✅Let me Run Your Church Social Media
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/comms

DESCRIPTION
Join us as we celebrate YOU in the "Year in Review for 2024" of the Hybrid Ministry show.
We'll celebrate some statistics, give some shout outs and share the "best of" clips from the 2024 Hybrid Ministry Show.

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/130

//BONUS Pod!
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry

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

//GIFlashback Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVHcraeNlC8&list=PLngXlSr64YaIui8LNpnlUI3yFAm9SGrLy&index=5&t=24s

//9 Best DYM Games
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

//No Prep Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=melm8BS97es&list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg&index=6&t=164s

//Youth Ministry Planning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTQXsananwI&list=PLngXlSr64YaKjRX2ytO0tvzo8VnF6X03t&index=2&t=202s

//YouTube for Youth Ministry
https://youtu.be/ucvXfaVRJ6E?si=aNYGzB08DV6HHD3G

//Interview Series
https://youtu.be/D4vE7_ZqBpE?si=Hdk5X2KRn_SGr6HM

//Hybrid Tools
https://youtu.be/0np1d4Trcn0?si=7OkkCVCmY8Kvx6ha

//Meet Gen Alpha
https://youtu.be/DWYvsn2Kglk?si=FrnlS3C1xDHITyDb

//Social Challenge Framework
https://youtu.be/K_9Ch2KVNH0?si=THozXMi9NqzxJeUt

//Sidekick
https://youtu.be/lXI3ZKSvFY0?si=O-Em7X00hV9waXBE

//Sidekick + ProPresenter Setup
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup

//Interview with Nate Clason
https://youtu.be/uplCz1S1nz4?si=sne7LvdGvAgrKU72

//DYM Blog Post
https://blog.downloadyouthministry.com/introducing-hybrid-ministry-with-nick-clason/

⌚TIMECODES
00:00 Welcome to 2025!
00:40 Some Stats & Wins
08:47 Personal Reflections
11:21 Thank You to our Amazing Guests!
14:45 Year in Review

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;36;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What a year it has been. From the incredible wins to the unforgettable moments, we have covered so much ground together. And in this special Year in Review episode, we on the Hybrid Ministry show, we are celebrating you, our amazing community with highlights and stats and the best of the hybrid minstrel show here in 2024. Make sure that you stick around because I've actually distilled a highlight reel of the 2024 Hybrid Mr. Podcast Best Moments.

00;00;36;14 - 00;01;08;04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This just might be your favorite episode yet. Welcome back, everybody to the Hybrid Minister Show. I as always, I'm your host, Nick Claassen. And today we're going to be taking a little bit of a trip down memory lane to celebrate the amazing year and this incredible journey that you and I have been on together. As we always have on this podcast, we're going to be exploring the cutting edge ministry ideas and equip you with the tools to dominate the digital space in 2025.

00;01;08;04 - 00;01;35;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's been a ride in 2024, and 2025 is only going to get better. And it is all thank you to you. You know, in 2024, we released a total of 52 audio podcast episodes because we release one every single Thursday. If you haven't liked or subscribed yet, wherever you listen to your podcast, it's free and it will show up in your podcast.

00;01;35;14 - 00;02;13;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Catcher. Every single Thursday. Why? Because youth ministry often happens for most youth ministries across the country on Wednesday, so who doesn't need a little jolt of energy to get the to get them through the rest of their week on Thursdays? But 52 episodes released because we have not missed a single Thursday in the two and a half or so plus years that we've been doing this podcast, I just want to share with you some some highlights of the top performing video over this last year was a video that I titled top five Last Minute Game Ideas.

00;02;13;17 - 00;02;36;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're watching here on YouTube, you can see some of the clips being overlaid with B-roll. We also over this year we've had nine different playlists that we've worked through. And so in each of those playlists, there's a obviously a top performing video in each of those playlists. And so our very first playlist we had was the 2024 On Demand masterclass.

00;02;36;22 - 00;02;56;28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in that video, the five No Prep games was a part of the masterclass. And that video had to, 361 views. And so that was not only the number one video for the year, but obviously the number one in the masterclass playlist. We also dropped a bonus you might not notice we dropped a bonus playlist called the Friday Game Day Series.

00;02;56;28 - 00;03;28;06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It released every Friday on YouTube, and, we covered nine of my favorite DRM games that I use. And so actually, if you had any of those or linked down below in this episode nine of my all time favorite do swim games, I'm giving them away to you completely for free. They are games that are on the, they're on the, they're on the website, the download Youth Ministry website, but I'm giving them away to you in this episode, 100% completely for free.

00;03;28;06 - 00;03;49;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the best performing video in that playlist was the GIF flashback episode. We also went through a playlist titled some of the Youth Pastor's Biggest Problems, and the number one episode in that was youth Ministry planning weekend services versus mid week programing. And actually in that episode we ranked youth ministry curriculum. Spoiler it's clear you should try it.

00;03;49;29 - 00;04;12;22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, if you haven't yet, hit the link down below. Sidekick.tv/pricing if you've never signed up for anything with Diam or Calendar, use the code Hybrid Ministry ten. All one word for get 10% off your first order. We went through the YouTube for Youth Ministry Play lesson playlist in the best performing video, and that playlist was the flagship title episode YouTube for Youth Ministry.

00;04;12;22 - 00;04;33;07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I then took you through some of the hybrid ministry tools and gear that you needed and the the best episode, and that the highest performing episode was the best gear for Digital Ministry in 2024. Must have tech accessories. Then over the summer, we went through an interview series and that episode, the one that was best in that playlist, was the solution to distractions.

00;04;33;07 - 00;04;56;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
At youth group, where I interviewed my good friend Josh Baldwin from Download Youth Ministry sidekick and co-leader. Then we went through Meat Generation Alpha, and in that playlist, the Ora and Bach versus Covenant Eyes. An honest youth pastor review was the highest performing video in that playlist. Finally, I went to my Social Challenge framework, which is the four things that I'm creating content with students and for students.

00;04;56;24 - 00;05;17;16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I can't tell you, I think that might be my most popular playlist to date cumulatively, and just word of mouth and things I've heard from youth pastors on the street. So thank you so much for that feedback. But the best episode and that one was the third one, how churches can use social media ideas and examples. And finally, the sidekick more engaging youth ministry.

00;05;17;16 - 00;05;39;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Again, the best episode on that one was the live sidekick demo at the day of recording. And again, don't forget Code Hybrid Ministry ten. If you're interested in sidekick or link down below for how we are using to computers to run Sidekick and Pro Presenter seamlessly. To switch between the two, grab that black magic video switcher, it will make your life so much easier.

00;05;39;10 - 00;06;05;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now listen on YouTube. In total, we had 84,569 views, including our shorts content with 522 hours of watch time and 151 new subscribers. And in the youth ministry space is a fantastic number and I'm so thrilled, with those stats and with those numbers, simply because here I am in my guest bedroom late at night, recording a podcast into the back of my cell phone.

00;06;05;23 - 00;06;26;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, I have a real job, and I'm just doing this on the side with my own. Sort of like, equipment at home. And so thank you so much for your support. You might also not know this, but we have an audio only podcast. It drops anywhere you get your podcasts, including Spotify or Apple Music, not Apple Music, Apple Podcasts.

00;06;26;12 - 00;06;51;11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And we had almost 5000 downloads. Our biggest month was by far August, with almost nearly 1000 downloads in that month alone. And the number one downloaded audio podcast was my interview with my brother himself. The, YouTube video is linked down below in the show notes. But here's my interview with my brother, Nate Clayson. We talked about social media and how he's doing it in his context and in his youth ministry.

