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
Help Your Youth Ministry Small Group Leaders Win (and stick around!)
Facebook marketplace is safe right?
Zach and Chad, your ministry mentors and amateur online bargain hunters, are here to draw the parallels.
This episode is an open lesson for what we have learned navigating the challenges that small group leaders face, especially when confronted with the whirlwind or overload that is a roomful of teenagers.
For the next 30 minutes we're dishing out our practical strategies to help your newbie leaders turn anxiety into confidence, transforming those small group gatherings into from sessions to community.
Hey, and we're back with episode of the youth ministry booster podcast. My name is Zach, working hanging out in the garage, my best friend, chad Hagan so it's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2:Wait, I brought the energy.
Speaker 1:It's just well, we talked about the last episode. You know, you got to bring the energy, you got to get ready for the room and bam, we're there, but that's. That's really all I had, man. So what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:So, in before these episodes. One of the things and we talked through a little life that happens when we talk through like what's the actual beneficial stuff we want to gather? But then we always like our beginning part to be a little bit banter.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's always like, oh, we want our banner to be, and then we don't get too much because we've been told by some is actually their favorite part of the.
Speaker 2:That's all. I listened to this. I may get choked up Like. First of all, I want to thank you guys for being here with us all of these years. This may or may not be our last episode Okay, Because right after this episode we're on a crunch. Zach and I are going to do something very dangerous, and for Zach this is commonplace, happens all the time but this will be the first Saturday.
Speaker 2:This will be the first time I've ever bought anything off of Facebook marketplace, and we are going to meet a stranger who may or may not kill us both. What do you think? So there'll probably be an article in the Baptist press, though right, right, right, right.
Speaker 1:So there'll be youth ministry figures murdered at Quick Trip over.
Speaker 2:Pellet. It's Casey's Journal Store.
Speaker 1:Casey's Journal Store over Pellet Smoker. Buying a Pellet Smoker. You are, you are. I mean that's there's probably some folks that are judging you as much about buying a secondhand Pellet Smoker as they are judging you.
Speaker 2:I'm buying one of those big vertical ones.
Speaker 1:The vertical ones are fun. They're fun. No see, you may get like a big deal Like I don't even man. I've done this dozens of times. Like I love Facebook marketplace. I love meeting a random person who's trying to unload their junk. Like there's a story there. It's a coat that her ex-boyfriend no longer wears.
Speaker 2:Wait, you're buying clothing. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm in the midst of a divorce. I mean, listen, she's, she's, you know cleaning out closets. You know that my boys have switch games that were purchased because some other parents said, you know, this causes too much distraction in their home. And I'm like, well, we've got really good guardrails so I, I'd love to have it. Yeah, yeah, I bought. I drove to Arkansas. Okay, true story, True story. I drove to Arkansas last weekend to get a new couch for upstairs. Young lady in Arkansas for her family had bought a really nice couch, didn't like it and was selling it at like 40% off what it was new and there wasn't a blemish on it, and so that was how I spent my Saturday.
Speaker 2:I like that you've decided that your parenting skills are strong enough Strong enough to handle it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for your family, pokemon may have been bad, but for our family Pokemon shield we're here for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Two copies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing, what a mess. Well, you're really nervous. You're nervous about this.
Speaker 2:I don't. I mean no, I don't think so, but I'm also a little bit maybe. I'm less worried of physical violence and more worried of wow, this pellet smoker didn't work and they won't take it back, so I'm going to unload it on this guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that is the reality, especially for stuff that like is electronic Like. How do you try it? How do you know? Can you have him send you a video of it turning on Like? These are because I can't fire up pellets I think the people like Casey's are nice folks. We probably could go around back and plug it in and see if that old auger starts spinning. I mean not wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to, I'm going to take a chance. I'll bring a bag of pellets, our next episode may be me trying to sell a pellet smoker for a stupid, very interesting vertical.
Speaker 1:Wow, $700 off. That's the savings. So it's a pretty good savings, but I think, sympathetic to that, the feeling of unsureness or unpreparedness is is where we're going to land today, cause this is part two, so if you didn't catch part one, in the last episode previous episode we were talking about getting ready or handling disciplinary things as you're teaching or preaching from stage. One of the things that's related to that is the culture and preparedness of your small group leaders, and if there's any group of people I know that are hesitant to be like I, I they get it but also like it is a big thing to be the like leader, co-leader, in a room full of like teenagers, because that's just, even if you're a parent that has multiple kids, it's different when you've got a couple of teenagers in your house versus 11 teenagers all in one room.
