you. Hey, you know, so that they would know that what they were doing was being seen. And I think that's a piece of it. know, gift cards go a long way, even if it's five bucks to Starbucks, because we all know five bucks isn't going to buy anything at Starbucks. But it's not that it's not that it is.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:01.826)
yeah

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:15.625)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (20:15.936)
it is noticing them that matters, right? I was a little bit of a bulldog, absolutely insistent on leader training. Not necessarily to make them better, but to make them better, but more to build community among our leaders so that they didn't want to leave.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:24.971)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:33.048)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (20:36.91)
Often volunteers who serve in students sacrifice a community group of some sort in order to serve so they don't have that. And a lot of times when they don't have that or they don't sense the feel of community, they'll dip so they can go be in their own Sunday school class or, you know, life group or whatever it is. And so I even though we weren't that we weren't doing Bible studies together every week, I wanted them to feel like, man, if something happens, my student

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:43.052)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:55.607)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (21:07.044)
team has my back and so and you know this because you work with me I'm pretty intentional still to this day about making sure that those leader training times are as much about building community and connection as they are about becoming a better you know volunteer.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:08.152)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:19.544)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:23.041)
Yeah, for sure.

Darren Sutton (21:24.416)
And then I'm a big fan of not recruiting people until death. So we actually recruit to a cycle. So we're gonna ask you to step in here and we're gonna ask you to go until this point. And then if you wanna step out, we'll embrace you and be sad when you go, most of you. You you occasionally have that one leader where that ending date really helps you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:37.536)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:43.606)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (21:49.966)
what you said earlier, like kind of helps you fire somebody. Like, hey, it's coming to the end of your term, thanks so much. Like, here's a Sunday school class for you to go to, you know, whatever. But largely, it was an opportunity for me to be more mindful and intentional about recruiting division. So if they didn't hear it any other time, once a year in the kind of re-recruiting phase,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:53.431)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:56.856)
Yeah

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:07.233)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:16.823)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (22:17.33)
They were going to be reminded of what they were doing. It was an opportunity for me to say, tell me, tell me what to struggle. What? How can I help you? Do you still love this role? Is there another role that you've seen other people performing in that you would like to try out? Would you so they don't feel like, hey man, if I say yes to leading this, you know, home group, I'm going to be leading it until I die. Yeah, exactly. You know.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:26.295)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:31.894)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:38.018)
I'm stuck for life, yeah.

But I think that might give some youth pastors listening hives, because they're already feeling strapped with leaders, and then they get good ones and they're like, wait, you give them an end date? And the irony in that is that doing that, again, I won't put words in your mouth, but doing that helps them feel like seen and appreciated and that you value them. so rather than them leaving at the end of the term,

Darren Sutton (22:55.148)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:11.562)
they like immediately re-up and come back.

Darren Sutton (23:13.612)
Yeah, yeah. And the truth is when you're when you have equipped them well, they know what their mission is. They feel supported by their community. They don't want to leave. We we in all kinds of different ways for the last 25 years, I've tried to give my volunteers breaks, whether that was a bucket of time like, hey, everybody's off in the summer and we'll take care of it. Or, know, what we currently do is

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:32.311)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (23:40.672)
a day off about every six-ish weeks where we just say to our volunteers, don't come, the student ministry's got it, students got it, you know, whatever. Giving them those moments basically to come up for air helps them stay in the water a lot longer. So yeah, we do give an end date, but I have only had a few people take advantage of that. And when they have, it's never been because they didn't want to do student ministry anymore.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:44.343)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:54.413)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:09.89)
Right.

Darren Sutton (24:10.228)
It's always been because my life circumstances have changed and I need a break. And, you know, the other piece of that that is helpful is when life circumstances do change, most of them won't dip until they get to that end date. And so even though their trauma, you know, whatever it was, their job change, their, you know, sickness, their parents or kids or whatever happened in November.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:15.074)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:34.367)
Mm. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (24:39.63)
They know they committed until June 1st and they're going to say occasionally, occasionally, you know, to be a good pastor, you're going to say, listen, I know your life is upside down right now. Uh, just go ahead and step out. Like let's take a break. And then you're going to bring in, you know, somebody who's on the bench, who's been begging to be involved, who you've got in a, you know, maybe a less influential position, but who's ready to step up. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:41.666)
and they'll still ride it out. Yeah, that's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:49.409)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:52.78)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:03.35)
Yeah, so real quick before we leave, let's just make a big list of volunteer roles that are a little bit, because I think, again, Average Joe, Normal Youth Pastor, Normal Youth Ministry in America, every volunteer that they have is to lead discussion, small group, school, whatever you want to call it with students.

Darren Sutton (25:29.134)
Yeah, for sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:31.064)
But there's a million other things and some people don't want to do that. Like we have a guy on our team right now who's awesome. He's like, I don't want to lead a Bible study, but he loves teenagers. He's like fun at heart. You know, like he's, he's the type of guy you'd want on your team, but he, he felt disqualified because he's like, I'm not equipped for that slash don't want to do it. And so like, to your point, there's a million things you can do. can make sandwiches. So what are some over the years, you're 35.

Darren Sutton (25:53.112)
Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:00.28)
plus years of experience. What are some of the different roles that you've had created, invented? Like give us some of the funniest best ones you got.

Darren Sutton (26:09.102)
Oh, I don't know. I have some that you couldn't do anymore. You know, I mean, I love that the, you're just going to show up at their like, you don't, you don't have to lead a Bible study, but I want you to show up at every single basketball game this kid has, you know, as just kind of a, you know, a big brother figure. You know, we had a lot of over the years had different

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:12.024)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Share those two from the the crypt.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:29.464)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (26:39.53)
spots had a lot of rec space. and so, you know, listen, I don't want you to do anything except play basketball. That's all you have to do. Play basketball and talk to students. you know, we also had the proverbial like set up chairs and, you know, come in and create, you know, new student, new student guest kits and, know, that kind of stuff. Probably the funniest one that we had was, in one church that I was in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:41.816)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:48.534)
I love that job.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:00.684)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (27:09.224)
our student center was a kind of refabbed pavilion on the back of an acre and a half plot. So the church was at the front right and the student ministry area was at the back left and no lights, barely electricity. We threw up fake walls. We had window units kind of shoved in the corner and you know, as janky as it could be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:16.578)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:23.755)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (27:38.478)
and so every week we would have fire ants that were building in the building, right? Like building these nests in the building. So we had our, our guy who would come in and kill the fire ants every week, and sweep it all out. That was his only job. Like he didn't want to hang out with students and all that, but he felt like that was a contribution he can make. had people in that same church, like one of the ways that we

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:53.046)
You

Darren Sutton (28:05.814)
kind of lighted the path in the middle of the night to that back area where with tiki torches. And so we had folks who would come in and, you know, light the tiki torches and sweep the pathway off and, you know, that kind of thing. So those were kind of unique. We had for a time, folks who would be, you know, kind of the bus run, except in their vehicles, we, don't do that anymore. Just generally for ministry safe purposes, but

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:10.359)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:28.941)
Right.

Darren Sutton (28:31.822)
Their only job was to pick kids up and drive them back and forth to church. They didn't stay in the youth ministry. didn't, but we gave them like in that job description, here are some questions you can be asking when kids get in your car to get the conversation going and you know, make sure you meet the parents and you know, things like that to help them be a little bit more invested in real life with kids. Had some volunteers whose main job was to reach out to parents.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:37.016)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (28:59.886)
and make sure that, you know, hey, we know parenting teenagers is tough. Is there anything the student ministry can do for you? That was their only job to just keep a list of parents would love this. Parents would need that. And they pass that over to me and I'd figure out what we could do and you know, what was a really stupid idea we had to throw away. So some stuff like that. Once, you know, this one is selfish, but was important.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:07.672)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:18.136)
Yeah, nice. keep going.

Darren Sutton (29:27.694)
uh, more important than I realized, I think at the time, uh, I enlisted somebody to pay attention to my kids. Uh, your job is and not just mine, but in that, in that church, just mine. But if we were in our context, we're having multiple staff members, it would be staff kids. Uh, but I, I was like, you know, my kids sacrifice a lot for me to be in student ministry and they were not teenagers yet. They were, you know, I don't know, 11, nine and seven, they were young. I just said, can you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:35.063)
Uh-huh.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:42.646)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:53.708)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (29:56.792)
Can you just notice my kids? Like they're here a lot. They sacrifice a lot for ministry. Their dad's a pastor and so I'm sure that they're they need adults who are not their pastor. You know as well and your your jobs to just notice my kids and they crushed that like our kids to this day feel like those people are their grandparents even more than their actual grandparents. So that's another one.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:02.263)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:10.028)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:21.4)
It's cool.

Yeah, that's cool.

Darren Sutton (30:25.21)
You can come up with everything. Host homes and sandwich makers and so many ways to get people close enough to see what Jesus is doing without them having to lead a Bible study ever.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:27.832)
.

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:37.335)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:43.512)
Yeah, that's good. So, okay, last thing. Talk to the youth pastor who's struggling, floundering, drowning. Find a word of encouragement about the importance of leaders and maybe just a basic for them next step. Hey, if you're gonna do anything, first thing to do is just do this. Don't feel overwhelmed by all of this. Maybe you don't have the...

Capacity to get a fire ant guy yet. Okay, that's fine But speak speak to that speak to the guy who's just like man. don't leaders are killing like it's just the hardest, you know part of my job, whatever like Encourage them for a second

Darren Sutton (31:22.712)
Yeah. Well, let me just say first, it's not your job. That's not your job. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. And he's very clear in scripture that we all have a part to play.

and that our job as pastors is to equip the saints for the work of service. Our job is not to make sure we have plenty of volunteers, not to make sure every hole gets filled. Our job is just to equip the people that the Holy Spirit brings. We can be more proactive in bringing them, but the Holy Spirit is the one who quickens their heart to be involved. So that's not your job. Your job isn't to convince them. Your job is to shepherd them and to give them an opportunity to step into what God is calling them to do.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (31:39.352)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (32:04.718)
Don't take the whole burden on yourself. And I mean that in two ways. It's the Holy Spirit's job and also you have some people, you definitely have some people who care about student ministry who will help recruit for you. You utilize that, whether that's other staff members, folks that are currently on your volunteer team, a parent who just happens to take a particular interest in what's going on in student ministry.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:20.792)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:31.224)
Teenagers.

Darren Sutton (32:32.364)
Yeah, for sure. 100 % ask a kid who they think would make a great youth leader. They'll have a list guaranteed. So.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:34.519)
you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:38.742)
Yeah, yeah. I had a teenager one time go and list the head usher on his own. Yeah, I was like, well, I'll talk to him too. But it was great.

Darren Sutton (32:44.891)
Poach them from other ministries? I love it.

That's fantastic. But just don't feel the burden that it's all on you and don't feel the burden that it all has to happen right now. For me, it was a slow, kind of a slow burn into that whole idea that volunteers could be more and I needed to ask them to do more and be more. That took time. And it's not a foolproof, like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:16.502)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (33:21.322)
I mean, we serving in church right now and across from this podcast, there's a big sheet on my door that lists every volunteer hole we have right now. And we have a lot. There's probably 20 people on there that we need to fill. So, you know, you're always going to have the need. You can't let the holes be what drives you. You've got to let the people who are in the room, you know, a little bit.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:31.384)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (33:47.384)
be what drives you. So, and it's totally doable because Jesus wants those kids even more than you do. And he's gonna raise up the people that are needed to help get them where he needs them to be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:48.984)
That's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:01.304)
Nice, that's good. All right, anything else? Did we get it all?

Darren Sutton (34:05.312)
Yeah, think we, I mean, I'm sure we didn't get it all, but we got, you got all I got.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:08.28)
Well, that's a lot it's helpful so where do people find you Darren?

Darren Sutton (34:18.03)
listen, I'm everywhere. I'm, I'm almost like the Holy Spirit everywhere you are. am, I'm on all, I'm on all social stuff. if you're, yes. Well, actually I can't, you can't say that anymore. I deleted my account after it banned.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:22.039)
Woo!

That's scary.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:29.738)
including band TikTok. If you'd like to send...

It's back, it's back now.

Darren Sutton (34:38.464)
I know I'm trying to decide like, listen, I had so this whole podcast, I had so much time open up in my life that I'm like, maybe I don't want to, I'm not sure if I want to, if I want to take it back. But yeah, I mean, you know, Insta and Facebook and Twitter and you know, all that, I have a blog. everyone's called the youth ministry.com and, I'm not, you know, I have, I'm just like you. I'm an in the trenches youth pastor. So if you're looking for a regular, like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:42.712)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:56.856)
Nice. We'll link it down below.