00;06;51;11 - 00;07;13;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So shout out to all of you again, thank you for an amazing year. Thank you for cruising through the stats with me. But what I wanted to do now is I wanted to share some of the best comments that we've gotten so far this year, and so far today. So from Jesse Johnson, first of all, he disagreed with my take on coffee and saying that Duncan was terrible, which I'll give him that it's not great.

00;07;13;00 - 00;07;30;01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's a chain. But if I have to choose between that and Starbucks, that's what I'm stuck with. That's what I'm going to choose. But he said he said using polls in the welcome loop in sidekick is so easy, I can't believe I didn't think of it. Excited to try that one out. Claire said this in our best parenting app podcast.

00;07;30;01 - 00;07;49;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We use bark and it has been so wonderful for our family. We have an 11 year old, and it has been a lifesaver. We can monitor everything that she does online, block her from seeing certain websites, track her locations, etc. recently, she disabled the app because her and my husband, we both get notifications, so we went to our daughter immediately.

00;07;49;05 - 00;08;06;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It turns out she had disabled it because she wanted to watch South Park and Family Guy, as well as some other PG 13 movies. She said nope. Luckily, my husband and I got there before she could see anything inappropriate. We're grateful for bark to bark, for protecting our little girl from online dangers, and protecting her from innocence and inappropriate content.

00;08;06;29 - 00;08;26;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We love bark. Paul Turner said this about our, why youth ministry. Follow up isn't working. He said, this is great stuff. Lots of idea. I went and bought it. Talking about the box that I sold. I'll be sharing this with my newsletter. If you ever want to collab, let me know. Keep up the great work! And finally, a frequent guest here on this podcast.

00;08;26;05 - 00;08;59;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Over a year ago we did a Christmas episode together. He was also on one of my interview series over the summer, Eric with the K Williams. He said this is great. Anyone starting out needs to watch this and he's talking about my church social media from scratch episode in the hybrid ministry tools. Man, what an amazing year. But if I'm looking back and if I'm taking on some of my reflections and kind of key moments, I'd have to say it's two individuals, a guy by the name of Tim Kelly and Kendall Eaton, both, by the way, who happen to live in the state of Indiana.

00;08;59;05 - 00;09;21;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I don't think that the collab done this, but both of them at two different times. Tim actually reached out to me for some custom coaching this year, and that was a super fun and super, just a honestly rewarding process to walk through. And it showed me the value of custom coaching, because what I would have recommended to you in my guest bedroom and to the back of my cell phone camera was a little bit different.

00;09;21;14 - 00;09;38;14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Once I started talking to Tim, which is why I believe custom coaching is valuable for anyone who's interested it. Link down below if you want to inquire about what that looks like. It is a very modest and a very cheap price for custom coaching. Or if you don't want like the one on one zoom type interaction and consider joining our Patreon page.

00;09;38;21 - 00;09;55;04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's a dollar per week for a bonus episode, $4 per month, and I'll just share, stream of consciousness ideas. And you might not need the actual, like, coaching to do this, to do this, but you'll get to glean ideas. And then I was at the I 100 conference, a month ago or so, and Kendall walked up to me.

00;09;55;04 - 00;10;20;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, man, thank you so much for your podcast is really helpful. It's really beneficial. I shared your playlist, your ideas with some of our social media people and is incredibly, incredibly helpful. And so it's just really rewarding for me to be able to do this and just put this content out into the world, out into the ether and get feedback from real, live human beings and real life people who've come to me, in different instances, in different cases.

00;10;20;02 - 00;10;39;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Tim, all virtually Kendall in person to say, man, thank you for what you're doing. It really is helpful to me to hear that. And so if if you know you have feedback or anything like that, I would obviously and always welcome that. Lines and channels of communication are completely open. You know, here on this podcast we have a couple of really cool benchmarks.

00;10;40;12 - 00;10;56;27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Just in the month of December, we launched a Patreon page, are selling a couple of products over there, as well as that monthly podcast that I'm talking about. And so that's a pretty fun kind of benchmark kind of new thing for us. And new endeavor. Would love to have you, check that out if that's something you're interested in.

00;10;56;27 - 00;11;19;06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then also, back in August, I got the opportunity to start posting these podcasts to the Download a Youth Ministry blog. So if you're interested in that, you can go blog that download Youth ministry.com to check that out. And the link down below introduces my very first, post on there, actually, Josh Bowman, he introduced me and then I now am an author there on the doing blog.

00;11;19;06 - 00;11;48;07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So that's something that's really, really exciting. But speaking of Josh Bullman, as well as many of our other guests, I would like to thank my different guests that I had on this year. So Josh Boardman, of course, from down the youth ministry, we actually had him on twice. We talked once about sidekick and solutions to distractions and youth ministry and harnessing sidekick and utilizing and using cell phones, to not be a distraction, but instead to be something that you can use to help promote creativity and involvement engagement.

00;11;48;07 - 00;12;13;09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then one episode, my all time, my favorite episode this entire year was there. Him and I sat down and he brought a service, a mock service order sheet that he put on, and then he said, hey, how can you hybridize this? How can you, make this, accessible to the people sitting online streaming at home? Man, both those episodes go to either one of them now, but that was one of my all time favorite episodes.

00;12;13;11 - 00;12;31;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I had, Eric with a K on when we talked about better event for promotion, and that was actually a collaborative episode. So the first part of that interview was on his channel, Practical Youth Ministry Tips, and the second part was over here on my channel. And so if you only listen to on my channel, you only heard really half of that conversation.

00;12;31;24 - 00;12;53;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Of course, I mentioned earlier, my brother, we had David Carpenter, youth pastor from Kentucky, my former resident, Caleb Fly mule, fly wheel, Miata, and again, Zeus take on what we've been doing. And youth ministry and student ministry. He worked with and for me for an entire year in this sort of hybrid, infrastructure. So if you want to hear an honest take here from him.

00;12;53;00 - 00;13;18;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then we had a really special episode dropped this year, our 100th episode. And so for our 100th episode, I went all the way back to the beginning, even before this podcast started. And I talked about, when I started at church in Covid. And so I interviewed my current boss now and my boss then, Darren Sutton, his son, who is our video editor for much of what we did, for our digital online presence, for a show that we created on YouTube called unscripted.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;44;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So his son Isaac was on the show. And then I also interviewed Sam Voss, good friend of mine and host of the unscripted show and podcast Super Fun Time. But hey, listen, this year, like, I'm wondering if, as you know, I'm recapping and recounting 2024 if as you got your eyes set on 2025, what are you doing to have a more hybrid, more digital, more creative youth ministry?

00;13;44;03 - 00;14;14;16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because as my friend and boss Darren says, digital is no longer a luxury. It is now a necessity. And so that's what we're trying to accomplish again over on our Patreon page. If that's something that you're interested in, where I will talk about what we're doing on a week to week basis in our youth ministry over on Patreon, I would love to have you just come check out, listen in on what we're doing, and hopefully maybe just that $4 a month is an investment, enough to help kickstart and spur on your own creativity.

00;14;14;16 - 00;14;38;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We love to have you join us over there. It's super fun. Community. There's all sorts of perks as well. But hey, thank you so much for sticking around for this entire episode. And as promised, at the very top right here, we have an amazing, recap overlay. I went back through every single episode, and I pulled out some of my favorite snippets and clips from the last year.

00;14;38;16 - 00;15;00;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So enjoy this. And as always, my friends, don't forget to stay hybrid. Okay, so there are like three kind of core tenets philosophical things that you guys need to understand when it comes to time management. These aren't tips. These aren't tactics. These are things that you have to understand first. And these have to inform the tips and the tactics.

00;15;00;10 - 00;15;24;16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Know my tips. No amount of tactics will be helpful to you if you don't understand these things. So core tenet number one is that you are 100% responsible for your time. The reason this matters is because this is the difference between is that kid and kid in ministry or is that kid and 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.

