🎬 THE ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS MOVIE SHOWDOWN
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-ultimate-christmas-movie-showdown/christmas/christmas-games-9784.html

DESCRIPTION
🎄 It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Ready to throw the BEST Youth Ministry Christmas Party ever? 🎉 In this episode, Nick Clason of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast spills the peppermint-flavored tea on how to make your event unforgettable! 🏆 Whether it’s the Ultimate Christmas Movie Showdown, hilarious games, or social media outreach, this guide has it ALL.

🌟 Grab the downloadable Christmas party resource on Download Youth Ministry—complete with voting brackets, social media assets, and everything you need to pull off a high-energy, crowd-engaging event that doubles as a killer social media strategy. 🎅✨

👇 Grab the resource now: DownloadYouthMinistry.com

🎬 Watch till the end for tips on engaging Gen Alpha and crushing it on YouTube. And as always, my friends, stay hybrid! 🚀

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/126

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Make Your Christmas Event Pop This Year!
01:59 How to Use a Bracket?
03:56 The Ultimate Christmas Movie Showdown Explained
05:25 The 16 Movies
06:20 What's Included in the Download?
10:00 How do you Crown a Winner?
12:27 Our Hybrid December Plans
14:14 YouTube for your Youth Ministry

--------------
✍️ TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Student

00:00:01:16 - 00:00:06:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
ministry Christmas party. I mean, it is the preeminent

00:00:06:05 - 00:00:08:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
event of the year. You play

00:00:08:18 - 00:00:19:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
dozens of games, you eat even more sweets, and you serve hot chocolate. Maybe you play a Christmas movie. What if I told you that I had the

00:00:19:09 - 00:00:26:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
event that was going to make your Christmas party? Absolutely pop? Well,

00:00:26:09 - 00:00:26:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here it is. It

00:00:26:29 - 00:00:31:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:00:36:02 - 00:00:40:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and incorporate this style of event, along with all of the other ways

00:00:40:29 - 00:00:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that if you don't want to use it for your party, or it's a little bit too late to lead in to your party, that you can use this style of resource if you scrub ahead,

00:00:50:00 - 00:00:55:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I am going to go ahead and offer this resource to you so you can go ahead and check that out.

00:00:55:08 - 00:01:18:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're watching here on screen, you can see that timestamp. If not, just hit the link down below in the show notes or head to Hybridministry.xyz/127. But we are going to talk Christmas party. We're going to talk outreach and we're going to talk social media. And this event has all of those. And this product has all those wrapped into one single thing.

00:01:18:21 - 00:01:18:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're

00:01:18:27 - 00:01:23:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:01:23:03 - 00:01:36:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
meetings and things you have to do. You got to come up with games and lessons and and manage parents and volunteers and senior pastors and oh yeah, social media and oh yeah, the Christmas event and. Oh yeah, and oh yeah. And oh

00:01:36:03 - 00:01:36:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
yeah.

00:01:36:19 - 00:01:48:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And oh yeah. But in this event guide, you will have the ability to crush, social media outreach and your Christmas party all in one fell swoop. It is going to be amazing.

00:01:48:01 - 00:01:52:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:01:54:25 - 00:01:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:01:56:21 - 00:01:58:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Tis the season. Let's hop in.

00:01:58:14 - 00:02:00:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So in

00:02:00:26 - 00:02:02:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:02:18:19 - 00:02:25:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here at the top of the YouTube video, I did the ultimate event guide to the World's Greatest donut that,

00:02:25:10 - 00:02:42:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in that video you can download my event guide. It's complete with a shopping list and all those types of things. And also sends you to download Youth Ministry where you can buy this voting style event. But this has been something that has been a staple of my ministry and a staple of honestly, what I've done for years.

00:02:42:17 - 00:03:04:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And essentially I'm borrowing from the like, wave or the popularity of like a march madness bracket style voting. And so, like in our space, we have this big window that opens into like a small sort of like half court indoor gymnasium sort of deal. And we printed a custom size vinyl banner, for six, for a 16 team bracket.

00:03:04:04 - 00:03:22:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then we put, those things we just, you know, print them out on computer paper or whatever, cut them out. And we do these, like, style events 2 or 3 times throughout the year. So like I said in that video linked, just a second ago, we have done like the world's greatest donut. We have voted on the best.

00:03:22:26 - 00:03:34:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We did last March Madness. One year we have voted on the world's best, like, mascot. And then that mascot became our official student ministry mascot. Shout out to Pugsley

00:03:34:11 - 00:03:38:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
the platypus! We've done all sorts of different like voting

00:03:38:02 - 00:03:49:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and challenge based style things. It's just like a fun way to sort of like, create, competition and conversation around something for like several weeks in a row.

00:03:49:06 - 00:03:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in this particular instance, we're

00:03:50:29 - 00:03:56:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
doing the ultimate Christmas movie showdown. Now, by the time that this video drops, you're

00:03:56:04 - 00:03:57:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:03:57:24 - 00:04:13:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Christmas party or even slightly beyond your Christmas party. But if you have not made it yet to your Christmas party, then what you can do. And this is what we did. We did a Christmas movie watch party, but we're allowing the students to vote on the Christmas movie.

00:04:13:20 - 00:04:37:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's what's really cool, is we actually at our costume party on the 30th of October, we revealed that the Christmas bracket was now live, and then the students could vote on it. And the best thing about this is, again, if this is already past, your party's already past. You can do something like this just very simply on social media, during sort of the holiday lull, you can do, every week is a new round or you can do it.

00:04:37:14 - 00:04:42:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Every day is a new round. And that's the thing. Like so even if like you download this now

00:04:42:22 - 00:04:52:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and then you go and you play a movie at your Christmas event next week, you can do every day on social media as a round. And there's all sorts of different ways to capture

00:04:52:24 - 00:05:04:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Elf white Christmas elf faces off against White Christmas. That's the one seed versus the 16. They're not listed there. But you know, and once the students start voting, you can tell who the overall one seed is.

00:05:04:24 - 00:05:31:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Then in the eight nine matchup we have Frosty the Snowman versus the year without a Santa Claus. Then in the four I think 13 413 matchup, we have Christmas vacation pairing off against Christmas with the Kranks Muppet Christmas Carol versus Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer, Home Alone, which is the two seed versus It's a Wonderful Life A Christmas Story, which is a seven versus Polar Express, which is a ten, the Santa Claus, which is a three, versus Jingle All the Way, which is like a 14, I think.

00:05:25:00 - 00:05:26:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:05:31:25 - 00:05:42:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then Santa Claus is Coming to Town versus How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the six versus, I think, 11 match up there. And so this PowerPoint file, you can very simply edit the winners. Right? So if elf beats white Christmas in the voting, you can move it ahead. And you can use that in your space to write these in.

00:06:18:28 - 00:06:20:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:06:20:18 - 00:06:26:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right? So if elf beats white Christmas in the voting, you can move it ahead. And you can use that in your space to write these in.

00:06:26:25 - 00:06:35:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I have the winners sort of as like placeholders. In there that you can like, you know, make sure that you can move them on. But

00:06:35:13 - 00:06:43:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here's the thing. Every single round in every single context is going to be different. Maybe you are a big white Christmas church, and all of your students are going to pick White Christmas.

00:06:43:25 - 00:06:52:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's great. Then go with it. Go for it. Okay. Additionally, you can, use and use this, like I said, on social media. So a couple of my

00:06:52:21 - 00:06:53:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
favorite ways to

00:06:53:12 - 00:07:03:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
do it are on Instagram Stories. And also now for Generation Alpha, who is, widely and widely adopting YouTube as one of their platforms of choice.

00:07:03:09 - 00:07:08:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can post on your YouTube posts page section, a voting poll option with images

00:07:08:29 - 00:07:22:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and stuff like that. And so I've included some social graphics that are still. And so it's your title to your overall bracket. You can write in the winners each round and then, round one graphic, an elite eight graphic, a Final Four graphic, and a championship round graphic.

00:07:22:19 - 00:07:43:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then you just very simply stick the question sticker on that graphic. I also have social media videos which, pair and look similar to the widescreen video. So there's a title graphic with, you know, some kind of like distance sleigh bells chime in like some Christmas like, chiming things and then like a round one graphic, elite eight graphic, a final four.

00:07:43:29 - 00:07:55:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
All these are videos and championship. And then there are profile cards. And so these are really fun. Every single movie, there's 16 movies. Every single movie has four different

00:07:55:00 - 00:08:05:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
profile cards, both for social media and for, your widescreen in your room. And so, for example, in round one, you might put up the Elf profile card, the very

00:08:05:17 - 00:08:11:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
first Elf profile card versus this and next to the very first white Christmas profile card.

00:08:11:07 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So like right here, if you're watching on the screen, you'll see it says like elf, released in 2003, Will Ferrell shines as buddy, a human race, as an elf who travels to New York to meet his real father. But there, like I said, there are four different profile cards because in the next round of elf advances, you will use the second, fact.

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:49:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you're not just sharing the same fact every single week, week in, week out. So this next one is about who Jon Favreau, who, helped. The movie grossed over 220 million worldwide on a $33 million budget, became a Christmas favorite. The third one's about, Will Ferrell's improv skills, and the fourth one is a fun fact that

00:08:49:09 - 00:08:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
his iconic walk through New York was done candidly and is capturing real reactions from New Yorkers.

00:08:55:13 - 00:08:55:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now

00:08:55:28 - 00:09:17:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you're like, okay, that's great, but what if White Christmas wins? That's why there's four for White Christmas. Now, if White Christmas loses, you're obviously not going to be using fact two, fact 3 or 4, right. But in the event that upsets happen, in the event that that movies keep moving on, there are four because there's four rounds round one, Elite eight, Final Four, and then championship round for you to share those graphics.

00:09:17:10 - 00:09:37:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. And so we have that for social media for still graphics. We have social video graphics. We also have widescreen graphics that you can use and put in your space. Along with those profile card kind of things that you can also put in your space video as well as stills. And then there's paper voting as an option.

00:09:37:18 - 00:09:52:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we'll get to the ways that you can do voting here in just a minute. There's Photoshop files. If you do happen to have Photoshop editing skills. And then finally there are some just like transparent, no background, assets like the logo and the round one, elite eight, all that type of stuff. So

00:09:52:00 - 00:09:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all of that is included in this download, just a few bucks.

00:09:55:21 - 00:09:58:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And like I said, how can you go about

00:09:58:03 - 00:09:59:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:10:08:26 - 00:10:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
of my podcast, Hybrid Ministry ten as a discount code, and you get 10% off your purchase of either Premium or Premium Plus.

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:32:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're using sidekick, you can use the phone connections and the voting option, and students can vote live right there directly in the room. And so you can do all of your matchups right there. And you can do that week in, week out. Now, what do you do about students who don't have phones? Well, that's one of the reasons why I included the

00:10:32:00 - 00:10:39:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
paper printable bracket so that those students aren't left out and so that they have an opportunity to also let their voice be heard.

00:10:39:12 - 00:10:57:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, you might be thinking, well, what happens if, my Christmas party has already passed or I don't have a way to get this, done? In the amount of weeks we have leading up to our Christmas party, no problem. Download this and just post them on social media. And then when people show up to your Christmas party, you'd be like, hey, we're watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas because it was voted on by you.

00:10:57:29 - 00:11:15:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The people on social media. Congratulations to the Grinch. And so you could do this in just four days. Round one, Elite Eight, Final Four, and then the championship. And then you have your event. So if your Christmas party is in seven days, you can theoretically crush this and get this in any time of year if you want to launch it.

00:11:15:07 - 00:11:32:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, depending on when you're watching this, if you have enough time, you can launch it all through the month of December leading into your movie. Or like I said, you can do it all on social using either Instagram voting or the YouTube post. Now here's the good news about that is when you promote it in the room, like, hey, voting is live!

00:11:32:04 - 00:11:39:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One of the things I've done, I'll show you a graphic of what we're using. It's not included in the download because it's it's custom to us. But just to give you an idea, I just

00:11:39:23 - 00:11:50:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
linked a QR code to our link tree, which has all of our different social handles. And so it says, hey, voting is still live and the winning movie will get, we'll get watch it.

00:11:50:16 - 00:11:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Our Christmas party on you know, December 4th or whatever. I've sent that out in our text list. We've sent it out to our parent

00:11:55:13 - 00:11:55:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Patreon. If you didn't know, we just launched a Patreon and it is going to be walking through my weekly lessons and it's, or a different bonus podcast every single week. It's $4 per month and you get a different bonus podcast per week. So essentially it nets out to a dollar or even slightly less than a dollar per podcast episode.

00:12:24:28 - 00:12:26:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:12:29:00 - 00:12:45:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you didn't know, we just launched a Patreon and it is going to be walking through my weekly lessons and it's, or a different bonus podcast every single week. It's $4 per month and you get a different bonus podcast per week. So essentially it nets

00:12:45:13 - 00:12:51:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
out to a dollar or even slightly less than a dollar per podcast episode.

00:12:51:02 - 00:13:08:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think it's a very modest amount. I would love to encourage you to go over there and check it out. I think you can probably find four bucks a month in your budget, but even if you can't, I just want to let you know that, like we're going to use it to invest deeper into the podcast gear and all sorts of things like that.

00:13:08:17 - 00:13:27:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I'd love to encourage you to go check that out. But we're going to be walking through these lessons, and this is what we're going to be talking about over on that Patreon is what what are the Christmas at the movie lessons? And then, what are the we're also doing? Like we're avoiding the big announcement time before we break into small groups.

00:13:27:01 - 00:13:46:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so our students are going to go into our sort of like small group rooms directly at the end of the countdown. And each of our rooms has a TV on a cart, which is brand new. And so we're going to link that to a YouTube playlist, and there's going to be a small group activity. There's going to be an announcement corner filmed and put there on that playlist.

00:13:46:00 - 00:13:48:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the teaching where we may teach a

00:13:48:09 - 00:14:01:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
little bit, pause for questions, teach a little bit, pause for questions, teach a little bit, pause for some more questions. So we're really trying to lean in sort of to that kind of hybrid thing. And I'm going to detail and explain all of that what we're doing over on that Patreon.

00:14:01:27 - 00:14:10:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I would love to have you go check that out. There's also some other kind of bonus perks and stuff like that. And as I'm describing this, you might be hearing me talk about YouTube in

00:14:10:29 - 00:14:11:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all

00:14:11:11 - 00:14:13:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:14:15:20 - 00:14:16:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
YouTube,

00:14:16:00 - 00:14:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
because I think it's important to put spiritual and evergreen content over there on YouTube for our students.

00:14:22:26 - 00:14:43:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, Generation Alpha is now saying that YouTube is now their preferred search engine, even over Google. And so there's value to that. And, I actually offer either some custom coaching to help you level it up or communications done for you, or I'll actually just do it for you if that's something that you're interested in, go ahead and check the show notes or the link down below in the YouTube description.

00:14:43:13 - 00:15:12:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The link to right here on screen is my complete and full strategy of how we launched and developed a YouTube for youth ministry. It's the free version of that coaching, and then the coaching will take you sort of into that. More customization, but I hope that you grab this product if you have an amazing Christmas event, I hope you can use it to knock outreach out of the park, to have an amazing event, and also crush social media, whether you're using it for the event or just during the lull of the holiday season.

00:15:12:26 - 00:15:18:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't forget my friends and as always, to stay hybrid.

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DESCRIPTION
Pastor, would you like to reach 300,000 people?
Maybe you don’t even want virality, you just want to be relevant online, to serve guests and your existing church members
Whatever the reason, I wonder…
Which components of your discipleship strategy are digital?
Are any?

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
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//PRACTICING THE WAY
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//NIEUWHOF’S TRENDS ARTICLE
https://careynieuwhof.com/church-trends-2024/

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Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Pastor, Want to Reach People Better?
01:46 Church's Lack of Online Innovation
03:24 My FREE Guide to Digital Ministry
03:46 Eye-Popping Statistics about Millenial and Gen Z Church Attendance
05:46 Custom Hybrid Coaching
07:23 The Online Funnel
08:45 Church Communications Done for You

--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Pastor, church leader. Would you like to reach 300,000 people? I mean, maybe you would.

00:00:07:29 - 00:00:19:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
but maybe that's not even your goal. Maybe when you think about online ministry and digital approaches to church, maybe virality isn't your goal. Maybe you just simply want to serve your

00:00:19:21 - 00:00:22:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
guests and your members really well.

00:00:22:28 - 00:00:31:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Whatever the reason is, I wonder which components of your church and of your discipleship strategy are

00:00:31:22 - 00:00:32:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
digital.

00:00:32:16 - 00:00:34:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Are there are there even any? You know,

00:00:34:28 - 00:00:41:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Carey Nieuwhof recently wrote this about the church's sometimes archaic approach to to church and to discipleship. He said

00:00:41:27 - 00:00:58:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
most churches approach it like this. Let's just get people in our building. Let's just get people in the room, and then we'll figure out how to disciple them. Well, in this episode, what I want to do is I want to share with you how churches are reaching people, specifically young people, online.

00:00:58:19 - 00:01:13:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm also going to share with you some eye opening statistics about generation Z and millennials and their church attendance, and how that should frame your solution to the online and digital conundrum. But stick around to the end of the video, because I have a

00:01:13:01 - 00:01:19:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
solution that's going to cost you next to nothing that can maximize your impact online.

00:01:19:09 - 00:01:19:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey there

00:01:19:23 - 00:01:38:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
everyone! My name is Nicholas, and if you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. I've been in youth ministry for 14 years, and thus I've also been in digitally integrated ministry for 14 years. And in recent years I have upped the ante on that. And I have gone all in on digital and content marketing

00:01:38:14 - 00:01:43:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in the context of church and in the context of youth ministry.

00:01:43:02 - 00:02:14:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I'm so excited to have you here. Let's hop in. You know, there are churches, believe it or not, out there like church home like Life Church that are reaching thousands of young adults and they're doing it online. In fact, John Mark Comber has a delivery system for discipleship resources in his Discipleship Resource Delivery system is 100% through his digital platform called Practicing the Way You Know in the article link down below that I am referencing that Karen you have talked about.

00:02:14:13 - 00:02:16:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said this. He said after a

00:02:16:00 - 00:02:40:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
brief period for churches of innovation with all kinds of online ministries, churches offered during Covid when it first hit, most churches have toggled back to simply stream their weekend services and using social media to either share last week's service or to advertise their next service. Live streaming your weekend service taps about 1% of the potential that online ministry has to offer.

00:02:40:29 - 00:02:59:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I would imagine if you're in church or in pastoral ministry, you probably feel as though you don't have time, especially when it pertains to digital and especially when it pertains to online, because it can just be a totally new skillset, and entering into a new skill set is never a fun phenomenon, because you gotta learn so many things.

00:02:59:27 - 00:03:22:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So give me a like, if any of these things that I'm about to share are things that you've had to do within the past week, give me. Like if you've had to write a sermon or enter into a counseling appointment, or if you've had to focus on community outreach of sorts, or heaven forbid, give me a like if you've even had to do some administrative duties, I should have hundreds of likes on this video.

00:03:22:29 - 00:03:36:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
At this point, I want you to give me a subscribe. If you instantly think to yourself with all those to do, how in the world am I supposed to make social media and digital a priority? I have some good news for you. Link down below is my completely

00:03:36:05 - 00:03:41:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
free full strategy guide. It's how I grew our channels and had to how

00:03:41:14 - 00:03:45:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I approach social and digital media here in the context that I'm in.

00:03:45:12 - 00:04:11:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're watching here on YouTube, in the article that I link down below, you can also go check it out. Carey Nieuwhof is the millennial generation is now squarely your church's main focus. Or it should be because, church attendance has gone up. For millennials, it's higher than gen X and it's higher than boomers. Furthermore, according to a study done by Barna a couple of years back, millennial church goers said this.

00:04:11:02 - 00:04:26:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They said hybrid church just as much as physical church will be a good this good fit for them. Furthermore, I want to share some of these statistics with you. If you're watching here on YouTube, you can see them, but it says, the question was,

00:04:26:22 - 00:04:33:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
do you use the internet for faith purposes? Do you use the internet as a faith supplement?

00:04:33:08 - 00:05:00:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Do you use the internet as a substitute for physical church church? Gen Z, unsurprisingly, was the highest, with 67% using it for faith purposes. 56% using it as a faith supplement, and 58% using it as a substitute for physical church. Millennials were next, with 64% using it for faith purposes. 46% as a faith supplement, and 51% as a substitute for physical church and then church.

00:05:00:09 - 00:05:14:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Gen X and boomers go 58 and 42 for faith purposes, 45 and 32 for a faith supplement, and 44 and 40 for a, substitute for physical church. And I share all of

00:05:14:00 - 00:05:22:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
those to say is that the strategy of let's just get them here in the room is not going to work anymore, and you can try that.

00:05:22:21 - 00:05:46:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's fine. And I get why we would be prone to want to do that, because in this same article by Barna, the, future of the hybrid church, which I'll link down below in the shownotes if you want to check that out. Purchase product, but it's fantastic. It's fantastic. There is a, there is still a desire to gather together, which is why it's I like to call it hybrid.

00:05:46:07 - 00:06:08:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's not just digital. It's not just what we had during Covid, which was only digital. Right? It's it's digital plus in person. So in-person still has, a job to do. And so what I want to offer to you is you can grab my free e-book, but if you get in there and you're like, I don't know what's best for us, and we'll let you know about some custom coaching that I have to offer.

00:06:08:22 - 00:06:29:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
My custom coaching is four sessions long. $50 per session will be $200 out of your overall budget, which is absolutely pennies in the in the drop in the bucket in an overall church size budget. But if you know, even that is too much, reach out. We can make something work. But the reason that custom coaching is important is because every context is different.

00:06:29:10 - 00:06:53:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can tell you what I'm doing here in DFW, Dallas-Fort worth area, to reach, in my context, Gen Z or young, you know, basically almost done with Gen Z to Gen Alpha. But and that might be helpful because if you're managing church social media for an overall church, like, well, we're doing is very going to be very cutting edge for, you know, like older Gen Z and even like millennials.

00:06:53:12 - 00:07:15:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But every church in every context and every geographical area is a little bit different. I was recently, coaching another guy, and, my typical like, strategy, I changed it and tweaked it a little bit for him because he was doing things just a little bit differently. His context was a little bit different, and his role was a little bit unique compared to what I typically would tell people to do.

00:07:15:01 - 00:07:34:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so even I was, you know, thinking through and adjusting my model. And so it's important because everyone in every place is different. And so you can get my free guide and you can use what works, you know, for you out of that. But if you want to even tap in just a little bit further to some of the uniqueness of every context, that's where customized coaching comes in.

00:07:34:03 - 00:07:58:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because here's the thing. For you and for me and for all of us, like, my like, general strategy is simply, walking down a funnel of posting short form content, silly content, as well as spiritual content, and hopefully gathering an audience with that and then pushing them to, like a long form version of some more serious spiritual content, which is what we do in our youth ministry.

00:07:58:18 - 00:08:27:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We pre film our messages and we adapt them and make them specific for YouTube. You know, we do that versus like a live stream type of thing. As Kerry New study said. This said the challenge is the future is to diversify what you offer online and distinguish it from what you offer in person. So not only is that going to create true options, New Life continues on to say, but it will deepen engagement as your in-person and online ministries lean towards what each does best.

00:08:27:07 - 00:08:44:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then, beyond. Just like your message content, beyond your weekly sermon, so to speak, that are also going to live online, whether that's live stream, which I would argue is not as good as a pre filmed version, but it's still better than than nothing. You can also lean into things like courses and those types of things.

00:08:44:28 - 00:09:04:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the final piece is this is like as I say, all this and there's, you know, maybe a minute ago you gave me that sub because you were like, dude, there's just too much to do. And even with some custom coaching, there's still going to be a lot on your plate. You're 100% right. There is. There's still a lot of work to do, which is what I want to offer to, to some of you might be worth it.

00:09:04:13 - 00:09:26:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Budget wise, communications done for you. It's a service that I offer. And I will run your website. Or I will do graphics and video, or I will run your YouTube and social media. Each of those different buckets and categories is a different price point. Or you can bundle them all together for, a different price point link down below to inquire about that.

00:09:26:25 - 00:09:31:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But let me just tell you that it is a 10th of the cost of a

00:09:31:25 - 00:09:39:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
full time staff person. If you were to hire me and contract me to do communications for you and for your church and for your ministry,

00:09:39:18 - 00:09:47:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
because there's so much on your plate and you just you, you want it, but you don't have the time or bandwidth or desire maybe even to learn it.

00:09:47:05 - 00:10:02:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I understand that. And at some point it's just worth it, you know, to just get it off of your plate. And if that you're in that zone and you don't want the coaching, you don't want to learn via the e-book, then great. Then check out what I have to offer communications for you. I will do things like inspect your website.

00:10:02:26 - 00:10:09:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I will optimize your search engine optimization. I will make your website as visitor friendly as possible.

00:10:09:03 - 00:10:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you

00:10:09:13 - 00:10:42:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
want to go in the graphics route, I can do graphic design for you. I can do series and events and pre screen and print graphics and all those types of things. Get those pesky jobs off of your plate. And if you want to optimize your church's social media, live stream or YouTube profile messages, we can, do thumbnails, we can title the video, we can optimize the tags for search engine optimization and create chapters so that people can jump around in your videos, create playlists and online courses, and also create post shorts for your social

00:10:42:24 - 00:11:04:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
media. Whatever works best and whatever you want done for you. All of it is linked down below in the description or in the show notes. I'd love to have you check those things out, but again, I appreciate you being here and listen. It is. The future of the church is online. It's not only online, but are you? A wide portion of it is.

00:11:04:07 - 00:11:27:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the fact is, the more capacity and bandwidth that you have to take it there, the more effective I believe you will be to maximize your reach and your influence. So continue to pursue reaching people for Jesus. Continue to pursue the call and the assignment in which God has placed you, particularly right now in this season. And don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

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DESCRIPTION
In this video, a Gen-Zer shares their perspective on the future of ministry, specifically focusing on the concept of hybrid ministry. Exploring how technology and traditional practices can blend to create a more inclusive and engaging worship experience, this insightful discussion provides a fresh take on how ministries can adapt to meet the needs of the digital age. If you're curious about how the younger generation views the evolution of ministry, this video is a must-watch!

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/107

//STOP POSTING ANNOUNCEMENTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slB0Rmf_X0c&t=20s

[THE PARKVIEW ONE]
//HOW IT ALL STARTED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0L-Dxhs7cI&t=232s

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "The Full Hybrid Ministry Strategy"
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🛠️TOOLS
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
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AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 A Gen Zer's Take on Hybrid Ministry
01:30 What was your first impression of Hybrid Ministry?
03:01 Did it ever feel like we were trying too hard?
03:52 What has been your relationship with digital?
06:04 What did you think of all this hybrid?
07:08 After all this: Summarize your opinion
09:50 How Digital enhances in-person
12:56 What are the challenges of a Hybrid Space?
14:38 Does Editing Really Matter?
18:54 The Most Surprising Thing from the last year
20:42 The Final Word
--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;54
Nick Clason
Hey, what is up, everybody? Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. This is a fun, actually interview episode. So for those of you who have been watching following along over the last year or so, I've mentioned my resident, his name is Caleb. now a nickname. Call him flywheel. because he was in his residence, group Learning project, and he needed to read, from good to great.

00;00;23;54 - 00;00;42;15
Nick Clason
And he knew to read the flywheel chapter. And so I called him flywheel. and he now calls me Thunder Dog because I'm a Oklahoma City Thunder fan. but anyway, he's been with us for a year now, and I actually, I wanted to get his take, today, we actually said goodbye to him. we had, like, a breakfast at our house with him, my family.

00;00;42;20 - 00;00;56;20
Nick Clason
and so he's heading back home, but I want to get his take on what it was like, to work in a hybrid ministry environment. Like, you know, as a resident, you really get a lot of choices on that. And so, since he didn't get a lot of choices, I want to be like, hey, what do you think?

00;00;56;32 - 00;01;16;03
Nick Clason
What are you going to keep? What are you going to get go away from? and so I'm excited to have you kind of sit in on this interview, just conversation informal, him and I and just kind of his experience in this sort of hybrid space. So. Hope you enjoy. if this is helpful to you or anyone else that you might think, give it a like, give it a share.

00;01;16;18 - 00;01;21;23
Nick Clason
give it a subscribe. All those things are incredibly helpful to us. So without any further ado, the exclusive

00;01;21;23 - 00;01;24;25
Nick Clason
one and only Flywheel Caleb Maeda interview.

00;01;26;03 - 00;01;48;33
Nick Clason
Well, I'm here with Flywheel Maeda.

Caleb Maeda
Hey.

so I don't know, like, I don't know. You came into my world, and I told you that hybrid ministry, digital ministry, all that stuff mattered. so. So take us back.

00;01;48;35 - 00;01;53;40
Nick Clason
Take me back to when you, like, started with me at, like back in Chicago. Yeah. Well,

00;01;53;40 - 00;01;57;55
Caleb Maeda
yeah. So back in Chicago is like my first church job. Like in general.