Darren Sutton (35:08.184)
podcast and a blog post. I don't do that. But I've been in this thing for a few minutes and I'm not planning on going anywhere. And so I love talking to you pastors. And if you ever need a guy who has made as many mistakes as you feel like you're making, you can reach out. Cause I got a whole list. Lots of stories. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (35:24.856)
You

There you go. That's big right there. All right. Well, hey, for Darren, this is Nick signing off. See you guys.

Darren Sutton (35:33.944)
Bye guys.

]]> In this episode, Nick sits down with one of his best friends, and also, boss, and they discuss volunteer, not only recruiting, but also how to create such a strong volunteer team that volunteers would never choose to leave your team. Be sure to stick around for the surprising strategy that actually keeps volunteers on the team longer!

📊 [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Meet My Boss & Friend, Darren Sutton
01:02 35 Years in 35 Seconds
04:10 Shocking Bar Raising Leader Strategy
05:33 What if Leaders Don’t Respond?
07:56 Start Recruiting Leaders from Scratch
19:33 How do you keep good leaders?
21:57 Conducting Leader Debriefs
25:45 A Complete List of Roles
31:20 Final Encouragement

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:01.036)
We've recorded so many podcasts together. I don't even know how I feel like we're supposed to Well, everyone here we are. I am with my boss, Darren Sutton, who has his youth ministry till I die shirt on, which I was wearing yesterday. So I'm glad that we coordinated this. But I wanted to get on here and I've been working for Darren now for five years, two different places.

Darren Sutton (00:04.982)
Welcome back.

Darren Sutton (00:20.691)
Thank you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.72)
And aside from having written a book, I would also say practically speaking, Darren has a lot to say about volunteers. But Darren, first, tell us a brief overview. Distill your 35-year youth ministry journey down to 35 seconds. But why in that did volunteers become such a thing for you?

Darren Sutton (00:53.484)
Yeah, I don't know if I can say that in 35 seconds, but I will say this. I was pretty much the Lone Ranger youth pastor who would just grab chaperones when I was absolutely desperate for adults to be in the room or whatever. I would have adults lead Bible study classes and go to summer camp with me and the stuff where you know you can't do everything, so you have them there. But I didn't realize the...

extent of needing people to carry the mission forward and to lean into their own calling until I was about maybe 10 years in and we were having our yeah we were having our third baby and my lead volunteer was like I can't do this and you need you need more people you're not doing this right so my wife basically was like listen you're you are

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:32.354)
Did something happen?

Darren Sutton (01:48.29)
fantastic and you have lots of adult leaders, but you're not equipping them for ministry. You're just having them hold down the pieces that you can't hold down and they have more to offer than that. And you're not, you're not giving them, you know, the runway to do that. And that changed everything. It totally transformed my whole philosophy about why we use volunteers and how we keep them and why that matters.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:57.676)
Mmm. Mmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:03.98)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:16.982)
Okay, so yeah, so like I would imagine that, you know, average youth pastor listening is like, you know, they have that mentality, right? The volunteers are a necessary like evil, I don't wanna say, you know, but like they just, know they have to have them. There you go. They're a necessary component, but maybe like, maybe they don't even know what to do with them.

Darren Sutton (02:36.088)
Component. Let's go with component. They're necessary component.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:46.028)
You know what mean? like that, would imagine maybe some of that was your story too. Like maybe control a little bit, but also like, what do I even do with these guys? So yeah, so how did you, before we dive into kind of the recruiting conversation, how did you mentally release yourself and be able to trust that you could actually hand off like meaningful things to said volunteer?

Darren Sutton (02:53.294)
You worked for me, you know part of it was control.

Darren Sutton (03:13.89)
Yeah, great question. This, I mean, you know, this is gonna sound like a no brainer, but 25 years ago it wasn't. I started writing job descriptions and I just sat down and said, okay, if I was handing off deeper parts of this, or if the people who were already serving were gonna own it the way I wanted them to.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:23.96)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:35.0)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (03:37.58)
What did I want that to look like? Like, what did I want them to do? Part of the struggle is that I wasn't recruiting them to anything other than filling the spot and hanging out with kids. And so if I wanted them to be at football games and, you know, choir performances, and if I wanted them to be writing cards to kids who weren't there, and if I wanted them to be reaching out to parents on the regular and all that, I needed to spell that out, and I hadn't done that. And so I was doing all that part, and they were just showing up.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:46.978)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:01.261)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:05.622)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (04:05.866)
And as soon as I kind of raised the bar and said, here's what I really need you to be doing in this role. If you love Jesus and love students and you want to make an eternal impact, it looks like this. It changed everything. So job descriptions were my number one thing. And again, that sounds a little bit like a no brainer now, I think for a lot of people, but we weren't doing that back then.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:25.962)
Yeah. So and then they did they did race to the challenge, right? Were you nervous that they wouldn't or couldn't or didn't have the time to or was there any of that?

Darren Sutton (04:31.902)
yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (04:37.71)
You know, I don't remember being nervous about it as much as I was just, was at a point in my ministry and in my family life where I was like, they have to do this. You know, so it never dawned on me, I think, and also young and arrogant. Like it never dawned on me that anybody would say, I don't want to do that. And to their credit, nobody did. Like everybody rose to the challenge. And I really think that

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:56.802)
Sure.

Darren Sutton (05:07.32)
we sell the body of Christ, not volunteers, they're the body. We sell the body short when we assume that they won't invest more. Give them a chance to show you that, right? And if they do, then you know, like they might be better suited for a different role in your ministry, but this role with the job description as it's written, they're just not good for that. And it also gives you a great entry point for a conversation when you do need a leader to level up.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:18.348)
Hmm. Yeah, that's good.

Darren Sutton (05:37.078)
to say like, listen, here's what we signed on for. Help me understand what's a struggle for you in this. Because it seems like these components aren't happening. And I'm just wondering, is that because you're unsure of what to do? Is that because you don't want to do that? You've had bad success with it? Like, help, teach me. Teach me what this, you know, where the holes are here.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:41.944)
Hmm

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:56.672)
Mm, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:00.844)
But then you have, like you said, have teeth, right, a little bit to go back if volunteer's not performing and there's nothing more awkward than trying to fire someone who's not getting paid. So.

Darren Sutton (06:04.152)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (06:10.798)
I'm sure. Helping them find their fit in the body of Christ.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:17.46)
Yep. So, okay, so aside from, you know, someone just buying your book, which is linked down below in the description, obviously.

Darren Sutton (06:25.514)
hey, thanks. I don't even know if I have a link to my book. Yeah, probably. Maybe the three people who bought it are done with it.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:27.956)
Yeah, well, we'll scrounge it up. It's on eBay or something. What? So if you're if someone's just, know, regular old youth pastor and they're like, just like, OK, I hear you. Yeah, I'm doing too much. I'm spinning my wheels. Job description, maybe step one. Step two. Let's talk recruiting like because you.

you may not even have any leaders to write a job description for. So help someone start. Just rattle off the best recruiting strategies, methods, ideas, and I'll take notes for our own ministry as we're trying to also recruit some people.

Darren Sutton (07:00.908)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (07:08.172)
Yeah.

because there are always holes. Well, where I started was I'm not a big fan of cattle calls from the pulpit or anything like that. Yeah, that's a struggle. Yeah, or you don't get anybody because nobody listens during announcements.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:21.686)
Yeah, the youth need volunteers. You're gonna get weirdos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:29.047)
Yeah.

Well, it's a plural you, right? So it's like, you all interested? And so the individual you assumes one of the other ones is gonna take it and they're off the hook.

Darren Sutton (07:36.118)
Yes, exactly. So let me tell you guys, so here's what I did, Nick. Like I, you're right. The individual ask is everything. And I don't mean a fly by, you know, I don't mean a fly by conversation in the hallway on your way to the bathroom. I mean a sit down, real talk. but it takes a minute to get to that, right? Especially if you don't know everybody in our current context, the student ministry is literally a

across a creek from the rest of the building and so.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:07.372)
Yeah. It's one of the most distant locations I've ever served and I would imagine the same for you. So us being a part of the rest of the life of the church, we have to be incredibly intentional to overcome that for sure.

Darren Sutton (08:16.588)
Yeah, for sure.

Darren Sutton (08:22.27)
Exactly. And that's true everywhere, especially if your facility or the space that you occupy is siloed from the rest of the church.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:31.372)
Yeah, because it's great to have the youth space, but that their inherent challenge of that is you're in the youth space and not, yeah.

Darren Sutton (08:37.132)
Yeah, it's a youth space. Yeah, it's a youth space. So if you're not a youth, you're not in it. So, yeah, the first thing I did was I went to my senior pastor and said, our students need more visibility. And, you know, in in that church, like where this whole philosophy of how I handle volunteers was born, my space was was attached, but it was up and to the back on a second floor in the far corner of the property. Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (08:50.253)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:06.06)
Yeah, so was separated.

Darren Sutton (09:07.362)
Yeah, exactly. Like you would see kids coming down from the upstairs and be like, my gosh, I'm glad I'm not serving up there. And that was it. So we started using students to take the offering, serve communion, do greeting. And I just, you know, kind of poached a dozen of my highest capacity students and said, let's help the church understand why youth ministry matters.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.334)
Right? Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:31.405)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (09:31.854)
And that didn't require them to be on the platform. We did have some on the platform. We had some students doing worship. We would occasionally do a youth night or youth day at church where students would speak and, or I would speak and all of that. starting there was actually the most critical, I think, the most critical component because people started seeing teenagers.

And it's a little bit like, you know, trying to acclimate people to wild animals. Like you got to get them a little bit close while they're in a cage and then you stick a little, you stick your hand in the cage and then you're in the cage, you know? And so that was the start of it. Also helping my senior pastor catch the vision that student ministry is not babysitting.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:07.682)
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:18.04)
Yeah, how do, can you talk about that for just a quick second? how do, I would imagine, you someone might be listening and they're like, oh yeah, I love that, but I'm either A, getting or I'm anticipating that I would get pushback. How do you lead up in that?

Darren Sutton (10:32.994)
Well, if you're anticipating, stop doing that. Like give them a chance to say, you're a babysitter. But also I think storytelling is the most critical component. We had this kid come in, let me tell you this story about this student who shared their faith at school and not necessarily about what student ministry is doing in the building, but what student ministry is doing outside of the building.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:35.992)
That's good, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:41.105)
Heh.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:51.405)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:59.608)
That's good.

Darren Sutton (11:00.908)
you know, was super helpful. It also helped that I had a very open senior pastor. You know what? I didn't turn my phone off.

Sorry, Nick. You probably couldn't hear that, but I could. Okay, sorry. Are you editing this? I'm assuming you edit. All right, I'm gonna go back then. It didn't hurt that I had just a really open senior pastor. I think he hired me with the babysitting mindset, but it didn't take him long to see that student mystery could be way more than that. So I was fortunate in that way.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:11.224)
That's good.

No, I heard it. It was great. It was a great sound.

I mean, I will, yeah. Yeah, okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:34.548)
Mm. Yeah, that's good.

Darren Sutton (11:36.3)
So once we had students kind of operating around the building, it made it way easier for me to go up to randos and say, hey, so and so told me you'd be great. Or I'm gonna out myself with some really shallow things. I'm just gonna say. So if we were in worship and I saw folks who I felt like were truly connecting with worship.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:52.856)
lol

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:04.663)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (12:05.132)
That mattered to me, not because we had a worship ministry, but because I felt like those people were intentionally trying to connect with the heart of God when we were doing, you know, church. And so I just started introducing myself and doing a slow kind of a slow ask. Some might call it chess, where I would, I know you would, you know, where I would just go introduce myself. I'm a student pastor. Hey, just, you know,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:07.703)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:12.354)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:24.472)
I would call it chest.

Darren Sutton (12:32.429)
appreciated your investment in church today or whatever. And then a of weeks later, I asked them how they were doing. Like I would start trying to build a relationship knowing that my end game, which didn't always work out, but my end game was to get them involved in students. The Lord might've had a different end game and sometimes he did, but I did that. I made sure that this was easier.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:57.282)
So this is everyone's permission to keep your eyes open during worship.

Darren Sutton (13:01.228)
Yeah, 100 % 100%. And you know, not to say that hands raised means anything because it doesn't, but I looked at people and went, look, their hands up. They're volunteering. Another thing that was again, a little easier in the context I was in, I got involved in a in a connect group and a life group Sunday school class, whatever your know, whatever your church calls it. And while

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:07.884)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:11.584)
you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:22.614)
Yeah, A D group.

I wanted to keep rattling them off but my brain went completely dead.