Speaker 1:That for some folks is like a little bit. It's like like nightmare fuel of like oh my gosh, I woke up and I had to give this speech, and so I think one of the things that we can do cause you, as a youth minister, are probably not worried about it, you could pick up and run into any small group and help, kind of do is how do we leverage that for our leaders in a way that's duplicatable and repeatable so that they don't clinch with fear or do some of the things we talked about last week? Try to correct all these behaviors as they're happening. I think a lot of small group leaders that are reluctant or hesitant to sign on for more years have had a real rough go of small group stuff, like they just the group didn't gel or there was like troublemakers that they didn't know how to deal with. And I think if you're looking for longevity and retention of your leaders, preparing them really well in small group environments, not with content but with tools is really important.
Speaker 2:The first thing that I would really recommend in this process is to partner new leaders with experienced leaders Paddle on style like a mentor apprentice. Yeah, specifically in those middle school years. And if you don't have at least like someone in your church that has some like outside, like a teacher, principal, coach or something to bring in, like go after that person until they say yes, okay.
Speaker 1:And I'll give you summers off please, please help. Please please. Teacher Karen, please help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so try to incorporate them into your ministry. But you'll also, over time, get some leaders with some experience that enjoy it and they want to stick around and building a system to where others can learn from them, to sit underneath them for at least a semester and help them not only just have the expectations or the twice a year, even once a month trainings, but that ongoing they're seeing it firsthand can be so, so helpful.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think again, youth ministry maybe for many of you you've been doing it for year, years, and so you just we've talked about this before in the podcast like youth ministry is difficult because the kids are always changing. Some of what youth ministry is is the same thing, it's just the group of people you're ministering to is changing, and so you're less afraid because you've seen this play out. You know some of the typing that happens with certain students coming from certain situations or certain behaviors that are tied to you. Get that, but if you don't do it a lot, it can be like, oh my gosh, am I messing up? What should I be doing?
Speaker 1:And I think again, this is where you should always be as helpful as you can, delivering, you know, the small group material or content or curriculum to them early. But this is the renewed emphasis to have real training meetings for leaders and maybe even specialized trainings for small group leaders that other folks chaperones, security cooks, camp staff may not have, because it is both a skill and an art form, and so it's a skill and that they can practice and get better, and it's an art form that when they're around somebody who's really good, they can appreciate what it looks like to be in the room that way, I also think there's an element to it that they're not just thrown into the fire.
Speaker 1:Yes, Because the audition, the watching, the trial period trial run.
Speaker 2:The reality of a lot of this specifically, and the one that I'll always kind of pick on because, at least my experience, it is where I've had the most conversations with leaders that are like this is chaos. I don't know if I could do. It is middle school boys yeah, even all the way up to ninth grade boys yeah, some of the other grades their issues seem to be more of like it's hard to get them to talk Right To where middle school boys it's like they won't stay on topic.
Speaker 1:Right, they're literally hanging from the rafters, yeah.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I would really encourage and we talked last episode about setting the expectation for the students I think it's important that we set the expectation for our volunteer leaders.
Speaker 1:Oh good, and for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that they understand what success looks like in this middle school boys small group. Yeah, I think a lot of times when you recruit adults, we forget what it's like to be 11. Yeah, and we start to try to create an environment and atmosphere that we ourselves would enjoy. Now, right, and so-.
Speaker 1:It's a group for us not a group for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so-.
Speaker 1:That's a very different kind of group for attention spans, focus the questions that we ask, the conversations that are sustained.
Speaker 2:Right, and so a lot of times we give them curriculum. Yeah, that has an hour long conversation on it, right?
Speaker 1:It's nine questions that will take you 50 minutes, and over and over again.
Speaker 2:Without good training, you're gonna hear from your leaders. Well, we weren't able to get through all the questions.
Speaker 1:Or we had to rush through them. Yeah, because for them, the expectation was you gave them nine questions, they needed nine answers, and that's how they know when they're done. Right, but that's not always true, correct?
