SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/177

Games
https://www.patreon.com/posts/9-amazing-dym-142425755?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

FREE E-Book
https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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

//Social Team Checklist
https://www.patreon.com/posts/social-media-138081327?source=storefront

30 CONNECTION IDEAS
https://www.patreon.com/posts/30-small-group-141961735?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

CALENDAR
https://www.patreon.com/posts/winter-spring-141564188?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

SURPRISE MYSTERY DISH
Hybrid Heroes Patreon Membership
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry

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

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🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
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

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 4 Course Feast for Youth Workers
00:40 Appetize
02:21 Side-Dish
05:33 Main Course
06:46 Dessert
07:30 Mystery Course - 2x Growth Strategy

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Thanksgiving's over. I got one more meal left for you. I have four courses of thankfulness that I am serving up right now, in every single one of them. As a free resource for you. The youth worker. From games to social media to small group material and calendars, and the one secret dish that is the exact strategy that I used to double my youth ministry in just under two years.

00:00:23:17 - 00:00:44:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I will show you how you, if you stick around to the end of the episode, can unlock that template and start using it in your youth ministry this week. So before you crash on the couch, grab a four piece record. This one's for you. Welcome, everyone, to the Hybrid Ministry Show and Happy Thanksgiving! Well, hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show.

00:00:44:13 - 00:01:14:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As always, I am your host, Nick Claussen. And happy Thanksgiving. At least that's the day that this episode drops. Whether you are watching it on actual Thursday of Thanksgiving or you are catching up after the holidays, we are glad that you are here. And I have four freebies that I am giving out today, so all of those are linked down below in the podcast or YouTube description, as well as one template that is going to change everything for your youth ministry if you fully lean in and adopt it.

00:01:14:13 - 00:01:38:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But let's go ahead and get started. The first freebie is actually nine freebies. It is nine free games. These are all different games that I, in my time as an author and a youth pastor, have created and submitted to download Youth Ministry. And many of them are a part of a series. And so, you know, if you are a download Youth Ministry member that you get store credit.

00:01:38:14 - 00:02:05:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you like any of these, you can go back and you can grab some of them in the future with some of your store credit. And then I believe one of the games is actually a three part that I'm including. And so it's not exactly nine. It's like 12. So, head down to the description, down below in the podcast or in YouTube and check out my nine favorite free dim resources on the store.

00:02:05:06 - 00:02:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
All given to you for free as just a way to say thank you. I'm thankful and I'm grateful for you as a subscriber, as a Patreon member, or as an email, newsletter, contributor. So we're excited to have you guys a part of the hybrid ministry universe. This next one here, I, I've honed over time, and I've been giving away a completely free e-book for as long as I can remember.

00:02:32:00 - 00:02:53:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I guess it's not as long as this show's been around. But then, probably a year and a half ago, I want to say, or two years ago, I was asked by my friend Derek Prescot, who is, one of the gatekeepers over at Download Youth Ministry. If I could provide a mystery item for the, the dim, member, downloads.

00:02:53:24 - 00:03:15:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I gave I made a refresh to my hybrid ministry e-book and my original e-book, my original like strategy for youth pastors was post, you know, two times a day or whatever. And I have content to support the ability for you to do that two times a day. And that's actually how much we still post on social media in our student context.

00:03:15:03 - 00:03:34:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I've found over time as a coach, you pastors. And which, by the way, I do offer coaching. So you can check out that down below. Not free, but you can check it out. So part of this that is tends to be a little bit too much. And I'm also in like a free cohort right now. Also, Daire Pinker, the youth ministry leader cohort, fantastic free resource that I've partnered with.

00:03:34:21 - 00:03:55:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I'm taking, some other youth workers or church communications people through a social media deep dive, cohort. And so, ten pieces of content is a lot because there's a lot on our plate. Not anymore. It's Thanksgiving, it's over. It's all gone. But there's a lot on our plate. Workwise. And so I've adjusted my e-book and now I'm giving this one away for free.

00:03:55:05 - 00:04:17:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this is my honed in once the complete guide to crush. So social media and youth ministry. If you downloaded any of my seasonal social media packs, this has been an included piece to that. Now I'm giving this away standalone for free. So if you're interested in that, or if you've downloaded my audiobook and now you want this one, this is probably the one I'm going to start pushing out here going forward.

00:04:17:15 - 00:04:50:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Three reasons for why you should do social media. The state of youth ministry, social media as it stands today via some informal data and some informal polls. And then what you should do in a simple three times per week posting schedule along and complete with different content ideas. And so one of the videos linked in this e-book will give you like 8 or 9 different styles of videos that you can start doing as well as, if you, our Patreon member, you know, that we talk about, every single week.

00:04:50:23 - 00:05:14:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ways that you can get involved. And the seasonal social pack will also give you other templates and archetypes that you can use. So this is free down below in the description or in podcast. Go grab it if you want to, lean into social media and start crushing it in your youth ministry. More than just posting static standard Canva graphics, or the ones that you can download from free social media packs.

00:05:14:06 - 00:05:30:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As good as those are, and frankly, as better designed as those can be, those just aren't the things that perform very well on social media. So if you really want to crush it, you probably need to start creating and finding a way to create a little bit of custom content that highlights your name, your faces, and your people on your social media.

00:05:30:20 - 00:06:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this e-book will tell you exactly how to go about doing that. The third gift, the third freebie that I'm giving away here is my 30 connections idea. This is a free small group. This is a free small group resource for your small group leaders and actually an episode linked right here. I went through and I toured our leader workroom, and this is a digital, thing, a digital download that we allow our, our people to have, in our leader website.

00:06:02:28 - 00:06:23:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so it's 30 different ideas, like 30 different icebreaker ideas for small group leaders. And so myself and a couple former staff members and I put this together. And so like ten of the ideas or mine, ten of the ideas are there's ten of the ideas or someone else's. And then we compiled, we collaboratively edited, and then now we offer and give this away to our small group leaders.

00:06:23:05 - 00:06:45:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So there may be some like particular language is kind of like aimed at like small group leaders in my church and in my context. But this is really, really a good and fantastic resource that you can use. It's PDF. Go ahead, grab it and download it, print it, share it, whatever you to do and give it to your small group leaders and be a hero and save yourself tons and tons of time.

00:06:45:22 - 00:07:08:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the fourth, gift, the fourth course of this meal is my, calendar template. This is our, upcoming spring calendar shape and template and colors. And so you can take this, and then you can just add your own icons in your own text on top of it. And then you can get it printed on like a magnet, which is what I do, over on, place like sticker mule.

