Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Church Tech”

Episode 172: The Cellphone Problem in Youth Groups

Nick Clason — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0500

In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, we tackle the cellphone problem in youth groups and reveal a 3-step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry that actually works. Instead of fighting students for their phones, you’ll learn how youth pastors can use a variety of tools to their benefit, including how to turn phones from a distraction to an actual asset. If you’re looking for practical youth ministry tips, phone management strategies, and digital discipleship tools to keep students engaged, this episode is for you.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Phones in Youth Group
00:23 How Do you Keep Kids off Phones?
00:38 Step #1
01:24 Step #2
02:15 Step #3
04:09 Idea #1
06:09 Fall Social Media Plan
07:22 Idea #2

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this episode, we're going to talk about my three step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry.

00:00:08:05 - 00:00:17:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But what I also want to show you is how I've turned phones from a distraction to an asset in our youth ministry. And frankly, it's

00:00:17:01 - 00:00:24:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a lot easier than fighting kids to get rid of their phones. Welcome everyone to the Hybrid Ministry Show.

00:00:24:10 - 00:00:29:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, we are answering this question.

00:00:29:05 - 00:00:34:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What are the ways that you have been able to keep students from being on phones during lessons and smog?

00:00:34:17 - 00:00:34:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Glad you

00:00:34:26 - 00:00:51:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
asked. Here's my three step strategy. Step number one is a central parking location. Like you read the comments of this post and just about everyone has either like some charging stations solution a little like hanging basket,

00:00:51:02 - 00:00:54:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
place for them to just like, leave their phones in the middle.

00:00:54:23 - 00:01:11:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Some different pictures, some different links to different things. We even had at our church at one point in time, we had like cell phone lockers. So this is like lockers with temporary codes where you go, you put your phone in, you create your own code, and then you come back and you get it. At the end of the night, we no longer have them.

00:01:11:12 - 00:01:30:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I tell you why in a minute, but, that's an option that was like the most, like next level solution. But basically everybody does it. Like, you just make that the thing. Hey, everyone, put your phones here before we go on into the room for youth group. The other option, let's be honest, like one of the good things that they could be using on their phone is like the Bible app.

00:01:30:26 - 00:01:49:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you're teaching from the Bible, you're going to give them some sort of like scripture lesson, and they're going to pull their Bibles out on their phone to read it. But then you know how phones work. That's because distraction there, over there, then playing clash clans in a minute, and they're no longer reading the Bible because you stopped reading the Bible in your lesson.

00:01:49:19 - 00:02:15:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, the solution set in two is just very simply like, provide paper Bibles, like if you want kids not on their phones and you want kids in the Bible, provide paper Bibles everywhere, all throughout your space so that there's no excuse for it and or also encourage, and even like potentially bribe and reward students who do bring their paper, Bibles to youth group to engage with Scripture in that way.

00:02:15:23 - 00:02:16:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The third

00:02:16:13 - 00:02:20:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and most effective way, in my opinion, this is more of like in a small group setting.

00:02:20:04 - 00:02:25:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're in like a large group, room, this doesn't quite work. But in a small group setting,

00:02:25:04 - 00:02:35:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm a huge fan of the idea of a thing called a group covenant. Okay. And a group covenant is essentially something that you do at the beginning of a small group term or cycle.

00:02:36:09 - 00:02:55:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you got to think about this. If you have like groups that never break for any sort of rhythm or any sort of reason, then you got to create natural kind of like start points. So, you know, beginning of the school year, maybe like beginning of the calendar year, something like that. Or in certain contexts I've worked in, we've, we had three distinct small groups cycles.

00:02:55:12 - 00:03:15:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we had the fall, the winter and then the summer. And so and then each of those ran for 12 weeks at a time or whatever. And so, during the beginning section of those, you, you have a small group covenant. So you talk about rules and expectations. What's the expectation in this group for treating one another and all those types of things?

00:03:15:21 - 00:03:20:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, in that the other thing that I recommend,

00:03:20:13 - 00:03:41:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
is you ask, what are we going to do about phones? And you let the students decide, and that's more powerful than you having temporary cell phone lockers. That's more powerful than you having paper Bibles. When you let the student say, decide and dictate what's going to happen with phones, that's where the wind is found.

00:03:41:10 - 00:04:07:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you just simply ask, what are we going to do about phones? They come up with it. And I've always found that students in a group covenant setting actually make stricter rules than rules that you would probably want to make for them. And so let them decide through the avenue of a group covenant, which, by the way, is one of the things I did not see in the comments of the description, however, of that of that question.

00:04:07:11 - 00:04:24:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, this is the hybrid ministry show, and so I would be remiss to not talk about the ways in which I have actually tried to use phones as an asset. And so in our student ministry, when I started here and this episode links right

00:04:24:00 - 00:04:31:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here, I detailed and discussed how our hybrid ministry strategy has to our growth over the last three years.

00:04:31:29 - 00:04:55:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when I got here, one of the moves we made was we went from rows to tables. That was a major decision and quite frankly, a thing that people had. Some issue with that at first. But now we do tables pretty much consistently. And whenever we take them away, people like you don't like rows anymore. So it's just funny to watch how people kind of change and transform over time.

00:04:55:18 - 00:05:21:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But one of the things that we're leaning into is sidekick. And so we have a poll, a QR based poll, which is one of the features of the new beta sidekick, which, by the way, if you didn't know, you can jump into co-leader or co-leader Premium plus, with code Hybrid Ministry 1001 word. They'll give you 10% off co-leader, which also gives you access to all of the sidekick stuff.

00:05:21:08 - 00:05:41:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the benefits and they're still kind of working out some of the kinks, about sidekick and its relationship with the legacy version. But one of the kinks or but one of the best parts about the new version, the beta version of sidekick is, the, the poll voting. And so we use that all the time.

00:05:41:20 - 00:05:59:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so poll voting kids get their phone out their skin and they can vote. They can use it for games. They can use it for messages. We even use it sometimes in the pre-roll. I tell you what, I'm going to do that I'm going to link down below our sidekick set up because, it's still not all the way full proof yet.

00:05:59:12 - 00:06:09:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so sometimes pro presenter is a better option. And so we actually run both on two different machines, and show you how we set that up. Link down below.

00:06:09:06 - 00:06:16:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey, quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media?

00:06:16:11 - 00:06:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.

00:06:45:27 - 00:07:05:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid. Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.

00:07:05:24 - 00:07:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry.

