Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Youth Group Strategy”

Episode 171: Grow Your Youth Group: EXPLOSIVE Attendance Secrets

Nick Clason — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0500

These 5 Shifts in my approach to volunteers revolutionized by youth ministry.
These aren’t quick hacks — they’re the foundational principles that changed my thinking but they led to real, measurable growth.

The best news of all, not for me in the moment, but you is that each of these shifts were like levels in a video game that come with the big bad boss of a failure story that I had to defeat, from one of my 15 years in youth ministry, each boss becoming more and more epic, the final one left me questioning not only my job, but my career in ministry.

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 5 Levels of Volunteer Shifts
01:14 FAQ Playlist
02:04 Level 1: Chaos
04:21 Level 2: Lone Ranger
07:38 Level 3: Event
11:08 Level 4: Desperation
15:03 Level 5: Arrogance

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:08 - 00:00:25:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
For years, I thought the formula to youth ministry growth were better sermons and bigger events and flashier games. But I'm just going to be honest, none of that, none of it moved the needle. It wasn't until I learned not only that volunteer leaders matter, but it's when I unlocked these five shifts. It directly impacted the size in the health in the reach of my youth ministry.

00:00:25:04 - 00:00:46:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These aren't just some quick hacks. No, they're foundational principles that have revolutionized my thinking and led to real, measurable growth. But the best news of all for you? Not necessarily me. In each of these moments is that each one of these shifts, similar to like levels in a video game, come with a big bad boss of a failure story.

00:00:46:23 - 00:01:08:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I'm going to share each and every one of those failure stories with you until I had to defeat a different boss in one of my different 15 years of youth ministry, each boss becoming worse and the failure stories becoming more and more epic until we get to the final one, which left me not only questioning my job in that church, but also my youth ministry career.

00:01:08:27 - 00:01:29:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We're going to share these together in the hybrid ministry. So welcome everyone. Glad to have you. Well what's up everybody. Welcome to the Hybrid Minister Show. If you didn't know, we've been in a playlist here, talking and answering some different questions that I stumbled across in youth pastor Facebook groups. And this one today says I have officially crossed the line of 50 small group leaders.

00:01:29:00 - 00:01:47:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And for those of you who have 50 plus volunteers that are deeply invested in a week, how is you? How is your leadership of that team different than maybe a smaller team or so those of you who've crossed that line, how did you shift your leadership? So we're going to talk about the five levels of leadership, shifts that I've made.

00:01:47:02 - 00:02:07:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, frankly, I'm sitting right now at a position with greater than 50 leaders, and I would attribute, some of these shifts to be, what, some of those kind of, like, main things are. So with kind of that context out of the way, let's look through and chat through the five different levels. So the first level was the chaos level okay.

00:02:07:13 - 00:02:22:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So like in this chaos level I would constantly be frantically getting things set up. And I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit of a time optimist. And so what that means is like if I was like, okay, youth group starts at six, that means I need to get there at five to start getting things ready.

00:02:22:20 - 00:02:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I quickly learned I had to start moving that time back more and more because, you know, one of the things that would happen is I'm getting ready when students start showing up and I think they're going to show up at like 550, but instead students show up at like 530, and I am running out of time to get things set up.

00:02:40:18 - 00:03:02:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I feel chaotic in my spirit as they're there. And I'm also not able to give them any sort of attention or any sort of like relational equity, because I'm getting set up. So the next week I bump it back to five to maybe say 430, so I get a little bit more time. But then as I grow and as things in the ministry get more and more elaborate, and as we add more and more elements, I need more and more time.

00:03:02:05 - 00:03:21:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So the shift I had to make was the shift from the chaos to the control. Right? And so I could be in control. I could make that a moment that I actually owned that thing. And that was honestly a very like level one, very rookie mistake. And so the main shift I had to do is I had to start getting ready earlier.

00:03:21:08 - 00:03:36:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I had to start planning before Wednesday. I had to start planning on Tuesday, I had to start setting up earlier in the day. Whatever I needed to do. And the feel is this is that, early on, kids would walk in while I'm getting ready and I would be annoyed that a kid is there and like, I shouldn't be that way.

00:03:36:25 - 00:03:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, I'm a youth pastor, right? And so the shift, the very simple shift I had to make was if I just get set up earlier, then when a kid walks in, I'm done. They're not taking away something that I feel like I need to do, and I can devote and give my full attention to that kid who shows up early, which is a great thing for that kid.

