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

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

======================================
DESCRIPTION
Is Generation Alpha doomed?
With things like skibidi toilet rizz, brainrot and their utter disdain for the state of Ohio, can these kids even come back from all that?
Not to mention Covid-19 destroyed a lot of their educational impact, many can't read and are having a hard time with that, can this generation come back from all that?

Who is Gen Alpha, and how can educators, teachers and pastors make an impact on this generation?

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/112

//MEET GEN ALPHA
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Alpha-Mark-McCrindle/dp/0733646301

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

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

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
Level up your youth ministry game with these freebies!
🔗 https://linktr.ee/clasonnick

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

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

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

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Is Generation Alpha Doomed?
01:42 The Birth Years of Current Generations
03:44 Who exactly is Generation Alpha?
06:29 Defining Characteristic #1
08:17 Defining Characteristic #2
09:22 Defining Characteristic #3
10:53 Defining Characteristic #4

11:46 Defining Characteristic #5
--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:20:11
Nick Clason
Is Generation Alpha doomed? Check out this quote. It says youth today love luxury. They have bad manners. They have contempt for authority. No respect for older people. And they talk nonsense when they should be working. They contradict their parents. They talk too much in company that guzzle their food. They lay their eggs on the table and they tyrannized their elders.

00:00:20:16 - 00:00:41:00
Nick Clason
Now, if you think that this is talking about Generation Alpha, then give me a like. If you think it's like my generation Z. Go ahead and give me a subscribe. And if you think you know that this quote was within the last century, then you owe me a turning on the bell. Because in this episode and in this future playlist, we're going to be exploring the world of Gen Alpha.

00:00:41:00 - 00:01:08:03
Nick Clason
But would you be surprised to know that this is actually a quote from the Greek philosopher Socrates, who lived between 470 and 390 9BC yes, the fact that the next generation throws older generations off their scent is not an uncommon phenomenon in human history. I mean, just look at the fact that this quote came all the way back from Socrates.

00:01:08:03 - 00:01:37:10
Nick Clason
So we're going to be exploring Gen Alpha, and are they doomed? If you've been on YouTube or searching on social media, you've heard things like they are doomed, they're in trouble. What even is this generation? Who are these skinny, rich toilet kids like? What does any of this even mean? The fact of the matter is, like generations that are younger often throw off generations that are older, and the older you get, the harder it is to connect and have a bridge back to that younger generation.

00:01:37:16 - 00:01:58:14
Nick Clason
So in the world today, the current generations that we have living are our builders. And they were born in 1925 through 1945. They are the elders of are the oldest generation that's currently alive to this day. And then moving on, we have the boomers who are in some cases still in the workforce, but all beginning to start to phase out.

00:01:58:14 - 00:02:22:12
Nick Clason
And they were born in 1946 through 1964, and probably the oldest, in the workforce, majority is generation X, and they were born in 65 to 69. And then shout out to me and all my other fellow millennials, we were born in 1980 through 1994. Gen Z was then born in 95 through 2009 and then finally Gen Alpha.

00:02:22:15 - 00:02:42:10
Nick Clason
They are quantifying it at 2011 through 2024. And so I got the lion's share of this research from Mark Mccrindle and Ashley Fell's book. It'll be linked down below in the show notes. If you're interested in checking out, it's called Generation Alpha. Understanding our children and helping Them Thrive. So let's talk about some of the different things about Generation Alpha.

00:02:42:10 - 00:03:03:23
Nick Clason
So first and foremost, every generation since boomers spans of about 50, at least 15 years. Right. And they've used, labels to kind of, letters to label these different generations. And so there have been other attempts made, for example, like millennials, but when you use something like millennials, it actually creates a little bit of a vague birth range.

00:03:03:23 - 00:03:27:15
Nick Clason
And so while we are oftentimes called millennials, they're also just called Gen Y by a lot of sociology and researchers. And so then thus as we got to Gen Z, we started back over at the beginning alphabet. And that's how we get Generation Alpha. Some people have proposed to code generation Alpha. Corona owes due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the fact that they lived during that and in some cases were even born during that.

00:03:27:15 - 00:03:49:09
Nick Clason
But they, while Covid was a massive part of their upbringing, in their childhood, they will continue to be shaped by the next three to 5 to 10 years. And not just that singular moment, though it felt longer than a moment did it? Not of Covid 19. But the next question I want to kind of uncover and unpack is who exactly is Gen Alpha?

00:03:49:10 - 00:04:18:11
Nick Clason
You know, by December 2024, they are predicting that Generation Alpha will have a total of 2 billion globally, which will make them the largest generation in the history of the world. Technology and customization have shaped their childhood, and while Gen Z saw the rise of customization generation, alpha is going to begin to see the rise of personal ization.

00:04:18:13 - 00:04:47:20
Nick Clason
And so Covid 19 will likely transform how Generation Alpha has approached technology, education, work, face to face interaction, mental health, and the concept and topic of resilience. But while our oldies are moving up into the ages of eight through about 12 years of age, they're calling the phenomenon. And those students and those kids who are that age, they're calling it the phenomenon of up aging, which means that kids in the 8 to 12 range are actually growing up faster.

00:04:47:24 - 00:05:17:02
Nick Clason
They are maturing physically earlier than other previous generations. And so kids are getting older quicker. And that's what we're seeing, some of this, interaction of them on, on social media and on YouTube and, and acting and seeming a little bit more like adults. But also adolescence is being pushed back further. So they're aging up quicker, but adolescence is being pushed back further because adult, life often was characterized by things like marriage or as characterized by things like having children or getting a mortgage.

00:05:17:02 - 00:05:40:01
Nick Clason
But those things are now being pushed back. And this generation, they're predicting, will stay in education longer. They'll start their earnings later and they'll stay at home longer than was the case with some previous generations. And so we're seeing this phenomenon of them being ushered into being older earlier, but staying in adolescence. It's longer. It's an interesting phenomenon.

00:05:40:01 - 00:05:59:20
Nick Clason
And it creates and it's certainly unique and complex challenge for those of us who are in education or in, in, the church space. But I love this concept that generation Z saw the rise of customization, but Generation Alpha is now seeing the rise of personalization. Think about the algorithms and the, different eyes that are now out there.

00:05:59:20 - 00:06:21:22
Nick Clason
Like these are completely radical phenomenons and it completely changes and re formats the way that certainly boomers and certainly Gen X and all of us have approached education of certain, groups of people and mass education moments. And so I want to explore in the next section five characteristics of generation Alpha that are worth us paying attention to.

00:06:21:25 - 00:06:51:01
Nick Clason
And, how it then will shape the way that we educate and innovate and approach this generation. So characteristic number one is digital, right? They are not just I love the way that Barna put this. They're not just digital natives, they are not digital dependents. Right. So while Gen Z probably didn't get their first device until later elementary school generation Alpha has always had access to devices, even if it's not their own right.

00:06:51:01 - 00:07:17:23
Nick Clason
Like research has actually, noticed and noted a drastic uptick in screen and app based play among children. The US reported that in ages 18 through 12, they consume on average four hours and 44 minutes of screen time per day, but that average increases up to seven hours and 22 minutes. If a student is between the ages of 13 and 18 years old.

00:07:17:23 - 00:07:39:11
Nick Clason
So digital and apps and screen time, it's not going away. And so all of us in the education space and as parents, we have to figure out how do we navigate this as it's being inundated more and more and more and more? I mean, I just think about the phenomenon of Disney, you know, pre 2014. You go around, you do fast passes and you have to walk to different rides in the park and grab a fast pass ticket.

00:07:39:11 - 00:08:01:04
Nick Clason
And it would tell you when to return for your return ride time. But now every thing is mobile. And while that's convenient, certain critics of Disney have made a comment that you go to the park and you have to be glued and tied to your phone all day long, the only way to truly experience the park the best way, the most optimal way, is through digital.

00:08:01:04 - 00:08:32:21
Nick Clason
And while that's convenient, and certainly for a podcast like mine, which is the hybrid ministry show, it doesn't take into account the fact that sometimes we just want to be present. We want to be free and tethered away from our digital devices. Another characteristic, characteristic number two, is that they are a social generation. So although in-person social interaction may certainly be an area that needs work in Generation Alpha, kids today are more than any other generation X, extensively socially connected to and shaped by their peers.

00:08:32:21 - 00:08:57:08
Nick Clason
In the book Generation Alpha by Mccrindle and Fellow, it talks about the phenomenon of Ryan and Ryan's world and how kids these days are influenced by that. Like, for example, my kids because of Ryan, he tried one episode. I can't remember, he tried, seaweed. And my kids are like, we want to try seaweed. Never in their life have they ever even been interested or even knew that seaweed existed.

00:08:57:08 - 00:09:20:17
Nick Clason
But they tried it and they liked it. And we still buy it to this day for a snack. And so kids today are influenced by a network that is connected 24 over seven across social, geographical and demographic boundaries. But there's also a downside to this hyper connectivity, such as cyber bullying, and never actually being able to completely disconnect from these networks of relationships.

00:09:20:17 - 00:09:42:19
Nick Clason
Characteristic number three is that they're global. So because of the internet generation, alpha is actually the first truly global generation. I want to share with you the Oxford Dictionary word of the year to highlight how global this generation is. And as you as I read through it. And it'll be listed here on screen. If you're watching on YouTube, you will see just how, what is going on in each of these years.

00:09:42:20 - 00:10:01:29
Nick Clason
It'll be kind of a little bit, trip back down memory lane, especially if you're older and you're a millennial, like me or older. But in 2011, the word of the year by Oxford Dictionary was app. In 2012, it was cloud, 2013, it was a hashtag, followed by 2014, which was the selfie 2015. Look at this on screen.

00:10:01:29 - 00:10:24:27
Nick Clason
If you're watching, it's the face with tears of joy emoji. It's not even a word. It was literally an emoji. 2016 the word was post-truth. 2017 the word was fake news. 2018 the word was toxic. 2019 is climate energy. In 2020, there's a myriad of words Covid 19 lockdowns, social distancing, ISO, Black Lives Matter, cancel culture and superspreader.

00:10:25:03 - 00:10:52:09
Nick Clason
You take your pick of which word matter. But that right there just shows how global and how how much Generation Alpha has actually gone through. So when the only screen in the house think about this was the television. You and I, as parents, we could more easily monitor what our children consumed and watch. But now with a new digital generation with more access to online devices, parents are finding it harder and harder to shield children from the wider world.

00:10:52:12 - 00:11:23:04
Nick Clason
Characteristic number four is that they are mobile, right? The average, stay in one working job has shortened now to just about over three years. The gig economy, which is when organizations will use temporary hires, and independent workers, that gig economy mentality that begins to play a part in this new generation, the world economic Forum predicts that 65% of Generation Alpha will actually end up working entirely new jobs that don't even exist yet.

00:11:23:04 - 00:12:00:26
Nick Clason
They're incredibly mobile, and they're able to be to pivot and to move and be nimble and and kind of string together different opportunities. Far be it away from the way that we as older generations have, have taken it with pensions and retirements and all these types of things like that is becoming a more archaic way of working. And characteristic number five is this generation is incredibly visual, with stories and games have come to life for Generation Alpha students, are facilitated by things like technology and visual apps and videos and content in which they regularly engage with.

00:12:00:28 - 00:12:23:07
Nick Clason
Generation Alpha expects to consume information. YouTube is the second largest and most popular search engine in the world, but for Generation Alpha, YouTube is the number one search engine in the world. And so that idea of visual is just going to continue. But here's the good news if you're an youth minister, your for your education, or if you're in church ministry, you don't have to panic, right?

00:12:23:07 - 00:12:51:25
Nick Clason
Because the generations older than us that say Generation Alpha is doomed. We as educators and as people in youth ministry who often go before, have had generations before us freak out about different generations. You and I, we have the opportunity to stand in the gap and help bring these together. Right? All the way back to Socrates. generations have been freaking out about and looking ahead at the different generation and curious about and unsure of what's different.

00:12:51:25 - 00:13:18:05
Nick Clason
But these things, all of us are aware at the different and the shifting and the ever changing landscape of generations. You and I, as youth pastors, we're well aware of this at one level or another. So how do we, with this information, also make us more effective as educators, as teachers, as pastors in reaching and sharing the gospel with these students in our churches and in our youth ministries.

00:13:18:08 - 00:13:36:13
Nick Clason
You know, I actually have just the resources to help you out with that's linked right here on screen in the very next video. I'm glad that you asked, because I would love for you to take a look at that. And as always, don't forget we're making digital discipleship easy, possible, and accessible, especially for Generation Alpha. So stay hybrid.

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

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

======================================
DESCRIPTION
In this video, youth pastor, Nate Clason shares his journey to posting on social media more regularly.
He also shares the one key secret that has brought his group more closely together.
And be sure to stick around to the very end, because live on the podcast, Nate and Nick discover one additional benefit to social media that will help youth pastors win with parents, pastors and even elders at your church!

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/109

//METRICOOL VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2_sNx3NKN0&t=558s

//10,000 HOURS
https://www.amazon.com/10-000-Hours-Become-Practice/dp/1475033621

//STUDENT'S VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GqzMZKfONok

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
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Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
https://linktr.ee/clasonnick

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

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

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

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
00:51 How did you end up as a youth pastor?
02:29 What was your original relationship with digital?
04:45 What would you say to a "regular" youth pastor?
12:10 What wins have come from social media?
19:27 What in your context has been most effective?
23:20 Additional benefits of Social
--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:02
What is up everybody?

00:00:01:02 - 00:00:03:03
Welcome back to another episode

00:00:03:03 - 00:00:04:20
of the Hybrid Ministry Show

00:00:04:20 - 00:00:07:02
I am your host, Nick Clason

00:00:07:02 - 00:00:08:07
here with you as always

00:00:08:07 - 00:00:09:23
and if you’ve been here the last couple of weeks

00:00:09:23 - 00:00:11:12
you know that we’ve been doing some different interviews

00:00:20:22 - 00:00:24:00
It is with my brother, Nate Clason

00:00:24:00 - 00:00:26:03
Good morning, Nate, how you doing bro?

00:00:26:03 - 00:00:27:02
I'm doing pretty good.

00:00:27:02 - 00:00:28:03
Probably not better than

00:00:28:03 - 00:00:29:03
your wife, though, right?

00:00:29:03 - 00:00:30:05
Don't say that to

00:00:30:05 - 00:00:31:02
in front of anyone.

00:00:31:02 - 00:00:31:18
You know, True.

00:00:31:18 - 00:00:34:17
Well, I’ve known you longer

00:00:34:17 - 00:00:35:12
That is true.

00:00:35:12 - 00:00:36:11
But not too much longer, so.

00:00:36:11 - 00:00:38:05
That’s probably what I’m thinking

00:00:38:05 - 00:00:38:18
when I say that

00:00:38:18 - 00:00:39:02
Yeah.

00:00:39:02 - 00:00:41:05
Yeah.

00:00:41:05 - 00:00:43:14
Nate, give us all

00:00:43:14 - 00:00:44:15
a little bit of background

00:00:44:15 - 00:00:46:19
what’s been your church

00:00:46:19 - 00:00:49:16
youth ministry, student ministry

00:00:49:16 - 00:00:51:20
experience and story

00:00:51:20 - 00:00:54:09
kinda get that conversation

00:00:54:09 - 00:00:55:24
out of the way

00:00:55:24 - 00:00:57:07
set a little bit of a baseline

00:00:57:07 - 00:00:58:19
as we dive into this

00:00:58:19 - 00:01:00:04
social media discussion

00:01:00:04 - 00:01:00:14
Yeah.

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:01:21
So I felt called

00:01:01:21 - 00:01:05:00
to, ministry at a Mexico

00:01:05:00 - 00:01:06:02
missions trip.

00:01:06:02 - 00:01:07:19
when I was in high school,

00:01:07:19 - 00:01:09:08
a late high school,

00:01:09:08 - 00:01:11:01
and actually kind of fell off.

00:01:11:01 - 00:01:12:05
my journey a little bit.

00:01:12:05 - 00:01:13:07
my journey a little bit.

00:01:13:07 - 00:01:14:01
Kind of started

00:01:14:01 - 00:01:15:14
serving, working

00:01:15:14 - 00:01:16:13
in, like,

00:01:16:13 - 00:01:18:02
the public work, you know,

00:01:18:02 - 00:01:19:15
the secular work environment

00:01:19:15 - 00:01:20:21
and just kind of saw

00:01:20:21 - 00:01:21:13
I wasn't called

00:01:21:13 - 00:01:22:16
the ministry anymore

00:01:22:16 - 00:01:23:15
and got connected

00:01:23:15 - 00:01:25:13
one day at my custodian

00:01:25:13 - 00:01:26:18
job at a school

00:01:26:18 - 00:01:29:03
with, a pastor's wife

00:01:29:03 - 00:01:30:21
who was subbing at the school.

00:01:30:21 - 00:01:32:06
And I told her,

00:01:32:06 - 00:01:33:16
we were talking about music,

00:01:33:16 - 00:01:34:04
and she found out

00:01:34:04 - 00:01:34:21
that I could play

00:01:34:21 - 00:01:35:17
a little bit of guitar,

00:01:35:17 - 00:01:36:21
and she asked if I could

00:01:36:21 - 00:01:38:06
help with her church worship

00:01:38:06 - 00:01:40:03
and got connected that way.

00:01:40:03 - 00:01:41:06
And through that,

00:01:41:06 - 00:01:41:23
got connected

00:01:41:23 - 00:01:43:22
with a, leader

00:01:43:22 - 00:01:45:10
in that denomination

00:01:45:10 - 00:01:47:10
who eventually got me ordained

00:01:47:10 - 00:01:48:12
and got me connected

00:01:48:12 - 00:01:49:17
with other pastors.

00:01:49:17 - 00:01:50:04
Eventually,

00:01:50:04 - 00:01:51:14
where I became a youth pastor.

00:01:51:14 - 00:01:52:10
And now I'm

00:01:52:10 - 00:01:53:08
serving in a little bit

00:01:53:08 - 00:01:54:02
of a bigger church

00:01:54:02 - 00:01:55:15
in the Taylorville area

00:01:55:15 - 00:01:57:05
as the associate pastor

00:01:57:05 - 00:01:57:15
of student

00:01:57:15 - 00:01:59:11
ministry and worship ministry.

00:01:59:11 - 00:02:00:11
So it started

00:02:00:11 - 00:02:01:08
with worship ministry

00:02:01:08 - 00:02:01:18
and kind of

00:02:01:18 - 00:02:02:23
evolved into youth.

00:02:02:23 - 00:02:03:21
And I never kind of

00:02:03:21 - 00:02:04:18
saw that coming,

00:02:04:18 - 00:02:05:06
but praise

00:02:05:06 - 00:02:06:09
God that he got me to kind of

00:02:06:09 - 00:02:06:23
where I felt

00:02:06:23 - 00:02:08:11
called to years ago, you know?

00:02:08:11 - 00:02:10:01
So that's cool.

00:02:10:01 - 00:02:10:18
Yeah, so

00:02:10:18 - 00:02:11:22
the gateway drug

00:02:11:22 - 00:02:13:11
to your youth ministry

00:02:13:11 - 00:02:14:06
was worship

00:02:14:06 - 00:02:14:15
Yeah

00:02:14:15 - 00:02:16:04
That’s where you started

00:02:16:04 - 00:02:16:16
as you can tell

00:02:16:16 - 00:02:17:09
by the man bun.

00:02:17:09 - 00:02:18:13
Right?