00:07:22:24 - 00:07:37:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The other thing that we use is a feature called Digital Notes, which is just a US leaning into the resource and the platform of the YouVersion Bible app, live event section that, YouVersion includes.

00:07:37:06 - 00:07:59:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we set up a YouVersion live events, reading plan. Or it's not even a reading plan necessarily, but a YouVersion live events to follow along with the notes every single week. And like I said, we sit at tables and so we have like a little placard, plastic about this big. It sits in the middle of the table and it says, follow along with this week's digital notes, and it's got a QR code.

00:07:59:28 - 00:08:27:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the QR code stays the same. But then on our QR code service generator, we turn around and we change the link to that every single week. So we change the link to the newest, iteration of the digital notes of the YouVersion, events plan. And so, they can also, you know, navigate into it and find it on the YouVersion live, section of the YouVersion events, and they can follow along.

00:08:27:10 - 00:08:49:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As you know, we're very like, video centric and hybrid ministry centric youth ministry. So we create thumbnails for all of our talks. And so all of our in-room talks also have the thumbnails that go at the top of the YouVersion live events plan. But the, other beautiful thing, frankly, about the YouVersion live events plan is you can link to things external.

00:08:49:16 - 00:09:10:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So once they're on there, you got them hooked in and you can help them follow along. You can ask them questions and they're things that they can interact with. They can highlight scripture, they can take notes. But then you can also include external links. So we have a next step like form on our website that we use. And so at the end of every single lesson we say are you ready to take a next step?

00:09:10:12 - 00:09:30:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Click here to let us know and it'll navigate them off to our website. And then the final piece in the YouVersion events is we include a Bible reading plan that relates to the topic of sorts. And so any single given week a student on the YouVersion live event plan, they are encouraged or asked at least if they want to take some sort of spiritual next step.

00:09:30:13 - 00:09:37:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they're also fed some sort of Bible reading plan. And so I want to point that out as a way to say we have

00:09:37:13 - 00:09:55:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
use phones and sidekick gives us a sliver of that. But our digital notes really opens up a wide avenue of ways that we can help students take next steps and be more intentional and meaningful during the lesson, so that they're using their phones to follow along with what's going on.

00:09:55:15 - 00:10:15:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, I told you I made a calculated risk with tables. I also want to let you know that phones is another calculated risk. And in fact, like one of the one of the comments on this post of the question that I'm reading said, man, just let kids have their phones, stop making it a fight. And like I tend to actually agree with that guy, but I will let you know.

00:10:15:00 - 00:10:37:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like phones are still a fight and they are still a distraction. Just last week, two nights ago in our youth group, one of our leaders, one of our table leaders. So we have students that are in, senior high that are leading groups in discussions. He was playing a game on his phone, and one of our staff one up, and they said, our table leaders are allowed to play games on their phones.

00:10:37:01 - 00:10:54:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And he knew the answer to that was like, no. And so he had to go to that kid and say, hey, put your phone down. So if that's coming from one of our leaders, it's there's that much even trickle down to the rest of students. So, well, hear me say, what we do is not foolproof, all right. But it's a calculated risk that I'm willing to take.

00:10:54:01 - 00:11:12:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one that when a student brings their friend for the first time and a mom and dad. Imagine this. Your parent, you send your kid to imagine you send your kid to a completely different denomination or different religion to go with one of their friends, and then they don't have their phones for an hour. How would you feel if you couldn't get in contact with them?

00:11:12:17 - 00:11:32:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, we're the millennial generation of of parents. We want to have contact with our children, especially if we've paid for and given them a phone. And so we try not to make that an obstacle for people to be able to come into our ministry. But again, it's a calculated risk and one that we are, used to, fighting and using.

00:11:32:11 - 00:11:48:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So let us know down below in the comments what you do in your youth ministry as it pertains to cell phones. And go ahead and subscribe what you see right here on the screen and check out the next question. Video. There's also here on screen. But until next time. And as always my friends, don't forget stay happy.

Episode 147: From No Budget to Pro - Summer Camp 2025 Photography & Videography Setup Guide

Nick Clason — Thu, 01 May 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Want pro-level camp content without a pro-level budget? In this episode, Nick Clason, of Hybrid Ministry, breaks down the exact gear, tips, and hacks you need to capture incredible summer camp photos and videos—even if you’re starting from scratch. Whether you’re using a phone, DSLR, or just your creativity, we’ll help you level up your visual game to create that momentum back at your church that camp deserves!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Why Summer Camps Matter
01:14 Why Camp Videography & Photography Matter
03:16 Step #1 No Matter What
04:37 Easy Camp Media Strategy
06:25 Medium [& FREE!] Camp Media Strategy
11:11 Most Difficult [But Best] Camp Media Strategy

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TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;22 - 00;00;28;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So when I first started in youth ministry, I was like a mission trip guy. All about mission trips. Took my students on their first mission trip, charge them around $1,000, travel, lodging, all the things that you need to do pretty cheap for a mission trip, honestly. And then I was getting ready doing my budget and calendaring process for the next year, and I started thinking, like in the current context in which I was in all the same students, we're going to go back on the same mission trip.

00;00;28;03 - 00;00;56;09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're going to write support letters to all the same people. And I was like, it might be too soon. So decided to do a camp, stumbled into an amazing camp experience that we did and produced all by ourselves, trying to keep it dirt cheap and thus invented my love for summer camp at that point. Now, some of you have been all around summer camp, but what became so necessary was the need for amazing videography and amazing photography at summer camp.

00;00;56;09 - 00;01;21;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in this episode, I want to tell you how I stumbled into it, and I want to give you three ideas of how you can have amazing camp content that is going to help, reinforce and help your church get on board with your summer camp experience. Welcome, my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry Show. So the continuation of that story is I start going to camp, we start adding more and more students, and I'm at my business meeting.

00;01;21;05 - 00;01;42;01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Give me a like, if you've ever had to go to a congregational business meeting. And I had a few naysayers who were like, this is an astronomical amount to spend for camp. What I felt like they may not have been taking into consideration is the fact that, like, I had to get approval to spend the entire amount of money, including the money that students were going to be paying into it.

00;01;42;01 - 00;02;02;13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, like the total amount of money out of the budget was like five grand. But in totality, I was requesting something like $46,000 to be spent, but that included the $300 student registration, you know, or whatever it was. And so with those naysayers, I then was like, I need I need them to see why this is worth it.

00;02;02;13 - 00;02;23;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I need them to get on board. And I need I want the church to support what the student ministry is doing. And so I went to my friend who was my roommate in college and I knew had a degree in like digital media. And I was like, bro, what do I need to pay you to come to camp and create amazing recap videos that are going to make people cry.

