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💥[CUSTOM] Hybrid Coaching💥

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

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DESCRIPTION
What in the world do we do about cellphone usage during youth group?!
It seems like it's getting worse and worse!

Well, Josh Boldman, of DYM (downloadyouthministry.com) is here to help reveal his thoughts, as well as a full-proof program to not only take care of the cell phone epidemic, but to unveil the future of youth ministry as we all know it!

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📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/110

//CO-LEADER CURRICULUM
https://www.coleader.co/

//SIDEKICK
https://sidekick.tv/

//JOSH ON DYM
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/featured-authors/josh-boldman/

//SIDEKICK FEATURE REQUEST
https://sidekick-tv.canny.io/feature-requests

//JOSH ON SOCIAL
https://www.tiktok.com/@joshboldman
https://www.instagram.com/joshboldman/
https://www.facebook.com/joshboldman
https://x.com/joshboldman

👉 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

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🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
Level up your youth ministry game with these freebies!
🔗 https://linktr.ee/clasonnick

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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
VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid

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

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

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

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

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Intro - How your experience got you where you are now
04:15 Sidekick's Introduction into the Digital Realm of Youth Ministry
09:00 Sidekick's most user friendly features
13:50 What's next for Sidekick?
17:36 How Sidekick aids in showing up where students are
19:25 The Recipe to Engaging Students where they are
30:42 Final Thoughts on Hybrid Ministry
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✍️TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:15 - 00:00:23:04
Nick Clason
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry show. I, as always my host Nick Klassen. And I'm really excited. Today I got the one and only Josh Boldman who works at Diam now. He also has years of experience in youth ministry. And so we are going to interview Josh today. What's up everybody? I'm here with Josh Boldman. Josh how you doing this morning bro?

00:00:23:04 - 00:00:44:07
Josh Boldman
I am good man. How are you doing I'm great. I'm glad to have you on

Nick Clason
the long awaited Josh Boldman interview.

Josh Boldman
Most podcasts are still waiting. I just wanted to make it very clear.

Nick Clason
Oh man, I feel like I'm in an exclusive club. Yeah, or something.

Josh Boldman
So they just don't know. They don't know it yet, but they're still waiting.

00:00:44:07 - 00:01:10:12
Nick Clason
Yeah, they definitely are. But not me. Not us. Josh, like, tell the people, how did. Who are you and how did you get to where you are today?

Josh Boldman
Oh my gosh. Okay. That is it all started on a cold with. No. okay. So I have, right there. So I'll start with where I'm at. right now I am I am the team lead for co-leader, which is, a part of the download Youth Ministry family.

00:01:10:14 - 00:01:39:17
Josh Boldman
I also, run lead in the sidekick arena, which is our presentation software. We'll get to that. but that's only been for about the last year. before that, I spent, somewhere in the neighborhood of. Right at about 20 years in student ministry, as a youth pastor or youth minister or student pastor or student ministries director, or any of the other myriad ways that you can you can describe it.

00:01:39:19 - 00:02:03:18
Josh Boldman
but I did that. Gosh, from Florida, to Illinois, to, tiny, tiny little churches to big old churches to, single site to multi-site to we do youth ministry on Sunday morning to we do youth ministry on Wednesday nights like normal people do. all that, you know, so, you know, it's just kind of been all over the place.

00:02:03:24 - 00:02:27:24
Josh Boldman
Yeah. but for the last ten, I'll say ten. It's probably like six, but I'll say ten years. I pastor mother, with Dwight. Yeah. It's like, how many kids were there? The 400. I don't know, it was too many to count. but yeah. So I, I've been an author with Tim, putting resources like games and teaching content and countdowns and videos and stuff together for DYM.

00:02:27:27 - 00:02:47:11
Josh Boldman
And then about a year ago, they had somebody that was going on maternity leave and they're like, hey, you want to cover for that person? I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. And then I spent all 90 days of that maternity leave, trying to make it where there was literally no way they could let me go afterward.

00:02:47:11 - 00:03:08:12
Nick Clason
And it it worked nice.

Josh Boldman
Absolutely worked. I was it was dicey for about about 45 days. And then I was like, nah, I think I got I think, I think I got this. So she came back and I was not asked to pack up and leave. so that has worked out for everybody. Yeah. You didn't put her on the job either?