00:03:53:27 - 00:04:14:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And with just that small, subtle shift, I started to see, more and more kind of like growth. I was more prepared for my leaders. I wasn't scrambling to get them things like printed out and handouts and service orders and all those types of things like those are all ready to go. When I started to do that, when I was more in control, when I was in less of a chaotic vibe, that all started to help.

00:04:14:23 - 00:04:35:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, there wasn't much right in that first level, as it pertains with volunteer leaders, because the second level here is the lone Ranger level. And for many, many years in youth ministry, I felt like it was my job because frankly, I'm getting paid by the church to do the youth ministry. But it wasn't until I started to learn this idea of delegation.

00:04:36:01 - 00:04:57:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right? And, the only real moments where I was able to get to a spot where I realized I had to go from Lone Ranger to delegation was when I had to defeat this big, bad boss. One Thursday. I was sitting in my office and I had, like, 20 to 25 new student, welcome. Like postcards that I had to write.

00:04:57:12 - 00:05:21:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It was just something that we had to do. Every time we had a new student, we had to write out a card. And every single week at this church, I was getting more and more new students, like 20, 25, like I was at a multi-site megachurch, and I was getting more than 20 new students every single week. And so I was, I had just started, taking over that position full time, independently.

00:05:21:04 - 00:05:37:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I had worked with, a coworker for, several months, and it was my first week without her, as kind of my counterpart in my my boss walks in, who's my campus pastor who didn't know anything about these cards or anything like that. It wasn't him who assigned those to me. And so he's like, hey, you got a minute?

00:05:37:28 - 00:06:02:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, literally, no. And I didn't look up. And I kept frantically writing while he's at my door and I'm trying to talk within. I'm trying to have conversation with them. I can't even remember what it was about, but. And I knew that that was rude. I knew I should have put my pin down. I looked at him, but what that was going to mean was I wasn't going to get to leave work on time when I needed to leave work, and that was also a value of mine.

00:06:02:07 - 00:06:25:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in that moment, I was like, I never want to get to the spot again. Like, I need to delegate some of this off. I need to do what only I can do. And there are plenty of volunteers and there are plenty of people. I had an amazing check in team that could have very easily at the end of check in when you know, it's like, let's say the event starts at six and it's 610 and most of the students have checked in.

00:06:25:06 - 00:06:46:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're there for the next hour and 20 minutes like they had plenty of time to write 25 notes between five of them, you know what I'm saying? But I didn't delegate it to them. So therefore the fail was that it ended up on my desk the very next day. And I had, instead of five cards to write, which is what five different volunteers with 25 cards would have, written.

00:06:46:15 - 00:07:06:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I wrote all 25 of them, and so I had to learn to start delegating. And it took a minute. And that's part of the the, the fail in this is that it takes a minute to get up over that initial hurdle of creating a system of delegation, like getting the postcards down there, telling them where they are, telling them how to check on who the first time guests are.

00:07:06:20 - 00:07:27:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know how we're going to handle that, because they might not know in the moment, like when a kid checks in. But once we get past all of that, then, I start to experience a little bit more, success. And I beat that level. Of delegation. We all know that there's only a certain amount of capacity that any one person has, and you might be a person with an extraordinarily high capacity.

00:07:27:25 - 00:07:47:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But as your church and as your youth ministry grows, you're going to reach a breaking point where you definitely need to move on and defeat that big bad boss to delegation. Which led me then to my third level, where I had to shift my mindset, from the event is this is the event level. I had to move from event to hybrid.

00:07:47:03 - 00:08:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the fail is that early on in some of my early on days, every single event was crucial, and every single attendance marker in that event was even more crucial. So if we had a big event, the first thing I was doing was I was checking guest cards and I was checking our, check in kiosks because I wanted to see how many kids we had.

00:08:06:21 - 00:08:24:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I thought to myself, you know, like, if we have this event and last event we had, say 50 kids, I wanted to get to 55, or I wanted to get to 60, or I wanted to get to 65. And I started to put all my effort and my worth honestly into that bottom line number. And I started making it all about events.

00:08:24:26 - 00:08:46:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then Covid happened and what I realized during Covid, was that we had and I actually share this entire story right here at this video linked up, here at the top of the screen in my 100th episode, I made a little documentary style, like, kind of how and where this hybrid thing all came from. But what I realized was that there were multiple avenues of touch points.

00:08:46:02 - 00:09:09:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, my very first day, on a job at a church was the first day of Covid. And in that I realized, out of sheer like constraints, like we didn't have in-person, I couldn't speak to the students live in a room. So all of the normal touchpoints were gone. And so I had to get creative about how we can still connect with students through writing things like postcards, which probably were some of that started.