00;02;23;06 - 00;02;47;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then, the very next Sunday, we were back at church and we shared like a testimony recap video that was like 12 minutes long. And some kids were like, I accepted Jesus at the altar the last night of camp. And I mean, I'm telling you, there was not a dry eye in the room. Camp media is an amazing tool to help your parents, your church, your pastor, your boss.

00;02;47;29 - 00;03;08;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
See what's going on at camp. And in this video, I want to share with you an easy way to do it for basically free. I want to share with you a medium, difficulty level of doing it. And then I want to share with you a higher level of difficulty and perhaps the most expensive, but probably, as always, as you know, the more you pay, the better the product.

00;03;08;07 - 00;03;35;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let's hop in. Welcome to this edition of How Do I Do? Camp media on the Hybrid Ministry show. So first and foremost, you want to have some sort of text message or, channel back to parents. Okay. So you can send them links to your videos, links to albums, links to photos, whatever it is that you take. And so, like I said, we're going to do an easy a medium and a higher level of difficulty in this episode.

00;03;35;19 - 00;03;59;07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But first and foremost, philosophy, basically, no matter what level of difficulty you do, you need to have some sort of, channel back to parents. That's going to be your number one advocate, especially for the week while you're at camp. Now, once you return, if you have like a student take over Sunday or whatever, like you can you can implement some of these things that you've you've pulled together at camp and find a way to package them and show them to the rest of your congregation.

00;03;59;09 - 00;04;17;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But while you're at camp, if you want to have a buzz amongst your parents, you need to get it back into them. So, you can do some sort of text message group. You can do some sort of Facebook group. You can even post some of this stuff on your YouTube channel and then send the links to those in your Facebook group or in your text message group, or your parent email chain.

00;04;17;20 - 00;04;32;12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Whatever it is, figure out what works best in your context, but have something easy and preferably something that you can use on your phone. So as soon as you get a link, you can copy the link, you can send it out and you do it all on your mobile device. You don't need to sit down at a computer and try and find a way to do it at camp.

00;04;32;12 - 00;05;00;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, how do you do easy videos at camp? Let's hop in. So the first way that you can do it is you can walk around with your camera, vertical based video, and you can, very simply, you can, auto cut those videos in an app like TikTok or in your Instagram Reels editor, and you can send out daily, shorts, daily TikToks, daily real type videos.

00;05;00;22 - 00;05;19;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can send the links to those in text groups or, in some sort of Facebook became post posts in Facebook. That's super easy. You or leader walk around vertical based video and all you need is clips of anywhere from 5 to 8 seconds. You don't need any longer because you're just going to overlay it with music and maybe some captions on screen and off you go.

00;05;19;27 - 00;05;38;23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You want to keep those 60s or less. And so the quicker and shorter the videos. So if you have the wherewithal in your mind to walk around, play your camera out five seconds, eight seconds, seven seconds, nine seconds, three seconds and then stitch all those together in like an auto cut feature in TikTok. You're going to be going in and off to the races.

00;05;38;26 - 00;05;58;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now. How do you easily, source photos? You tell your students, hey, send pictures on this hashtag, or if they're not going to post on like, Instagram, like that, send photos in this text group and this DM thread, whatever you choose to use some sort of, function to get those photos back to you, create a shared Google Photos album, whatever.

00;05;58;25 - 00;06;15;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Put all your pictures in here, and then you can crowdsource those, and you can create a slideshow at the end of the night. Or if you're at some sort of camp, like a, like a generate or a feud or a lift or something like that, where you don't have control over what ends up on screen, then you create albums and you send those out in Facebook groups to parents.

00;06;15;02 - 00;06;36;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's the easiest, lowest hanging fruit. Okay, now what about medium? And this is honestly, this is a big step up and it's going to cost you next to nothing. Let's check it out. So genuinely I've done this before okay. And if you want to create daily recap videos again you have control of the screens. So daily recap videos that you can show in your sessions.

00;06;36;21 - 00;06;53;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Or if you don't have control of the screens at a minimum daily recap videos that you can post to YouTube. Let me show you how you can do it on Cap cut. All right, so if you're watching here on screen, this is what I did, a couple years ago, we didn't hire and have money, for a videographer.

00;06;53;17 - 00;07;13;23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I would do daily recap videos in the cabin at night, throw my headphones on, and kids are all sleeping. And so I'm here on cap cut out, hit new project. And let's just do these, videos of my dog, okay? And so I would click, all the videos I want to add and I'd click add three.

00;07;13;25 - 00;07;40;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And here I am now and I can create some sort of video. So there's my dog and there's another video of my dog and there's another little video of my dog. Now, what you can do is you can add animations, and anything if you are doing like a free account, anything with like the little like pro features or things, there.

00;07;40;16 - 00;08;06;18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Those don't use those. But if you find any of the ones like this one right here, that is free, okay, it'll come right in. And there you go. Boom off you go. And if you want to like add a text that says, you know, like day one recap. Put it right there and hope I'm exporting. Don't want to export quit.

00;08;06;21 - 00;08;25;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So there it is. Day one recap. Now I can edit this text click style. And once again you want to make sure you don't add a pro feature. So see those little corners right there. So this one's this one's free. Day one recap. Change the font. Find one that's not a pro font. And off we go.

00;08;26;02 - 00;08;47;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right right there. All of these are not pro fonts. And so the main thing if you want to keep it free is that you don't add anything. Pro font. All right. Right here I can add some sort of transition. So here's a transition that's not that is pro don't remind me again. I might not. Oh here's one pull in.

00;08;47;17 - 00;09;15;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. And there we go. And I go all the way through at the end. I can also add things like, stickers. I can add text to audio, and I can add music. And that's what I do when I add some audio. And so if I want to go to some sounds and find something like this one here, that's not, that's not, pro.

00;09;15;24 - 00;09;41;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now I got a video and then I hit export. And we are off to the races. And you'll see here on screen, if you're watching, you can see the finalized video of my dog. It's beautiful. Who doesn't love it? This would take me about an hour after lights out, but I want to let you know that it is completely free, so after you've done your capture video, what if you want photos?

00;09;41;08 - 00;10;01;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, what if you took a leader, not someone who's have an elite? A small group would be a cabin leader, and they're just a dedicated photographer. You're only cost in that. Give them a cell phone. Have them take it on an iPhone. Google pixel, a nice phone. You're only cost in. That is your perhaps payment of their registration fee.