Speaker 2:And I think, setting up the expectation for that leader of saying, hey, we've got some curriculum for you, and realize that you are not trying to have one good small group, you're trying to build a good group that cares for each other, loves each other and helps each other grow. If you look at any good I'll take even elementary age and school stuff- they're the best, by the way, right.
Speaker 2:There's a period of time before they begin to learn that they're just laying out expectations, developing routine, building relationship, and I don't think enough of that is done in student ministry at those middle school age appropriate To where it's like we just start small group, yeah, and from go it's. Here are your nine questions. And for a lot of leaders they're trying to just get through the nine questions and the middle school boards are all over the place. They know each other, may not know the leader. All of these kind of dynamics happen. Daniel will answer Correct.
Speaker 1:All right, bless you, daniel. You're one of the good ones. You're the realist, yeah, but stop answering for your friends, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and everybody else is either not paying attention or messing around and all that. And I think we've got to incorporate the fun element into those group spaces. Let your leaders know like, hey, in these first few months we're just trying to build relationship, get to know these students, make it fun, incorporate like the play element into the conversation element. That can be really helpful.
Speaker 1:Well, that's so what you shared, I think is important to hear, even as we prepare leaders, because sometimes we can feel like a teaching or a preaching is performance Right. Like I gave a really good talk. There is no small group grading of like, yeah, tonight may have gone well or gone rough, but groups that meet regularly, weekly, every other week, whatever you're grading on the curve of when they meet together because you're hoping to form a bond, a group, a community, and so knowing that man, like this week they were wound up because this happened and we just kind of played and it was silly is okay, as long as you've helped the leader know that it was okay. I think, again to stress the expectations of what you want them to do, but then giving them the parameters of what success looks like under those expectations, like in middle school, boys like you aren't gonna have a extended, deep conversation, but if you had one great, if everybody shared one real through thing about themselves, that might be enough. And it may be funny, true, or it may be serious, true, but it was true. And I think some of the things that we've got to help our leader see is that this is a longer run, a bigger curve. It's not every each week, it's week over week, and so some of that has given them the authority to kind of shape and nurture the group.
Speaker 1:Like it should feel different when you're in Craig's group versus Tim's group because Craig and Tim are different and so like, yeah, we're having small groups, but these are also, like many ministries, that have a little bit of life and character on their own, like the way that Tim leads middle school boys.
Speaker 1:Maybe, hey, between each question, we're gonna play around a ninja or we're gonna throw. Whoever has the ball gets to talk and we throw the ball around. And so he's not everybody's gonna do that, but coach Tim that he's always got a lacrosse ball, that's what we do. We just we toss it around, that's just the thing. And so I think having some character and personality, because that's when small groups feel real, as it feels connective, and so it's just a stock, like we sit in a circle and we ask them questions. It may be appropriate for students to stand and share because that helps keep their focus, or some of your groups. It may be lounge time, where people get to sit more free than just sitting in metal chairs in a circle. Some of that may have to explore the space a little bit.
Speaker 2:And so I think again.
Speaker 1:Each group needs to develop its own character. So expectations of what I need to do, success when is it good, but then what is the character or the shape of the group get to look like?
Speaker 2:I had one of the best female small group leaders ever in one of the churches I worked with. She did my sixth grade girls and her room was specifically set up with a big table in the middle and more art supplies than you've ever seen in your life, it's Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby and her girls. All through the year they were making a journal.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so every week it was this collage of art, but that's how she incorporated her questions into it, and so, like they were reflecting in that journal, and so the end of the semester they took those home. It was beautiful, it was beautiful, but she also equipped them along the way of how to incorporate that. That's good.
Speaker 2:And they're like spiritual life and dude, it was so good. Yeah, but those girls really tuned into that every week. Yeah, because that's the way that they engaged. I also had one of my men guys middle school small group leaders what's that? Is it jackpot? Where you take the like, they all clump up and then you have one, do throw the ball.
Speaker 1:Throw the ball with like a number 500, jackpot, whatever.
Speaker 2:They were, they would always begin playing that. Yeah, and he would. It wasn't the full small group lesson, but you would watch him. At first it was just the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, while they were playing game, he would start incorporating like questions Little, moments, yeah, so like the kid that would finally get it was coming up to take over, and Bobby was like asking him a question, like, hey, like tell me something great that happened this week for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it was getting these kids talking, engaging, while they're not thinking about what everybody else is thinking about them in the moment which is a big deal for middle school kids of being vulnerable, and so he started that process and then they would go straight into lesson as they're walking back into their room.
