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
Navigating Youth Ministry Highs & Lows: From Static to Soul-Care
We're not just talking shop; we're opening up about the art of pacing and the vital act of delegating to avoid burnout.
Remember school field trips? This episode Zac and Chad are taking that nostalgic trip down memory lane... it's a memory and a feeling.
Ministry comes in waves and this time between spring and summer is one of those valleys.
This heartfelt episode is a reminder for all our ministry friends out there: while we're passionate about serving others, we must also cherish and prioritize our own health and happiness.
Healthy ministry, starting with soul-care, is about striking that elusive balance between ramping up activities and maintaining our personal and family well-being.
And we're back with another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. Hangout in the garage. I'm Zach Workin. This is my best friend, Chad Higgins. How?
Speaker 1:are you hey?
Speaker 2:buddy, we are back and it's springtime. I'm wearing short sleeves in the garage because Daddy put an air conditioner in. Yes, I did, it was. You know, the summertime was coming and it was long overdue. We had sweated out enough in the sauna garage, and so how does it feel? You feel more temperate.
Speaker 1:I can walk from inside your house to this space. It feels the same and it feels the same.
Speaker 2:It's just an extension of the house. It just feels like it was always meant to be.
Speaker 1:So it's going to be nice, is it a garage?
Speaker 2:or is it a studio? Hard to know, hard to know, hard to know. We are excited to come back at you. This time of year is always a really unique time of year. It's Eastery, it's spring break-y, it's the end of winter stuff, it's the beginning of summer stuff. We even talked about it before. It feels like a middle time For Youth Ministry. It feels like a middle time. The Easter is a very big Sunday. Youth Ministry may experience the swell of that. But Easter is not often like a youth emphasis Sunday. There's very few churches that are like Easter Sunday. Youth pastor preaching, youth choir singing, that would be quite the Easter. That would be quite the Easter. It would be. It would be lit fam, nope, nope, not that. But it is a unique time. But I think it brings up a lot of these loose thread conversations For me, in particular the question of best field trip that you ever took as a kid, because I just got back from the zoo and pioneered days with the boys. Amazing.
Speaker 1:I want to hear you have to go with Phil.
Speaker 2:Yes, like field trip dad sponsor. Well, I mean work from anywhere. Sometimes you're working from. It's a little bit weird to be the guy with his iPad out at the homestead when everybody else is like eating cold fried chicken and you're like answering an email. But you know good times.
Speaker 1:Good times. Is that a field trip that everybody across the country has experienced, or is that like a local, southern thing? So if you don't know what we're talking about, you very well may not.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Yeah, is that not universally?
Speaker 1:true? Well, I know that I mean.
Speaker 2:there are some things like antiquity trips. Surely antiquity trips are a thing. Well, I mean, I think, depending on how old?
Speaker 1:100 years to you? Yeah, so okay. So basically, these are field trips where there's some historical site. I know that the one that we went to when I was a kid it was like a one room school building that was like Frontier day. Yeah, that was like remodeled, and so it was basically created to look like it used to like. There were these like little desks that kids would have said at 100 years ago.
Speaker 2:There was the outhouses that you got to visit all of that kind of stuff. Chickens you got to feed, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I can remember there was even a little gift shop. You could buy some stuff.
Speaker 2:Just like they used to do in the frontier days. Wow, but I just, you know carbon copies of the Constitution to pick up at the gift shop. Thank you, homesteaders.
Speaker 1:I could remember getting. I got a mouth heart.
Speaker 2:Oh good Was it a Snoopy branded one.
Speaker 1:No, it was just a metal thing. It was like a which worst instrument in the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it literally just flicks your cheek to death. Flicks your cheek to death.
Speaker 1:But that's a real looking back, like that was a weird trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is your mom pack for lunch? That's always the like what'd you wear and what'd your mom pack for lunch? Because that was a fun little conversation in the working household for what we were going to send our kids with.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't remember what my mom packed for lunch, but thinking of like pioneer day, so this is a specific Oklahoma one. Yeah yeah yeah, so Zach and I grew up in Oklahoma. There's some Oklahoma history in the central part of the state known as the land run, and so it was basically a dachshund for land many years ago.