00:09:09:17 - 00:09:27:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I wasn't delegating quite yet. Right. Or, social media or all those types of things. And that's really where a lot of this hybrid stuff came from, realizing that we can still do pastoral care even when we're not in the room. Now, I wouldn't recommend, like, Covid going back to that where we we're never in the room and that's never a possibility.

00:09:27:29 - 00:09:45:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But there's some both and right there's there's the both of being able to be in the room and also some of the pastoral care that can happen when we're not in the room and we can lean in to some of that sort of hybrid thing. And so the fail was when I would ride or die based off of some of those event numbers.

00:09:45:25 - 00:10:02:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I had to get over and realize that Covid allows me to have more touch points with it, which is honestly the entire reason why this podcast exists. Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media?

00:10:02:15 - 00:10:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.

00:10:32:02 - 00:10:51:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly Hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.

00:10:51:27 - 00:11:11:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. The fourth level is to move.

00:11:11:11 - 00:11:35:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is called the desperation level. I don't know if you've ever been there before, but you look at a spreadsheet and you just realize, like, man, I have so many gaps. I have so many holes in our, volunteer schedule and so you're desperate and you're recruiting people that, might not even be the best fit. You're recruiting people that you don't even really want to recruit, but you are desperate.

00:11:35:16 - 00:11:55:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, the shift I had to make was I had to move from desperation to confidence. And the confidence comes from this. Right. And I don't know how to tell you to to move from this aside from prayer, and just a mindset shift. But the confidence should come from the fact that this is not your student ministry.

00:11:55:06 - 00:12:12:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And while, yes, you're being paid to run and manage this student ministry, this is God's church. And Jesus told Peter that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church, that he is going to set up like you have the ability. And so therefore, you should have the confidence to lean on that promise. This is God's church.

00:12:12:20 - 00:12:31:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is God's student ministry. And so you don't have to be desperate. He cares more about it than you do. And so I will tell you one year, this is the boss that I had to defeat. This is the fail story that I had to overcome. One year I was, rolling hard. Like the weeks were just going by me to do.

00:12:31:10 - 00:12:49:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And all of a sudden, like, the the drop dead deadline for me where I needed to have all my leaders in place for small groups and new students and promotion week, we did it at the end of the summer. And so it was like early to mid August, which meant by like Labor Day or maybe even a little bit before that was going to be back to school.

00:12:49:14 - 00:13:04:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We were going to be having new students roll on up into our student ministry, and this particular class of students had a couple of kids in it that were, known throughout the entire church that like, they were tough ones. Right. And so I was having a really hard time because no one really wanted to be their leader.

00:13:04:23 - 00:13:27:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, I was I was trying in that moment to practice the confidence. And I remember, low key inside freaking out. But I was sitting in church, okay. And I just, I remember exactly where I was sitting, and I looked across the auditorium a little bit of the ways, and I laid eyes on just this dude.

00:13:27:06 - 00:13:45:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I knew, that he worked with, the homeless shelter in town. I knew that he had kind of like a, history of volunteering in sort of that arena and and he worked with a demographics that were maybe a little bit, above and beyond what our normal volunteers were used to working with, let's just say.

00:13:45:08 - 00:14:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I looked at him and I felt the Spirit of God say, go ask him. And so I went straight over to him and I said, hey, I got an idea for you, and I got a proposition. And we hadn't even really met. Right? Like his, his step kids were in my ministry, so like, we had that relationship like him, and I hadn't really talked very much, and he jumped in, and it was a beautiful pairing.

00:14:06:16 - 00:14:24:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It was a beautiful like decision. Like he was exactly the right guy for that moment. And I just remember I look back at that story a lot of times and that's a success story, frankly. But it was almost a fail story because I almost didn't have enough volunteers to start the year. But God reminded me, this is my student ministry.

00:14:24:21 - 00:14:43:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is not yours. And so, you should still put the work in. You should still make the asks, you should still do the recruiting. But at the end of the day, you can operate out of a position of confidence. And quite frankly, this is something that I'm always working on because even in my current setting right now, we're still short a few volunteers.

00:14:43:23 - 00:15:03:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I'm not trying to be desperate. I'm trying to come from a position of strength, and I'm trying to come from a position of confidence. And when I did that in my spirit, well, maybe not all the holes got plugged from a pragmatic standpoint in my spirit, I was able to rest and relax and just lean on God and realizing this is his student ministry.

00:15:03:25 - 00:15:20:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Which leads me to my fifth level. And it was the arrogance level, right? Very similar to level two, which is the Lone Ranger level behind the Lone Ranger level is this idea that, like, I can do it and I want people to know that I can do it, that I can do an amazing job in the Lone Ranger level.