00;01;58;50 - 00;02;11;09
Caleb Maeda
so I wasn't really sure how anything worked. So I think that really started, like, my mind set on, like, hybrid ministry because, like, I didn't have any previous, like, things I was holding on to, like, I had. youth group that I grew up in, but it was pretty different. And also coming out of like the pandemic. yeah. Like it like made sense. And then when I saw it working and like I saw because like the model that you guys used with like the connect groups that like, met in the homes and then watched it and like, interact with it. I thought that was like super cool. And so then also getting to like work on that show and like helped produce a little bit and like run some of this stuff like I like immediately saw the value and also like, like just being a younger person. Like I grew up watching YouTube like like the people that I like, loved growing up or like YouTubers and so like the value of that platform with this generation. I think I also kind of related to and so like from the get go, I was kind of brought in, I was like, yeah, this is legit, I agree. I mean.

00;02;58;06 - 00;03;03;59
Nick Clason
Did you ever, did you ever feel like, oh, these guys are trying to be YouTubers and they're old?

00;03;08;22 - 00;03;23;42
Caleb Maeda
No, because I think at the time it was honestly like the stuff that I was working on at Parkview is like the search for Chuck the duck that summer. And so, like, it was not stupid enough, but it was it was stupid enough that it was like these guys, like, they're clearly not doing this for clout. Like, I don't know any 30 year old man who's like, you know, it'd be really cool searching for a fake rubber duck for an entire summer, you know? And so I never I never got that kind of vibe just because of the nature of what we were doing.

00;03;35;15 - 00;03;42;54
Nick Clason
Yeah. Okay, so then you, after your time with us in Chicago, you go and you work at your home church for a little bit, right? And just interning? Yeah, mostly in the arena of worship.

00;03;50;12 - 00;04;05;10
Caleb Maeda
No, I was is youth for the first school year, and then it was worship the second school year. What was their relationship with digital social media hybrid? I mean, so they're they're your typical like evangelical covenant, like multi-site church. So they're like they're with it, but they're not sure

00;04;05;19 - 00;04;24;37
Nick Clason
I wonder how many evangelical covenant multi-site churches or like you say, typical.

00;04;24;12 - 00;04;38;10
Caleb Maeda
I actually don't know. It's a thing in Minnesota, I guess, from where I grew up. But, so they do have a value of social media, but they're not quite as consistent like they don't have, I don't think. And granted, when I was there, their social media platform was we didn't have students over Christmas break. So like, let's make something fun. And like that was it other than like announcements for events and stuff. Yeah. And now these days it's a little bit more like, you know, the trends where like, you see a guy, like, fall off a stretcher and then it's someone rolling and say, like, you should get to like, you know, those classes.

00;04;38;13 - 00;04;54;21
Nick Clason
I think you need only do some of this.

00;04;38;13 - 00;04;54;21
Caleb Maeda
I saw one the other day. We should do. but so like, they've started doing some more of that stuff in the past year or so. And so I think it's, it's done an uptick, but it's not as fleshed out as, like what we're doing here of like two posts a day, you know, that kind of, yeah.

00;04;54;26 - 00;05;18;11
Caleb Maeda
And they don't like a good day. Yeah. And they don't they don't do, like, fun content, like drafts or like things like that. The students other than, like pictures for, like recaps of events and stuff, they're not super on the pages. It's mostly like announcement based stuff. Yeah, yeah. Which like is a is a pretty like standard operating procedure for like churches and social media.

00;05;18;12 - 00;05;24;09
Nick Clason
Yeah. have a whole video linked right here about, you should also be posting announcements.

00;05;24;09 - 00;05;33;40
Caleb Maeda
You Should link to Parkview one to like, I only saw one at a time.

00;05;24;09 - 00;05;33;40
Nick Clason
I can only do one. We have it. We did it. We did.

00;05;33;40 - 00;05;36;36
Caleb Maeda
Really? Yeah. I didn't know that.

00;05;33;40 - 00;05;36;36
Nick Clason
I know you didn't. That's why you link to, like, three times in your last teaching video.

00;05;36;40 - 00;05;51;29
Nick Clason
Don't worry about this link to it here. This link I thought you could. You get one. You get one card per video. There you go. I didn't know that YouTube. I didn't know that one. I'm getting exposed right now. I thought I'd never mind. It's like we can talk about that later, but, Okay, so then

00;05;51;29 - 00;05;55;43
Nick Clason
then you come here and we are.

00;05;55;47 - 00;05;57;55
Nick Clason
What we're doing is very different.

00;05;57;55 - 00;06;09;14
Nick Clason
the Parkview one, by the way. I'll link it down in the description. You can watch it. It's like the 100th episode. 100th episode. How it all started. It's pretty pog. Yeah, I think it was a good one. It was a good one. but anyway,

00;06;09;14 - 00;06;12;23
Nick Clason
you come down here and it's different.

00;06;12;28 - 00;06;26;51
Nick Clason
Put it, put aside your people pleasing nature. Like, just give me the raw, unfiltered, like, what do you think?

00;06;26;51 - 00;06;48;29
Caleb Maeda
I mean, again, like, I, I agreed with what we were doing because I think of my experience at Parkview. I think for me, once we started doing or like trying to make students on the page more of a priority, that was kind of the shift that I was more on board with just because like, yeah, like the the one I struggled with the most were those like the no, it or not dancing TikToks that we did, I freaking I like I'm not a dancer, so I hated them, but like, I hated them cause I

00;06;48;29 - 00;07;14;43
Nick Clason
was not a dancer. Not for like strategy reasons. but once we started getting students on the page, I think that was where I started feeling like, yeah, we're doing something that, like, is cool. so yeah, yeah, that was kind of my first. So, you are heading, like off on your own at some point. At some point we don't know what's next.

00;07;14;48 - 00;07;37;26
Nick Clason
Yeah. But like, what are your thoughts on, like. All right, I'm about to be my own youth pastor, and I just did a, summer internship and then a full year long residency, with, church and youth pastors who are fully bought into, like, digital, like. Yeah. First of all, summarize your opinion

00;07;37;26 - 00;07;40;47
Nick Clason
like, you just you gave a lot of different like examples of like summarize like, yeah.

00;07;40;51 - 00;07;44;10
Nick Clason
Do you think it's like worth it valuable.

00;07;44;10 - 00;07;50;41
Nick Clason
And then like how would you yeah. How would you tell people like here's how it's working on

00;07;50;41 - 00;07;57;25
Nick Clason
like the inside of it because like, you know, if anyone follows me or listen to my stuff like they hear me reference it, talk about what we do.

00;07;57;25 - 00;08;00;45
Nick Clason
But like, you got to see, like, firsthand and like, just be honest.

00;08;00;45 - 00;08;05;52
Nick Clason
Like, are you like, I don't know, I don't know if it's working or not. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think the

00;08;05;52 - 00;08;25;31
Caleb Maeda
things that have been working the most has been getting students involved on the page, not even in terms of like on the page traction as much as like in person traction, because I think I think like with the social challenge that we did with the Hot Wings thing that we did like, it was a lot of kids saying like, hey, how can I be on screen?

00;08;25;41 - 00;08;38;03
Caleb Maeda
You know, this is what it was. It was how can I what can I do? Yeah. And like, well, that shouldn't be your only motivation to like, do these things. I think it lended itself great to increasing like the desire to like, serve

00;08;38;03 - 00;08;56;03
Caleb Maeda
or like well and like there, like you said, like what's normal to them. Yeah. Like and the option to like be on social media or be on YouTube is like a little bit, well, because like, I remember growing up and like seeing all my favorite YouTubers and thinking like, man, I wish I could do that, but I don't know how to do this.

00;08;56;03 - 00;09;24;01
Caleb Maeda
I don't know how to do this. And so I think it's a really great way for students to even live that little piece of them who, like, they don't know how to set up a studio. They don't know what lights are. Yeah, I don't know what that is. that's Jake. Yeah it is. Jake. Shout out to Jake I love you, but, like they it's it's an experience for them to get to like, live that out a little bit and then also do it in like a safe context where like, it's like, I don't know, it's safe for the family content.

00;09;24;01 - 00;09;39;47
Caleb Maeda
Like I think also just like the opportunity, the whole family. Yeah. It is like the opportunity to just like replace one video, I think in a kids feed is like a win in my opinion, because of just like the nature of social media, you know, like we can get into the whole of like comparing our lives and stuff.

00;09;39;49 - 00;09;48;01
Caleb Maeda
Yeah. Or like we can watch stupid people draft like, pizza toppings and pick Palios number one. Yeah. You know, was the decision ever I agree,

00;09;48;01 - 00;10;03;43
Nick Clason
okay. So off you go. Yeah. What's your what's your well what's your like as of today. Date of recording all that stuff like. Yeah. What do you think your future relationship with like digital and hybrid is going to I obviously yeah.

00;10;03;45 - 00;10;23;16
Nick Clason
You you don't know where you're headed like I guess pie in the sky. Like what would be the hope. The hope would be to recreate this just in the north? yeah. Like I said, like, I, I think that what we're doing is working. I think, again, like, I don't think it's as much about the followers on the page.

00;10;23;16 - 00;10;44;22
Nick Clason
It's more about what we're seeing in the room, you know, like, even like just seeing some of the kids drafting against each other and like, the relationships that are getting built, like, even within that, like you're getting pairs of, like two students who, like, wouldn't typically talk to each other and now they're being forced to like, draft something and like, communicate and like that can make them walk away with some form of connection.

00;10;44;27 - 00;11;09;27
Caleb Maeda
And so I think those are the things that I like about what we're doing. and so I would definitely want to, to create something like that. That's like students on the page driven. Yeah. where it's all about like it's a tool to use that to build community at our, at our group. Yeah. I mean, I think like the way that I've laid out because like, what you're talking about, even two is like, your strategy is like coming at it from like a different even angle.

00;11;09;27 - 00;11;37;57
Nick Clason
Yeah. So like my strategy is like, do fun and silly and stupid content to like, just get on people's feeds and get their attention. Yeah. Maybe you guys have a follow, maybe like start showing up more and more in their algorithm. Yeah. Then sprinkle in teaching content things that like are meaningful and spiritual and whatever, but then have that push them then further down the funnel to like our long form video on YouTube, which then always has like a next step.

Caleb Maeda00;11;55;49
Nick Clason
Yeah. Well and then like also being able to use the YouTube kind of like we did literally like on Sunday where we took the QR code to the baptism series and like that's how we're pushing kids to baptism now as they can go through that class. Like I think having that as also like a resource page on top of the other benefits has been really cool.

00;11;55;54 - 00;12;32;18
Nick Clason
Yeah. But it's like, I guess what's interesting is like how you're saying, like, you see the value of digital and how it plays in the room even, you know, and like, yeah, that's a different benefit than I often even talk about. Yeah. On here. Right. Like I'm always just saying like online to like walk down the funnel, but like you're saying like even if that doesn't happen, like our current pool of students that exist, like we see them interacting and engaging with us because like, yeah, I think a lot of times digital is a process for like how to reach outsiders.

00;12;32;23 - 00;12;53;42
Caleb Maeda
And you're seeing it as like, yeah, but also it can yeah, increase the experience for insiders. Yeah for sure. And like also like I mean it's also a great like invite way because you can be like, hey, the friend from school that doesn't typically go to church. When I come to church to try to be in a YouTube video, like that's also like a it's like it's multifaceted.

00;12;53;42 - 00;13;13;01
Caleb Maeda
You can use it for a lot of different things. Yeah, yeah. What are some of the or have been some of the challenges of being on the or in the hybrid culture, like what has been asked of you? That has been I think it's just like the time it takes to edit videos takes away from other things that you can do.

00;13;13;05 - 00;13;39;12
Caleb Maeda
and like, like obviously having a team like once we got, you know, the interns kind of cooking on drafts and stuff that lighten the load. But I felt like the first half of my residency, I would come to who's who's. Yeah. So undrafted. But yeah, but I feel like my first chunk of my residency was I would show up and I would edit and like, that was what I did, which like, good because now I can edit and like it's a skill that I can market in the future for non-church related products hiring.

00;13;39;21 - 00;14;02;51
Caleb Maeda
But yeah, shout out, please help me. but so I think that phone number down in the appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. 13 of our viewers I'm poor please. My Venmo is somewhere. Yeah, yeah. But, I think that that was tough for me for a little bit just because also, like, I'm just a relationally driven person. And so like the moments like even in the office that like, Drive Me are like the conversations that I'm having with people.

00;14;02;51 - 00;14;18;38
Caleb Maeda
Yeah. And so I think that was a struggle or at least an adjustment period. But also it was interesting because I went to college for music, but since it was a liberal arts school, I took a couple film classes and I like Learn Premiere in those classes already and so on. I came down here and you're like, yeah, we're going to be editing in premiere.

00;14;18;38 - 00;14;42;48
Caleb Maeda
I was like, I know ripple, delete. I can kind of do that. And so teach people. It was a little bit of like a mixed bag of like adjustment, but also familiarity at the same time. and also just kind of like reprioritizing my schedule to see, like where things fit

00;14;18;38 - 00;14;42;48
Nick Clason
does, does editing matter in your opinion?

00;14;42;53 - 00;15;07;12
Caleb Maeda
yeah, I think it does. I think. Actually, I don't I'm not sure. I think it does. I think in, in terms of, like grabbing attention, like the fastest way to make your content more appealing without adjusting your content is just in the editing. Yeah, but you can you can make a highlight reel of, like, any NBA player and make them look good.

00;15;07;12 - 00;15;39;08
00;14;18;38 - 00;14;42;48
Caleb Maeda
Same with like a YouTube video. Like if you've done rumors of Patrick Williams of Thunder, I really I was watching like a highlight video. I was like, this guy is as good as. Yeah. And so like, I think I think from like, like the, the online perspective of it and also like engagement in the room. Like I think back to when I was a student, if you showed me this like super yellow grainy video with like the white noise in the background, that's like almost as loud as this being, like, I would disengage almost immediately just because like, oh, this is an old video, I don't care.

00;15;39;12 - 00;15;54;56
Caleb Maeda
And so I think that there's that kind of like the production value does serve a purpose, but I think that I think we can get in the weeds a little bit like for our person just because like where the yeah, where the people who are like are doing the editing. So we're like, I hate that I did this and no one would even notice.

00;15;55;09 - 00;16;10;52
Nick Clason
Well, what we're talking like yesterday on stage, like the video on the, photo back to. Yeah. Like you and I could see the, like. Yeah. That the edge was a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On screen. But yeah, I don't know. But nobody noticed that before I pointed it out, I don't know, I wasn't paying. Oh not right.

00;16;10;55 - 00;16;27;02
Caleb Maeda
Probably not because you didn't spend very much time on that. Yeah at all. But then like I said look you noticed that. Then there's the little thing. And like, that's just part of, I think, being an artist because like, you're never going to be perfect at your craft and like, filmmaking and editing is like an art form. Yeah.

00;16;27;06 - 00;16;43;45
Caleb Maeda
Not to get all weird about it, but like, it is. And so, I think also just like not getting caught up in that, I think is important because there is a level of production value that is valuable. But I think, you know, any time we get so caught up in the production value that we're not thinking about the content, I think that's where we're going to fall into things.

00;16;43;45 - 00;17;01;32
Caleb Maeda
So at the end of the day, we should be delivering good content to our kids because that's what we're here for. Yeah, I agree, but reach out to either of us if you need anything. Yeah, please. Haha. Well, aim for real. Like how much? And our lives changing. Yeah, that's also true dude. Also like starry I'm going to talk about stars.

00;17;01;36 - 00;17;18;05
Caleb Maeda
Shout out to starry. I freaking love this dude and I've never even talked to him. I remember I started when I was doing the Hot Wings video. I started talking to him just like before the videos, just like, hey man, houses are gone. I love you bro. Yeah. And like, like just the ideas you need to build that connection with a dude in India is really cool.

00;17;18;05 - 00;17;31;13
Caleb Maeda
Yeah. And like, you would tell me some of the things that he would say back in like, I don't know, it was just really cool to like, build that with a dude I've never actually spoken to. And the only reason that happened was because we got to a point where, like, we need someone to help us edit and we found a dude on Fiverr.

00;17;31;13 - 00;18;02;09
Nick Clason
Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't don't tell Fiverr that we don't. I mean, to them we didn't we met him through the Google. We so so yeah. interesting. there's a lot, a lot more ministry opportunities, I think, from this than I thought there would be going into it because I thought, I thought that like, like on paper, it sounds like the ministry we're doing is we're doing it for online kids to get connected to church, to hopefully eventually come and then for our kids to have, like, content.

00;18;02;09 - 00;18;23;03
Caleb Maeda
Right. But then there's like the editor who's like discovering Christianity for the first time and like asking questions and stuff. There's like the community that's being built on, like the key kids who are like trying to do the drafts, like all of that extra stuff is stuff that I didn't personally like, think about. And then when I started seeing it like those ended up being the reasons that like, drove me to keep going rather than just the content.

00;18;23;08 - 00;18;46;56
Nick Clason
So what do you what do you think it will look like for you in the future, like because, you know, keeping going, whatever. Like you're quasi being forced to because you're like working and like this is what we're telling you, like, hey, you have to do. But like, yeah, soon you're going to be your own youth pastor working somewhere or for someone or whatever.

00;18;46;56 - 00;19;08;21
Caleb Maeda
Like what? What things do you see yourself? Just like taking most of all of it, honestly, like the the short form, I think that was the other thing. When I came in, I wasn't as big on short form videos as I was the long form videos, just because when I grew up watching YouTube, YouTube was long form videos.

00;19;08;25 - 00;19;28;49
Caleb Maeda
and so taking that and I just look at our, our Instagram reels, it's like, I know, dude, it's friggin nuts. But, yeah. And so I think I'll take a lot of that stuff, especially because, like, it's pretty easy to get a lot of content, like on a Wednesday night, just like sit down with ten kids and you can get like 5 or 6, you know.

00;19;28;54 - 00;20;02;03
Caleb Maeda
And so I think that and I also I think the, the teaching videos stuff, because the there have been a couple churches that I've been looking at, and like their social media is good, but like they just clip their live preachings, which I think is awesome and great and like, that's better than nothing. But I also think that there's something about, the way that we change it for In the Room versus the, the video that I think just makes the video work a little better because we're specifically crafting that part of our message for that medium.

00;20;02;08 - 00;20;31;21
Caleb Maeda
and so I think more work, it's more work, but I think that the payoff is great because also then, like, there's not like the room awkwardness, like there's not the like, con response. And then that frees us up for in the room to do things like table talk and all of that stuff. and also like, just like having your message written down in that form for the long form videos, helps you to say things that I think sometimes, like, I will drop in the room like there's if there's a little fun tidbit that, like, just isn't going to fit in the room, but I really liked it.

00;20;31;21 - 00;20;52;40
Caleb Maeda
Like, I have to say it in the the long form YouTube video. So I think that there's also that kind of added value. But anything else I can think of, probably like, honestly, I probably won't be on the student ministry page as much as I was at the beginning of this. But like, I'm trying to figure out how what does it look like to start this?

00;20;52;40 - 00;21;16;41
Caleb Maeda
Because like I can say on paper, I want all kids to be doing all the drafts all the time. Like if the kids are involved in like, how am I that, you know. Yeah. And so and sometimes it's helpful for them to like see examples. Yeah. And so it's kind of that like that I'm going to try to figure out how to balance that line of like setting the tone but like making sure it's, it's kid first.

00;21;16;46 - 00;21;34;25
Caleb Maeda
and then also like I think finding ways to like do like not only the teaching videos, but like the baptism videos, like courses like that. I think I would also want to pull just because like, I think that that's a great resource page for them that we can pull from. For anytime a kid has questions about baptisms, you can throw them to that.

00;21;34;30 - 00;21;53;32
Nick Clason
yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, you can also expand that. Like, you could even make the workshops that we've been doing into little video series, like, I don't know if there's like a lot of stuff that you can do with playlists and like with. Yeah, having the idea of it being like a course like. Yeah. And like you and I have talked about this a lot, but I think like content for content delivery.

00;21;53;32 - 00;22;09;26
Caleb Maeda
I think YouTube is a better way than live preaching just because like and like again, you've talked about this all the time, but like, I don't know anybody whose primary like learning style is sit down and listen to a lecture for 30 minutes even. You can have the best graphics as you want, like you can have great table talks.

00;22;09;26 - 00;22;27;14
Caleb Maeda
Like I'm not going to pull as much from that as I will from like a ten minute YouTube video with like graphics and like, I don't know, there's just something about the way our brains are wired with our shorter attention spans. I think YouTube is a great medium medium for content delivery in a way that like, we're not getting as much in the room.

00;22;27;16 - 00;22;50;28
Nick Clason
Yeah, I think these days. Yeah. And I mean the again, sky's the limit. Creativity like your, your creativity or lack of creativity is you're like lid on it. So like if you have like a system like we do now where it's like you fill all your messages and everything, like you know, you can at any time play the video that, yeah, the live teaching doesn't work.

00;22;50;33 - 00;23;12;53
Nick Clason
You can play the clips or like, yeah, like we're going to be gone. We were gone for like a conference earlier this year so we could just throw the video up there. Well in like next week we're gone for camp. Yeah on a Sunday. And so your video is broken up into four parts. Yeah. Questions thrown in like so that I can literally hand it off to any volunteer pastor that's back here on staff.

00;23;12;53 - 00;23;34;58
Caleb Maeda
And they can do it pretty seamlessly. Like, yeah, like, yeah, the sky. And that's the thing, if you say learning happens better in like a medium like that, like almost makes you wonder and ask yourself like, how do I, how do I create a hybrid moment between the two? Like I live in the room and like a video.

00;23;35;02 - 00;24;08;05
Caleb Maeda
Yeah. Where like, intersects and is like used strategically for, like a students most optimal way of learning. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know, I think it's, I think it's something that like we haven't tapped into more from like tradition and anything. And I think that school is starting to go this way a little bit like you've heard of like the flipped classroom where they like get a video and then they watch the video at home, and then they do their homework in the classroom, and then they, like, talk to the teacher and work it out in the classroom.

00;24;08;05 - 00;24;38;27
Caleb Maeda
But all of the teaching is done at home through videos. Yeah. And so I think that, like, we're starting to see that shift in like the school realm. And so I think that church should be the next step. just because I think they like I've, we've been saying like, I think it's a much more effective way to deliver content to this generation, because also, like when I think about it, like I can list, you know, a couple topics from like sermons that I've listened to, but like fallout YouTube videos right now that I've been watching, like, I can pull a lot more purely from just like the amount that I can consume in a

00;24;38;27 - 00;25;00;26
Caleb Maeda
sitting. Yeah. You know, like I can consume 30 minutes. Yeah, I can consume 30 minutes of YouTube content more effectively than in the room for, you know, all of those reasons. Yeah. Yeah. So all right well that's it man POG signing out. Score Vikings. Thanks for hanging some video. I'll probably be here on the screen. Yeah. Click it watch it.

00;25;00;26 - 00;25;04;35
Nick Clason
Do the thing. See you next time. Love you stay hybrid. Yeah. Nice.

00;25;05;36 - 00;25;08;28
Nick Clason
I gotta pee. Okay,

00;25;09;49 - 00;25;13;02
Caleb Maeda
Oh.

00;25;13;24 - 00;25;18;35
Nick Clason
I can't wait to hear that. Nice.

https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

======================================
DESCRIPTION
Episode 100 I decided to sit down with some friends that have all had a hand in the creation of the Full YouTube show we all had a hand in creating during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020.

While Digital and Social Ministry were top of mind for me prior to 2020, the COVID shutdown thrust it into the forefront for me personally and I decided to dive fully into it.

When I started on the very first day of COVID, I had to get creative on how I introduced myself to students, parents and leaders without using the easy in person tools we'd all grown accustomed to using.

That being said, I'm grateful we still have access to those tools, today.

But I realized just how important Hybrid Ministry is to the next generation of teenagers.

This episode chronicles my first day, and I chat with friends who were instrumental in producing and creating the YouTube show we had crafted during those COVID days.

I hope you enjoy this 100th episode special!

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/100

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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🛠️TOOLS
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
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
00:50 Hybrid Ministry During COVID
03:25 Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve
07:01 The Most Fun Memories of Unscripted
09:27 What this means going forward for churches in 2024 and beyond

--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:01
Isaac Sutton
all of the students in the room,
who were watching unscripted,
had bingo
cards
that coordinated to stuff that
was.

Nick Clason
Yes.

00:00:08:19 - 00:00:09:23
Darren Sutton
digital integration is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

00:00:12:09 - 00:00:18:24
Sam Vos
it was probably I probably felt God's hand more in like my career, my life in that moment than a lot of other moments.

00:00:18:24 - 00:00:25:04
Nick Clason
unscripted played a really major role in like the catalyst to especially my podcast and everything like that.

00:00:25:04 - 00:00:31:04
Nick Clason
I would say the reason for that is simply realizing and understanding that students live online.

00:00:31:04 - 00:00:39:22
Darren Sutton
there's a lot I've messed up in my years of youth ministry, but that is one thing that I'm really proud of. Like in the middle of the pandemic, there was not a blank ministry kept going.

00:00:39:22 - 00:00:41:06
Sam Vos
we're going to try something different

00:00:50:00 - 00:00:55:02
ABC News
president's words come after the World Health Organization today declared the coronavirus a global pandemic,

00:00:55:02 - 00:00:57:19
Darren Sutton
I remember this very clearly.

00:00:57:19 - 00:01:01:24
Sam Vos
I mean, obviously, I came down to Parkview in February of 2020

00:01:01:24 - 00:01:06:06
Darren Sutton
the Thursday before we went home, we're like, yeah, there's something happening in the world that's not going to affect us. On Friday it became clear that

00:01:07:24 - 00:01:10:05
Nick Clason
which for context I started on Monday.

00:01:10:05 - 00:01:13:06
Darren Sutton
that maybe we'd miss a couple of weeks of meeting together. Yeah. And I have been toying around for a while with, like, a YouTube show. like, in my mind, that there was like, we were just not speaking a digital language at all.

00:01:24:06 - 00:01:25:12
Sam Vos
going there, Darren had a very kind of a new perspective on what he thought ministry would be. Right. So he was already kind of starting to talk about like, how do we take digital and kind of infuse that with what, you know, historically, youth ministry has been.

00:01:38:21 - 00:01:41:22
Darren Sutton
you know, in the grand scheme of the engine of ministry, there is no time to dream a dream,
right?
Well, Covid forced us to do that.
I kind of laid out this idea for, basically a variety show, some kind of YouTuber And I said, you know, if we decided to do this, I think we probably need to do a week or two and a big a beta test.
So could we, could we film a show? Yeah, right.
And over the weekend we came up with a whole concept for the for the YouTube show and shot it on Monday.

00:02:04:22 - 00:02:07:23
Sam Vos
Well, I'd only been there for like 3 or 4 weeks, right. Yeah.
Which I'm fine with. So then obviously it
happens. You'd only been there 3 to 4 hours is kind of like, hey, we need somebody to be the guy. And obviously I was like.
the same day we started filming was the same day that they were like, "hey, everybody's got to go home" and

00:02:20:04 - 00:02:31:04
Isaac Sutton
everybody was packed in tightly into a room and they had a like,

Nick Clason
as we're in this like, hey, don't go by people time, like and then cram all these people into a room.

00:02:31:04 - 00:02:33:11
Nick Clason
remember, like, everyone was like on vacation?

00:02:33:11 - 00:02:34:10
Nick Clason
getting married.

00:02:34:13 - 00:02:35:20
Nick Clason
had was took PTO

00:02:35:20 - 00:02:37:06
Nick Clason
I was the new guy.

00:02:37:06 - 00:02:40:02
Nick Clason
Right. You were like the longest tenured person in the room.

00:02:40:02 - 00:02:46:15
Sam Vos
it was probably I probably felt God's hand more in like my career, my life in that moment than a lot of other moments.

00:02:46:15 - 00:02:47:07
Darren Sutton
And that was your first day in the office? Yep. We all came and I was like, hey, Nick, no time to onboard you. We're filming the show

00:02:52:21 - 00:03:00:20
Sam Vos
then on our first day of filming this digital piece of it where there was, worship element in kind of this hosting element and stuff like that, filmed the first episode of unscripted at the church.

00:03:03:12 - 00:03:05:24
Nick Clason
not socially distanced whatsoever

00:03:05:24 - 00:03:07:06
Isaac Sutton
was a choice.

00:03:07:06 - 00:03:09:19
Darren Sutton
and the whole student ministry team got in there. We filmed the show, and at 11:30, we got a message from the, executive pastor saying, bye, everybody. We'll see. You

00:03:18:21 - 00:03:22:20
Sam Vos
that was this the same day we started filming was the same day that they were like, hey, everybody's got to go home and just for two weeks

00:03:25:14 - 00:03:27:21
Darren Sutton
Everybody thought at that point, probably till Easter,

00:03:27:21 - 00:03:35:03
Isaac Sutton
but nobody really knew how crazy it was going to get. Everybody was just in the. It was the rumor phase of Covid.

00:03:35:03 - 00:03:40:08
Nick Clason
but making fun of it. Basically.