00;15;24;19 - 00;15;47;01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The kicker on this is that Gen Z, really the youngest Gen Z that we have, is going to be freshmen and sophomores in high school. And now after that, they're waiting on up there in college already, and they are entering the workforce. What should you be? Gen one, number one, start posting longform to YouTube, get a DUI gym membership.

00;15;47;03 - 00;16;14;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it looks very different in 2024 and frankly, beyond because of generation Z and now Generation Alpha saving up Z into the adult ministry, conversation Alpha into the youth ministry conversation, it makes me wonder if the future is already here. I think it might be Megan and all her friends, and she brought a lot of her friends to youth group, so this, like kind of mattered because, like, she could bring two, 3 or 4 different friends with her.

00;16;14;00 - 00;16;35;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The youth group, they had show choir and it met every single Wednesday night. And so that made Wednesday nights a really tricky night to do youth ministry. But Brandon, the only other boy in the youth ministry, had Tuesday night and Thursday night karate. And then of course, Friday nights are like the football game. Like for most towns USA.

00;16;35;23 - 00;16;58;18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's when the high school team is playing his football game. So that really left us with Monday night as an option, which but the pro of, of Wednesday night to me is probably the your most traditional youth night. It's been what, a lot of churches, a lot of youth groups have done for years. And like down here where I live in DFW, Dallas-Fort worth area, a lot of churches do.

00;16;58;18 - 00;17;22;13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Wednesday night, and I came from Chicago. Not many churches did did Wednesday night. And that's just kind of a cultural thing, right. But the pro to me is it's like a midweek kind of jolt of energy. Well. Hey, everyone, welcome to Friday Game Day. In this episode, link down below 100% completely for free. I have for you back to school.

00;17;22;15 - 00;18;04;03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Bingo. And if you're like, I don't need back to school bingo, it's not back to school yet. Well, then head on over to download Youth ministry.com and you can grab my end of the school year. Bingo! Well, that idea of course, is go hybrid. And listen, I'm not saying to completely abandon your in-person meetings. In fact, that would go completely against the hybrid strategy because hybrid is melding together of your digital presence in your in-person presence and making it one in the same, but linked right here on screen and down in the description or wherever you're getting this or hybrid ministry X, y, Z/089 is my 100% completely free strategy guide, is my e-book on

00;18;04;03 - 00;18;32;07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
how I build out a full fledged digital strategy. It's mostly focusing on a done for you social media strategy, but it's anchored by the, long form teaching video, which takes place and is posted weekly every time we teach pre filmed messages on YouTube direct to Camera Pro. Number one, of course, is like develop mentally splitting middle school and high school seems to be appropriate.

00;18;32;09 - 00;19;07;16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In my over a year journey on this podcast, I have grown to love YouTube. When I started with social media and what I started trying to reach students on the internet, YouTube was a distant kind of far strategy that was on my radar. Like it was like, I'll post some videos over there. But in my time since that, which was probably five, six, seven years ago, I have come to love YouTube and I am more and more convinced that YouTube, in addition to all other digital and social mediums that we can effectively reach students with.

00;19;07;19 - 00;19;30;04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But YouTube is one of the best resources out there. You can always say down below in the description are links. And so for every single video that I post on my Student Ministries YouTube channel, we post two links. The first link is a Next Steps digital type Connect card, and I think about your own viewing habits on social media.

00;19;30;04 - 00;19;55;08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
When you're on there, you're not necessarily on there to just, be informed, right? Link down below is a complete log of every single piece of gear that I have built in the studio.

Isaac Sutton
All of the students in the room who are watching unscripted have bingo cards that coordinated to stuff that know yes, digital integration is not a luxury, it's a necessity.

00;19;55;10 - 00;20;19;09
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.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Unscripted played a really major role in like the catalyst to especially my podcast and everything like that. I would say the reason for that is simply realizing and understand that students live online.

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.

00;20;19;13 - 00;20;30;14
Darren Sutton
Like in the middle of the pandemic, there was not a blank ministry kept going. We're going to try something different.

00;20;30;17 - 00;20;53;12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you should use your cell phone to your advantage.

Caleb "Flywheel" Maeda
I think. I think the 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.

David Carpenter
We speak to our students on Wednesday nights for about 18 to 22 minutes. Sunday morning there's a, you know, 28 to 32 minutes.

00;20;53;14 - 00;21;24;18
David Carpenter
And we think they probably remember everything we said, right? Like they they wrote the notes, they've got it and they've already applied every one of these points. You know, it was alliterative. And remember my great illustration. And one, you know, when when we're including things that are reflecting on the teachings, I think that reinforces and reminds those who were in the room.

Nate Clason
and seeing you, like, super passionate about it and watching your podcast really, honestly like, and your different videos and clips on like TikTok and stuff to sign it

Josh Boldman | Download Youth Ministry & The Greatest programming specialist in America
every single time you had to type in the password.

00;21;24;19 - 00;21;47;00
Josh Boldman | Download Youth Ministry & The Greatest programming specialist in America
It was a great and I, I got into trouble. One time I was in front of our I like our whole camp, like it was like a thousand kids, right? And sidekick was running and then it crashed and then they had to reopen it. And they're like, from the booth they yell out, what's the password? And in front of 1000 students, I had to say a password into the microphone.

00;21;47;00 - 00;22;09;14
Josh Boldman | Download Youth Ministry & The Greatest programming specialist in America
And here's the best part. You ready for this? It was the same password for everything. Like my my bank account and, all this stuff. So, like, we need to not be afraid of what our students want, and we need to not be afraid of them expressing their opinion. And we need to not be afraid of them disagreeing with each other or with us.

00;22;09;14 - 00;22;36;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Better event promotion as well as a holistic digital and social media approach for your church and your youth ministry. And this is actually part two. Part one is linked right here at the top of the screen over on another channel, because we're doing a massive mashup collab. And I am joined today by my friend Eric with the K petition, because in just a minute, we're gonna look at the Bark vs Aura

00;22;36;20 - 00;23;01;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But Aura has parental controls and they are now in partnership with circle. You might remember Circle by Disney, the first video idea that we do it's called Drafts challenge idea number two that we do in our church and in our student ministry is a game called name of the game is seven Questions. A man on the street named transition stab video is where it starts with the video of something else.

00;23;01;20 - 00;23;22;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the most popular one I can think about is like a a bull, ramming a guy during the running of the bulls. And then all these people cutting right there to jumping into the back of some chairs and millennial churchgoers said this. They said hybrid church just as much as physical church will be a get this good fit for them.

00;23;22;26 - 00;23;44;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One of the things about five minute countdowns that I actually hate, and I know that as talking to a guy who works for Download Youth Ministry, and that's where a lot of the money is made and a lot of five minute countdowns are sold. I actually prefer, which, by the way, talking to you right now, let this be an unofficial sidekick feature request.

00;23;44;24 - 00;24;11;13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Because right now in sidekick, you can, you can loop your announcements, right? You can loop some, like, graphic slides. And I actually prefer that to be the five minute countdown with just the five minute countdown overlaid in the corner, so that all of the announcements that you're announcing and trying to let your students know about are happening, is being seen on the screen.

00;24;11;18 - 00;24;37;06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the very last piece of it, my favorite piece of it, the piece that I think makes it hybrid, is right. When you open the box, you see this QR code here and it just says welcome video. Scan me. And so we'll have students who are new to the open this up theoretically on their porch, on their patio or wherever they will scan it, and then it will take them to a video right here will be launching here during the course of this playlist, starting officially on December 2nd.