00:02:18:13 - 00:02:19:18
Yeah

00:02:19:18 - 00:02:21:24
Or something about that manbun

00:02:21:24 - 00:02:23:14
We won’t talk about that

00:02:23:14 - 00:02:24:07
But

00:02:26:09 - 00:02:28:07
You started doing youth ministry

00:02:29:10 - 00:02:30:13
When you jumped into

00:02:30:13 - 00:02:31:12
youth ministry

00:02:31:12 - 00:02:32:18
What at that point

00:02:32:18 - 00:02:35:11
was your like understanding

00:02:35:11 - 00:02:36:17
or your relationship

00:02:36:17 - 00:02:38:10
with digital and social media

00:02:38:10 - 00:02:41:06
and all that type of stuff?

00:02:41:06 - 00:02:43:04
I've always kind of

00:02:43:04 - 00:02:45:00
been, like.

00:02:45:00 - 00:02:45:23
I've always been aware

00:02:45:23 - 00:02:46:13
of social media.

00:02:46:13 - 00:02:47:13
Never knew how important

00:02:47:13 - 00:02:48:19
it was to student ministry.

00:02:48:19 - 00:02:49:23
I didn't really,

00:02:49:23 - 00:02:51:24
it was actually post Covid

00:02:51:24 - 00:02:52:22
when I really.

00:02:52:22 - 00:02:53:13
Well,

00:02:53:13 - 00:02:54:08
in the middle of Covid

00:02:54:08 - 00:02:54:20
that I started

00:02:54:20 - 00:02:55:10
getting involved

00:02:55:10 - 00:02:56:05
in student ministry.

00:02:56:05 - 00:02:57:10
And,

00:02:57:10 - 00:02:59:06
I didn't have

00:02:59:06 - 00:03:01:10
too many platforms.

00:03:01:10 - 00:03:02:12
And my first church

00:03:02:12 - 00:03:03:10
was social media,

00:03:03:10 - 00:03:06:02
mostly through Facebook.

00:03:06:02 - 00:03:07:19
I had that's pretty

00:03:07:19 - 00:03:08:21
much it for my first church.

00:03:08:21 - 00:03:10:06
And I mostly connected

00:03:10:06 - 00:03:12:09
with parents on that platform.

00:03:12:09 - 00:03:14:06
and I realized

00:03:14:06 - 00:03:15:03
that probably wasn't

00:03:15:03 - 00:03:16:02
a strength.

00:03:16:02 - 00:03:18:23
so here, though,

00:03:18:23 - 00:03:20:08
I would say that I've,

00:03:20:08 - 00:03:22:08
I've kind of adapted, adopted,

00:03:22:08 - 00:03:25:09
Instagram, Facebook.

00:03:25:09 - 00:03:26:24
I created a TikTok.

00:03:26:24 - 00:03:27:13
And Nick,

00:03:27:13 - 00:03:28:16
I know you're so passionate

00:03:28:16 - 00:03:29:09
about YouTube,

00:03:29:09 - 00:03:30:04
me and Jessica have been

00:03:30:04 - 00:03:30:20
talking recently,

00:03:30:20 - 00:03:31:13
my wife,

00:03:31:13 - 00:03:32:13
about the idea

00:03:32:13 - 00:03:33:19
of getting on YouTube here

00:03:33:19 - 00:03:34:01
soon,

00:03:34:01 - 00:03:34:18
just because I feel like

00:03:34:18 - 00:03:35:24
that'd be a bigger,

00:03:35:24 - 00:03:37:02
overall

00:03:37:02 - 00:03:38:06
reach for our students

00:03:38:06 - 00:03:40:06
to, to have us on YouTube.

00:03:40:06 - 00:03:42:02
But I'm not super connect.

00:03:42:02 - 00:03:42:24
I wasn't super connected

00:03:42:24 - 00:03:44:08
initially to social media.

00:03:44:08 - 00:03:45:18
I would say that.

00:03:45:18 - 00:03:48:12
So what was the

00:03:48:12 - 00:03:49:09
What would you say was

00:03:49:09 - 00:03:49:22
the driving force

00:03:49:22 - 00:03:50:24
or the catalyst

00:03:50:24 - 00:03:52:11
to get you connected

00:03:52:11 - 00:03:53:12
to some of those things?

00:03:53:12 - 00:03:55:08
Like what was your “aha” moment?

00:03:55:08 - 00:03:57:09
If there was one?

00:03:57:09 - 00:03:58:19
well, I think seeing you,

00:03:58:19 - 00:03:59:09
like, super

00:03:59:09 - 00:04:00:02
passionate about it

00:04:00:02 - 00:04:01:08
and watching your podcast

00:04:01:08 - 00:04:02:11
really, honestly like,

00:04:02:11 - 00:04:03:11
and your

00:04:03:11 - 00:04:05:03
different videos and clips

00:04:05:03 - 00:04:05:23
on like TikTok and stuff

00:04:05:23 - 00:04:06:23
on like TikTok and stuff

00:04:06:23 - 00:04:07:20
of how important

00:04:07:20 - 00:04:09:04
social media is

00:04:09:04 - 00:04:10:11
kind of drives me

00:04:10:11 - 00:04:11:17
to make sure I have that.

00:04:11:17 - 00:04:12:21
And like really,

00:04:12:21 - 00:04:13:10
a lot of that

00:04:13:10 - 00:04:14:12
is truly

00:04:14:12 - 00:04:16:18
from like your passion for it.

00:04:16:18 - 00:04:18:05
And I'm seeing other leaders

00:04:18:05 - 00:04:19:04
saying, hey, you know, like,

00:04:19:04 - 00:04:20:02
this is a new era.

00:04:20:02 - 00:04:21:17
It's no longer like

00:04:21:17 - 00:04:22:03
you're not going

00:04:22:03 - 00:04:22:20
to meet in person

00:04:22:20 - 00:04:24:14
as naturally and as, as,

00:04:24:14 - 00:04:25:21
as often as you like.

00:04:25:21 - 00:04:26:15
And there's going to be kids

00:04:26:15 - 00:04:27:14
that don't make it every week.

00:04:27:14 - 00:04:28:07
So it's like

00:04:28:07 - 00:04:28:22
it's good for them

00:04:28:22 - 00:04:29:04
to have

00:04:29:04 - 00:04:30:05
some sort of

00:04:30:05 - 00:04:31:22
avenue of seeing,

00:04:31:22 - 00:04:33:18
some of the stuff

00:04:33:18 - 00:04:34:13
that we're talking about,

00:04:34:13 - 00:04:36:03
even if it's just like a recap

00:04:36:03 - 00:04:36:15
or whatever,

00:04:36:15 - 00:04:37:13
just to kind of give them

00:04:37:13 - 00:04:38:06
a basis of

00:04:38:06 - 00:04:39:21
what we're talking about. So.

00:04:39:21 - 00:04:40:22
Yeah, no doubt

00:04:40:22 - 00:04:42:08
I would agree

00:04:42:08 - 00:04:45:20
But that feels obvious, maybe

00:04:45:20 - 00:04:50:03
So tell people

00:04:50:03 - 00:04:51:14
I think it was helpful

00:04:51:14 - 00:04:52:12
Because you’re a guy

00:04:52:12 - 00:04:54:24
Who is like

00:04:54:24 - 00:04:57:04
What I would deem as

00:04:57:04 - 00:04:59:04
like a lot of other youth pastors in America

00:04:59:04 - 00:05:00:10
You’re just kinda like

00:05:00:10 - 00:05:02:23
jumping from week to week

00:05:02:23 - 00:05:03:24
program to program

00:05:03:24 - 00:05:05:18
like making sure you got a game

00:05:05:18 - 00:05:06:18
making sure you got a message

00:05:06:18 - 00:05:07:22
making sure you got a small group

00:05:07:22 - 00:05:08:09
making sure you got enough leaders

00:05:08:09 - 00:05:08:24
making sure you got enough leaders

00:05:08:24 - 00:05:09:24
like all the things

00:05:09:24 - 00:05:12:12
all the like whirlwind

00:05:12:12 - 00:05:15:14
elements of just being a youth pastor

00:05:15:14 - 00:05:17:11
and then

00:05:17:11 - 00:05:18:24
you got someone like me

00:05:18:24 - 00:05:20:17
who’s telling you

00:05:20:17 - 00:05:21:20
“you need to get on social media”

00:05:21:20 - 00:05:23:08
“you need to get on social media”

00:05:23:08 - 00:05:25:19
speak to somebody

00:05:25:19 - 00:05:27:22
who’s in the space that you were

00:05:27:22 - 00:05:29:17
a year, year and a half ago

00:05:29:17 - 00:05:30:23
that’s like

00:05:30:23 - 00:05:32:20
“Yeah that sounds awesome”

00:05:32:20 - 00:05:33:23
“I would love to”

00:05:33:23 - 00:05:35:24
“There’s no way I could ever do it!”

00:05:35:24 - 00:05:37:20
“It’s too hard”

00:05:37:20 - 00:05:38:18
“It’s too much”

00:05:38:18 - 00:05:39:11
It’s too...

00:05:39:11 - 00:05:40:19
Whatever. Fill in whatever

00:05:40:19 - 00:05:42:16
blank of why it’s

00:05:42:16 - 00:05:43:18
why it’s not

00:05:43:18 - 00:05:46:02
gonna be achievable or possible

00:05:46:02 - 00:05:48:02
talk to somebody who’s in that

00:05:48:02 - 00:05:49:03
in that sorta space

00:05:49:03 - 00:05:50:15
like you were not too long ago

00:05:50:15 - 00:05:50:21
Yeah.

00:05:50:21 - 00:05:52:16
Well, there is a way to

00:05:52:16 - 00:05:53:11
connect all your

00:05:53:11 - 00:05:54:14
social media platforms

00:05:54:14 - 00:05:56:01
so that when you post on

00:05:56:01 - 00:05:56:23
it, posts on all of them,

00:05:56:23 - 00:05:57:08
I think that's

00:05:57:08 - 00:05:58:08
a big part of it.

00:05:58:08 - 00:05:58:22
And honestly,

00:05:58:22 - 00:05:59:22
I don't even

00:05:59:22 - 00:06:00:23
like for some things.

00:06:00:23 - 00:06:02:01
Like for my pictures,

00:06:02:01 - 00:06:03:13
it goes from Instagram

00:06:03:13 - 00:06:04:00
to Facebook.

00:06:04:00 - 00:06:04:15
They're connected.

00:06:04:15 - 00:06:05:06
But for some reason

00:06:05:06 - 00:06:06:23
whenever I do a reel or video,

00:06:06:23 - 00:06:07:13
they're not.

00:06:07:13 - 00:06:08:06
So I have to go in

00:06:08:06 - 00:06:08:24
and do it myself.

00:06:08:24 - 00:06:09:07
Somehow.

00:06:09:07 - 00:06:09:23
I'll have to

00:06:09:23 - 00:06:10:21
figure all that stuff out.

00:06:10:21 - 00:06:12:02
But,

00:06:12:02 - 00:06:12:22
that's a part of

00:06:12:22 - 00:06:13:06
it is like,

00:06:13:06 - 00:06:14:06
if you haven't connected in

00:06:14:06 - 00:06:15:12
some way to the same email

00:06:15:12 - 00:06:16:16
and to the same connection,

00:06:16:16 - 00:06:17:24
like you can link it

00:06:17:24 - 00:06:19:12
so that when you post on one,

00:06:19:12 - 00:06:20:23
it goes to all of them.

00:06:20:23 - 00:06:21:11
And honestly,

00:06:21:11 - 00:06:22:01
like not

00:06:22:01 - 00:06:23:24
everyone sees each platform

00:06:23:24 - 00:06:24:18
and sometimes they do.

00:06:24:18 - 00:06:25:21
And that's okay.

00:06:25:21 - 00:06:26:10
But I think it's

00:06:26:10 - 00:06:28:06
just so important to know

00:06:28:06 - 00:06:30:08
that kids are on,

00:06:30:08 - 00:06:31:05
students are on

00:06:31:05 - 00:06:32:04
these platforms,

00:06:32:04 - 00:06:32:22
and they're

00:06:32:22 - 00:06:34:11
looking for inspiration,

00:06:34:11 - 00:06:35:20
they're looking for hope,

00:06:35:20 - 00:06:36:13
and it's our way

00:06:36:13 - 00:06:38:08
to kind of minister to people

00:06:38:08 - 00:06:39:05
through the social

00:06:39:05 - 00:06:40:03
media platforms

00:06:40:03 - 00:06:41:05
that God has

00:06:41:05 - 00:06:42:03
really entrusted us

00:06:42:03 - 00:06:43:04
with as youth pastors,

00:06:43:04 - 00:06:44:07
if we're on them,

00:06:44:07 - 00:06:44:24
to do

00:06:44:24 - 00:06:45:22
the right things on their

00:06:45:22 - 00:06:47:16
not just not just,

00:06:47:16 - 00:06:48:14
and it's

00:06:48:14 - 00:06:49:16
good to have fun things

00:06:49:16 - 00:06:50:20
and different activities

00:06:50:20 - 00:06:51:05
and different

00:06:51:05 - 00:06:52:05
like kind of goofy

00:06:52:05 - 00:06:53:19
things for kids to kind of,

00:06:53:19 - 00:06:55:17
you know, be by.

00:06:55:17 - 00:06:57:00
But it's also good to have,

00:06:57:00 - 00:06:57:17
you know,

00:06:57:17 - 00:06:58:19
content

00:06:58:19 - 00:06:59:21
that could inspire

00:06:59:21 - 00:07:01:03
and change lives.

00:07:01:03 - 00:07:02:04
and I, I've seen,

00:07:02:04 - 00:07:03:24
aspects of both,

00:07:03:24 - 00:07:05:00
you know, so it's good.

00:07:05:00 - 00:07:05:16
Yep.

00:07:05:16 - 00:07:07:09
So like that’s like the big

00:07:07:09 - 00:07:09:15
picture reason.

00:07:09:15 - 00:07:10:15
Students are on it...

00:07:10:15 - 00:07:11:24
We should be on there...

00:07:11:24 - 00:07:14:00
helping redeem those moments

00:07:14:00 - 00:07:15:19
I like to think about

00:07:15:19 - 00:07:17:21
in the Bible

00:07:17:21 - 00:07:19:16
the Apostle Paul was using like

00:07:19:16 - 00:07:20:13
pen and paper

00:07:20:13 - 00:07:22:07
and then like mail carriers

00:07:22:07 - 00:07:23:11
to like get his message across

00:07:23:11 - 00:07:26:09
today I would envision that

00:07:26:09 - 00:07:28:17
He would be using something like digital

00:07:28:17 - 00:07:29:14
Exactly.

00:07:29:14 - 00:07:30:22
Pretty vigorously

00:07:30:22 - 00:07:32:04
to get his message across

00:07:33:05 - 00:07:36:09
So that’s the big picture, “why”

00:07:36:09 - 00:07:36:22
Yeah, Yeah

00:07:36:22 - 00:07:38:08
Students are there, It’s important

00:07:38:08 - 00:07:40:03
Talk about like

00:07:40:03 - 00:07:42:23
What it took from just like time management

00:07:42:23 - 00:07:44:21
Talk about what it took from like

00:07:44:21 - 00:07:47:24
platform understanding

00:07:47:24 - 00:07:50:07
You, I feel like

00:07:50:07 - 00:07:51:02
correct me if I’m wrong, but

00:07:51:02 - 00:07:52:07
I feel like you had to

00:07:52:07 - 00:07:54:05
get to know how to use

00:07:54:05 - 00:07:55:11
a lot of these tools

00:07:55:11 - 00:07:57:14
talk to someone who may be

00:07:57:14 - 00:07:58:09
in the space

00:07:58:09 - 00:08:00:03
“I want to- I don’t even know what

00:08:00:03 - 00:08:01:07
to do. Or how to do it.”

00:08:01:07 - 00:08:02:16
Or like what’s even

00:08:02:16 - 00:08:03:07
possible

00:08:03:07 - 00:08:04:11
Or what ever I should do.

00:08:04:11 - 00:08:06:07
Like get real practical

00:08:06:07 - 00:08:06:18
You know,

00:08:06:18 - 00:08:08:12
I think

00:08:08:12 - 00:08:10:00
it doesn't take as much time

00:08:10:00 - 00:08:10:15
as you think.

00:08:10:15 - 00:08:11:09
I mean, yes,

00:08:11:09 - 00:08:12:05
creating the video.

00:08:12:05 - 00:08:13:05
I mean, you never,

00:08:13:05 - 00:08:14:14
I think, was like

00:08:14:14 - 00:08:15:16
creating a short

00:08:15:16 - 00:08:16:19
or like a reel.

00:08:16:19 - 00:08:18:05
You never want to make a reel

00:08:18:05 - 00:08:19:10
any longer than a minute

00:08:19:10 - 00:08:20:21
or so like that.

00:08:20:21 - 00:08:21:11
So you really

00:08:21:11 - 00:08:22:05
it doesn't take that long

00:08:22:05 - 00:08:22:23
to create that video.

00:08:22:23 - 00:08:23:12
If you could do it in

00:08:23:12 - 00:08:24:13
1 or 2 takes, like it's

00:08:24:13 - 00:08:25:22
not a big deal with that.

00:08:25:22 - 00:08:26:24
And then

00:08:26:24 - 00:08:28:11
that's a big part of,

00:08:28:11 - 00:08:29:10
what students look at.

00:08:29:10 - 00:08:29:24
They don't watch

00:08:29:24 - 00:08:31:00
like long videos.

00:08:31:00 - 00:08:31:16
They're not going to watch

00:08:31:16 - 00:08:32:20
a 20 minute video.

00:08:32:20 - 00:08:33:13
But if you can keep it

00:08:33:13 - 00:08:34:10
a minute, you know,

00:08:34:10 - 00:08:35:10
that's more realistic

00:08:35:10 - 00:08:36:19
for them to kind of,

00:08:36:19 - 00:08:37:19
you know, dive into it

00:08:37:19 - 00:08:39:15
and interact with it.

00:08:39:15 - 00:08:39:23
and I think

00:08:39:23 - 00:08:40:07
a lot of

00:08:40:07 - 00:08:42:00
it is like interaction,

00:08:42:00 - 00:08:43:08
like if you, you know,

00:08:43:08 - 00:08:44:00
what did you learn from

00:08:44:00 - 00:08:44:12
this video?

00:08:44:12 - 00:08:45:14
You know, make comment in the

00:08:45:14 - 00:08:47:03
in the comments, tell us who

00:08:47:03 - 00:08:49:04
who won this in this game or

00:08:49:04 - 00:08:49:22
and I don't think it's

00:08:49:22 - 00:08:51:01
I don't think it's,

00:08:51:01 - 00:08:54:20
it's as much it's not as time

00:08:54:20 - 00:08:55:19
consuming as you think.

00:08:55:19 - 00:08:56:22
It's I mean,

00:08:56:22 - 00:08:58:00
some people are

00:08:58:00 - 00:08:58:21
slower than others

00:08:58:21 - 00:08:59:08
and some people

00:08:59:08 - 00:09:00:04
are faster than others

00:09:00:04 - 00:09:01:00
at getting stuff done.

00:09:01:00 - 00:09:02:03
But once you kind of

00:09:02:03 - 00:09:02:24
get the bearings

00:09:02:24 - 00:09:04:08
and the grip

00:09:04:08 - 00:09:05:04
on, on different

00:09:05:04 - 00:09:06:05
like ways of doing things,

00:09:06:05 - 00:09:06:14
and you're in

00:09:06:14 - 00:09:08:06
kind of your groove on things,

00:09:08:06 - 00:09:09:12
it becomes pretty natural

00:09:09:12 - 00:09:10:09
and second nature

00:09:10:09 - 00:09:12:00
and pretty fast stuff done.

00:09:12:00 - 00:09:13:07
I do a kind of a good amount

00:09:13:07 - 00:09:14:05
of social media stuff,

00:09:14:05 - 00:09:15:10
with even both worship

00:09:15:10 - 00:09:17:01
and youth a little bit.