00:07:08:08 - 00:07:25:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Or you can just get it printed out on like cardstock or something big. Using something like Vistaprint or your own, you know, church's printer or whatever, you, whatever you choose to use. But all you gotta do is just put some text on top of this, some icons, maybe a QR code, and you are off to the races and it's fully customized to your context.

00:07:25:23 - 00:07:56:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I've given you the backbone for it and the template, and hopefully you find it helpful. The last secret mystery dish that is included in all of this, right? This is my two X strategy. Youth ministry in three years, because we leaned in, we adopted this strategy. We've seen two x growth. Now, there are other factors I would imagine, beyond just this strategy, but baked into everything that we do, we are always trying to lean in and ask the question, like how can our youth ministry be more hybrid?

00:07:56:05 - 00:08:28:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this is my hybrid hero's $4 per month membership to you. Here's the truth. If you buy this out of your personal money, it is less than the cost of a Starbucks cup of coffee per month. $4 per month. Included in is all the freebies that I just gave. Like, those are for everyone. Those are all included over on my Patreon as well as it will unlock the seasonal social media pack, which is the exact strategy if you download that, you don't even have to try and create that strategy from scratch.

00:08:28:12 - 00:08:47:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can just plug and play what I've provided. Now half of them are done for you, right? Which means like plug and play. Off you go. Those are the easy ones, but those aren't the as well performing ones. Those just keep your social media feed afloat. And they they, create a little bit of proof of life, like there's something going on here.

00:08:47:16 - 00:09:13:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The real key to this is the custom part of it, where your faces, your leaders, your students are filmed. And then you can edit them on any sort of editor, any sort of phone editor, and then you can get them posted to your social media. And in all of that, also over on my shop, as a bonus, is my social media checklist for creating a student ministry social media team.

00:09:13:08 - 00:09:44:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can, send students or adult volunteer leaders or recruit another staff person to take this over so that it's not on your plate. You're the brains behind it. You create the strategy, and then you deploy and enlist your volunteers. And if you put this $4 per month membership to your on your church card and call it, continuing development, it's only $48 over 12 months, and it gives you access to all of my social media packs, as well as a weekly bonus podcast where I.

00:09:44:07 - 00:10:02:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In just a minute, I'm going to click, stop on this video, and I'm going to go over and I'm going to record my weekly recap of what we did in our youth ministry and in our student ministry, how our hybrid ministry strategy is going, what we tried in our program, what went well, what we would scrap. And you can use that as your weekly debrief sounding board.

00:10:02:15 - 00:10:23:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's only $4, per month, and it ends up being $48 for the year. And it would be incredibly helpful, for me if you jumped in on it. But I think it could also be incredibly helpful for you, because it will take care. It will literally pick up social media and take it completely off of your Thanksgiving plate, which in most cases is a bummer.

00:10:23:12 - 00:10:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But in this case, as it pertains to workload, it frees you up to do more teaching, to do more counseling, to have more meetings, to have more coffee with people in your church. And you can still look like a pro running social media in your student ministry, rooting for you as you're doing that. And guess what? Next episode linked right here on screen is where I unbox and unlock our Winter social pack that is going to release exactly a week from Thanksgiving.

00:10:50:10 - 00:11:03:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're watching this on replay, it's already linked right here. For the rest of you, next Thursday is when the, Winter social pack drops. So can't wait for you to take advantage of that. But until next time. And as always, my friends, don't forget stay hybrid.

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/166

//STUDIO TOUR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVT1xvh9-5k

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

YOUTH PASTOR BUDGET
🍂 FALL SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fall-seasonal-137477671?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

*🦸 HYBRID HEROS GET THE PACK FOR FREE! *
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry

SENIOR PASTOR BUDGET
📋 "PICK NICK'S BRAIN" Coaching Call
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

✅ CHURCH COMMS DONE FOR YOU
Hire me to run your church website, social media or communications!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

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

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

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

--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are 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

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 We Experienced 2x Growth using this!
02:01 How we got here - The Hybrid History
07:00 The Intern Budget Option
08:12 The Youth Pastor Budget Option
10:57 The Senior Pastor Budget Option

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I posted this way and

00:00:01:23 - 00:00:03:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
this often for the last

00:00:03:06 - 00:00:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
three years. And here's

00:00:04:13 - 00:00:34:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
what happened on YouTube alone. We've had over 6000 views, 4000 plus hours of watch time, and over 900 subscribers. That's awesome success online. However, it doesn't just stop there. We've experienced 100.6% growth in our youth ministry in that exact same amount of time while we've been posting like, okay, here's a good news I am real life boots on the ground youth pastor.

00:00:34:01 - 00:01:02:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I also have to do things just like you like write a message, recruit volunteers, meet with my senior pastor as well as dream up, create, and post on social media regularly. Now if you do this, I will say that you'll experience 100.6% growth. But there are many additional benefits to this strategy. Things like attendance obviously being one of them.

00:01:02:22 - 00:01:23:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But you'll also see an uptick in student ministry volunteers, an uptick in your parent ministry. It can increase your leader, retention, and you'll have the ability to lean into your true calling as a pastor, where you get the opportunity to equip the saints for the works and acts of service, which actually we talked about in my last video linked right here.

00:01:23:18 - 00:01:44:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And here's the thing. I can help you do it. I have three different tiers of help available. Like if you're on the intern budget, I can give you completely free rundown version. If you're on the youth pastor budget for less than $6 a month, I have an option for you there as well. Or if you have the Senior Pastor Cadillac option, I'll do it for you.

00:01:44:08 - 00:02:08:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is where the parent and the leader piece really comes into play in that final option. Don't forget there are some chapters listed down below so that you can jump ahead to the part of this episode that makes the most sense to you. Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. So I've been on staff here at this church exactly three years and in the exact same amount of time.

00:02:08:23 - 00:02:31:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Just like I said in the intro, we've been posting with this rhythm. In fact, when we started, we were posting all of our long form messages to YouTube and we were doing so with just a cell phone camera. In fact, as soon as I moved here, I bought the brand new Google Pixel nine Plus Pro so that I could use it for social media and for its its camera purposes.

00:02:31:15 - 00:02:59:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They were telling me at the time that it was the best phone on the market, and so we were using it. And that was our that was our primary avenue. Bought a couple of different like microphone options to pair with the camera. And that was it. That's all we had and that's all we used. And so we would post not only long form YouTube messages, but also all of our short form content, which, speaking of short form content, we were posting three times per day on social media.