00:03:08:12 - 00:03:31:27
Josh Boldman
No, no, it's kind of great. Yeah. So, you know, it's been it's been a ride. this last year, co-leader has transitioned from a, a platform where you can plan ministry to a full blown annual curriculum. we've launched sidekick. sidekick, which is now in beta. we had Sidekick Legacy, which was a standalone app.

00:03:31:27 - 00:03:53:26
Josh Boldman
Now it's built in the browser. So you open it in Chrome and you can you can play. You know, play your presentation literally anywhere. we did that all with any I mean, it's like literally anything we could have done, we we decided we were like, hey, you know what? If we just take everything we ever want to do and we just jam it all into one calendar year, and we got this.

00:03:53:27 - 00:04:08:28
Nick Clason
Yeah, we got this guy now who's covering for this girl on maternity leave, and now we can. We had him go. So we're we need to get our money's worth out of him. That's there. Like, we have so many staff. We have so we have so many. And now, now we need to have them do things, so.

00:04:08:28 - 00:04:30:10
Nick Clason
Oh, man, I gotta say the like this, I don't there's no pitch. Like, no, like kickback. None of this. I love co-leader and I love sidekick. And, we, I made our church and I think I told you this, but we'll tell everyone I was like, I made our church by two computers so that we could run pro presenter.

00:04:30:10 - 00:04:52:19
Nick Clason
Because the musicians need the confidence monitor, like the not not what's on the screen mirror, but like what's coming. So like what? So that's valid.

Josh Boldman
So they don't practice is what you're telling me.

Nick Clason
Exactly. They're ill prepared. So I had to give them what they needed at the give the musicians you know, throw my bone. But I made them buy another computer and a like a black magic video switcher.

00:04:52:19 - 00:05:11:04
Josh Boldman
And we running everything else now. Yeah. Off of sidekick. And so, so, so what I'm hearing you say is because of the worship ministry, you guys have to rely on dark magic. Is that. What is that where he is? Oh, black. Matt. Oh, it's a black. It's a company that's different. Okay. All right. I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised either.

00:05:11:11 - 00:05:37:06
Nick Clason
Yeah, yeah, either way. But I love the like I love a lot of things about it. But my favorite part about it is the phone integration. Right. And, we played last week like a game like, multiple choice game. And they could literally play on their phones. And this was the first time I'd, I'd use that particular, like, setting there and sidekick, like the, the question with, with the quiz like type of.

00:05:37:08 - 00:06:02:05
Nick Clason
Yeah. Like what the correct answer. Yes. Yes. And I loved that. That was super fun. so talk to me just a little bit about, like, you know, you jump in. Were there rumblings and plans about sidekick being revamped or did you see some of like those opportunities and be like, this is what I see in youth ministry as a youth pastor, 20 plus years and now, yeah, I want to help kind of evolve it to the next stage, like give us that kind of background.

00:06:02:08 - 00:06:26:01
Josh Boldman
Yeah. So something that, I it's really funny because I don't know that many youth workers realize, although I feel like we should is that, software development takes billions of dollars and lots and lots of time. and so, so when I started at downloading Ministry, the plan had already been. We are revamping sidekick. I'm. You know, I'm just gonna peel back the curtain, you know?

00:06:26:01 - 00:06:50:24
Josh Boldman
You don't know. Yeah. Sorry. I took the original app. All right. Was written in a, in a programing environment that got depreciate. All right, so it is. It was built long, so it was built on something called chromium. and it it it is a like sidekick. Legacy is a work of art. Like it is a it was a game changer for me when I was in ministry.

00:06:50:24 - 00:07:14:13
Josh Boldman
The the spinning wheel boxes. Yeah. it was one of a kind. No one was. Oh, my gosh, nobody was doing it right. And then, what happened about two years ago, maybe three years ago now is chromium got depreciated. And we realized what that meant was there was now no way to update the legacy. I don't know at all, like, impossible, like literally impossible.

00:07:14:16 - 00:07:31:17
Josh Boldman
And and so it was like, okay, well, we can either rebuild a new one or we can take it in a different direction. And one of the really things that people that people hated was every time you open the legacy app, you have to sign in every single time you had to type in the password. It was a great time.