00:15:20:03 - 00:15:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's I'm just bad at delegating. But in this level, not only was I bad at delegating, I refused to delegate because I wanted the glory. I wanted the accolades, I wanted the credit and the the massive fail story. And this is, I was brand new in a church, and I changed what they did for camp. So the first year I went, it was my actual very first week on the job.

00:15:43:09 - 00:16:04:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I went to camp the very next year. I knew in my spirit I wanted to run my own camp. I wanted, all of the the glory, all the accolades that went along with that. And I could have gotten my leaders on board, but I was a being a lone Ranger and b being arrogant because I wanted to prove that I could do it, and I wanted them to be impressed with what I could do and what I could pull off.

00:16:04:12 - 00:16:21:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And frankly, what we pulled off was great. And we had a lot of like, God still used it, right? It's like that verse where where Paul says, like, I don't care why people are preaching. Like the fact that, Jesus is being preached like that's still the wind, but like, in that, like I lost a lot of equity.

00:16:21:12 - 00:16:42:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I lost a lot of track record. I lost a lot of trust with my leaders. And one night I was sitting out outside on, like a bank at the camp, kind of in a private spot, fielding a phone call from my senior pastor who said, hey, listen, if you wouldn't have handled this conversation a little bit better, we might be talking about your job.

00:16:42:06 - 00:17:03:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was I was in that moment was one of my deepest, darkest, worst kind of moments in all of ministry. And simply, it was because I needed to make the shift from arrogance to humility and realized that the the leaders that God had put around me got to put around them, put them around me, to help maybe overcome some of the weaknesses that he knew that that I had.

00:17:03:15 - 00:17:28:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I could lean on them and I could trust them. And they were willing participants and willing people there that wanted to help me. I had to defeat that big, bad boss of arrogance. So these five leadership shifts have absolutely revolutionized my thinking. From chaos to control, from Lone Ranger to delegation, from event based to a hybrid ministry strategy, from desperation to confidence, and finally from arrogance to humility.

00:17:28:26 - 00:17:38:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I pray, and I hope that you can make those five shifts in your youth ministry and in your volunteer leadership delegation rooting you on. And don't forget, my friends, to stay hybrid.

Episode 162: 10 Free Time Stations for Youth Ministry - Fun, Easy & FREE!

Nick Clason — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Looking for fun, easy, and totally free youth ministry ideas that actually engage students? In this episode of The Hybrid Ministry Show, Nick Clason shares 10 high-energy, low-prep free time station ideas—from donut decorating to Mario Kart tournaments, 9 Square, Gaga Ball, social challenges, and more—all designed to boost student engagement and connection. If you're a youth pastor craving creative youth group games, fall event strategy, or hybrid ministry tips that work, this episode is packed with stealable ideas and a bonus resource you don’t want to miss!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 This Strategy Make Him say what?!
00:36 The Freetime Strategy Explained
06:25 Donut Tattoos
06:39 Scavenger Hunt - Hybridized!
09:19 Board Games
09:36 Decorating
09:52 Steal The (Fill in the Blank)
10:29 Kajabi Can Can
11:14 Big Screen Mario Kart Tourney
11:37 9-Square
11:44 Gaga Ball
12:09 The Social Challenge

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:19:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Your students don't want to sit through another 90 minute program. Can we be honest? Do you? In this episode, I'm going to break down my outreach event strategy, which when I shared it with my friend Eric with the kids, he had this to say about it. I love that thank you notes. That's something I'm gonna steal for future videos.

00:00:19:27 - 00:00:52:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this episode, I'm going to hit you with ten ideas that you are definitely going to want to head over to my YouTube channel so that you can screenshot these and use them for your upcoming fall outreach event. Welcome, my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry Show! Well, hey everyone, welcome to episode 162 of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I'm going to be talking about one of the, strategies that we have for our outreach events that we've sort of stumbled into, and it's a little bit unique.

00:00:52:26 - 00:01:14:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, you heard what my friend Eric had to say about it, but essentially what it is, is it's creating moments of free time for your students. And so what I mean by that is we're not taking the full 90 minute block, or we're not taking the full 120 minute block of programing time that you have for your youth ministry and scheduling every single minute and making every single student do every single thing the entire time.

00:01:15:00 - 00:01:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But instead, what we're doing is we're opening up a window of time within our night, within our program to allow your students to kind of, like, choose their own adventure and do what they want to do. Now, if you're going to be using linked right here, the, download from the World's Greatest Donut Event Guide that we've been talking about, like, that's what, we've done before.

