web02.fireside.fm Sat, 18 Apr 2026 04:05:57 -0500 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with โ€œYouth Group Small Groupsโ€ https://www.hybridministry.xyz/tags/youth%20group%20small%20groups Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500 Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To cater in a digital ministry way to an online focused ministry audience. Reaching Millennials, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha is going to require us to rethink some of the ways we do church. Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick en-us episodic Digital Discipleship made easy Nick Clason Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To cater in a digital ministry way to an online focused ministry audience. Reaching Millennials, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha is going to require us to rethink some of the ways we do church. Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick no Digital, Online Church, Hybrid Ministry, Church, Meta, Gen Z, Millennials, Digital Marketing, Church Marketing, Youth Ministry, Student Ministry, Nick Clason, Digital Ministry, Church Social Media, Youth Ministry Social Media, YouTube for Church, YouTube for Youth Ministry, TikTok for Churches, TikTok for Youth Ministry, Instagram for Churches, Instagram for Youth Ministry, Facebook for Church, Facebook for Youth Ministry, Cell Phone Usage at Church Nick Clason nickclason@hybridministry.xyz Episode 195: Young Leaders vs Older Leaders: Who Connects Better? https://www.hybridministry.xyz/195 0b848eec-7a58-412f-a01e-5bcc43101a5b Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500 Nick Clason 195 Young Leaders vs Older Leaders: Who Connects Better? full Nick Clason Volunteer Leaders are so crucial to a healthy youth ministry. But as you recruit, should you focus more on older leaders? Or younger leaders? In this debate style episode we have two leaders make their case on both sides of the aisle! Let's dive in, together! 20:45 no Volunteer Leaders are so crucial to a healthy youth ministry. But as you recruit, should you focus more on older leaders? Or younger leaders? In this debate style episode we have two leaders make their case on both sides of the aisle! Let's dive in, together! [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link ๐ŸŒธ SPRING SEASONAL SOCIAL PACK https://www.patreon.com/posts/spring-seasonal-151263940?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/195 //LINKS DYM Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/DYMCommunity ๐Ÿ‘‰ 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 -------------- ๐ŸŽ‰ FREE STUFF ๐ŸŽ‰ 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 -------------- ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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.patreon.com/posts/9-amazing-dym-142425755 //OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361 //HYBRID MINISTRY MEGA GUIDE Everything I've ever learned in one blog post [FOR FREE!] https://www.patreon.com/posts/hybrid-ministry-151264417?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link -------------- ๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES 00:00 Do older or younger leaders connect better with students? 01:32 Meet the Older Leaders vs Younger Leader Debate Contestants 04:38 Older People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers 07:09 Younger People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers 09:43 Can you clarify the emotional stability for older volunteers? 10:52 How should a busy youth pastor respond to social media? 12:54 Do younger people ever prove to be less reliable? 17:08 Closing Arguments -------------- TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason (00:01.062) What's up everybody? Here we are. I am with Jacob and Tyler. Gentlemen, how we doing this morning? Jacob (00:07.712) Doing good. It's good. Tyler Johnson (00:08.579) Doing so good. Nick Clason (00:09.93) Have we both already had coffee or is that after this is over? Jacob (00:15.057) I just finished my cup, so I'm all set. Nick Clason (00:17.18) Okay. Tyler Johnson (00:17.454) I had tea because I'm a tea guy. Nick Clason (00:19.708) Hey, there you go. Who knew? The more you know. Comment down below your favorite brand of tea for Tyler. But we're going to let each of you have a moment. I don't want to get too far into this without you guys letting us know who you are. So by random draw that happened off camera and you're just going to have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Jacob, you get to go first and introduce yourself one minute on the clock. Are you ready, sir? Jacob (00:19.826) Yeah. Jacob (00:48.273) Yeah, yeah, I can do a lot in a minute, let's do it. All right, yeah, my name is Jacob Hayes. I'm a student pastor for the chapel in Wisconsin. So I work with our three campuses in Wisconsin and our main campuses in Whitewater, which is UW College Town. So I get a lot of college students and it's fun to work with them. And yeah, it's just been great. See, I did it in under a minute. Nick Clason (00:50.218) All right, let's go. Tyler Johnson (01:08.02) you Nick Clason (01:11.85) 19 seconds what a right I don't think any youth pastor has ever come in that short on their time, but my friend Impressive stuff right there Tyler the bars been set bro Jacob (01:19.858) There you go. Nick Clason (01:27.56) Alright, are you ready Tyler? Let's go! Tyler Johnson (01:28.974) I'm so ready. I will take more than 19 seconds because I read that in debate it matters to take your full time. So my name is Tyler 2 Wall Johnson. The rest of that context doesn't need to be known because I don't think I can tell it in the remaining 40 seconds that I have. I am currently in Fort Wayne at Christ Hope Ministries and Church. I have only been here for about a year. was at my previous church for about eight years and I have had a fair balance of both young and old volunteers in the ministries. And so as I come today, ready to bear the fight and the voice of the older people, as there was another person in our retreat that the three of us had had recently who strives to be an older person. Jacob (01:54.899) Okay. Okay. Tyler Johnson (02:20.556) I cannot wait and so I am ready to defend the old today. Done. Nick Clason (02:27.41) Nice, great work. wait, I got distracted. There we go. I almost didn't give you credit for that because I laid the remote down. Tyler Johnson (02:37.101) Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let it be known that it was about 56 seconds. Nick Clason (02:40.714) Strong work, man, both of you strong work. All right, well, now that we thoroughly know everything and we know the bare minimum of Jacob's life, let's get this show on the road. So once again, by random draw, Jacob, since you went first on the last one, that means Tyler, your position that you're getting two minutes to argue is that older people are better youth ministry volunteers. Jacob (02:51.398) Okay. Okay. Nick Clason (03:10.282) and you're about to have two minutes on the clock. Are you ready? Jacob (03:11.346) Okay. Okay. Tyler Johnson (03:14.54) I will take one minute and 59 seconds. Nick Clason (03:16.99) Alright, well then my friend, take it away. Tyler Johnson (03:20.522) Yes, I am here to debate that for older volunteers, here's number one. They bring long-term faithfulness and not just energy. They model a future version of faith. They're often more emotionally stable. I do say that as a once young person, kind of middle-aged. What is 30? Am I young middle-aged or am I old young? I don't know. That's for later. I'm in my debate time. Jacob (03:42.345) . Thank Tyler Johnson (03:50.955) Here's one of the probably the biggest that I have seen more personally outside of just reading from my notes and it's this. There is more ownership with the maturity, not just ownership of the ministry, but there's ownership of the tasks that they have. Not only do they see the ministry as their own or maybe their small group as their own and the ability to without asking permission or even sometimes without asking how. Nick Clason (04:01.514) Hmm. Jacob (04:13.129) . Tyler Johnson (04:18.508) They're going to go in and say, like, you know, they're going to grab the lunches. They're going to grab the coffees. I don't have to hold their hand for some of that. At the same time in ministry, if they are teaching a lesson, if they are preparing small group questions, it is theirs. They want to own it. And they might want feedback over some of that, but they're going to have ownership of it. In the same way, finally, there's a lot of ownership of their faith. As a young adult, even a young Jacob (04:36.369) Okay. Tyler Johnson (04:47.052) volunteer. I do believe someone is supposed to have a Paul and a Timothy at all times, even into their older years. But there's a lot of times that that those 20 somethings, they are still looking very heavily towards their Paul. And so with the the 40s, I would say arguably older ministry volunteers is probably 50 up. They they have experienced that mentorship role and are more willing to be the Paul than needing to be the Timothy. Done. Nick Clason (05:18.782) Fantastic, strong work. Jacob, the bar has been set, my friend. He brought in the Bible and everything, so it's now time for you. Jacob (05:19.344) There you go. That was good. Jacob (05:25.413) Here we go. Tyler Johnson (05:28.446) shoot, I should have used the Bible. Nick Clason (05:33.5) It's that time for you to argue your side of the aisle, though you guys are friends. You once were friends. Will you still be friends after this, Jacob? Two minutes on the clock. Take it away. Jacob (05:35.44) Here we go. Jacob (05:45.85) Go for it. Yeah, so I want to clarify before I offend anybody that's 35 or older, that I'm 29, so 30 and above is still in the older mark for me. But I think there's something that younger volunteers provide that can't be replicated anywhere else. And that first thing mainly is just proximity. Proximity to culture, life stage, proximity to what students are actually experiencing right now. You know, they remember what it was like to sit in the cafeteria awkward wondering about what they're going to do with their lives. Not 25 years ago with a completely different generation, but just a couple years ago. I think the other thing that it provides is you get you get volunteers. Students look to those younger volunteers and they see a hope, not just a hope that's like, man, 45, 50 years from now, this is where I can be. But there's a hope of OK, faith can actually survive past high school like. faith can actually thrive in a college setting because I'm seeing college-age young adult students or young adult leaders actually engaging and figuring it out. And they don't have all of the answers completely. But I also think that that provides a comfortability of freedom to the students that go like, hey, it's okay if I'm not hitting college-age and I have all of the answers because they're still trying to figure out what they're gonna do. And that's okay, it's a process. And they can kind of have hope in that. And then the younger leaders can speak into that a little bit for them and give them a sense of, going be okay, you've got time to process some of these things and they can do that together. I think the other thing is that it builds a leadership pipeline. know, for all the pros that Tyler's talking about, for the older volunteers, you don't get there without some of the without starting at some point. And so you got to start as a young leader, use the skills that you have at the time and then work your way up to a place where you can be a a Paul instead of just a Timothy. But also remember that Tyler Johnson (07:31.562) you Jacob (07:34.745) Paul called Timothy when he was super young into a step of ministry. It wasn't that, let's get you to a certain age, but it was right there in that moment. Done. Nick Clason (07:45.086) Great. So each person, each member of the defense, I don't know, this isn't court, has presented their side. Does anyone have a clarifying question for the other person to try and understand their side of the argument maybe a little bit better? Tyler Johnson (07:56.747) you Jacob (08:10.063) Yeah, I'll go. Clarify a little bit on the emotional stability of older volunteers. I'm not saying I disagree. I just want to hear the specific strength that comes from as an older volunteer, because I think it's possible the younger volunteers can be in a place where they're emotionally stable. But maybe I'm missing the angle that you're coming from. Tyler Johnson (08:21.194) Yeah, I think that older volunteers can react less dramatically to maybe sometimes it's student behavior or something like that, as well as even when there are storms in their personal life, I think you'll see someone who's Jacob (08:40.374) Here you go. Jacob (08:46.447) Yeah, that's Tyler Johnson (08:50.249) keep a more calm sense in them more than when the storms of life are hitting a young person. Nick Clason (09:00.648) Tyler, you got one for Jacob? Tyler Johnson (09:02.845) I'm gonna come up with one, but I really liked Jacob's take. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't admit guilty, I'm just saying, it was a good point. Talk to me some about, obviously with the older crowd, took the stance of there's some high reliability. Nick Clason (09:05.608) Yeah. Jacob (09:10.84) Did he just admit on here that I won or we live over? Nick Clason (09:16.126) Ahem. Tyler Johnson (09:29.917) Talk to me about the lows of reliability in young people and if that has been an experience that you've experienced. Jacob (09:36.093) I mean 100 % although I would also argue that I've that I've worked with older volunteers who are sometimes just as as unreliable as as younger volunteers and so it's a little bit of a balance I think One of the things that all that I'll say and I'll push a little bit on the younger volunteers compared to older volunteers if I'm doing a and I'm hoping that all of us are in agreement that this is a horrible idea if I'm doing an overnight event right, I'm getting the young guys who can pound two red bulls and eat Taco Bell and go run with the kids then get the older volunteers to go, hey, I need you to go run around for a whole night and interact. And so there's a little bit of an energy there that they can provide. And I totally agree. think there's the emotional stability thing is super important. I do agree. think older volunteers are a lot more calm, especially in situations where like we need calmness and direction in terms of crisis, both in our lives and then also just in the craziness of Wednesday nights, we need a little bit of calm. Nick Clason (10:05.866) Yeah. Tyler Johnson (10:29.225) you Jacob (10:30.03) But I think at some point you're not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to learn that, the young leaders, unless they're in it first and see the older people do it. And so they have to experience that so that way they can also learn how to get there. Tyler Johnson (10:41.503) I do, so what's really fun is talking about the overnight, right? Because we've all been there. Sometimes it's not about just the evening, it's about the recovery. I've known some young people who pounded those two Red Bulls and then afterwards, like the next day, they are a frail Victorian child on their couch. Jacob (10:45.549) Yeah. Jacob (10:53.095) Yeah, that's right. Jacob (11:03.021) True. Tyler Johnson (11:03.857) And some older people who are like, I got my coffee and I'm going to work today. And I'm like, you're insane. Jacob (11:11.511) Fair enough. Nick Clason (11:12.522) Well, and younger people have like sometimes their life lends itself better for recovery. They're like, I will be sleeping all day Saturday and it doesn't matter. And older people are like, I have a family and we have an upward basketball game that we have to be at at 9 a.m. You know what I'm saying? And so there's definitely like there's some of the availability piece of maybe like a younger person, but there's maybe some of the wisdom piece of the older person. Tyler Johnson (11:30.407) Absolutely. Nick Clason (11:41.726) Which is probably why this is a terrible argument to have a either or stance on, right? Like that's probably why it's helpful and beneficial to have a good blend of both, right? And so that doesn't make for a strong YouTube title, but it does make probably for good youth ministry to have a good blend of older volunteers and younger volunteers because you can certainly see the pros of both sides. And let's be honest, you can also see the cons. Jacob (11:48.783) Yeah. Jacob (12:05.888) For sure. Nick Clason (12:11.89) of both stances of the argument. Tyler Johnson (12:14.44) Yeah, and to be honest, I figured that was the point anyway, right, is to have the balance. even for the older people, the idea is not they are not just mentoring the students, they're mentoring the younger leaders. There's so much wrapped up. Jacob said it, there's a pipeline. You don't get to be the older volunteer without at one point probably being also the younger volunteer. And realistically, as the younger volunteer, as I was a younger volunteer, Jacob (12:16.813) Yeah. Nick Clason (12:18.023) You Nick Clason (12:27.114) Hmm. Nick Clason (12:39.241) Yeah. Tyler Johnson (12:44.155) There were volunteers that I looked up to that said, man, I want to do discipleship that way. want to do, man, I want to have their presence when my life looks like their life. Jacob (12:44.301) Sounds like I'm I'm winning now this thing Nick Clason (12:54.652) I was gonna say objection to the pipeline because like what's the point of a pipeline? You don't actually want them past 30. So like just burn them out bro and then. Tyler Johnson (13:03.848) Are you? I'm sorry, Mr. Host, are you taking a stance? I don't feel good about this. Nick Clason (13:07.816) No, I was just, I was just. I was just playing a counterpoint. All right. Jacob (13:15.353) You Nick Clason (13:18.014) Final arguments, are we ready? So I believe since Jacob went first on the last one, Tyler, is that right? Jacob (13:24.204) That's right. Tyler Johnson (13:30.001) I went first on the last one. Nick Clason (13:31.484) since Tyler went first on the last one by random draw that you'll have to trust. Yeah, I'm pastor. Jacob, one minute on the clock to defend your younglings. Are you ready? All right, take it away. Tyler Johnson (13:37.148) You're a pastor. Jacob (13:45.366) Yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, think, yeah, close that out. I think it's also like you see the students that get to see the younger leaders engage, that gives them a hopeful passion and you can plug those guys in when they graduate into your middle school programming, right? And then that's where they can learn even more. And so it's not just you have these students from... It would be great. It would be a great world to live in if they if every single one of them came in in sixth grade and stayed until senior year, right? But we know that that some of them come in in their in their senior year or junior year or anywhere in that spectrum and you think well only have a certain amount of time right? Well these younger leaders can pour into these people and help them figure out their gifts. So maybe it's being called into ministry. Maybe it's being called into something else or jumping into serving in student ministry to see where they feel like where their spiritual gifts are right? And those can happen at a young age rather than going well I'll just figure it out when I'm 30 and go from there. Tyler Johnson (14:44.966) Thank you. Nick Clason (14:45.256) All right, well done. Let's round it out, Mr. Tyler. Older people are better than younger people as youth ministry volunteers because... Tyler Johnson (14:51.174) I'm ready. Tyler Johnson (14:57.201) The last point I want to make for older volunteers is the vision casting as well as the decisions they make are generational. There are times that think with younger people they planned sometimes as little as like they're ready for next summer, they're ready for the next summer conference, they're ready for the next big event. When a lot of the decisions in ministry that is done from some of the older volunteers is they are thinking the long term, they are thinking about the students when they're getting to their late 30s, 40s, 50s, and how they can pour into them. They have that vision of the five-year plan and not the one-year plan. And I have found that incredibly valuable, especially when establishing a ministry for even me to go to them and have those long-term vision casting conversations about the ministry. Done. Nick Clason (15:53.61) Well done, there you have it folks. Old volunteers versus young volunteers. Let us know down below who won and whose side you're on. We should probably put like an old person emoji for one person and a child emoji. Yeah, yeah, then you, yeah. Jacob (16:08.121) And then put me Tyler Johnson (16:09.657) I just assumed that there was a filter you're gonna do in post that like I'm 90 right now. Nick Clason (16:17.13) Oh, I'm good, but I might not be that good, I mean. Yeah. Tyler Johnson (16:21.336) Okay, I'm just like, well, one, I kind of wanted to see it. I wanted to see like the really greys, like my grandfather had a very good head of hair even in his 90s. So like, I'm hoping that sticks. Yeah. Jacob (16:24.142) You Jacob (16:32.978) That sounds nice, that sounds really nice, Nick Clason (16:34.154) Way to rub salt in the wounds there, Jacob (16:39.946) That's right. youth ministry, youth pastor, youth group leadership, small group leaders, youth ministry leadership, youth pastor training, youth ministry strategy, small group ministry, youth group small groups, youth ministry tips, youth ministry leadership training, youth discipleship, youth ministry structure, small group leader training, youth ministry debate, youth pastor discussion, youth ministry philosophy, student ministry leadership, youth group leaders, church youth ministry, youth ministry best practices, student ministry small groups, nick clason, hybrid ministry Volunteer Leaders are so crucial to a healthy youth ministry.
But as you recruit, should you focus more on older leaders?
Or younger leaders?