00:07:31:20 - 00:07:52:23
Josh Boldman
I got into trouble. One time I was in front of our, like our whole camp, like it was like a thousand kids, right? And sidekick was running, and then it crashed. And then they had to reopen it, and they're like, from the booth, they yell out, what's the password? No. And in front of 1000 students, I had to say a password into the microphone.

00:07:52:23 - 00:08:14:14
Josh Boldman
And here's the best part. You ready for this? It was the same password for everything. Like my my bank account and, all this stuff. So, like, so like, I immediately I started teaching, and then I get off stage and I'm like, I gotta change every password I mean, ever had. It was a nightmare. so we thought, okay, what is the best way to make this as portable as possible?

00:08:14:14 - 00:08:33:01
Josh Boldman
So we went with putting it in, in the browser. Yeah. which I'll be honest, I mean, it was basically like it was a trade off, right? It gave us a lot of, functionality as far as portability, as far as far as syncing. Yeah. but it there are trade offs, right? Like Google Chrome. both.

00:08:33:01 - 00:08:52:11
Josh Boldman
Google. Safari, Apple. you know, Firefox, they all have different rules about like window management. And so like you'll know like when you open sidekick and you go to present, you have to drag the window over to your other browser. Like that's not ideal right now. We that's why we have a video switcher now that's why. Right.

00:08:52:13 - 00:09:22:11
Josh Boldman
Yeah. That's why we that's why we as Christians rely on dark black magic. Black. It's that's what it is. and so, so, you know, so there are some trade offs for sure. For sure. But, but what we started realizing was, the, the pitch that we started telling people that when it, I think it really kind of clicked for people how how different was good is we would tell them, like, we would show them what we could do with, with voting, with spinning wheel, with, with pick me like the main ideas.

00:09:22:14 - 00:09:41:11
Josh Boldman
And I said, what's really cool is I can create this presentation. I can, immediately, as soon as I add an element to a slide, I can close the laptop, I can break it over my knee, I can set it on fire and throw it in the ocean. And then I can just go to church, open the computer, and it's it's there like it is there.

00:09:41:12 - 00:10:03:18
Josh Boldman
It does not miss a beat. you probably have to like on the computer at church, though, because yours is God's an ocean. Oh yeah. No no no no. Yeah. There's no recovering from it really at the point. Not sidekicks. Not that good yet. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. but. Yeah. So so it's, Yeah, it's it's being able to sync and being able to to go remote.

00:10:03:25 - 00:10:28:19
Josh Boldman
That's awesome. But then when we started showing people, hey, all you have to do is the same thing you did to log in on your computer, do that on your phone. And what it does is it turns your phone into a remote for the exact same presentation that's running on your presentation computer. and I mean, just suddenly being able to when you're doing polls on your phone, you can see the results, before they're even shown on the screen.

00:10:28:22 - 00:10:57:09
Josh Boldman
you can go to next, go back. You can do slide notes. You can. I mean, it did really any of the functionality that's there except for editing on the computer. You can do that literally on your phone in real time because I don't know if you've ever I'm certainly you've never been in this situation where you have a sixth grader who is so well intentioned is like, I want to run the computer and you're like, yes, that is a that is a thing a sixth grader can do.

00:10:57:09 - 00:11:26:24
Josh Boldman
You can hit the spacebar. Yeah. And and then, and then they, and then they don't, they, they just don't hit the spacebar. And so like I would always use it as just like my, my phone was, I wasn't there. So I was running it, but it was my fallback. Like I was like, okay, that kid in the back, there was one time, I swear to you, right, at an unnamed church that I worked at for a while.

00:11:26:27 - 00:11:51:12
Josh Boldman
I remember once, so I would always try, so I was a student ministry director there, and so I always I would always try, like, I would. Yeah, I was either teaching or whatever, but I would always try to do anytime I wasn't teaching, I would try to do something else. So like anytime I wasn't teaching, I would be in the booth or the, you know, doing the game or, you know, but so there's one time I'm in the booth and, and the lyrics for the songs are not firing on time.

00:11:51:12 - 00:12:18:01
Josh Boldman
And I, so I'm like, leaning over and I'm looking. The kid is watching Star Wars the movie. Like, like an actual movie on his phone. Not a TikTok, not a YouTube. No. The two hour movie, two hour movie with subtitles. And he is holding his phone like screamed. Is it because the subtitles are so small? And I'm like, hey, I know, I know, you're looking at that because words are important.