Darren Sutton
Yeah. For sure. Like, this is so stupid and and so much so that like, things were changing so quickly that we filmed that thing not socially distant. On Monday by the time it aired on Wednesday, we had to put out a statement that said "this was filmed before socially distancing was a requirement."

00:03:56:03 - 00:03:56:19
Sam Vos
You know, time goes by. Maybe 3 or 4 days. Three people show up to my house with equipment being like cameras, microphones, a table, chairs, Now all this planning vision is starting to happen. Like, we're doing this right now on a zoom call

00:04:10:10 - 00:04:15:14
Darren Sutton
how much we had to pivot in that time is I still just a little bit crazy when I think about it?

00:04:15:14 - 00:04:17:24
Sam Vos
and then my wife and I looked at each other and we go, we don't have we don't have room in this spot.
Right? Because we're live in downtown Chicago in a high rise,

00:04:22:04 - 00:04:25:13
Darren Sutton
700 square foot apartment with his kid and his wife.

00:04:25:13 - 00:04:27:19
Sam Vos
every single week. When we would film, we would have to move the couch out, move that, move the chairs out. Right. We'd have to bring everything kind of stacking on top of each other by the kitchen, do the set, do the show,

00:04:36:09 - 00:04:46:18
Darren Sutton
you know, we were filming group stuff on zoom calls and trying to figure out where is the most appropriate place to set up a studio where only one person can press play.

00:04:46:18 - 00:04:46:23
Sam Vos
And, then put it all back together and send it. So then I'm running over to the camera, right. I'm getting out. I'm looking at the screen. Right. Because I turn the screen around, I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay, it looks good. And I'm running back to the camera, clicking record that I'm running back to the chair and starting.

00:04:59:06 - 00:05:10:00
Isaac Sutton
heart of Covid era for unscripted, which I didn't even like, start working. Working on unscripted until episode like 22. Yeah, something like that. I was kind of, later after some of the kinks had been fleshed out, I guess.

00:05:14:00 - 00:05:23:04
Nick Clason
yes, it went through the completely remote, like everyone from their houses, every bit via a, like cell phone camera. But I remember, Darren sent us all, like, desktop tripods so that we could like via Amazon so that we could have stable, you know, pictures and not like this

00:05:35:08 - 00:05:38:12
Sam Vos
I mean, the hashtag, the world's greatest drink kind of happened out of nowhere, What happened was I was also like, I'm just going to have to just pull everything out that I can think of and hopefully something sticks. It's kind of like when you're just, like throwing everything you can at something. You're like, one of these things works great,

00:05:51:12 - 00:05:57:05
Darren Sutton
So students were tuning in because that was the only connection with humans. They had

00:05:57:05 - 00:05:59:15
Nick Clason
which I think was like the only live anything.

00:05:59:15 - 00:06:05:06
Darren Sutton
Yes. Was gone. Like, yeah, everything was gone. Everything was gone. But we were still having church and we were one of the few. And I will tell you, like, there's a lot I've messed up in my years of youth ministry, but that is one thing that I'm really proud of. Like in the middle of the pandemic, there was not a blank ministry kept going. And that wasn't just me. That was a large team that made that happen. I could have never done that by myself.

00:06:20:19 - 00:06:21:10
Nick Clason
Yeah.

00:06:21:10 - 00:06:26:11
Isaac Sutton
And I remember that being a big part of me joining unscripted was like, we want to we're making this the thing. It went from being the Covid strategy to being, the way they were going to move forward with youth ministry.

00:06:37:03 - 00:06:41:10
Sam Vos
Now I will say in, during Covid and when I was filming at my house, right, there were some there were some moments there too, where I was like, oh, this, this feels like God's doing something. Covid and unscripted allowed us to say, hey, what? Maybe this is what church youth ministry could look like. Maybe it's it could be more progressive thinking. Yeah, sure, sure. I think it also be

00:07:00:16 - 00:07:03:12
Darren Sutton
what I remember most was just innovative thinking,

00:07:03:12 - 00:07:06:01
Sam Vos
I think there needs I think churches need to make a shift. And I felt like unscripted was a vision of what that shift could look like.

00:07:09:19 - 00:07:27:03
Darren Sutton
then it was so successful and also super a lot of fun. And also it became very clear that we had not been speaking the language of our constituency, that it became something that we permanently added to what we do

00:07:27:03 - 00:07:28:12
Isaac Sutton
was a really cool thing to do. It was something that got into people's houses. it was something that engaged students with, students on a level that they were already familiar with. I mean, students know about YouTube, YouTube shows.

00:07:41:02 - 00:07:42:10
Sam Vos
Lacroix is all I got. So I guess hashtag world's greatest drink. I don't even really like Lacroix.

00:07:47:12 - 00:07:51:03
Sam Vos
my favorite drink, Lacroix. I am one of those guys. So, it's just so it's so refreshing every time.

00:07:54:23 - 00:07:59:19
Darren Sutton
But then we started like building that into the nomenclature of what we did. And

00:08:00:07 - 00:08:03:12
Sam Vos
world's greatest people, but this is actually hashtag the world's greatest drink.

00:08:04:00 - 00:08:10:15
Darren Sutton
every semester, we would do a hashtag world's greatest drink bracket, and kids would get to vote on what that season's drink we're going to be like.

00:08:11:01 - 00:08:15:17
Nick Clason
Where when we hit the duck squeak, they had to play duck, duck, goose to it.

00:08:15:17 - 00:08:16:24
Sam Vos
hashtag world's Greatest drink. And then all sudden we would start hiding Lacroix in spots and stuff like that.

00:08:20:17 - 00:08:24:04
Darren Sutton
did an episode on pets, which is why I'm wearing this shirt. and I loved it because kids were so engaged with sending in pictures of their pets, we couldn't be in person yet.

00:08:30:13 - 00:08:33:23
Sam Vos
I think another very absurd thing that we did was that whole duck thing.

00:08:34:24 - 00:08:37:10
Nick Clason
the search for Chuck, the search for Chuck.

00:08:37:10 - 00:08:44:23
Darren Sutton
Chuck, is he in there? He's not here.

00:08:44:23 - 00:08:49:02
Darren Sutton
have a mascot also something that came accidentally. Chuck the duck,

00:08:49:02 - 00:08:53:19
Isaac Sutton
sci fi saga was was a blast. I know that was going so fun. So, Minecraft server was a tragic affair. I spent probably like so long. It's trying to set up a minecraft server for

00:09:09:03 - 00:09:16:15
Darren Sutton
So Chuck got lost or kidnaped or. I don't even remember now what the exact story was, except we just spent all summer looking for him, right?

00:09:16:15 - 00:09:25:22
Isaac Sutton
We if you found the duck and text it into a certain number in a certain amount of time, you would win a prize that coordinated to a theme, because each week was themed

00:09:28:00 - 00:09:40:10
Sam Vos
all sudden Covid happened and it kind of felt like, okay, this is the reason that I'm supposed to be here. so for me, it was a very fulfilling time. Covid was, I would say, where I think for a lot of people it was not that. However, when we got students in there filming and students in there doing audio, I think when these students all sudden like kind of took, you know, they grabbed on to this idea of unscripted and they felt like they owned it and belonged to it. That's the thing that was actually worth everything that we did.

00:09:57:16 - 00:10:02:05
Isaac Sutton
yes, there was a lot of trial and error with unscripted, especially in, in, in all areas of unscripted. There was tons of trial and error. Right. I don't think we ever fully came out of unscripted with like this was the best format and we kept it the whole way through.

00:10:15:07 - 00:10:28:15
Darren Sutton
you know, the interesting thing, which I don't think is actually that interesting, but really kind of blew people away, was how much more open kids were on zoom than they were in person. Yeah, because they're in their room. They're in their natural environment. They may or may not have to be on camera. but there was not the intimidation factor of sitting in a room and wondering what you're thinking about me. There was some kind of invisible protection for them being on camera, which worked pretty well.

00:10:44:07 - 00:11:00:15
Nick Clason
But as we look ahead to this next wave of generation, like we have to find a way to find ourselves online with with Gen Z, definitely with Gen Alpha, like, it's all they know, right? And they, they can shift between in-person and online into that hybrid space back and forth as if it's nothing.

00:11:00:15 - 00:11:06:17
Isaac Sutton
the ones that we filmed in a bunch of different locations, yeah, that was that. They were great. They were so well done. And it was a series over the course of four weeks about the impacts you can make on the world. Yeah.

00:11:21:00
Nick Clason
and we were like on location and like, that was that was so fun. I thought

00:11:23:06 - 00:11:25:06
Darren Sutton
in that I would end up carrying into the future was pre filming talks. And, you know, even when we ended up in a context where that wasn't necessary anymore, it really helps you frame exactly what you want to say the way you want to say it, in a medium that's going to live in perpetuity beyond you.

00:11:45:08 - 00:12:09:10
Isaac Sutton
Yeah. I think the other benefit to this is that whole part of it. Right. was that it democratize like the week, the day that you come from as well like that I was able to serve, like I was able to work as the guy who produced unscripted and made sure everything was running on Wednesdays. And then I could still also volunteer on Thursdays as a small group leader.

00:12:15:06 - 00:12:39:04
Nick Clason
after three years or however many years of us doing it, once restrictions started lifting, once people started coming back in the room and frankly wanting to be back in the room like we needed to find a way to to pivot and adjust. And I still think we did. But again, like I was telling you before we started hitting record was we we started at that point then with the baseline of online. And so then we were like, how much do we sprinkle in in person because of how good online is? We're like a church. Where I'm at now is like, we started with in person. And so now we have to try to like add the hybrid moment, the digital pieces to it to help create that good. Like intersection between both in-person and online.

00:12:58:10 - 00:13:10:14
Sam Vos
relationships start in person and then they can transition to digital. Meaning you live in the same state as me or friends and then you move away. But we still continue being friends,

00:13:10:14 - 00:13:23:02
Isaac Sutton
even if, your hybrid experience doesn't, kick off in the room like you want to, it might reach 1 or 2 people that wouldn't, that you wouldn't have reached otherwise.

00:13:23:02 - 00:13:30:24
Nick Clason
Yeah. And like, now my like, the adaptation, like, we have a fully in-person model, essentially. Right. Yeah. However, I still see the value in the content, the teaching content in particular, like having a home beyond just when it when it's preached. Right. And we don't have the live streaming capabilities, which is why we do the, the pre film. But that can also that, that that anchors our social media strategy.

00:13:52:17 - 00:13:57:02
Darren Sutton
we learned that social media is for interaction, not for advertising. I think that we learned that, digital, what we call in our context, digital integration is not a luxury. It's a necessity. You have to figure it out. Our students are not just digital natives, they're digital dependents. And if we are not harnessed in whatever level of digital medium we can harness, then we're missing. We're missing an opportunity to speak the language of the people that we're working with. so I don't view everything through the lens of how does this translate digitally, but I definitely view our ministry through the lens of where is the digital expression of what we're trying to communicate to, to kids long term. Yeah. So,

00:14:44:10 - 00:14:50:05
Nick Clason
the argument I felt at the time was should we do in-person or should we do online? And I was like, how about both right. And the tension in all of that is both takes resources.

00:15:02:01 - 00:15:17:15
Nick Clason
my learnings right. For the in the room side of things was like it probably needed the show, probably needed a refresh and a rebrand to, distance it from Covid and not make it the Covid thing anymore. because while it was still good, it's still carried all those connotations. And then on the, the YouTube side of things, we just needed to double down on some like titling keyword and research like artistic thumbnail renders

00:15:31:09 - 00:15:32:21
Sam Vos
means that churches exist

00:15:32:21 - 00:15:37:14
Sam Vos
for two groups of people, correct?

00:15:37:14 - 00:15:38:16
Nick Clason
Insiders and outsiders. There we go.

00:15:37:14 - 00:15:38:16
Sam Vos
I wonder if those those things being digital and in-person. Interact with those two groups differently.

00:15:45:18 - 00:16:05:22
Nick Clason
like, it's more accessible than I thought it was to create a digital like moment, like, you know, once we shifted away from the show into a new church and we were here, like, we did an entire, like, six months worth of content off of a cell phone.

00:16:05:24 - 00:16:07:11
Darren Sutton
Yeah, yeah,

00:16:07:11 - 00:16:12:04
Nick Clason
The church exists to change the world. and to be a family and to create a place for people to find meaning and belonging. Okay. I think that there can be entertaining elements within church. I encourage youth pastors and youth ministries to create entertaining elements on their social media. That's why most people get on social media nowadays is to be entertained in some form or fashion.

00:16:32:18 - 00:16:35:20
Darren Sutton
So some kind of message or whatever on the regular? I think it's super important to post regularly, whether you know how to do it or not, you play dumb for a student because there is a student who definitely knows how to do it. investing in that. And I wouldn't know what these are. But this guy well investing in some subscription services or whatnot that can help you do this easier.

00:16:58:13 - 00:17:10:14
Nick Clason
servicing millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, by the way, middle schoolers and on down. And so the church has to figure out how to speak their language because they're the next generation.

00:17:10:14 - 00:17:13:18
Darren Sutton
I subscribe to your TikTok and your YouTube. He didn't pay me for that. I really would, and I am, so you should be too.

https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

======================================
DESCRIPTION
🏅Travel Sports and Youth Group. They have been the bain of youth pastor’s existence for years.
🗓️What if they don’t have to be the enemy?
🥱What about Youth Group Kids who exhibit complacency?
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
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YOUR MESSAGES ARE BORING
//https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqOPjD5hN-g&t=8s

STOP IGNORING SOCIAL MEDIA
//https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slB0Rmf_X0c&t=390s

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
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😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
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🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products

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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

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TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Two Biggest Enemies to your Youth Ministry
01:46 Extra Curriculuars are Killing my Attendance
05:15 Complancey is also killing my youth group
08:04 The Suprising Solution to Youth Sports and Complacency in your Youth Group

TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;32;17
Nick Clason
The two biggest enemies in youth ministry are extracurricular activities and the complacent attitude of your students. Tell me if you've heard this before. Tuesday night is karate so that kid can't come on Tuesdays. If that's when you had youth group and then Wednesday nights is when you have show choir. Thursday night, that same kid also has karate. And of course, you can't do Friday night because that's when the football games are like if you've been in that position.

00;00;32;22 - 00;00;53;10
Nick Clason
Give me a subscribe. If you've had to navigate when you meet for youth night and turn the bell on for good measure because we're starting a brand new playlist exploring all the different issues of youth ministry, and one of them is scheduling. Like how do you schedule around students and their extracurricular activities? What in the world should we meet?

00;00;53;15 - 00;01;17;43
Nick Clason
They're so busy and it almost makes it feel like extracurricular travel, sports, school sports are the enemy. And here’s the fact even when they do show up in the room, you might be so boring that they're not really willing to make your thing a priority. In fact, we have a video right here where we explore all of that and how you can make your youth ministry one of belonging and purpose and serving.

00;01;17;50 - 00;01;43;18
Nick Clason
But I just had a student the other day say, Hey, listen, I just got so much going on. Sometimes student ministry, it just it doesn't make the cut. And unashamedly that was a text that they sent. And so if the two biggest enemies are travel sports and complacency, I want to challenge you to stick around to the very end of this video because I have a solution for each of those two things extracurriculars and complacency.

00;01;43;33 - 00;02;11;00
Nick Clason
Welcome to the High Road Ministry show The Year was 2012 brand new youth Pastor right here. And there were literally three students in my student ministry starting out, one by the name of Brandon, who didn't last very long, one by the name of Megan and then one by the name of Sabrina and Megan and all her friends. And she brought a lot of her friends to youth group.

00;02;11;00 - 00;02;31;58
Nick Clason
So this kind of mattered because she could bring two or three or four different friends with her to youth group. They had show choir and met every single Wednesday night. And so that made Wednesday nights a really tricky night to do youth ministry. But Brandon, the only other boy in the youth ministry, had Tuesday night and Thursday night karate.

00;02;32;03 - 00;02;58;34
Nick Clason
And then of course, Friday nights are like the football game. Like for most towns USA, that's when the high school team is playing its football game. So that really left us with Monday night as an option, which for I can't remember why, but for whatever reason it really wasn't an option. And so I had no idea like what am I supposed to do in to, to make matters worse, I had three kids, so if I choose Wednesday, I lose Megan and all her friends.

00;02;58;34 - 00;03;21;41
Nick Clason
If I choose to, their Thursday, I lose Brandon over to karate. And then the group of three, that's 33% of my students. So like, when am I supposed to plan to do this? I had another student one year who missed summer camp due to a baseball tournament. And then I remember he came up to me after we got back.

00;03;21;41 - 00;03;41;49
Nick Clason
His brother went and all his friends went and so he was at the recap of camp and we shared the recap video and all the students had all their energy and and his tournament had gotten rained out while we were gone. And he came up to me and he said, Next year I'm going to camp no matter what you see.

00;03;41;49 - 00;04;08;43
Nick Clason
Here's what happens once you create some sort of an environment where a student actually wants to be a part and actually wants to belong, it can be a game changer. But the fact of the matter is, especially when you're just getting started out, what do you do when they don't even know you in their thing, their show choir, their karate, their baseball, their basketball, their football, their you fill in the blank, whatever it is.

00;04;08;48 - 00;04;31;46
Nick Clason
What happens when that thing is actually providing more of a place of belonging and more of a place of community than your church? It makes it difficult and honestly, you want to compete with it. You want it to be you want church, you want youth group to be providing more of a place of belonging, more of a place of community.

00;04;31;51 - 00;04;55;39
Nick Clason
But in the life of that student, let's be honest, it really isn't. It's not really providing a place of belonging more than their sport. And so one of the challenges is you are trying to compete with something that is like family to them and you want them to come to something that's already a probably not feeling a little bit like family to them.

00;04;55;44 - 00;05;22;28
Nick Clason
And then B is adding another thing onto their already busy plate of calendaring and activities and things that they have to be committed to doing. And so what do we do about youth sports? Listen, I got an idea. Just hang on. What do you do about complacency? Like you've been there, right, where you have kids, Church kids, non church kids, whatever the case might be.

00;05;22;28 - 00;05;41;52
Nick Clason
And they really like they don't want to be there like you. Like the archetype of student I'm thinking of is the junior in high school comes to youth group hood on air pods in back row. They're just not interested. Like you get up, you got a game, They don't care about the game. You get up, you got a cute video.

00;05;41;52 - 00;06;01;46
Nick Clason
They don't care about the cute video. You see them saying like, how do you reach that kid? And in most cases, that kid is his heart's definitely not in to youth group. And there's a lot of factors for that, one of which might be his level or feeling of belonging. And it doesn't have to just be a him.

00;06;01;46 - 00;06;25;02
Nick Clason
It could be her, right? But we're we're using a certain archetype, and so we'll just keep using that junior boy student with the AirPods in as an example. But nothing's changing. Like just because you have a game, just because you have a cool message, just because you have clever announcements, none of those things are reaching them because he's complacent.

00;06;25;02 - 00;06;55;47
Nick Clason
He's he's not or she's not into whatever you have doing. They're honestly they're being forced to be at church. And here's the thing. That is a really tough pill for us to swallow. Sometimes as youth pastors, is students physical attendance in the room Does not equal an our authentic heart level buy in of what's going on, not only in youth group, but frankly, in faith as it pertains to their relationship with God.

00;06;55;52 - 00;07;17;22
Nick Clason
Because you don't want to just go after their physical attendance, you know what I'm saying? Their physical attendance is not the goal, only their heart being bought into it. Their heart being bought into it is the goal. And so you might be asking, Well, how do I chaste their heart? That's a great question. And in a lot of cases you don't.

00;07;17;27 - 00;07;45;09
Nick Clason
That's the Holy Spirit's role in their life. So you can pray for them and you can try to program creatively in such a way that that they find that and you can try to develop a type of community that's authentic and real and raw that most Gen Z, most Gen Alpha students are actually looking for and that community can take root and that student's life so that they belong to their group before they really truly start to exhibit elements of belief.

00;07;45;14 - 00;08;13;59
Nick Clason
But you can't change their heart. You know that that's the Holy Spirit shop. But just like travel sports and now with an attitude of complacency or just a bad attitude in general, I do have two ideas that I think can change the game in both of those arenas, and we're going to hit that in the next section. So my idea for travel sports and my idea for a complacent attitude is actually one in the same.

00;08;14;04 - 00;08;45;58
Nick Clason
And the idea, of course, is to try to go hybrid. Now, listen, you're like, dude, you're the hybrid ministry podcast. Of course you're thinking that. And yeah, I am. But I have detailed an outline for you in my 100% completely free e-book. It's basically my Nick Clason and the church I'm at now Strategy Guide for Social Media. And it's twofold and the two fold, they actually hit both of the things that we're trying to talk about.

00;08;45;58 - 00;09;12;05
Nick Clason
So the first fold of it is pre film your talks in what pre filming your talks does not only gives you some practice and some opportunity to kind of get ahead of your calendar so that you're not giving up live whenever you're preaching on a Wednesday or Sunday night and looking at your notes for the first time, you've had an opportunity to do it, to deliver it direct to camera, very much like I'm doing right here in this setting, but too, especially for the busy kids.

00;09;12;10 - 00;09;34;24
Nick Clason
It allows them, if they're truly interested in church, to to to consume the message that you've given to them. I know in my show choir example and karate example from the beginning that Brandon I don't really know because he didn't last very long. His family left the church not too long later. But Megan, like her and her family, like they were committed.

00;09;34;29 - 00;09;59;26
Nick Clason
And if I couldn't have offered youth group for them, I know that she would have at least went back and watched the messages because that was something that she was interested in. And so a hybrid approach can actually help the busy kids who can't make it on a Sunday, on a Wednesday, on a Thursday, on a Tuesday, on a whatever day of the week, you end up deciding they can still listen to the message and word of God directly from you, from your mouth, from their youth pastor.

00;09;59;31 - 00;10;35;38
Nick Clason
And you can pre film those messages and post those to YouTube. Now you might be thinking like, Yeah, but, but that doesn't really do much for me, especially by way of the kid who's complacent and doesn't really want anything to do with it. And you know, where I would say with that is the other approach to that is when you pre film your messages, it not only gives you some short form message based clipped content that you can post and use and sprinkle in an all throughout your social media, but it also can let you kind of do another set of social media, which is add more of an element of fun.

00;10;35;43 - 00;10;59;21
Nick Clason
And when you add more of an element of fun, you can go after that student's heart and again, still, that's the Holy Spirit's job. But what if the reason that they're not interested is just because you youth ministry is boring? And so one of the things that we'll do in our student ministry is we’ll film some fun, quirky, silly, entertainment based content as a staff, as a student ministry team.

00;10;59;25 - 00;11;24;40
Nick Clason
But then other times we will challenge ourselves to do some sort of social media challenge where we'll will invite students to be on camera with us. And so that will give them an opportunity to engage and interact. And then when we've invited them onto camera with us, they'll have an opportunity. Now to see themselves later on social media throughout the week.

00;11;24;45 - 00;11;47;00
Nick Clason
And so you can take your long form message content and that can solve the the problem for travel sports. And then you can clip those up into shorts and push people who discover them to watch a YouTube video. And then you can also film some silly content to be discovered by your algorithm and to to engage with the complacent student, the junior with the hood on in the back of the room.

00;11;47;05 - 00;12;14;20
Nick Clason
And you can even films from that content with him and post it. And if you take my strategy fully laid out right here on screen, link down below in the show notes, I will detail for you all of how to do that. And I hope that if you go hybrid, it helps of your extracurricular activities and it also helps of your student ministry, complacency, activities and actually, I have detailed for you the entire strategy in the video that's linked right here on the screen.

00;12;14;25 - 00;12;32;31
Nick Clason
So go ahead, take a look at that. Stop posting announcements to social media. Be better, level it up. You can do it because we're trying to make digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible. So, as always, don't forget stay hybrid.

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========================================

DESCRIPTION
👋 Welcome to our YouTube channel & podcast!

✅ In this comprehensive video, we reveal the key to planning effective and engaging social events for your youth group. From icebreakers and team-building activities to creative theme ideas and logistical tips, we've got you covered.

👐 Discover how to foster a sense of community, encourage meaningful connections, and create a safe and inclusive environment for all participants.

========================================

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📓SHOWNOTES
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//YOUTUBE VIDEO
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#1 PLANNING
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#3 GAMES
//DIVE INTO THRILLING GAMES:
https://youtu.be/OiBjI9dMxu8?si=YIVFdYh-6KM8nySP

//SEAMLESS BLENDING: THE ULTIMATE HYBIRD EVENT
EPISODE: https://youtu.be/5ryhkIRyDb4?si=qV6v3-ORrgcmLLtZ
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

//9 BEST DYM RESOURCES
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

#4 SNACKS

#5 PREACHING & TEACHING
//TEACHING TO A TIKTOK GENERATION
https://youtu.be/iIgEtxPLGBg?si=7tQYGGyW7kCKq9KS

#6 SMALL GROUPS
//SAMPLE SMALL GROUP GUIDE
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/okmirbzzu6avn0o5knrj3/08_13_2023_RuinSchool_GroupGuide_Week1.pdf?rlkey=ozs2lmz1ewxmehwn89fnqj1u7&dl=0

#7 FOLLOW UP
//ENGAGE WITH STUDENTS DURING THE WEEK
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

//OPUS.PRO
https://youtu.be/TiW4ooQpAvo?si=Ayp7-8W4_QWawi3G

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

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:44 7 Part Youth Group Checklist
00:44-02:50 1) Always Be Planning
02:50-04:36 2) Communication
04:36-05:47 3) Games
05:47-07:37 4) Snacks
07:37-08:55 5) Preaching & Teaching
08:55-10:09 6) Small Groups
10:09-11:35 7) Follow-Up

✍️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
http://www.rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

Nick Clason (00:00):
Are you a youth pastor, a youth ministry leader, looking to make your gatherings of people your physical gatherings more intricate and maybe even make 'em a little bit more exciting? How do you plan a surefire amazing event? And furthermore, what do you do to hybridize it? Right? My entire strategy in this podcast is to help you take not just your in-person gatherings, but also your digital presence, social media website, and meld those two together so that you can truly have a hybrid ministry. If that's what you're looking for, you're in luck because that is what we're going to be talking about in this episode today. This is the Hybrid Ministry Show, and we have a seven step framework for the Ultimate Youth Group gathering. Let's get going. Number one is you need to be planning. Listen, I am a 13 year youth ministry veteran, and I have learned that the hard way over my time in ministry, there have been so many times where I've been caught at an event without any plan whatsoever, and I am forced to pivot in the moment.

Nick Clason (01:00):
So it's not only helped me get a little bit more nimble on my feet, but also it's forced me to realize the importance of planning. So there are a couple of really good tools. One that works really well for us in our space is a project management tool called Base Camp. It's quite expensive, but if your church has the budget for it, I recommend at least looking into it, and I'm sure they have a free trial version that you can check out if that's something you're interested in. Also, planning Center online, it's what most people use, especially musicians and such for services and for musicians and disseminating music and stuff like that. But that's a great place to communicate with your tech person, with anyone else that's going to be on stage about what the plan is, what the game is. And so I use that every single week to just let everybody know what is to be expected and what's going to be happening in the actual program of the event.

Nick Clason (01:48):
Event. And then also just free Google Docs. It's a shared space. If you're in a meeting, everyone can have the same Google Doc up. You don't have to have a whiteboard, you don't have to be in some conference room. You can do it via Zoom. But Google Docs and Google Drive are both great docs for word processing, but Google Drive for file sharing and file storage, and you can link things via Google Docs, but you can use Base Camp. You can use Planning center services. You can use Google, Google Drive. You can use those to your advantage to get ahead to think ahead about what is going to happen in your youth ministry space. And hey, if you're watching this video and you've found value so far, please consider liking subscribing, maybe even sharing with the friend, because it's really important that it helps us out a lot, not for us and the accolades, but for the message of hybrid ministry to get out to the world because we believe that teenagers need the gospel and speaking this digital language, this hybrid ministry is their language that they're used to in this world. So please help us out by liking, subscribing, and sharing. Tip number two is communication. Get the word out. You've done the planning. Now people need to know, and I have this

Nick Clason (02:58):
Completely free ebook about how to utilize and use social media in your space. Link down below in the description, go check it out. But I believe that social media can be a form of communication as long as you're not just posting boring, rote, standard static graphics, right? If you use it to the way that social media is meant to be used, one of entertainment, one of fun, short form, vertical based video, I will help you with all of those things in this video. But as you're communicating, you need to be thinking on three different tracks. As a youth pastor, student, parent leader, there really are three audiences that you're communicating with. How are you getting the message out to your students? How are you getting the message out to your parents? And then how are you getting the message out to your leaders? And then a fourth kind of pro tip, bonus tip is also over here, the staff that you work with.

Nick Clason (03:51):
And some of those might cross. Some parents might be leaders, some staff might be parents and all that type of stuff, but those are your three main audiences. I believe that's one of the reasons that youth pastors struggle so much with communication is because you may feel as though you have adequately communicated it, and thus you have to your students. But do all the parents know or is the staff aware of how you're going to be using a different space in the building and then they find you over there and in the kids area because you told the students you're going to be there, but you didn't let the other people on staff know. And so you may have some more conflict with that. So as you're communicating any sort of event that, especially if it's out of cycle, be asking yourself, how do the students know?