00:01:35:19 - 00:01:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I want, you know, if you're looking for something to do, I want you to consider maybe doing that event and you can incorporate these ideas, this strategy, into your upcoming fall outreach event. And so, go ahead and go grab that download. It's completely free. It's going to point you to a resource over On demand that you can use and implement.

00:01:54:07 - 00:02:22:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And these ideas are things that you can use, borrow, steal, and include in your upcoming fall outreach event. But the the philosophy behind it is, as we talked about a couple episodes ago, this is a cultivate in the spiritual CPR. This is a cultivate night. We're we're inviting friends were hanging out. We're just, kind of letting our hair down, kicking our feet up and hanging out with students and helping them see that church doesn't have to be confusing.

00:02:22:00 - 00:02:44:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Church doesn't have to be weird. But the other reason that this is advantageous is very simply, when you have a message included in your night, you don't have as much time to program. When you don't include your message, you have more time to program. And here's what we do. Oftentimes, we're still like plugging through our scope and sequence like we use Collider.

00:02:44:04 - 00:03:07:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, if you use Code hybrid ministry, I'll give you 10% off Collider for a year. So go check that out. They just dropped roadmaps. The first part of roadmaps year three. Really excited about the the judges series included in that. But, we'll just kind of keep plugging along in what we, you know, for a message that we should have taught on the night our outreach event is Worcester, upload it to YouTube.

00:03:08:01 - 00:03:30:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then our Sunday morning curriculum is derived off of our Wednesday night curriculum. And so we'll still have that conversation on Sunday morning, even though we didn't have the message on Wednesday night. And it's just on YouTube. And so at the end of the night, a lot of times we'll just show a little teaser clip and say, hey, this is over on YouTube, go check it out, scan this QR code if you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

00:03:30:08 - 00:03:55:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they're off to the races. And I mean the whole the whole good news right about these, this donut event is that it's getting students onto your social media, which at the end of this completely free fall masterclass playlist, I'm going to teach you how to build a social media team run completely by students that helps them create content not only for other students in your ministry, but create content with other students in your ministry.

00:03:55:28 - 00:04:15:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so having this free time event opens up all of these things, opens up more options. And, you know, one of the things that we'll do is we'll, offer anywhere from like four or 5 or 6 different, like, things, little stations. And they have anywhere from 30 to maybe 45 minutes on the longer end to do whatever them that they want.

00:04:15:18 - 00:04:36:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But one of the things that we've done to kind of encourage them or highlight what's available is we'll create a little passport or like a punch card, or if they go to a station and complete it, they'll get a little sticker for it. And what that does is it just helps them. First of all, give gives your students, and anyone who's new like a little map of your area, what's included where what's going on?

00:04:36:06 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What can we do right now? And then we'll say, hey, if you, complete if you go to all six stations, come and submit this card back in and we will give you a candy bar. And then we'll also put your, you know, name or your passport in, a drawing for the grand prize at the end of the night or something like that.

00:04:53:27 - 00:05:11:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, you know, if students are maybe not interested in all six of the things, and that's one of the reasons why we do it is because we know, like, not every single student is going to want to do every single type of game that you do. And so we'll include like some artsy and crafty type things. But then we'll also include some really, really active type things.

00:05:11:27 - 00:05:30:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so some students may be like, I'm more artsy. I don't want to do that active thing at all. And they're going to opt out of doing every single thing on the passport. But other kids, they might want to try to do all of it. And so they're going to try to run to every single station. So it just it it communicates what's available and it gives students an option to just win something.

00:05:30:13 - 00:05:47:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's just a fun way to kind of program it. I try to program the amount of time, like if we got 5 or 6 stations, I want to give them 30 to 35 minutes. I want there to be nearly not enough time for them to do everything, because when they leave, I want them to have in their mind like, oh my word, that event was so fun.

00:05:47:14 - 00:06:03:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I didn't even get to everything. And that's kind of like the vibe I want them to get in the car with with their parents, right? And when they're parents, like, how was it there? Like it was awesome. There is so much to do, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's kind of the vibe that we're going for. So if you're here on YouTube, these are going to flash up here on the screen.

00:06:04:01 - 00:06:24:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These are free time stations that are high fun, but they're low prep. And some of these we've done before, others of them are ideas that I have for future ones. And if you're doing the World's Greatest Donut Event launch guide, you can use some of these. These are ones that we actually have pulled together, for the donut event starting with.