00;24;37;09 - 00;25;00;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
A brand new bonus podcast. I'm going to be releasing it one time per week. Going to be over on my Patreon page, but a student give them an opportunity to to be a part of this. Give them a seat at the table to let them know that that this church is about the next generation and that matters. Again, it's no longer the day where we can just hand this off to to an unpaid intern.

00;25;00;24 - 00;25;11;10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hope that they keep our social media on life support. Like get after it. My friends, 2025 is going to be your year. We are here in the Hybrid Ministry show to help.

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

======================================
DESCRIPTION
🤔 What is the best day to meet with our youth group students
🖐️I’m ranking my top 5 curriculum resources
⚙️Finally, I’m going to share my top 3 interactive, and creative programming hacks
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/088

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

BEST TIME TO MEET?
//SPORTS & EXTRA CURRICULARS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/087

TEACHING
//STUDENTS WANT OWNERSHIP & BELONGING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqOPjD5hN-g

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

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

1) CO-LEADER
https://www.coleader.co/pricing

2) YM360
https://youthministry360.com/collections/sermon-series

3) GROW CURRICULUM
https://growcurriculum.org/

4) XP3
https://store.thinkorange.com/collections/xp3-license-category

5) DYM LIBRARY
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com

//MEMBERSHIP PRICING
https://www.dymmembership.com/pricing

3 PROGRAMMING HACKS
//USE SIDEKICK FOR INTERACTION!
https://www.sidekick.tv/

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

🖥️ "My 9 Favorite DYM Resources"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

📨 Full Proof Recruiting Email
EMAIL: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/recruiting-email

🍩 "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 Programming Your Youth Service
00:54 The Pros and Cons of different Youth Group Meeting Days and Times
05:04 Three Questions to Ask when deciding when to meet for Youth Group
07:51 The Top 5 Youth Ministry Curriculum Resource Sites
13:44 3 Creative Youth Group Programming Hacks

TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;40
Nick Clason
Last summer I had a leader say I thought that was a stupid idea. However, I later realized how genius it really was. What was it? I want you to stick around to the end, because this is actually one of my favorite youth group programing hacks. In addition to that, we're going to be talking about selecting the optimal youth.

00;00;20;40 - 00;00;44;48
Nick Clason
Time for you, your church and your youth group is at Wednesday night. Is it Sunday Night? Is it Sunday morning? Subscribe. If it's Wednesday night for you. Like if it's Sunday night and hey, hit the bell. If you have to be at your church on Sunday morning, I think that pretty much covers all of us. I also want to rank my top five five youth group curriculum providers and resources links down below in the show notes.

00;00;44;50 - 00;01;10;49
Nick Clason
And finally, I'm going to share with you my three favorite creative and potentially hybrid creative programing hacks. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show and the best time to meet. Like I remember when I started as a youth pastor, I was working at a church and I was inheriting a youth ministry that was run by volunteers. And so high school was on Tuesday night, middle school was on Wednesday night.

00;01;10;49 - 00;01;31;23
Nick Clason
And I met with my pastor early on, like my very first week on the job. And he told me, he said, Hey, listen, you can do whatever you want, which is an absolute dream for a youth pastor. But as a young youth pastor, the decision was actually agonizing. Do I meet Wednesday night? Do I keep meeting Tuesday night, which is when the high school are meeting?

00;01;31;23 - 00;01;53;35
Nick Clason
Do I switch to like a Sunday night vibe? And so Wednesday night, Sunday night, Sunday morning, like and I did have a Sunday morning component and so like you have to, you know, kind of navigate and know like what is going on within your church. But I had an advantage at that church because the youth ministry pretty much ran the place during midweek.

00;01;53;49 - 00;02;21;05
Nick Clason
There was no midweek kids, kids ministry programing. Kids ministry did AWANA on Sunday night at like 4:15 or something. And it was kind of an odd time, which I did end up way down the road years later, jump into Sunday night. But early on I made a decision to just stick with Wednesday. So let's chat through the pros and cons of Wednesday night, Sunday night and Sunday morning, and then maybe another day of the week in there for you.

00;02;21;10 - 00;02;42;41
Nick Clason
But the pro of of Wednesday night to me is probably your most traditional youth night. It's been a lot of churches, a lot of youth groups have done for years. And like down here where I live in DFW, Dallas, Fort Worth area a lot of churches do. Wednesday night and I came from Chicago. Not many churches did did Wednesday night.

00;02;42;41 - 00;03;03;20
Nick Clason
And that's just kind of a cultural thing, right? But the pro to me is it's like a midweek kind of jolt of energy, a mid-week connection point from if you're typically meeting on Sunday morning, you get back together in the middle of the week. That's helpful. The con of it, however, and we talked about it here in the last video, is youth sports and extracurricular activities.

00;03;03;20 - 00;03;31;44
Nick Clason
People are just getting busy. And so it makes attendance and it makes the accessibility, I believe, of a Wednesday night trickier, Sunday Night, however, the pro, I would say is probably one of the most unscheduled night for teens. Like more and more extracurricular activities, more and more sports are invading Sunday night, but it is probably the most free night that your teens have when you're looking at it from a vantage point of the majority of the availability.

00;03;31;49 - 00;03;50;55
Nick Clason
The kind of it, however, is not only for you, but for you and your teens and your leaders. It makes for a long day. You were at church Sunday morning and you've got a little gap in the middle and then you have to come back. And that returning to church like that's that is always a hard hurdle to jump I’ve found.

00;03;50;59 - 00;04;09;17
Nick Clason
If you have a kid who's not regularly planning on being at church, you say, hey, come back tonight, do like I got homework and all the things and families kind of have Sunday dinners. And so Sunday nights do tend to kind of make for a long day and then in a lot of our cases, we all have to be at church on Sunday morning.

00;04;09;22 - 00;04;35;00
Nick Clason
Some of us do our youth service on Sunday morning. Some of us have more of like a Sunday school kind of curriculum, them that we have to adhere to or carry out. The pro of Sunday morning is it's probably the easiest to gather crowd. You're going to have your most captive audience. In fact, in a video that I talked about, the decline of church attendance, most teens are attending church because they're coming with their parents.

00;04;35;00 - 00;04;52;19
Nick Clason
And so if their parents are coming to church, they're coming to church. And so Sunday morning is a great time for that to happen. The con of it is, while it may be the most captive audience, you may have the most amount of people the teenagers tend to be and feel and the environment just feels a little more tame.

00;04;52;19 - 00;05;18;29
Nick Clason
It's not a youth ministry. It's more like we are a ministry of the overall church here on a Sunday morning. But when you're making these decisions, okay, because in my case, I was talking about when I started that job, I really could decide whatever I wanted. But in a lot of cases, you don't have that that luxury. And the reason might be because you're coming into a more established church, you're coming into a more established youth group.

00;05;18;29 - 00;05;43;15
Nick Clason
And so the other like three questions to ask in this setting are, number one, what is expected of you? For example, are you even allowed to not have Sunday morning as an option? Like what is the expectation of your church and do you have the freedom to pull certain programs, pull certain time slots that you meet? So you need to make sure you know that before you make a decision and get yourself potentially in trouble.

00;05;43;20 - 00;06;13;35
Nick Clason
Question number two is what's the rest of your church doing? For example, I went to a church and and my pastor told me that this is different. I had the the freedom to make this decision. I did not have to meet on Wednesday night and I made that decision. However, once programing started in the fall, I realized that I had made a pretty big mistake because the entire church, adults, kids, preschool, everyone came back to church on Wednesday night and the only group not there, the only group not meeting ended up being middle schoolers.

00;06;13;35 - 00;06;34;06
Nick Clason
And so I had parents of middle schoolers really, really upset because they felt like their kid was not being cared for and that their kid didn't matter. In the life cycle of the church. So what is the rest of your church doing? You need to weigh that out. And if the whole church coming together for midweek, then you probably should have something there for the youth as well.