Darren Sutton (13:31.534)
While that didn't, I wasn't necessarily pulling people from that group. That group of all kind of young parents, it was early in our ministry, like they were the movers and shakers in our church. And so they were talking up the student ministry. I was able to talk it up in my small group. And then the last thing I did was done a little bit because I...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:47.949)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (13:59.936)
you know, because I just felt stubborn about it. We had a set of senior adults in our church who were fantastic. I mean, you know, they did everything. They did all the serving. We had a Wednesday night meal. This is a long time ago. We a Wednesday night meal and they cooked the meal and they ran the kitchen and they just did everything. And I intentionally started developing relationships with those ladies.

and started trying to get them involved in doing some things. And I have always kind of felt like senior adults make some really great student ministers. And so I was intentionally going after them and there was a lady, her name was Belle. Belle was a little bit of your typical cranky church lady. And I said something about, you know, being involved in student ministry or whatever. And she was like, I'll never work with students. And I just went.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:35.028)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Darren Sutton (14:55.148)
before I die, you will, whatever it takes. And so a little bit, I would target people, I think that way. don't, target's probably not the right word, but I would just, I would set my sight on somebody that I really wanted and I just kind of wouldn't let it go. Didn't harass. Sometimes that took a long time. It took me maybe like three-ish or four years before I finally got Bell to start something in students. And by the time we were,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:04.152)
lol

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:09.089)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:22.861)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (15:24.84)
She was all in like she was hosting D nows at her house and you know all kinds of stuff. So I just think that it is not being afraid to ask, making sure that your students are visible so that people know that teenagers don't bite. They're not scary and then not counting anybody out. I mean from from 21 we are our age range started at 21. We wanted to give kids some separation from student ministry, but from 21 to death.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:28.258)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:36.482)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (15:54.208)
It didn't matter who you were, parent, not a parent, old lady, college student. Like we would go after everybody and did. just never, I never met a person that I didn't think was called. And you know, my dad, yeah, I think there was a book title and a full philosophy. And I just wouldn't, I mean, I took no for an answer. I didn't try to get people to serve who didn't really didn't want to.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:54.242)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:02.476)
Yeah, that's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:08.29)
Some might say there's a book title in that.

Darren Sutton (16:23.148)
but I wouldn't take no as the first answer. So Belle said no and I was like, well, will you make sandwiches for Wednesday night? We didn't need sandwiches for Wednesday night. We already have Wednesday night supper, but she did it. You know what I'm saying? She started there. And then I would get some of those key students and say, hey, you guys make sure and thank Ms. Belle for these sandwiches. so, you know.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:33.431)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:43.032)
Well, and I think there's a, probably a principle in there of like, if you only ever like recruit to the need, then when the need is great, then your anxiety is high because you have like a lot of, a lot of need and a lot of holes to fill. But if you're always have your eye on this sort of like recruiting or onboarding mindset, even if you are onboarding them and there's nowhere to put them, like it's better.

Darren Sutton (17:10.733)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:12.044)
to have an overabundance, a wealth of riches, than to just be like, well, I'm fully staffed, quote unquote, right now. But in a few months you might not be, and then again, you're like, man, I'm failing again. So I think the good principle is for anyone in youth ministry who feels like they're struggling with volunteers, just start asking people and keep asking them.

Darren Sutton (17:14.091)
percent.

Darren Sutton (17:35.852)
never, it didn't matter how full I was, I never told somebody no. And in that church specifically, and in several of my churches, like I would have every spot full and I would be creating roles because I just wanted to make sure that people who wanted to be involved in the next generation could be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:40.087)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:47.928)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:54.7)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (17:54.894)
And I tried really hard to not enlist them to a position, but to enlist them to a vision, to a purpose and what their life could mean, even if all they were doing is making sandwiches. And sometimes that's what it was, right? I don't have a spot for this person, but hey, could you go shopping for me on Tuesday? I would find things for them to do so I didn't have to tell them no. Because you might be fully staffed today and tomorrow, you know,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:02.102)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:10.828)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:20.342)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (18:24.848)
your leader has a parent who has to move in with them and their whole life changes and they need to step out. So I never counted on being fully staffed. And when I was fully staffed, I felt like I was always kind of back filling with the people who were the next to step in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:41.58)
Yeah. So that's a flex, being fully staffed or being so staffed that you have volunteers that you're just like making stuff up. So that leads to like, in my opinion, the next sort of like big bucket of this conversation is like, how do you, how do you keep good leaders so that they don't dip out on you?

Darren Sutton (18:51.255)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (19:03.405)
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. You know, I think this just happened because a little bit it's my personality bit. I wasn't being intentional about this. I just felt like, you know, as I knew that volunteers were important and that part of my job was shepherding them and it wasn't just about hanging out with the kids and you know, all of that. So I was very...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:15.512)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:26.306)
Right.

Darren Sutton (19:32.066)
what's the right word? Pastoral is the only word I can think of. I knew my job was to shepherd them. It wasn't just to enlist them and get them sitting in front of teenagers, it was to help them along. So, you know, I...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (19:39.159)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (19:48.148)
I'm pretty good at sending notes of appreciation and not generic notes. Hey, I saw you talking to this kid. Hey, I heard a parent say this about you. Hey, you know, so that they would know that what they were doing was being seen. And I think that's a piece of it. know, gift cards go a long way, even if it's five bucks to Starbucks, because we all know five bucks isn't going to buy anything at Starbucks. But it's not that it's not that it is.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:01.826)
yeah

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:15.625)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (20:15.936)
it is noticing them that matters, right? I was a little bit of a bulldog, absolutely insistent on leader training. Not necessarily to make them better, but to make them better, but more to build community among our leaders so that they didn't want to leave.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:24.971)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:33.048)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (20:36.91)
Often volunteers who serve in students sacrifice a community group of some sort in order to serve so they don't have that. And a lot of times when they don't have that or they don't sense the feel of community, they'll dip so they can go be in their own Sunday school class or, you know, life group or whatever it is. And so I even though we weren't that we weren't doing Bible studies together every week, I wanted them to feel like, man, if something happens, my student

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:43.052)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:55.607)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (21:07.044)
team has my back and so and you know this because you work with me I'm pretty intentional still to this day about making sure that those leader training times are as much about building community and connection as they are about becoming a better you know volunteer.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:08.152)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:19.544)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:23.041)
Yeah, for sure.

Darren Sutton (21:24.416)
And then I'm a big fan of not recruiting people until death. So we actually recruit to a cycle. So we're gonna ask you to step in here and we're gonna ask you to go until this point. And then if you wanna step out, we'll embrace you and be sad when you go, most of you. You you occasionally have that one leader where that ending date really helps you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:37.536)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:43.606)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (21:49.966)
what you said earlier, like kind of helps you fire somebody. Like, hey, it's coming to the end of your term, thanks so much. Like, here's a Sunday school class for you to go to, you know, whatever. But largely, it was an opportunity for me to be more mindful and intentional about recruiting division. So if they didn't hear it any other time, once a year in the kind of re-recruiting phase,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:53.431)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:56.856)
Yeah

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:07.233)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:16.823)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (22:17.33)
They were going to be reminded of what they were doing. It was an opportunity for me to say, tell me, tell me what to struggle. What? How can I help you? Do you still love this role? Is there another role that you've seen other people performing in that you would like to try out? Would you so they don't feel like, hey man, if I say yes to leading this, you know, home group, I'm going to be leading it until I die. Yeah, exactly. You know.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:26.295)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:31.894)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (22:38.018)
I'm stuck for life, yeah.

But I think that might give some youth pastors listening hives, because they're already feeling strapped with leaders, and then they get good ones and they're like, wait, you give them an end date? And the irony in that is that doing that, again, I won't put words in your mouth, but doing that helps them feel like seen and appreciated and that you value them. so rather than them leaving at the end of the term,

Darren Sutton (22:55.148)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:11.562)
they like immediately re-up and come back.

Darren Sutton (23:13.612)
Yeah, yeah. And the truth is when you're when you have equipped them well, they know what their mission is. They feel supported by their community. They don't want to leave. We we in all kinds of different ways for the last 25 years, I've tried to give my volunteers breaks, whether that was a bucket of time like, hey, everybody's off in the summer and we'll take care of it. Or, know, what we currently do is

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:32.311)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (23:40.672)
a day off about every six-ish weeks where we just say to our volunteers, don't come, the student ministry's got it, students got it, you know, whatever. Giving them those moments basically to come up for air helps them stay in the water a lot longer. So yeah, we do give an end date, but I have only had a few people take advantage of that. And when they have, it's never been because they didn't want to do student ministry anymore.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:44.343)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (23:54.413)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:09.89)
Right.

Darren Sutton (24:10.228)
It's always been because my life circumstances have changed and I need a break. And, you know, the other piece of that that is helpful is when life circumstances do change, most of them won't dip until they get to that end date. And so even though their trauma, you know, whatever it was, their job change, their, you know, sickness, their parents or kids or whatever happened in November.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:15.074)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:34.367)
Mm. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (24:39.63)
They know they committed until June 1st and they're going to say occasionally, occasionally, you know, to be a good pastor, you're going to say, listen, I know your life is upside down right now. Uh, just go ahead and step out. Like let's take a break. And then you're going to bring in, you know, somebody who's on the bench, who's been begging to be involved, who you've got in a, you know, maybe a less influential position, but who's ready to step up. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:41.666)
and they'll still ride it out. Yeah, that's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:49.409)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (24:52.78)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:03.35)
Yeah, so real quick before we leave, let's just make a big list of volunteer roles that are a little bit, because I think, again, Average Joe, Normal Youth Pastor, Normal Youth Ministry in America, every volunteer that they have is to lead discussion, small group, school, whatever you want to call it with students.

Darren Sutton (25:29.134)
Yeah, for sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (25:31.064)
But there's a million other things and some people don't want to do that. Like we have a guy on our team right now who's awesome. He's like, I don't want to lead a Bible study, but he loves teenagers. He's like fun at heart. You know, like he's, he's the type of guy you'd want on your team, but he, he felt disqualified because he's like, I'm not equipped for that slash don't want to do it. And so like, to your point, there's a million things you can do. can make sandwiches. So what are some over the years, you're 35.

Darren Sutton (25:53.112)
Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:00.28)
plus years of experience. What are some of the different roles that you've had created, invented? Like give us some of the funniest best ones you got.

Darren Sutton (26:09.102)
Oh, I don't know. I have some that you couldn't do anymore. You know, I mean, I love that the, you're just going to show up at their like, you don't, you don't have to lead a Bible study, but I want you to show up at every single basketball game this kid has, you know, as just kind of a, you know, a big brother figure. You know, we had a lot of over the years had different

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:12.024)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Share those two from the the crypt.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:29.464)
Mm.

Darren Sutton (26:39.53)
spots had a lot of rec space. and so, you know, listen, I don't want you to do anything except play basketball. That's all you have to do. Play basketball and talk to students. you know, we also had the proverbial like set up chairs and, you know, come in and create, you know, new student, new student guest kits and, know, that kind of stuff. Probably the funniest one that we had was, in one church that I was in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:41.816)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (26:48.534)
I love that job.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:00.684)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (27:09.224)
our student center was a kind of refabbed pavilion on the back of an acre and a half plot. So the church was at the front right and the student ministry area was at the back left and no lights, barely electricity. We threw up fake walls. We had window units kind of shoved in the corner and you know, as janky as it could be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:16.578)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:23.755)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (27:38.478)
and so every week we would have fire ants that were building in the building, right? Like building these nests in the building. So we had our, our guy who would come in and kill the fire ants every week, and sweep it all out. That was his only job. Like he didn't want to hang out with students and all that, but he felt like that was a contribution he can make. had people in that same church, like one of the ways that we

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (27:53.046)
You

Darren Sutton (28:05.814)
kind of lighted the path in the middle of the night to that back area where with tiki torches. And so we had folks who would come in and, you know, light the tiki torches and sweep the pathway off and, you know, that kind of thing. So those were kind of unique. We had for a time, folks who would be, you know, kind of the bus run, except in their vehicles, we, don't do that anymore. Just generally for ministry safe purposes, but

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:10.359)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:28.941)
Right.

Darren Sutton (28:31.822)
Their only job was to pick kids up and drive them back and forth to church. They didn't stay in the youth ministry. didn't, but we gave them like in that job description, here are some questions you can be asking when kids get in your car to get the conversation going and you know, make sure you meet the parents and you know, things like that to help them be a little bit more invested in real life with kids. Had some volunteers whose main job was to reach out to parents.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (28:37.016)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (28:59.886)
and make sure that, you know, hey, we know parenting teenagers is tough. Is there anything the student ministry can do for you? That was their only job to just keep a list of parents would love this. Parents would need that. And they pass that over to me and I'd figure out what we could do and you know, what was a really stupid idea we had to throw away. So some stuff like that. Once, you know, this one is selfish, but was important.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:07.672)
Hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:18.136)
Yeah, nice. keep going.