00;10;01;00 - 00;10;25;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Unless, of course, you're charging your leaders to go, in which case you're good and you say, hey, listen, your only job is take photos and send these daily recaps back home to parents, and you give them that job. And so all week, their entire sole focus using just their cell phone is to take good photos. And so then with your daily recaps and your lidar photos, you can, bring those back and you can present those to your church.

00;10;25;24 - 00;10;42;23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, the last little bit in this is if you want and studio, link down below. You can grab some Bluetooth microphones. You can also take some video on your cell phone, just like I showed you. Stitch it together and cap cut. But you can take students testimonies and tell them, hey, what, what stood out to you?

00;10;42;23 - 00;11;00;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How to God move in your life this week? Like all that type of stuff? And you can create a recap testimony video and you can show that on screen the quality is great. You saw the export quality was like 1080p. You can export it even up to 4K, and you can shoot it in 4K on your camera if it if it's able to handle it.

00;11;00;20 - 00;11;20;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then you can show that on a screen. You can also post that to something like YouTube and then share it in your Facebook group. But what about the best and probably most expensive? Well, let's dive in. Your final your best is you want those daily recap videos. You want that final big testimony video. Your best bang.

00;11;20;07 - 00;11;38;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, not bang for your buck, right? This is going to cost you money, but you hire a videographer. Maybe you're church or something. Maybe you know someone, but you bring someone in, they bring all their own gear and they, follow students around. They capture footage, and their entire job is to create daily recap videos for you on the big screen at night.

00;11;38;22 - 00;11;59;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you have control of that, or post them to YouTube and then create that testimony video. And if you can hire that same person, or maybe hire a second person to take photos on a good camera that they have, that's going to be your highest barrier to entry. You're probably going to have to a pay for them to go to camp, be pay for their lodging and all that stuff.

00;11;59;05 - 00;12;18;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So let's say that's anywhere from 3 to $400, and then you're going to pay them a fee, 800 bucks, 1500 bucks. It is expensive. But if you have the budget, I'm just telling you like it does end up being worth it and you end up with much higher quality footage. And what you can do on your phone and much higher caliber photos.

00;12;18;11 - 00;12;44;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, if you're like, bro, I can't even get anywhere near that, then that medium range won't for you. As long as you're willing to put the work in. As long as you're willing to use cap cut, you can do it for very cheap and frankly, very free. And still get a very, very good result. Now, listen, your camp experience is very important, and students lives are often marked and changed at camp.

00;12;44;16 - 00;13;12;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what's also very important is that your people back home support you. Your parents know what's going on, and they can advocate and create a buzz around your student ministry. So don't fumble the bag. This summer on creating amazing camp media and amazing camp content. I'm rooting for you, have an amazing camp and crush it with a digital media this summer so that your church can get on board and support what your student ministry has going on.

00;13;12;29 - 00;13;16;25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Thanks for being here. We'll talk next time and don't forget to stay hybrid.

Episode 141: How I Plan Events with Kaylen Adams

Nick Clason — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0500

This episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show kicks off the "How I..." playlist with a deep dive into event planning with guest Kaylen Adams, an expert in coordination and logistics. Kaylen shares her step-by-step approach to organizing youth ministry events, covering everything from volunteer recruitment and communication to detailed schedules and contingency planning. Whether you're a youth pastor who struggles with organization or looking to refine your event strategy, this conversation is packed with practical insights to help you run seamless, high-impact events.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How I Plan Events like a Pro!
01:10 Kaylen, who are you?
05:06 What Lanes did you own?
07:03 How can you help someone think?
08:07 How did you communicate?
11:54 How did you determine call times?
16:30 How do you recruit for an event?
20:05 How many jobs do you give a leader?
21:24 How do you calculate for food?
24:21 What Else?
26:28 What if my church doesn't do all that?
28:34 Keep People's Personalities in Mind

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
For what is up everybody? Today I am going to introduce you and have you in for a treat, because I am going to be interviewing one of my friends and coworkers, Kaylen Adams, who's fantastic at event planning. This is going to be the start of a new little playlist series on my podcast, and here on YouTube, where I am going to introduce you to some of the people that I know who do things the best in youth ministry and particular lanes.

00:00:25:00 - 00:00:46:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And Kaylen is the queen of event coordination and event management. Not only is she like, really fun and have a really good mind, but she is fantastic at getting volunteers, recruiting them. And when a volunteer comes in just feeling like they know exactly what to do. And you will. If you implement these things, you will look like a rock star.

00:00:46:09 - 00:01:04:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're a typical youth worker who's not very organized, this episode is for you because it will help you and if you think that all hope is lost on you, then this is a great, podcast to send to a volunteer or a high level admin who might step in and help you with some of the logistical things, but you are in for a treat regardless.

00:01:04:10 - 00:01:31:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
With my interview today with my friend and coworker Kaylen Adams. What's up everyone? Here we are. I am with Kaylen Adams. Which yes, you don't even find that on your name on here because that's how that's how new this is. So it is formerly known as Maltais, not hyphenated. Straight up Adams. Which means you just got married and,

00:01:31:08 - 00:01:52:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you might not know Kaylen, but I know Kaylen. I worked with Kaylen. Worked in the past tense. We are still on staff together, but she has switched departments, so now she's in the kids department. And the reason I ask Kaylen on here is, what was it last weekend? Two weekends ago, we had our high school weekend.

00:01:52:02 - 00:02:14:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you still worked with me then, and, oh, my gosh, Kaylen crushed it. Like, you guys don't have any idea. And as she was, like, literally crushing every, like, logistical and administrative detail of the weekend, in the back of my mind, I was like, we got to get Kaylen on so I can ask her, how do you plan for these big events?

00:02:14:01 - 00:02:38:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So why don't you give us just kind of a quick overview? Kaylen, first of all, like a 20 or 30 second like synopsis of who you are, how we ended up working together. But then, like, what did you oversee, at these events? Like what particular? Like lanes and areas and avenues. And then I just think what you did is such a helpful tool to many of the youth passers that I've ever seen or worked with. And so I just think this would be helpful to get out, you know, to people. Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:38:10 - 00:03:02:13
Kaylen Adams
So we've started working together because I, I went to college at the University of Wyoming and I got a degree in human resources management and entrepreneurship with minors in hospitality anthropology. There you go. So so that was. Yeah. Yeah. And so I did that.