Speaker 1:So good, Well, so this is some of the things that are non-questioned stuff. So we talked about expectations, success, character. I think rhythms or practices are really important Stuff that's not question based, like for that group playing the jackpot thing or having the journal thing. It's the character of the group, but it's also a spiritual practice that isn't just ask a question, give an answer. I love deeply the formation of stuff around small groups. I am nervous that we have pinned it all to discussion because we've said that faith based things are just our ability to like, thought and respond, when so much more of it relates to service and caring and kindness and compassion. There's just so much more than like. Did you hear and understand? It's not a verbal exam, right? Like you may not, you may mess up all the references on the scripture and look a lot more like Jesus than the kid. That's like winning the Bible book or whatever God that is such a good statement.
Speaker 2:It is not a verbal exam and I think that for a lot of our adults, and even us, like you, can think like we gotta give them these questions and we gotta get these answers. Like, what are you hoping your small groups do? Build relationships so you can speak into the lives of these students and begin to see discipleship happen. And I think sometimes, like we think of church and these places as this, like schoolroom, classroom, instead of a place to like, come, be encouraged, be strengthened, that we would live our life like Jesus.
Speaker 2:If sometimes we I think it's it becomes the gym model instead of the like community model.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do this here and only here. No, man, it's not. We're not doing reps to lift weights. That only are useful there. We're trying to get stronger as we go about our lives. And so, yeah, I mean I want students to be able to think through what they've heard and what they've read. I want us to be in the word. But, man, sometimes just reading the word is what the word needed to be to get into you more than your commentary, especially for your leaders. Take the pressure off of if you're teaching. They don't have to like perform a long monologue of teaching. We're trying to reinforce, we're trying to care and we're trying to ask. So you shared two of your leaders.
Speaker 1:I've shared this before at other conference moments. The one of the most impactful small group leaders was the least best teacher that I had growing up, but he was faithful every week to write down our prayer request and I believe in my heart pray for him. But also as a group of high school guys, we would keep coming back to those prayer requests. It was like the most like. It was like steadying that if they were on the whiteboard, they were there week over week until we felt like we had heard from God about it, from everything from like a test or a team or a girl or a home situation, like if it was like man, do we feel like we have heard from God on this? We leave it up there.
Speaker 1:And there was something about that, that man, that there was no nine questions. I mean we probably did the curriculum that he was given. I don't remember any of it but I remember that and I know those boys will remember the jackpot game because when the ball's coming you're like, oh, if I catch it, I got to answer and those young ladies that have those journals will probably treasure those for a long time and that seems a lot better as a small group than like, hey, did we get through the questions? I mean have questions because questions create opportunities to share and do. But, man, I am not convinced, like I used to be, that really deep questions do the discipleship work that we want them to.
Speaker 2:I think they're, they can be key, they become like indicators and they're an opportunity to talk and learn things. But I think most youth pastors, if they look back at their own discipleship we, like you talked about, we often don't remember the like topic of the big conversations.
Speaker 1:Rarely, very rarely.
Speaker 2:We can remember oh, there were good conversations, but a lot of times we we stayed at late at camp talking about some stuff, I think. But we remember the people that invested in our life.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think helping our small groups realize like the work that you're doing is not just the 45 minutes in this room. Right, the 45 minutes in this room is representation of the relationship that you've built coming out of it. And I think a lot of times when there's distractions and often these things that are disruptive in the room, it it stems from a lack of actual relationship outside of the room.
Speaker 1:Well. So that's the thing. As we're talking through how to prepare our leaders for disciplinary stuff. We talked about it last week. It's still true this week. Most disruption comes from a lack of relationship and that's hard to fully win inside of the 40 minute window Like that. Again, it's representational, it's an overflow of what's really going on, and so some of the work that may need to be done for your small group leaders alongside you is the relational work outside of that time. It's like small groups happening as much at the nine square court before we start that night as it is with the phone call two days after just to say thanks for coming and sharing. I'm still thinking about what you said and I think that's the thing again when we're painting expectations and successes. Man, you didn't win your small group because you asked better questions. You won because every Saturday before Sunday you made seven phone calls to see if those kids were going to be there. That's the win.