Speaker 2:Where's Sooners, boomers and Sooners, sooners, yeah, sooners come from, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah they're.
Speaker 1:I mean they like lined up on a line and like went and claimed land. But there was this reenactment back on the day in the playground where you'd have all the kids dress up like they were. You know 1800s A little boomers and Sooners.
Speaker 2:Boomers and Sooners, if you don't have a little covered, little red wagon.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you bring your wagon and make it look like an actual like a camp site.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, just staking out your 40.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but then it was just kids running out into playground with four stakes Right and yarn and you would just rope off your area.
Speaker 2:We need kids running around with more sharp objects and string. That just seems like that's a good playground day, like that's a wild.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is not my best field trip I've ever went on, but this is the weirdest, the weirdest Dude. Looking back, I have no idea why my school did this. Okay, and, as an adult, a little appalled by it, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:It was retrospective offense.
Speaker 1:It was over the Christmas season, Okay. Okay. So one of our teachers, her husband, was. They were pretty affluent, Her husband had a great job all this kind of stuff. They decorated their house and just like I mean it looked like Christmas just threw up in it. Nice, we went on a class field trip To the rich ladies house To the rich ladies house To look at their Christmas decorations.
Speaker 2:Now that is a trip from Historic History. Oh hey, golly. God bless the Francis family, for you know that's a feudal system, my friend.
Speaker 1:Looking back at it, young serfdoms.
Speaker 2:Looking back at it.
Speaker 1:I'm like why did they take us there? Like what was happening? They were just like you guys wanna see how the other half live.
Speaker 2:One day, this too could all be yours, that's complicated.
Speaker 1:That's a complicated trip.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I had anything that was that complicated. We did sophomore year in high school I was a part of a group that did a lot of different like significant sites in Oklahoma City visit and that was fun Like kind of a monthly.
Speaker 2:Every month they'd take a group of us like leadership students who did that thing, but the Pioneer days, both taking the boys, taking the oldest, and then growing up doing it Like that was the like you pack a pail of like cold fried chicken which my mom bought from KFC, which is just I don't. There's something about like having it be fast food fried chicken you refrigerated for the next day. There's something, there's something there. But that was like I had to buy new coveralls, cause that was like the kids were supposed to wear, like you know, period appropriate clothing, and so we bought, like you know, a little knock off Levi coveralls. Not, I wasn't really a coverall kid, but that's.
Speaker 1:Did I respect the kid that just shows up in Nike shorts and a Tasmanian devil T-shirt ready for Pioneer day?
Speaker 2:Looting tunes are awesome, man, everybody loves looting tunes. Yeah, just Tweety Bird, hoodie, you know, ready to go? Yeah, that's an interesting thing. So if you didn't have a Frontier day, pioneer day, I'm trying to think for our friends that either lived all the way out West or who states are older than a hundred years, like what is the like antiquity Frontier trip If you're from like Boston? Boston, yeah, like that's just a little tea party of a different kind. God, what if that's what they started, as it was like tea party of like sitting around drinking tea and they all took stuff and threw it in the lake.
Speaker 1:Well, as a guy who just turned in as taxes if we want to go through. I'm here for throwing some tea in a pond somewhere.
