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
When to make the split... High School & Middle School Ministry
Aww if middle school you could see you now... they would be proud!
Switching gears, we tackle a pressing question in youth ministry: (When) Should we split middle school and high school programs?
Chad and Zac explore the pros and cons, offering creative solutions for engagement without doubling efforts. From leadership roles for older students to special events for the younger crowd, we dig into strategies that accommodate growth while keeping the community's best interests in mind. This episode is invaluable for anyone grappling with when to make the change in their own ministry.
But here is the real issue! Organizing and managing youth ministry split between high school and middle school without pulling your hair out.
Let's talk about the importance of a solid leadership structure and understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
We also discuss the broader implications for parents and the community, emphasizing the need for thoughtful scheduling and resource allocation. As we embark on new initiatives, we remind ourselves to savor the excitement and celebrate the achievements.
Don't forget to connect with Youth Ministry Booster on social media to share your thoughts and gain further support for your church!
A snap friend, chad higgins. You know what, buddy? Uh, we've been doing this for a while. We've been doing this for so long that we should celebrate. So it's special today. Uh, my oldest, isaiah yeah, who basically started when we started like that was one of the things that's true.
Speaker 2:Uh, isaiah is the one that he uh, he was born just a few months before we started podcasting and, uh, he's graduating the uh, fourth grade, but we're gonna be a third grade graduating third grade, gonna be a fourth grader, we're gonna be a fourth grader, uh, yeah. So what you think about that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, when we just started he was an infant in the like, just newly born yeah, like literally laying in the floor kind of like every once.
Speaker 2:if you go back in the first 15 episodes you probably can hear him like cooing, because he was like in the other room playing on his matter and his playpen and so we're coming up on nine years. It'll be nine years this fall. Yeah, man, coming up on nine years this fall. So pretty exciting, pretty exciting stuff. So I'm excited for it, you excited for more. On what's ahead Another summer of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another summer it always felt like in student ministry. I don't know if you felt this way, but there felt like there were always like the student ministry calendar is different, right, like it isn't like a January to January calendar that we run on. Oftentimes things are marked by either the school year or the summer, depending on kind of what style Almost like. What style of youth pastor are you Like? Are you a school year youth pastor?
Speaker 2:or a summer to summer guy? No, and that's fair, because everything in life should have seasons. It definitely is not a January to January, although sometimes our calendaring and budget reflect that. I know that for a lot of folks, summer is either the very beginning or the end of the year. Whatever, if you listen to this summer of 24, you're in it right. Either you're coming out of it or going into it. And so I think, for a lot of our friends, there's a lot of thinking about where they are, where they've been, what's coming next? And so, in that spirit, we wanted to talk a little bit about new grades, new levels, new programs. But before we get into the big question of middle school versus high school, junior high, whatever. I wanted to hear a little bit about junior high, chad. I want to take us back in the way, way, way back machine. Tell me about junior high, whatever. I wanted to hear a little bit about junior high, chad. I want to take us back in the way, way, way back machine. Tell me about junior high, middle school, chad.
Speaker 1:Junior high middle school, Chad was trying to find himself Okay.
Speaker 2:Like lost at the store, or maybe a man of too many hobbies, or middle middle school, chad was.
Speaker 1:he was really, for the first time in his life, exploring new hairstyles okay, so what was the uh, what was the old uh? So I was hairstyle of choice, I was moving young chadwick, I was moving from the bowl haircut. Oh okay, I'm dating myself a little bit here. You need to know the time frame, okay.
Speaker 2:Out of the bowl into the fire.
Speaker 1:So I was rolling from the bowl haircut, which I had, like the big straight hair, okay, but I did the like undercut bowl right. So it like really flopped down. Love the floppy bowl cut really flopped down um full of the floppy bowl, but then I was transitioning into that spiky.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, bleached. Look shut up. Have we not talked? About so I went a little, I went bleach tips for a minute. Okay, so did we just become best friends again? That was my big move at the end of ninth grade was mom frost my tips okay, so she's like I'm not paying salon store prices for it, just do it yourself.
Speaker 2:I had the at home shower cap kit that you like pull on your head and then you like painfully pluck through the various areas that you want, tipped, wipe schmear, schmear, double, double cap and then let it set in. Now the dumb part for me is I was a blonde kid looking for blonder tips, so all it really gave me was like a more platinum blonde ringlet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no I, I went straight white. My my first run was also self done, but it was not the shower cap at home.
Speaker 2:You Also?
Speaker 1:self-done. But it was not the shower cap at home, it was not mom, it was me and my cousin Amazing With a Walmart sack and just chemicals.
Speaker 2:So it was what a kid.
Speaker 1:No kid, there was no tip to it, it was just the whole thing was going white. Wow, okay. And so yeah, we white out, which really was more of because we were swimming a lot that summer. Okay, and so, yeah, we, we wide out, which really was more of because we were swimming a lot that summer. Sure Was more of an orangish color.
Speaker 2:Yes, Um chemical. It enough? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was not a good look. So I went through that period of time. That was also the period of time where I was uh, trying. So I had a group of friends that was highly into like heavy metal music. So that was also the period of time where I was exploring all kinds of like heavy metal. So, like it was this weird blend. How heavy were we talking? Oh, dude, I mean the classics. We were very golly. There's going to be people maybe not listening to this anymore.
Speaker 2:This is younger you.