Darren Sutton (29:27.694)
uh, more important than I realized, I think at the time, uh, I enlisted somebody to pay attention to my kids. Uh, your job is and not just mine, but in that, in that church, just mine. But if we were in our context, we're having multiple staff members, it would be staff kids. Uh, but I, I was like, you know, my kids sacrifice a lot for me to be in student ministry and they were not teenagers yet. They were, you know, I don't know, 11, nine and seven, they were young. I just said, can you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:35.063)
Uh-huh.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:42.646)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (29:53.708)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (29:56.792)
Can you just notice my kids? Like they're here a lot. They sacrifice a lot for ministry. Their dad's a pastor and so I'm sure that they're they need adults who are not their pastor. You know as well and your your jobs to just notice my kids and they crushed that like our kids to this day feel like those people are their grandparents even more than their actual grandparents. So that's another one.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:02.263)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:10.028)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:21.4)
It's cool.

Yeah, that's cool.

Darren Sutton (30:25.21)
You can come up with everything. Host homes and sandwich makers and so many ways to get people close enough to see what Jesus is doing without them having to lead a Bible study ever.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:27.832)
.

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:37.335)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (30:43.512)
Yeah, that's good. So, okay, last thing. Talk to the youth pastor who's struggling, floundering, drowning. Find a word of encouragement about the importance of leaders and maybe just a basic for them next step. Hey, if you're gonna do anything, first thing to do is just do this. Don't feel overwhelmed by all of this. Maybe you don't have the...

Capacity to get a fire ant guy yet. Okay, that's fine But speak speak to that speak to the guy who's just like man. don't leaders are killing like it's just the hardest, you know part of my job, whatever like Encourage them for a second

Darren Sutton (31:22.712)
Yeah. Well, let me just say first, it's not your job. That's not your job. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. And he's very clear in scripture that we all have a part to play.

and that our job as pastors is to equip the saints for the work of service. Our job is not to make sure we have plenty of volunteers, not to make sure every hole gets filled. Our job is just to equip the people that the Holy Spirit brings. We can be more proactive in bringing them, but the Holy Spirit is the one who quickens their heart to be involved. So that's not your job. Your job isn't to convince them. Your job is to shepherd them and to give them an opportunity to step into what God is calling them to do.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (31:39.352)
Mm-hmm.

Darren Sutton (32:04.718)
Don't take the whole burden on yourself. And I mean that in two ways. It's the Holy Spirit's job and also you have some people, you definitely have some people who care about student ministry who will help recruit for you. You utilize that, whether that's other staff members, folks that are currently on your volunteer team, a parent who just happens to take a particular interest in what's going on in student ministry.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:20.792)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:31.224)
Teenagers.

Darren Sutton (32:32.364)
Yeah, for sure. 100 % ask a kid who they think would make a great youth leader. They'll have a list guaranteed. So.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:34.519)
you

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (32:38.742)
Yeah, yeah. I had a teenager one time go and list the head usher on his own. Yeah, I was like, well, I'll talk to him too. But it was great.

Darren Sutton (32:44.891)
Poach them from other ministries? I love it.

That's fantastic. But just don't feel the burden that it's all on you and don't feel the burden that it all has to happen right now. For me, it was a slow, kind of a slow burn into that whole idea that volunteers could be more and I needed to ask them to do more and be more. That took time. And it's not a foolproof, like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:16.502)
Yeah.

Darren Sutton (33:21.322)
I mean, we serving in church right now and across from this podcast, there's a big sheet on my door that lists every volunteer hole we have right now. And we have a lot. There's probably 20 people on there that we need to fill. So, you know, you're always going to have the need. You can't let the holes be what drives you. You've got to let the people who are in the room, you know, a little bit.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:31.384)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darren Sutton (33:47.384)
be what drives you. So, and it's totally doable because Jesus wants those kids even more than you do. And he's gonna raise up the people that are needed to help get them where he needs them to be.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (33:48.984)
That's good.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:01.304)
Nice, that's good. All right, anything else? Did we get it all?

Darren Sutton (34:05.312)
Yeah, think we, I mean, I'm sure we didn't get it all, but we got, you got all I got.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:08.28)
Well, that's a lot it's helpful so where do people find you Darren?

Darren Sutton (34:18.03)
listen, I'm everywhere. I'm, I'm almost like the Holy Spirit everywhere you are. am, I'm on all, I'm on all social stuff. if you're, yes. Well, actually I can't, you can't say that anymore. I deleted my account after it banned.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:22.039)
Woo!

That's scary.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:29.738)
including band TikTok. If you'd like to send...

It's back, it's back now.

Darren Sutton (34:38.464)
I know I'm trying to decide like, listen, I had so this whole podcast, I had so much time open up in my life that I'm like, maybe I don't want to, I'm not sure if I want to, if I want to take it back. But yeah, I mean, you know, Insta and Facebook and Twitter and you know, all that, I have a blog. everyone's called the youth ministry.com and, I'm not, you know, I have, I'm just like you. I'm an in the trenches youth pastor. So if you're looking for a regular, like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:42.712)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (34:56.856)
Nice. We'll link it down below.

Darren Sutton (35:08.184)
podcast and a blog post. I don't do that. But I've been in this thing for a few minutes and I'm not planning on going anywhere. And so I love talking to you pastors. And if you ever need a guy who has made as many mistakes as you feel like you're making, you can reach out. Cause I got a whole list. Lots of stories. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (35:24.856)
You

There you go. That's big right there. All right. Well, hey, for Darren, this is Nick signing off. See you guys.

Darren Sutton (35:33.944)
Bye guys.

