Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Youth Ministry Podcast”

Episode 197: Custom vs Done-For-You Social Media for Churches

Nick Clason — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Social Media is like the beast that never sleeps.
In this episode, I have two experts to argue both social media philosophies.
Should you use a pack that's done for you, so you can set it and forget it?
Or should you focus on more custom content for your church instagram feeds?

Find out, listen to the debate, and you decide!

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Social Media for Youth Ministry
00:39 The Guest Today?
01:53 Custom Social Intro
02:52 Done For You Intro
03:52 Why Done For You Social Media?
05:54 Why Custom Social Media is most effective
07:55 How Long Do You Spend on Social Media?
10:26 Have You Raised up Volunteers?
12:07 Done For You Closing Remarks
13:07 Custom Social Media Closing Argument

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:000 - 00:00:02:065
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry debates. Welcome to the

00:00:02:065 - 00:00:02:112
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
fourth

00:00:03:002 - 00:00:03:076
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and

00:00:03:086 - 00:00:04:075
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
debate

00:00:04:085 - 00:00:05:008
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
episode.

00:00:05:033 - 00:00:05:050
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And

00:00:05:050 - 00:00:07:110
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in this one we are talking all things

00:00:08:013 - 00:00:10:077
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
social media, and I'm debating none

00:00:10:096 - 00:00:11:103
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
other than

00:00:11:113 - 00:00:27:037
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
myself. And I'm going to be taking two different stances. Stance number one is going to be on social media. That is done for you. You download it out of a pack and you just set it and forget it versus social media.

00:00:27:037 - 00:00:39:053
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That is custom social media that has your own voice and your own face. And we're going to be going head to head. Myself versus myself. Welcome, everybody to the Hybrid Ministry show.

00:00:39:063 - 00:00:49:065
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Minister's show. If you've not been following along, we are currently at the tail end of a playlist where we've been exploring big youth ministry

00:00:49:075 - 00:01:05:022
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
debates. And in this one, the debate is specifically centered around social media. And rather than trying to find another opposition or another person on the other side, I figured I would genuinely argue this position from each side of the social media aisle.

00:01:05:032 - 00:01:09:020
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Done for you versus custom for you. And so when I'm wearing a

00:01:09:033 - 00:01:10:111
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
black shirt, I'm going to be arguing

00:01:10:119 - 00:01:14:051
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
packs that are done for you, that are set it and forget it. Think

00:01:14:061 - 00:01:15:080
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Sunday social, think

00:01:15:080 - 00:01:19:015
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
nuclear social, think doing membership post.

00:01:19:025 - 00:01:22:111
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then when I'm wearing a white shirt.

00:01:23:000 - 00:01:38:028
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm going to be arguing social media. That's custom, social media that has your own flair, social media that has your own voice in your own face. And so, just like we've programed every single one of these other debate style episodes, that's how we are going to

00:01:38:028 - 00:01:40:080
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
do this with a minute introduction and

00:01:40:080 - 00:01:46:013
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
then two minutes of an argument, then a back and forth Q&A, followed by one minute of closing.

00:01:46:042 - 00:01:53:030
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And welcome to the podcast to argue social media myself. Nicholas.

00:01:53:040 - 00:02:09:105
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So minute on the clock. So I've been in youth ministry for 15.5 years. Started out small churches in Ohio. Always seen the value and need for social media, digital ministry. In fact, I read a book, or listen to a podcast about exiles in Babylon.

00:02:09:115 - 00:02:18:045
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It was a Barna book and talked about the value of YouTube and how the next generation is going to be asking some of the heaviest and most theologically based questions on YouTube.

00:02:18:055 - 00:02:40:084
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So to kind of get my gears turning around YouTube, I started a little like YouTube through my church podcast, moved to a church in Chicago the first day Covid hit. And while we were there, obviously we had to come up with a digital and an innovative and innovative digital solution. And while we were doing that, it really like sparked my love, my continued love for social media, YouTube, and just digital ministry.

00:02:40:084 - 00:02:54:060
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so kind of ever since then, I've seen the value of it. I've seen the power behind doing a good job on social media. And then then I moved to Texas. Which next guy can take it away?

00:02:54:069 - 00:03:13:053
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. That's great. So I moved here to Texas in 2022. I came to be, one of my really good friends. His name is Darren. I came to be kind of like his right hand man and, learned a lot of stuff about digital and kind of poured into it and really, like, brought it to life here.

00:03:13:062 - 00:03:28:021
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In where the in the current setting that I'm serving in, last summer. So about eight months ago, at this point, he stepped away to another role, at another church, and I took over and assumed his role, which is a lot more management, and it's a lot more meetings

00:03:28:021 - 00:03:34:114
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and a lot more oversight of people. And so my schedule looks like this on screen here.

00:03:34:117 - 00:03:51:098
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is a screenshot of my schedule. I actually sent it to him last week complaining. And I'm actually getting ready to hand social media over to a resident because I'm running out of time, no matter how well I'm mapping out and blocking my time. Social media is great, but there are other things that are also taking my attention.

00:03:51:098 - 00:03:56:060
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, excited to be with you today.

00:03:56:070 - 00:04:22:029
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Okay, so two minutes on the clock. So, I would say our goal as youth pastors is not to be content creators, not to be social media managers. But our goal as youth pastors and pastors in general, working in the church, our goal is to be disciple makers, and we should be implementing and facilitating, a system and a program that helps move students more meaningfully and significantly towards Jesus.

00:04:22:029 - 00:04:26:038
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I know and I believe that social media

00:04:26:053 - 00:05:00:036
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
obviously is still important, and I believe that it has a role within the life of the local church. But I also believe that we should be primarily focusing on making disciples. And my argument for why you should consider done for you. Pax is it just while it's important, while social media can be a mechanism for life change and for disseminating the hope and the message of the gospel, I also know that as my calendar gets more and more full, as my plate gets more and more stacked up, and as I have more and more of those proverbial plates spinning, so to speak, that social media

00:05:00:058 - 00:05:14:000
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
is one of the first things to kind of like fall off my radar and so, yeah, so I believe in social media, but I also believe in delegation. And so if you can delegate that either through a team or through a,

00:05:14:011 - 00:05:20:101
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
just downloading a pack of especially like if you're a member, you're already paying for it like it's included.

00:05:20:110 - 00:05:45:009
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You should go ahead and check something like that out because, while the while like, I believe that we're busy, I believe that social media is important. I also believe that our ultimate goal is to raise up leaders and to help point people towards Jesus. And so if social media is taking that away from me, I don't want to, become less effective as a disciple maker because of social media.

00:05:45:009 - 00:05:57:084
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so because of that, I would recommend that you grab something that's done for you, that's taken care of, and you don't even have to worry about it. And it frees up your time to be the best version. And pastor of you that you can be.

00:05:57:094 - 00:06:23:016
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So I would say two minutes on the clock. I would say my argument is that in social media, the goal is not to just get your announcements or your information pushed through. It's it's a very, very small part of it. In fact, the goal on social media is engagement, which my argument would be as youth pastors, as ministry leaders in churches, our goal should be engagement across the board.

00:06:23:038 - 00:06:47:118
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We would want people to engage not just with our church for the sake of engaging with our church. We would hope that they would engage with our church, and that's going to be helping to move and promote them towards and for life change. And so the same thing is true on social media. And just like every single time you're hanging out with a student at Starbucks, you're not only ever posting announcements in the same way that you're, or like you're hanging out at Starbucks.

00:06:47:118 - 00:07:03:107
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You're not only ever talking about spiritual, so if you're talking about life, you're talking about fun stuff, you're talking about interesting things. And you see, you know, the latest neighbor gets a stand up routine, like whatever that might be. And I think the same thing should be true on social media. And I think you should have a custom fingerprint of our own church.

00:07:03:107 - 00:07:26:012
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And so because of that, I think that helps drive engagement and so people respond to people, people like some of our best performing posts on social media, our faces, not graphics that we cooked up in Canva. And so the more we can get faces, my face, my leaders faces, my senior pastor's face and other students faces, that's the goal on social media.

00:07:26:012 - 00:07:52:046
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in the same way, like announcements are good, graphics are good, done for you. Stuff is good. But Dunphy can only take you so far because if it's done for you, it means it's also done for many. And if you're just posting something that someone else has already made, that can be done at any given church in any given context across America, only you have been called to be the youth pastor and the shepherd of your church and the students that God has entrusted to you.

00:07:52:057 - 00:07:59:032
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So lean into the customization of that and use it to spread the message of good news and hope of Jesus.

00:07:59:041 - 00:08:09:022
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. Okay. So I have a question for you. Nick. White shirt. Nick, how much time do you spend on social media per week?

00:08:09:032 - 00:08:26:099
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, so let's see. Good question. I used to spend a lot of time on social media when I was editing our teaching videos. Probably took me ten hours a week between that, and then our other social media content, like our short form content, we finally built up our budget in such a way to be able to pay an editor, which I get.

00:08:26:099 - 00:08:46:069
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's a luxury. Not everybody has that. I would also say, like, if you have the potential to just, like, film yourself in the back of the room with a camera. Cameras have come a long way even since I started at this church in Texas. And so you could probably get a decent camera, a decent lens, and a decent like, just, what am I looking for?

00:08:46:069 - 00:09:01:017
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
An adapter into your soundboard? You can probably get that for a thousand $2,000. And again, you might have to work your way up for it. You might find a donor for it. If there is some money for it. But you can put a camera in the back of the room and you can film your messages, and you can use those for clips and stuff like that.

00:09:01:017 - 00:09:14:094
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then I also come a long way. So to answer your question and spend a lot of time when I've done a lot of the work myself, but do things like opus clip link down below if you want to check that out. If you have some sort of long form version of your message without lower thirds is going to crop it out.

00:09:14:094 - 00:09:39:097
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Opus clip is an amazing solution that will give you clips and chunks of your teaching, and of your messages that you can sprinkle on all throughout social and listen. Maybe video is not even an option for you. Maybe just like record your sermons through soundboard and post to audio. Have an audio sermon like that's still a version of hybrid Ministry of Digital Ministry might not be the most effective just on social media, but there's even ways to do that where you have like the sound wave bar, right?

00:09:39:097 - 00:09:59:056
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And like you can do overlays and B-roll and, and you can do your slides and stuff like that as you clip up some of the things. So like, you don't have to be hamstrung by the equipment side of your, of your life. And then that being said, I built out a whole strategy. I owned it, but then as I've owned it, I've handed it off.

00:09:59:056 - 00:10:17:018
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So on the capturing and creation side, I have a whole team of students who are building that out every single Wednesday night. And then on the editing side, I have a whole team of students, and even some leaders and other staff members who are helping, do some of that. But I don't manage much of it anymore.

00:10:17:018 - 00:10:29:052
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I would say in an honest assessment, I spend less than an hour per week and have a fully customizable social media, YouTube channel, Instagram, all those things.

00:10:29:062 - 00:10:33:003
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. I mean, my question to you, black shirted Nick would be like,

00:10:33:003 - 00:10:45:034
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get that you were all about done for you, but have you considered raising up volunteers to give you a hand on some of these things as you've, you know, gotten busier and lost some of your time that you used to have?

00:10:45:044 - 00:11:21:066
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, actually, yes. I have raised up volunteers in in my space. And that's one of the reasons why, the done for youth stuff. I mean, I'm not so far down the done for you path. It's because of my own prep of raising up volunteers. So I have a couple of students, who I've raised up in who have taught how to run and do social media for themselves, and how they, can, come in at edit off of our computers, our machines, our software that we spend the money for that we've invested in.

00:11:21:075 - 00:11:43:079
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they have my help, my troubleshooting ability. But if I didn't have them at this current juncture, I'm not sure that I would have as much time to devote towards, you know, five, five, days a week, two posts per day, ten, ten different pieces of content. Like, I don't know that I would have that amount of time to get something like that off the ground.

00:11:43:079 - 00:12:10:093
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So something that's a little more done for you, something that's just a little bit more turnkey. In my current role, with the amount of direct reports I have, with the amount of people that and meetings that I've found myself in. Had I not raised up those volunteers to continue to keep doing what I'm doing as I've stepped into this new leadership role and I'm not I'm not 100% sure how well I would be at launching a brand new hybrid in social media, like kind of ministry and campaign, like right now.

00:12:10:102 - 00:12:21:095
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah. So final minute on the clock. My final closing argument is honestly my own social media pack. I don't mean for this to be like self-promotion and like a plug, but the fact of the matter is this is that I

00:12:21:111 - 00:12:32:100
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
have a pack that has a whole done for youth section. In fact, I was just on social media not ten minutes ago, and one of the members from my cohort, I follow their youth ministry.

00:12:32:109 - 00:12:55:086
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I ran across a takes 60s to pray post. I ran across one that I had made and I had created myself. And so I saw another youth ministry. I saw another youth pastor use my content for their own students. And that's why I would recommend this, because sometimes you have the bandwidth, sometimes you have the margin, and sometimes you have the creative energy, but other times you simply don't.

00:12:55:086 - 00:13:09:101
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you need something that's still good, that's still effective, and that's still going to push the mission of Jesus forward in your space, in your context, in your church. And you can do all that through social media and on your social channels.

00:13:09:111 - 00:13:30:062
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yeah, right. So my argument is that social media is best when it's custom. People respond best to faces. And you, if you're the youth pastor, you've been called to shepherd your people, which also includes putting your face on your Instagram, on your YouTube, on your TikTok, and, shameless plug my done for you and custom for you social media pack.

00:13:30:062 - 00:13:54:048
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I have four different seasons summer, fall, winter, spring, $17.99. Or you can become a Patreon member, which gives you access to our weekly bonus podcast. And then as a part of that $4 per month membership cost, the $17.99 social media pack will coach you through how to have a custom and hybrid social media ministry. It will give you scripts.

00:13:54:048 - 00:14:10:089
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It will tell you, it'll give you filming prompts. It will give you man on the street questions with the graphics and the overlays so that your social media can be custom, but it doesn't have to break the bank financially or from a time standpoint. Check it out. Link down below in the description.

00:14:10:099 - 00:14:33:044
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, hey, thanks everybody for hanging out on this episode. And I think, and I hope that you're able to tell that my genuine answer is that, yes, it should be custom social media and that yes, it should be done for you. Social media. And I have the perfect tech to blend those two things together. There is information and a link down below in the show notes.

00:14:33:044 - 00:14:53:059
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Or if you just have questions, bro, reach out to me. Shoot me a DM. If you found this episode helpful, interesting, or at least just something comical to laugh at because I was literally debating myself just with a different outfit, then hey, go ahead and give us a like or subscribe. That would be the greatest form of payment, especially if you choose not to go check out the social media pack.

00:14:53:068 - 00:14:57:009
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time my friends. And as always, don't forget to stay hybrid.

Episode 196: Lock-Ins: Ministry Gold or Total Disaster?

Nick Clason — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Lock-ins... is there a more polarizing youth ministry topic?
Should you do them?
Are they valuable?
Or are they the worst idea ever?

In this episode, two youth pastors go head to head, and you get to decide!

Take Advantage of Andrew's FREE Lock-in Planning Session:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/contact

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SHOW NOTES
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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/196

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Pro or Anti Lock-in?
02:16 The Argument Against Lock-ins
05:14 The Busy Youth Worker’s Guide to Social Media
06:12 The Argument For Lock-ins
09:11 What Do You do if Kids don’t like boardgames?
10:56 Are Lock-ins only effective for Middle Schoolers?
12:16 What are the “risks” vs the “rewards” of a lock-in?
14:29 Do Lock-ins affect your Sunday morning attendance?
16:43 The Final Argument FOR Lock-ins
18:00 The Final Argument AGAINST Lock-ins
19:09 You decide - who won?

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TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01.102)
Well, what is up everybody? Here I am this morning with Andrew and my new friend Ellen. Good morning everyone. How are we doing this morning?

Ellen Partridge (00:10.995)
Doing good.

Nick Clason (00:12.802)
Hey, are you guys, do you have coffee yet in your systems or is that long gone? All right, okay. They're doing pretty good, right, Michigan State?

Andrew Jansen (00:12.964)
Doing fantastic.

Ellen Partridge (00:16.771)
We're on the first cut. Go Spartans.

Yeah, not as good as Michigan, which is a bummer, but...

Andrew Jansen (00:23.46)
They're doing good.

Nick Clason (00:25.73)
Mm, yeah. And this will drop after March Madness, so we'll all know. Comment down below, like how Michigan did. know, Michigan State, not Michigan. But I'm excited because today we are debating pro lock-in versus anti lock-in. And based on the two people that you see on your screen here, you can probably already tell who's pro lock-in.

Andrew Jansen (00:33.591)
it.

Nick Clason (00:50.9)
and who's anti-lock-in. And so I'm just so excited for you guys to get to, not only get to know these two amazing people, but also hear their positions on this. And so by random draw that happened off screen that you're gonna have to trust me because I'm a pastor and I get paid to tell the truth. Ellen, you get to go first. So one minute on the clock for you. Just introduce yourself, help the people understand your context, where you're at, how long you've been in ministry, all these types of things. Ellen, are you ready?

Ellen Partridge (01:18.751)
Absolutely. I'm ready.

Nick Clason (01:21.58)
Alright, take it away.

Ellen Partridge (01:23.455)
All right, everyone, my name is Ellen Partridge. I serve as the central pastor of students at Thornton Apple Valley Church. We are centralized out of Hastings at Michigan, southwest Michigan. And we are a multi-site church, but I've been in ministry for very close to two decades now. And we're in a rural context and a multi-site context. So things are a little bit different for us versus just the single site.

And when I think about lock-ins, the thing that always comes to mind is the Halt analogy. If you're hungry, if you're angry, if you're tired, what are the things you shouldn't do, which is make decisions. And so we're gonna put students in a room where they are locked in together. You got the ones who, I have a kid in my youth ministry who at camp asked me if I could move our bedtime up to 9 p.m. I let him know that wasn't a thing, but you've got those kind of kids, and then you've got the kids who have snuck in.

all their energy drinks and are going to be up till four in the morning. And those kids that are up are going to be picking on the kids that don't want to be up, that want to be sleeping. And then you've got a lot of that interpersonal conflict that is going on within that. And you're putting that all into a giant space where you're having to entertain them and or keep track of them as they are, you know,

coming up with all of these grand ideas of how they're going to use their time. And I remember back to my youth group days, our youth ministry actually met in a old YMCA building, and for some reason, they did not lock the doors to the locker rooms, and then that locker room led to a empty pool. And I can't confirm or deny if there were children conceived in that pool, but there probably were.

And it was coming from opportunities where we did lock-ins and they let us all throughout this building with lots of classrooms, lots of spaces that should have been locked that were not. And so from that perspective of hungry, angry, tired, lack of ability to, you know, keep an eye on all the students and all the places, I am very anti-lock-in.

Nick Clason (03:43.896)
Well, there you go. Andrew, she blew past introductions just straight into arguments. Brother, she's coming for you, right? Like she is coming in hot. So, Ellen, great argument. Man, I hope no students, babies were conceived in that pool. I don't ever want to swim there. Andrew.

Andrew Jansen (03:49.24)
yeah, just right past it. Yeah, she went right past it and that's okay.

She's coming in hot, yeah, for sure. It's okay.

Ellen Partridge (04:10.12)
Me too.

Andrew Jansen (04:12.365)
Yeah, it's gross.

Nick Clason (04:13.838)
Tell us why Ellen's wrong and why lock-ins are a great idea. But first, give us a little bit of intro as you go. Are you ready, my friend? Let's go, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (04:28.345)
ready. Yeah, hit it. My name is Andrew Janssen. I am a middle school pastor in Manhattan, Kansas. Sorry, a couple years ago, we did play Michigan State and I know you probably knew that but we have nothing to talk about sports wise, hardly at all right now. So that's okay. But I love K State. I love serving in Manhattan. I am 36 years old. I've been a youth pastor for 10 years and

I really love getting to be in Manhattan, getting to work with college students that invest in middle schoolers. That's kind of my passion. And man, I love lock-ins. just, it works within the context of our church is about 1900 people and we work with multi buildings on our campus, but not multi-site, but.

It is just set up in a really easy way to execute and make lock-ins happen. And especially in our season right now where we have, and it changes, we have college students that graduate, but we have like 17, 18 youth coaches right now. And a lot of them enjoy staying up super late. And so it just really worked in this season to be able to have enough people there for a safe lock-in to happen.

Middle schoolers are crazy and love staying up all night, love getting to be like, you can be at the church besides Sunday and Wednesday. And just, it was just really, really awesome. We did a New Year's Eve lock in and they just have so much fun. There's opportunities for fellowship, board games, long extended times that maybe you don't get that opportunity to play through an entire game of exploding kittens or taco cat.

Mahomes cheese pizza, not taco cat goat cheese pizza. We all know Mahomes is the goat. But we play taco cat Mahomes cheese pizza and you get through two rounds and it's time for youth group to start. So we get to play through those games, have those conversations and invest in the students moving forward.

Nick Clason (06:40.494)
Great. All right, well there you have it. Like there's, each of you have laid down the gauntlet with your position, right? Andrews is based upon board games. Ellen's is based upon pools being present. And so with those two things in mind, plus everything else, do either of you have a question for the other that we can debate in a little bit more of an open forum?

Andrew Jansen (06:55.097)
You

Ellen Partridge (07:10.974)
All Andrea, I got one for you. So what do you do with the kids who are not your board game kids? What are your other activities that you're able to do? Because it sounds like you're pretty board game heavy. So how are you keeping the other kids occupied that are not interested in your board games?

Andrew Jansen (07:27.929)
Absolutely. I have, I try to make sure that every single second is accounted for at a lock-in. We have intentional time where it's like, they get to choose. We have our youth building has like carpet ball, foosball, ping pong. We have not a Nintendo switch too, but two Nintendo switches, which is kind of confusing, definitely. But so we have like Mario Kart and Smash Bros going.

Nick Clason (07:49.902)
That could be confusing,

Andrew Jansen (07:56.882)
I really try to get them away from screens as much as I can because we all know that battle. yeah, trying to have every single second with like some sort of activity, some sort of competition tournament. The last time I was on with Nick, we talked about the Assassin's like meta ongoing game that happens throughout the evening and having things like that where there isn't an opportunity to be bored.

really, really is effective with middle schoolers. Because once you were right, once they're bored and exploring and they find a pool and we know what happens next, like there's just something about an empty pool. So, but with middle schoolers, that's not so much like the sneaking off and having that happen. I think that's more of a high school situation, but I just try to make sure every single second is accounted for. And that kind of helps with, you know, not having that boredom.

board game time for the students that don't like board games.

Ellen Partridge (08:57.362)
And notice you keep saying middle school. You're not mentioning high school. So are you saying that lock-ins are only good for middle school or would you do one with high school?

Nick Clason (09:06.072)
Good question.

Andrew Jansen (09:06.325)
I would, that is a great question. I would do a, I would do a high school lock in for sure. I think that you do run that risk. They are a little bit more like, I can kind of put on the dad voice like the, Hey, what are you doing? And they'll just like freeze as a middle schooler. They still, you know, we'll listen to authority when it yells at them. So with high school, they're kind of a little bit more independent, a little bit more calloused and a little bit more.

Like on their own I consider I always use this analogy of like middle schoolers are like dogs and high schoolers are like cats Like dogs are just happy that you're there and happy that you see them high schoolers. You kind of have to earn that relational like equity and I would say yes have a lock-in with high schoolers, but only do it if you have the resources and the adult volunteers and also if you're like

this group is just like, this is a crazy group of high schoolers. It's not always a green light for that specific group of high schoolers if you just feel like that wouldn't be good. Does that make sense?

Ellen Partridge (10:16.934)
Yeah, it's good argument.

Nick Clason (10:18.464)
Andrew, you got a question for Ellen?

Andrew Jansen (10:22.763)
Yes, what do you feel is, like, I want you to tell me what is the, like, risk reward trade off where you feel like, hey, this is too risky to have a lock in for this type of reward.

Ellen Partridge (10:35.422)
Mmm.

Ellen Partridge (10:45.35)
Yeah, it's a great question. I would just say I'm a big fan of like doing late night activities, hanging out super late. The thing that gets me and where I feel like the risk comes in is once you hit that one, two, three, four a.m. that even, and you mentioned that you've got college leaders. I don't live in a college town and so I mostly have adult leaders. And so for me,

I know my adult leaders are not gonna be on their A game coming into that situation. And so for me, the risk in my context is a lot higher that my leaders are gonna start maybe losing their minds or going stir crazy or sleep deprivation is gonna kick in. And it's gonna lead to students, because they're curious, ending up doing things that they don't need to do. And so for me, I would rather do a thing where it's like, hey, we're hanging out till midnight. Your parents are picking you up.

and then maybe we do something again the next morning because then I know they're getting sleep, my leaders are getting sleep, and it also means that I'm not putting them at risk, I'm not putting my leaders at risk. And so for me, there doesn't seem to be necessarily, yes, there's the connection reward, but I wonder if that's always overshadowed by the sleep deprivation, the angry, hangry situations that can come up and also,

I worry for my adult leaders that they're gonna say something out of their own sleep deprivation or frustration after telling the same kid eight times not to do something, that it may end up ultimately hurting a relationship that was good, and then they make a good relationship with someone that they had a bad relationship with, and so you're kind of at a net zero, is kind of how I look at

Nick Clason (12:32.078)
I just feel like the ultimate fact that like, I would rather sleep in my bed at two o'clock in the morning. Like that's my strongest argument for anti-lock-in. Just shooting straight. Plus I enjoy Saturdays and if I am doing a lock-in, I don't know. Also, Andrew, question for you. Do you ever notice that your Sunday morning attendance is affected post a lock-in weekend?

Andrew Jansen (12:32.345)
Definitely fair.