Speaker 2:Chad's a little fired up politically, we'll save that for a different episode, maybe a different podcast show. You catch him at Chad Higgins dot. Political thoughtsco that today we did want to talk about some of the things that may be reminiscing, connecting across the country with folks, and it's the space between ministry obligations. This is something that we talked about, kind of pre-show that we want to invite you in as a conversation. We feel like the post-DNL spring break, easter time before summertime is a unique valley of youth ministry happenings Because I think it pulls us in some different directions One, to try to add one more thing to what we're doing. Or two, to be honest about the rest we need. Or three, to be really, really honest and feel conflicted about all of it. I don't know. April into May are a weird set of months for a lot of youth ministry leaders, and so maybe walk us through a little bit. You'd shared some of the thoughts about coming out of something before beginning something, but walk us into the moment and the feeling.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that we I think we always want to do well here is not just to talk about the practical tips or how to do better. There's an element of what we do as ministers that is both spiritual and emotional, and I know in talking with a lot of youth ministers and my time in student ministry, this season of time right here you're coming out of either Disciple Now, Winter Camp or whatever you call it, or even if you don't have something like that, there's been this start of the year excitement, maybe in church, and we've tried to run with that for a little bit, and now we're getting into the season of time of either we've been planning for mission trip over Spring Break.
Speaker 1:Or maybe you have service project over Spring Break, or you've even started sign up for camp and all of that kind of stuff, and then, just in the midst of students, right, the spring can be really busy.
Speaker 1:You've got sports and concerts, graduation parties, yeah, all of these kind of things that are happening in the year at and in the life, the span of it being a student pastor over the year. Like this feels like a very busy time of year, but it also feels like it's the in between, like you're just trying to like move from here to there and get everybody in line and all these kind of things, and I think it can be really like taxing Mm-hmm, not just in the workload but I think sometimes in our own feeling of the work and what we're asked to do. Man, as I look at like Facebook groups, it just feels like there's this like level of snarkiness that isn't always Sarcasm is beginning to creep.
Speaker 2:That is something that I think is worth noting is for all of us when the sarcasm begins to creep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that it becomes this feeling of being unsatisfied. They're also from people. I talk to you when our schedule becomes so busy and we feel like we've got expectation from our church and our students, and then even just our own expectation of doing mission trip really well.
Speaker 1:Or man having a great disciple. Now, then I think sometimes the people that take the brunt of that is our own family, our relationship with our spouse, our kids, and it feels like we're just kind of dragging them along the way with us. So this is something we've done for a long time, Zach and I've asked you this same question, many different topics. If you had the chance to sit down with one of our listeners, that what we're talking about right now resonates. They're like that's exactly where I'm at, you get to have coffee like we're doing right now. What would be some wisdom or advice you would begin to just give them?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing to start with is who is putting these expectations on you? Because I often feel like we are trying to live up to expectations that maybe have not been communicated to us. I'm not saying that people wouldn't like it if you did it. I think that's why we often end up doing it. Is planting more activities. There's at least one parent's like come on, heck, yeah, thank you, be it, more stuff, please. And so I think there is a little bit of like. Well, when I do more, I get thanked for it, but that doesn't mean the same thing as like that was what you were supposed to do.
Speaker 2:And in ministry, a conversation about expectations starts on the staff side of things of like and senior leadership. What is the, what is? Or can I come to you and ask about the season between seasons, right, like the slump between spring and summer? Can this be more about this than that? And so I think clarifying those expectations will give your heart and relationships some space, like cause.
Speaker 2:That is one of the things about ministry is it takes a toll, even when it's really good. It takes a toll because it's relational and emotional work, like there's just stuff that gets loaded up on you. But even if it's positive stuff, you're just carrying it around, and so I think clarifying the expectations is good, but then I think also being really intentional youth ministry loved to plan things you have got to put the time of rest and family on the calendar. The calendar it In the same way that you calendar the monthly activity or the graduation or the mission trip, planning meeting, make appointments, plans with your family, your spouse, yourself, like that has to be a part of as much your. If it's the time that's leftover, it's always gonna taste like leftovers. It has to be a part of the menu the plan Attentionally planned.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that's so good, man. I love that you started with expectation and I think that that's an issue in just ministry world in general that I don't think we talk enough about. I hear a lot about job description and things like that.