00:09:17:01 - 00:09:18:06
Not as much with worship,

00:09:18:06 - 00:09:19:10
but some.

00:09:19:10 - 00:09:20:03
And it's like

00:09:20:03 - 00:09:20:21
it's really

00:09:20:21 - 00:09:22:21
it doesn't take that much time

00:09:22:21 - 00:09:25:07
to, to post stuff, I think.

00:09:25:07 - 00:09:26:17
yeah, that's that's

00:09:26:17 - 00:09:28:03
an encouraging thing

00:09:28:03 - 00:09:28:17
to think about.

00:09:28:17 - 00:09:29:12
It's like

00:09:29:12 - 00:09:30:06
it's not going to take

00:09:30:06 - 00:09:30:22
you forever

00:09:30:22 - 00:09:32:01
to get a couple posts

00:09:32:01 - 00:09:33:14
out, a day

00:09:33:14 - 00:09:35:07
or maybe several week.

00:09:35:07 - 00:09:36:01
I think it's good to have

00:09:36:01 - 00:09:37:11
at least one a day or,

00:09:37:11 - 00:09:38:24
you know, multiple a week.

00:09:38:24 - 00:09:39:14
So you can kind of

00:09:39:14 - 00:09:40:16
get keep interacting

00:09:40:16 - 00:09:41:06
with your students.

00:09:41:06 - 00:09:43:02
So I don't know,

00:09:43:02 - 00:09:43:24
is that what kind of answering

00:09:43:24 - 00:09:45:19
your question? Okay.

00:09:45:19 - 00:09:46:08
Yeah, for sure.

00:09:46:08 - 00:09:48:09
I mean there’s like...

00:09:48:09 - 00:09:50:18
I can’t remember, exactly

00:09:50:18 - 00:09:52:19
I’m trying to look it up right now

00:09:52:19 - 00:09:54:04
But there’s a book, the concept

00:09:54:04 - 00:09:55:04
is called like “1,000 Hours”

00:09:55:04 - 00:09:57:05
Maybe it’s 100 hours

00:09:57:05 - 00:09:59:06
I’ll put the link in the

00:09:59:06 - 00:10:00:11
shownotes if you’re interested

00:10:00:11 - 00:10:01:06
I’ll figure it out

00:10:01:06 - 00:10:03:07
But the concept

00:10:03:07 - 00:10:04:09
is like

00:10:04:09 - 00:10:06:10
No one is gonna be good at anything

00:10:06:10 - 00:10:07:01
until they spend

00:10:07:01 - 00:10:08:01
some time on it.

00:10:08:01 - 00:10:09:22
And so if you feel intimidated

00:10:09:22 - 00:10:10:21
by something

00:10:10:21 - 00:10:11:15
of course you’re gonna

00:10:11:15 - 00:10:12:13
feel intimidated by something

00:10:12:13 - 00:10:13:07
new. It’s new!

00:10:13:07 - 00:10:15:16
That’s what new stuff does

00:10:15:16 - 00:10:16:16
None of us are good

00:10:16:16 - 00:10:18:17
at new stuff right away

00:10:18:17 - 00:10:20:12
And I think it’s really telling

00:10:20:12 - 00:10:23:17
to your point

00:10:23:17 - 00:10:24:15
You were in that boat

00:10:24:15 - 00:10:25:00
And you were like:

00:10:25:00 - 00:10:27:15
“I don’t know”

00:10:27:15 - 00:10:28:21
Just to shed a little bit of light

00:10:28:21 - 00:10:30:02
When I was telling you

00:10:30:02 - 00:10:31:04
you should

00:10:31:04 - 00:10:31:23
dive into some of this stuff

00:10:31:23 - 00:10:32:10
You were like:

00:10:32:10 - 00:10:33:22
“I don’t know man...”

00:10:33:22 - 00:10:35:10
“I don’t really do that type of st-”

00:10:35:10 - 00:10:36:22
“I don’t really do TikTok”

00:10:36:22 - 00:10:38:14
“I don’t really do any videos”

00:10:38:14 - 00:10:40:01
And I was just like:

00:10:40:01 - 00:10:41:18
“Hey just try it. It’s not that hard.”

00:10:41:18 - 00:10:42:11
Yeah.

00:10:42:11 - 00:10:43:05
And so to hear you say now

00:10:43:05 - 00:10:44:15
a year and something later

00:10:44:15 - 00:10:46:04
“It’s not

00:10:46:04 - 00:10:47:05
doesn’t take as much time.

00:10:47:05 - 00:10:48:05
as you might think.”

00:10:48:05 - 00:10:49:09
Yeah.

00:10:49:09 - 00:10:52:14
That’s a good word on that

00:10:52:14 - 00:10:53:12
The more time you

00:10:53:12 - 00:10:54:10
spend on something

00:10:54:10 - 00:10:55:19
the better you’re gonna get with it.

00:10:55:19 - 00:10:56:14
Yeah.

00:10:56:14 - 00:10:57:07
And so like

00:10:57:07 - 00:10:58:14
I had one of our

00:10:58:14 - 00:10:59:11
interns yesterday, say

00:10:59:11 - 00:11:00:04
something about

00:11:00:04 - 00:11:01:15
like video editing

00:11:01:15 - 00:11:01:24
She was like

00:11:01:24 - 00:11:04:11
“I wanna help you edit video”

00:11:04:11 - 00:11:06:23
“I wanna do more video editing.”

00:11:06:23 - 00:11:08:07
cuz she also wants to learn

00:11:08:07 - 00:11:09:15
And I just looked at her

00:11:09:15 - 00:11:10:01
I was like:

00:11:10:01 - 00:11:11:02
“You just gotta do it.”

00:11:11:02 - 00:11:11:15
Yeah.

00:11:11:15 - 00:11:13:00
Like doing it is the key

00:11:13:00 - 00:11:13:22
Sit down with it

00:11:13:22 - 00:11:14:19
And the more you like

00:11:14:19 - 00:11:16:05
sit down with it, spend time on it.

00:11:16:05 - 00:11:18:08
The more you can get it done

00:11:18:08 - 00:11:18:21
Yeah.

00:11:18:21 - 00:11:20:00
I've learned on my phone

00:11:20:00 - 00:11:20:15
cap cut.

00:11:20:15 - 00:11:21:08
The free version.

00:11:21:08 - 00:11:23:12
Even like it does wonders

00:11:23:12 - 00:11:24:11
for a lot of things.

00:11:24:11 - 00:11:25:15
Like there's

00:11:25:15 - 00:11:26:13
there's a pro version

00:11:26:13 - 00:11:27:06
that probably costs,

00:11:27:06 - 00:11:27:23
but, like,

00:11:27:23 - 00:11:29:05
even the free version

00:11:29:05 - 00:11:31:17
has given me, like, a lot of,

00:11:31:17 - 00:11:32:09
you know, help.

00:11:32:09 - 00:11:33:02
And there's not a lot

00:11:33:02 - 00:11:33:12
there's really

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:34:03
not a lot to it.

00:11:34:03 - 00:11:35:03
There's a lot of little things

00:11:35:03 - 00:11:35:21
you have to kind of figure out

00:11:35:21 - 00:11:36:14
what does what,

00:11:36:14 - 00:11:37:13
but once you do,

00:11:37:13 - 00:11:39:04
it's pretty easy to kind of

00:11:39:04 - 00:11:39:24
get the gist of it

00:11:39:24 - 00:11:40:22
pretty quickly.

00:11:40:22 - 00:11:41:24
So.

00:11:41:24 - 00:11:43:02
And ya know

00:11:43:02 - 00:11:43:18
what’s even fun

00:11:43:18 - 00:11:44:10
Yesterday, I had a

00:11:44:10 - 00:11:45:06
student

00:11:45:06 - 00:11:46:13
a 6th grader come in

00:11:46:13 - 00:11:48:07
and I taught him how to edit

00:11:48:07 - 00:11:49:19
videos for social media

00:11:49:19 - 00:11:50:12
Awesome,

00:11:50:12 - 00:11:50:24
And he edited two

00:11:50:24 - 00:11:51:11
cool.

00:11:51:11 - 00:11:51:23
In a 3 hour

00:11:51:23 - 00:11:52:13
period of time

00:11:52:13 - 00:11:53:19
He’d never used

00:11:53:19 - 00:11:54:11
Adobe Premiere Pro

00:11:54:11 - 00:11:55:08
It turned out pretty good?

00:11:55:08 - 00:11:56:03
The videos?

00:11:56:03 - 00:11:58:08
Yeah. I’ll post the link down below

00:11:58:08 - 00:12:00:00
You can see the student’s

00:12:00:00 - 00:12:00:11
edit

00:12:00:11 - 00:12:01:08
Awesome

00:12:01:08 - 00:12:02:06
Man, it was crispy

00:12:02:06 - 00:12:03:15
It was a crispy edit

00:12:03:15 - 00:12:04:01
Cool.

00:12:04:01 - 00:12:05:10
Shout out to him

00:12:05:10 - 00:12:07:03
Alright, so let’s...

00:12:07:03 - 00:12:09:05
Shift gears a little bit, Nate

00:12:09:05 - 00:12:10:15
And, umm

00:12:10:15 - 00:12:12:01
Talk about

00:12:12:01 - 00:12:13:01
what

00:12:13:01 - 00:12:14:12
Advantages

00:12:14:12 - 00:12:15:18
or what wins

00:12:15:18 - 00:12:16:10
you have seen

00:12:16:10 - 00:12:17:19
out of social media

00:12:17:19 - 00:12:19:07
in your group?

00:12:19:07 - 00:12:20:13
Right, what has

00:12:20:13 - 00:12:22:03
having a camera around

00:12:22:03 - 00:12:24:02
What has doing different like

00:12:24:02 - 00:12:25:06
Challenges

00:12:25:06 - 00:12:27:03
Your little like

00:12:27:03 - 00:12:28:01
devotional thoughts

00:12:28:01 - 00:12:30:09
Take it any direction you want

00:12:30:09 - 00:12:31:10
But what has

00:12:31:10 - 00:12:32:08
having these

00:12:32:08 - 00:12:33:15
having just a presence

00:12:33:15 - 00:12:34:24
on social media

00:12:34:24 - 00:12:36:11
what has it done in your mind

00:12:36:11 - 00:12:38:13
to your youth group?

00:12:38:13 - 00:12:39:04
you know, I'm

00:12:39:04 - 00:12:40:09
going to say something

00:12:40:09 - 00:12:41:20
that may be a little bit off

00:12:41:20 - 00:12:42:23
the track of this little bit,

00:12:42:23 - 00:12:44:04
but it's related to this.

00:12:44:04 - 00:12:45:03
I think I've noticed

00:12:45:03 - 00:12:46:02
a lot more people

00:12:46:02 - 00:12:47:09
outside of my ministry

00:12:47:09 - 00:12:48:04
are being reached

00:12:48:04 - 00:12:49:13
than just my students.

00:12:49:13 - 00:12:50:00
There's people

00:12:50:00 - 00:12:51:13
that see my videos

00:12:51:13 - 00:12:52:13
that that are like,

00:12:52:13 - 00:12:53:13
not from our ministry,

00:12:53:13 - 00:12:54:11
that are like, inspired

00:12:54:11 - 00:12:55:16
and like asking questions

00:12:55:16 - 00:12:57:05
and like, where is CSM at?

00:12:57:05 - 00:12:58:01
And all this stuff.

00:12:58:01 - 00:12:58:07
And they

00:12:58:07 - 00:12:58:14
may not

00:12:58:14 - 00:12:59:21
even be from around the area,

00:12:59:21 - 00:13:01:06
but they're like curious

00:13:01:06 - 00:13:02:16
and finding things.

00:13:02:16 - 00:13:03:03
And we're starting

00:13:03:03 - 00:13:04:02
to get more students now

00:13:04:02 - 00:13:05:06
and like seeing my videos

00:13:05:06 - 00:13:05:16
and being in

00:13:05:16 - 00:13:06:07
and following things.

00:13:06:07 - 00:13:06:19
And actually,

00:13:06:19 - 00:13:07:10
we copied off

00:13:07:10 - 00:13:08:01
your guy's church

00:13:08:01 - 00:13:08:24
one time you did this thing

00:13:08:24 - 00:13:09:10
where you went up

00:13:09:10 - 00:13:10:19
to students and go,

00:13:10:19 - 00:13:12:08
hey, you know,

00:13:12:08 - 00:13:13:22
do you follow Cross Creek,

00:13:13:22 - 00:13:14:13
your church?

00:13:14:13 - 00:13:15:00
And I go, hey,

00:13:15:00 - 00:13:15:14
do you follow

00:13:15:14 - 00:13:17:00
CSM on on TikTok

00:13:17:00 - 00:13:17:24
or do you follow CSM

00:13:17:24 - 00:13:19:21
on, you know, Instagram?

00:13:19:21 - 00:13:21:09
And they're always scrambling

00:13:21:09 - 00:13:22:20
and they show their phone

00:13:22:20 - 00:13:23:14
and they either know

00:13:23:14 - 00:13:24:01
who they do

00:13:24:01 - 00:13:25:01
or because of that,

00:13:25:01 - 00:13:25:24
they start following.

00:13:25:24 - 00:13:27:01
You know,

00:13:27:01 - 00:13:28:19
I think it's just

00:13:28:19 - 00:13:31:03
so important to be present

00:13:31:03 - 00:13:32:01
there.

00:13:32:01 - 00:13:35:03
and, give them an avenue

00:13:35:03 - 00:13:36:10
where they can

00:13:36:10 - 00:13:37:19
if they missed a week

00:13:37:19 - 00:13:38:24
and I, I don't always do it,

00:13:38:24 - 00:13:40:10
but I try to do a recap video

00:13:40:10 - 00:13:41:14
from the week before

00:13:41:14 - 00:13:42:00
and talk

00:13:42:00 - 00:13:43:24
more about different messages.

00:13:43:24 - 00:13:47:12
And, I think they need that

00:13:47:12 - 00:13:48:00
to kind of

00:13:48:00 - 00:13:48:21
if they're not there, like,

00:13:48:21 - 00:13:49:08
hey, they can

00:13:49:08 - 00:13:50:17
they can see what's going on.

00:13:50:17 - 00:13:52:04
So that's, that's really good.

00:13:52:04 - 00:13:53:09
Yeah.

00:13:53:09 - 00:13:54:15
Well and it’s even like

00:13:54:15 - 00:13:55:16
Ya know

00:13:55:16 - 00:13:56:17
you even said it

00:13:56:17 - 00:13:57:18
there, like

00:13:57:18 - 00:13:59:24
just by doing like something

00:13:59:24 - 00:14:01:05
some little like

00:14:01:05 - 00:14:02:12
challenge thing

00:14:02:12 - 00:14:03:12
like it created like

00:14:03:12 - 00:14:04:01
a fun

00:14:04:01 - 00:14:04:18
Yeah.

00:14:04:18 - 00:14:05:12
moment.

00:14:05:12 - 00:14:06:02
Yeah.

00:14:06:02 - 00:14:06:17
And then if

00:14:06:17 - 00:14:07:22
you do go around

00:14:07:22 - 00:14:08:13
and you’re kinda like

00:14:08:13 - 00:14:10:17
doing man on the street-style videos

00:14:10:17 - 00:14:11:07
and you’re

00:14:11:07 - 00:14:12:18
interviewing people and tryina

00:14:12:18 - 00:14:14:08
catch em not following you,

00:14:14:08 - 00:14:15:07
or prove to

00:14:15:07 - 00:14:17:02
people that they are following you.

00:14:17:02 - 00:14:18:24
Then later, they’re gonna look

00:14:18:24 - 00:14:20:02
for that online.

00:14:20:02 - 00:14:22:03
Right? And then that’s gonna create

00:14:22:03 - 00:14:23:09
and organic moment

00:14:23:09 - 00:14:25:10
an organic shareable moment

00:14:25:10 - 00:14:26:09
that they might

00:14:26:09 - 00:14:27:18
show their friends

00:14:27:18 - 00:14:28:19
“Hey, check this video out!”

00:14:28:19 - 00:14:30:04
or something like that, right?

00:14:30:04 - 00:14:31:09
like something that they could even

00:14:31:09 - 00:14:33:02
then be proud of

00:14:33:02 - 00:14:34:05
Ya know, and so there’s

00:14:34:05 - 00:14:36:15
I think, opportunity

00:14:36:15 - 00:14:37:16
Not

00:14:37:16 - 00:14:39:21
just with people who don’t go to your church

00:14:39:21 - 00:14:40:18
But also,

00:14:40:18 - 00:14:42:12
with students that are

00:14:42:12 - 00:14:43:03
Yeah.

00:14:43:03 - 00:14:43:17
in your youth ministry.

00:14:43:17 - 00:14:45:12
that can, ya know

00:14:45:12 - 00:14:46:14
help them feel

00:14:46:14 - 00:14:48:07
like some sort of sense of ownership

00:14:48:07 - 00:14:49:22
and some sort of like, win

00:14:49:22 - 00:14:52:06
in and through your social media

00:14:52:06 - 00:14:53:15
it’s in the

00:14:53:15 - 00:14:54:21
it’s a really low

00:14:54:21 - 00:14:55:19
hanging fruit there, ya know?

00:14:55:19 - 00:14:56:05
Yeah.

00:14:56:05 - 00:14:56:11
And I

00:14:56:11 - 00:14:57:20
feel like a lot of people.

00:14:57:20 - 00:14:58:14
A lot of students,

00:14:58:14 - 00:14:59:18
specifically students

00:14:59:18 - 00:15:02:00
want to see other students.

00:15:02:00 - 00:15:02:09
Sorry.

00:15:02:09 - 00:15:03:13
On videos

00:15:03:13 - 00:15:04:13
and, like, in things

00:15:04:13 - 00:15:05:12
instead of just me.

00:15:05:12 - 00:15:06:10
Just Jessica.

00:15:06:10 - 00:15:07:06
That's the leader.

00:15:07:06 - 00:15:08:07
They want to see students.

00:15:08:07 - 00:15:09:02
And when they see students,

00:15:09:02 - 00:15:10:02
they're more attentive

00:15:10:02 - 00:15:10:17
to watch

00:15:10:17 - 00:15:11:07
and kind of

00:15:11:07 - 00:15:12:10
participate with it

00:15:12:10 - 00:15:13:16
when when they're there

00:15:13:16 - 00:15:14:02
instead of

00:15:14:02 - 00:15:14:21
just adults

00:15:14:21 - 00:15:16:01
kind of sharing recaps

00:15:16:01 - 00:15:16:12
or whatever

00:15:16:12 - 00:15:18:02
that may look like, you know?

00:15:18:02 - 00:15:18:17
So I've learned that

00:15:18:17 - 00:15:19:16
kind of the hard way

00:15:19:16 - 00:15:21:09
a little bit, you know, so.

00:15:21:09 - 00:15:21:24
Yeah, for sure.

00:15:21:24 - 00:15:24:02
And we’re all just trying stuff, right?

00:15:24:02 - 00:15:26:04
Like what I did, when I moved here

00:15:26:04 - 00:15:29:20
I guess just about two years ago, now

00:15:29:20 - 00:15:31:23
when I moved here like

00:15:31:23 - 00:15:33:15
my strategy that I brought in is

00:15:33:15 - 00:15:35:18
not the same strategy that I have today

00:15:35:18 - 00:15:38:04
So, as you get going

00:15:38:04 - 00:15:40:02
and I think that’s a good encouragement too

00:15:40:02 - 00:15:41:07
back to the question a minute ago

00:15:41:07 - 00:15:42:14
like just get started

00:15:42:14 - 00:15:43:03
Yeah.