00:06:24:29 - 00:06:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The first one is we had a donut temporary tattoo parlor. And so we can have students come in and just get a temporary donut tattoo. Right. And it's like you're doing the scavenger hunt. Like, one of the things I've done is, a future idea is like, we've done a scavenger hunt is one of the clues on the scavenger hunt was to have to go and prove that you got a donut tattoo, so it's like you kind of kill two birds with one stone.

00:06:50:00 - 00:07:10:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They come to the scavenger hunt, which is a second idea, by the way. Come to the scavenger hunt. One of the one of the clues is you know, go to the donut tattoo thing and they prove that they've done it. And so in addition to it, we like I try to hybridize my scavenger hunt, which, if you didn't know by the way, I have a weekly bonus podcast over on Patreon.

00:07:10:00 - 00:07:36:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's only $4 a month, and I want you to think about that. Investment of $4 is like your creative programing assistant. Like, here's my question is $50 per year worth it for you to have? Almost like a programing and social media consultant and coach? Because that's essentially what this $4 tier would do. It's going to give you, for $48 for you, 12 times four.

00:07:36:07 - 00:07:57:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's going to give you, someone who's just doing this on the front lines and is evaluating everything that I'm doing and boots on the ground. I'm not just like some, you know, youth ministry content guy. Like, these are things I'm actually doing. And I'll, I'll coach you through just by the evaluation of my own strategy, how it's going, what's going well, what's not going as well.

00:07:57:00 - 00:08:15:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can just steal all that I'm doing and bonus points, at the end of this episode, I'm going to be dropping a product that's $17. That's going to be incredibly valuable to you as you continue to lean in on social media. That's going to be free if you're already a $4 tier member of the Hybrid Heroes podcast.

00:08:15:27 - 00:08:33:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I try to hybridize, and this is an example of thing I'll talk about on my podcast, The Scavenger Hunt. So, for example, we say, hey, prove to us that you voted on the first round of the donuts, because remember, at this event we're launching the bracket. And so we're doing donuts, seed number one versus donuts. Seed number 16.

00:08:33:28 - 00:08:53:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Donuts number eight versus donut seed number nine. Prove to us that you voted. And so, they can either vote with paper printouts which is the most boring, or they go on Instagram or YouTube and cast a poll style vote. Another one I'll do is I'll say, like in our most recent uploaded YouTube video, what was on so-and-so's shirt?

00:08:53:10 - 00:09:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What color was so-and-so's hat, who's teaching like or whatever? And so that'll also encourage them to pull their phones out. If they don't have a phone, go find someone who does have a phone and look at our YouTube channel. And then, you know, bonus points if you subscribe, like all those types of things, like, I'm trying to kind of lean into not only the other stations like the donut tattoo station, but also some of our hybrid ideas.

00:09:15:26 - 00:09:32:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so Scavenger Hunt is one of my all time favorite stations. Another one is just simple, right? Like create a board game station. Like we already have a bunch of board games in our cafe. In our game room. We'll just lay those on a table and say, you can go do board games. And here's the thing so low prep on your part.

00:09:32:22 - 00:09:53:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You don't have to do anything with it. We in this donut event, we've done donut decorating for like a couple nights ago in our youth ministry, it was National Sugar Cookie Day. We did sugar cookie decorating like you could do some sort of food decorating or craft decorating of sorts. One of the one of my all time favorite active games is steal the Bacon.

00:09:53:19 - 00:10:10:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in this event, we just do steal the donut. You can buy a big donut plush on Amazon, or you can just very simply like throw anything out there, like a piece of, like we've done, like I've done like a duck tape night before. And I took a piece of cardboard and I duct taped all around the cardboard, and we played steal the duct Tape.

00:10:11:03 - 00:10:27:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, whatever theme event you're doing, like, steal that thing for, like, a steal the bacon style game where you have ten people on one side, ten people on the other, or however many. Right. And you can number them off. So this is one, this is one, this is two. This is two. When you call that number, they run on into the middle.

00:10:27:22 - 00:10:45:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Another one of our all time favorite active games is we call it One of our volunteers labeled it here called poison, but I've grown up calling it Kajabi can can just with the big trash can in the middle. And you try to not touch the trash can by holding someone's, you know, hands and dragging them into the trash can.

00:10:45:14 - 00:11:08:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You want to be the last person standing. Here's a pro tip grab dog rope. Chew toys so that you're not holding someone's like, wrist and like, crushing their knuckles because inevitably you're going to have like a senior guy football player next to like, a seventh grade girl. And he's going to destroy her hand. So give them both, like, dog rope, chew toys to hang onto with, like the ropes on the end.

