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

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

💥Church Comms Done for You💥

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

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/120

🔥 [FREE] Hybrid Ministry Strategy Guide🔥
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

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

//CHURCH COMMS FOR YOU
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

//PRACTICING THE WAY
https://www.practicingtheway.org/

//NIEUWHOF’S TRENDS ARTICLE
https://careynieuwhof.com/church-trends-2024/

//SIX QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HYBRID CHURCH (BARNA)

https://shop.barna.com/products/6-questions-about-the-future-of-the-hybrid-church-experience?srsltid=AfmBOoomc4T_IhhEA4LgSwQLS6vEyqvHIDhmcDu_2kJ6Jamc90xMu0vD

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

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

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "The Full Hybrid Ministry Strategy"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

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

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

======================================
🛠️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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caleb Maeda
Hey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you enjoy this 100th episode special!

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

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

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🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
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📨 Full Proof Recruiting Email
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🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

🎥 YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick

📱SOCIAL
TIKTOK:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

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

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

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

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch the Video on our YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

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

ShowNotes & Transcripts:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/053

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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.

SHOWNOTES
YOUTUBE ARTICLES
https://tiptopbrain.com/blog/is-youtube-for-kids-the-pros-and-cons-of-kids-on-youtube/#:~:text=Well%2C%20YouTube%20allows%20kids%20to,to%20learning%20a%20new%20language.
YOUTUBE ARTICLE #2
https://join.marketing/blog/youtube/#/

TIMECODES
00:00-03:39 Intro
03:39-09:24 Introduction to Generation Alpha
09:24-15:05 What does the Google Machine have to say about why kids are so obsessed with YouTube?
15:05-20:14 How Generation Z & Gen Alpha's consumption of YouTube might be changing things for the church
20:14-22:41 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. So excited to be with you. I, as always am your host, Nick Clason, along for the ride. And in today's episode, I want to talk about this dude, my kids are obsessed with YouTube. What does this mean for the future? That's what we have on store. So make sure that you stick around. We're gonna talk about Generation Alpha, we're gonna talk about what's unique about YouTube, what I've found through a little bit of research and as well as just give some, as I've done before, some stream of consciousness kind of thoughts. This is what some implications might be for you and for your church moving forward, and how you can rethink the way, potentially the way that you do ministry or the way that you supplement what you do for ministry. Don't want you to forget that we are on YouTube.

Nick Clason (00:52):
And today I'm going to share a couple of exclusive graphics on the screen, so make sure that you head over there if that's something that you're interested in. Um, you can subscribe to that in the show notes, subscribe like the video. All those things will help. A rating or a review of the show, maybe even a share with a friend. All of that stuff really, really helps us get indexed gets found. And I just wanna say thank you. Like we have had, the last three or four months have been our biggest months by far, by like combined with almost all the other months before that. So we are well on our way to a thousand downloads. So pumped about that, we are almost up to 200 subscribers on YouTube. And so, again, very excited about that. Thank you guys for hanging out. I also want to toss this out there.

Nick Clason (01:34):
If you're listening, head to the show notes, http://www.hybridministry.xyz, and I'm gonna leave a link for the Q and for a q and a section. If you have questions that you want answered on this show, send them in. What are you grappling with? What are you wrestling through and how can we help be of any sort of assistant answering some of those and just giving some ideas and thoughts about. Again, uh, if you don't know my story, I am a youth pastor, Nick Clason in the trenches at a church in Dallas Fort Worth area. I am doing all the things. I am running the programs. We got Wednesday nights, we got Sunday mornings, and I am also someone who's just passionate about digital and hybrid ministry. Not because I want to forsake the gathering together, but because I want to add supplemental opportunities for you and me and us as a church to show up in the lives of our people, in my case, my students, in potentially your case, your congregation members' lives.

Nick Clason (02:26):
And so that's the whole mission and desire behind what we're doing here at this show. And so that's what we're gonna be exploring is different social media platforms, church marketing tips, digital communication opportunities, church, social media, and church growth ideas, especially talking about younger generations like Generation Z and Generation Alpha. And so that's in particular what this episode is going to be aimed at is this I idea and this realization that I'm coming to with Generation Alpha. If you don't know Jen Alpha is the, um, most, uh, they are the youngest kids in our student ministry age right now, sixth, seventh, eighth grade. Um, and so we're gonna dive into that a little bit more. Again, so thrilled to have you along in the show. I just wanna let you know one last thing before we dive into the actual content free ebook link in the show notes.

Nick Clason (03:20):
It will help you and give you your guide from posting a TikTok from zero all the way to finished. Again, thanks so much for hanging out on this, uh, show and let's dive into, dude, my kids are obsessed with you two. What does this mean for the church? First, we're gonna talk about Jen Alpha, so let's go ahead and do that on the other side. All right, so generation alpha, the the oldest generation Alpha was born in 2010. So a little bit of Lucy Goose goosey math that makes them 13 years old. That is what I often do for, um, like age like that. All right, so like someone's 13 years old. I always, if you subtract five, you'll know what grade they're in. That's a little pro tip youth pastor tip that I use. So 13 minus five equals eight. That means that the, uh, oldest Gen Z is eighth grade.

Nick Clason (04:12):
That means that seventh and sixth grade. So our entire middle school ministry is Gen Alpha. I might have said Gen Z, but I mean Gen Alpha, generation Alpha is basically our entire middle school ministry. So youth pastors, if, if you're a youth pastor like I am, you've been trying to crack the code of Gen Z. Gen Z is high school and in about four years, they're done. We're not worried about Gen Z anymore in student ministry, or we shouldn't be. And you know, some churches are just now grappling with the idea of reaching millennials, bro, millennials are in their forties now. Like I am a millennial. I am 33 years old, I'll be 34 in a couple of months. I am dead in the middle of my working life. I have children and my children are not Gen Z. My children are gen alpha. Um, so 2010 is the bracket.

Nick Clason (04:58):
So I have two kids, they're born in 2016 and then 2018. So they're square in that Gen alpha range. So a couple of things that are unique about them. 2010, keep in mind about this, right, 2010, for those of you listening, those of you older was the year that the ipo, the iPad was introduced. You might remember that. I remember when I was in college and the iPad was introduced, and when the iPad came out, I thought to myself, wow, who is even gonna use that? That's just an over-inflated iPhone. It doesn't even do anything for you. Now let me ask you this. How many iPads in your life have you owned me? 3, 4, 5, maybe at this point, right? Like at the time it was an ex exorbitant price tag. And I remember when it came out, we all in college, I was in college, all my friends were like, we're not ever gonna get the iPad.

Nick Clason (05:47):
That's ridiculous. I can do all the same things on my iPhone and carry it around in my pocket. Doesn't even have data then if they did introduce one with data. But I had this really cool opportunity, did an internship one summer in Connecticut, and me and the guy that I was staying with, my host family, we were chatting up one day about the iPad and its functionality. And he worked in Times Square. So I was in Connecticut and he, he commuted down the train an hour into Times Square, worked at a bank in Times Square. And so he had the iPad as a thing to do on the train so that he could work and commute, respond to emails, all those types of things. He got the plan with data, so we're talking about it, whatever. And I get ready to leave after my 10 weeks of staying at their house needing all their food.

Nick Clason (06:28):
And uh, they give me a going away gift of an iPad, like a brand new iPad. And so I walk into school the next year as almost the only kid in the entire, like sophomore class or junior class, whatever class I was in that had an iPad. In fact, all my friends made fun of me because they, they talked about how like, uh, bougie or how like, um, over the top I was for actually owning an iPad. And there was this hashtag that would go around, it's like hashtag Nick has an iPad. Like it, it was a joke. But my point in saying that is remember when the iPad came out, how long ago that was, how or how recent that might feel to you. That was the same year that the oldest group of generation Alpha kids were born back then when the iPad was created.

