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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How to Teach a Wild Room
00:48 I’m a glutton for chaos
01:56 Level 1: Tell Them
03:50 Level 2: Know Them
07:40 Level 3: Include Them
08:59 Level 4: Engage Them
10:44 Level 5: Teach Them

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:07 - 00:00:24:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, that moment that you're trying to teach, and two kids start whispering to each other, someone's throwing a sock, and somehow some how slime is involved. You know, early on in my youth ministry days, I knew that the students were the problem. But over my last 15 years, I began to wonder what if part of the chaos is actually my fault?

00:00:24:19 - 00:00:45:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Today, I'm going to be breaking down the five levels of taming a wild youth through and at the end of the show, make sure that you stick around, because I am going to share with you the shift that Marvel understands that I saw, that I began to start to see students truly lean in without needing to raise my voice.

00:00:45:16 - 00:01:11:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome, everybody, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. Today we're addressing this question. How do you handle disruptions during teaching time? I'm tired of stopping my lessons to redirect a few, and in this episode, I want to detail and outline my five levels of taming a wild room. And here's what you got to understand is that I actually invite and embrace chaos.

00:01:11:09 - 00:01:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like in our space. We could very easily, and let's be honest, probably even more, I probably even make a little bit more sense for us to do it in rows, but instead we're a middle school heavy on Wednesday night, midweek, type of context. And we put them around round tables. And last year we increased our chair intake around the tables from 8 to 10.

00:01:32:08 - 00:01:52:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we're inviting even more chaos to sit around each of those tables. That being said, it's a calculated risk that I try to facilitate and operate with the idea of community, worth and willing to take that risk so that we can get the better. And on the other side, however, that does mean that sometimes we do face a wild room.

00:01:52:21 - 00:02:12:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So with that being said, let's dive into my five different levels. Level number one is this tell them. All right. Tell them to stop talking and I get it. And that and that question you're saying like I'm tired of doing that. Now, if you are doing that on a regular basis, then maybe some of these other levels are going to be worth your while.

00:02:12:13 - 00:02:31:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But to start it off, if you have a wild room, you just need to very simply like be firm. And actually it's interesting because I asked a group of, table leaders that I have in my youth ministry, that try to actually help keep some of my students on track and keep some of our, our, lessons, like on the rails, so to speak.

00:02:31:10 - 00:02:48:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they were asking me the other day, like, how do you do that? How do you lean in to kind of that with, with students? And I ask you guys, do you guys think that I mean, like, do you consider me personally mean? And they're like, no, not at all. And I was like, but am I able and willing to be firm when I need to know?

00:02:48:26 - 00:03:12:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, oh yeah, definitely. And so you have to understand that if you're the youth pastor, maybe you're young, maybe you're afraid of like, people thinking you mean students not liking you. Like you can still be firm and they can still like you? Those two things are allowed to be the same thing at the same time. Right? And another thing that I've actually even done is like, I've gone directly up to some of the bigger tables, in the last couple of weeks.

00:03:12:24 - 00:03:26:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I said, hey, listen, do you guys want me to split you into two tables? Like, no, no, no, please don't do that. Please don't do that. And I'm like, great, I will not. But I'm also going to expect you to act like adults, which means I am not going to ask you guys multiple times to be quiet.

00:03:26:27 - 00:03:40:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if I do have to ask you to be quiet, then I will begin to split the tables. But if I can trust you, and if you can lock in, if you can engage, then I'll let you stay together. And that that has actually really worked really well for some of our tables. Because you know how it is.

00:03:41:00 - 00:04:16:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You got a big table. You look over there, this is what you get. It wasn't me, it was them. It was their zoom. It was then. It wasn't me. So the second level is know them, right? No. These students know how they learn. Right. And one of the things that we have leaned into consistently is I cannot tell you in youth ministry, the last time that I spoke my entire message without any sort of gap or without any sort of break, like youth pastor, if you're trying to teach for 30 minutes straight, like, what are you doing?

00:04:16:14 - 00:04:53:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, you know that your students don't learn that way. In fact, if you look here at the Pyramid of learning, auditory lecture style based learning is the least effective of all the styles of learning. So why are you trying to keep their attention with a lecture style message for 30 or greater minutes? In fact, there's like the whole theory that, Gen Z and Gen Alpha's attention span is less than seven seconds, and we get that data from click through rates and like, bounce off rates from websites like people spend only on average seven seconds or less on a website.

00:04:53:28 - 00:05:14:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the theory is that they have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. But the reality is, is that they know within seven seconds or less if this thing is going to be worth their time. Take for example, on the other hand, the flip side, the highest grossing movie movies of all time are all greater than 2 to 3 hours.

00:05:14:04 - 00:05:37:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Avengers endgame is an over three hour movie, and when it came out, it became the highest grossing movie of all time. Why can't a movie that's greater than 3.5 hour or greater than three hours, at least keep a student's attention because it knows how to keep things moving and students, if they're interested, they will lean in. So know them and break your message up with a gap in the middle.

00:05:37:10 - 00:05:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yet for some reason, you continue to drone on and this is what you get. The inside of a middle school boy's brain. Did I eat dinner? Is his shirt inside out? When is this? Over six. Seven? Is it actually why? I have a Patreon devoted to this. Every single week I share with you how I'm breaking up my message.

00:05:59:20 - 00:06:25:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in the past, when I was younger, listening to the way other youth pastors that are a little bit further along than me were planning and programing their services, help get my creative juices going. So for just $4 a month, $48 for a year, not only will you get my weekly breakdown of what we're doing in our youth ministry, but you'll also get access to my full seasonal social media pack in all the seasonal social media packs as the seasons rotate through.

00:06:25:29 - 00:06:43:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.

00:06:43:03 - 00:07:06:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts. See? See? Here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.

00:07:06:14 - 00:07:26:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly Hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12. Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.

00:07:26:25 - 00:07:55:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. The third thing I want to, challenge you to do is to include them, right? Like include the students. And so one of the things that we do is in addition to the breaks is while we're in the gaps of our teaching, we'll also include moments that we call table talks.

00:07:55:08 - 00:08:16:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you don't have the ability to set tables, you can also call it a turn and talk. And you still get the alliteration, which is exactly what all of us Baptists want to do. But we have to somehow try and move our students from a passive consumer to an active contributor. And I get it. Like most churches in America, especially like big church where you're senior pastors, preaching is a passive consumer setting.

00:08:16:08 - 00:08:36:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But we say you need to get involved in serve. You need to get involved in the community. You need to get involved in the life of our church. And yet then the way to get involved is just make sure that you come and sit here and listen to us talk instead. What if you gave them an opportunity to, think through this, to analyze, to evaluate, to discuss, to wrestle with the truth that's coming at them from God's Word.

00:08:36:27 - 00:08:47:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And when I'm teaching, teaching, teaching. And then all of a sudden I throw a table, talk. They're not allowed to just sit there like this anymore.

00:08:47:28 - 00:09:12:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I don't, I will, I wasn't listening. Well, what do you say to when I throw a table talk? I say, hey, listen out loud with words. Go. The fourth level is to engage them. So give breaks, create table talk. So these are both natural rhythms and breaks and pattern interrupts that are going to help with the kind of Marvel theory, the keep it moving.

00:09:12:08 - 00:09:34:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Keep it going. Don't get stale, don't get stagnant seven second thing but now when you're actually teaching, use creativity. And once again, this is why I have my Patreon, because I want to help you lean into your creativity. You can make your illustrations better, right? Like we're using Collider. And one of the lessons, was talking about a dog pooping on the lawn.

00:09:34:22 - 00:10:06:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, that's a great illustration of a self collider. Best curriculum on the planet. Use hybrid ministry. 1001 word to get 10% off your first year of it. But I punched it up a little bit. How I, I took their dog pooping illustration, and I added a photo of a cute dog. All right. And then after adding the photo of the cute dog, I decided, hey, let's name this cute dog to the point that as I'm making this illustration about forgiveness of a dog pooping on your front lawn, I had a student all the way leaned in, eventually.

00:10:06:21 - 00:10:38:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Say we named the dog Buttercup based off the sidekick voting feature. I said, hey, Buttercup, is cooked, okay? And you got to be using sidekick on the regular because you can add in things. And I added this one on the fly. In fact, on the episode, I just recorded five minutes ago, the breakdown episode, I explained to you how I came up with this and how I instituted it, and link down below in the show notes will help you know how you can run sidekick and pro presenter at the exact same time, but you need to engage their creativity.

00:10:39:05 - 00:11:00:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You need to make your your lessons and your illustrations more creative and help them lean in. And then the fifth and final, level here of, teaching a wild room is to actually teach them, like, actually teach them God's Word. In fact, in an episode link down below, I talk about a couple students who came up to me afterward and they said, you need to do that more.

00:11:00:25 - 00:11:28:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, what is that? And they said, you, you actually like, taught us, like you gave us like a sheet of paper or our Bible, and you were underlining and circling and drawing arrows and, and helping, create like parallels between different like things in the text, like, do that more like actually leaning in to teach them, not just give them a motivational message, not just give them creativity, not just break up our programing, but actually teach them something valuable and meaningful found in God's Word.

00:11:28:22 - 00:11:50:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's the fifth level of helping tame a wild room and doing all five of these things on a regular and consistent basis for us has really helped lean in and created value and opportunity within our youth ministry. Well, hey everyone, I hope you found this episode helpful. Tap the next episode. Subscribe here on screen. But until next time and as always, don't forget stay hybrid.

Today, I’m breaking down real data from the national Youth Pastor Compensation Survey with insights from experts like Dan Navarra — so you know exactly how much you should be getting paid.

And interestingly, the one thing you need to start right away, to ensure you’ll actually get one!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How to Ask for a Raise
00:42 What does the Data Say?
02:56 What about inflation?
04:05 What about curriculum usage?
06:42 What about Social Media?
08:41 What about Seminary?

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the best ways to get your students

00:00:03:13 - 00:00:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
inviting their friends to your group, as well as build momentum for the overall team. But here's

00:00:09:13 - 00:00:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something that someone might not tell you about some of these theme nights is that in every single one, there is an opportunity for a huge mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful.

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time I

00:00:21:14 - 00:00:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
even thought I might be getting fired.

00:00:23:19 - 00:00:37:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so before you try this for yourself, in this episode, I'm going to share with you my five favorite theme nights from my last 15 years in youth ministry. And the one mistake I learned from each of those, so that you don't have

00:00:37:02 - 00:00:39:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to learn it the hard way for yourself.

00:00:39:12 - 00:00:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey my friends, welcome back to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I have been in this recent playlist asking and answering different questions found in different youth ministry

00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Facebook groups. And this

00:00:55:19 - 00:00:55:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one

00:00:55:27 - 00:00:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
says, hey, what are some theme nights you've done with your group that your kids have really enjoyed?

00:00:59:20 - 00:01:03:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like Jersey night? Crazy hair. Looking forward to some ideas.

00:01:03:16 - 00:01:03:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And

00:01:03:22 - 00:01:03:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so

00:01:03:28 - 00:01:23:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I figured, hey, I want to share some of my best theme nights. And I've discussed this before in some recent episodes. In fact, we did kind of like a fall playlist master class thing where I talked about my strategy for youth ministry. And oftentimes I'll make a theme night, a cultivate night, which is a bring your friends and invite style night.

00:01:23:22 - 00:01:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the very first, invite style nights that I did as a youth pastor was one that I grew up as a teenager doing my youth pastor shout out to Pastor Tim Blow. He did an event

00:01:36:16 - 00:01:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
called Duct Tape Night. And, then I went several years later to intern for him, and he also did it.

00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then when it was my turn to be a youth pastor, it was time to do duct tape night. And so we do all kinds of different duct tape. We buy a bunch. We encourage students to, you know, bring like, bring something made out of duct tape that they made, will play, you know, games with duct tape or I even have a game I download youth ministry, called duct tape Trivia.

00:02:02:28 - 00:02:23:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's one of my very, very first vivid early on games. And then we'll even play, like, steal the bacon. But in the middle, we'll we'll play, like, steal the duct tape instead. But one probably like the star of the show. Like the thing that kids and students and even leaders look the most forward to is the duct tape a student to the wall challenge.

00:02:23:00 - 00:02:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, like, I was, like I said, within my first couple, months, even weeks of of taking this new job and got a couple kids and decided to duct tape them to the wall. And that's all well and good. No one got hurt. I mean, if you get enough duct tape, they literally can stick to the wall and they're not going to fall down.

00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That wasn't the problem.

00:02:42:27 - 00:03:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What was the problem was as soon as, they started to fall off the wall, we started to take them down off the wall. It took the paint with them. Mind you, I'm in week, like, three and a half of this job. And so, you know, it's Wednesday night. The entire church is their kids ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry.

00:03:00:12 - 00:03:01:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so at the end of the night,

00:03:01:18 - 00:03:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all the adults like how duct tape night go because, like, they knew about it, heard about it, but had never, like, seen an event like this before. And we're like, oh, good, good, good. And I was talking to my, my senior pastor, my boss. Right. And I was like, oh, it's awesome.

00:03:14:25 - 00:03:31:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We had this, we had this, we had this many new kids, whatever. Oh, also, I had, kid, pull some of the tape off the, some of the paint off the wall with the duct tape. So just, you know, tell me, like what color paint that was, and, I'll. I'll repaint it. No big deal.

00:03:31:29 - 00:03:53:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And he goes that we had to have that, like, specially painted with it in a very special way with, like, a sponge and like a finish. And the person who did that doesn't even live here anymore. They live in Georgia. And like my eyes, I'm just, like, wide eyed. Like what have I done? So I have to somehow get this wall repainted.

00:03:53:26 - 00:04:14:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But reach out to this person who doesn't go to the church anymore. And so within my first couple weeks of ever having a job, I took paint off the precious youth room walls that had been done in a very special and particular way, and so I've learned when you do that duct tape thing, don't put it on paint.

00:04:14:05 - 00:04:34:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I did put it on a brick wall, but it was a painted brick wall. So then in future years, I, stopped putting it on paint because it definitely was always taking the paint in the finish and the drywall off, but it is still an amazing and great event that you can theme, around duct tape. And it's it's a little bit niche and it's a little bit off the beaten track.

00:04:34:06 - 00:04:51:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's not your typical style of night. This one right here is one that we just did three weeks ago, and we called it our Back to School night. But in front of the, night, we spelled it with a k parentheses with the K. Back to school night, and we went medieval

00:04:51:21 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
themed. And, if you're due, I am member.

00:04:53:27 - 00:04:57:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Back in January, they dropped a, game called

00:04:57:02 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Loot and Lunacy, and we were going to play Loot and Lunacy at some point in January. But I remember we were in

00:05:04:13 - 00:05:14:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our run through in our Q to Q and the game. It's just like long, like there are ten sides, ten questions, and they're each like a minute and 30s or so long.

00:05:14:09 - 00:05:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you needed to carve out a good 15, maybe even 20 minutes to the whole game. And so that night, right on the moment, right on a dime, I actually decided to switch to another game. So I held loot and lunacy just in my back pocket, knowing I wanted to go back to at some point in the future.

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when our back to school came around, I was like, let's, let's build a night around loot and lunacy. And in the meantime, we built up all of these sort of like ren fair ideas around it. And so, you know, we talked about, you know, the importance or not, the importance of we it was an invite.

00:05:50:04 - 00:06:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we didn't have like a message or anything, but, we had all sorts of different, like, medieval themed games. We did the impossible shot with the bow and arrow. We did like, a giant scavenger hunt. We got a joust. We even looked into getting turkey legs, but that was either a impossible or B cost prohibitive.

00:06:08:01 - 00:06:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can't remember exactly the reason why, but either way we didn't come up with it. But then in and around it, we played Loot and Lunacy and we broke it up into two chunks. We played some at the beginning and we played some at the end. And, you know, here's the fact is, I actually, because this is recent, I detailed an outline this entire episode over on a recent bonus Patreon podcast episode.

00:06:29:16 - 00:06:40:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get on and I talk every single week. Actually, as soon as this episode hits stop, I'm gonna turn around and a record and recap last night's, last night's Youth Mystery, which was we had an

00:06:40:20 - 00:06:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
amazing, like, custom game that came out of like one of our, team members just heads like, it was fantastic. And I can't wait to share it with you.

00:06:50:03 - 00:07:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So click the link down below. And guess what? You also get access to the seasonal summer social media pack. Hey quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.

00:07:11:03 - 00:07:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry.

00:07:30:17 - 00:07:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12.

00:07:51:03 - 00:08:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. Moving on.

00:08:11:27 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Talking about back to school bashes. That was a like back to school night, medieval themed back school bash. The mistake I made in that is that. Do you know how to spell medieval? I spelled it wrong so many times. And emails out to parents. The whole thing. And I

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:33:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
still don't even know if I know how to spell it.

00:08:33:05 - 00:08:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Grammarly tells me it's medieval, but I was spelling it MLG. Easy io.

00:08:40:18 - 00:08:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I had to spell it mega. I even I like it, I messed it up

00:08:45:24 - 00:09:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so many times. So don't be like me and look up how to spell medieval before you send out emails to parents. But, typically a back to school bash for me, growing up in youth ministry and this is like a big event, a party and a bunch of, like, those giant inflatables and like, you know, obstacle courses, not bounce houses.

00:09:06:16 - 00:09:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Exactly, but like, obstacle courses, jousts, Velcro wall, like the hanging wrecking ball, the bucking bronco, like stuff like that. And so one year I had, created a special events team, and there's a guy at our church who's super awesome, super willing to help, but, like, didn't want to be, like, necessarily like a youth leader. But he was like, I'll be on like the events team, which was great.

00:09:29:24 - 00:09:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I had our students helpline the night and like what they wanted for food. And they said they wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, which was great and so called ahead place to order. And you know, all the inflatables, all the things are going, kids are showing up, but the food's not there. And I had sent this guy and his name was Tim to go out and grab the Buffalo Wild Wings.

00:09:50:12 - 00:10:09:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Order. And I had placed it ready to be picked up at, you know, let's say 615. Well, he told me that when he got there that they didn't start preparing the order of nearly 250 wings until he arrived at 615, and it was supposed to be ready to pick up at 615. And I said, no, it was supposed to be pick up.

00:10:09:07 - 00:10:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, that's what I told them. And they even said, oh yeah, but we want your wings to be fresh. And so he was like 45 minutes late and all the kids are like, where's the wings? So when you're doing catering and when you're doing a big giant pickup order like that, like just make sure the restaurants don't do harebrained stuff like wait until you get there to start preparing it, which is going to then make it like an hour late.

00:10:33:01 - 00:10:52:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good grief. Event idea number four is last year actually linked right here? I discussed our Christmas movie bracket. And what we did out of that. And again, this is another good plug for my Patreon as I discussed in detail and outlined all of this in my Patreon as well. But we did a bracket which is movies go head to head.

00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, this was the member resource back in, youth ministry back in December of 2024. So if you remember, you might even have access to this for free. Otherwise, I'll put the link down in the show notes. You can go grab it for just a few bucks, but kids vote head to head on different Christmas movies.

00:11:09:18 - 00:11:33:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then what we did was that was just running in the background. In the month of November. But then what we did was the winner was what became our Christmas movie night. And then my boss shout out to Darren, he did a, he added a flavor of bring your own chair to the Christmas movie night. And so kids are coming in and in shopping carts and in camping chairs, and one group even brought a full air mattress to sit on.

00:11:33:18 - 00:11:54:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we took all the chairs out of our auditorium and we played the movie, up on the screen. And the kids brought all their own chairs. Now, the mistake that I made in this event was trusting that ChatGPT would know where all of the homeland Swearwords were, because I actually edited, I was going to edit out any cuss words from the Home Alone movie.

00:11:54:16 - 00:12:22:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so ChatGPT told me. And then what happened was, by the grace of God himself, I was thinking about a certain part of the movie, and I remember, oh, there's a swear word there. And I didn't edit that out, so I had to go back in and reedit it, a reedit another edit that after one I had already made, because the first one I made was I was trusting ChatGPT to give me accurate information, and alas, it gave me some accurate information, but not entirely accurate information.

00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So check your AI chat bots people. And then finally, the fifth idea that I have is a Super Bowl party. If you are a youth group that meets on Sunday nights, you're obligated to do something with the Super Bowl. Now, what I would recommend from a philosophical standpoint is if you're ones in a group, don't add a Super Bowl party to it.

00:12:41:23 - 00:12:55:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're sending a group, you've got to figure out what you're going to do. And so I remember the first year that I was at a church that had converted from Wednesday to Sunday. And so in comes along the Super Bowl and all of a sudden people were like, oh yeah, we got church and don't we? And they're like, where are we going to meet?

00:12:55:29 - 00:13:13:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we had a Super Bowl party at my house and it was averagely attended. It wasn't great. And so, the and everyone was like, well, we got a party with these people every year and we do this this time of year. And so I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not competing with the Super Bowl anymore.

00:13:13:07 - 00:13:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not to mention, I like sports. I want to watch the Super Bowl. And if I'm running a party, I don't get to watch. I don't get to lock in. I don't get to pay attention to the Super Bowl. And so the mistake, I would say, of, doing the Super Bowl party is actually having one. However, if you're a Sunday night meeting youth ministry, what do you do instead?

00:13:31:28 - 00:14:03:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, I, I moved up our party, in the next couple of years, and we started doing, like, a pre-game or like a tailgating party. And I know those have negative connotations, but just like a before the Super Bowl party of the Super Bowl party. But we're done by the time Super Bowl parties are so big obstacle course in the middle of our, our space and, some football trivia and, I think we did, like, Nerf wars in a room, actually, and I ended up hiring a DJ, which, another mistake was that deejay was awesome.

00:14:03:17 - 00:14:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, he wasn't like some, like, low level DJ. He was so good. And the music was so loud, and the kids, complained. They're like, I couldn't hear myself think. And so I had to go ask him to turn the music down a little bit. That was another mistake. But all in all, super fun. I encourage kids wear jerseys and whatever, but we did it on Super Bowl Sunday, just a few hours before the game started, and then if you are like me and you like sports and you like football, you wrap your event up and you're home in your recliner by 6 p.m. and you're watching the game, you don't have to

00:14:35:19 - 00:14:52:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
worry about commercials. You don't have to worry about halftime shows except for your own stuff. You just get to enjoy the game for itself. So those are five of my favorite theme nights. Comment down below what your favorite youth ministry theme night is, and tab this video here on screen so that you can check out the next one and be sure to give us a subscribe.

00:14:52:29 - 00:14:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, and as always, my friends, don't forget, say habit.

Before you try these for yourself, let me give you my five best theme nights from 15 years in youth ministry—and the one mistake I made in each, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.

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Fall Masterclass
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Duct Tape Trivia
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duct-tape-trivia/kids-ministry/games-1029.html

Loot & Lunacy
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/loot-and-lunacy/games/video-enhanced-9909.html

Patreon (K)Night Episode
https://www.patreon.com/posts/back-2-school-k-137095993

Christmas Movie Bracket
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-ultimate-christmas-movie-showdown/christmas/christmas-games-9784.html

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Youth Ministry Theme Nights
00:42 Theme Night #1
04:37 Theme Night #2
08:52 Theme Night #3
10:35 Theme Night #4
12:25 Theme Night #5

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the best ways to get your students

00:00:03:13 - 00:00:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
inviting their friends to your group, as well as build momentum for the overall team. But here's

00:00:09:13 - 00:00:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something that someone might not tell you about some of these theme nights is that in every single one, there is an opportunity for a huge mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful.

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time I

00:00:21:14 - 00:00:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
even thought I might be getting fired.

00:00:23:19 - 00:00:37:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so before you try this for yourself, in this episode, I'm going to share with you my five favorite theme nights from my last 15 years in youth ministry. And the one mistake I learned from each of those, so that you don't have

00:00:37:02 - 00:00:39:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to learn it the hard way for yourself.

00:00:39:12 - 00:00:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey my friends, welcome back to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I have been in this recent playlist asking and answering different questions found in different youth ministry

00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Facebook groups. And this

00:00:55:19 - 00:00:55:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one

00:00:55:27 - 00:00:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
says, hey, what are some theme nights you've done with your group that your kids have really enjoyed?

00:00:59:20 - 00:01:03:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like Jersey night? Crazy hair. Looking forward to some ideas.

00:01:03:16 - 00:01:03:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And

00:01:03:22 - 00:01:03:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so

00:01:03:28 - 00:01:23:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I figured, hey, I want to share some of my best theme nights. And I've discussed this before in some recent episodes. In fact, we did kind of like a fall playlist master class thing where I talked about my strategy for youth ministry. And oftentimes I'll make a theme night, a cultivate night, which is a bring your friends and invite style night.

00:01:23:22 - 00:01:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the very first, invite style nights that I did as a youth pastor was one that I grew up as a teenager doing my youth pastor shout out to Pastor Tim Blow. He did an event

00:01:36:16 - 00:01:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
called Duct Tape Night. And, then I went several years later to intern for him, and he also did it.

00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then when it was my turn to be a youth pastor, it was time to do duct tape night. And so we do all kinds of different duct tape. We buy a bunch. We encourage students to, you know, bring like, bring something made out of duct tape that they made, will play, you know, games with duct tape or I even have a game I download youth ministry, called duct tape Trivia.

00:02:02:28 - 00:02:23:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's one of my very, very first vivid early on games. And then we'll even play, like, steal the bacon. But in the middle, we'll we'll play, like, steal the duct tape instead. But one probably like the star of the show. Like the thing that kids and students and even leaders look the most forward to is the duct tape a student to the wall challenge.

00:02:23:00 - 00:02:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, like, I was, like I said, within my first couple, months, even weeks of of taking this new job and got a couple kids and decided to duct tape them to the wall. And that's all well and good. No one got hurt. I mean, if you get enough duct tape, they literally can stick to the wall and they're not going to fall down.

00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That wasn't the problem.

00:02:42:27 - 00:03:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What was the problem was as soon as, they started to fall off the wall, we started to take them down off the wall. It took the paint with them. Mind you, I'm in week, like, three and a half of this job. And so, you know, it's Wednesday night. The entire church is their kids ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry.

00:03:00:12 - 00:03:01:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so at the end of the night,

00:03:01:18 - 00:03:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all the adults like how duct tape night go because, like, they knew about it, heard about it, but had never, like, seen an event like this before. And we're like, oh, good, good, good. And I was talking to my, my senior pastor, my boss. Right. And I was like, oh, it's awesome.

00:03:14:25 - 00:03:31:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We had this, we had this, we had this many new kids, whatever. Oh, also, I had, kid, pull some of the tape off the, some of the paint off the wall with the duct tape. So just, you know, tell me, like what color paint that was, and, I'll. I'll repaint it. No big deal.

00:03:31:29 - 00:03:53:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And he goes that we had to have that, like, specially painted with it in a very special way with, like, a sponge and like a finish. And the person who did that doesn't even live here anymore. They live in Georgia. And like my eyes, I'm just, like, wide eyed. Like what have I done? So I have to somehow get this wall repainted.

00:03:53:26 - 00:04:14:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But reach out to this person who doesn't go to the church anymore. And so within my first couple weeks of ever having a job, I took paint off the precious youth room walls that had been done in a very special and particular way, and so I've learned when you do that duct tape thing, don't put it on paint.

00:04:14:05 - 00:04:34:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I did put it on a brick wall, but it was a painted brick wall. So then in future years, I, stopped putting it on paint because it definitely was always taking the paint in the finish and the drywall off, but it is still an amazing and great event that you can theme, around duct tape. And it's it's a little bit niche and it's a little bit off the beaten track.

00:04:34:06 - 00:04:51:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's not your typical style of night. This one right here is one that we just did three weeks ago, and we called it our Back to School night. But in front of the, night, we spelled it with a k parentheses with the K. Back to school night, and we went medieval

00:04:51:21 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
themed. And, if you're due, I am member.

00:04:53:27 - 00:04:57:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Back in January, they dropped a, game called

00:04:57:02 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Loot and Lunacy, and we were going to play Loot and Lunacy at some point in January. But I remember we were in

00:05:04:13 - 00:05:14:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our run through in our Q to Q and the game. It's just like long, like there are ten sides, ten questions, and they're each like a minute and 30s or so long.

00:05:14:09 - 00:05:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you needed to carve out a good 15, maybe even 20 minutes to the whole game. And so that night, right on the moment, right on a dime, I actually decided to switch to another game. So I held loot and lunacy just in my back pocket, knowing I wanted to go back to at some point in the future.

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when our back to school came around, I was like, let's, let's build a night around loot and lunacy. And in the meantime, we built up all of these sort of like ren fair ideas around it. And so, you know, we talked about, you know, the importance or not, the importance of we it was an invite.

00:05:50:04 - 00:06:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we didn't have like a message or anything, but, we had all sorts of different, like, medieval themed games. We did the impossible shot with the bow and arrow. We did like, a giant scavenger hunt. We got a joust. We even looked into getting turkey legs, but that was either a impossible or B cost prohibitive.

00:06:08:01 - 00:06:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can't remember exactly the reason why, but either way we didn't come up with it. But then in and around it, we played Loot and Lunacy and we broke it up into two chunks. We played some at the beginning and we played some at the end. And, you know, here's the fact is, I actually, because this is recent, I detailed an outline this entire episode over on a recent bonus Patreon podcast episode.

00:06:29:16 - 00:06:40:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get on and I talk every single week. Actually, as soon as this episode hits stop, I'm gonna turn around and a record and recap last night's, last night's Youth Mystery, which was we had an

00:06:40:20 - 00:06:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
amazing, like, custom game that came out of like one of our, team members just heads like, it was fantastic. And I can't wait to share it with you.

00:06:50:03 - 00:07:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So click the link down below. And guess what? You also get access to the seasonal summer social media pack. Hey quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.

00:07:11:03 - 00:07:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry.

00:07:30:17 - 00:07:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12.

00:07:51:03 - 00:08:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. Moving on.

00:08:11:27 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Talking about back to school bashes. That was a like back to school night, medieval themed back school bash. The mistake I made in that is that. Do you know how to spell medieval? I spelled it wrong so many times. And emails out to parents. The whole thing. And I

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:33:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
still don't even know if I know how to spell it.

00:08:33:05 - 00:08:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Grammarly tells me it's medieval, but I was spelling it MLG. Easy io.

00:08:40:18 - 00:08:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I had to spell it mega. I even I like it, I messed it up

00:08:45:24 - 00:09:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so many times. So don't be like me and look up how to spell medieval before you send out emails to parents. But, typically a back to school bash for me, growing up in youth ministry and this is like a big event, a party and a bunch of, like, those giant inflatables and like, you know, obstacle courses, not bounce houses.