00:11:08:23 - 00:11:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
She's got a rope here. He's got rope here. And of course, if you break the chain, you're also out. Another thing that we've done before, and I'm just going to be honest, I don't know how well it worked, but we did like, big screen Mario Kart video game, tournament video games, and Mario Kart always a hit. The part that I'm not sure that worked was the tournament aspect.

00:11:29:24 - 00:11:45:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like it was kind of chaotic and didn't really know who's next and who's in line and, you know, whatever. But it was still fun. Overall, we have in our space, we have like a nine square, so we'll just say eight. You can you know, play nine square if you want. So that's an option. Gaga ball. That's an option.

00:11:45:17 - 00:12:04:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you don't know like I recommend two portable versions. And so maybe you're in like a shared space. But for an event like this, you can drag those out and set them up. Link down. Below is my, recommended nine square option and my recommended Gaga ball option. So those are things you make a little financial investment here on the front side, but then you can use this whenever you have a big event like this.

00:12:04:29 - 00:12:23:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And those can be a part of your station, some of the things that you offer. And then finally the social challenge. So social challenge I'm going to teach you how to do that here in a couple episodes. So make sure that you're subscribed. But the social challenge is we some social media content with our students, by our students every single Wednesday night.

00:12:24:01 - 00:12:43:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in the link below, I am going to share with you exactly how you can, build your own social media team and the exact strategy that we use. And like I said in a couple episodes, I'm going to flesh out a full class on how to build out a social media team based on student ministry volunteers and what that does.

00:12:43:13 - 00:13:03:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That just helps kind of continue to create those hybrid connections. You're doing it via social media. And like I said on August 28th, we're dropping something big that is going to help you get that social media team up and off the ground. So you're definitely going to want to make sure that you're subscribed. But for the next video here, we are going to now talk about we've done this donut event.

00:13:03:09 - 00:13:25:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We've welcome new students. We've included free time stations. Now let's look at event evaluation. How do we know whether or not we hit the mark? How do we know whether or not this event was successful? How do we know whether or not the budget money that we spent with, whether the juice there was worth the squeeze? We're going to answer all of those questions on the video that's linked right here on screen.

00:13:25:05 - 00:13:31:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So make sure that you tap into that and until next time, and as always my friends, don't forget to stay hybrid.

Episode 161: How to Welcome New Students in Youth Ministry Without Overwhelming Them

Nick Clason — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Welcoming new students to your youth ministry shouldn’t feel like a firehose of information—this episode unpacks how to create an intentional, low-pressure first-time guest follow-up system. We’ll explore the psychology behind making guests feel valued, how to use a youth group welcome box, and why timing your church guest process matters. Plus, get a walkthrough of our youth ministry calendar, a peek at our welcome video strategy, and how to keep student connections alive on social media all fall long!

🗓️NEW CALENDAR + The Ultimate Guest Box
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry/shop/ultimate-first-time-guest-box-579557?source=storefront

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/161

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

WELCOME BOX VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzUQ-DwS32g&t=27s

WELCOME VIDEO
https://youtu.be/RRKGELKuJsc?si=Yb5RyayhDa-cQsQj

✅ CHURCH COMMS DONE FOR YOU
Hire me to run your church website, social media or communications!
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How to Wow New Students
00:26 The psychology of the Welcome Guest Box
02:12 Why We Mail a Box
04:21 The Hybrid Part of the Box

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:17 - 00:00:23:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You got new students showing up to your youth ministry, to your fall kickoff events. Are you ready to wow them or just hand them a stale pizza coupon? In this episode, we are going to detail an outline my full guest Strategy Newcomers Welcome box. It is linked down below if you want to check it out. And of course, as always, there are chapters listed down below.

00:00:23:25 - 00:00:47:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Minister Show. If you not haven't had a chance to meet yet. My name is Nick. In a 15 year youth ministry veteran, and in recent years I've stumbled into this idea of a welcome guest box. In fact, we detailed and outlined it in this episode, linked right here on screen or down below if you want to go check that out.

00:00:47:17 - 00:01:11:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the fact of the matter is that we have discovered that the psychology behind creating an intentional follow up box is threefold. First of all, you want the students who come to your youth ministry for the very first time. You want them to feel like a million bucks. You want to roll out the red carpet for them, and you want them to feel like you have thought about them and that you have, you know, you've planned to have them there.

00:01:11:01 - 00:01:30:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, like in recent years, we've discovered more and more with this generation that it's an overwhelming experience to walk into a youth ministry for the very first time. And so imagine walking into a place it's completely foreign, completely new, completely wild and completely crazy. And then you're like, here, here's this, and here's this, and here's this. And here's this.