00:12:18:03 - 00:12:38:25
Josh Boldman
However, everyone else in the room is looking up here because words are important. So maybe I don't know, I don't know, that's just jump up and just jump on that. That's a win right there. Yeah. So but being able to you know when you're on stage and things go wrong there are like a couple of options. And and one of them is to make the person in the booth feel really bad.

00:12:38:25 - 00:13:00:09
Nick Clason
And that is never the right option. Right. It's never to call attention to the person messed up. But we want to sometimes. Oh oh yes, yes, yes we do. But being able to just say, okay, I've got my phone here. Hey, Mr. Cube, don't worry, I'm just going to jump it like, yeah, was that was the game changer for me.

00:13:00:11 - 00:13:22:15
Josh Boldman
and so now we're just on this journey of trying to reach full parity between the legacy version and what is right now, the lovingly called the beta version of sidekick. until it until it has all the same features. yeah. But what we're finding is that is, like I said, the original The legacy is a work of art.

00:13:22:17 - 00:13:47:09
Josh Boldman
And, right now, we are working on boxes and that is in the browser proving to be a challenging. Yeah, it is, it's just, you know, it's one of those things like, you wouldn't think like even when we first, the first go around, we did, wheel and pick me. Right. Those were the first two things. And so with the wheel, you know, you think how this is, it's a spinning wheel.

00:13:47:10 - 00:14:04:24
Josh Boldman
Like there's no. Yeah, there's nothing complicated here. Oh, but there is, friend, because pixels are square. Yeah. I don't know if you knew that or not, but pixels was great. So when you try and rotate them around and center axis that's a. Yeah. It's just it's one of those things like, you know, you think you got it.

00:14:04:24 - 00:14:21:03
Josh Boldman
And then suddenly you're like, oh, that looks really bad. And so then it just it's like you have to go right back to the drawing board and, and so, so yeah. So right now we're working on boxes. It's, it's taking a little longer than we had hoped, but but you're working with square pixels now. So square pixels.

00:14:21:06 - 00:14:35:10
Josh Boldman
We know what we're doing. Yeah. Yes. Wouldn't it be funny if like, in the like when, when it was the wheel, we had a problem because it was squares. But then like we're like, alright, now we're going to move the boxes and like just the world, like was like, you know what we figured out round pixels are better.

00:14:35:12 - 00:14:57:21
Josh Boldman
And I was like, no, no. Yeah. But but yeah. So we're that. So we got boxes, in the pipeline. we're we, we here and I know anybody that knows sidekick already. Their first question that they have been asking is what about, survey says, which is our family feud builder. Right. And, that one is, it's coming.

00:14:57:21 - 00:15:19:27
Josh Boldman
It's like, but it's it is it all takes a yeah, it all takes time. And, so, best way anybody, anybody that, you know, can help me go to sidekick.TV. There's a link there where you can, you can submit ideas and requests and you can even vote on other people's. And and that always helps us know kind of what's next.

00:15:19:29 - 00:15:36:15
Josh Boldman
yeah. But yeah, we'll drop. That'll be. We're loving it, dude. I mean, and. Oh, I, I know the sound is starting to sound like a commercial and I apologize, but it's, it's it is. It's like it's just so fun is, when, when one of the most recent things we did was we connected everyone's dim accounts to the download youth ministry.

00:15:36:15 - 00:16:04:05
Josh Boldman
If you buy something, there, he just automatically shows up. And that is that was awesome. Sweet. Because, I mean, it used to be, I don't know. I mean, you you make games for GM that are video based, right. And and when you do that those those files are massive. Like, you know, I mean, it's not uncommon for a game to be three, four gigabytes, you know, but it's also 3 or 4GB of, you know, that's 20, 30 videos for the game.

00:16:04:05 - 00:16:21:05
Josh Boldman
And so then adding each of those in is kind of a nightmare. And so we figured out a way to do it is we do it on our end once and then it when you buy it, it just you can just it shows up in your library. You click on it and it's just in that is yeah, man, I'm telling you I will.