00:09:06:16 - 00:09:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Exactly, but like, obstacle courses, jousts, Velcro wall, like the hanging wrecking ball, the bucking bronco, like stuff like that. And so one year I had, created a special events team, and there's a guy at our church who's super awesome, super willing to help, but, like, didn't want to be, like, necessarily like a youth leader. But he was like, I'll be on like the events team, which was great.

00:09:29:24 - 00:09:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I had our students helpline the night and like what they wanted for food. And they said they wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, which was great and so called ahead place to order. And you know, all the inflatables, all the things are going, kids are showing up, but the food's not there. And I had sent this guy and his name was Tim to go out and grab the Buffalo Wild Wings.

00:09:50:12 - 00:10:09:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Order. And I had placed it ready to be picked up at, you know, let's say 615. Well, he told me that when he got there that they didn't start preparing the order of nearly 250 wings until he arrived at 615, and it was supposed to be ready to pick up at 615. And I said, no, it was supposed to be pick up.

00:10:09:07 - 00:10:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, that's what I told them. And they even said, oh yeah, but we want your wings to be fresh. And so he was like 45 minutes late and all the kids are like, where's the wings? So when you're doing catering and when you're doing a big giant pickup order like that, like just make sure the restaurants don't do harebrained stuff like wait until you get there to start preparing it, which is going to then make it like an hour late.

00:10:33:01 - 00:10:52:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good grief. Event idea number four is last year actually linked right here? I discussed our Christmas movie bracket. And what we did out of that. And again, this is another good plug for my Patreon as I discussed in detail and outlined all of this in my Patreon as well. But we did a bracket which is movies go head to head.

00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, this was the member resource back in, youth ministry back in December of 2024. So if you remember, you might even have access to this for free. Otherwise, I'll put the link down in the show notes. You can go grab it for just a few bucks, but kids vote head to head on different Christmas movies.

00:11:09:18 - 00:11:33:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then what we did was that was just running in the background. In the month of November. But then what we did was the winner was what became our Christmas movie night. And then my boss shout out to Darren, he did a, he added a flavor of bring your own chair to the Christmas movie night. And so kids are coming in and in shopping carts and in camping chairs, and one group even brought a full air mattress to sit on.

00:11:33:18 - 00:11:54:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we took all the chairs out of our auditorium and we played the movie, up on the screen. And the kids brought all their own chairs. Now, the mistake that I made in this event was trusting that ChatGPT would know where all of the homeland Swearwords were, because I actually edited, I was going to edit out any cuss words from the Home Alone movie.

00:11:54:16 - 00:12:22:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so ChatGPT told me. And then what happened was, by the grace of God himself, I was thinking about a certain part of the movie, and I remember, oh, there's a swear word there. And I didn't edit that out, so I had to go back in and reedit it, a reedit another edit that after one I had already made, because the first one I made was I was trusting ChatGPT to give me accurate information, and alas, it gave me some accurate information, but not entirely accurate information.

00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So check your AI chat bots people. And then finally, the fifth idea that I have is a Super Bowl party. If you are a youth group that meets on Sunday nights, you're obligated to do something with the Super Bowl. Now, what I would recommend from a philosophical standpoint is if you're ones in a group, don't add a Super Bowl party to it.

00:12:41:23 - 00:12:55:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're sending a group, you've got to figure out what you're going to do. And so I remember the first year that I was at a church that had converted from Wednesday to Sunday. And so in comes along the Super Bowl and all of a sudden people were like, oh yeah, we got church and don't we? And they're like, where are we going to meet?

00:12:55:29 - 00:13:13:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we had a Super Bowl party at my house and it was averagely attended. It wasn't great. And so, the and everyone was like, well, we got a party with these people every year and we do this this time of year. And so I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not competing with the Super Bowl anymore.

00:13:13:07 - 00:13:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not to mention, I like sports. I want to watch the Super Bowl. And if I'm running a party, I don't get to watch. I don't get to lock in. I don't get to pay attention to the Super Bowl. And so the mistake, I would say, of, doing the Super Bowl party is actually having one. However, if you're a Sunday night meeting youth ministry, what do you do instead?

00:13:31:28 - 00:14:03:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, I, I moved up our party, in the next couple of years, and we started doing, like, a pre-game or like a tailgating party. And I know those have negative connotations, but just like a before the Super Bowl party of the Super Bowl party. But we're done by the time Super Bowl parties are so big obstacle course in the middle of our, our space and, some football trivia and, I think we did, like, Nerf wars in a room, actually, and I ended up hiring a DJ, which, another mistake was that deejay was awesome.

00:14:03:17 - 00:14:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, he wasn't like some, like, low level DJ. He was so good. And the music was so loud, and the kids, complained. They're like, I couldn't hear myself think. And so I had to go ask him to turn the music down a little bit. That was another mistake. But all in all, super fun. I encourage kids wear jerseys and whatever, but we did it on Super Bowl Sunday, just a few hours before the game started, and then if you are like me and you like sports and you like football, you wrap your event up and you're home in your recliner by 6 p.m. and you're watching the game, you don't have to

00:14:35:19 - 00:14:52:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
worry about commercials. You don't have to worry about halftime shows except for your own stuff. You just get to enjoy the game for itself. So those are five of my favorite theme nights. Comment down below what your favorite youth ministry theme night is, and tab this video here on screen so that you can check out the next one and be sure to give us a subscribe.

00:14:52:29 - 00:14:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, and as always, my friends, don't forget, say habit.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 This Strategy Make Him say what?!
00:36 The Freetime Strategy Explained
06:25 Donut Tattoos
06:39 Scavenger Hunt - Hybridized!
09:19 Board Games
09:36 Decorating
09:52 Steal The (Fill in the Blank)
10:29 Kajabi Can Can
11:14 Big Screen Mario Kart Tourney
11:37 9-Square
11:44 Gaga Ball
12:09 The Social Challenge

--------------
TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:19:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Your students don't want to sit through another 90 minute program. Can we be honest? Do you? In this episode, I'm going to break down my outreach event strategy, which when I shared it with my friend Eric with the kids, he had this to say about it. I love that thank you notes. That's something I'm gonna steal for future videos.

00:00:19:27 - 00:00:52:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this episode, I'm going to hit you with ten ideas that you are definitely going to want to head over to my YouTube channel so that you can screenshot these and use them for your upcoming fall outreach event. Welcome, my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry Show! Well, hey everyone, welcome to episode 162 of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I'm going to be talking about one of the, strategies that we have for our outreach events that we've sort of stumbled into, and it's a little bit unique.

00:00:52:26 - 00:01:14:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, you heard what my friend Eric had to say about it, but essentially what it is, is it's creating moments of free time for your students. And so what I mean by that is we're not taking the full 90 minute block, or we're not taking the full 120 minute block of programing time that you have for your youth ministry and scheduling every single minute and making every single student do every single thing the entire time.

00:01:15:00 - 00:01:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But instead, what we're doing is we're opening up a window of time within our night, within our program to allow your students to kind of, like, choose their own adventure and do what they want to do. Now, if you're going to be using linked right here, the, download from the World's Greatest Donut Event Guide that we've been talking about, like, that's what, we've done before.

00:01:35:19 - 00:01:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I want, you know, if you're looking for something to do, I want you to consider maybe doing that event and you can incorporate these ideas, this strategy, into your upcoming fall outreach event. And so, go ahead and go grab that download. It's completely free. It's going to point you to a resource over On demand that you can use and implement.

00:01:54:07 - 00:02:22:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And these ideas are things that you can use, borrow, steal, and include in your upcoming fall outreach event. But the the philosophy behind it is, as we talked about a couple episodes ago, this is a cultivate in the spiritual CPR. This is a cultivate night. We're we're inviting friends were hanging out. We're just, kind of letting our hair down, kicking our feet up and hanging out with students and helping them see that church doesn't have to be confusing.

00:02:22:00 - 00:02:44:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Church doesn't have to be weird. But the other reason that this is advantageous is very simply, when you have a message included in your night, you don't have as much time to program. When you don't include your message, you have more time to program. And here's what we do. Oftentimes, we're still like plugging through our scope and sequence like we use Collider.

00:02:44:04 - 00:03:07:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, if you use Code hybrid ministry, I'll give you 10% off Collider for a year. So go check that out. They just dropped roadmaps. The first part of roadmaps year three. Really excited about the the judges series included in that. But, we'll just kind of keep plugging along in what we, you know, for a message that we should have taught on the night our outreach event is Worcester, upload it to YouTube.

00:03:08:01 - 00:03:30:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then our Sunday morning curriculum is derived off of our Wednesday night curriculum. And so we'll still have that conversation on Sunday morning, even though we didn't have the message on Wednesday night. And it's just on YouTube. And so at the end of the night, a lot of times we'll just show a little teaser clip and say, hey, this is over on YouTube, go check it out, scan this QR code if you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

00:03:30:08 - 00:03:55:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they're off to the races. And I mean the whole the whole good news right about these, this donut event is that it's getting students onto your social media, which at the end of this completely free fall masterclass playlist, I'm going to teach you how to build a social media team run completely by students that helps them create content not only for other students in your ministry, but create content with other students in your ministry.

00:03:55:28 - 00:04:15:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so having this free time event opens up all of these things, opens up more options. And, you know, one of the things that we'll do is we'll, offer anywhere from like four or 5 or 6 different, like, things, little stations. And they have anywhere from 30 to maybe 45 minutes on the longer end to do whatever them that they want.

00:04:15:18 - 00:04:36:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But one of the things that we've done to kind of encourage them or highlight what's available is we'll create a little passport or like a punch card, or if they go to a station and complete it, they'll get a little sticker for it. And what that does is it just helps them. First of all, give gives your students, and anyone who's new like a little map of your area, what's included where what's going on?

00:04:36:06 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What can we do right now? And then we'll say, hey, if you, complete if you go to all six stations, come and submit this card back in and we will give you a candy bar. And then we'll also put your, you know, name or your passport in, a drawing for the grand prize at the end of the night or something like that.

00:04:53:27 - 00:05:11:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, you know, if students are maybe not interested in all six of the things, and that's one of the reasons why we do it is because we know, like, not every single student is going to want to do every single type of game that you do. And so we'll include like some artsy and crafty type things. But then we'll also include some really, really active type things.

00:05:11:27 - 00:05:30:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so some students may be like, I'm more artsy. I don't want to do that active thing at all. And they're going to opt out of doing every single thing on the passport. But other kids, they might want to try to do all of it. And so they're going to try to run to every single station. So it just it it communicates what's available and it gives students an option to just win something.

00:05:30:13 - 00:05:47:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's just a fun way to kind of program it. I try to program the amount of time, like if we got 5 or 6 stations, I want to give them 30 to 35 minutes. I want there to be nearly not enough time for them to do everything, because when they leave, I want them to have in their mind like, oh my word, that event was so fun.

00:05:47:14 - 00:06:03:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I didn't even get to everything. And that's kind of like the vibe I want them to get in the car with with their parents, right? And when they're parents, like, how was it there? Like it was awesome. There is so much to do, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's kind of the vibe that we're going for. So if you're here on YouTube, these are going to flash up here on the screen.

00:06:04:01 - 00:06:24:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These are free time stations that are high fun, but they're low prep. And some of these we've done before, others of them are ideas that I have for future ones. And if you're doing the World's Greatest Donut Event launch guide, you can use some of these. These are ones that we actually have pulled together, for the donut event starting with.

00:06:24:29 - 00:06:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The first one is we had a donut temporary tattoo parlor. And so we can have students come in and just get a temporary donut tattoo. Right. And it's like you're doing the scavenger hunt. Like, one of the things I've done is, a future idea is like, we've done a scavenger hunt is one of the clues on the scavenger hunt was to have to go and prove that you got a donut tattoo, so it's like you kind of kill two birds with one stone.

00:06:50:00 - 00:07:10:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They come to the scavenger hunt, which is a second idea, by the way. Come to the scavenger hunt. One of the one of the clues is you know, go to the donut tattoo thing and they prove that they've done it. And so in addition to it, we like I try to hybridize my scavenger hunt, which, if you didn't know by the way, I have a weekly bonus podcast over on Patreon.

00:07:10:00 - 00:07:36:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's only $4 a month, and I want you to think about that. Investment of $4 is like your creative programing assistant. Like, here's my question is $50 per year worth it for you to have? Almost like a programing and social media consultant and coach? Because that's essentially what this $4 tier would do. It's going to give you, for $48 for you, 12 times four.

00:07:36:07 - 00:07:57:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's going to give you, someone who's just doing this on the front lines and is evaluating everything that I'm doing and boots on the ground. I'm not just like some, you know, youth ministry content guy. Like, these are things I'm actually doing. And I'll, I'll coach you through just by the evaluation of my own strategy, how it's going, what's going well, what's not going as well.

00:07:57:00 - 00:08:15:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can just steal all that I'm doing and bonus points, at the end of this episode, I'm going to be dropping a product that's $17. That's going to be incredibly valuable to you as you continue to lean in on social media. That's going to be free if you're already a $4 tier member of the Hybrid Heroes podcast.

00:08:15:27 - 00:08:33:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I try to hybridize, and this is an example of thing I'll talk about on my podcast, The Scavenger Hunt. So, for example, we say, hey, prove to us that you voted on the first round of the donuts, because remember, at this event we're launching the bracket. And so we're doing donuts, seed number one versus donuts. Seed number 16.

00:08:33:28 - 00:08:53:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Donuts number eight versus donut seed number nine. Prove to us that you voted. And so, they can either vote with paper printouts which is the most boring, or they go on Instagram or YouTube and cast a poll style vote. Another one I'll do is I'll say, like in our most recent uploaded YouTube video, what was on so-and-so's shirt?

00:08:53:10 - 00:09:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What color was so-and-so's hat, who's teaching like or whatever? And so that'll also encourage them to pull their phones out. If they don't have a phone, go find someone who does have a phone and look at our YouTube channel. And then, you know, bonus points if you subscribe, like all those types of things, like, I'm trying to kind of lean into not only the other stations like the donut tattoo station, but also some of our hybrid ideas.

00:09:15:26 - 00:09:32:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so Scavenger Hunt is one of my all time favorite stations. Another one is just simple, right? Like create a board game station. Like we already have a bunch of board games in our cafe. In our game room. We'll just lay those on a table and say, you can go do board games. And here's the thing so low prep on your part.

00:09:32:22 - 00:09:53:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You don't have to do anything with it. We in this donut event, we've done donut decorating for like a couple nights ago in our youth ministry, it was National Sugar Cookie Day. We did sugar cookie decorating like you could do some sort of food decorating or craft decorating of sorts. One of the one of my all time favorite active games is steal the Bacon.

00:09:53:19 - 00:10:10:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in this event, we just do steal the donut. You can buy a big donut plush on Amazon, or you can just very simply like throw anything out there, like a piece of, like we've done, like I've done like a duck tape night before. And I took a piece of cardboard and I duct taped all around the cardboard, and we played steal the duct Tape.

00:10:11:03 - 00:10:27:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, whatever theme event you're doing, like, steal that thing for, like, a steal the bacon style game where you have ten people on one side, ten people on the other, or however many. Right. And you can number them off. So this is one, this is one, this is two. This is two. When you call that number, they run on into the middle.

00:10:27:22 - 00:10:45:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Another one of our all time favorite active games is we call it One of our volunteers labeled it here called poison, but I've grown up calling it Kajabi can can just with the big trash can in the middle. And you try to not touch the trash can by holding someone's, you know, hands and dragging them into the trash can.

00:10:45:14 - 00:11:08:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You want to be the last person standing. Here's a pro tip grab dog rope. Chew toys so that you're not holding someone's like, wrist and like, crushing their knuckles because inevitably you're going to have like a senior guy football player next to like, a seventh grade girl. And he's going to destroy her hand. So give them both, like, dog rope, chew toys to hang onto with, like the ropes on the end.

00:11:08:23 - 00:11:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
She's got a rope here. He's got rope here. And of course, if you break the chain, you're also out. Another thing that we've done before, and I'm just going to be honest, I don't know how well it worked, but we did like, big screen Mario Kart video game, tournament video games, and Mario Kart always a hit. The part that I'm not sure that worked was the tournament aspect.

00:11:29:24 - 00:11:45:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like it was kind of chaotic and didn't really know who's next and who's in line and, you know, whatever. But it was still fun. Overall, we have in our space, we have like a nine square, so we'll just say eight. You can you know, play nine square if you want. So that's an option. Gaga ball. That's an option.

00:11:45:17 - 00:12:04:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you don't know like I recommend two portable versions. And so maybe you're in like a shared space. But for an event like this, you can drag those out and set them up. Link down. Below is my, recommended nine square option and my recommended Gaga ball option. So those are things you make a little financial investment here on the front side, but then you can use this whenever you have a big event like this.

00:12:04:29 - 00:12:23:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And those can be a part of your station, some of the things that you offer. And then finally the social challenge. So social challenge I'm going to teach you how to do that here in a couple episodes. So make sure that you're subscribed. But the social challenge is we some social media content with our students, by our students every single Wednesday night.

00:12:24:01 - 00:12:43:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in the link below, I am going to share with you exactly how you can, build your own social media team and the exact strategy that we use. And like I said in a couple episodes, I'm going to flesh out a full class on how to build out a social media team based on student ministry volunteers and what that does.

00:12:43:13 - 00:13:03:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That just helps kind of continue to create those hybrid connections. You're doing it via social media. And like I said on August 28th, we're dropping something big that is going to help you get that social media team up and off the ground. So you're definitely going to want to make sure that you're subscribed. But for the next video here, we are going to now talk about we've done this donut event.

00:13:03:09 - 00:13:25:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We've welcome new students. We've included free time stations. Now let's look at event evaluation. How do we know whether or not we hit the mark? How do we know whether or not this event was successful? How do we know whether or not the budget money that we spent with, whether the juice there was worth the squeeze? We're going to answer all of those questions on the video that's linked right here on screen.

00:13:25:05 - 00:13:31:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So make sure that you tap into that and until next time, and as always my friends, don't forget to stay hybrid.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Why Partnering with Parents?
02:52 Tip #1
4:34 Tip #2
05:22 Tip #3
06:04 Tip #4
08:55 Tip #5
10:18 Tip #6
13:02 Why does starting on time honor parents?
14:26 Tip #7
15:03 Tip #8
15:47 Tip #9
17:33 Tip #10

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00.93)
Well, so here we are. And Josh, you might be the most frequented guest now on the Hybrid Ministry podcast, which with all I would, I think I sent you one actually. So, so yeah. But today I've been asking people like, what do you feel like you're kind of like an expert on? So we're in this kind of mini series called How I, and so you said, let's talk about partnering with parents. And so.

Josh Boldman (00:06.494)
Yes Do I get a jacket like do I get a like there's like a that's true actually, you know, that's fair

Josh Boldman (00:29.991)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (00:31.124)
over all your different years of experience, what do you feel like uniquely positions you from a mindset or experience-wise or whatever about this idea of partnering with parents?

Josh Boldman (00:38.9)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, over the course of 20 years in youth ministry, I did the traditional route of before I had a kid, feeling like I knew everything more than any of the parents. Like I was way smarter than them. And then I had my own kid, and then I was able to actually have the blessing of having my own kid in my own ministry. And then recently have now,

Nick Clason (00:55.712)
yeah.

Nick Clason (01:03.937)
Mmm.

Josh Boldman (01:08.465)
like a life stage where my kid is a part of a ministry that I do not lead. And so it's like, there, that's what I should have. Okay, those are the questions that I now have that I should have been answering.

Nick Clason (01:13.358)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (01:19.904)
I do actually think that's a really, really fascinating perspective and one worth exploring. So what are a couple of principles or takeaways, especially in the lane of I'm a youth pastor veteran, I work for a youth ministry company, but as a parent, as a customer, so to speak, of this youth group, like what do you wish you were getting back from the youth ministry?

Josh Boldman (01:23.826)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (01:35.303)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (01:42.291)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's something that every youth minister needs to remember is that you are ministering to a family and not just to a student. Hands down, because like a student is a product, I mean, not entirely, but like they're a product of their family, right? Their parents. when you talk, you talk to a kid, half the things they say are things that they have either heard their parents say or they've

Nick Clason (01:53.965)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (02:02.028)
Yeah.

Josh Boldman (02:11.835)
or are in like rebellion against something that their parents have said, right? So like, so like the better that you know the parents, the better you are going to know the student. And whether that that kid has a awesome relationship with their parents or a terrible relationship with their parents or no relationship with their parents, whoever it is at home that takes care of them, that makes them feel safe. You are on the same team with that person, whether you know them or not.

Nick Clason (02:15.598)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Nick Clason (02:22.446)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (02:30.702)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (02:41.583)
And it, it, it, I will be as blunt as I can be in saying if, you're on the same team as that, of those people and you don't know them, that is dumb. Like it just don't, don't put yourself in a position of being on a team with someone you don't even know.

Nick Clason (02:50.563)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (02:56.28)
So you've worked in some larger contexts, let's say. How would you recommend someone who has a youth group of 50 students with, let's say, 50 unique family units? so probably more than 50 because siblings, whatever. How do they get to know parents? Because I would imagine the pushback from a youth pastor is like, well, I try. have a well, and we have meetings and they never come to the meetings and all this stuff like what. So.

Josh Boldman (03:00.646)
Yep.

Josh Boldman (03:08.23)
Yeah, yeah, Uh-huh.

Josh Boldman (03:17.757)
Yep, I can't know them all yet.

Josh Boldman (03:24.465)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason (03:24.812)
We've all been there, we've all experienced it. what, as a parent now on the other side, give us some tips.

Josh Boldman (03:30.418)
Yeah, yeah, I would say one, especially if you're talking about a middle school ministry, do check in at the beginning of the night and be at the check-in station. And I know that seems so like antithetical to like, I should be hanging out with the kids. you know, yes, that's great. Go play nine square, go play gaga ball, whatever, but spend some time at check-in because especially if they're in sixth, seventh, eighth grade, their parents are going to probably walk in with them.

Nick Clason (03:42.775)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (03:51.938)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (03:56.471)
Right.

Josh Boldman (04:00.274)
Like, so that's a great opportunity. but even if it's not then like clock the times that, know, like, Hey, when are my best opportunities to meet this parent? And it's, it's almost always going to be a drop-off pickup. Um, we, know, sometimes we'll do like, uh, you know, depending on like the layout of your building and how close the room is to the actual parking lot. Like, um, we used to do a thing where we'd have somebody inside with a walkie talkie and somebody outside with a walkie talkie. So what a parent would pull up.

they would say, hey, I'm here to pick up Johnny. And so the person on the radio would be like, Johnny. And so then we'd call Johnny's name inside. I was like, why am I not the person outside with the walkie talkie? Like go be that person talking to the parent. you know, that, you know, and, plus one of the best things you can do in that situation is they're like, Hey, I'm here to pick up Johnny. You can be like, dude, Johnny's awesome. Like, let me tell you about Johnny. Johnny is so stinking cool. Yup. Yeah.

Nick Clason (04:30.774)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (04:40.906)
Yeah, that's so smart.

Nick Clason (04:50.902)
Yeah, and what parent doesn't want to hear that about their kid?

Josh Boldman (04:56.562)
Oh yeah, cause think of every time a parent gets called by a teacher, it's to tell them that their kid's not doing great. know, so like if you can be like the one time that you like, or I mean, if you're open enough to literally calling parents, like go call a parent and be like, Hey, I need to tell you something about Johnny. And they're like, what do you do now? They're like, he was amazing. Like, you know, and I mean, don't lie about Johnny. Like if Johnny's a little turd, like, know, you can be honest about it, but like, don't, but don't drag Johnny through.

Nick Clason (05:02.294)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (05:14.924)
Yeah, yeah. That's cool, yeah.

Yeah.

Josh Boldman (05:26.62)
You know, go out of your way to tell them how awesome it is.

Nick Clason (05:26.872)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (05:30.284)
Yeah, that's so good. It's like the whole idea of positive reinforcement versus negative, so much more powerful. And we can just be strategic and intentional to position ourselves to do that. Even if you're like, I'll give myself 20 minutes on the calendar a week and I'll try to call as many parents and just say something nice about their kids. And if they're quick conversations or even, bro, leave a voicemail. Maybe they don't answer, whatever. It'll still be awesome. can be like, okay, no need to

Josh Boldman (05:33.859)
Mm-hmm. Totally, totally.

Josh Boldman (05:46.779)
Yeah. yeah.

Josh Boldman (05:56.422)
Yeah!

Nick Clason (05:59.67)
No need to call back, just wanted to let you know whatever, that'd be really good.

Josh Boldman (06:01.999)
Yeah. Yeah. And especially if you know, you have a kid who is, you know, mean, gosh, I don't know what it has been about the, you know, the 20 years I spent in ministry, but it was like, it was just like every kid with an attention deficit of something, something, something like they all just showed up at our ministry. Right. It was grabbing it, which is a lot of fun. I'm just like, I'll be the first to say like, it is a party, but yes. man. Until the broken arms, but

Nick Clason (06:16.854)
Mm-hmm

Nick Clason (06:26.348)
You had fun during the games.

haha

Josh Boldman (06:30.781)
you would, but the thing was, is you would see parents drop off their kids and those parents were exhausted, right? And they were just like exasperated. Like they are saying like, Hey, please help. And also please give me a break for a minute. And so like, if you can call and like, if they, you know that they're having trouble with their kid at school and you can then brag about something awesome about that kid, like I cannot tell you how that feels. you know, just to be able to know like, cause

Nick Clason (06:36.013)
Mmm.

Nick Clason (06:44.053)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (06:49.464)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (06:56.216)
Yeah.

Josh Boldman (07:00.066)
And you know, let's call it what it is. Parents need to hear that not everybody hates their kid. Like, I mean, I know that sounds harsh, but like...

Nick Clason (07:05.15)
Mm-hmm. Well, no, you're always questioning, like, are our kids weird? are they? You're always asking that thing.

Josh Boldman (07:10.244)
Right? Yes. It's like, it's like my own kid. Like I love my kid, but I don't know how other people feel about him unless they tell me, you know? So yeah.

Nick Clason (07:17.634)
That's it, yeah, no, you're so right. Yeah, so, so far, you know, it's interesting. Like nothing you've said had anything to do with like the youth pastor's sermon or cue cards or so like, what else, man?

Josh Boldman (07:27.48)
Not even a little. yeah, yeah. It's not, it's not, yeah, it's not the, every year we do a message series where we talk about be nice to your parents. Like, no, that's not, that doesn't help. mean, can't, please do that. yeah, but some things that I have noticed, you know, in times, especially when I started in a ministry where I followed someone who left poorly.

Nick Clason (07:38.958)
Yeah, yeah, it sure can help,

Josh Boldman (07:54.064)
what I almost across the board saw was that that person, especially when it came to parents, was disorganized and did not communicate well. So like, and this may sound so minor, but like send an email every week. Like even if it is literally the same email, like it's the same template, just change two things, whatever. But that way when parents are trying to figure out what's going on, they can always look at the last email and see what it was.

Nick Clason (08:10.382)
It's not that hard.

Nick Clason (08:15.02)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (08:20.92)
Yeah.

Josh Boldman (08:21.668)
Don't expect them to open it and read it right when you send it and be like, this email was great.

Nick Clason (08:26.05)
Well, and that's what I would say with our, even the little bit of hybrid strategies, make sure your website's up to date, because how annoying is it when you have a question about what time does that event start, and you go to the website, and it's not even there. And it's like, I send it in the email. It's like, do you know how many emails I've gotten? And so I recommend a do that, do both. Just keep both things, yeah, keep both things updated.

Josh Boldman (08:30.669)
Yeah! Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yup.

Josh Boldman (08:39.76)
huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Boldman (08:47.184)
All of them.

Yeah, anything you can do. Yup, 100%.

Nick Clason (08:55.308)
because they may not be hanging, like you said, on your every word. like, give me your outline from your last 10 messages so that can go over them with my kid. But no, the parents, they do just want to be able to stay in the loop, and they got a lot going on, just like you do. so help them figure out where they can snag that info, for sure.

Josh Boldman (08:59.021)
Right.

Josh Boldman (09:08.898)
Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm, yeah, totally. Another good one that we do, and this is literally every place that I started, this was something I instituted within the first month. And I got most pushback from volunteers, which is interesting, was we start and end on time, every week, period. And my gosh, mean, to tell you that, so I was at a place once where when I came in,

Nick Clason (09:25.441)
Yeah.

Interesting.

Nick Clason (09:32.915)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Josh Boldman (09:40.751)
We started youth group at seven, which really meant it was 7 15. And then youth or the small groups went and they started at like eight 30, which is too late. And that meant that they went until nine on a school night. And then the, the, the overall ministry philosophy was we don't start cleaning up until the last kid leaves because we don't want them to feel like we're like, we're pushing them out. And my thing

Nick Clason (09:44.642)
Right.

Nick Clason (09:51.35)
Yeah, on a school night. Yep.

Nick Clason (10:03.618)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (10:07.19)
Which like I get the sentiment.

Josh Boldman (10:08.846)
I totally get it. and it does, it makes so much sense. But at the end of the day, think, think this through. Like we would have students there till like 10 30 and 11 and then we would clean and I'm there with my own son. So I can't even go home with my own kid and get him to bed. And he's got to go to school the next morning. Right. And so, so now if I'm a parent and I notice a pattern that my kid keeps getting in trouble on Thursdays and

Nick Clason (10:23.806)
Mm-hmm. You're in prison. Yeah, you're locked up like.

Josh Boldman (10:38.221)
then I also piece it together that they're out late every Wednesday, I'm gonna start putting two and two together and I'm gonna start blaming somebody. And so like...

Nick Clason (10:41.762)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (10:46.2)
Bro, that's, I mean, we don't, we, so we homeschool our kids this year, first year. They couldn't go to like Wednesday night activities at the church, because it was too tough of a turnaround for their like first and second grade bodies. Like the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. after church on Wednesday night. was like, exactly, it was brutal. And so it's like now the nice thing is like, hey, we're homeschooled and you know what's cool? We can take our kids to church.

Josh Boldman (10:50.126)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (10:53.901)
Yeah!

Josh Boldman (10:57.645)
Yeah, dude!

so hard.

Which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And what it let us do is we said 8 45. That's when we start cleaning up whether students are there or not. And any student who's still there gets to help. And, and so one that actually taught the students that, okay, I'm going to go ahead and leave it at 30. But yeah. But, then when parents would show up and they'd see their kid helping, like even that was like, my gosh, this

Nick Clason (11:18.296)
Mm-hmm.

gets to help.

Nick Clason (11:26.734)
Or the good ones will, you know, how can it help?

Nick Clason (11:34.999)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (11:37.858)
what are you doing here and how is this magic and how can I do this at home? And so suddenly that just creates so many more opportunities for conversations with parents and for us to say, we're doing this and we're keeping a tight schedule so that you know what to expect and what your kid knows what to expect at school the next day.

