Youth Ministry Booster
Welcome to the Youth Ministry Booster podcast! The most honest and hilarious podcast in student ministry. Hosted by Zac Workun and Chad Higgins. We are the biggest fans of youth ministry leaders like you!
We are here for you with the humor and the help to engage, entertain, equip, and encourage.
Youth ministry is better together. Learn more @ http://www.youthministrybooster.com
Youth Ministry Booster
Discipline, Distractions, & Disruptions During Youth Ministry Teaching
JEREMY SIT DOWN! Whew sorry about that... Kids Amma I right?
If you have ever had issues with students not listening, being distracting, or even disruptive during teaching time... then do we have a toolkit for you!
Dealing w/ Distractions, Disruptions, & Discipline Issues:
If you've ever felt like a ringmaster in a circus of pre-teen hijinks we hope this chat is helpful. We're unpacking the chaos of disruptions with real stories (we have been there!).
Can we just send these kids to time-out?
Hey YM friends let's talk about how to foster a culture of respect by clearly setting expectations and involving students in the process and explaining the 'why' behind the rules. It's about making an impact that goes beyond Sunday and into their daily lives, ensuring that every interaction plants a seed for positive behavior and engagement.
Lastly, let's break it down so you can take it home.
From ninja-like non-verbal cues between leaders to a 'three-step process' that's more like four steps, we're laying down our take on behavioral management. We're sharing our blueprint for establishing clear boundaries, all while nurturing growth and fostering a safe space for teens to thrive. So, gear up for some real talk on crafting an environment where respect is the norm, and chaos is shown the door. And hey, don't forget to drop us your thoughts! booster@youthministrybooster.com
Hey, we're back with another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. My name is Zach Workin. Coming to you, live from the garage today with my best friend, chad Higgins. You know what, buddy, it's been too long, whoa, I know, for some folks it's been a couple weeks, but we had a little bit of a holiday recording season and so it just feels like we're finally back in the rhythm of doing the thing after the thing, and so for those watching or listening, thanks, thanks for coming back.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you're back too. So we today wanted to talk a little bit about. It's been on the hearts and minds of some of us in student ministry for a while, and then even more so really recently. And these kids, yo, these kids today, these kids today with their Pokemon and their what nots and their Tomagotches. Hold, on Hold on these kids today.
Speaker 1:I think what we're talking about today is not a recent occurrence. I think, oh, no, no.
Speaker 2:I think this is no. It's specifically 2024. The kids have run a buck. They used to be little angels and in the last five weeks they have been a nightmare.
Speaker 1:So what we're talking about is a problem that I think has been a problem since the start of student ministry Like it is.
Speaker 2:it predate us even yeah.
Speaker 1:It's when Billy Graham first started gathering.
Speaker 2:No, no, those sweet little angels. They were showing up with Bibles in bags. Well, that may be true with pins and pencils, but does it?
Speaker 1:doesn't change the way that they interacted, the way that they paid attention.
Speaker 2:Right, so what we're going to be talking about today, specifically, is meant what do we do?
Speaker 1:This is gonna be a two-part series, right A?
Speaker 2:little bit. Two parts. So our thought was part one we're gonna talk about how to handle unruly students while communicating and teaching stage. So what can we do? And then I think part two is how we can train other leaders, small group settings, other environments, Because there's some stuff that we want you to know and there's other stuff that we want you to know to take to your folks, and so that's kind of how we're gonna set it up.
Speaker 1:I would. There are a few things that I feel like. I definitely am not an expert, but I'm like well, I've been through this before.
Speaker 2:You feel like battle ready, war torn, like do you have? Like like stories.
Speaker 1:This is not one that we have to talk in theory about okay.
Speaker 2:So if youth ministry has like a VFW, like if we've got like what is this?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, dude, we're sharing stories over a pool table somewhere.
Speaker 2:There's imagine a star from cup of coffee and Chad sitting in a corner in an oversized chair being like I see you, young man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm the guy in the dark corner, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Two young guys are talking and you're like, pardon me, young man. Excuse me gentlemen, oh, the light flickers.
Speaker 1:So, and I was, I mean, baptized into fire from the beginning on this one.
Speaker 2:So you've been around in a minute Like youth.
Speaker 1:Whoa whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 2:I mean, hey, happy birthday. I'm 40 years old now 20 years in ministry, but this has been 20 years ago. So we're talking circa 94? 2004. 2004. 2004, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The odds. So dude the odds. Oh, my goodness the odds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, february the first 2004. Okay, Was the first day that I started on a church staff. There you go.