00:01:30:18 - 00:01:52:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you're like, swag ING them out. And like, that's a great notion. However, in the moment they're just figuring out like, where's the bathroom? Meanwhile, they have to hold and track and keep all this stuff that you're just like loading them up with. And they're awkward because they're holding it, but like nobody else has it. And like, if you want them to truly get involved in your youth ministry, you want them like jumping into things like Gaga Ball and Nine square.

00:01:52:29 - 00:02:08:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But like, they have things that they have to keep track of and like they don't know where's a safe place to actually lay it down. And so therefore, that's why we've pivoted to recently in our student ministry, sending a guest welcome box. And so they come, we gather all their information. We say, hey, thank you so much. So glad you're here.

00:02:08:27 - 00:02:26:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We pair them up with someone new and then we treat them just like any other normal student. Meanwhile, a few days later, they'll get on their doorstep a welcome box branded all the things, helping welcome them to our student ministry. And in that moment, they're then able to be completely swagged out and have all of the things that they need.

00:02:26:22 - 00:02:57:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But they're able to do it in a less threatening environment. They're able to do it at home. And so we love this strategy. And again, as I said in the previous episode, I've given a full breakdown of it. You can go check that out. And I also include some artwork for it. But in this episode, I'm going to include the artwork for my 2025 FA calendars so that you can include and you can start using that to start laying out and dishing out your full 2025 calendar.

00:02:57:08 - 00:03:20:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because again, if you're in this masterclass, which you are, this is video part two of the Fall Masterclass for Youth Ministry. Last week we talked about the world's Greatest Donut Kickoff event. And if you if that event did its job and new students came, then those students came to your youth ministry. And then now you're going to use today's episode, this welcome box to send out and welcome the new students to your ministry.

00:03:20:10 - 00:03:55:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, this first time or this, this calendar that's included in the welcome box, it is free for all members of my Patreon. If not, you can jump on and you can grab it for just a few bucks. I think it's like 3 or $4 over there on Patreon. But if you become a member, which is only $4 per month, not only do you get access to every single thing on my store, including like my seasonal social media packs, the welcome box from that past episode, and this fall calendar, but you also get a weekly bonus podcast where I go through what we do in our youth ministry and in our kickoff events,

00:03:55:12 - 00:04:16:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and it's basically like your weekly debrief meeting. Even if you don't have a team around you, it's always helpful to have someone else's voice and to just hear those things, to kind of get those ideas going in your in your brain and like in your creative juices. And so that's the value of, again, $4 per month is the, bonus podcast.

00:04:16:25 - 00:04:35:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But here's the other reason that I love this welcome box idea is because as soon as you open it up, we have a gigantic QR code, right when they open it up and at the top it says Welcome video and they scan it and it takes him to our YouTube channel. And so it's a welcome video from me and other people on our team.

00:04:35:07 - 00:04:56:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, if you're following this fall playlist last week, you also got them on your social media. So they hopefully went and checked out your social media last week because voting for the donuts was on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever you have. And then this video also takes them to YouTube. So now it's the second social media touchpoint for them in as many days.

00:04:56:20 - 00:05:15:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if they're going to continue on, with this donut thing, if they're going to continue on to see this thing through, if they're going to keep coming back, they're going to interact with your social media more and more. And as we talked about in the previous video over the summer, the key to social media in youth ministry is not like a one time amazing viral video.

00:05:15:09 - 00:05:35:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The key is many micro connections over time so that they get used to and they get familiar with your brand and your social media, which is why it's so important to not only stay custom on social media, but also to stay, regular and consistent on social media, which is what my seasonal social media pack was meant to do over the summer.

00:05:35:18 - 00:05:58:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And big news in four episodes. The final episode of this fall, when we are launching our fall seasonal social media pack, we want to help you when creating not only custom content, but also creating serving opportunities for your students to to level up and lead these social media teams. And so now you might be thinking like, okay, so we got the world's greatest donut event, and now we got this welcome box.

00:05:58:20 - 00:06:21:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How do I know if any of these things are actually hitting, if we're actually making any discernible difference in the life of our student? I'm glad you asked, because in the next episode, we're going to talk about one of the key components of this, fall kickoff event. And it's the fact that we include we alluded to a little bit in last episode, but we include this moment of like 45 minutes of free time for students to do whatever they want.

00:06:21:14 - 00:06:33:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That video is going to be linked here on screen. Make sure that you're subscribed. If you're watching this live, so that you don't miss when that episode drops next Thursday. But until next time. And as always, my friends, don't forget to stay hydrated.