Nick Clason (07:16):
So hopefully that gives you just a little bit of context, a little bit of frame of reference timeline wise about when they were born, when that shift from Gen Z switched over to Generation Alpha. And so my kids, my personal kids are squarely in that Generation Alpha category and they are obsessed with YouTube. And so much so that our Disney plus our Netflix, all those things are not as important as our YouTube premium subscription that we just signed up for. In fact, I'm viewing YouTube Premium as one of my streaming services in my house. And quite frankly, the reason for that is my kids prefer to watch people like Ryan's World or Dude Perfect. Or, um, what's the one Rainbow Friends like on YouTube? So much so that I was like, I wanna get a, um, premium so that I can keep them away from commercials.

Nick Clason (08:07):
And in one hand, yes, Jen Alpha has a much lower tolerance for commercials than you and I might do, uh, or you and I might have as people who've grown up with traditional broadcast tv, but also like, bro, I'm letting them loose on YouTube. Like I, I want to at least, and I'm in the age with them still where they'll listen to me. They won't be defiant intentionally or disobey intentionally. So they'll watch what I tell them. They're allowed to watch shows that I'm okay with them watching, but I had no control over the ads. And so I bought premium to control the ads. I e get rid of the ads and it's a nice little feature. Um, I, I like it for my phone and stuff like that as well, cuz it's my, my account and then their, so their subsidiary kids' accounts, but they are obsessed with it.

Nick Clason (08:51):
And so I was, I was just, you know, fighting them again. They're like, Hey, I wanna be on YouTube, I wanna watch you on YouTube. And I'm like, all right, whatever. That's fine. And they're just watching our tv, you know, they don't even really watch it on like their phones or tab, they don't even have phones or, or devices really, but they'll watch it on just like our Smart TVs, our Rokus. And I was like, why are they so obsessed with YouTube? Like what gives, like, why is the deal? And so I just, I wanted to explore that and that's what I wanted to explore in this podcast episode. So let's dive into the next section, which I'm titling, what did the Google machine have to say about this? Let's check it out.

Nick Clason (09:26):
All right. Like any good millennial parent, I did what we've all done before, right? And I had this idea, and so I asked Google, Google, why do my kids like YouTube so much more than any other shows? And here's what, um, the first result spit out, it said, YouTube allows kids to explore their interest on a whim deeply, easily. And with great entertainment from week to week. Kids can go from, uh, routinely watching videos about plant-based diets to learning a new language. And so basically what I was saying is like that YouTube has just a vast array, a vast library of ideas to allow people to kind of explore. And that's one of the things, especially with Gen Z, I think we started to see that shift. I think that's gonna be even just as true, maybe even more true of generation alpha in the land of they get to tailor make their experience.

Nick Clason (10:17):
And I think that that right there is going to be a massive shift for churches. I don't think that we should compromise on our standards or our, the truth of the gospel or the truth of the message of Jesus and the fact that he redeems us from our sins and gives us an opportunity to have salvation found in him. But we oftentimes equate that truth of the gospel, that truth of Jesus with, uh, like, like church has to look this way. And if you're not coming to church every single week in person for 52 weeks a year listening to a pastor's sermon first and above all, and then maybe secondarily and ancillary finding community. But first you gotta make sure you go to that worship service. I mean, it's a very fun prolific approach. Uh, we've, we've all learned that marketing the concentric circles Rick Warren.

Nick Clason (11:07):
And I don't know that that like funnel approach is, or that like large groom gr large room gathering experience is the top of the funnel anymore. I think the top of the funnel is what I'm trying to, to propose to all of you digital and hybrid options and digital and hybrid ministry. And then if someone is interested in custom making their experience, they may not find, I'll just be honest with you, like, and don't crucify me for this, but like, I would rather listen to my pastor sermon o on a run or on my way to work than sit and listen for an hour just to a talking head. Like, I love my pastor, but like I can put it on 1.5 speed. I can get just about all the same experiences out of it. There's really no, and for me, I, I'm always, almost always late cuz I'm, I'm working on something ahead of time cuz my job is to work at church and I'm leaving early cuz I have to get to something else to run something else.

Nick Clason (12:02):
I'm not talking to almost like a single soul in the auditorium. Like the one element that I really can't get is live praise and worship. That is the one thing that I, I don't think like Spotify or something else digital can replace. That being said, like I do really want that connection, that community. Like that's really important to me. And, and I would almost argue, especially for our younger and next generations, like they want that real authentic like opportunity for connection and community. They want that more than they want a large group gathering auditorium. So I say that to say we have the message of the gospel, but we've equated the, the why or the mission and we've tied it very tightly to our method. And we've said the mission and the method are one and the same. And if you don't love coming to church at eight 30 to listen to a sermon, you don't love Jesus.

Nick Clason (12:57):
And while again, I think that there are benefits of that, and I think that that's like in a lot of churches, that's the way things are done. And I think that that's not a bad thing necessarily. I do think that in this like create your own experience world, how are we gonna reach people that can literally get on YouTube and watch whatever they want, yet we say, but you gotta do it this way over here. Like how much longer is that experience going to last? And so continuing on YouTube is the second largest search platform in the world, like right behind Google and it's owned by Google. So not only is it the second largest, and it's like, it's not like it's trying to compete with the first one, right? The first one powers the second largest search engine in the world. Some people say it's the third largest.

Nick Clason (13:43):
And and they would put Google images in between. Again, all three top three owned by Google. 400 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube. Every get this, every minute, 400 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every single minute of every single day. That is bonkers to me. 1 million, or I'm sorry, excuse me, not million with an m, billion with a b, 1 billion hours of content are watched on YouTube every single day. Crazy. All right, this is from an article. Um, I got a couple different articles that I use to, to get some of these stats from. I'll drop those in the show notes. Um, so check those out. But television viewing figures from across Europe, this is a European art article, are in decline. Children and young adults now watch a third less broadcast television than they did in 2010. So like I said, that graph is up here on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.

Nick Clason (14:41):
If not, head on over to the show notes and you can check that out. But what I want you to know is that there, that YouTube is changing the game in television and I'm wondering what implications might be for church. So let's dive into some potential church implications on how generation alpha and generation Z consumption of YouTube might be changing things for the church in 2023 and moving beyond. All right, so what are our church implications? What does YouTube and the rise of it have as far as churches are concerned? What are the implications? I mean, here's the thing about churches, right? Like church is a social entity in a lot of ways. And like I know we're like, no, no, no, it's about Jesus and it's about relationship with him and it's not religion, it's relationship, all those things. That's fine. But at the, at the core of the day, like at the end of what we're talking about here, like when people feel connected to a church, it's because they feel connected to the belief system, probably, hopefully first and foremost, but then secondarily the community that they've found there.

Nick Clason (15:39):
And so if students, people, kids, parents, adults, anyone are not connected to the rest of the people, the rest of the larger organization of the church, they're not gonna stay in the church. And so the reality about this, this is very simple, this is very basic. I'm not trying to say anything honestly, really profound to be a part of a church. You're either a part of it or you're not a part of it. Like that's it, right? There's really only two options. You either feel a part of it or you don't feel a part of it. And there's all sorts of in between about people who maybe feel in the margins are trying to get a part of it, can't get a part of it, are not really trying to get a part of it, and are not really connected. But other people maybe like their parents are super connected.

Nick Clason (16:16):
There's all sorts of stuff in between. But at the end of the day, you either feel connected or you don't feel connected, okay? And like I said, there may be some gray, some nuance in there, but if you're not feeling connected, the reality is this, is that, is that your like tie to your church, your interest in your church is not gonna be that elevated based off of what we typically offer. And so how are we going to find ways, find inroads into our people's lives, potentially through YouTube? Uh, I said this a while back, 70, I think three or 79% of, um, people have at one point in time watched some sort of explainer how to video on YouTube. That's a great spot for churches to just start. How to read your bible, how to find accountability, how to pray short form, long form, long form clipped into short form.