Speaker 2:So 20 years, 20 years Exactly.
Speaker 1:So for me.
Speaker 2:Congrats.
Speaker 1:Thanks, bud, but this story goes back a little bit further, a little bit further than that. Because this was I was looking for volunteer opportunity.
Speaker 2:Okay, so our church? You were the golden goose.
Speaker 1:Like you were just a free a free land volunteer just looking for a home man so Get that guy a book or Freshman year college. I decide, you know, I'm going to this church. They put out a big thing of like we're looking for volunteers, our church was growing, all these kind of things. And so, you know, here I am, Lord send me. And so I fill out the little card, I go meet with the youth pastor. We talk about student ministry, my experience, all this kind of stuff, and they had a whole process like come and observe. And then, you know, I had to fill out this form and then after that, like they'd try to place me into a small group, to be a small group leader.
Speaker 2:Hey, that sounds like great. Youth ministry practice Sounds great.
Speaker 1:So they this student ministry at the time did middle school and high school together has won but different small groups. So he invited me to come on a Wednesday night to observe their main gathering. Now he was a pretty new youth pastor as well, not like to the game of youth ministry, but to that church. Yeah, he had only been there a couple months okay. And so so he's looking for help.
Speaker 2:He's looking for help.
Speaker 1:Well and and the church was pretty young and as well and all these kind of things, yeah. But we, I show up on Wednesday night and it is other utter chaos. From the beginning and not by like anybody's design. You just tell that most of the kids are new, like this is a very new ministry and most of the kids are like they've never been in church before. Okay, and so I'm not real sure in those early days how they were even connecting with some of these kids, but they were coming.
Speaker 2:How do students 20 years ago? Because there's no cell phone, it's all word of mouth, there's no social media. I guess at some level coming to church is it was the networking opportunity. That is actually the more I think about it back then. That's how you saw your friends, that was the reason to go see your friends.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so I think what you were talking about earlier like a problem to today. I actually think that there was some more problem back then because there was more casual goers Well because you had people that was like their only reason there is yeah, I won't get to talk to my friends and till Thursday morning if I don't show up to this, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm youth ministry community structure devoid of snapchat and fortnight Feels like a different era where we were playing halo in the lobby in the lobby, but you had to come to the lobby to play.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah so anyways, first night there I'm observing, so I'm sitting in the auditorium. Auditorium. I'm on the right side, about four to five rows back, okay.
Speaker 2:Come in the mix for the kids just hanging out, you know. And so much promise. I'm a leader in the midst of it.
Speaker 1:Clipboard out ready to go and remember like I came from the student ministry. That looked very different. Right Like everybody showed up with a Bible in a bag with their name engraved on it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Mix them up, right.
Speaker 1:None of these kids had a Bible in a bag at all.
Speaker 2:He's had other stuff in a bag.
Speaker 1:And so contraband. Yes, well, it was sold in the bathroom. Oh my gosh, I wish that was a joke so. Middle of the youth passers talk. He's on stage. Yeah, I mean giving it to his rip it into.
Speaker 2:You guys, you guys watch this TRL. I can't believe it. Number number two get out of here. Pop up video. Carson daily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they go into hell yeah um, don't trust his face so there was a kid. Left-sided auditory. Yeah stand up. Bether, you want to think he walks forward?
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh wow, early altercalls are called before the third point man Kill it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, walks forward in front of everybody, across across the the crowd, perfect To the right side, right in front of where I'm sitting, yeah, knees on the front row, and I'm thinking this kid just got up, walked across to come talk to his friend and there's already, like you know, people are better and shit, all that whispers, remember notes, passing notes, these kids. Hey, there was no writing involved.
Speaker 2:They're just gonna talk, that's right cuz they had the pencil from their Bible bag Sure, sure this kid rears back and punches Kid on the second row.
Speaker 1:What where the face Began to fight in the middle? Of the sermon oh, and I'm like, wow, this is a very elaborate sermon illustration.
Speaker 2:Like these are planted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is.
Speaker 2:Night. Story of the stoning of Steve.
Speaker 1:Um and then. So I'm jumping up, I'm breaking these kids apart, I'm in it.
Speaker 2:I there's. Did you ever think it was a plant? For you like it was a training exercise? We think this kids got some promise. Oh my gosh, if you had elaborate training scenarios, yeah, but that wasn't the case, was it that?