In this debate style episode we have two leaders make their case on both sides of the aisle!
Let's dive in, together!

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SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/195

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๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES
00:00 Do older or younger leaders connect better with students?
01:32 Meet the Older Leaders vs Younger Leader Debate Contestants
04:38 Older People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
07:09 Younger People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
09:43 Can you clarify the emotional stability for older volunteers?
10:52 How should a busy youth pastor respond to social media?
12:54 Do younger people ever prove to be less reliable?
17:08 Closing Arguments

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.062)
What's up everybody? Here we are. I am with Jacob and Tyler. Gentlemen, how we doing this morning?

Jacob (00:07.712)
Doing good. It's good.

Tyler Johnson (00:08.579)
Doing so good.

Nick Clason (00:09.93)
Have we both already had coffee or is that after this is over?

Jacob (00:15.057)
I just finished my cup, so I'm all set.

Nick Clason (00:17.18)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (00:17.454)
I had tea because I'm a tea guy.

Nick Clason (00:19.708)
Hey, there you go. Who knew? The more you know. Comment down below your favorite brand of tea for Tyler. But we're going to let each of you have a moment. I don't want to get too far into this without you guys letting us know who you are. So by random draw that happened off camera and you're just going to have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Jacob, you get to go first and introduce yourself one minute on the clock. Are you ready, sir?

Jacob (00:19.826)
Yeah.

Jacob (00:48.273)
Yeah, yeah, I can do a lot in a minute, let's do it. All right, yeah, my name is Jacob Hayes. I'm a student pastor for the chapel in Wisconsin. So I work with our three campuses in Wisconsin and our main campuses in Whitewater, which is UW College Town. So I get a lot of college students and it's fun to work with them. And yeah, it's just been great. See, I did it in under a minute.

Nick Clason (00:50.218)
All right, let's go.

Tyler Johnson (01:08.02)
you

Nick Clason (01:11.85)
19 seconds what a right I don't think any youth pastor has ever come in that short on their time, but my friend Impressive stuff right there Tyler the bars been set bro

Jacob (01:19.858)
There you go.

Nick Clason (01:27.56)
Alright, are you ready Tyler? Let's go!

Tyler Johnson (01:28.974)
I'm so ready. I will take more than 19 seconds because I read that in debate it matters to take your full time. So my name is Tyler 2 Wall Johnson. The rest of that context doesn't need to be known because I don't think I can tell it in the remaining 40 seconds that I have. I am currently in Fort Wayne at Christ Hope Ministries and Church.

I have only been here for about a year. was at my previous church for about eight years and I have had a fair balance of both young and old volunteers in the ministries. And so as I come today, ready to bear the fight and the voice of the older people, as there was another person in our retreat that the three of us had had recently who strives to be an older person.

Jacob (01:54.899)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (02:20.556)
I cannot wait and so I am ready to defend the old today. Done.

Nick Clason (02:27.41)
Nice, great work. wait, I got distracted. There we go. I almost didn't give you credit for that because I laid the remote down.

Tyler Johnson (02:37.101)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let it be known that it was about 56 seconds.

Nick Clason (02:40.714)
Strong work, man, both of you strong work. All right, well, now that we thoroughly know everything and we know the bare minimum of Jacob's life, let's get this show on the road. So once again, by random draw, Jacob, since you went first on the last one, that means Tyler, your position that you're getting two minutes to argue is that older people are better youth ministry volunteers.

Jacob (02:51.398)
Okay. Okay.

Nick Clason (03:10.282)
and you're about to have two minutes on the clock. Are you ready?

Jacob (03:11.346)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (03:14.54)
I will take one minute and 59 seconds.

Nick Clason (03:16.99)
Alright, well then my friend, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (03:20.522)
Yes, I am here to debate that for older volunteers, here's number one. They bring long-term faithfulness and not just energy. They model a future version of faith. They're often more emotionally stable. I do say that as a once young person, kind of middle-aged. What is 30? Am I young middle-aged or am I old young? I don't know. That's for later. I'm in my debate time.

Jacob (03:42.345)
. Thank

Tyler Johnson (03:50.955)
Here's one of the probably the biggest that I have seen more personally outside of just reading from my notes and it's this. There is more ownership with the maturity, not just ownership of the ministry, but there's ownership of the tasks that they have. Not only do they see the ministry as their own or maybe their small group as their own and the ability to without asking permission or even sometimes without asking how.

Nick Clason (04:01.514)
Hmm.

Jacob (04:13.129)
.

Tyler Johnson (04:18.508)
They're going to go in and say, like, you know, they're going to grab the lunches. They're going to grab the coffees. I don't have to hold their hand for some of that. At the same time in ministry, if they are teaching a lesson, if they are preparing small group questions, it is theirs. They want to own it. And they might want feedback over some of that, but they're going to have ownership of it. In the same way, finally, there's a lot of ownership of their faith. As a young adult, even a young

Jacob (04:36.369)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (04:47.052)
volunteer. I do believe someone is supposed to have a Paul and a Timothy at all times, even into their older years. But there's a lot of times that that those 20 somethings, they are still looking very heavily towards their Paul. And so with the the 40s, I would say arguably older ministry volunteers is probably 50 up. They they have experienced that mentorship role and are more willing to be the Paul than needing to be the Timothy. Done.

Nick Clason (05:18.782)
Fantastic, strong work. Jacob, the bar has been set, my friend. He brought in the Bible and everything, so it's now time for you.

Jacob (05:19.344)
There you go. That was good.

Jacob (05:25.413)
Here we go.

Tyler Johnson (05:28.446)
shoot, I should have used the Bible.

Nick Clason (05:33.5)
It's that time for you to argue your side of the aisle, though you guys are friends. You once were friends. Will you still be friends after this, Jacob? Two minutes on the clock. Take it away.

Jacob (05:35.44)
Here we go.

Jacob (05:45.85)
Go for it. Yeah, so I want to clarify before I offend anybody that's 35 or older, that I'm 29, so 30 and above is still in the older mark for me. But I think there's something that younger volunteers provide that can't be replicated anywhere else. And that first thing mainly is just proximity. Proximity to culture, life stage, proximity to what students are actually experiencing right now.

You know, they remember what it was like to sit in the cafeteria awkward wondering about what they're going to do with their lives. Not 25 years ago with a completely different generation, but just a couple years ago. I think the other thing that it provides is you get you get volunteers. Students look to those younger volunteers and they see a hope, not just a hope that's like, man, 45, 50 years from now, this is where I can be. But there's a hope of OK, faith can actually survive past high school like.

faith can actually thrive in a college setting because I'm seeing college-age young adult students or young adult leaders actually engaging and figuring it out. And they don't have all of the answers completely. But I also think that that provides a comfortability of freedom to the students that go like, hey, it's okay if I'm not hitting college-age and I have all of the answers because they're still trying to figure out what they're gonna do. And that's okay, it's a process. And they can kind of have hope in that. And then the younger leaders can speak into that a little bit for them and give them a sense of,

going be okay, you've got time to process some of these things and they can do that together. I think the other thing is that it builds a leadership pipeline. know, for all the pros that Tyler's talking about, for the older volunteers, you don't get there without some of the without starting at some point. And so you got to start as a young leader, use the skills that you have at the time and then work your way up to a place where you can be a a Paul instead of just a Timothy. But also remember that

Tyler Johnson (07:31.562)
you

Jacob (07:34.745)
Paul called Timothy when he was super young into a step of ministry. It wasn't that, let's get you to a certain age, but it was right there in that moment. Done.

Nick Clason (07:45.086)
Great. So each person, each member of the defense, I don't know, this isn't court, has presented their side. Does anyone have a clarifying question for the other person to try and understand their side of the argument maybe a little bit better?

Tyler Johnson (07:56.747)
you

Jacob (08:10.063)
Yeah, I'll go. Clarify a little bit on the emotional stability of older volunteers. I'm not saying I disagree. I just want to hear the specific strength that comes from as an older volunteer, because I think it's possible the younger volunteers can be in a place where they're emotionally stable. But maybe I'm missing the angle that you're coming from.

Tyler Johnson (08:21.194)
Yeah, I think that older volunteers can react less dramatically to maybe sometimes it's student behavior or something like that, as well as even when there are storms in their personal life, I think you'll see someone who's

Jacob (08:40.374)
Here you go.

Jacob (08:46.447)
Yeah, that's

Tyler Johnson (08:50.249)
keep a more calm sense in them more than when the storms of life are hitting a young person.

Nick Clason (09:00.648)
Tyler, you got one for Jacob?

Tyler Johnson (09:02.845)
I'm gonna come up with one, but I really liked Jacob's take. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't admit guilty, I'm just saying, it was a good point. Talk to me some about, obviously with the older crowd, took the stance of there's some high reliability.

Nick Clason (09:05.608)
Yeah.

Jacob (09:10.84)
Did he just admit on here that I won or we live over?

Nick Clason (09:16.126)
Ahem.

Tyler Johnson (09:29.917)
Talk to me about the lows of reliability in young people and if that has been an experience that you've experienced.

Jacob (09:36.093)
I mean 100 % although I would also argue that I've that I've worked with older volunteers who are sometimes just as as unreliable as as younger volunteers and so it's a little bit of a balance I think One of the things that all that I'll say and I'll push a little bit on the younger volunteers compared to older volunteers if I'm doing a and I'm hoping that all of us are in agreement that this is a horrible idea if I'm doing an overnight event right, I'm getting the young guys who can

pound two red bulls and eat Taco Bell and go run with the kids then get the older volunteers to go, hey, I need you to go run around for a whole night and interact. And so there's a little bit of an energy there that they can provide. And I totally agree. think there's the emotional stability thing is super important. I do agree. think older volunteers are a lot more calm, especially in situations where like we need calmness and direction in terms of crisis, both in our lives and then also just in the craziness of Wednesday nights, we need a little bit of calm.