Nick Clason (04:33):
How do the leaders know? How do the parents know? Another thing is games. We did a deep dive on games in this playlist over here called Exploring New Digital Frontiers, and we talked about where did games come from and why is it a part of youth ministry? I also gave some ideas. Another one of my favorite episodes that we did was me debriefing an event we did called The World's Greatest Donut. We had tons of games for it, but it was also an amazing hybrid event. And finally, I have a link in the show notes to some of my DYM favorite games. I've created several resources that are on Download Youth ministry, and they are dirt cheap, 5, 6, 7 bucks. If you don't have a membership, even cheaper if you do. So go check some of those out. I love the game. Emoji Phraseology. I love the game. GIF Flashback, and I love the Game Visual, Variance, Voyage. Those are just a few, but I have several on there. But games are an amazing way to up the level of engagement in your space. Fun is the language of teenagers, and so speak it, get them laughing, get them competing, get them having fun together in your gathering. Another really key element to think about is snacks. I had a meeting with a group of leaders last year, and I invited my wife

Nick Clason (05:56):
To come be one of the other leaders meeting with these student leaders, I should say, and I asked her, I said, Hey, what's one thing I could do to level this meeting up? What she said, have snacks. When do you go to somebody's house and they don't offer you something to eat or something to drink? Almost never, right? And the same is true in student ministry. Snacks help kind of bring that energy level down a little bit, not energy level, but bring that insecurity level down a little bit. People, their walls are down a little bit. They're willing to engage, come across the table a little bit more when their snacks. I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds simple. It might even be a budget buster, but maybe consider opening a cafe where people can purchase snacks, maybe put cheap things out. And one thing I've done before is if you do have a cafe, we gave popcorn away for free, but that drove people back to the cafe to buy the drinks.

Nick Clason (06:51):
There's a reason that bars put peanuts and pretzels out at the table for free because it forces people to buy their drinks. Hey, if you didn't know this, this episode or this channel has a website hybridministry.xyz in every single episode, this is episode. So if you went to hybridministry.xyz slash 0 7 6, we have for you a thing that we do for every single episode. We've done it since episode one, completely free transcripts. That's one of the things that we pay for out of our pocket to serve you and the listener. So if you are listening on a run and you want to go back and hear this, or if you're watching this and you want to take notes, you can go to the website and download a completely free transcript so that you can see everything that we are talking about. Now, element number five of a successful youth gathering is preaching and teaching.

Nick Clason (07:45):
Like I said, we just did an exploring new digital frontiers, and we did a whole episode on how to teach to a TikTok generation. Previously. This generation on websites and social media have an attention span of 8.25 seconds, which is less than the human pet goldfish, right? So how do you teach to a generation like that? How do you keep things interesting while still presenting the meaningful, purposeful, and important truth of the Bible and the truth from God's word? We dove into that. We also gave some ideas about hybrid message enhancements. Things like you version events, things like websites, things like QR codes, things that can just help take the message beyond just the physical meeting space, but you can offer it and extend it and put it in front of your students on social media, on their devices that they're using throughout the rest of the week, but communicate to them then accurately and effectively in the moment using some of these tips and tricks that we talked about in that episode.

Nick Clason (08:48):
But teaching and preaching is a vitally important part to youth ministry gatherings. Number six, small groups. You may not have small groups in your space, so if you don't, then find a way to let students digest the message a little bit. If you don't have small groups in your space or you have it another night of the week, consider maybe having your students sit around tables. And then you could do a more like master teacher style thing where you teach for a little bit and then you toss out a couple of questions to the tables to let the students interact. Gen Z does not want to be a consumer. They want to be a contributor. So find a way to let your students voices be heard. Find a way to let them talk about it. Maybe you do have small groups for the last 30 minutes in your student ministry gatherings.

Nick Clason (09:37):
Have a guide. I'll right here on the screen, you can see the way that we have our guides set up. We have before, during, and after and after, is aimed at our leaders being pastoral to our students. The before is sort of their prep work with the versus and the big ideas. And then during are the questions that we want them to be asking to lead our students from a silly sort of like drop the water level moment, like, hey, some icebreaker type stuff down all the way to some serious things and ending with the group's ending in prayer.

Nick Clason (10:10):
And finally, when your event's over, number seven, what are you going to do about follow-up? What is your ongoing strategy to stay in front of students throughout the week? Because if you have an hour meeting, but you don't ever get to a spot where you are engaging with them in their real life, what about Thursday morning when they wake up after youth group? What about Monday morning when they're on their way to school and they're on the school bus? Why should they think about the things of God that you were talking about last night or yesterday? Why should they care about those things? Which is one of the reasons I think hybrid ministry is so important, and I have this completely free ebook to help you reach and engage the students in their space to engage with the other hours in the week beyond just your program time.

Nick Clason (10:54):
It's not just physical, it's not just digital, it is hybrid. And so in that ebook, we also point people to a completely free resource called opus.pro. It will help you clip your messages up into small, short form bite-size videos. But what I want to know is that I want to help you guys understand the importance of gatherings and how you can take the physical gathering, how you can take your digital moments, how you can meld those two. Hope you found this video helpful. On the screen is the next video. Be sure to click that. Be sure to subscribe because we at hybrid ministry are making digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible. So as always, and don't forget, stay hybrid.

📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

☝️ONE-CLICK SOLUTION FOR REELS & SHORTS
OPUS FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

🧑‍🚀 EXPLORING NEW FRONTIERS PLAYLIST
Exploring The New Way to Approach Ministry, Full Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLQ3UpL1HRb3FFtEu-7S1XZ

========================================

DESCRIPTION
Preaching, Teaching and Youth Ministry
It’s part of what we do in the church.

You’ve also heard that this generation, according to crossrivertherapy.com has an attention span of just 8.25 seconds. Which is 4.25 seconds LESS than we experienced in the year 2000.

Famously, that’s less than a goldfish

But teaching and preaching the Bible, is not only an integral part of youth ministry, but learning the Bible is important to the discipleship and developmental process, not only in teenagers, but in anyone who claims to follow Jesus Christ as their savior.

So how do we take the Hybrid approach to teaching and preaching.
Hybrid is not just your physical gathering
But not ignoring it in favor of your digital experience, either.

It’s both.

In this episode we’ll explore the how to preach and teach to a TikTok Generation.
What we’re up against.

What we can learn from culture

And finally, 3 Hybrid Solutions you can implement THIS Wednesday night.

========================================

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

========================================
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS

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

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/072

//View all the Charts and Graphs via YouTube
https://youtu.be/iIgEtxPLGBg

//Mr. Beast on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA

//Alex Hormozi
https://www.youtube.com/@AlexHormozi

//Steven Furtick
https://www.youtube.com/@stevenfurtick

//Research on Attention Spans
https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/average-human-attention-span
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/advan.00109.2016

//My Youth Min by Ym360
https://myyouthmin.com/

//The Learning Triangle
https://www.educationcorner.com/the-learning-pyramid.html

//Solution #1
https://sidekick.tv/

//Solution #2
https://my.bible.com/events

//Solution #3
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-01:36 Preaching to the Generation with the Shortest Attention Span in History
01:36-03:33 Teaching, Preaching and Hybrid Ministry is vital to the next generation
03:33-11:15 Teaching to a TikTok Generation
11:15-15:46 What can youth pastors learn from culture?

15:46-21:39 3 Immediate Hybrid Solutions

✍️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

Nick Clason (00:00):
Preaching teaching and youth ministry, they go together. It's just part of what we do. But what do you do when you're trying to preach and teach to the generation with the shortest attention span of only 8.25 seconds? Famously, you've heard it's less now than a goldfish down 4.5 seconds from the year 2000. And is there a way for us to digitally enhance through hybrid means the way in which people learn and listen to our teaching and our preaching now in this generation because teaching and preaching is not only an integral part of youth ministry, but it's an integral part of the way in which we disciple our students and help them understand the claims, values and teachings of Jesus. So how do we take this hybrid approach, not just digital, not just in person, but melding of the two together to increase awareness and to help bring about a better retention of our teaching and our preaching to our students.

Nick Clason (01:08):
In this episode, we will answer how to preach and teach to a tick talk generation and what we as communicators are up against. Additionally, we'll explore what we can learn from the culture that's around us. And finally, I want to offer for you three hybrid solutions to help engage and increase teaching and preaching and awareness in your context that you can implement tomorrow. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey everyone. Welcome back to another edition of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always am your host Nick Clason. I'm a 13 year youth ministry veteran now currently located in the DFW Dallas Fort Worth area. Excited to be with you. I've been teaching and preaching my entire career, but I've also been engaging with the importance of hybrid ministry. I've been aware of that and aware of the digital revolution ever since I started in youth ministry, which is why we have this playlist right here linked at the top of the screen that you're a part of as we are exploring new digital frontiers.

Nick Clason (02:12):
The last video was all about games and how we can implement hybrid into our games and into the fun in our youth ministries. And this episode is about enhancing the messages. So I hope that you'll stick around to the very end of the video because in addition to that, I have a sure surefire resource linked in the description below. That's not only going to help you win on social media and bring about your messages and all those things to your students and help bring that to them the other hours of your week, but it'll also help you have fun with them like we talked about in the last video. And so I want to encourage you to I you to subscribe. Those things are free for you and they mean a lot to me, and I want you to do that because we do drop resources, like I just mentioned, 40 done for you, an entire month's worth of social media, but not just a bunch of graphics.

Nick Clason (03:04):
This is you actually getting in front of the camera, getting in front of a video, using yourself, your students, your leaders, whoever you want to help change the game on your social media platform. And so those types of things are coming at you every single week. We'll drop a new episode every single Thursday, so like subscribe, can't wait to see on the other side, but hey, we are going to be diving into teaching to a TikTok generation. Let's explore that together. So famously, this generation has an attention span of 8.25 seconds. It said that that is less than the household goldfish. So I don't know if any of you guys have gold fishes or teenagers in your house, but if you do, your teenager has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. What is going on nowadays though is the short form video revolution ushered into us by TikTok during the pandemic has changed the way in which we engage with content online.

Nick Clason (04:07):
It just has our attention spans are getting shorter. The need and relevance for a really, really crucial opening section of your video is what is going to determine if someone sticks around in your video or if they're going to leave. In fact, I want to share with you three examples from three very different classes and creators and just like different pockets of YouTube, but all three very good, three people who know what they're doing on social media. And I want to point out to you, we're going to watch 'em right here live on screen. I want to react to how well their hook and how well their intro does. So the first one up is a Mr. Beast video. So let's check this out together.

Nick Clason (04:54):
Hundred million mankind, okay? He's just taught, he's just B roll. He's got Justin Timberlake on there. Whoa, got those waves with his editing's great all the way to this barely functioning house, more of a shed. Well, why does this house cost a dollar? Yeah, we get another storm. It's probably going to, he's already into the content now of his video. He's only 38 seconds in. It feels like the intro. It just seamlessly moves straight into the content. Mr. Beast is probably the best at the opening ones. This one is more of a entrepreneur guy, guru trying to help you win online. So let's check out his video. This is my most brutally honest advice to my, you beat 99% of people zoomed out without media advice to my younger self and

Nick Clason (05:57):
How I, you're going to lose sleep. You'll doubt whether it'll work. You'll stress. He's catering to the difficulty of what he does and what the people that follow him need to do. He's got B roll, he's got light transitions, all that type of stuff. Great. Now this one right here, this is Churchill from Elevation Steven S check this one out sitting on that you're not using today. That's not the beginning of his sermon, but it's the beginning of this video. Arrows, you should have taken everything God gave you kept striking until you saw it to. They edited it so that it started there at what they considered to be the most interesting part, artillery to be defeated. It was his lack of drive. The reason I want to show all of you that is that the first 30 seconds or less of every single one of those videos, all very different, but all very good.

Nick Clason (06:56):
Everyone who edited that video knew exactly what they were doing. So I actually have a video that I just released on a platform called My Youth Men, which is a membership tier of YM 360. You can check it out, link in the description for a seven day free trial. But the video is about discipling students and teenagers through the usage pitfalls and platforms with cell phones as opposed to a way, and I show you those videos because I want to say that's what we as communicators are up against. Your students are watching those for entertainment, for fun, even maybe for inspiration with a Steven Furtick. And then you and I get up as their youth pastor and we start teaching at them in all of our old seminary taught ways. I think as I said in my video, that there are new ways of doing it.

Nick Clason (07:51):
In fact, this is a educator's tool. It's going to be up here on the screen. If you're listening to the podcast, make sure that you hit the link in the show notes so you can see everything on YouTube with all of our video overlays and all of our things flying in. But this is called the knowledge pyramid, and there are two sections to it. There's the passive teaching methods and then there's the participatory teaching methods. And most of us in church are using the passive teaching methods and the percentages are broken down by the knowledge retention rate. So how well this style of teaching helps people retain that type of teaching. And so the lowest at 5% is lecture based style. You might think 8.25 seconds is low, but I'm just going to admit to you, I am bored after a lecture after only 8.25 seconds.

Nick Clason (08:42):
You have to be really killing it, and I have to be really interested in that form of content. In the lecture style pyramid, 10% of the retention rate is reading, 20% is audio visual. So that would be something like including slides and or video in your teaching. And then 30% is demonstration. That's of the passive teaching style methods. So all of those things are all things that you've been taught probably in seminary of how to teach someone and how to maintain relevance as you teach someone. But then it shifts and at 50% a discussion group, a participatory teaching method is where that learning retention rate jumps up to 50%. If someone practices what they've learned by doing it, it jumps to 75% and then if they teach others, it jumps to 90%. So in most cases, us as youth pastors, we push our students through passive teaching methods, and then finally we get them into a discussion group As a participatory teaching method, discussion group is the lowest of the participatory section of retention, and that is why you and I as we are teaching, we need to differ at what we're doing. Look at what Mr. Beast did, how he looked at all the different houses, right? And he kept it moving. He was only on each house for just a few seconds. He was moving, he was garnering interest, he was keeping you hooked. Even look at fur, he's on the floor with arrows in hand doing his thing. Yeah, it was lecture style, but there's visuals to it. And in our youth ministries, more often than not, we're going to push people in to small groups, which is a relevant and meaningful participatory teaching method.

Nick Clason (10:32):
And so as we know and look at the different teaching pyramid styles, here is my question, what do we do? How do we infuse and use hybrid to help increase the retention rates of the learnings? Because you know that the message that you're teaching matters. It's a truth of God. It's a truth from God's word, and it's been put on your heart by him, and you're trying to help share that message with the students in which God has entrusted to you in your student ministry. So what do you do about it? I think that there are a couple of clues that we can learn from culture, even from some of those YouTube videos that we watch. And so that's what we're going to check out in the next section. Neil Bradbury has a quote. The link to that article is in the show notes. He says, the eight second myth, as he classifies it for attention spans is actually more related to human behavior on websites and on social media and how many seconds the average person spends on a website before clicking away or navigating off of it.

Nick Clason (11:39):
So we have famously dubbed Generation Z and Gen Alpha subsequently as the generation with the tension span lower than a goldfish. And that's true as it relates to social media and Mr. Beast and Alex Har Zi, and even Steven Fer and Elevation, they're trying to capture people's attention on social media. So they do have to make that happen within eight seconds. And we are up against that, I would say, as communicators because that's how students are spending a majority of their time. Gen Z's using their cell phone more than any other screen-based device combined. However, I want to point something out that is a website statistic. And so while that is true of websites, the attention span is a little bit longer because eight seconds is incredibly short. And check this out. Over the last however many years, these are the top five grossing box office movies of all time.

Nick Clason (12:35):
So in 2009, avatar came out, and I think it's even been supplanted by itself for the re-release or something like that, but Avatar, the movie is two hours and 42 minutes. Avengers End Game came out in 2019. Shout out to my favorite movie. I love you. 3000. It is three hours in one minute. I was nervous going into Avengers end game. I was like, I might have to pee. What do I do if I have to pee? And I did. Titanic in 1992 was three hours and 14 minutes. Star Wars episode seven, two hours and 18 minutes, and an Avengers Infinity War, the prequel to end game 2018, two hours and 29 minutes long. Movies are still making money, they're still making them, and they're still releasing them. Also, shout out to Disney for owning four of the top five of those properties. All that to be said though, if it weren't lucrative and if it weren't making money, Disney and the other major motion picture companies in America wouldn't be making movies at that length.

Nick Clason (13:43):
So what does that mean for us? We got this eight second thing, but now we got movies that are going longer than three hours. How do we reconcile the difference between those two? My contention is this, if it's good, people will pay attention. It's that simple. And here's the reality. Most research, including Ted Talk and that organization say that a sweet spot for lectures is anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. That's optimal. However, if it's moving, if it's keeping attention, if it's changing things up, even just going back and watching Mr. Beast intro video, how if it's moving and adapting, you can keep the attention of your audience. But here's a gut check. If Avatar and Endgame and Star Wars and Titanic are keeping people's attention, but you're losing them after only eight seconds, then the gut check moment for you and I as youth pastors might be, we might be more boring than we think we are.

Nick Clason (14:46):
In fact, I've been recording videos on this YouTube channel for six months, eight months now, and that's been a gut check moment for me. When certain videos get less views, I'll go back, I'll look at the analytics and I'll go and re-listen to it myself. And you know what? I'll notice, man, I'm boring, right? I have to learn how to be more captivating. I have to learn how to be more interesting. I have to learn how to keep and retain my audience longer throughout the duration of my videos. Not only is that true for me as a communicator via YouTube via video to y'all, but it's also true for me as a youth pastor. But going back and looking, watching those videos, which by the way, if you are not prerecording your messages or recording them at all to go back and look and learn, you are missing out on the easiest way to become better as a communicator.

Nick Clason (15:31):
But there's another hack and there's another little silver bullet that's going to slide in here because we are going to be exploring three hybrid ideas in this digital frontier to enhance our messages in the room. Let's check it out. So what are these hybrid ideas? Like I said, it's not just physical. It's not just digital, but it's a melding of the two. So in my mind, you're teaching live in the room, but you're putting things on their cell phone or putting resources on their cell phone for them to use later because they're taking their cell phone with them for the other 165 hours beyond just the one hour that you've been in your program. And most of us as youth pastors, we're not good enough to contend with cell phones. So instead of contending with them, using them, leaning into them, we just forced them to lock them away or get rid of them.

Nick Clason (16:20):
But one of my favorite solutions from my favorite people over at Download Youth Ministry is sidekick. Check it out, sidekick TV link in the show notes. I get zero kickback from this, but I'm a power user and they just released or they're going to release and listen. I may be letting the cat out of the bag a little bit, but they're going to be releasing a polling feature. So you can put a QR code on the screen, students can scan it, and they can vote live time, and you can show it live from the stage. And better yet, you can now control sidekick from your phone or your iPad if you don't have a tech person running back in the back. And so you can do live interactive types of things to interact with your in-person and letting them use the digital means in front of them.

Nick Clason (17:08):
So you can ask like, Hey, what is the best Thanksgiving food? Is it stuffing mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, Turkey or ham? Let us know. Scan this QR code, and then you can get live results from your audience. You also, just like the learning pyramid showed, in addition to your lecture style, you need to be bringing visual aid with it. Use your screens, use your multimedia to your advantage. Use the things that are common to your students, like memes and tos. You can even pull out things like, Hey, show the most interesting photo from your last week in your camera roll. And one of my all time favorite ways to be hybrid is any sort of call to action, a camp, sign up, a discipleship, sign up. Even now, the sidekick voting thing use QR codes. They've had a resurgence since the pandemic, but people now can scan QR codes with just their camera app and their phone.

Nick Clason (18:02):
It will pull a link up and boom, you are off to the races. Use QR codes to your advantage. Use sidekick, use digital media, use your screens to interact and make things hybrid. The next idea that I have for you is you version events in our space, we call them digital notes. And so we link our YouVersion live events. If you didn't know, YouVersion is the Bible app made by Life church, but they have a events portion. And so what happens is if someone is in your church, it will pull geographically all the events that are live and they can get in there and there can be notes. Your main points scriptures you Additionally, my favorite reason for it is you can create call to action. So you can put your camp signup, you can put a Bible reading plan so they can be on the digital notes.

Nick Clason (19:01):
They can be taking notes in the space in your room as you're teaching, as you're preaching. And then at the end, you can be like, and hey, if you are learning right now and enjoying this message about prayer, but you want to grow even deeper into prayer, then I have a seven day prayer challenge plan linked in the you version, in the digital notes, whatever you want to call it. And kids can click it on their phone and write their sign up for a Bible reading plan. It's a way to help foster discipleship to lean into the hybrid, right? You taught something, but now by just having notes available to them on their phone, you can say, Hey, click accept, and start reading that plan. The third idea that I have for you is use YouTube and use social media. In fact, in the links down below, I have a couple of things, a less than $100 YouTube setup for you to start doing messages similar to this one right here where you're sitting direct to camera and posting your messages to YouTube.

Nick Clason (19:59):
If you have live streaming capabilities, then do that. But if you don't, as a youth pastor, I get it. I don't either sit down, prerecord your messages. In addition to that, you can use a service also linked in the description called Opus Pro to then take your long form and clip it into short form and give yourself a bunch of social media content for the week. And if you then need something to help fill in some of the other gaps, that's where my surefire resource, my ebook, my 40 done for you ideas comes in. And that message can live in perpetuity online as you help answer the specific faith questions of this next generation. It can be more than just for students who miss. It can be for parents to check it out. It can be for students who don't even go to your church.

Nick Clason (20:43):
It can be for students who go to your church to share messages with friends if they would never bring their friends to church, they can share a message on YouTube with their friends. And so those are my three ideas, sidekick in digital media, you versions, digital notes, and finally, utilize and use YouTube and social media to your advantage. The final piece of this playlist is we're going to be exploring and talking about how do we care for students in an ongoing type of way. We meet with them once a week, but then there's 167 hours. How can we, in a hybrid way care for the students pastorally in the ways in which God has entrusted to us? That video is linked right here on the screen. Make sure you check it out. We're making digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible. So as always, and don't forget, stay hybrid.

🔍 What's the Buzz About?
In this thought-provoking discussion, Carey Nieuwhof and Warren Byrd explore the dynamic landscape of the Hybrid Church model. They shed light on the cutting-edge trends and unveil the fascinating possibilities that await the Church in the digital age.

🌐 Embracing the Digital Ministry
Discover how churches and youth ministries can harness the power of technology and digital platforms to expand their outreach. Unravel the secrets to effective digital ministry and explore innovative ways to leverage social media for church growth.

💻 Marketing the Church for Impact
Join us as we explore successful church social media strategies that bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Learn how your ministry can create a strong online presence, connect with your congregation, and engage with a broader audience.

📲 Social Media: Friend or Foe?
In this candid discussion, Nick, your host unpack the potential pitfalls of social media in the church context while also highlighting its incredible power to have incredible outreach potential and foster community.

🤝 The Jury is Still Out
As the Hybrid Church concept gains momentum, the discussion isn't complete without acknowledging the questions and uncertainties surrounding its implementation. Delve into the gray areas and explore where the future of the Hybrid Church is still unknown.

Whether you're a seasoned pastor, a curious church member, or a tech-savvy youth pastor, this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast promises to leave you inspired and equipped to embrace the future of the church in a digital world.

🔔 Subscribe now and join us on this enlightening journey into the world of Hybrid Ministry! Don't miss out on any future episodes, packed with insightful conversations and actionable strategies for a thriving Hybrid Church.

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Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

SHOWNOTES
📹 Watch Carey's Interview with Warren: https://youtu.be/u2zj9XPPxlI?t=4715
🎧 Listen to Carey's Interview with Warren: https://careynieuwhof.com/episode574/

📹 Hybrid Ministry on the Importance of the Church Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxndpebNlbw&t=2s
🎧 Hybrid Ministry on the Importance of the Church Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/040

✍️ Transcripts Provided by Rev.com Try Rev.com for yourself: https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

TIMECODES
00:00-02:14 Intro
02:14-05:54 Warren Byrd on What's here to stay with Hybrid Ministry and where the jury is still out.
05:54-10:53 Nick Responds to Warren's Take on the Future of Hybrid Ministry
10:53-13:57 Hybrid & Digital work for Evangelism. Do they work for Discipleship?
13:57-21:36 What aspects of Discipleship can be turned digital?
21:36-23:15 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everyone? Welcome back to another edition of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clayson, excited to be with you. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll notice a little bit of a different setup. We did, um, some filming today. A two things. Number one, it's not air conditioned in here, so I'm gonna be super sweaty, so just roll with that. But b uh, got some new lights, got some new audio equipment. Um, one of these days I'm gonna do a step by step, like every single thing that we did, and I'll release it to you guys. Today's not that day, but because we're in here and because I was already set, I was like, I'm just gonna film in here. Typical day, filming day. Uh, normally I come in early and film and then get to work on like work stuff, but today I had to get all this stuff set up 'cause I didn't know how to use it.

Nick Clason (00:51):
It was brand new, literally just ordered it last week. Came in over the weekend, so I wanted to get it all set up. Uh, so kind of displaced my time, moved it around a little bit. All that to be said. In today's episode, I want to talk about a recent Carrie Nho leadership podcast. I'm a subscriber, love his show. Um, if you haven't ever gone on there, go check it out. But he did a recent, um, episode with Warren Bird and, um, another guy named JJ something or other. Um, I'll put the link in the show notes. You can check it out. But it, it was about, um, uh, church planting and like the future. And at about the one minute and 22, uh, one hour, 22 minute Mark Warren Bird dropped some absolute gold that had to do with what we are, uh, dealing with in this podcast.

Nick Clason (01:36):
So I want to have y'all, uh, take a listen to that and, uh, just share with you guys some of my thoughts with it. So, hey, hit the link in the show notes for all the things you need, your transcript, couple of freebies. We have motion graphics that you can get for Adobe Premiere Pro. And we also have the free ebook about, um, uploading and posting to TikTok all from your app. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube, and we are on TikTok. So without any further ado, let's dive into this episode titled, um, why does hybrid ministry matter? What do we know is staying and where, where's the jury Still out? Let's go. So, like I said, uh, in the most recent Karen Newh, not most recent, uh, most recent one I listened to, Carrie Newh episode is out from a couple months ago. Warren Bird dropped a couple statements. I just want you to hear it directly from him, and then I will respond. So go ahead, take a listen.

Carey Nieuwhof (02:30):
Warren, any, uh, data or observations on church plants and technology?

Warren Byrd (02:36):
Yeah. Uh, let's divide it into here to stay and the jury's still out. Okay. Uh, here to stay is people check out your church by its website. First used to be the parking lot was the first impression. The website, whatever size church you are, you're gonna check it out. Mm-hmm. , they're gonna ask two questions, fundamentally, are people like me there? And is this a a, is there a scary factor? Is there something that you know, is gonna weird me out too much? Um, also the newcomer, uh, connection. Now, it may not be their first week there, but scan the ur uh, the QR code. Um, tell us either your email or your phone or both, and that becomes a primary communication tool. I'm just amazed at, at especially the younger generation, so willing, uh, to give that up. But carrying it further hybrid stuff.

Warren Byrd (03:29):
Like my wife and I just finished a, a couple's marriage class in our church. We kicked it off in person. We ended it with a happily ever, ever, ever after party afterwards. But all the nights of the group were online. So this couple with five kids, you know, they, they finished the last kid in bed, they flopped down on the sofa, embraced each other, and were part of the class. They would never have gotten a sitter, uh, driven somewhere. And, and maybe one week, but not week after week after week. So the hybrid experience is here to stay. Now, where the jury is still out for churches, large and small is not the evangelism and the outreach. And jj, it's such a wonderful story of the California story. Those will happen in, and now due to the pandemic, the gospel's in every language accessible all around the world for people to hear, it's a brilliant strategy as the silver, one of the silver linings of the pandemic.

Warren Byrd (04:23):
But, but is is it primarily a member equipping and evangelistic strategy, or is it also a discipleship strategy? Mm-hmm. , can discipleship also happen at the same level? Now granted, I can't hug. Yeah. I can't, you know, like, like good Friday for me. Yes. Good question. When I, I'm not that emotional, but every time I do one of those crosses where I nail the nails in, and that's me nailing the nails and cry, well, I can't do that online mm-hmm. , uh, but in person it just, it moves me. So there's certain in-person that that, is it better or is it not? And I was just last week with a bunch of executive pastors from megachurches of a particular denomination, and they're ambivalent. You know, they're still deciding what to do. Yeah. There are still, there are a few pioneers, uh, Kerry, you wrote the forward to, uh, Tim Lucas's, uh, liquid Church book, liquid church and liquid Church, uh, uh, 5,500 before the pandemic says, okay, we may reach thousands in person, but let's figure out how to seamlessly reach tens of thousands of people beyond that. And church plants are with, with whatever their capacity level, depending on their size, are likewise saying, can we have an online impact of discipleship even beyond the broadcasting? So jury's still out on a lot of things, but, uh, I'm excited about the possibilities.