]]> Episode 142: How I Got Started doing Youth Group Social Media from scratch with Andrew Ostrander https://www.hybridministry.xyz/142 2d14e0f2-e3de-4786-9659-03fa1c5f9531 Thu, 27 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0500 Nick Clason 142 How I Got Started doing Youth Group Social Media from scratch with Andrew Ostrander full Nick Clason In this episode, I interview Andrew Ostrander, who shares his journey from education to youth ministry, discussing the challenges and surprises he faced during the transition. He walks you through the importance of engaging social media content to connect with students, detailing his approach to creating interview-style videos that resonate with youth culture. Andrew also highlights the benefits of delegating tasks, the significance of personal connections in ministry, and his future plans for expanding social media efforts. The conversation concludes with encouragement for new youth pastors to embrace social media as a tool for building community and fostering relationships. 22:18 no In this episode, I interview Andrew Ostrander, who shares his journey from education to youth ministry, discussing the challenges and surprises he faced during the transition. He walks you through the importance of engaging social media content to connect with students, detailing his approach to creating interview-style videos that resonate with youth culture. Andrew also highlights the benefits of delegating tasks, the significance of personal connections in ministry, and his future plans for expanding social media efforts. The conversation concludes with encouragement for new youth pastors to embrace social media as a tool for building community and fostering relationships. 📊 HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book ✅ CHURCH COMMUNICATIONS DONE FOR YOU https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/142 //COHORT LINK [IT’S FREE!] https://www.ymlcohort.com/ //COHORT EPISODE https://youtu.be/ucvXfaVRJ6E?si=uh66yl3hNsu2TsGO //E-BOOK https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book //ANDREW’S YOUTH ACCOUNTS https://www.youtube.com/@WakarusaStudentMinistries https://www.instagram.com/wakymc_stumin/ 👉 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.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 -------------- 🕰️TIMECODES 00:00 How I Run My Youth Group Social Media 02:16 How did you end up here? 04:42 Tell us your social media journey 06:39 What Type of Content do you Make? 10:31 What Equipment do you use? 12:36 In-Person Benefits Have you Seen? 14:55 Do you have Future Plans? 17:20 What Would you Tell a Hesitant Youth Pastor? -------------- TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.856) Well hey what is up everybody I am here with none other than Andrew Ostrander did I say that right? Yes! It doesn't feel like it's that difficult but it feels like it might trip some people up you know what saying? Andrew Ostrander (00:47.413) You nailed it. Thanks. I've gotten Ostrander more than I've ever gotten Ostrander. So you're in the right. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:57.918) Really? Yes, okay, nice, good. My gut, my intuition was right. So you and I, met through a youth ministry leader cohort and we were in that together on calls together and stuff like that. But I started just kind of noticing and paying attention to you and your social media, because that's really the only way to like... pay attention to some thing from someone who lives over a thousand miles away. And so, but I started noticing, I was like, I like what this guy's doing. And so that's why you're here. Talk to me, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about your social media, but before we do, why don't you let like the people know like, who are you, where are you at, how long you've been in youth ministry, all that, you good stuff. Andrew Ostrander (01:29.518) the Andrew Ostrander (01:46.712) Yep, so you've already touched on it. I'm Andrew Ostrander and I'm currently the director of student ministries at Waukerusa Missionary Church in a super small town, Waukerusa, Indiana. This is month seven or eight of my role in youth ministry. I had volunteered for multiple years beforehand, but I actually came from the education world. So I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher for three years before this position opened up and Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:53.396) Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:05.055) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (02:13.206) was very clearly that God was shoving me through this doorway in youth ministry. And so that's how I ended up where I am. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:17.426) Nice. Yeah, so you didn't even go to like school for youth ministry or whatever. And so here you find yourself now kind of like thrust into it. Before we hop into like the particular social media stuff, tell me what's been like the biggest shift or the biggest surprise or the biggest just difference that you've noticed between your two kind of careers if you put them side by side. Andrew Ostrander (02:42.85) Yeah, I think there's a glaring amount of similarities that people wouldn't expect between education and ministry, but those are definitely there. I think the biggest difference or thing that we weren't fully prepared for, I was to the point where after God had clearly guided me here and I knew this is where I needed to be, I was ready to switch jobs. But then the act of switching churches is what really hit us hardest. I had grown up and attended one church for much of my, all of my upbringing. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:59.637) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:02.912) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:10.098) Yeah. Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (03:12.396) And then most of my adult life after college. And so that was just such a huge change of pace and where you're so used to being on Sundays, you're no longer there on Sundays. So I think that was the biggest. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:20.256) Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. One thing about it too, like, I mean, I've always said this, but like when you move and you're in ministry, like you don't just like move jobs, but like you move everything, like everything up roots, including your community and your, you know, your church, your, family, like your church family, all that type of stuff. So yeah, that's, that is so true and probably super relatable to, you know, most youth pastors. okay. But then go ahead. Andrew Ostrander (03:47.79) I know you've experienced that even way more than I have, so you can relate. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:53.2) Yeah, yeah, definitely can. But if you're not used to it or know it, right, you're like, whoa, it is a little culture shocky or whatever, for sure. So, okay, then tell me then what sort of spurred you, led you towards what you're doing with your student ministry social media? Maybe first of all, what shone a light to you that was like, I should do more than just post announcement graphics on my social media feed. Andrew Ostrander (04:21.868) Yeah, so I was never a super avid social media user. Twitter and sports Twitter was where I was at in college and after. But I had just always seen the church. Like you said, it's like a hey, Wednesday nights coming up tomorrow, that type of thing, or ice skating this Friday. Join us for week three of this series. even even I was like, wow, that's not not that that's dumb, but I was uninspired. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:30.665) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:37.844) Don't forget, yes, yeah. Yeah, no one cares about your series, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:47.944) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (04:50.986) And so when I started here, I was interested in social media. But then as you touched on the way that we met through that cohort, you had given a specific lesson and not to stroke your ego or build you up. But it's a lot of credit towards you and just how you guided that. It's really stuck with me when you said, we know that the students are there and it doesn't matter how we feel about it or if we like it. Why are we not meeting them where they're at? Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:51.026) Right. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:59.029) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:03.904) Hahaha Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:13.215) Yeah. Hmm. Hmm, yeah. Andrew Ostrander (05:18.722) And so that was just a huge challenge to me of making engaging social media of some sort and really just trying to get students to buy in. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:23.946) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and you know, like the cohort was an interactive deal and you know, the kind of like lesson or whatever that I led on all that was made for exactly that. But I'll link down below an episode that's like really similar to like that conversation that we walked through on that. So if any of you are like, what was that? Like you can check that out down below. But so now you, that was your inspiration sort of. And everyone does things a little different, know, and I my like ebook and stuff like that I give tips and whatever like what exactly Did you like or what have you sort of like stumbled into like doing that's like been working really well For like you and like your particular like church student ministry social media Andrew Ostrander (06:13.944) Yeah, so when talking about the sports social media background that I've interacted with, I never ran anything as myself, but I've just interacted with that a ton. And so one of the podcasts I had previously listened to talked about the difference of short form and long form video. And so I had really, and you had touched on it as well, the importance and prevalence of short form video. So that's really where we started to focus in and without having any... Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:18.302) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:23.402) Sure. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:30.665) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:37.568) Mm-hmm. Andrew Ostrander (06:42.964) studio or recording equipment. Yeah. We really appreciate and love the space that we have. It's not set up for having a quiet, conducive recording area for anything longer or even anything specifically for social media. And so we really went on the interview style, man on the street style videos. And so when I transferred over here, one of my former students also came along with me as a now volunteer. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:43.976) Right. Space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:52.864) Right, right. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:58.73) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:03.017) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:09.733) cool. That's awesome. Andrew Ostrander (07:12.118) And so I knew that I wouldn't have the capacity on Wednesday nights to record and do all of these. And so I proposed to him of a weekly routine of when students are welcome into the doors, but we haven't started programming, that I give him a question of the week and he goes around and asks random, funny, sometimes not as funny questions just to hear what students say. And the results are pretty amusing. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:18.154) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:25.321) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:32.766) Sure. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:36.287) Oh, bro, there's so much good in that, right? So like a couple of principles I heard. Number one, like, cause this is one of the common pushbacks I feel like I hear is like, I don't have time and you acknowledge that, right? You, you knew your limits already, but you were like, that's okay. I'm going to hand this off to somebody else. So like in and of itself right there, genius, like get it off your plate. You're promoting it, facilitating an opportunity for it to happen. However, so like that's leadership, but you're getting out of the way and delegating and letting somebody else kind of like own it, which is just fantastic. And then the second is like you said, like you didn't let the constraints of what you felt like your space offered or maybe didn't offer like stop you. And that's again, another like thing that I think is so good because we oftentimes like, I don't have, you know, the best equipment or the, you know, bougie is set up or whatever and it's like, who cares? We all carry around a camera in our pockets and the ability to use that to make content that ends up where students are, like you said, so, good. So tell us a little bit of what are some of your favorite questions or what have been some of the things that have maybe taken root culturally within your student ministry that people are like, that video was hilarious because X, Y, and Z. What are some of the... The funniest ones you've had are the ones that have gotten the most talk about afterwards or just even been like, yeah, the most amusing. Andrew Ostrander (09:07.736) Yeah, the first one that we actually did, so I had wanted to do it after you talked about social media and I was just figuring out what I wanted to do. And then my wife and I were out to dinner with two of our volunteers, our sponsors, and we got into controversies or like conspiracy theories that this individual was bigly bought into. And so that actually stemmed our first question of, you believe in aliens? And so I think that question has provided the most like, Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.896) Yeah. Okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:20.156) Okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:25.728) You Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:33.248) that's so funny. Andrew Ostrander (09:38.2) people would pause and then they automatically had the answer that they believed in, but could not explain why or why not that they believed the way that they did. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:40.224) Right, so funny. Yeah. yeah, that's funny. So then how, like, what are you doing for that? Like, tell me what exactly, you know, your volunteer is doing. Is he using his camera? Is he using any gear? you know, get kind of nerdy on us. Like, what actual stuff are you doing to capture it, record it, and then maybe even like edit it? Andrew Ostrander (10:08.12) Yeah, so it's about to be like the lamest set of nerdy equipment that we use. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:12.468) That's okay. Here's the thing, before you answer, this is what the boat, almost everyone is in. And that's why I love it, is because you're not letting whatever constraints you have stop you, you're just going for it. And yeah, it might just be a cell phone camera or whatever, but that's okay. Just do it. So yeah, let us have it. Andrew Ostrander (10:33.015) so the compilation of questions that we've come up with is stored on my phone notes app. And then we, sat down and decide what question we're going to ask that night. And then it is just a cell phone camera. And so I had gone online and was looking out for mic options quickly realizing that most of them were super expensive. So we have, I think it was like a $10 pair of the, lav mics and it's so cheap and old that Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:38.857) Yep. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:45.077) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:50.174) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (10:59.616) My phone is the only one that we can use because it has the lightning connector. And so he takes my phone and those $10, $20 lav mics. And that is how it gets recorded. We just figured out how to change video settings to try to increase the video quality a little bit, but that took a couple of months before we got to. then editing is something that I set aside time for every week. So I've been using Final Cut Pro on my Mac and that's, go through and edit and. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:02.464) nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:07.456) A $10 microphone, Okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:17.16) There you go. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:23.88) Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And so then are you doing, are you just sending him around all throughout the program? Like is he doing it ahead of time, after, both? Like what's sort of like his schedule as far as like the interview person? Andrew Ostrander (11:29.464) change scenes how I want to. Andrew Ostrander (11:42.318) Yep. So we have like a team volunteer huddle every Wednesday night. So we're there until 6.15, 6.20. And then by that time, a lot of the students are here after our doors open. So he goes out from 6.20 until we start programming at 6.35, 6.40. So he only really does it for 15 or 20 minutes. So some weeks it's pretty limited if it's a longer question. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:46.196) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:51.124) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:01.76) Okay. Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (12:08.11) but it just has that time where students are roaming and choosing what to do before programming starts to get those interviews in. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:08.117) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:13.192) Yeah, so okay, so now my question is, do you have students who seek him out now every week wanting to answer so that they can be on social? Andrew Ostrander (12:22.993) Yes, I have certain students that I see their video every single week after he records. I'm pushing like, hey, let's try to get some others. But there's clearly students that are super excited. And I see the students that run away from him as soon as they see the mic out. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:32.435) Yeah, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:36.648) Sure, yeah, Yeah, that's been my experience too, right? Like we do a social challenge every single week and we try to like batch record as much as we can, kind of like you. And almost every week as I like look at the footage after I'm like that kid's always in there, you know? And that's fine, right? Like that's fine for them to want to do it because it's whatever, it's how they connect and how they want to connect. Have you noticed any like... in-person benefits to what you're doing on social? Like anything that has camaraderie, even just creating conversation because of a certain video or topic or whatever, or the, I don't know, even like the feel and the vibe because you're filming something to go online. Has there been any in-person benefits that you've noticed? Andrew Ostrander (13:23.16) Yeah, I think absolutely. think the specific content or question that gets talked about for that day and then after programming a little bit, but then that conversation dies down. And there are a lot of different factors that I think have played into this, but since adding it and rolling it out and how our ministry has adjusted the pre-service time a little bit, students are really excited to be there and excited to interact whether or not it's with a camera in front of them. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:27.156) Mm-hmm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:31.602) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:45.758) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:52.794) Interesting. Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (13:52.812) And so there's just been that shift of that vibe of being willing to be open or just hanging out together. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:59.88) That's cool. like that's a really that not even when I started on this whole journey and podcast, whatever, that's not even a thing that was even like on my radar, you know, but I've noticed that too in our in our context. And it's it's really cool to hear that for sure. What would you say like is anything that you're maybe like thinking about for the future? Like this is kind of your current rhythm and iteration. Are you like content with it and you just want to keep doing this or what if you had the capacity would be something that's maybe on the horizon that you've been thinking about or maybe wanting to do. Andrew Ostrander (14:38.254) So there are multiple different things that where I'm wanting to take it. And so I've created a weekly posting schedule that I want to figure out either for the end of the school year or just really gear up to do it next school year. We're redesigning a little bit of our space to better meet our needs. And part of that, I'm really trying to push or find a spot to create a more studio like area so that we could do longer form or like five, 10 minute videos. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:43.199) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:51.518) Okay. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:54.952) Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:02.814) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:07.401) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (15:07.724) while the interviews are happening elsewhere. And so there are lots of different places that I'm wanting to take in it, just seeing whether or not any of them are possible. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:10.089) Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:15.888) Yeah, cool. So cool. What do you mind? Like, are you able off top your head or pull it up? Like, what is your proposed posting schedule that you want to aim for, you know, start the next school year? Andrew Ostrander (15:29.1) Yeah. So it would just be the weekdays because I know like content limits and I try to set time aside to network. Monday, we want to be doing a message Monday. And so that's just a one, two minute Devo, primarily probably just adults. And then I have a student intern. And so just whatever word is laid on our hearts or minds for that day for Monday, Tuesday would be one of our interview style videos. So that's the ones that we're currently posting most frequently. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:33.353) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:41.362) Okay. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:47.689) Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:51.796) great. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:58.463) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (15:58.994) the Wednesday one would be dependent on having a space to record it, but I want to do like a Wednesday word from a student. there again, pretty similar to Monday minute or two, Devo reading scripture style video Thursday, my intern and I have been recording, what we think are funny videos when we have internships together. And so Thursday would be that type of video right now. We're asking chat GPT to create a video for us and we just. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:05.522) Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:09.289) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:19.072) You Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:23.85) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (16:28.106) acted out. So those will be Thursday and then Friday. My idea would be for the slightly longer form video like drafts or tier list type things if we have the capability of doing that. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:28.927) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:37.842) Nice. Nice, cool. Okay, so like last little thing here. What would you say to anybody who was like you, you know, you're not even a year yet into like student ministry and all the demands and all the things that like come with the job are there and you know, have to. manage it, schedules, manage relationships and personalities, and they just feel overwhelmed by even the thought of social. What would just be your encouragement to other youth pastors out there who are maybe on the fence or not sure if doubling down on creating social content is for them? Andrew Ostrander (17:18.626) Yeah, so I think a couple of things come to mind. The first one you kind of touched on, it's a mix of starting small and passing it off. So my church leadership, my bosses are huge on a leader doesn't have to do everything. Like we're to the point where it's better if you're training up other people to do it than doing it yourself. So start small or find someone to do it for you on your big programming nights. But then also find whatever part of social media sounds fun to you. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:25.382) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:33.119) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:37.812) Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (17:48.288) start with that. Like I've loved editing so far up to this point because I'm amused by it. And so find whatever part of the process you enjoy and really just start and focus there learning how to do that so that it's more fun for you. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:49.151) Hmm. Nice. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:59.794) Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Okay, is there anything else about what you do social media-wise that I haven't really asked you, but you're like, this is important, I wanna make sure I share that too. Andrew Ostrander (18:14.382) I think we've touched a lot on it. It's been fun. The personal connections that I form through it. So my volunteer that does the Wednesday night, we get to talk and reflect and discuss it a lot. And then my relationship with my intern has taken a huge upswing because of we're just hanging out together and making stupid, fun youth videos together. so like you asked about the in-person effects, even just on Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:25.78) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:29.386) Sure. Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:39.007) Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:42.654) Yeah. Andrew Ostrander (18:43.754) on my personal and my perspective. It's had a huge impact on relationships that I get to form because of these seemingly what a lot of people would view as pointless or menial impact videos. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:46.942) Hmm. Yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:53.64) Yeah. No, that's really, that's actually really like profound. And I really appreciate you saying that because I do think it's more than just, you know. satisfying social media algorithms or feeding the beast or you know, that's what I call it. Like you gotta keep feeding the beast. But I like that you're saying like, there's been some, you know, relational equity that kind of comes out of that. And that really is the ultimate goal. Like if you look at the inception of social, like it's social, right? In nature, like that's where it came from. And so if it's not at least, you know, playing a part in that within like the context of your local community, like you might be missing out on it, but it's, The fact that you're doing it is creating a good vibe and good energy. that's, I think, one of my main goals always in social is not like to go viral on our church account and have a bunch of views and all that stuff. Like really it's to serve our community like best, you know? And then if it goes viral or if it gets a lot of views or whatever, like that's great, but that's like a secondary. thing that I'm looking for. Primarily it's just like I want to serve the students that God has entrusted to me here and disciple them as best I can through the means and avenues of social. So it's great. Okay, so last thing, people want to know if they want to see what you're doing, they want to see some of the stuff you're doing, where do they go? What can they go follow and go check out online or whatever? Andrew Ostrander (20:23.042) Yeah, so right now I'm posting on two separate places, the YouTube channel, Walker's Student Ministries, and then the Instagram, which is either Walker's Student Ministries or Waukee with a Y Student Ministries. I would have to go shuffle check. I'm not sure that was created. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:35.936) We'll link them both down below. We'll get it locked in. So if you're like, I don't know how to WakaRusa, the type text down below will be spelled hopefully correctly and it'll take you where you need to go. Nice. Andrew, anything else before we cut you loose? Andrew Ostrander (20:47.438) You Andrew Ostrander (20:53.646) I think just obviously with the people that you have or the following you have, it's either of interest to them or could be something that they're already doing. I think it is really just super important to try one. The first video I made lasted me for three weeks because you just had enough to work with from it. And so it feels like huge undertaking. It's not as bad as what I initially went into it expecting. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:01.152) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:05.6) Mm. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:11.838) Yeah, yeah. Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:16.748) Yeah, no, that's a really good point. It's a new skill for a lot of people. So it is gonna feel a little bit overwhelming. But like you said, once you kind of get into it, you might learn something like, like editing, like you said, and you'll find a new skill or at least something else that you enjoy. So it's awesome. All right, guys, well, for Andrew, this is Nick. We're signing off and talk to you next time. See ya. youth ministry, social media, student engagement, content creation, church community, youth pastor, interview style videos, digital ministry, youth culture, leadership In this episode, I interview Andrew Ostrander, who shares his journey from education to youth ministry, discussing the challenges and surprises he faced during the transition. He walks you through the importance of engaging social media content to connect with students, detailing his approach to creating interview-style videos that resonate with youth culture. Andrew also highlights the benefits of delegating tasks, the significance of personal connections in ministry, and his future plans for expanding social media efforts. The conversation concludes with encouragement for new youth pastors to embrace social media as a tool for building community and fostering relationships.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How I Run My Youth Group Social Media
02:16 How did you end up here?
04:42 Tell us your social media journey
06:39 What Type of Content do you Make?
10:31 What Equipment do you use?
12:36 In-Person Benefits Have you Seen?
14:55 Do you have Future Plans?
17:20 What Would you Tell a Hesitant Youth Pastor?