Nick Clason (17:07):
There's all kinds of opportunities there. And you're probably thinking, I don't have time for this. I get it. That is where like there has to be a, a vision and a mission like fueling behind this idea. Like we are going all in on this because this matters to generation Z and generation Alpha and the younger people in our church. It may not be the biggest like priority for your top givers and donors in their forties, fifties, and sixties, but it matters to the younger generation. So how can we do that? Recently I was talking to a church and the funniest part about this is that, um, we had met where we had a planned meeting on the calendar with two youth pastors from another church in town. And they walked in as me and my boss and my other coworker associate were all, um, filming a TikTok video.

Nick Clason (17:57):
And it was one of those tos where it was like, do you know it or do you not know it? And the the theme was high school musical songs, and if you knew it, you went to one side of the, the frame on the camera, and if you didn't, you went to the other and they walked in on us doing that. Uh, but of course that led to a conversation like, what, what were you guys doing? How often do you post a TikTok? What's your philosophy and strategy behind it? But they told us that they were a youth ministry with 800 kids coming at one point in time and they don't have those numbers anymore. And so we like, that got me thinking like, again, the 800 kids that were a part of the church back in the day, why are kids less and less interested in church?

Nick Clason (18:35):
And I think it's because there's more and more opportunity out there for them. And a lot of times our response to that is, well then we need to get kids off phones. We need to get kids off social media and get them back in church. And that could work, like, that could modify their behavior to make that happen. Um, but are they really there? Is their heart really in it at that point? Um, and the then the question I thought of was like, well then what was the commitment level of the 800 back in the day? Was it just the best, most poppin social gathering to come to? Or was it, um, they felt forced, they felt expected, they had not as much, you know, distraction opportunity as they do now. And so maybe the, the quality of those 800 though, the quantity was there, the quality wasn't maybe now same thing.

Nick Clason (19:26):
The quality is there and the quantity is not. How do you raise, how do you raise both? And I think one way that you can raise both is to lean into this hybrid ministry. How can you on YouTube with 400 hours uploaded every minute with 1 billion, um, what was it? 1 billion, 1 billion hours of content watched every single day with 1 billion hours of content watched every single day. How can you lean into that, um, as a church and show up where it matters most in people's everyday lives? What matters most is not showing up on YouTube. I want to be clear, but what matters most is showing up in people's lives on a regular and consistent basis and maybe in the unexpected zones, i e not just the times you're expected to show up Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for hanging out on this episode.

Nick Clason (20:19):
I hope that just this kind of brain dump thought process, like live reaction to me exploring why in the world do my kids like YouTube so much? What does it mean for our churches helped? I still don't really know the actual why. I think it just gives them like their own control, their own algorithm selection. The algorithm shows them more and more of what they wanna watch and I think that they enjoy that. You know, um, some of the other streaming platforms are trying to sort of adapt that sort of algorithm ai thought process into what they're doing. I mean, so the reality is like they're still losing right to YouTube, like they're still losing to YouTube. And so, um, I just think that that trend is worth noticing. And uh, one of the reasons I notice it is, is threefold. One, I'm, I'm the church communication guy in our student ministry.

Nick Clason (21:04):
Two, I'm a youth pastor, so I interact with generation Alpha on a regular basis. Three, I'm the dad of generation alpha kids, like little, little kids, um, who are going to shape the future generations. And so those three things I'm noticing, and I hope that in immunos in them you find that advantageous and useful for your church to not grow outdated and stale, but to continue to grow young and and relevant to the students, kids and younger people in your congregations. Again, thanks so much for hanging out. Hey, I do wanna give you an update In episode 48, I talked about a shift in my content, what I'm doing now, and I did recently notice an uptick in my engagement and my views by focusing more on, on quality overt quantity. Um, and so again, I said in that episode it came down to just a margin or just like a capacity issue.

Nick Clason (21:54):
Um, and so the fact is, I have noticed that going up, going up and I did talk several episodes back about a posting service kind of tanking my YouTube shorts views, my YouTube shorts views have finally bounced back. And I'm so grateful for it and I think it's because I, I fed it more quality content that people would hopefully interact with and engage with more frequently. So I just wanted to give you that update. I've always told you I'm gonna keep it real with y'all here. And so that's just me trying to do that. Hey again, thanks so much for hanging out and uh, we will talk next time and don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry or online at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-01:58 Intro
01:58-07:50 How to Bridge the Generation Gap between Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Z
07:50-12:53 How to use digital to enhance in-person ministry
12:53-18:57 Are small groups the best new form for outreach?
18:57-19:34 Outro

SHOWNOTES
https://careynieuwhof.com/episode527/

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. Once again, another solo pod. Matt got him from Spain, um, and he wasn't sure about like his computer situation, but he got it. Uh, um, he's got one, he doesn't have a login yet for it, so that's a little bit problematic. But, uh, you know, once he starts getting settled in and stuff like that, he said he should be good to go. So, uh, one of my all time favorite podcasts is the Carry and New H Leadership podcast has subscribe to it, listen to it. Um, I, I wanna say every week, but it's not like on demand listening per se, it's more just like, Oh, I'll get to it whenever something else isn't there. Um, but I'm a pretty regular and consistent listener. He headed, uh, Dr. Tim Elmore on one of his most recent podcasts, talking about Generation Z.

Nick Clason (00:57):
So, just got me thinking. Let's talk, let's chat Gen Z today. Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk a little bit about some of the distinctives between them and some of the older, different, newer generations. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Um, hopefully, I don't know, I don't wanna promise anything. Maybe next week, Matt will be back. Um, started, we started talking and circling around the drain about what it would look like to schedule. He, uh, he's in Colorado now. I'm in Texas, and so he's an hour earlier. So, you know, someone's getting up early. It's probably me, I'm not gonna lie. But anyway, uh, that is, that's what is, today we're gonna talk about Generation Gap. What's the difference between Boomers Xers, millennials, and Generation Z? We're gonna talk about how you can use digital to enhance your in-person experiences. And finally, we're gonna talk about how small is the new outreach plan and method that Generation Z is interested in. So let's go.

Nick Clason (02:00):
All right, what's up, everybody? Uh, let's talk generation Gap. Um, how many of you have ever, uh, wanted to work from home, um, versus work in the office? I think almost all of us are interested in the hybrid work environment type of thing, but most of us work for a corporation, for a man that requires us to be in the office. Um, think about this. Um, I have worked in a couple of churches where there is a paid for gigantic storage server, and that storage server is only available if you are on the church wifi network. That is an office mentality. Compare that to, you know, two terabytes of Google Drive storage for $6 a year that you can get, you know, um, or a Dropbox office account or, uh, 20 terabytes of Google Drive storage or, you know, any of the other numerable cloud-based storage options.

Nick Clason (03:05):
You know, it's funny because like, I think this, this, this, uh, depiction can be most best portrayed through the comparison between Microsoft and Google. Okay? So, uh, let's just do some comparisons. Microsoft, they started it. They were a part of the office culture. Every office in the world in America has Microsoft Office. Every one of us is forced to use Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook or something like that. Okay? And so you have those products, you have those things. They were the industry standard, then comes along Google, what's the difference? Well, everything in Google is browser based. That's so, that was so foreign to Microsoft. Everything was programmatic. Everything was, um, something that you had to install, put on your hard drive, okay? And so then Google begins to compete with Microsoft, right? So they create Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides. Guys, I'm telling you, as a youth pastor, I have teenagers who don't even know how to open Microsoft product.

Nick Clason (04:08):
But here's the thing, they don't actually need to, like, there are, there are just ever so slightly a few limitations between a Google, like, I think the biggest one I see is the Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint, but not much. I've had kids who have like, let teach or whatever, build full on presentations in Google Slides, and then they just send it to me. It's a usable, it is a presentable, it is a, uh, it is a, a product that has now competed with, with Microsoft's office, right? Microsoft's office has since tried to adapt and change. And so they've tried to create documents, word, Excel, and the like that you can edit, um, as you go so that like multiple contributors can view as those edits are taking place. Here's the thing, the reality is that Google is a superior product, and we all know it.