Nick Clason (11:54.946)
Yeah, so good. When you say start, how would you see it being helpful? Maybe I understand the ending, the beginning. How is it helpful starting on time as opposed to like a delayed 15 minutes? I feel like that's a staple in youth ministry.

Josh Boldman (12:02.541)
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So like same thing. Like I know it's a hard turnaround. Like if you your kid gets home from school, you get home from work, you're trying to get dinner, all that. You rush, rush, rush, rush, and you rush to get them there at seven. And then you just see everybody just sitting around and you're like, why did I rush so hard to get here? And yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:27.906)
So it's like an honoring of the effort that it took to, yeah. So like you actually, yeah, it's good, it's good, I like it.

Josh Boldman (12:35.118)
You know, mean, it's never perfect, right? know, mean, you stuff's always gonna go sideways, but like, if you, if you can give them what to expect, then when it does go a little long or, you know, things don't quite work out the way that then it's like, it's not their, their internal monologue is like, again, you know, it's just like, oh, okay, yeah, get it. happens, you know, yeah.

Nick Clason (12:43.949)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (12:54.678)
Hmm It happened yeah, you have the kind of credibility of like we always end on time Sorry tonight went five minutes late and that's I mean I'm with you like if you're gonna go like late like five minutes is your Absolute max like that's my that's my absolute max. I'm like and I'm sweating bullets in the back like Band we don't need you to play that interlude again. Just pray. Let's go get him out of here. Yeah

Josh Boldman (13:04.119)
Yep. Yep.

Josh Boldman (13:11.958)
Totally. yeah.

Josh Boldman (13:20.652)
Right, please actually don't. Please don't. Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:24.24)
alright, anything else?

Josh Boldman (13:26.413)
I would say, so something we did was we started a text chain where we would send parents discussion questions during the lesson. So that if they were picking their kid up later, they'd be like, instead of saying, how was youth group? They could be like, hey, I heard you were talking about Joshua chapter two. would you have? Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:35.456)
I like it.

Nick Clason (13:41.654)
Yeah, it's good. And it goes right to them. Being on the phone, that, as opposed to a cue card, you know, we posted on a Facebook group and I still don't even think that's the most effective place for it. And even, yeah, exactly, that's really good. That's good.

Josh Boldman (13:54.529)
Right, mm-hmm, yeah. And it lets them opt in. Man, mm-hmm. Two other kind of small things that we used to do is we created an observation deck where it was like a row where parents could come and sit and watch. But it was where, and we always had a volunteer assigned to them, so it was like, you know, we always said, if you're gonna be around kids, you gotta be background checked, yada, yada, and all that. like, but, but.

Nick Clason (14:11.186)
that's cool.

Nick Clason (14:20.63)
Yeah, all the things,

Josh Boldman (14:22.461)
If you're a parent, you're just like genuinely curious about what happens here. You don't have to go through that whole process, but we're going to stick a volunteer with you that has, and they're going to be with you the entire time. and, that at least let, let parents know that, this is not a secret. What we do here. We're not, you know, trying to like turn your kids against you or anything like that. yeah. And then, last bit of advice I would give is just when you are talking to parents,

Nick Clason (14:32.012)
Yeah, come hang out.

Nick Clason (14:36.622)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (14:41.836)
Yeah, that's just like a full transparency moment. So that's cool.

Josh Boldman (14:51.38)
Remember that they are adults and not students. And it's hard to turn that, know, you'd switch that, you know, flip that switch or whatever. Cause you can be really quick going from talking to a bunch of kids to then talking to parents and that same, that same demeanor, that same way, you know, you're addressing, like there's a, the parent that brought the kid and the parent that wants to take that kid home needs, needs respect. And you know, that

and it needs respect shown in a way that's different than the way you show respect to a student. So I say, just remember that, remember you're on the same team. It's not you versus them, it's you and them trying to help the kid.

Nick Clason (15:24.995)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (15:30.732)
Yeah. And I think the, as I listened to every single thing you said, right? I think the encouraging part is nothing really added anything to your workload. You're not creating some crazy parent seminar. You're not adding some big once a year conference. Like you are subtly shifting your positioning at the beginning and end of service. You're subtly shifting your mindset and your organization and

Josh Boldman (15:45.833)
Right, no.

Nick Clason (16:00.214)
you're adding maybe a text thread, right? Which like, it'll take you less than 10 minutes for your entire series to type out two questions per message. You know, like.

Josh Boldman (16:02.9)
Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Josh Boldman (16:10.503)
yeah, well, and what we do, we use questions that were small group questions anyway. Yeah, sure.

Nick Clason (16:15.596)
Yeah, yeah, and you can copy and paste or reframe slightly and you're right there. So that's so good. Josh, anything else that the people need to know about partnering with parents or anything else they need to know in general?

Josh Boldman (16:20.393)
Yeah, uh-huh, Yep. Totally.

It, I will say this, okay, and because this is the mistake I made and I think a mistake so many people make, if you don't have kids, do not assume that you know better than the parent. Assume that you are, you can help the parent, assume that you are, you are still a resource and you know, you know students. But just parenting is hard, dude. Like it's so hard. And by, you don't know what, what that parent,

Nick Clason (16:40.194)
Mm, that's good.

Nick Clason (16:53.32)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Josh Boldman (16:58.333)
is walking in with or what they're walking out with. You might think that that kid is just the golden child, but that might not be what is happening at home. Just don't assume. So go into any conversation with parents, I think, with a posture of learning and a posture of, want to support you, I think is good. Yeah.

Nick Clason (17:09.228)
Mm. Yeah.

Nick Clason (17:16.248)
Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's awesome. Hey, all Josh social media, all his stuff's linked down below. Go check him out. But for Josh, this is Nick. Thanks for being here, guys. We'll talk to you next time.

Josh Boldman (17:29.042)
Later. Bye.

https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/9-best-dym-products

======================================
DESCRIPTION
🎮 Games & Youth Ministry
This is your ultimate "Oh Crap! I forgot the game" video!
Get all 9 of the games talked about in this video, from downloadyouthministry.com for COMPLETELY FREE!

All I ask for is a simple subscribe, it costs you nothing!

Ready to see my top 9 favorite games of all time?
Let's check it out!

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/136

9 HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR TOILET?
This hilarious game was my very first game in my DYM journey.
I was in a Jimmy John's bathroom and noticed a sign with funny toilet facts on the wall. I took a photo, immediately went back to the office, and created this game. It's not my best designed resource, in fact DYM did some graphical upgrades after I submitted it, but it's on this list because it was one of my first ones.

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/toilet-trivia-game/games-738.html

8 MYSTERY SEARCH
This is a super fun game, where you're tasked to find the hidden item in a busy photo. Think "Where's Waldo" meets "Youth Ministry."

It's a tough contestant based game, I think, because it's fairly difficult, but there's also a social media version which I think is perfect to play on your church's social media

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/mystery-search/games/sports-6938.html

7 VISUAL VARIANCE VOYAGE
A Simple Spot the Difference Game! Social and Widescreen versions available!

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/visual-variance-voyage%3A-fall-edition/holiday-or-seasonal/fall-9043.html

6 FRIENDSGIVING
This game is a fun take on "This or That" Thanksgiving Food and Activities Edition.
One fun way is to play with "celebrities" like your senior pastor.
"Does your senior pastor prefer Ham or Turkey?"

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/friendsgiving/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-games-8387.html

5 BACK TO SCHOOL BINGO
One of my favorite interactive games, where students play bingo based on how they spent their summer. There are categories such as

Church Summer Activities
Vacation
Miscellaneous
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/back2school-bingo/fall/back-to-school-8921.html

4 GIF FLASHBACK
Tests the memory of your students. Watch the GIF, then immediately answer a question related to it.
The questions get HARD!

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/gif-flashback/games-6794.html

3 BRING ME
My All-Time-Go-To game in any moment, you don't need a screen, but we have one for this game.
The first student to "Bring Me ___" wins
That's it!!

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/bring-me-10-game-bundle/games-bringmebundle.html

2 EMOJI PHRASEOLOGY
My best selling game series of all time, we have one for just about every holiday and instance in which you can possibly imagine. Guess the emoji phrase. Widescreen & Social versions included!

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology/social-media/instagram-6801.html

1 DUCK DUCK TRIVIA
Duck, Duck Trivia is the first of it's kind. A game inside a game. My favorite Hybrid Game we've ever played!

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duck-duck-trivia/trivia-8705.html

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

--------------
🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick

--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affiliate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

//SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

⌚TIMECODES
00:00 "Oh Crap! I forgot a youth group game!"
01:33 Free Game #9
03:18 Free Game #8
05:22 Free Game #7
06:51 Free Game #6
08:35 Free Game #5
10:20 Free Game #4
11:39 Free Game #3
12:33 Free Game #2
13:20 Free Game #1

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my fellow cat herders.

00:00:03:21 - 00:00:11:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my fellow i.t. Specialists. Welcome my fellow pets. Math

00:00:11:19 - 00:00:17:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
gurus. Welcome. He's past you. In this video, I'm going to share with you

00:00:17:13 - 00:00:24:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
nine of my favorite games that I have played and created

00:00:24:16 - 00:00:34:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and have now published on the download Youth ministry.com website. You can go by any of them. There will be link down below and I would love a review

00:00:34:14 - 00:00:35:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
on any of them.

00:00:35:21 - 00:00:40:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But why go visit me on the website when I'm

00:00:40:08 - 00:00:54:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just going to give you a link to download all nine of them for completely free? That's right, you've heard it completely correctly. So in this episode, not only am I going to share with you my nine favorite free games,

00:00:54:06 - 00:00:54:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
but

00:00:54:16 - 00:00:55:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
it is

00:00:55:02 - 00:00:55:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
your ultimate

00:00:55:23 - 00:00:59:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in a pinch. Oh crap, I forgot about the game moment.

00:00:59:13 - 00:01:04:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't worry, my friend, I got you. Go grab that link. It will take you to drop

00:01:04:03 - 00:01:04:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
box

00:01:04:10 - 00:01:04:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and you

00:01:04:23 - 00:01:08:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
can get all nine of them for free. But you know would be awesome if as payment

00:01:08:21 - 00:01:09:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
for the nine,

00:01:09:10 - 00:01:09:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you

00:01:09:17 - 00:01:17:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just simply hit the subscribe button. It cost you nothing. But truly it does benefit me and my channel greatly.

00:01:17:13 - 00:01:29:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That sounds like a deal. Okay, awesome. Let's go. I'm going to be counting down top ten style from episode or from episode? From game idea. Number nine. And so this first one

00:01:29:20 - 00:01:32:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that I'm going to show you, if you're watching here on screen,

00:01:32:14 - 00:01:46:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you'll see it is called how well do you know your toilet? Now this game, the reason it's even on this list is because it was the very first game that I ever submitted.

00:01:46:10 - 00:02:10:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're looking at it, you can probably tell I think this game was probably submitted somewhere in the realm of like eight years ago. And at that time, I thought that the submission guidelines required all the fonts to be used as Calibri. I don't think I've ever even told anybody this, but in hindsight, the font requirement for Calibri was teaching or document based resources.

00:02:10:06 - 00:02:37:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this game has the world's worst font for it. But the content is still great, and I even a year ago, Nick, when I had use these fonts. But here's how this here's how this game came into its inception. I was at a Jimmy John's eating lunch and I was in the bathroom washing my hands before I was heading back to work, and I found this, little like placard, this little infographic about toilets.

00:02:37:14 - 00:02:54:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I took a picture of it and I said, these are so funny. I'm going to go home and I'm going to make a game. And so here we go. You can grab this game for free, but it's some it's things like this. Most toilets are a public B flushing the key of flat C use one third of your house is water or D are green.

00:02:54:20 - 00:03:01:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What do you think it is coming? Your answer below. Of course the answer is B flush in the key of E

00:03:01:05 - 00:03:14:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
flat. There's ten other questions like this. And you know what? I've even put these, into like a video editing software and put a countdown timer on it and I've used this for bathroom break, slide, like a video or something.

00:03:14:18 - 00:03:30:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So that's something fun to do. The eighth game that I love in this game is actually incredibly hybrid, and I, think you guys might like some of this on this channel called Mystery Search. All right. And here's how Mystery Search works. It is, this one in particular is

00:03:30:05 - 00:03:36:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
mystery search Easter egg hunt addition. So what you do is you put a graphic on a screen, right.

00:03:36:22 - 00:03:54:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Here's an instruction slide. If you're watching, this egg right here, you have to find this egg on every slide. So here's the first, you know, the first slide. Where's the egg? Do you find it? Can you see it? Boom. There it is. And it's like this on every single slide. It gets harder, it gets more difficult.

00:03:54:14 - 00:03:58:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's video. So that's the still version. There's video

00:03:58:04 - 00:04:13:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
versions. And so if you want to try and find out where this is with this guy here, he's, you know, looking at it, it's got music leading to, as you could hear just a second ago. But then you have, like, a contestant on stage, like, where's the, where's the, where is it?

00:04:13:10 - 00:04:23:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then boom, well, egg transition comes in and then this little magnifying glass moves around until it zooms in on where the egg is and boom, sound.

00:04:23:09 - 00:04:33:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay, now that is also an available option in, phone base graphic or phone based video. So what

00:04:33:22 - 00:04:34:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you could do

00:04:34:09 - 00:04:48:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
is you could post this on your Instagram story or on your TikTok and say, find the egg and then post the second one here or link it together and video and then the magnifying glass reducing, and it'll move to the spot where the egg is located.

00:04:48:01 - 00:04:58:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then someone will say, I found it. And if you want to make it interactive, you can poll, you know, poll options. Hey, did you find it? Yes or no beyond this sort of thing.

00:04:58:09 - 00:05:06:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So this is one of my favorite games. Like I said, for free. There is an Instagram or at least a social version in in the room version and

00:05:06:23 - 00:05:08:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a countdown version.

00:05:08:15 - 00:05:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you just want to play

00:05:09:13 - 00:05:16:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
this with a five minute countdown clock overlaid on top of it and let people as the countdown is on, you see right here up top corner

00:05:16:09 - 00:05:30:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
as the countdown is on, let people go ahead and, play that game as it's going, game number seven, which is again for completely free, is my game called the Visual Variance Voyage.

00:05:30:04 - 00:05:39:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this is the full edition. So this one, similarly to the last one, also has a social media option. And this one, the way that you play

00:05:39:08 - 00:05:54:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
is very simply before this ten minute timer runs out, you need to identify the difference between the two photos. We've all done this in dentist's office. We've all done this in doctor's office, but now it is available to us in youth ministry.

00:05:54:11 - 00:06:12:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's an example. Here's question number one. 10s is on the screen. Can you tell and can you spot the difference between these two photos I don't know. It's difficult. There's also a countdown option for this one as well, which is a really fun thing to have on have it looping. So at the end of question ten, can you figure it out I don't know.

00:06:12:02 - 00:06:16:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Here's the answer side. Boom right there. Those leaves are different I'm telling

00:06:16:22 - 00:06:21:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you it's not super easy. And just like the last one, there's also

00:06:21:02 - 00:06:31:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a social version as well. So here's what the social version looks like. You got these two catch fall edition. Can you tell the difference between these two photos? These are not broken up into different size.

00:06:31:18 - 00:06:44:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These are actually the same slides. And so when the ten minute countdown is over all of a sudden boom it's away. And then it will circle and reveal the difference in the differences in the photo. And then the texture on screen changes to

00:06:44:05 - 00:06:52:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
did you get it in time. So that is option number seven. This is option number six is called Friends Giving.

00:06:52:18 - 00:07:09:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you know, truth be told I actually had some other iterations of this. Now I've changed the branding behind it a little bit is called pickle. So you can go to the download Youth Mystery Store and search for a couple of games called Pick Them. But this one in particular, this one is meant to be a Thanksgiving theme.

00:07:09:05 - 00:07:29:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So this is Friendsgiving. And so the instructions are very simple. You have to try and guess what the other person is going to do. So the question here at hand is is the friend we just call all of our contestants in this game friends. Is the friend going to stay at their house or going to travel elsewhere? Now I'm everything like, who's the friend?

00:07:30:01 - 00:07:50:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's where you can have like an opportunity to kind of implement your creativity. It could be your senior pastor and you go to his office to answer these ten Thanksgiving based questions ahead of time. Are you staying home this year or are you traveling? Are you you know, this next question here is, are you going to do a Turkey trot or are you just going to get fat and put on your stretchy pants?

00:07:50:16 - 00:08:06:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Question number three is, you know, are you going to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or are you going to watch NFL football? Spoiler alert you can actually do both, but we're just going to put them against each other. And so you can kind of go through that. If you don't want to use your senior pastor, you can bring contestants up on stage.

00:08:06:12 - 00:08:10:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you don't want to bring contestants up on stage, you can do volunteer leaders or

00:08:10:04 - 00:08:20:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something like that. But I also have, like a worksheet here and so they can keep track of their answers. You can print this out and give it to everybody, and they can keep track of their answers. Did they get it? Did they not?

00:08:20:10 - 00:08:28:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I said, there's this version, but and this is like a Thanksgiving version, you can play it like a Friendsgiving or something like that, or there's a pick

00:08:28:08 - 00:08:33:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
on version. You can go grab one of those over, on download using this website.

00:08:33:04 - 00:08:39:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The game option number five is called Back to School bingo. And I love this game because

00:08:39:12 - 00:08:43:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
every single player gets a bingo card that looks just like this.

00:08:43:12 - 00:09:02:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so instead of meeting a variety of bingo cards, there's all different numbers and all different letters. You can get the same static bingo card. And the goal is be the first one to fill three in your category or the first person to get a blackout. And so you know the categories you see here at church and youth group, school and extracurricular summer.

00:09:02:17 - 00:09:05:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then there's just rotating slides. So I have in ten church

00:09:05:18 - 00:09:21:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
sizes. So for example it's going to rotate through and it's random even though you know it's you know going to be question number one in the church category. Did you go to churches. Our church is youth camp this past summer. So remember this is a back to school timeline event.

00:09:21:17 - 00:09:39:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's kind of looking back over the summer. That was as it pertains to church and youth. So did you go to youth camp last summer? And if they did, then they put, a checkmark or whatever on the little bingo spot in the church kind of category. Did you go on a summer missions trip this past summer?

00:09:39:20 - 00:09:45:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So on and so forth. And so you put these in sort of a random order and like, these are obviously all in the church

00:09:45:14 - 00:09:49:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
category. But if you look here at the where the folders are set up, here's the school category.

00:09:49:19 - 00:09:59:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this one's going to land on one of the school options here. And so, you know, it's did you already buy your school supplies for the upcoming school year.

00:09:59:15 - 00:10:18:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yes or no. And so it's a way to kind of do a, a recap kind of back to school kind of bingo style vibes sort of thing. So, there's these different rotating slides and if you don't want to use that, you can put it into something like a sidekick and using like people picker and just kind of copy and paste these different clues into that.

00:10:18:21 - 00:10:34:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Moving on to number four, this may be my favorite one on this entire list. I know I have it at four, but I'm I wrote this list a while ago. It's called GIF flashback, and it does have an Instagram version. And what it is is you simply have to watch

00:10:35:07 - 00:10:43:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a classic GIF. So here's the Homer Simpson backs into the back of a bush, and then the multiple choice question pops up on the screen.

00:10:43:14 - 00:10:55:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How many strands of hair on Homer's head did you get it? Let me know down in the comments if you did. The correct answer, of course, is here as it stops one two boom said to you got

00:10:55:03 - 00:10:58:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
it right? And so in the same way you can play that on Instagram Stories.

00:10:58:03 - 00:11:06:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Play the gif here. You let them watch it a little bit of time and then you post like the little poll question sticker right here.

00:11:06:18 - 00:11:27:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. Instead of it having the multiple choice option listed on screen, you you post it either right here or you can post it here on the second one, right in this moment where they can answer it. Then after they answer it, they wait for this second in POV receipts 123456. Like keep going seven eight even more 910 different people in that gif.

00:11:27:15 - 00:11:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Did you get it right when

00:11:29:10 - 00:11:48:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you said if there are ten people in GIF flashback, that's all it is. It just shows people and how bad their memory is on something that they just did. Also, we have a very classic game called Bring Me and Bring me, a volume one, volume two, and volume three. And so what did I say?

00:11:48:23 - 00:11:49:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I said you were going

00:11:49:19 - 00:12:07:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to get nine games, but actually you're getting nine, ten, 11 games. And in this game you very simply have to bring and be the first person to bring this item to the person on stage. So bring me a piece of gum. Bonus points if it's straight out of your mouth, bring me some Tic Tacs.

00:12:07:10 - 00:12:22:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Bonus points for this exact flavor of Tic Tacs. Bring me some keys, glasses, a church bulletin, hand sanitizer, a hat. Bonus points if the hat looks just like this a pen, a ping pong ball, a cell phone, and bonus points for the oldest model

00:12:22:14 - 00:12:28:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
cell phone that you get. Three of those, again, is a one of my all time favorite resources.

00:12:28:02 - 00:12:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So quick, so simple. Just go ahead and use them. Another one of my

00:12:32:08 - 00:12:50:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
favorites may be my top selling category of games is emoji phraseology. And this one is, volume one. But I have all different hobbies that you can possibly think or imagine. I have a countdown version in this as well. I've Instagram version of this as well, but very simply,

00:12:50:18 - 00:12:53:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you look at the emoji phrase and you try and guess what it is.

00:12:53:12 - 00:13:07:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What's this looking at here on the screen? What do you think it is? X rocket Scientist of course it's not rocket science. Or this right here a clock and an airplane and a person celebrating is it? Time flies when you're having fun? Of course it is. You know

00:13:07:20 - 00:13:27:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that you can do that on Instagram. You can do that on TikTok, or you can walk around even do men on the street style videos, where you ask people if they know them and try and roast them for how bad they do, but the number one favorite game, Drum Roll please, is actually kind of detailed and explained in my 100th episode.

00:13:27:04 - 00:13:42:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'll have that link right here if you want to go back and watch that from when me and the team I was at, at the church I was at during Covid did a full live, in-person YouTube show. But then we moved back to the campus and we were doing this sort of hybrid model, hence the name Hybrid Ministry show.

00:13:42:10 - 00:14:00:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, we were creating a duck, duck, goose style game that they could watch, video on the screen, but also play an interactive version of duck, duck, goose. While it was happening on the screen. And so I took that same kind of idea and that same kind of concept. And so how it works is you play a game of

00:14:00:22 - 00:14:02:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
rubber duck trivia, okay.

00:14:03:00 - 00:14:09:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then here's just like the questions in the Rubber Duck trivia. And you can play just rubber duck trivia if that's what you want

00:14:09:08 - 00:14:17:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to do. But what really makes this fun is this is a like for just version video. You just play. You see, here's

00:14:17:08 - 00:14:29:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
five minutes and 32 seconds long. What happens is someone starts ducking and whenever they hear a quack on screen, they.

00:14:29:10 - 00:14:48:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Go there it is. When they hear the quack boom. That's when you hear, you know, duck. That's when you hit goose, okay? And then you start running and you start playing. You start going all the while as that's happening. All right. Here in just a minute. If you're watching here on screen, a trivia game is happening and the trivia game stops for no people.

00:14:48:21 - 00:15:08:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the question right here on screen is, rubber ducks were originally true, true toys. Is that true or false? The people who are playing duck, duck, goose right now, they are having to try and answer this question while playing duck, duck, goose. This is the most middle school game. This is the most like high energy. Just crazy insane.

00:15:08:09 - 00:15:14:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Get people up, get people moving. So put your people round tables, put them in rows or whatever the case might be,

00:15:14:08 - 00:15:33:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and send them going. There's a seven question version, there's a ten question version, and there is a countdown version. So you can go ahead and play this with your students in your next youth ministry or something like that is one of the funnest ways, I think, to kind of interact with the screen and what's happening live in the room.

00:15:33:08 - 00:15:53:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So there you have it. Those are my nine most favorite games that I've created and put on download. Yes, master. But because you are loyal listener to the Hybrid Master show, you get these for free. If you're listening and you're not a youth pastor, grab the link and share it with your youth pastor friend. Give it to them.

00:15:53:13 - 00:16:13:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Gift it to them because the next time they're in a pinch for games, boom! These are nine of my favorite. Actually, living, as we said, would bring me of my favorite screen time. Screen based games. And so excited to have you check those out. And you know what? Link right here on screen is actually going to be the start of our next little playlist series.

00:16:13:20 - 00:16:32:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And we are going to be talking about communicating in a noisy world. And next episode is going to be the reasons why your youth ministry and church announcements don't really work. We're going to dive into that. So I hope you tap onto that video. But don't forget my friends and as always, to stay hybrid.

🎧 Ronald's Podcast
https://podcast.downloadyouthministry.com/category/middle-school-ministry/

DESCRIPTION
In this conversation, Nick Clason and Ronald Long discuss the challenges and opportunities of youth ministry in the digital age, particularly focusing on the role of technology and cell phones among middle schoolers. They explore the importance of engagement in content creation, the necessity of guidelines for responsible phone use, and the balance between digital and in-person ministry. The discussion emphasizes the need for open conversations between parents and children regarding technology, as well as collaborative resources for youth pastors to navigate these challenges effectively.

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⌚TIMECODES
00:00 The Role of Technology in Middle School Ministry
04:50 Guidelines for Responsible Cell Phone Use
09:50 Balancing Digital and In-Person Youth Ministry
14:53 Encouraging Healthy Conversations About Technology
20:01 Collaborative Resources for Youth Pastors

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00)
What's up everybody? I'm Nick and this is.

Ronald (00:04)
Hey guys, I'm Ronald Long. How you doing?

Nick Clason (00:06)
We're excited to be here, Ronald. This is a weird thing. This is your show, this is my show, this is our show.

Ronald (00:08)
we are excited to be here.

Whose show is it really? That's a question.

Nick Clason (00:15)
That is the question that people want to know the answer to.

Ronald (00:19)
Did I just take over hybrid youth ministry? I think I did. I did. great. This is mine now. And yours? You get middle school ministry. Yeah, this is it. Tell Andrea. no.

Nick Clason (00:23)
You did, you did. Yeah. Welcome. Well, actually, yeah, and I'm taking over middle school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have exactly. Bye, Andrea. Bye. Anyway, you know, Ronald, it's interesting and I'm excited to have this conversation because probably the biggest, one of the biggest pushbacks I get when I'm pushing stuff like in my hybrid ministry, just idea and whatnot is what about middle schoolers?

especially like in our context, we don't get middle schoolers until like, or we get them at sixth grade, which there's an inflection point. And depending on the conservative nature of your church, there could be a lot of those students that have cell phones. And then a lot of students that don't, you know? And so like my main thing with hybrid ministry is trying to intersect people where they are. And I think the cell phone is just a great spot to try and aim for. Right. But what about those middle schoolers that are young and like don't have cell phones? And so.

Ronald (00:57)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nick Clason (01:21)
I'm excited to have this conversation with you because you as a lifelong middle school youth pastor and host of podcasts, like you and a dad of daughters in that age age range, right? Like I want to hear your perspective because I'm it feels to me and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels to me like middle schoolers kind of run the gamut. Some that don't even have access to any technology and then some that are just all in way too much. You're a little scared for their well-being, you know.

Ronald (01:29)
EW.

Yeah.

Absolutely, and you're right because their parents also run the gambit too. So for people listening who don't know, I have in my house four teenage daughters. I have 18 year old senior graduating this year, then I have a freshman, a seventh grader, and a fifth grader. So I've got everybody.

Nick Clason (01:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're right there.

Ronald (02:15)
And my elementary school kid who's in fifth grade, Ruth is telling me about like her friends who have cell phones and have had cell phones since like third and fourth grade. Like that's just been their reality. They have always had a phone. Think of the iPad kid who just like parents are like, yeah, whatever here, right? Here's just the next step up. Go ahead and have a phone. Don't care. Put whatever on it. And then like,

Nick Clason (02:42)
So

Ronald (02:45)
me and my family, this has become our rule, it was our rule with our first, you get your cell phone at the end of fifth grade. And so, and we'll talk a little bit more about this too because I have really appreciated what other parents like told me and helped me figure out. That cell phone only can do a couple things, right? And we stair-step eventually through it.

Nick Clason (02:54)
Okay.

Hmm. So as we like lean into this, first of all, everyone should know, no matter where you're listening, hit the link down below, because Ronald and I put together kind of like a collaborative hybrid ministry for middle schoolers kind of resource. So take it, download it, use it, share it with your parents, whatever you want to do. But especially like here we are post-Christmas, and isn't it so true that most middle schoolers

Ronald (03:30)
Use it.

Nick Clason (03:41)
there's a lot of technology that's given under the tree. And so this is just a very timely conversation, right? Like let's talk about technology use and middle schoolers. give us, like, why you start there where you did a little bit, like dive a little deeper into that. Fifth grader, that's your rule. Is that your recommendation? Do you take it, would you recommend parents take that on more of a case by case type basis? What's the wisdom principle in that, or is it?

Ronald (03:44)
100%.

yeah.

Nick Clason (04:08)
you know, hard and fast, like, yeah, as soon as they're done with fifth grade, they're mature enough to have a cell phone or like, what's your, how do you make that decision? I guess, or how would you coach parents to make that decision?

Ronald (04:17)
So what we went through and what was kind of like the deciding factor for us is, I live in San Antonio and so we have, once my kid was finished with elementary school, our oldest, she had friends who were splitting up into like the four winds, right? And we wanted to give her a way to stay connected to them and so we were like, okay, we're going to give you a phone, but.

Nick Clason (04:36)
Mm.

Yeah.

Ronald (04:46)
Big stipulations. We had it, it's an iPhone, so we locked it down pretty tight to where she couldn't download any apps without requesting permission, so that's a big deal. There's no browser on it. So in fact, my high schooler just got a browser this year for ninth grade. to put that in, yeah, no browser.

Nick Clason (04:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay, so that's like all of middle school. Yeah.

Ronald (05:16)
Specifically also, no social media. She actually also just got her first social media, which was Pinterest. you, stair steppin' man. That's a stair step. But that, okay, here's what I tell parents, and here's what I have told parents and what I am taking through. Imagine a cell phone like a car, right? You are, even for the visual.

Nick Clason (05:25)
Okay. Which, does that even count? know, like that's one of those fringe ones.

For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Ronald (05:46)
You're giving keys away to your kid. for the audio too. on. There we go. Little foley. Little foley for our audio listeners. You don't just give the Ferrari away to a 16 year old or a 15 year old and say, right, go figure that out. guess you know more about this than I do. Like, no, no.

Nick Clason (05:46)
There you go.