00;06;34;06 - 00;06;55;37
Nick Clason
And the third question is where do you have natural momentum? Like I said, the church, I made a decision between Wednesday night and Tuesday night and all that. I ended up landing on Wednesday night, but then years later I switched over to Sunday night and I split apart middle school and I split apart high school. And when I did that, I pulled away a little bit of momentum as well.

00;06;55;38 - 00;07;20;44
Nick Clason
Middle school was fine because it stayed on the night that it was on Wednesday night. But high school struggled because we tried to move on the Sunday night to become more adaptable to their schedules. However, at that church I was in, my students had become used to a certain rhythm and so moving, making that decision that made them have to adjust their schedule and adjust the way that they attached and that they connected to our church.

00;07;20;48 - 00;07;46;22
Nick Clason
And here's thing none of that matters, right? In your youth ministry. If you don't have students who feel connected and don't feel like they have a piece of ownership in helping growing your youth ministry into a vibrant community, which we talked about in a previous video, how to actually teach well, course you need those two components before your teaching is really going to matter.

00;07;46;22 - 00;08;08;55
Nick Clason
So let's talk about the five best curriculum resource sites, which we talked about. Students want to feel a sense of ownership and they want to feel a sense of belonging. And those two things need to exist in your youth ministry before your teaching is really going to start to matter. Wherever teaching and youth ministry, they're not going anywhere.

00;08;08;55 - 00;08;33;15
Nick Clason
It's part of what we do in youth ministry. And the fact is, you work too hard to let your messages die on your hard drive after you've delivered it to a full or maybe even potentially full or half full or less full or not as full as you'd like. Room of teenagers. And so that's why I recommend linked right here down below in description, my completely free hybrid strategy.

00;08;33;15 - 00;08;53;22
Nick Clason
If you're a youth pastor, you need to start posting your entire full length messages to YouTube. And I hear you're thinking like, I don't have livestreaming capabilities. I don't have livestreaming equipment. Hey, listen, most youth ministries don't. I certainly don't. But what we do is we actually do a YouTube video, sit down direct to camera. Honestly, very similar to what you're probably watching here.

00;08;53;27 - 00;09;14;23
Nick Clason
You can watch it on a phone, a tablet, TV, a computer, whatever it is, but you post a full length video to YouTube, you get it down to 10 to 15 minutes in length, post it. You can do some basic after editing if you like. If not, just post it on up there. But then what that does is it also helps give you an anchor for your social media curriculum.

00;09;14;33 - 00;09;33;43
Nick Clason
And so the message doesn't have to just die on a Wednesday night, on a Sunday night, on a Thursday night, whatever night of the week is your youth night, but it can live on in perpetuity. And as you teach certain series, you know how it is when it's like a students like I have a question about a particular topic and you just wrapped up a series, but they weren't there.

00;09;33;48 - 00;09;51;04
Nick Clason
Now guess what? You can share them that link and be like, Hey, I actually just talked about I'd love for you to take a watch and then let's get back together and let's, let's chat about it. But that, that bedrock of that YouTube video that can that sort of establishes the framework for all your social media throughout the week.

00;09;51;04 - 00;10;12;20
Nick Clason
You can post fun content and you can also post teaching clips now because you have a fully filmed wide screen based video that you can then clip up. You can use a service like Opus AI or Opus.Pro link down below. Description Check that out if that’s something you want AI will clip up your messages for you and do all the editing.

00;10;12;20 - 00;10;35;33
Nick Clason
And it looks masterful. It looks it looks great. But let's talk about my five favorite curriculum resources. You may be creating your own curriculum as a youth pastor, but you don't have to. And if you don't have time for you don't want to do it, this these five resources will all save you tons of time. But they may not save you tons of money because they each have a different price tag attached to them.

00;10;35;38 - 00;10;58;37
Nick Clason
So my number one favorite resource curriculum provider right now is coleader.co. That is from Download Youth Ministry and they have three sort of different tiers of billing. You can get a free version where they'll just give you access to it and you'll get 40 free credits to begin and to explore. The good thing about coleader is it plans your whole program.

00;10;58;37 - 00;11;29;41
Nick Clason
It doesn't just give you a teaching script. Then they're premium version. It's about $249 a year billed annually, which breaks down to about $10 a week, again, including all of your programing and messages and songs and small group questions that gives you about 26 or so weeks of programing. So maybe this would be good if if you're doing like school year Wednesday night from like September through May, but you're not meeting in the summer and you have a lot of like gaps and Christmas parties and Thanksgivings off and stuff like that.

00;11;29;46 - 00;11;49;45
Nick Clason
And maybe you do actually teach some of your own content and you sort of supplement in there, but you need something to pull from when you're in a pinch. And then premium plus is about $399 a year. Billed annually breaks down to about $8 or so per week. And premium plus also gives you access to the new sidekick Beta, which is amazing.

00;11;49;56 - 00;12;10;39
Nick Clason
My number two on the list is the YM 360 sermon library is just a website which has kind of like an ala carte vibe. Where you go, you can grab different lessons three and four week series that have been taught by and taught by different youth. Pastors usually break it down to about $35 per series. So check that out.

00;12;10;39 - 00;12;38;33
Nick Clason
Link down below in the description. My third favorite one is the Grow curriculum. And it is. It looks great this week. It is modern. Have full disclosure. I've never used it. Mostly price tag reasons. And in most churches that I’ve been at, we've had some other provider already. But I love the what they guys what the guys over at stuff you can use do what they stand for and so you can check that out link down below in the description.

00;12;38;33 - 00;13;08;22
Nick Clason
My fourth is XP3, orange. It is probably the Cadillac of all youth ministry curriculums is also probably the most expensive on their website. Their annual license for it is anywhere from $449 a year all the way up to 2700 per year. And that's going to be based on your average youth group size. And then number five, my fifth resource is honestly just DYM library, similar to the YM360 model.

00;13;08;33 - 00;13;27;23
Nick Clason
You can just go get a DYM membership. They've started at $12 a month, gold at $26.99 a month, and then gold plus at $40 a month. Gold plus gives you sidekick phone connections so you can scan the code on screen. Do live poll voting. One of my favorite hybrid ways to do youth ministry these days. But you can just hop on there.

00;13;27;28 - 00;13;49;10
Nick Clason
They also gives you store credit when you have the membership. So whether you have a membership or not, you can ahead of time and you can find series there typically for anywhere from $5 to $12 per series for anywhere from like 3 to 4 week teaching series. So now here we are. What is my favorite youth group programing hack?

00;13;49;15 - 00;14;05;24
Nick Clason
Well, number one link the times that you meet by purpose, right? In a lot of cases, you may not be making a decision for youth ministry. You have like one singular time to me. Is it Wednesday? Is it Sunday? Right. Like you may already have to meet Sunday morning and then you're having to figure out when else to meet.

00;14;05;28 - 00;14;24;59
Nick Clason
And so instead of having to channel like supply curriculum for each and every one of those things, what we do in our current setting, I'll just tell you is Sunday morning is connect groups. And that's for the entire church adults, kids, students, everyone. And when I got here, we were like supplying curriculum for connect groups. And then on Wednesday nights we taught out of a different curriculum.

00;14;25;13 - 00;14;50;10
Nick Clason
And so on Wednesday nights now we teach a message and then on Sunday morning they discuss the message. We have more students on Sunday morning and a lot of our students on Sunday morning don't attend back over here on Wednesday night. So because we pre film our curriculum, we will play a little clip, a teaser, also a reminder for those students who did actually come on Wednesday night to help the Sunday morning people be able to have the discussion.