Nick Clason (05:55):
Okay, so we had a couple of things to say. The first is this, um, what's here to stay the church website, I'll drop a link in the show notes, but we had a all episode all about, um, church websites and how important, uh, your church website is just about like street to seat and all that stuff. Like people are still looking at and viewing websites. And if you have not yet put any effort or money into your website, go ahead and do that. And honestly, what I might recommend is I would get somebody who hasn't, who doesn't go to your church and put them on your website and ask them what's confusing, what's broken, what's missing, what's still needed, and all of that stuff will help point you in the right direction of somebody who is going to be an outsider and is going to be utilizing and using your church website.

Nick Clason (06:44):
So, uh, that's a great place to start. He also talks about, uh, next generations being willing to scan QR codes or fill out forms to give out necessary information that is marketing 1 0 1. And so if you can capture people's name and phone number and or email, you have just about everything you need to at least get started in nurturing their relationship. Oftentimes, churches want all of it all at once. Like, what's your name? What's your address? What's your email address, what's your phone number? What's your social security number? And it's like, they're not there yet, bro. Like, give them, like, trade your email address for a free mug or trade your email address for a donation to some sort of like missions agency or something like that. But you can't get it all. But churches just get greedy and frankly lazy because they're unwilling to massage the relationship.

Nick Clason (07:35):
And I can hear you on the other end because I'm, I've been there, right? I'm like, ah, we need all that info and it'd be great. Yeah. If we did okay. However, like give people time to warm up to you. All right? A lot of times people use marketing, um, in church, we don't know. We don't talk and do a lot of like marketing type stuff, but, but a lot of times what needs to happen is we need to like date them first before we marry them. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of times in churches, we just, we want all the married information like, sign this birth certificate, sign up, you're a member now. Like, who, who, hold on. Like, I just was checking it out for one week. Um, but Warburg does say that there is much more willingness in the next generation to give out and, and distribute that type of information.

Nick Clason (08:20):
And so use that to your advantage. Uh, the other thing you talked about was hybrid stuff. And this is really where I wanted to like zone in because he talked about a Zoom class for like a, a marriage class that they did. Um, that's I think where a lot of people's minds go when I say hybrid, and that's quite frankly one of my least favorite options. Um, I think it's a necessary evil and can be used strategically, but like when I say like hybrid, I don't just mean like zoom small groups. I can, um, I much more mean like showing up where people live their lives in Bible reading plans, in, um, group chats, in social media, in Facebook groups, like all type, all types of things like that. That's what I personally mean when I talk about hybrid. And so the same is true, um, with what he's talking about.

Nick Clason (09:12):
Like, you can do those types of things, right? Like you can make those types of, um, classes or whatever via hybrid, via zoom, via whatever. But, um, that, that wouldn't be my only thing. I think podcasts are another amazing, uh, tool to be utilized. A lot of people, um, have the bandwidth desire and willingness to listen to super long form things. And so like if you're a pastor, you know, that like you cut a lot of things out of your sermon for sake of time and brevity and whatever the case might might be. Um, a podcast is a way to, to give more information that might still be helpful, informative, relevant, uh, that you don't have time to put in a sermon. And so, you know, like if you, again, if you've ever preached like, you know, that there are always things that you often have to cut.

Nick Clason (10:01):
And so, um, podcasts are a great long form tool. They can also double and take place on, on YouTube. Okay? Um, and so I thought, I thought what he had to say there was, was fascinating and a lot of the stuff that I, um, have talked about on this podcast, church websites, connections, hybrid stuff, he, he hit all that. And so, you know, as a creative of this podcast, I was like, yes, you know, Warren Bird is like the Yoda of church data and like the, the just like landscape of church growth and trajectories and what's next and what's coming, like all that stuff. So if he says it, I'm, I'm pumped about it. Okay. What I think was interesting, um, and what I wanna talk about a little bit is when he talked about the jury still being out. So let's dive into that discussion a little bit deeper.

Nick Clason (10:54):
All right, so he said the jury is still out basically saying the digital and hybrid work for evangelism, but do they work for discipleship? Um, if you remember, he used a very tactical example of Good Friday and nailing the nail into a cross. And he's like, that's just so monumental and meaningful to me, and I agree with him. Um, but that is not the only way in which people experience hands-on tactical discipleship, especially newer and, and younger generations. They're much more inclined and willing to explore things through a digital lens, relationships through a digital lens, um, and lean more into like hybrid type of opportunities and options. And so, like at my church, like what Warren broke it down to is like reaching people and or evangelism, like bringing people into your church, which I would argue is necessarily evangelism. It's evangelism from an organizational standpoint.

Nick Clason (11:57):
Like as a church organization, we have to be able, ready, willing to, to bring in guests. But like, is that really evangelism? I would argue evangelism is, you know, a a meaningful, a person taking a meaningful next step to Jesus, particularly one who doesn't classify themself as a Christian. And more often than not, that happens in a interpersonal one-on-one relationship. That's just how I would classify evangelism. Discipleship, I think is quite frankly the same thing. And, um, those evangelism and discipleship used to all be one word, right? It was just telling people about Jesus and then making people more like Jesus so that they would eventually go multiply themselves and their lives into other people's lives. But we, we drew a line at the moment of conversion and we switched evangelism, um, as people who don't have a relationship with Jesus. And discipleship is people who do have a relationship with Jesus, but that's not what Warren was talking about, right?

Nick Clason (12:55):
But he was talking about reaching people and then actually growing them into a mature follower of Christ. So, um, you probably have a definition of what a disciple is at your church. Every church in America probably has some definition of what a disciple is at their church. It all is derived in some way, shape or form. Probably off of the great commission at least I would argue that it should be, because that was Jesus's very deliberate specific commands for us to go make disciples of all nations. That being said, I have a definition, we have a definition in our church about discipleship. So I wanted to explain what that is and then break down those three different elements of a disciple and talk through some hybrid ideas. Again, I'm not vouching for or saying this is successful, not successful, whatever. I'm simply just saying, if you look at the definition of a disciple, these are ways in which digital ministry and hybrid ministry can be supplemented and or utilized to help bring about mature, um, a mature follower of Christ.

Nick Clason (13:54):
So let's talk about that on the other side. Okay? So like I said, my church classifies and breaks down disciple, uh, we call it a three D disciple. Um, I creative, whatever I get it, um, wasn't mine. So not taking any credit for it or flack for it, just it is what it is. If you're a church, medium marketing manager, if you're a church, if you're a youth pastor, like you probably inherited something like this unless you're the lead pastor that came up with it. In most cases, if we're on church staff, we are experiencing these things and now we just have to figure out how to carry out the vision of where we work. That's just the reality of, of being in a position like this. So we have, um, a disciple who's devoted, developing and deployed. Okay? So devoted is simply learning how to work with God.

Nick Clason (14:40):
And I thought there are tons of hybrid options in that if we're trying to help teach someone how to walk with God, there is a, a really great interpersonal moment and element that can take place, especially if you have like a mentorship relationship. And quite frankly, you should, you should do that. You should be leaning into some sort of mentoring relationship, someone who's older than you, who's further along than you and can help take you to the next level. However, there are personal disciplines that I believe also need to take place. Bible reading, um, prayer, and I would argue, and I don't know that this is a widespread thought, but scripture memory and each of those three things, Bible reading, prayer, scripture, memory, I think there are ways in which you can lean into a digital option. Digital flashcards, digital fill in the blank. There's, there's an app I use, a bible memorization app I use for memorizing scripture, um, Bible reading and prayer, both in the YouVersion Bible app.

Nick Clason (15:37):
There are tools and like assets and parts and pieces within the YouVersion Bible app where I can read the Bible more robustly. I can read it with friends, I can do it in community, I can prayer, I can offer prayer requests. They have a daily like guided prayer moment. All those things I think are tools. And if your church has, has the money, has the way, the ability, the means, the resources to pull some of those things together and create an app or create resources, all the more power to you. If not, you can just point people towards some of these other resources, curate some of the good ones that help and have helped you grow in your faith and can help other people grow in their faith as they lean more into their devoted ness and their walk with God, right? Again, this is from my church's definition of a disciple, the second D.

Nick Clason (16:25):
So the first D is devoted, the second D is developing, so they're devoted to Christ to learn to walk with God. And then they're also growing, uh, talk about, uh, we, we use this phrase growing in the character and the competencies of Jesus. So more and more like Jesus as well as, um, doing more and more things like Jesus, one of the first, second or third John I can't remember, says, if you want to, um, follow Jesus, you need to learn to walk as he walked. That's the competencies part, right? Doing the same things, doing the things of Jesus. And so how can we help grow people to be more, um, have a better character, more like Jesus, um, and doing more of the things like Jesus. Um, I, I just actually shared in this exact seat with my students via video for a series coming up about a light bulb versus a laser.

Nick Clason (17:15):
Both of them are lights, but one is an intensified, focused and like very intentional light. And one is just illuminating the room. Both are light. One is one has incredible power. And I would say as you are developing into the character and into the competencies of Jesus, one of the ways to harness that is through relationships and through like direct accountability. Not just friendship, not just like small group, like surface level and maybe even a little deeper than surface level, but actual meaningful, like intentional relationships. Paul David Tripp has a, a quote where he says, you need to be intentionally ob protrusive in somebody's life. And that's what I mean by accountability. Can you accomplish that digitally? I don't think so. Um, there is an element of a one-on-one relationship, a need and need type of relationship. That being said, the accountability partner I have in my life lives 900 miles away from me.

Nick Clason (18:11):
And we talk every single week, once a week, 6:00 AM every Monday morning. And it's a, an expected phone call that's not in person, quote unquote. It's, it is a life on life relationship, but it's done using the means of technology. That being said, we went to college together and grew up together and have raised our kids together at times. And so like, there was definitely a life on life moment that brought us closer together that then allowed us to use technology to continue on in the relationship as opposed to just simply abandoning it, which is what often happens when distance takes place. The third one is deployed, which is simply the idea of being sent out, right? Jesus sent out the 12, then he sent out the, um, 72, and then the 72 that they reached, he, he sent all those out as well. So we saw within Jesus' life, four generations of multiplication.

Nick Clason (19:01):
How can we deploy people using technology and hybrid? Again, the more like you hone this, I think, and if you have an actual nomenclature for it and strategy around it, you can build infrastructures, websites, apps, eBooks, like all kinds of things to give people regardless of where they are. And if you've sent people out overseas, you can still put resources in their hands to help them as they are reaching people, reaching their neighborhoods, reaching their coworkers, having some of these like conversations, these Jesus, these evangelism, these discipleship conversations. I think what Warren is saying is like, there's a life on life moment. An aspect, an element that takes place where people grow. And I agree with that. And he's saying, can digital replace it? And again, I've said this before, but I think if we try to just create, if we, if we say that a Sunday morning sermon is the only place that discipleship happens, and then by recording it and live streaming it, that's our like hybrid or like our digital option, then no, I don't think that that's actually helping people become more developed in their character and competency of Jesus more devoted to him, more able to multiply themselves and send other people out and all the, like, just from a sermon being online, probably not, but a more robust tool, more robust resources that are out there I think can, can help people, right?

Nick Clason (20:28):
Like knowledge can be transferred from one person to another. An element of being devoted element of developing for sure things that are communicated clearly and concisely through that transfer of knowledge. I think those things can happen. Can life transformation happen in hybrid? I would say yes. I don't think it looks the way we think it looks, and I think it probably requires a pretty massive overhaul, um, to be able to do that. But I definitely think it's possible. And here's where the rub often happens. You have to have buy-in with the people who hold the money and write the checks and do those things to get some of those things up off the ground. Because without that, you're simply just like the social media guy trying to do all that through Instagram posts. And can it be done? I think so. Is it the most effective way?

Nick Clason (21:22):
Probably not. Probably not. Um, and so that's how, that's how I would classify it and that's how I would answer and respond to Warren's question about hybrid ministry. Yes, but with some infrastructure and some overhauling for sure. Well, hey, thanks everyone for sticking around, uh, for the duration of this entire episode. I hope you found it helpful. Go listen, like, subscribe to the Kerry Newh episode, especially that part about Warren Bird. Go subscribe to us on YouTube. Give us a, like, all that stuff helps us get found, indexed and seen by the people, um, out there on YouTube that are asking some of these same questions like, is digital discipleship even a possibility in today's world? And, um, 'cause I think it is, and I think that's a meaningful message as we move forward, especially into the next and younger generations, um, of our church members and even those people who have not yet discovered our church. Hit the link in the show notes again for full transcripts of this episode and every other episode that we have over at hybridministry.xyz, grab the Adobe Premier Pro Transitions, grab the free ebook, go like us on Instagrams, follow us on TikTok, follow us on YouTube. And until next time, and as always, we're helping make digital discipleship easy. Stay Hybrid!

🎙️ Unraveling Generation Alpha:
Generation Alpha, born between 2010 and 2025, is the first generation to be entirely immersed in the digital world from birth. These tech-savvy and highly connected individuals are growing up amidst unprecedented technological advancements, shaping their worldviews, values, and relationships in unique ways. Join us as we dissect the defining characteristics of Generation Alpha and explore how they differ from previous generations.

🧭 Navigating Future Ministry Challenges:
As Generation Alpha matures, pastors and church leaders must prepare for new ministry challenges and opportunities. How can the Church effectively communicate timeless truths to a generation that processes information differently? What strategies can we adopt to ensure that biblical values remain relevant in the fast-paced, technology-driven lives of Alpha kids? Nick share insights and experiences that shed light on these crucial questions.

💡 Embracing Innovation and Adaptability:
In this episode, we emphasize the importance of embracing innovation and adaptability in ministry. Discover how churches and faith communities worldwide are already leveraging technology to engage with Generation Alpha on digital platforms, fostering meaningful connections and nurturing their spiritual growth.

🌟 Building a Generation Alpha-Inclusive Ministry:
Join us as we explore practical tips and strategies for building a Generation Alpha-inclusive ministry that celebrates diversity and encourages genuine connections. From utilizing interactive multimedia content to designing age-appropriate digital discipleship programs, our experts share actionable advice to empower pastors and leaders in reaching and discipling the Alpha generation effectively.

🎧 Tune in to the Hybrid Ministry Podcast and join the conversation on navigating ministry in the era of Generation Alpha. Don't miss this opportunity to equip yourself with the insights and tools needed to effectively minister to the next generation of faith pioneers.

🌐 For more resources, articles, and discussions on ministry in the digital age, visit our website at HybridMinistry.xyz

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🗒️ SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/057

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⏱️TIMECODES
00:00-02:30 Intro
02:30-07:25 Meet Generation Alpha - Who are they? When were they born? What do we know?
07:25-10:38 Three Interesting Trends about Generation Alpha
10:38-18:06 How Generation Alpha will shape the church in the Future
18:06-19:00 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):

Nick Clason (00:07):
Well, hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clason, thrilled, excited, pumped, and Jack to be with you. Another episode in the Cross Creek Mug. Listen, I'm gonna take this rig back to my house at some point in time, but I brought this in, um, 'cause I did those Adobe and Photoshop episodes and, um, that was a little bit for me, selfish and two-pronged. Um, but for those of you not watching, I'm in my office, uh, drinking some coffee this morning. Um, freshly roasted Burundi from Burundi. Did it on my back patio last night. Didn't get the chaff off as much as I would've wanted to. So I'm gonna be working on that here in the future. Uh, in this episode, we are going to be talking about all things generation Alpha. Now listen, we've been talking Gen Z a lot, but we are gonna, um, shift the conversation even younger because Gen Alpha is currently, um, thought to have been born between 2010 and 2025, meaning they're not even born all the way yet, .

Nick Clason (01:17):
And so we're gonna talk at them, we're gonna talk about them a little bit. There's a few statistics and things that are interesting about them, but they're not fully formed and they're not fully developed yet. And so these are just a lot of things that may just be conjecture, things that we're looking at ahead in the future, curious about. So join me as we dive into that, and here's why, because I think that the younger generations tend to formulate and bring about formation to the older generations and the older demographics. So as always, you can head to the link in the show notes, http://www.hybridministry.xyz/057 for full transcripts. It's also gonna have a link to our YouTube channel where you can subscribe, like rate review, a rating or review in the purple podcast app would be amazing. We are on Instagram, we are on TikTok, we are all the places. And Link in the show notes will have your chance for a 100% completely free ebook, as well as the video transitions that you can get in Adobe Premier Pro. Without any further ado, let's dive into why we need to look at and learn from Generation Alpha for the future of the church. Here we go.

Nick Clason (02:30):
All right, so Generation Alpha, that is a new demographic younger than Generation Z, right? We had Generation X, generation Y, which we have nicknamed and colloquially, colloquially called the millennials, and then Generation Z. What do you do after Z? Well, you go back to the beginning. So now we're in Generation Alpha. They may have a new name, they may have something, um, that they're called in the future, but for right now, we are referring to them as generation alpha. So right now, I am a youth pastor. If you're not in youth ministry, you may feel like this isn't even a thing that is worth worrying about, but just for some frame of reference and context, right now is actually a really clear year in my mind because middle schoolers are generation alpha and, um, high schoolers are Generation Z. That line, it's an arbitrary line that you draw right between like generations, but most researchers would draw that line, like I said, 2010.

Nick Clason (03:28):
So you do a little bit of quick math that makes it like a 13 year old. So you're looking at sixth grade, seventh grade, maybe some eighth graders, and then ninth grade and on up. They are younger. But similarly to look at the gap between Gen Z and millennials, we called them, um, some people have called them millennials because they're zrs, but they're also millennials. So they got kind of attributes of both generations. The same thing is gonna be true of the lines, the edges of these arbitrary drawings. Couple of things that are worth noting that I wanna share with you. Um, I got, uh, I looked at an article from exploding topics.com/blog/generation alpha stats. I'll drop the link to that for y'all in the show notes. Make sure you go check that out. Most of this stuff comes from there, but they have it linked to deeper research where they got their information from.

Nick Clason (04:17):
So go ahead, check those things out. But children between ages of eight and 12, okay? So that's upper elementary, lower middle spend on average four hours and 44 minutes in front of screens every single day. Just think about that for a minute. Four hours and 44 minutes. And while you may be listening to this and thinking, man, that's crazy, that's a lot. How much time are you spending in front of a screen every single day? I mean, right here is my office, I'm sitting in front of a screen, I have another screen, I have my phone, I'm, I'm in front of this eight hours a day, right? Not to mention TVs, not to mention phones, but what really struck this cord for me, what was really making me want to dive into this a little bit more is this the actual screen itself. So we were on vacation last week.

Nick Clason (05:03):
We were in Florida and we had a tv, just like every room in the America on vacation in hotels or condos has a a tv, right? And there was a problem with the TV though, because the TV only had basic cable. My kids don't understand basic cable, so they would wanna watch TV and they would ask to watch a certain show, and I'd say, bro, I I can't get that show on the TV for you. I can't make Phineas and Ferb be what they play. I don't even know if Disney Channel does Phineas and Ferb anymore. It was mostly big city Greens is what was on. And so instead, my kids as opposed to being like, oh, okay, like they didn't get it. They're like, well, okay, can we watch Phineas and Ferb on your iPad? So I have a seven year old and a four year old.

Nick Clason (05:45):
And so one of them adopted my iPad and one of them adopted my wife's iPad. One of them watched Pho and Ferb, one of them watched Mickey Mouse Funhouse. Meanwhile, in the master bedroom where my wife and I were staying the TV in there, I couldn't get it work. And I had, I host a podcast about hybrid ministry, so you'd think I of all people should be able to get this thing to work when I couldn't. My wife was like, well, it's a lost cause. So since I couldn't, the two of us also were just like on our phones, right? Like, um, at the time of the vacation and, and you know, we're gonna be a month in advance or so on this, uh, when I actually post. But, uh, it was n b a free agency. So I was like, checking woe notifications if you know, you know, Sean's notifications from the Athletic and just watching like, uh, YouTube and podcasts and things like that as they're, you know, analyzing the Fred Van Veit signing in Houston and Dylan Brooks and in Houston, and you know, Chris Middleton back to The Bucks and all these things, right?

Nick Clason (06:34):
So I'm just watching it on my phone. My wife's, you know, she's over there on reels. That's her normal anyway, she's not a big like TV person. She's more like scroll some reels, you know, for her like entertainment, so to speak. So the four of us, my, my wife and I, and my two kids, all of us were on screens, but not the biggest screen, not the TV screen. And I think I, to me, it was like just this eye-opening moment. First of all, I can't even go on vacation without thinking about this podcast, right? But it was this kinda like eye-opening moment, like, man, none of us are watching tv. We're all just on smaller screens. What does this mean? So it caused me to just start asking some questions about the younger generation, um, gen Alpha. I think that these are gonna be related to Generation Z as well.

Nick Clason (07:16):
Uh, so I wanna share with y'all a couple of stats. So let's go ahead and take a minute, dive into what some of these, um, fascinating generation Alpha stats are. Let's go. All right, so like I said, according to the exploring topics.com blog, here are some of the stats from Generation Alpha. 47% of Gen Alpha say that they prefer to split their free time between screen time and being outdoors. 47%. So right about half prefer screen time and outdoors. And I think, like if I were to inspect that and ask some questions about it a little bit, really what I'm saying is like, indoors equals screen time and outdoors equals outdoors, which is, you know, normal. The question is like, is there, are there things inside that Gen Alpha are navigating, using, spending time on that are not screen based? The next thing I wanna show you is it says Gen Alpha use an average of 4.2 streaming services.

Nick Clason (08:13):
That's Gen Alpha. Frankly, I use Disney plus, I use Discovery Plus I use Netflix. Sometimes I use Prime, sometimes I use Hulu. Sometimes I stream off the E S P N app. Sometimes I use like Sling. I mean, I'm up to seven. So while you were like, man, that might sound like a lot. I, I don't think it actually sounds like a lot at all. I have tons of different streaming services, and quite frankly, I've cut the cord with cable years ago, and every time I go on vacation, I'm reminded like, yeah, I don't want cable. Like, that's not what I want, right? Like, I enjoy my streaming services, part of the problem. Now, streaming services, you add all the costs together just as much as cable or more. And so I'm like, I don't know if this is actually saving me any money. 'cause there's enough platforms out there now that they're diversified across all of 'em, you know?

Nick Clason (08:58):
Um, additionally, 59% of gen alphas say that watching TV and movies is their favorite weekend activity. 50% name it as their favorite afterschool activity. And 70% of eight to 11 year olds consider TV and movies to be among their favorite activities. So just think about that. Screen time, gen Z, all that stuff is part of what, um, how they're spending their time on screens. It is wild. And lastly, 38% of gen alpha gamers want a video game that allowed them to build or create. And I think there's something there talking about Minecraft, talking about Roblox types of games. They like to be contributors and creators to the moment, not just passive consumers. You know, my kids, they watch, um, some YouTube, uh, we have YouTube kids, we try to have all the blocks that we can keep 'em safe out there on the internet. But the, my son has recently gotten into watching people play video games.

Nick Clason (09:59):
And I'm like, bro, why don't you play a video game yourself? So this weekend I downloaded Mario Kart so that we could have some family Mario Kar battles, which has been pretty fun. Uh, but it's kinda like my kids, uh, seven and four year old, it's kind of their first time ever playing, um, video games, right? And so, um, they're now getting to experience what it's actually like to, to play it. And then I got home from church yesterday and man, they, they had been playing it for hours up to that point. So pretty fun. Um, pretty exciting times. But what does all this stuff mean? So let's dive in to talk about some big ideas and pictures of what this might mean for the church going forward. All right? So let's talk about what this might mean for the idea of the future church.

Nick Clason (10:43):
So philosophically speaking, as you're listening to this, you might be thinking Gen Alpha, I don't have to care about that. I don't have to worry about that. I'm not in youth ministry. And while that may be true, um, because even some of these kids aren't even born yet, right? Uh, gen Alpha, the lines I've read are 2010 to 2025. Birth years. We're in 2023 at the time of this recording. So there's still two more years of gen alphas to be born, to be popping out people, right? So, , what does this mean? You might be thinking, and here's here's why I think this matters, because philosophically, churches and cultures tend to gravitate towards youth. Watch any movie on Hollywood, watch any movie on tv like you're going, the the main character you're going to find is somebody who is young. And so younger generations tend to kind of carry the weight and carry the day as it pertains to culture and culture.

Nick Clason (11:32):
Building youth shapes culture. So if youth shapes culture, then we need to look at what the youth and what the younger people are doing, um, gravitating towards what the trends are, and then what this might mean for us as a church going forward. Because here's what's gonna happen. If not, we're going to become less relevant. We're gonna become more antiquated. And if we are not because we're trying to attract people and, and make Jesus attractive, but because we're trying to be, as Paul said, I, I become a Jew for, for Jews, a Greek for Greeks to, so that I may win some in accordance and for sake of the gospel. And so that's what we're gonna do. Uh, we're going to, um, try and meet people and reach people where they are, where they are spending their time. So philosophically speaking, culture tends to trend younger. So what does that mean? And what are some of the things that we can just right now look at, grab and move forward? Let's go ahead, take a look at that.

Nick Clason (12:32):
So practically speaking, I have three practical ideas for churches. So the first thing is make things optimized for your phone. Listen, if your website is already not optimized for a phone, like you need to probably stop listening to this right now and go make that happen asap. That is a very crucial and very important part of ministry, I think in, uh, 2023 and beyond. Also, what are ways in which you can invade the phone, not in a creepy way, but in a meaningful way to generations that are not at church in the moment, right? So like both, how can they engage with the at church? So one of my favorite things is the YouVersion, um, bible app, the notes section where they can take notes, follow along, but also like Bible reading plans, short form video, um, short, short form video based content pieces for social media, TikTok, reel shorts, um, that are both funny, fun, relevant and, um, biblical and things that are gonna help them like grow more, uh, as a disciple and as a follower of Jesus.

Nick Clason (13:35):
So both, what can you do for phones in person and what can you do for phones, um, while they're not there. The other thing I think that is worthwhile is as much screen time as people are spending, how can we as a church offer for them moments not on screens at church. So like, we most recently went to summer camp a couple weeks ago and we offered and challenged our students to adopt the low sell slash no sell challenge. And we rewarded students who took part in that because we thought they would get more outta camp if they were on their phones less as opposed to more. But here's the thing, we didn't just do a blanket no cell phone policy because kids use their phones for alarms. Kids use their phones for cameras, kids use their phones for all kinds of different things. And quite frankly, so do you, and so do I like my phone is my g p s my phone is my daytimer, my phone is my like, you know, I got a question.

Nick Clason (14:29):
Look it up. Like my phone is, is a lot of things to me. And I think that's part of the problem is we a lot of times equate screen time to just simply social media when in the reality screen time is a lot of things. Like when I travel, my screen time goes through the roof, not 'cause I'm spending more time on my phones at my vacation destination, but because I'm traveling and I got my Maps app open the whole time and my screen is counting that against me. The second thing is, can you incorporate video games? Students are spending more and more time on video games. So both that could be like in your environment, especially if you're a youth pastor, that's not a foreign idea. It's, it's been around for years. Honestly. I grew up in a ministry that had video games offered to me as a teenager, but can you also, um, maybe incorporate video games in things like Twitch streams or YouTube gaming, like those types of things.

Nick Clason (15:17):
And can you use that to both, um, let students watch and, and view and participate in from a passive view perspective and or can you flip that script and give them opportunities, platforms, times to come in stream? Things like, can you find a way to incorporate that into your ministry to create a wider pool and a wider reach? Because just think about this. If you invite someone into to stream on one of your platforms, they're gonna cross promote that. They're gonna tell their friends that they're online, like all kinds of fun stuff like that. So, so start thinking and asking yourself, are there ways to incorporate video games? That's one of the ways that Gen Alpha is using, especially things like Minecraft and Roblox. One of the things that I thought was awesome during c o we built a dedicated for our own student ministry Minecraft server, and it was really cool.

Nick Clason (16:08):
Like it was a really cool thing. Um, you know, covid and, and you know, our leaders not really getting it and getting into it helped it, you know, not have as much traction as I think it could have maybe should have. Um, but, but things like that are so cool, so niche. Are there ways to utilize that for the advancement, um, of your student ministry culture, advancement of the name of Jesus, the gospel, all those types of things I think worth que are, are worth questioning. And the third thing is I think we need to start discipling students through it and not away from it. If you're anything like me, you've grown up in, you know, early nineties, uh, mid two thousands almost all of the things were like challenging students to, to lay things aside, like turn your phone into a dumb phone, all these things.

Nick Clason (16:53):
And I think those are good things. I think if you, if you feel so inclined to do that personally, then you should do that. But I think, like I said, phones are not going anywhere, right? Um, but how do we help disciple people through it? Um, because they have it, right? Like, I'll just say this as a parent, I am going to hold off on getting my kids a phone for as long as humanly possible. I say that right now when they're seven and four. I can't tell you what it's gonna be like in five years or seven years and where they're at with that, but I don't want them to have a phone. 'cause there are dangers on there that pornography addiction, things like that all can stem from a simple device in your pocket. That being said, many, many of our people have them. So how do we help navigate them through it? How do we help create within them good digital hygiene, um, good practices to navigating having a phone and living in the worldwide web in the 21st century and using it for good and using it to reach people for the gospel. So I think that's a shift that the church needs to start moving towards is less, Hey, cut it off, go cold Turkey instead. Hey, you have it, but with it, here's how you can use it.