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.856)
Well hey what is up everybody I am here with none other than Andrew Ostrander did I say that right? Yes! It doesn't feel like it's that difficult but it feels like it might trip some people up you know what saying?

Andrew Ostrander (00:47.413)
You nailed it.

Thanks.

I've gotten Ostrander more than I've ever gotten Ostrander. So you're in the right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:57.918)
Really? Yes, okay, nice, good. My gut, my intuition was right. So you and I, met through a youth ministry leader cohort and we were in that together on calls together and stuff like that. But I started just kind of noticing and paying attention to you and your social media, because that's really the only way to like...

pay attention to some thing from someone who lives over a thousand miles away. And so, but I started noticing, I was like, I like what this guy's doing. And so that's why you're here. Talk to me, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about your social media, but before we do, why don't you let like the people know like, who are you, where are you at, how long you've been in youth ministry, all that, you good stuff.

Andrew Ostrander (01:29.518)
the

Andrew Ostrander (01:46.712)
Yep, so you've already touched on it. I'm Andrew Ostrander and I'm currently the director of student ministries at Waukerusa Missionary Church in a super small town, Waukerusa, Indiana. This is month seven or eight of my role in youth ministry. I had volunteered for multiple years beforehand, but I actually came from the education world. So I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher for three years before this position opened up and

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:53.396)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:05.055)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (02:13.206)
was very clearly that God was shoving me through this doorway in youth ministry. And so that's how I ended up where I am.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:17.426)
Nice. Yeah, so you didn't even go to like school for youth ministry or whatever. And so here you find yourself now kind of like thrust into it. Before we hop into like the particular social media stuff, tell me what's been like the biggest shift or the biggest surprise or the biggest just difference that you've noticed between your two kind of careers if you put them side by side.

Andrew Ostrander (02:42.85)
Yeah, I think there's a glaring amount of similarities that people wouldn't expect between education and ministry, but those are definitely there. I think the biggest difference or thing that we weren't fully prepared for, I was to the point where after God had clearly guided me here and I knew this is where I needed to be, I was ready to switch jobs. But then the act of switching churches is what really hit us hardest. I had grown up and attended one church for much of my, all of my upbringing.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:59.637)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:02.912)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:10.098)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (03:12.396)
And then most of my adult life after college. And so that was just such a huge change of pace and where you're so used to being on Sundays, you're no longer there on Sundays. So I think that was the biggest.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:20.256)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing about it too, like, I mean, I've always said this, but like when you move and you're in ministry, like you don't just like move jobs, but like you move everything, like everything up roots, including your community and your, you know, your church, your, family, like your church family, all that type of stuff. So yeah, that's, that is so true and probably super relatable to, you know, most youth pastors. okay. But then go ahead.

Andrew Ostrander (03:47.79)
I know you've experienced that even way more than I have, so you can relate.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:53.2)
Yeah, yeah, definitely can. But if you're not used to it or know it, right, you're like, whoa, it is a little culture shocky or whatever, for sure. So, okay, then tell me then what sort of spurred you, led you towards what you're doing with your student ministry social media? Maybe first of all, what shone a light to you that was like, I should do more than just post announcement graphics on my social media feed.

Andrew Ostrander (04:21.868)
Yeah, so I was never a super avid social media user. Twitter and sports Twitter was where I was at in college and after. But I had just always seen the church. Like you said, it's like a hey, Wednesday nights coming up tomorrow, that type of thing, or ice skating this Friday. Join us for week three of this series. even even I was like, wow, that's not not that that's dumb, but I was uninspired.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:30.665)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:37.844)
Don't forget, yes, yeah. Yeah, no one cares about your series, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:47.944)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (04:50.986)
And so when I started here, I was interested in social media. But then as you touched on the way that we met through that cohort, you had given a specific lesson and not to stroke your ego or build you up. But it's a lot of credit towards you and just how you guided that. It's really stuck with me when you said, we know that the students are there and it doesn't matter how we feel about it or if we like it. Why are we not meeting them where they're at?

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:51.026)
Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:59.029)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:03.904)
Hahaha

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:13.215)
Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm, yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (05:18.722)
And so that was just a huge challenge to me of making engaging social media of some sort and really just trying to get students to buy in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:23.946)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, like the cohort was an interactive deal and you know, the kind of like lesson or whatever that I led on all that was made for exactly that. But I'll link down below an episode that's like really similar to like that conversation that we walked through on that. So if any of you are like, what was that? Like you can check that out down below. But so now you, that was your inspiration sort of.

And everyone does things a little different, know, and I my like ebook and stuff like that I give tips and whatever like what exactly Did you like or what have you sort of like stumbled into like doing that's like been working really well For like you and like your particular like church student ministry social media

Andrew Ostrander (06:13.944)
Yeah, so when talking about the sports social media background that I've interacted with, I never ran anything as myself, but I've just interacted with that a ton. And so one of the podcasts I had previously listened to talked about the difference of short form and long form video. And so I had really, and you had touched on it as well, the importance and prevalence of short form video. So that's really where we started to focus in and without having any...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:18.302)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:23.402)
Sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:30.665)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:37.568)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ostrander (06:42.964)
studio or recording equipment. Yeah. We really appreciate and love the space that we have. It's not set up for having a quiet, conducive recording area for anything longer or even anything specifically for social media. And so we really went on the interview style, man on the street style videos. And so when I transferred over here, one of my former students also came along with me as a now volunteer.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:43.976)
Right. Space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:52.864)
Right, right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:58.73)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:03.017)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:09.733)
cool. That's awesome.

Andrew Ostrander (07:12.118)
And so I knew that I wouldn't have the capacity on Wednesday nights to record and do all of these. And so I proposed to him of a weekly routine of when students are welcome into the doors, but we haven't started programming, that I give him a question of the week and he goes around and asks random, funny, sometimes not as funny questions just to hear what students say. And the results are pretty amusing.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:18.154)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:25.321)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:32.766)
Sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:36.287)
Oh, bro, there's so much good in that, right? So like a couple of principles I heard. Number one, like, cause this is one of the common pushbacks I feel like I hear is like, I don't have time and you acknowledge that, right? You, you knew your limits already, but you were like, that's okay. I'm going to hand this off to somebody else. So like in and of itself right there, genius, like get it off your plate. You're

promoting it, facilitating an opportunity for it to happen. However, so like that's leadership, but you're getting out of the way and delegating and letting somebody else kind of like own it, which is just fantastic. And then the second is like you said, like you didn't let the constraints of what you felt like your space offered or maybe didn't offer like stop you. And that's again, another like thing that I think is so good because we oftentimes like, I don't have, you know, the best equipment or the, you know,

bougie is set up or whatever and it's like, who cares? We all carry around a camera in our pockets and the ability to use that to make content that ends up where students are, like you said, so, good. So tell us a little bit of what are some of your favorite questions or what have been some of the things that have maybe taken root culturally within your student ministry that people are like, that video was hilarious because X, Y, and Z. What are some of the...

The funniest ones you've had are the ones that have gotten the most talk about afterwards or just even been like, yeah, the most amusing.

Andrew Ostrander (09:07.736)
Yeah, the first one that we actually did, so I had wanted to do it after you talked about social media and I was just figuring out what I wanted to do. And then my wife and I were out to dinner with two of our volunteers, our sponsors, and we got into controversies or like conspiracy theories that this individual was bigly bought into. And so that actually stemmed our first question of, you believe in aliens? And so I think that question has provided the most like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.896)
Yeah. Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:20.156)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:25.728)
You

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:33.248)
that's so funny.

Andrew Ostrander (09:38.2)
people would pause and then they automatically had the answer that they believed in, but could not explain why or why not that they believed the way that they did.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:40.224)
Right, so funny. Yeah. yeah, that's funny. So then how, like, what are you doing for that? Like, tell me what exactly, you know, your volunteer is doing. Is he using his camera? Is he using any gear? you know, get kind of nerdy on us. Like, what actual stuff are you doing to capture it, record it, and then maybe even like edit it?

Andrew Ostrander (10:08.12)
Yeah, so it's about to be like the lamest set of nerdy equipment that we use.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:12.468)
That's okay. Here's the thing, before you answer, this is what the boat, almost everyone is in. And that's why I love it, is because you're not letting whatever constraints you have stop you, you're just going for it. And yeah, it might just be a cell phone camera or whatever, but that's okay. Just do it. So yeah, let us have it.

Andrew Ostrander (10:33.015)
so the compilation of questions that we've come up with is stored on my phone notes app. And then we, sat down and decide what question we're going to ask that night. And then it is just a cell phone camera. And so I had gone online and was looking out for mic options quickly realizing that most of them were super expensive. So we have, I think it was like a $10 pair of the, lav mics and it's so cheap and old that

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:38.857)
Yep.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:45.077)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:50.174)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (10:59.616)
My phone is the only one that we can use because it has the lightning connector. And so he takes my phone and those $10, $20 lav mics. And that is how it gets recorded. We just figured out how to change video settings to try to increase the video quality a little bit, but that took a couple of months before we got to. then editing is something that I set aside time for every week. So I've been using Final Cut Pro on my Mac and that's, go through and edit and.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:02.464)
nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:07.456)
A $10 microphone,

Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:17.16)
There you go.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:23.88)
Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. And so then are you doing, are you just sending him around all throughout the program? Like is he doing it ahead of time, after, both? Like what's sort of like his schedule as far as like the interview person?

Andrew Ostrander (11:29.464)
change scenes how I want to.

Andrew Ostrander (11:42.318)
Yep. So we have like a team volunteer huddle every Wednesday night. So we're there until 6.15, 6.20. And then by that time, a lot of the students are here after our doors open. So he goes out from 6.20 until we start programming at 6.35, 6.40. So he only really does it for 15 or 20 minutes. So some weeks it's pretty limited if it's a longer question.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:46.196)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:51.124)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:01.76)
Okay.

Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (12:08.11)
but it just has that time where students are roaming and choosing what to do before programming starts to get those interviews in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:08.117)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:13.192)
Yeah, so okay, so now my question is, do you have students who seek him out now every week wanting to answer so that they can be on social?

Andrew Ostrander (12:22.993)
Yes, I have certain students that I see their video every single week after he records. I'm pushing like, hey, let's try to get some others. But there's clearly students that are super excited. And I see the students that run away from him as soon as they see the mic out.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:32.435)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:36.648)
Sure, yeah, Yeah, that's been my experience too, right? Like we do a social challenge every single week and we try to like batch record as much as we can, kind of like you. And almost every week as I like look at the footage after I'm like that kid's always in there, you know? And that's fine, right? Like that's fine for them to want to do it because it's whatever, it's how they connect and how they want to connect. Have you noticed any like...

in-person benefits to what you're doing on social? Like anything that has camaraderie, even just creating conversation because of a certain video or topic or whatever, or the, I don't know, even like the feel and the vibe because you're filming something to go online. Has there been any in-person benefits that you've noticed?