Speaker 2:That's the win. I have a very different story that I do think ties. When I was in high school myself, there was a teacher in our school that was always known for being like hard, ok, ok, miss Taylor. Like there was stories about how mean she was. Me know, miss Taylor. Dude for real, and she was a history teacher, of course, and never an English teacher, always history.
Speaker 2:I remember I got her. You know when you go to pick up your schedule. Yeah, I got her as one of my teachers and I just remember being like, but my very best friend was also in that class, OK, and him and I were always big personalities really charismatic, all that Super well behaved all the time. Never never talk, never disrupted class ever, so we were like dude she's going to kill us Bibles and bags, and I remember him and me. We decided we're like, we're going to become her favorites.
Speaker 1:And like high school psychology chat. Oh, just like. Hey, this teacher is hard. You know what we're going to do Not ruin her life, we're going to become her favorites.
Speaker 2:So we, legitimately, we started taking our lunch to her class. Just, I mean, interrupted her life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Bro, can I? I am still Facebook friends with this lady today. She went from being, like everybody, afraid of her.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody else was still afraid of her, not you, me and Matt. We love that. Like we got to know her.
Speaker 1:Well, so I was going to ask you what did you learn about her that really? What were the things you learned about her that really like flipped the switch, because there's always some story that you learn about like a home thing or like her personal history that you're like. I see you so differently.
Speaker 2:We learned, we learned for we learned and we realized. You get to. We saw behind the curtains of being an adult earlier than we should have. Ok, like she, she was not a harsh lady, she just ran her classroom.
Speaker 1:Yes, in a way that was strict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to listen and you're going to pay attention and you're going to learn, and if you don't, if you don't, you're going to the principal's office, right, every time.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:But, and none of that changed for us inside of our classroom, but it made all the difference. When you know who she is, yeah, and I think that that is some of it is. We have middle school students acting up and doing all this kind of stuff yeah, and you know some of it needs to be corrected, yeah, but sometimes you're going to start to realize that when you really get to know the kid, yeah, that home life is in a way that he or she may never get to really talk.
Speaker 1:So Karen and I have some family sayings. We've talked about this thing before. Like as a married couple, whenever we're feeling like tense about, like man, we're busy and the kids need us and work's demanding, we always will look at each other and go same team, right, same team, like whatever. Whatever you're feeling about that direction, in this direction, hey same team.
Speaker 1:Right. So one of the ones that we've said recently that we probably are adding to the lexicon of our family whenever we because she's she's a teacher, she's got a lot of kids I get to work with youth pastors and students and things is the Eureka or the AHA of I didn't know the whole story Right. So it's like you're talking about like oh, this, this guy at work, like he's just always late this and that or whatever, and then like something happens where you learn well, yeah, man, did you know that his kids really sick and they have like five appointments a week, and you get to come back to your like I didn't know the whole story.
Speaker 1:Right, and before you ever bite off more you can chew about any of your kiddos, I would encourage you to ask a few more questions to see if you can find out the whole story.
Speaker 2:I want to give one more. Yeah, one more. Give your leaders a break.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Most of our ministries are set up for them, that they never have a time off. Think about the opportunity for a rotation for a vacation. Yes, for your leaders.
Speaker 1:Yes, On a Sabbath and small groups. I like it.
Speaker 2:When you show them that you're caring for them when ministry is hard, yeah, then they're going to be respectful of the time that they have. That's good, that's good. Well, hey, y'all thanks for listening to another episode of the Fisher Booster podcast.
Speaker 1:Whether you're watching this or listening to this, we're thankful for you. You've got more questions like these. Check out the community. We'll drop a link in below. We'd love to chat with you more. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the Uthner's Rebooster podcast. If you want to talk about more about talking, preaching, teaching we'd love to have you join us at the experience Practice what you preach 2024. It's our third year of hosting a Nashville based preachers conference for those that communicate to youth and students If that's you whether you're preaching to 12 or 112 on a weekly basis, we're all gathering to learn and grow together and have a dang all good time. Check out more in the link below for the experience, where you can hang out with Chad and I and a bunch of our friends and youth pastors like you. All right, we'll see you next time.