00;14;50;15 - 00;15;11;12
Nick Clason
All of our leaders are able to then watch the videos in full to be able to teach the lesson. If they didn't make it on Wednesday night and you're able to have that discussion. But also, if you did come Wednesday Night, it doesn't feel like a retread or a repeat. I can't remember who said this, but I remember someone someone saying at a a conference is something like think about all the times you meet.

00;15;11;12 - 00;15;37;35
Nick Clason
If you have especially in student ministry of like main church service, you have youth Sunday morning and then you have youth Wednesday Night. And if every-- if a student comes every single week, 52 different times per year, then that is 52 times that they are taught a sermon and challenged to make an adjustment in their life and change. That is another 52 times when they come to the Youth night that they are taught a sermon and challenged 52 different times to change.

00;15;37;40 - 00;16;06;52
Nick Clason
And then the third time they come to the youth other thing and they are challenged 52 different times per year and preach a sermon with some content and challenged to change their life. I don't do math on the fly very well, but that's like well over 150 times that they're supposed to do something different with their life. And just think that when you tie these to Wednesday night, Sunday morning, whatever your thing is, when you tie them together with purpose, if you have to have both meeting slots, that helps you, right?

00;16;06;52 - 00;16;33;58
Nick Clason
Streamline your teaching. But that's also helpful to the students. It's not a laziness thing, right? In my opinion. It's not like you're just trying to get out of doing more. It's stewarding your budget, but it's also helping like most like disciple your students. Because then when your teaching is in alignment, everything can be in alignment. Your social media for that week, whatever you taught on Wednesday, that's the topic on your your social media, that's a topic on all of your digital hybrid resources.

00;16;34;03 - 00;16;55;42
Nick Clason
Right? Number two, my favorite hack is interactive teaching. Let me just share with you right here on screen tonight. I am teaching live in the room at my church and we are in a series called How to use the Bible. And in that we have been giving them like, you know, reasons for why the Bible is reliable, reasons for why we can know that we can trust the Bible.

00;16;55;47 - 00;17;19;41
Nick Clason
But then we're also like helping share them, like actual hands on tactical, like guides on how to use the Bible. But tonight I'm talking about filtering God's Word or filtering culture through the lens of God's Word in everything that we do. So what I am doing tonight is I'm starting out with a Pawn Stars video clip talking about someone who brought in a fake Babe Ruth baseball card.

00;17;19;46 - 00;17;36;13
Nick Clason
And then from there, I'm telling them the hook straight away. I'm like, Are you a Biblical Christian or are you a Cultural Christian? And then we have tables in our space. And so I'm letting them talk about the difference between a Biblical Christian and a Cultural Christian. And how can you tell me give them a few minutes to chat that out.

00;17;36;18 - 00;17;59;10
Nick Clason
Then I'm going to have a poll on the screen with Sidekick. We're asking them this question that says, Do we agree or disagree? Do we? Do we view everything in our life through a filter? Right? And then I'm going to give them three filters I view my life through Dad filter, Colts Fan filter, coffee filter, Shout out to coffee.

00;17;59;10 - 00;18;23;51
Nick Clason
My brand new Valentine's gift, the Moca-master coffee maker first cup out of it this morning. Delicious. Ten out of ten would recommend. Then from there I am going to show them a picture of like a one of my kids watches for Christmas that they got. And talk about how scientists say that the same process that happens when you learn a new language is also what's happening when we're spending time on our screens.

00;18;23;56 - 00;18;55;17
Nick Clason
And then I'm going to give them the definition of a cultural Christian versus a biblical Christian. And then I'm going to build a poll asking them what their favorite drink is like caramel macchiato, coffee, chocolate, milk, and they're going to have a chance to vote on that. All the while, all of my notes are in a thing that we call digital notes, and we use the YouVersion Live events plan that is a completely free tool that you can use, but your church can set up live events and so kids can have their phones and they can be following along with the scriptures and taking notes.

00;18;55;17 - 00;19;19;03
Nick Clason
But then we're going to take them to Daniel. Chapter one. I got one more poll in there from Sidekick. I got another turn n talk. I got a map of where they go from Babylon to to from from Jerusalem to Babylon. Let's see, then I got some reasons why you oppose the food in Daniel Chapter one. I say what scholars think the age of this Daniel was, which is 11 to 17.

00;19;19;03 - 00;19;37;09
Nick Clason
And so my question is, how does a teenage boy end up in a foreign land? His parents are likely killed and he's opposing the king. How do you think he did that? How does he have enough wisdom to know what to do and what to oppose? And then I'm going to bring a coffee pot on stage and talk about how what we put in the pod there is what we filter.

00;19;37;09 - 00;19;57;18
Nick Clason
What spits out right, is a true form of of Christianity or it's not. But the Bible has to be the filter through which we do that. But the only way that matters if we truly have a desire to follow Jesus. Now, I don't like my whole reason for sharing All that is simply just for you to see all the different like I have sent them off to, to take questions.

00;19;57;18 - 00;20;26;54
Nick Clason
And then we have digital notes for them to follow along with. And we have polls on the screen and then we have a break in between. My first part of my teaching and my last part of my teaching, which is my third hack, and that's the one the leader said. I thought that was the most stupid idea because what I would do at summer camp last year is I teach for a little bit, share a little story in opening illustration, and then I would open it to a question and then I'd send them off in their small groups right there in that space in audio auditorium style seating at camp and say, Find your small

00;20;26;54 - 00;20;44;26
Nick Clason
group and your small group leader and answer these two questions and it would break for 10 minutes. And he said, I thought we were going to lose them. Like I thought like, man, that's dumb. Like, we are going to lose. These kids are going to go crazy. But what it actually did was it helped us have longer sessions and deeper teaching because we gave a break.

00;20;44;37 - 00;21;05;56
Nick Clason
I wasn't just sitting and teaching for 20 straight minutes, 30 straight minutes, 40 heaven forbid, straight minutes, because I gave them a break and I let them contribute to the conversation, which is what Gen Z is looking to do. Right? And so that one of the challenges to good creative teaching, because like I said, we use tables in our space most Wednesday Nights.

00;21;06;00 - 00;21;30;02
Nick Clason
It's one of the challenges to that right is navigating shared space, shared space in youth ministries, which is actually the next video it's going to be linked to right here on the screen. It’s a huge challenge and a problem facing youth pastors. How do you navigate it? What are best practices linked right here? Take a look at that, because we're here to try and make digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible.

00;21;30;02 - 00;21;32;26
Nick Clason
So as always, stay hybrid.

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

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

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

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

DESCRIPTION
👋 Welcome to our YouTube channel & podcast!

🧑‍🚀 In this playlist, we are exploring the 3 new digital frontiers for churches and youth ministry pastors and leaders.

🎮 And in this video we're exploring the world of Youth Ministry Games and Fun!
What is different?
Where did games even come from in the first place?
And how should we adjust as we move forward into this new digital frontier?