00:03:02:13 - 00:03:29:13
Kaylen Adams
Fell in love with ministry there. And then around like my senior year, I learned the opportunity to do a residency in Texas, which I hate sweating. So my family was like, I was like, I think because I love Jesus, I don't know. So I applied and I ended up getting hired in January. And so after I graduated, I moved to Texas, and I did a residency at Cross Creek Church and guest services.

00:03:29:15 - 00:03:50:22
Kaylen Adams
But I love that, like ministerial aspect. And I still was kind of doing some of more of that support ministry with it. So needed and very, very special. Big shout out to everybody in support ministries. And so that's when I transitioned into students and I kind of brought a lot of my guest services and undergrad knowledge, which infuse that into what I was doing.

00:03:50:22 - 00:04:08:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And students. Yeah. So then like for the first little bit, I remember you're like, I don't really know exactly what you guys want me to do. And we were like, just keep doing like, I mean, like, you guys don't understand. Like, Kaylen was just she just knew what to do. Like, even if she didn't know what to do, she pretend like she knew what to do.

00:04:08:00 - 00:04:30:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it seemed like she's known what she she's doing. But it was this last high school weekend where, like, you were pulling out, like, spreadsheets and folders and instructions and, even, like, I remember distinctly I was talking with you about our t shirt order number, and, like, our student registration was, like, lower than anticipated. And you were like, no, we're going to need this many t shirts.

00:04:30:06 - 00:04:50:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, why? And you're like, because of all of our volunteers. And I was like, do you really like, do you really think that? And your confidence, you're like, absolutely. And you were right, by the way. So what like lanes did you let's talk about specifically our high school weekend, which for those of you who don't know the context, it's like a D now without the spending the night element.

00:04:50:22 - 00:05:10:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's like two days on campus. Yeah. Like Friday night, Saturday until like 3:00. And so it's probably like our second biggest event next to, like, a thing like summer camp, right? So yeah, in that event, what particularly did you own, like, what were those areas? And I just want to ask you kind of pepper you questions.

00:05:10:02 - 00:05:33:02
Kaylen Adams
Yeah. In that in those arenas. Well so this was we originally had one winter we to middle school and high school. Was it split into middle school night high school. Well for middle school night Darren, the student pastor at Rush Creek pitched and I met my boss, so he. Yeah. So he did a lot of the the directional things for that division.

00:05:33:02 - 00:05:56:21
Kaylen Adams
And then programing. And I took everything else and like, did the logistics of the event planned it all. So by the time high school weekend came around, because I wasn't middle school night, so I didn't play a part at all, which is relevant because when we played high school night, we did a lot of the same stuff. We just like copy and paste a lot of the stuff that worked and made it a little more, for high school and that middle school.

00:05:56:23 - 00:06:20:20
Kaylen Adams
Oh yeah. And then we had known, like, what worked and what didn't. So we're check in by the time we got to high school again. Yeah, that's good. But yeah, by the time we got there, Nick you did programing. So like everything that you were sitting in a session and watching and experiencing. Nick was all in of planning and talking to the people, like worship people and yeah, yeah, I did everything outside of that.

00:06:20:22 - 00:06:44:20
Kaylen Adams
So and how we move through the timelines, you know, when were kids eating, where were they going to be, what activities were they going to be doing. And then we had food making sure we had enough food, making sure. Yeah, we had t shirts. And there they were out and that, you know, we gave away a little like pin to all of our students, like, you made sure that that was where it needed to get and left, you know, passing out our note sheets and pens.

00:06:44:20 - 00:07:08:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, I mean, you just you thought of like, every detail. So, like, I know your background helps you with that, but like, imagine you're talking to someone who's not as organized as you like. So you come by that naturally, which is what was just like a marvel to behold. But like what? What would you tell someone? Or how would you encourage someone to think if they're like planning something like that?

00:07:08:09 - 00:07:29:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like what? What's the way that you help us get inside your brain for some of the logistics?

Kaylen Adams
Well, when you're planning an event, yes, for a job, for ministry, ever. You write down all of your ideas like, no one is like, I'm just taking this all right here. I will accept it later. It's going to be there like you always write it down.

00:07:29:11 - 00:07:54:20
Kaylen Adams
You make it through for you. And I just thought, you know, would probably be really helpful for a volunteers to see that map. Like, I don't know why I would keep it from them. They should know, like how we got from point A to point B, because by the time we're at point B and we're doing the thing, they deeply understand what they're doing and not only do what I'm telling them to do, they can actually take initiative and do the things that I missed.

00:07:54:22 - 00:08:13:05
Kaylen Adams
Yeah. And so that's a huge part of it is just like, if I were a volunteer, what would I want to know? So I could do my job? Well, I feel good about it. Yeah. So then how how did you go about communicating? Like, did you have a meeting? Did you send them a text? Did you send them an email?

00:08:13:05 - 00:08:31:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like what? Because that's probably, I would imagine, a lot of stuff. And I think again, most youth pastors are like, I don't either have the time or be want to overwhelm my volunteers, or maybe see just another reason I didn't actually write it down. It is all in my head. So, I mean, I would say probably for all of us.

00:08:31:06 - 00:08:55:12
Kaylen Adams
Step one is get it out of your head onto paper somehow. And then two, how did you communicate it? Yeah. So I communicated a couple different ways. So the only time that I was texting volunteers instructions or anything was a, when I was recruiting them. Okay. I never sent them like, all the information they needed individually because I needed them all to be kind of in one part.

00:08:55:12 - 00:09:16:24
Kaylen Adams
So I knew who was getting one information and it always the same. Yeah. If I ever was giving instructions, it was in a group chat or a group of people that had a specialized role. Those came last minute. They weren't actually accounted for. Next time we did an event, I probably would account for them in advance. So I'm not texting information because for the smaller like you're saying, the.

00:09:17:01 - 00:09:51:02
Kaylen Adams
Yeah, the smaller, more specialized groups groupings of people. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I like to create an escape room. We had game masters and we didn't know about that until like pretty close to the event. I probably would have included them into all the mass event communication before that time. Got it as okay. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So and then and then putting together all this information, I'm kind of stockpiling it in a folder called Volunteer Prep, and I'm organizing it by like, this document, they need to know this document.

00:09:51:02 - 00:10:11:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They need to know if they don't really need to know that, I'll pull it back. What are those documents? Can you give us just a few examples, like pull back the curtain a little bit?

Kaylen Adams
Yeah, yeah. So I'll make a volunteer schedule that's like five position. And then I sang people to that position per day. So it's not by time blocks, it's by day and what they're doing okay.