Nick Clason (18:07):
Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this episode. I hope you found it helpful. As always, link in the show notes for transcripts, links to the YouTube video if you wanna watch that. And TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, all those things go like, follow, subscribe, uh, all the places. Um, we love hanging out with y'all. If you have a question, head to our website, http://www.hybridministry.xyz and send us a question. We would love to answer it here on the pod at some point in the future. And don't forget, we got a couple freebies in the show notes as well. So go to the show notes. That is going to be your one stop shop for everything that you need. And don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Hang out on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

ShowNotes & Transcripts:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/054

Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/hybridministry

FREEBIES
FREE Animation Effects for Adobe Premiere Pro:
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

FREE E-Book:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

SHOWNOTES
Why should churches even care about Digital Ministry in 2023?
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/031
VIDEO: Why should churches even care about Digital Ministry in 2023?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9rdO5laIUM
VIDEO: Have I already Ruined My Church's TikTok Account?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxBn-p9O-eg
BARNA EBOOK:
https://shop.barna.com/products/6-questions-about-the-future-of-the-hybrid-church-experience
Episode 001:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/001
BRACKET: https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/world%27s-greatest-donut/games/food-8745.htmlBRACKET
BRACKET #2: https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-big-game-food-bracket/winter/the-big-game-8544.html

TIMECODES
00:00-02:46 Intro
02:46-06:43 A Brief One-Year History
06:43-10:03 Year One Podcast Stats
10:03-19:27 What is Hybrid Ministry?
19:27-20:41 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, as always, Nick Clason sipping my coffee in my office today out of my, uh, church branded Yeti. I will say this, though, not a big Yeti fan as a coffee connoisseur because the metallic taste of it overrides the notes of coffee. So honestly, I would prefer just drinking out of like one of these types of mugs. So you're not on YouTube, you're not seeing all this. You are missing out big time, not probably really, but we are gonna take a little bit of a break. The last two episodes were, uh, video editing episodes. The, the episode after this one will be a Photoshop specific episode. But the reason that we're taking a little break is because our pilot episode on July 19th, um, and our episode one on July 21st was exactly one year ago from the day that this episode drops, which is July 20th.

Nick Clason (01:04):
So in this episode, we are just going to do, uh, talk about what is hybrid ministry like, the whole basis, the whole, like per the whole name of this podcast is named Hybrid ministry. What is it? Where did it come from? Why do we start this podcast? Do a little year in review, sort of deal. So that's what's on the docket for today. Hey, listen, if you are new here or if you are just finding us out, wanna let you know in the show notes. You can find links to YouTube, links to our website, hybrid ministry.xyz. Uh, this will be episode 55. Every single episode will have a link to our episode page, which has a full transcript. That's something that we provide for you all for a hundred percent free. So go check that out. Also, just follow us on social. We're on Instagram, we're on YouTube, and we are on TikTok.

Nick Clason (01:48):
All the links to those in the show notes, because some of those are my personal account at Clay and Nick. Others of those are ministry based accounts, a hybrid ministry. It's one of those too as an option, but your show notes will have everything that you need. In addition to that, we have a couple freebies right now. We have our free ebook, um, helping you download and get TikTok going completely from scratch. And then we also have free Adobe, uh, pro, uh, transitions that you can use to animate text, to animate videos, um, bounce in like your typical YouTube thing. So go grab those in the show notes and we would love it if you would give us a rating or review or subscribe or a, like, all those things help us get found in search so that more people can learn and know about the difference and the ministry that hybrid is going to make in their world and in their ministry.

Nick Clason (02:39):
So, without any further ado, let's jump in to the one year celebration episode. Glad to have y'all here. So, like I said, today is the day that this episode drops is July 20th. July 20th is the one year anniversary. You know, when I started this podcast, I had a cohost, his name is Matt, um, and Matt is, uh, one of the smartest marketing brains I've ever met. He used to work for, dare to Share if you're in the ministry world, you've probably heard that before. Uh, they're youth ministry, evangelism centric organization. Then he came to work at the same church that I was working at in Chicago land area. And when we were both working in Chicago land, we started this podcast together. Both of us within the first probably like 10 episodes, um, transitioned to different roles for, for different reasons. And one reason or another, um, I ended up here in dfw, Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas area.

Nick Clason (03:30):
Matt went back out to Colorado, which is home, um, working for a non-church non ministry organization. And because of that, his his ability to record podcasts fell by the wayside. And I became a one man band. And I remember I was moving here, moving to Dallas on the road somewhere in Nowheresville, Oklahoma. And I turned on Colin Cowherd cause I was like, that dude can talk for three hours by himself. And I found that the hardest thing to do. My first episode I recorded it was like 14 minutes. And I was like, how in the world am I gonna do a podcast by myself? Like, this is gonna be mentally exhausting and in a way it is. Don't get me wrong. Um, so that's why I I recruited a co-host to start cuz it's a lot easier to just have a conversation and talk. That being said, I started listening to Colin Coward cuz I saw the writing a little bit on the wall, and I was like, how is he doing this?

Nick Clason (04:24):
What are his kind of tips and tactics? So I tried to lean in and learn some of those things so that if my co-host fell by the wayside, I would still be able to give y'all a podcast. And, uh, I think around episode 11 or 12, I started doing them by myself. And then, um, I would still reference Matt as, you know, a like member of the podcast, but eventually I just stopped and it just became this, the Solo Nick Clason show. So here you go. If you're, if you're new and you want to go back to some of those early episodes, you will hear another voice that is my good friend Matt Johnson. Still great friends, just, you know, he doesn't have time to to record. He's a new dad, new life out in Colorado, just like we're building a new life here in Dallas, Texas area.

Nick Clason (05:08):
And so, um, and I never missed a week, um, from when I started until now. We've had a lot of life happen. We moved, um, my wife's mom passed away, my mother-in-law. Um, we went back, you know, had to drive a thousand miles back overnight to get there. Um, when that happened, it wasn't, um, emergent, but it also wasn't totally on the radar when we moved here. One of the reasons we moved here was hoping that she could come live with us, um, you know, fighting her cancer diagnosis. Um, but some things progressed faster than we anticipated. And, and all that happened and I started a new job and I'm getting to know a new church and I'm getting, you know, my kids enrolled in a new school. So a lot of new for us. Um, but thank you for being along on the ride with me because in my new role, I am focusing a lot on digital integration and hybrid ministry.

Nick Clason (06:00):
And this podcast is a cathartic outlet for me to talk about what I'm doing. In a lot of episodes, I've told you, here's what I'm doing right now, here's how it's going, and here's the adjustments that I'm making. And while I would be doing those things internally in my head, forcing myself to sit down and explain it to an audience has just been so helpful. And so thank y'all for being along the ride with me. Like I, I've told you before, I always want this to be a place where I can just be open and honest. So that is a little bit of just kinda like the brief one year history of where we are. Um, and in, in an attempt to continue to look back just a little bit, I want to give you guys a couple of recap type stats. So let's dive into this.

Nick Clason (06:44):
All right. So to recap, um, back in December, December was our best downloaded month to date. But then January beat December and then February, beat January and then March, beat February. So they just kept kind of building on itself and then may came and may beat all of those. April took a little bit of a, uh, backseat, um, or I'm sorry, may took a little bit of a backseat to April. Um, April was still the highest. So it, it was like a stair-stepping in December, January, February, March, April, may took a little dip. And then now, uh, I'm recording this in June. Um, it will drop in July and so, um, July might be completely different, but June has far surpassed every month we've ever even had. So to those of y'all who are new, those of y'all who are downloading us on a regular basis, welcome, glad to have you, glad to see you.

Nick Clason (07:35):
It's exciting to be along on the journey. Um, glad to have you with us. The highest downloaded episode ever in the history of this podcast is episode 31. I'll drop a link to that in the show notes if you wanna go back and listen to it. But we are gonna do just a little bit of a recap of that here in this episode. The episode's titled, why Should Churches Even Care About Digital Ministry in 20, I think I probably recorded it in 2023 or 2022, I should say. So I probably said, why should churches care about digital ministry in 2022? Um, consequently, and I don't think that this has any correlation, but consequently, that was also our very first episode that we started posting full, um, video episodes on YouTube as well. So you can go check out my very first YouTube video if you wanna laugh and see how bad it is, I think, and hope we've gotten better.

Nick Clason (08:23):
But, um, you know, no promises. I'm not like a professional YouTube editor. Uh, I'm a youth pastor, so I'm doing this all in the margins, all in my spare time. And so, um, there could be more on the horizon, you know? Um, but right now it's just kinda, uh, slugging it out. That does not count. However, our very first episode on YouTube, which was the, have I already ruined my church's TikTok account. It's a video and podcast joint episode that I posted, uh, where we, we released the free ebook, um, with a link to that and the show notes. And so, um, that was literally walking through step-by-step nerding out on how to post a video on your cell phone using the TikTok TikTok app. Now, I will give a caveat and a disclaimer. I'll drop the episode link to that as well in the show notes, but I wanna let you know that I posted that in December.

Nick Clason (09:12):
And so just like any sort of tech things have changed. And so it may not even be a hundred percent relevant. The the overall premise is right, like a lot of TikTok is the same, but there are still some things that have shifted and even personally some strategy things on my end that have shifted as well. So think you all for being along on the journey. Those are, um, just some kind of recaps. This is our, like I said, our one year anniversary episode. But without any further ado, this is really what I want to get into is I wanna like bring everyone, y'all on the audience level back to the roots of why we do what we do and what this is what, where this all started from. So without any further ado, let's answer this question. What is hybrid ministry? Okay, what is high ministry?

Nick Clason (10:06):
So back in July last year when we launched podcasts, this idea had been rolling around in my brain for a couple months and, um, I was kicking around ideas of names. The name I settled on was hybrid. I also liked integration. Um, but, but hybrid was really like the one that I thought was really cool. Well, lo and behold, after I decided that name, Barna released an ebook about the future of the hybrid church. And so almost at the same time I launched a podcast or at least started recording bef before I had a few episodes kind of in the hopper before we ever went fully live. Um, and then Barna also released their ebook 40 or some, some, I can't remember. I'll drop the link to the Barna ebook in, in the show notes. It's behind a paywall, but it's worth it. It's a, it's a little over a year old now at this point, but I still go back to and pull a lot of data from it cuz what they're asking, coming out of the heels of C O V I D, they're asking what do millennials and Gen Z, what are they looking for in church?

Nick Clason (11:10):
Uh, another thing I've done in the last year is I went through a Gen Z Barna CoLab thing. Um, it was a six session zoom thing where they shared some findings about Gen Z, which they are the future generation of our church and our church ministry. And so it's important, I think to, to inspect what these generations are saying. And so, um, 9%, only 9% of churched Christians back when this, um, hybrid ebook dropped 9% of church Christians, um, wanted a solely digital church option. Okay? And so I think my question, and I remember I had Matt on here, was like, well, well then why are we even exploring this as digital ministry? Aren't we on the other side of covid? Shouldn't we go back to what we remember and how things were? The difference was one third of them expressed that some sort of, um, hybrid option would suit them well, and that was only in those that they pulled and that was only in those old enough to be pulled.

Nick Clason (12:19):
So 18 and older at the time. All right, meanwhile, millennials and Gen Z, if you take out just that kind of sub subset of of age demographic, take out some of the older church attenders that were also pulled in this ebook. Millennials and Gen Z are ju this is, this one was the one that got me and this is the one that like really thrust me into starting this podcast. Millennials and Gen Z are just as likely to choose a hybrid option as they are a physical option at 40% for millennials and 42% for Generation Z. So they are just as likely just as interested in a hybrid option as they are in a physical option. And I hear you on the other end, but wait, it's not the same. We all saw it in Covid and yes, that's true. And this was one of the conversations that me and Matt had way early on, and it's that this churches in Covid tried to replicate an in-person experience and a digital option.

Nick Clason (13:16):
And a physical option should be two uniquely different experiences. I hear you again, but wait, I don't have time to produce that and I get that it's challenging for sure. I'm on a student ministry staff of three, soon to be four. We're about to have a year long resident who I've worked with before. So we have a little bit of a history, know what he can bring to the table. All that to be said, I dedicate, I don't know, probably 75% or more of my job responsibilities to digital integration and hybrid ministry. There's more that I wish and want to be able to do, but I, I also don't have the time crunch. But what I say is on your staffing level and on your staffing side, it's really important to make sure that you give someone proper allocation of funds and time, ability to, uh, to go this direction because the, the younger that generations are, the more that this is going to be necessary.

Nick Clason (14:14):
And we're not trying to replace the physical. That's my whole point. That's where the word hybrid comes from. We're not trying to replace the physical, we're trying to integrate digital with physical, right? One of my favorite examples of it in our student ministry is we'll do these like two or three times a year. We'll do these, uh, brackets where we pit two things against each other and, and they vote and the winner goes on to the next round and they face off against the winner of another matchup. And so we'll come up with kind of these like arbitrary seatings or whatever. Um, I'll drop a couple links in the show notes cuz I've done a few of these and I've posted 'em on like download youth ministry, so you can grab it. We've got like world's greatest or um, uh, big game day bracket food challenge.

Nick Clason (14:55):
So you're picking like the food that you're gonna have at like your Super Bowl party. But that's a great example of a hybrid option because all of the voting takes place online on a website or, or in our case, a lot of times on Instagram, but in person it's also like playing it itself out. So this last year we did serial madness in March, and so we pitted serial matchups against each other. And so we had all the, the matchups up on a big, uh, window that we have with like a bracket taped out. And then we cut out the front of the serial boxes and po uh, pasted like a seed number on each of them. And then as they would win online, we'd move them into our space. So the students would walk in, they'd see the results, but then on Wednesday nights we have these garage door, uh, like bay type things.

Nick Clason (15:42):
And so we have eight different bays. And so that's eight different matchups for a round of 16. And the base came up and every individual matchup, uh, of cereal was in the base. So they could go in, they could grab the one seed versus 16 seed, put a little milk in it and eat it. That's an example of taking a digital expression, a digital like moment and means of something and bringing it in to make it hybrid with your in-person. Okay, back in the first episode, we talked about digital openness. And so I just wanna rattle off for you some of these, um, findings from, from the first book. So church adults defined as having high digital openness. Number one, they see the value of attending at least an online service. Number two, they think that churches should use digital resources for spiritual formation slash discipleship purposes.

Nick Clason (16:33):
Post pandemic, they think that churches, uh, should use digital resources for gathering their people to together after the pandemic. They say that either hybrids, so both digital and physical or primarily digital gatherings for church will best fit their lifestyle after the pandemic. And number five, they're open to attending new kinds of online gatherings that are unfamiliar. What are mold breaking? So these are people that are classified as digitally open. Furthermore, of these options, these were the options that they said would, um, suit them in a hybrid sort of format. So teaching and preaching one-on-one prayer, small groups, worship, prayer, visitation, confession, children's ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry. Those were, um, highest percentage down to lowest percentage in a cascading list. The thing that was the number one thing was teaching and preaching. So here's the thing, churches have gathered together to preach and hear the word, and that's, that's valuable and scriptural.

Nick Clason (17:34):
That being said, um, I, I can learn just as well. Um, whether I'm sitting my butt in a, a seat looking ahead, listening to a pastor as I can, listening to him on the podcast, what can't be reproduced, what can't be replicated in my own experience is praise and worship. Which again, I think that there may be a moment for, uh, figuring out how this works for the next generation in a non, uh, like physical environment. Not replacing it, but supplementing it. But the thing that can't be replaced for me is community one-on-one relationships, like authentic community with other believers. And some of those things can be done digitally. Zoom groups. We all saw that it leaves something to be desired. I agree if that's what you're saying to me on the other side of this camera. However, all that to be said, like the, the teaching pieces can be something that we can offer to people.

Nick Clason (18:27):
It's the number one, it was the number one rated thing for hybrid options, the delivery of content. CS Lewis has a quote that says, this says theology is all the more important today because there are so many messages being delivered to the home that you need to determine what is actually true. So you can go into one of these mediums and you can present the word, you can give theology, you can teach people theology in podcast form, YouTube videos, short form videos. Lewis made this quote in the 1950s and it rings all the more true today. That's the crazy thing, right? Is like what he said back in the fifties still brings true almost 80 years later. So because there's so many messages coming into the home, we need to help teach people what the Bible says. So I say all that to say, and I give you all of that as just a reminder that this is why this matters.

Nick Clason (19:22):
Hybrid ministry matters as an option for churches moving forward. And so, um, I just wanted to give a quick reminder. I just wanted to share it with y'all about, um, why we do what we do, where this whole thing comes from and what the purpose of it all is. Thanks for hanging out. Excited to have you with us. Don't forget link in the show notes. If you want to, uh, go follow us on YouTube. If you want to grab either of those freebies, uh, downloads, we're gonna be starting here in this next year. We're gonna be starting, um, getting our email newsletter going. And so subscribe in and grabbing the ebook or the, um, free transitions for Adobe Premiere Pro. Either one of those will lock you into our email newsletter. We're gonna start sending some stuff out occasionally. And so one, make sure that you don't miss that. Hey, if you subscribe to this, you will get this automatically downloaded into your podcast catcher every single Thursday morning at 4:00 AM So if you're in ministry and you have a Wednesday night deal, you wake up, you get to hear this the next morning after your ministry night. Hopefully it's just a, a positive encouraging, maybe even sometimes challenging refresher for you. Uh, so we would welcome that and love to have you join us in that way. But don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Show Notes & Transcripts: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/044
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RECENT GEN Z STATS
*GEN Z *
70% are spiritually open

TRAITS
Correct
6% Teens
8% All Gen Z
9% Young Adults
Knowledgeable
16% Teens
21% All Gen Z
24% Young Adults
Being Honest
41% Teens
32% All Gen Z
25% Young Adults
Being Open to New Ideas
29% Teens
28% All Gen Z
28% Young Adults
Being Curious
7% Teens
11% All Gen Z
13% Young Adults

51% HAPPINESS IS VERY IMPORTANT
Happiness Looks Like
43% Success
23% Education
20% Family
8% Spiritual
6% Health

TIMECODES
00:00-02:46 Intro
02:46-06:32 A BeReal Generation vs. an Instagram Generation
06:32-11:37 The Latest Gen Z Statistics
11:37-18:52 Church & Workplace Implications of these Cultural Trends and Shifts
18:52-21:49 Gen Z Still Likes Jesus, just not our Church
21:49-22:44 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And in this episode, we are going to talk about the workplace gap and generational gap between older generations and younger generations, specifically generation Z and those that have come before them. And also, I want to pull out some principles that I think might be true about what that means for you and your local church and how they're the, the gap is causing a riff in potentially church attendance. But before we do, I just want to say thanks for being here. If you're on YouTube, hit that subscribe and notification button, that like button. If you're on TikTok, give us a follow. And if you are just listening in your podcast catcher, I wanna let you know that you can head to hybridministry.xyz for all of your podcast needs, including show notes and transcripts.

Nick Clason (01:00):
We will link all of the notes to everything, uh, all the links, everything that we're talking about. And, uh, all of the, uh, transcript is there for you, 100% completely free of charge. We also wanna let you know that LinkedIn, the show notes, both on YouTube and in your podcast, our free ebook, have I already ruined my church's TikTok account. That will be available for you. Again, free of charge. Just hit that subscribe button and sign up for that email list. We'd love to give that to you as a free gift and our token of appreciation. Uh, and also, without any further ado, if you are able, willing, or, uh, have any sort of interest in letting us know, this would be great. We would love a five star rating or review that would really help us out, that would help us get index in the search for all these things on podcast.

Nick Clason (01:47):
All those things matter, and they're just, they would just be a small token of appreciation from you to us for all that we do. Um, but again, we are just thankful and thrilled to be here. So without any further ado, let's dive into the workplace generation gap conundrum. Hey, what's up, hybrid ministry fam, thanks for watching this or listening to this. Hey, I just wanna drop a quick note and let you know about halfway through, uh, the audio recording. Somehow my audio got corrupted. You'll notice a drastic drop off in quality some way through. Sorry about that. You're still gonna be able to hear it cuz I was recording it on my phone just like I'm doing this little announcement right here, right now. So this'll be able to hear it. It's just not the best, it's not our favorite quality level. We'll get it back, you know, we'll figured out the issue.

Nick Clason (02:40):
Um, but just wanna give you that quick disclaimer. Heads up. Hope you still enjoy the rest of the episode. So if you have been paying any bit of attention recently, you know that the social trends have been shifting. We all know that TikTok has grown in immense popularity. All of what Congress and the US is trying to do with it, it's grown in immense popularity. So much so that some of our more, um, legacy platforms like Facebook and Instagram have adopted many of the AI features that are available in TikTok. But another trend that I've noticed recently, uh, is the trend of the, the social media app. B real bre has been, uh, launched recently, um, within a year or so I would say. And Gen Z and current teenagers have gone crazy for it, at least in my anecdotal experience. And they're using it.

Nick Clason (03:37):
And if you don't know what B Real is, it's basically an app that one time a day says it's time to be real. But they, uh, you know, you can, you can, it has like dual meaning like cuz BRE is also another thing that you use in like film or whatever, but it says it's time to be real and they just take a picture of what you're doing wherever you are, right there in that moment. You have two minutes to post it, you can post late and that's what a lot of people do. But it's really just like a once daily posting app. It's not the curated feed and the beautiful like Brazilian vacation photo pictures that we would get in the old school, Instagram and Facebook, right? So that was a lot more curation and now Gen Z is leaning a lot more towards just like, this is how it is, this is what it is, take me for me, it is what it is, take it or leave it.

Nick Clason (04:29):
Like that's essentially right? Like that's essentially, uh, what they, uh, have kind of leaned into. And I think it's fascinating shift this like perfect polished, kind of curated down to this like little more nitty gritty just as I, as I am, take me or leave me for who I am. That's kind of what BeReal is. That's kind of why I think TikTok shifted too. And one of the things that's interesting is burial is where you follow friends, but they only post one time a day. There's like not as much pressure on social media on the curation of it. And I just, I think that that's a trend. I think that that's, uh, a, a way, a thing that Gen Z is attempting to adopt less curation, more just realness, more rawness, more authenticity. Um, and meanwhile like, uh, take, uh, Instagram, Facebook, and some of those more legacy platforms, millennials and up, that's not as much the priority in fact, or it hasn't been, you know, and as they've shifted into reels, which is much more discovery based, more raw, more quick cuts and more like entertainment based.

Nick Clason (05:36):
Um, like you would go on on TikTok or any of the other platforms, shorts, reels, and you would watch something, it's like 98% or, or something like that. 90% of what you actually watch and consume is not from people that you know. So that's not really a social media anymore. It's honestly much more of like a entertainment platform you get on TikTok at the end of the night or whenever you do to be entertained. So the actual sociability is happening on apps like be real and other, just more like basic, very like nitty gritty, not a lot of bells and whistles type of thing. And I think that there's an attraction to that. And so, uh, I I just, I think that's one, one interesting shift that I'm noticing in the generation gap. I wanna also look at the workplace gap here in a minute and how I think that that plays out for you and your church.

Nick Clason (06:29):
But first I have some new stats I got from Barna. So let's dive in to those recent stats from Barna on Gen Z. Um, found some of these interesting, just wanted to share them with you. According to Gen Z or according to Barna, 56% of Generation Z claim to be Christians, which might be higher than you thought it was. I think that there's sort of a notion out there that Gen Z is deconstructing, gen Z is rethinking their faith, but 56% still claim and classify themselves as Christians. Granted, I know there's, you know, all kinds of different things on spectrum. You may claim to be a Christian, is it nominal y or whatever, whatnot. The thing that's staggeringly high though is Gen Z considers, uh, only TW or 25% of Gen Z consider themselves to have no faith at all. And here's the the crazy thing, right?

Nick Clason (07:19):
Like that is, that's the part that is alarmingly high I believe because that is the highest of any other generation by a lot. So US adults, according to US adults only 13% say that they have no faith. And the next highest, um, like breakdown age demographic thing is millennials and they're at 15%. Gen X is at 13%, boomers at 8%, elders at 5%, all of that under not saying that they don't have, uh, faith. And so here's the thing is that while you and I, if we're older and not generation Z, we may look at that and we may be like, wow, that that's alarming. And they are definitely deconstructing and that may be the label that we give to it. But what's interesting is that they surveyed Gen Z gr deeper. And these five words were the words that most defined and clarified their spiritual journey.

Nick Clason (08:12):
And they were these words, number one, they're spiritually growing. That was 39% of the population checked that, uh, number two, they're spiritually open, 35%, they're spiritually curious, 32% they are, um, spiritual in general, uh, 29%. And then they are spiritually exploring 27%. So like I said, we might have that classification as like, man, you're deconstructing what they call it a different word. And I, that was a very, very, um, uh, important learning, at least for me. I was like, okay, we're freaking out about it. And they're like, no, I'm just open. I'm just exploring. I'm just growing. I'm just checking things out. That was how they would describe it. Uh, big bucket of that, 70% of Gen Z claim to be spiritually open. 70%, that's a large stat. Um, and then furthermore, to expound upon that and that this is where I think this really gets interesting and important for churches is that these were some of the traits that, uh, the survey asked Gen Z, what do you want in your, um, church?

Nick Clason (09:20):
What do you want in your religious institution? What are the key things you're looking for? The first question, are you looking for it to be correct? 6% of teens said that they were looking for their religion to be correct. 8% of all Gen Zs said that and 9% of young adults said that. Not very high, right? Are you looking for it to be knowledgeable? Are you looking for people in your religious institutions or people around to be knowledgeable? 16% of teens said, yeah, I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable. 21% of all Gen Zs said, yeah, I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable and then 24% of young adults, so I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable. You can see that jump right from teenager to young adult. Once you become an adult, you're like, I do want someone to know something, right? To help me out.

Nick Clason (10:02):
Uh, this one was the, the highest, the highest on the graphs. You had different graphs of all these different, um, characteristics. Being honest, this is the highest one. 41% of teens want their religious institution. To be honest, 32% of all Gen Z ask for that. And 25% of young adults want honesty, want authenticity, right? Back to be real honesty, authenticity, the real you being open to new ideas. That was another category. 29% of teens want that. 28% of all Gen Z, 28% of young adults. And finally, curiosity, that one was lower with 7% of teens wanting to be curious. 11% of all Gen Z and 13% of young adults. And so they're looking for honesty, they're looking for transparency, they're looking for realness. Okay? Furthermore, and this is the last bit of the stats before we dive into what I think are pot, some potential implications for this.

Nick Clason (10:55):
51% of Gen Z say that happiness is very important to them. They are looking for happiness. Well, you know, once, once they heard that stam in this like Barna kind of collab thing where they are sharing these statistics, one other person's put in the chat, how do you define happiness? And they ask that question, they're like, what does happiness look like to you? So 43% say it looks like success and, and they used images for them to choose. So that success image was a guy holding money. That's what 43% say, happiness looks like. Successful man holding money where 23% say education is happiness. 20% say family, 8% say spiritual and 6% say health. All right? So what does all that mean? Let's dive into it and check it out. Okay? So I think that there's a workplace shift that needs to happen. Covid ushered a lot of this stuff in and your church is probably in a different spot than it was pre covid, but it may not be fully there where generation Z is interested.

Nick Clason (11:56):
Cuz here's the thing, whether this matters to you on paper or not, you are going to need to start hiring generation Z by the year 2025, which at the time of the podcast recording is only a year and a half away. Millennials and Gen Z are going to make up the majority of the American workforce. That may or may not be true in your context and in your church, but the fact is, if you're catering to boomers and Xers in the workplace, just because this is the way we've always done it and they need to get over it and they need to get used to it, that may not be your most effective strategy moving forward. And it may not bite you right in the year 2025, but 2026 rolls around 20 27, 20 28, and you're trying to recruit new young talent and they're just not interested in coming to work for your church or your organization.

Nick Clason (12:43):
Why is that the case? Here are some thoughts I have based off of this research and just some things I've observed in the last couple of years that I think might be contributing to it. So the first is this, the time off conversation and or the work life balance conversation. These are wide sweeping generalities, I understand it. And so if you're like, Hey, I'm a Gen Xer and that's not true of me. I'm saying by and large wide sweeping, um, I work for a boss, he's Gen X, he is phenomenal at giving me time off, taking care of me, making sure I have balance, work life balance, all those things. But he will of his own admission and, and own accord say that he is a workaholic and he will push it to the limit. And so, uh, that is something that is of the older generation, much more the norm.