00:02:59:03 - 00:03:34:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
My goal at the time was aggressive growth, and I had just moved here from Chicago. And I had just, you know, for the previous about six months or so, been kind of dabbling in the tick tock Instagram Reels realm and was learning that three times a day was aggressive. But it also, you had more bites at the apple for an opportunity to be seen, you know, at the time, the kind of go on on those platforms TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts was get as many bites at the apple so that you have more chances to be discovered, to be seen, and then to go viral.

00:03:35:00 - 00:03:54:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This my strategy has since shifted a little bit. And, you know, of course we'll get into that. But then we were filming any of these pieces of content just in and around our space. So in offices or in like the lobby or like even just main on the street, like anywhere we found any of our other, like, staff.

00:03:54:21 - 00:04:18:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But eventually we built a full studio, which is actually the room I am sitting in right now. And over time, we've progressively spent more on gear and on set design and budget for it. But to start, it was a pretty basic studio build. We spent a little bit on paint and, you know, some wall treatment type options and some tchotchkes for shelves.

00:04:18:19 - 00:04:38:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that was it. I will actually post full, tour studio link down below if you're interested in that, along with much of the gear that we use for that. But I would say one of the key shifts was once we had our studio built out, I had a resident shout out to my good friend Caleb Flywheel.

00:04:38:00 - 00:05:01:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Maita, who had this idea, because we were posting long form pieces of content, for all of our messages on YouTube. So that was myself and any, anyone else on staff that was, that was delivering a message that was being posted to YouTube. He wanted to see more students in long form on YouTube. So he created this idea this weekly social challenge.

00:05:01:23 - 00:05:22:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He would film it on Wednesday night, in long form, in horizontal mode, and then he would edit all day Thursday and post a social challenge by the end of the day Thursday. It was a great idea. It's a great concept, but it was cooking his Thursdays like he never got anything else done except for just working on, you know, social challenge stuff.

00:05:22:20 - 00:05:41:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we eventually, adapted and shifted that strategy to be where we captured the majority and the lion's share of our student based short form content. We would do it in the studio any single time that we met on Wednesday nights. And I've detailed an outline that in previous episodes. So make sure that you subscribe and go back and listen to some of those.

00:05:41:12 - 00:05:59:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But here's the thing that you might be thinking as you hear this, you might be thinking, this sounds both overwhelming and hard, and I just want to let you know that I have, recently yesterday, a guy on my team came to me and he said, I am over budgeting my time. And as a what do you mean by that?

00:05:59:04 - 00:06:20:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, I'm giving myself like two hour blocks of time and it's not taking quite that long. And right now he is owning the majority of our social media content. I've shifted into a little bit of a new role. I've given him a lot more to do with with editing and posting and what he is saying in his own words, and I would I would echo this to be true.

00:06:20:01 - 00:06:38:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What I've learned is once you learn how to use some of these platforms and some of these programs, it's not as time consuming as you might think it is. The learning curve on the front side might feel steep, but once you get up over that hump, the actual maintenance mode of some of these things isn't as difficult as you think.

00:06:38:17 - 00:06:58:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And as I as I outlined in my last episode, you can hand over as much of that as you feel comfortable to your students. So let me share with you the three different tiers of options and solutions I have that you can lean into this hybrid strategy, which for us gave us two growth in a three year period of time.

00:06:58:12 - 00:07:25:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let's chat. Let's check it out okay, so you have the intern budget. How do you get started? Well, I would recommend hopping down in the description to grab my 100% completely free e-book. In my original iteration, you heard me say, if you're listening to the contact section of this that I posted three times per day, I've scaled that back, but it's still two times per day, which is still an aggressive growth strategy and mindset.

00:07:25:09 - 00:08:00:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I'll just be honest, one of the main reasons that I post that aggressively is because we film enough content that I have enough things to keep my feed going and being posted, but it's a lot of students and it's a lot of leaders, and so a lot of custom content for our student ministry. But I even recommend now, and I've done it and I've seen it in some coaching relationships that I've had that if you post three times a week, if you're starting completely from scratch, it's still a good strategy to lean into from a hybrid ministry standpoint.

00:08:00:08 - 00:08:21:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so link down below is my 100% completely free e-book. And if you want the start from scratch version, if you want the hey only post three times per week, then I recommend this next one, which is the youth pastor budget. And I can get this all for you via my Patreon account and my four seasonal social media pack.

00:08:21:23 - 00:08:39:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day as a youth pastor, scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.

00:08:39:03 - 00:09:02:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts. See? See? Here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.

00:09:02:11 - 00:09:22:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12. Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.

00:09:22:20 - 00:09:44:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. So as you just heard, the fall season of Social Media Pack is here. Go grab it. Go download it. It is the youth pastor version of this budget 1799.

00:09:45:03 - 00:10:07:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, in and on top of that, if you head over to my Patreon and you become a $4 a month member, you will not only receive that pack for free as a part of that membership, but you'll also then be subscribed to a weekly bonus podcast where I sit down on a microphone every single week and I explain and I outline and I flesh out all that we did.

00:10:07:16 - 00:10:32:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I basically go through our service order, and I talk about one things we could have done to be more creative and things that hit really well, and what we're doing on social media and how we're capturing certain things and all these different things. And so if you pair my bonus podcast with the social media pack, which again, reminder is free if you're a hybrid hero member, all of those things can be used to your advantage.

00:10:32:23 - 00:10:58:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
To get you started in this track of hybrid ministry. Listen, it's not here to help me get rich. It's really just here to help resource you and give you the foundation and the building blocks for what it takes to really, truly lean into a hybrid strategy, which again, as a reminder to our growth in the course of a three year period of time.

00:10:58:11 - 00:11:21:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, in both of those options, they're going to talk to you a lot about the value of your social media platforms. However, the real ultimate goal, I would say, is to find a way to post your weekly messages to YouTube. Now, if you have live streaming capabilities or at least live captioning capabilities, then that's a fantastic strategy. It gets the job done.

00:11:21:22 - 00:11:43:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We, both prefer. And also due to the constraints of not having, you know, camera capabilities in our main meeting room, we film our messages very similar to this direct to camera. We'll use a teleprompter at times and we will post those directly to YouTube. And at this point now we've built up our budget in order to be able to pay for editors to do that.

00:11:43:02 - 00:12:13:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But in the very early iterations, I was the editor. And you can use something like, you know, Adobe Premiere Pro Final Cut Pro, DaVinci resolve, or even something like Cap Cut to get the job done. But once you get a long form, like, posted version to YouTube, this is the senior pastor budget. If you need an editor or if you need someone to do it for you, I can either offer coaching, which is like a, an agreement for a set of time or I can do it for you in my communications.