Those are car keys, people. Ronald's jingling them. We'll narrate this.

Yeah.

Ronald (06:15)
you start that kid backing in and out of your driveway in the beater, right? And so we took that principle and applied it to our kids having cell phones. So like, okay, you're going to get like a not great iPhones, not the brand new one. It's going to be like, the one with the one camera. Yeah. The one camera type deal. And we're going to stair step you through this. Well, that's just an Android, Nick. That's what you.

Nick Clason (06:30)
Mm-hmm. me down. Yeah.

Maybe some crack screens like my Android here.

The glass is apparently weaker.

Ronald (06:45)
That's fine. No, and so we've stair-stepped. so my seventh grader who has a phone, also has a phone in middle school, has a phone but doesn't have, again, social media doesn't have a browser. And we also put like a stipulation on where the phone can go. My girls, I live in a two-story house. All the bedrooms are upstairs. No phones upstairs. Like that's a rule for us. And so when ...

Nick Clason (07:11)
Great rule, by the way. I approve. Yeah.

Ronald (07:14)
When it's time to go to bed, the charger's downstairs and they have to charge their phone downstairs. No phones at the dinner table. In fact, even it's no phones after dinner. So we say, hey, get it done after dinner, no phones. Those are just like things that we have done as a family to be like, hey, here's the deal. We are going to give you permission that expands with responsibility. And then also cool thing as a parent, my kids don't have a cell phone after supper.

Nick Clason (07:18)
Yeah, good.

Mmm. It's good. It's good.

Mm-hmm.

Ronald (07:44)
So if I'm just scrolling on my cell phone after supper, they're like, hey dad, what are you doing? I'm like, yeah, you're right. I need to be off my phone. I need to pay attention to you.

Nick Clason (07:46)
They're calling you out.

That's so smart. That's just like built in accountability right there, for sure. Yeah. And you know, the thing that I, I try and tell parents as well in our context and other youth ministry avenues and whatever, honestly, just like a lot of times the question is what product or what resource do you use to like monitor like your kids screen usage and all those types of things. And rest assured, there are a million different like resources and things out there that you can use and you can lean into.

Ronald (07:57)
It's huge.

Absolutely.

Nick Clason (08:22)
But at the end of the day, the goal is for that thing not to become your kid's parent. The goal is for you to be the parent of it. Right. And so I love your rules because those guidelines are things that you've put in place. Like you can lock down an iPhone all you want, but you can still abuse it if it's in the room and they're on it until way after bedtime or you know, the no, no phones after dinner thing. Like there can be indiscriminate use or just like mindless use of it. And so.

Ronald (08:50)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (08:51)
You're being proactive and in on top of it, you know, and that's, that's what I really like and appreciate because that's the tech. There's always a workaround in the technology. That's what I've found. Like there's no foolproof piece of technology. It's always a work.

Ronald (09:02)
Heck yeah.

No, I figured it out when I was dealing dial-up modem internet and my parents had the protective things when I was in high school. like, I can figure this out, you know? So no amount of blocking software or things like that will get around actual discipleship of your kids. Because you are a person who is imperfect, just like your kids. They're gonna make mistakes. So what do do?

Nick Clason (09:10)
Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

That's it. That's it. That's good. That's good. Let's shift gears a little bit then. Let's talk about your, how you've noticed technology, cell phones, whatever, within actual confines of youth ministry. Not just, you you parenting your kids with it, but like, what's it like navigating? Cause in a lot of cases, like we said, you got kids that don't even have it at all versus kids who are like using and fully on like all the social apps. So.

Ronald (09:36)
Like, how do you figure that out? Big deal.

Yeah.

Nick Clason (10:03)
What was your typical practice as a middle school pastor with technology?

Ronald (10:10)
Yeah, of it was just being open about that being a potential barrier between you and other people. And the other thing was not, because I was in a real conservative context, there was almost like some judgment to kids who did have a phone, which was really funny. And so I had to like stamp, yeah, I'm glad you get it. So.

Nick Clason (10:28)
Mm

Yeah, same here by the way, so I can relate to that.

Ronald (10:39)
On the one hand, whenever I had a parent being like, you know what, my kid just say that they don't connect very, they don't have any friends in youth ministry. And I'm looking at their kid, I so remember this one specific instance of girl, phone here, face down, and even her hair like covered the side of her face to where all it was, and she was in a corner on her phone looking down at it and not engaging with the room.

Nick Clason (10:59)
Yeah.

Ronald (11:07)
And then like I got a email three weeks later being like, my daughter is just not making any friends. I'm like, yeah, no joke. I've tried. And so trying to have a conversation with students where it's both not being judgmental, but also making sure they're aware of like, hey guys, if you feel lonely, one of the reasons in a list might be you're on your phone too much and you're missing what's going on right in front of you.

Nick Clason (11:13)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ronald (11:36)
you care more about your online persona or the next funny video than you do your friend who's literally sitting three feet away from you. so trying to navigate that well was always the thing. And so that would just be like application. But on the other hand, you can do that in really great ways to be like, Hey guys, if you've got a phone, text a friend verse right now, someone who's not in this room, text an encouraging verse.

Nick Clason (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ronald (12:03)
so that you can be a light in their life, right? It's both and, right? So I don't like telling a kid, hey, cell phones are the devil, you should never have one. And I don't like telling parents, just give your kid a phone and don't worry about it, because it's absolutely both and.

Nick Clason (12:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's honestly, that's exactly like what I feel like my entire podcast is predicated on. what this started out of, I don't know, I guess like a moment of frustration and a little bit of like an inflection point. like we'd gone pretty hard in on like digital ministry during COVID. I was working in Chicago and so it was necessitated, like it had to happen.

But then we found some really fun and cool wins out of doing ministry in a digital sort of context and some opportunities that actually opened up for us that weren't available to us doing ministry pre-COVID. And so as we were all sort of coming back from, you know, restrictions and lockdown and all those types of things, we were then trying to navigate this like tension between like how much should we swing the pendulum, right? And so my whole, like my whole thing, like the whole name of this like hybrid ministry is like,

Ronald (13:08)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:13)
It's not just your digital, but it's not just your in-person. It's kind of that both and, and I think in all of life, it's easier for us. We like to draw hard and hard and fast lines and be like, cell phones are bad. So you should not, but I like your, you know, your Ferrari example because you have to work, you have to work up to it. You don't just earn it immediately. And so like my contention is as much as we, especially older generations want to lament cell phones and how difficult they are for

ministry and connection and they are like in some cases they definitely are, but like there's also a lot of good, you know, that comes out of them. your friend a verse or group chats. Like group chats are such a simple thing that didn't exist. Was it 10 years ago? 15 years ago? Like even if you have people with Android, like group chats are still a way to stay connected, you know, to one another. but you know, so like that's, that's kind of like my contention is like

Ronald (13:54)
Mm-hmm.

No, you can't connect with people with Androids over group chat. It doesn't happen.

Nick Clason (14:11)
we have to help students navigate this well and not just settle for the easy answer of just throw your cell phone in a river. It's terrible and it's the enemy. And if we think that, then why are we getting our kids these things for Christmas? It's like, I just need to call them at practice. Okay, but now you've opened Pandora's box and that's not necessarily a bad thing, not condemning any parent for doing that. I'm just saying now we have to help them navigate that well, both at the parent level and also while we're like...

Ronald (14:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nick Clason (14:40)
navigating and managing that within like our student ministries.

Ronald (14:44)
Sure, and it's just as important as showing your kid what you version can do and be like, hey, you know what's really cool about you version? It's a Bible reading plan. Let's you and me do it together, parent and kid. Or, hey, as a ministry, we're gonna do this month long Bible reading plan. That's on your phone. Yeah, it's absolutely being able to use the tools that are available to us, because we could have said the same thing about lamenting the invention of the car, taking away our, aw man, we're not as

Nick Clason (14:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Course privileges.

Ronald (15:14)
connected. So yeah, and since this is the middle school ministry podcast too, it matters to a middle school student what you model to them. Because they take that to heart. so my whole thing was not trying to judge those who had a cell phone. But yeah, absolutely. If they're going to be on YouTube,

Nick Clason (15:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Ronald (15:44)
watching you know Mr. Beast do whatever Mr. Beast does then I kind of also want them to hear from their youth pastor every now and then and so that's an easy thing to do like you pastor to take your phone spend five minutes making five reels and then or five shorts for YouTube and be like hey look my kids are gonna get some encouragement for me this week that's it's out there

Nick Clason (15:51)
Why not? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely. And one thing I've noticed and I've seen in like studies and stuff here recently is like, you know, Gen X boomers even have all sort of like settled in on Facebook millennials. Are you millennial, Ronald? Yeah. All right. Me too. Me too. Instagram, right? It's kind of like millennials favorite platform. Gen Z sort of like made tick tock its thing. We're noticing

Ronald (16:22)
yes, and how dare you.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (16:34)
Jen Alpha's making YouTube kind of their spot. And I, yeah. And I even read that it, for Jen Alpha, it's taking the place of Google as its preferred search engine. And so what an opportunity for us like to be on there, you know, and for middle school kids to see us, to see their youth pastor, to maybe even see themselves or their friends from youth group. You know, if you post shorts, reels, all that type of stuff on there, like

Ronald (16:36)
Yeah, it is YouTube.

Absolutely.

Nick Clason (17:01)
You're so right. Like it's such a fantastic opportunity. it really, just exactly what my whole goal with hybrid is like showing up where they are. Like if they're on YouTube, how cool is it? Like they can get on there and they can watch MrBeast who's all across the country and also their church.

Ronald (17:17)
Well, and to even use the platform like it's currently being used then, how cool would it be if your kid typed in how to study the Bible and they got an answer from their youth pastor immediately? Like you already had a five minute video on how to study the Bible that you had prepared for your kids and it was there, right? Because that's how they're using the platform.

Nick Clason (17:30)
Right? Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, it's not just like, it's not just there for you as a youth pastor to have another channel for announcements, though you can be, but I would, what I encourage people to do is use the platforms for their intended uses. And so if you're going to use it for a thing that you think is what your ministry needs, but it's not in alignment with the intended use of the platform, you're not going to see the same types of results than if you actually use it for what it's being used for, which is answering specific questions.

Ronald (17:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Nick Clason (18:09)
And frankly, entertainment, right? And maybe like a little bit of inspiration too. So that's good. So what would you say to a middle school youth pastor or any youth pastor out there, like who's got people in their church like you and like me who are a little leery about cell phone, cell phone usage, middle school. Like what's the, how would you coach them, you know, to either lean in and have that conversation or.

Ronald (18:26)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (18:38)
with parents or how to like manage maybe some of that potential like turbulent waters of, you know, angry parents who think cell phones are evil and of the devil.

Ronald (18:48)
You know what's funny is when I first started in ministry, there was a big deal where we said, don't bring any cell phones to camp. And then there was a really turbulent season in between when we arrived to my kid as a parent saying, my kid will bring their phone to camp or they're not going.

Nick Clason (18:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Ronald (19:18)
And so navigating that in between, I think there are far fewer parents who are going to say that a cell phone is evil. They might be saying, my kid has to have one because I need to be connected and know what's up with my kid at all times.

Nick Clason (19:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ronald (19:35)
which is a different type of unhealth, that's fine. We can go from there. To help a youth pastor navigate the cell phones. Cell phones are bad, right? A cell phone is the same, to use the car analogy. It's a tool. can take you someplace great. It can take you someplace awful. And if you want to be the youth pastor who's like, no cell phones in the youth room. They go in this box over here and we use paper Bible still. Like that's fine.

Nick Clason (19:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, yeah.

Ronald (20:04)
if you explain that, right? As long as you're saying, why we do this as a ministry, this is the vision, this is what we're trying to accomplish. Do that, but you're going to have parents who, when you go to camp, when you go to retreat, they're gonna push back on you and be like, hey, my kid is going to take their cell phone. I don't care what their rules are.

Nick Clason (20:28)
Yeah. Well, like when did you get a cell phone? Like how old were you when you got a cell phone? Yeah.

Ronald (20:31)
I was 16 and I got a cell phone because my parents were afraid that I was going to get lost when I started driving by myself. So I got my dad's secretary's old Nokia phone.

Nick Clason (20:45)
But so you're 16, right? And now you're the type of parent in that particular age bracket and demographic, you're sending your daughter's kids to camp. like that's all, know, cell phones from the age of 16 for you and on up. Like I was about the same, you know, so here in a couple of years when my kids are old enough to go to camp, I only, that's my like comfort zone, you know? And so like I get their scary stuff on it, but

Ronald (20:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Clason (21:14)
It's also gonna, it's not, you're not never gonna give your kid a cell phone. So how do we, and that's my thing, how do we help lean in and teach them the good things of it? Put good, good rules and guidelines and guardrails all around it so that you're hopefully protecting your kids and having conversations, you know, with it.

Ronald (21:25)
Yeah.

It's exactly that. It's continued conversations with kids. And even as a parent being okay to say, these are our non-cell phone times to where we're going to talk. I know parents who like to say no phones in the car because that 15 minute, 20 minute drive can be like, hey, we can actually have a conversation as we drive around. But just having conversations about your phone usage. Hey, who are you following? Hey.

Nick Clason (21:35)
That's it, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so true.

Mm-hmm.

Ronald (22:00)
I or even telling like I will do this with my girls. I'll send them goofy videos and goofy memes Not because I think they're the funniest thing in the world But I'm trying to connect with them on their level like to my own kids and so like It's funny because they don't have social media what I'm doing is screen recording a funny reel I saw and then sending that to them as a message

Nick Clason (22:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah dude. Yeah, for sure.

Bro, that's so committed, but I love it. Like that's, you you're like, we're not doing the social media thing, but I still want you to see this thing that I saw on social media and it's funny. So you'll like it. It's great.

Ronald (22:34)
Yeah, and I want you to know that I'm thinking of you throughout the day. I want you to laugh. This is a funny thing. And yeah, phones aren't the devil. Yeah, so it's trying to continually have a conversation with your kid. And even where you're saying, hopefully they're coming to you and being like, my friend is being dumb in the group chat. They go, okay, what did they say? Talking through what's good to text, what's not good to text, how...

Nick Clason (22:43)
That's great,

Ronald (23:02)
inflection matters and be like, Hey, I know you hate it, but this might be a FaceTime moment because it sounds like you guys are not seeing each other texting back and forth. Maybe you need to like actually talk.

Nick Clason (23:12)
Yeah. Yeah, man, that's so good. Well, anything else, Ronald, before we hang this sucker up?

Ronald (23:19)
I think the most important thing a parent can do with their kid and having a phone is have some guidelines and have lots of conversations. I think if you stick into those two places, like you're gonna be in a spot where maybe sometimes it's uncomfortable, maybe it's sometimes you're giving a little bit more, you're giving more unearned responsibility away than you're ready for, but like that's parenting as a whole. You don't want your 18 year old kid.

to get a cell phone and all social media all at once and be like, well, now I'm gonna learn everything. It's much, I think it's a much better experience for you and the kid if you walk them through the process together with you in the driver's seat sometimes and them in the driver's seat sometimes.

Nick Clason (24:04)
That's good. Yeah, actually, if anyone's listening to this, watching this like here live, like in the next several weeks, like that's what I'm doing on my podcast is I'm doing like some parent and kid kind of like tech talks. And so they're like aimed for youth pastors to like curate or have that conversation with like some downloadable worksheets and stuff like that that they can share. because I think that's, that's the key in all of this. Like it's, it's easier to draw a line in the sand and be like, no, this, like this is it. We're not doing that, but like we,

Ronald (24:16)
Mmm, yeah.

Nick Clason (24:34)
That's the phone has not allowed us to do that. It's not going away. So instead we got to figure out how do we lean into it into what's uncomfortable and maybe like uncertain waters, like lean into it to just open up that continued kind of conversation thing. So I think that's, that's so good. So, yo, if you're listening here for me on my channel, go follow everything Ronald's doing, middle school ministry podcast. It's dope. It's all about middle schoolers and he's got dope co-hosts.

Ronald (24:48)
Absolutely.

Yeah. I just want to thank everybody for listening to my podcast, the hybrid ministry podcast. Thank you so much. That's really great. No, and if you're, if you're listening to this from middle school ministry podcast, you should definitely go check out what Nick Clayson is doing over in hybrid ministry. Some really good stuff, some really helpful things to carry the conversation forward when it comes to the digital world and youth ministry.

Nick Clason (25:05)
that you've taken over.

Yeah, no, I love it. So good. And like I said, we both collabed on a little resource. It's free in both of our show notes, so go grab that. that's it, man. We'll talk to guys next time.

Ronald (25:34)
See you around.

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DESCRIPTION
In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, discover how to create truly interactive sermons and programming using the Random Name Generator from Sidekick made by Download Youth Ministry to engage students like never before! We’ll explore practical ways to blend creativity with technology, making your youth ministry sermons more dynamic and memorable. Ideal for leaders aiming to elevate their hybrid ministry approach in their student ministry, this episode offers key strategies to transform your youth ministry programming!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Most Personal Element of Sidekick to Date
01:34 #1 Creative Name Generator Idea
04:27 Operating "Pick Me"
06:04 #2 Creative Name Generator Idea
07:28 #3 Creative Name Generator Idea
08:19 Different Sound Effect Options
10:09 #4 Creative Name Generator Idea
11:26 #5 Creative Name Generator Idea

--------------

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As we've been exploring more engaging sermons through your presentations and specifically your presentation software, we're talking about sidekick in the play, this link right

00:00:11:26 - 00:00:16:59
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here. And this is the fourth and final video, but this feature is the feature that when I saw this

00:00:16:59 - 00:00:23:59
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
feature rolled out at the Orange Conference and I believe it was 2016 when they

00:00:23:59 - 00:00:28:47
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
showed it to me, I instantly said, and then sign me up.

00:00:28:51 - 00:00:50:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What does it take? How much does it cost? Actually, I don't care. It doesn't matter. This is what I want. And this is the feature that sidekick still has rolled out to this day, in my personal opinion. It is my necklaces favorite feature, and it is one that I believe that you can and you should be using in your presentations.

00:00:50:28 - 00:01:07:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Whether you're a youth pastor, whether you're a college minister, whether you're an adult pastor, or whether, frankly, you're a senior pastor, it is the random name picker and random name generator. And in this video and in this episode, I want to share five of my favorite ways

00:01:07:23 - 00:01:11:46
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to creatively use the name picker. I'm going to drill deep down

00:01:11:46 - 00:01:16:51
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
into all of the features of how you can use it and utilize it, and what it has to offer.

00:01:16:57 - 00:01:24:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're watching here on YouTube, you're going to see a live demo and a live tutorial and a screen share of it. And don't forget, as always, there

00:01:24:01 - 00:01:35:31
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
are chapters down below at the bottom of this video so that you can skip around to the ones that make the most sense to you. Welcome everyone to the Hybrid Ministry Show.

00:01:35:36 - 00:01:47:54
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So way. Number one, that I love to use the random name generator because as you know, when you're at church, you don't know which of your youth group kids are going to show up on any given week. And

00:01:47:54 - 00:02:04:52
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so one of my favorite ways to use it is in our retreats or in our camps or within things that, that have a registration component to it, because, you know, every kid you're taking to camp, you should and you should definitely know that number because you better return with that many kids.

00:02:04:53 - 00:02:20:39
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Give me a like if you've ever worried that you lost a kid, a youth camp, and, either way, one of the things I like to do is when we have a big event and listen, what I'm about to explain is one of the things I'm going to start doing on my Patreon show. By the way, if you didn't know, we're launching a Patreon show.

00:02:20:39 - 00:02:45:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're watching here on screen, you can see the slide. We are going to be offering bonus content, and that bonus content is going to drop once per week. And I'm very simply going to talk through all of the different ways that we are using and utilizing hybrid in our ministry, and I hope that as you sit in and as you listen, it helps you to get the creative juices going a little bit in your own brain and in your own ministry.

00:02:45:03 - 00:03:06:34
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And as you pursue hybrid, not because it's cool and not because digital and all that stuff is important, but really we're taking our in-person and our digital and we're putting it together, intersecting in most cases, at students cell phones, which gives us an opportunity to impact and influence them beyond the one hour of programing that we have scheduled per week.

00:03:06:34 - 00:03:26:52
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that is what my Patreon is going to do, this bonus content. But when you have an event, if you have some sort of a check in system, which I know we do, I have our, church community builder, CBM, we have a, report that runs for anyone who's checked in within the last 24 hours.

00:03:26:57 - 00:03:29:54
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so what happens then is, basically

00:03:29:54 - 00:03:53:47
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
once an event has started, I can go into that report, I can download into an Excel sheet, so to speak, or like a dot CSV. I can know all the names of the students who are there. I don't have to guess about the kids who I think might be there, who I thought I saw, but I know for a fact they've checked in and then I can put their names into the random name generator, and then I can use that for raffle giveaways, prizes, and all sorts of things.

00:03:53:47 - 00:04:18:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so say that that spits out into an Excel sheet. You're looking here at an Excel sheet, and you can just highlight an entire cell. Copy. Copy that. Go over here to your name picker. Click edit. Click edit. Pick me. Go to your book editor Payson, and boom, just in case you also wanted their numbers as well. And so now we got all of the names in here.

00:04:18:32 - 00:04:42:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And and then when I go ahead and I get ready to roll this thing, you'll notice. Let me get this full screen here. If you're watching, pretend this is your projector, you're going to drag that window over to your projector. And then you are going to click present and you're good to go. And so now here I am, I want to play and I want to run this pick me game.

00:04:42:00 - 00:05:07:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, I'm going to turn it on to random. And we're going to get this thing rolling and I'm gonna see who's going to win. And it's Nikola to pitch the earbud. Believer himself. And so when you're running it right, you can do things like hide last item. So if I don't want to pitch to win, I can turn this on ahead of time so that it doesn't stop on him again, even though it did.

00:05:07:27 - 00:05:27:33
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But now he's gone and now I'm going to get a new winner. Jacob Jalen Williams himself. Right. Here's the beautiful thing. If you don't trust your tech person, you can do this from your phone. You can do this remotely from an iPad. Or you can do this remotely from even a whole different computer. And you don't even have to be on the same network as that computer.

00:05:27:37 - 00:05:28:42
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're logged into sidekick

00:05:28:42 - 00:05:44:50
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
on your in your tech booth, and if you're logged in to sidekick from your phone or whatever device, you can run it from both. We are all in on sidekick in fact. Link down below if you want to see our setup of how we do it. To jump back and forth between pro presenter and sidekick, we haven't made the shift to be

00:05:44:50 - 00:05:47:41
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all in with worship because that's a whole different department.

00:05:47:46 - 00:06:02:42
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I don't call the shots. If I did, we would be all in on sidekick, but since we're not, we have a video switcher. And if you want to be able to bounce back and forth between the two so that you can have the elements of purpose that you like, but all the interactive features of sidekick that you like, check that out down below.

00:06:02:42 - 00:06:29:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, idea number two, one that I really like is rather than names. We've actually done this before in this presentation, and I'm going to show you how to set it up. I did like a series or a message on labels. And so I actually, what I did was, I think I have it in here. I brought in, like, a label, like a hello, my name is type of label, and I just got it loaded.

00:06:29:40 - 00:06:56:34
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And very simply, when it was sitting there on screen and I was teaching, I used that teaching moment sort of as an opportunity to, to to cycle through and filter through some of the different types of labels that we face or that we think we face or that we see or that we feel or that we might even struggle with sometimes, as, you know, people, as teenagers, as followers of Jesus.

00:06:56:39 - 00:07:22:56
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you don't have to just let this be like a random name picker thing. Like you can also use and utilize this as an opportunity, within your teaching, within your teaching components. And so as you see here on screen, I have the hello, my name is name Tag right here. And then they are just simply filtering through, different types of labels that you or that students might struggle with.

00:07:22:56 - 00:07:37:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's an opportunity then to go ahead and and use that as a part of your teaching point. Now my third favorite way to go ahead and use the random name generator is, to use a thing called a Volun told

00:07:37:08 - 00:07:50:43
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
generator. And we talked about this a little bit in the, we'll, video in the last video about how you can make a definitive or declarative statement, like the person with the tallest socks, that's only one person.

00:07:50:45 - 00:08:10:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So the person with the tallest socks in your room, they come up in place. So if you don't have a set up or if you don't have check in, but you still want to use this kind of Volun told generator sort of thing, you can put generic statements about students, and then you can use that to get people to come on up as contestants for games and stuff like that.

00:08:10:08 - 00:08:29:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And again, it's just a great way to not have to do the who wants to play? And you're like, how did I pick that kid or not? Like the the random name generator is king and the random name generator decides. And what's cool, even in its customization, right, is that you can create different sound effects, right? So like, there is like a thumbs up sound effect.

00:08:29:16 - 00:08:48:58
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There is a, kind of shrugging like middle of the road sound effect. And then there's like a party horn sound effect. So if you were playing this and you had the sort of like, like maybe a bad prize or something, you weren't so sure about that you didn't want, this is what the thumbs down sound effect sounds like.

00:08:49:02 - 00:09:06:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That. But, yeah, it's a bummer. No, no one wants is smudging. Like, that's how Thunder fans kind of feel right now anyway. But then you go ahead and you're like that. This guy's kind of mid tier. We're not not really sure if we have an, opinion yet of him or not. Really sure if winning this thing in our youth ministry, we really have an opinion of it.

00:09:06:04 - 00:09:27:42
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yet Dugas. Yeah, okay. Whatever. You know, but then, like, you win something great or like it's a grand prize or something that people really actually want. I mean, he's a front runner for MVP. Let's just be honest. He's outpacing Luke does is the Thunder are the number one seed in the West. And they are the juggernaut that everyone should be afraid of.

00:09:27:42 - 00:09:45:45
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it's led by this guy. And so you should you should have that sound. Hey give me a like if you're a, Thunder fan and please don't unsubscribe if you, do you happen to be a mavericks fan? Because we are here trying to make this hybrid ministry thing. We're trying to make it helpful to you. In fact, right here on screen.

00:09:45:45 - 00:10:04:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't forget Code Hybrid Ministry ten. If you've never used you. I am. Or if you've never signed up for anything with do I am before for 10% off for a year of premium, Premium or Premium Plus? You can check out the pricing link down below. We also offer custom coaching. It's my free strategy guide. Go ahead and scan that QR code, check out our Patreon.

00:10:04:02 - 00:10:25:49
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And hey, while you're here, go ahead and vote on which coffee shop is the best. My fourth idiom that I really like to do is kind of like the kind of like the the name tag one that I showed you a minute ago. So instead of it, I mean, like a teaching point, a lot of times I will create a welcome slide, right?

00:10:25:49 - 00:10:41:58
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And these slides, just like all the other ones, they're, they're highly adaptable. So you can put any slides you want. You can, add an image, you can make a color, you can add a video background from something from YouTube. Even so like we've used this video before in

00:10:41:58 - 00:10:48:42
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
previous videos here, even on this playlist. And so if you wanted it to be a video one, you could embed this YouTube video right here.

00:10:48:47 - 00:11:09:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Or you could add one of these videos from a bank of other videos that you have used before using the past. But whatever the case might be, I'll do this where like, we have like, a leader lunch. And so people have volun, or have RSVP ahead of time. And so I will, put all of their names into the generator and I will say, leader, lunch welcome.

00:11:09:10 - 00:11:27:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
With an arrow pointing to where their name is going to be here on People Picker and all the names are just filtering through. And then we may use that as a giveaway sort of feature in the, in the, you know, in the background or whatever, or not. We'll see. But those are sort of all just kind of different ways and different ideas that I like to use the name picker.

00:11:27:14 - 00:11:47:40
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then of course, number five, I'm going to share on my Patreon page. And don't forget, this is the last time that I'm going to do this. To those of you listening to the regular podcast or on YouTube, but I just, I, I'm so, so stoked and I'm so pumped about our Patreon because it is a dollar a week, $4 a month.

00:11:47:44 - 00:12:05:54
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think it's less than the cost of a cup of coffee. But I want to get coffee with you. I want to sit down. I want to chat. Youth ministry. I want to chat. Creativity. I want to chat. How to make your programing more engaging? Because Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they want a more custom and personalized approach.

00:12:05:54 - 00:12:33:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I believe that sidekick not only in this beta version, but also in the future. Rolling out has the tools that it takes to do that. I'm challenging myself to use sidekick every single time we're in the room with our students, and I want to encourage you to try and lean into your creativity and do the same. And so I know when I hear a brainstorm that's helpful for me to just listen to someone else and then beg and borrow and steal and tweak and adapt and use different ideas.

00:12:33:14 - 00:12:56:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's why I want my Patreon to be is just a place for you guys to get that weekly sort of bonus content, along with, as you see here, on screen, exclusive merch and exclusive sticker for everyone who signs up before the month of December. December 2nd, they'll be yours. I'll mail it to you. You can help me choose some show and segment topics, and also some shout outs special for those over there on my Patreon page.

00:12:56:08 - 00:13:18:37
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But that number five idea that's over there going to be in this week's Patreon will drop on Monday of this week. So once again, my friends so excited that you here. Thank you for diving in deep with sidekick. The next episode we are going to be hopping into all things Christmas, Christmas parties, holiday planning, and everything that you need to know to round out the year.

00:13:18:37 - 00:13:29:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Amazingly, in your ministry. Finish strong. The Lord is equipped you for what he has you doing. But don't forget and as always my friends, to stay hybrid.

🖥️ SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

DESCRIPTION
In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, discover how to create truly interactive sermons and programming using Sidekick made by Download Youth Ministry to engage students like never before! We’ll explore practical ways to blend creativity with technology, making your youth ministry sermons more dynamic and memorable. Ideal for leaders aiming to elevate their hybrid ministry approach in their student ministry, this episode offers key strategies to transform your youth ministry.

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/125

//SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

//COLEADER PRICING
CODE: HYBRIDMINISTRY10
https://www.sidekick.tv/pricing

//[FREE] STRATEGY GUIDE
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

//CUSTOM HYBRID COACHING
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

//CHURCH COMMUNICATIONS DONE FOR YOU!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

//ERIK W/A 'K'
https://www.youtube.com/@practicalyouthministrytips

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

--------------
🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick

--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affiliate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

//SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Random Spinning Wheel
01:39 Co-Leader Discount Code!
03:05 The Power of Creativity
5:00 Wheel Idea #1
08:15 Wheel Idea #2
09:22 Wheel Tech Booth Point of View
11:38 Wheel Idea #3
12:14 Customize your slide background
15:10 Wheel Idea #4

--------------

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;27;13
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
What if I told you that you could have access to a customizable spinning wheel that is actually woven in and built into the fabric of your presentation software? Not just like from free wheel spinner.com, because, you know, if you're presenting or preaching in church that you want that wheel to come in and you want it to be seamless, you don't want to drag an ugly browser window in across your screen.