Nick Clason (05:01):
My favorite story about this is last summer, um, at the church I was at before they had switched everybody over to Microsoft Teams as a collaboration method, which teams was fine from a chat perspective. It's like slack light in my personal opinion. But, uh, what we would put all of our storage for like our camp messages in a Microsoft team's folder that was built through SharePoint, which is Microsoft's thing. Not one drive not to be confused with one drive again, so, so clear. I know. Um, and so you, I I, I would make a Word document in teams with a link to a Google doc, and then I would do alma editing in Google Docs. Why did I do that? A because it was very redundant to build something in Google Docs, which is where I was doing it, which was always evolving, always updating, always auto saving, versus having to copy and paste that over into Microsoft Teams every single time.

Nick Clason (05:57):
And then remember, Oh, yeah, I gotta go over there and update that in Microsoft Teams if anyone wants to see it. So, um, I said, everything in Google Docs, there's a story of a, a kid, um, in Ohio who worked at a painting company. Um, this is, this is from the, the Timmel Moore interview. And he says that he worked for a painting company and he posted a TikTok of himself mixing some paint. No big deal. But he got like, I think over a million views on it and, and, or I'm not sure, a million followers, something big, something in the millions. And so what he did, you know what he did? He went to his executives and he said, Hey, I think we're missing out on an untapped market. Um, and I think that, you know, he presented this whole pitch and he, he was surprised.

Nick Clason (06:42):
You know why? Because not only did they not go with his idea, they fired him because they said, You're not working on your, your your bo you're stealing from company time. This is the difference we're talking about between the generation gap, the office culture versus the hybrid work environment. And I think both sides have valid agreements. I think that the office side, like, Hey, gotta get there, gotta get your work done, gotta work hard, gotta be reliable, gotta be dependable. But I think that also there are new innovative ideas. And this painter guy, he lost his job, picked up, move from Ohio down to Florida, started his own painting company. It's like that's what's gonna happen, uh, as opposed to people adapting and conforming to old school ways of, of doing things. Instead, they're just gonna pick up and they're gonna leave. So how do you keep good, meaningful talent? How do you reach Generation Z that just thinks categorically, fundamentally differently? And how do you use their creativity that they have and the, the way that they see the world and the way that they, uh, interact with online and digital and the people around them? How can you use that to your advantage?

Nick Clason (07:57):
All right, What about using digital means to enhance in-person gatherings? When we all got shut down for Covid, uh, I think everybody had to turn to digital only as the option. And how do we replicate and reproduce what make what's happening in the room or in the building or in in room programming? How do we turn that into a completely fully digital experience? And the fact of the matter is, you can't, you cannot replicate and reproduce face to face engagement. Um, but you also, and the same is true on the flip side. You cannot replicate what happens online in the room. So let's use, um, my, my marriage with my wife, for example. We have a relationship, obviously we have two kids, so obviously, um, we live in a house, we do life together, like all the things. Uh, and she's at home. We'll text her out the day.

Nick Clason (08:57):
There'll be times where, uh, she'll call me on video and be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Give me your opinions on that. Um, we'll do all those types of things, right? Uh, and there's even been times where for extended weeks, either one of us is apart from the other. I mean, when we're part, like, that's, that's hard. Like that is a challenging moment for our relationship. You know what I mean? So what, uh, cuz eventually we, like, we want to be back together. So the same is true for your churches. Like what happens in a small group setting, one on one living life together in community, um, in Ko Ania Fellowship as the Greek word is family carrying one another's burdens, praying for one another, supporting one another, encouraging one another, admonishing one another. Those things can happen digitally, but they mostly and best happen together when you're knee and knee eyeball to eyeball, able to give a hug to one another.

Nick Clason (10:04):
So how do you use what is going on online with what is also happening in the room? So how can you use Instagram to be like a recap to post pictures, to post reels, as we've talked about on this podcast multiple times to do live voting. Like one of my favorite things is to have a live vote that's taking place in Instagram stories while programming or while you're, um, in room experience is taking place. You can use some of those things to, to drive up drum up engagement. What about TikTok? What about devotionals that you put on there that are tied to the most recent message or recaps that that flesh out the most recent idea, message, whatever. Um, another one, one of my all time favorites is what about reading the Bible? You version plans. What about doing that together? If you're in a small group, what about, uh, being in a a bible study, a you version plan together.

Nick Clason (11:06):
So what if you're reading at the same time, uh, throughout the week and then you come together in person to discuss it? See, these are all ways that we create this mesh of, of real life that something is happening digitally, but it's not looking to supplant or replace what's happening online, but it's looking to strategically come in alongside it and enhance and raise the bar on the overall experience. You know, I just got like a, a brand new, uh, the brand new Google Pixel phone, man. It is a, it is the biggest phone I've ever held in my hand. Like my thumb hurts now because I am not used to the reach that is required on me. But like when I open the home screen, it has the weather and then the first thing it has is it says, um, uh, projected commute, time to work, typical delays, moderate traffic.

Nick Clason (11:57):
Like that's pulling directly off of Google Maps because it knows where I am and where I live, and it knows where I work and what it takes to get there, right? That's an example of a hybrid enmeshment. How can the church offer more of that? I find so often that the defacto answer for the church is come online or not Come online, come, come on Sunday, see you nine o'clock and 10 30 and that's it, right? Like, hey, like, like you got an amazing tagline. Like, we wanna reach all people for all generations to know, follow, seek, and become great disciples of Jesus Christ. That's great. If it's catchy, better, whatever. And then what's the actions of, what's the call to action immediately out of that come to church? How can you use the digital resources that you have around you to enhance that, um, and to create moments where students, people, your congregants can connect with you and God throughout the other days of the week?

Nick Clason (13:05):
All right? I'm wondering if small is the new outreach method. When I was growing up in youth group, the outreach method was let's rent out a laser tag place. Let's, um, charge everybody five bucks. And for every friend you bring, it's a dollar off. And so if you bring five friends, you and all your friends get to go for a hundred percent completely free. You get unlimited video games, unlimited pizza, unlimited soda as much as you want. That was an amazing outreach event when I was a kid. Or yuck night, we get to throw, uh, food at 500 of our least closest friends and strangers, and we're walking away with mashed potatoes in our ears and we have to go home and we have to shower and take care of it and all this stuff, right? Like, what if those are not the most effective outreach tools anymore?

Nick Clason (13:57):
A recent study on Gen Z, um, and I, I may have referenced this before, I think I probably did from Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, they were able to conduct a survey of students that were still under the age of 18. So a lot of our Gen Z data is of Gen Zers, who are over the age of 18 because of consent reasons, but crossroads through their data department at their church, were able to survey the kids and granted in their church, So this is, you know, regional Cincinnati, um, but they're 76% of their non-churched generation Z students under the age of 18. So kids that are like viable eligible for their, uh, youth group or whatever, 76% of the not connected to church students said that they preferred smaller gatherings versus large parties. Our default I feel often in church, especially in youth ministry, is how are we gonna reach people?

Nick Clason (14:53):
Let's throw a big party. I mean that, gosh, it is so ingrained in me, like it is so hard to even break that. Like next week we're having a costume party. And so I'm thinking all the things, I'm pulling out all the stops, I'm doing all the hype. But the reality is like, how do we create more warm and more intimate environments for students? Because we, we sat down, uh, with our upperclassmen and our student ministry and we asked them like, um, we talked about what Wednesday nights looked like, and we said the purpose of that is for a lost person to come. And they're like, Yeah, but, but my friend wouldn't come to this. And it's like, first of all, a gut punch. Boom. Oh, but b like, okay, then what? Then why are we doing this? We're doing this because some version of a teenager's friend from 10, 15, 20 years ago, my friend from when I was in high school, would've come to the programming that I'm producing, but maybe not our current students and, and church leader hear me?

Nick Clason (15:52):
Because you're like, Well, yeah, well, I'm in, I'm in, you know, I do adult ministry, or I'm the lead pastor, I'm executive pastor, whatever. Like, great. However, Generation Z is not just teenagers. They are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 years old. And, and hear me when I say this, younger millennials are also in that same age, um, demographic. And in that same way of thinking, they're looking for more warm opportunities. I'll give you an example. Just start a new church. Uh, and their moniker is we're all about connect groups. We're all about connection, connection, connect, connection. Getting a connect group. The best way to take the next step in your faith is getting a connect group. Great. I agree with that. Every single stop of ministry I've been in along the way, I've been in some form of a small group, me and my wife, it's a thing we do.