Speaker 1:was not the case at all. It was real and it was bloody and so, yeah, anyways, we break up a fight and what's wild is Youth pastor. He just continued like which is leader? Still came out the back cuz that's like it fell. Those early days felt like I mean and know this, like we are our student ministry. In those early days we were spending just as much time up at the courthouse as we were at the football games, just character witness, yeah. Well, no, like literally, like seeing kids through glass.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know, like when you get out, it was rough man.
Speaker 1:But like that's who we were ministering to.
Speaker 2:Like that was the reality of who these kids were.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, over the next so it would have been like eight months later I came on staff as the middle school guy there, and now it became my problem.
Speaker 2:And it became your full-time problem.
Speaker 1:But we had to go through many, many steps, and some of these we'll probably cover in this episode and the next one. And even some of them were beyond just the stage, like into the lot, like because of who we were and the types of students we were dealing with, like we started involving police and everything else that would be there on Wednesday night and we will talk about that.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we'll probably even end with today is having some kind of a protocol. I think that's one of the things that we teased about it. Youth ministry hasn't at some ways changed that much Like kids are always gonna be a little bit unruly, and so it's on you to have like a plan. Like you may not have every situation mapped out, but having a plan and part of that plan may be, depending on the situation, that you're in security, that may be again. We'll get there in a second.
Speaker 1:It was helpful. I will say that and if there's anybody, it's not wrong to consider yeah, and if there's anybody that even the stuff that we're gonna talk about, we always try to keep it to the most the biggest audience possible, and so if you're out there dealing with a really tough group like we dealt with a lot of gang members, stuff like that man feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to talk with you as well.
Speaker 1:So chathiggins at lifewaycom and we can chat and learn from each other or share stories or share stories. Battle of scars.
Speaker 2:Battle of scars. I'll tell you a thing, young man, the thing we wanna start with. So, in working with students, if you felt like you're listening to this and the kids yesterday or Sunday or last week did not listen and I'm not talking like they didn't take good notes, but it felt like there was no attention captured in the room or there were students that were being distracting enough that it was affecting the rest of the room, I think that's some of the setup of what we're talking about Like there are kids that are gonna show up.
Speaker 2:their eyes are gonna glaze over and not absorb anything.
Speaker 2:That's a different thing and that's something else. But I think for the discipline questions, that's what we wanna set up, and so the first thing first that I would say is you have to set the expectation regularly. So one of the things from ministry experiences you need to let them know before things start, maybe even every week, if not most weeks, what the expectation is. One, it helps to clarify what we're actually talking about. It's also kind of a little bit of a call to attention, like this needs to happen in the first five to 10 minutes of what you're doing. And two, it allows you to hold them accountable to the thing that you want them to do, like you can't punish them and take their phone away because you didn't say upfront that hey, we're gonna turn our phones off for this Cause.
Speaker 2:In a lot of other arenas like yes, it's school, it may be a mixed review and they should understand it's like school, but it's not For them. There's live music, there's games, there's teaching. They would absolutely have their phone out in a movie theater, at a concert or at a school assembly and so for them, like there may not even, it may not even register some of those things. So if that's an issue set the expectation early. I would even say we've done this with some different ministries that we were a part of, even kind of codified it where it was like we involved some leadership students of like give us the language, like tell us, instead of being like no phones, like if there's a different way to say that that's not just the negative of like don't do this, but hey, this is a phone free zone. Like that feels different, that lands different. It's the same kind of like expectation. So I think the number one thing is set the bar and involve other people in it. Like that is something you're gonna have to work on. That's some of the cultural stuff of meeting together regularly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things. So we incorporated that as we began to kind of shift the culture for us as well, and so we incorporated it into a video at the beginning of the night, like it was part of, like our countdown into a welcome of. We made a couple of things clear of like hey, this is the expectation, we don't allow this. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But Make it fun. Yeah, make it live.
Speaker 1:The thing that I would really encourage to is to communicate the why behind the rule or the expectation, and to like make it clear too that it's like it's four specific areas, right, so like we would write when we started to teach, because that was kind of the place for these students that didn't have the experience there, that weren't believers in many cases, and we're there primarily just to see their friends communicating the expectation that, hey, we're gonna talk for 15 minutes, 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:Even give them a little timeline, yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, we would love for you to not distract your neighbor in this period of time so we can listen and hear, because we believe what we're gonna share is from God's word that we believe could be beneficial and useful in your life. That's good, and so we actually really did start to see some like respect in that. But I would say and honestly I would say the time was really good onto this second point that I think the expectation has to be married to the relationship.