Andrew Jansen (13:02.165)
for sure. I mean, I tell my youth coaches, like, hey, you were just at church for 15 hours. It's OK for you to sleep in. I'll be there because I work there. And students, a lot of times parents will bring them and they might fall asleep or something during a message.

Nick Clason (13:04.027)
hahahaha

Nick Clason (13:13.787)
Yeah

Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:28.622)
Yeah.

Andrew Jansen (13:29.079)
Yeah, think it happens. There are definitely repercussions to having a lock-in, but I just think that there's just a lot of... I've seen so many good things and good conversations and relationships start at lock-ins, and it's just with a certain unchurched group of students, it's just an easy invite. It's just an easy win to get them there.

Nick Clason (13:45.091)
Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:50.382)
Yeah, which and I hear you like Sunday morning, it's like, okay, like, yeah, they didn't come on Sunday morning, which is like the senior pastor's goal. But like we had a lot more effective and fruitful time than like them sitting through a sermon or whatever, like through the lock-in and you know, the times I have done lock-ins, like it's almost always one of the number one most attended events from friends. Like we get, we would have some of our biggest.

Ellen Partridge (14:12.242)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (14:16.75)
numbers and biggest reach, you know, as far as outreach is concerned. So I definitely do see like both sides for sure. So those of you listening, you're about to get your opportunity to vote. Ellen, you went first last time. Andrew, we're gonna put a minute on the clock now for you. Give us your final one minute strongest argument why Y lock-ins. Are you ready, my friend? Take it away.

Ellen Partridge (14:30.173)
All right.

Andrew Jansen (14:42.008)
I'm ready.

Lock-ins are definitely the easiest first step in the door with a church. If you have the right resources, if you have the right volunteers, and you have a solid game plan going into it, you know your group of students. I think middle school or high school, it is an easy invite for the unchurched students. And that is kind of the lens in which I plan a lock-in.

I don't have the whole bait and switch. Like we're going to talk to them about Jesus Christ, their Lord and savior first thing, and then just have the rest of the lock in. It is, hey, building connections, being intentional and teaching the students. That's why we're doing this. Like, Hey, we're doing this so you can bring that friend, start that relationship. And so that they associate church with fun, with safe, with

They feel welcome and feel like they belong. There's something different happening here. And our hope is that continues on.

Nick Clason (15:47.81)
Great, almost a buzzer beater, but not quite. All right, Ellen, you get the final word, final say, anti-lock-in. Go ahead, take it away.

Andrew Jansen (15:50.839)
Almost.

Ellen Partridge (16:00.572)
All right, as fun as lock-ins can be in the memories that are made, the risk of students having bad memories, whether it's a leader who loses their cool, it's another student who says something they wouldn't have said because they're sleep deprived or because they're overtired, to me just doesn't equate to the reward. I am much more on the side of let's do a long.

evening event where maybe we can start at six or seven and parents are picking up at midnight. So we're still getting that opportunity to connect with them, to have those great conversations, to have an opportunity for them to invite their friends. But at the same time, when it hits two, three in the morning, our leaders and our students are home in their beds, getting the sleep and the rest that they need. And hopefully, because they had a great time.

We're gonna be able to see them on Sunday morning and they're able to stay plugged into that larger church community opposed from being just separate from the youth ministry.

Nick Clason (17:05.023)
Nice, nice. Another almost buzzer beater. Well, there you have it, my friends. You have your pro lock-in versus your anti lock-in debate. And so you guys get to be the decision makers. Those of you watching, let us know, comment down below. But without any further ado, we're gonna get out of here. For Andrew and for Ellen, I'm Nick. Thanks for watching everyone. See you next time.

Episode 176: Youth Leader Resource Room | 5 Components to a Great one!

Nick Clason — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0600

Ever wondered what’s inside a great youth ministry volunteer room? In this episode, Nick walks through his own space—showing you everything from the snack and coffee setup to the leader resource area, check-in station, and supply closet. You’ll leave with practical ideas (and links!) to create a welcoming, well-equipped hub that keeps your leaders fueled, prepped, and connected every week.

FREE SMALL GROUP CONNECTION DOWNLOAD
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🍂 FALL SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
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SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/176

ITEMS FOUND IN LEADER ROOM

//Leader Resource Area
Decks of Cards
https://walmrt.us/4hs9d0u

Foam Dice
https://walmrt.us/4ot5h1M

Playdough
https://walmrt.us/3Jc5LdJ

Ice Breaker Cards
https://walmrt.us/47DJz5n

Find & Seek Scavenger Hunt
https://walmrt.us/47GrZ0I

//Other Items
Mini Fridge
https://walmrt.us/3JmGai3

Keurig
https://walmrt.us/4hKuByh

Microwave
https://walmrt.us/3JmG223

Personal Sized Whiteboards
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Markers
https://walmrt.us/47Gs84g

First Aid Kit
https://walmrt.us/4oDM25D

Ultimate Guest Box Template
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry/shop/ultimate-first-time-guest-box-579557?source=storefront

Volunteer Onboarding Process Explained
https://youtu.be/s8HNzfZoiX0?si=A322a3wihRACq8ZM

//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Show me your volunteer rooms question!
00:23 Snacks & Coffee Area
01:01 Office Supply Area
01:34 Fall Social Pack
02:48 Supply Closet
04:14 Leader Check-in Area
05:42 Leader Group Resource Tools

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this episode, we are going to show you my church's youth ministry volunteer room as we're answering this question. Show me your volunteer rooms. We are looking to make a new volunteer headquarters and are looking for inspiration. We're talking snacks, decorations, and things leaders love. So let's go on a little field trip and I'm going to show you my church's leader workroom.

00:00:22:14 - 00:00:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let's go. So this right here, just some basic, you know, and, like, common snacks, a leader fridge, which is also a spot where a lot of our people, store leftovers and food and then, of course, gotta have coffee. So this whole section here is filled with different, like, K-Cups, which I personally hate. Which is why I have pour over in my office in the next room over.

00:00:50:03 - 00:01:09:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But, this is something for our leaders, you know, Wednesday nights, Sunday morning, they come on in here, they grab a cup of coffee, they make it happen. This are here was actually paid for about one of our students, so that's pretty cool. Here's a printer. And this is where most of our, basic easy printer, printing needs can be done here.

00:01:09:23 - 00:01:34:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There is a bigger one, in another part of the office, but we just use this one as much as we can, a microwave in case we need it. And then just some very basic, paper supplies and cards and, cutters and stapler. Hole punch, in fact, that the cutters are here. This right here is where we keep, radio for, our security and safety team when they need it, when they're looking for it.

00:01:34:12 - 00:01:51:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
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? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.

00:01:51:16 - 00:02:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.

00:02:14:28 - 00:02:35:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly hybrid. Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.

00:02:35:09 - 00:03:00:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry, right here is meant to sort of be our like, supply closet, right? So like, a leader can theoretically come in here anytime they need it and then get anything that they might be looking for.

00:03:00:14 - 00:03:22:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So of course, we got markers and then we got some branded pens. And these are here are actually one of our favorite things. Like we use these like little personalized whiteboards all the time. They're really like good for games and stuff like that. These are here are like just labels, for, for check in and for printing and then down here and we just got to order.

00:03:22:14 - 00:03:40:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So don't be like, holy crap, those people are all about snacks. But this is, we just got a big Sam's order. These are our snacks. So these are what we include. Back over here. And this is, like, just the back up stock of it. This right here. I've gone over this before. This is our leader.

00:03:40:17 - 00:03:59:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're not a leader. This is our our newcomer welcome box. And so, this is where we store a bunch of them, and then our check in team, they know to come and stock this for actually link right up here. Top left of the screen. I'll link to video where I detail an outline, our entire welcome box process.

00:03:59:12 - 00:04:16:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So this is like a leaders like go to spot everything that they could use, everything that they can need. Plus some just like backup stuff, you know, along with like first aid and, you know, necessary things. Like a kid gets an injury, we can go straight here, we can get all we need out of there. Turning the corner here.

00:04:16:02 - 00:04:35:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is our, leader check in station. So leaders are not allowed to check in until they've gone through our entire volunteer process, which I'll also link down below our volunteer process. And this vets them. Make sure that they went through all of our training and that they went through, all of the, the legal ministry safe things that they need to do.

00:04:35:22 - 00:04:51:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then they can go ahead and they can check in here. Well, we say is if it comes out of this printer here, you'll notice, manually, I'm going to print this here. We say that that green means screened. And so that means if someone in our ministry has on, like, a green lanyard, they're good to go.

00:04:51:20 - 00:05:16:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This board right here, you can see, different, this is like our weekly lessons, bottom lines. We'll also have the, like, connect group sheet right here, for our leaders as they come in on, like, a, Sunday to grab it. And then we have a monthly leader, a weekly I'm sorry leader podcast. And so, our leaders that win stuff, this is, our beginning of our cycle.

00:05:16:02 - 00:05:40:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So all these leaders are new to our team, and then this is where they can grab, their leader gift, their leader mug, all that type of stuff. This right here is our, Wednesday evening safety, safety laminated sheet, assignments. So we'll post this right here on the board. And then we'll also throw it into our leader group chat so that everyone knows where they should be and where they need to be.

00:05:40:27 - 00:06:06:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then right around here, just a couple more shelves and zoom out a little bit. A couple more shelves right here. This is just some more leader, resources. So this is like some, throw Intel, some yay or nay. We got Play-Doh in case we need it. We got some dice, we got some, break the ice games are all look down, and, I'll link a bunch of this stuff.

00:06:06:09 - 00:06:26:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Financing scavenger hunt, card game. I'll link some of these things so that you can, find them. You can buy them. You can, supply them for, for your own area if there's some that you want. And then the last thing we have here is just, a stack of cards so that if any of our leaders need to write cards to any of their students, they can go about doing that right here.

00:06:26:19 - 00:06:43:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then finally, this is new. Someone added this, in a little bit, unbeknownst to us. We kind of like it. So it says prayers and then, you can we can put some, like, individual, prayer requests right there, there on the screen. And so that's been something that we just added, which is pretty cool.

00:06:43:28 - 00:07:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, just one more time as a, take a big someone's prayer and something right now zoom out. This is our leader workroom, and, no students are that. Well, everyone, thank you so much for hanging here for this entire episode. As a reminder, link down below in the description, there are different, links for different things and resources and stuff that we have, linking to different episodes describing our volunteer process.

00:07:08:04 - 00:07:25:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
A free episode like this, hopefully is incredibly helpful to you, but a payment in the form of a like or a subscribe would really make all the difference in the world. And thank you for being here for this questions playlist. The next episode is linked right here on screen. But until next time. And as always my friends, don't forget stay habits.

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!

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
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DYM: https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/world%27s-greatest-donut/games/food-8745.html

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/162

☀️ SUMMER SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry/shop/summer-seasonal-social-media-1540452?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=productshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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GAGA BALL vs 9 SQUARE RECOMMENDATIONS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZuiyBdjX6c
SOCIAL CHALLENGE 4-PART FRAMEWORK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B6Qeaa_hPA&list=PLngXlSr64YaKLwZqOkQe7NzOqSVR0-P1s

✅ CHURCH COMMS DONE FOR YOU
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📋 "PICK NICK'S BRAIN" Coaching Call
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//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
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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

--------------
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 126: Youth Ministry Christmas Party Idea!

Nick Clason — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0600

🦸‍ BECOME A HYBRID HERO
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry

🎬 THE ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS MOVIE SHOWDOWN
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-ultimate-christmas-movie-showdown/christmas/christmas-games-9784.html

DESCRIPTION
🎄 It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Ready to throw the BEST Youth Ministry Christmas Party ever? 🎉 In this episode, Nick Clason of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast spills the peppermint-flavored tea on how to make your event unforgettable! 🏆 Whether it’s the Ultimate Christmas Movie Showdown, hilarious games, or social media outreach, this guide has it ALL.

🌟 Grab the downloadable Christmas party resource on Download Youth Ministry—complete with voting brackets, social media assets, and everything you need to pull off a high-energy, crowd-engaging event that doubles as a killer social media strategy. 🎅✨

👇 Grab the resource now: DownloadYouthMinistry.com

🎬 Watch till the end for tips on engaging Gen Alpha and crushing it on YouTube. And as always, my friends, stay hybrid! 🚀

📓 SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/126

//10% OFF CO-LEADER
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//CUSTOM COACHING
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

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

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Make Your Christmas Event Pop This Year!
01:59 How to Use a Bracket?
03:56 The Ultimate Christmas Movie Showdown Explained
05:25 The 16 Movies
06:20 What's Included in the Download?
10:00 How do you Crown a Winner?
12:27 Our Hybrid December Plans
14:14 YouTube for your Youth Ministry

--------------
✍️ TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Student

00:00:01:16 - 00:00:06:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
ministry Christmas party. I mean, it is the preeminent

00:00:06:05 - 00:00:08:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
event of the year. You play

00:00:08:18 - 00:00:19:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
dozens of games, you eat even more sweets, and you serve hot chocolate. Maybe you play a Christmas movie. What if I told you that I had the

00:00:19:09 - 00:00:26:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
event that was going to make your Christmas party? Absolutely pop? Well,

00:00:26:09 - 00:00:26:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here it is. It

00:00:26:29 - 00:00:31:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:00:36:02 - 00:00:40:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and incorporate this style of event, along with all of the other ways

00:00:40:29 - 00:00:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
that if you don't want to use it for your party, or it's a little bit too late to lead in to your party, that you can use this style of resource if you scrub ahead,

00:00:50:00 - 00:00:55:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I am going to go ahead and offer this resource to you so you can go ahead and check that out.

00:00:55:08 - 00:01:18:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're watching here on screen, you can see that timestamp. If not, just hit the link down below in the show notes or head to Hybridministry.xyz/127. But we are going to talk Christmas party. We're going to talk outreach and we're going to talk social media. And this event has all of those. And this product has all those wrapped into one single thing.

00:01:18:21 - 00:01:18:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're

00:01:18:27 - 00:01:23:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:01:23:03 - 00:01:36:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
meetings and things you have to do. You got to come up with games and lessons and and manage parents and volunteers and senior pastors and oh yeah, social media and oh yeah, the Christmas event and. Oh yeah, and oh yeah. And oh

00:01:36:03 - 00:01:36:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
yeah.

00:01:36:19 - 00:01:48:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And oh yeah. But in this event guide, you will have the ability to crush, social media outreach and your Christmas party all in one fell swoop. It is going to be amazing.

00:01:48:01 - 00:01:52:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh.

00:01:54:25 - 00:01:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:01:56:21 - 00:01:58:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Tis the season. Let's hop in.

00:01:58:14 - 00:02:00:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So in

00:02:00:26 - 00:02:02:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:02:18:19 - 00:02:25:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here at the top of the YouTube video, I did the ultimate event guide to the World's Greatest donut that,

00:02:25:10 - 00:02:42:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in that video you can download my event guide. It's complete with a shopping list and all those types of things. And also sends you to download Youth Ministry where you can buy this voting style event. But this has been something that has been a staple of my ministry and a staple of honestly, what I've done for years.

00:02:42:17 - 00:03:04:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And essentially I'm borrowing from the like, wave or the popularity of like a march madness bracket style voting. And so, like in our space, we have this big window that opens into like a small sort of like half court indoor gymnasium sort of deal. And we printed a custom size vinyl banner, for six, for a 16 team bracket.

00:03:04:04 - 00:03:22:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then we put, those things we just, you know, print them out on computer paper or whatever, cut them out. And we do these, like, style events 2 or 3 times throughout the year. So like I said in that video linked, just a second ago, we have done like the world's greatest donut. We have voted on the best.

00:03:22:26 - 00:03:34:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We did last March Madness. One year we have voted on the world's best, like, mascot. And then that mascot became our official student ministry mascot. Shout out to Pugsley

00:03:34:11 - 00:03:38:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
the platypus! We've done all sorts of different like voting

00:03:38:02 - 00:03:49:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and challenge based style things. It's just like a fun way to sort of like, create, competition and conversation around something for like several weeks in a row.

00:03:49:06 - 00:03:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in this particular instance, we're

00:03:50:29 - 00:03:56:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
doing the ultimate Christmas movie showdown. Now, by the time that this video drops, you're

00:03:56:04 - 00:03:57:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:03:57:24 - 00:04:13:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Christmas party or even slightly beyond your Christmas party. But if you have not made it yet to your Christmas party, then what you can do. And this is what we did. We did a Christmas movie watch party, but we're allowing the students to vote on the Christmas movie.

00:04:13:20 - 00:04:37:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's what's really cool, is we actually at our costume party on the 30th of October, we revealed that the Christmas bracket was now live, and then the students could vote on it. And the best thing about this is, again, if this is already past, your party's already past. You can do something like this just very simply on social media, during sort of the holiday lull, you can do, every week is a new round or you can do it.

00:04:37:14 - 00:04:42:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Every day is a new round. And that's the thing. Like so even if like you download this now

00:04:42:22 - 00:04:52:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and then you go and you play a movie at your Christmas event next week, you can do every day on social media as a round. And there's all sorts of different ways to capture

00:04:52:24 - 00:05:04:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Elf white Christmas elf faces off against White Christmas. That's the one seed versus the 16. They're not listed there. But you know, and once the students start voting, you can tell who the overall one seed is.

00:05:04:24 - 00:05:31:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Then in the eight nine matchup we have Frosty the Snowman versus the year without a Santa Claus. Then in the four I think 13 413 matchup, we have Christmas vacation pairing off against Christmas with the Kranks Muppet Christmas Carol versus Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer, Home Alone, which is the two seed versus It's a Wonderful Life A Christmas Story, which is a seven versus Polar Express, which is a ten, the Santa Claus, which is a three, versus Jingle All the Way, which is like a 14, I think.

00:05:25:00 - 00:05:26:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:05:31:25 - 00:05:42:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then Santa Claus is Coming to Town versus How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the six versus, I think, 11 match up there. And so this PowerPoint file, you can very simply edit the winners. Right? So if elf beats white Christmas in the voting, you can move it ahead. And you can use that in your space to write these in.

00:06:18:28 - 00:06:20:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:06:20:18 - 00:06:26:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right? So if elf beats white Christmas in the voting, you can move it ahead. And you can use that in your space to write these in.

00:06:26:25 - 00:06:35:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I have the winners sort of as like placeholders. In there that you can like, you know, make sure that you can move them on. But

00:06:35:13 - 00:06:43:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here's the thing. Every single round in every single context is going to be different. Maybe you are a big white Christmas church, and all of your students are going to pick White Christmas.

00:06:43:25 - 00:06:52:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's great. Then go with it. Go for it. Okay. Additionally, you can, use and use this, like I said, on social media. So a couple of my

00:06:52:21 - 00:06:53:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
favorite ways to

00:06:53:12 - 00:07:03:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
do it are on Instagram Stories. And also now for Generation Alpha, who is, widely and widely adopting YouTube as one of their platforms of choice.

00:07:03:09 - 00:07:08:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You can post on your YouTube posts page section, a voting poll option with images

00:07:08:29 - 00:07:22:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and stuff like that. And so I've included some social graphics that are still. And so it's your title to your overall bracket. You can write in the winners each round and then, round one graphic, an elite eight graphic, a Final Four graphic, and a championship round graphic.

00:07:22:19 - 00:07:43:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then you just very simply stick the question sticker on that graphic. I also have social media videos which, pair and look similar to the widescreen video. So there's a title graphic with, you know, some kind of like distance sleigh bells chime in like some Christmas like, chiming things and then like a round one graphic, elite eight graphic, a final four.

00:07:43:29 - 00:07:55:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
All these are videos and championship. And then there are profile cards. And so these are really fun. Every single movie, there's 16 movies. Every single movie has four different

00:07:55:00 - 00:08:05:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
profile cards, both for social media and for, your widescreen in your room. And so, for example, in round one, you might put up the Elf profile card, the very

00:08:05:17 - 00:08:11:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
first Elf profile card versus this and next to the very first white Christmas profile card.

00:08:11:07 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So like right here, if you're watching on the screen, you'll see it says like elf, released in 2003, Will Ferrell shines as buddy, a human race, as an elf who travels to New York to meet his real father. But there, like I said, there are four different profile cards because in the next round of elf advances, you will use the second, fact.

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:49:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you're not just sharing the same fact every single week, week in, week out. So this next one is about who Jon Favreau, who, helped. The movie grossed over 220 million worldwide on a $33 million budget, became a Christmas favorite. The third one's about, Will Ferrell's improv skills, and the fourth one is a fun fact that

00:08:49:09 - 00:08:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
his iconic walk through New York was done candidly and is capturing real reactions from New Yorkers.

00:08:55:13 - 00:08:55:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now

00:08:55:28 - 00:09:17:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you're like, okay, that's great, but what if White Christmas wins? That's why there's four for White Christmas. Now, if White Christmas loses, you're obviously not going to be using fact two, fact 3 or 4, right. But in the event that upsets happen, in the event that that movies keep moving on, there are four because there's four rounds round one, Elite eight, Final Four, and then championship round for you to share those graphics.

00:09:17:10 - 00:09:37:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. And so we have that for social media for still graphics. We have social video graphics. We also have widescreen graphics that you can use and put in your space. Along with those profile card kind of things that you can also put in your space video as well as stills. And then there's paper voting as an option.

00:09:37:18 - 00:09:52:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we'll get to the ways that you can do voting here in just a minute. There's Photoshop files. If you do happen to have Photoshop editing skills. And then finally there are some just like transparent, no background, assets like the logo and the round one, elite eight, all that type of stuff. So

00:09:52:00 - 00:09:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all of that is included in this download, just a few bucks.

00:09:55:21 - 00:09:58:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And like I said, how can you go about

00:09:58:03 - 00:09:59:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:10:08:26 - 00:10:15:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
of my podcast, Hybrid Ministry ten as a discount code, and you get 10% off your purchase of either Premium or Premium Plus.

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:32:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're using sidekick, you can use the phone connections and the voting option, and students can vote live right there directly in the room. And so you can do all of your matchups right there. And you can do that week in, week out. Now, what do you do about students who don't have phones? Well, that's one of the reasons why I included the

00:10:32:00 - 00:10:39:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
paper printable bracket so that those students aren't left out and so that they have an opportunity to also let their voice be heard.

00:10:39:12 - 00:10:57:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, you might be thinking, well, what happens if, my Christmas party has already passed or I don't have a way to get this, done? In the amount of weeks we have leading up to our Christmas party, no problem. Download this and just post them on social media. And then when people show up to your Christmas party, you'd be like, hey, we're watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas because it was voted on by you.

00:10:57:29 - 00:11:15:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The people on social media. Congratulations to the Grinch. And so you could do this in just four days. Round one, Elite Eight, Final Four, and then the championship. And then you have your event. So if your Christmas party is in seven days, you can theoretically crush this and get this in any time of year if you want to launch it.

00:11:15:07 - 00:11:32:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, depending on when you're watching this, if you have enough time, you can launch it all through the month of December leading into your movie. Or like I said, you can do it all on social using either Instagram voting or the YouTube post. Now here's the good news about that is when you promote it in the room, like, hey, voting is live!

00:11:32:04 - 00:11:39:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One of the things I've done, I'll show you a graphic of what we're using. It's not included in the download because it's it's custom to us. But just to give you an idea, I just

00:11:39:23 - 00:11:50:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
linked a QR code to our link tree, which has all of our different social handles. And so it says, hey, voting is still live and the winning movie will get, we'll get watch it.

00:11:50:16 - 00:11:55:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Our Christmas party on you know, December 4th or whatever. I've sent that out in our text list. We've sent it out to our parent

00:11:55:13 - 00:11:55:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Patreon. If you didn't know, we just launched a Patreon and it is going to be walking through my weekly lessons and it's, or a different bonus podcast every single week. It's $4 per month and you get a different bonus podcast per week. So essentially it nets out to a dollar or even slightly less than a dollar per podcast episode.

00:12:24:28 - 00:12:26:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:12:29:00 - 00:12:45:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you didn't know, we just launched a Patreon and it is going to be walking through my weekly lessons and it's, or a different bonus podcast every single week. It's $4 per month and you get a different bonus podcast per week. So essentially it nets

00:12:45:13 - 00:12:51:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
out to a dollar or even slightly less than a dollar per podcast episode.

00:12:51:02 - 00:13:08:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I think it's a very modest amount. I would love to encourage you to go over there and check it out. I think you can probably find four bucks a month in your budget, but even if you can't, I just want to let you know that, like we're going to use it to invest deeper into the podcast gear and all sorts of things like that.

00:13:08:17 - 00:13:27:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I'd love to encourage you to go check that out. But we're going to be walking through these lessons, and this is what we're going to be talking about over on that Patreon is what what are the Christmas at the movie lessons? And then, what are the we're also doing? Like we're avoiding the big announcement time before we break into small groups.

00:13:27:01 - 00:13:46:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so our students are going to go into our sort of like small group rooms directly at the end of the countdown. And each of our rooms has a TV on a cart, which is brand new. And so we're going to link that to a YouTube playlist, and there's going to be a small group activity. There's going to be an announcement corner filmed and put there on that playlist.

00:13:46:00 - 00:13:48:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the teaching where we may teach a

00:13:48:09 - 00:14:01:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
little bit, pause for questions, teach a little bit, pause for questions, teach a little bit, pause for some more questions. So we're really trying to lean in sort of to that kind of hybrid thing. And I'm going to detail and explain all of that what we're doing over on that Patreon.

00:14:01:27 - 00:14:10:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So I would love to have you go check that out. There's also some other kind of bonus perks and stuff like that. And as I'm describing this, you might be hearing me talk about YouTube in

00:14:10:29 - 00:14:11:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all

00:14:11:11 - 00:14:13:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Ow ow ow! Oh!