Nick Clason (10:05.866)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (10:29.225)
you

Jacob (10:30.03)
But I think at some point you're not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to learn that, the young leaders, unless they're in it first and see the older people do it. And so they have to experience that so that way they can also learn how to get there.

Tyler Johnson (10:41.503)
I do, so what's really fun is talking about the overnight, right? Because we've all been there. Sometimes it's not about just the evening, it's about the recovery. I've known some young people who pounded those two Red Bulls and then afterwards, like the next day, they are a frail Victorian child on their couch.

Jacob (10:45.549)
Yeah.

Jacob (10:53.095)
Yeah, that's right.

Jacob (11:03.021)
True.

Tyler Johnson (11:03.857)
And some older people who are like, I got my coffee and I'm going to work today. And I'm like, you're insane.

Jacob (11:11.511)
Fair enough.

Nick Clason (11:12.522)
Well, and younger people have like sometimes their life lends itself better for recovery. They're like, I will be sleeping all day Saturday and it doesn't matter. And older people are like, I have a family and we have an upward basketball game that we have to be at at 9 a.m. You know what I'm saying? And so there's definitely like there's some of the availability piece of maybe like a younger person, but there's maybe some of the wisdom piece of the older person.

Tyler Johnson (11:30.407)
Absolutely.

Nick Clason (11:41.726)
Which is probably why this is a terrible argument to have a either or stance on, right? Like that's probably why it's helpful and beneficial to have a good blend of both, right? And so that doesn't make for a strong YouTube title, but it does make probably for good youth ministry to have a good blend of older volunteers and younger volunteers because you can certainly see the pros of both sides. And let's be honest, you can also see the cons.

Jacob (11:48.783)
Yeah.

Jacob (12:05.888)
For sure.

Nick Clason (12:11.89)
of both stances of the argument.

Tyler Johnson (12:14.44)
Yeah, and to be honest, I figured that was the point anyway, right, is to have the balance. even for the older people, the idea is not they are not just mentoring the students, they're mentoring the younger leaders. There's so much wrapped up. Jacob said it, there's a pipeline. You don't get to be the older volunteer without at one point probably being also the younger volunteer. And realistically, as the younger volunteer, as I was a younger volunteer,

Jacob (12:16.813)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:18.023)
You

Nick Clason (12:27.114)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (12:39.241)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (12:44.155)
There were volunteers that I looked up to that said, man, I want to do discipleship that way. want to do, man, I want to have their presence when my life looks like their life.

Jacob (12:44.301)
Sounds like I'm I'm winning now this thing

Nick Clason (12:54.652)
I was gonna say objection to the pipeline because like what's the point of a pipeline? You don't actually want them past 30. So like just burn them out bro and then.

Tyler Johnson (13:03.848)
Are you? I'm sorry, Mr. Host, are you taking a stance? I don't feel good about this.

Nick Clason (13:07.816)
No, I was just, I was just.

I was just playing a counterpoint. All right.

Jacob (13:15.353)
You

Nick Clason (13:18.014)
Final arguments, are we ready? So I believe since Jacob went first on the last one, Tyler, is that right?

Jacob (13:24.204)
That's right.

Tyler Johnson (13:30.001)
I went first on the last one.

Nick Clason (13:31.484)
since Tyler went first on the last one by random draw that you'll have to trust. Yeah, I'm pastor. Jacob, one minute on the clock to defend your younglings. Are you ready? All right, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (13:37.148)
You're a pastor.

Jacob (13:45.366)
Yeah, I'm ready.

Yeah, think, yeah, close that out. I think it's also like you see the students that get to see the younger leaders engage, that gives them a hopeful passion and you can plug those guys in when they graduate into your middle school programming, right? And then that's where they can learn even more. And so it's not just you have these students from...

It would be great. It would be a great world to live in if they if every single one of them came in in sixth grade and stayed until senior year, right? But we know that that some of them come in in their in their senior year or junior year or anywhere in that spectrum and you think well only have a certain amount of time right? Well these younger leaders can pour into these people and help them figure out their gifts. So maybe it's being called into ministry. Maybe it's being called into something else or jumping into serving in student ministry to see where they feel like where their spiritual gifts are right? And those can happen at a young age rather than going well I'll just figure it out when I'm 30 and go from there.

Tyler Johnson (14:44.966)
Thank you.

Nick Clason (14:45.256)
All right, well done. Let's round it out, Mr. Tyler. Older people are better than younger people as youth ministry volunteers because...

Tyler Johnson (14:51.174)
I'm ready.

Tyler Johnson (14:57.201)
The last point I want to make for older volunteers is the vision casting as well as the decisions they make are generational. There are times that think with younger people they planned sometimes as little as like they're ready for next summer, they're ready for the next summer conference, they're ready for the next big event. When a lot of the decisions in ministry that is done from some of the older volunteers is they are thinking the long term, they are thinking about the students when they're getting to their

late 30s, 40s, 50s, and how they can pour into them. They have that vision of the five-year plan and not the one-year plan. And I have found that incredibly valuable, especially when establishing a ministry for even me to go to them and have those long-term vision casting conversations about the ministry. Done.

Nick Clason (15:53.61)
Well done, there you have it folks. Old volunteers versus young volunteers. Let us know down below who won and whose side you're on. We should probably put like an old person emoji for one person and a child emoji. Yeah, yeah, then you, yeah.

Jacob (16:08.121)
And then put me

Tyler Johnson (16:09.657)
I just assumed that there was a filter you're gonna do in post that like I'm 90 right now.

Nick Clason (16:17.13)
Oh, I'm good, but I might not be that good, I mean. Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (16:21.336)
Okay, I'm just like, well, one, I kind of wanted to see it. I wanted to see like the really greys, like my grandfather had a very good head of hair even in his 90s. So like, I'm hoping that sticks. Yeah.

Jacob (16:24.142)
You

Jacob (16:32.978)
That sounds nice, that sounds really nice,

Nick Clason (16:34.154)
Way to rub salt in the wounds there,

Jacob (16:39.946)
That's right.

]]> Volunteer Leaders are so crucial to a healthy youth ministry.
But as you recruit, should you focus more on older leaders?
Or younger leaders?

In this debate style episode we have two leaders make their case on both sides of the aisle!
Let's dive in, together!

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--------------
๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES
00:00 Do older or younger leaders connect better with students?
01:32 Meet the Older Leaders vs Younger Leader Debate Contestants
04:38 Older People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
07:09 Younger People are Better Youth Ministry Volunteers
09:43 Can you clarify the emotional stability for older volunteers?
10:52 How should a busy youth pastor respond to social media?
12:54 Do younger people ever prove to be less reliable?
17:08 Closing Arguments

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.062)
What's up everybody? Here we are. I am with Jacob and Tyler. Gentlemen, how we doing this morning?

Jacob (00:07.712)
Doing good. It's good.

Tyler Johnson (00:08.579)
Doing so good.

Nick Clason (00:09.93)
Have we both already had coffee or is that after this is over?

Jacob (00:15.057)
I just finished my cup, so I'm all set.

Nick Clason (00:17.18)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (00:17.454)
I had tea because I'm a tea guy.

Nick Clason (00:19.708)
Hey, there you go. Who knew? The more you know. Comment down below your favorite brand of tea for Tyler. But we're going to let each of you have a moment. I don't want to get too far into this without you guys letting us know who you are. So by random draw that happened off camera and you're just going to have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Jacob, you get to go first and introduce yourself one minute on the clock. Are you ready, sir?

Jacob (00:19.826)
Yeah.

Jacob (00:48.273)
Yeah, yeah, I can do a lot in a minute, let's do it. All right, yeah, my name is Jacob Hayes. I'm a student pastor for the chapel in Wisconsin. So I work with our three campuses in Wisconsin and our main campuses in Whitewater, which is UW College Town. So I get a lot of college students and it's fun to work with them. And yeah, it's just been great. See, I did it in under a minute.

Nick Clason (00:50.218)
All right, let's go.

Tyler Johnson (01:08.02)
you

Nick Clason (01:11.85)
19 seconds what a right I don't think any youth pastor has ever come in that short on their time, but my friend Impressive stuff right there Tyler the bars been set bro

Jacob (01:19.858)
There you go.

Nick Clason (01:27.56)
Alright, are you ready Tyler? Let's go!

Tyler Johnson (01:28.974)
I'm so ready. I will take more than 19 seconds because I read that in debate it matters to take your full time. So my name is Tyler 2 Wall Johnson. The rest of that context doesn't need to be known because I don't think I can tell it in the remaining 40 seconds that I have. I am currently in Fort Wayne at Christ Hope Ministries and Church.

I have only been here for about a year. was at my previous church for about eight years and I have had a fair balance of both young and old volunteers in the ministries. And so as I come today, ready to bear the fight and the voice of the older people, as there was another person in our retreat that the three of us had had recently who strives to be an older person.

Jacob (01:54.899)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (02:20.556)
I cannot wait and so I am ready to defend the old today. Done.

Nick Clason (02:27.41)
Nice, great work. wait, I got distracted. There we go. I almost didn't give you credit for that because I laid the remote down.

Tyler Johnson (02:37.101)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let it be known that it was about 56 seconds.

Nick Clason (02:40.714)
Strong work, man, both of you strong work. All right, well, now that we thoroughly know everything and we know the bare minimum of Jacob's life, let's get this show on the road. So once again, by random draw, Jacob, since you went first on the last one, that means Tyler, your position that you're getting two minutes to argue is that older people are better youth ministry volunteers.

Jacob (02:51.398)
Okay. Okay.

Nick Clason (03:10.282)
and you're about to have two minutes on the clock. Are you ready?

Jacob (03:11.346)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler Johnson (03:14.54)
I will take one minute and 59 seconds.

Nick Clason (03:16.99)
Alright, well then my friend, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (03:20.522)
Yes, I am here to debate that for older volunteers, here's number one. They bring long-term faithfulness and not just energy. They model a future version of faith. They're often more emotionally stable. I do say that as a once young person, kind of middle-aged. What is 30? Am I young middle-aged or am I old young? I don't know. That's for later. I'm in my debate time.

Jacob (03:42.345)
. Thank

Tyler Johnson (03:50.955)
Here's one of the probably the biggest that I have seen more personally outside of just reading from my notes and it's this. There is more ownership with the maturity, not just ownership of the ministry, but there's ownership of the tasks that they have. Not only do they see the ministry as their own or maybe their small group as their own and the ability to without asking permission or even sometimes without asking how.

Nick Clason (04:01.514)
Hmm.

Jacob (04:13.129)
.

Tyler Johnson (04:18.508)
They're going to go in and say, like, you know, they're going to grab the lunches. They're going to grab the coffees. I don't have to hold their hand for some of that. At the same time in ministry, if they are teaching a lesson, if they are preparing small group questions, it is theirs. They want to own it. And they might want feedback over some of that, but they're going to have ownership of it. In the same way, finally, there's a lot of ownership of their faith. As a young adult, even a young

Jacob (04:36.369)
Okay.

Tyler Johnson (04:47.052)
volunteer. I do believe someone is supposed to have a Paul and a Timothy at all times, even into their older years. But there's a lot of times that that those 20 somethings, they are still looking very heavily towards their Paul. And so with the the 40s, I would say arguably older ministry volunteers is probably 50 up. They they have experienced that mentorship role and are more willing to be the Paul than needing to be the Timothy. Done.

Nick Clason (05:18.782)
Fantastic, strong work. Jacob, the bar has been set, my friend. He brought in the Bible and everything, so it's now time for you.

Jacob (05:19.344)
There you go. That was good.

Jacob (05:25.413)
Here we go.

Tyler Johnson (05:28.446)
shoot, I should have used the Bible.

Nick Clason (05:33.5)
It's that time for you to argue your side of the aisle, though you guys are friends. You once were friends. Will you still be friends after this, Jacob? Two minutes on the clock. Take it away.

Jacob (05:35.44)
Here we go.

Jacob (05:45.85)
Go for it. Yeah, so I want to clarify before I offend anybody that's 35 or older, that I'm 29, so 30 and above is still in the older mark for me. But I think there's something that younger volunteers provide that can't be replicated anywhere else. And that first thing mainly is just proximity. Proximity to culture, life stage, proximity to what students are actually experiencing right now.

You know, they remember what it was like to sit in the cafeteria awkward wondering about what they're going to do with their lives. Not 25 years ago with a completely different generation, but just a couple years ago. I think the other thing that it provides is you get you get volunteers. Students look to those younger volunteers and they see a hope, not just a hope that's like, man, 45, 50 years from now, this is where I can be. But there's a hope of OK, faith can actually survive past high school like.

faith can actually thrive in a college setting because I'm seeing college-age young adult students or young adult leaders actually engaging and figuring it out. And they don't have all of the answers completely. But I also think that that provides a comfortability of freedom to the students that go like, hey, it's okay if I'm not hitting college-age and I have all of the answers because they're still trying to figure out what they're gonna do. And that's okay, it's a process. And they can kind of have hope in that. And then the younger leaders can speak into that a little bit for them and give them a sense of,

going be okay, you've got time to process some of these things and they can do that together. I think the other thing is that it builds a leadership pipeline. know, for all the pros that Tyler's talking about, for the older volunteers, you don't get there without some of the without starting at some point. And so you got to start as a young leader, use the skills that you have at the time and then work your way up to a place where you can be a a Paul instead of just a Timothy. But also remember that

Tyler Johnson (07:31.562)
you

Jacob (07:34.745)
Paul called Timothy when he was super young into a step of ministry. It wasn't that, let's get you to a certain age, but it was right there in that moment. Done.

Nick Clason (07:45.086)
Great. So each person, each member of the defense, I don't know, this isn't court, has presented their side. Does anyone have a clarifying question for the other person to try and understand their side of the argument maybe a little bit better?