00:15:43:03 - 00:15:44:02
and once you get started

00:15:44:02 - 00:15:45:08
you’ll start to like uncover things

00:15:45:08 - 00:15:46:08
that you didn’t know

00:15:46:08 - 00:15:46:23
Right? Like

00:15:46:23 - 00:15:47:23
a great example

00:15:47:23 - 00:15:50:14
in our context is

00:15:50:14 - 00:15:52:00
we had a resident, Caleb

00:15:52:00 - 00:15:52:18
two videos ago

00:15:52:18 - 00:15:53:05
I’ll link it right here

00:15:53:05 - 00:15:54:02
Caleb

00:15:54:02 - 00:15:55:10
But he

00:15:55:10 - 00:15:56:18
had this idea

00:15:56:18 - 00:15:59:02
about this thing called the Social Challenge

00:15:59:02 - 00:16:00:10
and we would do a film

00:16:00:10 - 00:16:02:08
a filming of it every single Wednesday night

00:16:02:08 - 00:16:04:01
and he wanted that to be like

00:16:04:01 - 00:16:05:21
a long form version of a YouTube video

00:16:05:21 - 00:16:06:21
and so

00:16:06:21 - 00:16:08:17
we did that for a semester

00:16:08:17 - 00:16:10:15
and I mean, that, that

00:16:10:15 - 00:16:12:01
project would eat his lunch

00:16:12:01 - 00:16:13:11
cuz he would do it on a Wednesday night

00:16:13:11 - 00:16:15:00
and then he would work all day

00:16:15:00 - 00:16:16:14
on a Thursday on it

00:16:16:14 - 00:16:17:22
and he didn’t work on Fridays

00:16:17:22 - 00:16:19:15
so like his whole Thursday

00:16:19:15 - 00:16:22:08
was eaten up by getting this social challenge edited

00:16:22:08 - 00:16:23:05
posted

00:16:23:05 - 00:16:25:03
up and live on YouTube

00:16:25:03 - 00:16:27:03
and. But we, so we

00:16:27:03 - 00:16:29:03
killed the long-form version of it

00:16:29:03 - 00:16:30:10
because it was like the

00:16:30:10 - 00:16:32:19
time factor. Like the immediacy of it

00:16:32:19 - 00:16:35:07
But we shifted it to more short style

00:16:35:07 - 00:16:36:07
more challenge style

00:16:36:07 - 00:16:38:03
and what that’s done

00:16:38:03 - 00:16:39:12
is that has like

00:16:39:12 - 00:16:41:11
you said, that has put so many more

00:16:41:11 - 00:16:42:18
students on our

00:16:42:18 - 00:16:43:12
platform

00:16:43:12 - 00:16:45:08
so we’ve taken the same block of time

00:16:45:08 - 00:16:46:19
that we would have taken to shoot

00:16:46:19 - 00:16:47:24
one big long video

00:16:47:24 - 00:16:49:21
and we’ll just shoot like 5

00:16:49:21 - 00:16:50:06
Okay.

00:16:50:06 - 00:16:50:24
Five shorts.

00:16:50:24 - 00:16:52:15
And then we can just bank them

00:16:52:15 - 00:16:54:00
And so we got em

00:16:54:00 - 00:16:54:20
Like I got in my

00:16:54:20 - 00:16:56:19
folder right now, I got like

00:16:56:19 - 00:16:57:19
5 or 6

00:16:57:19 - 00:16:59:06
of like a certain style of game

00:16:59:06 - 00:17:00:06
we call them drafts

00:17:00:06 - 00:17:01:04
and then I got 5 or 6

00:17:01:04 - 00:17:02:10
of another certain style of game

00:17:02:10 - 00:17:03:15
we call it 7 Questions

00:17:03:15 - 00:17:04:10
Yeah.

00:17:04:10 - 00:17:05:09
And so like I have

00:17:05:09 - 00:17:07:17
Some pretty like set

00:17:07:17 - 00:17:09:06
what I post every day

00:17:09:06 - 00:17:11:00
and when I post certain things

00:17:11:00 - 00:17:11:23
but like

00:17:11:23 - 00:17:13:06
when I don’t have something

00:17:13:06 - 00:17:14:19
or when I need something to kinda

00:17:14:19 - 00:17:15:08
fill the gaps

00:17:15:08 - 00:17:16:03
like I got those

00:17:16:03 - 00:17:16:08
Yeah.

00:17:16:08 - 00:17:16:11
Yeah.

00:17:16:11 - 00:17:17:01
They’re just sitting

00:17:17:01 - 00:17:17:22
right there. And so

00:17:17:22 - 00:17:20:06
we stumbled into that

00:17:20:06 - 00:17:21:18
Right? Like what we started with

00:17:21:18 - 00:17:23:03
the idea of the social challenge

00:17:23:03 - 00:17:23:24
what we started with

00:17:23:24 - 00:17:25:12
is not what it is now

00:17:25:12 - 00:17:26:01
Yeah.

00:17:26:01 - 00:17:27:09
And what’s cool, is like

00:17:27:09 - 00:17:29:08
it, in the room

00:17:29:08 - 00:17:30:13
like in our programming

00:17:30:13 - 00:17:32:02
it’s still called the same thing

00:17:32:02 - 00:17:33:02
from when it started

00:17:33:02 - 00:17:34:15
to what it is today

00:17:34:15 - 00:17:36:14
we still call it the “Social Challenge”

00:17:36:14 - 00:17:37:20
so students know what it is

00:17:37:20 - 00:17:39:16
and students know there’s an opportunity

00:17:39:16 - 00:17:40:16
for them to compete

00:17:40:16 - 00:17:41:23
and get on camera

00:17:41:23 - 00:17:43:05
and they love that stuff

00:17:43:05 - 00:17:43:20
That's awesome.

00:17:43:20 - 00:17:45:12
And it’s opt-in-able

00:17:45:12 - 00:17:46:11
though, ya know?

00:17:46:11 - 00:17:47:19
and that’s the nice part

00:17:47:19 - 00:17:49:00
is like we say, “Hey”

00:17:49:00 - 00:17:50:18
“During free time, if anyone wants

00:17:50:18 - 00:17:52:01
to come do the Social Challenge

00:17:52:01 - 00:17:53:09
we’ll be back here in this room.”

00:17:53:09 - 00:17:56:10
And so it’s not forced

00:17:56:10 - 00:17:56:19
Yeah.

00:17:56:19 - 00:17:57:06
We’re not making anyone

00:17:57:06 - 00:17:58:12
who is shy or whatever

00:17:58:12 - 00:17:59:06
have to get on it

00:17:59:06 - 00:17:59:24
But then you know

00:17:59:24 - 00:18:01:19
there’s definitely kids who DO want to be on it

00:18:01:19 - 00:18:02:12
Yeah.

00:18:02:12 - 00:18:03:19
And they’re like banging down the door

00:18:03:19 - 00:18:04:07
to get in there

00:18:04:07 - 00:18:05:00
Do you have, like,

00:18:05:00 - 00:18:06:07
the same, like,

00:18:06:07 - 00:18:07:15
smaller, kind of smaller

00:18:07:15 - 00:18:08:03
group of students

00:18:08:03 - 00:18:08:12
that always

00:18:08:12 - 00:18:09:05
want to be on videos?

00:18:09:05 - 00:18:09:23
Or do you have a pretty good

00:18:09:23 - 00:18:10:17
variety of students?

00:18:10:17 - 00:18:11:13
I want to be on videos

00:18:11:13 - 00:18:12:12
because I feel like it's

00:18:12:12 - 00:18:13:07
kind of slim for me.

00:18:13:07 - 00:18:14:02
of kids that actually

00:18:14:02 - 00:18:16:12
want to be on video.

00:18:16:12 - 00:18:17:19
Yeah, I mean it’s

00:18:17:19 - 00:18:19:05
Yeah, I think it’s

00:18:19:05 - 00:18:20:12
the same kinda group

00:18:20:12 - 00:18:21:02
Yeah.

00:18:21:02 - 00:18:22:13
the same like middle school

00:18:22:13 - 00:18:23:02
boys

00:18:23:02 - 00:18:23:23
Yeah.

00:18:23:23 - 00:18:24:18
like the kid who edited

00:18:24:18 - 00:18:26:02
is the kid who’s always on ‘em, too.

00:18:26:03 - 00:18:26:18
Yeah yeah

00:18:26:18 - 00:18:27:08
yeah yeah.

00:18:27:08 - 00:18:28:07
Like he’s a

00:18:28:07 - 00:18:31:07
he’s very camera hungry

00:18:31:07 - 00:18:32:14
Yeah yeah.

00:18:32:14 - 00:18:33:12
And that’s ok

00:18:33:12 - 00:18:35:01
everyone’s gonna go through waves

00:18:35:01 - 00:18:35:22
this kid doesn’t

00:18:35:22 - 00:18:38:20
he’s a 6th grade-7th grade boy

00:18:38:20 - 00:18:41:03
he’s not insecure about anything

00:18:41:03 - 00:18:41:21
That's awesome

00:18:41:21 - 00:18:42:24
But like one day he will be

00:18:42:24 - 00:18:46:01
He probably won’t be that kid

00:18:46:01 - 00:18:48:10
for his entire youth ministry career

00:18:48:10 - 00:18:49:04
Right?

00:18:49:04 - 00:18:51:07
And so like, you just

00:18:51:07 - 00:18:53:13
that’s the nice part is you can offer that

00:18:53:13 - 00:18:55:00
and if you got kids

00:18:55:00 - 00:18:56:20
The other fun thing we’ve started to do

00:18:56:20 - 00:18:58:21
Beyond just

00:18:58:21 - 00:19:00:06
being on camera

00:19:00:06 - 00:19:01:17
is like helping run the camera

00:19:01:17 - 00:19:04:06
And so like maybe they don’t wanna be on the camera

00:19:04:06 - 00:19:06:04
but maybe they can be like behind the scenes

00:19:06:04 - 00:19:06:23
or edit

00:19:06:23 - 00:19:07:14
Yeah.

00:19:07:14 - 00:19:08:23
And that- students love

00:19:08:23 - 00:19:10:14
getting a chance to do that

00:19:10:14 - 00:19:12:10
And the more, I guess the older I’m getting

00:19:12:10 - 00:19:13:23
the more I’m trying to figure out, like “How can I

00:19:13:23 - 00:19:16:08
not just do student ministry

00:19:16:08 - 00:19:16:24
for students,

00:19:16:24 - 00:19:17:13
but how can I

00:19:17:13 - 00:19:19:03
let students do student ministry for students?”

00:19:19:03 - 00:19:19:23
That's good.

00:19:19:23 - 00:19:23:14
So that’s one of the things we’re trying to pursue

00:19:23:14 - 00:19:25:10
But Nate, tell me what

00:19:25:10 - 00:19:27:12
in your context has

00:19:27:12 - 00:19:30:13
been the most fun, or most effective thing?

00:19:30:13 - 00:19:31:08
that you’ve done

00:19:31:08 - 00:19:32:19
just with regard to digital

00:19:32:19 - 00:19:33:11
it doesn’t have to be

00:19:33:11 - 00:19:35:18
social media- anything, it can be anything

00:19:35:18 - 00:19:38:09
any sort of thing in the digital space

00:19:38:09 - 00:19:40:04
Well, I'll be honest.

00:19:40:04 - 00:19:41:16
I've really recently

00:19:41:16 - 00:19:43:10
kind of started a. And this.

00:19:43:10 - 00:19:43:22
I don't even know

00:19:43:22 - 00:19:44:18
if you consider this

00:19:44:18 - 00:19:45:11
what you're looking at,

00:19:45:11 - 00:19:47:17
but I started a Snapchat,

00:19:47:17 - 00:19:50:03
group with our students,

00:19:50:03 - 00:19:51:12
and I go, hey, invite.

00:19:51:12 - 00:19:53:00
And that's a it's

00:19:53:00 - 00:19:53:24
me social media

00:19:53:24 - 00:19:54:20
invite

00:19:54:20 - 00:19:56:00
anyone that is

00:19:56:00 - 00:19:57:19
that is not that

00:19:57:19 - 00:19:59:01
I don't have access to

00:19:59:01 - 00:20:00:16
into this group chat.

00:20:00:16 - 00:20:01:19
And people are just adding

00:20:01:19 - 00:20:02:15
people as we go.

00:20:02:15 - 00:20:03:12
And as soon as I add

00:20:03:12 - 00:20:03:24
someone else

00:20:03:24 - 00:20:04:16
and they have friends

00:20:04:16 - 00:20:06:06
that are from CSM, I'm them.

00:20:06:06 - 00:20:06:22
And it's like

00:20:06:22 - 00:20:08:00
the group is grown,

00:20:08:00 - 00:20:08:17
but the more people

00:20:08:17 - 00:20:09:02
that are in there,

00:20:09:02 - 00:20:10:04
the more it gets blown up.

00:20:10:04 - 00:20:10:22
It's been fun to

00:20:10:22 - 00:20:11:13
just kind of see it

00:20:11:13 - 00:20:12:18
expand slowly

00:20:12:18 - 00:20:13:08
throughout

00:20:13:08 - 00:20:14:15
the last couple weeks.

00:20:14:15 - 00:20:14:21
That's

00:20:14:21 - 00:20:15:04
something that

00:20:15:04 - 00:20:16:01
I'm excited about

00:20:16:01 - 00:20:17:06
because it's like it's

00:20:17:06 - 00:20:18:08
a different way of connecting.

00:20:18:08 - 00:20:19:04
We have GroupMe

00:20:19:04 - 00:20:19:19
and we connect through

00:20:19:19 - 00:20:20:24
GroupMe mainly,

00:20:20:24 - 00:20:22:00
but I think Snapchat

00:20:22:00 - 00:20:22:23
should have a funner,

00:20:22:23 - 00:20:25:07
like fun, fun way to like

00:20:25:07 - 00:20:26:12
send funny pictures

00:20:26:12 - 00:20:27:15
and whatever.

00:20:27:15 - 00:20:28:16
Like you can best group

00:20:28:16 - 00:20:29:10
like this

00:20:29:10 - 00:20:30:23
kid was blown it up

00:20:30:23 - 00:20:32:11
with with like

00:20:32:11 - 00:20:33:24
filters of people's faces

00:20:33:24 - 00:20:35:09
being all distorted and stuff.

00:20:35:09 - 00:20:36:23
And just as he's being goofy

00:20:36:23 - 00:20:37:19
and I don't know

00:20:37:19 - 00:20:38:13
if that answers your question

00:20:38:13 - 00:20:39:08
the way you wanted me to,

00:20:39:08 - 00:20:40:14
but it's just, you know.

00:20:40:14 - 00:20:41:03
Yeah, no, it’s great!

00:20:41:03 - 00:20:42:02
I mean it’s

00:20:42:02 - 00:20:43:01
that’s the thing, like

00:20:43:01 - 00:20:44:09
every church is different, right?

00:20:44:09 - 00:20:45:17
So I’m not going into this with any sorta

00:20:45:17 - 00:20:46:19
like agenda

00:20:46:19 - 00:20:47:09
I’m just tryina get

00:20:47:09 - 00:20:50:04
to know what real youth pastors

00:20:50:04 - 00:20:51:14
and real churches are doing

00:20:51:14 - 00:20:53:12
like to connect with students

00:20:53:12 - 00:20:55:00
and that’s a great example, because

00:20:55:00 - 00:20:57:10
youth ministry 15 years ago

00:20:57:10 - 00:20:58:06
like you don’t have that

00:20:58:06 - 00:20:58:16
opportunity

00:20:58:16 - 00:20:59:10
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:59:10 - 00:21:01:02
Whether

00:21:01:02 - 00:21:02:09
Cuz like our church

00:21:02:09 - 00:21:03:18
doesn’t let us use Snapchat

00:21:03:18 - 00:21:04:10
Oh, really?

00:21:04:10 - 00:21:06:01
Whether it’s Snapchat

00:21:06:01 - 00:21:07:10
or whether it’s GroupMe

00:21:07:10 - 00:21:08:16
or whether it’s a Group Message

00:21:08:16 - 00:21:11:09
or whether it’s an Instagram DM Group

00:21:12:15 - 00:21:13:18
The concept

00:21:13:18 - 00:21:14:22
is a group message

00:21:14:22 - 00:21:15:14
Yeah.

00:21:15:14 - 00:21:17:15
You and I, if we were youth pastors

00:21:17:15 - 00:21:18:14
fifteen years ago

00:21:18:14 - 00:21:20:12
we don’t have that opportunity

00:21:20:12 - 00:21:21:01
Yeah.

00:21:21:01 - 00:21:22:11
That doesn’t exist

00:21:22:11 - 00:21:24:19
And so, that’s why I say

00:21:24:19 - 00:21:26:19
it’s so important for youth pastors to just

00:21:26:19 - 00:21:27:22
figure something out, because

00:21:27:22 - 00:21:29:19
look at that opportunity

00:21:29:19 - 00:21:31:06
like you have a chance to

00:21:31:06 - 00:21:32:23
message your students

00:21:32:23 - 00:21:34:22
on like a Tuesday morning

00:21:34:22 - 00:21:35:12
Yeah.

00:21:35:12 - 00:21:36:06
like otherwise you would have

00:21:36:06 - 00:21:37:03
had to wait for them to

00:21:37:03 - 00:21:37:17
Yeah.

00:21:37:17 - 00:21:38:17
come to you

00:21:38:17 - 00:21:40:01
to be a captive audience

00:21:40:01 - 00:21:40:12
Yeah.

00:21:40:12 - 00:21:42:03
But now we have the ability to

00:21:42:03 - 00:21:43:14
And there’s like

00:21:43:14 - 00:21:45:09
there’s checks and balances within that

00:21:45:09 - 00:21:47:01
and there’s times where that can get abused

00:21:47:01 - 00:21:48:11
but at the end of the day, like

00:21:48:11 - 00:21:50:00
The opportunity that we have is fantastic

00:21:50:00 - 00:21:50:09
Yeah.

00:21:50:09 - 00:21:51:20
So, it’s

00:21:51:20 - 00:21:53:19
Important I think to lean into that

00:21:53:19 - 00:21:54:21
We should ask our dad

00:21:54:21 - 00:21:55:13
how he did that

00:21:55:13 - 00:21:56:18
when he was a youth pastor.

00:21:56:18 - 00:21:58:05
You know, just to see for him.

00:21:58:05 - 00:21:59:02
Fifteen years ago?

00:21:59:02 - 00:21:59:08
What?

00:21:59:08 - 00:22:00:05
Because he was doing it. What?

00:22:00:05 - 00:22:01:05
It was like not many.

00:22:01:05 - 00:22:02:05
There wasn't cell phones,

00:22:02:05 - 00:22:02:12
you know.

00:22:02:12 - 00:22:03:08
So how do you.

00:22:03:08 - 00:22:04:16
Well yeah, you just didn’t

00:22:04:16 - 00:22:05:16
do a group chat

00:22:05:16 - 00:22:06:03
Yeah.

00:22:06:03 - 00:22:08:00
It was all about the in-person

00:22:08:00 - 00:22:08:12
It was.

00:22:08:12 - 00:22:09:01
Yeah.

00:22:09:01 - 00:22:11:08
And that’s the struggle

00:22:11:08 - 00:22:13:14
Right? Like the struggle now

00:22:13:14 - 00:22:14:22
sometimes when

00:22:14:22 - 00:22:16:07
you introduce an idea of digital

00:22:16:07 - 00:22:18:13
there may be an older

00:22:18:13 - 00:22:21:03
generation or demographic

00:22:21:03 - 00:22:24:00
that remembers it done a different way

00:22:24:00 - 00:22:26:19
And no shade on that or them

00:22:26:19 - 00:22:28:06
but the fact is we just

00:22:28:06 - 00:22:29:14
live in a different day

00:22:29:14 - 00:22:30:21
And so

00:22:30:21 - 00:22:33:02
and whatever

00:22:33:02 - 00:22:36:12
And so however they were doing things before

00:22:36:12 - 00:22:39:03
teenagers have zero concept of that today

00:22:39:03 - 00:22:39:08
Yeah.