Speaker 2:It's a one-time conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, but even like a lot of times, I think there are two camps of people that do job description incorrectly. Okay One, they see their job description and then those become hard lines of like well that's all I do.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:And then there's often that no further, that no further and that often becomes this like rub. Yeah, you see a lot of dudes that lose their job over the fact that it's like well, that wasn't part of my job description, but like we're ministers, like, there are different things that come up, those kind of deals. Now, by no means think we throw those at the water. The other side is, I think a little bit of what you're talking about the expectation isn't clearly defined and there are things that are written on a paper when we first get hired, but we don't. There's nothing on there that actually describes in the people that evaluate your work whether or not it's successful. And I think when that happens, then you have people that fall into the camp of well, I'm going to work super hard to be noticed, to get a pat on the back, got to win by doing, and then you're continuing to chase that, yeah, and if you don't have a really thoughtful, careful leader over you, you're just on a hamster will of death.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've said it before and I think it's bear repeating here in very few instances. Read never will anybody at your church ask you to do less. I have met very few people that are like man, it looks like you're doing a lot. You ought to do less. Students, parents maybe you're volunteers, but you're senior leadership like if they want to do extra, I'll let them, and so it's going to have to be a little bit self-initiated, like am I doing all the right things or am I just doing all the things?
Speaker 1:Yes, and that would be the question that I would ask, as you have those conversations with your leadership. It's not I can't do anymore, it's trying to have a conversation around what are the most important things that I could be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to be able to end that conversation, to know what you can say no to, yes, but in the midst of that, those are never like hard cut lines, right, like have those conversations of man, how do we build a healthier structure for myself but for our ministry, that it's able to function in a better way? Yeah, and so being able to determine, like, what is the most successful things that we need to be doing in this season helps us know what we need to be doing. But the other part that you mentioned that I think is crucial in that is to realize that your health at home is an important piece that has to be structured into that. Yeah, like you can have all the metrics of growing a student ministry, but if you're going to burn out in a year and a half, what good is it?
Speaker 1:Then your church is just going to have to start over with another guy from ground zero, and so it's like we've got to begin to have real conversations. But then also, like I love what you said, make it intentional. Get your family vacation on the schedule. Yeah, that that is a piece of the puzzle for you of having a successful ministry in the spring. Yeah, that you would look at it at the end of the spring and go. We did disciple now. Well, service project over spring break was okay, dude, right.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so real life testimony. Yeah, when I started at the Tulsa church we did mission trip, service stuff for the first three years, because that's what you're supposed to do, yeah, but the kids voted for us and by year three we were so underserving the populations of students that we were regularly serving that we cut it, and it was. It wasn't because we did good work, I mean, we went and volunteered and you know, for the kids that didn't have anything else going on, it was something. But when we had less than like 20, 25% of our student ministry participate, they told us I mean it was literally like if this was meant to be like, hey, get out and serve, it was not getting us out to serve. And for a guy married to a teacher who spring break was one of the most precious weeks of the spring, maybe in gone, three days of the five days she had off didn't serve us well.
Speaker 1:Well, and you can. I think when you get real, you can still say okay, as a ministry, I'll take that as an example. We want serving to be an integral part of what we do, right? That doesn't mean it has to be a trip over spring break, right, right, like you can begin to teach that, integrate that in a week to week basis or in a fall or whatever, to incorporate that into your ministry. And I think when we start to set expectation and calendaring, that has our own health and minds, but it starts from a place of understanding what it means to do it well and all of these other areas, and I think it also requires us to be honest.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, I think sometimes we can try to like when we, when we feel a failure of an event or a thing that we do in our ministry, I think sometimes we lie to ourself Okay, that that is, that is it's. It's okay, our small group ministry, even though we only have 25% of our students, it's okay. It's okay, yeah, and it's it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, and we continue to let it limp along.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And internally we know the difference. Oh yeah, and those things begin to weigh on us. Yeah, and when we're tired and we're spent and we're continuing to run after things and just maintaining things that are dying, then that takes a psychological hit on us. And who takes the brunt of that? Oftentimes Right, our family.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And because now we're exhausted and we're having to do the thing that's already not doing well and we've just been lying to ourselves that it's OK, instead of fixing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or what I see over and over again is guys hit that point and they just move on Because it's so much easier to start over at a new place and have the honeymoon period than to be willing to face it, change it and begin to build something that's more healthy.