00:16:21:08 - 00:16:38:28
Josh Boldman
I never have to worry about losing a thumb drive ever again. Yeah, because I don't know if you know this or not, but I don't know where my thumb drive it is right now. I lost it in 1997. so. Sounds like there are some important things on there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Knows it was, I don't know, something.

00:16:38:28 - 00:17:04:23
Josh Boldman
Call it bitcoin. Bitcoin I don't remember. You could have been rich. You wouldn't even have to be here right now. Well I'll tell you what. Of all the things like all the things you're talking about, there's like, there's phone usage on both sides, right? So if you're presenting, you can use your phone as a remote, but if you're, you're, watching your in the audience, there are like integrations where there's like voting and games and all that stuff.

00:17:04:23 - 00:17:25:07
Nick Clason
Yeah. And, I think that's my favorite part. Like as a youth pastor now for, over ten years, like I've always been trying to figure out how to get ourselves in youth ministry. Like relevant to our students are, as opposed to, like, when they're at church, make them do something that's so completely foreign to like their current culture.

00:17:25:07 - 00:17:56:28
Nick Clason
Right? Like youth culture, like they're all messaging one another through their phones. They're all like consuming news articles and social media through their phones. And then we get to church and like the church I was at, like when I started the previous regime, no shade. but they had, like, phone lockers, like they would take kids cellphones and lock them and like, and what we're do, in my opinion, is like, okay, so we're, we're just trying to modify their behavior, but we haven't actually like change their true authentic like desire to like be here and listen.

00:17:56:28 - 00:18:19:26
Nick Clason
We just want them quieter for us. And like that we should just be better. Like, yeah. And so y'all start rolling out all this stuff on sidekick. And I'm like, here's the opportunity for us to use what is native to them in our environment and in a way that doesn't, like, break the bank anymore, because to get some of these features through other third party like platforms, we just don't have the money.

00:18:19:26 - 00:18:45:09
Nick Clason
As a youth pastor, you know what I'm saying? In your budget, whatever the case might be. So yeah, so that's my favorite part. And so I would love it if you would talk about not just necessarily like the sidekick integration, but what has been your experience and your unique perspective as a youth pastor with how what we've done in youth culture and how like we've then asked them to come to church culture and how they don't all they're like oil and water sometimes.

00:18:45:09 - 00:19:07:04
Nick Clason
Like, how are we? How can we reach students better and to find ourselves where they are, which is online, on phones, all those things.

Josh Boldman
I mean, okay, so you remember, man, even I mean, when I was growing up and especially early in my ministry, you know, it was always the, the thing was, you were always fighting against like, like travel sports, right?

00:19:07:04 - 00:19:30:07
Josh Boldman
Like that was like the, the, the bane of youth ministry existence was like, oh, we still are really, by the way. Oh, to be cool. Yeah. Oh, no doubt. But it was like, I don't know, there was like a point where I think we just we got tired of seeing no results from shame, shaming those kids. Like, it's like you want to play travel ball.

00:19:30:11 - 00:19:47:28
Josh Boldman
We'll play travel ball. Yeah. With the devil. You know, it's like that. Doesn't like it doesn't help anybody. When? When all we're doing is. Or like. Like, oh, you have a phone, go lock it up because it's, you know, it's like that, doesn't it? Yeah. What does that do? All that does is like when you're locking up a kid's phone.

00:19:48:05 - 00:20:10:09
Josh Boldman
I feel like the way that you can know that it's not working is as soon as the the time, like the lockdown is over, was the very first thing they do. They run to go get it. Yeah. Which means that it was, it was on their mind still. So it's not like you really saved you know them any, any trouble or any like you didn't gain anything by pulling it away, you know, because their attention is still stuck on it.

00:20:10:11 - 00:20:36:16
Josh Boldman
so really what I think, I think is we're seeing right now in youth ministry as a whole, in, in what we're trying to do, a sidekick is really we're trying to figure out ways to engage students, literally where they are. And so, I guess, have you, did you ever do camps where the rule was the kids couldn't even bring their phone to camp?

00:20:36:18 - 00:20:59:04
Nick Clason
I never did. No, I could have, right. But I never I always I've always run my own camp, so I make the rules. So. Yeah. And I've always been in churches or youth ministries where the goal is to bring kids who don't go to our church to camp. And like, I'm not going to get a kid and their family who's never met me, send their kid like hours away without a lifeline back to them.