00:10:11:16 - 00:10:28:21
Kaylen Adams
And then I have a document a volunteer job description. They need to know what they're doing, why they're doing how they do it. Yeah. And then I do a document. If we're doing anything outside or in a weird space, I'll do an aerial map and I'll make, like, different stations and positions of where they're going to be.

00:10:28:23 - 00:10:51:09
Kaylen Adams
I'll give them a service order so they can see just how we do, how the whole day is going to go through. They even see like how different session parts are going to work, like what sounds work. It's going to do all the stuff because they help with transitions, like really help because it's easier to be like, hey, after they do a million little miracles, I need you to come out here rather than at 737.

00:10:51:09 - 00:11:11:20
Kaylen Adams
I need you to. Yeah. The more like more like, big landmarks on a map. Yeah. Once you get this song, then this is your cue to come out and help set up for lunch, like, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. That's why the service order is so important. And for them to see what's in Planning Center is for that.

00:11:11:20 - 00:11:34:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We updated everything for the whole event kind of revolves around that. And you're doing the same for your volunteers. And so because then I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, you're able to be like, hey, if you're in charge of lunch, like, these are your three areas or meals, I guess, like these are your three. So like Friday night dinner, Saturday morning breakfast and, you know, Saturday lunch.

00:11:34:07 - 00:11:56:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like at this time you need to be here for this. Because if we say lunch is at 12, let's say I'm imagining you're having your volunteer get there at 11:15 or 11:30 or something like that. So how do you real quick answer this question for me. How do you determine, what time to to call for them? Like, yeah.

00:11:56:10 - 00:12:18:11
Kaylen Adams
So when it comes to like food stuff because you're dealing with catering and vendors usually like I wouldn't have that start. So we had lunch at like, what was it this year? 12 I think it started and I don't remember the exact time. I just know we had it and it was ready. And that's why you're here. We had food dropped off at like 1115.

00:12:18:16 - 00:12:41:10
Kaylen Adams
Okay. So plenty of time. And most of that was not because I was worried about my volunteers because they knew what to do. And we're not in like the biggest space ever is to account for vendors being late or not knowing where to park and, stuff. Yeah. When it comes to other transitions, they're a lot tighter windows and they're a lot quicker usually it was like the song before something started.

00:12:41:10 - 00:13:04:10
Kaylen Adams
I would send them to go do something, but again, that's also because their space isn't really big and any materials they needed or resources. I set out in a central location, a table in the main space. We all were operating out of the auditorium, and I labeled everything with all the different times that it's going to be needed, and even put under, like during this song, you should take that, this place.

00:13:04:10 - 00:13:25:17
Kaylen Adams
So my volunteers knew to flock to that table when transition times are happening. Yeah, that was so good. So then are you. So you're just labeling those like yeah, color you label like for anything. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You label like crazy. If you think like oh that'd be really obvious for someone to know it's now you should label.

00:13:25:23 - 00:13:45:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Because again, your brain versus reality. Right. Like it makes sense in your brain, our brain as we're planning the events. But it might not make sense to volunteer. Yeah, because they're just dropping in. Right. You know. Yeah. After work. Right. They've been at work all day and their mind is in a million other places.

00:13:45:10 - 00:14:06:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so like, they're, you know, giving up their time and they're willing and they're helpful and all those things. But like I like that. I like what you're saying, like, almost, almost dummy proof it. Right? Not that they're dumb, but, like, make it so simple. Okay. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. Well, my volunteers, they do best when they're confident.

00:14:06:24 - 00:14:24:06
Kaylen Adams
When they're confident, they are empowered to take initiative, make decisions, do something really well when they're not confident in whether or not they're in the right place, holding the right thing, putting it where it should be. Then you have a lot of lag and you have a lot of like question. And that's when things start to like frame fall apart.

00:14:24:09 - 00:14:59:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So your job as an event coordinator is just to how can I give my volunteers the most confidence they need in this decision. That's good. Okay. So then anything else on what you tell volunteers? I want to maybe go a different direction if you feel like you've kind of got everything in that lack thing is leading up to the event, you want to send out the longest email of your life, and then is where all of the equipment I talked about keeping in that volunteer folder and you go through, you give an overview and you kind of describe how the event's going, and they need to read those attachments.

00:14:59:24 - 00:15:26:05
Kaylen Adams
I sent it all beforehand because that's our big meeting, and they can refer back to you and have in writing. And then by the time we are at the event, like 30 minutes an hour before the start, that meeting is a refresher or a question. That's not the entire meeting. Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing you did, which I thought was brilliant, was you, taped all those attachments to a wall of one of our leader workrooms.

00:15:26:07 - 00:15:47:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, yeah, if they didn't want to, you know, fight with their email to find it again, they could just go reference quickly off a printed copy. So again, you don't like you think about your dummy proofing it like, yes, you communicated it in the email. And this is one of the concepts I talk about in communication a lot is like, we live in like a Netflix culture, so people live it with like an on demand mindset.

00:15:47:10 - 00:16:05:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you sent it on like a Thursday at 3:30 p.m., but like, they were in the middle of like a business meeting. And so it wasn't in their mind then, but it will be in their mind when they show up on Friday at six. But like they've gotten 27 more emails since then and so. Oh yeah, where is that?

00:16:05:03 - 00:16:24:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I think it's brilliant to put it somewhere just quick and accessible and maybe even another hack that we didn't even do or think about, but like maybe even having like a static like landing page or like QR code that they could like scan and pull open, like in a, just a tab in their safari. And then that gives them access to everything, you know, that they need.

00:16:24:23 - 00:16:58:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But yeah, I think that was that was so smart. So then how do you go about, like, help us get in your brain because, you know, you had a couple volunteers there that I was like, oh, like, I wouldn't have thought that they would be here. Not because they did, like a bad job or they're just they weren't like as maybe like involved or like, maybe they're only serving like once a month or once every other, week, like in our student ministry and like, you had the, like, in charge of, like, food or like certain like, you know, snack type areas, like, how did you go through and think, who am

00:16:58:15 - 00:17:16:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I going to recruit? Because I thought that was one of the other really special things was like, you asked a very particular or like, dedicated ask for like just very, again, very specific volunteers. You didn't I didn't feel like you did like an all call, though. You maybe you did to kind of pick up anyone who might be interested.

00:17:16:22 - 00:17:39:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I think you went particularly after, like certain names or certain individuals. How did you how did you like, think about them to, to ask them and like what goes into you? You know, determining this person would be good for that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you definitely do an all call because, well, we are desperate for people to help.