00:22:39:08 - 00:22:39:21
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:39:21 - 00:22:41:09
They are digital natives

00:22:41:09 - 00:22:42:15
and digital dependents

00:22:42:15 - 00:22:44:07
And so to

00:22:44:07 - 00:22:45:12
not have something

00:22:45:12 - 00:22:48:04
Right? And that’s the thing when I hear arguments

00:22:48:04 - 00:22:49:11
from youth pastors who say:

00:22:49:11 - 00:22:50:20
“Well, I don’t use social”

00:22:50:20 - 00:22:52:08
“Well do you have a group chat?”

00:22:52:08 - 00:22:53:08
“Well yeah we have a group chat!”

00:22:53:08 - 00:22:54:22
“Well, you’re doing something!”

00:22:54:22 - 00:22:56:10
You’re not doing nothing

00:22:56:10 - 00:22:57:24
And so there’s

00:22:57:24 - 00:23:00:08
That’s the thing I love, I love that

00:23:00:08 - 00:23:02:17
the sky is legitimately the limit

00:23:02:17 - 00:23:05:06
Wherever your creativity will lead you

00:23:05:06 - 00:23:06:06
in today’s day-in-age

00:23:06:06 - 00:23:07:19
you can do

00:23:07:19 - 00:23:08:17
you can do anything

00:23:08:17 - 00:23:10:12
Right? And it can be

00:23:10:12 - 00:23:12:19
as robust of a strategy as you want

00:23:12:19 - 00:23:13:24
or it can be as like

00:23:13:24 - 00:23:16:14
paired down and focused on your kids

00:23:16:14 - 00:23:18:21
Both are great, I think

00:23:18:21 - 00:23:19:17
Yeah.

00:23:19:17 - 00:23:21:14
So last thing, Nate

00:23:21:14 - 00:23:23:03
How do you

00:23:23:03 - 00:23:24:15
know something’s working?

00:23:24:15 - 00:23:27:08
Like when you post something

00:23:27:08 - 00:23:29:07
Or- how do you know when like

00:23:29:07 - 00:23:31:11
that was good. That was a win?

00:23:31:11 - 00:23:33:13
What are some of the things that

00:23:33:13 - 00:23:34:24
you look for, whether it be

00:23:34:24 - 00:23:37:03
like metrics, like number type things

00:23:37:03 - 00:23:38:05
Or even just like

00:23:38:05 - 00:23:39:17
the word on the street

00:23:39:17 - 00:23:41:06
or the scuttlebutt that you might hear like

00:23:41:06 - 00:23:43:08
in the hallways of church

00:23:43:08 - 00:23:44:12
I think I see

00:23:44:12 - 00:23:45:18
people share things.

00:23:45:18 - 00:23:47:03
Even if it's not a lot of shares.

00:23:47:03 - 00:23:48:10
Like, there's, like, adult,

00:23:48:10 - 00:23:50:08
like adults that are in our

00:23:50:08 - 00:23:50:22
our ministry

00:23:50:22 - 00:23:52:01
that kind of see this stuff,

00:23:52:01 - 00:23:53:07
and they'll share it.

00:23:53:07 - 00:23:53:24
Or student

00:23:53:24 - 00:23:55:14
and multiple students like it.

00:23:55:14 - 00:23:56:14
We have a good amount of like

00:23:56:14 - 00:23:56:21
we have a good

00:23:56:21 - 00:23:57:21
amount of views.

00:23:57:21 - 00:23:58:10
If there's a good

00:23:58:10 - 00:23:59:00
amount of views,

00:23:59:00 - 00:23:59:14
it means that it's

00:23:59:14 - 00:24:00:13
kind of catching on.

00:24:00:13 - 00:24:00:24
Honestly,

00:24:00:24 - 00:24:02:09
I do a lot more reels,

00:24:02:09 - 00:24:03:15
even for like picture

00:24:03:15 - 00:24:05:04
on new picture reels.

00:24:05:04 - 00:24:06:14
And they they're,

00:24:06:14 - 00:24:07:03
they're ones

00:24:07:03 - 00:24:07:17
that kind of

00:24:07:17 - 00:24:08:11
just to kind of show

00:24:08:11 - 00:24:08:17
like what

00:24:08:17 - 00:24:09:02
we've done

00:24:09:02 - 00:24:10:08
in the night of CSM.

00:24:10:08 - 00:24:11:00
I like to do like

00:24:11:00 - 00:24:12:03
recap videos of

00:24:12:03 - 00:24:13:07
like what we did

00:24:13:07 - 00:24:14:06
that last night

00:24:14:06 - 00:24:16:01
at CSM or today or whatever,

00:24:16:01 - 00:24:17:10
just kind of show people

00:24:17:10 - 00:24:19:02
kind of quickly and pictures

00:24:19:02 - 00:24:20:10
of what we've been up to you.

00:24:20:10 - 00:24:21:19
And I think I don't

00:24:21:19 - 00:24:22:21
I think our adults

00:24:22:21 - 00:24:23:21
like parents and,

00:24:23:21 - 00:24:25:01
and the adults in the church

00:24:25:01 - 00:24:26:03
want to see what's going on

00:24:26:03 - 00:24:27:05
with the students.

00:24:27:05 - 00:24:27:23
And when the adults

00:24:27:23 - 00:24:28:17
are encouraged

00:24:28:17 - 00:24:30:00
and and feel

00:24:30:00 - 00:24:31:20
uplifted by students,

00:24:31:20 - 00:24:33:20
inspire inspiring others

00:24:33:20 - 00:24:35:19
to come and and lead

00:24:35:19 - 00:24:36:17
and leading their friends

00:24:36:17 - 00:24:37:20
to Christ and

00:24:37:20 - 00:24:39:17
and getting on stage on Sunday

00:24:39:17 - 00:24:40:01
morning

00:24:40:01 - 00:24:41:12
and leading worship and

00:24:41:12 - 00:24:42:20
and when they get on

00:24:42:20 - 00:24:44:03
stage on Sunday morning

00:24:44:03 - 00:24:45:15
and and share

00:24:45:15 - 00:24:46:14
the announcements

00:24:46:14 - 00:24:47:21
in front of the whole church.

00:24:47:21 - 00:24:48:18
that's just

00:24:48:18 - 00:24:49:00
I think

00:24:49:00 - 00:24:49:19
they're inspired by that

00:24:49:19 - 00:24:50:06
and all that.

00:24:50:06 - 00:24:50:19
You know, I,

00:24:50:19 - 00:24:52:20
I, I capture that stuff and,

00:24:52:20 - 00:24:53:12
and then I go on

00:24:53:12 - 00:24:53:24
and share it

00:24:53:24 - 00:24:54:14
with their friends.

00:24:54:14 - 00:24:55:20
Hey, this is something that

00:24:55:20 - 00:24:56:21
that happened in our church.

00:24:56:21 - 00:24:57:22
Our students are doing things.

00:24:57:22 - 00:24:59:03
So it's all related

00:24:59:03 - 00:24:59:21
in the social media

00:24:59:21 - 00:25:00:16
because you captured

00:25:00:16 - 00:25:02:03
the images and then

00:25:02:03 - 00:25:03:13
and then you,

00:25:03:13 - 00:25:04:01
share it on

00:25:04:01 - 00:25:04:23
like your platforms

00:25:04:23 - 00:25:05:18
to kind of show

00:25:05:18 - 00:25:06:20
the world and people

00:25:06:20 - 00:25:07:20
that God's up

00:25:07:20 - 00:25:08:06
to something

00:25:08:06 - 00:25:08:24
at Calvary Student

00:25:08:24 - 00:25:10:20
Ministries and, and just,

00:25:10:20 - 00:25:12:11
yeah, that's mainly it,

00:25:12:11 - 00:25:13:01
I think, is

00:25:13:01 - 00:25:14:22
just seeing people inspire

00:25:14:22 - 00:25:17:08
by what's going on. You know.

00:25:17:08 - 00:25:18:21
Well and think about it

00:25:18:21 - 00:25:20:24
if you didn’t have some sort of creative outlet

00:25:20:24 - 00:25:21:22
to share stuff like that

00:25:21:22 - 00:25:23:07
like how would people know?

00:25:23:07 - 00:25:24:03
cuz if they’re not

00:25:24:03 - 00:25:25:02
They would have no idea.

00:25:25:02 - 00:25:26:19
If they’re not in the room

00:25:26:19 - 00:25:28:13
they don’t know

00:25:28:13 - 00:25:29:08
Exactly.

00:25:29:08 - 00:25:30:02
There’s another

00:25:30:02 - 00:25:31:23
You just stepped in another benefit

00:25:31:23 - 00:25:32:24
Right, like?

00:25:32:24 - 00:25:35:22
People, adults, parents

00:25:35:22 - 00:25:38:18
Pastors, elders

00:25:38:18 - 00:25:40:22
who are not coming to youth group

00:25:40:22 - 00:25:42:08
on Wednesday nights or Sunday nights

00:25:42:08 - 00:25:44:09
Especially not frequently

00:25:44:09 - 00:25:45:14
You can help them

00:25:45:14 - 00:25:48:17
Ya know, that’s a win for you

00:25:48:17 - 00:25:49:23
Maybe as a youth pastor too

00:25:49:23 - 00:25:52:01
Just putting some of that stuff out there

00:25:52:01 - 00:25:53:02
Yeah.

00:25:53:02 - 00:25:54:13
Like Nate said

00:25:54:13 - 00:25:57:17
“It’s not as hard as you think it might be.”

00:25:57:17 - 00:25:59:01
Yeah.

00:25:59:01 - 00:25:59:18
So last word

00:25:59:18 - 00:26:01:13
last final bit of encouragement

00:26:01:13 - 00:26:03:14
What would you say to someone who

00:26:03:14 - 00:26:04:20
is on the fence

00:26:04:20 - 00:26:05:20
Who’s

00:26:05:20 - 00:26:08:00
maybe like you a year and a half ago, is like

00:26:08:00 - 00:26:09:14
“I’m not sure about all this stuff.”

00:26:09:14 - 00:26:11:05
What’s one thing

00:26:11:05 - 00:26:12:19
That you would say like, “Hey, do this”

00:26:12:19 - 00:26:15:18
Just. Just do this one thing

00:26:15:18 - 00:26:18:14
This week?

00:26:18:14 - 00:26:19:23
Yeah, that's a tough question.

00:26:19:23 - 00:26:22:23
I would say like.

00:26:23:02 - 00:26:23:19
Like kind of

00:26:23:19 - 00:26:24:16
like what you said.

00:26:24:16 - 00:26:25:18
Give it a shot

00:26:25:18 - 00:26:26:23
and see if it see

00:26:26:23 - 00:26:27:14
what happens.

00:26:27:14 - 00:26:28:02
I mean,

00:26:28:02 - 00:26:29:00
you're not going to get.

00:26:29:00 - 00:26:30:05
And don't be discouraged

00:26:30:05 - 00:26:30:20
if you don't get

00:26:30:20 - 00:26:31:23
a hundred followers

00:26:31:23 - 00:26:32:22
in the first,

00:26:32:22 - 00:26:34:07
you know,

00:26:34:07 - 00:26:35:09
couple days

00:26:35:09 - 00:26:36:15
or weeks or months even, like,

00:26:36:15 - 00:26:37:07
it takes some time

00:26:37:07 - 00:26:39:07
sometimes and sometimes slowly

00:26:39:07 - 00:26:40:16
growing thing.

00:26:40:16 - 00:26:42:01
But,

00:26:42:01 - 00:26:43:03
I say give it a shot

00:26:43:03 - 00:26:43:19
and just

00:26:43:19 - 00:26:45:08
try it out for a little bit.

00:26:45:08 - 00:26:46:20
And like I said, please

00:26:46:20 - 00:26:48:13
do not be afraid of the time.

00:26:48:13 - 00:26:50:03
Just like engaging it with it.

00:26:50:03 - 00:26:51:17
It's not as bad as you think.

00:26:51:17 - 00:26:52:22
And honestly, like,

00:26:52:22 - 00:26:54:02
I feel like youth

00:26:54:02 - 00:26:56:12
pastors are really called

00:26:56:12 - 00:26:58:00
to this generation

00:26:58:00 - 00:26:58:20
of reaching people

00:26:58:20 - 00:26:59:11
through social media.

00:26:59:11 - 00:27:00:09
That's just where we're at

00:27:00:09 - 00:27:01:06
and in society

00:27:01:06 - 00:27:02:16
where we need to be

00:27:02:16 - 00:27:04:16
on social media in some way.

00:27:04:16 - 00:27:05:10
And I don't even think

00:27:05:10 - 00:27:06:05
that Facebook's really

00:27:06:05 - 00:27:07:11
that platform for students.

00:27:07:11 - 00:27:08:09
It's more for adults

00:27:08:09 - 00:27:09:03
at this at,

00:27:09:03 - 00:27:10:04
you know, Facebook's

00:27:10:04 - 00:27:12:03
more of an adult thing.

00:27:12:03 - 00:27:14:00
And so just find that avenue

00:27:14:00 - 00:27:14:22
that you can,

00:27:14:22 - 00:27:15:24
get started

00:27:15:24 - 00:27:16:17
with and connect them

00:27:16:17 - 00:27:17:16
together, connect your

00:27:17:16 - 00:27:18:08
link, your,

00:27:18:08 - 00:27:18:22
you know, your

00:27:18:22 - 00:27:19:16
platforms together

00:27:19:16 - 00:27:20:11
so it's easier for you

00:27:20:11 - 00:27:21:17
to post multiple things.

00:27:21:17 - 00:27:23:03
You got this.

00:27:23:03 - 00:27:24:04
The church needs you.

00:27:24:04 - 00:27:24:19
You know.

00:27:24:19 - 00:27:25:08
Yeah

00:27:25:08 - 00:27:26:05
Love it

00:27:26:05 - 00:27:27:08
Love it, well hey

00:27:27:08 - 00:27:29:04
thanks for being on this morning

00:27:29:04 - 00:27:30:08
Thanks for getting up early

00:27:30:08 - 00:27:30:12
Yeah.

00:27:30:12 - 00:27:31:03
I mean, I.

00:27:31:03 - 00:27:34:06
And uh- and yeah

00:27:34:06 - 00:27:34:21
Love you, brother.

00:27:34:21 - 00:27:36:07
Hey, we'll stay in touch.

00:27:36:07 - 00:27:37:19
You too!

00:27:37:19 - 00:27:40:12
Hey! Stay Hybrid!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you enjoy this 100th episode special!

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

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
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Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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

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🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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

Nick Clason
Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

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SHOWNOTES
NBA Article:
https://sportsnaut.com/tom-thibodeau-coach-players-least-like-to-play-for/amp/
6 Things We can Learn:
https://joinhandshake.com/blog/employers/6-things-gen-z-wants-from-their-job/
Gen Z Coping Mechanisms:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra73jZJKw-dxIXxkZZfY-9RF5V0TH4RF/view?usp=sharing
Honesty as a Faith Value:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WaZbfMyIZUCUPYIx4joBkMvC2-hoJ-Ez/view?usp=sharing
Justice Motivated Generation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wYwsRP3-p5_gExKS0g3L6UDOFhL4H149/view?usp=sharing

TIMECODES
00:00-03:07 Intro
03:07-10:33 Nobody Wants to Play for Tom Thibodeau, why?
10:33-20:26 6 Things we can learn from the Next Generation
20:26-28:25 3 Learnings for us as the Church
28:25- Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. My name is Nick Clason, sipping coffee with you on this beautiful Monday morning.

Nick Clason (00:17):
And if you're just listening to this, you're missing out cuz you didn't get to see me drink out of my beautiful Ohio mug, which I would, uh, widely consider to be my home state. Anyway, in this episode, I am excited to, uh, talk to you about a, a really weird kind of topic a little bit, uh, but I'm gonna talk to you about my learnings from NBA head coaches and the shift that is happening with the next generation. And so what I mean by that is we are going to dive in a little bit. There was a recent study that came out, um, from the Athletic, uh, I'm a big basketball fan, you guys probably know that about me. Um, there's a big study that came out about the worst coach, the, the coach that the players would least want to play for. And that was fascinating to me because what that signified was that is that coach was a very old school coach.

Nick Clason (01:09):
What that signified to me was that this means that there is a shifting in the way that people are, are having things be done, and there's a shifting in the way that people want things, frankly, to be done. And so because of that, uh, I wanted to inspect that just a little bit. It's like, what is going on there? So that's what we're gonna be diving into and talking about. But before we do, I just wanna remind you that you can follow me over on YouTube. We have a full YouTube channel with I post daily shorts as well as a weekly podcast, full length video. Um, it's complete with overlays and statistics. And more and more we're diving into statistics and things like that. And so if you hear something of, what was that again, it will more than likely be over on YouTube. Uh, and on that section of the video also, it could, um, if it's not there, it definitely will be over at Hybrid Ministry xyz.

Nick Clason (02:01):
And for this episode, it's slash 0 5 0 because we are on episode. Can you believe it? Episode 50. Crazy. I know. Um, also wanna remind you that if you would be so kind, we would love a rating, um, or a review, just sign into your Apple Podcast app. If you've been listening for any length of time, it would mean the world to us to have a little review, to hear from the people, uh, about what's helpful, what's beneficial, um, and what you like about this show. Um, and as a token of our appreciation, we will give you our 100% completely free ebook on how to know if you've even ruined your church's TikTok account. By the way, your church probably should be on TikTok. And so if you're not yet, head to the link in the show notes and grab your 100% completely free ebook unknowing if you have ruined your church's TikTok account.

Nick Clason (02:56):
But without any further ado, let's dive into what I have learned from NBA head coaches about the upcoming shifting and new generation that's upon us. So what have we learned from the NBA and their head coaches? Like I said, big basketball fan basketball nut over here. And so there was a recent survey done. It was a player survey. They surveyed, um, as many players as they could, I think something like 500 players. Um, and they asked was the coach that you would mo least like to play for and the overwhelming winner. And in that response was, um, Tom Tebeau of the New York Knicks. And so if you're not a basketball person, lemme try to paint the picture for Tibs. He's sort of this rough and tumble like old school kind of player. Um, uh, a good example of this, like a reason why is there is a guy drafted a couple years ago.

Nick Clason (03:50):
I'm a I'm, I'm personally have an affinity for him because he's from the University of Dayton, which again, I would, I would widely consider Dayton, Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio, that sort of like southwest Ohio region, my hometown. I lived there for, uh, more than half of my life, my wife born and raised there. And so that also helped kind of tie my roots back to there. Anyway, Obi Toppin was a player who played for the University of Dayton. He was drafted to the New York Knicks and Tom Tido or, uh, nicknamed Tibs doesn't play rookies. Like he just doesn't. And so what's funny is Tido had really big and good success, uh, over in Chicago. Uh, you might remember Derek Rose, he was an mvp. Uh, rose played for tdo. Well, a couple years back when they drafted Obie Toin, he had Rose who's like the ghost of himself cuz he's had like multiple knee surgeries.