00;00;27;16 - 00;00;48;16
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And so what if that presentation ability was available in your PowerPoint, in your profit center, on your church projector screens? Well, what if I told you that it was, you know, download and Youth Ministry has had the customizable spinning wheel available to youth pastors, but it is now available to all

00;00;48;16 - 00;00;53;01
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
people. It is woven into the new beta version of

00;00;53;01 - 00;00;54;03
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
sidekick.

00;00;54;03 - 00;01;10;25
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And in this episode, not only are we going to explore how it's a little bit different than the legacy version of the sidekick, but we're going to look at all of the features. And so if you are watching here on YouTube, first of all, go ahead and give me a like because if you don't know, that incredibly helps us out.

00;01;10;28 - 00;01;30;13
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But second, I would love it if you, are listening to Hop Over and you can watch a live demo as I not only build the wheel, but I show you all the different features and I want to talk through in this episode for of my most favorite ways to use and integrate the wheel into our programing, into

00;01;30;13 - 00;01;32;25
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
my lessons, into my messages.

00;01;33;02 - 00;01;42;09
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And so much more. Hey everyone! Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey everyone, welcome to the Hybrid

00;01;42;09 - 00;02;10;01
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Ministry show. My name is Nicholas and I am a 14 year Youth ministry veteran. And welcome to our playlist where we explore the best features of sidekick. And as you see here on screen, rotating through on my pre-roll announcements for the Hybrid Ministry show, which you can replicate this by simply clicking the link right here at the top of the video to go back and watch some of the more miscellaneous features available here in this playlist.

00;02;10;03 - 00;02;43;04
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But we are talking about sidekick, and in this particular episode, we're talking about the ways that you can use the wheel. But here's what you might not know is that if you've never jumped into anything dim or Co-Leader, which is our, curriculum software that does unlock access to sidekick, my listeners get an exclusive offer if you use the code hybrid Ministry ten, you'll get 10% off Premium or Premium plus of co-leader curriculum, which, like I said, is how you gain access to sidekick.

00;02;43;11 - 00;03;04;09
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
There is a way to get sidekick ala carte as well. But if you are in youth ministry and you're looking for curriculum, I'm just telling you, Collider is the way to go. You get so much I don't even know how to download. Youth ministry is making money. But again, in addition to that, you get 10% off, if you use my code hybrid ministry ten.

00;03;04;09 - 00;03;25;22
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So, we're going to get out of these looping announcements, and I want to show you what it looks like to have the customizable spinning wheel. Now here is the preview in the window over here. This little window down here, we're going to pretend, like I said, in the first, video in this playlist, this, sidekick is browser based.

00;03;25;24 - 00;03;42;25
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So it's going to create a new window. You're going to drag that ugly window onto your projector screen, but then from there you're going to click full screen. It's going to be seamless. Now, if you are still using both sidekick and also pro presenter, go ahead and check the link down below in the show notes for how we have set up.

00;03;42;25 - 00;03;47;04
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Because we are, we're all in on sidekick. And the reason that

00;03;47;04 - 00;04;10;02
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
I'm all in on sidekick is it forces me to be more creative in my programing, and I find that when I'm more creative, our students are more engaged and better engaged. And, I personally feel like that I'm doing a better job communicating and being a youth pastor and leaning in and showing up where students are, which that's one of the whole goals, is one viewer students are.

00;04;10;02 - 00;04;31;16
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And that's what hybrid really affords us. The opportunity to do is to be where our people are. And so, if you didn't know this, we're actually starting a brand new Patreon page here on the Hybrid Ministry show, where I'm going to just rattle off what we did in youth group this week. And as I do, I'll explain all the ways we're using sidekick along with all the other things that we're doing in our youth ministry.

00;04;31;16 - 00;04;50;06
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And so I want you to go ahead and check that out. If you haven't, you can click right here. The, the QR code that you see here on screen. I'll, I'll make that a little bit bigger for you. You can click that or you can simply head to a patreon.com/hybrid ministry and join for only $4 a month.

00;04;50;13 - 00;05;26;20
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
The bonus podcast I'm gonna release is a weekly podcast. So when you do $4 a month, that essentially nets out to $1 per week, which is crazy town. So I would love to invite you into that. But here's one of my favorite ways to use and utilize the wheel the random wheel. So in our student ministry not too long ago, we, used one of my friend Eric with a case games, and I'm not sure I don't think he got this game on to download youth ministry before the Halloween, but man, I loved the concept.

00;05;26;20 - 00;05;47;12
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
It was like a digital, like, sort of escape room sort of thing. And what Eric did, which was just like, so incredible, was like, it was like you work through rooms in your space and you had different contestants kind of do that, right now getting contestants, man, that is one of the most difficult things in youth ministry, right?

00;05;47;12 - 00;06;07;11
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Because you've been a real like, who wants to who wants to be a volunteer, who wants to be a volunteer? And so what we did was we created a wheel that would, basically volunteer certain people. So we had our, groups broken down by grade. And so we had like sixth grade, we had seventh and eighth grade, we had ninth and 10th grade, and then we had 11th and 12th grade.

00;06;07;11 - 00;06;33;02
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So for total, sixth year, I was the only one that was standalone. And the other, you know, six remaining grades are grouped together seventh and eighth, ninth and 10th, 11th, 12th. You get the idea. But then we said we need the whatever the wheel says person from each of these grades. So again, this is something I would go over on my Patreon page and hopefully it might help you out helping me more creative and thus ultimately more engaging.

00;06;33;06 - 00;06;53;23
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But what we did was we just added a wheel and we said, all right, I need the sixth grader who's the tallest, I need the seventh grader who's the shortest? I need the ninth 10th grader who has the tallest socks I need the 11th 12th grader has the lowest phone battery percentage. And so if you're watching here on screen, what you do is you simply click edit Slide and right at the top all you got to do is click wheel.

00;06;53;25 - 00;07;15;02
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
You want to add the wheel. And so in pops the wheel settings right here. And so this is where you can adjust the individual items in the wheel. So if you don't want cheese because it's not relevant to what you're doing you can say tallest. And if you want highest battery percentage you say highest battery percentage where's a percent.

00;07;15;02 - 00;07;37;26
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So there it is. If you want to add another one, you simply click Add Item. Or better yet, you can do bulk add and you can just type them all in. And so you go, tallest socks, reddest hair, biggest mustache, or whatever your criteria are. There they are. You click add three items and boom, they are off and rolling.

00;07;37;26 - 00;07;56;10
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Now once your wheel is on the screen, you notice it's kind of covering my face here if you don't want that. So you can go up to this little corner and just simply shrink it and put it right where you want it, maybe right underneath that finger where I'm pointing. Maybe you want it huge, right? So you can make it even bigger.

00;07;56;14 - 00;08;24;23
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
You can make it even smaller. And, there's all sorts of different ways that you can kind of mess around with and use the wheel, but that's way number one. We kind of like to use the wheel as a, contestant sort of generator. All right. The other thing that I love about the wheel is, or another way, way number two that we use the wheel is we will use it sometimes as a prize wheel.

00;08;24;23 - 00;08;43;29
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So we have a winner of a game, a standalone winner or a group of winners. And then we let that winner go ahead and, spin the wheel for an opportunity to win. So let's just say that they won pizza. And so here, I've already input my different types of pizza that I want to let them win.

00;08;44;03 - 00;09;07;00
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And so when you go ahead and, get this thing launched, you will see that you can you have a lot of different access, right? You have a lot of different access once you get this thing up and rolling. So we're going to pretend this is our projector screen and your person, oh, your person back in your booth is going to be the one that sees this.

00;09;07;00 - 00;09;30;04
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Or again, don't forget that. Now they have phone integration so you can run it like a remote phone, which is a pretty cool feature. So here we are. We are on our wheel right here. And this is what it looks like for the person in the booth. They'll have this start spin option. And they'll be able to see down here that the next winner is cheese.

00;09;30;11 - 00;09;51;01
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But if I don't want it to be cheese, it can reroll and it can reroll it randomly. Or you can choose a pre-selected option so you can see all of your options here. And you can say, I don't have Hawaiian pizza, I don't have deep dish, I only have sausage. And so we're going to make them think that they have the opportunity to get sausage.

00;09;51;02 - 00;10;13;06
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But really they don't. And so we're not doing random. We're going to do pre-selected. The pre-selected winner here is sausage. And now when we spin the wheel you're seeing it. You're hearing it. The winner is sausage right. Like I said I can now clear that. Now let's say I gave away sausage and so I don't want that anymore.

00;10;13;09 - 00;10;33;01
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
This is where I can turn on this hide. Last item. And so now sausage, which was what I give away. Now I don't have it because I gave it to this group. And I need a new prize to give away to the next group. I can't give away sausage twice. It only had it once. If I click hide last item, it will go away and it won't be an option on the wheel anymore.

00;10;33;01 - 00;10;57;16
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
So now let's just simulate that again. So I did in fact go ahead. Giveaway sausage I'm hiding the last item. Consider the last item hidden. And then we're going to clear that it's gone. And now we're like oh it needs to be pepperoni. So here we go. Give a pepperoni to the winning group. Group number two. Congratulations you one pepperoni.

00;10;57;16 - 00;11;17;12
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Now if you're listening here on screen or you it was able to be picked up through my microphone, you will notice that they have different sound effects. So when you do the little, cheery sound effect, that's the one that pepperoni just made you. Little shrug sound effect. That's just a little kind of simple, like click sound, like, and so you can change that.

00;11;17;12 - 00;11;45;19
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Or if it's a negative consequence, you can also do the lose sound. And so cheese now has the lose sound. And so that sounds something like this. Now that no one wants cheese. All right. This is this is the bottom line. Okay. Here is another idea that I have is, we might, in our space, do something where, we have, like, rows.

00;11;45;23 - 00;12;03;14
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
We have 16 tables. So there's four, 4x4, four tables across, four tables down 16 total. So we might do something when we have a passage of Scripture, you know, that we want people to look up. And so then we might use the wheel and say, all right, row one. You're going to look up this. Row two, you're going to look up that.

00;12;03;16 - 00;12;22;06
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And here's what's cool is you saw my picture here. So you can also make your background custom. So right here let's say I want this slide right here to be where I put my wheel. First I got to give it a background right. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to make it an image background.

00;12;22;09 - 00;12;48;13
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
I'm going to upload a file. And I'm going to go navigate to these different verses of this slide that I have already made. And so boom, there's my verse slides. And so now I don't want that. I want the wheel now. And so I can say row one, row two, row three and row four. We're going to add those.

00;12;48;16 - 00;13;13;19
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
We're going to remove these. And now I can put this right here. Again don't forget Hybrid Ministry ten gets you 10% off of Premium or Premium Plus of Collider. But now I can put that right here. And I can say all right row one. You're going to go first. And then very simply right. Like as I am presenting this sucker, got to get down to it so I can show it to you.

00;13;13;19 - 00;13;42;15
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
But as I'm presenting it, I'll say, all right, row one. Here you go. Or not? Row one. Luke one goes to row one, in fact. Right. And once again, I should have selected hide winner because I can't actually have row one. That's a bummer, I missed out. What am I supposed to do? Well, your purpose in in person can actually hop back over here to edit and just very simply, either hide them and now they're going to be off my wheel or delete them and they're off my wheel either way.

00;13;42;18 - 00;14;01;14
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Now if I hide them right, I can add them back on very simply. If, I delete them, I do have to go back in here and I have to type it all back out and do all that stuff, which as you see, is not that difficult. But it it does take a little bit more of an additional step.

00;14;01;14 - 00;14;21;22
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Now here's the other cool thing. You might be thinking like, I don't I don't want like that background. I want like I want a video background. Great. Check this out. I don't want this background anymore. I go back in here to edit slide. I don't want it going to go over here to my slide settings. And instead of it being an image background, I can do a color background.

00;14;21;22 - 00;14;43;08
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
He's my color options right? Those are all the preloaded ones. Or I can say I want a video background. So I'm going to select video and I want it to be a YouTube embedded video, and I want it to be my video. So we're going to copy and paste that link here, paste embed that YouTube video and boom.

00;14;43;10 - 00;15;00;25
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
And I can put the wheel anywhere that I want. Now keep in mind that when it's a background, you saw it right here. Background videos will loop automatically and they do not play sounds. And so you can pull these directly off of the internet. And this is why I believe every single youth ministry should have a strong digital presence also.

00;15;00;25 - 00;15;21;25
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Hey, why you're here, why don't you go ahead and grab my hybrid strategy guide with a little bit of a different name from this episode that I dropped a little bit over a year ago. So that was idea number three. You can give out passages for the we'll idea number four, I'm actually going to share with those of you that are on my Patreon page.

00;15;21;25 - 00;15;44;13
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Now listen, don't forget that it's only about a dollar a week. And anyone who signs up before December 2nd, 2024 will get an exclusive free piece of merch. So you're going to get a piece of merch that's probably worth like $20. That's gonna like, pay for itself in the first five months. And I'm going to share my fourth favorite way that I

00;15;44;13 - 00;15;49;02
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
customize and use the wheel in my different teachings and in my different presentations.

00;15;49;09 - 00;16;06;08
Nick Clason| Hybrid Ministry
Hey, my friends, as always, don't forget if you want to know how to use the name picker that is going to be here in the next episode, if you're watching on YouTube, that'll be right here on screen. Go hop over to Patreon page. But until next time, and as always, my friends stay hybrid.

🖥️ SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

DESCRIPTION
In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, discover how to create truly interactive sermons using Sidekick made by Download Youth Ministry to engage students like never before! We’ll explore practical ways to blend creativity with technology, making your youth ministry sermons more dynamic and memorable. Ideal for leaders aiming to elevate their hybrid ministry approach in their student ministry, this episode offers key strategies to transform your youth ministry.

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/124

//SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

//COLEADER PRICING
CODE: HYBRIDMINISTRY10
https://www.sidekick.tv/pricing

//[FREE] STRATEGY GUIDE
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

//CUSTOM HYBRID COACHING
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

//CHURCH COMMUNICATIONS DONE FOR YOU!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

//FINISH THE DRAWING - HELP DERRY BUY PRESENTS!
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/finish-the-drawing/games/icebreakers-8666.html

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

--------------
🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick

--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affiliate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

//SIDEKICK SETUP GUIDE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Phone Voting in Sidekick
01:53 The Creativity Challenge
02:36 BIG Announcement!!
04:06 Voting During Pre-Roll
07:13 #1 Game Style
09:39 #2 Game Style
12:10 #3 Game Style
15:56 Voting During Sermons
17:29 The Wheel

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Pastor. We all know the struggle that all of us in ministry face with online church and streaming and the tension between will people come and be a part of our church? Or will they just simply listen to us online? I mean, hey, listen, give me a like if anytime in the last week you have listened to another pastor sermon or any podcast of any sort, religion or otherwise, or if you've listened to a worship song on Spotify, Apple Music or on YouTube.

00:00:29:00 - 00:00:51:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, the fact is we live now in a digital world where, content and sermons and music and worship music and all those things are available for our consumption at the touch and at the click of a finger. So how can we utilize technology in your ministry to make your programing in your service a little bit more hybrid?

00:00:51:19 - 00:01:11:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, hybrid I talked about this. It's the intersection of your in-person and your digital right. It's not forsaking one for the other, but it's simply finding a way to intersect them and to meld them together in the two. And we're going to look at my favorite feature in sidekick, which I believe makes you as hybrid as it can get in today's world.

00:01:11:13 - 00:01:31:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you are new to this playlist, we have been simply talking in the playlist linked up right here about different features of sidekick, and in the last video I kind of introduced sidekick and I showed some of the miscellaneous features, but there are three kind of core pillars and core, feature principles about sidekick that are just simply fantastic.

00:01:31:15 - 00:01:51:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the first one is the feature of vote. And you can pull your phone out and you can vote via QR codes. So that is what we're going to talk about today and in this video. But don't forget, if you're over here on YouTube that we do have chapters down at the bottom so that you can skip around, jump around to different sections and elements that pertain the most to you.

00:01:51:13 - 00:02:10:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I was talking to a friend of mine at a conference of several years back, and who's leading a workshop, and it was so well done and it was so creative. And frankly, it was pre-COVID, but it was before, and I was thinking like, man, this is more than just him getting up and talking. This is him actually engaging and interacting with his audience and drawing them in.

00:02:10:25 - 00:02:31:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I asked him, like, how do you do it? And he said, honestly, I challenged myself to try and use at least once per message, a feature from sidekick that I couldn't use with something simple like a PowerPoint or Pro presenter presentation software. And in our student ministry we have gone all in on sidekick. And so I want to share that with you in this playlist.

00:02:31:05 - 00:02:52:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I also want to let you know that launching on December 2nd, I am going to be launching a bonus weekly podcast simply called like what have I Done this week? And talking about all the ways that our youth ministry is trying to go hybrid, utilize digital, utilize YouTube, utilize sidekick. And so that is linked down below. Or you can scan the QR code that you see here on screen.

00:02:52:27 - 00:03:16:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That is going to give you that bonus weekly podcast. But there's also going to be other perks for Patreon members. And the cost, my friends, it's only a dollar per episode per week. And so jump in on that if you find that helpful. If you're looking to, turn the dial up on your creativity, on your hybrid, on your digital, I just want to simply walk you through what we are doing on a week by week basis.

00:03:16:19 - 00:03:39:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And as you hear what I'm doing, hopefully that just gives you other creative ideas and listen. I would love if you then would also shoot back what you're doing, because anytime I hear what someone else is doing, it causes my brain and my juices to get going and get creative. But anyone who signs up before December 2nd, which is the official launch of the Patreon show, will get an exclusive free piece of merch.

00:03:39:04 - 00:03:58:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I will mail it to you and so that will be just my token of appreciation. So literally, that piece of merch will pay for itself for like six months worth of you being signed up for the, hybrid, Patreon experience. And so jump on and honestly, take my money. Can't wait to get you guys going on that.

00:03:58:16 - 00:04:18:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But in this video, I want to talk about the different areas that you can use the voting in side. So you can include the voting slides in your pre-roll. So for example here on screen you'll see I'm going to click present. And we got a full screen window. And boom we're in our pre-roll slides. And these will rotate if you are not with us.

00:04:18:25 - 00:04:35:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Last video is a rotate every few seconds. We set that up ahead of time. You can go check out how to do that there. Rotating here pretty quickly. You can slow those down, but if you wanted to add here, to that, first of all, you got to get out of your presentation window and you got to end your presentation to make your edit.

00:04:35:09 - 00:04:54:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then right here, if I just wanted to be like, all right, let's include a voting thing here. All you got to do is just click this voting option. Boom. And it kind of overtakes the design of the screen. And while you're here, you could use this example. Which super power would you choose? Or you could say, which kind of coffee shop is best?

00:04:54:20 - 00:05:23:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can get people debating on the old Dunkin versus Starbucks versus, main, what else is out there? Whatever, whatever it is, like your local home town hipster coffee vibe. And then over here, it's, the checkmarks on the side. These are indicating correct answers. So if you don't want there to be a correct answer, even though Dunkin in this particular, case is probably the correct answer, there is no correct answer.

00:05:23:27 - 00:05:42:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then over here you can, you can offer this like, hey, do you want to show the QR code? So sometimes people can, scan it ahead of time and just have it on their phone, and their phone becomes like a game remote, or you can leave it being shown here on screen. You can indicate and show the live results.

00:05:42:04 - 00:05:59:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can also reorder the, the votes like, the as the votes are coming in, whichever one's highest, we'll, we'll kind of jump to the top. You can either leave that or not. And then down here in the advanced settings, if you do have a correct answer, this this text here will be displayed on screen about whether it was correct or whether it wasn't.

00:05:59:18 - 00:06:18:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so now if we look back over here at our pre-roll slides, if we get this presentation up and going, we're going to make it a little smaller. So you just pretend that this little, window here is like your, it's your it's your your your screen. Right. It's your, projector screen. You drag this over or whatever.

00:06:18:21 - 00:06:38:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So now it's rotating through. Rotating through. Boom. Here's a poll question. You can engage and hybridize and interact with your audience during your pre-roll session there. So that's one of my favorite ways to use it. I have a poll question of every single week during our pre-roll. The the hack to that is you do got to keep the slides.

00:06:38:11 - 00:06:44:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They can't be going this fast. I make mine a 14 second rotation that gives people enough

00:06:44:07 - 00:06:59:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
time to read the question, realize it, go scan it and vote and maybe get it in. Because once this q QR code is off the screen, voting is closed. And so once it goes to the next slide, they can't vote anymore. So they kind of got to wait for it to rotate back around.

00:06:59:15 - 00:07:22:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Sometimes if I noticed people trying to do it though, what I will do is I will pull my phone up and I will just go back using the the phone remote kind of feature. Right. So that's one way that you can utilize and use it in your ministry. The pre-roll, voting option. You can also use it probably most commonly, probably the ways that we think about the most is with your games.

00:07:22:29 - 00:07:38:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And so, I told you in the last video of our playlist linked right up here, if I haven't already done that. I have already done that. If you're watching here on YouTube, when you buy a game, you can, bring it in. And so we bought this game, finished the drawing in our youth ministry by my friend Derek.

00:07:38:26 - 00:07:55:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Print it. I'll drop the link to that game down below in the show notes. Go buy it, hook his family up, give him some royalties. He needs Christmas presents. But, this is what it looks like when I import it in. And so in this particular game, what you would do is I'll go ahead and show it to you here on screen.

00:07:55:26 - 00:08:17:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What you would do is you would, put one of these slides up. And a student would then have to finish the the drawing of this bus. Okay. So the way that we utilize this in our ministry was we actually probably use random name generator, which is going to be coming up here in one of these future videos.

00:08:17:11 - 00:08:38:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Put some students up on stage. We got four different students. And so then, we gave them this picture. We gave them a minute countdown timer on the screen, and then they drew they finished the drawing. Now, then we used a camera. We just plugged it in via our stage, portal. We use our video switcher and we switch to the camera view.

00:08:38:09 - 00:08:58:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So that up on the screen, everyone could see the finished drawing. So all four contestants were holding their drawing up. And then we said, scan this QR code. And so students would scan the QR code. Once they scanned it, once it was on their phone for good and they could vote. Whoo hoo! One person, one person, two person to person four.

00:08:58:27 - 00:09:28:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Based on that, that was a winner. You can utilize this for anything that has a subjective winner, right? Like, who do you think won this person? This person. You draw something, you build a sculpture you like, who was the loudest. You can vote it right. And once you get that QR code shown on screen and there's another thing you know, it's showing right here, or you click this little button down here in the sidekick window, show QR code and look, it makes it full and big and so everyone can gain access to it, no matter how big or how far away they are from the screen.

00:09:28:15 - 00:09:53:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Sometimes you kind of got to zoom in with your phone and stuff like that. So we use that to then kind of declare a winner. All right. Another game option. I want to show you this one that is, sitting in here if you already, a member or a subscriber of sidekick, which if you're not, let me remind you that for my podcast listeners only, you can try out co-leader, which will be what gives you access to sidekick is a presentation software.

00:09:53:29 - 00:10:19:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you have never signed up for anything on game before by using the code Hybrid Ministry ten, and you can get an access to Premium or Premium Plus of Collider. I will put the link down below at sidekick.tv/pricing for you to compare the differences, but they'll give you either 260 Collider credits versus 520 Collider credits, along with either 25 or 75 sidekick phone voting connections.

00:10:19:13 - 00:10:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So go check that out if that's something that you want to do, that's something that you want to learn. But if you sign up and you are a member, then in your completely free section here, I'm going to end this thing so that I can edit again. Right? So you'll notice controls change a little bit, but it's free thing.

00:10:36:18 - 00:10:56:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's a game, that Josh Griffin did over at Mariner's called Zombie Apocalypse. So I hit that and, I imported it. And so here's what it is. So this is the instructions given to us by the sidekick team. It says, hey, watch Josh play this game and how he use it. Here's the instructions. Here's his supply list here to do all this thing.

00:10:56:26 - 00:11:16:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But so if we just ran this, this is another way to utilize the voting and play game. Make this small so that we can we can see everything. But. So here we are. We're playing this zombie apocalypse apocalypse game. And, you got the the plot and all these things, and this is like super next level, right?

00:11:16:25 - 00:11:37:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So this question here is which weapon will you choose? You let the students decide if they want a hammer, a lightsaber, a rubber chicken or the impossible shot bow. Okay. And then here it is. Boom. Zombie approach is good news. Live separation and anxiety and will only go to one area at a time. And one big group of survivors should split up to have a better chance of survival.

00:11:37:14 - 00:11:59:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Each one has an either A, the baptismal, the tech booth, the playground, or the welcome booth. And then you let them vote, okay, crowd votes. And then, on one area, it kills the contestants who are there in that area. Then here's some more instructions. And they even incorporated the wheel. And so as you go through this is a a choose your own kind of adventure of a game.

00:11:59:02 - 00:12:17:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's another really fun, really creative way to use and utilize sidekick to your advantage. And then there's one last way that I want to show you. And I'll go ahead I'll get it presented once again. And this is with, another game that's free in the free section, if you sign up again, don't forget Hybrid Ministry ten.

00:12:17:05 - 00:12:32:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's called Where's the ball. And so in this particular game, this is the example of what I was kind of saying earlier about you can use your phone as a remote. And so this game is it got a right and wrong answer to it. Right. So like the the other ones were like more subjective. What do you think.

00:12:32:21 - 00:12:52:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What do you think this one is like? Here's a question. Here's the right answer. And so in this one your question that you must decide is is it a or is it be all right. And like I said in this particular case, you got to get that QR code live so that everyone can scan it on their phones, scans, skin scan, and then their phone becomes a remote.

00:12:52:18 - 00:13:12:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so now the question on their phone, A or B, their phone as they're holding it, it says is it A or is it B they vote I in the booth or your booth person clicks right here, this end voting thing. And then when you click reveal correct answer, it shows the slide with the correct answer. And then it also reveals it on everyone's phones at the same time.

00:13:12:19 - 00:13:28:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
All right. It's pretty cool. Here we go to the next one. This is which of these pickleball, balls is the correct answer? They would vote A, B, C, or D, you'd end the voting, you'd reveal the correct answer. And of course, the answer is a the phone would say correct. If they got it wrong, it would say incorrect or whatever.

00:13:28:26 - 00:13:46:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You said the advanced settings to be ahead of time. And I can show you how that works, because this one is a little bit more tricky to actually set up. You don't just simply click right like in this one right here. If I added a new slide and I wanted them to vote on who's the drawing, I simply click voting and then boom, I right I right to answer like who won?

00:13:46:27 - 00:14:02:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then I go down here and I do, you know, one, two three, four I unchecked the winner and we're off to the races and where's the ball. Like I said it's a little bit more intricate. So let me show you how it works. So you click edit Slide and this is voting right. So I clicked on that, I clicked Edit voting.

00:14:02:19 - 00:14:24:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if it weren't there I would turn into voting. And right here at the top you got this little toggle switch that says, is this an image based question when it's not now it went away. When I turn it back on, it's this image based question. So like I said, question side answer slide. And so if I remove this you'll see that I can upload the question slide.

00:14:24:05 - 00:14:42:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then I can upload the answer slide. Now if you're just getting this free where's the ball. It's already included in sidekick. Go get it. Go play it. It's super fun. But if you're creating it yourself, you'll have to upload this from somewhere just on your computer, right? And you also upload the answer and then you're going to correct or select which answer is truly correct.

00:14:43:03 - 00:14:58:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then down here in the advanced settings you can either say correct or you can say sorry, or you can flame them like you're an idiot. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that if you want to keep your job, but hey, go for it. It's up to you, right? You can also add right? So here's where you would add or subtract answers.

00:14:58:01 - 00:15:13:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if there's three multiple choice or four multiple choice, or if you need to take one away and make it three again, that's where you do that. And then you just simply click which of the answers is correct. This is one of my favorite ways. We did this one time and again. This is the type of stuff you get on the Patreon.

00:15:14:00 - 00:15:28:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I'll share this idea and maybe you can use it. We did like a pet day. We were celebrating National Kitten Day, and we had people texting via our text groups to this picture of your pet, and then we put pictures of pets on screens. Then we said, who do you think? Whose pet do you think this is?

00:15:28:17 - 00:15:46:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Is it you know Jake's? Is it Brie's? Is it Adam's or is it, Gracie's? And then they would just vote, like, it was a fun way to use our students and to get them and let them be kind of the heroes and the superstars of our day and of our our game. And so that was a fun way.

00:15:46:09 - 00:16:15:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And we used this image based question kind of voting option here on sidekick. The last way, of course, that you can use it is very obviously in your messages. And so once again, this is an example of what I'll be going on going on over in our Patreon. But in this particular week, actually tonight I'm preaching on, masks, and I got just a couple of different questions, on that, I'm talking about being judgmental.

00:16:15:22 - 00:16:33:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, in that I'm asking questions like, you know, are you ever judgmental? Yes or no? Scan it and let me know. Another one I'm using, like, hey, so, finish the phrase sticks and stones. What? And then I put a bunch of different ridiculous answers. And of course, the answer's six. And stones may break my bones.

00:16:33:04 - 00:16:48:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But words will never hurt. Give me a like if you knew that. Because, that means you're old, like me, and you're, in your 30s as a youth pastor. Give me a sub. If not, because that means that you're younger and that means that you're actually on YouTube. And so give me subs so that you will see some of these future videos.

00:16:48:02 - 00:17:08:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But the point is, previously before sidekick, I would just say raise your hand if you know what this phrase means. Sticks and stones may break my bones, and that's an engagement. But now, in a way, to go hybrid, taking my in-person and my digital and putting at the intersection of my students phones, I say, hey, scan this QR code and finish this phrase.

00:17:08:09 - 00:17:30:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And again, like my friend Anthony said back at that conference, I challenged myself to try and use sidekick in my message as I create at least one time per week. And so voting is a fantastic way to to utilize that and to use that. Now the another really fun custom way that sidekick, has to offer this was just voting.

00:17:30:13 - 00:17:48:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The last video was just some of its miscellaneous features. The next video, which is going to be linked right here on screen. You can see it if you're watching on YouTube. Go ahead and tap that and go check that out. Is the random wheel and how you can customize it and generate it with customized, sounds and punishments and all sorts of different things.

00:17:48:09 - 00:18:06:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I want to chat through different creative ways. You can use that, perhaps in pre-roll and games, in messages and announcements, all sorts of different ways. I can't wait for you to see that. I hope that this helps you and your youth. Minutes to become more engaging, more interactive. Don't forget that's all at the Patreon is going to be about.

00:18:06:17 - 00:18:10:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But as always, don't forget my friends to stay hybrid.