00:12:13:21 - 00:12:30:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Done for you pack in my free time. Off to the side of me being a real life youth pastor, getting those long form clips is really helpful because then you can use an AI service like Opus Stock Pro to clip them up for you. They're not as good as if a human does them. But again, you're busy.

00:12:30:16 - 00:12:46:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You got things going on and, open Stop Pro is a really reasonable rate to kind of offer to do that. And it really does help flesh out and fill out your strategy, because if your strategy's all bunch of fun and games that you're doing with your students, that's great. Hopefully that's going to hook some viewers in your audience.

00:12:46:06 - 00:13:22:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then you also want to win, or at least, have the algorithm feed them some of your spiritual content as well. And that's where this really comes into play. And you can add the Patreon pack right on top of what this is, where, like, I'll be doing this for you. You can add in that Patreon pack, which will help help give you the, the coaching and the framework and the resources to hand this off to someone if you don't want to go all into this senior pastor budget option, if you just need to stick with your main youth ministry budget, here's what I would recommend.

00:13:22:05 - 00:13:47:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Of all of these things, lean in to the youth ministry budget option because it is $4 a month for the Hybrid Heroes bonus podcast tier, and that nets out to only $48 a year. Four times per year. You're going to get the social pack for free included in your membership. So for $48, you will have a fully locked and loaded social media hybrid strategy.

00:13:47:02 - 00:14:11:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And just as a reminder, that strategy is what led us to to growth in our student ministry. Now, once you start filming and posting your long form, messages to YouTube, that's really where you can start to see the parent rewards and the leader rewards and all of this, as I teased at the beginning, because you're posting your messages to YouTube and so parents can go watch it and see what their kids are learning.

00:14:11:08 - 00:14:36:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it's a great tool and resource in that regard. And also, leaders like we teach our message on Wednesday, but we also post the film YouTube adaptation to it as well. And so far, our leaders who lead a discussion based off the topic on Sunday morning, they have access to that teaching as well. And both of those are ways in which we've both, found incredible amounts of, like, help and resources to both our parents and our leaders.

00:14:36:11 - 00:15:00:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not no matter which of those options you choose. I want you to know this going hybrid is not the end goal. You know this. The end goal is to make more and better disciples of Jesus. Whatever your mission statement is, I hope it's rooted and tied to the great commission of Jesus. And this hybrid strategy is simply a strategy that sits inside this great commission from Jesus.

00:15:00:06 - 00:15:12:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so keep doing great youth ministry. Keep doing what you're doing, and if this can help you, I hope that it does. And I want you to know I'm rooting for you. So don't forget my friends. And as always, stay hybrid.

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

2024 [FREE] Youth Ministry Masterclass on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg

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

DESCRIPTION
📈 How do we get more people to show up to our events?
How do we grow our group?
How do we attract and retain teens?

57% of American Church Goers, according to Pew Research, don’t even attend church once a month!!

👌In this episode we’re going to explore 3 key shifts in our thinking
⚙️And I have the ultimate tool to accessing and resourcing people/students in the digital age.

Subscribe to our channel and don't miss any more videos from the 2024 Youth Ministry Masterclass FREE on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg

========================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/079

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/EzhYluEKZ_I

SHIFT #1 FROM PRODUCTION TO ACCESS
//PEW RESEARCH ARTICLES ON CHURCH ATTENDANCE
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/22/more-houses-of-worship-are-returning-to-normal-operations-but-in-person-attendance-is-unchanged-since-fall/?utm_source=adaptivemailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rel%20-%2022-03-22%20worship%20attendance&org=982&lvl=100&ite=9703&lea=2048393&ctr=0&par=1&trk=a0d3j0000112o9deae

//TERRY PARKMAN
https://www.terryparkman.com/

//GEN ALPHA DATA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHpeDaLS3oo

//PRO CHURCH TOOLS
https://prochurchtools.com/

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

SHIFT #2 FROM PERFORMANCE TO ENGAGEMENT

//EVERY YOUTH MINISTRY NEEDS A GOOD DIGITAL PRESENCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxepdu4iiM

SHIFT #3 FROM QUANTITY TO COMMUNITY

//THE QUESTIONS OF BELONGING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHpeDaLS3oo

//WORLD'S GREATEST DONUT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ryhkIRyDb4

//MASTER YOUR TIME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlS1kWcQBS8

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

🎅 "The Ultimate (and FREE!) Christmas Party Gude"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/christmas-party-run-sheet
PRACTICAL YM TIPS: https://www.youtube.com/@practicalyouthministrytips

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

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

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

========================================
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products

//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
00:00-01:21 Event Coordinator? Or Disciple-Maker?
01:21-07:18 SHIFT #1 from PRODUCTION to ACCESS
07:18-09:20 SHIFT #2 from PERFORMANCE to ENGAGEMENT
09:20-16:14 SHIFT #3 from QUANTITY to COMMUNITY

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
Youth pastors. How do we get more people to show up to our events? How do we grow the size of our youth groups? How do we attract and retain teenagers? See, all these questions are common questions. They're things that we're all facing at least at some level. And regardless of if you think that the attendance debate matters or not, we talked about it in our very last video linked up here in our playlist, in our youth ministry 2024 masterclass that we are going through completely free all here online on YouTube. Love to have you subscribe, check it out, and make sure you don't miss another one. We talked about the church attendance conundrum because 54% of American Christians are not attending church according to Pew Research at least one time per month. So in this episode, I want to talk to you about three key shifts that are going to help us reach the next generation as we explore this question.

Nick Clason (00:50):
Are we in the event making business or are we in the disciple making business? And I also have the ultimate tool that I believe can help you become more accessible in resourcing both your people and your students in this new found digital age. Like I said, we'd love to have you subscribe, like leave a comment, leave a rating, leave a review. All of those things help us get found and make sure that you can get the very next episode as soon as it drops episode 80 in our 2024 Youth Ministry masterclass. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, everyone, my name's Nick Clason. I'm a youth pastor in DFW Dallas Fort Worth. Been in youth ministry now being January of 2024. Mark's my 13th year in youth ministry and I've most recently went to a conference with the Gen Z guru himself. Terry Parkman. If you don't know Terry, he's amazing, but he talked about some of these shifts, so I just want to kind of elaborate on them and kick some of them around a little bit more.