00:14:15:20 - 00:14:16:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
YouTube,

00:14:16:00 - 00:14:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
because I think it's important to put spiritual and evergreen content over there on YouTube for our students.

00:14:22:26 - 00:14:43:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, Generation Alpha is now saying that YouTube is now their preferred search engine, even over Google. And so there's value to that. And, I actually offer either some custom coaching to help you level it up or communications done for you, or I'll actually just do it for you if that's something that you're interested in, go ahead and check the show notes or the link down below in the YouTube description.

00:14:43:13 - 00:15:12:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The link to right here on screen is my complete and full strategy of how we launched and developed a YouTube for youth ministry. It's the free version of that coaching, and then the coaching will take you sort of into that. More customization, but I hope that you grab this product if you have an amazing Christmas event, I hope you can use it to knock outreach out of the park, to have an amazing event, and also crush social media, whether you're using it for the event or just during the lull of the holiday season.

00:15:12:26 - 00:15:18:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't forget my friends and as always, to stay hybrid.

Episode 122: Why Your Youth Ministry Follow-Up Isn't Working

Nick Clason — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 07:00:00 -0600

THE ULTIMATE GUEST FOLLOW UP BOX
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry/shop/ultimate-first-time-guest-box-579557?source=storefront

DESCRIPTION
New Visitor to your Youth Group?
Yay!
Now what? How do you follow-up in a way that doesn't feel weird or creepy?
Good question! Let's explore it together!

SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/122

//THE ULTIMATE GUEST FOLLOW UP BOX
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry/shop/ultimate-first-time-guest-box-579557?source=storefront

//OUR WELCOME VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb34eYasCY

//EPISODE 100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0L-Dxhs7cI

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

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Better First Time Guest Followup
01:31 Guest Follow-Up Gone Hybrid
02:42 Where the Idea Began
05:08 Mailing Boxes Begins!
06:47 The Ultimate Welcome Box

--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you have a

00:00:01:00 - 00:00:03:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
brand new student or

00:00:03:05 - 00:00:04:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
person to your church.

00:00:04:20 - 00:00:05:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hooray!

00:00:05:01 - 00:00:06:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Congratulations! That's

00:00:06:08 - 00:00:07:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so exciting.

00:00:08:00 - 00:00:09:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now how do

00:00:09:24 - 00:00:14:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
we make sure that they return well, without seeming

00:00:14:29 - 00:00:20:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
weird or creepy or old and out of touch?

00:00:20:06 - 00:00:35:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. We all want our students to attend our church. We want them also to feel comfortable and then hopefully ultimately find a home at our church or in our group or with our student ministry.

00:00:35:23 - 00:01:01:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so a visitor is great, but a returning guest even better. See in this podcast, in this episode, what I want to do is I'm going to share with you our step by step guest follow up process and the physical and in-person product that we are using to turn our process hybrid. And I want to give you this box artwork.

00:01:01:17 - 00:01:02:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So go ahead and you

00:01:02:17 - 00:01:08:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
can scrub ahead. You can click the link down below in the description or go to I start talking about the box design

00:01:08:21 - 00:01:09:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
in

00:01:09:02 - 00:01:17:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
this YouTube playlist, and you can go ahead and grab that link from us and go check it out. If you're following along here on YouTube, just a reminder there are chapters

00:01:17:14 - 00:01:17:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
down

00:01:17:27 - 00:01:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
along at the bottom so that you can skip straight ahead to the parts of the video that make the most sense to you.

00:01:22:25 - 00:01:28:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But just as a reminder, hybrid is taking your in-person moment and your digital and finding a way to

00:01:28:10 - 00:01:31:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
intersect them together. So my

00:01:31:18 - 00:01:37:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
guess is give me a like, if you are the type of person who, when you have a student, you send them

00:01:37:00 - 00:01:37:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a

00:01:37:10 - 00:01:40:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
postcard or go ahead and give me a

00:01:40:06 - 00:01:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
subscribe, if maybe not just a postcard, but

00:01:43:09 - 00:01:45:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
you're also sending a text message, right?

00:01:45:14 - 00:02:05:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So early on I would I would send postcards. That was and I still do send postcards as, the way that I was kind of trained and I even like as a youth group student received postcards and, and I still do believe in the power of the personal touch. And I, I think that mail, does actually play an important role in youth ministry.

00:02:05:05 - 00:02:25:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I think students don't receive mail very often. So I think it's helpful and beneficial for them to get it. Text messages. I do also believe they're important, especially as we talk about hybrid and the intersection of that hybrid being where, it often lands in the hands and in the palms of a student's cell phone. But I don't know about you, but I send a postcard, and it's like

00:02:27:07 - 00:02:28:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
where I send a text.

00:02:28:18 - 00:02:40:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time, literally, I got I sent a text from my personal cell phone number, and I got the word stop like, no, no, this was not an automated text like, this is a human being, but okay.

00:02:40:04 - 00:02:47:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Got it. I'll stop. So enter Covid when Covid hit. For those of you watching

00:02:47:19 - 00:02:50:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Linked Up, here is our 100th episode

00:02:50:05 - 00:03:07:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
where I did a recap about where this all sort of hybrid thing started, but we created this full scale and full length digital expression of youth ministry like a full, almost like YouTube variety show, Think like Jimmy Fallon, but youth ministry and YouTube.

00:03:07:26 - 00:03:10:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so our Covid experience was so

00:03:10:22 - 00:03:11:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
of our show. And so therefore we would drop a rubber duck and a postcard, but we would do a physical door drop at their, house and at their, their door. And so, I would then get students, or even parents come talk to me on the weekends and be like, thank you.

00:03:44:00 - 00:04:00:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our show. And so therefore we would drop a rubber duck and a postcard, but we would do a physical door drop at their, house and at their, their door. And so, I would then get students, or even parents come talk to me on the weekends and be like, thank you.

00:04:00:14 - 00:04:31:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So much. I mean, long gone now were the days of the, unanswered texts or the postcards sent into a black hole. Like, now I'm getting students and parents who are actually acknowledging our efforts and acknowledging us, helping roll out the red carpet to help make them feel welcome. It was a great response, but unfortunately, due to like where I lived and how regionally drawn our churches our church was and how far students drove to to come and attend our campus, and the fact that they could do it online.

00:04:31:26 - 00:04:32:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Us they didn't have to

00:04:32:18 - 00:04:52:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
get in the car and come drive a certain distance to our church. It took me a whole day like I remember one Thursday. So our youth night was Wednesday, one Thursday I spent like 9 to 5 in the car just doing these, these door drops. And so, I was just, you know, I was like, I guess that's part of the job, right?

00:04:52:01 - 00:05:13:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I was talking to my boss and I was like, hey, like, I spent my whole Thursday driving around new, so great. And I saw him all the great things. And he's like, you spent your whole day driving. I was like, we can on. Yeah. And he's like, oh, let's, let's, let's change that. And so, what we started doing as opposed to like the physical, me getting in my car, taking it and putting it on their doorstep.

00:05:13:24 - 00:05:33:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We started, taking the same concept, getting it to their hands. But instead of me doing it, we started paying the post office to do it as if there were some sort of service that could take something from point A to point B, and that is woven all throughout the fabric of our country being it's the post office.

00:05:33:14 - 00:05:56:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we started shipping things and it was expensive. Don't get me wrong, we created like a branded box, and now it's like we had to include a little bit more than just a duck in a postcard, so that the box didn't seem boring and empty. But we started shipping it. And so, that that strategy, we kind of laid that over and carried that over, here where I work now.

00:05:56:04 - 00:06:00:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it's I started for the first probably like two years of my, my tenure here at this church

00:06:00:29 - 00:06:17:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
with text message, follow up for first time guess. And I can count on one finger, the amount of times I got a response. And that response was in those two years, the word stop. And so I said, hey, listen, maybe I'm just too old for this.

00:06:17:20 - 00:06:37:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I'm in my mid 30s and maybe students are like, I that's weird to text the guy in the in his 30s, or maybe text messages to students who they don't have the contact info from, especially from a phone number that it's not local. I live in DFW, Dallas-Fort worth, Texas. My phone number is from Dayton, Ohio. Like there is a massive difference in those two area codes.

00:06:37:01 - 00:06:52:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so they see someone down here with an 807 area code seeing a nine, three seven area code. They don't know what to do with it. So they ghosted as they do. And so I suggest and I propose what if we bring back the boxes. And so what I want to do is I want to share with you this right here.

00:06:52:14 - 00:07:10:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is our welcome box. It's branded. It's custom for us. And so if you look on all the sides, it's got a little, it's great to meet you. It's got, you know, yay! You're here. And then the top here, says welcome, along with a return address and a spot for us to put their address.

00:07:10:15 - 00:07:30:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then on the back, it's got our social handles. And what I want to do is I want to go through step by step, item by item, and, boxes here with you. And so, one of the things that we do is every single, every single semester, but three times a year, we do like a four, we do a winter, and then we do a summer calendar.

00:07:30:04 - 00:07:50:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what we do is we make our calendars into magnets. And so you look here, this is a magnet. It's about eight inches long. And so, truth be told, this box right here is about eight inches, and it's eight inches because the magnet is eight inches. I made the decision to make the box the same size as the magnet.

00:07:50:28 - 00:08:11:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then I made sure that everything from the size of the magnet on down would be able to fit into the box. So, we put the magnet in there. The magnet has all of our events. And you'll also notice here's an opportunity to go hybrid. This right here is just a link to subscribe to the IX or the calendar type things.

00:08:11:14 - 00:08:29:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's a calendar, extension you can get it from, like creating, a Google calendar, a calendar, a Google calendar calendar. And then you can share that out. And so that's what we did. And so students can add this and subscribe to their calendar. We haven't gotten as many of those from students, but I know we've gotten some scans from parents.

00:08:29:13 - 00:08:48:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And also we give specific and particular leader magnet. And so our leaders also can go ahead and scan that. And so that is our magnet. We also have this sticker here, and these frankly, they're just laying around. We got these for free. So these didn't really cost the anything. So so far I want to point out these.

00:08:48:07 - 00:09:08:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We already print like we already pay for these for our students. And these are already laying around. So so far we're $0 into the box. Don't worry. It gets more expensive. This right here is just a little, promo, a nod to our social media. And so down the road, we will send them this postcard that simply says, life can be hard.

00:09:08:15 - 00:09:27:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You don't have to do it alone. This is a QR code to our link tree. And then here's just a little preview of our churches, YouTube handle right there. And, probably our most popular video, which is what is anxiety? What do I do about it if I have it? And we'll just, God have to say about anxiety.

00:09:27:16 - 00:09:44:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we will send this out a couple weeks after we send the box out. This is, this is a separate pieces doesn't go in the box that sent later. This is an additional kind of piece of merch. And again, once again, we have just some stuff kind of laying around that we inherited from the old regime.

00:09:44:19 - 00:10:07:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we try to, like, get rid of it. The little guest box checklist that we have this, and like an extra piece of merch from our merch cabinet. So here's a piece of merch from our merch cabinet. Right here. This one's kind of unique. Okay, we have a lanyard. And the reason that we have a lanyard branded and all the things is that right here, we do, we do pins right?

00:10:07:29 - 00:10:29:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Kind of like, think like Disney pin trading. So we'll create pins. And this right here is our little mascot guy. We call him Pugsley the platypus, because a baby platypus is a puggle. So one of our sixth graders one year recommended that we name them Pugsley. And so thus we did. And so we have this lanyard. And I actually have a lanyard for, like, my, staff nametag lanyard.

00:10:29:22 - 00:10:51:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this is full of pins. So like summer camp, Water wars, the Back to School bash, Space Jam night, like any, any event that we deem pin worthy. So coming up, we'll have our Christmas at the movies event. We'll. We've done costume parties. Any of those, they get designed. We just found a dude on Fiverr. He designed these for us.

00:10:51:01 - 00:11:12:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then we send these, after sticker mule and sticker mule creates the pins. And so then we stick this pin. This is the, like, og original. Pugsley pin. It's just a traditional guy. He's just wearing, like, our logo on his t shirt there. And, we put the original pin on the lanyard for the students, and then, right here, this has three for free.

00:11:12:29 - 00:11:32:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this is a, redeemable coupon at our student ministry cafe. They can turn this in and get three things for free. And then, we have these life books and these life books. We've gotten them, from the Gideons, the the Bible translator and the Bible, providers. And so you can actually get these for free.

00:11:32:23 - 00:11:51:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And it's just it's like the book of John with like some notes, and it's designed well and graphically. And so you've probably seen these before, and truth be told, I like these. I also like the life and Six words book, that comes from, dare to share. But these we had like three cases of these again from the old regime.

00:11:51:19 - 00:12:07:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we're like, let's go ahead and give these away. When these run out, we may reorder these. We may do a different sort of devotional, but but this is like the one sort of like devotional, sort of like spiritual peace. And then that's now the emptiness of the box and say, look down at the box there and you'll see, it's got this word right here.

00:12:07:26 - 00:12:24:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's got some copy and it simply says, hey there, we're so glad you joined us. Meet Pugsley, our platypus mascot, voted on and named by our students. We love it when students invest in student ministry. So in this box, you will find everything that you need to get started. And then it's a numbered list. You'll see one, two, three, four.

00:12:24:23 - 00:12:42:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Number one. This lanyard is a great spot to hold pins. Number two, we started you with your first one and there's more to come at our Pin events and milestones throughout the year. Number three, this life book is a great place to find out about what Jesus is all about. Number four, some other random stuff because we wanted you to know how glad we are that you joined us.

00:12:42:09 - 00:12:57:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We can't wait to get to know you. And then the very last piece of it, my favorite piece of it, the piece that I think makes it hybrid, is right. When you open the box, you see this QR code here and it just says welcome video, scan me. And so we'll have students who are new the open this up

00:12:57:25 - 00:13:01:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
theoretically on their porch, on their patio, wherever they will scan it.

00:13:01:26 - 00:13:24:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then we'll take them to a video right here. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see a preview of it, but linked right here, linked below is what I want to do is I want to offer you, the art for this box if you want to start creating your own. I'll also, give you like, a detailed tutorial, like where I ordered it from, as well as the copy for the welcome video.

00:13:24:02 - 00:13:49:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can feel free to film that, throw that on a teleprompter, memorize it however you want to film it, and you can start creating better welcome and better guest returns for your youth ministry and for your student ministry. And once again, here's the reason that I like this is because this, gets them connected to us. This at a very minimum, one of the sections on this video right here says, we're so glad that you came.

00:13:49:29 - 00:14:10:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And also welcome to our YouTube channel. And if you've been around this podcast or this YouTube playlist, any link or a YouTube channel, any length of time you know that 95% of teenagers are claiming to be and be active on YouTube. And so therefore, I think we as youth ministries should make that a priority. We and our student ministry have made it a priority.

00:14:10:21 - 00:14:27:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, I, I think that that's a fantastic way to expose, in a sort of like, non-threatening way, expose your students to your channel, then maybe next time to log in to the YouTube account. One of our video shows up because they've already watched one. Or maybe they like that video. Maybe they subscribe to that video.

00:14:27:23 - 00:14:52:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now we're in their subscriptions with all of our teachings and all of those types of things, which, by the way, I can explain and show to you how to start posting your teachings to YouTube so that they live beyond your Sunday or Wednesday services. That video is going to be linked right here on screen, and I can't wait for you to take a look at that, because we're trying to make digital discipleship here at the Hybrid Ministry Podcast easy, possible and accessible.

00:14:52:04 - 00:14:55:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So as always, don't forget to stay hybrid.

Episode 102: Is Instagram Dead?

Nick Clason — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 04:00:00 -0500

🔥 [FREE] Hybrid Ministry Strategy Guide🔥

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

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

======================================
DESCRIPTION
The Usage of Instagram among teenagers is reducing.
According to some recent studies the adoptiong and usage rate of Instagram among teenagers is shrinking.

Additionally, in my recent anecdotal experience, I've noticed that Instagram in both of my last two church stints, Instagram served college and former youth group graduates really well.

And not as well, at least from engagement, of our current youth ministry students.

Which leads me to ask: "Is Instagram Dead?"

======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/102

//Tiktok Vs Instagram Vs YouTube?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r73ceADGZxQ&t=3s

//100th Episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0L-Dxhs7cI

//YouTube for Youth Ministry
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLHMhNNfqmmmAsKRJ1VCBJl

//Research Sources
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/

https://www.sentiment.io/how-many-teens-use-social-media/#:~:text=TikTok%2C%20Snapchat%2C%20and%20Instagram%20remain,about%20seven%2Din%2Dten

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

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

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

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

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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Instagram's Usage in Youth Ministry
00:50 Hybrid Ministry During COVID
03:25 Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve
07:01 The Most Fun Memories of Unscripted
09:27 What this means going forward for churches in 2024 and beyond

--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:05:05
Nick Clason
Is Instagram on its deathbed

00:00:05:05 - 00:00:13:03
Nick Clason
for youth ministry? Instagram actually started October 6th, 2010.

00:00:13:03 - 00:00:35:07
Nick Clason
I became a youth pastor in January of 2011, and so I became a youth pastor. Since within, 2 or 3 months of Instagram beginning. and so years ago, when I started in youth ministry, Instagram was a platform that I was implementing and bringing into the fold and framework.

00:00:35:07 - 00:01:02:22
Nick Clason
Right? Coming off of kind of the Facebook era into the now Instagram era and that became a platform that I really doubled down and leaned in on Instagram versus TikTok versus YouTube is actually a topic that we've explored. Isn't right here on screen or down in the show notes. If you are listening in a podcast catchup. But slowly, over time, the key social network my students were using was Instagram.

00:01:02:25 - 00:01:21:27
Nick Clason
And so I remember in first couple churches I worked in, I launched and started an Instagram program program, Instagram social media account and gained a following. but then as it does and as it always seems to happen, and grew in more and more popularity, which is a good thing for the app and the creators of the app.

00:01:21:29 - 00:01:57:06
Nick Clason
slowly, that meant more and more adults began to infiltrate and adopt the app, which then made it less and less interesting to teenagers because it wasn't the new thing on the streets that their parents were not a part of. And so, just like the meteoric rise of TikTok during the pandemic, which was once an app for teenagers, in order for them to to lip sync and to dance has now become an all out news source, complete with ads and sports analysis and anything else that you might possibly want to find on TikTok.

00:01:57:06 - 00:02:29:19
Nick Clason
And this Instagram thing. Now it's no longer this undercover app. It's a mainstream app. It was purchased by Facebook and owned now under the meta umbrella. And so it's it doesn't carry the same cachet that it once did. When I first started as a youth pastor, one of the reasons I'm even asking this question is I, as a youth pastor in my last two stints in student ministry, have recently noticed that when I started, one church I started in 2020 and then the other one where I'm currently serving, I started in 2022.

00:02:29:26 - 00:02:31:23
Nick Clason
My anecdotal experience has

00:02:31:23 - 00:02:43:17
Nick Clason
led me to ask this question because in each of these contexts, Instagram has best served the young adult and former youth group students who have graduated out of our

00:02:43:17 - 00:02:59:26
Nick Clason
programs. Again, this is anecdotal and this is just my experience, but I went back several months ago and I did a deep dive analysis, and I realized that about 25% or less of our posts were being engaged with current students in our youth ministry.

00:02:59:29 - 00:03:20:26
Nick Clason
So there are still students in our youth ministry using it. And your percentages may be different and may be varied, but I was noticing that it was a lot of leaders and it was a lot of parents. Which led me to this question is Instagram for youth ministry dead? Well, let's explore it. Well hey everyone, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show.

00:03:20:26 - 00:03:54:23
Nick Clason
If you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick Clayton. I am a youth pastor currently serving in the DFW Dallas Fort Worth area, and in addition to the typically youth ministry duties that I have such as preaching and writing, small group guides and onboarding leaders, and all the youth ministry things. One of the major things that I was tasked with and also had a passion to get started on once I began at this church here was to create a digital or a hybrid experience, as we talked about kind of the origins of that hybrid experience in episode 102 episodes ago.

00:03:54:29 - 00:04:28:00
Nick Clason
Go back and check that out or head to Hybrid Ministry. Dot xyzzy slash 100. But we are talking about is Instagram dead? So I'd be curious a little bit of like, do data and research here. Give me a like if you use Instagram exclusively in your social media and then if not, give me a subscribe. If you use any other social media platform, including Instagram, but also beyond Instagram and hit, you hit the bell because we have some really cool things in store on this channel.

00:04:28:00 - 00:05:02:00
Nick Clason
And coming up ahead on YouTube and on this podcast. But according to Pew Research, Instagram was in 20 2014, Instagram was up to about 52% of a usage rate among teenagers. Fast forward to 2022, that usage rate went from 52% all the way up to 62% and then down in 2020 4th January of this year, we saw that that usage rate ticked down only slightly from 62% to 59%.

00:05:02:04 - 00:05:18:16
Nick Clason
So, tick tock. Snapchat and Instagram, respectively, ages 13 to 17, are being reported to being used, 63% with TikTok, 60% with Snapchat, and 59% again with Instagram. One of the

00:05:18:16 - 00:05:34:08
Nick Clason
things that According to sentiment I o linked to this and the Pew Research study down below in the show notes shared, was that, the uptick of usage would you would see to, be increased when the ages got older.

00:05:34:08 - 00:05:47:25
Nick Clason
So it studied 13 to 17, but when they shaved off 13, 14 and just made it 15 to 17, they saw these, increase about 7 to 10, in usage. And so what's interesting

00:05:47:25 - 00:06:01:10
Nick Clason
is that in my completely free e-book, which is linked right here on screen or down below in the show notes, if you are listening, is I recommend that we use digital and social media to our advantage.

00:06:01:10 - 00:06:12:03
Nick Clason
And one of the good things about it is that regardless of which platform you're on, all four of the main social media platforms right now by forming Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube

00:06:12:03 - 00:06:21:15
Nick Clason
offer the same type of content. When I started in 2011 and beyond, posts for different Facebook had like a wide screen base post. Instagram had

00:06:21:15 - 00:06:24:01
Nick Clason
a square base post, YouTube was only for videos.

00:06:24:02 - 00:06:43:16
Nick Clason
TikTok didn't even exist. But then in 2021, TikTok burst onto the scene it implemented and ushered in this new type of medium, which is short form vertical video we saw quickly after that that reels was adopted in both Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube also brought along shorts. And so now all of those platforms are

00:06:43:16 - 00:06:53:28
Nick Clason
using those mediums. And so if you have a camera, which by the way, you do, because it is in your pocket on your cell phone, you can create short form vertical based video.

00:06:54:00 - 00:07:15:02
Nick Clason
I recommend that you start with pre filming your messages in a long form widescreen version, and you cut those up for social media. And then I also recommend that you supplement some of your content with some fun and engaging social media content with your students and or leaders. I mean, just look right here on screen. If you're watching on YouTube, some of these most recent performing YouTube shorts are incredible, and they are just with our students.

00:07:15:02 - 00:07:36:21
Nick Clason
We filmed them before or after youth group, and we just do silly, fun challenges with them and they get incredible amounts of views. And so the good news is, is that what is being used and what is best available in your context is that you can do your context and you can do what works. If all of your students are on Instagram, then by all means continue to use Instagram.

00:07:36:21 - 00:08:04:13
Nick Clason
But if you are starting fresh, I may offer an I may recommend something slightly different based on at least the national study and some of the national trends. But here's the good news is that every single church, every single context, is different. What I do know that's not different is that teenagers are speaking a digital language, whether they have unfettered and unfiltered social media access on their cell phones or whether they are just used to seeing things done via video.

00:08:04:16 - 00:08:23:23
Nick Clason
Which is why right now I am offering three slots of free coaching. If you're interested in taking me up on that, hit the link in the e-book or the link down below in the show notes, and I would be happy to begin a discussion with you about what that looks like and how we can get you up, and to begin hybridizing your ministry.

00:08:23:25 - 00:08:46:24
Nick Clason
Okay, so let's look ahead. If you're completely brand new and you don't already have some sort of, established Instagram following, and you're looking to start right now, well, then here's what I recommend, which we outlined and explained all in our most recent playlist, YouTube for Youth Ministry, which is linked, down below in the show notes. But I recommend YouTube.

00:08:46:26 - 00:09:16:27
Nick Clason
All right. Check out what Pew Research said. This is a survey done by adults and for adults. But it said YouTube, by and large, is the most widely used online platform measured in our survey. It. Roughly 8 in 10 U.S. adults report ever using the video based platform. Look at this chart right here on screen. You'll see that YouTube is at 93% a wide margin above the second most, which is TikTok only, which is only at 63%.

00:09:16:27 - 00:09:47:19
Nick Clason
By comparison. And so you might be asking like, what's ahead? Or how do I get started? What do I do? I have all of that detailed and outlined for you in a nine part playlist titled YouTube for Youth Ministry. It's actually it's actually linked to right here on screen. So if you're interested in that and information about YouTube for youth ministry, how to get started, what you're going to need a crash course for YouTube shorts and beyond, tap that video on screen and we will be happy to see you over there.

00:09:47:19 - 00:09:54:23
Nick Clason
But until next time, and as always, don't forget to stay hybrid.

Episode 085: ✍ Youth Ministry Volunteer Training

Nick Clason — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

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2024 Youth Ministry [on-demand] Masterclass
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[FREE] DYM Games
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======================================
DESCRIPTION
🤔 How do we train our youth and student ministry volunteers?
📅 How frequently should we be training our volunteers?
🧑‍🏫 What are some topics?
🖥️ And what are some platforms you can utilize?