Tyler Johnson (07:56.747)
you

Jacob (08:10.063)
Yeah, I'll go. Clarify a little bit on the emotional stability of older volunteers. I'm not saying I disagree. I just want to hear the specific strength that comes from as an older volunteer, because I think it's possible the younger volunteers can be in a place where they're emotionally stable. But maybe I'm missing the angle that you're coming from.

Tyler Johnson (08:21.194)
Yeah, I think that older volunteers can react less dramatically to maybe sometimes it's student behavior or something like that, as well as even when there are storms in their personal life, I think you'll see someone who's

Jacob (08:40.374)
Here you go.

Jacob (08:46.447)
Yeah, that's

Tyler Johnson (08:50.249)
keep a more calm sense in them more than when the storms of life are hitting a young person.

Nick Clason (09:00.648)
Tyler, you got one for Jacob?

Tyler Johnson (09:02.845)
I'm gonna come up with one, but I really liked Jacob's take. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't admit guilty, I'm just saying, it was a good point. Talk to me some about, obviously with the older crowd, took the stance of there's some high reliability.

Nick Clason (09:05.608)
Yeah.

Jacob (09:10.84)
Did he just admit on here that I won or we live over?

Nick Clason (09:16.126)
Ahem.

Tyler Johnson (09:29.917)
Talk to me about the lows of reliability in young people and if that has been an experience that you've experienced.

Jacob (09:36.093)
I mean 100 % although I would also argue that I've that I've worked with older volunteers who are sometimes just as as unreliable as as younger volunteers and so it's a little bit of a balance I think One of the things that all that I'll say and I'll push a little bit on the younger volunteers compared to older volunteers if I'm doing a and I'm hoping that all of us are in agreement that this is a horrible idea if I'm doing an overnight event right, I'm getting the young guys who can

pound two red bulls and eat Taco Bell and go run with the kids then get the older volunteers to go, hey, I need you to go run around for a whole night and interact. And so there's a little bit of an energy there that they can provide. And I totally agree. think there's the emotional stability thing is super important. I do agree. think older volunteers are a lot more calm, especially in situations where like we need calmness and direction in terms of crisis, both in our lives and then also just in the craziness of Wednesday nights, we need a little bit of calm.

Nick Clason (10:05.866)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (10:29.225)
you

Jacob (10:30.03)
But I think at some point you're not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to learn that, the young leaders, unless they're in it first and see the older people do it. And so they have to experience that so that way they can also learn how to get there.

Tyler Johnson (10:41.503)
I do, so what's really fun is talking about the overnight, right? Because we've all been there. Sometimes it's not about just the evening, it's about the recovery. I've known some young people who pounded those two Red Bulls and then afterwards, like the next day, they are a frail Victorian child on their couch.

Jacob (10:45.549)
Yeah.

Jacob (10:53.095)
Yeah, that's right.

Jacob (11:03.021)
True.

Tyler Johnson (11:03.857)
And some older people who are like, I got my coffee and I'm going to work today. And I'm like, you're insane.

Jacob (11:11.511)
Fair enough.

Nick Clason (11:12.522)
Well, and younger people have like sometimes their life lends itself better for recovery. They're like, I will be sleeping all day Saturday and it doesn't matter. And older people are like, I have a family and we have an upward basketball game that we have to be at at 9 a.m. You know what I'm saying? And so there's definitely like there's some of the availability piece of maybe like a younger person, but there's maybe some of the wisdom piece of the older person.

Tyler Johnson (11:30.407)
Absolutely.

Nick Clason (11:41.726)
Which is probably why this is a terrible argument to have a either or stance on, right? Like that's probably why it's helpful and beneficial to have a good blend of both, right? And so that doesn't make for a strong YouTube title, but it does make probably for good youth ministry to have a good blend of older volunteers and younger volunteers because you can certainly see the pros of both sides. And let's be honest, you can also see the cons.

Jacob (11:48.783)
Yeah.

Jacob (12:05.888)
For sure.

Nick Clason (12:11.89)
of both stances of the argument.

Tyler Johnson (12:14.44)
Yeah, and to be honest, I figured that was the point anyway, right, is to have the balance. even for the older people, the idea is not they are not just mentoring the students, they're mentoring the younger leaders. There's so much wrapped up. Jacob said it, there's a pipeline. You don't get to be the older volunteer without at one point probably being also the younger volunteer. And realistically, as the younger volunteer, as I was a younger volunteer,

Jacob (12:16.813)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:18.023)
You

Nick Clason (12:27.114)
Hmm.

Nick Clason (12:39.241)
Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (12:44.155)
There were volunteers that I looked up to that said, man, I want to do discipleship that way. want to do, man, I want to have their presence when my life looks like their life.

Jacob (12:44.301)
Sounds like I'm I'm winning now this thing

Nick Clason (12:54.652)
I was gonna say objection to the pipeline because like what's the point of a pipeline? You don't actually want them past 30. So like just burn them out bro and then.

Tyler Johnson (13:03.848)
Are you? I'm sorry, Mr. Host, are you taking a stance? I don't feel good about this.

Nick Clason (13:07.816)
No, I was just, I was just.

I was just playing a counterpoint. All right.

Jacob (13:15.353)
You

Nick Clason (13:18.014)
Final arguments, are we ready? So I believe since Jacob went first on the last one, Tyler, is that right?

Jacob (13:24.204)
That's right.

Tyler Johnson (13:30.001)
I went first on the last one.

Nick Clason (13:31.484)
since Tyler went first on the last one by random draw that you'll have to trust. Yeah, I'm pastor. Jacob, one minute on the clock to defend your younglings. Are you ready? All right, take it away.

Tyler Johnson (13:37.148)
You're a pastor.

Jacob (13:45.366)
Yeah, I'm ready.

Yeah, think, yeah, close that out. I think it's also like you see the students that get to see the younger leaders engage, that gives them a hopeful passion and you can plug those guys in when they graduate into your middle school programming, right? And then that's where they can learn even more. And so it's not just you have these students from...

It would be great. It would be a great world to live in if they if every single one of them came in in sixth grade and stayed until senior year, right? But we know that that some of them come in in their in their senior year or junior year or anywhere in that spectrum and you think well only have a certain amount of time right? Well these younger leaders can pour into these people and help them figure out their gifts. So maybe it's being called into ministry. Maybe it's being called into something else or jumping into serving in student ministry to see where they feel like where their spiritual gifts are right? And those can happen at a young age rather than going well I'll just figure it out when I'm 30 and go from there.

Tyler Johnson (14:44.966)
Thank you.

Nick Clason (14:45.256)
All right, well done. Let's round it out, Mr. Tyler. Older people are better than younger people as youth ministry volunteers because...

Tyler Johnson (14:51.174)
I'm ready.

Tyler Johnson (14:57.201)
The last point I want to make for older volunteers is the vision casting as well as the decisions they make are generational. There are times that think with younger people they planned sometimes as little as like they're ready for next summer, they're ready for the next summer conference, they're ready for the next big event. When a lot of the decisions in ministry that is done from some of the older volunteers is they are thinking the long term, they are thinking about the students when they're getting to their

late 30s, 40s, 50s, and how they can pour into them. They have that vision of the five-year plan and not the one-year plan. And I have found that incredibly valuable, especially when establishing a ministry for even me to go to them and have those long-term vision casting conversations about the ministry. Done.

Nick Clason (15:53.61)
Well done, there you have it folks. Old volunteers versus young volunteers. Let us know down below who won and whose side you're on. We should probably put like an old person emoji for one person and a child emoji. Yeah, yeah, then you, yeah.

Jacob (16:08.121)
And then put me

Tyler Johnson (16:09.657)
I just assumed that there was a filter you're gonna do in post that like I'm 90 right now.

Nick Clason (16:17.13)
Oh, I'm good, but I might not be that good, I mean. Yeah.

Tyler Johnson (16:21.336)
Okay, I'm just like, well, one, I kind of wanted to see it. I wanted to see like the really greys, like my grandfather had a very good head of hair even in his 90s. So like, I'm hoping that sticks. Yeah.

Jacob (16:24.142)
You

Jacob (16:32.978)
That sounds nice, that sounds really nice,

Nick Clason (16:34.154)
Way to rub salt in the wounds there,

Jacob (16:39.946)
That's right.