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DESCRIPTION
In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, we’re diving into a live demo and review of Sidekick – a powerful tool for youth ministry and interactive programming! See how Sidekick can transform your youth group experience by adding a dynamic, creative edge to your student ministry. Sidekick from Download Youth Ministry is perfect for leaders looking to engage students in fresh ways, this episode is packed with insights to level up your student ministry service!

📓 SHOWNOTES
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🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 More Engaging Services with Sidekick
02:26 New Patreon Show Starting!
04:08 Feature #1
06:48 Co-Leader Promo Code
08:23 Feature #2
11:39 Feature #3
12:12 Feature #4
13:44 Feature #5
14:07 Feature #6
14:40 Feature #7
15:35 Feature #8

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TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;04;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth pastor. Collegiate minister. Senior pastor. What if I told you

00;00;04;17 - 00;00;12;28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that there was a better presentation software out there than pro presenter PowerPoint, or whatever else you use?

00;00;12;28 - 00;00;30;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It sounded too good to be true. Well, listen, it is made by youth pastors and is made for youth pastors. Give me a like if you think you already know what I'm talking about, because I am talking about my favorite presentation software and it's called sidekick.

00;00;30;19 - 00;01;01;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And here's why. This is great, regardless of if you're in youth ministry or not, because it is made for interaction and it is made for customization. But there is so much more. And in this video and in this upcoming playlist, I want to share with you what those features are. This video in particular, I'm going to drop my top eight different miscellaneous features because everyone knows that sidekick has things like the voting and the wheel picker and the name picker.

00;01;01;29 - 00;01;23;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But in this video, I'm going to share the other things that sidekick has to offer besides those obvious kind of milestone landmark, features built in woven into the presentation software. And if you're here on YouTube, as always, don't forget that there are chapters listed down below at the bottom so that you can jump ahead to what matters most to you.

00;01;23;20 - 00;01;50;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But here's the thing in the context in which I'm currently working, we are all in on sidekick. What we've done is we have two computers now, one for pro presenter and one for sidekick. Because if you know, if you've used sidekick in the new beta version at all, you know that it runs through Google Chrome and in the previous versions, what you could do with running a software like, pro presenters, you'd have pro presenter up and running and then back behind it.

00;01;50;02 - 00;02;19;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You could have the sidekick window and you could just toggle off the display. But now Chrome is actually more powerful than Pro Presenter. Most people I tell that they find that actually incredibly surprising. And so as a result of that, it makes switching between Chrome and Pro Presenter a little bit tricky. And so the way in which we have sort of circumvented or navigated that is we have just built two computers and we have a black magic video switcher where we can go from computer one to computer two.

00;02;19;09 - 00;02;44;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And essentially we use Pro Presenter for just worship and lyrics, and then we use sidekick for every thing else. You know, I'm actually launching here during the course of this playlist, starting officially on December 2nd, a brand new bonus podcast. I'm going to be releasing it one time per week, going to be over on my Patreon page. And listen, Patreon, takes a little bit of a fee.

00;02;45;01 - 00;03;10;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the reason that I'm doing that is to just, invest back into the podcast. But I am only charging $4 per month. I think it is a small, modest fee. Essentially it is going to break down to $1 per week per additional bonus. Podcast. What I want to do with that podcast, I just simply want to share with you the creative ways that we are running our youth ministry programing and how we're making it hybrid.

00;03;10;21 - 00;03;35;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you want more hybrid information, I would love to share that with you. This podcast and this YouTube video is meant to sort of like give a big broad strokes overview of what Hybrid Ministry is. But on my Patreon page, what I want to do is I just want to share an extra bonus podcast and simply chat through everything that I've done for the week and talk through the ways that we've tried to make it creative and talk through the ways in which we have tried to sort of hybridize our ministry.

00;03;35;24 - 00;04;01;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that podcast is starting December 2nd. And for everyone who signs up during now, if you're watching live through December 2nd, I am going to send and mail you an exclusive free piece of merch. For all who sign up between now and December 2nd. Like I said, and it basically breaks down to $1 a month. So, either scan the QR code that you see here on screen or hit the link down below in the description.

00;04;01;29 - 00;04;25;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But let's dive in to my eight favorite features of sidekick. Let's check it out. So my first favorite feature of sidekick is its co-leader integration. And if you're watching here on screen, you might be surprised to know that you're not looking at sidekick. What you're actually going to look at when we're we're actually going to start is here on co-leader and so on.

00;04;25;02 - 00;04;50;07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Co-Leader. What you can do is, if you are a subscriber, a co-leader is a, curriculum roadmaps and, like, I guess almost, not pro presenter. What am I trying to say? Planning center replacement thing for youth pastors and for youth ministries. So here on co-leader, you can explore sort of all the different, series and topics and even, events that they have.

00;04;50;14 - 00;05;16;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Co-Leader has a roadmap series and so sort of like their proposed curriculum. And so you can explore their you're one of roadmaps and then you can also explore their your two here of roadmaps. And but essentially on co-leader what's so cool about it. And I like co-leader it is actually become it's new is only in year two of development but it's actually become my favorite curriculum resource, because it literally does everything for you.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;33;27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you see here on our dashboard, these are series that we have redeemed our credits for. So Co-Leader works on sort of a credit system. And so we've redeemed, this credit series, this credit on this series here called masks. And so, for example, if you're in, session one of masks, you click view session here.

00;05;34;05 - 00;05;54;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you look right off to the side here, sidekick, you can open in sidekick. Boom. Click that little button and it will automatically import your entire sessions. So here's our session flow. They got your graphics and all that stuff. But starting here you got your countdown. You're welcome. Your icebreaker, your game, some songs, videos and then the teaching slides.

00;05;54;29 - 00;06;13;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I want to show you what that looks like over here in sidekick. So if you're here in sidekick you'll see. Let's actually do a, side by side so that you can see them in comparison. Right. So from the top we have, countdown. There's your countdown. You got your, game right there. You got another game.

00;06;13;22 - 00;06;38;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Masked celebrity. And all of this is included in your co-leader subscription. You got your, bumper video for your masks, and then you got your masks. Chameleon is the title of the message. Chameleon teaching slides right there, and you can see how all of that works together. And so by a simple click of the button, your entire youth ministry night is planned.

00;06;38;29 - 00;07;03;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it is absolutely crazy. Now if you're a download Youth Ministry member, the co-leader is slightly different than do you? I am, but if you've never done anything in with download youth ministry before or co-leader, then I want to let my podcast listeners know that exclusively here on this podcast. I'll give you 10% off, of co-leader, so you can use the code Hybrid Ministry ten.

00;07;03;19 - 00;07;26;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what that includes is not only will that give you access to co-leader, but that also sort of will unlock access to this presentation software called sidekick. And so included is sidekick for a year. It allows you to do the one click presentations for everything that's in co-leader. Both year one and year two of the roadmaps, and you can get an access to co-leader premium or Premium Plus.

00;07;26;03 - 00;07;48;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. And so premium includes 260 co-leader credits. Like I said, it's kind of built off that credit system. And then you get 25 sidekick phone connections. That's for voting. We'll get to that in a minute. Or the premium class which is Premium Plus, which is 520 co-leader credits and 75 sidekick phone connections. So you can explore the differences between those two plans at this link here.

00;07;48;15 - 00;08;05;27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
On screen sidekick TV pricing don't forget, if you've never used or never done anything before with sidekick or with co-leader, then if you're signing up for the first time, Hybrid Ministry ten, I'll give you 10% off. Go ahead and check that out. And so I love that

00;08;05;27 - 00;08;10;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
about sidekick. I love that about, co-leader I love that, but it's integration.

00;08;10;01 - 00;08;10;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So boom.

00;08;10;11 - 00;08;22;28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right here. Here's my full like rundown, my full run sheet for everything going on here in this masks series. Now that's my first favorite thing about sidekick the co-leader integration.

00;08;22;28 - 00;08;37;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So my second favorite feature about sidekick is the YouTube video integration. Now, the thing I like about the YouTube video integration is it takes a while in sidekicks to to upload videos.

00;08;37;19 - 00;09;02;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can drag and drop JPEGs easily, but when you go to upload a video, just it takes a minute and it's a little clunky to do, like a video, next video, next video, because you got to kind of do it one by one. So here's how it look like. So if I wanted to put a video on this slide, I'd click Edit Media videos, go browse, go find the video, upload it, wait for it to upload, and then it's it's in its spot as opposed to just a quick and easy drag and drop.

00;09;02;05 - 00;09;23;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, if, I wanted to just embed a YouTube video, that's very simple, and I've actually already done that right here on this one, you'll notice here's one of my YouTube videos embedded. So if I go to present this thing, remember it's browser based. So just very simply,

00;09;24;01 - 00;09;46;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So just very simply, opens up a new window and you started hearing even the, the, what's it called? The countdown right there. But here's this video that I embedded social media right there into sidekick. I have all this functionality over here. I can pause the video, I can mute the video, I can restart the video.

00;09;46;10 - 00;10;10;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can do all those sort of things. Let me get this smaller so that we can see both of them together. So this is my presentation window that will just go full screen. Right. But very simply, when I'm, when I'm wanting to include a video, I can embed a video. And this is embedded small, but I can also just, you know, very, very simply, very easily embed that video full screen.

00;10;10;05 - 00;10;44;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right, as well. Now, the other thing like that we use in our youth ministry as we go hybrid taking our our in-person and our digital, we teach live messages. But then we also prefilled them for multiple reasons, because we use that as a springboard for our Sunday morning small group content. And so every Sunday morning we play a clip off of one of our message clips, even though the message was delivered live, we play the filmed version, in our room, just like a 2 to 3 minute clip to remind everyone what was said.

00;10;44;02 - 00;11;03;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Our our leaders can look at it ahead of time. Our students who missed on Wednesday can also look at it ahead of time on YouTube. It's evergreen content. It's meant to reach students who, might be asking questions about faith, God, whatever the case might be. And so we do that. And if you're interested in exploring more about what that might look like, link down.

00;11;03;11 - 00;11;38;27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Below is a link to some custom coaching. I would love to help kind of level that game up for you, or even get you started from scratch if that's something that you're interested in. But it has been a hugely beneficial piece to us and our student ministry, having the ability to just simply embed our YouTube videos. And so for things like countdowns or for things that are like bigger files, I will actually upload those to YouTube, host them there, put them on just like a private unlisted link, and then embed that video into my sidekick presentation, as opposed to have to upload it every single time.

00;11;39;00 - 00;11;57;26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now here's the other thing I love about sidekick. It's easy to build. So let me show you very quickly. Like, while, you know, while the videos might be a little more tricky to, to pull in or builder upload, they're easy to do. They're just a little bit time consuming. That's why it's easy to just drop a YouTube video in there.

00;11;57;26 - 00;12;09;26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. But if I just want to like, add one of these JPEGs in here, all I gotta do is drag it and drop it and boom, it's uploaded and is ready to go. There it is. Okay, super simple, super easy to

00;12;09;26 - 00;12;17;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
build. I love things like, these looping announcements. So right here, here's a bunch of different looping announcements.

00;12;17;19 - 00;12;39;04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, don't forget that the, here's the here's the countdown video again. But, you know, as always, like, don't forget Hybrid Ministry ten. Don't forget about that. That's going to be used to your advantage. If you want to check out Collider, you want to check out sidekick. Don't forget we got custom social media coaching. Scan the QR code that you see here on screen here.

00;12;39;04 - 00;12;58;09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'll make it bigger so you can go and check out my completely free e-book about how to go hybrid. Or hey, don't forget about our Patreon. We got that going on $4 a month exclusive free merch along with all these other things that you see here. Listed out exclusive sticker help to show and segment topics, super chats and shout outs.

00;12;58;09 - 00;13;22;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right? But you can turn this right here. You can turn these announcements to be looping announcements. We use those every single week in our ministry. So you'll see right over here. If you're watching here on screen, you see this little, loop icon. That means that this, this set of announcements in this little, pocket of, of slides here is set to, rotate.

00;13;22;05 - 00;13;41;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This one right here is not. So let me show you how you do it. Click this little gear icon. You click loop slides. You say how long you want the slides to loop for seven seconds or 10s or however long you want it to. And then you simply click close and then boom. When you click present, those will then be on a looper, which is a fantastic resource.

00;13;41;14 - 00;14;03;16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We use that every single week in our student ministry. I also want to let you know just about a couple of other things that are awesome. You have the, free option up here. So if you're co-leader, sidekick, person, these are all free different resources that you can get just like and quickly and simply, you got countdowns and games and videos and all sorts of things.

00;14;03;18 - 00;14;21;28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can embed or import any of these into your presentation. The other thing that's really cool is when you buy something on demand, look, I've bought these things before, they will automatically upload them. So as I was saying, kind of the video thing was a little clunky to upload and maybe you don't want to upload every single one of these to a YouTube playlist and then embed those via YouTube.

00;14;22;00 - 00;14;55;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
No sweat. No problem. Check it out. You can very simply buy something on gram and then boom, it'll be there in just a second and then you can quickly import it. Just like I did down here with this, finish the drawing game back to school. And there it is. Boom. Imported. All right, and then the other thing, man, the other thing that is so cool about, sidekick is that the you can control it from your phone simply by logging into app that sidekick.tv on your mobile device, and you can control it from anywhere in the room, including teaching.

00;14;55;24 - 00;15;19;28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can control it from any other device, including like our, sound booth, computer, maybe running sidekick. I can go into my office, and I can control sidekick from my office. And so my office actually sits where I can see in through some glass doors into our auditorium. And so if it's on the wrong side or whatever, I can pull open on my, on my laptop home from the app, that sidekick, that TV type in and change it.

00;15;20;04 - 00;15;45;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I've had other like staff members and volunteers to be like, are you are you controlling that right now? And that part is so stinking cool. The last thing the eighth and final piece about sidekick that I love is the voting. The voting option is the the single greatest advent. This is what makes this presentation and software so unique and so customizable.

00;15;45;21 - 00;16;13;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's what we're going to talk about. Additional creative ways to use it in your games, in your countdowns, in your teaching, in all sorts of different ways to deploy and use the voting feature in sidekick. You can't do this on any other presentation software. That video is going to be linked right here on screen. Go check out our Patreon as we'll talk about multiple creative ways to deploy voting and to deploy sidekick, and simply what I am doing to lean in and be more hybrid.

00;16;13;19 - 00;16;20;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But check that video out on screen. And don't forget, and as always, my friends, to stay hybrid.

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SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/122

Full Studio Tour Episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVT1xvh9-5k&t=161s

4 Easy Social Media Ideas
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaKLwZqOkQe7NzOqSVR0-P1s

DYM 100
https://dymtraining.com/dym100-roundtable/

Complete Guide to Crush Social Media E-Book
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/complete-guide-to-crushing-youth-ministry-social-media/admin-tools/social-media-9537.html

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
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CONNECT WITH JOSH ON SOCIAL
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https://x.com/joshboldman

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Great Debate
01:11 The Challenge: In Person vs. Digital
02:58 Clarifying "Hybrid"
04:42 5:00 Countdown
09:12 Opening Worship Song
16:35 Host Moment & Announcements
22:00 Game - Where's the Ball
30:35 Lesson: With a Killer Response Time
37:34 Online vs. In-Person: The Power of YouTube
41:54 Other Miscellaneous Hybrid Ideas

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What is up, everybody? Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, I am going to be talking with my friend Josh Goldman. He works over at Download Youth Ministry. He does all the stuff with sidekick and he does, stuff with co-leader and Josh, honestly, I believe is one of, if not the greatest programing specialist for youth ministries in America.

00:00:23:19 - 00:00:43:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm really excited for you to hear it because some of his ideas are absolutely fantastic. But what we're gonna do is we're going to be debating between in-person and digital, and you're going to see me try to lean everything back towards hybrid. And what we're doing is he's bringing a youth ministry programing sheet and he's saying, this is what we're doing.

00:00:43:13 - 00:01:02:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How do we make it digital? How do we, honor the people that might be watching online and more? I try to say, how can we make it hybrid? And so for those of you who are new here, hybrid is taking your in-person, taking your digital and finding a way to meet that intersection. And in most cases, I think that is at the intersection of students cell phones.

00:01:02:01 - 00:01:11:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you're going to see that this debate between digital versus in-person. So welcome to the show, the one and only Josh Boardman.

00:01:11:12 - 00:01:23:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well what's up everybody. I'm here this morning with my good friend Josh Bullman. And we have a little bit of a unique idea. So Josh, tell the people what we're doing okay.

00:01:23:01 - 00:01:30:29
Josh Boldman
So as anyone watching slash listening knows, Nick Claussen is all about the hybrid ministry, right?

00:01:30:29 - 00:01:53:19
Josh Boldman
Making sure that the people that are at home are still connecting with what's happening in the room. Yeah. I spent most of my ministry, like, developing, and leading services in the room. And then, you know, Covid happened and things got crazy, and we we did a full pendulum swing to where, like, we did everything online. Yeah.

00:01:53:20 - 00:02:02:13
Josh Boldman
And then we came back and suddenly it was like, wait, are we still doing online or are we like, what are we doing? You know? And so it was the constant challenge of

00:02:02:13 - 00:02:11:27
Josh Boldman
trying to not just, create something in the room and just stream it, right, like, make it more interactive. So yeah. So today

00:02:11:27 - 00:02:12:18
Josh Boldman
what

00:02:12:18 - 00:02:19:29
Josh Boldman
we're doing is I have got a service that I've created for in the room, and I'm going to walk us through it.

00:02:20:02 - 00:02:26:26
Josh Boldman
And Nick is going to in real time because he has not seen it. Now you guys gotta know, I offered. I was like,

00:02:26:26 - 00:02:48:05
Josh Boldman
dude, do you want this ahead? And we could just fake it? And he's like, no, no, too much integrity. Way too much. Yeah. And so he's going to try like as we go to, we're going to think through each, each section and try and figure out what is it that we can do to make this something that people who are not in the room, you know, but the students at home.

00:02:48:07 - 00:03:08:03
Josh Boldman
And I'm curious, Nick, if this is, you know, maybe something we look at is, is it if they're watching live or even if they're watching later, like, how does that impact, well, your ability to participate.

00:03:08:03 - 00:03:11:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So yeah, and to be clear, like the way that I define hybrid is like it's the it's the two pieces.
So your in-person plus your digital and it's like them coming

00:03:11:17 - 00:03:11:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
together.

00:03:11:27 - 00:03:19:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so there may be elements I think a little more what I might try to do is like take, take what is going on in the room and find a way

00:03:19:22 - 00:03:44:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to allow it to exist beyond that moment. Yeah. Or find a way to intersect a student, like in a spot like their phone that will that will last beyond that, the time that you dismiss them to go home so they can take it home, like youth ministry, typically pre-digital, could only exist in the few hours that our church doors were open.

00:03:44:04 - 00:04:13:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so now we have the advantage of being able to access sometimes it's, you know, a curse versus a blessing, but we have the advantage of being able to access and have conversation with and disciple our students at a time that Wednesday night programing or Sunday morning or Sunday night programing isn't happening. And how can we take what we're doing in the room and offer it to students beyond that moment, or even in your place in what you were saying, maybe even as a replacement of it?

00:04:13:22 - 00:04:28:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, like Josh said, I haven't seen any of this. I am a little nervous right now. Like earlier I was like, I'm fine, but now I'm a little nervous as I like get together. I got to be totally honest. I'm like, there are parts of it. Or I was like, oh, I can totally see how this is going to work.

00:04:28:05 - 00:04:42:24
Josh Boldman
And then there are other parts where I'm like, I don't know what he's going to do, how this is going to. Yeah. So bear with me. Stream of consciousness. And it may not be perfect and polished, but that's okay. That's what we're here for. So all right, let's do it. What is the first part of your service?

00:04:42:24 - 00:04:44:09
Josh Boldman
The five minute countdown.

00:04:44:13 - 00:04:45:20
Josh Boldman
Right. Okay, so we've got

00:04:45:20 - 00:05:19:08
Josh Boldman
students are in the room, they're playing nine square, they're playing gaga ball. They've got they're not paying attention to the countdown. Nobody cares what like someone spent a lot of time creating a countdown. Yeah, but ultimately no one cares about until it, like, reaches 10s. But there's there's a lot of interaction happening. And so, like, trying to think through is there is there something where we're trying to connect with students that are not in the room, or is there something we can do in the room to help students know, hey, it's not just you here.

00:05:19:08 - 00:05:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's yeah, there's more than that going on. Yeah. So one of the things about five minute countdowns that I actually hate, and I know that as talking to a guy who works for Download Youth Ministry, and that's where a lot of the money is made and a lot of five minute countdowns are sold. I actually prefer, which, by the way, talking to you right now, let this be an unofficial sidekick feature

00:05:43:09 - 00:05:44:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
request.

00:05:44:18 - 00:05:58:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Because right now in sidekick, you can, you can loop your announcements, right? You can loop some, like, graphic slides. And I actually prefer that to be the five minute countdown with

00:05:58:07 - 00:06:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just the five minute countdown overlaid in the corner, so that all of the announcements that you're announcing and trying to let your students know about are happening, is being seen on the screen.

00:06:11:03 - 00:06:22:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because if you think about it, if if the majority of people don't start paying attention to the screen until it's down to less than a minute, they missed all of the stuff that was looping ahead of time.

00:06:22:16 - 00:06:37:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the stuff that's looping ahead of time is the stuff that you want them to know about. And so whether it's hybrid, whether it's digital only or whether it's in person, like whatever you're announcing, I think you should leave that stuff on the screen as long as humanly possible.

00:06:37:20 - 00:06:56:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you're able to put a little five minute countdown in the corner or even across the middle, but I try to design my slides in such a way that I think, like, all right, I'm going to do the left corner of this time and keep stuff out of the left corner. And so then we may have like our current series graphic, we may have an upcoming events.

00:06:56:02 - 00:07:13:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like at the time of recording, we got our costume party coming up and Christmas is on the horizon. So those types of things are there. But woven in my announcements, I might try to do, well, I what we do right now is like, I advertise our online baptism

00:07:13:19 - 00:07:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
course, which is a YouTube playlist. And there are so many times, like almost all of my slides at this point, have a QR code to you.

00:07:22:24 - 00:07:42:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Do you remember when the QR code was dying? Like, yeah, no one used it. So lame. Like, I remember having this conversation in a church staff meeting where it was like we could put a QR code on it. And I remember some would be like, does anyone use those? And the answer was no. Yeah. And then but now

00:07:42:25 - 00:07:46:18
Josh Boldman
how else would we get the menu at restaurants like this?

00:07:46:20 - 00:08:14:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think I had the same meeting because at during Covid the question was how do we communicate things without handing things to people and passing germs? Yeah. And I suggested a QR code and I quote from our communications team, we will never use a QR code. And I kid you not, not two weeks later, what was on the screen, because it was the only way to do it and it made a comeback.

00:08:14:00 - 00:08:35:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I actually I've always thought QR codes were brilliant. They didn't get adopted early on, but now they're back and they make so much sense. So yeah, we have a subscription to like a QR code builder. I get like 160 different like unique QR codes. And so I abuse that. And so oh yeah, our baptism course, our text list like all of these things.

00:08:35:11 - 00:09:05:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if a student during the five minute countdown, isn't playing nine square and they're kind of sitting already in the service or don't have anyone to talk to or something on the screen, does happen to sort of like catch their attention. They can pull their phone out. They can scan the QR code and they can get to it later, whether that be signing up for our text group, which will allow them access, or us access to them to send them encouraging messages or even just announcement type things, or even like discipleship related things like, hey, I'm ready to take a next step about baptism.

00:09:05:08 - 00:09:12:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let me explore more about that through the baptism playlist. So all right, so there you go. That's what I would do. All right.

00:09:12:18 - 00:09:17:19
Josh Boldman
So at zero, usually what we'll do is we'll, we'll jump right into

00:09:17:19 - 00:09:17:29
Josh Boldman
the first

00:09:17:29 - 00:09:31:12
Josh Boldman
song. Right. And so our, our group, we had a live band. So that was, I mean, I, you know, it's one of those things where every time you talk about having a student band, this could go one of two very different ways.

00:09:31:15 - 00:09:51:29
Josh Boldman
And I will say, like, I've been really blessed to be at churches where, we had a really good, like, solid student led band that, I mean, had a, a track record of what I would say is in the neighborhood of 82%, like, okay, this is going to be a four out of five that it's going to go, well, so like so it would, it would hit pretty well.

00:09:51:29 - 00:10:08:10
Josh Boldman
And that was kind of in the room that was like the, the oh, oh we're starting like you know, so everybody's like getting getting into their seats getting music hits. Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean obviously in the room you got lyrics on the screen, you got we got, you know, some cameras going and stuff like that.

00:10:08:11 - 00:10:31:02
Josh Boldman
So yeah, like for, for worship on the live stream for people after like, are you like, is there anything different that you feel like you can do to set up to help again, the room feel like they're a part of what's happening at home and vice versa. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ideas. Let me first say, Josh, you might find this surprising.

00:10:31:13 - 00:10:55:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I've been in youth ministry for 14 years, and the church I'm at now, I've been here two years. This is the first church in. You know, I guess by the time I moved here is, like, 12 years. So my first 12 years of ministry, I did not have a regular live worship band. Oh, yeah. Everywhere I've been prior, like, for one reason or another, the band didn't really, like, Take Root.

00:10:55:17 - 00:11:15:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I didn't try to kill it, but I also didn't have a massive like, that's not my bent. I'm not a worship guy. I can't play any instruments. And so I'm not trying to get that thing up and off the ground. And so for sure, I've had we've had worship at camps and retreats and at like one off worship nights and stuff like that, but not on like a regular, like rhythm.

00:11:15:09 - 00:11:38:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so let me just say to those of you out there in the majority of churches, right, like that, probably don't have a live stream, let's just be honest. And they may you might not even have quality like music means to pull off worship like I feel is. I mean, you know, you can be the judge of this, but I feel as though I did really good youth ministry for 12 years without a band.

00:11:38:19 - 00:12:02:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I and I don't even know, like in a, you know, in a typical youth service, it's what it's a little more like geared towards outsiders. Oftentimes I don't know that getting up there and singing about the blood of Jesus is often the most welcoming thing for an outsider. And so sometimes you may be shooting yourself in the foot, all in an effort to try and copy what you think youth ministries should be doing, which is worship.

00:12:02:24 - 00:12:22:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you can program around worship. It's going to require a lot more creativity, which is essentially the basis of this episode. Like finding ways to be a little bit more creative with your programing and whatnot. So I'll only say that as an encouragement. Don't feel like you have to jam a worship band into like a space if it's not working.

00:12:22:12 - 00:12:47:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not fitting the context isn't right, whatever the case may be. Yeah, I've always felt like we we were at places where we tried doing the, you know, the lyric videos, you know, that kind of thing. And it would, it would work in like seasons. But there were times we were just like, okay, this feels like we're showing them a video that they are begrudgingly watching for.

00:12:47:07 - 00:13:04:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, 5.5 minutes. And then they sit down and it's like, okay, well, if it doesn't work, doesn't work. Like don't, don't force that. Yeah, that I think that probably hurts more than it helps if it feels like you're forcing it. Yeah. So take back to answer your specific question about what to do

00:13:04:07 - 00:13:11:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
about worship. Like, I will say when I'm thinking about in-person versus online, online,

00:13:11:25 - 00:13:20:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in my opinion, is a fantastic content delivery system like podcasts, sermons can be podcasts, sermons can be YouTube videos.

00:13:20:27 - 00:13:32:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like that is what the internet is made for, right? What in person is made for that the internet can't always overcome is certain things like community. And one of those things I think it has

00:13:32:02 - 00:13:37:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a hard time overcoming is live, in-person worship, shoulder to shoulder like

00:13:37:23 - 00:13:47:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
they're watching during Covid, watching worship online, versus watching worship in the room was a completely different experience.

00:13:47:04 - 00:14:06:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I sat in my recliner. I did not stand. I did not sing. I maybe like sung under my breath. But you know, I'm not getting up in my living room and like, worshiping like I would at church. And so that is, you know, one of the, in my opinion, advantages of in-person, I will say a couple ideas.

00:14:06:16 - 00:14:29:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One, during Covid, our church, I thought was fantastically innovative and our worship was not just like a band on a stage. It was like they were shot almost like a music video. And especially during Covid, all the individual musicians, like, they recorded all their parts and then they sent them back and then the editors, like, spliced it all together.

00:14:29:03 - 00:14:46:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Wow. It was so good. And of course, that wasn't sustainable. But when they pulled the plug on that, I was that that wasn't a youth ministry thing. But when they pulled the plug on that, I thought that was a big, big mistake because it was very good. And they went back to like an easier route. And I felt like it.

00:14:46:01 - 00:15:09:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It took away some of what made our online presence pretty, pretty good. Oh, yeah. But for the kids in the room for the hybrid, like, hey, how do we, like, let this, this attitude of worship live beyond, I mean, very simply, like, you can create a greatest hits like Spotify playlist of all the best worship songs that you and your students that they love.

00:15:09:15 - 00:15:28:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I especially like to do this for camps or retreats. I'll create the playlist even ahead of time, and I'll like float it out and I'll sneak it out via like our text lists, our social media so that people can grab Ahold of it. And so even if in the room, if you wanted to have one of those little Spotify, it's not a QR code, but it's similar to it.

00:15:28:01 - 00:15:38:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like you scan Spotify's version of it and you can join the playlist, and, you know, even be cool. I'm come with this idea on the fly. You could create like a collaborative

00:15:38:18 - 00:15:49:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
like playlist, like our church's favorite worship songs, and it's a public playlist. And anyone with a Spotify account can go in and they can add their favorite worship songs.

00:15:49:13 - 00:16:02:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then you just got to keep that kind of front and center, like, hey, throughout the week. Like, hey, don't forget we got this, you know, collaborative worship playlist. If you know you want to worship God throughout this week, take a listen. Nice I like that. Yeah.

00:16:02:14 - 00:16:16:19
Josh Boldman
Something something that we did, during Covid was we would ask at the end of the service to, say like, hey, if there are songs that really speak to you like we want to do, you know, we want to lead you in those songs.

00:16:16:19 - 00:16:29:26
Josh Boldman
So it was kind of like a, hey, this week, let us know what songs you'd like to do next week, like that kind of a thing. I mean, I, I don't know that that was like super, super well-received, but it was, it was something. Right? It was at least something that that allowed a little bit back and forth.

00:16:29:29 - 00:16:39:13
Josh Boldman
Yeah. So we, we, we usually do one song, ready to tap, and then we would go into our hosting time. So where we, we would have two

00:16:39:13 - 00:16:53:18
Josh Boldman
volunteers, usually an adult and a student. If not it would be two adults. And you know, the I will be the first to say it was always hit or miss like every time.