Nick Clason (13:36):
They're looking for people who are gonna work hard and give it their all and bust it. And while that may be true, and that may even be what's necessary at times, that is not the natural disposition of millennials and Gen Z, I'm a millennial and I I am friends with and work with a lot of people that are Gen Z. I don't think that they're lazy and don't wanna work. I just simply think that they are more aware of their work life balance. They've looked to their older parents or wiser people in their life and they've seen how they've approached work and they have not, they don't want to fall to those same, you know, pitfalls that they've seen over time. So work-life balance, PTO rhythms, taking time off vacation. I have a coworker, she's Gen Z and this is her first job. And so she's been with us, um, at our job for the, about the same amount of time that I've been working there, eight months or so.

Nick Clason (14:32):
And this is her first time with like a true weekend, but she has to come back for Sundays. Sundays are not a weekend anymore, but we get Fridays off. And so she will often try to get out of the office a little bit early on a Thursday and she will often take a trip somewhere, go meet some friends, you know, whatever. So she's leaving at like two o'clock, three o'clock, hitting the road, getting there on Thursday night, hanging out. Like, and that's important to her. And so there was a Thursday night commitment that she had and she's like, I can't do that. And it was like, because this is my weekend. I need my weekend to explore, to have fun. And that's just like, I think most older generations would be like, no, you have to work yet to stay here until five. Like, that's the rules.

Nick Clason (15:16):
And I just think that that that's a shift that is happening and that's probably an adaptation that I would say is gonna need to take place in the workforce. Uh, also flexible in workspaces, like remote working should be able to be a thing. Now I get it. If you're at church and you're in ministry, you know, just how valuable and important like in-person face-to-face meetings are. If you're gonna disciple somebody, if you're gonna grab coffee with a leader, if you're gonna sit down and have breakfast with a couple and you're counseling them, like all those things are valuable. But there's a lot of computer work, there's a lot of email based work, there's a lot of like software things that can take place via remote work. And you don't have to be 100% completely in the office, your butt in a chair because the natural like tendency for that is like everyone's here.

Nick Clason (16:06):
And so if anyone needs anything, we just pop in and out of people's offices. There are tools nowadays, there's slack, there's as much as I hate it, there's Microsoft teams, there are chat based features that you can stay in touch and you don't have to have a quote unquote office or hallway or pop in type conversation. Why do we do that? I think we do that because it's comfortable, it's familiar to the way it's always been done, but the tools are there and they're probably a little bit more effective on, uh, efficiency workflow, getting people like, you know, in and outta conversations as opposed to like, Hey, how are you? And that conversation taking an extra 10, 15, 20 minutes, there's value in those things, no doubt. But generation Z and millennials are looking for more flexible workspaces if they can get their job done while out, while also being on vacation somewhere so that they can work for a few hours, they can close their laptop and then they can go and have fun on vacation.

Nick Clason (17:03):
If we are so tight and stringent and say, no, you have to be here in the office, that's not gonna lend itself well to that flexible workspace and that first one, that time off that work life balance. The other trend, the other thing that I'm kind of noticing is that the older generations, uh, Xers and boomers, they're holding on longer, they're working later, they need the money to retire, they still need the income. And this one I think is big, is because while Gen Z is pursuing happiness, uh, corporate work environment may not be the cure or key to their happiness, but if it is, especially in church, they may say like, well, I'm looking for purpose and the church helps bring me that purpose. I want to be a part of a church. However, there are older generations that are still hanging on and that are still working.

Nick Clason (17:54):
So the question is, while we want to hire younger people, where is the space for them to come into your organization attached to it, take ownership of something and begin working toward any sort of authority in your organization because you have people already holding those most important positions. And that's gonna get tricky, especially if you got those people sitting there and and holding those most important positions. Where are they going to lay down and pave away for generation Z to come in and take opportunity? The last thing I think is that Gen Z is very concerned and rightly so about their mental health, about their mental state, about their mental wellbeing, making sure that those things are taken care of, that they're important. And so your organization, if you're bringing in millennials and Gen Z, consider finding a way to help prioritize their mental health, make counseling a part of a employment benefit for them, um, and for, you know, a thing that you offer to them.

Nick Clason (18:56):
So I have one last idea, let's check it out on the other side, right? So here's my conclusion. Gen Z, well, 25% would claim that they don't have faith. I think one of the things I've noticed in my experience is that generation Z, they still love and like Jesus a lot. In fact, in this Barna co lab, they sat down and talked with two guys who were Gen Z business owners. And what shocked me and was just an interesting thing that I noticed, uh, they didn't necessarily say this, they're a part of their church, but they're Christians running a Christian organization, not doing it through the local church. So my question to myself in that moment was, if Gen Zers, like these are passionate about faith, passionate about God, they love going to things like, you know, passion, these people, they were in the event business as well.

Nick Clason (19:51):
They love going to those things, but we're not seeing them in our churches, both on the workplace side or the attendance side. Do they like Jesus and just not like the way that we do our church? I think church has a propensity right now to feel very institutionalized. And I think that that, that if that rubbed you the wrong way, and especially if you're older and you're listening to it and you're like, my church isn't institutionalized, this is what we've been doing it for years. While that may be true, the way that we've been doing church for years is American, not necessarily New Testament. The New Testament church looked very different from the American church. So are you doing church like the Bible or are you doing church like America? And there's nothing wrong with doing church like America unless it's not effective in reaching the next generation.

Nick Clason (20:36):
And in that case, that's where it becomes an issue. And so I think both from older generations holding on from workplaces not being very friendly to Generation Z, millennials and those with that type of mindset and the fact that there's just not as much space for Generation Z to, to go into these spaces, they're creating them over here to look more New Testament, to look more authentic, to look more be real, to have more community, to have more places to lean in as opposed to coming to your institutionalized church. Because if they're not there in the seats from eight 30 to nine 30, then we consider them deconstructing. And that just may simply not be true. They might just be open to exploring new ways, new, new ideas, new places to engage with these things. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're out on Jesus. It just might mean that they're out on you. So what shifts might you need to take place? What stats have you heard that you're like now that's interesting and that might change some of the way we do things because before long, millennials and generations here are going to make up the majority of our workforce. They are Gen Z is not just teenagers in your youth group, they're graduating college now. They are looking for a church to attach to. Is your church friendly to them and what they need? Or is your church stuck dogmatically to the way that things have always been done?

Nick Clason (21:59):
Well thanks guys so much for hanging out in this episode. Thrilled to have you with us. Don't forget everything that you need is gonna be available to you in the show notes. Make sure that you like, make sure that you comment, make sure that you subscribe, rating, review, all those things. Glad to be with you. If you find this helpful, we would love to continue to create and produce content like this for you. So all that stuff helps keep us going as well as head to hybridministry.xyz Click on the contact form and if you have questions, submit them there to us. We would love to start taking some questions, answering some of your questions and giving back to y'all and letting you know what our perspective is on certain hybrid things, digital, social marketing, communications, generation Z, all the above. Let us know on those topic. But until next time, and as always, stay.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/037
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE EBOOK: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

SHOWNOTES
How to Run a Successful Ad: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/009

TIMECODES
00:00-03:35 Introduction
03:35-09:00 Facebook.. Does Gen Z care about Facebook?
09:00-15:11 The History of Facebook and what it is today
15:11-18:36 Reason 1) Create a Facebook Page
18:36-20:59 Reason 2) Link your Facebook & Instagram Accounts
20:59-24:00 Reason 3) Create a Facebook Group
24:00-25:55 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode in addition of the hybrid ministry show. My name is Nick Clason. I, as always, I'm your host, excited to be with you. And in this episode, we are going to be diving into our third platform that you should be focused on as a church in building out the six step framework for social media or churches in 2023. Now, this one, um, is gonna be a little bit of a zig or a zag because my guess is if you, uh, know me, you know my story. I am a youth pastor and so I'm gonna be, I do this a lot from the realm of and um, position of being a youth pastor. And so this one you're gonna be like, wait a minute, what is he recommending before? What other one? Cuz you know, so far we've done YouTube and we've also done TikTok.

Nick Clason (01:01):
And so probably your assumption would be that we would be moving on to Instagram and if I were to rank platforms in the order of importance, it would go TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and then Facebook. But today we are going to talk about Facebook and there's a few reasons why and we're gonna get to that. So make sure you stick around to the very end of the episode cuz we're gonna talk about the three primary reasons why you should start with Facebook as opposed to Instagram, especially if you're starting from scratch. And those three reasons are also relevant and prevalent. If you are already on both of those platforms. There's just gonna be some things and, uh, some technical, uh, linking things that you're gonna need and want to do that are gonna help you optimize your performance on both of those platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

Nick Clason (01:49):
All right, um, real quick, let's talk about, uh, before we dive in, you know, too much. I want to remind you, you can head over to our YouTube channel. If you are listening on a podcast, hit the link in the show notes and give us a subscribe there that would help us out tremendously. If you're discovering us and watching us on YouTube, hit the link in the show notes over to hybrid ministry.xyz. That is the homepage and home base for our podcast. And every single episode, including this one, which will have a link to the show notes, has a fully flushed out transcript. So you can go and you can grab the fully flushed out transcript for this episode and any of our past episodes as well as that's where you can get the free download called, have I already Ruined my Church's TikTok account?

Nick Clason (02:32):
And that is your complete guide to handing your phone to someone and say, Hey, post me a TikTok. And if they have no idea what they're doing, that will walk them through step by step. All of that is available, um, in our show notes. That's also available on our website. So give us a subscribe, give us a rating or a review, we would love it. And follow us in all the places. I personally, uh, am on TikTok and I am on YouTube and I'm trying to grow on both of those places to just the word out to help more people like you, church content communicators, church social media managers, youth pastors, part-time college students who got handed a phone from your pastor and said, Hey, we should probably be on social media. Yes, I am here to help you. And that is my entire goal is to help show you one of the ways that you can approach this in your church, in your life and in your ministry.

Nick Clason (03:24):
So without any further ado, let's hop into this episode of Facebook, the platform that Gen Z doesn't care about or do this. All right, so Facebook, does Gen Z care about Facebook? So there was an article back in 2015, um, by Pew Research that found that 71% of teenagers from the age 13 to 17 say that they used Facebook. And at that time they easily beat out platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. That's an encouraging number. And so for a lot of youth pastors, a lot of people working with Next generation, a lot of people doing social media, um, it kept the impetus and the importance of making Facebook a priority, making it something that you continually should be investing in. All right? However, back in 2022, which is not that long ago, from the drop of this, uh, podcast or the drop of this videos only a year or so ago, it tells us a different story.

Nick Clason (04:26):
So that number in 2015 was at 71%, but it has now dropped to that same age demographic. 13 to 17 year olds is now dropped to 32%. Then you might be thinking then like, why in the world are we making this a priority? Obviously it's tapering off with younger people, it's really only relevant for older generations. And while our church may have a good crop of people in older generation who are still using and active on Facebook, the reality is like that is dropping more and more. And that is true, and I will a hundred percent affirm you. And if you do decide that you don't want to take on Facebook as a platform, I totally get that. Um, especially if you wanna trend younger and be more relevant. Because the reality is this is like even Gen Z, or I'm sorry, gen X, uh, millennials, boomers, they use some of the other platforms that we're talking about here.

Nick Clason (05:16):
They're active on YouTube, some of them probably do have a TikTok account. And so if you want to abandon Facebook altogether, you can. The thing is, reality is probably you as a church, you probably already have a Facebook account. It's already probably been established and it's probably been active for years. And so what do you do and how do in this, you know, ever shifting landscape, do you continue to even use and reinvest in Facebook? I do think that there's a spot for it. I do think that there are some pertinent things that are worth you understanding and noticing. Um, and I'm gonna talk about those and especially in the very final episode of this six step kind of framework, we're gonna, um, put all of these platforms back together, right? And we're gonna gonna say here with all these different platforms, all these different like things we talked about, what is a full fledged church social media framework and strategy, taking all these pieces and putting 'em together.

Nick Clason (06:09):
So you're gonna see where Facebook fits into that. Um, but the answer to this is why we think we should continue to, um, participate in Facebook. The answer is twofold. So part number one, like we said in the last episode about TikTok, if you only have time to invest in one, invest in TikTok, I say that primarily for younger ministries, youth pastors, but quite honestly, uh, I think I would still say that the purpose for that is, uh, true, uh, for even like a church, not just a youth ministry like church, trying to reach people for their, you know, their community, their town, whatever. Like nothing wrong with just investing in TikTok. Uh, and a lot of the things today that we're gonna talk about are gonna feel like a lot of groundwork. And so that might be boring and you might not yield as many returns on it.

Nick Clason (06:52):
And so you're probably gonna have to spend a day or a week slow out some of these things, figuring out some of the things. Um, however, if you do wanna build out a fully robust holistic social media strategy, like I said, we're gonna put that together in the final episode of this little mini-series that we're doing. Facebook needs to be a part of it, not necessarily for the reasons that you might think. However, I will caveat this and say in the ranking of importance for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Facebook is very last on my list for the specific platforms to invest in, right? Like I've, I've said, okay, however, your usage on Facebook on meta is gonna be for three primary reasons. And starting with Facebook's GI gives you an easier road, uh, to launch some other social media or, and this part's important or marketing endeavors that you may be interested in or your church or your pastor or your executive pastor might be interested in you carrying out, overseeing and executing.

Nick Clason (07:48):
All right? And so we're gonna look at this as more of a, um, foundation building as opposed to like a v going viral and, and drumming up a lot of interest and reaching a lot of people. Okay? So be that as it may, Facebook still plays a pretty crucial and important role. Before we go too much further, I do wanna share one last stat with you. 32% of users on Facebook are teenagers. That isn't a lot, but that also isn't nothing. And those teenagers are still users of Facebook. They may not be contributors, but they are as some social media people have dubbed lurkers, which means they are viewing what's going on on Facebook, and they will grow up and they will become, um, the age of the, uh, adults in your church. And in addition to that, a lot of families have parents who spend a lot of their time on Facebook.

Nick Clason (08:38):
And so if you're a demographic, if you're a church reaching families, you may not be reaching their teenagers, but you may be catering to and reaching their parents and there's um, uh, there is a benefit to doing that. All right, so let's dive into Facebook before the history of it and what it is now. Okay, Facebook before and now let's go back to the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. Okay, maybe not that far back. Let's go a little further. Okay, let's go to 2004. In 2004, you probably heard of a guy by the name of Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg launched and started Facebook as a social media platform. He launched it in 2004 on Harvard University's campus. He was a sophomore, and his primary purpose there was to connect Harvard students to other Harvard students. And so back in the very original OG Facebook days, it was built primarily for college campuses so that you could see the faces of other college students, know their names, get to know them, but by the end of the year, the almost unimaginable had happened for Zuckerberg and over 1 million users, 1 million users were on Facebook, and the reach had then expanded beyond just his simple campus.

Nick Clason (09:55):
And the spread was like wildfire. And Facebook changed the game forever. Facebook is often thought to be one of the major contributors of ushering in the, uh, the, the, what am I looking for? The setting or the, the, the, gosh, why is this word so hard for me? I don't know what I'm trying to say, but ushering in the idea of Web 2.0. So Web 1.0 was just basic HTML website's, text on a screen, web 2.0 allowed the users to actually be contributing, formatting, crafting what was being said. We are now, by the way, in a world of Web 3.0 where users can create their own reality. Right now it's primarily through things like vr, but the algorithms which are less social graph and now more discovery based are helping you sort of find and create your own reality, which by the way, I think is a little bit dangerous, especially if you are a pastor and you are anchored in the truth of God's word.

Nick Clason (10:53):
However, as opposed to bucking that and saying that you need to just ca cast your phone into like a fire, um, and not look at TikTok, I think you need to help people steward that, that they've been given because now honestly, the reality is social media is not very social like it was back in the day. Uh, we've seen that Gen Z has watched millennials and Gen Xers use and, and lean into their community being all digital, and it has honestly yielded not very good results. So I honestly see a good pendulum shift in some of our Gen Z students and people that I interact with because they lean into more real authentic community. So why are they spending so much time on platforms like TikTok and YouTube? They're, they're, they're honestly there for entertainment more than they are for like social connection. And that's the thing, Facebook was built as a platform of social connection.

Nick Clason (11:43):
And so now it is a legacy platform and it's been around forever and it is still a major player and a major contributor in the game. However, they are having to, having to adjust to TikTok and YouTube have been ushering in, in these last several years that they've seen the younger generations adapt. And because Facebook knows that great Aunt Betty is going to eventually no longer be a user at some point because she's not going to be living on this planet of earth, they need to start catering to the younger generations if they want anyone to even adopt their platform. The reality is a lot of people are not huge fans of Facebook altogether, but whether they know it or not, they're using platforms under the Facebook umbrella. So all that being said, Facebook still remains the number one social media platform to this day based on, uh, based on number of users according to an article, which we will link in the show notes of backlinko backlink.io, I always get that one messed up.

Nick Clason (12:38):
Backlink io Facebook presently has 1.9 billion daily users, which is 6.89% increased year over year. In addition to the massive usage that is found and seen by Facebook users and contributors. Uh, Facebook has been acquiring more and more products, uh, over their lifetime and life cycle. Here are some of the products that they've acquired. You may be have heard of them, Instagram, WhatsApp, gfi, Oculus, and many more. In fact, if my counting and calculations are correct, Facebook has a total acquisition of over 88 different products, um, or companies or tech like focused things, okay? And the total cost of those acquisitions is estimated to be north of 23 billion with a B dollars. So I will link that, that article as well because honestly, uh, I didn't read all of them to you because you get really bored. There's really only like four or five that you probably actually recognize by name, WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus gif, you the rest are like, what?

Nick Clason (13:46):
And they just absorbed these companies into them and, and stole their intellectual property, not stole, bought their intellectual property to use for their, their behalf and their betterment. Okay? And so as I was first, uh, sitting down to record this podcast and thinking about all this Facebook stuff, um, the reality is this, fast forward to October, 2021, Facebook announces this is the big shift here from Facebook back then to Facebook. Now, Facebook announces a change in their name from Facebook as the parent company to the name Meta. You probably know that if not, you've probably seen it and been unaware that that is, that is where that comes from. All right? And so the name reflects as the company says, um, the name reflects the company's growing ambitions to be relevant beyond just social media. They want to build technology that will help connect people. That's what they say their ultimate goal is.

Nick Clason (14:38):
Uh, I'll link that article in the show notes, but with the announcement of the name change from Facebook into Meta, this giant conglomerate of products that Meta has acquired over the years, it leads us specifically now to how you in your church can and probably should be using Facebook in your context here in 2023 as a part of the six step Church social medium framework. So without any further ado, let's hop in to reason number one, why you should be using Facebook. Reason number one, and the way in which you should be using Facebook in your church and in your ministry is to create a Facebook page. Now, Facebook page is the corporate side of Facebook. It is where businesses and corporations go to have their hours. It's where they link their website. It's, it's where they, at some point in time, we'll run ads and your church more than likely has a corporate company Facebook page.

Nick Clason (15:37):
I would recommend that you start with a Facebook page, not necessarily, because I think it's a great strategy for reaching people organically anymore in 2023. However, it is going to help sort of be the anchor for everything that you do on Facebook. And if you start there, especially if you don't have anything already launched right now, but if you start there, then sort of from there, the rest of everything else can kind of spread, which is one of the reasons why I have jumped Facebook over Instagram, for example, because Facebook is the owner of Instagram. And so if you start with that Facebook page, then you can sort of build things out from there. One of the things that you need to know about Facebook is it's not just a simple username and password sort of login. So if you're inheriting a Facebook page, what you need to do is you need to discover who the admin is on the Facebook page.

Nick Clason (16:24):
The person who has a personal specific profile, their first name and last name, they are an admin to an account. And that is who runs or who is kind of doing the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, um, managing of Facebook pages. That's how Facebook works. So for example, I just moved to a church about six months ago. They had a a Facebook page, and everyone that I asked, I kept asking to try and get login information for it. They're like, oh yeah, the username password should be on this password document sheet that we have. And, and I just was like, no, that's, that's not how it works. Like, it's not just like I log into Facebook, I have to log in as myself, Nick Clason on my Facebook page, and then I have to be made an administrator or an admin or an editor or a moderator or whatever the case might be, whatever the role is that is decided that has to happen to me, my account, not a login into a specific place.

Nick Clason (17:20):
Okay? So when you start on this place, everything else can sort of be driven from that. The other reason that you would wanna start with a Facebook page is that some point you may want to run ads on your Facebook page. Um, and you may, you can do that either on Facebook, you also can do that through Facebook to your Instagram count if you find Instagram more beneficial to your audience. But you do that through the business suite, the meta suite. And so, um, learning to run an ad is probably one of the most maddening processes, especially if you have no idea what you're doing, what some of the language means or whatever if you're a complete nbe. And so one time I interviewed my friend, former co-host of this podcast, Matt Johnson. He is a marketing freaking guru, uh, and he has done some incredible things, marketing, especially in the ministry space, if you are or have ever heard of or are familiar with the company, dare to share.

Nick Clason (18:16):
He was behind a lot of what they did and a lot of what got them out, uh, visible to a lot of people out in the world. And so, um, he walks us through in a former episode, not link that in the show notes of how to step, how to set up an ad, step by step, uh, running a Facebook ad. So that's there for you. Hopefully that's helpful to you. All right? Step number two is beyond the Facebook page. You should also link your Facebook and Instagram accounts. This is probably one of the most obvious or low hanging fruit reasons why you should start with Facebook, because once you link them, then it's really no extra work, especially if you start on the Instagram side, which we'll get to that in the next episode. But if you start on the Instagram side posting something, all you do is simply toggle on a switch that says also post to Facebook, and boom, you're posting the same content in two places.

Nick Clason (19:08):
That used to be a no-no. That used to be something that you shied away from. But now it's actually something that I and many other church social media marketing managers encourage, especially with the current thing that every social media is focusing on short form video content. It doesn't matter if it's also posted on Instagram, on Facebook, I did a thing the other day, we do this stupid game on our, uh, Instagram, on our TikTok, on our YouTube shorts called, um, , it's called ABC Cheese. So we have a little craft singles and we try to bite like just two of us and try to bite out a letter. And the other person was trying to guess what it's, and so I just was like curious and I was like, how many views did this video in total get? And so I, I looked on YouTube, I looked on TikTok, I looked on Instagram reels, and I looked on Facebook reels, and in total we had somewhere between seven and 800 views on just that one stupid video alone by posting it to all those different platforms.

Nick Clason (20:05):
You know, like one had 600, one had a hundred, one had 300, one had 200, you know what I mean? That kind of all adds up. And you start to think about it, you're like, dang, that's like seven, eight, 9,000 hun. You know, thou not a thousand hundred, 900, a thousand people reach. Like it's a lot, man. Like that's, that's, that's something that churches, youth ministries would've been begging for in years past and before with Facebook pages, primarily as the marketing tool and engine, you had to pay to do it. And you, I mean, you still do if you wanna market stuff, but you can kind of like punch your lottery ticket with any of these reels or short form video and just blow up, or not even blow up, but just get a hundred views across four platforms that adds up to north of 500, north of 700, north of 900 views on any single video.

Nick Clason (20:56):
I think most people would say that that's worth it. All right? The third and final way and, and um, path that I think you should take on Facebook is create a Facebook group. According to a 2021 study, there were approximately 233 million Facebook users in the US alone. 18.2 of those users belong to the 18 to 24 age group, while 18% of those users are 35 to 34 years old. So in total, you're looking at, almost 40% of your users are between the age of 18 and 44. So while your teenagers, your youth ministry might not be spending a lot of time on Facebook, other platforms, um, other people, older demographics definitely are. And I think that you, one of your largest wins as a church is to create a group because that is where you can make community on social media feel intimate and in, in fact, it's probably one of the only platforms that offers a close sort of intimate community style feel.

Nick Clason (21:56):
And so I do think of all of the features that Facebook does have to offer. You can have a group. And so again, if you start with a page, then out of that you can create a group that's connected to that page and you can post as the page admin or you can switch your profile and you can be interacting as yourself in the group, and you can make that that switch. And they've started to make that a lot easier. If you go onto the page on your phone or on your browser, it'll give you a little notification in one of the corners somewhere that says you're interacting as the, the brand, you're interacting as the page or you're interacting as yourself. And then it just gives you a button there. Do you wanna switch? And you click switch and it switches over between yours or your page.

Nick Clason (22:37):
And so you can make some of those things. You also have the opportunity to go to the business suite and schedule some stuff. You can also link and schedule that over to your Instagram. And they now offer scheduling for reels. They offer scheduling for stories, which were not things that they offered previously. All the schedule tools really only posted like static images to pages, um, and your Instagram grid feed. But now they're starting to offer more. Uh, they do, in my personal experience, I've really only been experimenting with schedulers for a little bit here now, but they do seem to choke down your organic reach all of those platforms like it, when you post live time, there really is no way around that. No matter how much you try, no matter how, how much these like schedulers promised you, you're gonna just have better performance on all of your stuff if you are posting it.

Nick Clason (23:26):
Um, and that, but that's a value proposition that you have to weigh through, especially if you have a million other responsibilities. Is it worth it to peace of mind, have it scheduled and you don't have to worry about it? Or is it something that you should, you know, wade into and navigate choice is yours? It's kind up to you. Um, so one of the best things that can do though as a church is to run a Facebook group. And over time you don't even have to be supplying that with a lot of content. The content hopefully will be generated by the users that are already a part of your Facebook group community. Well, everyone, once again, thank you so much for hanging out for this entire episode. I hope that you found this episode helpful. Like I said, the Facebook, uh, episode's a lot more focused on nitty gritty groundwork, building up some stuff so that you can build up a more robust and full social media strategy.

Nick Clason (24:18):
We are going to be diving into that in the future episodes. But coming up next, we are finally moving on to Instagram. We're gonna talk about some strategies and some reasons behind how you can be using Instagram effectively as a church in your 2023 social media framework. In addition to that, before we, we get to the very final piece where we put it all together, we are gonna talk email and texting and website. And so those three things are also critically important, I think to sort of serve as a backdrop and or as a lead generator for some of these other social media platforms to your already existing church audience that you have access to through a database and Excel spreadsheet or whatever the case might be in your particular context. Again, excited to be with you and excited to be right here now on the downhill slide of our six part church miniseries on church social media in 2023.

Nick Clason (25:13):
If you found this episode helpful, do me a favor and please send it to a friend, share it, rate it, review it, all those things are incredibly helpful to me, and they're a free for you to just give back in a very small way to our podcast and the work that we've been doing here at Hybrid Ministry. You can also check out free transcripts that we provide for you for every single episode, and that's over http://www.hybridministry.xyz. Hit the show notes for all the articles that we mentioned for all the other, uh, episodes that we reference for all the other social media places that you can follow me. And until next time, and as always, stay hybrid.

How does the church shift the way it approaches ministry, not to diminsh or downplay the unchangable truths or things of Scripture, but to best set them up for relevance with Gen Z, Millenials and the next Generation of Church attenders? Listen or watch to find out!

SHOWNOTES
YouTube Trends Report: https://www.youtube.com/trends/report/
Nick on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Nick on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Nick's Podcast: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
Full Transcript of this Show: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/032

TIMECODES
00:00-00:54 Intro
00:54-03:27 2022 YouTube Trends Report
03:27-06:22 What does all of this mean?
06:22-11:35 The Pop Culture Formation Formula
11:35-18:07 Creating Community Creativity
18:07-23:11 Multi Format Creativity
23:11-25:18 Response Creativity
25:18-28:26 The Future Exists in Dialogue of Digital Communities
28:26-32:09 The Digital and Hybrid Implications for the church moving into 2023
32:09-34:18 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:03):
Well, what is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast, and now on YouTube. Excited to be with you all. We're gonna test out a couple of video options here. See how these go. I know it'll go fine. Mostly I'm testing to see how much extra work it's gonna be. But would love to have you join us over there if you want to check out for video stream as well. Something that is just another option. So we have audio, we have video, um, but everything, the home base for it is hybridministry.xyz of course, cuz hybridministry.com was taken. So I'm your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And in today's episode, what I actually wanted to discuss was this idea of why should churches even care about digital and hybrid ministry? Like what is the purpose?

Nick Clason (01:03):
We all saw the pitfalls downfalls and the reasons why digital ministry was not a good example. Um, it was not a good thing, um, during Covid. And so we are now past Covid. We're able to live in a more semi-normal world. Why in the world should churches even care about digital? So let's go ahead and let's get this episode underway. So let's talk about some assumptions, right? Like, I think that there are some general social media specific assumptions that say that social media is void of relationship, right? Like, the point of it is, I, I I don't know, right? Like the point of it is maybe to to post, uh, post some announcements, um, and try and drum up some external, some marketing, um, marketing, so to speak, uh, examples of people who might not go to our church and we want to get them connected to our church.

Nick Clason (02:08):
But there's an assumption that like the real, the main thing that's gonna work is gonna be relationships of people to people inviting one another. Let me just say that, um, I've been doing student ministry social media now for 12 years, and never once has anyone of the accounts that I've ever run really gone viral, so to speak. Like we've never had more than like an inordinate amount of followers, never had more like a thousand followers. I have had a couple Instagram accounts with more than a thousand followers, but honestly like, that was not from anything that I, or we were doing. That was more an inherited thing where the Instagram account already had a high level of followers and we were just sort of like the beneficiaries of that account already having a lot of followers. So my point is nothing we did really drummed up a lot of outside interest.