]]> Episode 194: Same Small Group Leader for 7 Years vs Changing Every Year https://www.hybridministry.xyz/194 9de57a9c-5534-442d-9342-af632845b958 Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0500 Nick Clason 194 Same Small Group Leader for 7 Years vs Changing Every Year full Nick Clason Small Group Leaders are the life-blood of any good student ministry. But what is our most effective strategy to deploy them? Is it to saddle a great leader with students for their entire careeer? Or is it rather to introduce students to great leaders along their journey? In this first debate style episode we have two amazing youth pastors, on two different sides of the argument, and they're going head to head, and you get to be the voter! 25:44 no Small Group Leaders are the life-blood of any good student ministry. But what is our most effective strategy to deploy them? Is it to saddle a great leader with students for their entire careeer? Or is it rather to introduce students to great leaders along their journey? In this first debate style episode we have two amazing youth pastors, on two different sides of the argument, and they're going head to head, and you get to be the voter! [FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link ๐ŸŒธ SPRING SEASONAL SOCIAL PACK https://www.patreon.com/posts/spring-seasonal-151263940?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/194 //LINKS DYM Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/DYMCommunity ๐Ÿ‘‰ 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 -------------- ๐ŸŽ‰ FREE STUFF ๐ŸŽ‰ 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 -------------- ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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.patreon.com/posts/9-amazing-dym-142425755 //OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361 //HYBRID MINISTRY MEGA GUIDE Everything I've ever learned in one blog post [FOR FREE!] https://www.patreon.com/posts/hybrid-ministry-151264417?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link -------------- ๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES 00:00 The Same or Different Small Group Leaders 02:33 Meet Stephen 04:25 Meet Isaac 05:25 Students should keep the same leaders 08:02 Students should change to different leaders 10:08 What if a student doesnโ€™t like their leader? 11:56 What about Social Media? 13:05 How do you discern when to move a student? 16:21 How many leaders in each group? 20:08 The Ultimate Small Group Win 22:28 New Leader Every So Often Closing Statement 23:22 Same Leader Every So Often Closing Statement -------------- TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason (00:00.103) All right, well here we are. I mean, this is about to get really, really like real now because we have two amazing youth pastors with two completely different points of view on what's best for small group student leadership. And so again, by random draw that you'll have to trust because I'm a youth pastor, so I get paid to tell the truth. Isaac was randomly drawn to give his first two minute argument. So. Isaac (00:04.782) Hmm. Stephen Rose (00:12.276) You Nick Clason (00:29.009) We're about to put two minutes on the clock. are you ready? Isaac (00:33.026) Yeah, and just just clarifying because I want to make sure we are talking about leaders walking with students like. Are is it better? Is it better for them to go each year with them or every year? Let's recycle. That's the main question. Nick Clason (00:41.915) during Nick Clason (00:50.235) That's the question at hand. Yeah, I mean, we won't get into like the pizza lock-in, like social media debate. Those are, you know, those are meaningful ones in youth ministry as well, but this one in particular, yes, that's what I'd like you to argue. I hope that you came prepared for that and not like your pro lock-in debate, cause it might not fit. Real quick here at chat GPT, real quick, give me new notes. All right, are we ready? Isaac (00:52.526) Let's go. Isaac (00:58.254) Hmm. Stephen Rose (01:10.656) Thank Isaac (01:11.534) I have to change all my notes right now. Stephen Rose (01:17.876) Thank Isaac (01:18.178) Yeah, yeah, give me new notes. All right, yep, let's go. Nick Clason (01:21.776) Two minutes on the clock, take it away. Isaac (01:24.654) All right, two minutes, here we go. The key word that I'm looking at is discipleship and what does discipleship really look like? And so, and this is something that I've been kind of studying and learning about in my 17 years of youth ministry. And so I've changed and I've morphed, but I keep leaning more towards, man, let's really walk alongside these students. Here's some examples from the Bible. Jesus, he's come down, he's like, let me really pray over who I'm really going to invest in. because he had other people that were interested in following him, but he said, no, I'm really going to invest in these 12. And he did that for three years. And then you have Paul and his relationship with Timothy, and he's being able to say things like, hey, Timothy, your grandmother, and he's naming family members and stuff, which I just don't think that you can do that in a year's time of knowing someone that you really want to get into that. So discipleship really means relationship and knowing. How does someone come in and they're fully known and fully loved? So when you're with them longer, you know the students, you know their parents, you know the deaths that happened in their family, you know what sports they're involved in, you know the injury that set them back a few years prior. And so when they confess this thing, you go, I know the meaning behind that because I've had this relationship with you for a while. I guess my main question that I would ask is why don't we go in and hire a new youth pastor every one year? You want a youth pastor to be there and and longevity breeds just this this trust that's that parents now have and I feel like as a youth pastor I'm trying to equip other leaders to come in and essentially be youth pastors And so I don't want to hire new youth pastors every year because I want that trust and that relationship and that discipleship to happen. And that can only happen over a stretch of time and not hitting the reset button every single year. Nick Clason (03:27.12) Wow, did you rehearse that? Isaac (03:31.49) No. Nick Clason (03:32.39) Strong work, my man. Strong work. Alright, Steven. It's been laid down. Like, the challenge has been issued. Are you ready? Stephen Rose (03:32.788) Thank Stephen Rose (03:42.404) Yes, yes, I'm ready. Nick Clason (03:43.354) All right, and the microphone's working and the internet is streaming and yeah, yeah. All right, sweet. All right, bro, two minutes on the clock for you, Steven. Your side is you think that it's useful for students to have a variety of leaders year in, year out, or every so often. So, my friend, take it away. Stephen Rose (03:46.548) Internet's not crashing out right now. Stephen Rose (04:07.504) Awesome. Yeah, I love what you said about discipleship. Couldn't agree more. And for me, one of the things I think is so important and what we really focus on in my context is helping students own their faith by the time they graduate. And there's been like some studies done where the more, not like infinitely, but the more adults, specifically the number was around five. If you have five good relationships. with adults who are like spiritual mentors or people that you know on at least a relatively deeper level, then you're much more likely to stick with a faith post-graduation. And I would argue that the reason for that is because their faith is hopefully being more grounded in Jesus than a specific leader. And they're rooted in Jesus. He is their firm foundation, not like an awesome leader or the youth pastor or something like that. And so when you move, not necessarily every year, but every so often, you're just more likely to build relationships with more adults. And I view that as a huge win. And so what I like to see is them build relationships, be really intentional in the year or the two years span that they're with that leader, and then really focus on the transition so they can then build a new relationship. with new leaders and the students stay together. So they're able to keep building those long-term relationships where they can grow alongside of each other. But the leaders can shift as far as small group goes. But the long-term relationships still stay the same. Just like a small group leader that I had when I was in eighth grade, I still got to talk to them later in later years and they still knew me and they still could pour into me and disciple me. And so the process can keep happening even though we're still looking towards helping them meet more people and grow closer relationships with more people. Nick Clason (06:13.38) Right on time, my man, both of you. This might be the first time two youth pastors hit their time mark right when they're supposed to. That's crazy. All right, so what we'll do now, guess, I like this. I think we're gonna go to a more open forum, all right? So let's do two minutes, but here's the thing, just so you guys know. Stephen Rose (06:20.041) Hehehehehe Nick Clason (06:40.804) I don't need to include the clock. like if it's good and free flowing, like I'm just not going to interrupt it. Like don't, don't worry about it. I'm just trying to keep things moving and make it not be like a, you know, long and boring episode. so I'll put this on, but why don't you, why don't you guys ask some clarifying questions just like back and forth and just like answer, ask, answer, ask, answer. and then, when, when we feel satisfied with that, we'll, we'll move on to the like closing testimony or whatever, whatever they call it in the courtroom. Stephen Rose (06:51.316) Thank Nick Clason (07:10.758) I don't watch enough court TV. So, does anyone have like a question to start? Like to ask the other person? All right, great. You go first then. Stephen Rose (07:11.092) Sounds good. Isaac (07:12.627) Okay. Stephen Rose (07:19.216) Yeah, yeah I do. Perfect. So Isaac, wonder in your context, if a student doesn't get, like we'll just say student doesn't get along great with a certain leader. What does that look like? Like do you go about that? Isaac (07:40.396) Yeah, man, that's great. Context, I think, matters a lot. So I've worked in a small church, a medium church, and a large church. So let's just talk about the numbers that I have here. It's weird to talk about that in church culture, but that helps context so much. So I have about 160 leaders. And in that, have, for sixth grade boys, we have five sixth grade boy groups. Stephen Rose (07:45.246) I agree. Stephen Rose (07:55.732) for sure. Isaac (08:07.854) And then each one of those groups has four leaders. And so I think that that helps so much for the person watching right now. They're like, well, this might make sense because of this. And the dynamics can shift because for you saying, hey, does a sixth grade boy, if he's if he's not enjoying this, then what? Well, he he can move to another group. He can go to one of the other four options. And that's easy. Now, when I was at a church for six and a half years and it was like Stephen Rose (08:08.049) Mm-hmm. Stephen Rose (08:27.252) Uh-huh. Stephen Rose (08:30.675) Right. Isaac (08:37.59) You have middle school boys, high school boys, middle school girls, high school girls. That's your option. Then it's like, well, what do we do when they don't like that person? And so for us in our context, it makes sense of if there's not someone getting along, there is another option in another group that they can go to. Stephen Rose (08:44.444) Right. I'm Stephen Rose (08:58.772) Sure. and Nick Clason (09:00.39) How do you guys, either of you, discern this is not a good fit and we need to quote unquote rescue the student from the fit? Or this is an opportunity to lean in and disciple the student to push through something more difficult and maybe getting along with their leader is like what God has for them in this season of their spiritual growth. Like how do you discern between those two? Because I feel like Like a parent can come to you like they hate their leader and you want to like solve that so so that the kid doesn't get mad or the family doesn't leave the church or whatever. But I think sometimes it's like, dude, you need to stop being so entitled. You know what I mean? How do you how do know? Stephen Rose (09:43.219) Yeah, that's really good. For me, I tend toward having them stay either way because I don't want for students just to pick a leader based off of, I love this leader. I can't stand that leader, which by the way, my team is awesome. I have awesome leaders, all that. And so it's really a side point. But of course, if there was if it was like coming to an unhealthy place, then I would say I'd be more willing to like figure it out. Especially if it was like a newer student, you know, who maybe isn't even a follower of Jesus yet. And okay, I'm trying to help them get comfortable first, help them feel accepted and have a good experience. And so that'd be a little different if it's someone I've been walking with for a while. And then, hey, it's time for you to grow up and, you know, and be... be mature about this and grow in your maturity. I part of that is definitely not being in your favorite spot at all times. Isaac (10:46.552) Yeah, that's good. I think that, you know, scripture says if at all possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with with everyone. And if there's some kind of disunity there, obviously that's what the enemy is trying to seek out and bring to light is some kind of disunity. So it's our jobs as the shepherds of that to say, well, what's causing this? And so it should start with a conversation with both student and leader and saying, Nick Clason (10:46.587) Good. Stephen Rose (10:56.372) Mm. Isaac (11:14.926) Why? Why is there a disunity and how can we go towards unity? What's the conversation? Maybe you just need to say some things. Let's get it out on the table. Truth is gonna be great. Let's get it out on the table. But if it becomes a thing where it's like, we're not coming here. My kid doesn't wanna show up. I'm even pro, well, there's also another church in town because... Stephen Rose (11:29.78) Yeah. Isaac (11:42.742) The gospel doesn't just happen at this address. It happens in lot of places in discipleship. And so hopefully I am then connecting with other youth pastors in the area where I can then give a trusted, hey, why don't you go over here to this church? Because this youth pastor is also going to teach the Bible. Discipleship is also happening. But I'm not nervous to, I don't want to say threatened. It's not threatened, but to give, go ahead. If you can't grow here. Ultimately, what we are concerned about for you as a student is your growth. Go grow anywhere. Stephen Rose (12:14.045) Yeah. Nick Clason (12:17.776) Good. Stephen Rose (12:18.238) That's good. Isaac (12:19.83) Steven, got a question for you if I'm allowed to ask. Yeah, because I love what you said about having five good relationships with adults. Yes, man, let's try to, as youth pastors, bring in as many adults and as many leaders as possible in their time of being there. What does it look like in your context for how many leaders do you have in each group? Yeah, what does that look like for you? Stephen Rose (12:21.982) Sure. Nick Clason (12:22.638) Yes, yes, go. Stephen Rose (12:39.718) . Stephen Rose (12:47.234) Yeah, we have two leaders in each group. so, over time, would naturally develop relationships with multiple, I mean, hopefully, in prayerfully, you would develop relationships with your small group leaders in that time. And for us, we're, I guess, the medium church size. And so, Like for high school, for example, we have two high school guys groups, underclassmen and upperclassmen currently. And so you would meet four of the people right then and there. And then hopefully, like even like myself and some other people, because certainly our youth ministry is not the only context which you can have a relationship with an adult. But as far as what we're trying to do, it fits that mold pretty well. Isaac (13:30.51) Sure, yeah. Isaac (13:38.978) Yeah, so when you say upperclassmen leader and, what is it called? Underclassmen? That just sounded weird. Underclassmen? That just sounds underwear. Anyhow, when you have both of the, so the upperclassmen, are you saying then that those two leaders are with them for two years? Stephen Rose (13:46.608) under underclassmen. Stephen Rose (13:58.579) Yes. Isaac (13:59.648) Okay, so it's kind of like a hybrid then of it's not, I'm not thinking every year it's I'm still kind of building this. I'm in this context. So it's still once because for me, I don't even know if I'm pro you should be with them for seven years. I do like the for me, three years of middle school, you get a new high school leader, because there's just a difference between high school and middle school. Stephen Rose (14:16.923) Mm-hmm, right. Nick Clason (14:16.966) Mm-hmm. Stephen Rose (14:22.587) Thank Stephen Rose (14:27.586) Right. Isaac (14:27.84) If there is someone that's committed for seven years, my hope is that they are bringing in dads, moms, and other people to it. Because I think that what you said is key. They need to have five adults in their life or more that where they can say, it's not just one person that believes this. It's not just their characteristics, but that in discipleship, they are inviting others to be a part of it as well. If you're going to do that seven year plan. Yeah. Stephen Rose (14:32.35) Thank you. Stephen Rose (14:37.765) So. Right. Stephen Rose (14:46.388) you Yes. Right. Nick Clason (14:57.05) Yeah, yeah. And I'll just say from a youth pastor logistical standpoint, you get someone to commit for seven years, that's amazing. Are they still committed to loop back down and start a sixth grade group? Going from being a 12th grade leader to a sixth grade leader is tough. And so I've been in situations where they're committed all the way through, but then I'm always having to recruit. Stephen Rose (15:17.416) Hey. Nick Clason (15:24.462) at the entry point because no one wants to loop back down. They feel like they've quote unquote done their time and they want to be involved in student ministry, but then they want to be involved in more of like a consulting role or a coaching role. And it's like, I love that for you, but I really could use a sixth grade leader, my friend. And so that's been, that's been my experience when they loop all the way through as we, we pool all the way down at the end of the quote unquote conveyor belt, if you will. And I got some really great leaders who aren't doing ministry anymore, but if you're doing Stephen Rose (15:30.42) That's how you do it. Okay. Stephen Rose (15:53.716) What am I? You just answered about the full seven years or if it's more of a middle school to high school, because I'm I agree. I'm a little less. Nick Clason (15:54.694) Like if you're like, yo, you're the underclassmen leader and you're just going to be an expert in ninth and 10th grade. Like, and then you'll see every kid's face, hopefully as they, as they loop through. Um, it's just, it's just the way I think about it. Isaac (16:08.684) Yeah, I love that. Steven, did you have any other questions? Stephen Rose (16:23.832) cause I can see there's definitely real positives in doing both ways. And, but the seven years is the one where I really, I don't want to say worry, but for lack of a better word, worry about like a students attaching to a certain leader and, that, is a good thing. but especially if they're, if they're not a part of the church at large, like the whole church body, and they're just attached to youth group and just attached to the leader. I just saw so many examples before I even got in youth ministry. And then those kids, the leader's gone, they're done with youth ministry and they're they're toast. know, they just kind of walk away. And so I guess it was really just on my heart to like, I don't want to see like that happen. And I know there's other intentional ways of working against that too. But that was just really like on my heart. Isaac (17:12.408) Yeah, yeah, I would. Here's I mean, Nick, you kind of set us up. You're like, haha, caught you. You're in a trap coming debate this. And so I'm going to I'm going to, you know, share. The perspective of everyone wins, I guess, because here's what I would rather see if this is a would you rather question of would you rather have one leader who intentionally disciples a student for one year or have a leader that walks alongside? Stephen Rose (17:20.83) But. Isaac (17:41.448) and invest in a student for seven years, I would say give me the one year intentionally disciple. Because so often we recruit leaders that they won't say, I'm just a babysitter. They're not going to say that. We're not going to say that. But if you're like, we're just hanging out, I'm going to their games and they're doing some good things, but they're not intentionally discipling, we're still missing out. And so I would say that the key thing for me is find the leader that's going to disciple. Stephen Rose (17:46.484) Yeah. Isaac (18:09.998) Which means that they are really getting in and saying do you know Jesus? What is he teaching you? Are you opening up the Word of God? Are you praying? Are you building a community around you? Where are you serving? How's your evangelism life? And they're really working out all of these disciplines And it's more than just let me show up to your play Let me high-five and we'll go get coffee together because you can just hang out But you're not just being friends. You're intentionally discipling so Nick Clason (18:25.51) . Stephen Rose (18:30.04) Right. Nick Clason (18:33.03) you Isaac (18:37.986) Give me the one year intentional disciple. Nick Clason (18:38.34) Yeah. Stephen Rose (18:39.572) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Nick Clason (18:42.166) That's good. That's good for youth pastors. That's good for Like that's good for this whole conversation. Just like having like a well-rounded perspective of it. It's bad for Trying to elicit emotion and you guys like hating each other. So Way to be a Christian way to ruin YouTube, but no, I agree and Isaac (19:03.661) Yeah, yeah. And he's a Cavs fan. Yeah, this is great. We love each other. We're best friends now. Thank you, Nick. Stephen Rose (19:07.704) Hey, I know Nick Clason (19:09.51) Yeah, you're so welcome. Congratulations. Yeah. Well, let's do like your final statement, right? We'll just do a minute on the clock or less. Just give like your final word, kind of like put a bow on it. And then, yeah, then I guess we'll take it from there. So who went first last time? I think it was Isaac, right? So Steven, we'll have you minute on the clock, finalize your argument. You ready? All right, let's go. Stephen Rose (19:36.663) Yep. All right, so I believe that transitioning through different small groups is best for students because they get to build multiple relationships with adults, which helps them own their faith, not just the youth's faith or my faith or their leader's faith, but their faith in Jesus. And so I think it's best to move them through. And then I also, as a side note, I think it can create a spot for leaders to star in their roles where, hey, if I'm always with freshmen girls, then I'm gonna be able to really get good at welcoming them. Or if I'm always with the senior and junior guys, I'm gonna get really good at helping them through this transition as they get older, as their problems change. But they kinda are the same perpetually for new juniors, new seniors. And so they get to start starring in their roles as they get year after year of experience with them. Nick Clason (20:36.282) Nice, good job. All right, Isaac, one minute on the clock. Take it away. Isaac (20:43.66) Awesome. Quantity will produce quality. The more that you're hanging out with someone, the better the conversations. And so getting someone there for a length of time, it's just going to produce the quality that we're looking for. It avoids the six months, like, do I actually know this person? Can I make that inside joke? I accidentally said something about their parents or Stephen Rose (21:07.284) You you Isaac (21:12.498) Whatever all their life story the more opportunity that you have with their story the more that they can feel Fully known fully seen and fully loved which really I think just shows grace more discipleship more and and what Jesus was Really trying to aim for when he said this is what a disciple maker Nick Clason (21:38.15) Nice, strong work, both of you. youth ministry, youth pastor, youth group leadership, small group leaders, youth ministry leadership, youth pastor training, youth ministry strategy, small group ministry, youth group small groups, youth ministry tips, youth ministry leadership training, youth discipleship, youth ministry structure, small group leader training, youth ministry debate, youth pastor discussion, youth ministry philosophy, student ministry leadership, youth group leaders, church youth ministry, youth ministry best practices, student ministry small groups, nick clason, hybrid ministry Small Group Leaders are the life-blood of any good student ministry.