Nick Clason (16:41):
We've made it a priority. We've woven it into our schedule. We've dug deep paid for babysitters, you know, done whatever we needed to do to make that happen. Okay? Well connect groups are on Sunday morning, which is also when student ministry programming is happening. And I'm, you know, responsible to be in the room for that. So if I want to connect as a staff member, there really is, there really is no way under the, the current existing framework of the church or my wife can go, but I can't. But if she wants to serve, then we're not gonna be able to go together, right? Like, I am looking for connection. I'm looking for something. I, and so if I'm asking, right, like, hey, are there any groups that that don't meet on campus, um, or that don't meet on Sunday morning? And the answer is yes, but they're unsanctioned.

Nick Clason (17:35):
Like they're not, they don't fall under the framework of the connect group strategy. They're prob they're not resourced the same way. So like, where do I find that small, like that more intimate type of gathering? And again, if, if you're, um, older and you have grown up in church in a while, like what you're probably hearing is okay, yeah, that's what you want, You're a pastor. But what's fascinating is we're hearing from our high schoolers that that's what they want to bring their friends to. Maybe not the kumbaya session, but like when their connect group does a barbecue, like they'll invite them to that when their connect group goes bowling, they'll invite them to that. When their connect group goes to laser tag, they'll invite them to that, and that's gonna be 10, 15, 20, 25 kids. But when the entire youth ministry goes to laser tag 500 kids, they're like, Nah, it's not me.

Nick Clason (18:28):
I'm out not interested. And so how do we create smaller, more warm environments? And guess what, guys? Guess what, Guess what? That's easier to reproduce than the large scale of it. You know, I think for years, especially as a youth pastor at smaller churches in smaller environments, what I would do is I would look to the big guys and I'd be like, Well, once I get there, I will have made it. And then all the kids will come flocking. And, and the irony, what I realized is that's honestly been the exact opposite or the bigger it's gotten, the more challenging it's been to try and figure out how to create and make it small, warm environment. Hey, once again guys, thank you for hanging out with me today. We are on Twitter @hybridministry. We are online hybridministry.xyz because of course, hybrid ministry.com was taken not being used, but taken. So check us out on there. You can get show notes. We have full transcripts. We provide and pay for that every single week. So I hope that you're taking advantage of that. And until next time, talk to you later. See ya!

Follow along on twitter - twitter.com/hybridministry

Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-0:58 – Intro
0:58-3:35 - Does Digital Ministry matter post-covid?
3:36-7:09 - What could a Hybrid Model even look like?
7:09-9:09 - The faltering faith of younger generations
9:09-13:43 - Inspecting Digital openness amongst Church attenders
13:43-16:29 - How to get started in the Digital Space
16:29-18:24 - How to expand teaching and preaching into the digital space
18:24-20:00 - The future of short-form video content
20:00-21:24 - The difference between a sermon and teaching online
21:24-22:23 - Short-form content is very digestible
22:23-23:44 - The advantage we have as church leaders in the digital space
23:44-32:50 - How to get started
32:51-35:28 - Fulfilling the Great Commission through Digital means

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Years ago, right? Uh, so 22. Yeah. Wow

Matthew Johnson (00:05):
Man.

Nick Clason (00:05):
And I didn't do the beard, right?

Matthew Johnson (00:07):
Yeah. You were doing the chin strap back then.

Nick Clason (00:09):
Yeah, I had that for oh gosh. And it was like, not very much.

Matthew Johnson (00:13):
no, , it's like just subtle it up.

Nick Clason (00:19):
Yeah. And now I've got this gigantic thing.

Matthew Johnson (00:23):
I love it.

Nick Clason (00:25):
Well, Hey everyone. Welcome to hybrid ministry podcast. On today's episode, we are gonna talk about how your church can reach gen Z and millennials here in 2022. Um, I'm your host, Nick Clason, along here with my friend, Matt Johnson, Matt, how you doing?

Matthew Johnson (00:43):
Doing right? It's uh, a little early. I see the sun rising right now of the sky, but it's actually very peaceful and I'm loving it.

Nick Clason (00:51):
Yeah. You have coffee going yet or did you just, yeah. Okay. Smart. Smart.

Matthew Johnson (00:55):
Got some cold brew right here.

Nick Clason (00:57):
Nice. Okay. So, uh, I wanna talk about this idea of hybrid, you know, and, uh, like, like we said, in the pilot, there's a lot of, there's a lot of thought. I think amongst church leaders about, um, digital being kind of pitted against physical, um, and Barna actually came out with the study recently. I'm sure you've seen this because you're the one who told me to look at it. uh, that said, um, a solely digital church expression is wanted by only about 9% of Christians. So, um, when you read that, do you feel like that's a, do you feel like that is a push towards the, the physical expression? Like what would be your response to that?

Matthew Johnson (01:40):
Yeah, when I read that, it there's, I think there's a lot there in this study that Barnett did, but specifically this stat, what stood out the most about it is that when COVID happened, the answer was immediately, well, everything has to go a hundred percent digital or we're staying a hundred percent physical. There was no conversation about an in between at all. And you rooted uprooted people from their, you know, their daily lives, their weekly habits of every Sunday morning, I wake up and I, you know, go to my local church down the street or whatever to, okay. I gotta sit in my living room and watch church. And there's a huge disconnect that you started feeling with that. So, um, I think that's why digital church is drastically dropped and you can kind of see those numbers at, in the church in general. Um, and I mean, the stats says it all only 9% of, you know, Christians want only digital, which is not very high when you look at, you know, Christian numbers. So, um, but what it does say is there's still people that want that. So that's something we have to also keep in mind as we go forward.

Nick Clason (02:54):
Yeah. And if you, if you read on it actually says, um, so only 9% say they, they only that, and I think that that word only is what's key there. Right. Because it says one third express that some sort of hybrid option would suit them. Well. Yeah. So that's, that's 33%. Right. And then as you, as you inspect deeper into the generational gaps, millennials and gen Z are just as likely to choose a hybrid option as they are to choose a physical option. So 40 versus 42%. So like that, and that's the wave of the future, right? Yep. So, so what in your mind, like, what does, what, what does a hybrid option even look like? Or do we know, or do we know yet?

Matthew Johnson (03:40):
I don't think we have so a solid answer, but I think we have a lot of, um, balls rolling at different churches around the nation and you can kind of start seeing what a hybrid option looks like. So, uh, a good example, some of good examples that you could think of that. I mean, everyone talks about life. Church, life church is a great digital presence. Mm-hmm, , you know, they're live online. I mean, pretty much every time I go to their website, this says we're live right now. So , um, which is honestly why, uh, life church has probably been able to hit the millennial demographic better than most big mega churches have been able to.

Matthew Johnson (04:23):
Interesting because they have had that option where, Hey, I can go to church. Um, life church has locations everywhere now, but also I can just watch online. And that's the key to this. What we're talking about is like reaching these younger people. So even millennials who we are starting to see have kind of been a forgotten generation when it comes to the Christian world, the gen Z, who, um, we're starting to realize are going to be forgotten. And we have no idea how to talk to gen Z. Uh, how do we get these younger people involved with church as much as they are involved with other aspects of their life. Um, and if we can have that hybrid option, which really in my mind, we need to have an offering that they can do as much as possible as they can in the digital realm of your church, but have the reliability of coming to the church for all the major stuff. So crisises, um, community questions, mm-hmm, , uh, like, uh, conversations. Cause we know, especially you being a pastor, you know, you can have a way better conversation with somebody if they come have a coffee with you, then if they just tweet at you.

Nick Clason (05:49):
Yeah, for sure. So, well, and, and a step that you always remind me of is 51% of gen Z have said that they prefer online only as a discipleship option. Yep. And that's literally half can't get more. Yeah. I mean it's a little more than half, but so it's like, that is important and that that's half of our demographic. And so if we, as a church for sake, uh, any form or any sort of digital, uh, we're missing half of a generation based on what they say that they want. Yep.