00:17:39:13 - 00:18:06:02
Kaylen Adams
We're not gonna act like or not, but, honestly, I just kind of go with a philosophy of I'll never say no for somebody like, you know, I think sometimes we do that even if we say that we're not like, well, they only serve on Sundays and they're very particular about their job. And I'm like, yes. But they also probably like high school is I don't know, maybe the chances are, and so I just kind of like we always have conversations for like, oh, that person would be like, so good at this.

00:18:06:02 - 00:18:27:03
Kaylen Adams
Or if only they do it. And I usually take that person and then ask, yeah, like I make a list of all. Yeah. As I am planning events and I just keep people's personalities in mind like I, we see them work all Sunday and we see them work Wednesday. And you kind of see like what things kind of light them up and what things they're like, oh can I do anything else but that.

00:18:27:07 - 00:18:42:18
Kaylen Adams
Yeah. And so I just kind of catalog that and that way. And I do kind of mentally. But it wouldn't hurt to like make a list of people like I love reaching out to this person for this. This is this. And I've noticed that they've done events. We have volunteers that really get fired up for events like that.

00:18:42:18 - 00:19:02:24
Kaylen Adams
Just being a part of a big beast of a programing thing, like kind of lights them up and exciting. And so I have people that I regularly reach out with, like Kyra Allen Love. She's one of our checking people. I remember when I came in, she was on like some sort of kind of understanding that she was only going to volunteer a couple times because she had some things going on.

00:19:02:24 - 00:19:26:20
Kaylen Adams
And I just remember, like, she was so stoked to do this back to school bash experience. That was like a Wednesday night special because, like, I definitely would love to do events and she's been my event checking person every single time I day. Yeah, yeah that's good. Yeah. She loves it. So you have like a you're very in tune to to them like just ongoing right.

00:19:26:20 - 00:19:44:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like you're keeping an eye as you're doing your job. And so that makes it easier obviously. Then when you go to to think and yeah I like that it is not creepy but it is. No. Yeah. But I think that's part of the that again I when I saw some of those people that was like interesting but also awesome and like that was all kudos to you right.

00:19:44:20 - 00:20:01:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I'll kudos you because like I wouldn't have thought to ask that person. Like I would have thrown a link in our leader group chat. Hey, you know, want to volunteer? They did it. And now I'm desperate, you know? And, so yeah, I was we were more than fully staffed, you know, for. Yeah. And so that was the other thing.

00:20:01:11 - 00:20:20:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like how, like how many jobs do you try to give a leader? Like how many are you trying to, like, let people do double duty? Or like, hey, you're in charge of like, food and like, that's your job the whole weekend. Like, how do you make those decisions?

Kaylen Adams
Yeah, some of our jobs, like, they feel very crucial and important because they are.

00:20:20:13 - 00:20:40:05
Kaylen Adams
But they're not crucial. Important in that they happen the entire time of the program. Like right there. Yeah. There are a window a very important window. But then and. Yeah, and you have to remember, when you're dealing with these volunteers, they're adults with full time jobs are like at the leaders, if they're they're at your event, they are high capacity.

00:20:40:07 - 00:21:01:24
Kaylen Adams
They don't do well, bored or sitting and doing nothing. They want to do something. And if they're doing something that morale is high and they'll probably do another event because they're like, that was awesome though. So yeah, it's good. Yeah. So I assign generally like 2 or 3 roles throughout the service order to people. So they're like constantly transitioning and moving to do so.

00:21:02:01 - 00:21:22:02
Kaylen Adams
Yeah. And that comes back to your like schedule your map. And you're like you're thinking that ahead. Like okay. Do they after this window closes they can go to this, but then they maybe can't do this next thing because they're going to be busy doing that. Like, again, that's the next level stuff, Kaylen, that you're like, you're very good at.

00:21:22:02 - 00:21:44:02
Kaylen Adams
So, okay, so then, let's talk a little bit about like, food. Okay. How do you determine, how much to order? Like, is it just as simple as, like, as many as there are registered. How do you account for, like, walk ins at an event like this where we do leave registration open all the way up until you know, it starts.

00:21:44:02 - 00:22:05:20
Kaylen Adams
And so theoretically, a kid could walk in and do you have enough food for them, like how do you how do you kind of try and manage that or think about that? Yeah. It all it does depend on how, big of an invite event. This is like I think high school weekend was an invite like, but we didn't like push super hard and say like my friends going for it.

00:22:05:22 - 00:22:25:12
Kaylen Adams
Yeah, yeah. So always keep that in mind. Yes. You keep the registration number, but you also want to account for all of the adults in the building. Don't forget yourself or your staff then volunteers. And if you're providing food for tech and worship or if they're doing their own thing so that all is in that number. Yeah.

00:22:25:14 - 00:22:49:00
Kaylen Adams
But registration, I just kind of. I don't want to have too big of a margin because then we're spending a lot of money on food. But things that I can give out is like door prizes, like pizza. I'm a little more willing to have extra of because we could have done or do to make their night, but like, same with, you know, because no one wants like a cold, soggy sandwich by the end of like 12 of them.

00:22:49:06 - 00:23:10:08
Kaylen Adams
Yeah. So I would be a little bit more tight on food like that. And also keep in mind that everyone's like, kids are so hungry they're going to eat three slices of pizza. You keep in mind the girls, because girls don't eat as much food as boys. And, like, I definitely like they're just there's camping retreat food.

00:23:10:08 - 00:23:32:14
Kaylen Adams
That is great because you're hungry, but it's not a lot of kids. First choice. Really like one of it. Yeah, they'll like maybe one and a half will split with a friend. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. Like the ratio is not as monstrous as you think. Yeah, I think the ratio I've tried to use for pizza is, two and a half times your number.

00:23:32:14 - 00:23:51:06
Kaylen Adams
So, like, think you're big number of all the people including tech and worship and check in and staff and everyone. And then you multiply it by two and a half. That'll give you the total number of slices that you need. And then you can divide that by eight, because that's how many slices of pizza are in, your pizza box.

00:23:51:06 - 00:24:06:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then that'll give you a number with a decimal. And you can either round up around whatever you, you know, feel. And what's really nice is like, you know, you do the random picker thing, like, with their name. And for those who don't know, you picked the names and then they just get a random prize for doing nothing.

00:24:06:03 - 00:24:22:03
Kaylen Adams
Yeah, that great. Pick that food leftovers too, because you don't want to bank on having extra if you're just kind of guessing because kids might be really hungry and you don't have it, and then you just lost a prize for a game. Yeah. So you want that to be like a random moment that if they don't get it, they have no idea.