But what is our most effective strategy to deploy them? Is it to saddle a great leader with students for their entire careeer? Or is it rather to introduce students to great leaders along their journey?

In this first debate style episode we have two amazing youth pastors, on two different sides of the argument, and they're going head to head, and you get to be the voter!

[FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
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๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES
00:00 The Same or Different Small Group Leaders
02:33 Meet Stephen
04:25 Meet Isaac
05:25 Students should keep the same leaders
08:02 Students should change to different leaders
10:08 What if a student doesnโ€™t like their leader?
11:56 What about Social Media?
13:05 How do you discern when to move a student?
16:21 How many leaders in each group?
20:08 The Ultimate Small Group Win
22:28 New Leader Every So Often Closing Statement
23:22 Same Leader Every So Often Closing Statement

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00.103)
All right, well here we are. I mean, this is about to get really, really like real now because we have two amazing youth pastors with two completely different points of view on what's best for small group student leadership. And so again, by random draw that you'll have to trust because I'm a youth pastor, so I get paid to tell the truth. Isaac was randomly drawn to give his first two minute argument. So.

Isaac (00:04.782)
Hmm.

Stephen Rose (00:12.276)
You

Nick Clason (00:29.009)
We're about to put two minutes on the clock. are you ready?

Isaac (00:33.026)
Yeah, and just just clarifying because I want to make sure we are talking about leaders walking with students like. Are is it better? Is it better for them to go each year with them or every year? Let's recycle. That's the main question.

Nick Clason (00:41.915)
during

Nick Clason (00:50.235)
That's the question at hand. Yeah, I mean, we won't get into like the pizza lock-in, like social media debate. Those are, you know, those are meaningful ones in youth ministry as well, but this one in particular, yes, that's what I'd like you to argue. I hope that you came prepared for that and not like your pro lock-in debate, cause it might not fit. Real quick here at chat GPT, real quick, give me new notes. All right, are we ready?

Isaac (00:52.526)
Let's go.

Isaac (00:58.254)
Hmm.

Stephen Rose (01:10.656)
Thank

Isaac (01:11.534)
I have to change all my notes right now.

Stephen Rose (01:17.876)
Thank

Isaac (01:18.178)
Yeah, yeah, give me new notes. All right, yep, let's go.

Nick Clason (01:21.776)
Two minutes on the clock, take it away.

Isaac (01:24.654)
All right, two minutes, here we go. The key word that I'm looking at is discipleship and what does discipleship really look like? And so, and this is something that I've been kind of studying and learning about in my 17 years of youth ministry. And so I've changed and I've morphed, but I keep leaning more towards, man, let's really walk alongside these students. Here's some examples from the Bible. Jesus, he's come down, he's like, let me really pray over who I'm really going to invest in.

because he had other people that were interested in following him, but he said, no, I'm really going to invest in these 12. And he did that for three years. And then you have Paul and his relationship with Timothy, and he's being able to say things like, hey, Timothy, your grandmother, and he's naming family members and stuff, which I just don't think that you can do that in a year's time of knowing someone that you really want to get into that. So discipleship really means relationship and knowing.

How does someone come in and they're fully known and fully loved? So when you're with them longer, you know the students, you know their parents, you know the deaths that happened in their family, you know what sports they're involved in, you know the injury that set them back a few years prior. And so when they confess this thing, you go, I know the meaning behind that because I've had this relationship with you for a while.

I guess my main question that I would ask is why don't we go in and hire a new youth pastor every one year? You want a youth pastor to be there and and longevity breeds just this this trust that's that parents now have and I feel like as a youth pastor I'm trying to equip other leaders to come in and essentially be youth pastors And so I don't want to hire new youth pastors every year because I want that trust

and that relationship and that discipleship to happen. And that can only happen over a stretch of time and not hitting the reset button every single year.

Nick Clason (03:27.12)
Wow, did you rehearse that?

Isaac (03:31.49)
No.

Nick Clason (03:32.39)
Strong work, my man. Strong work. Alright, Steven. It's been laid down. Like, the challenge has been issued. Are you ready?

Stephen Rose (03:32.788)
Thank

Stephen Rose (03:42.404)
Yes, yes, I'm ready.

Nick Clason (03:43.354)
All right, and the microphone's working and the internet is streaming and yeah, yeah. All right, sweet. All right, bro, two minutes on the clock for you, Steven. Your side is you think that it's useful for students to have a variety of leaders year in, year out, or every so often. So, my friend, take it away.

Stephen Rose (03:46.548)
Internet's not crashing out right now.

Stephen Rose (04:07.504)
Awesome. Yeah, I love what you said about discipleship. Couldn't agree more. And for me, one of the things I think is so important and what we really focus on in my context is helping students own their faith by the time they graduate. And there's been like some studies done where the more, not like infinitely, but the more adults, specifically the number was around five. If you have five good relationships.

with adults who are like spiritual mentors or people that you know on at least a relatively deeper level, then you're much more likely to stick with a faith post-graduation. And I would argue that the reason for that is because their faith is hopefully being more grounded in Jesus than a specific leader. And they're rooted in Jesus. He is their firm foundation, not like an awesome leader or the youth pastor or something like that.

And so when you move, not necessarily every year, but every so often, you're just more likely to build relationships with more adults. And I view that as a huge win. And so what I like to see is them build relationships, be really intentional in the year or the two years span that they're with that leader, and then really focus on the transition so they can then build a new relationship.

with new leaders and the students stay together. So they're able to keep building those long-term relationships where they can grow alongside of each other. But the leaders can shift as far as small group goes. But the long-term relationships still stay the same. Just like a small group leader that I had when I was in eighth grade, I still got to talk to them later in later years and they still knew me and they still could pour into me and disciple me. And so the process

can keep happening even though we're still looking towards helping them meet more people and grow closer relationships with more people.

Nick Clason (06:13.38)
Right on time, my man, both of you. This might be the first time two youth pastors hit their time mark right when they're supposed to. That's crazy. All right, so what we'll do now, guess, I like this. I think we're gonna go to a more open forum, all right? So let's do two minutes, but here's the thing, just so you guys know.

Stephen Rose (06:20.041)
Hehehehehe

Nick Clason (06:40.804)
I don't need to include the clock. like if it's good and free flowing, like I'm just not going to interrupt it. Like don't, don't worry about it. I'm just trying to keep things moving and make it not be like a, you know, long and boring episode. so I'll put this on, but why don't you, why don't you guys ask some clarifying questions just like back and forth and just like answer, ask, answer, ask, answer. and then, when, when we feel satisfied with that, we'll, we'll move on to the like closing testimony or whatever, whatever they call it in the courtroom.

Stephen Rose (06:51.316)
Thank

Nick Clason (07:10.758)
I don't watch enough court TV. So, does anyone have like a question to start? Like to ask the other person? All right, great. You go first then.

Stephen Rose (07:11.092)
Sounds good.

Isaac (07:12.627)
Okay.

Stephen Rose (07:19.216)
Yeah, yeah I do.

Perfect. So Isaac, wonder in your context, if a student doesn't get, like we'll just say student doesn't get along great with a certain leader. What does that look like? Like do you go about that?

Isaac (07:40.396)
Yeah, man, that's great. Context, I think, matters a lot. So I've worked in a small church, a medium church, and a large church. So let's just talk about the numbers that I have here. It's weird to talk about that in church culture, but that helps context so much. So I have about 160 leaders. And in that, have, for sixth grade boys, we have five sixth grade boy groups.

Stephen Rose (07:45.246)
I agree.

Stephen Rose (07:55.732)
for sure.

Isaac (08:07.854)
And then each one of those groups has four leaders. And so I think that that helps so much for the person watching right now. They're like, well, this might make sense because of this. And the dynamics can shift because for you saying, hey, does a sixth grade boy, if he's if he's not enjoying this, then what? Well, he he can move to another group. He can go to one of the other four options. And that's easy. Now, when I was at a church for six and a half years and it was like

Stephen Rose (08:08.049)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Rose (08:27.252)
Uh-huh.

Stephen Rose (08:30.675)
Right.

Isaac (08:37.59)
You have middle school boys, high school boys, middle school girls, high school girls. That's your option. Then it's like, well, what do we do when they don't like that person? And so for us in our context, it makes sense of if there's not someone getting along, there is another option in another group that they can go to.

Stephen Rose (08:44.444)
Right. I'm

Stephen Rose (08:58.772)
Sure. and

Nick Clason (09:00.39)
How do you guys, either of you, discern this is not a good fit and we need to quote unquote rescue the student from the fit? Or this is an opportunity to lean in and disciple the student to push through something more difficult and maybe getting along with their leader is like what God has for them in this season of their spiritual growth. Like how do you discern between those two? Because I feel like

Like a parent can come to you like they hate their leader and you want to like solve that so so that the kid doesn't get mad or the family doesn't leave the church or whatever. But I think sometimes it's like, dude, you need to stop being so entitled. You know what I mean? How do you how do know?

Stephen Rose (09:43.219)
Yeah, that's really good. For me, I tend toward having them stay either way because I don't want for students just to pick a leader based off of, I love this leader. I can't stand that leader, which by the way, my team is awesome. I have awesome leaders, all that. And so it's really a side point. But of course, if there was

if it was like coming to an unhealthy place, then I would say I'd be more willing to like figure it out. Especially if it was like a newer student, you know, who maybe isn't even a follower of Jesus yet. And okay, I'm trying to help them get comfortable first, help them feel accepted and have a good experience. And so that'd be a little different if it's someone I've been walking with for a while. And then, hey, it's time for you to grow up and, you know, and be...

be mature about this and grow in your maturity. I part of that is definitely not being in your favorite spot at all times.

Isaac (10:46.552)
Yeah, that's good. I think that, you know, scripture says if at all possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with with everyone. And if there's some kind of disunity there, obviously that's what the enemy is trying to seek out and bring to light is some kind of disunity. So it's our jobs as the shepherds of that to say, well, what's causing this? And so it should start with a conversation with both student and leader and saying,

Nick Clason (10:46.587)
Good.

Stephen Rose (10:56.372)
Mm.

Isaac (11:14.926)
Why? Why is there a disunity and how can we go towards unity? What's the conversation? Maybe you just need to say some things. Let's get it out on the table. Truth is gonna be great. Let's get it out on the table. But if it becomes a thing where it's like, we're not coming here. My kid doesn't wanna show up. I'm even pro, well, there's also another church in town because...

Stephen Rose (11:29.78)
Yeah.

Isaac (11:42.742)
The gospel doesn't just happen at this address. It happens in lot of places in discipleship. And so hopefully I am then connecting with other youth pastors in the area where I can then give a trusted, hey, why don't you go over here to this church? Because this youth pastor is also going to teach the Bible. Discipleship is also happening. But I'm not nervous to, I don't want to say threatened. It's not threatened, but to give, go ahead. If you can't grow here.

Ultimately, what we are concerned about for you as a student is your growth. Go grow anywhere.

Stephen Rose (12:14.045)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:17.776)
Good.

Stephen Rose (12:18.238)
That's good.

Isaac (12:19.83)
Steven, got a question for you if I'm allowed to ask. Yeah, because I love what you said about having five good relationships with adults. Yes, man, let's try to, as youth pastors, bring in as many adults and as many leaders as possible in their time of being there. What does it look like in your context for how many leaders do you have in each group? Yeah, what does that look like for you?

Stephen Rose (12:21.982)
Sure.

Nick Clason (12:22.638)
Yes, yes, go.

Stephen Rose (12:39.718)
.

Stephen Rose (12:47.234)
Yeah, we have two leaders in each group. so, over time, would naturally develop relationships with multiple, I mean, hopefully, in prayerfully, you would develop relationships with your small group leaders in that time. And for us, we're, I guess, the medium church size. And so,

Like for high school, for example, we have two high school guys groups, underclassmen and upperclassmen currently. And so you would meet four of the people right then and there. And then hopefully, like even like myself and some other people, because certainly our youth ministry is not the only context which you can have a relationship with an adult. But as far as what we're trying to do, it fits that mold pretty well.

Isaac (13:30.51)
Sure, yeah.

Isaac (13:38.978)
Yeah, so when you say upperclassmen leader and, what is it called? Underclassmen? That just sounded weird. Underclassmen? That just sounds underwear. Anyhow, when you have both of the, so the upperclassmen, are you saying then that those two leaders are with them for two years?

Stephen Rose (13:46.608)
under underclassmen.

Stephen Rose (13:58.579)
Yes.

Isaac (13:59.648)
Okay, so it's kind of like a hybrid then of it's not, I'm not thinking every year it's I'm still kind of building this. I'm in this context. So it's still once because for me, I don't even know if I'm pro you should be with them for seven years. I do like the for me, three years of middle school, you get a new high school leader, because there's just a difference between high school and middle school.

Stephen Rose (14:16.923)
Mm-hmm, right.

Nick Clason (14:16.966)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Rose (14:22.587)
Thank

Stephen Rose (14:27.586)
Right.

Isaac (14:27.84)
If there is someone that's committed for seven years, my hope is that they are bringing in dads, moms, and other people to it. Because I think that what you said is key. They need to have five adults in their life or more that where they can say, it's not just one person that believes this. It's not just their characteristics, but that in discipleship, they are inviting others to be a part of it as well. If you're going to do that seven year plan. Yeah.