00:16:53:25 - 00:17:10:02
Josh Boldman
And you know, because you're always like, oh that person's personality, you know. Yeah. It's like because you get because like people who are super nervous on stage. I totally get it. But it would be like you'd sit down with them, be like, they would want to know what is the what is the content of the announcement? Right?

00:17:10:03 - 00:17:21:17
Josh Boldman
It's like, okay, well, I can tell you that, like, for sure, we'll make sure you got that. And for them it was like as long as I know the information, I'm good. And it's, you know, there is there is more to this game than that, friend. But yeah,

00:17:21:17 - 00:17:28:03
Josh Boldman
one of the ways that we found to kind of help that process was we started doing the wheel of announcements.

00:17:28:04 - 00:17:47:02
Josh Boldman
You I love that sidekick. And and and the the best part, right is you can you can game the system. Right? You can tell it which was so we would have like, say if there were four announcements. That's too many. You know, I'd say three max. Yeah. But like so whatever number of announcements there were, we would always have one more.

00:17:47:04 - 00:18:09:18
Josh Boldman
And that wheel wedge was always like, everyone gets $100, you know, whatever. And so like, you have to make sure that the person in your booth, oh, man, you have to trust that person or, that could cost you dearly. Yeah. Like, oh, man. But it was great because it really was random. Yeah, but it would.

00:18:09:18 - 00:18:29:15
Josh Boldman
But especially when it would get down to the last two wedges and it was like half the wheel is everyone gets $100. And the other was like, you know, church picnic or whatever, and you spin it and it just like slowly goes. It's like, oh, you know, and it was great. Like, but it kept, you know, because the students in the room, they don't care about half the announcements you're giving.

00:18:29:15 - 00:18:43:21
Josh Boldman
But it was kind of fun every time it would pass the $100 thing, you know, that they'd want to see it. And so we would just change it to a new thing every week. And sometimes it would be they'd win a prize or there would be like, you know, something embarrassing that the person on stage would have to do.

00:18:43:24 - 00:19:05:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But that's a different way to gamify it so that it's more interesting than I've episode that talked about, like, stop posting announcements to social media like, no one cares and no one is getting on social media to know what's going on in your youth ministry. They'll they you do want them to know like it's just you're using it's the wrong like medium for it.

00:19:05:17 - 00:19:30:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so a lot of times in the same way we do announcement times of this service in our church, like we do need to get these things across. Yeah. But I think that like, you know, this isn't a direct answer to the question, but like, how how do you hybridize your announcements or like, how do you get your announcements across in like a, a different way than just like the host moment or the announcement moment in your planning center service rundown?

00:19:30:00 - 00:19:49:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like you, you use the mediums all all throughout the rest of the like, all throughout the rest of your like repertoire that you have to your advantage so you can post those. I do say you can post announcements to social media. You just have to be creative with it. Like one of my favorites is. I'll follow the link down below.

00:19:49:28 - 00:20:07:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But like those transition style videos. Have you seen the one where the dudes getting speared in the back by like a bull, and then people are diving into like, their rows of chairs? Like, yep. Do those like, get your you can still tell people on social media about what's going on your church. Just make it actually creative.

00:20:07:19 - 00:20:25:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't just post your cooked up Canva graphic like no one. All right, you ready? You ready for some? I just thought like this. Like yes. Head right is right. So, so you could during your announcement time, you could record that video with your students, like. Yes. So that would be in the moment. You're like, hey, here's what we're gonna do.

00:20:25:24 - 00:20:43:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We got this thing coming up. We want to let everybody know about it. Here's, you know what it's going to be like, let's let's do this real quick. And yeah, just and you know what else? Like what else could you do? You could, random name generator. Your your contestant, you could, then get them up there and then what does that do.

00:20:43:01 - 00:20:44:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's a nod to your socials.

00:20:44:17 - 00:21:01:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so while you're announcing, you throw a graphic on screen that says we're social, it's guy QR codes, a link tree of all of your social handles. And the people in the room like, hey, go follow this because we're going to post this tomorrow. And that's been like, I'm going to, that's one of the things we've done in our youth ministry.

00:21:01:29 - 00:21:24:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We've created a social team and a social challenge component of every night of our youth ministry. And so students know they can go into our studio. We have a studio like it's bougie. All right, I get it. You can see the tour down below, but like, they know they can go in there and they can get on camera with their friends, and then eventually they're going to be the star on our social media.

00:21:25:02 - 00:21:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it helps create like a little more appetite for it than just the youth pastors being like the the talent on social media. No one wants that, right? Unless we're looking stupid. Are you saying we're not as cool as we think we are? Is that okay? It depends how you think of yourself as true. You know, if you have a, if you're like very self-aware, then you probably know you're not very cool.

00:21:50:03 - 00:21:58:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're in your 30s or 40, to be honest. Okay. So then we transition into a game.

00:21:58:02 - 00:21:59:13
Josh Boldman
And this was

00:21:59:13 - 00:22:17:10
Josh Boldman
always like, so we had two different things that we we've tried off and on. One is the winner of the game gets to spin a wheel for a prize and it's just numbers on a wheel. And then we had like shoeboxes and it was like, you know, you win box number seven and then you get the box, open it up.

00:22:17:10 - 00:22:34:02
Josh Boldman
And it's either a great prize or terrible prize, something like that. I love that, and I'm probably stealing that. Now that you just said that, is it. Honestly it was pretty cool. Like and that's like a YouTube video right there. That's like Ryan's world, you know. Yeah. And it wouldn't let you do is it let you not always have to keep buying awesome prizes?

Josh Boldman
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Because oh man it was. And what you so like at the very beginning we would tell people like you know, so like we, we change them out every quarter or something like that and it would be like, hey, just so you know, in these 12 boxes, there are, a $10 Apple gift card. There's, you know, you know, just you tell them kind of, hey, here are a couple of the big things are in here.

00:22:55:16 - 00:23:13:12
Josh Boldman
Yeah. And then just as you get it, you know, one week, person rolls, number five. Great. They get box five. So then you just take that one off the list, and so you don't even have to, like, buy a new prize every week. You just have to have it all loaded upfront and you just put like, old crap that's laying around your church into those boxes, too.

00:23:13:13 - 00:23:34:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So good, so good. Right? It could be any. I mean, just honestly, anything, it's a mug, anything good. Right? It says you're voted most likely to need coffee. Like. Oh, yeah, that one that is, the other thing that we started doing was we do we did the impossible shot. Yeah. So yeah, the deal is like the traditional

00:23:34:15 - 00:23:41:04
Josh Boldman
impossible shot has always been like, if you are here for the first time or you were the person who invited that person for

00:23:41:04 - 00:23:44:12
Josh Boldman
the first time, you get to take a shot at this impossibly small target.

00:23:44:19 - 00:24:07:03
Josh Boldman
And if it goes through, you win a prize. But we, we started doing is the winner of the game, got to take the shot. And so it even made it, like, more, you know, your chance of winning the game was small. Yeah. And then that makes you even smaller. And we would add every week, we would add to the bucket of what do you win if you get the impossible shot.

00:24:07:03 - 00:24:23:13
Josh Boldman
And so like you started out with it's a bunch of candy. Okay. Then it's like one of every candy and then it's like, all right, gift card, you know, and so you just kind of slowly build it, until somebody wins it. It was one of the things we did. But I'm curious, like, so the possible shot rate is, agrees it.

00:24:23:13 - 00:24:42:19
Josh Boldman
So we would like. That's what I set up in this one was winner of the game. And the game would be like, where's the ball? We're doing doing 100. Probably by the time this is out, we will have already done it. So. Yeah. So, signed up for next year. But, one of the things that I made was a, a game called Where's the ball?

00:24:42:19 - 00:24:59:09
Josh Boldman
Obscure sports edition. Yeah. And so it's like link down below. Go give Josh goodness. Yeah. No, it'll be actually, you know, it'll be free in sidekick. So if you, if you have. Yeah. It'll be one of those like click on the little free button at the top and the little red dot pops up and you're like, oh my goodness me.

00:24:59:12 - 00:25:17:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But it's like I need to look at that more frequently than I do. Yeah you do, I don't. Yeah, it's there's some good stuff in there. So the sports I've got are curling, I've got ax throwing, I've got, Oh, have you ever heard of cycle ball? No. Basically like soccer. But you play on bicycles.

00:25:17:27 - 00:25:39:14
Josh Boldman
Okay. Who's the front wheel of the bike to kick the ball? It's sane. Sounds insane. And I feel as though I would die. Horribly dangerous. The other one is unicycle hockey, which is exactly what it sounds like. And it is magical. But but that is, you know, I mean, so one of the things like that, what we when I first started making the where's the ball games, right.

00:25:39:14 - 00:25:44:24
Josh Boldman
That was very much you had to be in the room to make it work. But then with sidekick, we've done where it's voting

00:25:44:24 - 00:25:52:00
Josh Boldman
now. And so we worked really hard, especially during Covid and after, to make it wear our, when we were live

00:25:52:00 - 00:25:59:00
Josh Boldman
streaming that it was as low lag as possible. So people at home really could also vote in.

00:25:59:06 - 00:26:16:02
Josh Boldman
And we got it, you know, down to like, I think you can without too much trouble. You can get the lag down to like three four seconds. Not too bad. Yeah. And so we would do that where you could see on the screen, you know, people voting, that kind of thing. Yeah. But yeah, so we did that, but then so impossible

00:26:16:02 - 00:26:16:13
Josh Boldman
shot.

00:26:16:15 - 00:26:16:26
Josh Boldman
That

00:26:16:26 - 00:26:18:01
Josh Boldman
is a in the room

00:26:18:01 - 00:26:40:16
Josh Boldman
phenomenon. Yep. Is there anything we could you can do to make that, something that someone at home feels like they're able to connect with? Or is it really just a show? The highlight. And and they get to celebrate if it happened? Yeah. I mean, like, if it's a true live stream, which again, like I said earlier, not a lot of youth ministries have like full live streaming capabilities.

00:26:40:18 - 00:27:01:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So even what we do, what I recommend to a lot of people is like most people are not interested in tuning in to your full youth service, like, so we pre-record all of our messages for YouTube into like a 12 minute, like teaching type of deal. So like that's what I would recommend. Like that's what people are getting on YouTube in the internet for.

00:27:02:01 - 00:27:12:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Is there a way to reclaim a live stream impossible shot type moment like there might be like a sort of like voting type thing. Like, do you think that they

00:27:12:07 - 00:27:21:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
can get it or not? You're going to need a moderator in your chat to like initiate that poll. So like let's say you won and it's like, congratulations to Josh.

00:27:21:10 - 00:27:40:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Will Josh hit the impossible shot yes or no? And they can vote there in the poll like in the chat or something like that. I think like YouTube or maybe Facebook has some of that like functionality built in. But what I might do like a as an alternative to the impossible shot or depending on your game.

00:27:40:27 - 00:27:50:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. Like, one of my favorite styles of games is creating like, you can do like those, like sculpture, building types of games or like, let

00:27:50:14 - 00:28:14:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
students in teams create something together. And then you can, like, take pictures of all of them and they can vote on them either. Oh, I like that on sidekick live in the room or what we've done in the past is we've said, hey, these are going to be on our Instagram Stories, go vote on them, and then we'll announce the winner on Sunday, which is like our next meeting time or what I like that I like.

00:28:14:27 - 00:28:29:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the winning group will get a pizza party next week. Yeah. And so, you know, like, those are different. Those are just different ideas, obviously. So to answer your question, I would try to just create like, a poll type of thing. I think that's. Yeah. That's the best idea. I got the top of my head right now.

00:28:29:29 - 00:28:32:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's, but some other, like, ideas

00:28:32:06 - 00:28:56:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and let me jump in and say, in the land of prizes, another great like, free to you prize is, so we are our set up is, round tables. And so you oftentimes your table is your team in whatever sort of thing you're competing in game trivia, whatever. And so a lot of times we'll, let the winning team go sit in what we call the best seats in the house.

00:28:57:00 - 00:29:14:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we'll put some, like, couches in, like, nicer seats than, like, the tables there. And then we'll just stuff that area full of, like, snacks and drinks, and they get to sit there during like the teaching time. And oftentimes we have all the snacks and drinks on hand, and it's just couches that we have laying around, but they're nicer than tables.

00:29:14:07 - 00:29:32:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you can give students that opportunity. It's similar to like your your box of prizes type of thing. So it in the box are prizes. One of the things we learned was, I kept forgetting to refill the boxes and so, what we started putting in the boxes as as a prize was pizza party for your small group next week?

00:29:32:25 - 00:29:51:01
Josh Boldman
Yeah, yeah. Like, you know. So it's always like a hey, you want it right now, but you're going to get it next year. So it would get kids to come back next week. But also if like say that small group won and they had five kids that night, next week they're going to have 15. Like it's just it's crazy because they know like oh yeah we won the prizes.

00:29:51:01 - 00:30:09:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So and then you didn't order enough pizza ever. It's just so, you know you know it's something you'll see in the Facebook group a lot is the do I on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. How many pizzas should I order for a thing? I always order too much because then it's lunch for me for the rest of the week.

00:30:10:06 - 00:30:29:04
Josh Boldman
It's like, oh, they're good. That's how it. Yeah. The secret. I think that might be embezzlement. I'm not sure now that. Yeah, whatever. It's okay. We can cut that part out. Yeah. Whatever it, So there we go from there. We might, at that point do another song. But then we're going to go to a bumper video and you answer the lesson.

00:30:29:04 - 00:30:30:28
Josh Boldman
Now, the lesson that,

00:30:30:28 - 00:30:33:02
Josh Boldman
I'm doing this week is going to be,

00:30:33:02 - 00:30:39:01
Josh Boldman
on, Peter walking on water. Okay. And in the the idea is the big idea for it is

00:30:39:01 - 00:30:52:28
Josh Boldman
that your first step is meant to be followed by a second step. So it's like, the whole idea is like momentum, things like that. So the way that we would do this and we did this, and I can, I can send you pictures of how we did it.

00:30:53:01 - 00:31:16:29
Josh Boldman
We built this basically like this trough, and we covered it in plastic sheets. And then we put a tarp over that, and then we filled it with cornstarch and water, as you put it, at the right consistency. It's a it's a, it's a substance called oobleck or a non-Newtonian fluid. Okay. Which means if you just touch it it's liquid.

00:31:16:29 - 00:31:25:23
Josh Boldman
But if you hit it, it's solid, like it's crazy cool seeing it, right? Yeah. And so what that means is if you again, if you get the right

00:31:25:23 - 00:31:38:10
Josh Boldman
consistency, if you run on it, you can run completely on top of it. You will not see no way. But any point that you stop, you will sink right in like it's over.

00:31:38:12 - 00:31:58:28
Josh Boldman
And so what we would do is, is so yeah, that's the idea. Right? So Peter, Jesus calls him out on the water. He starts walking. It's working. But then as soon as he stops, he looks down. He starts to sink. And so Jesus gives him, you know, a bit of a, a talking to and, and so then, you know, then they he reaches out, pulls Peter back up, they climb back in the boat.

00:31:59:02 - 00:32:21:17
Josh Boldman
And so, what we're trying to tell the kids is like, hey, yeah, we want everybody to take a first step. You know? We all know what else we want. You. We want you to like. First step gives you momentum. Just keep taking steps like keep going. Yeah. And so, so the way we would end this service is in this is probably in the room going to be chaos.

00:32:21:19 - 00:32:40:10
Josh Boldman
And I'm I'm very comfortable with that especially like because it's so it's going to end with communion. Right. And so that which is not you know I've been in different groups where, where we've done communion every week. I've done groups where we do it like literally hardly ever. And, you know, and so this was one day where we did it every week.

00:32:40:13 - 00:33:05:07
Josh Boldman
And but what I would do is I would set that that, that trough up. So that students, in order to go and get the communion elements, get to run across the thing, to go get the cookie. So it's like, hey, that you're, you're chasing after Jesus, you're, you're taking this first step and you're not stopping. So like I said, you know, normally like communion is a fairly like somber time.

00:33:05:07 - 00:33:24:23
Josh Boldman
This would not be that because it would be a bit chaotic. But and they'd be taking their shoes off and they, you know, running across, but then, then they get the elements and they would take them right there, and then they then they go back to their seat. And so we would one we'd have to figure out stuff for the students to do when they're back in their seat.

00:33:24:25 - 00:33:59:26
Josh Boldman
Yeah. Because that, you know, it's going to take a minute. Yeah. They watching all that. But I mean, it wouldn't be like, you know, super, super engaging. But but the moment of running across, they absolutely loved it. Like, I mean, it was just the coolest thing ever. Yeah. So like but and then we would dismiss the small groups, but it's that that type of experience is, is really like a in the room thing, like because, because so one of the things I've always said about, like trying to be creative in your programing is like, you get to say yes to things that no one else ever says yes to.

00:34:00:02 - 00:34:10:06
Josh Boldman
And so like this. Like, in order to do this, we had to buy like 150 pounds of, of corn starch from like a food grade service company. Like it was just like they bring it in on a

00:34:10:06 - 00:34:16:17
Josh Boldman
pallet. It oh, it was crazy. Like it is absolutely insane. But no one is going to be able to do that at home.

00:34:16:24 - 00:34:34:16
Josh Boldman
I mean, they do it like, and so like one of the things is we would like walk them through, like, how did how to make it at home and at a very smaller scale. Yeah. I think it is one way to do that, but I don't know, like, I feel like in that moment that having an experience like that just like, creates a core memory, right?

00:34:34:16 - 00:34:34:26
Josh Boldman
It's like

00:34:34:26 - 00:34:54:15
Josh Boldman
the locks in there going to remember the teaching, if ever so slightly, because of the experience. It's just kind of like try and get your thoughts on yeah. What do you do to help someone who's either experiencing it later or experiencing at home? How do they how do they lock in that same that same idea? And any thoughts there?

00:34:54:15 - 00:34:57:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah for sure. So, once again, like I said,

00:34:57:23 - 00:35:15:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
there are certain things that in-person that digital can't do to like replace and frankly, vice versa. But this is a prime example. So here's the here's the shame. Josh. Like, this is why you're the best youth ministry

00:35:15:20 - 00:35:21:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
programmer in America. Because this what what a title, right?

00:35:21:08 - 00:35:46:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The fact is this, like if all your students are coming to in the room is a lecture style sermon, they can get they can 100% get that online. Right. And and it'll be better. Exactly. Let's call it what it is right there online. Somebody do it better if it's just lecture style. Yeah. And so again here's our strategy.

00:35:46:04 - 00:36:04:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If we were doing that I would totally do that in the room. We don't live stream. And so instead of trying to replicate a live stream moment, now if you were in a position where you had to do that, I think, you know, what Josh's point was, is I would I would try to get a camera on the actual like trough thing so that

00:36:04:20 - 00:36:07:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
people can watch that and then maybe encourage people

00:36:07:02 - 00:36:16:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
with like, text on screen to go get some element so that they too can take, you know, communion and then give them the opportunity if they want to build it.

00:36:16:08 - 00:36:34:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're not going to probably be able to do that, like right in the moment. Like, do they have enough corn starch? Do they have a bowl? Like, you know what I mean? Probably that. So what we would do in our context now is we would film a talk about Peter walking on water for YouTube, direct to camera, 15 minutes or less.

00:36:34:04 - 00:37:02:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Really, really highly edited. And so if I wanted to use like B-roll or anything like that from like The Chosen as I'm illustrating this Peter point, like that's going to be on screen, it's not just going to be me talking. We're going to use the medium of video that we have to our advantage and do certain things like so this isn't in the same vein, but one time I was talking about how like, God knows the big picture and on screen I said, does anyone know what this is?

00:37:02:04 - 00:37:19:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Comment down below if you know it. And there's like a super zoomed in like grainy, pixelated something or other. And then in the next frame it like zoomed out and you can see this like beautiful painted canvas. And the point I made in that was like God's painting a picture and you can't see the outcome. He's in control.

00:37:19:07 - 00:37:27:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're. And that's just an example. And you could do that in the room with like, a slide. But that's just an example of something that you can do with a

00:37:27:15 - 00:37:29:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
video. And so I

00:37:29:03 - 00:37:42:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
wouldn't try to recreate that moment because it's probably un replicating. Right. But I would create something that at the end of the day, your bottom line was the first steps, always

00:37:42:09 - 00:37:43:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
followed by a second step.

00:37:43:20 - 00:38:08:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think you can teach that and deliver that online for anyone who's not there. And that's again, one of the reasons we don't do like a quote live stream is because a we don't have the equipment, but if you miss out on it, you sort of feel like it's over instead. Like, what is YouTube great for? Like, I get on YouTube, I don't know about you, but I get on there when like, I have a clog in my sink and I search how to fix, clog and sink.

00:38:09:00 - 00:38:32:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like in the same way. Water heater based on YouTube and a skylight. See, I, I think I broke the law. I've admitted to doing this now twice. Yeah. Don't worry, that's the power of editing. But I'll probably leave it in. But, a student might get on and be like, ask a question. Like a tough question. Like, is such and such a sin?

00:38:32:29 - 00:38:52:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How do I grow my faith? How do I start making disciples? How do I whatever? And so that's what I'm trying to do on YouTube, is I'm trying to title and tag my videos in such a way that, like, they're going to be found in search from a teenager or anyone for that matter, but particularly a teenager who's asking big questions about life and about faith.

00:38:52:24 - 00:38:58:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you're doing one thing in the room. But online, they're both hopefully accomplishing

00:38:58:10 - 00:39:17:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
the same ultimate goal. And that's where I would say, like the the difference of hybrid hybrid is not just digital, right? It's both. And so a good in room experience is going to like be worth its weight in gold. We don't have to try to like replace it.

00:39:17:05 - 00:39:21:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What I will say a great hybrid experience for teaching.

00:39:21:03 - 00:39:29:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you haven't checked this out, one of my favorite resources, is like the YouVersion live events. And so in built

00:39:29:09 - 00:39:40:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in woven into the YouVersion Bible app, there's a section called live. And so you can make it be, quote live when your service is live. And you can put your outline basically in there.

00:39:40:28 - 00:39:58:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what's great about it is you can also link Bible reading plan. So always link a Bible reading plan at the end of any message. So like in that one I would link something about taking next steps like a 4 or 5 day Bible reading plan for a student to jump into if they wanted. And we always have a next steps form.

00:39:58:14 - 00:40:00:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We have a digital next steps form that

00:40:00:04 - 00:40:14:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just lives in perpetuity on our website. And so at the bottom second to bottom of my YouVersion live event, I put a link. So you ready to next step? Let us know. We want to take it with you. And then it's a link and it can go external. It can go external to anything.

00:40:14:04 - 00:40:36:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you can also link like camp sign ups or retreat sign ups or denial sign ups like you can you can link to anything. And that's a great way for a student hybrid to like take something and they can save that event and they can get back to it later. They can like take private notes on it. So it's something that they're in the room, but they're taking notes on their device.

00:40:36:01 - 00:40:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And now later, if they have a question or whatever they want to like continue on in their faith. Like, that's a fantastic we call it,

00:40:43:09 - 00:40:52:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
digital notes, like it's the YouVersion live events platform, but we like have branded it like digital notes. And as I said, it's QR code. So I just

00:40:52:04 - 00:41:01:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
swap the the same QR code and then our tables in our room we have a little like standing placard thing and it says follow along for the digital notes.

00:41:01:04 - 00:41:21:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Students can scan it and it'll pull open that week's YouVersion live event. So it changes every week based on that particular thing. So that would be a hybrid solution to like the content in the room. Your ending piece is fantastic, right? And so I don't think you want to try to like replicate that in someone's house necessarily.

00:41:21:10 - 00:41:36:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I think you could pre film that if kids don't make it or if a kid down the road comes to your youth minister that wasn't there that night or they weren't attending your church, you and they have a question about taking a next step. You can be like, hey, this is my favorite part about putting your stuff on YouTube.

00:41:36:03 - 00:41:48:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can like, hey, we actually have a fantastic teaching on it. I'll send you the link. It's right here. And you don't have to say, oh man, you should have been here last month. We did this really cool thing. Like they can still have access to it. So

00:41:48:27 - 00:41:57:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
some some that, I was thinking of with this particular type of thing is filming, like, a behind the scenes, like as you're making it, like.

00:41:57:05 - 00:42:12:25
Josh Boldman
Yes, it could be. It could be really power, even as students have run across it, like just catching them right at the end and be like, hey, can you would you? Yeah. How do you remember this or what? What what was this experience like? And just having like, you know, featuring a couple of them I think could could go a long way for sure.

00:42:12:25 - 00:42:36:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's one of my strategy. Like in my, like social media calendar, like Wednesday night, which is our youth night, I film just I post like a recap video of what we did. And so for that night, that's that might be what I do is just focus on the trough moment. Right. Or if you don't have anything that's as like unique or powerful as that, you can just get a little snippets of the whole night so you can get kids playing nine square.

00:42:36:22 - 00:42:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Kids worship in the band, worship being the the pastor teaching. And then you take, you know, 7 to 12 clips. You put them in something like TikTok, it'll auto cut it for you and boom, you got a post that takes you less than a minute. You know, I love it. So dude. So good. Look at us. Look at that.

00:42:55:13 - 00:43:20:09
Josh Boldman
We figured it out so good. This is really fun. Is that the end of your service? Yeah, well, I mean, we were dismissed as small groups. And there's something that we did there, that, you know, trying to engage outside of just the small group time was like we would send, discussion questions to parents, you know, like, or we and we had, like, a, like a reminder text sign up that was like, hey, here's what we're talking about tonight.

00:43:20:09 - 00:43:40:19
Josh Boldman
Here are three questions for the ride home or for the. Yeah. You know, and so whether a kid was there and on the ride home or if, you know, they missed that night, there's still you know, their parents still got a, you know, a conversation starter of some kind, I think was pretty good. And that's the advantage I've found in pre filming as well.

00:43:40:19 - 00:44:06:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There's so many advantages. Like at first it was like so history for us like we did just Like you a full live like YouTube show during Covid. Like it was a youth group for YouTube. But eventually as restrictions lifted, that grew tired and people didn't wanna just get on sit behind a computer, a live stream, especially during the summer of 2020, they're like, I'm just going to go out where I can't catch Covid as long as I'm outside.

00:44:06:11 - 00:44:24:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's, you know, that started to engagement with that and the shininess of it. You know, initially it was like this really interesting thing. But by episode 28 it's like, yeah, kind of lost some of its luster. But there is still something really cool. It's like there was a teaching component, but it was all the way at the end of the video.

00:44:24:07 - 00:44:48:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when I came here and readjusted my thought process a little bit, I was like, the teaching is so valuable. Like, I want kids to be able to hear about the truth of Jesus, and I want them to be able to have access to it online. How can we do that? And so if some or some of the other kind of components that we did during Covid, but make it maybe a little more adaptable to 2022 and then those 2023, 24.

00:44:48:18 - 00:45:10:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's where we do our teaching longform on YouTube and everything else is shorts. I read something the other day, just like 90% of the internet's traffic now is shorts, TikToks or reels. And so that's what we film in our social challenges. We just film short content games or challenge style videos, and we let our students be the heroes in those stories.

00:45:10:18 - 00:45:33:23
Josh Boldman
And they love it. Like when they see one of their things posted, like the text meme, like, that was really good. And I'm like, yeah, it was. Nailed it. You know, my favorite. So I, our son is 16 and, and he has this thing that is a joke that he has started thinking is very funny. That he'll, he'll, like, start talking about something he saw online.

00:45:33:23 - 00:45:52:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And my wife would be like, well, like. And he's like, oh, don't worry, you'll see it on Instagram in three months. That's hilarious. You. And he's right. And, you know, he's 100% right. Because, you know, it's funny, yesterday I got a Facebook reel sent to me, and I had seen that on TikTok and then on Instagram and now.

00:45:52:16 - 00:46:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh, so that's even like, talk about lag, as you say. I'm just now finding out that Facebook has reels. That's right tastic. No. Yeah I no I knew that but no. But yeah, it's crazy. Well so then yeah small group like and I would encourage a small group leaders have group text and all of that is like ways the end of the day.

00:46:15:26 - 00:46:38:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The reason I'm so passionate about hybrid is not like, oh, it's cool and cutting edge in technology. It's more like this is an opportunity to reach students where they are and beyond your service moments, your service times. And so you can text them on a Thursday after school and ask them how that test went. You can text them on a Monday morning, even in a group and say, hey, I'm I'm praying for a great week for you guys.

00:46:38:29 - 00:47:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can send encouraging versus all things we just didn't have the ability to do before the invention of technology. And so I my challenge is just always encouraging churches and youth pastors to just not get stuck in the rut of only in-person. There's so much more that the world has to offer. And, and that the world, frankly, is already leaning into we as a church, churches has to find a way to catch up to it.

00:47:02:28 - 00:47:27:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So so good. Yeah. Sweet. Let's all we got. Anything else? Any final words, Josh? Drink your milk. You know, I feel like we've we've we've we've lost that one. You know, like, that was when, when I was little, they were like, drink your milk. You get strong bones. I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't feel like I've heard anyone tell me that in a long time, so I just want to share that.

00:47:27:27 - 00:47:34:18
Josh Boldman
Okay. Everyone else. All right. I will leave you with that wisdom. Until next time, everyone stay hybrid letter.

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DESCRIPTION
What in the world do we do about cellphone usage during youth group?!
It seems like it's getting worse and worse!

Well, Josh Boldman, of DYM (downloadyouthministry.com) is here to help reveal his thoughts, as well as a full-proof program to not only take care of the cell phone epidemic, but to unveil the future of youth ministry as we all know it!

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/110

//CO-LEADER CURRICULUM
https://www.coleader.co/

//SIDEKICK
https://sidekick.tv/

//JOSH ON DYM
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/featured-authors/josh-boldman/

//SIDEKICK FEATURE REQUEST
https://sidekick-tv.canny.io/feature-requests

//JOSH ON SOCIAL
https://www.tiktok.com/@joshboldman
https://www.instagram.com/joshboldman/
https://www.facebook.com/joshboldman
https://x.com/joshboldman

👉 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

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

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

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Intro - How your experience got you where you are now
04:15 Sidekick's Introduction into the Digital Realm of Youth Ministry
09:00 Sidekick's most user friendly features
13:50 What's next for Sidekick?
17:36 How Sidekick aids in showing up where students are
19:25 The Recipe to Engaging Students where they are
30:42 Final Thoughts on Hybrid Ministry
--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:15 - 00:00:23:04
Nick Clason
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry show. I, as always my host Nick Klassen. And I'm really excited. Today I got the one and only Josh Boldman who works at Diam now. He also has years of experience in youth ministry. And so we are going to interview Josh today. What's up everybody? I'm here with Josh Boldman. Josh how you doing this morning bro?