Andrew Ostrander (13:23.16)
Yeah, I think absolutely. think the specific content or question that gets talked about for that day and then after programming a little bit, but then that conversation dies down. And there are a lot of different factors that I think have played into this, but since adding it and rolling it out and how our ministry has adjusted the pre-service time a little bit, students are really excited to be there and excited to interact whether or not it's with a camera in front of them.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:27.156)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:31.602)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:45.758)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:52.794)
Interesting. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (13:52.812)
And so there's just been that shift of that vibe of being willing to be open or just hanging out together.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:59.88)
That's cool. like that's a really that not even when I started on this whole journey and podcast, whatever, that's not even a thing that was even like on my radar, you know, but I've noticed that too in our in our context. And it's it's really cool to hear that for sure. What would you say like is anything that you're maybe like thinking about for the future? Like this is kind of your current rhythm and iteration. Are you like

content with it and you just want to keep doing this or what if you had the capacity would be something that's maybe on the horizon that you've been thinking about or maybe wanting to do.

Andrew Ostrander (14:38.254)
So there are multiple different things that where I'm wanting to take it. And so I've created a weekly posting schedule that I want to figure out either for the end of the school year or just really gear up to do it next school year. We're redesigning a little bit of our space to better meet our needs. And part of that, I'm really trying to push or find a spot to create a more studio like area so that we could do longer form or like five, 10 minute videos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:43.199)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:51.518)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:54.952)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:02.814)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:07.401)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (15:07.724)
while the interviews are happening elsewhere. And so there are lots of different places that I'm wanting to take in it, just seeing whether or not any of them are possible.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:10.089)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:15.888)
Yeah, cool. So cool. What do you mind? Like, are you able off top your head or pull it up? Like, what is your proposed posting schedule that you want to aim for, you know, start the next school year?

Andrew Ostrander (15:29.1)
Yeah. So it would just be the weekdays because I know like content limits and I try to set time aside to network. Monday, we want to be doing a message Monday. And so that's just a one, two minute Devo, primarily probably just adults. And then I have a student intern. And so just whatever word is laid on our hearts or minds for that day for Monday, Tuesday would be one of our interview style videos. So that's the ones that we're currently posting most frequently.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:33.353)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's great.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:41.362)
Okay. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:47.689)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:51.796)
great.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:58.463)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (15:58.994)
the Wednesday one would be dependent on having a space to record it, but I want to do like a Wednesday word from a student. there again, pretty similar to Monday minute or two, Devo reading scripture style video Thursday, my intern and I have been recording, what we think are funny videos when we have internships together. And so Thursday would be that type of video right now. We're asking chat GPT to create a video for us and we just.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:05.522)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:09.289)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:19.072)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:23.85)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (16:28.106)
acted out. So those will be Thursday and then Friday. My idea would be for the slightly longer form video like drafts or tier list type things if we have the capability of doing that.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:28.927)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:37.842)
Nice. Nice, cool. Okay, so like last little thing here. What would you say to anybody who was like you, you know, you're not even a year yet into like student ministry and all the demands and all the things that like come with the job are there and you know, have to.

manage it, schedules, manage relationships and personalities, and they just feel overwhelmed by even the thought of social. What would just be your encouragement to other youth pastors out there who are maybe on the fence or not sure if doubling down on creating social content is for them?

Andrew Ostrander (17:18.626)
Yeah, so I think a couple of things come to mind. The first one you kind of touched on, it's a mix of starting small and passing it off. So my church leadership, my bosses are huge on a leader doesn't have to do everything. Like we're to the point where it's better if you're training up other people to do it than doing it yourself. So start small or find someone to do it for you on your big programming nights. But then also find whatever part of social media sounds fun to you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:25.382)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:33.119)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:37.812)
Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (17:48.288)
start with that. Like I've loved editing so far up to this point because I'm amused by it. And so find whatever part of the process you enjoy and really just start and focus there learning how to do that so that it's more fun for you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:49.151)
Hmm.

Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:59.794)
Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Okay, is there anything else about what you do social media-wise that I haven't really asked you, but you're like, this is important, I wanna make sure I share that too.

Andrew Ostrander (18:14.382)
I think we've touched a lot on it. It's been fun. The personal connections that I form through it. So my volunteer that does the Wednesday night, we get to talk and reflect and discuss it a lot. And then my relationship with my intern has taken a huge upswing because of we're just hanging out together and making stupid, fun youth videos together. so like you asked about the in-person effects, even just on

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:25.78)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:29.386)
Sure.

Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:39.007)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:42.654)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (18:43.754)
on my personal and my perspective. It's had a huge impact on relationships that I get to form because of these seemingly what a lot of people would view as pointless or menial impact videos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:46.942)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:53.64)
Yeah. No, that's really, that's actually really like profound. And I really appreciate you saying that because I do think it's more than just, you know.

satisfying social media algorithms or feeding the beast or you know, that's what I call it. Like you gotta keep feeding the beast. But I like that you're saying like, there's been some, you know, relational equity that kind of comes out of that. And that really is the ultimate goal. Like if you look at the inception of social, like it's social, right? In nature, like that's where it came from. And so if it's not at least, you know, playing a part in that within like the context of your local community, like you might be missing out on it, but it's,

The fact that you're doing it is creating a good vibe and good energy. that's, I think, one of my main goals always in social is not like to go viral on our church account and have a bunch of views and all that stuff. Like really it's to serve our community like best, you know? And then if it goes viral or if it gets a lot of views or whatever, like that's great, but that's like a secondary.

thing that I'm looking for. Primarily it's just like I want to serve the students that God has entrusted to me here and disciple them as best I can through the means and avenues of social. So it's great. Okay, so last thing, people want to know if they want to see what you're doing, they want to see some of the stuff you're doing, where do they go? What can they go follow and go check out online or whatever?

Andrew Ostrander (20:23.042)
Yeah, so right now I'm posting on two separate places, the YouTube channel, Walker's Student Ministries, and then the Instagram, which is either Walker's Student Ministries or Waukee with a Y Student Ministries. I would have to go shuffle check. I'm not sure that was created.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:35.936)
We'll link them both down below. We'll get it locked in. So if you're like, I don't know how to WakaRusa, the type text down below will be spelled hopefully correctly and it'll take you where you need to go. Nice. Andrew, anything else before we cut you loose?

Andrew Ostrander (20:47.438)
You

Andrew Ostrander (20:53.646)
I think just obviously with the people that you have or the following you have, it's either of interest to them or could be something that they're already doing. I think it is really just super important to try one. The first video I made lasted me for three weeks because you just had enough to work with from it. And so it feels like huge undertaking. It's not as bad as what I initially went into it expecting.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:01.152)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:05.6)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:11.838)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:16.748)
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. It's a new skill for a lot of people. So it is gonna feel a little bit overwhelming. But like you said, once you kind of get into it, you might learn something like, like editing, like you said, and you'll find a new skill or at least something else that you enjoy. So it's awesome. All right, guys, well, for Andrew, this is Nick. We're signing off and talk to you next time. See ya.

]]> In this episode, I interview Andrew Ostrander, who shares his journey from education to youth ministry, discussing the challenges and surprises he faced during the transition. He walks you through the importance of engaging social media content to connect with students, detailing his approach to creating interview-style videos that resonate with youth culture. Andrew also highlights the benefits of delegating tasks, the significance of personal connections in ministry, and his future plans for expanding social media efforts. The conversation concludes with encouragement for new youth pastors to embrace social media as a tool for building community and fostering relationships.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How I Run My Youth Group Social Media
02:16 How did you end up here?
04:42 Tell us your social media journey
06:39 What Type of Content do you Make?
10:31 What Equipment do you use?
12:36 In-Person Benefits Have you Seen?
14:55 Do you have Future Plans?
17:20 What Would you Tell a Hesitant Youth Pastor?

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:29.856)
Well hey what is up everybody I am here with none other than Andrew Ostrander did I say that right? Yes! It doesn't feel like it's that difficult but it feels like it might trip some people up you know what saying?

Andrew Ostrander (00:47.413)
You nailed it.

Thanks.

I've gotten Ostrander more than I've ever gotten Ostrander. So you're in the right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (00:57.918)
Really? Yes, okay, nice, good. My gut, my intuition was right. So you and I, met through a youth ministry leader cohort and we were in that together on calls together and stuff like that. But I started just kind of noticing and paying attention to you and your social media, because that's really the only way to like...

pay attention to some thing from someone who lives over a thousand miles away. And so, but I started noticing, I was like, I like what this guy's doing. And so that's why you're here. Talk to me, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about your social media, but before we do, why don't you let like the people know like, who are you, where are you at, how long you've been in youth ministry, all that, you good stuff.

Andrew Ostrander (01:29.518)
the

Andrew Ostrander (01:46.712)
Yep, so you've already touched on it. I'm Andrew Ostrander and I'm currently the director of student ministries at Waukerusa Missionary Church in a super small town, Waukerusa, Indiana. This is month seven or eight of my role in youth ministry. I had volunteered for multiple years beforehand, but I actually came from the education world. So I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher for three years before this position opened up and

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (01:53.396)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:05.055)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (02:13.206)
was very clearly that God was shoving me through this doorway in youth ministry. And so that's how I ended up where I am.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:17.426)
Nice. Yeah, so you didn't even go to like school for youth ministry or whatever. And so here you find yourself now kind of like thrust into it. Before we hop into like the particular social media stuff, tell me what's been like the biggest shift or the biggest surprise or the biggest just difference that you've noticed between your two kind of careers if you put them side by side.

Andrew Ostrander (02:42.85)
Yeah, I think there's a glaring amount of similarities that people wouldn't expect between education and ministry, but those are definitely there. I think the biggest difference or thing that we weren't fully prepared for, I was to the point where after God had clearly guided me here and I knew this is where I needed to be, I was ready to switch jobs. But then the act of switching churches is what really hit us hardest. I had grown up and attended one church for much of my, all of my upbringing.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (02:59.637)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:02.912)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:10.098)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (03:12.396)
And then most of my adult life after college. And so that was just such a huge change of pace and where you're so used to being on Sundays, you're no longer there on Sundays. So I think that was the biggest.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:20.256)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing about it too, like, I mean, I've always said this, but like when you move and you're in ministry, like you don't just like move jobs, but like you move everything, like everything up roots, including your community and your, you know, your church, your, family, like your church family, all that type of stuff. So yeah, that's, that is so true and probably super relatable to, you know, most youth pastors. okay. But then go ahead.

Andrew Ostrander (03:47.79)
I know you've experienced that even way more than I have, so you can relate.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (03:53.2)
Yeah, yeah, definitely can. But if you're not used to it or know it, right, you're like, whoa, it is a little culture shocky or whatever, for sure. So, okay, then tell me then what sort of spurred you, led you towards what you're doing with your student ministry social media? Maybe first of all, what shone a light to you that was like, I should do more than just post announcement graphics on my social media feed.

Andrew Ostrander (04:21.868)
Yeah, so I was never a super avid social media user. Twitter and sports Twitter was where I was at in college and after. But I had just always seen the church. Like you said, it's like a hey, Wednesday nights coming up tomorrow, that type of thing, or ice skating this Friday. Join us for week three of this series. even even I was like, wow, that's not not that that's dumb, but I was uninspired.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:30.665)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:37.844)
Don't forget, yes, yeah. Yeah, no one cares about your series, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:47.944)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (04:50.986)
And so when I started here, I was interested in social media. But then as you touched on the way that we met through that cohort, you had given a specific lesson and not to stroke your ego or build you up. But it's a lot of credit towards you and just how you guided that. It's really stuck with me when you said, we know that the students are there and it doesn't matter how we feel about it or if we like it. Why are we not meeting them where they're at?

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:51.026)
Right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (04:59.029)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:03.904)
Hahaha

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:13.215)
Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm, yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (05:18.722)
And so that was just a huge challenge to me of making engaging social media of some sort and really just trying to get students to buy in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (05:23.946)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, like the cohort was an interactive deal and you know, the kind of like lesson or whatever that I led on all that was made for exactly that. But I'll link down below an episode that's like really similar to like that conversation that we walked through on that. So if any of you are like, what was that? Like you can check that out down below. But so now you, that was your inspiration sort of.

And everyone does things a little different, know, and I my like ebook and stuff like that I give tips and whatever like what exactly Did you like or what have you sort of like stumbled into like doing that's like been working really well For like you and like your particular like church student ministry social media

Andrew Ostrander (06:13.944)
Yeah, so when talking about the sports social media background that I've interacted with, I never ran anything as myself, but I've just interacted with that a ton. And so one of the podcasts I had previously listened to talked about the difference of short form and long form video. And so I had really, and you had touched on it as well, the importance and prevalence of short form video. So that's really where we started to focus in and without having any...

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:18.302)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:23.402)
Sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:30.665)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:37.568)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ostrander (06:42.964)
studio or recording equipment. Yeah. We really appreciate and love the space that we have. It's not set up for having a quiet, conducive recording area for anything longer or even anything specifically for social media. And so we really went on the interview style, man on the street style videos. And so when I transferred over here, one of my former students also came along with me as a now volunteer.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:43.976)
Right. Space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:52.864)
Right, right.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (06:58.73)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:03.017)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:09.733)
cool. That's awesome.