Nick Clason (01:46):
But he talked about the difference that Generation Z and now subsequently generation Alpha, who if you didn't see in our last episode, we classified them being born somewhere between 2010 and 2018, probably more than 2012 rage, which is what Pew research kind of settles on as the origin date of generation alpha. Nonetheless, Terry Parkman specifically talking about Gen Z, talks about the shift in thinking from Gen Z who thinks more in a digital age, digital mindset versus all of US millennials and older Gen x boomers and so on and so forth, who are more raised in a industrial aged way of thinking and industrial age way frankly of living. And so what the first shift that is important that he talks about is we need to shift from an industrial minded way of production, which is an industrial value to one of access. The way that we talk about it is just simply build access points onto your ministry, so an industrial way of thinking and the production value production kind of mindset.

Nick Clason (02:54):
Think about seeker style churches back in the early nineties or early two thousands where you may open with a secular song, one that's familiar, one that's relatable. You may try to go for relevant lighting, you may really try to put the entire screws down on the production, the value of how important production is, and that a really well-produced thing will draw out consumers, it's almost like the mentality if we build it, they will come. It also comes down to simply how much can we produce the amount of production value that we can add? The more production value that we can add, the better, the greater, the higher the number, the more that we can produce, the more that we can attract. That's an industrial way of thinking. Meanwhile, a digital way of thinking, they don't necessarily Gen Z Gen and Alpha and the generations that are coming on behind, they don't necessarily want those things.

Nick Clason (03:49):
They're looking more for access. They're wondering, do I fit here? Can I gain access to this place and how can I let my gifts be utilized and flourish and shine here? Honestly, one of my number one pet peeves in churches is when we from a volunteer aspect say things like, we need you to do our job. That is not enticing in any way, shape, or form, and it's especially not enticing to the next generation. What I think they otherwise might more importantly, more interestingly want to hear is, Hey, we want you to shine here and how can we partner with you to make a difference in this world? It goes from US centric to them centric, and I get it. I'm hearing you scream on the other side, but that's not what a disciple of Jesus does. Correct. However, how are we ever going to be relevant and make any sort of inroads with the next generation?

Nick Clason (04:46):
If the way in which we posture ourselves is fundamentally and vehemently different than them, are we asking them to acquiesce to us as opposed to us finding ways that it's not that big of a deal to make a subtle shift? Because in the same way, we can still ask Gen Z and Gen Alpha to serve, we are just making it them centric instead of US centric. And again, you might be screaming that they shouldn't be them centric, but isn't it just as Unbiblical and Christlike for us to be US centric, organization centric, pastor centric in the land of access points. Our church right now, honestly, probably right now as I'm recording this on a random night in December, we have these things, these events, and they're amazing and they get talked about and they get promoted and they're all over social, and someone asked me how do I sign up for it and do you know what?

Nick Clason (05:37):
I said? I work there at the church, I don't actually have anything to do with it, and obviously I'm not there right now. I said, I have no idea. We have these events. There's sort of this lore about them, but how to actually access it. It's confusing, and I frankly haven't tried, so that's probably on me, but point of it is, is your church accessible? How easy to navigate is your website. I love what Brady Sheer and all of them at Pro Church Tools up in Canada say all the time and say, make your website, be a one stop shop. Don't for one thing, go sign up via the bulletin for the other thing. Send an email for the third thing, head to the website and for the fourth thing, find someone in the lobby. You never know what to do, where to go, and so only the most loyal and only the person with the most headstrong sort of stubbornness is going to ever actually find anything out.

Nick Clason (06:29):
Anybody else who comes upon any sort of roadblock or opposition, all of a sudden it's just really easy for them to crumble. And here's the fact, I don't believe I have all the answers, but one of the ways in which we are trying to create more access points in our ministry is through our digital strategy, which I have completely laid out in my 100% completely free ebook free for you. Grab the link, go download it. All I need is your name. All I need is your email and that's it. It's yours to use. It's my strategy that I've used to grow YouTube channel in a year from zero subscribers all the way up to almost 400 subscribers. It might be even past 400 by the time that this video actually drops, it's completely laid out. It's basically my social media masterclass and guess what I gave it and I'm giving it to you for free, and I would love to encourage you to just grab it, try it, implement it, and check it all out.

Nick Clason (07:18):
Shift number two is we need to shift from performance based and industrial way of thinking to more engagement based. So if you think about an industrial way of thinking where performance is king, think about the best, the prettiest, the nicest, the smelliest people on stage with a good swath of diversity and all those things, or just even in youth ministry, we've all sort of had the basis of like, let's just have some fun, and if the kids have fun, then they'll definitely want to come back. If we perform really well for them and we don't screw up, then they'll be like, man, that place was so good. I just want to come back. That's an industrial way of thinking, and here's the problem. If you are a youth pastor and you're my age or you're a millennial, that's the way that you think because that's the way and that's the age in which you were raised in.

Nick Clason (08:03):
To think that that's what is valued, but the next generation that's more in a digital age, they're not worried about performance. They want to know, am I able to engage with this? When it's all about performance, think about a conveyor belt and a factory. The way that that goes is if there's a certain part in the conveyor belt that's causing a backup, what do we do? We just stick another person in there. We don't care what that person does, who that person is, what that person can do for us or our organization. We just want to know, can that person keep the conveyor belt from stopping? Can that person keep the performance going? But a digital way of thinking, a digital shift when you go from performance to more engagement based thinking is you're wondering, Hey, how can we create good content that students want to engage with?

Nick Clason (08:48):
Which is why I link right down below or right up here on the screen, whichever one, I'm not sure if I've used my card yet or not in this video, but every youth ministry needs a good digital presence. It's my full YouTube strategy. It's my full social media strategy. It's the one that's tied to my ebook. It's the video explaining the ebook if you want to go check that out. Again, I don't have all the answers. It's just my way to sort of attempt to try and engage more with our students who are different, who are digital thinkers, who are Gen Z and coming quick behind them, generation alpha. The third shift is we need to switch from a value of quantity to a value of community, an industrial way of thinking. We are entirely built in most churches for quantity. Think about it. If you have a church with auditorium style seating, the goal of that room is to get the most amount of quantity of people in to listen to one captivating speaker, wax eloquent for a week, and listen, honestly, no shade thrown.

Nick Clason (09:48):
Most pastors, you're really good at your job, you're good at crafting sermons and you're good at delivering sermons, but the fact of the matter is, while you may be awesome at it, that's just not what's as highly valued in our world, especially in the world of digital. With audio, podcasts, YouTube podcast, people can listen to audio books, sermons. They can listen to the best preachers in the entire world. Again, no offense to you at the drop of a hat, instantly binging them, never actually running out of content. That's how accessible all of this stuff is, and so when people come to church, they don't want to just be another number kind of filtered into the auditorium to look at the back of someone's seat. That's why I believe link down below in the show notes. In this episode, we talked about why churches are dying.