And be sure to stick around to the end because I have an idea that will help you train your volunteers but not add another meeting to your plate
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/085

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/9cB_R_vSwIo

//FREE EBOOK STRATEGY GUIDE
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

TRAINING IDEAS
1) Leader vs Friend
2) Managing a Distracted Group
3) Taking Kids Seriously
4) Praying with your small group
5) Gen Z & Gen Alpha

> ### --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tVACJFlwpw&t=460s

6) Cultural Trends
7) The power of listening
8) Showing up
9) Getting Teens to Serve
10) Partnering with Parents

PLATFORMS
NATIONAL DAY OF VOLUNTEER YOUTH MINISTRY TRAINING
//https://dymtraining.com/ndovymt/

HYBRID MINISTRY YOUTUBE
//https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick

//PRACTICAL YOUTH MINISTRY TIPS
//https://www.youtube.com/@practicalyouthministrytips

DYM LEADER TRAINING LIBRARY
//https://leadertraining.dymapps.com/

MYM by YM360
//https://myyouthmin.com/

PODCAST GETTING STARTED GEAR
NOTE: Some of these items are affiliate links and we do get a small commission for your purchasing of these items. None of them are marked up due to them being affiliate links

MICROPHONE: https://walmrt.us/48UTzWh

YOUTUBE STARTER KIT: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

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

//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:39 Youth Ministry Volunteer Training
00:39-03:22 Why do we need to train volunteers?
03:22-06:59 How often should we train our volunteers?
06:59-11:19 Topics to Train Volunteers in
11:19-16:26 Youth Ministry Training Platforms

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

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;29
Nick Clason
How do we train our youth ministry volunteers? How frequently should we be offering trainings for our youth ministry volunteers? What are some key topics that our youth ministry and our youth ministry volunteers need to be exploring? And then finally, what are some platforms that you can utilize that you can send them to so that they can sharpen their skills as volunteers?

00;00;23;29 - 00;00;45;52
Nick Clason
And finally, make sure that you hang around all the way to the end of the video, because I have an idea that I think will not only help your volunteers level up, but also is going to not add another meeting to your plate. Well, everyone, welcome to the hybrid ministry show. My name is Nick Clason and I've been a youth pastor for 13 something years.

00;00;45;53 - 00;01;05;46
Nick Clason
And because of that, you've got to think about a youth ministry, has a lot of things that feel a little bit unnatural. Like let's just say, for example, I was a volunteer in your youth ministry and let's say I walked in for the very first time and you told me, Hey, listen, just go like, go hang out and love on teenagers.

00;01;05;51 - 00;01;35;02
Nick Clason
Like, I would probably as a 13 year youth ministry veteran, I would probably be okay and figure out how to do that. Now, if a brand new dad or mom or college student walks in and you give them those exact same instructions, they're probably not going to know what to do. For one of the reasons simply being because they are told all throughout society and culture not to do that.

00;01;35;02 - 00;01;57;06
Nick Clason
And so in a lot of ways, youth ministry is kind of creepy, right? And so we have to help A, give them the comfort and safety to do some of those things, but be help teach them in love with them on how they can do that safely and appropriately, and that it is good youth ministry for them to to go hang out with teenagers and not just be a chaperon.

00;01;57;09 - 00;02;19;47
Nick Clason
But I say that to say because you need to help sharpen their skills. You have to help level them up. Some of the things that you and I do as youth pastors, youth leaders, we already do these things naturally, but we need to level up. We need to train our volunteers. And if if one of the roles that we're trying to use have them hang out with students, well then, hey, was.

00;02;19;47 - 00;02;50;11
Nick Clason
And we should probably give them opportunities to do that. That's why I actually I created this completely free e-book. If you look through it, it's 40 ideas, a month's worth of posting content, but it's not just a bunch of still and static graphics. What it actually is, is it's teaching you in training you not only how to prerecord your messages to post them on YouTube so that you are showing up in a digital and a hybrid space on a platform where students are spending 95% or 94% of students are spending some of their time.

00;02;50;23 - 00;03;11;28
Nick Clason
But also then it will let you, your students and your leaders do things and work together on camera. Different challenges, different different games and things like that. And so that's going to be a great opportunity for your students and your leaders to start to rub shoulders. And you can kill two birds with one stone by crushing it for social media.

00;03;11;33 - 00;03;51;07
Nick Clason
How frequently should we as youth pastors and youth ministry leaders, how frequently should we be hosting trainings? Well, let's talk about that in the next video. Suffering. We should be hosting trainings. There are several schools of thought and there are a couple of different ways to think about it. First of all, every single time you meet, you may be having some sort of huddle and I would recommend some sort of thing around that, some sort of, you know, strategy of around meeting, getting everyone on the same page, giving everyone the service order service brunch sheet so that they have what they need so that they're they're not in a lurch for that night.

00;03;51;12 - 00;04;17;01
Nick Clason
However, that can give a little bit cumbersome and especially if it's like on a Wednesday night, you may be running into volunteers and they're getting off of work schedule. And so one thing that I have done in the past is instead of doing a weekly huddle, I've done more of like a monthly gathering, monthly huddle. And then that monthly gathering would not only operate as a weekly huddle to get everyone on the same page and talk to them about what we're teaching and sharing in our small group.

00;04;17;01 - 00;04;47;30
Nick Clason
But then it would also give me a moment to do some teambuilding as well as some training. And so that was sort of be a strategy to do that. But let me just say that one time, one year I was doing a monthly huddle, I shifted from a weekly huddle to a monthly huddle. And in my monthly huddle, one thing that felt like all I can explain is the feeling was myself in many of my volunteers every single time, when it was time for another huddle, they'd be like again, rather just felt like it was all the time.

00;04;47;30 - 00;05;05;09
Nick Clason
Felt was constantly something that we were turn around and doing like, we got another one of those again. yeah, that's right. It's been a month, right? And so there may be a rhythm and you just got to figure this out. What works for you? Because a monthly huddle is often probably something you have to do in an off peak time.

00;05;05;09 - 00;05;26;42
Nick Clason
So it's Sunday after church or it's Wednesday late after one of your Wednesday nights or something like that. But it's not going to be tied to and woven in to your already existing youth ministry schedule. And so you just you got to figure out when can you get all of your volunteers to commit to another moment on their calendar in their week.

00;05;26;56 - 00;06;06;27
Nick Clason
And then another idea within that is how frequently are you going to be communicating? So while you do have meetings, there are going to be infrequent or not infrequent, but but different types of communication. So things like group text messages and or emails, how frequently, how often are you going to be also sending those things? I personally I recommend weekly, so a weekly sort of communication email and then another like another form of gathering, whether that be a an annual meeting, which I haven't said yet, but that's an idea, an annual meeting, a one time meeting, whether it's twice a year, you get together for a big sort of thing, whether it's a monthly sort

00;06;06;27 - 00;06;24;42
Nick Clason
of leader gathering or some sort of weekly huddle. Now every single one of those scenarios, your training is going to have to look a little bit different. If you do annually, you probably can do a big seminar type style thing. You can probably do that if you meet twice a year. If you do monthly, you might need to make it a little more bite sized.

00;06;24;42 - 00;06;52;11
Nick Clason
Not so long, not so so many hours of a commitment. And if you meet weekly, you got to be more in like the tips and tactics zone and all those to be said. You can also share some tips and tactics to level up youth ministry training in your weekly communications via text via email. Now, you might be thinking like, okay, I see the need for this and I realize I need to figure out where I'm going to stick it on my calendar.

00;06;52;15 - 00;07;18;57
Nick Clason
But what in the world should I be talking about? Great. Let's let's talk through that in the next section. All right. Some good topics. And these are just suggestions and examples. And and if something pops up in some particular area or arena in your student ministry, then address it by all means. Right. But if you are like I know I want to me and only to help level my leaders off, but I don't even know where to start then.

00;07;19;10 - 00;07;41;38
Nick Clason
Then there's give me a list right here on the screen. If you are listening, you can head to the show notes, HybridMinistry.xyz/085 Also, if you do end up over on YouTube, be sure to give us a subscribe and a like because these topics we don't want only you to have them. We want all the youth pastors in America to know them, to have them, and to be able to turn to them in a time of need.

00;07;41;38 - 00;08;05;31
Nick Clason
But some topics that I have done or have seen or I just think can be useful. I have ten right here. Screenshot them. This could if you do a monthly gathering, this could essentially fill out your monthly training calendar for for the year. Right. One per month. So the first one is how do you distinguish between a leader versus being a friend of the students.

00;08;05;36 - 00;08;22;37
Nick Clason
You can also then chat through in another month managing a distracted group. We've all been there. We've all led a group that's distracted, especially the sixth grade boys group. How do you get them on task and what is a win for them? How do you take kids seriously? A lot of times we want to come in. We want to tell them what to do.

00;08;22;37 - 00;08;44;54
Nick Clason
But how do we take their needs, their concerns, their thoughts, their ideas, their their the things that they say? How do we take them seriously so that we can add and bring value to who they are as people? How do you pray with your small group? What are some practical ideas beyond just praying to close? But how can you be praying as a small group and be a praying small group together?

00;08;44;58 - 00;09;02;52
Nick Clason
Maybe do a little training on Gen Z and Gen Alpha? I actually have a video links right here at the top of the screen about Gen Alpha, exploring who they are and what we need to know. So maybe you could go watch that and that could be the springboard for some of your content. What are some cultural trends right these days that are going on?

00;09;03;01 - 00;09;23;21
Nick Clason
You should be thinking like, what? What's what's culturally relevant right now and how can we take those trends and how can we chat through? Some of them especially have a a team of adults. They're not living in teen culture anymore, so help expose them to some of those things that maybe even you need to do a little bit of study, a little bit of research on, but help expose them to some of those things.

00;09;23;26 - 00;09;56;11
Nick Clason
What about the power of listening? You know that it's not good for a small group leader to be in there and to just be yammer on the whole time. So help help challenge them, help challenge your small group leaders to listen first and talk second. What about the power of showing up helping, as we talked about in the last video in this youth ministry Master Class 2024 playlist as we talked about scaling up the care for leaders, shepherding you can you can spread out some of those responsibilities if if a small group leader shows up to a kid's soccer game, not only does that get you off the hook and I'm not saying that you

00;09;56;11 - 00;10;17;17
Nick Clason
should be trying to get off the hook of these things, but if you have 100 kids to get to soccer games for, that's going to be tricky for you to get to a hundred different soccer games. But your youth ministry volunteers can also show up to the kids in their small group, getting teens to serve, helping, helping equip small group leaders to to be recruiters and helping teenagers step into their God given callings and abilities.

00;10;17;17 - 00;10;40;49
Nick Clason
And finally, how do you partner with parents? Give smokable leaders tangible tips and tricks and tools to be able to reach out to parents? Very simply, something like do they have all the email lists? And if they don't, do they have access to get all the email lists? Have you allowed them to be a member of your church management software to at least be able to get in and access the group information?

00;10;41;00 - 00;11;00;13
Nick Clason
So those are just some topic ideas. It's not holistic, it's not exhaustive, but they're just ten ideas to help you begin to think about training. I remember thinking, Do I do that? Do I do you know one of those topics in a monthly gathering? Do I cram some of them together in an annual gathering? Do I weave some of them in and out of my communication?

00;11;00;18 - 00;11;38;48
Nick Clason
The answer to that is it's up to you. You guys figure out what's going to work best for you, but I do have in the next section several platforms that you can explore and look at and maybe even try to train and level up some of your youth ministry volunteers. So hey, let's go check that out. So from a once a year from an annual sort of perspective, there is no better option honestly than the NDOVYMT, which is an abbreviation for the National Day of Volunteer Youth Ministry training put on hosted by my friends over a download Youth Ministry, Josh Griffin, Doug Fields and their team.

00;11;38;52 - 00;12;09;11
Nick Clason
There is a link down in the description or head over to the show notes for our train. My volunteers Scott, which will give you info and insight into how to sign up for one of these things. The fact is the pricing is very, very cheap for training your entire team. It's only $250. If you want to be a host church or have other churches come to your church as a host, church is $400, but you get to bring as many people, as many volunteers to that training as possible.

00;12;09;11 - 00;12;30;15
Nick Clason
Plus, it's all video based. And so you get that video for the entire year. Even if you don't play the full video, you can kind of clip it up and use it throughout the year. Another platform idea platform idea number two is honestly this YouTube channel, right? Like I am focusing on helping Mel between the digital and the physical and bringing those things together.

00;12;30;15 - 00;12;50;45
Nick Clason
But I also have a lot of like just generalize youth ministry content so you could check out my youth ministry channel idea number three, you can help. You can check out the Practical Youth Ministry Tips podcast. My friend Eric with the K Williams, he is dropping gold all day long over on his channel as well. So both of our channels are completely free.

00;12;50;45 - 00;13;08;53
Nick Clason
Both of us are trying to to just get the message in the word out there. And so we want people to at these, be aware of it. But right now we're doing it for primarily for free, right? We're not charging you 400 hours like National Day Training is another couple of ideas is the do I am leader training library.

00;13;08;53 - 00;13;29;07
Nick Clason
So if you're a member of do you. I am I can't remember the tiers who gets access to this but but I know if you're at the highest couple of tiers you get access to a do I am leader training library. So there are videos that you can log into a portal and you can watch video trainings from people like Doug Fields, Josh Griffin and some of their friends over there.

00;13;29;07 - 00;14;09;37
Nick Clason
And they have several of the topics, even several topics that I was was suggesting earlier are available on that podcast site. Another thing that I have submitted content for and I have used is the My Youth Min portal by YM360. I think it's aimed a little bit more at the primary and Central youth worker, but it's a great platform to check out if it's something that you is behind a paywall, but it's got like some topflight people talking about things, people in the trenches, and it's like 19 pieces of new content drop onto that platform every single month.

00;14;09;48 - 00;14;27;55
Nick Clason
And so that's one of the keys about it, is that it is it is dynamic and it is moving. It's not just going to be like a leader training library of static videos that haven't been updated in several years. And so the MYM podcast link down below the description or the show notes, all for all these are links down the description.

00;14;27;55 - 00;15;00;47
Nick Clason
And finally, the idea that I think because things are changing and I don't want another meeting on my calendar and, and you probably don't want another meeting on your calendar, an idea for training either to supplement or to replace some of your in-person meetings is what about creating a podcast on the go right? Like you can you can offer training to your leaders as they're going as they're heading to work, as they're running groceries, as they're picking up kids from school and soccer practice.

00;15;00;52 - 00;15;34;46
Nick Clason
If you create a podcast feed, whether it be a public or a private feed and you just do 5 to 10 minute trainings, you can pick up a pretty easy and cheap microphone. Very similar to this. I'll drop some links down below in the show notes for you to check out. If you want to do video based, you can use your cell phone and you can get up and going and listen If you if you start pre filming your messages like I recommend in my full year strategy anyway, you should have a camera, whether it be a real camera or you just using your phone and you're using my under $100 starter kit to get

00;15;34;46 - 00;16;00;06
Nick Clason
going. You can use that as a way to get some of that training up and going and then you can just start posting it to places. And so if you do audio, you do a podcast feed, if you do video, you do YouTube. But like I said, what I'm trying to think of as I'm trying to ride some of the future waves in some of the future trends, because that's actually what I'm going to be talking about in the very next video, which is going to be linked right here on the screen.

00;16;00;11 - 00;16;21;42
Nick Clason
Carey Nieuwhof in his 2024 trends. It is an amazing article. He's been doing an amazing job. And I know we're several months in now to 2024, but I wanted to do a React video and so check that video out link right here on the screen because we in this podcast are trying to make digital discipleship easy and possible and accessible.

00;16;21;42 - 00;16;25;31
Nick Clason
And so, as always, stay hybrid.

Episode 084: 🤝 Recruiting (and Retaining) The Best Volunteers

Nick Clason — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

⚡ [FREE] Digital Integration Strategy⚡

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

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

[FREE] DYM Games
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/9-best-dym-products
======================================
DESCRIPTION
🛟 The life-line of all good student ministry is adult volunteer leaders.
🤷 So much so, Are we even needed? Eventually, hopefully not!
🇷Let’s dive into the 3 “R’s” of volunteers
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/084

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HNzfZoiX0

//UNLEASHING VOLUNTEERS DEEP DIVE
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/084

1) RECRUITING
//FULL PROOF EMAIL
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/recruiting-email

2) ROLES
//LEAD SMALL
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Small-Ideas-Every-Leader/dp/0985411627

3) RETENTION
//TIME MANAGEMENT
https://youtu.be/xlS1kWcQBS8?si=kxHfp9_oeF8Wes
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/077

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
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TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Life Line for all Youth Pastors
01:02 Finding the Best Volunteers
04:48 Full Proof Recruiting Email
10:06 Not Everybody is a Small Group Leader
14:01 Never Recruit Again with Good Retention

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

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:22
Nick Clason
If you've been in youth ministry for any length of time, then you know that the lifeline for any good youth ministry is a Dole volunteer. Leaders, Right. Like so much So you might even ask the question, am I even needed? I mean, eventually, Hopefully. No, because you've raised these leaders up in such a way that they're competent and can do the job without you.

00:00:24:24 - 00:00:46:01
Nick Clason
We've talked deeply in the last episode about the philosophy and the reasons behind having good volunteer youth leaders. It's our last video to enjoy the top of the screen. But in this video, we're going to round out and I'm going to give you the three R's of volunteers recruitment. And I have a full proof email, so stick around to see that the roles that you can enlist them into.

00:00:46:01 - 00:01:06:26
Nick Clason
And finally, stick around all the way to the very end of the video because the third and final R is retention. And if you lay out a good foundation and if you actually stick to the plan with retention, you won't ever have to be recruiting again. Sound too good to be true? Let's check it out. So the first R in volunteerism is recruitment.

00:01:06:27 - 00:01:29:26
Nick Clason
Always be recruiting. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Well, where in the world do I even find them coming below the best places to find volunteers in your church? I mean, just think about the places that you frequent. Maybe it's your or your wife's or your families or your children's Sunday school classes. So perhaps you have a kid.

00:01:29:26 - 00:02:00:11
Nick Clason
They have a Sunday school class, another kids parents in that Sunday school class, maybe a small group that you're in or that you lead. As you get to do life with people, you'll notice more about them and you'll be looking for certain qualities or attributes. I mean, one of the best things that you need to do is you need to realize that anyone can do youth ministry, but you're probably not going to find people who come to you and say, I am so super passionate about youth ministry and they look the part and they're cool and they have piercings and they have tattoos.

00:02:00:11 - 00:02:29:07
Nick Clason
Like you'll get one or two of those. But like you also have to be willing to recruit the moms. You have to be willing to recruit the over 55 year old, almost retired men. You have to be willing to recruit like the homeschool dad, like the people that don't exactly look the part. But if they love Jesus and if they can tolerate teenagers, then they're in a good spot to be a youth volunteer and just ask.

00:02:29:08 - 00:02:50:06
Nick Clason
I remember I was coaching one of my kids flag football teams and while I was coaching the team, it was still a church. I was coaching the team, one of the moms on the team. She we had two coaches in there on the field and she kept making her way over to the sidelines and she's like, I just love helping out and being around the kids.

00:02:50:07 - 00:03:07:23
Nick Clason
Is it okay if I do this? Like she wasn't officially a coach? None of that stuff. And so we were like, Yeah, that's great because the kids are just while an hour over there on the sidelines. We needed all the help that we could get. And so her being on the sidelines immediately, like trigger my brain, I was like, I'm going to ask her.

00:03:07:24 - 00:03:28:25
Nick Clason
And so one day I had a leader drop off like a leader call me and say, Hey, I can't do it anymore. I was dropping my son off at preschool, and this mom also is dropping her kids off at the same preschool through the church, which I had never seen her do that before. And immediately in my brain, I felt the Holy Spirit say, Ask her.

00:03:28:27 - 00:03:51:07
Nick Clason
And I had to do the digging because I had to like I didn't know her name right. So I knew the kids names from the fly football team. So I found the kids in our church, you know, database. And then I found her as the mom, and then I just shot her an email. And I'm gonna share with you that imagery just so you might be thinking, okay, I think think through all the different pools that you have and I get it.

00:03:51:07 - 00:04:11:19
Nick Clason
You might be like, I don't I don't have any like at that point, start asking like, ask other other people that, you know, who do you know, who can I ask Who's in your small group? Who's who's someone who's just friendly? Right. And one of the things I like to do is I'm like, they may not have the soft youth ministry skills yet, but if they have a teachable spirit, we can level them up in youth ministry.

00:04:11:19 - 00:04:31:06
Nick Clason
And we're going to talk about in the third and final hour on retention. But how do you ask a volunteer leader? Right. So I have this this email that I've drafted. I am going to share it with you. If you're watching on YouTube, it's going to be linked right here on the screen if you're watching on YouTube, but you're dropping these now on Wednesday morning so you can listen to them on your way into the office.

00:04:31:06 - 00:04:58:08
Nick Clason
You can listen to them while you're setting up for youth ministry. If you're listening via the podcast feed, we're going to continue to drop them on Thursday morning. So you get a little bit of a bonus day if you're watching, subscribing and consuming these via YouTube. So for free, check us out there at YouTube.com slash clay cynic or just search hybrid ministry in the YouTube search bar but the leader recruitment email goes like this dear fill in their name.

00:04:58:10 - 00:05:18:05
Nick Clason
I think that you could be uniquely positioned to be a great volunteer in our student ministry. Now before you laugh, archive this email and just think that I'm full of hot air. Take a minute to think about this. Did you know that two thirds of adult Christians have made a decision to follow Jesus before the age of 18?

00:05:18:08 - 00:05:39:25
Nick Clason
This statistic alone is the reason why I do what I do and investing in the next generation. However, while you may not feel equipped, qualified or ready, I'd like to point out that God uses people like that. The underequipped, the under-qualified, and the not ready to further His kingdom every day. All throughout the pages of Scripture, Moses was a murderer.

00:05:39:28 - 00:06:09:16
Nick Clason
Jonah ran the other way. Peter was uneducated and Paul was a self-righteous bigot. Now, here's what I consider a qualification for student ministry. Love Jesus. And like teenagers, Borrow that from my friend Doug Fields. If you can check these two boxes off, then I think you have what it takes to join our team. I love to sit over a cup of coffee and discuss this idea with you a little bit more in depth, and maybe we could grab a quick phone call to chat about it.

00:06:09:19 - 00:06:35:09
Nick Clason
Give me a call or shoot me text if you'd like to do that. Signed your name. That email alone has drummed up a lot of interest in recruiting new volunteers. And when I was working at a large multisite megachurch in Chicago, I needed to do a lot of kind of cold call style emails, so I'd get names of people I'd never heard of, never met, and I would send them that email to at least sparked conversation and in a lot of cases I would get responses, but not always.

00:06:35:09 - 00:06:54:02
Nick Clason
And so if I didn't get a response out of reach back out via text or call just a couple of weeks later and say, Hey, I sent you an email, I'm just curious if you've given that email any more thought. So I love the line in that email. Two thirds of Christians have made a decision to follow Jesus before the age of 18.

00:06:54:03 - 00:07:13:03
Nick Clason
If you knew that you owe me a subscribe, and if you did it then then hit me like, right. Because what we're doing, like I says, we're dropping this this video one day before the podcast drops. All right. So that statistic alone is why I do what I do. The final thing after how to ask him is how do you onboard them right.

00:07:13:06 - 00:07:33:10
Nick Clason
So once this preliminary conversation has taken place, it's conversation number one. You're going to have to kind of streams of volunteer in intake, right? You may be thinking I need to recruit. And if that's the case, then by all means do it. But in some other cases you may get names to like a volunteer interest form or someone telling you, Hey, you should talk to John.

00:07:33:11 - 00:07:57:26
Nick Clason
Okay. So in that case, if someone else is giving you a name or if they're filling out a form on your website, you need to have a preliminary conversation with them. You need to sit down and find a way to to to kind of vet them just a little bit, not thoroughly and not like FBI style, but just a little bit of like get to know them, get to know their story and discover their reason for why they want to do youth ministry.

00:07:57:27 - 00:08:19:05
Nick Clason
Because while you may be excited about just a random name coming into you from the website, you also have to make sure that you're not enlisting somebody who might be an abuser or a pedophile or some weirdo because as we said earlier, people are just not naturally drawn to being a youth leader volunteer. So someone does say that they are just out of the clear blue sky.

00:08:19:07 - 00:08:43:06
Nick Clason
Just do a tiny little bit of homework. So once that first conversation, that first screening conversation is done, then you need to enter them into whatever your church's safety screening process is. After they've gone through their safety screening process, whether that be a background check, taking some sexual abuse awareness classes or somewhere in between the two of those, you need to find a time to enlist them for a first serve.

00:08:43:07 - 00:09:05:14
Nick Clason
Now, the way that we sort of do it is like we have our background check and that lets them get in the room for a first serve because sometimes some of that additional sexual abuse awareness training is a lot. And so we get them in the room shadowed with someone who's already cleared and screened, but they can get a feel for youth ministry also to kind of just like strike while the iron is hot.

00:09:05:14 - 00:09:21:07
Nick Clason
You don't want that lead to go cold, so you don't want someone who says they're interested and then you not give them an opportunity to come serve. So give them a first serve. Once that first serve is over, have a clearing clarifying conversation with them. I typically like to do it the same day or the same night of their first serve.

00:09:21:13 - 00:09:44:22
Nick Clason
Hey, would you think what do you think in killing begin to kind of pursue this in this direction unless they give you some sort of like big red flag of like, I don't know, man, that's really was Wow. That really wasn't for me. I would try to find a way to start enlisting them that night, make sure that they are finishing up any of their remaining screenings before you make them an official part of your team.

00:09:44:24 - 00:10:07:28
Nick Clason
But then once they have done all those things, once they've done that first serve and they've had that clarifying conversation, get them into an on board situation and do it as quickly as you can see. I think a lot of times we say we want volunteers, but then we're too busy to actually engage with them in meaningfully bring them along so that they feel loved, valued, cared for and that their time is not being wasted.