Andrew Ostrander (07:12.118)
And so I knew that I wouldn't have the capacity on Wednesday nights to record and do all of these. And so I proposed to him of a weekly routine of when students are welcome into the doors, but we haven't started programming, that I give him a question of the week and he goes around and asks random, funny, sometimes not as funny questions just to hear what students say. And the results are pretty amusing.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:18.154)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:25.321)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:32.766)
Sure.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (07:36.287)
Oh, bro, there's so much good in that, right? So like a couple of principles I heard. Number one, like, cause this is one of the common pushbacks I feel like I hear is like, I don't have time and you acknowledge that, right? You, you knew your limits already, but you were like, that's okay. I'm going to hand this off to somebody else. So like in and of itself right there, genius, like get it off your plate. You're

promoting it, facilitating an opportunity for it to happen. However, so like that's leadership, but you're getting out of the way and delegating and letting somebody else kind of like own it, which is just fantastic. And then the second is like you said, like you didn't let the constraints of what you felt like your space offered or maybe didn't offer like stop you. And that's again, another like thing that I think is so good because we oftentimes like, I don't have, you know, the best equipment or the, you know,

bougie is set up or whatever and it's like, who cares? We all carry around a camera in our pockets and the ability to use that to make content that ends up where students are, like you said, so, good. So tell us a little bit of what are some of your favorite questions or what have been some of the things that have maybe taken root culturally within your student ministry that people are like, that video was hilarious because X, Y, and Z. What are some of the...

The funniest ones you've had are the ones that have gotten the most talk about afterwards or just even been like, yeah, the most amusing.

Andrew Ostrander (09:07.736)
Yeah, the first one that we actually did, so I had wanted to do it after you talked about social media and I was just figuring out what I wanted to do. And then my wife and I were out to dinner with two of our volunteers, our sponsors, and we got into controversies or like conspiracy theories that this individual was bigly bought into. And so that actually stemmed our first question of, you believe in aliens? And so I think that question has provided the most like,

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:13.896)
Yeah. Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:20.156)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:25.728)
You

Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:33.248)
that's so funny.

Andrew Ostrander (09:38.2)
people would pause and then they automatically had the answer that they believed in, but could not explain why or why not that they believed the way that they did.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (09:40.224)
Right, so funny. Yeah. yeah, that's funny. So then how, like, what are you doing for that? Like, tell me what exactly, you know, your volunteer is doing. Is he using his camera? Is he using any gear? you know, get kind of nerdy on us. Like, what actual stuff are you doing to capture it, record it, and then maybe even like edit it?

Andrew Ostrander (10:08.12)
Yeah, so it's about to be like the lamest set of nerdy equipment that we use.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:12.468)
That's okay. Here's the thing, before you answer, this is what the boat, almost everyone is in. And that's why I love it, is because you're not letting whatever constraints you have stop you, you're just going for it. And yeah, it might just be a cell phone camera or whatever, but that's okay. Just do it. So yeah, let us have it.

Andrew Ostrander (10:33.015)
so the compilation of questions that we've come up with is stored on my phone notes app. And then we, sat down and decide what question we're going to ask that night. And then it is just a cell phone camera. And so I had gone online and was looking out for mic options quickly realizing that most of them were super expensive. So we have, I think it was like a $10 pair of the, lav mics and it's so cheap and old that

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:38.857)
Yep.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:45.077)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (10:50.174)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (10:59.616)
My phone is the only one that we can use because it has the lightning connector. And so he takes my phone and those $10, $20 lav mics. And that is how it gets recorded. We just figured out how to change video settings to try to increase the video quality a little bit, but that took a couple of months before we got to. then editing is something that I set aside time for every week. So I've been using Final Cut Pro on my Mac and that's, go through and edit and.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:02.464)
nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:07.456)
A $10 microphone,

Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:17.16)
There you go.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:23.88)
Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. And so then are you doing, are you just sending him around all throughout the program? Like is he doing it ahead of time, after, both? Like what's sort of like his schedule as far as like the interview person?

Andrew Ostrander (11:29.464)
change scenes how I want to.

Andrew Ostrander (11:42.318)
Yep. So we have like a team volunteer huddle every Wednesday night. So we're there until 6.15, 6.20. And then by that time, a lot of the students are here after our doors open. So he goes out from 6.20 until we start programming at 6.35, 6.40. So he only really does it for 15 or 20 minutes. So some weeks it's pretty limited if it's a longer question.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:46.196)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (11:51.124)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:01.76)
Okay.

Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (12:08.11)
but it just has that time where students are roaming and choosing what to do before programming starts to get those interviews in.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:08.117)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:13.192)
Yeah, so okay, so now my question is, do you have students who seek him out now every week wanting to answer so that they can be on social?

Andrew Ostrander (12:22.993)
Yes, I have certain students that I see their video every single week after he records. I'm pushing like, hey, let's try to get some others. But there's clearly students that are super excited. And I see the students that run away from him as soon as they see the mic out.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:32.435)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (12:36.648)
Sure, yeah, Yeah, that's been my experience too, right? Like we do a social challenge every single week and we try to like batch record as much as we can, kind of like you. And almost every week as I like look at the footage after I'm like that kid's always in there, you know? And that's fine, right? Like that's fine for them to want to do it because it's whatever, it's how they connect and how they want to connect. Have you noticed any like...

in-person benefits to what you're doing on social? Like anything that has camaraderie, even just creating conversation because of a certain video or topic or whatever, or the, I don't know, even like the feel and the vibe because you're filming something to go online. Has there been any in-person benefits that you've noticed?

Andrew Ostrander (13:23.16)
Yeah, I think absolutely. think the specific content or question that gets talked about for that day and then after programming a little bit, but then that conversation dies down. And there are a lot of different factors that I think have played into this, but since adding it and rolling it out and how our ministry has adjusted the pre-service time a little bit, students are really excited to be there and excited to interact whether or not it's with a camera in front of them.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:27.156)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:31.602)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:45.758)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:52.794)
Interesting. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (13:52.812)
And so there's just been that shift of that vibe of being willing to be open or just hanging out together.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (13:59.88)
That's cool. like that's a really that not even when I started on this whole journey and podcast, whatever, that's not even a thing that was even like on my radar, you know, but I've noticed that too in our in our context. And it's it's really cool to hear that for sure. What would you say like is anything that you're maybe like thinking about for the future? Like this is kind of your current rhythm and iteration. Are you like

content with it and you just want to keep doing this or what if you had the capacity would be something that's maybe on the horizon that you've been thinking about or maybe wanting to do.

Andrew Ostrander (14:38.254)
So there are multiple different things that where I'm wanting to take it. And so I've created a weekly posting schedule that I want to figure out either for the end of the school year or just really gear up to do it next school year. We're redesigning a little bit of our space to better meet our needs. And part of that, I'm really trying to push or find a spot to create a more studio like area so that we could do longer form or like five, 10 minute videos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:43.199)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:51.518)
Okay.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (14:54.952)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:02.814)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:07.401)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (15:07.724)
while the interviews are happening elsewhere. And so there are lots of different places that I'm wanting to take in it, just seeing whether or not any of them are possible.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:10.089)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:15.888)
Yeah, cool. So cool. What do you mind? Like, are you able off top your head or pull it up? Like, what is your proposed posting schedule that you want to aim for, you know, start the next school year?

Andrew Ostrander (15:29.1)
Yeah. So it would just be the weekdays because I know like content limits and I try to set time aside to network. Monday, we want to be doing a message Monday. And so that's just a one, two minute Devo, primarily probably just adults. And then I have a student intern. And so just whatever word is laid on our hearts or minds for that day for Monday, Tuesday would be one of our interview style videos. So that's the ones that we're currently posting most frequently.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:33.353)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's great.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:41.362)
Okay. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:47.689)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:51.796)
great.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (15:58.463)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (15:58.994)
the Wednesday one would be dependent on having a space to record it, but I want to do like a Wednesday word from a student. there again, pretty similar to Monday minute or two, Devo reading scripture style video Thursday, my intern and I have been recording, what we think are funny videos when we have internships together. And so Thursday would be that type of video right now. We're asking chat GPT to create a video for us and we just.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:05.522)
Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:09.289)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:19.072)
You

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:23.85)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (16:28.106)
acted out. So those will be Thursday and then Friday. My idea would be for the slightly longer form video like drafts or tier list type things if we have the capability of doing that.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:28.927)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (16:37.842)
Nice. Nice, cool. Okay, so like last little thing here. What would you say to anybody who was like you, you know, you're not even a year yet into like student ministry and all the demands and all the things that like come with the job are there and you know, have to.

manage it, schedules, manage relationships and personalities, and they just feel overwhelmed by even the thought of social. What would just be your encouragement to other youth pastors out there who are maybe on the fence or not sure if doubling down on creating social content is for them?

Andrew Ostrander (17:18.626)
Yeah, so I think a couple of things come to mind. The first one you kind of touched on, it's a mix of starting small and passing it off. So my church leadership, my bosses are huge on a leader doesn't have to do everything. Like we're to the point where it's better if you're training up other people to do it than doing it yourself. So start small or find someone to do it for you on your big programming nights. But then also find whatever part of social media sounds fun to you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:25.382)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:33.119)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:37.812)
Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (17:48.288)
start with that. Like I've loved editing so far up to this point because I'm amused by it. And so find whatever part of the process you enjoy and really just start and focus there learning how to do that so that it's more fun for you.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:49.151)
Hmm.

Nice.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (17:59.794)
Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Okay, is there anything else about what you do social media-wise that I haven't really asked you, but you're like, this is important, I wanna make sure I share that too.

Andrew Ostrander (18:14.382)
I think we've touched a lot on it. It's been fun. The personal connections that I form through it. So my volunteer that does the Wednesday night, we get to talk and reflect and discuss it a lot. And then my relationship with my intern has taken a huge upswing because of we're just hanging out together and making stupid, fun youth videos together. so like you asked about the in-person effects, even just on

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:25.78)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:29.386)
Sure.

Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:39.007)
Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:42.654)
Yeah.

Andrew Ostrander (18:43.754)
on my personal and my perspective. It's had a huge impact on relationships that I get to form because of these seemingly what a lot of people would view as pointless or menial impact videos.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:46.942)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (18:53.64)
Yeah. No, that's really, that's actually really like profound. And I really appreciate you saying that because I do think it's more than just, you know.

satisfying social media algorithms or feeding the beast or you know, that's what I call it. Like you gotta keep feeding the beast. But I like that you're saying like, there's been some, you know, relational equity that kind of comes out of that. And that really is the ultimate goal. Like if you look at the inception of social, like it's social, right? In nature, like that's where it came from. And so if it's not at least, you know, playing a part in that within like the context of your local community, like you might be missing out on it, but it's,

The fact that you're doing it is creating a good vibe and good energy. that's, I think, one of my main goals always in social is not like to go viral on our church account and have a bunch of views and all that stuff. Like really it's to serve our community like best, you know? And then if it goes viral or if it gets a lot of views or whatever, like that's great, but that's like a secondary.

thing that I'm looking for. Primarily it's just like I want to serve the students that God has entrusted to me here and disciple them as best I can through the means and avenues of social. So it's great. Okay, so last thing, people want to know if they want to see what you're doing, they want to see some of the stuff you're doing, where do they go? What can they go follow and go check out online or whatever?

Andrew Ostrander (20:23.042)
Yeah, so right now I'm posting on two separate places, the YouTube channel, Walker's Student Ministries, and then the Instagram, which is either Walker's Student Ministries or Waukee with a Y Student Ministries. I would have to go shuffle check. I'm not sure that was created.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (20:35.936)
We'll link them both down below. We'll get it locked in. So if you're like, I don't know how to WakaRusa, the type text down below will be spelled hopefully correctly and it'll take you where you need to go. Nice. Andrew, anything else before we cut you loose?

Andrew Ostrander (20:47.438)
You

Andrew Ostrander (20:53.646)
I think just obviously with the people that you have or the following you have, it's either of interest to them or could be something that they're already doing. I think it is really just super important to try one. The first video I made lasted me for three weeks because you just had enough to work with from it. And so it feels like huge undertaking. It's not as bad as what I initially went into it expecting.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:01.152)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:05.6)
Mm.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:11.838)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry (21:16.748)
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. It's a new skill for a lot of people. So it is gonna feel a little bit overwhelming. But like you said, once you kind of get into it, you might learn something like, like editing, like you said, and you'll find a new skill or at least something else that you enjoy. So it's awesome. All right, guys, well, for Andrew, this is Nick. We're signing off and talk to you next time. See ya.

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