Nick Clason (06:22):
And so we gotta, we can, we don't have to do that. We don't have to pursue after that, but we just have to know what the cost of that is gonna be. And the, I, I just think that the church is in a spot where they're the church being the capital C church, like in person, church, attendance trends are different and I get it cuz digital costs money. And so with attendance, a lot of times follows money. And so you gotta make sure that you have what it takes to, to staff towards these things and to pay for these things and have the budget for these things. Right. But yep. But uh, if we don't, we're just gonna continue to reach people as they are aging, older and older as gen Z, millennials are finding their worth meaning and value over on TikTok or on YouTube.

Matthew Johnson (07:10):
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you can already see this trend of the younger generation's faith faltering drastically, like the Gallup study that you and I just talked about where, you know, uh, we went from 78% of 18 to 35 year olds had faith in God to now we're down to 68% and that's in what, six years. So that is, um, crazy, crazy aspect that we're not thinking about. And I'm telling you, um, we can keep doing church the way we've always done it, but the church is just gonna consistently be behind. And there's the running joke in the church world. And the church world is always five years late. You know, we always, you know, oh yeah, we're finally gonna add a guitar on stage. And everyone's like, well, rock music been around for 15 years. So, um, that's just the running church joke. We're a little slower to adapt, but we can't be slow to adapt in this climate because every day that we take our time on adapting is faith is all deteriorating. Hmm. So that's something we gotta keep in mind.

Nick Clason (08:20):
Well, and I, and you know, I wanna be clear like you and I like, we're not people that are like over here trying to like crap on the church. Like, oh, we love the church and

Matthew Johnson (08:29):
Yeah. We work at a church, so

Nick Clason (08:31):
Yeah. And we think that the church is like, I believe that Jesus made the church, his primary number one, uh, right. Yeah. Way to way to reach the world, you know? So like I think there's good things out there. I think there's good para church type ministries. Good, good people like on TikTok and YouTube trying to do things, but like the church should enter into this space, you know, and not just leave it up for some 15 year old influencer, you

Matthew Johnson (08:56):
Know? Exactly. Yep. Yeah. The church is not going anywhere. I wanna be clear about that. Like the church is solid, we're strong, it's the church just needs a little bit of a, a shift in, you know, it's something that everyone is talking about currently.

Nick Clason (09:09):
So, so Barnett had an interesting thing in their study, um, and they called it digital openness. So that's church adults who were defined as having digital openness. And so these are sort of the five kind markers of that. So I just wanna run through them. And then when you, and I can kind of think about, 'em talk about 'em the first one is, um, uh, a church adult with digital openness sees the value of attending an online church service. Um, they also think that churches should use digital resources for spiritual formation or discipleship purposes, post pandemic. They think that churches should use digital resources for gathering their people together after the pandemic as well. Number four, they say either hybrid. So both a digital and a physical or a primarily digital church will best fit their lifestyle after the pandemic. And they're open to attending new kinds of online gatherings that are unfamiliar.

Nick Clason (10:07):
So like we said, this is the type of, I feel like, I mean, you're millennial, I'm a millennial. Like these are things that like both you and I would hold as values, like having, having an option to attend something. Like, I guess the starkest picture I have of it. Matt is a couple weeks ago in our youth ministry. I was in the room. Um, and we were meeting in the room with our teenagers and leaders. And um, one of my leaders had a question about an event coming up and rather than her tracking me down, uh, she pulled up our website to try and find an answer to it. Um, and she, but she couldn't. And so we're in the room and she's on her online device trying to figure it out. And she's trying to, she's trying to get answers to it until finally she's like, Hey, like she's flagged me down as I was walking by.

Nick Clason (10:57):
And she's like, I can't find the answer to it. And I was like, oh, well that's cuz we didn't put it on there. Um, so that's our fault, but I just, again, right. Like that's an example right there of where digital meets physical. Like that's the type of world that we're living in. And I don't think that in the church in general, I don't think we're thinking about it often in that type of way. I think we're like trying to replicate a physical expression onto digital mm-hmm and I don't know, I, I do think that people are tired of that post COVID, but I do think that there are other avenues or other, um, other ways that people can try, uh, that churches can try to enter into that kind of hybrid space. So mm-hmm um, and another thing I thought was interesting, I'll read through these and then wanna kind of chat and just pick your brain as, yeah.

Nick Clason (11:43):
These, these are some of the options, um, of things that people thought could be like a, a digital expression or like a hybrid version. Right? So teaching slash preaching, one-on-one prayer, small groups, all of this in like the hybrid space, worship, prayer visitation, confession children's ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry, the number one option on there was teaching and preaching. And I find that so interesting that that was the thing that, that people thought was the number one option, um, of them to be able to, uh, experience something digitally mm-hmm . So for some reason I said this to you the other day. So for some reason in the church, the, the, we determined the most effective way to communicate theological truth was through a pastor preaching in a pulpit mm-hmm , that's no longer the most effective way. And I think for a lot of us in church, like that's a little bit of a terrifying proposition, cuz that, that means we're getting rid of something that is age old and, and someone we've been doing for years. And I'm, I'm not, I'm not even sure I necessarily want to do that either. But the fact is like, we, we now have the internet, we now have podcasts. We now have all kinds of other ways that we can communicate theological truths. So what are some of those ways that you could see the church stepping in to sort of that hybrid space and some of those, you know, arenas. Cause I think if, if you're the average person listening to this, you're like, okay, all these thoughts sound great, but like what should I do?

Matthew Johnson (13:21):
Yeah. Where do I, where do I start at? Yeah. So a big thing I even wanna highlight is this is just church adults that are saying this, so this

Nick Clason (13:29):
That's

Matthew Johnson (13:29):
Good point. Yeah. This isn't even like our agnostic, the atheist, the spiritually questioning people at all. This is just your people that are in your congregation right now are saying they need this mm-hmm um, so when I, uh, some good examples of some easy things that you can start doing today, um, that do that, don't take a lot of time and if you wanna, they can grow and they, they can be a good foundation building block for you. So, uh, first of all, teaching and preaching with record, just throw a camera up, record, whatever you're teaching your preaching is honestly. Um, we do know if you're trying to reach your church. People like honestly, all you could do is just throw that as an audio and make that a podcast and put that on your website and say, Hey, here's pastor bills or, uh, you know, pastor Toms, you know, sermon from this last week or whatever, something super easy that you guys can start creating the digital presence.

Matthew Johnson (14:34):
But some other easy stuff is like, just create a Facebook group for your church. Um, just, uh, or if you have like multiple different ministries in your church, create Facebook groups for all of them, invite your volunteers into there, invite the people that, you know, wanna be involved with those groups and start cultivating those relationships in a setting that is designed for that. And, uh, you're gonna realize most people, especially, uh, higher millennial up are gonna be very open to going into those Facebook groups. Now, when you're trying to hit gen Z and stuff, you're gonna have to get a little more creative with what your digital presence looks like. Um, cuz we know, first of all, they're slowly going off of Instagram. We know they're not really involved on Facebook anymore. And really the world that's they're they're in is like TikTok and Snapchat mm-hmm um, and those avenues are just vastly different, but I mean download TikTok and start making some fun videos. If you fill up to it, uh, there's some easy wins that you could start doing right now. And then if you really wanna start like strategizing, okay, what can we do? Um, as a church here is like digitally, uh, do you have a church bulletin that you give out every week that you're still printing, make that digital, just put that online. You can still have it physical, but give a digital option for it. Um, yeah,

Nick Clason (15:58):
At least let the people be able to find it on Tuesday night. Exactly. If they have a question about the, the Wednesday event coming up tomorrow,
Matthew Johnson (16:05):
Exactly like have, have all that in mind for any resources you're making and I guarantee you're making this stuff on your computer, so just upload it digitally instead of printing it and make a easy avenue for people to access that stuff. So, um, those are some quick easy wins. And then if we wanna get more complex, you know, there's thousands and thousands of things we can

Nick Clason (16:29):
Start to do. Yeah. Well, I mean I'm thinking, right. So if in this list here that I read already teaching preaching 1 0 1 small groups, uh, 1 0 1 prayer, small groups, worship visitation, confession children's youth adult ministry, the number one option out of that was teaching. Yeah. So we can deliver, um, our teaching yes. On a Sunday morning in a large group gathering of some sort, but both through, like you're saying ripping down audio, maybe throwing up a camera and creating it, uh, a video to put on YouTube. We can take that content though and repurpose it. And so, especially as we're talking gen Z, um, and millennials, uh, you know, I remember you telling me the other day, like everything on Instagram and Facebook is trending towards Instagram, uh, and Facebook reals. Yeah. Because they're trying to keep up with TikTok. Yep. And so this short form video is kind of king right now, at least at the time of this recording.