00:10:08:01 - 00:10:31:17
Nick Clason
So let's move on. Now that we've talked about recruiting, what are the roles that you're recruiting them into? All right. So rule number one is this small group leader. We talked about it at length in the last video, but the lead small book written by the folks down at Orange is, I believe, one of the best pictures of what it means to simply be a small group leader.

00:10:31:17 - 00:10:48:28
Nick Clason
It is clear. It is concise. Any one of us could have written it, but we didn't. And so they get the credit for it because they did the work. But it is a great manual for what a small group leader is pouring into and investing into the lives of just a few students that God has entrusted into their care.

00:10:49:00 - 00:11:11:13
Nick Clason
I think a lot of times when we think small group leader or when we think youth ministry leader, we think they need to be leading a small group. And when you think through the wide swath of different volunteers that you might need, you might not need every single person that says they're interested to become a volunteer small group leader.

00:11:11:13 - 00:11:41:17
Nick Clason
If you think homeschool mom, if you think 55 and older guy, like there might be some other roles in your youth ministry. In fact, we in our studio miss you. We like to use these other roles as a little bit of a feeling out time for both of us, so we get to enlist them into another role that's not directly in the spiritual care and direction of a student, but one that we get to see them, see their faithfulness if they're actually coming to the job.

00:11:41:20 - 00:11:57:12
Nick Clason
And then we also get to know them, because if they're not in some sort of volunteer small group moment, and if you're also not in some sort of volunteer small group moment, you can have a conversation with them. I remember there is a a leader at church I worked at and she was enlisted as one of our safety people.

00:11:57:12 - 00:12:25:02
Nick Clason
She was a police officer and she was a safety person and she was in the back of the room as she was kind of doing her thing. This wasn't on any of our sort of radars with it, but she was doing her thing. She actually came up. She's like, Hey, could I do that? Like instead of safety? And you see how like just being a part of the hospitality team in some way, shape or form being part of it, it initiated her thought process to kind of like say that might be something that I am also interested.

00:12:25:02 - 00:12:45:08
Nick Clason
So some of the roles that we use hospitality, so that's getting things set up, that's greeters at check in, that's saying hey to students, first time students, help them fill out gas cards, all that type of stuff. There's safety. Like I mentioned, and you may have a plan for that from like a hiring in an officer type of thing.

00:12:45:08 - 00:13:03:22
Nick Clason
Or if not, if you're too small of a church, then you need to hire a couple, maybe volunteers, to sort of oversee it, keep eyes on dark spaces in the church, you know, keep an eye on bathrooms. Just make sure that there are an additional set of eyes on everything, because you know that as programing it's going. You got a lot on your mind, a lot on your plate.

00:13:03:24 - 00:13:20:24
Nick Clason
And so some of the last things on your mind is checking to make sure that back in that back closet there aren't two kids making out in this is safety person to do that that will help you know give you an additional like set of eyes so that you can see and know what's going on without seeing and knowing every single thing that's going on.

00:13:20:26 - 00:13:45:14
Nick Clason
You may have a cafe I don't love like cafes from like the selling standpoint, having to source food, but I do love having a cafe because it gives it gives leaders an actual meaningful task to do that. We can place them in in sort of like a first step kind of role before we move them. If I if I don't know this person at all before we move them into a small group leader type role.

00:13:45:17 - 00:14:14:17
Nick Clason
And then, you know, depending on your set in your format, I was in a church that did decentralized host homes. And so we had groups meeting all throughout the city and all sorts of different houses. Your host home volunteers are a great pool of people and a great place. You can send some people so they may not be ready yet to be small group leader every single week, but they may be willing to create a warm, welcoming, inviting kind of atmosphere in a host home situation.

00:14:14:19 - 00:14:42:07
Nick Clason
The third and final or in our list is retention. So retention is how do you keep these volunteers now that you have them? So the first thing that you need to be doing is you need to be checking in with your volunteers frequently. Now, I hear you might be thinking, I don't have very much time. Listen, as a part of this 2024 on Main Masterclass, the very first video was how to manage your time and how to get more stuff done.

00:14:42:12 - 00:15:11:24
Nick Clason
I would recommend that you take a look at that because when you implement some of those processes, you will find that you have more time than you think you do. And once you realize that you can start budgeting for and scheduling conversations, relationships, lunches, coffee appointments with some of your leaders, and it's important to do that because you just have an opportunity to sit down, have a conversation with leaders, get to know them, and let them know that like you're there and they have a place that they can turn to.

00:15:11:25 - 00:15:41:08
Nick Clason
Now, if you have 50, 7500 volunteers, then that's too much for you and that's where you need to probably implement some sort of coaching structure, some sort of additional layer where there's another person kind of put in that place to help be that for you. Again, similar to the safety team, somebody who can just be an additional hand, additional shepherd, additional person to help you care for the leaders in your student ministry.

00:15:41:10 - 00:16:04:00
Nick Clason
What about relationships? Like how are you building your relationship, your rapport with these leaders, Hang out with them in a casual environment. It doesn't always have to be a formalized like meeting sit down with an agenda and three points to get through. Just who are you hanging out with your leaders? If you're hanging out with your leaders, I told you my last video about a guy named Steve that I enlisted.

00:16:04:02 - 00:16:24:03
Nick Clason
I enlisted him to be a seventh grade boy, Smoggy Peter, which in that church, seventh grade was the earliest the youngest age that we had for our students. He still to this day, they are now seniors. He still to this day is a small group leader for them. But I haven't been in that space since like eighth grade of those kids year.

00:16:24:03 - 00:16:44:06
Nick Clason
So. So he stayed all through high school all throughout COVID. Mind you all after my relationship with him left. But because I built a rapport with him, he stuck for that. And then he got hooked and he stuck and he stayed. Finally, think about appreciation. Do you leaders know that you care about them? Do you give them moments?

00:16:44:08 - 00:17:01:29
Nick Clason
Do you give them tokens of appreciation? Does it have to be a big budget buster? But I remember I talked to a youth leader one time who she said all she was doing was just a pristine, like just the mess out of her volunteers. And she asked one of her volunteers one time like, Do you feel appreciated or why?

00:17:01:29 - 00:17:24:27
Nick Clason
Why do people like serving in students? And one of their volunteers said, You'd be crazy not to because he was basically saying, You appreciate us so often and so much like anyone who does this job just feels like a million bucks. Okay. The fourth thing under tension is develop them well, which is actually the final video link in the 2024 youth ministry.

00:17:24:27 - 00:17:42:21
Nick Clason
OnDemand Masterclass is linked right here on the screen. So go ahead and check that out because you want to develop them so that you retain them. We're working to make digital discipleship in youth ministry, in in church ministry, easy possible and accessible. So as always, stay hybrid.

Episode 083: ❤️ Youth Ministry Volunteers Unleashed

Nick Clason — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0600

⚡ FULL HYBRID MINISTRY STRATEGY⚡

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

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

[FREE] My Best Youth Ministry Games
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/9-best-dym-products
======================================
DESCRIPTION
🤫 The Secret Sauce in Youth Ministry, might surprise you, is Volunteers

🩹 You only have a certain capacity as one individual person.
Volunteers not only help level up your care in your youth ministry.
But also, they can be the best source of friendship and camaraderie

⏫ How do we level up our volunteers to unleash them?

🔗 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/083

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/7ytA0V0MdeA

1) PASTORAL CARE
//LEAD SMALL
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Small-Ideas-Every-Leader/dp/0985411627

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

2) CAMARADERIE
//DARE2SHARE
https://www.dare2share.org

3) INTERSECTED FAITH STORIES
//GROWING YOUNG

https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Young-Essential-Strategies-Discover/dp/0801019257/ref=sr_1_1?crid=338IYV0RBLJFS&keywords=growing+young&qid=1705628888&s=books&sprefix=growing+young%2Cstripbooks%2C153&sr=1-1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-03:41 We would all be sunk without our Youth Ministry Volunteers
03:41-06:42 Caring for youth beyond your capacity
06:42-09:13 How to find friends as a youth pastor
09:13-11:05 Students need more than you

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

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;19;09
Nick Clason
So early on in in Youth Minister, you've probably been there. I was running a high school and a middle school ministry separate, but I was the only guy. And so the way I actually did it, which I don't necessarily recommend this as a strategy anymore, and I can tell you why in future videos. But I had youth ministry, I had middle school ministry in high school ministry, staggered.

00;00;19;09 - 00;00;41;44
Nick Clason
So one started at six or six. One started at seven or seven. Thought I was really, really cute for coming up with that idea. But no other people have come up with that idea before. Anyway, in my middle school ministry. I had a middle school ministry of girls, like only girls had about eight or six middle school girls on a regular basis and we had no boys.

00;00;41;44 - 00;01;04;00
Nick Clason
In fact, it was a pretty big issue, big enough that there were families leaving the church over it. That being said, I had literally only been there for about four months. And so one family left the church days after I accepted the job and my senior pastor was like, Bro, that's the whole reason why we're hiring this guy to like, help get more people here, get more, you know, boys here for your your son.

00;01;04;01 - 00;01;25;57
Nick Clason
And so anyway, I had missed school ministry and I was playing Leader Roulette. And I'll tell you what, leader Roula, it is I only had middle I only had girl leaders enlisted to serve in my middle school ministry. No boy leaders because I had no boy students. And so in my brain I was like, I'll get to that problem when it happens.

00;01;25;57 - 00;01;48;58
Nick Clason
And so there I was in the lobby welcoming middle school students. And I should also say that I had like 90 minutes of programing. So say, you know, 30 minutes or so of games, 30 minutes of teaching, and then 30 minutes of smart, that last 30 minutes was the overlapping part. So I sent middle schoolers off to their small group for the 30 minutes and the high schoolers sort of right at that time.

00;01;48;58 - 00;02;13;16
Nick Clason
So I was I was unavailable to ever step in as some sort of small group. So anyway, middle school ministry is starting somewhere around 606 or so. I can't say for certain the exact moment. And in walks a boy in my face. I'm like, dang, we got trouble. Now the good news was I did have some high school boys.

00;02;13;21 - 00;02;35;31
Nick Clason
And so then thus I did have high school boy volunteers. And so one of my high school boy volunteers, his name was Aaron Coons. Shout out to Aaron Koontz, Beavercreek, Ohio, AC for short. I call them up was like, dude. And no, you don't need to be here till seven, but can you pop in a few minutes early and can you help run and cover this middle school boy?

00;02;35;31 - 00;03;03;29
Nick Clason
Small group that I was now going to figure out how to staff it. Right now I had a boy. Now I needed boy, small group leaders. And so in this video today, what we are going to talk about is the why of volunteers in youth ministry. And in fact, I actually was going to make this one video. I was going to talk about the why of youth ministry volunteers, the recruiting of youth ministry volunteers and the training of youth minister volunteers.

00;03;03;29 - 00;03;22;55
Nick Clason
And as I sort of scripting it out, I realized this is a long video. So as a part of the 2024 Masterclass, I know I said in the last year, this is going to be the last one, but it's not. We are going to extend this one and break it apart into three different videos. So very a video series inside another video series.

00;03;23;00 - 00;03;42;02
Nick Clason
That's why you should subscribe. Because in this video we're talking about the why of youth ministry volunteers and in future videos, we're going to be talking about how to recruit. And then we're also going to be talking about training. All of this is a part of the free on demand training for youth ministry. Master Class. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show.

00;03;42;07 - 00;04;00;21
Nick Clason
So, everyone, welcome to the Hybrid ministry show. I am Nic Clason Just like I was saying, I've been in youth ministry. The story I shared in the intro was about, I think 13, 12, 13 years ago. Now, at this point, no boys, no boy, small group leaders. And so from that point, I have learned quite a few things about youth ministry.

00;04;00;21 - 00;04;26;15
Nick Clason
I've learned quite a few things about youth ministry volunteers. And one of the key things for youth ministry in youth ministry volunteers is the need for volunteers to help scale up in pastoral care. In fact, we have a video that's linked right here at the top of this screen where we talked about ways to use hybrid ministry to enhance the pastoral care in the shepherding in your youth ministry and in your student ministry.

00;04;26;15 - 00;04;46;30
Nick Clason
And so I'm not going to get too deep into that and tools and tips and tricks on how to equip your volunteers to reach out to your students and to care for your students. But you should check that out. There's some that you're interested in. However, one of the key things not to sound too corporate, not to sound to business, is that you need youth ministry leaders to help scale up the care.

00;04;46;30 - 00;05;11;34
Nick Clason
I mean, the reality of the fact is that you, as an individual, a singular one person, youth ministry, one man band, you only have so much capacity and maybe you're a super relational person. And so your capacity may be higher than someone who's not quite as relational as you. But at the end of the day, you realize that like once you scale past 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, I don't know, definitely 80.

00;05;11;34 - 00;05;32;22
Nick Clason
You're not going to be able to know every single student's name, every single student story, every single student's things going on. Their families are not going to be able to attend every single student's games and every single student's extracurricular types of things. And so that is why youth ministry is so important, is because your your volunteers help spread out that care.

00;05;32;22 - 00;05;55;21
Nick Clason
I mean, that's really that's the crux, the thesis is the basis for the entire book written by Orange Lead Small, one of my all time favorite resources. If you haven't checked it out, link down below in the show notes. But it is a youth ministry volunteer's job description and I actually used it in a lot of cases to help onboard some of my leaders and say, Read this and if this lights a fire within you, then let's keep talking.

00;05;55;21 - 00;06;18;03
Nick Clason
And that'll be kind of the preliminary starting foundation for a lot of my discussions. So it helps expand our reach. Speaking of expanding regional, I think all of us realize and see the need for social media. Well, what I've done for use, I've actually led a completely free digital strategy. I call it my hybrid ministry done for you one month posting strategy.

00;06;18;03 - 00;06;42;05
Nick Clason
It's linked right here down below. Very first link in the top of this video, I want you to check out my completely free e-book and not only can you become the face of your youth ministry, social media, not only can you get students as a main primary face of your youth, missed your social media, but you can now also, as a part of this video, enlist your volunteers to be a part of your youth ministry and especially what they're doing on social media.

00;06;42;14 - 00;07;09;23
Nick Clason
But reason number two, beyond scaling up pastoral care so that you can kind of spread out the need and the desire and knowing of students, there's just a camaraderie that comes with people locking arms and going together. I remember my students, we would take them to a thing called Dare to Share. You've maybe heard of it before, and at one point in the Dear Teacher conference, what they're doing it actually said, now there's a dude, Ayrshire Live, and so you kind of host it as like a livestream event.

00;07;09;23 - 00;07;23;52
Nick Clason
But back in the day they would go city to city and so we would kind of chase whatever city they're in. Sometimes they're in Dayton, Ohio, sometimes they're in Columbus, Ohio. I think maybe one time there in Cincinnati, Ohio. But nonetheless, we would kind of go to the conference. They'd have the worship and the speakers and all the things.

00;07;23;52 - 00;07;42;04
Nick Clason
But at one point they'd send youth ministries all throughout the city of wherever the hosting of the event was happening. And they would say, go door to door, collect cans, pass out lightbulbs, whatever the case may be, but share the gospel with people and my students. I remember they'd always be so nervous and freaked out. I mean, come on, wouldn't you?

00;07;42;09 - 00;08;09;23
Nick Clason
And but but one of the things that was so helpful but it was would help kind of break down the barrier and the entry level of starting a gospel conversation. But I remember the atmosphere and the attitude once we arrived back in the conference room, everyone in that place, they were hype. They were so pumped up because they had gone out and they actually I remember one time in one of the things they equated it to, like being on a military mission.

00;08;09;27 - 00;08;30;02
Nick Clason
You have this unbreakable bond because you've been on a mission together. And I think in a lot of ways that's what a youth ministry volunteer team can be. You as you pastor, you have a mission to help reach students and share the gospel and help point them to Jesus. But then you also have leaders who are who are adopting that same mindset and strategy, and maybe they're not there yet.

00;08;30;06 - 00;08;51;03
Nick Clason
You're helping kind of bring them along or level them up into that. And once you can have that unbreakable bond, you realize that even after a bad night of youth ministry, you guys are still there together, that you're still around some other people who are a like minded on the same page and beyond just that, beyond just like the camaraderie, you have the opportunity to make real friends with these people.

00;08;51;18 - 00;09;13;00
Nick Clason
I remember I worked at a church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and one of my volunteers became one of my best friends, and we met every single Tuesday morning. We met to recite Bible verses together to kind of keep each other accountable. And still to this day, even now, at that point, something like five, six, seven years ago, we'll call each other every once in a while and we'll just kind of keep up with each other's lives.

00;09;13;13 - 00;09;31;42
Nick Clason
The third reason why you need volunteers in your youth ministry is simply because of the fact that students need more than you to speak into their life and into their faith story. In fact, it takes five people in the book Growing Young by Care, Power, Power. She talked about the importance and that's going to be Campbell on the show notes or wherever your podcast catch.

00;09;31;42 - 00;09;59;34
Nick Clason
You can you can check it out in the link in the description or a hybridministry.xyz/083 beyond just three of transcripts. But Kara Powell said that we need five people. Students need five people in their lives. If they have five people speaking into their lives of their faith beyond just mom and dad. But but smart leaders and youth pastors and maybe even like adults that they serve in the nursery with the they rub shoulders with and they see on a regular ongoing basis.

00;09;59;34 - 00;10;21;00
Nick Clason
You need leaders in your life because you are not going to be the only primary person speaking into students lives. And if you are, that's going to leave them with a less lustful, less less robust faith. They need other voices speaking into it so you can be a voice in their smug habit. It can be a voice and maybe their small group co-leader can be a voice.

00;10;21;00 - 00;10;39;39
Nick Clason
And maybe some are on the serving team that's overseeing the greeters, which they're they're a member of serving on the youth ministry team or whatever the case might be. But fill it in. So there's five people. Five people seems to be the kind of key marker and not wasn't I get it? You might be sitting there thinking, I don't have five people I know it can be difficult.

00;10;39;39 - 00;11;01;32
Nick Clason
And that's why we're talking on the next video about how to recruit the best youth ministry volunteers, where to get them, where to find them, how to do it that is linked right here on the video. So don't forget, in this podcast we are making digital discipleship easy, possible, accessible in this particular video through the ministry of our small group leaders.

00;11;01;32 - 00;11;05;42
Nick Clason
So don't forget and as always, stay hybrid.

Episode 081: 😲 Your Youth Sermons Don’t Matter

Nick Clason — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 07:00:00 -0600

⚡ Youth Ministry [On-Demand] Masterclass ⚡

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DESCRIPTION
👎 Do your youth group sermons stink?

🤷The ultimate goal we have for our students is to grow in their love for God and their love for others. However, does what you teach actually matter?

🤯In this vide we are going to share the surprising things that need to be in place, for your teaching to be effective! And GOOD NEWS: None of them have anything to do with your actual teaching! This is part 5 of the 2024 Youth Ministry [on-demand] Masterclass
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLIJceFHg7w8vxlx5ARqXeg
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/081

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/gqOPjD5hN-g

//7 CHECKPOINTS
https://www.christianbook.com/the-seven-checkpoints-for-student-leaders/andy-stanley/9781439189337/pd/189337?utm_source=google&kw=161716281504&mt=&dv=c&event=PPCSRC&p=1186432&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkKqsBhC3ARIsAEEjuJhcSbVs_Wbqnq8WgKR-HbmYbSVDHHSUTO1p-Np1urnuM_Yt6U5dstMaAjwvEALw_wcB

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

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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-01:26 Why Youth Group Sermons Don't Do We Want them to do!v
01:26-06:10 The Best Youth Sermon Curriculum Scope in Existence
06:10-10:04 2 Things Your Youth Group Needs for Better Sermons
10:04-10:53 The #1 Thing Our Students Needc

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

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:27:08
Nick Clason
Teaching in discipleship. Honestly, the core components of what we do in youth ministry. But what if you're teaching sucks? I mean, listen, like you probably think I'm here to sell you some sort of curriculum or something. That's not it, right? But what if what you're doing is not actually contributing to your students attending the way that you and, frankly, your boss want them to be attending?

00:00:27:09 - 00:00:47:11
Nick Clason
I mean, let's be honest. The entire reason that that youth ministry exists is because we want to help teach students about Jesus. Jesus taught us the aim. What we should be teaching our students is to love God and to love others. And so the goal of all youth ministry is be to help students grow in that love of God and love of others.

00:00:47:14 - 00:01:14:28
Nick Clason
So today I want to talk to you about, number one, a great scope and sequence for your teaching calendar for your students. However, the problem which we talked about in the video length right here is that 57% of regular church goers didn't go to church during the course of one month. And so we're going to talk in this video about the two key things that you actually need to address in your youth ministry and in your youth ministry space before you can even solve the attendance issues as it relates to teaching.

00:01:14:29 - 00:01:36:00
Nick Clason
And finally, I have the number one thing that you and I need to disciple our students. I think it's an ultimate game changer. Welcome to the hybrid ministry show. Welcome, everyone to the Hybrid Ministries show. My name is Nicholas and coming at you during the flex week in between Christmas and New Year. At least that's when I'm recording.

00:01:36:03 - 00:01:57:20
Nick Clason
I almost forgot my glasses. I don't have my watch on. I got my new Christmas mug that my five year old made for me at preschool. It's an amazing week, but we are still going strong in the 2024 Youth Ministry OnDemand Masterclass. You're going to want to make sure that you subscribe because we're going to lay out all of everything that I've ever learned in my 13 years of youth ministry experience.

00:01:57:20 - 00:02:14:15
Nick Clason
My name is Nick Clason, youth pastor now living and working in the DFW Dallas, Texas area. But when we talk about scope and sequence, one of my favorite resources of all time, I mean, it's so dated. I mean, just look at the graphic here. If you're not watching on YouTube, you can see it. If not, you'll just have to go check out the show notes.

00:02:14:15 - 00:02:33:09
Nick Clason
But it's called seven Check points for Students. It's written by Andy Stanley. And I think this is a really, like thorough and a really good swath of things that students need and should be learning as it pertains to what we teach them when they're in youth ministry. So some of those check point, some of those things are, number one, an authentic faith.

00:02:33:12 - 00:03:04:04
Nick Clason
Number two, spiritual disciplines. Number three, more boundaries. Number four, meaningful friendships. Number five, why is choices Number six, ultimate authority? And then finally, number seven, putting others first. I mean, if you want to try to poke holes in that like you may, there may be some things that you're like that's missing here, that's missing there. But like, if were to say love God, love others, you can almost go back through that, similar to what Jesus did with the 635 different commandments and put all of them into a classification of love, God love others, right?

00:03:04:04 - 00:03:23:04
Nick Clason
So like an authentic faith that we love God and spiritual disciplines, it's like love God and moral boundaries, a combination of the two. But I would probably put it in love. Others and meaningful friendships is also love others. But there's also a benefit to us in that as well, making wise choices about loving others and ultimate authority is probably about loving God and finally putting others first.

00:03:23:04 - 00:03:39:26
Nick Clason
Let's love others, right? And so if you break it down to those different categories, like if you just have those seven things sort of on your mind of like, okay, these are the main kind of core things that we want our students to learn. What I would do is I would kind of sprinkle those throughout the year, kind of kind of space them out.

00:03:39:26 - 00:04:06:25
Nick Clason
Right? And so I'll just give you a quick snapshot into what we're doing in our student ministry. You know, I'm not trying to say any sort of curriculum. I have a curriculum to sell you, but there are a ton of different resources out there. Why? I'm through 60 so series do you I am has series even have a new thing called co-leader if you haven't checked that out Collider does everything for you, not just your message content but also like your slides and your smog questions and your games and your content in your worship, like it does everything for you.

00:04:06:25 - 00:04:28:02
Nick Clason
It is, and it's much cheaper than some of the other content companies out there, like, say, like an XP three or like an orange. But if you have the budget, you might want to try them out too, because they have a lot of really good resources. So back in September, what we talked about is we actually led the year off starting a few weeks early in August, kind of more like the back to school around August 20th is when our students go back to school in Texas.

00:04:28:05 - 00:04:48:15
Nick Clason
And we did a three ways How to not ruin your school year. That was kind of like our focus and is basically like, if you don't connect with God, if you don't connect with us, if you're not in a small group, right, like those are some of the ways in which you can like ruin your school year. Then we moved on in October and we talked about Elephants In the Room is one of my favorite series that we did.

00:04:48:15 - 00:05:08:02
Nick Clason
We talked about racism and cheating and bullying and some of the bigger kind of like hot topic things. Like everyone know the label. If we don't really address them very often, Then we did a series called Gratitude or Gratitude is your typical Thanksgiving series doing did a Christmas series. And that's one of the tricky things about that's what the tricky things about the scope and sequence is.

00:05:08:02 - 00:05:30:00
Nick Clason
You only really get a few months and then you kind of into your like Thanksgiving and your Christmas kind of vibes. In January, we're doing a series called Kings, and it is exploring four different kings of Israel. We got David, we got Joe Joash, we got real boom and then we got Hezekiah. So everyone knows David, but the other three are a little bit less known and it's about how to make the most of the hand that you're dealt.

00:05:30:02 - 00:05:47:25
Nick Clason
In February, we're going to look at like a biblical literacy type of thing and basically teaching students how to navigate the Bible, how to read it, why it's important, why the Bible should have, you know, ultimate authority in your life. In March, we're going to do a Easter type series, and then we're going to end the year with Faith's biggest questions.

00:05:47:25 - 00:06:07:04
Nick Clason
And we're going to, again, kind of zero in and some more hotter topic type of things. And so that's how we laid out our scope in our sequence. If you look back at any Stanleys, like some of them tie in there, some of them don't, you know, But at the end of the day, like we're trying to give our students a good understanding of how to love God and how to love others.