In the subsequent videos we'll talk about
💬 Message Enhancement
🐑 Shepherding

So be sure to subscribe, so you don't miss a thing!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS

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

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

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/071

//View all the Charts and Graphs via YouTube
https://youtu.be/OiBjI9dMxu8

//Rank 'Em
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/rank-%27em---fall-edition/fall-8962.html

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

//Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Crash Course
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaKVpQBDSQV6Q9hFeXCptHSu

//Budget Friendly Design Options
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

//Emoji Phraseology Vol 1
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology/social-media/instagram-6801.html

//Emoji Phraseology Camp Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---camp-edition/games/sequels-8122.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Summer Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---summer-edition/games/bundles-and-sequels-8088.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Easter Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology-easter-edition/games/pop-culture-6957.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Vol 2
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---vol-2/games/sequels-8640.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Halloween Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---halloween-edition/fall/halloween-8320.html

//Emoji Phraseology: March Madness
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---madness-edition/spring/march-madness-8594.html

//Emoji Phraseology: 4th of July
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---patriotic-edition/summer/4th-of-july-8780.html

//Emoji Phraseology: St. Patrick's Day
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology-shamrock-edition/games-6929.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Christmas Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology%3A-christmas-edition/christmas-games-8426.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Superhero Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---superhero-edition/games/pop-culture-8827.html

//Emoji Phraseology: SuperBowl
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---big-game-edition/sports/football-8520.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Bible Story Edition
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---bible-story-edition/games/bible-based-8687.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Back 2 School
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology---back-2-school-edition/fall/back-to-school-8900.html

//Emoji Phraseology: Valentine's Day
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/emoji-phraseology%3A-love-edition---game-%26-social-media/games/humor-6855.html

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:08 Exploring New Digital Frontiers in Youth Ministry
02:08-04:10 What is Hybrid Ministry?
04:10-08:20 Why do we play games in Youth Ministry?

08:20-17:35 3 Hybrid Game Ideas you can use this week!

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
Games and youth ministry, they go together like peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, Batman and Robin. But how can we as youth pastors or ministry leaders readjust the way in which we approach games and lean more into this digital space that we found ourselves in? Should we ignore it or should we find a way to capitalize on it? My approach and my mission for this podcast is to turn your ministry hybrid. How do we make your ministry hybrid, not just in person, not just digital, but a melding of the two. Does that mean that we should play more like cell phone based games, Kahoot games, zoom screen games? In this three part playlist, I want to give you the three new frontiers that we should be exploring as youth pastors, as youth ministry leaders into the digital space and frontier number one. Today. In this episode, we are going to be exploring the world of youth ministry and youth ministry games.

Nick Clason (01:02):
We're going to delve into the why and the philosophy of youth ministry and give you three games that you can adopt and take into your student ministry immediately today. All of this in effort as we are in this new digital frontier, this new digital space to effectively reach the students that God has placed in our trust with the message of hope and the mission of the gospel. We're also going to be exploring in this playlist how you can bring up your message enhancement in the hybrid world, and finally, how you can implement ongoing care, shepherding and relationships to the students that God has entrusted into you and your care in your student ministry. But let's dive further into this new frontier of digital discipleship through the means and avenues of games. Make sure also that you stick around to the very end because at the end I'm going to leave with you a one surefire resource that you can implement with multiple done for you game ideas and ways that you can hybridize your ministry.

Nick Clason (01:58):
And I have the ultimate hack that you can bring just about any game and turn it into a hybrid game. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am Nick Clason, a 13 year youth ministry veteran, currently serving in the great state of Texas. And I want to let you know that I am on a mission, as I said in the intro, to help youth pastors usher themselves more and more into this digital age. And I want to make sure that we are keeping the integrity of our in-person gatherings while also offering more and more of an opportunity for our students to engage with us from a digital mindset and digital framework. And so what I actually have for you as a surefire link in the description, I have a ebook. I have created 40 a whole month's worth of posting strategy for you as a youth pastor implement the strategy that I'm currently using, the one that I've used to grow our YouTube account and our followership in our social media from zero to around 300 up to this point and just under a calendar year.

Nick Clason (03:03):
And it will give you ideas and games that you can use and implement that are turnkey right now that you can use. But they're custom. You and your students and your volunteers get to be the heroes on your youth ministry. It's not just a bunch of static on account of foreign kind of boring graphics. It's real faces, real human beings. If you put a little bit of work in, you can totally revolutionize your student ministry. And I also want to let you know that links right here at the top of this video is a link to a video, what I believe every youth ministry needs and why this is also important. It's basically the thesis for this entire podcast. Hey, and finally, I want to make sure that you like and subscribe to this episode because here's why we are going to be dropping more and more episodes, especially this one as we're exploring new frontiers of hybrid ministry in the next episodes to come.

Nick Clason (03:49):
And I want to make sure that you don't miss it and likes, honestly, they're free and they really, really help us out and they help us get this mission to more and more people. But let's explore before we dive into the actual nitty gritty of games and youth ministry, let's talk about the philosophy and even the history of youth ministry and youth ministry games. Where did games come from? Why do we do them? It seems like it's the rite of passage. Every single youth ministry needs games. You look at resources like YM 360, download, youth ministry, even old school back in the day group. They're all trying to help solve this problem of how can you have games and what do games look like and where can you best take care of supplying games for you and your students? And we have screen-based games and active games and digital games and hybrid games, and we're going to get into all of that.

Nick Clason (04:43):
But I wanted to take a step back and be like, where did this even come from? So back in the 18 hundreds when students were not going to school on a regular basis, they were working six days a week, they invented this idea of Sunday School to bring about an age graded focus for students and an age graded Bible study, one that was a little bit more relevant to them in their timeframe, a little bit more relevant to them in their age group. And so what they did was they created this breakdown by age and grade and gender even. And they started to create this school vibe where they would teach the Bible. Well then fast forward to the 1940s, churches were maybe not super relevant to reaching young people. And so these two organizations popped up right around the same time, young Life and youth for Christ.

Nick Clason (05:34):
And so they both came with the mindset with the entire goal is to reach young people, reach 'em for Christ, and help change them from the inside out and revolutionize them with the power of the gospel. And then finally in the 1970s, churches began to start to see a void of that because what they were doing was in Sunday school mode, they're having volunteers and parents kind of lead these groups, but they started to identify this need for pastors, for people who could come in and who could be specialists in this area for teenagers and for the young people in their churches because they saw what was going on with Youth for Christ and Young Life. And they wanted to also bring that and usher that into the local church. And so since about the 1970s and the Jesus Revolution time, shout out to that movie if you haven't seen it yet, but they're bringing about this young people, this place for young people to come and find belonging, meaning, and purpose.

Nick Clason (06:28):
So that's the history of youth ministry. But why games? So if you look over time, there's always an element of fun and something that will bring about a draw of a crowd. And so to get the maximum amount of people you might feed people, you might offer fun, you might offer warmth, you might offer a great environment or a good vibe. And the truth of matter is, is that games have always sort of been a staple in what we've done in youth ministry, so much so that I do think at some point we've gotten a little bit rote with them and they're benign, and we just do them without even thinking like, well, what's the game going to be? Well, why are we even doing games? What's the purpose? And so what I've seen in my 13 years of student ministry experience is that if you just do games for game's sake, it doesn't have much to offer.

Nick Clason (07:17):
But in my mind, the purpose of a game is to help speak the language of teenagers, which by the way is the entire reason why I have this ebook linked in the description below for you to become more hybrid and for you to become more digitally focused. Because I believe it's a way for us to speak the language better of our teenagers and teenagers, whether they want to admit it or not, they love fun. Fun is the currency of teenagers. Fun helps break down the walls of people who may or may not know why they're at your church or who God is, or they're exploring this faith thing for the very first time. And fun helps alleviate and reduce the tension out of the room why we do what we do. And so with that in mind, I want to give you three game ideas, three hybrid game ideas that you can take use and even download immediately with links in the description of this episode that you can use both on your social media in person, and better yet, maybe you can find a way to meld the two together.

Nick Clason (08:17):
So let's explore that in the next section. All right, so link below in the description are three games that I have in my Download Youth Ministry store right now, and they are fun ones that I like to use. But I also just want to let you know that in all of this, many of the things that I'm going to be suggesting to you are also linked in my completely free ebook. So if you don't want to go pay for it, you can come up with some of these ideas on your very own by just looking at my completely free ebook, which is 40 done for You Ideas to help you and your students and your volunteers become the heroes on your church's social media and in your church's digital presence. And listen, in my ebook, I'm going to give you just a little bit of a sneak peek and a little bit of a hack.