Nick Clason (10:32):
I think churches are not adapting to the new issues and the new way of thinking that this next generation is so adamant about, and again, that generation, this next generation, this digital way of generation, they're not looking for a room to come and consume some more content. They're looking for community. And so if our rooms are built for quantity, thus they're not then built at least optimally for community. I mean, I know I worked at a church one time that we had Longwood ews and they were bolted to the ground. We couldn't do anything about those things, and even if they weren't bolted to the ground, they were heavy as sin. Man, I could not lift one of those things because once we finally did try to lift them, I was like, dang, who got these in here? It's like a five man job. The goal was get these things in here, never to be moved again.

Nick Clason (11:22):
This room is for one purpose and one purpose only, and the purpose that most younger people are looking for is not that. A dangerous way I believe of thinking is that we often value a Christian culture more than the Christ of the culture, and so therefore, I believe that what we're trying to do is we're trying to force people into a way of thinking, and when community trump's performance, we actually get a messy, authentic, real interaction with other believers who love Jesus and are trying to pursue and follow him. And so in a digital way of thinking, I think people who value community are looking for asking questions like, where do I belong? And are these people at my church? Are they my people? The students, they're asking those questions and they may, like we said in our last video and this masterclass in video two, this is not video three, they may be asking, are these people my people?

Nick Clason (12:15):
And they may be coming to your youth ministry, and just because they're there doesn't necessarily mean that they're engaging in religious practice. And it also doesn't necessarily mean that they're there because they want to be, because almost 50% of no, it's 65% of students come to church with at least one parent. That's where they're coming to church. They're not coming to church. They love God. They're not coming to church. They love you. They're not coming to church. They love your youth ministry. They're coming to church. They're coming to church with their parents, but if they can find a real captivating community that they can't say no to, they're not going anywhere. So it's not about what you produce, it's about the community that's available to them. We live now with the very first global generation. Students spend on average, shockingly five to eight hours on their phones screens per day.

Nick Clason (13:06):
The church world was built for consumers, and what's happening now is in that generation what's being internalized, they want to find a place to externalize it. And so one of the ideas that I have, again, I don't have all the answers, I don't know if this is a good idea or not. We did it in our space. It seemed to work well. It's a hybrid event. It's called the World's Greatest Donut, completely free event guide right here. You can click it, and it's just an opportunity to engage with students beyond your program times because I think a lot of times what we try to do is we try to get as many people, as much quantity into a room and call that success. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to expand the relationship beyond just the one time per week, and that's what this event is all built on.

Nick Clason (13:46):
It's a one-time event for an in-person event, however it lives on for an entire month. Not only live in the room, but it also lives live on your social media. That's the in-person versus the digital creating a hybrid moment together. Hey, the ultimate tool that I teased at the beginning of this video is, and I've already said it, it's my ebook. It's my full digital strategy. The fact is I don't have it all together, but the way in which you can utilize that is you have to become a master of your time, which is a video that's linked right here on the screen. It was a couple of videos ago, and the next video in this playlist is how to implement a good social media strategy where you're not simply just posting announcements. Click either one of those and we would love to see you on the other side. And as always, my friends stay hybrid.

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

2024 [FREE] Youth Ministry Masterclass on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg

Try Sidekick Beta!!
https://app.sidekick.tv/auth/create?code=NickClason

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

DESCRIPTION
📈 Youth Ministry Growth and Attendance

🔢 Do number really matter?

😤 It’s an agonizing pursuit that all of us as youth pastors and leaders are constantly feel the tension.

Whether we buy into the debate or not, pressure is real.

Maybe pressure from your senior pastor
Maybe pressure from other parents
Maybe even pressure from yourself

And furthermore, according to Pew Research, one in five church goeers in 2022 participated in virtual church once a month.
However, 57% did not attend in person or watch online per month.
Not just anyone in general.. But Americans who TYPICALLY attend services.

How do we reach Generation Z or Generation Alpha students?
Especially in light of this new reality?

Subscribe to our channel and don't miss any more videos from the 2024 Youth Ministry Masterclass FREE on YouTube

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

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

🎅 "The Ultimate (and FREE!) Christmas Party Gude"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/christmas-party-run-sheet
PRACTICAL YM TIPS: https://www.youtube.com/@practicalyouthministrytips

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

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

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

========================================
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products

//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

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

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/078

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/BHpeDaLS3oo

//PEW RESEARCH ARTICLES ON CHURCH ATTENDANCE
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/22/more-houses-of-worship-are-returning-to-normal-operations-but-in-person-attendance-is-unchanged-since-fall/?utm_source=adaptivemailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rel%20-%2022-03-22%20worship%20attendance&org=982&lvl=100&ite=9703&lea=2048393&ctr=0&par=1&trk=a0d3j0000112o9deae

//DATA ON GEN ALPHA
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/generation-alpha-guide

//DR. ELMORE'S BOOK
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Unfiltered-Challenges-Anxious-Population-ebook/dp/B07YQ9XT8N/ref=sr_1_2?hvadid=580669290679&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9027211&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8887138684661202423&hvtargid=kwd-831658052586&hydadcr=24309_13537702&keywords=gen+z+unfiltered&qid=1701783263&sr=8-2

//TEEN CHURCH ATTENDANCE PATTERNS
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2020/09/10/u-s-teens-take-after-their-parents-religiously-attend-services-together-and-enjoy-family-rituals/

//TEENS AND THEIR PARENTS
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/10/10-key-findings-about-the-religious-lives-of-u-s-teens-and-their-parents/

//4 CHAIR DISCIPLING
https://www.amazon.com/Chair-Discipling-What-Jesus-Calls/dp/0802418813/ref=asc_df_0802418813/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=266167140404&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13879828523234723627&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027211&hvtargid=pla-557460291481&psc=1&mcid=c72abb3a6997315793653dc9cbd8d965&gclid=CjwKCAiApuCrBhAuEiwA8VJ6Jry6x6cwpQRcpt1hnTOOVAIdS6r9rmBPSQleT8QwxqgYzqAeu6RyuBoCFo4QAvD_BwE

//GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT FOR A HYBRID STRATEGY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlS1kWcQBS8

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:05 Do numbers matter?
02:05-05:30 Who are Generation Z and Generation Alpha?
05:30-07:13 Attendance Finding 1: Teens share religion with parents
07:13-10:48 Attendance Finding 2: Teens go to service, but don't engage in religious practices
10:48-16:22 Attendance Finding 3: Teens attend church with one or both of their parents

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
Youth ministry growth in attendance in the age old Questions do numbers really matter? Here's what I know. I was one time called by a church that said, Hey, just a couple weeks ago in our church of multiple thousands, we've had only eight students show up. So whether you buy into the debate or not, the pressure is always there. Maybe pressure from your senior pastor, maybe pressure from youth parents, maybe even internal pressure that you just put on yourself. And what's even crazier is according to Pew Research, one in five, churchgoers back in 2022, participated in a virtual church service at least one time, which is a good thing. I mean, heck, we're in the hybrid ministry podcast, you know what I'm saying? However, 57% did not attend church in person or watch online during the course of at least one month, which means greater than 50%, not just of anyone in general of churchgoers are not typically attending church services.