Nick Clason (17:27):
And yeah, we in the church are in the business of content creation. We create content every single week. So what if we just took and parsed out elements of our sermon from Sunday morning and just shot that in some sort of short form video content, like either leading up to the sermon or, uh, coming after the sermon, operating as some sort of like recap or something and just shooting it in with a little bit of a different mindset, same content, take all your study, everything you did, all the passages that you studied and did exegesis on. And then just bring that into like a one minute short form video and start flooding some of those places. I think that's a way that you can, you can take your digital or I'm sorry, your physical expression and bring it out into a digital world and kind of lean into that. That hybridness would you, what do you think about that?

Matthew Johnson (18:22):
Oh, I can't agree more and even speed of short term content, Instagram believes in it so much that they literally, this week as we're recording this updated Instagram, that every video is now real. So they have said,

Nick Clason (18:36):
I saw that yesterday. Yeah. I, I saw, I was like what? That's a real, yeah.

Matthew Johnson (18:39):
Yeah. So they're, they're saying this is where we're headed and it's to compete with TikTok. Um, so yeah, take your teaching and your preaching and just splice that up into some one minute service, uh, one minute clips and stuff. And let me talk, it's super easy to be able to do that. Um, I mean you can do that an I movie that's already on your iPhone or you can download a free video software, like black magic that is very easy to do on, I know it's a crazy name, black magic, but don't get scared by it. It's just a company and, uh, you can, uh, you know, start cutting up video today and honestly start, uh, growing your digital presence there, um, very easily.

Nick Clason (19:23):
So you, yeah, so you can either record your sermon and take clips off of that. Um, but I, I personally think if you don't, you know, if you don't have the technology for that, you don't have a camera set in the back of the room yet, and you're just starting in this, like all start recording audio, like the best camera that you have access to is the one in your pocket. Yep. You know, the, the, the, the phone now they say has more computing power than the computer that landed us on the moon. Oh yeah. Uh, back with NASA and, and Armstrong and everything like that. So just get your phone out and record short five short form videos as like, just snippets of your sermon, you know? Yep. And the difference, you know, Matt, like I was telling, I was talking about this last week with some of our team, like the difference between a sermon and a sermon.

Nick Clason (20:08):
You keep, you kind of build to like a climax and then you like have like a grand reveal at the end. Um, uh, social media is different. Like you gotta hit, you gotta hit your, your topics straight away. Um, and not, not hold it back. And so for preachers, sometimes it's a little bit of a different, uh, philosophy, right. But if you get on TikTok and you start exploring, you'll learn kind of that archetype pretty fast, you know? Yeah. That's anyone who's good and performing well on there. They're probably using that, that strategy. Yep. So have a compelling hook, um, and have some compelling text there. That's gonna stop the scroll because what, like, what's the average watch time on TikTok,

Matthew Johnson (20:50):
Like right now.

Nick Clason (20:52):
Yeah. I don't know. Like it's, it feels like if it's not good, you're just gonna swipe right. Past it to the next

Matthew Johnson (20:56):
Thing about, yeah. I mean, usually the average watch time is about seven seconds, which is why TikTok seven, second videos typically get pushed higher in their algorithm.

Nick Clason (21:05):
Yeah. And even as a church, you can even take some sermon content and put that in a seven second video. Right. Like you can, you can do one of those videos that has like way too much text to read in seven seconds. And so it's gonna force people to rewatch it, which is also gonna tell the algorithm like, Hey, this is a good video show this to more people.

Matthew Johnson (21:25):
Yes. Yep. And something else that's super important about that short form content right now is the fact of how digestible it is. Yeah. So when you're reaching millennial and gen Z and we're, let's think of like youth leaders, you're mostly gonna be reaching you to gen Z right now. Um, you're going, they're gonna want that short, digestible content that they can share with other people, or they don't have to think wrong about at all. So that content doesn't have to be the super polished piece. Mm-hmm I, I want to like, make sure that we're pretty clear about that. Like if you look at YouTube, um, and what people are watching, like most of these guys are just, you know, taking their iPhone and they're recording themselves and then they post it and it's get millions of views now. So, uh, that as long as the content is solid and it's short and digestible, you're gonna be totally fine.

Nick Clason (22:23):
Yeah. And I, I think that's the piece that, that also, so, you know, number one, we are content creators by nature in the church. And then number two, uh, the level of Polish, uh, has really diminished. In fact, I think some, some things that are so polished are sometimes a little bit of a turnoff mm-hmm to gen Z and millennials. And so both of those things bode well for you and I, because I don't need a several thousand dollars camera aside from the one that's already, probably on my phone. Right. Yeah. And I don't, I don't need to re like, gosh, man, I can't imagine if I was like a washer and dryer company trying to do social media. Like, what would I do? But I'm a church. Like I have, I have hundreds and thousands of pieces of content on my hard drive right now of old sermons. I've preached, like I can dust those off and I can turn those into short form video content and use it as a way to, you know, to reach people. So, yeah. Um, and it's not even, it's not even bad, like, it's, there's a lot of like serious or like thought provoking things on TikTok. It's not just dancing and, and trend videos. Like those things are on there for sure. But you know, like you can, you can, uh, find an audience there on, on TikTok, super easy by doing some type of stuff.

Matthew Johnson (23:42):
So, absolutely. Yeah.

Nick Clason (23:44):
So, um, if, if Matt, if, um, you were someone's, um, marketing consultant and they were saying, Hey, we have nothing. You know, we don't even record our sermons. We don't have a camera in the back of the room. Um, what are the, what was be three to five things that within the next like month, you could see a church maybe start to start to take steps towards, to enter more into this hybrid world to reach millennials and gen Z.

Matthew Johnson (24:10):
Oh yeah. So let's see, you have no digital presence at all. You're a church of, you know, 300, let's say a hundred. Yeah. Small plant. Um, just getting going. Uh, I was actually just talking to a church that has 50 in Denver. Um, and, uh, some of the stuff I would tell you is, okay, so create a Facebook page, start there, get a Facebook page going and a Facebook group going for your church. And just,

Nick Clason (24:38):
And by the page, you mean the, like the business, the thing so that you could be able to run ads off that if you wanted to

Matthew Johnson (24:45):
Yeah. Yeah. Creative Facebook business page, um, for your church, that is just a place that people can come like and make comments and you can start posting content on. So Sunday morning, pull out your phone, take a photo of the outside of your building and just say, come join us and give me the service times or whatever, like start, just start, um, pushing stuff on to digital platforms. And I also say create a Facebook group. Um, whatever that group looks like for you, I would really strategize and think about what you're trying to do with it. Um, don't just create a Facebook group just cuz oh, you know, these guys are telling me to create a Facebook group, like think about what that group should be, but really that group should be a place that your community can come together and start talking to each other. And there's not a lot of work you have to do for that. You create the Facebook group, you come in and put a post and let people facilitate those conversations. And if it gets, uh, little rowdy or crazy, you can start, you know, facilitating it. But I highly doubt that's gonna happen as you're getting going. Um,