Speaker 2:Okay. So that, I think, is one of the things that I would want to say really clearly is, most of the discipline issues come from a lack of relationship, correct, and this is why I think it's really important to understand that there's a relational range in the room, yeah, and that's a really good barometer for kind of how relationships are taking hold in your group.
Speaker 2:If newcomers are struggling but long-term folks are getting it, then that just means it's a little bit of time. It just takes time to learn what's going on and what it's about. It also stresses the importance of moving people in closer relationship to other students, to you, to leaders, Like if people are known and there's trust built and there's respect given, then most of those things will diminish or dissipate.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that, especially in the early days of this for us, we started to identify, not necessarily who were the ones that we were already the closest with that were maybe making troubles, but which one of them had the most influence on the other students in the room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the minimum effective dose of who's the ringleader, who's the?
Speaker 1:ringleader man and what we found is not just clamp down, make sure they know the rules and then they're going to assimilate the rules. It doesn't work that way. My experience with a lot of kids that are disruptive, it's really two sides of the spectrum. One, they struggle with relationships with adults in general, yeah, and so there's an immediate pushback. I'm going to do what I want, because if we want to get real sad in the moment, most of these kids don't have a really good adult interaction and their home life in general.
Speaker 2:It's literally out of practice for them, like their rhythm of life is adult-less in a lot of interactions.
Speaker 1:Or they've become, and you'll see this specifically with middle school students. Your space has almost become home to them. They're too comfortable, and so there's becomes that blurring of line of what's appropriate. And for a lot of kids, like it is hard for them to grasp, like well, why can't I talk?
Speaker 2:Like this is my these are my people, my buddy Chad up there. I'm just going to love being a student. Hold on, Timmy, hold on, hold on yeah.
Speaker 1:But for those kids that struggle with relationship, getting to really know them, yeah, yeah, and what we found over time, especially with our hardest kids, even though we thought they were only there to see friends, for every one of them there was a deeper reason. Yeah, now a lot of it. For us there was family connection.
Speaker 2:Okay, so grandma mom, yeah. Cousins brought over.
Speaker 1:Was like a believer and this was like last ditch effort of I got to get my kid into church.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and please help me, help my kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, man, we just started spending time with those kids, and that's. I joked earlier like we were spending a lot of time in the courtroom. That happens and so being able to like set with those kids when they're walking through real difficulty in their life and looking at prison time and stuff like that gains you some credibility, like you didn't leave them and like the wheels really start to turn of like what is this whole Jesus thing Right? And over time, when we got to know those students, then it was the correction expectation outside the room of going hey, man, like we get that you wanna talk with your friends, but man, it's really distracting for everybody else and we have time for that.
Speaker 2:We have small group time for that, and so we'll do a little before, a little after.
Speaker 1:Well, and being able to communicate, the same way that I love and care for you and I care for these other kids.
Speaker 2:I'll let them hear too yeah, that's good. And again, it's the community effort, correct, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that really seemed to play well with a lot of those kids.
Speaker 2:Okay, now there's something you said before we started recording, though, and I wanna make sure and highlight here One of the things that this whole episode series came out of was some conversations with folks that were really struggling, and, at least for one folk, a friend watched them try to correct the behavior in the room from the stage, and so you had a line you shared earlier. That's kind of I mean, we have a few things that we share on the podcast that are kind of like idioms or hard and fast rules, and so I think this is one we're gonna add to it, so give the people, like one of your, like hard and fast rules when it comes to this stuff.
Speaker 1:So I actually I think that that's the worst place you could ever try to correct it If you're trying to play police in the room.
Speaker 2:From the front.
Speaker 1:From the stage. You have relinquished control, and so anytime that you're on stage calling one kid out your sermon is done it really is.
Speaker 2:You've gone from being teacher to principal.
Speaker 1:Correct and what's happened there is most of the time. You've brought real embarrassment. Shame to this kid Right.
Speaker 2:Now you've created damage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that kid, he's not coming back, and if he is coming back, it's different. He definitely does not want to be there and he has no relationship with you anymore. Until that's mended and everybody else now in the room is on guard, yeah, Like your night's over Right right.
Speaker 1:And so trying to deal with it on the stage, from the stage, in both a harsh manner or I see this a lot is. They'll try to like jokingly, like draw attention to it in somewhat of a humorous manner that like pay attention, you know what I mean. You're not paying attention to me, you're not a comedian.