00:06:07:04 - 00:06:28:21
Nick Clason
But the problem is that we've all been trying to navigate what do we do when our students don't show up to hear what we have to teach them? So what do we do about this attendance conundrum? People are attending church less and less, especially post pandemic. And so I think there really like two things that we need to try and create in our student ministry.

00:06:28:21 - 00:06:48:15
Nick Clason
And these things actually have nothing to do with teaching. But if we create these things, they will enhance our teaching. And the first one is this Students need a place to belong. It's no longer if you build it, they will come. I worked at a large church in Cincinnati. Eric Geiger, who is now the lead pastor at a manchester.

00:06:48:19 - 00:07:08:24
Nick Clason
He was a youth pastor there, and they built the space that I inherited for Eric Geiger. I don't think he ever made it into that building during his tenure there, but there were people that that grew up in Eric's youth ministry, and they said that like that youth ministry was the talk of the town and everyone like to come in and play billiards.

00:07:08:24 - 00:07:30:21
Nick Clason
And so I inherited so many billiards tables and you know, that that's like ultimately a curse because you can't actually move those things. And so that was sort of under the mindset that like if we build it, if we have this thing, they will come. But I think now it's shifting in a more and more digital sort of way, a more digital sort of mindset.

00:07:30:21 - 00:07:51:04
Nick Clason
I think students and teenagers are more thinking like, if my friends are here, then I'll show up, has and listen, you should still do a good job, you should still focus, you should still plan, you should still prep. But I think far less of that has to do anything with what you produce, what you put out there, what your programing and more.

00:07:51:06 - 00:08:12:20
Nick Clason
Are we creating a place for students to belong? I it doesn't really sound very spiritual and no amount of prep on your message is really going to help create some of that. Right? But that really is, I think, the crux of where we find ourselves. That's the first one. The second thing is that students need to have ownership and they will stick and they will stay attached to youth ministry, especially the older they get.

00:08:12:20 - 00:08:36:03
Nick Clason
And once they start getting keys and driver's license and cars, if they feel a sense of ownership of what's going on in our youth ministry. And so for teaching right to be good, you need students to find a place to belong. And you also want to help them find an opportunity to attach and be accessibly owning some of what your student ministry has to offer.

00:08:36:03 - 00:08:57:15
Nick Clason
So as far as your content goes, like you should, you should care about your scope and sequence, you should pray about it, you should think about it, you should pore over it. However, oftentimes that isn't what is keeping sticking and attracting students, right? As far as the content goes, you can preach more than just the one time a week that you live in the room with all of your students.

00:08:57:18 - 00:09:28:27
Nick Clason
Right? And that's why I would say I'd actually make the argument that I think the Internet is better for content delivery. Obviously, community ownership, serving prayer, some of those those are not better on the Internet, but content delivery and teaching can be done on the Internet. And so if students and if people are attending 57% not coming to church during the course of the month, then I want to I want to ask you to consider would you think about the idea of going hybrid?

00:09:28:27 - 00:09:49:09
Nick Clason
And when I say hybrid, I'm not just talking about only your online presence. I'm not just talking about only your in-person presence. I'm talking about a melding of the two. What can you produce? What can you put out there digitally? What kind of teaching content can you create? Can you do more podcasts? Can you do smaller bite sized social media, short type things?

00:09:49:11 - 00:10:14:04
Nick Clason
I have a fully laid out strategy right here linked down below in my completely free e-book, and that will help you be able to focus on the belonging and the ownership pieces and still deliver content. Because we need students to have content, We need students to learn things. We need students to be disabled. But the only way in which are disabled does not have to be live and in the room.

00:10:14:07 - 00:10:34:04
Nick Clason
So as I said at the beginning, what is the ultimate number one thing that we need from our students is this is we need to help create for them a meaningful attach statement to Jesus. And when you choose to go hybrid, you can offer all of this content, all the content that you want in the world, paired with a warm community.

00:10:34:04 - 00:10:59:01
Nick Clason
And that really is the best of both worlds. Your environment matters, which is why I think the way in which we approach programing and games is such a crucial component of youth ministry, especially in the face of this mental health crisis that we're all facing with teenagers helping students be able to laugh. And that video is linked right here on the screen because we're making digital discipleship not only easy, but also accessible.

00:10:59:01 - 00:11:02:28
Nick Clason
So as always, don't forget stay hybrid.

Episode 069: 🍩 Ultimate Youth Group Guide: Crush Games, Outreach & Social all in one! 🔥

Nick Clason — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0500

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

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

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut
DYM: https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/world%27s-greatest-donut/games/food-8745.html

☝️ONE-CLICK SOLUTION FOR REELS & SHORTS
OPUS FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
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DESCRIPTION
👋 Welcome to the Ultimate Youth Group Guide! In this exciting video, we'll dive into the power of Crush Games, Outreach initiatives, and Social Events to empower and inspire the youth.🔥

🍩 Crush Games:
Engage your youth group with thrilling Games that will ignite their enthusiasm and foster healthy competition. From exhilarating challenges to team-building activities, our guide provides all the essential tips and game ideas to keep the energy high and the fun rolling.

🌍 Outreach Initiatives:
Make a lasting impact on your community through meaningful outreach initiatives. Discover effective strategies to help your youth group connect with and support those in need. By stepping outside their comfort zones, the youth will learn valuable lessons about compassion, empathy, and making a difference in the lives of others.

👥 Social Media Events:
Creating a sense of belonging and friendship within your youth group via social media! This will help Hybridize your Ministry from your in person gathering to your student ministry social media

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

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

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

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

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

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
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OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS

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👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/069

//Full YouTube Video
https://youtu.be/5ryhkIRyDb4

//STUDENT MINISTRY BRACKET OF EPIC THINGS
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-student-ministry-bracket-of-epic-things/games-3974.html

//GAMEDAY FOOD BRACKET
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-big-game-food-bracket/winter/the-big-game-8544.html

//DONUT SHOWDOWN GAME
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-donut-showdown/games-4142.html

//FULL YOUTUBE STRATEGY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxepdu4iiM

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-01:45 The Best Hybrid Youth Ministry Event Out There!
01:45-09:30 The History of This Hybrid Ministry Event
09:30-17:42 Pre-Event Planning and Setup

17:42-28:21 The Debrief of the Event from Start to Finish

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
Youth ministry games, social media outreach events, ah, there's just so much to do and if you're anything like me, you have layer upon layer upon layer of responsibility. You need to come up with an amazing and exciting game. You need to knock social media out of the park and you need an outreach event that is going to cater to your students friends and outsiders who are far from God and from the church. How do you prioritize? And then if you do do all those things, how do you not just give your family and your people that you love the scraps and the left over pieces of your energy? What if I told you that I had the ultimate event guide, one that's going to crush it with games, an amazing outreach experience, and it's going to lean into social media for your student ministry, all of that encapsulated in one event.

Nick Clason (00:55):
See, we actually just had an event that accomplished all those things, one with an incredible amount of games and an amazing in-room experience, one that gave students an amazing opportunity to invite their friends and it crushed on social media. Better yet, we had 23% of our attenders be first time or new students who joined us. And finally, not only do we increase engagement, but we also added new followers to our social media. It is honestly one of the best versions in my opinion, of a hybrid style event. And when I say hybrid event, it's more dynamic and it's more robust than just another Zoom Bible study. I know it sounds too good to be true, right? Well, let me show you. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show in the ultimate Event guide. I came up with this idea probably in my second or third year of doing youth ministry, and now I am a 13 year youth ministry veteran.

Nick Clason (01:58):
So this idea dawned on me years and years and years and years ago, and one of the things that has honestly just been super clear to me all the way back to the beginning times of my time in student ministry is the fact that hybrid matters. And when I mean hybrid, I don't mean only focusing on your in-person. I don't mean only focusing on your digital. I mean taking those two things and creating a space for there to be opportunity to reach and connect with your people beyond the hour of programming that you have for your in-person service, which is actually the reason why I just dropped this video going to be up here on the screen. You can feel free to click that where we explore and talk about the future of church ministry, especially through the eyes and through the lens of digital and hybrid.

Nick Clason (02:41):
If you're interested, hop over into that. But about 10 years ago is when I had this idea for what I call a bracket, and I'm a huge March Madness fan, college basketball. I love the selection committees. And if you're not a sports fan, essentially what they do is they create rankings or seedings, so to speak. And so there are four regions and each region has a one seed. Each region has a two seed, each region has a three seed and so on down all the way down to 16, and then the one seed plays the 16 seed. Usually a pretty easy matchup only in the history of the NCAA tournament has one 16 seed upset, a one seed. The 15 plays the two, the 14 plays the three and so on and so forth. And they're in various spots. So the one 16 are up here and the two and the 15 are down here in the bracket so that eventually they wait until the very last chance for the one and the two to eventually play.

Nick Clason (03:34):
Then once all the teams get out of those brackets, that creates your final four one winner from each region they play in Final four matchup and then the winners of each side of that end up meeting in the middle in the championship. And so I was like, this would be fun to lean in to March Madness. And so I just created a bracket out of my head. I was like, let's do little Debbie hostess cakes, and then I put one of my student ministry leaders, shout out to Aaron Koontz back in Beaver Creek, Ohio, and I did one of our favorite events, dare to Share. I put Dare to Share in there, and so students would vote on a thing versus another thing, and it was so totally random, but I offered it just as an online thing. This is before I had an Instagram.

Nick Clason (04:17):
This is before Instagram even had the poll feature, but I kept doing this. The one time I submitted an option called a Bracket of Awesome Things to Download Youth Ministry. This was probably like eight, 10 years ago at this point. My number one seed was Chip and Johanna Gaines and just leaning into the hype that they had with the Fixer Upper and H G T V movement back then. But I just kept honing in and creating this. And I remember one time I made a Christmas movie bracket. I had become in charge at my last church of social media and I just threw it together. I was running out of ideas of things to post. I was in charge of something like two or three posts per day, multiple days per week. And I was like, let's do a bracket. And I launched it and I was on a team at that time of six or seven other youth pastors, staff members, and the team went nuts.

Nick Clason (05:12):
I made Elf the number one seed and then I made white Christmas the 16th seed, and I had some diehard white Christmas fans dropping the comment below what your favorite Christmas movie is, and if it's white Christmas, I'm sorry, you're wrong. It's terrible. But that being said, they were livid and they were mad at how I sourced it and how I came up with the seeding, which by the way, side note just was in my head and they wanted a redo. And so we launched this event called something about a serial bracket. I can't remember what we can't remember the exact name of what we called it, but we had back at that last church, we had a full YouTube show. So we set up SportsCenter style desks and anchors. We all wore jerseys and we did analysis and we kicked it over to sideline reporters and we announced the seatings.

Nick Clason (06:03):
We announced the matchups, and then while when that show launched live on YouTube, people could hop over to our Instagram and they could vote. And what happened was the senior leadership must not have had anything to announce that week, and so they announced our show that week. And so we were like, man, we need to turn this into something. At that time, it was Christmas break, we weren't meeting, so it was just going to live as a thing online on our YouTube channel, but because it got announced, we're like, we need to capitalize on this just a little bit more. And so we offered, and this is

Nick Clason (06:36):
In the height of Covid, so we're not doing a lot of in-person connection with other people. If we were, it had to be masked. I mean it was awful, but it was January just after Christmas 2021 and we're like, let's do a drive-in. Kids can come watch it on their phones. Or you know what? Actually maybe we bought big old screens that they could watch, and then we did a FM tuner thing. They could listen to it in their car radio. So I don't know, we probably had 10 to 20 cars show up, not a ton. And we bought so much serial, we went to Sam's and we looted that place and then it was like negative 10 degrees. And so me and my other leaders, we have giant coats on, we're walking car to car, passing out cereal, passing out milk. But that was the inception.

Nick Clason (07:28):
That was one of the inception points of this idea of a bracket. And what it does in my mind is it creates some sort of event around an in-person topic cereal. The one that I'm going to explain to you today is donuts and I like to kind of hone in. Yeah, that's what I've done over the years. I've honed in on a specific topic. We've also done this with drinks like World's greatest drink, world's greatest donut cereal madness. This coming march, we're planning on doing a potato one called Starch Madness. And so it creates that event, but the reason I like it is that it marries your social media because all the voting happens online

Nick Clason (08:04):
With an in-person event. It is the ultimate style hybrid event in my opinion. And I know that I've had people who are like, when you mean hybrid, what are you talking about? And they just think we're just talking about Zoom groups and it's more than that. And so we hosted this event at our church. Like I said in the intro, we had 23% newcomers, we had multiple new people added to following us on social media, and it's creating some sort of hype and some sort of buzz around our student ministry. There are so many benefits and values to it. And so what I want to do is honestly just walk you through the pre-planning, the actual event. I'm going to share with you the planning center document of it, and then give you just kind of a recap about why it's valuable, why we're going to keep doing it, and how you can take something like that and adapt it into your student and social ministry.

Nick Clason (08:52):
If so far you've found this episode helpful, though alike would cost you nothing and would really mean the world to us even more. A subscribe is really a next level opportunity to just engage back with us. Either one of those two things like subscribe would mean the world to us and we would love to connect with you further and deeper because more than just donuts, more than just brackets, we are talking about this world of not just physical, not just digital, but hybrid ministry. So let's move on and let's hop in to the setup and the event planning, the pre-event side of this event that I'm talking about, the world's greatest donut. So we know, we knew that we wanted to do this voting style event around donuts that would last around a month. The way I set it up is I will do round one.

Nick Clason (09:42):
We have a Wednesday night and then a Sunday morning in our environment, and so the voting is going to be live on a Wednesday. They'll vote on the topics and the rounds, and so round one we do all the voting. So that's where Instagram and the stories, that's where the most decisions need to be made. So because of that in round one, then we will announce the winners on Sunday, and then we will resume voting the following Wednesday for the Elite eight. We'll announce the following Sunday of the winners of that, and then we'll move to the final floor when there's the most activity, when there's all the contestants are still alive, no one's been eliminated yet. That's round one. And that to me is the most exciting time for the actual bracket. So because the actual bracket is exciting at that time, that's when we decided to lean into an event.

Nick Clason (10:31):
So we knew we had this bracket. In fact, I created this resource. It's a link in the description on Download youth ministry on the world's greatest donut bracket. It's on there right now. Feel free to go grab it. It's got all of the digital elements and it's got a few games in there, but not all of what I'm about to share with you. So make sure that you hang around to the rest of this video. However, we knew we wanted to do an event centered or a month centered around voting, and then we wanted the first night, the kickoff night to be a big deal. And so the question kind of always is do you focus on the kickoff of the bracket or do you focus more on the championship round of the bracket? I've found the beginning to be more exciting. Like I said, we did a cereal bracket most recently here at this church, and we have in our space, we have eight different garage door bays that lined the side left and right of our meeting space.

Nick Clason (11:26):
That's actually where our small groups meet on Sunday morning. Those doors are up, they go in there and then they close down, creates little rooms for all of them. It's really cool design. Sometimes it also makes 'em feel like caged animals, but nonetheless, we did an event back in March where we voted on serial and we had the one in 16 matchup in one bay. We had the three and 14 matchup in another bay. We had the eight and nine matchup in another bay. And so all the bay doors came up. There were tables in there with basketball themed tablecloths on and then cereal boxes with a number pasted on it, one versus 16, and then all the bowls of cereal there. And so as we're wrapping up our programming, we had adult leaders sitting in there pouring milk into each of the bowls so that students could grab that and then they could go eat and just literally had one kid eat 16 or 25 bowls of cereal that night, tried every single one of the things in the matchup.

Nick Clason (12:19):
So that was a super fun way to just kind of lean into the kickoff portion. And so we had that same question. Now we have donuts and what are we going to do? And so in our space where we have tables, and so we ended up deciding to buy a little half fishbowl things. All the supplies by the way, are going to be linked in the comments below, in the description below. Make sure you check that out. But we had little fishbowl things, half fishbowl things sort of decorative. It's not like a fishbowl where the tops right there, but it's like off to the side a little bit. And we filled each table with donut holes. We ordered several dozen donut holes, and that's what we did. We went donut holes instead of actual donuts. It's cheaper. It's also quicker. You can pop 'em into your mouth as opposed to committing to an entire donut.

Nick Clason (13:04):
And so we have 16 round tables, and so every table had a tablecloth and every table had a vase full of donuts. That was our decision to supply the donuts without breaking the bank on the budget. Don't get me wrong, it was still expensive, but it's less expensive than a dozen donuts per table or something like that. So we had donuts on every table, and then one of my favorite elements or pieces of the event is we bought a giant vase and then we filled it with donuts. We counted 233 donuts that we filled into this vase. The funny part was that we put the donuts in and then the weight of the donuts actually started to smash 'em down, and so it was full, and then the weight of the donuts started smashing 'em down. So there was a gap. So we actually had to go back and add more donuts at the end.

Nick Clason (13:48):
So I don't even want to know what the bottom donuts looked like. They probably were a little mini pancakes, but we let students vote simply, how many donuts do you think are in here? We had a Google form for that. They shot it with a QR code on their phone. We also had an iPad set up where they could just type in a Google form. All we got was their name and their number, but if you have a marketing brain or a marketing department, you can use that to capture an email and start to create a little list and start to market to those people as well. That's another kind of next level tip if you want to lean into something like that. But then it also made it easy to just have it all dumped into a Google sheet and I could command F find the closest number.

Nick Clason (14:32):
And so one person, we had 2 33 in the thing and one girl guessed 2 32, so she won it, and this little sixth grade girl carried out this giant vase of donuts and it was hers. She got to take it with her, she got to keep it. She got to bring it in her car with her. Then the actual bracket side of things, we printed, because we are doing this so much, we printed a generic bracket on a giant vinyl banner. When you walk into our space, we have a big window with an indoor half kind of sports court right there on the other side of it. And so for the cereal bracket, I took gaff tape and I taped out a bracket and then I pasted or taped the cereal to the window. But this time around we're like, what if we just print a vinyl banner and then we can swap out whatever we're voting on at that time?

Nick Clason (15:24):
So we made the investment on the front side knowing that we're going to do this. We love these style of hybrid events in our ministry, so we bought the big banner. It fit perfectly in our space. I can drop the artwork for that in the description, but it's going to vary a little bit for my ministry. Your ministry. It's also got our logo on it, but you can find any bracket online, any generic non-branded bracket online, add it, print it, make it into a banner if that's something that you want to do. What it does for us is when you walk in, it immediately draws your attention. It's not there most of the year. And so when it's there, you're like, oh, it's different. And then people know and notice that there's a bracket going on, there's a voting happening. And the other crazy thing is that people get really into it on their opinions.

Nick Clason (16:17):
What things are seeded? How such and such donut beat that donut. For example, the beignet took down, what did it take down? The chocolate cream filled donut lost to a beignet. I think beignets are good, but are they the best? I don't think so. And I think they're super kind of niche and they're really just, honestly, they're like funnel cake. And so anyway, that giant bracket in our actual space, we also allow, because we have a lot of students, a lot of kids, young kids that don't have social media yet, we allow them to vote on a paper bracket as an additional means to let their voice be heard. We got donut shirts for all of the staff and we all wore them. And so that was kind of like the event setup space. In addition to that, we had some donut balloons blown up and kind of scattered throughout the lobby.

Nick Clason (17:13):
So they walked in. On the left was the big V to vote, regular check-in, back behind check-in was the banner with the voting and the brackets printed out and people could let their voice be heard that way. So now let's dive into the rest of the event. I'm going to put the planning center event sheet right here. We're going to walk through it and I'm just going to explain to you what we did, why we did it, and just my thoughts on it, and feel free to take and adapt any of it to your ministry. So all the setups done, students are walking in. We had a countdown, which if you buy my product on Download Youth ministry, it will come with a specific donut themed and then a specific donut themed five minute countdown that I created with just random facts and stuff like that.

Nick Clason (18:00):
So that was what was playing on our TV and our screens all throughout our space. And when the time hit zero, myself and my boss, Darren, we were both on stage and we were hyping up the crowd, welcoming people, letting them know that voting had been live all day on Instagram. We were letting them know who was winning what matchup students could with the screen behind us. We then had a screen that said, voting is live now with a QR code. They could shoot that and take it to Instagram. I think we gained three to six or something like that. New followers on our Instagram, not a ton, but still some students who were. So we had 23% new students. So we're introducing our students to our Instagram, and if any of them are into this idea now they're following us. So now we have them on our Instagram opportunity to reach out to them, but we just did some like, Hey, here's what's going on.

Nick Clason (18:52):
Here's the bracket, explaining what a bracket is. It's going to be lasting for a month, but it's all about you and your voice and letting your voice be heard and voting is live on Instagram every single Wednesday. We also kind of teased our next series, which we're talking about big issues, elephants in the room that we often don't want to address. So we use that moment to sort of tease the topic. We didn't spend a lot of time on that. And also we had a message drop, if you've heard me before, link in the description of my full YouTube strategy, but we've our messages. And so we had a message live on YouTube, but we didn't do live teaching that night. You can do that. It's your call. It's philosophical decision for an event like this. We like to kind of pull the teaching and let this be a truly invite night, a truly bring your friends style event style night.

Nick Clason (19:41):
And then we did a bunch of door prizes and giveaways. Now, here's how I do this. I use Sidekick through Download Youth Ministry. I created a little slide, I'll drop the slide into the link down below that I've referenced before and it says World's Greatest Donut, and that says You're about to win something, dude with Little Arrow pointed up and then all their names filter through. Here's how we got the names. Every single student who checked in, we created a People search, a save search in C C B Church Community Builder. That's any student who's not a leader that has checked in within the last day. And so whenever I go into that, especially if an event has started it's live, I click refresh and it populates every single student who has checked in to our student ministry within the last 24 hours. And so since we didn't have an event on Tuesday, I know that anyone who's checked in is now here on Wednesday night.

Nick Clason (20:32):
So that list is not just going to be a random full mailing list of all of our students going to be the actual live dynamic list of the students in our event space. Figure that out in your church database system, but find some way to capture all the info of the students that are actually in your space. Now, downloaded that into a C S V, copied it, pasted it into Sidekick, and then boom, we had all the names they're filtering through and we're giving away some door prizes. So what we gave away was a donut blanket that's like the shape of a circle. We gave away a little mini donut maker. We gave away donut key chain. We gave away little rubber donuts. I almost think they were like dog toys. I think we bought them for something else and we forgot. And so we just ended up giving them away.

Nick Clason (21:14):
And what else we give away? I can't remember. But we gave away six different things, just kind of like, Hey, you won and now you won. Now you won. Kids were going nuts for it. They were excited for it. And then I had this big old pillow, this big of a donut pillow, and I was like, who wants this? And the room's going crazy. I'm like, you have a chance to win it later. And so I kind of teased that, but then we're like, Hey, we got worship. So we had two hype songs. Again, philosophically not my favorite, but our students love worship and have been clamoring for it, and we haven't had it regularly for the last year. And just our worship department, which is how our church navigates it, the worship department handles all worship for all of our different ministries. So they do it for kids and students and adults.

Nick Clason (21:58):
And so we hadn't had worship. Worship was just now able to accommodate our desire to have it more regularly. And so since we started the week before, we decided not to pull the plug on it, just let it go. So we asked them for two hype songs. They sung here in your house. They sang glorious day, and then we played a donut game. And this one, full disclosure, I didn't even make. I got it off of D Y M, the Donut Showdown, a couple different people. We have myself, my boss, we have a resident, and then two interns. So there's five of us that we can kind of cycle through on the stage. And so my boss, Darren and one of our interns, Eli, they got up and they ran the donut showdown and then the winning table, because remember I said we have 16 tables.

Nick Clason (22:38):
They got a box of donuts that are more expensive, like bougie box of donuts from one of those bougie donut shops. We bought three of those, one for the winner this game, one for the winner, the next game, and then one box for our leaders in our leader lounge. So they kept track of their answers on whiteboards, and then off they went. The winning team got that. Then we created a 15 second donut on a string bumper. My resident created it. Shout out to Caleb, ADA. And then Caleb and Kaylee came out and they ran the classic Eat a donut on a string without your hands being tied. So that's another box of donuts or maybe two that we bought. Just glazed donuts just for the donut on a string game. They had to get one holder and one eater from each table. So we had 32 people come up front to the stage.

Nick Clason (23:28):
We have 16 tables, so 16 eaters, 16 holders that went on the stage, held the donuts, and then the first person to eat the full donut without using their hands. They also win a box of boujee donuts for their table. And then at that point, I hopped back up and I gave instructions for a guided rec time. And so what we did was they could go to our cafe and decorate cake donuts. So that's another set of donuts that we bought, probably three to four, I dunno, maybe even five dozen, just like unglazed cake donuts. But then we bought frosting and sprinkles and things like that. So we allowed students to have a space to decorate donuts on their own. We also offered a game called Find the Donut. That's where I gave away my big donut thing. And what I did for that was I had seven clues of things that they could do, and so they could get any of the seven clues in whatever order they wanted, but it was a speed thing, so they'd grab a clue.

Nick Clason (24:21):
I typed it out, put it on a little piece of paper. I made it into a Word doc where it was like four on 1, 2, 3, 4 on a word doc. So I could cut the word doc up and down side to side and then have four off of one full sheet of paper. And so then I printed 10 of the first clue and then cut it. And that got me 40 clues or whatever. So it was like, Hey, some of the clues were ways to get them to go interact with our staff. So go ask Darren what his favorite donut is. Go ask Kaylee what her favorite donut is. One of the stations that we created during this guided rec time was a temporary tattoo station, so go get a tattoo from the temporary tattoo station. Another one of 'em was to encourage them to go towards our YouTube channel or answer questions from last week's message.