Nick Clason (01:05):
So how in the world with that as the framework for church attendance and the way that youth ministry attendance is going, how in the world do we even reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha students, especially in light of this brand new reality? We're going to be sharing in this episode three key findings about teens and their attendance trends. And furthermore, I'm going to share with you one way that I as a youth pastor am shifting my thinking and maybe you can also shift your thinking about reaching this next generation. And finally, I have a bonus tip that I think is going to actually be the number one game changer in this entire conversation. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. You're in youth ministry, or if you're just a church leader and you're at least overseeing at some level some capacity, generation Z generation alpha, it's important because we're talking about youth group attendance and it's important to understand who we're actually talking about.

Nick Clason (02:01):
So Generation Z and Generation Alpha are kind of the two generations in play in this conversation. In fact, I have a video linked at the top of the screen. Go ahead and check it out where we did a deep dive into Generation Alpha and started to explore them. And quite frankly, it's one of the only videos I know that's out there about Generation Alpha. The data is still really new and still really young because the fact of the matter is that according to exploding topics.com link in the description, if you're watching on YouTube, you might be able to see some of these things online. If you're not watching on YouTube, you should definitely check that out. But Gen Alpha is made up of people born between 2010 and 2025. Wait, what? 2025? Yeah, you heard that, right? They're not even born yet. Okay. And so the fact of the matter is that that data actually is in opposition to some other experts such as Tim Elmore, who by the way, I have a chart right here on screen.

Nick Clason (02:53):
Again, if you're not watching on YouTube, go grab it or link in the show notes. It's from his book, generation Z Unfiltered, the Nine Hidden Challenges of Facing the Most Anxious Population of All Time. This chart is absolute goal, but you'll notice that he draws the line for the end of generation Z at 2018. So we have exploding topics at 2010. We have Tim Elmore at 2018, all of that to be said, Elmore's book is a little bit dated, and so I think that more research and just time we've honed in a little bit and gotten a little bit closer. And so while this chart is gold, you should definitely look at it and inspect it and learn a little bit more. Elmore doesn't talk about Gen Alpha. They're not on his radar yet when he wrote the book. And so according to this chart, pew research draws the line for Gen Alpha at 2012.

Nick Clason (03:40):
But again, the reason why any of this matters, not to bog you down with dates and things like that is that if you're a youth pastor or if you're in church leadership, what you need to understand is that the conversation we're having is like, do we take Elmore's date or do we take Pew Research's Day or do we take exploding topics day? Whatever it is, the reason this matters is because this is a difference between is that kid in kid's ministry or is that kid in youth ministry? And if we're talking about youth group numbers and youth group attendance, we need to understand Gen Alpha, but we also need to understand Gen Z. The kicker on this is that Gen Z, really the youngest Gen Z that we have is going to be freshmen, sophomores in high school, and now after that they're waving on up, they're in college already and they are entering the workforce.

Nick Clason (04:23):
So if you are not a youth pastor, but just like a regular pastor listening, no longer is Gen Z, something that the youth pastor needs to try and understand and uncover this matters for you. This is important for you as a pastor. And so if you've gotten value so far out of this video, I would love to encourage you to like and subscribe and hit the notification bell because we're actually in the middle of a series right now, the 2024 Youth Ministry Masterclass, this is section number two in that class. The rest of them are going to be dropped in the playlist that's linked down below in the description. So if you have not seen every single video, go back and check out video number one. We talked about time management, but without any further ado here, let's dive into the three key findings about Generation Z, generation alpha and church attendance in youth ministry moving forward in 2024 and frankly beyond.

Nick Clason (05:12):
All right, so the three key findings that are really important to understand about Generation Z and Gen Alpha is a lot of this data pulled from Pew research articles pulled and included in the description, whether you're in a podcast catcher or on YouTube, if you are not watching on YouTube, you will notice that some charts and graphs and stuff like that are going to show up on screen here on YouTube. If you're not watching, you're just listening, you can go grab the link in the show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz, and this is episode 78, so slash 0 7 8. But the first key finding that I want to share with you is this is that most teens share the same religious affiliation as their parents, meaning this, your attendance as a youth pastor, youth ministry leader is highly derived from the adult attendance in your church.

Nick Clason (06:00):
You've probably heard this before, but that's why it's important that we don't have silos. It's just as important for you as a youth pastor to lean in to what is going on in the rest of your church. You can't neglect it, you can't forsake it, and you can't take on a posture of arrogance that what you're doing is better than the rest of the church. Even if you low key think that the fact of the matter is that your youth ministry attendance is highly, highly tied to your adult attendance. So if your church is growing, odds are your youth ministry is growing, and if your church is struggling, odds are your youth ministry might be struggling. The biggest dropoff that you'll notice in this graph here and in this research from Pew is that the biggest dropoff from parents who attend church to teenagers who attend church happens in mainline denominations where the highest proportion is in evangelical churches.

Nick Clason (06:53):
Key finding. Number two, teens are just as likely as their parents to say that they go to services, but when it comes to more personal forms of religious expression, teens actually appear to be less devout and less religious. I have a stat I want to share with you from my own context, my own anecdotal experience in our church, cross Creek Church located in Colleyville, Texas, we have four parts to a four-part discipleship pathway. So we have explore, which is people who are far from God looking for God or maybe seeking God connect. And so once they've made a decision, cross the line, faith, connect with Jesus, connect with this church, connect with community, grow, grow in your faith, get closer to God, learn to walk with God, learn to invest in a few, learn to multiply. And then finally, the fourth one is a multiplier.