00:24:22:05 - 00:24:48:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. All right. Let's see what else. What else do you what else do you think about for an event that I'm not thinking even to, like, ask you? Listen, you have to know if your church has any sort of, like, admin team, administrative volunteers that help put these things together with your operations at all, like your facilities and your finance people or whatever it might be.

00:24:48:04 - 00:25:09:00
Kaylen Adams
You need to meet with them, like way ahead of time. So I see way ahead of time. Yeah. So I start meeting with people. We've been cutting it kind of close and cutting it close to meeting two months in advance. Okay. So you need to some of us that might be like, oh, that's when I start thinking about it.

00:25:09:02 - 00:25:34:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. No. Especially if it's like a really big event. Which high school weekend is a really big event for us? We need to start planning that month in advance. And depending on, like, the capacity of your team, that could fluctuate a little bit. Like if it's just you and one other person, I would say probably start looking at that at like six months and having if you have a couple other people who can share that, you could maybe do a little bit less.

00:25:34:19 - 00:25:59:21
Kaylen Adams
But you definitely need to start meeting with administrative people on your church staff that are handling this, because their personalities are a lot different than yours. As a ministry person, you're used to pivoting and being creative and all the things and pulling it off at the last minute. Yeah, they are not. They love systems and processes and if you break their system, it's going to be really, really hard to get them to like be on the same wavelength with you.

00:26:00:01 - 00:26:22:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good. Yeah, yeah. And like in our particular, you know, setting, we have like our facilities people like they set everything up for us, which is fantastic. But to your point, like, only if we're on top of it, if we slide in in the ninth hour and we're like, this is what we want, they're like, yo, we're already on to like, stuff for like later, next weekend.

00:26:22:11 - 00:26:43:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like we've already, you know, planned our day. So, you know, to her point like, and whether you know so like, here's the thing I do know if like you're listening, you're like, okay, I don't work at a church anywhere near that. Has any of that. Like, I am the operations, I am the admin. And what I would say is, lean into your volunteers if you're like that sounds fantastic.

00:26:43:23 - 00:27:15:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I would love that. But I don't have anyone that works for me with me on my team. Anything like that like that doesn't mean you can't do it, and it doesn't mean you still can't delegate and dish out. You just may have to do that more of like a volunteer capacity. So find a mother. Or like someone who, like, works in like an administrative like role that has a little bit of, bandwidth and margin and like, ask them, you know, like, I'm sure if I'm saying that many of you right now, as you're listening, you're like, oh, yeah, I could probably ask so and so, like that person's come into your mind like, let

00:27:15:12 - 00:27:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that person be your Kaylen for your event. And like, yes, we had the luxury of like Kaylen being on our team payroll, but like, you know, it doesn't it doesn't, they don't have to be right. And like. Yeah, setting up you can. I mean, we employ teenagers, like, students to, like, come early and do stuff like that.

00:27:33:00 - 00:28:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, you know, we call them what we call them. Simps. Yet SMPs student is tone texting is for like, student oh my gosh. Okay. Do not disturb do that anyway. Ministry student minutes protege. Protege. Yeah yeah yeah. Protege. Yeah. And so anyway, we employ them, they, get free camp, and stuff like that, but they come early in, like, sets, set things up.

00:28:00:12 - 00:28:25:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, like, they can be like facilities team. So again, as we're saying it like, don't don't be like I had never be there like you for sure can like employ volunteers and people that'll do it for free. And they like to to Kaylen's point. Yeah they do. That might not be your gifting. And you're like, no one would ever want to run administrative or set chairs up like some people genuinely do.

00:28:25:02 - 00:28:47:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so don't rob other people of being able to serve your youth ministry, God's kingdom, whatever. By not asking them. What else Kaylen. Anything else or do we hit it all. I just would in mind people's personalities. You're going to have people who, when they're planning events, they just run just like that's just their personality and that's how they work best.

00:28:47:19 - 00:29:06:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so they're going to ask a lot of questions and they're going to want to meet with you last minute and their vibe might kind of like make you kind of thrown off because you're like, I thought we had all this plan. Why do you need to meet and double check? They've probably done a great job. They just want to make sure that they've done everything you need to help you.

00:29:06:14 - 00:29:25:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you have someone in your life who's like that, just remember, like, just have your questions kind of written out of what you know, that they text and have those input ready for them. And that's going to help those meetings a lot quicker. I had a at one churches I worked at, I had a volunteer like that.

00:29:25:20 - 00:29:47:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Her name was Sarah. And the way that I would think logistically when I was planning things because, like, I was a one man band, we had a church secretary 20 hours a week that served the entire church. Right. So, like, I could get some stuff, you know, to for her to do for the youth ministry, but not like she wasn't like, there to, like at my beck and call for everything.

00:29:48:00 - 00:30:12:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so as I was like dishing things off to volunteers and whatnot, like my, my filter in my head was always like, what would Sarah want to know? Right? It's I think that's a good like a good way to think about it is like, think about the volunteer who has the most questions for you. And then ask the question like, would the amount of information that I'm sending up, would it satisfy that person?

00:30:12:16 - 00:30:37:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if yes, then you're on the right track. If not, then you probably need more detail. So yeah. Yeah, I love that. Cool. Kaylen, is that it? Do we hit it? Yeah. There's our all events for future and for always going to be planned, do you think? I think I think so well, yeah probably. All right. Well hey, this was how I plan events with Kaylen.

00:30:37:14 - 00:30:57:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not Morty's Kaylen Adams. And, she's awesome. So, Kaylen, I mean, like, can people, like, follow you, like, on social media or anything if they want to? Yeah. Yeah. Where, where where can they find you? It's funny. I have to, like, go double check. Well, I can't fake my name. Oh, wait. What is it? Now that I just had to change my social media handles?

00:30:57:18 - 00:31:22:13
Kaylen Adams
Because I just got mail? I know well, and Instagram is actually really hard to change your last name on, so it hasn't been changed yet. My handle, but my name on there stage so you can find me at K Maltese Underscore on Instagram. It's cmake lta s underscore on Instagram Facebook Palin Adams look me up. I think that's all in I'm on because I'm old and TikTok that's okay.

00:31:22:17 - 00:31:32:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's banned anyway. So actually it's back. I don't know if you heard but oh all right people. Well I'm signing off for Kayla and this is Nick. Talk to you next time. Stay hybrid guys.