Nick Clason (04:40):
Uh, and Taj Gibson, who's like just this older mid thirties player and those guys are getting all of the playing time. Tdo often plays his players, uh, upwards of 40 something minutes and there's only 48 minutes available in a basketball game. And so he really just like locks in on his, the players that he likes and drives them hard into the ground and they just play a lot. Now you might be thinking like if you want playing time, isn't tid the guy? And yeah, that may be the case, but in recent years, N B A players have taken on more of a, uh, slower approach and a little bit more of like a self-care type approach. Kawhi Leonard has made this famous, he, uh, was traded away from the Spurs because he, he wasn't recovering fast enough because he needed more time to help heal his body.

Nick Clason (05:29):
In fact, Kawhi Leonard, uh, does these things where he, uh, and it is made famous by him, but now a lot of players do it. It's called load management. And so if there's like a back to back game where like they play one night and they also play the next night, he won't play the next night, um, just to preserve and take care of his body to make sure that one, he's fresh for himself, but two, that he's fresh for the playoffs. See, with Tom Tipo, almost all that stuff is out the door. And in the, in the nineties the nba, there was sort of this mentality, this like bad boys' mentality. Like you, you gotta like get in there, be rough and tumble. Uh, they, they refereed the game very differently. You could be a lot more aggressive and dramatic with your contact and the way that you played.

Nick Clason (06:14):
And I just, I say all that to say is that Tom Thibodaux will be a great coach, I think in that era, the Bad Boys era of 1990s basketball with the Detroit Piston and Joe Dumars and Isaiah Thomas and Bill Lamb beer and Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls. But it's 2023 now and the game has changed and it's a much more fluid offensive game. I mean, if you're, again, if you're a basketball person, hang with me if you're not. Cuz we're gonna get to some of the implications of this cuz this is the only like real basketball section right here. But like the, the New Age Warriors, they have completely changed the game. And they don't even run with a traditional center like Draymond Green, who's only like six foot eight, six foot nine. Draymond Green is running their, uh, center position, their tallest player on the floor, and they have five guys out who can all shoot.

Nick Clason (07:00):
You got like Clay Thompson and Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole and all these guys with Draymond in the middle, the only guy who really can't shoot, but he's short and he's helping facilitate and kicking the ball all to all these places and it's much more fluid. And what's interesting is that you got their coach, Steve Kerr, who came in and completely reinvented and, and brought the game to the way that the players wanted it to be. Now if you're sitting here listening and you're a church leader, you're a pastor or you're a business owner, you're thinking, well that generation, like they need this next generation. They need to chill out. They need to stop being so, uh, soft and needing things their way. And here's the the thing I would just say to you like, yes, maybe that is true if they come to work for you and your business, but what do we see?

Nick Clason (07:47):
What, like look around post covid, look at every like donut shop, every drive through every burger place. Like people are not coming back to work. Why? It's not because they don't want to. It's not actually, it probably is because they don't want to, right? But it's not cuz they don't wanna work, they just don't wanna work there. They don't wanna work for you. They want to work for themselves and make money. I recently heard a podcast of this, a 19 year old kid who's out on TikTok making millions and billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of followers, and he will probably never go flip a burger over at Burger King. And so while we can be like those kids, they need to learn this, this, and this, they're not learning that in a traditional workplace. They're out there hacking it for themselves. And so here's the thing, if you are a church leader specifically, or a business owner, you have this generation who's out here kind of paving their own way, hacking it for themselves.

Nick Clason (08:48):
If you want that generation a part of your organization, you can't be like the nba, uh, or you can't be like Tom Tito of the nba where you just keep doing it your own way because that's the way you've always done it, right? In fact, you need to shift your thinking to start figuring out how you can accommodate that generation. Not because the church is about serving and self, self-serving and and selfishness and all, not, it's not about those things, I get it. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you have a mandate to reach every generation with the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that includes generation Z. And by the way, soon to be generation alpha, who is already starting to graduate into our youth ministry next Sunday, we promote our fifth graders into our sixth grade and fifth grade is not considered Generation Z.

Nick Clason (09:42):
They're considered generation alpha. So what that means is our, our current youth ministry and current college and young adult ministry that is Gen Z. So pastor, if you're still trying to figure out how to reach millennials, I'm a millennial. I'm mid thirties. Like they're already the majority of our workforce. They are our current parents of younger kids. You need to start figuring out if you wanna reach younger generations. It has shifted. And Gen Z has a very different mindset than a millennial. It can be similar in some ways, but it is different. And so what can we learn? What has the NBA shown us? So I, I came across an article about six things that Generation Z is looking for in their next workplace. So let's power through those different six things and take a look at what we can learn from them.

Nick Clason (10:34):
All right? So this is article, it's from Handshake blog. I'll throw the link in the show notes. I thought it was interesting. I'm gonna give them the credit for all of this cuz they did all the work on it. But I just wanted to provide a little bit of commentary cuz we're not a workplace like employment podcast, we're a ministry podcast. So I, I would say if you're a pastor or church leader listening to this, there are two ways to kind of think about this way. Number one is think about this from the generations of people that are a part of your ministry. But way number two is think about this from the people that you employ at your church. If you want to grow younger and have younger people, younger congregation and younger staff specifically, and particularly younger staff, I want to encourage you to think about it this way.

Nick Clason (11:18):
So number one, generations Z is looking for compensation that affords work life balance. 70% of Gen Z survey respondents say that pay and or compensation is the most important factor again, right? Let's look back to our NBA analogy. Kawhi Leonard doesn't wanna play all 82 regular season games. He wants to play in the playoffs. No, granted, he doesn't even play in the playoffs anymore. If you're not a basketball person, you don't get that reference, but that's another conversation for another day. But the reality is Gen Z is looking for a better work-life balance. They've looked at their older millennials, gen X parents, grandparents, whoever working in the workforce, and they don't wanna work that 40 hour a week grind. If you spend any amount of time on social media or TikTok, you see people saying like, make six figures in like five hours a day of work.

Nick Clason (12:09):
Like that is the major hook out there because that's what people want. Is it realistic? I don't know. I think a lot of those things probably require a lot of work and at least a lot of like hustle on the front end. But the reality is they're looking for something that will help serve them to live a more full life. Not because they're lazy, not because they don't wanna work, but because they realize that it's not all about work. The other thing, the second thing is that they want clarity into career paths and internal mobility options. 71% of respondents expect to be promoted between six months to a year and a half. 64% attend career events to ensure that there are growth and development opportunities. What does this mean for a church? Well first of all, if you're employing them at a church, they wanna look around and see if there's ways to move up.

Nick Clason (12:56):
What do most churches do? Most churches don't have ways to move up. In fact, one of the times I left one of my jobs is I was, me and the senior pastor, we were the only two full-time pastors on staff. And I looked around and I said, there is no way that I'll ever get a chance to move up here. Like it. We have to hire like an adult discipleship pastor. We'll have to hire, um, an executive pastor. We'll have to hire, um, a college ministry, uh, pastor or associate. Like, I will not get a chance to move up until we make several other hires. And, and at the trajectory at that point, I had been working there for five years. I was like, that is not going to happen anytime soon. And the same, I would say is gonna be true of generation Z in working for your church, but also attending your church.

Nick Clason (13:43):
How, where can they insert themselves into leadership? If leadership is only reserved for old people, old, like of a certain ethnicity, people maybe like look around at your leadership board. What is the youngest elder that you have? The, there's a stat out there. I don't know where it's from so I can't credit it, but, um, I think it might be from like some church growth type stuff. They say that a church congregation generally is within 10 years on either side of the senior pastor's age. So if you have a 55 year old senior pastor, you are most well-positioned to reach 45 to 65 year olds. Think about that. Now, how are you gonna reach a 25 year old? Well, that's a youth pastor's job. Not really. A youth pastor's job is to help serve the kids of the 45 to 65 year olds that are being brought to the church in most cases.

Nick Clason (14:37):
And that's, you know, 11 to 18 year olds, not 25 year olds. Well, we'll make him be in charge of college ministry too. A that's a gigantic job. I'll tell you that as a youth pastor. But b uh, oftentimes I heard this analogy one time. Um, my, my, a friend of mine, he worked for GE and he said that GE used to be in the dishwasher business and they gave cheap, crappy dishwashers to, uh, apartment complexes. Like they struck a deal and they just, they, they served the majority of apartment complexes and they were GE dishwashers and they sucked. He said, and he said they always broke. And he said because of that, because most people would start out in their first apartment with a crappy GE dishwasher, they all had a bad taste of GE because all their dishwashers broke. And he said, is that what's going on in college ministry?

Nick Clason (15:27):
They get the bottom of the barrel, the lowest rung they don't often get, um, like their own minister or like paid full-time staff person or anything like that. And if they do get a paid person, it's like a very, very part-time person who's basically a glorified small group leader. Is that why young people are leaving the church in droves because they're getting the lowest wrong bottom of the barrel? And why do they get that? Probably because they're the least, uh, generous in contributions in giving. And so, I hate to say this, but if churches are looking like an ROI thing, like the lowest ROI from like financial gifts is coming from the young adult ministry. That being said, they're the future of your church. So if you don't find a way to invest in them, they're not gonna be there in the years to come when the 45 to 65 to 75 to 85 year olds are no longer living in your church and, and giving in your church.

Nick Clason (16:18):
So how are you gonna reach and help pro promote and provide inroads for that generation to promote up into leadership? The third thing is they're looking for a modernized approach to benefits with an emphasis on flexibility and mental health. This goes with what we've been talking about a little bit before. 73% of survey respondents said that benefits is the number one reason why they would stick with an employer. Healthcare is the most important benefit of that. Um, according to 76% of the respondents and 73% said that they are looking for a flexible schedule. I would say that that flexible schedule piece, that's where this hybrid idea comes from, right? Like one of the main things about this hybrid kind of ministry in-person and digital is flexibility. Can we provide flexibility in how people can grow in their faith? Number four, they're looking for community culture and collaboration, even in remote settings.

Nick Clason (17:15):
Strong peer relationship. 63% say, um, feeling a part of the organization and 57% are key early reasons why early talent would choose to stay with an employer. Does your, does your church offer younger generations? Community culture and collaboration? If you're set up, like most churches, you offer a program, Hey, we got the young adult college ministry, it meets on Sunday morning during the second service. So that there it is, right? And does that community actually act like a community? Those are the questions I think that we as church leaders should be asking ourselves. Number five, um, committing publicly to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. 55% of respondents say that a commitment to D E I B um, is extremely important when evaluating an employer. They're looking for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. That's really valuable to Generation Z. So again, I'll say, look at your board.

Nick Clason (18:20):
Go to your staff page. Is there diversity, diversity? Is there equity? Is there inclusion? Is their belonging shown there? If not, they're going to be looking for a church staff or church leadership that embraces those values. And then finally, number six, accountability. Actually, lemme go back before I say that. Uh, I had a, uh, an intern a couple years ago at church and diversity was really important to him. And we tried really, really hard to hire this kid. He was a, he was a stud man, he was a rockstar. And, um, he his like number one or number two, knock on knock, wanting to come to our church. Uh, one, he was from la we were in Chicago. So like, that was a big one. But the number one a or maybe even more than that, but he wouldn't say it or I mean, he, he was honest with us.

Nick Clason (19:09):
But, uh, the other thing he was like, just basically saying was like, there is no diversity here. Um, and he was like, and I don't mean diversity with door greeters and people on the platform, I mean diversity in leadership. And I mean, it was a profound statement and one that honestly, I don't even know that that trickled up to upper level leadership. Like I don't know if that, that that phrase ever got there, but the reality of it is like, that's what he was looking for and he didn't see it and he didn't see a path forward to it. And we lost out on an amazing, talented, you know, kid. So that's just another example. All right, number six, accountability on the environment, sustainability and social responsibility. 70% of generations, these survey respondents, they attend career events to ensure the role and responsibilities aligned with their interests and values.

Nick Clason (20:01):
51% attend to ensure that the company aligns with their interests and values. So these are the things that matter to them and these are the things that they're looking for, yes, in workplaces. So if they wanna work at your church, but also in organizations that they're gonna choose to attach themselves to. So with that being said, I have three kind of takeaways, three learnings I think that are important for us as a church to understand and to explore. Let's dive in. Learning. Number one, 51% of generations, these say that their ultimate goal in life is happiness. Now, before you're like, that's not what a Christian's goal should be, I agree with you. Uh, I agree that a Christian's goal should be love and joy and peace, patience, and the fruits of the spirit. But if our target audience is saying that over half of them are looking for happiness, how are we going to help facilitate some of that for them?

Nick Clason (20:55):
Listen to some of these things too. A lot of this is, uh, from survey from Barna, um, of people, generation Z and some of their coping mechanisms. Okay? So just think about this in light of your church, and I'm not, I'm not giving commentary or creating like a, a roadmap or a like thing that you should do as a result of this. This is more just interesting coping mechanisms, the way that Generation Z is choosing to spend their time. So, um, the most common coping mechanisms are connected with non-family members at 45% connected with family 20%, and with music at 18%. So here are some of their quotes, TikTok, they're people feeling the same way as me, the ma, and that makes me feel less lonely. Um, another one, I will disappear into a world of my own, whether one I make myself or one that has already been created already, like books, shows or games doing one of my hobbies such as writing or violin, a good beat and a song I find solace in social media.

Nick Clason (22:01):
I like to be alone sometimes because it's peaceful and it's zen to me. I like to have conversations with the important people in my life by opening up to them, I receive positive affirmation, validation that I am not alone. I like to do comforting activities, reading fantasy books. I like to imagine myself as the main character because they're usually the ones with the perfect life. Sitting down to a single player game with a good story, looking in the mirror and saying, affirmations, getting on my bike and going for a ride. I like to send memes to my friends and then we will discuss them sleeping until the loneliness goes away. I watch videos of concerts on my phones playing with my many pets. They are my world. Those are some of the most common coping mechanisms out of generation Z. And I just wonder if we read those as older church leaders and think those sound ridiculous, maybe. But how are we showing up in some of these ways for our younger attenders that we're looking to reach and have be a part of our church?

Nick Clason (23:13):
Uh, idea number two that I think we as church should be, uh, at least aware of is honesty is one of the most important things as it pertains to generation Z, especially teenagers, but generation Z as a whole. I mean, we saw that right in that handshake art they want not only good pay, but they want transparency in pay. Like that is what's most important. So in a recent Barna study, um, these five categories we're given to, to Gen Z and to teenagers about what's important, what what, um, traits are important as it pertains to belief. And those were being correct, being knowledgeable, being open to new ideas, being curious, and being honest. The number one far and away, um, area that was most important was being honest. So we have, uh, broken down different categories, all of Gen Z teenagers and young adults. So I'm gonna read to you the, the statistics of each of those from those three categories.

Nick Clason (24:19):
So in being correct, only 8% of all of Gen Z cared about it. 6% of teens cared about it, and 9% of young adults cared about it being knowledgeable. 21% of the entire scope of Gen Z cared about it. 16% of teens cared about it, and 24% of young adults cared about it being open to new ideas. 28% of Gen Z cared about it. 29% of teenagers cared about it, and 28% of young adults cared about it being curious. 11% of Gen Z cared about it. 7% of teenagers cared about it, and 13% of young adults cared about it. But being honest, 32% of Gen Z cared about it. 41% of teenagers cared about it, and 25% of young adults cared about being honest. Honesty with one's belief is of utmost importance to Gen Z and specifically and especially to teenagers. So how can we create an environment in our organizations, in our churches that are more open and more honest?

Nick Clason (25:14):
The final area that I think that matters for churches is that churches, uh, or, um, gen Z young adults, they care about justice, they care about equality, they care about diversity. So some of the top ways that churches can address injustice, this is what, um, justice motivated, justice oriented and justice neutral generation Z um, categorizes said, all right, so they said that, uh, encouraging people to address injustice, 31% of justice motivated 28% of justice oriented and 18% of justice neutral said that the number one way that people could, um, address this was to simply walk into it, right? Go towards the injustice, the top ways that the church can do it. Other, other, like options that were given to them in the survey were by advocating for meaningful change, by welcoming people into a local church, by creating relationships with people who are experiencing injustice.

Nick Clason (26:17):
And by teaching that the Bible encourages special kindness to people who are experiencing injustice. So again, of those last four, the one that was most highly selected was simply by addressing it. So church leaders, church social media people, youth pastors, whoever's listening to this, the generation that's not a part of your church is mostly looking for you to address areas of injustice. I know that it's a difficult area to wade into. I know that it's polarizing. I know that it can get political and you can tick off some of the 65 year old members who sit all day and watch, um, news media and they'll tell you that this is an agenda from the left or an agenda from the right. But the reality is this is what's important to our younger congregate congregants and congregation members. So what are we gonna do? How are we gonna reach them and honesty and openness and justice motivation and helping them experience, um, what they would view as happiness.

Nick Clason (27:26):
Like these are the things that they are looking for. How can we as a church lean into this and help create the types of environments that these types of people go to? Because if we're not careful, we're gonna become like Tom Tido, head coach of the New York Knicks, who's outta touch, who no one wants to play for, and no one wants to go be a part of the team. Like literally the majority of the NBA players don't want to go play for him. Is that the way that younger generations, young adults and Gen Z is looking at your church and your church right now? I'm just gonna be honest, your church can get away with keeping on doing things the way that they've always been done because the majority of the people that you off or a pastor, uh, senior pastor are gonna surround themselves with are going to be the people that say it and do it, and are okay with the way that things have always been done.

Nick Clason (28:21):
And that may work for you for the next five or 10 years. But what about in 10, 15, 20 years when Generation Z is no longer 1920, but they're 25 30 and they've, they haven't been in your church for the last 10 years because you haven't done anything to help reach them and they're off experiencing faith in some other community in some other way. See, here's the reality. Gen Z is not out on Jesus. They are out on institutionalized faith and religion. And I think it's because of some of these reasons. I hope you found this episode helpful. I know in a a few ways it stepped on my toes. I just wanna encourage you, don't give up, keep leaning in the, the, the next generation needs you. And if you are the only person in your church advocating for hybrid, remember that is the value of the next generation.

Nick Clason (29:14):
We, and you and I, we may not have all the answers and that's okay. But what we are doing is we are trying our best to figure out the best way to create flexibility, honesty, co coping mechanisms, justice-oriented content that's going to help make our church one that a younger person is at least aware of and at least excited about being a part of. Thanks so much for hanging in there. Love to have you part of this journey. Make sure you head to the, uh, uh, show notes for, uh, full transcripts of this, uh, show notes, links, resources, all that type of stuff. I'll have some of those, those graphs and the stats that I've mentioned. All of that is available in the show notes. Go ahead there, leave a rating or a review. We would love to talk with you, love to see you over on YouTube or on my TikTok. But until next time, and as always, stay hybrid.

Show Notes & Transcripts: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/044
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

RECENT GEN Z STATS
*GEN Z *
70% are spiritually open

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Find all the resources you need from the podcast http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Follow Derry online:
-TWITTER: https://twitter.com/derryprenkert
-INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/derryprenkert/
-PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-third-decade-in-youth-ministry/id1338273697

SHOWNOTES
Steve Job's introduction of the iPhone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4
Derry's Parenting Resource: https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/adolescence%2C-technology-and-parenting/training-3996.html
Johnny Mac's Stuff: https://yourhouseblend.com/jonnysblend

TIMECODES
00:00-03:30 Intro
03:30-10:53 The impact of the invention of the iPhone
10:53-14:30 What happened in ministry after the invention of the iPhone
14:30-23:20 How have you responded since then?
23:20-32:44 When do you ask phones to be put away?
32:44-41:23 How can we utilize technology now to further and advance God's mission?
41:23-43:38 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. Excited to be with you today. Uh, today we have our very first, uh, guest interview, uh, friend of mine Derry Pinker. He's located in, um, Amish town, Nape Indiana. Um, right now, uh, he worked at that church for over 20 years, and then he was at another church for just a couple years, super large church in, uh, Kentucky. So, um, excited to bring you Derry's conversation. Uh, he mentions a couple of different links. He talks about Steve Jobs' keynote, a resource that he has on download youth ministry and echo ministry. I'm gonna include all of those in the show notes, but without any further ado, let's just hop in so you can get to know Derry.