Nick Clason (25:06):
And if they didn't know, it was like the answer's on YouTube so it would get them onto our YouTube channel, all that type of stuff, trying to again, hybridize it, right? So they'd grab a clue, they'd read it, and then they'd go do the thing. One of the clues was prove that you voted. So if they hadn't voted yet, they had to go fill out a paper bracket or show me they casted their vote via their phone via Instagram. And then the last and final station of guided rec was the tattoo station, as I had mentioned and alluded to, by the way, the first students come back with all seven of their clues completed. They won that giant donut. And then the last thing that they could do is they could continue to make their guests for the VAs of donuts. And then just the general rec stuff that we have.

Nick Clason (25:50):
We have a game room with nine square foosball pool and just kind of like a hangout space. And some students kind of opted into that, but there were five to six options and we gave them about 30 minutes to just do whatever they wanted. They could go do one thing the whole time, they could try and do all the things. I had one student who was like, I'm going to try and do all the things. And from that event, actually, I kind of thought and decided, what if we created a passport or a frequent flyer kind of option to let students try different things when we have a guided rec type of moment? I dunno, just an idea. Then at six 50, we called everybody back into our space. We announced the winner, sixth grade girl who won the vass of Donuts. We let them know about what Sunday morning was going to be, and then that was our final word, and we were like, Hey, thanks so much for hanging out.

Nick Clason (26:39):
Thanks for playing. We will see you next time. Love you guys. Peace, love and crabs. I think that's like a Joe's Crab Shack thing. I'm not sure. Right? All in all, I think this was a great event. Frankly, it's one of my favorite hybrid style events. And again, I remember one time I was talking about hybrid on my social, all links to my socials down the description below. But my sister was like, what do you mean by hybrid? Do you just mean zoom groups? And I can mean zoom groups, right? But this is what I mean when I talk about hybrid. I mean, create an event for one thing, and that's the thing. World's greatest donut. Linking the description to my D Y N product was already created for a voting a month worth of voting on Instagram and on your socials. Then we just said, what if we take that concept and then just craft a month around it and then craft an invite outreach event around it, and then boom, we just had donuts, we leaned in, and that's all the things that we did for it.

Nick Clason (27:35):
The point of this is not just to create vanity metrics, both in our physical space and also in our digital space with followers and whatnot, but the point of it is to step in to the space where students find themselves in 2023, right? It's like a digital mall. In fact, I have a completely free resource to help you navigate that digital mall. It's my done for you Surefire Resource 40 done for You events. On this video right here, it's going to show up on the screen what every youth ministry needs to be focusing on. I also have a video talking about a digital mall and incarnation ministry. So I'd love for you to check those things out. But until next time, we're making digital discipleship easy and accessible, and as always, stay hybrid.

Episode 067: 🔮 The Future of Church Youth Ministry 🔮

Nick Clason — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0500

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

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

🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100

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DESCRIPTION
⛪ In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show we want to explore the Future of Youth Ministry in the Local Church.
We’re going to lean into the idea, and namesake of our show, and truly unpack the idea of: “Hybrid Ministry”

😡 Additionally, I’m going to answer the question: Does God Hate Social Media?

👌 And give you 3 Practical Tips that you can begin implementing into your student ministry space: TODAY

🔓The Church needs to unlock & unleash the next generation.
They are the church of now.
And Gone are the days of the one-size-fits all approaches to youth ministries.

🎨 It’s about learning and finding where youth people are, embracing diversity and creativity.

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

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

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"

https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

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

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

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

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS

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

👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/067

//BRACKETS
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-big-game-food-bracket/winter/the-big-game-8544.html
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/world%27s-greatest-donut/games/food-8745.html
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-student-ministry-bracket-of-epic-things/games-3974.html

//SCULPT IT
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/sculpt-it/games/humor-8503.html

//SOCIAL CHALLENGE PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYRk3l4M-4&list=PL_FbsNmRvDjempodvm_5FsqwakX6OidCd

//SPIRITUAL RESOURCES
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/l6cp97ufmwn8gfpfkxbte/h?rlkey=s5hb09c6d6x1u9iqcdz5j1aya&dl=0

//DUCK, DUCK, TRIVIA

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duck-duck-trivia/trivia-8705.html

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:03 The Future of Church Youth Ministry
02:03-09:08 What does Hybrid Ministry mean?
09:08-17:29 The Biblical Basis for Digital Expressions of Church
17:29-29:48 3 Ways to Invest in your Online Presence

29:48-36:25 The Challenge of a Strong Digital Presence

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
In this episode, we are going to be exploring the question, does God hate us using social media? We're also going to be looking at unpacking and exploring and talking about the future of the church and the future of youth ministry. And finally, we are going to help lean into this idea of hybrid ministry. What is it? How do we implement it? What are the downsides of it? And lastly, we are going to offer three practical tips to help you win in your church and in your student ministry. And as always, there will be game ideas because that's just a part of the thing. The church is at this crossroads where they need to look at unlock and unleash the next generation because the next generation is the church of today, not the church of the future. Gone are the days of the one size fits all youth ministries, and so we need to help explore and unlock for you what's going to work in your context.

Nick Clason (01:03):
It's about us learning diversity, creativity, and leaning into the individuality of each and every one of our students, and to help do that, to help lean into the creativity. This is why I believe that the digital space is such a great opportunity for us. In fact, I have a done for you resource if you are just kind of floundering and have no idea where to go, and that's what we talked about in this video that's going to be linked right here at the top of the screen, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube because we are going to help you navigate the best social media to go all in on your context as well as give you a free ebook that's linked right down here below in the description to help you navigate social media for your church and for your student ministry. But without any further ado, let's dive into this episode, the future of the church, the future of youth ministry, and what exactly is hybrid ministry.

Nick Clason (02:02):
Let's go. Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. If you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick Clason. I am a almost 13 year youth ministry veteran, currently living and working in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I am on a mission to help churches and youth ministries realize their potential for what they can do with digital ministry and in the digital space. In fact, that's why I have this entire podcast, this entire YouTube channel. In fact, if you didn't know, we are a podcast, so you can check out the show notes for link to our full transcripts@hybridministry.xyz, but you might be asking what even is hybrid ministry? What even does that mean? And it's a little bit of a made up word I would say, but the idea of a hybrid thing, I think about it as a football fan. Think about Teem Hill of the New Orleans Saints, right? He's a hybrid style player. He can play,

Nick Clason (02:59):
He can get under center, he can snap the ball and throw it, but he's also got some kind of tight end skills, some kind of H back type skills. Or as an old timey Colts fan, Dallas Clark was a great hybrid or H back style of player. He didn't fit into a one size fits all mold. And that's really my heart behind what I think hybrid ministry is another really great example. I've used it before, so if you're a long time listener, you've maybe heard it, but the idea of Home Depot when I am a customer, I am a customer of Home Depot and so if on any given Saturday I'm just feeling Super dad and I want to throw on my cargo shorts and my new balance shoes and just go peruse the aisles of Home Depot, I can do that. I can experience Home Depot in a physical sense.

Nick Clason (03:47):
However, at the same time, if I don't have time to do that and I just want to place an order online, I can jump on their app and I can do that as well. But the third option is probably my favorite is a hybrid relationship with Home Depot where I grab my cell phone, I download their app while I'm in the store, I search for the thing I need, it tells me the exact aisle and bay number and location of my thing and I can walk straight there. I have a digital relationship with Home Depot while I am physically in the store at the physical location. And I think in a lot of cases that's the way that our churches need to start just thinking about because in a lot of times, especially with Covid, we did not have the physical as an option. And so we all moved to digital and it was an amazing opportunity.

Nick Clason (04:41):
I think a lot of churches learned a lot. I think a lot of churches are still doing things now as a result of what happened during the pandemic, but now as restrictions have lifted and people have gone more and more back into church on a regular basis, churches have been like that stunk. Let's go back to what we know and there is so much value in what can happen in an interpersonal relationship. Please, I want you to hear that from me. I want you to know my heart, but I also believe that, I mean, you know this right there are 168 hours per week in any given week, but most churches really only focus on the one or two hours that you have a programmed scheduled event. It's like the evening news or it's, it's like sitcom appointment television. If you want to know what's going on in this series, then you better be here at 10:30 AM and that's the only time that you're ever going to know what we're talking about.

Nick Clason (05:37):
And honestly, let's be honest, churches, that is a really selfish and kind of vain approach. The only way for people to grow is to make your thing appointment calendaring in their life, and that's just not the world that we live in anymore. You're going to have people do that and because you do have some people do that, you think everybody should adopt that approach. Meanwhile, there are people who do want to grow in their faith and do want to have a relationship with you and your church. However, their schedule may not allow for it. Like I know this coming Saturday we are hosting a national day of youth ministry volunteer training by D Y M, shout out d y m, but the problem is my boys have their very first game of T-ball and so unfortunately my wife can't, as a super rockstar volunteer that she is, she's not going to be able to make a portion of that training.

Nick Clason (06:29):
Does that mean that she doesn't care about youth ministry and teenagers and her role in our church? Not at all. She's busy. She's got something else going on and so we always have to think and accommodate for that. And I think a lot of times churches are just like, you need to prioritize this. And that's true. Hearing me say that I believe that our people need to prioritize the things of God. However, I also believe that we are now in a time and in a space in 2023 and beyond where we can offer things to people that they can consume, that they can learn, that they can come to understand, that they can gather teachings about the importance of what our church is doing, what our church is offering in a hybrid type of moment. They have an in-person relationship with our church, but they can lean into the digital and I think a lot of churches are approaching digital as the outreach arm and that's really all it does.

Nick Clason (07:24):
And then once you've come and decided to commit to the church, then you have to shift to completely in person. And I just want to tell you, I don't live that way. I got a speeding ticket last week. It was awful. I was going way too fast in zone. That should have been a much faster speed limit, but it's a speed trap. And after paying a $346 yesterday, I had the option to call to go in person or to go online to remedy that. Guess which option I chose? Just like all of you, I chose the online option. If there's a way to do it where it can be more convenient and it doesn't hinder the relationship, and I think that's what we need to do. So hybrid, it's not just about in-person or it's not just about digital. It's about finding a way to marry those two environments so that people can have a holistic and much more robust relationship with your church.

Nick Clason (08:24):
Hey, listen, I hope you're getting value out of this video and we're going to continue on and we have all kinds of other videos like this, and so it would be incredible if you hit the subscribe button so that you get notified every single time we drop a video like this and listen, it costs you nothing but a really does help us out. So if you would like this video and maybe even share this along with a friend or someone else that you know who's a youth pastor or a church communications person because we are on a mission to help churches lean into the hybrid side of their ministry. But let's move on. Let's answer next question. Does God hate social media and what is there if, is there a biblical basis for leaning into digital and hybrid ministry? Let's check it out. So I know a lot of pastors, I know a lot of people, I know a lot of leaders who encourage people to lean away from digital media, social media as a means of discipleship and a means of growth.

Nick Clason (09:23):
And I think in a lot of cases that that's really a healthy practice for a lot of people. I think with unfettered, unfiltered access to just doom scrolling social media time and time and time and time and time again, which I actually didn't mean to turn. Oh look, there's me. I didn't mean to turn my phone on doing that, but when people just do that over and over and over again, I know that it is not healthy. There are some definite downfalls and some definite payrolls to doing that. However, I also know that I need this thing to keep track of my calendar. I need that thing to read email. I need that thing to track my receipts. I need that thing to get me somewhere in a turn by turn. G P SS navigation system. That thing right there is where my wife and Mike's grocery list lives.

Nick Clason (10:14):
It lives in a digital format on our phone that we both have access to like a shared list. And so this thing is going nowhere. And so instead of just coaching people to throw it in the fire and be done with it, while that may be what some people need to do, I think we also need to begin to think about how can we help coach people through having a cell phone? Yes, there are bad and evil things on cell phones. If you have a teenage boy, a teenage girl, the pitfalls of pornography and what is available to them in their pocket at any given moment is dangerous. However, that's not going anywhere for them and unless mom and dad want to rip that away from them, they are going to have a cell phone. So how do we help them walk through and wade through the difficulties of that reality while also realizing that in many cases this is a necessary commodity for most people in America in 2023 and beyond?

Nick Clason (11:22):
I do actually believe that the Bible speaks about this and one of my favorite kind of passages of it, obviously it's not directly talking about cell phones and digital media because that didn't exist, but the principle I do believe exists. So in Jeremiah chapter 29, which is everyone's favorite bookstore, Bible verse Jeremiah 29 11, we're going to read it here in just a second, but actually starting in verse five is where we're going to start reading so that you for perhaps the first time in your life can get to hear Jeremiah 29 11 in its full context. But Jeremiah is writing to the Babylonian people who are in exile in, or I'm sorry, he's running to the Jewish people who are in exile in Babylon. So God's people are in a foreign land and he addresses their concerns. Here's what he says. I want you to build homes.

Nick Clason (12:16):
I want you to plan to stay. I want you to plant gardens, eat the food that they produce, marry and have children, and then find spouses for them so that they may have many grandchildren. Multiply, don't dwindle away and work for the peace and the prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare and it will determine then ultimately your welfare. Verse eight says, this is what the Lord of the heavens armies, the God of Israel says, do not let your prophets and fortune tellers, tellers who are with you in Babylon trick you do not listen to their dreams because they're telling you lies in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. This is what the Lord says. You'll be in Babylon for 70 years, but then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised and I will bring you home again for I know the plans.

Nick Clason (13:11):
Here it is, guys. Verse 11, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, the plans for good, not for disaster. To give you a future and hope. I think that what God is basically saying in this verse is he's saying, invest in the place in which I have placed you. And he's saying, embrace the things of the land, of the place of the climate, of the context of which I have placed you and to the Jewish people that meant plant gardens, intermarry, have children, have grandchildren, pray for the prosperity of Babylon because that will determine and dictate the prosperity of you and your life. And in a lot of the same ways, I believe that technology is the opportunity for us to enter into a digital landscape and a digital Babylon, so to speak. And so we have the chance to lean into it.

Nick Clason (14:01):
We have the chance to go towards what the people of our day are using and navigating, and we have the chance to redeem it. We have the chance to bring light into it. We have the chance to sprinkle in and even more than just sprinkle, but fully embrace and bring the great message of hope of the gospel into a digital and hybrid space. And most of the times, the pastors that I have interacted with are saying cell phones are bad and evil because most people have really bad habits with it. And so they're saying, so just don't do it. You don't need it. You don't need a digital Bible. Go get your paper Bible. I'm just saying, listen, if you're a youth pastor and you're ministering to a 13 year old who just got a new cell phone, that's really not going to play very well to them.

Nick Clason (14:50):
I'm not saying that we should just cater to people. Discipleship is difficult and often we get the root word discipline from it, and so it's going to require some hard and difficult conversations. But all that being said, we are not going to successfully push people away from it and just I, listen, I get it just because, oh, well, should we cater to bad habits? Absolutely not. But there's a lot of good that can happen on here. Right now, I play fantasy football through my cell phone because of fantasy football. I have connections with people that I have worked with in the past, my family who lives in three continents on this globe. We play fantasy football together and we connect through this. My church staff right now, we have 30 people on our church staff playing fantasy football that I am help kind of spearheading and leading, and that's helping bring about some comradery among our staff.

Nick Clason (15:47):
I read the Bible this morning on the Bible app through a plan that I subscribe to on my phone a lot of times when I don't have, and I read that on my iPad, and if I don't have my iPad, I will read it on my phone. One of my favorite apps on here is the Bible verse memory app, right? My point is that there's a lot of good that can happen through this, and I think we a lot of times want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So let's lean in. Let's teach people how to navigate and make wise decisions and choices as they interact with digital and cell phone media. So the question that you're probably asking then if you're youth pastor, church communications person, is how do I invest in an online presence? What do I do? And I want to let you know before we dive into that, that if any of this is interesting to you, if any of this is ringing a bell, any of this is perking your interest that we have a website, hybridministry.xyz, and this episode is episode 67.

Nick Clason (16:48):
So if you go to hybridministry.xyz slash 0 6 7 link is also down below in the description along with my 43 ideas for how to lean into digital ministry. You can get full transcripts. That's one thing that we provide completely for free in every single episode in case you're out on a run and you're hearing this and you're like, dude, I need some of that. I need to take some notes and filter some of my thoughts around some of what we're listening to in this episode. Great, we got that for you. Link in the description, hybridministry.xyz/067, but let's explore and let's answer and tackle this question. How do you invest into your online presence? I have three ideas for you to help invest more into your online presence. One idea is just up your game in your social media and your digital media presence.

Nick Clason (17:41):
And so that can be all kinds of different things like your social media. Does that mean that your church or your student ministry has a pop Instagram account? I mean maybe, or is it that you launch a relevant YouTube channel maybe? Or is it that you're surfing on the TikTok trends out there on that app? TikTok could be, but whatever it is, there is an opportunity to weave in social media not only to your church attenders, but also to people out there in the world who don't know anything about you, your church or your student ministry. But my ultimate number one recommendation, especially if you're in youth ministry, and if not I still recommend this for a lot of churches, is YouTube. And what I actually have is a link in the description for how you can launch and start a YouTube channel for under $100, which by the way in 2023 is completely unheard of.

Nick Clason (18:33):
So you should definitely get in on that. But what it's going to do is it's going to help you utilize and start a channel simply using your cell phone upping and leveling up your game with some microphone gear and maybe some basic lighting to just get the ball rolling so that you can have a YouTube channel. And the reason why I believe YouTube is such a strong contender is especially if you're a youth pastor, 95% of teenagers claim to use and utilize YouTube. Meanwhile, people are getting on there and think about it, how do you engage and interact with YouTube? You probably hopped on there recently and said, how do I fix this clogged sink in my guest bathroom? Right? People are getting on there and asking specific questions, and while you may be trying to figure out how to unclog your sink, a 13 year old might be saying, why does God send good people like my grandmother to hell?

Nick Clason (19:27):
And you as a youth pastor have an opportunity to address and answer that particular and specific question. Now, tell me that that's not an amazing opportunity. We posted a video on our church's social media, our church's YouTube, the beginning of the school year called How to Ruin Your School Year. I think maybe we did the opposite of it, how to Not Ruin Your School Year, and it got like 150 views, and our audience is really not that big on YouTube. And I mean we have at least 150 students on our role and on our roster, but I know that not all of our students are subscribed to our YouTube are even really paying attention to our YouTube. So those 150 views did not all come from our students. My question is, would you like an opportunity as a youth pastor to have greater kingdom impact than you have currently right now in your local physical context?

Nick Clason (20:21):
Maybe the answer is no, but I would wonder why the answer to that would be no. Sure, you can't nuance and go as deep, dude, that was like a 12 minute video. I had enough ability to flesh things out and flesh out ideas and explain things fully and thoroughly that you might have to leave on the cutting room floor of say, a more short form vertical video-based TikTok or YouTube short or something like that. There is opportunity really there is out there to answer specific questions of teenagers. And YouTube is powered by Google the number one largest search engine of the world, and people consider YouTube to be the second largest search engine in the world. So put answers to the questions that people are going to the second largest search engine in the world in there, trying to get answers to big matters of faith and existential realities.

Nick Clason (21:15):
You have a chance to do that. And like I said, link in the description down here that will help you get your YouTube channel up the ground with just a minimal amount of gear talking head just like this video into a cell phone camera. The other idea, the third idea that I have for you are some hybrid based games if you're in youth ministry, the value of games. But one of my favorite things we do is brackets. So if March madness style, if you're a sports person, you got 64 teams, we'll do a 16 team bracket, we'll rank things kind of arbitrarily with our own sort of value-based ranking system. We have a platypus mascot in our student ministry and that was voted on competing against 16 other animals. So we had a yak and we had a lamb, which was a 16 seed, which almost won and upset the number one seed a lion.

Nick Clason (22:11):
We had a baboon on there, and what ultimately won was the platypus. I think that's the generation of Finn. And for talking one of my favorite brackets, I actually have a couple on download youth ministry. I'll put the link to those in descriptions if you want to go check 'em out or create your own. But we will do a Super Bowl food or big game day food bracket so that students can self-select what foods, what snacks are going to be at the Super Bowl party, and just a couple of weeks at the time of this recording. So probably by the time this drops, it'll be happening live. Feel free to go check it out at Cross Creek students. That's all of our handles on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, but we are going to be launching the world's greatest donut bracket, and it's going to be students selecting the world's greatest donut.

Nick Clason (22:58):
Here's the cool thing though. We just paid for, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars banner to be installed in one of our walls that we can reuse and replicate every single time we run a bracket. We'll probably do two or three of these a year where we can hang it in our physical space. So as students walk in, they'll see it, but then the push is for them to jump on Instagram and cast their vote, jump on social media and let it be known what they're going to be voting for. And so that's a way to be hybrid. We're talking about it, announcing it and making it a big deal in our physical space, and we're giving students even a chance to vote physically on a piece of paper, but then we're also pushing it towards digital media. Those things get a ton of traction in our context.

Nick Clason (23:47):
People talk about it, especially on staff people like which one won? How did you rank that one that it incites a little bit of faux riot. Okay. Another thing is we will do a lot of, we'll do some things called social challenges. I'll link the playlist that we do on that YouTube, but we will grab a couple of students every single Wednesday night, film them on camera, and then post that to YouTube. We'll clip it up into a short, and that'll be something that we can post on shorts as well, but that gives students a chance to compete in certain challenges or taskmaster type challenges. Again, that's a way to use the students in your physical space and promote and pump them up on your digital platforms. And other things you can do game wise is just create some sort of contest where there's a drawing contest or a sculpture contest or a dancing contest or whatever.

Nick Clason (24:42):
You can post those on social media and let people vote, cast their vote. Did you like A or B better, right? Like gingerbread houses or we'll do Plato sculpture things. I have a game on D y M called Sculpt It, and then we've done before. It's really fun. But we post all those on social media and then we let people cast their vote for the winner, and then the next time we get together the next week or that following Sunday, we'll give away a prize to the winning team or the winning table for their contribution in that game. Those are just ways to marry your in-person with your online and make it more hybrid. Make it last beyond the one hour a week that you have your students in your student ministry. Another idea, so that's just upping your digital presence game. And hey, like I said, link in the description for 40 ideas, 40 done for you ideas in vertical, vertical video based content like TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels that you can start adopting now.

Nick Clason (25:39):
And all of those ideas, by the way, are ideas that are recyclable. So for example, you can use the same, I just posted a game. We're calling it telepathy, but you can name it whatever you want to name it. I got it from some guys on YouTube shorts who call it wavelength, but one guy's thinking of a number and another guy's asking him for certain categories of things. So like the one I just posted, they asked for candy sport, clothing brand and day of the week, and then you give an item that is that number that's in your head. So my buddy was thinking of number three, and she said, candy, and he said, black licorice, which I think it's probably lower than a three if you ask me, but that's just me. And then she said, okay, how about sport? And he said, golf.

Nick Clason (26:23):
And then she said, okay, how about sport or athletic wear? And he said, new balance. And then she said, how about day of the week? And he said, Tuesday, she guessed that the number was four, but it was really three in his head, right? That's just a fun game. You can do a little bit of post-production editing if you want, even if you have no editing skills, you can do most of that on your cell phone to make that happen. By the way, I have a complete ebook, another one on how to post a TikTok from scratch. I'll also link that down below in the description. But all these are ways for you to just start taking steps to up your game and your social media. All right, the other idea, what about, so that's digital presence. What about web access, right? Is your website up to date?

Nick Clason (27:03):
That's all I'm asking. Is your website up to date? And there's this idea, do we push info to people or do we ask them to pull it for themselves? And I believe that we should do both, but I believe that you can push info, but people should always know that the answer to every single one of their questions lies on the website. So yes, send that Tuesday email reminding them about the fundraiser coming up on Saturday, but let them know that in the email, Hey, all this info is available on our website so that when Friday night rolls around and the mom and dad are thinking about how to get their kids where they need to go on Saturday, and they know that one of the kids is going to the fundraiser at church, they have to figure out where they are, what time they have to drop them off.

Nick Clason (27:46):
They don't have to go dig back through their email that they've gotten 125 other spam emails between Tuesday and Friday night. They can just go straight to your website. Is your church website up to date? Listen, people live in an on demand world. They're not relying on your email to give them the information that they need. They want to be informed, but then they also, they want to know or to go to get what they need information wise. So make sure your website is up to date. And then the third hybrid idea I have are just simply like individual tools. I'll link a few of these in the description down below. But in our student ministry, like I said, we did a video called Three Ways to Ruin Your School Year, and it was basically don't connect with God. And so in the reverse, we gave them three connections with God ideas, memorizing scripture, reading the Bible, and spending time in prayer.

Nick Clason (28:46):
And we created just a downloadable resource for them to use and utilize on their phone. It also pointed them and push them towards apps or YouVersion, Bible reading plans. So if you want to see some of those, you can check those out. But those are just ideas of things that you can help put in your student's hand. You can print physical copies if you want. You can also offer a digital version of it on your website or in an email download. And if you have an actual communications marketing department, you can put those behind Handshake websites where people have to put their name and email in, and you can use that to start building lists and things like that, which is a really good marketing practice. But if you don't want to know how to do that and you don't have a communications department, you can just put free resources on your website for people to grab, however and whenever.

Nick Clason (29:35):
But what about the challenge? What is difficult about doing this? I hear you on the other side of this video. Don't have time. No way I can do this. Great. We're going to address that in the next section. Look, I get it. This is a lot. And as I'm explaining this, you're like, bro, I don't have time to do any of this. I know it's a lot of work. In fact, there's a tension, an inherent tension that will lie when you choose to enter into a hybrid space. The best example I have is the church I worked at before here. I started out on the very first day of Covid. I don't recommend that as a strategy, but I dunno how any of you can avoid that if you're taking a new job. But because I started on the first day of Covid, the very first thing that I did that we did, that our church did, that our student ministry did was launch a YouTube channel.