Nick Clason (09:01):
I recommend that you sit just like this direct to camera and present and preach your message ahead of time before you deliver it live into the room. You then use that to clip up, make short sermon clips. But if you aren't willing and don't have the time to do that, I do recommend the remainder of my strategy, which is having fun with your students and having fun with your leaders and having fun with maybe even other staff on camera and posting that to your social media because it's a way that you can interact and engage with something that's live and happening real and in the room, but you can also show that content out to the rest of the world, and if not the rest of the world, at least the rest of your church, the rest of your youth ministry, the parents that are connected to the students in your ministry.

Nick Clason (09:45):
And so three of these ideas are ideas that I have either detailed or outlined before, or ones that I've come up with since I released the ebook. So the first one is a game called Rank 'em, and there's two different ways to do it. I believe right now I have the fall version online on DYM and coming up soon, I should be having the Christmas version drop onto Download Youth Ministry. But Rank 'em is basically a, Hey, let your students take these five things and rank them one through five. Now, one of my favorite variations to that is what's called, and maybe you've seen it if you've been on TikTok or Reels, is the blind ranking thing, which is where different categories of things come in. So let's say you're doing

Nick Clason (10:24):
A blind ranking of a TV show, and I say The Office, and then you have to put it in one through five list. And so for me, if I got the office, I'd be like, well, that's one. But then if someone was like, fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines, I'd be like, man, I like that show a lot. Probably put it at three. I'm afraid to give away two. And then if someone's like, okay, Ted Lasso, I'll be like, oh, Ted Lasso so good. I want to put it at one, but I can't start putting the office there. So I guess I'll put it in at two. And then if someone was like the ugliest houses in America, I'd be like, okay, I can put that at five. I like it, but I want to reserve four for something. And then they said, the Mandalorian, I'd be like, all right, four.

Nick Clason (11:00):
And I'd be like, you know what? I don't hate that list. What do you think Office, Ted Lasso Fixer Upper Mandalorian houses in America. I'm okay with that list, right? But the point is, I didn't know what was coming next. That's the idea of a blind ranking. And so I have two versions in this actual game. Rank 'em where you can play live in the room with five things. You can do the one by one where they come in one at a time and you have to choose to rank 'em. I also have a social media version where you can take it and you can post it on your reels tos, YouTube shorts, and you can let students interact with it there and give their rankings. You can post it on YouTube story, or I'm sorry, Instagram stories if you don't have any of the other short kind of form platforms.

Nick Clason (11:39):
But you can use this. And again, if you get this game, I played this game in my context, live in the room a couple of weeks ago, and we only got to three questions. So what I did was, the way that I played it was I had myself and a co-host. And so the first one was me. They had to guess my rankings of these certain things at their tables together. And then how they did. Then we went to my co-host, they had to guess his rankings of the certain things, and then finally we switched that and they could rank them themselves. But the game has 10 questions, and so we only used three. So that leaves me seven more that I can use kind of sprinkled throughout on my socials throughout the rest of the week. Game idea number two is the visual variance voyage.

Nick Clason (12:20):
And because I'm a good Baptist, I like a good alliteration, but essentially it's a spot the difference game. And so if you get the widescreen version on DYM, I should have a fall version as well as a Christmas version coming out here soon. You have two graphics come in side by side, and you have to spot the difference. And listen, the best thing right now is that Adobe Photoshop, generative AI is letting you just add things to pictures kind of here and there. And it is a game changer for a game like this. By the way, if you want to level up your Photoshop skills, I have a link in the playlist to my Adobe editing and Photoshop. If that's something that you're interested, go check that out if you want a cheaper version. I also have link down there below Budget graphics for people who are looking to save time and money going through PowerPoint, Canva, Adobe Express and Instagram.

Nick Clason (13:04):
But in the visual variance voyage, you have two different pictures and you're just trying to identify what is different. But there's a timer on the screen and it's counting down. So you can play that live in your room, you can get contestants, you can play it in groups, you can play it at tables. But I also like that I have created a vertical based graphic that you can use, and you can then take those, and you can post those on Instagram stories or on shorts, whatever. And again, in both of these, rank 'em and in the visual variance voyage, if you don't want to use my canned graphics with a canned background, you can take the concept, right? You can take the two pictures and you can show them to somebody on a camera walking around your youth space like, Hey, spot the difference in less than 10 seconds.

Nick Clason (13:45):
Go. And then have them try to guess it, but you film them and you post that to your TikTok or to your YouTube short or whatever, and you can do just a simple picture and picture. Take my graphic that I've created and do a picture and picture with the video that you take of the person trying to guess. And so that's taking it to the next level where you take a game that you could just post a game in and of itself. But if you take that game and you film somebody trying to play it, then that's a whole nother level to it. Which leads me to my third option, which is my favorite option is emoji phraseology. I have just about any variant of season and game that you can think of. And basically what it is is you're trying to guess the emoji phrase, whether it's Christmas, whether it's fall, whether it's New Year's, whether it's February for Valentine's Day, whether it's St.

Nick Clason (14:28):
Patrick's. I mean, I literally have just about every season on download youth ministry, every single variation is linked down below in the show notes. But one of the favorite ways that I've done with this is I've just done one question by one question where we've gone up to people and we've asked them to guess, and then we've taken that graphic and they looked at it, and then I did a little picture and picture, or I actually put the actual icons on. I've done it where I did full editing and Adobe Premiere Pro with animations and sounds. And I've also done it where I just, in the TikTok editor, I just put the emojis on the screen and people had to try and guess and see what was playing. And so in all of those are games that you could play physically. Those are also games that you can play only digitally.

Nick Clason (15:10):
And my favorite is film other people playing those games and then post those out to your socials. One of the ones that was the biggest hit for the emoji was we went around and we did bible story emojis, and we asked different members of our staff and those, those were a massive hit, seeing other pastors and staff and senior pastors out there trying to guess those things on our socials. So here's the thing. The last way, the Ultimate Hack, I told you I was going to give you this ultimate hack. You can play just about any game, any game on download, youth ministry. It doesn't have to be one of my games. It can be any game that you find on there. It doesn't even have to have a phone-based formatting for it, but play any game. And then at the end of it, if it's a subjective based game where people are creating something, making a song, doing a lip sync, decorating a donut, whatever the case might be, take pictures of those things and then post them to social media and tell them that the vote is going to be what determines the winner.

Nick Clason (16:09):
And the voting is done on Instagram that does two things. It promotes your social media and it allows the students to be the judge, not just some random celebrity judge, not just you trying to pull something out of your hat at the last minute, right? Because Gen Z and Gen Alpha love to be publishers, they love to contribute to publishing the content, not just simply basic consumers being told what has happened to them. That is an older school, older industrial minded way of doing things. They want to know that their voice matters and that they actually even have a voice that you care about and that you want to listen to. And so that, I believe, is way number one, that you can wade into this exploring of a new frontier of how you can implement fun and games, not just in your room, not just online, but also in a hybrid way to help give students an opportunity to lean in and have their voice be heard in this hybrid way of doing things.

Nick Clason (16:59):
Which reminder is why I said in my ebook, I outline all the ways that you can flesh this out with posts twice a day for five days a week. You can scale it back if you don't have the bandwidth to do that, but whatever the case might be, I have millions of ideas in there from spiritual practice to fun, to your message content and ways that you can get that message out to spread the message of hope. So click the link for that down below in the description, and in the next video, we're going to be exploring how you can enhance your message and your ministry live in the room with hybrid versions. You're not going to want to miss it. Click that on the screen and we'll catch you on that side.