Nick Clason (25:46):
Well, and you can even do like, and like you're saying like strategize, right? So you can be like, okay, every Monday we're gonna post like the, the song set from Sunday or something like that. Exactly. And then every, every Wednesday we're gonna do a Facebook live at noon and the pastor's gonna jump on and do a devotional. Then every Friday we're gonna do like a funny Friday and we're gonna post like a meme or something like that. Exactly. It can be that skeleton of a, a strategy because in a group you're hoping that everyone else kind of drives the conversation. And so you don't even really unlike Instagram or unlike TikTok, where you have to continually kind of feed the content yep. A group you can let the other people be like, be creating that

Matthew Johnson (26:24):
Absolutely like post post questions. Like what can we be praying for you for this week? Uh, what's going on in the community this week? Is there any volunteer opportunities like really get that conversation, just going, just spark the conversation and sit back and let everyone go. Um,

Nick Clason (26:39):
Okay. So get on Facebook,

Matthew Johnson (26:40):
Get on Facebook. Yep. And then, uh, another great thing is to start, like we said, making short term video, short term video content, and I'm, if you don't have a smartphone, which there's probably not a lot of us out here, that'd be listening to this podcast right now that don't have a smartphone. Um, so pull out your smartphone, take your sermon notes that just look at your sermon notes and find the minute chunks in there that you like and record that real quick vertical. Just shoot it vertical, throw it on your Facebook. Um, you can from Facebook post it strike to Instagram. Mm-hmm and there's not a lot of work there for you and that's gonna start getting your digital presence up too. And I, what I say is like, find those minute chunks, or even if you are like, you, you could speak into this more too, Nick, cuz you're obviously a pastor, but like, you know, you write your sermon and you go, okay, I know I'm gonna summarize this in a minute. I have my synopsis of what this is like record that though that on camera.

Nick Clason (27:45):
Um, yeah, honestly, I'm like it's, it's, , it's a little bit of a bummer how I can like preach a message for 30 minutes and then I can take my outline and basically summarize it in five minutes and do a five part series on TikTok. And I'm like, oh, what was I doing up there for 30 minutes?

Matthew Johnson (28:03):
You just have more stories of illustrations and

Nick Clason (28:06):
You. Exactly. And then the other thing you'd say is try and start recording your, your audio so that you can have a audio podcast. Would that be one of your things or is that not even as high on the list for

Matthew Johnson (28:18):
You? Um,

Matthew Johnson (28:21):
So the thing is, is if you have a audio set up at all at your church, so usually you, you know, it could be the most basic soundboard in the world, which you probably have right now you can throw an SD card and their press record while you're on stage. So I would say, yeah, go ahead and make your audio content a podcast right now, as long as you have that soundboard. Um, but I'm, if you have a mic set, as long as you're not, you know, using a mic, like a karaoke mic, you should be able to do that, but don't go buy new equipment yet until you're ready for that next step. Cuz here's what happened during the pandemic and all these guys I talked to as I was consulting with churches and figuring out how to help them go digital or okay, I'm gonna go buy these three Sony cameras.

Matthew Johnson (29:07):
We're gonna have this three camera set up. Uh, we're gonna have some students in the back, you know, try to figure out what we're doing. Hey, uh, Matt, what is all the equipment I need? And my answer always was like, first of all, okay, if you had the budget for equipment, let's talk, but don't go get the top tier of anything. You don't know where this is headed for you guys. So yeah. Tweak your time. Um, and really have a figure out that strategy, not just the, oh, everyone's doing this, so I need to do this before you go do it. So, um, yeah, get that podcast going, uh, the audio for that podcast or whatever that looks like for your congregation or your group going, that's gonna help you digitally. Um, and then, you know, another easy thing to do is, like I said, you know, post that short term content on like, uh, Instagram and Facebook. Like if you are already starting to post social and stuff, like start posting doesn't necessarily like not graphics per se, but like just take a photo outside and go, how can I be praying through this week?

Nick Clason (30:14):
Yeah.

Matthew Johnson (30:15):
Or, uh, take a photo of worship this week and go, Hey, what worship songs would you wanna see this? You know, this semester or whatever, like you can start asking those questions that are related to those options that you were talking about earlier. So, um, you can really start figuring out what it is that people are looking for with your group.

Nick Clason (30:35):
Yeah, well like we recently doubled down in our student ministry on, on TikTok and on reels. Um, and we actually pulled back on some of the more formal, uh, or traditional styles of posting like on Instagram or whatever. Yeah. And we just used, uh, we're just using our short form video content sort of supplement in those areas. So for example, like I was trying to post a story a day and I was trying to post something on the Instagram feed a day and I scaled those back cuz I saw those starting to underperform a little bit mm-hmm um, but I saw our reels and our TikTok content starting to skyrocket. And so I was like, all right, instead of five things a day or five things a week on the feed, let's just move it down to three, make it really quality content, like get a nice photo.

Nick Clason (31:23):
Um, and then the rest, um, of everything and just throw, throw that short form video content. So again, like we were saying, depending on when you're listening to this at the time of the recording like that right now is everything. Yeah. And the beautiful thing is that doesn't require a lot of, you know, like software knowhow, like you can edit right in the app, like TikTok has a decent editor. So does reels, like you don't have to have Adobe premiere pro or any video skills. And like you said, you have, you have the ability to just shoot that kind of raw on the cell phone. That's sitting already in your pocket. So yeah. And what was that back to podcasting? What's that HubSpot stat? You said about uh, uh, the average adult and podcast.

Matthew Johnson (32:10):
Yeah. Listenership. Yeah. I think it's 84% of people listen to eight hours of podcast a week. And I know I'm one of those guys, like, you know, I've, I've always listened to podcast. You don't even realize how much is I listen to when I run, I listen to, when I drive, I listen to it. When I'm cooking, I listen to it when I'm doing housework, like I'm always listening to, you know, my podcast. So, um, you wanna be where people are. So as you start seeing where your people are, know that to go for them and you're gonna hear people go, well, I don't listen to podcasts. Remember we are, we're here talking about millennial and gen Z. They listen to podcasts. yeah, I promise so

Nick Clason (32:51):
Well, I think that's a great way to put the, I think great way to end it. You said go where people are, cuz that's what this is about. And if we look, if we pull this all the way back from, from the great commission of Jesus, which is to go out and make disciples of all nations like it, when, when we dovetail that off of the acts one eight, uh, commission, where he says, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea Samaria, and then ultimately to the ends of the earth, it's this ripple effect. But it starts where you are. So find where the people are. Yeah. There's, there's a quote that said theology is all the more important today because there are so many messages being delivered into your home that you need to be able to determine then what is actually true? that quote came from CS Lewis in the 1950s.

Nick Clason (33:37):
Yeah. When the advent of television was coming into the, to the American and, and world's home, right? Imagine the, the importance of that same idea, that same quote now with not only television, but internet, YouTube, TikTok, cell phones, advertising, all the things like that. Like the, the time is now like the amount of untruth that's out there. And so the world needs you, the world needs your church and your people and millennials and gen Z. Like they, they do, I, what I've seen as a youth pastor, they do care about spiritual stuff. Oh yeah. They just don't think the church wants to talk about the spiritual stuff that matters to them. Yeah. So don't be afraid to Wade into that space because oh yeah. Because relationship equals influence and so you can help to start build that through, uh, some of your digital channels.

Matthew Johnson (34:30):
Mm-hmm yep. Totally agree.

Nick Clason (34:33):
All right. Well I think that'll do it for us, uh, today. Any, any final thoughts, Matt?

Matthew Johnson (34:39):
No, just go get it and just start, you know? Yeah. Go, just start. Um, your digital presence. That's all I can say. Like that's the thing that we, we can sit here and talk to strategize, but just go shoot your first video. Go create your Facebook or whatever that looks like. Just take that first step. You guys got this.

Nick Clason (34:56):
Yeah. Well, Hey forever. You update on this. Follow us on Twitter at hybrid ministry, uh, website is hybrid ministry.xyz because of course.com was taken and uh, and uh, yeah. Be sure to subscribe, share it with friends. And uh, we'll talk to you guys next time.

Matthew Johnson (35:14):
Hey, thanks guys.