Stephen Rose (14:32.35)
Thank you.

Stephen Rose (14:37.765)
So.

Right.

Stephen Rose (14:46.388)
you

Yes. Right.

Nick Clason (14:57.05)
Yeah, yeah. And I'll just say from a youth pastor logistical standpoint, you get someone to commit for seven years, that's amazing. Are they still committed to loop back down and start a sixth grade group? Going from being a 12th grade leader to a sixth grade leader is tough. And so I've been in situations where they're committed all the way through, but then I'm always having to recruit.

Stephen Rose (15:17.416)
Hey.

Nick Clason (15:24.462)
at the entry point because no one wants to loop back down. They feel like they've quote unquote done their time and they want to be involved in student ministry, but then they want to be involved in more of like a consulting role or a coaching role. And it's like, I love that for you, but I really could use a sixth grade leader, my friend. And so that's been, that's been my experience when they loop all the way through as we, we pool all the way down at the end of the quote unquote conveyor belt, if you will. And I got some really great leaders who aren't doing ministry anymore, but if you're doing

Stephen Rose (15:30.42)
That's how you do it. Okay.

Stephen Rose (15:53.716)
What am I? You just answered about the full seven years or if it's more of a middle school to high school, because I'm I agree. I'm a little less.

Nick Clason (15:54.694)
Like if you're like, yo, you're the underclassmen leader and you're just going to be an expert in ninth and 10th grade. Like, and then you'll see every kid's face, hopefully as they, as they loop through. Um, it's just, it's just the way I think about it.

Isaac (16:08.684)
Yeah, I love that. Steven, did you have any other questions?

Stephen Rose (16:23.832)
cause I can see there's definitely real positives in doing both ways. And, but the seven years is the one where I really, I don't want to say worry, but for lack of a better word, worry about like a students attaching to a certain leader and, that, is a good thing. but especially if they're, if they're not a part of the church at large, like the whole church body, and they're just attached to youth group and just attached to the leader. I just saw so many examples before I even got in youth ministry.

And then those kids, the leader's gone, they're done with youth ministry and they're they're toast. know, they just kind of walk away. And so I guess it was really just on my heart to like, I don't want to see like that happen. And I know there's other intentional ways of working against that too. But that was just really like on my heart.

Isaac (17:12.408)
Yeah, yeah, I would. Here's I mean, Nick, you kind of set us up. You're like, haha, caught you. You're in a trap coming debate this. And so I'm going to I'm going to, you know, share. The perspective of everyone wins, I guess, because here's what I would rather see if this is a would you rather question of would you rather have one leader who intentionally disciples a student for one year or have a leader that walks alongside?

Stephen Rose (17:20.83)
But.

Isaac (17:41.448)
and invest in a student for seven years, I would say give me the one year intentionally disciple. Because so often we recruit leaders that they won't say, I'm just a babysitter. They're not going to say that. We're not going to say that. But if you're like, we're just hanging out, I'm going to their games and they're doing some good things, but they're not intentionally discipling, we're still missing out. And so I would say that the key thing for me is find the leader that's going to disciple.

Stephen Rose (17:46.484)
Yeah.

Isaac (18:09.998)
Which means that they are really getting in and saying do you know Jesus? What is he teaching you? Are you opening up the Word of God? Are you praying? Are you building a community around you? Where are you serving? How's your evangelism life? And they're really working out all of these disciplines And it's more than just let me show up to your play Let me high-five and we'll go get coffee together because you can just hang out But you're not just being friends. You're intentionally discipling so

Nick Clason (18:25.51)
.

Stephen Rose (18:30.04)
Right.

Nick Clason (18:33.03)
you

Isaac (18:37.986)
Give me the one year intentional disciple.

Nick Clason (18:38.34)
Yeah.

Stephen Rose (18:39.572)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Nick Clason (18:42.166)
That's good. That's good for youth pastors. That's good for Like that's good for this whole conversation. Just like having like a well-rounded perspective of it. It's bad for Trying to elicit emotion and you guys like hating each other. So Way to be a Christian way to ruin YouTube, but no, I agree and

Isaac (19:03.661)
Yeah, yeah. And he's a Cavs fan. Yeah, this is great. We love each other. We're best friends now. Thank you, Nick.

Stephen Rose (19:07.704)
Hey, I know

Nick Clason (19:09.51)
Yeah, you're so welcome. Congratulations. Yeah. Well, let's do like your final statement, right? We'll just do a minute on the clock or less. Just give like your final word, kind of like put a bow on it. And then, yeah, then I guess we'll take it from there. So who went first last time? I think it was Isaac, right? So Steven, we'll have you minute on the clock, finalize your argument. You ready? All right, let's go.

Stephen Rose (19:36.663)
Yep.

All right, so I believe that transitioning through different small groups is best for students because they get to build multiple relationships with adults, which helps them own their faith, not just the youth's faith or my faith or their leader's faith, but their faith in Jesus. And so I think it's best to move them through. And then I also, as a side note, I think it can create a spot for leaders to star in their roles where, hey, if I'm always with freshmen girls,

then I'm gonna be able to really get good at welcoming them. Or if I'm always with the senior and junior guys, I'm gonna get really good at helping them through this transition as they get older, as their problems change. But they kinda are the same perpetually for new juniors, new seniors. And so they get to start starring in their roles as they get year after year of experience with them.

Nick Clason (20:36.282)
Nice, good job. All right, Isaac, one minute on the clock. Take it away.

Isaac (20:43.66)
Awesome. Quantity will produce quality. The more that you're hanging out with someone, the better the conversations. And so getting someone there for a length of time, it's just going to produce the quality that we're looking for. It avoids the six months, like, do I actually know this person? Can I make that inside joke? I accidentally said something about their parents or

Stephen Rose (21:07.284)
You you

Isaac (21:12.498)
Whatever all their life story the more opportunity that you have with their story the more that they can feel Fully known fully seen and fully loved which really I think just shows grace more discipleship more and and what Jesus was Really trying to aim for when he said this is what a disciple maker

Nick Clason (21:38.15)
Nice, strong work, both of you.

]]> Small Group Leaders are the life-blood of any good student ministry.

But what is our most effective strategy to deploy them? Is it to saddle a great leader with students for their entire careeer? Or is it rather to introduce students to great leaders along their journey?

In this first debate style episode we have two amazing youth pastors, on two different sides of the argument, and they're going head to head, and you get to be the voter!

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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/194

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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!
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๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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
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//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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//HYBRID MINISTRY MEGA GUIDE
Everything I've ever learned in one blog post [FOR FREE!]
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--------------
๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธTIMECODES
00:00 The Same or Different Small Group Leaders
02:33 Meet Stephen
04:25 Meet Isaac
05:25 Students should keep the same leaders
08:02 Students should change to different leaders
10:08 What if a student doesnโ€™t like their leader?
11:56 What about Social Media?
13:05 How do you discern when to move a student?
16:21 How many leaders in each group?
20:08 The Ultimate Small Group Win
22:28 New Leader Every So Often Closing Statement
23:22 Same Leader Every So Often Closing Statement

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00.103)
All right, well here we are. I mean, this is about to get really, really like real now because we have two amazing youth pastors with two completely different points of view on what's best for small group student leadership. And so again, by random draw that you'll have to trust because I'm a youth pastor, so I get paid to tell the truth. Isaac was randomly drawn to give his first two minute argument. So.

Isaac (00:04.782)
Hmm.

Stephen Rose (00:12.276)
You

Nick Clason (00:29.009)
We're about to put two minutes on the clock. are you ready?

Isaac (00:33.026)
Yeah, and just just clarifying because I want to make sure we are talking about leaders walking with students like. Are is it better? Is it better for them to go each year with them or every year? Let's recycle. That's the main question.

Nick Clason (00:41.915)
during

Nick Clason (00:50.235)
That's the question at hand. Yeah, I mean, we won't get into like the pizza lock-in, like social media debate. Those are, you know, those are meaningful ones in youth ministry as well, but this one in particular, yes, that's what I'd like you to argue. I hope that you came prepared for that and not like your pro lock-in debate, cause it might not fit. Real quick here at chat GPT, real quick, give me new notes. All right, are we ready?

Isaac (00:52.526)
Let's go.

Isaac (00:58.254)
Hmm.

Stephen Rose (01:10.656)
Thank

Isaac (01:11.534)
I have to change all my notes right now.

Stephen Rose (01:17.876)
Thank

Isaac (01:18.178)
Yeah, yeah, give me new notes. All right, yep, let's go.

Nick Clason (01:21.776)
Two minutes on the clock, take it away.

Isaac (01:24.654)
All right, two minutes, here we go. The key word that I'm looking at is discipleship and what does discipleship really look like? And so, and this is something that I've been kind of studying and learning about in my 17 years of youth ministry. And so I've changed and I've morphed, but I keep leaning more towards, man, let's really walk alongside these students. Here's some examples from the Bible. Jesus, he's come down, he's like, let me really pray over who I'm really going to invest in.

because he had other people that were interested in following him, but he said, no, I'm really going to invest in these 12. And he did that for three years. And then you have Paul and his relationship with Timothy, and he's being able to say things like, hey, Timothy, your grandmother, and he's naming family members and stuff, which I just don't think that you can do that in a year's time of knowing someone that you really want to get into that. So discipleship really means relationship and knowing.

How does someone come in and they're fully known and fully loved? So when you're with them longer, you know the students, you know their parents, you know the deaths that happened in their family, you know what sports they're involved in, you know the injury that set them back a few years prior. And so when they confess this thing, you go, I know the meaning behind that because I've had this relationship with you for a while.

I guess my main question that I would ask is why don't we go in and hire a new youth pastor every one year? You want a youth pastor to be there and and longevity breeds just this this trust that's that parents now have and I feel like as a youth pastor I'm trying to equip other leaders to come in and essentially be youth pastors And so I don't want to hire new youth pastors every year because I want that trust

and that relationship and that discipleship to happen. And that can only happen over a stretch of time and not hitting the reset button every single year.

Nick Clason (03:27.12)
Wow, did you rehearse that?

Isaac (03:31.49)
No.

Nick Clason (03:32.39)
Strong work, my man. Strong work. Alright, Steven. It's been laid down. Like, the challenge has been issued. Are you ready?

Stephen Rose (03:32.788)
Thank

Stephen Rose (03:42.404)
Yes, yes, I'm ready.

Nick Clason (03:43.354)
All right, and the microphone's working and the internet is streaming and yeah, yeah. All right, sweet. All right, bro, two minutes on the clock for you, Steven. Your side is you think that it's useful for students to have a variety of leaders year in, year out, or every so often. So, my friend, take it away.

Stephen Rose (03:46.548)
Internet's not crashing out right now.

Stephen Rose (04:07.504)
Awesome. Yeah, I love what you said about discipleship. Couldn't agree more. And for me, one of the things I think is so important and what we really focus on in my context is helping students own their faith by the time they graduate. And there's been like some studies done where the more, not like infinitely, but the more adults, specifically the number was around five. If you have five good relationships.

with adults who are like spiritual mentors or people that you know on at least a relatively deeper level, then you're much more likely to stick with a faith post-graduation. And I would argue that the reason for that is because their faith is hopefully being more grounded in Jesus than a specific leader. And they're rooted in Jesus. He is their firm foundation, not like an awesome leader or the youth pastor or something like that.

And so when you move, not necessarily every year, but every so often, you're just more likely to build relationships with more adults. And I view that as a huge win. And so what I like to see is them build relationships, be really intentional in the year or the two years span that they're with that leader, and then really focus on the transition so they can then build a new relationship.

with new leaders and the students stay together. So they're able to keep building those long-term relationships where they can grow alongside of each other. But the leaders can shift as far as small group goes. But the long-term relationships still stay the same. Just like a small group leader that I had when I was in eighth grade, I still got to talk to them later in later years and they still knew me and they still could pour into me and disciple me. And so the process

can keep happening even though we're still looking towards helping them meet more people and grow closer relationships with more people.

Nick Clason (06:13.38)
Right on time, my man, both of you. This might be the first time two youth pastors hit their time mark right when they're supposed to. That's crazy. All right, so what we'll do now, guess, I like this. I think we're gonna go to a more open forum, all right? So let's do two minutes, but here's the thing, just so you guys know.

Stephen Rose (06:20.041)
Hehehehehe

Nick Clason (06:40.804)
I don't need to include the clock. like if it's good and free flowing, like I'm just not going to interrupt it. Like don't, don't worry about it. I'm just trying to keep things moving and make it not be like a, you know, long and boring episode. so I'll put this on, but why don't you, why don't you guys ask some clarifying questions just like back and forth and just like answer, ask, answer, ask, answer. and then, when, when we feel satisfied with that, we'll, we'll move on to the like closing testimony or whatever, whatever they call it in the courtroom.

Stephen Rose (06:51.316)
Thank

Nick Clason (07:10.758)
I don't watch enough court TV. So, does anyone have like a question to start? Like to ask the other person? All right, great. You go first then.

Stephen Rose (07:11.092)
Sounds good.

Isaac (07:12.627)
Okay.

Stephen Rose (07:19.216)
Yeah, yeah I do.

Perfect. So Isaac, wonder in your context, if a student doesn't get, like we'll just say student doesn't get along great with a certain leader. What does that look like? Like do you go about that?

Isaac (07:40.396)
Yeah, man, that's great. Context, I think, matters a lot. So I've worked in a small church, a medium church, and a large church. So let's just talk about the numbers that I have here. It's weird to talk about that in church culture, but that helps context so much. So I have about 160 leaders. And in that, have, for sixth grade boys, we have five sixth grade boy groups.

Stephen Rose (07:45.246)
I agree.

Stephen Rose (07:55.732)
for sure.

Isaac (08:07.854)
And then each one of those groups has four leaders. And so I think that that helps so much for the person watching right now. They're like, well, this might make sense because of this. And the dynamics can shift because for you saying, hey, does a sixth grade boy, if he's if he's not enjoying this, then what? Well, he he can move to another group. He can go to one of the other four options. And that's easy. Now, when I was at a church for six and a half years and it was like

Stephen Rose (08:08.049)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Rose (08:27.252)
Uh-huh.