Nick Clason (00:51):
All right, well, what's up Derry? Good to have you on the podcast. Welcome, man.

Derry Prenkert (00:56):
Yeah, it's so good to be with you, Nick. Thanks for having me on.

Nick Clason (00:58):
Yeah. So as we were talking a little bit before I hit record here, you have a podcast or did, or what would you define the, the existence of your podcast? Right Now?

Derry Prenkert (01:11):
The status of my third decade. It is, it has been on the longest hiatus ever. Um, yeah. And it is coming back. Um, it's tied to this whole world of the shift that I've, I've made from being in a local church to now serving pastors in the local church. Yeah. And I'm in a season of getting all the groundwork laid for that. I, uh, have every intention, every intention by, uh, early 2023 that it's gonna launch back out. And there are some, there are actually some things already recorded for it, so, so it hasn't completely gone away. There, there is, there is a future to it.

Nick Clason (01:46):
That's good. Cuz it's still in my podcast catcher, so I'm not unsubscribing from, I just wanna let you know that it's still there. So, um, but back when I mowed the lawn when I worked two churches ago, I think I heard you, um, talk about like, uh, this really big shift in culture and you noticed that it was, uh, have to do with when the iPhone came into existence. Mm-hmm. , just give us a little bit, like give us your story, how long you've been, you know, doing youth ministry, um, and how you have a beneficial perspective of before technology and phones are a part of what we have to navigate and deal with. And then post, and then maybe we can just kind of chat about how we navigate that as, you know, people who are, uh, ministering to people, students, um, who are very much entrenched in this technology, like Lane and world.

Derry Prenkert (02:42):
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, my story is somebody that started in youth ministry at 19 years old. I was just about to turn 20 and I started an internship and that was back in 1996. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I'm old. Um, and so graduated from high school in 95, start in, in ministry in 96. And so I get 11 years of ministry. Um, and in those 11 years, uh, you know, cell phones, car phones were around when I started . Yeah. And cell phones were around when I finished college in 1999. But they were, they roamed the minute you got outside of about 10 miles from your house and you only use them in emergencies. And then, and then it moved into, you know, 2004, 2005, the razor flip. Flum was the coolest thing in the world is texting, kind of entered the picture mm-hmm. . Um, and then, you know, so I, but, but really it was 2007 when Steve Jobs holds up this, this phone.

Derry Prenkert (03:36):
And it's actually interesting to go back and watch, I don't know if you've ever watched that keynote when he does it. No, I should, but, but he, he, he introduces it and is pretty prophetic, like the level of what he's talking about where technology is heading. Cause he said this is gonna revolutionize and change. And he says, he says, What would happen if we were to introduce a computer operating system, a phone and a iPod all in one thing. Yeah. And that's, that's the heartbeat of what they did. Um, and actually I, I do a technology thing with parents, uh, adolescents, technology and parenting. Mm-hmm. , uh, what I do is, I'll actually, it's, it's a fun little exercise cuz if you think about, you got, most parents of teenagers right now are, are there children of the eighties if they're really, if they've got younger, like their youngest kids are teenagers now, nineties or maybe early two thousands mm-hmm. . And so what I do is I'll put up on the screen different, like, what was the technology of our time. And so like, you know, in the eighties you got like VCRs and corded phones and, and a Walkman or a giant computer that has a green screen maybe.

Nick Clason (04:41):
Yeah. I found the VCR yesterday in our building, so that was cool,

Derry Prenkert (04:46):
Dude. And, and did you try playing anything? Cause it probably just ate the tape, right?

Nick Clason (04:49):
Yeah, no, I was like, I don't, I don't even know if we would ever need this, but, Right. Yeah. Here it

Derry Prenkert (04:53):
Is. Yeah. Yeah. It's, see the, in the eighties in technology, like everything got fixed by blowing on it. Um, so like the VHS tape wasn't working. You blew on it. The, the Nintendo cartridge. Yep. You blew in that and then blew in the box. Mm-hmm. . So that was, you know, eighties in the nineties, you have cell phones come, you got the Discman mm-hmm. that I remember. I would, as the nineties I would run or exercise with a discman, but I had to be careful not to run too hard because the CD would skip Yeah.

Nick Clason (05:17):
As I skipping. I

Derry Prenkert (05:18):
Remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, early two thousands social media in MySpace shows up. Yep. But, you know, garins show up, Uhhuh, um, digital cameras are a big deal in another 2000 flat screen TVs. Right. So we walk through these different, different moments and I say in 2007, Steve Jobs holds up this, this little device. And everything I just said was around in those different decades now lives inside this single device. Mm. Interesting. It is your video games. It is your music, you know, it's your disc man, it's your VCR or your DVD player. It is your

Nick Clason (05:53):
Computer, your calendar. Yeah.

Derry Prenkert (05:55):
Yeah. It's everything. It's all there. And, and so for parents, it's just saying like, recognize how significant this shift is. And so for those of us in ministry, if we are in that age, it's important to recognize that for those of us that are, I I, a lot of youth pastors are maybe a little, um, younger than the parents that they have. Right. Remember, like, these are the parents you're working with that, that this shift has happened. It might be a little more native to you as a youth pastor if you're in your, your mid to early twenties mm-hmm. . But it's foreign. It's, it's, it's so different and, and it's, it's changed so much. Um, the two things to kind of say, when I look at youth culture, cuz that's where I spent a lot of my time Yeah. That I would say are huge, is, uh, one youth group in church.

Derry Prenkert (06:40):
I was at a church that ha drew from multiple high schools. And pre 2007, we were the place to go to connect with friends. Hmm. Um, now we saw God move and we were, we were, we were unapologetic that that wasn't the, that wasn't the primary point. The primary point was to encounter a relationship with Jesus, to understand your call, to be a part of this kingdom work. But the appeal for my kids, I'm gonna drop names that nobody knows from Wawa c high school at Northwood High School. Mm-hmm. and Goshan High School. Someone knows each other. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, uh, they can meet weekly at our place. Right. Uh, now with the institution of not only, you know, the, just the move of the cell phone with texting, but then once the iPhone came in, it wasn't just you, you could, you didn't have to go there to meet a place you could actually interact face to face, you know, through FaceTime, through, through, um, whatever it might be.

Derry Prenkert (07:33):
Google Meet all do different stuff. You could, you could do that over the phone. So it became less important. The other thing that's super intriguing is, I don't know about Eich, but the greatest day of my life, uh, as a teenager was when I turned 16 in one month in my town, because that was the day I could get my driver's license. Yeah. And by getting my driver's license, that meant a whole new, uh, level of freedom, empowerment, and ownership. Like that driver's license was my ticket to independence. Yeah. I've noticed, um, a major change. I can't believe how many kids I interact with that are like 16, 17 and, you know, we're doing an event. They're like, Hey, can I get a ride? I'm like, You don't have your license yet. Yeah. No. And, and, and, and I I don't have like the scientific proof to this, just the conversation.

Derry Prenkert (08:25):
Sure. It's, they're like, Why would I, why would I need it? Well, yeah, the big shift came like that that license was my way to get to my friends. Mm-hmm. and my community. Now, this, this thing that we can hold in our hands is our ticket to interact. And so, so like one of the, I guess like the big implication that I would throw out that is huge is it it has radically transformed our connectivity mm-hmm. , um, even with the people right next to us. Yeah. Um, so I mean, so many other thoughts, but there's, those are just a couple things like that we recognize. Another way I say it is like we basically now are carrying around super computers in our pockets. Yeah. That, uh, it's, they are that we're, we have, we have excessive, uh, access to information. We are, we are constantly connected. Um, and it's like invasive, you know, it's not like it's, when's the last time I I I, you can answer this or the people are listening, When's the last time you actually turned off powered down your phone

Nick Clason (09:26):
On your own? Well, mine's new, so never

Derry Prenkert (09:29):
Yeah. .

Nick Clason (09:30):
Right,

Derry Prenkert (09:30):
Right. And it's, it's like impossible to, like, they've made it so it's hard to do. And so it's always there. Now, now I might sound like I'm interesting. Yeah. I'm negative on this. I do mourn more in some things because I'm old and I'm an old guy sitting saying, Get off my lawn kids. You know, a little bit. But, um, but those are some of the things that I think are big that have changed. And so, so just the way we go about ministry has to change with it. It is in my mind, we measure time on before and after like, events that come to mind in youth ministry world, most youth pastors that were around before Columbine mm-hmm. and after Columbine, they know it changed the way you had to handle liabilities and safety

Nick Clason (10:10):
Measures. Yeah.

Derry Prenkert (10:11):
Mm-hmm. pre nine 11. Post nine 11 as a, as a culture, our life shifted on how we view, uh, things pre covid, post covid. We're still learning that all. Yeah. I still could make the argument pre iPhone and post iPhone, pre smartphone and post iPhone could be, could be the most significant watershed cultural moment that we've experienced in the LA since World War ii. Yeah.

Nick Clason (10:35):
I don't, one of, one of like, I, one of the guys I listen to a lot, his name, you know, Brady Shear mm-hmm. , he talks about this being the biggest communication shift that we've seen in 500 years. So he's referencing that being the printing press. Yeah. And now with all this digital stuff. So that's a great call. Let's go like, let's go there a little bit. You said, um, pre iPhone people would gather from multiple high schools to your church. Did you notice that stopping, um, after, did you notice attendance shifting or did you just notice that still happens but there's, there's now just an iPhone in everyone's pocket and that's changing how they're interacting. But things are still, still sort of the same. Like, what would you say was, uh, like a, an actual effect, right? Yeah. Of that attendance thing you're talking about.

Derry Prenkert (11:25):
This is not scientific at all. It's very guttural and it's nature. Uh, and it's my experience, I would say it didn't, for some it stopped. But I would say the bigger thing is it got more sporadic. In fact, you we're just talking, I don't know, it would be fascinating. You know, they talk about how people are coming to church less often Right. Than they used to. That a regular attendant is, attender is considered once every month or once every three weeks. Right? Yep. I wonder how that correlates to the institution of like the, the actual cell phone and smartphone because Yeah, because that was the thing. Like pre pre smartphone, um, even kids from the same school, there was the chance to just, you know, we're not just going through in passing periods. We're gonna have a small group time. We're gonna have a pre hangout post hangout mm-hmm.

Derry Prenkert (12:09):
once a week. This is my guaranteed time. I'm gonna get time with my friends. Yeah. Um, and so it got more sporadic. Yeah. Uh, definitely. And, and that could be in part because they could have the community outside of the youth group. Um, but it still, that's why I would, I would still be a firm believer. There is a limitation to what you can accomplish over digital. I think anybody that truly had to walk through the PA pandemic and live completely on a screen would a hundred percent agree with me. You can't replace, um, interpersonal in person reaction Totally. With digital. But you can find more connection or, or you can find connection in the gaps through that. And so I think it got more, um, more sporadic, uh, in nature. And yes, they are showing up with them. And I mean, man, whew, how many conversations do I have?

Derry Prenkert (12:58):
I had with parents and leaders on, We gotta, we gotta, we gotta like force kids to turn these off or tell 'em they can't have 'em at all. And then, and then the issue of parents talking about what age do I give my kid a phone? When do I not? Because not only are they carrying it around, I mean, it's just, it's just there. And so the amount of attention that was going down to it when they were around that, that I'd say kinda really hit in the two, like 2014 15 phrase when everybody got one. Mm-hmm. , uh, everybody had one.

Nick Clason (13:28):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, even my kids in first grade and his teacher sended stuff on his like e backpack and then his like e folder and he has like iPad time. Like, so my sort of thing is, while you may lament the loss of some of what was prefo and pre-technology, um, it's not going anywhere. And so, you know, cuz I, I'm with you sometimes I have leaders who are like, We just need to get rid of the phones, take 'em away from the kids. Like make sure that they, you know, only use paper bibles and that, you know, it's, it's wrong to read God's word on a screen type of thing. And that's, that's a high preference maybe mm-hmm. . And there may be some validity to some of those things, but the fact of the matter is like, why, You know, my argument is why are we discouraging a kid from reading the Bible if it's super accessible to them and in their pocket 24 hours a day?

Nick Clason (14:25):
Um, you know, so, So what have you noticed or what are some of the things that you've done realizing like, we can't, we can't get ourselves away from these. They are everywhere. They're on all the time. They are our everything. Our day planner, our calendar and our social life in a lot of ways. You know, like what are some of the things that you've, you've tried to embrace as a youth pastor, um, to maybe leverage them or lean into them and then maybe what are some of the times that you've discouraged use of them? Because you're like the, the, you know, the re the result of what's gonna happen here physically is gonna be greater than what is happening if you're on your

Derry Prenkert (15:02):
Phone. Yeah. It's great. Um, in the thing I do with parents, which total shameless plug, it's actually on D ym, you get it, download Youth Mystery

Nick Clason (15:12):
And then you have an extra $4 in your pocket. Yeah, yeah,

Derry Prenkert (15:15):
Yeah. From that roof. Yeah. It's called Adolescents Parenting and Technology. I use an illustration. I, and I, it's an illustration that, that hit me is our phones are a knife, um, and a knife, uh, can serve many purposes. Uh, a knife is, can be used to spread butter. It can be used to whittle wood to make, uh, amazing things. It can be, it can be, uh, used to, you know, cut through things that are hard to cut through. It also can be used to kill people. Um, it's really about what is happening with the person that has it in their hands. And a part of that is what's their intentions as well as what's their awareness of a knife. You know, I've got, you've got younger kids. Mm-hmm. , I had a six year old that early on, he just got us obsessed with our steak knives when he was three or four.

Derry Prenkert (16:03):
And we had to like, put those things up high cuz he just, he didn't understand the danger involving those knives. Right. Um, and, and so, uh, so with that, like, with that illustration in mind and looking at it that way, I, I look at this thing, a knife is really, for the most part neutral. Unless it's this crazy butcher knife that is, for the most part, a knife is neutral. It's what you're doing with it in your hands. So then it becomes about making sure to check your motives as well as prepare the person that has it in their hands to use it in the right way and to know how to use it in the right way. And, um, I think in that, like, especially if we're talking to ministers and I, I would put this across the board, in fact mm-hmm. , I would argue that senior pastors teaching pastors should be coaching, uh, 50, 60 year olds how to utilize their phones wisely, even more so than those that are just growing up with it, a native part of their life.

Derry Prenkert (17:03):
Hmm. Um, cuz I don't see a lot of students, uh, just making a fool of themselves on how they treat people on, on social media is, uh, as much as I see adults, uh, in what they're saying and everything else. So, so the, it's across the board. Like we have a responsibility to look at what does scripture say about, especially from a discipleship aspect of how we are to love our neighbors ourselves, and then how does it play out on this thing, you know? Mm-hmm. . So, so that would be, that would be a thing. So, um, so that's just, sorry, little rant there, but the knife and, and, and we, we have a responsibility to show them. Uh, I am a big fan Nick, of just intentionality in ministry overall. I think a lot of pastors, uh, I'm, I'm dedicating really, I feel like the second, second half of my life is I just want youth pastors and any pastors to be healthy in ministry.

Derry Prenkert (17:53):
And a big part of that is guarding your own heart. Um, another part is just thinking clearly and strategically in Christ's focus and inten and intentionality in what you're doing is a big part of that. Um, and so I would, I would argue that anybody that is in charge of a program, uh, a ministry, uh, any regular ministry gathering, there should be a side to say, Okay, what's our philosophy in how phones play into this? Mm-hmm. . And it can take up a lot of different forms. Yeah. One is what's our, so we're gonna be teaching this series, How's it showing up on their phones? Mm-hmm. , are we gonna do digital notes that they can look at while they're in the room? Are we going to do follow up stuff through social media that's gonna create interaction? Um, you've done some great stuff on the importance of don't just use your social media of as a, as a billboard that uses this interactive place.

Derry Prenkert (18:47):
You know, thinking through those things. Mm-hmm. , um, how are we going to actually handle the phones inside the space? What are, are, are, uh, uh, to what, what do we need to take into account if a middle school, I, I'm helping out in middle school right now, and I'm at a pretty conservative community mm-hmm. where I'd say it's six through eight grade, I would say no more than half the kids are, are actually walking in with smartphones. Now I know some would go, That's ridiculous. Well, that's my community. Sure. So I need to be thinking through, um, that I, I have to have a path for the non phone user. Right. But also I need to be thinking through for the phone user to begin to show them now. Like, Hey, if you're gonna follow Jesus, that plays out in this thing. Yeah.

Derry Prenkert (19:28):
So how do we do that? So what, what am I teaching? You know, when I get to the practical steps of my teaching, how am I intentionally saying, Hey, this is how this plays out on your phone. You know, that can be a part of it. Um, and then, and then I think, uh, there's just the overall, uh, idea of, I, I have kind of these categories I think through that I want to try to do inside the programming. And this is very youth ministry specific. I want to have times where, uh, where they have it and it's on, but they're encouraged to put it to, to the side mm-hmm. and not access it at all. Because, because we need to be able to do that in real life at times. Mm-hmm. , you know mm-hmm. . And so small groups, a lot of times, I don't know if you have this some, sometimes they'll do like the basket or, or, or things to say, Hey, it's here.

Derry Prenkert (20:14):
Or just even stack them in the middle of the room like, it's here, but we're not gonna use Oh yeah. Use that right now. Yeah. And, um, or it's just even a, Hey, let's put this in our pockets. Just hang tight with me for a little bit. Um, then there's then there's times where it's like off or not there at all. And we can talk about that one a little bit more. Probably it'd be a good one of, of, Hey, this is a no cell phone situation. Yeah. I think that's very debatable on how much we're often, but there's times where it's important to just, I mean, uh, solitude, simplicity, um, making sure that we're not controlled by things all apart of following Jesus. But then most importantly is we're gonna have times where we use this thing in a redemptive manner. Yeah. Um, we're gonna find ways.

Derry Prenkert (20:57):
So, so we are closing out and we've talked about, uh, the importance of praying for others and what ha you know, maybe we're doing a series on prayer and it's about praying for others. And, and what we say is, Okay, here's what we're gonna do right now. If you have a phone, I want you to pull it out and I'm just gonna ask the Lord to speak to us, to give you a name right now as somebody you could pray for. Hmm. And, and now I want you to pull out your phone and I want you to text them, not not, not text them that you are praying for them, actually text out what your prayer for them is. Hmm. Or when you walk out the room tonight, I want you to use that little voice memo thing. I did this this morning. Uh, I got a friend who just started first day in ministry today. I, I did a voice memo to him that was just solely my prayer and that was it. Like, here's my prayer for you today as you started on ministry. Yeah. That's cool. So, so finding ways to use it, redemptively. So again, I kind of went different, but use it redemptively. Find ways to put it to the side, find ways to turn it off or not have it there at all. And do all of that intentionally.

Nick Clason (21:51):
Yeah. I mean, a lot, a lot of what we say on here is that digital and physical, uh, both are important, but they're both categorically different. And so that's why I do think there is value in things that are strictly physical only. I think, like you said, we learned a lot of things about ourselves and people during covid when what was physical could not be completely replicated digitally. Yeah. Um, and vice versa. Right. And that's, that's the thing too, is like, I think the vice versa piece is like, there are some digital things that are digital only, like mm-hmm. me. Like you can do message recaps and, and things like that where you're calling back to what you did, um, throughout the week. Like on things like social media where people are not physically gathering in your room on a Tuesday morning, or they can be reading a u version plan on their own when they wake up on Thursday afternoon, you know, at lunch, whatever.