00:20:59:04 - 00:21:24:10
Josh Boldman
Oh yeah. Kids. Oh, no. So I've never tried to fight that battle, but it was fake because we used to almost use that, like as an advertisement. We were like, come to camp where you get away from your phone and kids are like, I don't want to do that, you know? And so, like, there was a point where I think maybe 20 years ago, you probably could do it, but even now, it's not even just the kid, it's the parents that are like, I'm not sending my kid without their phone.

00:21:24:10 - 00:21:58:02
Josh Boldman
What's wrong with you? You know? Yeah. So, like, so what we decided to do with with sidekick is like, okay, what if instead of constantly harping on, he put your phone away or go lock it up or don't even bring it, or, you know, trying to make it seem like the phone itself was the enemy. What if we decided to say like, hey, we understand that that phone, it's an extension of you now like that just, I mean, and that, I mean, you know, I mean, I think you can get really, like, dystopian, you know, like, like Blade Runner type type vibes from, like, the phone is an extension of you, but but it is

00:21:58:03 - 00:22:21:24
Josh Boldman
mine is an extension of me like, I mean, I literally if I, I don't know when the last time I walked out of my house without my phone was like, it's not just because I didn't forget it, it's because if it's not in my pocket, it feels like I'm missing something. I feel like I know I'm missing it, and you're gonna need it, you know, like, oh, sure, it's your calendar, it's your wallet, it's your navigation, it's your everything.

00:22:21:24 - 00:22:49:12
Nick Clason
Like it. So you can't so much. That's my argument is like this. It's not going anywhere. So we can try our hardest as youth pastors and churches to fight against culture. But it's a losing battle eventually. And it's not like, oh, let's give in to culture because it's evil, right? No, no, no. It's how do we take this thing that is not moral, it's not morally right or morally wrong, but how do we take this thing and just use it as a tool?

00:22:49:12 - 00:23:07:12
Josh Boldman
It's it's a tool, 100% tool that we we would have died for 15, 20 years ago, like, oh yeah, I was talking on the last episode like we didn't have group chats 15 years ago. If you want to talk to your student, you talk to them when they came to your building and that was it. But now you can do pastoral care.

00:23:07:12 - 00:23:39:02
Nick Clason
You can, and just do a basic thing like texting. When I'm talking about something like software development right now. Yeah. So one of the things, that has been really cool to experiment with, and we've seen a couple people do this really well is is using like polls like, okay, so there's a there are different ways you can use it, but the like, so say as you're teaching, if, if you're saying something that you know is going to fly right over their heads, right?

00:23:39:05 - 00:24:11:11
Josh Boldman
Pausing literally at that moment and asking the question, hey, did you catch that? And yes or no, like literally something super simple like, did you catch that? Yes or no? And then adjusting what you say next based on their response or, we've even seen people take their entire services in like a, choose your own adventure type approach where, I mean, it is it seems minor, but it's something like, hey, we've got the worship team has two songs that they prepared, but we're only going to do one.

00:24:11:13 - 00:24:29:15
Josh Boldman
Hey, you all, they're here. Yeah. Which one you want to do? You know, or, you know, I've, done a couple teaching times where, like, so, you know, every youth pastor has, like, their, like, bag of tricks, like the, the saw or the stories that they tell that it's like, okay, I can tell this story, like drop of a hat.

00:24:29:15 - 00:25:00:17
Josh Boldman
Yeah. you know, and so, like, I, I'll start with, like, right at the beginning of a message will say, hey, guys, I can tell you one of, three stories. You know, when when I got hit by a car, one when I accidentally killed my girlfriend's cat and one when I, when I stubbed my toe, you know, and so, like, you take your pick, you know, and just let them pick, and it doesn't change anything about where that message is going, but letting them have a moment where they can speak into it.

00:25:00:17 - 00:25:27:22
Josh Boldman
Like, I guarantee you, when the room picks the story, the room pays attention to the story more. Yeah. or or even at the end, you know, be a great way to, to really, especially if you're trying to reach students that are not familiar with church a lot, you know, like that aren't around a lot is, at the end of the message just saying, like, hey, on a scale of 1 to 5, how much do you agree with what you just heard?