00:00:23:04 - 00:00:44:07
Josh Boldman
I am good man. How are you doing I'm great. I'm glad to have you on

Nick Clason
the long awaited Josh Boldman interview.

Josh Boldman
Most podcasts are still waiting. I just wanted to make it very clear.

Nick Clason
Oh man, I feel like I'm in an exclusive club. Yeah, or something.

Josh Boldman
So they just don't know. They don't know it yet, but they're still waiting.

00:00:44:07 - 00:01:10:12
Nick Clason
Yeah, they definitely are. But not me. Not us. Josh, like, tell the people, how did. Who are you and how did you get to where you are today?

Josh Boldman
Oh my gosh. Okay. That is it all started on a cold with. No. okay. So I have, right there. So I'll start with where I'm at. right now I am I am the team lead for co-leader, which is, a part of the download Youth Ministry family.

00:01:10:14 - 00:01:39:17
Josh Boldman
I also, run lead in the sidekick arena, which is our presentation software. We'll get to that. but that's only been for about the last year. before that, I spent, somewhere in the neighborhood of. Right at about 20 years in student ministry, as a youth pastor or youth minister or student pastor or student ministries director, or any of the other myriad ways that you can you can describe it.

00:01:39:19 - 00:02:03:18
Josh Boldman
but I did that. Gosh, from Florida, to Illinois, to, tiny, tiny little churches to big old churches to, single site to multi-site to we do youth ministry on Sunday morning to we do youth ministry on Wednesday nights like normal people do. all that, you know, so, you know, it's just kind of been all over the place.

00:02:03:24 - 00:02:27:24
Josh Boldman
Yeah. but for the last ten, I'll say ten. It's probably like six, but I'll say ten years. I pastor mother, with Dwight. Yeah. It's like, how many kids were there? The 400. I don't know, it was too many to count. but yeah. So I, I've been an author with Tim, putting resources like games and teaching content and countdowns and videos and stuff together for DYM.

00:02:27:27 - 00:02:47:11
Josh Boldman
And then about a year ago, they had somebody that was going on maternity leave and they're like, hey, you want to cover for that person? I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. And then I spent all 90 days of that maternity leave, trying to make it where there was literally no way they could let me go afterward.

00:02:47:11 - 00:03:08:12
Nick Clason
And it it worked nice.

Josh Boldman
Absolutely worked. I was it was dicey for about about 45 days. And then I was like, nah, I think I got I think, I think I got this. So she came back and I was not asked to pack up and leave. so that has worked out for everybody. Yeah. You didn't put her on the job either?

00:03:08:12 - 00:03:31:27
Josh Boldman
No, no, it's kind of great. Yeah. So, you know, it's been it's been a ride. this last year, co-leader has transitioned from a, a platform where you can plan ministry to a full blown annual curriculum. we've launched sidekick. sidekick, which is now in beta. we had Sidekick Legacy, which was a standalone app.

00:03:31:27 - 00:03:53:26
Josh Boldman
Now it's built in the browser. So you open it in Chrome and you can you can play. You know, play your presentation literally anywhere. we did that all with any I mean, it's like literally anything we could have done, we we decided we were like, hey, you know what? If we just take everything we ever want to do and we just jam it all into one calendar year, and we got this.

00:03:53:27 - 00:04:08:28
Nick Clason
Yeah, we got this guy now who's covering for this girl on maternity leave, and now we can. We had him go. So we're we need to get our money's worth out of him. That's there. Like, we have so many staff. We have so we have so many. And now, now we need to have them do things, so.

00:04:08:28 - 00:04:30:10
Nick Clason
Oh, man, I gotta say the like this, I don't there's no pitch. Like, no, like kickback. None of this. I love co-leader and I love sidekick. And, we, I made our church and I think I told you this, but we'll tell everyone I was like, I made our church by two computers so that we could run pro presenter.

00:04:30:10 - 00:04:52:19
Nick Clason
Because the musicians need the confidence monitor, like the not not what's on the screen mirror, but like what's coming. So like what? So that's valid.

Josh Boldman
So they don't practice is what you're telling me.

Nick Clason
Exactly. They're ill prepared. So I had to give them what they needed at the give the musicians you know, throw my bone. But I made them buy another computer and a like a black magic video switcher.

00:04:52:19 - 00:05:11:04
Josh Boldman
And we running everything else now. Yeah. Off of sidekick. And so, so, so what I'm hearing you say is because of the worship ministry, you guys have to rely on dark magic. Is that. What is that where he is? Oh, black. Matt. Oh, it's a black. It's a company that's different. Okay. All right. I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised either.

00:05:11:11 - 00:05:37:06
Nick Clason
Yeah, yeah, either way. But I love the like I love a lot of things about it. But my favorite part about it is the phone integration. Right. And, we played last week like a game like, multiple choice game. And they could literally play on their phones. And this was the first time I'd, I'd use that particular, like, setting there and sidekick, like the, the question with, with the quiz like type of.

00:05:37:08 - 00:06:02:05
Nick Clason
Yeah. Like what the correct answer. Yes. Yes. And I loved that. That was super fun. so talk to me just a little bit about, like, you know, you jump in. Were there rumblings and plans about sidekick being revamped or did you see some of like those opportunities and be like, this is what I see in youth ministry as a youth pastor, 20 plus years and now, yeah, I want to help kind of evolve it to the next stage, like give us that kind of background.

00:06:02:08 - 00:06:26:01
Josh Boldman
Yeah. So something that, I it's really funny because I don't know that many youth workers realize, although I feel like we should is that, software development takes billions of dollars and lots and lots of time. and so, so when I started at downloading Ministry, the plan had already been. We are revamping sidekick. I'm. You know, I'm just gonna peel back the curtain, you know?

00:06:26:01 - 00:06:50:24
Josh Boldman
You don't know. Yeah. Sorry. I took the original app. All right. Was written in a, in a programing environment that got depreciate. All right, so it is. It was built long, so it was built on something called chromium. and it it it is a like sidekick. Legacy is a work of art. Like it is a it was a game changer for me when I was in ministry.

00:06:50:24 - 00:07:14:13
Josh Boldman
The the spinning wheel boxes. Yeah. it was one of a kind. No one was. Oh, my gosh, nobody was doing it right. And then, what happened about two years ago, maybe three years ago now is chromium got depreciated. And we realized what that meant was there was now no way to update the legacy. I don't know at all, like, impossible, like literally impossible.

00:07:14:16 - 00:07:31:17
Josh Boldman
And and so it was like, okay, well, we can either rebuild a new one or we can take it in a different direction. And one of the really things that people that people hated was every time you open the legacy app, you have to sign in every single time you had to type in the password. It was a great time.

00:07:31:20 - 00:07:52:23
Josh Boldman
I got into trouble. One time I was in front of our, like our whole camp, like it was like a thousand kids, right? And sidekick was running, and then it crashed. And then they had to reopen it, and they're like, from the booth, they yell out, what's the password? No. And in front of 1000 students, I had to say a password into the microphone.

00:07:52:23 - 00:08:14:14
Josh Boldman
And here's the best part. You ready for this? It was the same password for everything. Like my my bank account and, all this stuff. So, like, so like, I immediately I started teaching, and then I get off stage and I'm like, I gotta change every password I mean, ever had. It was a nightmare. so we thought, okay, what is the best way to make this as portable as possible?

00:08:14:14 - 00:08:33:01
Josh Boldman
So we went with putting it in, in the browser. Yeah. which I'll be honest, I mean, it was basically like it was a trade off, right? It gave us a lot of, functionality as far as portability, as far as far as syncing. Yeah. but it there are trade offs, right? Like Google Chrome. both.

00:08:33:01 - 00:08:52:11
Josh Boldman
Google. Safari, Apple. you know, Firefox, they all have different rules about like window management. And so like you'll know like when you open sidekick and you go to present, you have to drag the window over to your other browser. Like that's not ideal right now. We that's why we have a video switcher now that's why. Right.

00:08:52:13 - 00:09:22:11
Josh Boldman
Yeah. That's why we that's why we as Christians rely on dark black magic. Black. It's that's what it is. and so, so, you know, so there are some trade offs for sure. For sure. But, but what we started realizing was, the, the pitch that we started telling people that when it, I think it really kind of clicked for people how how different was good is we would tell them, like, we would show them what we could do with, with voting, with spinning wheel, with, with pick me like the main ideas.

00:09:22:14 - 00:09:41:11
Josh Boldman
And I said, what's really cool is I can create this presentation. I can, immediately, as soon as I add an element to a slide, I can close the laptop, I can break it over my knee, I can set it on fire and throw it in the ocean. And then I can just go to church, open the computer, and it's it's there like it is there.

00:09:41:12 - 00:10:03:18
Josh Boldman
It does not miss a beat. you probably have to like on the computer at church, though, because yours is God's an ocean. Oh yeah. No no no no. Yeah. There's no recovering from it really at the point. Not sidekicks. Not that good yet. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. but. Yeah. So so it's, Yeah, it's it's being able to sync and being able to to go remote.

00:10:03:25 - 00:10:28:19
Josh Boldman
That's awesome. But then when we started showing people, hey, all you have to do is the same thing you did to log in on your computer, do that on your phone. And what it does is it turns your phone into a remote for the exact same presentation that's running on your presentation computer. and I mean, just suddenly being able to when you're doing polls on your phone, you can see the results, before they're even shown on the screen.

00:10:28:22 - 00:10:57:09
Josh Boldman
you can go to next, go back. You can do slide notes. You can. I mean, it did really any of the functionality that's there except for editing on the computer. You can do that literally on your phone in real time because I don't know if you've ever I'm certainly you've never been in this situation where you have a sixth grader who is so well intentioned is like, I want to run the computer and you're like, yes, that is a that is a thing a sixth grader can do.

00:10:57:09 - 00:11:26:24
Josh Boldman
You can hit the spacebar. Yeah. And and then, and then they, and then they don't, they, they just don't hit the spacebar. And so like I would always use it as just like my, my phone was, I wasn't there. So I was running it, but it was my fallback. Like I was like, okay, that kid in the back, there was one time, I swear to you, right, at an unnamed church that I worked at for a while.

00:11:26:27 - 00:11:51:12
Josh Boldman
I remember once, so I would always try, so I was a student ministry director there, and so I always I would always try, like, I would. Yeah, I was either teaching or whatever, but I would always try to do anytime I wasn't teaching, I would try to do something else. So like anytime I wasn't teaching, I would be in the booth or the, you know, doing the game or, you know, but so there's one time I'm in the booth and, and the lyrics for the songs are not firing on time.

00:11:51:12 - 00:12:18:01
Josh Boldman
And I, so I'm like, leaning over and I'm looking. The kid is watching Star Wars the movie. Like, like an actual movie on his phone. Not a TikTok, not a YouTube. No. The two hour movie, two hour movie with subtitles. And he is holding his phone like screamed. Is it because the subtitles are so small? And I'm like, hey, I know, I know, you're looking at that because words are important.

00:12:18:03 - 00:12:38:25
Josh Boldman
However, everyone else in the room is looking up here because words are important. So maybe I don't know, I don't know, that's just jump up and just jump on that. That's a win right there. Yeah. So but being able to you know when you're on stage and things go wrong there are like a couple of options. And and one of them is to make the person in the booth feel really bad.

00:12:38:25 - 00:13:00:09
Nick Clason
And that is never the right option. Right. It's never to call attention to the person messed up. But we want to sometimes. Oh oh yes, yes, yes we do. But being able to just say, okay, I've got my phone here. Hey, Mr. Cube, don't worry, I'm just going to jump it like, yeah, was that was the game changer for me.

00:13:00:11 - 00:13:22:15
Josh Boldman
and so now we're just on this journey of trying to reach full parity between the legacy version and what is right now, the lovingly called the beta version of sidekick. until it until it has all the same features. yeah. But what we're finding is that is, like I said, the original The legacy is a work of art.

00:13:22:17 - 00:13:47:09
Josh Boldman
And, right now, we are working on boxes and that is in the browser proving to be a challenging. Yeah, it is, it's just, you know, it's one of those things like, you wouldn't think like even when we first, the first go around, we did, wheel and pick me. Right. Those were the first two things. And so with the wheel, you know, you think how this is, it's a spinning wheel.

00:13:47:10 - 00:14:04:24
Josh Boldman
Like there's no. Yeah, there's nothing complicated here. Oh, but there is, friend, because pixels are square. Yeah. I don't know if you knew that or not, but pixels was great. So when you try and rotate them around and center axis that's a. Yeah. It's just it's one of those things like, you know, you think you got it.

00:14:04:24 - 00:14:21:03
Josh Boldman
And then suddenly you're like, oh, that looks really bad. And so then it just it's like you have to go right back to the drawing board and, and so, so yeah. So right now we're working on boxes. It's, it's taking a little longer than we had hoped, but but you're working with square pixels now. So square pixels.

00:14:21:06 - 00:14:35:10
Josh Boldman
We know what we're doing. Yeah. Yes. Wouldn't it be funny if like, in the like when, when it was the wheel, we had a problem because it was squares. But then like we're like, alright, now we're going to move the boxes and like just the world, like was like, you know what we figured out round pixels are better.

00:14:35:12 - 00:14:57:21
Josh Boldman
And I was like, no, no. Yeah. But but yeah. So we're that. So we got boxes, in the pipeline. we're we, we here and I know anybody that knows sidekick already. Their first question that they have been asking is what about, survey says, which is our family feud builder. Right. And, that one is, it's coming.

00:14:57:21 - 00:15:19:27
Josh Boldman
It's like, but it's it is it all takes a yeah, it all takes time. And, so, best way anybody, anybody that, you know, can help me go to sidekick.TV. There's a link there where you can, you can submit ideas and requests and you can even vote on other people's. And and that always helps us know kind of what's next.

00:15:19:29 - 00:15:36:15
Josh Boldman
yeah. But yeah, we'll drop. That'll be. We're loving it, dude. I mean, and. Oh, I, I know the sound is starting to sound like a commercial and I apologize, but it's, it's it is. It's like it's just so fun is, when, when one of the most recent things we did was we connected everyone's dim accounts to the download youth ministry.

00:15:36:15 - 00:16:04:05
Josh Boldman
If you buy something, there, he just automatically shows up. And that is that was awesome. Sweet. Because, I mean, it used to be, I don't know. I mean, you you make games for GM that are video based, right. And and when you do that those those files are massive. Like, you know, I mean, it's not uncommon for a game to be three, four gigabytes, you know, but it's also 3 or 4GB of, you know, that's 20, 30 videos for the game.

00:16:04:05 - 00:16:21:05
Josh Boldman
And so then adding each of those in is kind of a nightmare. And so we figured out a way to do it is we do it on our end once and then it when you buy it, it just you can just it shows up in your library. You click on it and it's just in that is yeah, man, I'm telling you I will.

00:16:21:08 - 00:16:38:28
Josh Boldman
I never have to worry about losing a thumb drive ever again. Yeah, because I don't know if you know this or not, but I don't know where my thumb drive it is right now. I lost it in 1997. so. Sounds like there are some important things on there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Knows it was, I don't know, something.

00:16:38:28 - 00:17:04:23
Josh Boldman
Call it bitcoin. Bitcoin I don't remember. You could have been rich. You wouldn't even have to be here right now. Well I'll tell you what. Of all the things like all the things you're talking about, there's like, there's phone usage on both sides, right? So if you're presenting, you can use your phone as a remote, but if you're, you're, watching your in the audience, there are like integrations where there's like voting and games and all that stuff.

00:17:04:23 - 00:17:25:07
Nick Clason
Yeah. And, I think that's my favorite part. Like as a youth pastor now for, over ten years, like I've always been trying to figure out how to get ourselves in youth ministry. Like relevant to our students are, as opposed to, like, when they're at church, make them do something that's so completely foreign to like their current culture.

00:17:25:07 - 00:17:56:28
Nick Clason
Right? Like youth culture, like they're all messaging one another through their phones. They're all like consuming news articles and social media through their phones. And then we get to church and like the church I was at, like when I started the previous regime, no shade. but they had, like, phone lockers, like they would take kids cellphones and lock them and like, and what we're do, in my opinion, is like, okay, so we're, we're just trying to modify their behavior, but we haven't actually like change their true authentic like desire to like be here and listen.

00:17:56:28 - 00:18:19:26
Nick Clason
We just want them quieter for us. And like that we should just be better. Like, yeah. And so y'all start rolling out all this stuff on sidekick. And I'm like, here's the opportunity for us to use what is native to them in our environment and in a way that doesn't, like, break the bank anymore, because to get some of these features through other third party like platforms, we just don't have the money.

00:18:19:26 - 00:18:45:09
Nick Clason
As a youth pastor, you know what I'm saying? In your budget, whatever the case might be. So yeah, so that's my favorite part. And so I would love it if you would talk about not just necessarily like the sidekick integration, but what has been your experience and your unique perspective as a youth pastor with how what we've done in youth culture and how like we've then asked them to come to church culture and how they don't all they're like oil and water sometimes.

00:18:45:09 - 00:19:07:04
Nick Clason
Like, how are we? How can we reach students better and to find ourselves where they are, which is online, on phones, all those things.

Josh Boldman
I mean, okay, so you remember, man, even I mean, when I was growing up and especially early in my ministry, you know, it was always the, the thing was, you were always fighting against like, like travel sports, right?

00:19:07:04 - 00:19:30:07
Josh Boldman
Like that was like the, the, the bane of youth ministry existence was like, oh, we still are really, by the way. Oh, to be cool. Yeah. Oh, no doubt. But it was like, I don't know, there was like a point where I think we just we got tired of seeing no results from shame, shaming those kids. Like, it's like you want to play travel ball.

00:19:30:11 - 00:19:47:28
Josh Boldman
We'll play travel ball. Yeah. With the devil. You know, it's like that. Doesn't like it doesn't help anybody. When? When all we're doing is. Or like. Like, oh, you have a phone, go lock it up because it's, you know, it's like that, doesn't it? Yeah. What does that do? All that does is like when you're locking up a kid's phone.

00:19:48:05 - 00:20:10:09
Josh Boldman
I feel like the way that you can know that it's not working is as soon as the the time, like the lockdown is over, was the very first thing they do. They run to go get it. Yeah. Which means that it was, it was on their mind still. So it's not like you really saved you know them any, any trouble or any like you didn't gain anything by pulling it away, you know, because their attention is still stuck on it.

00:20:10:11 - 00:20:36:16
Josh Boldman
so really what I think, I think is we're seeing right now in youth ministry as a whole, in, in what we're trying to do, a sidekick is really we're trying to figure out ways to engage students, literally where they are. And so, I guess, have you, did you ever do camps where the rule was the kids couldn't even bring their phone to camp?

00:20:36:18 - 00:20:59:04
Nick Clason
I never did. No, I could have, right. But I never I always I've always run my own camp, so I make the rules. So. Yeah. And I've always been in churches or youth ministries where the goal is to bring kids who don't go to our church to camp. And like, I'm not going to get a kid and their family who's never met me, send their kid like hours away without a lifeline back to them.

00:20:59:04 - 00:21:24:10
Josh Boldman
Oh yeah. Kids. Oh, no. So I've never tried to fight that battle, but it was fake because we used to almost use that, like as an advertisement. We were like, come to camp where you get away from your phone and kids are like, I don't want to do that, you know? And so, like, there was a point where I think maybe 20 years ago, you probably could do it, but even now, it's not even just the kid, it's the parents that are like, I'm not sending my kid without their phone.

00:21:24:10 - 00:21:58:02
Josh Boldman
What's wrong with you? You know? Yeah. So, like, so what we decided to do with with sidekick is like, okay, what if instead of constantly harping on, he put your phone away or go lock it up or don't even bring it, or, you know, trying to make it seem like the phone itself was the enemy. What if we decided to say like, hey, we understand that that phone, it's an extension of you now like that just, I mean, and that, I mean, you know, I mean, I think you can get really, like, dystopian, you know, like, like Blade Runner type type vibes from, like, the phone is an extension of you, but but it is

00:21:58:03 - 00:22:21:24
Josh Boldman
mine is an extension of me like, I mean, I literally if I, I don't know when the last time I walked out of my house without my phone was like, it's not just because I didn't forget it, it's because if it's not in my pocket, it feels like I'm missing something. I feel like I know I'm missing it, and you're gonna need it, you know, like, oh, sure, it's your calendar, it's your wallet, it's your navigation, it's your everything.

00:22:21:24 - 00:22:49:12
Nick Clason
Like it. So you can't so much. That's my argument is like this. It's not going anywhere. So we can try our hardest as youth pastors and churches to fight against culture. But it's a losing battle eventually. And it's not like, oh, let's give in to culture because it's evil, right? No, no, no. It's how do we take this thing that is not moral, it's not morally right or morally wrong, but how do we take this thing and just use it as a tool?

00:22:49:12 - 00:23:07:12
Josh Boldman
It's it's a tool, 100% tool that we we would have died for 15, 20 years ago, like, oh yeah, I was talking on the last episode like we didn't have group chats 15 years ago. If you want to talk to your student, you talk to them when they came to your building and that was it. But now you can do pastoral care.

00:23:07:12 - 00:23:39:02
Nick Clason
You can, and just do a basic thing like texting. When I'm talking about something like software development right now. Yeah. So one of the things, that has been really cool to experiment with, and we've seen a couple people do this really well is is using like polls like, okay, so there's a there are different ways you can use it, but the like, so say as you're teaching, if, if you're saying something that you know is going to fly right over their heads, right?

00:23:39:05 - 00:24:11:11
Josh Boldman
Pausing literally at that moment and asking the question, hey, did you catch that? And yes or no, like literally something super simple like, did you catch that? Yes or no? And then adjusting what you say next based on their response or, we've even seen people take their entire services in like a, choose your own adventure type approach where, I mean, it is it seems minor, but it's something like, hey, we've got the worship team has two songs that they prepared, but we're only going to do one.

00:24:11:13 - 00:24:29:15
Josh Boldman
Hey, you all, they're here. Yeah. Which one you want to do? You know, or, you know, I've, done a couple teaching times where, like, so, you know, every youth pastor has, like, their, like, bag of tricks, like the, the saw or the stories that they tell that it's like, okay, I can tell this story, like drop of a hat.

00:24:29:15 - 00:25:00:17
Josh Boldman
Yeah. you know, and so, like, I, I'll start with, like, right at the beginning of a message will say, hey, guys, I can tell you one of, three stories. You know, when when I got hit by a car, one when I accidentally killed my girlfriend's cat and one when I, when I stubbed my toe, you know, and so, like, you take your pick, you know, and just let them pick, and it doesn't change anything about where that message is going, but letting them have a moment where they can speak into it.

00:25:00:17 - 00:25:27:22
Josh Boldman
Like, I guarantee you, when the room picks the story, the room pays attention to the story more. Yeah. or or even at the end, you know, be a great way to, to really, especially if you're trying to reach students that are not familiar with church a lot, you know, like that aren't around a lot is, at the end of the message just saying, like, hey, on a scale of 1 to 5, how much do you agree with what you just heard?

00:25:27:25 - 00:25:46:26
Josh Boldman
can you met and live in live results on the screen like, hey, okay, so but can you imagine how much that might change your small group conversations that are going to happen right after the lesson? If if you suddenly see, like, oh, we just talked about this and 80% of the room says, I don't agree, okay, great.

00:25:47:03 - 00:26:10:20
Josh Boldman
Then let's go to our small groups and let's see this mess out. You know, or I think that there's, there's stuff like that or or you could even say if you're doing a series, you could, you could say, hey, here are the four weeks of the series. we did the intro this week. Which one you want to hear about next week and let them pick where you're going to go, and then you have a whole week to figure out how to get there.

00:26:10:22 - 00:26:29:11
Josh Boldman
yeah. But it but I guarantee you, those students that voted are going to be more likely to be there if they know what you're talking about. And they actually helped get to to choose what that was going to be. Yeah, I think I think there's a lot there. And we're working love to say like we're working like it's like in development, right, right now.

00:26:29:11 - 00:26:49:09
Josh Boldman
But it's like I mean, one of the things on the, on the docket is, is, you know, being able to have students from their seat ask questions, be able to give feedback, you know, in real time so that you, as you're standing there on the, you know, platform with your phone that you're able to see the questions as they come in.

00:26:49:11 - 00:27:06:03
Josh Boldman
we're trying to figure out things like how to moderate those things because I don't know about you, but if you ask open ended questions and just have the answers up on the screen without, you might get some filtering. Yeah. Inappropriate answer, I don't know, I don't know. I mean, my the students that I've ever worked with are always saints and so they would not do that.

00:27:06:03 - 00:27:30:01
Nick Clason
But I would imagine yours. Well you know it's crazy is like here's another like just interesting youth culture is like I was working at a church in Chicago and it was very like it, it prided itself on we reach people who are far from God. And so, you know, that's going to come with a certain like, oh, I student and now I'm in the Bible Belt in Dallas, Texas.

00:27:30:08 - 00:27:55:00
Nick Clason
And, it's like it prides itself on being like the church for Christians almost. And like the kids, the students, they're the same, like it's oh, no doubt. Right. That's the crazy thing is what the internet has done is it's leveled that like playing field of like, yeah, certain cultures, their youth culture is very consistent now and despite the demographic.

00:27:55:00 - 00:28:16:08
Nick Clason
And so the unique part is not our students. The unique part is helping our parents understand, that the students are still the same, you know, so, you know, something, we've seen is actually really cool that somebody was doing was they were using the live polls in their lobby for parents to answer as they were dropping their kids off.

00:28:16:08 - 00:28:40:12
Josh Boldman
That's cool. And, it was yeah, it was very cool. Was like, and it was, you know, some like, minor stuff that it was like, you know, what time is your middle schoolers? Bedtime. Like, you know. Yeah. Seven, eight, nine, ten, 11. You know, just pick one, you know, stuff like that. And it was minor. But again, it's, not just that you get individuals to engage, but the fact that everybody can see the responses as it as it goes.

00:28:40:14 - 00:29:09:00
Josh Boldman
There's, I think there's a lot of even still some untapped, untapped potential there. think about how to help people engage. Yeah. I think, we went to a conference a while back, and they're talking about the differences in generational ways of thinking. And like one of the things and I think this is true, despite like being an older, older generation of like all of us, but like Gen Z, Gen Alpha, like they're just looking to be known individually, like they don't want to be part of, like a sea of numbers.

00:29:09:00 - 00:29:32:20
Nick Clason
Right. And so when you are in a bigger context and you have 100,000 kids, like it's hard to it's hard for them to, to stand out and stuff like this helps them get to just yeah, speak their, their voice. Right. And they get to play a role. And even if they're voting for something and their choice doesn't get picked like they were heard and that's oh yeah, that's all it needs to be.

00:29:32:20 - 00:29:52:17
Nick Clason
It doesn't have to always go their way, you know? And there's probably some opportunity for them to learn some life lessons and stuff in there. But just like realizing like, hey, we're doing all this for you, but what what do you want? Like, that's I don't know. That's the key. So, Josh, as we wind this sucker down, like final thoughts.

00:29:52:17 - 00:30:16:09
Nick Clason
Final words. What what what if anything's, like burning on your soul to get out there?

Josh Boldman
Oh, man. All right, well, here. I'm glad you asked, Nick. no. okay, here's the thing is. Yeah, I think we need to not be afraid of what our students want. And we need to not be afraid of them expressing their opinion.

00:30:16:11 - 00:30:48:22
Josh Boldman
And we need to not be afraid of them disagreeing with each other or with us. I think that that is, you know, where where we are heading is a world that values, a diversity of opinion. And the value placed on each of those opinions, is crucial. And so, like, I mean, I think people really can very easily get confused into thinking that that means that every opinion is right or that every opinion carries the same weight.

00:30:48:22 - 00:31:09:12
Josh Boldman
And it's a that's not at all what it but it. I think there is a I think we we do ourselves and honestly the gospel and miss service when we, are a disservice. I don't think Miss Service is a word, a disservice when we, when we say, here is the correct answer, we don't even want to hear anything else.

00:31:09:15 - 00:31:42:02
Josh Boldman
because our students are coming into our, our, our environments with their own opinions and own presuppositions. And yes, they probably heard them all from the same TikTok channel. Like, that's fine, but they all still want it. They want to be heard. And so I think any time we can even begin to open the door to showing them that we value what they are walking in with, I think just builds, it builds credibility in their eyes.

00:31:42:05 - 00:32:07:01
Josh Boldman
I think in all honesty, I don't know, you know, I would argue that most students are they do not often find themselves in environments where their opinion is valued. so, I mean, whether that's school, I mean, and please don't hear me, teachers are awesome, but it is it is tough when especially when you have like a curriculum in a, in a school environment, you're like, hey, I need you to learn this thing.

00:32:07:07 - 00:32:31:22
Josh Boldman
Like, and there's not a lot of debate in biology, you know, like, it's just this is where we're at, you know? And so, but I think if we can create environments where it's, we're inviting students into a conversation where their voice matters, whether that's a, a deep theological conversation or whether that is a game that is literally, hey, I need you to pick A, B, or C because it's a trivia question.

00:32:31:22 - 00:32:57:01
Josh Boldman
Like it's it like, but but still valuing what they bring to the table. I think that that pays dividends in the long run in a, in a massive, massive way. I mean, whether that's later in the small group or whether that's ten years later or, you know, I'm at a point right now where kids, when I first started that were in sixth grade, now have their own sixth graders, and that is awful.

00:32:57:03 - 00:33:14:19
Josh Boldman
but but it's the same thing is those those kids are now in the place where they're deciding, am I going to bring my own kid to a youth group or not? And, you know, and I think that the way we treat our students now will influence how they raise their own families and what that looks like for them in the future.

00:33:14:19 - 00:33:34:17
Josh Boldman
So, never underestimate how important it is to for for a student's voice to be valued. Yeah. And what better spot in the world than for that to happen at church? Crazy, right? Who would've thought? Yeah, well, Josh, we're running out of time. But I appreciate you, man. Anywhere, anywhere else people can find, find the Josh Boldman, like.

00:33:34:19 - 00:34:00:20
Nick Clason
Oh, yeah, they want to, like, untap some of these other thoughts and deeper musings of the word is, oh, I don't know if deeper is going to be with the find, but, all the social media is, it's at Josh Boldman. I know, I'm so glad it wasn't taken. Yeah. You're lucky. all right, I know. Yeah. but then, again, you know, the download youth ministry store, you know, I mean, this is not to sell stuff, but like, a lot of the stuff I've written really does reflect where I'm at, you know?

00:34:00:20 - 00:34:09:15
Josh Boldman
And so, you know, check out any of that stuff there, but. Well, yeah. Love it. Man. Will appreciate you being on. And, everyone else, we'll talk next time. All right, bye friends.