Nick Clason (07:38):
Someone who is not only making disciples, but making disciples who makes disciples. So we're very christocentric, disciple making, Bible-based church, all that to be said, we explained all of that one day on a Sunday morning to our students and we asked them to self-identify where they would put themselves in the pathway, explore, connect, grow, multiply. We used kind of pulled from one of my favorite books, link in the show notes, Dan Bader's book four chair discipling. So we used four different chairs to illustrate the sections of the pathway. The explorer phase was illustrated by a camping chair because it's really mobile portable. You can get close to church, then you can pull it back away if that's a decision that you want to make. We talked about how the connect chair is actually like a recliner. People tend to get across that line of faith and then get very fat and happy.

Nick Clason (08:23):
The grow chair is one that's marked by suffering and sacrifice, and so we got the hard metal chair, the one that hurts your butt when you sit in it for a little bit too long. And then finally the multiply phase was illustrated by a couch because the goal of it is to bring people back onto that couch with you, go back down through the pipeline, go back down through the process. So we illustrated that and we asked students to self-identify. We had 40.76 of our students say that they were in the connect phase, the recliner phase, but the overwhelming majority said that they were in 45.2% said that they were in the grow phase. So nearly half of our students self-identified as being in the grow phase where only like 4% said they're in the explore phase, and 9.5 said they were actually all the way in the multiply phase.

Nick Clason (09:07):
Now we have identifiers in our church metrics that we say if you've done these three or four things, then you are in this phase and you've moved on to the next phase. So we can pull that data on our students as well, but this is just them classifying themselves. I now lead a group of four other guys on a Sunday morning in our grow phase, we have a book that we go through a curriculum, and we just got done with the first book. There's three totals. So we just got done with the first book. It's seven weeks. It's daily reading. I mean it's a high bar. Every single one of them. At the beginning of this time, they said, I read the Bible, I pray I do all this stuff. Now that we've actually been in it, now that the rubber has met the road.

Nick Clason (09:49):
At the end of this, all of their summarization of it was like, man, this was a lot more than I'm used to. And one of the kids said back to this, teens are just as, they may go to service, but they may not practice religious expression. Part of the problem is they've gone to church so much, and so they know what the right answers are and they know what they should be doing. And so even when you ask them, how do you grow in your faith? What are you doing to grow in your faith? They would answer with the right answers. Well, I pray, read the Bible, but they all admitted at the end of it, you always said that, but we weren't really actually doing it, at least not at this level. So that just bears it out in that key finding. Key finding.

Nick Clason (10:29):
Number three, most teens report attending religious services with either both at 40% or one 25% of their parents. Again, meaning your attendance is again highly derived from your adult attendance. Again, in my own context, our own experience or Wednesday night, we would mostly say that that's classified under the explore classification. So let's bring outsiders and we probably, we average somewhere south of 45 to 40% of our Sunday morning attendance, which is our second step in our pathway, our connect phase. So I would not say that we have more students in connect than in the explore phase. What I would actually say is that Sunday morning is more convenient and that's when parents, and that's when students are also naturally making Sunday morning or just any church attendance a priority. And so that's the reason why I believe that our attendance is a little bit out of balance between Wednesday night and Sunday morning, and that's not a problem to be solved.

Nick Clason (11:29):
It's more attention to lean into and be managed, but it really just underscores this point that most teens attend church with either a parent or a single parent, meaning once again, like I said, your students are attending church either with both parents at 40% or one parent at 25%. Again, as much as we think that our programming is so relevant, captivating, so much better than the rest of the church, the reality is our success as youth pastors is often tied to the overall success of the church. However, I do think that there is something that matters and that there is something that we need to focus our mindset to shift a little bit on. So let's dive into that into the next section. All right, so the shift that I believe all of us should consider if 57% of born again claim Christians, self-proclaimed Christians are not attending church online or in person at least one time per month, I think that you and I should consider finding a way to go hybrid.

Nick Clason (12:26):
And I know you said, Hey, hey, hey, that last stat that said they weren't going online or in person. When I say hybrid, I don't just mean streaming your services. That can be an element of it, but I really believe that's a small portion of a good digital strategy. And again, I hear you. You're like, dude, I don't have time for it, and I get it. It is a lot of work and it's going to require a little bit of time management, thankfully, linked down below, I have this playlist where the last video I talked about good time management, but a good digital hybrid integrated strategy is more than just putting a camera in the back of the room and letting someone watch what's going on in the room. You're not interested in that, frankly, and neither am I. We want something that's made for the internet, something like this, something that's more relational, something that's more direct to camera, maybe something that's a little bit more interactive, but find a way to make it more hybrid.

Nick Clason (13:18):
Find a way to make it more integrated. I also hear you on the other side, but churches of family church should be about one-on-one relationships, and I agree with that. Full fledge, a hundred percent church about relationships. The best, most dynamic experiences I ever have is when I'm rubbing shoulders or sitting knee to knee with somebody. However, I'll also make the argument that churches are in the content creation and content production business. Think about it. What do you spend the majority of your time on? Programming, message prep, planning, worship services, small group, all things that are content based, and especially pastors, senior pastors, no offense to you, but Sunday morning services are some of the least relational moments in the entire week in the lifecycle of a church. Here's my deal. I'm a youth pastor, so I get in early, I get set up. Sometimes I'm a little bit late because of my setup into church.

Nick Clason (14:12):
I walk in, I sit down, I sing some songs, I sit down, I stare at the back of someone's head, I listen to a sermon for 30 something minutes. I get up early because I have stuff to do as a youth pastor, to get ready for the student ministry that meets during the last two services of our three service Sunday morning set. I'm not talking to a single human being in that entire service, but what I could do is I could consume all of that digitally. I could listen to it, my headphones on a run. I could listen to that honestly, while I'm across the way in the student building, getting things ready, having the Facebook live stream on in my ears while I'm getting things set up. I'm not saying that I should do that. I'm not saying that that's a recommended strategy, but I am saying the content consumption side, so much of what we're producing content-wise, can be done digitally.

Nick Clason (14:57):
So as youth pastors, as we're trying to reach Gen Z, as we're trying to reach Gen Alpha, a completely different generation, I wonder if it's worth considering a shift from focusing only on to finding a way to be a little bit more hybrid, which is why I've created this 100% completely free ebook right here on the screen, linked down below in the description. Also, you're going to see that as I bring about this bonus question. This is really the crux of this entire kind of argument. The question is this, are we as youth pastors, are we as youth ministry leaders? Are we in the event business or are we in the disciple making business? And you know what the fact of the matter is, we're actually going to dive even deeper into that question on the screen linked right here. So go ahead and take a look at that. If you're interested in exploring more about my hybrid strategy, that ebook, as well as that episode is linked right here on the screen as well. Hey, check you on the other side. Continue to enjoy this free masterclass, and as always, stay hybrid.