00:25:27:25 - 00:25:46:26
Josh Boldman
can you met and live in live results on the screen like, hey, okay, so but can you imagine how much that might change your small group conversations that are going to happen right after the lesson? If if you suddenly see, like, oh, we just talked about this and 80% of the room says, I don't agree, okay, great.

00:25:47:03 - 00:26:10:20
Josh Boldman
Then let's go to our small groups and let's see this mess out. You know, or I think that there's, there's stuff like that or or you could even say if you're doing a series, you could, you could say, hey, here are the four weeks of the series. we did the intro this week. Which one you want to hear about next week and let them pick where you're going to go, and then you have a whole week to figure out how to get there.

00:26:10:22 - 00:26:29:11
Josh Boldman
yeah. But it but I guarantee you, those students that voted are going to be more likely to be there if they know what you're talking about. And they actually helped get to to choose what that was going to be. Yeah, I think I think there's a lot there. And we're working love to say like we're working like it's like in development, right, right now.

00:26:29:11 - 00:26:49:09
Josh Boldman
But it's like I mean, one of the things on the, on the docket is, is, you know, being able to have students from their seat ask questions, be able to give feedback, you know, in real time so that you, as you're standing there on the, you know, platform with your phone that you're able to see the questions as they come in.

00:26:49:11 - 00:27:06:03
Josh Boldman
we're trying to figure out things like how to moderate those things because I don't know about you, but if you ask open ended questions and just have the answers up on the screen without, you might get some filtering. Yeah. Inappropriate answer, I don't know, I don't know. I mean, my the students that I've ever worked with are always saints and so they would not do that.

00:27:06:03 - 00:27:30:01
Nick Clason
But I would imagine yours. Well you know it's crazy is like here's another like just interesting youth culture is like I was working at a church in Chicago and it was very like it, it prided itself on we reach people who are far from God. And so, you know, that's going to come with a certain like, oh, I student and now I'm in the Bible Belt in Dallas, Texas.

00:27:30:08 - 00:27:55:00
Nick Clason
And, it's like it prides itself on being like the church for Christians almost. And like the kids, the students, they're the same, like it's oh, no doubt. Right. That's the crazy thing is what the internet has done is it's leveled that like playing field of like, yeah, certain cultures, their youth culture is very consistent now and despite the demographic.

00:27:55:00 - 00:28:16:08
Nick Clason
And so the unique part is not our students. The unique part is helping our parents understand, that the students are still the same, you know, so, you know, something, we've seen is actually really cool that somebody was doing was they were using the live polls in their lobby for parents to answer as they were dropping their kids off.

00:28:16:08 - 00:28:40:12
Josh Boldman
That's cool. And, it was yeah, it was very cool. Was like, and it was, you know, some like, minor stuff that it was like, you know, what time is your middle schoolers? Bedtime. Like, you know. Yeah. Seven, eight, nine, ten, 11. You know, just pick one, you know, stuff like that. And it was minor. But again, it's, not just that you get individuals to engage, but the fact that everybody can see the responses as it as it goes.

00:28:40:14 - 00:29:09:00
Josh Boldman
There's, I think there's a lot of even still some untapped, untapped potential there. think about how to help people engage. Yeah. I think, we went to a conference a while back, and they're talking about the differences in generational ways of thinking. And like one of the things and I think this is true, despite like being an older, older generation of like all of us, but like Gen Z, Gen Alpha, like they're just looking to be known individually, like they don't want to be part of, like a sea of numbers.

00:29:09:00 - 00:29:32:20
Nick Clason
Right. And so when you are in a bigger context and you have 100,000 kids, like it's hard to it's hard for them to, to stand out and stuff like this helps them get to just yeah, speak their, their voice. Right. And they get to play a role. And even if they're voting for something and their choice doesn't get picked like they were heard and that's oh yeah, that's all it needs to be.

00:29:32:20 - 00:29:52:17
Nick Clason
It doesn't have to always go their way, you know? And there's probably some opportunity for them to learn some life lessons and stuff in there. But just like realizing like, hey, we're doing all this for you, but what what do you want? Like, that's I don't know. That's the key. So, Josh, as we wind this sucker down, like final thoughts.

00:29:52:17 - 00:30:16:09
Nick Clason
Final words. What what what if anything's, like burning on your soul to get out there?