Nick Clason (22:46):
So mm-hmm. , that's, that's this whole idea of hybrid is it's, there is room for, for physical only. And there's also space, I think for digital. And that's part of the thing is we've, and I think a lot of churches are kind of running up into this, is they're, uh, Hey, you're, you're a youth pastor so you have to do all of it. Mm-hmm. , it's like these are two completely like different lanes. And so there's, I mean, there's staffing conversations and budget conversations I think like around all these things that are gonna be coming, coming down the pike at, at churches, so mm-hmm. , what would you say are times, um, maybe where you would, you would say, Hey, let's put phones away all together. Maybe talk about like camp situation Sure. Or, or retreats or whatever. Yeah. I'm sure that's probably one of the, the main ones that comes to people's minds.

Derry Prenkert (23:32):
Yeah. Yeah. Nick, you and I are a part of different youth ministry communities. Um, Facebook groups are a wonderful mess at times. . And one of the, one of the hot topics amongst many other things is when this gets asked of, Hey, what's your policy on cell phones? And it's interesting. It's like just hot takes start firing all over the place. Right. So, um, I was a part of one church for 23 years mm-hmm. , and I was a part of another church for 2.3 years. That's my little joke, uhha. But, um, , uh, in the one church that I was at for 23 years that I also grew up where technology was unfolded. And we, we had a hard and fast rule that really any trip that we did, we started with the idea of no cell phones would be allowed. And it was because we had a high emphasis on interactivity and, and, and it, cell phones weren't around when we set the rule.

Derry Prenkert (24:24):
It was, you can't bring your walkmans, your discmans your game boys because we're here to interact with each other. And the minute you look down on that thing, you're not there. So that just kind of lended itself over to cell phones and everything else. Mm-hmm. . And so, um, so any camp retreat, anything like that, we just, we put a pretty hard and fast rule with the one except perception being our senior retreat that we do with grads. We'd say, Hey, you can bring it. It was almost like this. Oh, you're old enough now. I, I don't know that I liked the motives in it, um, in, in it all. So, but then I went to, uh, another church where it was like, you can have them all the time mm-hmm. . Um, which, and the interesting thing I saw was effective ministry was taking place in both situations.

Derry Prenkert (25:09):
Um, but we hadn't really stopped and re strategized in my 23 year church to say, Hey, we're kind of, we kind of just stumbled into this, but these things are so much a part of his life. So we need to understand when we ask a kid to leave theirself at home, we're asking them to leave their most prized valuable mm-hmm. , um, possession mm-hmm. at home. Um, and then at the other church it was like, it's all there. But where we really said, Hey, how are we, are we, are we assessing how we're we're using these? And so I don't, I don't come from the mindset that says definitely no. Or definitely yes. As much as, again, back to that word, intentionality. Yeah. Um, have a plan. Yeah. Talk about it. So, so where we really landed, where at the church I was just at, was, um, if the event is going to be primarily focused on those that don't know Jesus coming into the situation, we're gonna be very hesitant to say he phones.

Derry Prenkert (26:06):
Yeah. Because they're not gonna get the idea of it. If the event is, is high, um, service based, um, intentional discipleship mm-hmm. and deepening, we're gonna stop and say, Hey, you know what, let's, this might be a time, Yeah. Let's evaluate this, where we're gonna maybe more lean toward this is a no-go, but then we're gonna say, here's why it's a no-go. If it's heavy discipleship, it's gonna say, this is gonna be a significant time. Where the primary things we're gonna do is we're gonna focus in on your connection with God and your connection with others, and we're gonna challenge you to find ways to do that outside of the technical technological world. Can you do that inside the technological world? Absolutely. But we see the value of a break. Um, and so that's kind of where we landed. Uh, but I mean the, the, I'm back, I'm back around the church that I was at for 23 years, though a lot of the rules are still in place that if it's a trip or retreat, it's no go. The interesting thing is, um, parents hated a whole lot more than students did.

Nick Clason (27:03):
Yeah. Now they were the one were noticing that too. Yep.

Derry Prenkert (27:05):
Yeah. If you, I would argue you wanna try to institute a no cell phone rule and you don't have it, it's gonna be really hard and it may not be worth the fight and it won't be because the kids, it's gonna be the parents. Parents are be, How do I get a hold of Johnny? Yeah. And, you know, in whatever case. Um, but, but when we take seniors on the retreat, when we were taking them, you know, and we'd allow to have phones, it just naturally had come up in conversations. They would go, Wait, are you gonna start allowing this for other kids on your, on, on campus? Like, we didn't have. And and I'm like, and, and I'd get into the conversation with 'em like, Oh, are you ticked because you had to suffer through not having 'em. Yeah. And you're, and you wanna make sure they get punished like you did.

Derry Prenkert (27:42):
And the seniors would be like, No, no. Like, I'd love that. We didn't have 'em. Yeah. I, I I actually would come back from camp. So grateful that you really pushed that on us for that time. Mm-hmm. . Now, is that right or wrong? No, I, I like, does that mean that you absolutely shouldn't do it? No, but it was just, it's an interesting aspect to it all. So again, long, long talking to just say it's about intentionality, it's about thinking through why would we want to do this? Mm-hmm. and then, and then making sure to communicate to those that are participating. And if it's in youth ministry, the parents of saying here's why. Yeah. Um, and then being ready for a fight, if you wanna say No phones. Cause it's, it's a challenge.

Nick Clason (28:20):
Yeah. That, No, that's really good. And again, right, like there's things that only physical can accomplish and there's things that only digital can accomplish. And I think an experience like a camp or whatever, there is a lot of connection that needs to take place. And most students, and you know, back to what you said earlier, people in church like don't know how to live in a world where it's just that where their phone isn't constantly dinging or lighting up or vying for their attention. And so I, I too have noticed in those types of environments where students, people are like grateful and thankful or say, man, like I'm, I haven't even like, wanted my phone. They're kinda surprised by it. You know, that that's, that's kind of the case. So Yeah. It's so

Derry Prenkert (29:05):
Interesting. Can I give two practical, just real practical tips if you choose to do no phones, especially if you're a youth pastor. Yeah, yeah. Um, one is bring in a, at at least one, maybe multiple people who's their sole job is to capture photos and videos of the experience mm-hmm. . And at the beginning of the experience, make sure that the students know who that person is, because one of the things you're asking them to sacrifice is

Nick Clason (29:28):
Capturing, capturing

Derry Prenkert (29:30):
The memories

Nick Clason (29:30):
Of

Derry Prenkert (29:31):
It all. And that's bigger than ever, right? Yeah. Because they can do that. And so making sure that that's there, and then making all those photos and videos available as soon as you possibly can. Um, and I, I noticed that, um, the, a camp I was at this summer there, the photographer was actually uploading those, um, to their social media platform, like with a link while the camp was there, even though the kids didn't have phones, so that as soon as they got home within like one hour, the kids were like posting their, you know, their real, their reels that recaps, like that's good. Building up all the stuff on the, That's really good. So I think that's a big one. And then two is think through your strategic feedback loop to parents. The parent freakout is, I don't, I, how do I know? Well mm-hmm.

Derry Prenkert (30:14):
, if you have a, a way of saying, Hey, here's, here's where you can go, um, whether it's a Facebook page or group, or if it's your Instagram, or if it's even like a, a remind, uh, setup or whatever, texting, like, here's where it's at. We found that Facebook lives where you could at a camp mm-hmm. , um, actually doing a, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go live at this time. I'm actually gonna give you a little glimpse into the session just for a short bit so you can just see what's going on and then come back and update you. And the beauty of a Facebook Live, every parent is still on Facebook, uh, for the most part. So they, they, they're there and so they can jump on live and then you can let it sit there. So, um, but those two things will, will go a long way in helping the resistance you might get. Um, when it comes to the no phone

Nick Clason (31:00):
Rule. Yeah. We, we, we do, we've done like a photographer and my, my favorite, and it always depends on like if the church or I have the budget to pull this off, but like get a videographer as well, or the same person, um, and have them do a daily, like, recap video. Those are great for opening your like sessions, but they're also amazing to throw up on YouTube and then text a link out. And so, you know, parents who, uh, send their kids without phone or whatever, they feel this like sense of relief if like they see their kid. Absolutely. Then the downside is one, one time I had to, uh, remove a clip because a kid was like picking his nose and the mom like, wanted it out. Yeah. Um, and then another time ano a mom was like, I haven't seen my kid in any of the recap bees. Yeah. And I'm trying not to freak out, but like, are they having fun? Like, are they making friends? Like, and I get it, like as a, as a dad myself, you know, now, like I would also want to try and like lay eyes on my kids. So

Derry Prenkert (32:01):
Totally same. Totally same. Actually Gabe, the pastor at the church that I'm serving with now, he did a meal time at camp and he just said, Okay, who needs to see their kid Facebook Live, , who needs to see their kid? And he just went around and said, funny. And he put up the phone, he said, Tell your mom you're okay. And, and it was like one of the most viewed Yeah. There are a lot of people there, so Yeah. And that is legit. And it's, you gotta be ready for it for that whole world. And, um, it is, that is evidence again, of the different world. And, and as a parent of a high schooler and a middle schooler, I wasn't at the high school camp. I was at the middle school camp. I was watching for my kid. Yeah.

Derry Prenkert (32:38):
That I didn't quite quite realize. So.

Nick Clason (32:40):
All right. Last, last thing. Um, how can we, as pastors, people in ministry, what are ways there that you see that we can optimize technology, um, now Cause like the overall mission, right? Of the church mm-hmm. to make disciples. And Paul used, you know, the thing available to him writing letters at the time to reach churches that he was not near. So what are some ways, just maybe a couple ideas off the top of your head that you have seen effective or ideas that maybe you haven't seen totally fleshed out, but are ruminating inside. Like Yeah. Where we can use what is available to us in technology. I mean, even the fact that I'm sitting in Texas here in northern Indiana and we're having this conversation and we're seeing each other, like, that's an advantage that wasn't available to us pre 2007. Right. And so, uh, what are some of those things maybe that you have seen or have thought about that we can use to our advantage to help kids take steps closer to Jesus?

Derry Prenkert (33:40):
Yeah. Let me throw you a little bit of a curve on where I might go with this to start only, um, in that I've been a part of large to very large churches mm-hmm. , and you've been a part of larger churches where there's a budget that's available and mass communication through technology. And so our minds might immediately go to Yeah. Podcasts and video streams mm-hmm. and, uh, you know, Instagram and getting somehow in with you version so you can build up a Bible reading plan. And I Yes. Yeah.

Nick Clason (34:10):
But I would it if you can

Derry Prenkert (34:11):
Yeah. I would say pastors and ministers to remember to that this is an incredible one to one ministry tool still mm-hmm. . And so, um, and, and this has gotten especially big to me as I've shifted over into this world now where my primary job that I says God's called me to is just to pastor pastors, especially those that are youth pastors. Well, they're all over the nation. Yeah. And so, um, last night, Sunday night for me, I'm recognizing I was just like, Lord, who are the people right now that might just kind of be in that spot that a word of encouragement or a check-in could go a long way? And there were, there were four texts that were sent out to individuals going, Hey, you're on my mind. How did today go? Or what's going on in your mind? Woke up this morning and like I already told you about, there was one guy that is first day he shifted from the education world to the church world.

Derry Prenkert (35:03):
Hmm. And so, um, so I, I would just start by saying yes, I mean, as we think about the massive ways to do it, let's not forget that pastoring at its best that's good is a one to one, a one to three relationship mm-hmm. . And so, uh, connecting with our parishioners are people that we're discipling, whoever they might be, uh, through the phone and doing it healthily and thinking through safeguards and all those things are really important, especially for youth pastors. Um, which probably is a whole other episode to talk through at some point. . Yeah. But, um, but to understand like, this is a ministry tool at its core. And so a a properly placed text, phone call, FaceTime, um, like, or comment on a, um, on a, on a post, uh, can is, is ministry, like, is deep ministry and meaningful ministry at times.

Derry Prenkert (35:53):
Mm-hmm. . Um, That's great. It was interesting Nick, uh, my former youth pastor, uh, my dad died 10, uh, 13 years ago now, and my former youth minister is no longer in youth ministry. And, but it was an incredible influence on my life. Mm-hmm. . And it was about, uh, it was, it was right around eight years after my dad had died, I posted just a memory of him and below in the comment section, my old youth pastor got on and he, all he wrote was, I'm so proud of you Derry. And I read that and I lost it. And, and I talked to him and, and what happened in that moment was like, I realized, uh, can, like, thank you. I miss I miss having my dad, and I'm not, I don't have a dad that can physically say to me, I'm proud of you anymore.

Derry Prenkert (36:39):
And I'm, I'm like a 36 year old man, like blubbering over my youth pastor telling me he's proud of me. But it's because he, he, in that moment, he ministered to me through a simple comment on a Facebook group mm-hmm. that also helped me work through some grieving that I was at. I hadn't really just walked through and said, God, I'm kind of ticked, I'm kind of ticked right now because I've lost, like, why did this happen? And, and it helped me kind of break through to a new level. And so, so anyway, like just, I, I, that's the one thing I would just say is as we think through the strategic and the greater stuff, let's not forget this is a incredible tool for the most effective ministry that is relational and personal in nature. That's good. That's good. Um, um, I would say otherwise though too is, um, I have a good friend, John McAllen, Johnny Mack, he did this thing, he started, it was called Echo Ministry.

Derry Prenkert (37:25):
And the idea was how do you take and create echos of what's happening on the, on the weekend? How do you have the message echo through the rest of the week? And our technology, our cell phones are such a primary tool to make that happen. You said it so well, there are things that we can do now because we have these, um, where it can show up in the moment, in, in different ways, uh, whether it's, uh, uh, a thinking through, uh, devotional journey, like I said, through you version. Mm-hmm. , uh, uh, the youth group that I just was at for the last couple of years, they're doing a thing called sale up Moments every week. They have just one moment that, that where they, they use on social media where they say, Okay, you're scrolling through, but stop, exhale, um, and listen to God allow 'em to speak to you.

Derry Prenkert (38:16):
You know? And there's a whole acronym to it. I can't remember what the H was good. Yeah. I like that. You know, have a burger, I think was the last, no, I can't remember what the H was, but, um, they, they, they walked through it and, and so using that was, um, was, was a way to do it. So I, I think it's that matter of how can we echo it mm-hmm. . And there's a lot, you know, podcasts can be a part of it. Uh, I started something called Digging Deeper with our main services when I was, uh, at my own church. And, and what we did was every Wednesday I would sit down with whoever was preaching mm-hmm. . And if I, I, I was a part of the teaching time. If I was preaching, somebody else would come in and the first thing we'd say, Hey, hey, what hit the cutting room floor?

Derry Prenkert (38:53):
What were you not able to get to this weekend that you wish you could have? And people just love that aspect, but then we would pick it part a little bit more mm-hmm. . And so, and it, it's not hard. It's a, you know, get, get a little basic, um, Yeah. Recording set up and you can get it set up pretty easy. Um, and so there's just so many ways, but I would just start with the, like, how can we echo into the week, what happened on the weekend Yep. And use it on a digital format.

Nick Clason (39:16):
Yeah. No, that's good. I, I also personally think that we don't know yet like, the answer to some of these questions. Yeah. Like, I still think that there's, uh, things yet to be discovered, you know, in front of us. And so I think, uh, if there's any sort of like, challenge for anyone listening, I would just say like, just do something. Um, and you may stumble upon something great. You may find some stuff that's terrible and you need to cut it out. Um, but if you're, if you're always looking that direction, uh, you'll, you'll stumble upon something good that you maybe don't even know, or you maybe didn't, you know, you maybe weren't even able to see it right now when you started it because of a limited technology or budget or whatever. And so just be looking for ways. Cuz like I said, it's less, I think, I personally think it's easy to make digital about being flashy, um, or whatever, looking good to parents or other youth pastors or other people in ministry, whatever.

Nick Clason (40:15):
But I think it's far less about that for me at least, and it's more about how effective can I be in spreading the message of Jesus with all the tools that he's given to me. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm alive in 2022 with access to podcast microphones and phones that can take incredible videos and pictures, like mm-hmm. , how am I going to use steward those things to reach the most amount of people, you know, that have an audience to reach. So I think that's, that would be my challenge to whoever's listening is think what Dare said, think through all the things that, with intentionality, Um, and then just be open, you know, to, to utilizing some stuff.

Derry Prenkert (40:52):
So yeah. You're, you're so right on. We don't have it all figured out. Probably one of my greatest pet peeves in life are, uh, those that are convinced they have it all figured out. Um, Yeah. and I, I, I can do that at times. And usually when I'm at that point and I'm like, Oh yeah, I know how to do this. Mm-hmm. , that's the moment when I will fall flat on my face. And so, so there's a ton to be learned. There's a ton to be determined I love, or

Nick Clason (41:14):
That's when a new iPhone comes out, Right. And you're like, Oh, this changed everything. Or Covid hit and this changed everything. So yes. Totally. Good. Yes. I think we're living through that. Well, hey man. Um, anything else off top of your head? You don't have to, but I just wanna make sure you said everything you wanted to say. Didn't leave anything unsaid.

Derry Prenkert (41:30):
I think the only thing I would maybe end with is in that same vein is, um, it's everywhere. It's so much. Uh, also don't be afraid to not feel like you have to do everything, you know? Um, uh, especially to the minister that's trying to think through how to do effectively. There is a, there is a moment where less is more because your soul needs to rest, you know? Mm-hmm. , if you're finding yourself trying to, uh, late at night when you should be being around your family, invest your family or on your day off going, this is the time while Ill dive into all this digital stuff. Eh, you know what, maybe, maybe that's, uh, not worth it. No, not, maybe it definitely is not worth it. Definitely not worth, There's just, that's the part of like this thing, there's just so much out there. Mm-hmm. don't, I, I I guess it's like that idea of don't gain the digital world at the cost of your soul. Yeah. good is, is, is a big thing. And I just, I say that out of a season where I'm just seeing so many of us burn out. Um, and we're burning out in a lot of different ways, but one is because we're just constantly on and we don't hit the off switch. That's

Nick Clason (42:34):
Good. That's good. Love it, man. Well, hey, thanks again. Uh, you referenced a couple things in here. I'll toss 'em in show notes, like your resource on D ym so that all tens of our listeners can go get it. There you go. Um, anyway, thanks for hanging out man. And uh, absolutely. We'll chat again. Chat again. Yeah. Awesome.

Nick Clason (42:52):
Well, wasn't that great, Uh, super thoughtful, super helpful. Um, I hope that you found this interesting and helpful as well. Hey, um, we are online on Twitter at Hybrid Ministry. Would love to have you come hang out, follow us over there. Um, we're still growing, not super active yet, but, uh, we're well on our way. And also everything you need, show notes, links, transcripts, all kinds of stuff. You can find out hybrid ministry.xyz along with a now growing bank of archive and older episodes. So if you're just not stumbling upon us, we'd love to have you go back and check it out. Uh, you can do all of that at hybridministry.xyz Ze. Again, thanks for being with us today and we'll chat next time.

SHOWNOTES
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/gen-z-myths?utm_campaign=Marketing%20Blog%20-%20Daily%20Emails&utm_medium=email&utm_content=223400490&utm_source=hs_email

TIMECODES
00:00-00:35 Myths about Generation Z
00:35-3:34 Why do we keep focusing on Gen Z?
3:34-6:04 Myth 1: Gen Z is obsessed with fast fashion
6:04-8:22 Myth 2: Data and Privacy are irrelevant to Gen Z
8:22-10:43 Myth 3: TikTok is the best place to reach Gen Z
10:43-14:51 Myth 4: Put a product in front of Gen Z and they will buy it
14:51-17:15 Outro