Speaker 2:Don't try to do crowd work. I mean, this is when you're in teaching mode. You are teacher, not MC, clown or comedian, and I think you've got to respect that boundary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anytime you're like, hey, look up here, you've lost it. Yeah. And so I would say, maybe more than anything, when we started shifting the culture, this piece was probably the most helpful. We strategically put leaders around the room Like they had assigned seats, and it was almost on every other row. They were staggered diagonally, so literally like you could control the students right around you, front behind, side to side, and there was enough leaders spread out amongst our room that were able to quietly like correct in the room and they were able to handle those kinds of things and to even sometimes ask students hey, jump up.
Speaker 1:And let's head out to the back and we'll chat for a moment.
Speaker 2:Well, so that's the part I think we're gonna spend the rest of our time is having a protocol, and so I think that's one of the things. Maybe you can't have it all developed by the next time you all gather, but I would make it a spring priority. Whatever the season of the time is, make it a priority that you're meeting with your leaders, that we're talking about. What are the steps? Like, at what threshold is chatter fine, but call outs aren't. Like what is the like oh, it was a funny whisper versus like no, like he's being really distracting or she's not just like glancing at her phone, but she's like pulling other people into the orbit of what she's doing. So what's step one?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the up? And that would be one of the things that I would really really encourage Like, if you're watching this, to actually know and understand the tone of your room, yeah, and like, let's be honest for a moment and remember we are working with teenagers in what I would hope most of us want to be an enjoyable environment. So if you're trying to get some like area where there's like no talking because, boy, heidi, you're the best teacher in the world and you want these kids to listen, hammer down.
Speaker 1:Like you need to understand your own expectation in that.
Speaker 2:And no reality.
Speaker 1:And reality and to realize like there's going to be chatter, because here's the real talk, real talk for me.
Speaker 2:If you're at a conference with your buddy you are, you're probably chattering a little bit, especially those evening sessions and stuff You're checking, doing, talking, and I think that human understanding of real human behavior in 2024, we joked at the beginning things have changed. Some of it has, like a lot of these students are battling with being very present in the room, and so I think again, part of that protocol is inviting your leaders to be the models of it. If your leaders are sitting with students and off their phones, then that's a good tone for students. It's really hard to enforce stuff for your students when all the leaders are standing in the back, coffee in one hand, a phone in the other, and that again is part of we'll talk in the next episode even more training for your leaders. But your most valuable allies and assets are the student and adult leaders that get it. And to set the tone, like when the behavior is an outlier and not a momentum or whatever, like that, is something that's becomes really significant. And so have your levels level one, level two, level three. I would even say there's some space to have some non-verbal cues, like if you feel like you're noticing something that maybe other leaders haven't noticed.
Speaker 2:Karen sometimes will do the pass the piece thing as a way to like if she's got other helpers in the room or just trying to gather the attention of people that are in the room. There's things that we can do without calling attention to a student or trying to embarrass a situation Because, again, like this, stuff isn't gonna get fixed in the moment. Like this is stuff bubbling up from the reality of everything else and I think that's the really hard conversation of this is. However the room is going is probably whatever it's been permitted to be for the last few months or years. So some of it is if you're new somewhere, you're dealing with it and if you've been somewhere a long time and it's really starting to bother you. Some of that, I think, is just a natural overflow of either what they can get away with or how comfortable they feel, or what they feel like is the model behavior that has set expectation for that moment.
Speaker 1:So just to be real practical.
Speaker 2:I'd love to walk through our exact protocol that we incorporated.
Speaker 1:So ours was. We called it a three step process. Really it was a four step process internally that we knew, and then there were key elements behind the scenes that we incorporate. So the first step to it wasn't considered a step, but it's where it began. So if a kid Level zero, if you will, level zero, a kid's really kind of first time offense to the whole thing, and so remember this isn't like there was a little bit of chatter. This was full on distraction, behavior kind of stuff that was shallow enough to not get the police involved.
Speaker 2:Because of just Not a fight, but a distraction, correct?
Speaker 1:So our process looked like this. We would. The first ground zero was a whole conversation with our Afterwards. A deering During. We always deal with it there. Okay, if a kid's doing something auditorium that needs to be brought out, we bring it out, there A leader pulls them out and our leaders knew the kind of the steps of everything and we even had a little card. Okay, we would give them. This is where we were at. We had to shift culture, okay.