Josh Boldman
Oh, man. All right, well, here. I'm glad you asked, Nick. no. okay, here's the thing is. Yeah, I think we need to not be afraid of what our students want. And we need to not be afraid of them expressing their opinion.

00:30:16:11 - 00:30:48:22
Josh Boldman
And we need to not be afraid of them disagreeing with each other or with us. I think that that is, you know, where where we are heading is a world that values, a diversity of opinion. And the value placed on each of those opinions, is crucial. And so, like, I mean, I think people really can very easily get confused into thinking that that means that every opinion is right or that every opinion carries the same weight.

00:30:48:22 - 00:31:09:12
Josh Boldman
And it's a that's not at all what it but it. I think there is a I think we we do ourselves and honestly the gospel and miss service when we, are a disservice. I don't think Miss Service is a word, a disservice when we, when we say, here is the correct answer, we don't even want to hear anything else.

00:31:09:15 - 00:31:42:02
Josh Boldman
because our students are coming into our, our, our environments with their own opinions and own presuppositions. And yes, they probably heard them all from the same TikTok channel. Like, that's fine, but they all still want it. They want to be heard. And so I think any time we can even begin to open the door to showing them that we value what they are walking in with, I think just builds, it builds credibility in their eyes.

00:31:42:05 - 00:32:07:01
Josh Boldman
I think in all honesty, I don't know, you know, I would argue that most students are they do not often find themselves in environments where their opinion is valued. so, I mean, whether that's school, I mean, and please don't hear me, teachers are awesome, but it is it is tough when especially when you have like a curriculum in a, in a school environment, you're like, hey, I need you to learn this thing.

00:32:07:07 - 00:32:31:22
Josh Boldman
Like, and there's not a lot of debate in biology, you know, like, it's just this is where we're at, you know? And so, but I think if we can create environments where it's, we're inviting students into a conversation where their voice matters, whether that's a, a deep theological conversation or whether that is a game that is literally, hey, I need you to pick A, B, or C because it's a trivia question.

00:32:31:22 - 00:32:57:01
Josh Boldman
Like it's it like, but but still valuing what they bring to the table. I think that that pays dividends in the long run in a, in a massive, massive way. I mean, whether that's later in the small group or whether that's ten years later or, you know, I'm at a point right now where kids, when I first started that were in sixth grade, now have their own sixth graders, and that is awful.

00:32:57:03 - 00:33:14:19
Josh Boldman
but but it's the same thing is those those kids are now in the place where they're deciding, am I going to bring my own kid to a youth group or not? And, you know, and I think that the way we treat our students now will influence how they raise their own families and what that looks like for them in the future.

00:33:14:19 - 00:33:34:17
Josh Boldman
So, never underestimate how important it is to for for a student's voice to be valued. Yeah. And what better spot in the world than for that to happen at church? Crazy, right? Who would've thought? Yeah, well, Josh, we're running out of time. But I appreciate you, man. Anywhere, anywhere else people can find, find the Josh Boldman, like.

00:33:34:19 - 00:34:00:20
Nick Clason
Oh, yeah, they want to, like, untap some of these other thoughts and deeper musings of the word is, oh, I don't know if deeper is going to be with the find, but, all the social media is, it's at Josh Boldman. I know, I'm so glad it wasn't taken. Yeah. You're lucky. all right, I know. Yeah. but then, again, you know, the download youth ministry store, you know, I mean, this is not to sell stuff, but like, a lot of the stuff I've written really does reflect where I'm at, you know?

00:34:00:20 - 00:34:09:15
Josh Boldman
And so, you know, check out any of that stuff there, but. Well, yeah. Love it. Man. Will appreciate you being on. And, everyone else, we'll talk next time. All right, bye friends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHIFT #2 FROM PERFORMANCE TO ENGAGEMENT

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

SHIFT #3 FROM QUANTITY TO COMMUNITY

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

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

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

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

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PRACTICAL YM TIPS: https://www.youtube.com/@practicalyouthministrytips

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GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

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📹 "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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
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2024 [FREE] Youth Ministry Masterclass on YouTube:
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Try Sidekick Beta!!
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========================================

DESCRIPTION
📈 Youth Ministry Growth and Attendance

🔢 Do number really matter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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