Nick Clason (03:03):
Okay. And so this assumption that social media is not relationship based and you know, the purpose of it is to, you know, get people from the outside looking in. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that is, I think that's, I think that's a benefit. I think that, um, like we said in the last episode, the church is in a unique intersection where what you post can be both discovered by the people that go to your church, but also because of the new discovery algorithms, which this is probably why in my 12 years we haven't seen this, because these new algorithms that are being made famous by TikTok and then adopted by Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube on reels and shorts are, um, new. Like this is a new territory for churches because previously your people followed your pages and your accounts, and if you wanted more people to follow it, you had to pay for it.

Nick Clason (03:52):
And I've, I have never done that. And so my accounts never really did that, where there were like a lot of people coming to discover our accounts. And so now we are in a unique intersection where people might actually discover your church. And what's more interesting is that all of these algorithms, there's a uniqueness where they start out geographically local. So first the algorithm from what we've learned is they're pumped out to your followers, which are then pumped out to their followers, which are then pumped out to the, uh, like your geographical region, which is why a lot of times you can geotag your posts on Instagram, on TikTok, and so you can put your city, and so the people in your city might be exposed to your information first, and then beyond that it'll, you know, go to the state and viral and whatever the case might be.

Nick Clason (04:44):
But, but the reality is, the, the closer that you are, the more likely that the people around you are gonna find it. And so therefore, if people in your geographical region are discovering your videos, there is an actual chance that they might hear the message of Jesus from you and then take a step to become a visitor or a first timer at your church. I mean, wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that, wouldn't that be one of the goals that we're looking for here? Um, and again, like I said, I haven't experienced that in a lot of cases, and I think that's because that really wasn't an option up here until very recently. Um, however, there's still the argument that like, no one's gonna come to our church based off of that. And that might be true. And I think that it depends on your style of church, if you're, um, a more of an outreach centric church that you want that.

Nick Clason (05:34):
And so you're gonna be more gung-ho about this idea. And if you're more of a discipleship centric church, which tends to be a little more inward facing, um, not because you believe that that's more valuable and more important, but that just tends to be the vibe, um, that comes with it, then you are gonna prioritize some of those relationships more over, um, like, like cold leads or, or, you know, top of a funnel marketing type of terminology to borrow from the secular world. So, um, all that to be said, there's this assumption, there's this notion that social media, um, and social ministry is void of real relationships. And I would just, I would debunk that and say that I think that that's not entirely true. Um, I agree to a point that it can be done that way and, um, that, that this ministry, that this focus in your church needs some very particular and very, um, deliberate attention.

Nick Clason (06:34):
Like it cannot just, in my personal opinion, it cannot be put on autopilot anymore. It cannot be put on the back burner. There needs to be a person more than a volunteer and more than someone's like, uh, section of their full-time hours devoted to social media. Like you probably need a full-on person, um, not someone to do double duty. Like, like even right now, um, I am a youth pastor, but I'm like on a team of three and of the three, I'm the one tasked with digital and video and social media, website, whatever, right? Like that in and of itself is a full-time job. And sometimes my youth ministry duties have actually, like, you know, this week I had to make calls to interview students about baptism, um, and we're onboarding a bunch of new students to volunteer. Like sometimes those things feel like they're in the way of my digital stuff and that, that's out of balance for me personally.

Nick Clason (07:34):
Um, but that's my point in saying that this digital of it's all consuming, it just takes up such a gigantic portion and it it is vast and it is huge. And, um, and there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of potential. And so to just dump it on someone as like a, hey, 10 hours of your week, like it's, that is so hard. It's gonna be very difficult for that person to be able to, you know, to make, to make, uh, that 10 hours work for them the way that you're probably hoping that it would work. So in Covid, right, we learned that we're not built to be completely isolated. And so just social, um, and that's, that's the whole, that's the whole origin of this podcast is I felt like we were debating, um, when I started this podcast in late 2022, I guess mid 2022, um, we were debating between in-person ministry and digital ministry, especially where I was, we had, we were still working and operating out of a lot of the rules that we had built for C O V with the show that we had made for C O V D.

Nick Clason (08:38):
Like, we hadn't let that go. We were still producing it weekly. Um, and we had found a way to pivot from strictly online to a more in-person model where groups watched it in host homes. Um, and then they discussed the, the message afterwards. And I thought it was incredibly ingenious and innovative. Um, but there were a lot of people in our church that that didn't, and they were ready to just quote unquote go back. And, you know, we had a, a marketing guy, and if you listen to some of our first, I think like seven episodes, um, Matt was actually the co-host of this podcast. Uh, we both made cross-country moves. And, um, I, I don't know what happened to him. I never got him back, really. I mean, we still talk, but he would keep saying like, yeah, yeah, I just gotta get my computer set up, gotta get my computer set up.

Nick Clason (09:22):
And eventually I was like, all right, Matt's not getting his computer set up. I'm just, I I got a produce weekly episode, so I can't wait on him anymore, right? So, uh, here we are and I'm just kinda doing this thing. Anyway, besides point Matt marketing, honestly, genius guru in my opinion. He said, the world we live in is now hybrid. In fact, Barna did a study, we did a couple episodes on it, I'll link to them in the show notes, um, did a couple episodes on the findings that we found from Barna study, and they, they titled it the, the state of hybrid church or something like that. And what it said, what it found was that especially the younger generations, the generations that are going to be filling our pews and churches here in the next couple years, gen Z and millennials said a hybrid, um, version of church is going to suit them very well.

Nick Clason (10:11):
What that often scares us with on two fronts is, number one, it feels like we're shifting away from in person. And I think a lot of times in person, and I've talked about this multiple times, I think a lot of times in person, room or moment or feeling is for the, the vanity of the pastor, and not even in like a sinful or bad way, but just like, man, getting up in front of a room full of people feels really good and you feel like you feel like you've done something and you've been somewhere and there's, there's a shot of like adrenaline into your like arm every time you get up there to preach. Even I, I find myself like finding more value from preaching to a live room of, of humans with interaction, um, like just, you know, face-to-face interaction. Um, then I, then I do from a, a TikTok video that goes viral wave over like 3000 something views.

Nick Clason (11:02):
Like, it just, it doesn't feel the same. And I get it. And you know what? I don't know that it is the same. I think you have a much more captive audience, even in a room of a few hundred than you do, um, with a, a short form under 62nd video that that has over a thousand something views, right? All that to be said, I'm not proposing that, that you throw one quote unquote baby out with a bathwater. We live in a hybrid world, right? So I found this stat incredibly fascinating. 76% of American surveyed ha uh, have a friend that they've met online only they've never met in person. Right? Now, you might be thinking, how is that possible? Again, if you're older, think younger generations gaming and, and you know, chat rooms and whatever and whatnot. Like of course in the nineties chat rooms were pedophiles want to hang out, and they probably still do, right?

Nick Clason (11:55):
But, but 76% of Americans have a friend in some way, shape or form gaming social media that they've never met in person. Like I have an anecdotal real example. I have a friend named Dan that, um, for the first three to six months of our life, or not life of our relationship life, , uh, it was strictly online. Uh, many of you know I've told this story, but I started at my last church on day one of Covid and went immediately into lockdown. So the number of real live human beings at my church that I met was very, very small. The number of real life human beings that I met on Zoom after that was very, very large. And, um, you know, I had met a decent number of the staff, at least from my interview or on my first day on the job, but then to meet other people.

Nick Clason (12:49):
And Dan was a, just a regular church attender volunteer who led a, a hybrid, not hybrid, actually strictly online small group. I had a relationship with Dan. Um, and, and he even said, he's like, you are like the poster child for me, or the poster example of what it looks like for somebody who, uh, says like, you can't make friends with someone online. He's like, we totally made friends, you know, with each other online. And so these are examples, both empirical data. 76% of Americans say, I have a friend with someone who's completely online. And even in my own life, like I would say I had a real relationship with him, um, it would've been great to be sitting in the same living room or whatever, but at the same time, you know what, every Tuesday night, I just got my laptop out in the comfort of my own home brew, a cup of my own coffee that I personally enjoyed more than like a cake cup that someone was gonna gimme at their house.

Nick Clason (13:49):
And we sat down for small group. And you know, what was funny was like our church would do this thing where like you'd watch the live stream on YouTube, and this was the archetype for our student ministry. The group's team of course, stole it, but we'd watch the video on YouTube, and then everyone would log in to their campus specific zooms via a link in the description, and then a moderator there would break everyone out into breakout rooms. So they would sort of have control over the entire call, and then they would give a warning after like an hour or so that all the groups would, uh, be, be closing down by the moderator who's just literally sitting there out in the waiting room, just kinda waiting for people to be kicked out of their breakout rooms and reassign them or whatever. Super boring job I've done a million times youth ministry.

Nick Clason (14:33):
Uh, so a couple times those ended and we, our entire small group just jumped off and got into our very own room, and had group until like 11 or 12. We weren't, you know, at that point we weren't talking about spiritual stuff. We were just joking around, goofing off, having fun, whatever, right? My point is, relationships can exist in an online space. You just have to be deliberate. You just have to be intentional, and you have to be able, willing, willing to massage those relationships. So let's talk about, um, some hybrid ways that relationships can exist.

Nick Clason (15:14):
So some of you might know this, um, but a couple weeks ago, my, my wife's mom, my mother-in-law, uh, passed away from a two plus year long battle with cancer. It was, it was rough, man, like, not gonna lie, but, um, the thing I wanna kind of extract or highlight is the moment that the day that she passed away and that it became more public because of social media. Again, another example, um, my phone was flooded with text messages. My wife's phone was flooded like threefold, tenfold with text messages. Um, every single one of those people were people that we had met in person at one moment in time or another, whether they be a family member, whether they'd be a friend, whether they'd be a former colleague or work associate from another job that we'd been at. They'd all been people we'd met in real life person before.

Nick Clason (16:12):
However, the relationship at that moment existed in a hybrid space. Very few people in that exact moment were with us. I mean, I, I had to drive from Texas all the way back to Ohio, so the only people with me were me and my two kids. Um, and her, she was with her sister and with some family friends, and then everybody else reached out and provided love and care and support via text message that that is an example of a hybrid relationship. You know what I mean? Um, and, and some people were people that I work with now at the church I'm at at now. Other people were people I worked, worked with in the past that reached out either way, right? Like they're all people I knew, but they're all showing up for me in a hybrid way. So, uh, I wanna talk about a few, uh, examples of like other businesses that we might interact with in the world in with hybrid sort of interactions.

Nick Clason (17:22):
Let's dive in examples of real life hybrid interactions. My favorite of this is Home Depot, right? I interact with Home Depot at the store level. I drive up, I go into the store, I grab 98 cents of plumbing tape, right? Uh, that's an example of me interacting with Home Depot at a physical level. Okay? All right. So another example of course is me interacting with Home Depot at an online level. I might go on the website and I might see how much of a certain item is in stock that, but I'm not in the store. I'm completely in my house. I'm looking at all my computer on the app, but the, the app actually is my favorite feature. When I'm in the store. I almost never, like, if I walk around in the store for like more than two minutes and I can't figure out where an item might be, I immediately pull up the app, which often I've uninstalled from my phone, so I reinstall it.

Nick Clason (18:25):
Then I like, almost, the first thing I do when I walk into Home Depot is begin to reinstall the Home Depot app, find my local Home Depot, the one I'm physically standing in, and then I look that item up, whatever it is, to try and find it, and then it'll tell me exactly where it is, what aisle, what bay, and how many more they have in stock. I love that feature. That's hybrid. I'm in person, I'm in the store, but I'm interacting with a digital piece of technology, uh, you know, for my relationship with Home Depot. Another o another example is a dentist office, right? You go to a physical visit. But I love when a service like this has a great website, especially for being able to book appointments or being able to reach out. This last week, I brought my car to an auto mechanic shop.

Nick Clason (19:13):
I called them, not there, called them, right? That's an example of me from my house calling them. That's old school technology. You get it right? Then I show up, I'm in their office. But then when I was done, you know what they did? They sent me a text message to let me know that my car was ready. You see all these things, and I, I think like in a lot of ways, like when we talk about digitization or hybridization of church and of ministry, we don't even know what that looks like. So right now, in a lot of ways that's social media, that's video content, but the reality is like, some of this is uncharted territory. So for 2023, for right now, for someone just starting out, what are some examples? What are some ways that your church can live and exist in hybrid ministry?

Nick Clason (20:01):
All right, so like I said, I think a little bit of this is like pioneering uncharted territory, pilgrim's progress. Like, we don't know some of these answers, but, um, what are some examples of ways that your church can, uh, live and and be hybrid? So the first one is probably the most obvious one, and probably the easiest one, I would say is your Sunday sermon. Okay? So what are ways that your Sunday sermon can exist in a hybrid space? Well, first and foremost, right? You can, while someone is sitting in the auditorium, they can interact with and engage with your sermon notes, or they can interact and engage with, um, some self-guided like outlines or ways for them to take notes. So, like in my church, my pastor puts his notes on our church app. Um, it's honestly, it's essentially probably the manuscript that he's up there preaching with as I've looked at it.

Nick Clason (20:58):
Like, it's very thorough. Um, and my guess is that that's like a, that's a workload decision, right? Like he already built this. So if he just copy, if, if they or someone just copy and paste and put this into the app, uh, that's not that much more work for him. My personal favorite example is the you version events feature. So in everyone's you version Bible app that most people have downloaded on their phones, if not, definitely recommend it. Cause again, it's another way to interact with people in a hybrid way. Um, there's an events tab that you can create, like a self-guided sort of outline, and then people can, can take and add notes to certain headers or certain bible verses, um, that, that are related to or interact with the passage. And then they can also link out to like videos or other, like further discussions.

Nick Clason (21:51):
One of the things I try to do is I try to challenge myself to add one option of a, a link out from a u version event for deeper study or for more information, or for a longer YouTube video that I didn't, you know, didn't have time to show or didn't have time to look like fully, you know, unpack. I try to challenge myself to do that every week. Again, to just think hybrid, right? Brady Shearer has made this phrase famous, but the other, the additional 167 hours of somebody's week. So then beyond that moment, beyond that Sunday service, um, you can of course rip out the audio. Um, if you're already live streaming, um, you can have live stream, you can post those videos to YouTube. You can, uh, long form podcast content on a podcast feed. That's a way for it to be hybrid.

Nick Clason (22:45):
And then finally, ways for that to live on and, and find its way into that, that intersection of your church, people being reminded of the message and people from outside your church may be discovering and stumbling upon your message are short form Instagram reels, TikTok videos, YouTube shorts. Um, if you're already live streaming your content, you're sitting on a goldmine of social media content. You don't have to, uh, come up with as much social media content as you did in the past. You already have it. You have the short, or you have the long form video. Clip it up into minute segments. Find a good hook, get a good editor. And, uh, hey, if you don't have a good editor, but you're interested in it, reach out. Um, I'm interested in, uh, starting something, you know, kind on the side for myself to be doing this and serving churches in that, that way.

Nick Clason (23:38):
Um, I don't exactly have a framework for that or what that looks like. Hit me up on dms, on TikTok, or, you know, reach out to me via YouTube, all those links in the show notes@hybridministry.xyz. What about groups? What about relationships? How do you hybridize relationships, right? Because that's sort of the basis for this whole thing, is that social isn't, isn't built on relationships. And I would agree with that in the nitty gritty. Like when, you know, when my mother-in-law passes away, I want someone to really show up for me or really call me or really, you know, text me, um, not just, you know, interact with them at a, at a digital or social social media type level, right? But for a lot of people, the discovering of groups or finding their place or finding their people, that's half of the battle. And so if your church does not have some sort of group finder, I, I would highly recommend doing that.

Nick Clason (24:36):
If your church is about groups in some way, shape, or form that are open that people opt themselves into, then get yourself a group finder, a catalog, if you will, of the options available at your church for people to find and discover real authentic community. Because you and I know that community is really what changes things. It's what takes a church from their church to my church. So get on a group finder of some way, shape, or form. And then once you're in those groups, here are other ways that, that those groups exist and live in a hybrid sort of sense. You might use a infrastructure like Facebook group, you might use a GroupMe, you might use a group chat, or you might use some other tool feature that someone's gonna develop down the road. Maybe I'll do it and get rich, I don't know.

Nick Clason (25:23):
But, um, for the groups to have some sort of calendar of events, a place for them to have message boards with announcements, um, text messages to interact back and forth, prayer requests, all kinds of different stuff, but a place for the group to live beyond when the group meets, right? Again, the other 167 hours of that group's relationship. When is that? Where is that? When does that take place? The last area, so we talked about sermons, we talked about relationships. Now let's talk about information. You know, uh, churches more than just information people are distilled down to more than just the information that they, uh, put into their brains, okay? But like another example of ways that, that things can exist in a hybrid sort of way is some classes. So you already have your Sunday morning service. You probably already have groups. People probably can't devote too many more hours to the church, but maybe they do want to grow.

Nick Clason (26:24):
Maybe they want to grow in their knowledge of theology, or maybe they want to grow in, in a specific topic. Um, a dating marriage, right? Whatever the case might be. Your church with the 40 hours a week in your office can film some content and, and put up a catalog or a library of courses, like on a website or on an app, six week course, eight week course, something like that. So again, if someone's really committed, they may not have the time to drive back over to your church and sit through a class, find childcare, all the things. But once the kids go to bed, if they wanna pull up in their laptop and learn more, grow more in the area of theology, love, dating, marriage, spiritual gifts, right? Like you name it, you can offer a library of some of those content. I mean, products already sort of exist for that right now for churches, right now.

Nick Clason (27:14):
Media is an example of it. Um, but again, I've found that to be more small groupy content. So you can create something, you, if there's a need, you can scratch that itch, a leadership type academy. And you might even have like a leadership academy for high level leaders in your, in your, um, organization in your church that come together every so often in person. But then after they come together, if the primary goal of it is, is information and knowledge, um, and then, and information transfer, you can accomplish that for sure. You can accomplish that in a hybrid sort of way. Um, more than just short form video sermon content. You can provide short form, social media, TikTok, YouTube type content. Um, like about any topic right now, I'm doing like a little bit of a theology 1 0 1, like a deep dive into like certain areas and elements.

Nick Clason (28:06):
Um, and I'm putting posting on TikTok two times a week. It's a little mini-series that people probably just like randomly scrolling through, aren't gonna notice that they're all like interwoven and connected together. But in my mind they are. And so anyone who sees it, they're, they're gonna learn something more about God or about Jesus, or about creation or about salvation, or about the Holy Spirit or whatever the case might be. Um, because I don't have time to always get into all that, right? Like whatever our series is that's sort of driving and dictating, um, what's, what's being taught from the platform. But there are other necessary things that I think people, my students need to know that I don't have time for it, but this is a way that I can create time for it in the other hours of the week. Um, there are also examples and ways to do longform, you know, uh, styles not just short form.

Nick Clason (28:57):
So audio podcasts are huge. A lot of adults, something like 80 something percent of adults listen to three hours of podcasts a week. So, um, I think, um, Mariners, like Eric Geiger out of Mariners is doing a phenomenal job because the thing I love about him is he's conservative theologically for sure. Um, and so he's not just like out there trying to like get vanity metrics or whatever, right? But the thing he's doing is he's, he's finding ways to use the technology to teach deeper, more robust, you know, truth. And so he's doing a thing like, uh, a podcast called like the, the things that didn't make it into the sermon. Basically, if you're a pastor and you've done this before, you know that you, you prepare a load of content, but then you have to start cutting to get it down to a certain minute mark, right?

Nick Clason (29:46):
So he's doing a podcast on all the things he had to cut from his sermon, um, once a week to just dive deeper into more information. Um, and I, I think that that's brilliant. You know, I think that's a brilliant way, uh, to just add more value to the, the people in your church's, you know, life. Um, and if they're interested in it, that's great. A couple years ago, we, back when Facebook Live was a really big thing, me and another pastor on my staff, we sat, sat down for a thing called Tuesdays at two, and we just, uh, unpacked the sermon from sort of our eyes and our, our vantage point, you know? Um, and we would just have a conversation, um, as sort of interview style. And I mean, he was a licensed biblical counselor, so, uh, he was just a wealth of knowledge.

Nick Clason (30:31):
And so I, I almost operated more like as the host, and I would just toss him questions and let him sort of like unpack and untangle, you know, take the, the theology or the, the preaching and, and bring it down to more of like a boots on the ground level. At least. At least that was the goal. So all kinds of like ideas out there of ways that you can service and serve your congregation in a hybrid sort of way that is not void of relationship, that is meaningful and that people in your church will take advantage of. You just have to think hybrid. So I'd encourage you lean into it. Like I said, we're on the, a little bit the pioneering front because we had solutions for digital pre covid. It was mostly live streaming your service. Then in C O V I D, we all went full bore into it, and it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Nick Clason (31:24):
So once restrictions lifted, we went back to what was familiar. Many of us went back to what was familiar, and I'll just encourage you to not abandon some of those things, but, but listen for and look for ways that you can show up in the other hours of your church members weeks. Those are gonna be what's important and valuable to them. Well, hey everyone, if you found this, uh, podcast helpful, please share it with a friend. Help us get the word out, hybrid ministry.xyz. We provide complete full show transcripts for every single episode that we've ever produced. Also, head to the blog section of that and you can grab our free social media checklist, what to do every time you post a social media, and our free complete guide to posting a TikTok from scratch, from start to finish. That is on there. And again, we are on YouTube now at this episode being the first one. Hey, to everyone on YouTube, check that out if you will get a link for that as in the show notes. And until next time, talk to y'all later. Stay hybrid.

This also comes with a complete digital downloadable guide: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
Or check out the complete YouTube Video on it: https://youtu.be/oxBn-p9O-eg
As always, every episode available with FREE transcripts at: http://www.hybridministry.xyz
And hang with Nick on TikTok at: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE Checklist: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/free-social-media-checklist

TIMECODES
TIMECODES
00:00-00:53 – Intro
00:53-03:11 - Why TikTok, Reels and Short Form Video?
03:11-03:47- - Logging Into TikTok for the First Time
03:47-05:56 - Video Menu Options
05:56-07:03 - Profile Menu Options
07:03-12:07 - Creating a Video
12:07-17:21 - Editing the Video
17:21-19:34 - Time to Post it!
19:34-20:46 - Make sure you do this ONE THING before posting to other platforms
20:46- - Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
So have I already ruined my TikTok account? Here's a guide on how to post TikTok from start to finish. Hey everyone, my name is Nick Clason. I am the host of the Hybrid Ministry podcast, and this is a little special YouTube slash podcast episode I'm excited to bring to you on the framework for posting a TikTok in 2023. Now, there's a lot of things out there about like SEO and keywords and strategies and tips and hacks, and in fact, I actually have a checklist that I have pre created for all social media, just a basic like, uh, have you done this? Have you done that for posting to social media at your church? You can get the description or you can get the link for that in the description, the video down below, uh, or in the show notes, hybrid ministry.xyz. But why TikTok? Like why of all the platforms that we have, why TikTok?

Nick Clason (01:01):
And here's why. Every platform right now, Facebook, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, they are all going after this short form video content. It's like lightning in a bottle. It's so easy to go viral. Um, and when I say easy, it's like you post the dumbest thing and it goes viral, but then you spend a lot of time and effort and energy on something that you think is amazing and it gets like 14 views. And so the reality is it's this very finicky, very like, hard to like land what is going to go viral, but when you see other social medias copying another social platform's kind of bread and butter, it's worth noting and it's worth, uh, going all in on. And so when every single major social platform is copying TikTok in their, uh, their, their for you sort of algorithm, you need to make that a priority.

Nick Clason (02:00):
It's, I would liken it to win Instagram stole stories from Snapchat, and now TikTok is actually stealing B reels, uh, post, now they call it the now feature in TikTok. So, uh, if you've never logged into TikTok, uh, or you have, and you know, you should, you've heard me talk about the importance of short form video, but you, you open it and it's overwhelming. You don't know what to do or you think you know what to do, but then you get kind of turned around editing videos or whatever and whatnot. This is meant to be a, uh, a thorough guide to every feature available in TikTok. Now, some caveats, I've really only been using TikTok for about three to six months now. Um, I too is just as much of a novice when I opened it. They're constantly evolving and changing, and I'm not even a hundred percent sure if I know all the features. I tried to comb through each and every feature as I was in preparation for this video, but there are several I haven't even used. And so

Nick Clason (02:59):
I just wanna be clear with that. Like, uh, I'm still at a very basic level, and so if, if I can do it, what we're doing in our church, you too can, can get up some very basic sort of content. So when you log into TikTok for the very first time, a video is probably going to start blaring at you at full volume. Okay? That can be a little bit disconcerting and throw you off. You're a rocker because most other platforms keep videos muted. TikTok for whatever reason is the opposite, so turn your volume all the way down, or if you just tap the screen, the video, whatever video they play, um, it'll pause it. Now, uh, if you're getting on TikTok for the first time and they're feeding you things that you don't wanna see, they're not, you're not interested in, hold that video down and just click, not interested.

Nick Clason (03:43):
Do that a few times and you're gonna teach the algorithm what you want to see. So when you, uh, are sitting there looking at a video, video that TikTok fed to you, you have, uh, several different video menu options. And so I want to, uh, run through what those are. The first one is you can, on the right hand side of your screen, you can follow the creator. Uh, that little plus sign right there will give you a, uh, follow, um, or not follow kind of option. Now, if you look at the very, very top of your screen, you're going to be looking at either following or for you, you're either in your following algorithm, all the people that you're following, or you're in your for U algorithm. TikTok will almost naturally bring you to the for U algorithm. So just be aware of that.

Nick Clason (04:34):
Even when you click follow the people, the videos that you're seeing may not be coming from followers. That's, again, that's one of the things that makes this algorithm unique. Um, you can, like the video, that's the heart. You can comment on it, you can save it. That's a little save, uh, little bookmark looking icon there. You can share it. That's the arrow out. You can send it to people within the TikTok app. You can, you can download the video and save it, or you can copy a link and send it. Uh, and then the bottom, uh, icon there, a little round one kinda looks like a, a record turning. That's the sound, that's the audio that is being used. Could be like an original audio from the creator, or it could be like a sound or a trend or something like that. All of that is to you.

Nick Clason (05:15):
On the right hand side of the screen at the bottom, you have five menu options. You have your home button and the subcategories for that, like I said, up at the top of the following. And the four you, then you have the, now that's TikTok, s b real copycat. It's almost identical to what Be Real is doing. Uh, you got the plus button there, then very dead center, that's your create button, okay? Then next you have your little envelope, that's your inbox. And for there you get your notifications, dms, likes, follows, et cetera. That's all the things that you, uh, when people interact with your content or your videos. And then finally, the last thing on the very right hand bottom corner, uh, is your profile. That's where you have your videos. Um, once you click on that, you'll see, uh, another kind of menu across the top.

Nick Clason (06:02):
Uh, the left most option is your videos, everything that you've posted kind of on your grid. The next one are your private videos. The next one are your saved videos. Remember that bookmark icon. And personally, I like to use that as a way to save ideas. So if I'm going through TikTok and there's a sound or an idea that I think is fun or interesting that I can use later, I'll save it. That's then where I'll find it. And what I'll personally do is I'll save that on my personal account, and then I will share that video to my ministry account. Then I will switch accounts, log over into my ministry account, go into my dms, and get that video from myself, and then I'll use that, um, either that sound or that idea or that trend or whatever I need from that video, maybe a filter, whatever that I'll use to them post.

Nick Clason (06:46):
Um, moving on on that menu, you got your liked videos. And then finally, um, there at the top, you can edit your profile, your link, all the other necessary and pertinent information there. Okay. Now, how do you, that's just simply viewing a video and kind of navigating through your basic menu items. So how do you then create a video? So the way to create a video is on your home screen. You can tap that plus button, all right? And once you tap that plus button, you're given several options. All right? At the very, very top center, uh, there's the option to add sound. You can add a sound that way by clicking it and searching for a sound. Or like I said, when you see that record player on a video, you can click on that. Um, and once you're, once you click on that, there will be a, it'll pull up all the videos, uh, that have used that sound.

Nick Clason (07:37):
You can click use this sound option. That is personally, I think the easiest way to do that. That's why I like to save those videos and then share them so I don't have to go and try and find those sounds. Again, that's my way of kind of archiving and remembering where those sounds are. Now one thing worth noting, if you're on a personal account, you can use any sound you want. If you are a business account, those are much more limiting. There are ways around it, um, like recording the video and then in post-production in like Adobe Premier Pro or something like that, dubbing that sound over. Then when you post it, it's gonna be technically an original sound. It's not gonna come from the trend sound. Uh, there are pros and cons. Uh, I've talked about this in past podcast episodes. There are pros and cons to, um, personal and business accounts.

Nick Clason (08:23):
Uh, you just gotta choose what matters most to you. I think probably the biggest downside of not doing a business account is your link and bio isn't really a link. It's just typed out and people have to like, then go type it into a browser so they can't click and go to your stuff. That's a pretty big downside, and you don't get as many analytics. Um, you still can see views and likes and those types of things by going to each individual video, but you're not able