Speaker 2:You were going like yellow card, red card, like soccer.
Speaker 1:No, it was explaining the three steps. Oh, okay, okay, because we wanted that expectation to be really clear for the kids. That's good that we're getting in trouble, and so it explained to them the process. That is this your first offense? Because we didn't refer to that, even though it was as their first offense, because they needed to know the expectation. Hey, if behavior like this continues, here's the deal Then here's the deal your first offense.
Speaker 1:Your name's gonna go on our list that this has happened before. Now, we were a larger ministry at this time and so some of these kids we knew we didn't it's like has this kid gotten trouble before or not? Yeah, and so, but there was a big conversation, so leader would deal with it in the place. Okay, I myself or one of our other staff members would follow up at the end of the night so we connect with the student to deal with hey, talk about what happened? Yeah, okay, but then and here's where I actually think it all started to actually work Anytime a kid would get in trouble. There were two relational touch points that week with that kid in a positive light Okay, we're calling that kid not to talk about what happened, just to see how they are.
Speaker 2:Okay, just a relational build. We wanna get on that kids Now.
Speaker 1:at that time we could get on campuses.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We would make intention. James got in trouble. He goes here. Let's go see if we can get on campus.
Speaker 2:I wanna see. We're going to Edison High School this week, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause I want him to know that I like him. Yeah, I'm not mad at him, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're not grudging it.
Speaker 1:I've called the kid, I've tried to see him at school, if he plays sports, which a lot of these kids did.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We wanted to make sure that we had one of our leaders at that game specifically for that kid that week, once their name got written, it was kind of that same process. Hey, you're in trouble, but it's documented now. Second time there was a call the mom and dad or guardian. Now we're kind of moving beyond that and we're gonna talk about what this looks like. And there was always a week cool off so they weren't able to come on Wednesday night the next week. For us, this level two, that's level two, but we doubled up that relationship stuff.
Speaker 2:Still calling, still checking Big time.
Speaker 1:So over those next two weeks we wanted four touch points with that kid. They're still dude. You're in our group, we want you here.
Speaker 2:Just to reset reset.
Speaker 1:But there's an expectation and boundaries that are set of what we want you and why we care about you. Some kids dealt with that different. That's the reality of it. Okay, and some kids came back. Things changed some didn't Okay, but we continued to keep that kid on all of our lists. We continue to reach out all of those kind of things over the months that would lead the third one was by the time you got to the third one you're starting to wonder if they really want to be there.
Speaker 1:We're really dealing with some stuff. Most of them never got to the third one, but that third one was a semester off.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times really, we would start at two. Three was a definite. We would assign a leader to that kid to try to meet one-on-one as much as they can. We had one kid that went to level three. That came back, but we didn't really have a lot more than that. There was probably less than I mean this may sound a lot, but there was probably less than seven kids in total that ever made it to level three yeah.
Speaker 1:And but anyways, most of those kids were. They were dealing with a lot of other stuff. Yeah, Just in general, and so really that like small one-on-one relationship was probably our better opportunity to reach that kid for the gospel anyways, and so, anyways, those were some of our basic tendencies.
Speaker 1:I would encourage all of you you may not. You may be dealing with a very different group and so allow your expectations and your process to match the tone of your student ministry. Yeah, If you're just dealing with some ruckus middle school kids it can look very different. It may not need to be to the extreme that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:If it's just phones out there's so many things that are less corrective and more cultural about, just like in this room we are not. And again, this is you've got to be a student of what your ministry is in and going through. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was really hard for us when we had to start coming up with the expectation. Everybody in the room was like we're not going to ask a kid not to come to church.
Speaker 2:Not initially yeah.
Speaker 1:But in reality what we realized and saw was it was healthier for our ministry, but it was actually healthier for that kid. Yeah, if done in a way that's not just you're shunned. But our focus was much more on. No, we're going to try to get you the relational help that's actually beneficial for you and not just trying to fit you into the societal process that we have here at church.
Speaker 2:One of the things that matters the most in the organization of your student ministry is clarifying boundaries for students, for leaders and you. We'll talk more about that in the next episode. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the ministry booster podcast. We would love to have your rating and review. If you follow us on Spotify or Apple podcast, make sure to drop us five stars and review anything you want to about the show Chad's hair, zach's beard, favorite coffee or what time of day you love to listen. We're really thankful for your listenership and support. Have a blessed day and we'll see you next time.