Speaker 2:But you know who moving is the hardest on your family your family Every time. Here's a pitch for you in this springtime Don't walk in without graphics or a binder or a thing.
Speaker 2:Chad loves a formal meeting with a graphics binder and a write-up. What is the health plan of you leading in ministry? More than your health insurance, more than the ministry programming plan for you to do ministry in a healthy way? Again, there are some things that are obligations, there are some things that are collaborations, other ministries Sorry, you probably can't get out of VBS or helping with senior adult luncheon or whatever the obligations are.
Speaker 2:Those are team building things. But what is it Like? Again, vacation days are meant to be used. If you have a built-in Sabbath or day off into your work schedule, that's meant to be taken. And so some of those things, in the same way that you would evaluate if D now went well, take this low season whether you're feeling low or it is low or you're wondering what to do and be really proactive in evaluating how you feel at the end of all you've done and where it's left you. I think you have taught me well that we shouldn't evaluate events based on feelings how do you think it went? But I do think that there's a layer of how did you feel when it was done, not about the event, but generally. I mean to be transparent.
Speaker 2:Our team in 2023 traveled too much. We had some success in 2022. And we said, well, what's the only thing better than traveling a little bit in 2022? Traveled a whole lot in 2023, but it wore us out and, even though we travel a lot still because it's part of our work, there were some strategic things that were made about the spacing of what we did. Who went where. That mattered for our ministry and, I think for you to sit down, listener, binder open, notepad out and to chart out the things that are, that your health is part of the ministry plan, in the same way that you would want small groups that are safe and inviting and encouraging students to open up. You need to be ministering from a place where you have enough bandwidth to lead and enough reserve to share and give, and if you don't, then that's a real concern for the health of your ministry.
Speaker 1:My encouragement to anyone is you may be hearing this right now and you may already be at that place of you. Once you get tired, a lot of us will push back hard. You want to walk into your senior pastor's office and just go?
Speaker 2:we got to change everything.
Speaker 1:My encouragement to use this is you didn't get unhealthy overnight and you're not going to get healthy overnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to fix it. You're not going to fix it by summer, right.
Speaker 1:And so being sometimes, sometimes our schedule doesn't get any less busy, but the weight of it can come off. Yeah, to realize that you don't have to take the entire heel of success in one event.
Speaker 1:But as you begin to plan and begin to look at your calendar for here until the summer, ask yourself what are you doing to stay spiritually healthy, emotionally healthy, relationally healthy? Right Like, do you have a date night planned with your spouse? Are you trying to get out of the office early on a Thursday and go pick up your kids? Yeah, and instead of just like rushing home to do the next thing, take them to the park.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Go hang out with them and to realize, like sometimes now granted, we're all in different places and I always want you to be wise if that's something that would rub your senior pastor wrong and have those conversations it's okay to not just be frustrated with the environment and culture you have, but to realize that you're part of it that can change it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, if you want the churches or the people in your church to value family, you have to be ministers of value family. Yeah, and so?
Speaker 2:And imitate me as I imitate Christ.
Speaker 1:Right dude.
Speaker 2:Something like that in scripture. I forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe, maybe yeah, and I think that there are steps that we can begin to take that sometimes I think we try to separate work and us, and it will never happen that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no clean break, and so hopefully you hear this episode as an invitation. If you're in the car, maybe you can find a pause after this. If you're in the office, maybe take a quiet few moments. It is our hope always and earnestly that wherever you are, you would be considerate of the ways in which you're not just doing ministry, but who you are as a minister. Calling is never about the actual work. Calling is about the invitation as a person to participate alongside the one who has invited you.
Speaker 1:Snack.