Stephen Rose (08:30.675)
Right.

Isaac (08:37.59)
You have middle school boys, high school boys, middle school girls, high school girls. That's your option. Then it's like, well, what do we do when they don't like that person? And so for us in our context, it makes sense of if there's not someone getting along, there is another option in another group that they can go to.

Stephen Rose (08:44.444)
Right. I'm

Stephen Rose (08:58.772)
Sure. and

Nick Clason (09:00.39)
How do you guys, either of you, discern this is not a good fit and we need to quote unquote rescue the student from the fit? Or this is an opportunity to lean in and disciple the student to push through something more difficult and maybe getting along with their leader is like what God has for them in this season of their spiritual growth. Like how do you discern between those two? Because I feel like

Like a parent can come to you like they hate their leader and you want to like solve that so so that the kid doesn't get mad or the family doesn't leave the church or whatever. But I think sometimes it's like, dude, you need to stop being so entitled. You know what I mean? How do you how do know?

Stephen Rose (09:43.219)
Yeah, that's really good. For me, I tend toward having them stay either way because I don't want for students just to pick a leader based off of, I love this leader. I can't stand that leader, which by the way, my team is awesome. I have awesome leaders, all that. And so it's really a side point. But of course, if there was

if it was like coming to an unhealthy place, then I would say I'd be more willing to like figure it out. Especially if it was like a newer student, you know, who maybe isn't even a follower of Jesus yet. And okay, I'm trying to help them get comfortable first, help them feel accepted and have a good experience. And so that'd be a little different if it's someone I've been walking with for a while. And then, hey, it's time for you to grow up and, you know, and be...

be mature about this and grow in your maturity. I part of that is definitely not being in your favorite spot at all times.

Isaac (10:46.552)
Yeah, that's good. I think that, you know, scripture says if at all possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with with everyone. And if there's some kind of disunity there, obviously that's what the enemy is trying to seek out and bring to light is some kind of disunity. So it's our jobs as the shepherds of that to say, well, what's causing this? And so it should start with a conversation with both student and leader and saying,

Nick Clason (10:46.587)
Good.

Stephen Rose (10:56.372)
Mm.

Isaac (11:14.926)
Why? Why is there a disunity and how can we go towards unity? What's the conversation? Maybe you just need to say some things. Let's get it out on the table. Truth is gonna be great. Let's get it out on the table. But if it becomes a thing where it's like, we're not coming here. My kid doesn't wanna show up. I'm even pro, well, there's also another church in town because...

Stephen Rose (11:29.78)
Yeah.

Isaac (11:42.742)
The gospel doesn't just happen at this address. It happens in lot of places in discipleship. And so hopefully I am then connecting with other youth pastors in the area where I can then give a trusted, hey, why don't you go over here to this church? Because this youth pastor is also going to teach the Bible. Discipleship is also happening. But I'm not nervous to, I don't want to say threatened. It's not threatened, but to give, go ahead. If you can't grow here.

Ultimately, what we are concerned about for you as a student is your growth. Go grow anywhere.

Stephen Rose (12:14.045)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (12:17.776)
Good.

Stephen Rose (12:18.238)
That's good.

Isaac (12:19.83)
Steven, got a question for you if I'm allowed to ask. Yeah, because I love what you said about having five good relationships with adults. Yes, man, let's try to, as youth pastors, bring in as many adults and as many leaders as possible in their time of being there. What does it look like in your context for how many leaders do you have in each group? Yeah, what does that look like for you?

Stephen Rose (12:21.982)
Sure.

Nick Clason (12:22.638)
Yes, yes, go.

Stephen Rose (12:39.718)
.

Stephen Rose (12:47.234)
Yeah, we have two leaders in each group. so, over time, would naturally develop relationships with multiple, I mean, hopefully, in prayerfully, you would develop relationships with your small group leaders in that time. And for us, we're, I guess, the medium church size. And so,

Like for high school, for example, we have two high school guys groups, underclassmen and upperclassmen currently. And so you would meet four of the people right then and there. And then hopefully, like even like myself and some other people, because certainly our youth ministry is not the only context which you can have a relationship with an adult. But as far as what we're trying to do, it fits that mold pretty well.

Isaac (13:30.51)
Sure, yeah.

Isaac (13:38.978)
Yeah, so when you say upperclassmen leader and, what is it called? Underclassmen? That just sounded weird. Underclassmen? That just sounds underwear. Anyhow, when you have both of the, so the upperclassmen, are you saying then that those two leaders are with them for two years?

Stephen Rose (13:46.608)
under underclassmen.

Stephen Rose (13:58.579)
Yes.

Isaac (13:59.648)
Okay, so it's kind of like a hybrid then of it's not, I'm not thinking every year it's I'm still kind of building this. I'm in this context. So it's still once because for me, I don't even know if I'm pro you should be with them for seven years. I do like the for me, three years of middle school, you get a new high school leader, because there's just a difference between high school and middle school.

Stephen Rose (14:16.923)
Mm-hmm, right.

Nick Clason (14:16.966)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Rose (14:22.587)
Thank

Stephen Rose (14:27.586)
Right.

Isaac (14:27.84)
If there is someone that's committed for seven years, my hope is that they are bringing in dads, moms, and other people to it. Because I think that what you said is key. They need to have five adults in their life or more that where they can say, it's not just one person that believes this. It's not just their characteristics, but that in discipleship, they are inviting others to be a part of it as well. If you're going to do that seven year plan. Yeah.

Stephen Rose (14:32.35)
Thank you.

Stephen Rose (14:37.765)
So.

Right.

Stephen Rose (14:46.388)
you

Yes. Right.

Nick Clason (14:57.05)
Yeah, yeah. And I'll just say from a youth pastor logistical standpoint, you get someone to commit for seven years, that's amazing. Are they still committed to loop back down and start a sixth grade group? Going from being a 12th grade leader to a sixth grade leader is tough. And so I've been in situations where they're committed all the way through, but then I'm always having to recruit.

Stephen Rose (15:17.416)
Hey.

Nick Clason (15:24.462)
at the entry point because no one wants to loop back down. They feel like they've quote unquote done their time and they want to be involved in student ministry, but then they want to be involved in more of like a consulting role or a coaching role. And it's like, I love that for you, but I really could use a sixth grade leader, my friend. And so that's been, that's been my experience when they loop all the way through as we, we pool all the way down at the end of the quote unquote conveyor belt, if you will. And I got some really great leaders who aren't doing ministry anymore, but if you're doing

Stephen Rose (15:30.42)
That's how you do it. Okay.

Stephen Rose (15:53.716)
What am I? You just answered about the full seven years or if it's more of a middle school to high school, because I'm I agree. I'm a little less.

Nick Clason (15:54.694)
Like if you're like, yo, you're the underclassmen leader and you're just going to be an expert in ninth and 10th grade. Like, and then you'll see every kid's face, hopefully as they, as they loop through. Um, it's just, it's just the way I think about it.

Isaac (16:08.684)
Yeah, I love that. Steven, did you have any other questions?

Stephen Rose (16:23.832)
cause I can see there's definitely real positives in doing both ways. And, but the seven years is the one where I really, I don't want to say worry, but for lack of a better word, worry about like a students attaching to a certain leader and, that, is a good thing. but especially if they're, if they're not a part of the church at large, like the whole church body, and they're just attached to youth group and just attached to the leader. I just saw so many examples before I even got in youth ministry.

And then those kids, the leader's gone, they're done with youth ministry and they're they're toast. know, they just kind of walk away. And so I guess it was really just on my heart to like, I don't want to see like that happen. And I know there's other intentional ways of working against that too. But that was just really like on my heart.

Isaac (17:12.408)
Yeah, yeah, I would. Here's I mean, Nick, you kind of set us up. You're like, haha, caught you. You're in a trap coming debate this. And so I'm going to I'm going to, you know, share. The perspective of everyone wins, I guess, because here's what I would rather see if this is a would you rather question of would you rather have one leader who intentionally disciples a student for one year or have a leader that walks alongside?

Stephen Rose (17:20.83)
But.

Isaac (17:41.448)
and invest in a student for seven years, I would say give me the one year intentionally disciple. Because so often we recruit leaders that they won't say, I'm just a babysitter. They're not going to say that. We're not going to say that. But if you're like, we're just hanging out, I'm going to their games and they're doing some good things, but they're not intentionally discipling, we're still missing out. And so I would say that the key thing for me is find the leader that's going to disciple.

Stephen Rose (17:46.484)
Yeah.

Isaac (18:09.998)
Which means that they are really getting in and saying do you know Jesus? What is he teaching you? Are you opening up the Word of God? Are you praying? Are you building a community around you? Where are you serving? How's your evangelism life? And they're really working out all of these disciplines And it's more than just let me show up to your play Let me high-five and we'll go get coffee together because you can just hang out But you're not just being friends. You're intentionally discipling so

Nick Clason (18:25.51)
.

Stephen Rose (18:30.04)
Right.

Nick Clason (18:33.03)
you

Isaac (18:37.986)
Give me the one year intentional disciple.

Nick Clason (18:38.34)
Yeah.

Stephen Rose (18:39.572)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Nick Clason (18:42.166)
That's good. That's good for youth pastors. That's good for Like that's good for this whole conversation. Just like having like a well-rounded perspective of it. It's bad for Trying to elicit emotion and you guys like hating each other. So Way to be a Christian way to ruin YouTube, but no, I agree and

Isaac (19:03.661)
Yeah, yeah. And he's a Cavs fan. Yeah, this is great. We love each other. We're best friends now. Thank you, Nick.

Stephen Rose (19:07.704)
Hey, I know

Nick Clason (19:09.51)
Yeah, you're so welcome. Congratulations. Yeah. Well, let's do like your final statement, right? We'll just do a minute on the clock or less. Just give like your final word, kind of like put a bow on it. And then, yeah, then I guess we'll take it from there. So who went first last time? I think it was Isaac, right? So Steven, we'll have you minute on the clock, finalize your argument. You ready? All right, let's go.

Stephen Rose (19:36.663)
Yep.

All right, so I believe that transitioning through different small groups is best for students because they get to build multiple relationships with adults, which helps them own their faith, not just the youth's faith or my faith or their leader's faith, but their faith in Jesus. And so I think it's best to move them through. And then I also, as a side note, I think it can create a spot for leaders to star in their roles where, hey, if I'm always with freshmen girls,

then I'm gonna be able to really get good at welcoming them. Or if I'm always with the senior and junior guys, I'm gonna get really good at helping them through this transition as they get older, as their problems change. But they kinda are the same perpetually for new juniors, new seniors. And so they get to start starring in their roles as they get year after year of experience with them.

Nick Clason (20:36.282)
Nice, good job. All right, Isaac, one minute on the clock. Take it away.

Isaac (20:43.66)
Awesome. Quantity will produce quality. The more that you're hanging out with someone, the better the conversations. And so getting someone there for a length of time, it's just going to produce the quality that we're looking for. It avoids the six months, like, do I actually know this person? Can I make that inside joke? I accidentally said something about their parents or

Stephen Rose (21:07.284)
You you

Isaac (21:12.498)
Whatever all their life story the more opportunity that you have with their story the more that they can feel Fully known fully seen and fully loved which really I think just shows grace more discipleship more and and what Jesus was Really trying to aim for when he said this is what a disciple maker

Nick Clason (21:38.15)
Nice, strong work, both of you.

]]> Episode 177: After the Turkey... Watch This๐Ÿ‘€ https://www.hybridministry.xyz/177 01878858-4149-49e2-a61f-f300f647e758 Thu, 27 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0600 Nick Clason 177 After the Turkey... Watch This๐Ÿ‘€ full Nick Clason Thanksgiving is over, but we're just getting started! In this episode, Nick gives his 4 course meal of FREEBIES for youth pastors, 4 things for YOU, along with the 1 Mystery Course that can unlock everything! 11:07 no Thanksgiving is over, but we're just getting started! In this episode, Nick gives his 4 course meal of FREEBIES for youth pastors, 4 things for YOU, along with the 1 Mystery Course that can unlock everything! SHOW NOTES Shownotes & Transcripts https://www.hybridministry.xyz/177 Games https://www.patreon.com/posts/9-amazing-dym-142425755?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link FREE E-Book https://www.patreon.com/posts/complete-guide-142500019?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=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?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link CALENDAR https://www.patreon.com/posts/winter-spring-141564188?utmmedium=clipboardcopy&utmsource=copyLink&utmcampaign=postsharecreator&utmcontent=join_link SURPRISE MYSTERY DISH Hybrid Heroes Patreon Membership https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry ๐Ÿ‘‰ 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 -------------- ๐ŸŽ‰ FREE STUFF ๐ŸŽ‰ 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 -------------- ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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 -------------- ๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธ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. thanksgiving youth ministry, free youth ministry resources, youth pastor tips, youth ministry games, free church resources, youth ministry ideas, hybrid ministry, youth group leaders, youth pastor tools, youth group small groups, student ministry growth, youth ministry calendar, thanksgiving youth group ideas, church social media strategy, youth worker encouragement, ministry freebies, youth ministry training, youth group games free, youth group curriculum, hybrid ministry show Thanksgiving is over, but we're just getting started! In this episode, Nick gives his 4 course meal of FREEBIES for youth pastors, 4 things for YOU, along with the 1 Mystery Course that can unlock everything!

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

๐Ÿ‘‰ 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

--------------
๐ŸŽ‰ FREE STUFF ๐ŸŽ‰
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

--------------
๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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

--------------
๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธ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.

]]> Thanksgiving is over, but we're just getting started! In this episode, Nick gives his 4 course meal of FREEBIES for youth pastors, 4 things for YOU, along with the 1 Mystery Course that can unlock everything!

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

๐Ÿ‘‰ 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

--------------
๐ŸŽ‰ FREE STUFF ๐ŸŽ‰
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

--------------
๐Ÿ› ๏ธ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

--------------
๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธ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.

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