Nick Clason (30:23):
Well, they already had a YouTube channel, but launch a YouTube show. We called it unscripted and most churches during Covid, it was a in-person programming, youth ministry replacement. And dude, it was innovative. It was one of a kind. I really did not see a lot of other churches doing a full on show direct to camera, not just camera in the back of the room. There was a lot of power behind it. There was a lot of creative team members, videographers, contractors that were working on it. But then, as you know, slowly covid started to kind of wind down in-person, became more and more of a thing, and we started having more and more students back on campus and back in the room, but unscripted didn't go anywhere. In fact, we wanted to let unscripted serve as the small group teaching element, teaching moment in multiple in-person small group meetings in various host home locations throughout the city that lent itself better for geography.

Nick Clason (31:33):
We were in a mega church, and so a lot of people drove many, many miles to our church. And so we could put houses 20 minutes away from the campus, but closer to where students lived. We could also offer groups on multiple days of the week as students are super, super duper busy. It was a really, really, and because Covid had ushered us into this moment, it allowed us the chance to sort of rethink and reinvent how we disseminated our teaching and got the Bible into the hands of our small group leaders and into the hands of our children. But more and more people were clamoring for on-campus stuff, especially in light of Covid. And so this tension between is this good for the show? Is this good for online? Is this good for YouTube versus is this what's best for in the room? Became this tension and ultimately became insurmountable to the point where the show got canceled.

Nick Clason (32:25):
Now, the downside, the real thing, the real rub you got to answer is we have kids sitting right in front of us every single week. Is YouTube the best strategy for those kids? That's probably got to be your number one priority, but the challenge is that there's going to be a tension between the online and the in-person constantly. And it's going to be so easy when it feels so insurmountable that you just say, forget it. I can't worry about the online anymore. I just got to focus on the in-person. And I don't necessarily have a formula or an answer for you, but what I do know is that there were some times where we did some things where we faced a challenge and we were tempted to just be like, you know what? Forget it. That's not the priority here. And we said, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that.

Nick Clason (33:19):
We're going to lean in and we're going to figure this thing out. And so one of my favorite things, in fact, I have a game that sort of tried to mimic it. It's not as good though because it's not like a full on show with our youth pastors and our personalities, but it's called Duck Duck Trivia, and it's where you play duck, duck goose in a circle. But in the meantime, there's a trivia game happening on the screen. I have it on D y m, but we did a version of it with our show. And anytime you heard a squeak with one of the rubber ducks that we had, people had to get up and play duck, duck goose in the room while also paying attention to the screen and playing trivia. I created a sheet, a downloadable note sheet for them to keep track of and take notes of.

Nick Clason (33:59):
The point I'm making with all that is that there was a way to win in the room and win online, and it was epic. You know what I mean? But you got to spend more time and you got to think outside the box. You can't just throw a four corners game on the screen and be like, that's going to crush on YouTube. It just might not. The other challenge of it is just going to be a time constraints challenge, right? Digital media, video editing, graphic design soaks up a lot of time. And if you're a lone ranger, if you're a one man band, if you're doing this on your own, bro, I get it, you're going to be spending a lot of time on it. Again, the temptation is going to be to just throw it out, throw the baby out with the bath water, don't need it anymore.

Nick Clason (34:42):
But if you lean into it, you can find some good on the other side of the mountain there. The fact is, you just have to value it. Your church has to value it. Your supervisor has to value you spending your time on it and notice and point out and know that it is making a difference, even if it's not seen and felt immediately right away. And that's the, that's the third shadow side. You have to determine your win with this because the payoff for digital is not immediate. And you have to answer questions like, is this to reach outsiders? Is this to serve and help mature our insiders? What is the real reason behind this? But here's my thing, because of what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 29, I do believe we should invest in where we are. So I think out of this video, I'd love to encourage you, I'd even love to hear from you, comment below, but what's one next action step that you're going to take today?

Nick Clason (35:33):
Maybe it's just like, you know what? I'm going to stop just only posting announcement graphics to my Instagram. I'm going to start leaning in a little bit to an Instagram strategy. Maybe it's I'm going to launch a YouTube channel. Hit that link in description, a hundred dollars, YouTube starter kit, whatever the case might be, what is going to be your next step, but just start now. But listen, remember, grab my surefire resource 40 done for you ideas to help you just navigate this link in the description or in the show notes, hybridministry.xyz, and right here, this is why every single church needs a strong digital presence. I flesh it out, I explain it. I give you my strategy in this video. It's linked right here on the screen. Go check that out or go check out this YouTube playlist video teaching you how to start your YouTube channel from scratch. But we're trying to make digital ministry accessible, reachable possible, so don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Episode 061: 📲 Instagram vs. TikTok vs. YouTube. The Most Effective Social Platform for your Church's Youth Ministry 📲

Nick Clason — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0500

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

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

🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

DESCRIPTION
In this episode, join us as we delve into the exciting world of social media platforms and discover which one holds the key to maximizing your church's youth ministry outreach. We'll be breaking down the pros and cons of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, helping you navigate the digital landscape with confidence. Whether you're a youth pastor, a church leader, or simply interested in harnessing the power of social media for positive impact, this episode is tailor-made for you. Get ready to uncover the secrets of engagement, connection, and inspiration as we unveil the most effective platform to elevate your church's youth ministry to new heights.

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

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

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

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/061

//PEW RESEARCH ARTICLE
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/

//6 PART SOCIAL MEDIA FRAMEWORK
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIbzg_DNJrTrCtBHQnxcOVo

//WHY EVER YOUTH MINISTRY NEEDS A STRONG SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
https://youtu.be/SDxepdu4iiM

//MOTION ARRAY
https://motionarray.com/

🕺 TikTok: 🎵

Get ready to dance into the world of TikTok! 🕺 We'll discuss the power of short-form videos in grabbing attention, sparking trends, and spreading your message like wildfire. Learn how to harness the creative energy of TikTok to connect with the youth in ways you never thought possible.

📸 Instagram: 📱

Discover the world of visual storytelling as we explore how Instagram can capture the hearts and minds of the youth. From captivating visuals to real-time interaction, we'll uncover the strategies that can turn your Instagram feed into an inspiration hub for your young audience.

📹 YouTube: 🎥

The long-form champion! 📹 We'll explore how YouTube provides a platform for in-depth content, tutorials, discussions, and live engagement. Join us as we unravel the potential of YouTube to create a library of resources that empowers and educates your young audience.

LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

So, whether you're an #InstaLover, a #TikTokEnthusiast, or a #YouTubeAficionado, this video is your guide to selecting the social platform that aligns perfectly with your church's youth ministry goals. 🌐 Let's make an impact together!

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated on all things Hybrid Ministry. Let's transform the digital space for good! 💙🙌

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

TIMECODES
00:00-02:34 Why Every Youth Ministry Should be Using Social Media
02:34-05:47 Every Youth Ministry Context is a little different
05:47-10:48 The Rise of TikTok
10:48-13:25 Instagram: The Curse of Legacy Followers
13:25-17:25 YouTube: How to Level up your YouTube Game in Youth Ministry
17:25-20:05 The Verdict is in: Which Platform should Youth Ministries be Using

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

Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, in this video we want to answer what is the best social media platform for your youth ministry in 2023? So it's gonna be TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Yeah. Go ahead and hang out in this video because recently Pew Research dropped some stuff that said that 42% of Americans use TikTok. Meanwhile, 71% of Americans use Instagram, and furthermore, 81% of Americans use YouTube. And so in this video, we are going to inspect all three of them, give you the pros and the cons, and then ultimately answer which platform is best for you to dial into in your student ministry in 2023 and beyond. But make sure that you stick around to the very end of this video, because I have a surefire resource that is going to help you win in your social media, in youth ministry. We have a free download to at the very end of the video, so make sure you hang out with that.

Nick Clason (00:51):
Now, you might be asking like, is that research for Americans or is that research for teenagers? And that's a great question because the teenage data is actually a little bit different. And so Pew Research dropped an article about a year ago, in fact, almost a year ago from the date of this recording, uh, where it compared 2014 to 2015 stats all the way to now, uh, the most recent trends and most recent stats. And so interestingly, at the time, uh, YouTube wasn't originally captured as a social media. YouTube as a platform has been around, but it wasn't like converted in people's ideology to social until recently. Meanwhile, Facebook usage in teenagers went down, went from 71% down to 32%. TikTok was on the rise. It's up to 67%, and Instagram's on the rise from 52% up to 60, uh, from 52 up to 62%. Snapchat also was up on the rise along with Instagram.

Nick Clason (01:47):
And so 67% of teens say that they use TikTok ever. Meanwhile, 16% of teens say that they use it, get ready for this. Almost constantly YouTube though, however, does Chop top the charts as, uh, the usage for teenagers at get this, 95% of teenagers say that they are using YouTube. And then now, uh, Instagram and Snapchat, both are next and both used, both are used by about six in 10 teenagers. So that data is quite a bit different, quite frankly, than the original data. And so I'll drop the link to this article so that you can see it, you can read it for yourself. The link is in the show notes, but that's what we're gonna do is we're going to dive into TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Yeah, let's go. Well, everyone, my name is Nick Clason. I'm a youth pastor in the DFW Dallas-Fort Worth area, and I've actually been in youth ministry for believe it or not, 12 and a half years. And I've been managing social media accounts at each of those youth ministry stops in all sorts of various levels of intentionality and all sorts of various levels of, uh, like just know-how. And so what's interesting is when I first started, I viewed

Nick Clason (02:58):
Social media as a way to just get out more information. Like I had an email list and also I had an Instagram following. So Instagram wasn't even around when I started. I launched, uh, my very first Instagram student ministry Instagram page, uh, at the first church that I worked at. But every single church after that, I actually inherited an Instagram account and actually a fairly large Instagram account. However, in most cases, I helped launch a YouTube channel and I also helped create and start a TikTok from scratch. And so that's what I've done within the last year of starting here at the church I'm at now. We launched from scratch a TikTok account and a YouTube account. Instagram of course has been around and you're inheriting all of those followers. And so at just about every single church, I've had some measure of growing, uh, uh, social media ministry, a hybrid ministry and social media and and social networks, right, in all of my context.

Nick Clason (03:52):
And so I'm just curious for you, I would love to know both where you're watching from and what social media network seems to be working best for you. You know what's interesting, drop that in the comments below. But what's interesting is I just moved from Chicago down here to Dallas-Fort Worth and in Chicago, uh, they wouldn't text each other via text message or like standard ss m s messaging. They would really only text people each other, their friends through Snapchat, which was a really interesting phenomenon. And so down here it's not as much the same. Snapchat usage is still happening, but it's not the primary vehicle with which people communicate. And so it just goes to show that wherever you are regionally, it does truly matter and it's a little bit different and the culture and the climate are just a little bit different. So as you're letting us know in the comments below which social media platform seems to be working most in your youth ministry and in your context, you might be asking what does working even really mean?

Nick Clason (04:48):
I mean, are we talking views? Are we talking impressions? Are we talking like engagement? Are we talking reach? Like what is it? And I actually have a lot of answers to that and how to get started in our six part social media framework for churches. I'll link it right here if that's something that you're interested. But go ahead and take a look at that. If you are trying to get this up, up, up off the ground, get started in your social media, I would love to have you do that. If you are not watching on YouTube, that link will be in the show notes of your podcast catcher. But I just wanna know that as we break down in that six part context, we break down which of these social media, uh, channels, you can watch through each of the different platforms, and then you can be, uh, a decision maker as far as which is the best to implement in your current climate and in your current context.

Nick Clason (05:35):
But TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube, let's dive in and let's look at each of the platforms, the pros, the cons, where they came from and why they are where they are today. So let's go. Some say it started as early as 2019. Others say it started closer to the beginning of 2020. And you know me, like I tried to play my part as much as I could, but it seemed like no matter what, everybody around me was getting it and I kept distancing myself from it. I tried to stay away from it, but finally it was around Christmas time of 2020, I finally just broke down and I decided I was going to get it. Now, you know what I'm talking about, right? Put it in the comments. 3, 2, 1. I'm talking about TikTok. Oh, you thought I was talking about Covid? No, I'm talking about TikTok, right?

Nick Clason (06:23):
TikTok burst on the scene during the pandemic, actually. And what's fascinating is like there's all sorts of toss out there now, but like I would never download that. And it's like me now just like doom scrolling, like just consuming it at like mass crazy levels. Here's the thing that you need to know about TikTok is they invented a brand new way to do social media. And the way that they burst on the scene and the popularity with which they burst on the scene is now causing all other platforms to change their method and their approach to social media. And so TikTok, uh, brought to us what we now use, and you may not call it this or may not think of it this way, but essentially it's the discovery algorithm. It's the algorithm with which you consume the majority of your content from people that you don't even know you're discovering them, right?

Nick Clason (07:11):
A way that I've used this in my own life is last, uh, last spring, my family and I, we went to Disney. We visited the mouse. And if you've ever been to Disney, one of the best places to go to Disney is Epcot. All right? And so we went to Epcot on the very first day of our trip. My brother, uh, my sister and my brother-in-law came and they joined us. They live in Florida a few hours away. So they drove over. I mean, it was a blast. We hung out on Epcot. But in order to know the best, like if you've never been to Epcot, they have this thing called the World Showcase. And you walk around this giant lake and there are 11 different pavilions. You got like Mexico and Japan and China and Norway, and you got France, and you got Germany, and you got, uh, United Kingdom.

Nick Clason (07:51):
You got United States, you got Canada. I might've named all 11. I don't know, I might, I might've missed one. Let me know in the comments if you're a Disney person and if I missed one. But what we did was I built a map and I talked, I looked at the best food, the best drink, the best places to stop, the best carts to get stuff from at each of these different pavilions. And the way that I did that, the way that I did the majority of my research was through TikTok. It's amazing. And now TikTok is converting to not just scrolling and hoping to find a good next video, but now TikTok is actually trying to convert into more of a discovery, uh, or like search-based, uh, type of platform where you can go and you can get answers to certain questions. And you might be thinking as a youth pastor, that's an amazing concept.

Nick Clason (08:35):
And you're right, it is. You can answer very specific questions on TikTok. But here's the thing. In my Epcot experience, I got a lot of great answers. I went to the France Pavilion, I got the croquet glosser, I'm probably saying that wrong 'cause I'm not French, but I was told, Hey, this brioche bun with ice in the middle, and they flip it over in like a waffle, iron type thing. I found out about that completely and exclusively on TikTok. I would've never found that little, like, kind of like off the beaten path little restaurant to find that thing in my normal meandering. And walking around Epcot, TikTok came in clutch for me on that. However, I have no idea who posted it. I'm not following them. I don't have a relationship with them, and it's not a continued ongoing one. And so the relationships on TikTok, especially with those who follow you, are far less, uh, substantial than some of the other ones because of this kind of discovery based algorithm.

Nick Clason (09:33):
And I think TikTok might be trying to change that a little bit, but you just need to know that as a youth ministry, if you put your content out there and you do get a lot of subscribers, or you do get a lot of views, or you do get a lot of followers, like that doesn't necessarily equal more people that you're having like good influence with because I think it's something like 85% of the content that any one of us consume on TikTok are from people that we don't know. And so for you, a really good thing to do would be to create a meaningful call to action that pushes them to some sort of thing, to a link in the bio if you do have enough followers on there to your YouTube channel, to a digital connect card online, so that you can get to know the people that are watching your videos and that are getting answers from the, uh, big questions that you are trying to answer on TikTok.

Nick Clason (10:21):
So with that being said, hey, listen, if you are getting value out of this video, if this has been helpful so far, I would love it if you would hit that like button, if you would give us a rating if you're listening to a, a podcast or if you would subscribe on YouTube and maybe even consider this sharing it with a friend. But after this, we're gonna move on to not just TikTok, but now we wanna look at Instagram. So coming up next, let's take a look at Instagram, the pros, the cons, and what you need to know about that platform. All right, so Instagram, one of the things I call it, I don't know if this is really what it's called, but if you come into youth ministry, you're probably going to, at this point in, in the lifecycle of youth ministry and the lifecycle of Instagram, you're probably going to inherit what I call legacy users.

Nick Clason (11:04):
So that's people who have in the past been associated affiliated or connected with your youth ministry in some sort of way. But in the last couple of places that I've, I've shown up and I've, uh, jumped onto the Instagram, what I've realized is that there are college students, majority of college students as our follower base. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing for general social media marketing, it may not also be a great thing for youth ministry, social media marketing, because those are not the people that you're trying to reach anymore. And so, uh, on Instagram, you probably have some sort of an older audience as a result of just like the history of it and the way in which we've done things. So even in a church I went to, we went and we just did a follower and following like audit, and we just, anyone we didn't know we took out because if, if we don't know 'em, and we've been there for a few years, like obviously it's time to, to sort of cut ties with this relationship here.

Nick Clason (11:59):
And we're not trying to be jerks, we're not trying to cut people off, but, uh, that was not our target that we were like going towards, you know? And so if you go to a business account and Instagram and you look at the analytics and it's all skews older, like that's as a youth pastor, you're like, that's not, that's not what you're trying to do. That's not who you're trying to reach. You can still minister to those people and, and you should, but you just kind of gotta know that there's going to be legacy users on Instagram. You just gotta figure out what you wanna do and what your personal philosophy to managing that is. The other piece of Instagram that you need to know is that it started out as a photo sharing app, and then it stole stories from Snapchat, and then it stole reels from TikTok.

Nick Clason (12:37):
And so honestly, right now on Instagram, there are three very distinct different experiences for Instagram users. There's the feed and there's stories and there's reels. And so for me, because, uh, short form vertical video content is king right now, I am able to just do all of my focus on reels and use reels to share stuff to the feed and use reels to share stuff out to stories. And so by using reels, I'm able to kill literally three birds with one stone. But if you don't know that and you don't have some sort of like thought through strategy, Instagram can eat your lunch because it is busy and there's a lot going on there on Instagram. Now, let's dive into the third and final versus TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Let's check it out. YouTube, according to a 2022 study, we looked at it earlier, 95% of teenagers are using YouTube.

Nick Clason (13:34):
95%, nine and a half out of 10 people in your demographic that you're trying to reach are using YouTube. Now, not all YouTube users are built the same, right? Some are on there as adults, right, to like repair their faucet. Others like my kids, they're on there to watch Roblox and they're on there to watch Rainbow Friends and people get killed by these scary monster things. Teenagers are on there for a probably, uh, a hybrid of those two reasons, along with answers to specific questions along with entertainment, along with watching Mr. Beast videos, like whatever the case might be. Teenagers are on there for a variety of reasons. 'cause YouTube has a variety of content. I mean, for crying out loud, this video right now is on YouTube, but 95% of teenagers use it. In addition, it is the second largest search engine in the world powered by the first largest search engine in the world.

Nick Clason (14:26):
So it is a great place to be discovered and to be found. And when people are going to YouTube, they're often asking specific questions, right? Like the other day, I got onto YouTube and I was asking how to fix smoke coming out of my lawnmower. Very specific question. So I want you to reverse engineer, and I want you to kinda retrofit that idea into your ministry as a youth pastor. What are some of the specific questions that teenagers are asking you in day to day? Why does a loving God send good people to hell? If we're always forgiven for our sins, then why do we need to obey him? Now, what's the purpose of obedience? Does God need you or require you to vote Republican? Right? Whatever the the questions are that you are fielding as a youth pastor, think about it. You have an opportunity on YouTube to go on there and answer very specific questions that your kids are asking.

Nick Clason (15:21):
And furthermore, it is the second largest search engine in the world. So take those specific questions and help give them some specific answers. During C O V I D I moved to a church, started a church the very first day of C O V I, and then I got immediately locked down. And so I was working out on my master bedroom with boxes all around me trying to figure out how to be a youth pastor in this brand new context. And I, quite frankly, I did not have enough to do. During that time. I kept asking my boss, what more do you want from me? What more do you want from me? And he was like, just keep doing what you're doing. And I wasn't doing much. But so what I did with my time, even as I was at home, is I taught myself Adobe after effects.

Nick Clason (16:03):
I taught myself how to do it step by step, key frame by key frame agonizingly, and I was building things completely from scratch. And then once we broke free from the pandemic, I found out that all the creative people at my church were using a thing called motion array. I'll link that down below in the show notes if that's something that you wanna check out. It's an amazing tool for After Effects Premier Pro, uh, stock footage, stock audio. But guess what? I could take a motion or a template and I could very easily use After Effects because I now had an ability and a skill set that I didn't have before. I completely used YouTube to teach myself a brand new skill. Speaking of which, if you are interested in our completely free Adobe Premier Pro, uh, effects and plugins, they're easy bounce ins and bounce outs and rotates in and rotates out and drop in from the top and drop in from the bottom, and a smooth effect and a bounce effect, then I wanna encourage you to go to the link down below, order the link in the show notes and grab that.

Nick Clason (17:01):
If you're a video editor, if you use Adobe Premier Pro, this is my number one go-to tool. And I would love to encourage you, if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing some of the effects right now, I would like to encourage you to download that and use it in your ministry if this is something that you are doing as a video editor. So now let's dive in to the conclusion, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Finally, the verdict. Here we go. Let's look at it. So the verdict, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. What is it? If you asked me if I were to rank them in importance, here's how I would rank them as a youth pastor in 2023. In order of importance, in order of usage, in order of opportunity, I would rank them YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, in that order. Now, here's the good news.

Nick Clason (17:46):
I have a way for you to knock all three of them completely out of the park. And here's why. Because of TikTok and them introducing the discovery algorithm, Instagram has adopted reels and YouTube has adopted shorts. And so by adopting one centralized strategy on your social media, i e short form vertical video-based content, I have a completely free ebook that I am giving away in the link to the show notes. And it's called this, it's called The One Month Done For You Posting Tool. And it will give you 40 different video ideas that you can film on your smartphone or on a camera and post with very little editing, uh, need or ability. You can do all of it from your smartphone. Uh, the, the good news is when you download that ebook, you're also gonna get a link to our ha Have I Ruined My TikTok account?

Nick Clason (18:35):
A Complete Guide to Posting a TikTok from Start to Finish all via your phone. And so both of those are going to be paired well together so that you, if you have no video editing ability, if I'm talking about Adobe Premier Pro plugins and you're like, what in the world are you talking about? This is your way as a youth pastor with minimal, uh, experience, minimal, uh, know-how in any of these areas to completely revolutionize your social media experience. Because if you go all in on short form vertical video-based content, you can do fun stuff. You can do challenges and games with your students. You can get students on your social media and you can overhear, you can get, you can answer specific questions to big and specific problems. You can do recaps to your messages so that your messages don't just happen on a Wednesday night and then die there.

Nick Clason (19:21):
You can use a fully faceted, fully integrated social media posting thing. And I have all of that completely for you for free. All I need you to do is click that link and download that, um, and just start using it today. And I would love to know if you do and if you find it helpful, because I think that it's an amazing resource and an amazing tool. So go grab that download, and if you actually wanna put that completely to the, to the fullest extent, if you wanna use that to the best of its abilities, then you need to go check out episode number 60, linked right here answering the question why every single youth ministry needs a strong digital presence. Because here's the deal, we are here to make digital discipleship easy and we wanna encourage you to stay hybrid.

Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Youth Ministry Podcast”

Episode 197: Custom vs Done-For-You Social Media for Churches

Episode 196: Lock-Ins: Ministry Gold or Total Disaster?

Episode 176: Youth Leader Resource Room | 5 Components to a Great one!

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

Episode 126: Youth Ministry Christmas Party Idea!

Episode 122: Why Your Youth Ministry Follow-Up Isn't Working

Episode 102: Is Instagram Dead?

🔥 [FREE] Hybrid Ministry Strategy Guide🔥

💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

Episode 085: ✍ Youth Ministry Volunteer Training

⚡ [FREE] Digital Integration Strategy⚡

> ### --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tVACJFlwpw&amp;t=460s

YOUTUBE STARTER KIT: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

Episode 084: 🤝 Recruiting (and Retaining) The Best Volunteers

⚡ [FREE] Digital Integration Strategy⚡

Episode 083: ❤️ Youth Ministry Volunteers Unleashed

⚡ FULL HYBRID MINISTRY STRATEGY⚡

https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Young-Essential-Strategies-Discover/dp/0801019257/ref=sr_1_1?crid=338IYV0RBLJFS&amp;keywords=growing+young&amp;qid=1705628888&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=growing+young%2Cstripbooks%2C153&amp;sr=1-1

Episode 081: 😲 Your Youth Sermons Don’t Matter

⚡ Youth Ministry [On-Demand] Masterclass ⚡

Episode 069: 🍩 Ultimate Youth Group Guide: Crush Games, Outreach & Social all in one! 🔥

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

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

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

17:42-28:21 The Debrief of the Event from Start to Finish

Episode 067: 🔮 The Future of Church Youth Ministry 🔮

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

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

🎨 It’s about learning and finding where youth people are, embracing diversity and creativity.

https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

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

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duck-duck-trivia/trivia-8705.html

29:48-36:25 The Challenge of a Strong Digital Presence

Episode 061: 📲 Instagram vs. TikTok vs. YouTube. The Most Effective Social Platform for your Church's Youth Ministry 📲

🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥

> ### --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tVACJFlwpw&t=460s

https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Young-Essential-Strategies-Discover/dp/0801019257/ref=sr_1_1?crid=338IYV0RBLJFS&keywords=growing+young&qid=1705628888&s=books&sprefix=growing+young%2Cstripbooks%2C153&sr=1-1