Speaker 1:This is fine. This is pre-Jesus, yeah, so like Slipknot, pantera, like all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I resend the question.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So we were into the heavy— Part of Slipknot's a Christian. Now that's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thanks, brian. I don't know if you were expecting, like you know, carmen or whatever I was hoping for, maybe like Petra, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Third day conspiracy Number five.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, that was not me in middle school.
Speaker 2:Okay, well a boy can dream nice metalcore I didn't know that existed back then okay, no, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 2:Uh. Well, middle school, zach was really proud to be, um, the president of the fellowship of christian athletes. Amazing, the grand irony is it, I played on no teams, uh, no teams at all, not not. You're just looking for a good leadership role, barely athletic, definitely not athlete, uh. But we had, you know, we had a popular election and in the eighth grade I was a popular christian kid and so I became the president of fca and got to be a little mini youth pastor of eighth graders there in the pit amphitheater at independence middle school.
Speaker 2:So yeah, fellowship of christian anyone, just fellowship of christian athletes and artists. You know, just you know band kids.
Speaker 1:You know, band kids are welcome. I actually think that that is their motto. It's not just limited to athletes, right?
Speaker 2:But I think I was like one of the first, I think everybody else had been like also on the football team you were the Christopher Columbus Just exploring new worlds. New worlds at the FCA in middle school? No, but basically it was just like the pre-Wednesday morning devotional Bible study group.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we'd have guest youth pastors, I love it. And share, and so, no, it wasn't like we weren't like deeply embedded in the life of like any one team or whatever. So it was fine, but it was. But it was funny because, like you know, the guys before me were, like you know, baseball studs or football players, and they were like this guy he's barely in band.
Speaker 1:You're like my leadership direction. We're taking this away from sports, right, right.
Speaker 2:You guys like dodgeball? That's pretty sporty. It's pretty sporty. Well, we wanted to talk today a little bit, one of the things that we know that for a lot of folks in the summer can raise a question.
Speaker 1:What are you feeling?
Speaker 2:What are you feeling? We're hoping that this summer things are going really well. Yeah, that camp whether it's about to happen or has just happened is a big win, it's a big windfall. It's a big wind in your sails, like all the little things that we want to write home about.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that can get us maybe thinking or wanting or deciding to face down a big question in youth ministry, which is is it time, is it time, to split middle school and high school, j-high high? Is there a time to make a shift in the audience of the programming that we offer? And so I wanted to unpack that a little bit, because I think there's always some reasons to and reasons not to, and usually we don't always have the right folks to talk those through with, and so I wanted us to be a little bit of the wisdom board for maybe how we could talk through this as a team of like man Chad, I had a great summer, things are going really well. Should I? Is it time to? So maybe set us up a little bit. Higgins, I know that you've walked through this for a couple different churches. What might get us to the place of feeling that way? And then, maybe, what are some of the key questions that we should be asking.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think I will say this first and foremost, because we always want to talk about, maybe, what the youth minister may be feeling in these moments. If the only reason that you are trying to split middle school high school is because there's complaints, then I don't know that that is the only reason. Now, that may be a symptom of what's actually happening, but if it's just like, well, the only reason we're splitting is because parents are complaining, or a lot of times I think we get to this place because high school students are going well. I don't want to just hang out with middle school students, because I think one of the things that you would share, zach, is that there are opportunities or things that you can engage with inside of your student ministry that could help in areas of reconnecting high school students, helping revitalize high school ministry without completely doing a separate high school service or middle school service, where those are two almost completely different departments.
Speaker 2:Departments or a doubling of the efforts, like that's one of the things. Like the first jump that people seem to always make is like man, things are going good, let's do a little high school biology, mitosis. Let's divide the cell and double what we're doing. But they would never say double, oh, we're going to split. It's not splitting, you're doubling. If you're going to offer dedicated middle school or J-high and high school programming, you aren't splitting your efforts, you are doubling your efforts. Please be ready for that.
Speaker 2:This is not like oh, we had a full room, I'd love to increase opportunity for capacity, let's move things around. Or, like man, the young kids do feel young, the juniors do seem bored. We should do it to help make it more age appropriate. Man, this needs to be like we are doubling our efforts because we believe we can double or better our ministry, because, clearly, what's working right now? If you're feeling this way, you're probably feeling this way because something is working. So please don't change all that you're doing if it's already at some level working and so what you're sharing.
Speaker 2:That I would encourage is think creatively how to maybe pick at some of those little edges. If you've got some really young sixth or seventh graders, maybe find some ways to pull them aside with a special fun silly day to help Give them that outlet. Or maybe you have those juniors and seniors that are too cool because they've been a part of the ministry for five or six years. Find ways to either give them more leadership in the large room or special time apart from it. Maybe they help serve on the midweek and then they get your attention at Chick-fil-A or Taco Bell after. So that way there's a reward of a closeness, of maturity, relationship and leadership, without having a separate program that you have to staff with volunteers and efforts and teaching. I mean you're literally going to burn yourself out twice as fast. However, you're feeling right now.
Speaker 1:So that would be the first wisdom that I would give to anyone that's really contemplating and know that, like I'm actually so I don't know where you stand on it I actually do find myself in in finding, if you're able to pull it off and you have the facilities and those kinds of things, oh you're pro.
Speaker 2:Okay, I am.
Speaker 1:I the benefit when, when you get to large enough to where you can create positive momentum in both middle school and high school, yeah, um, and you have the leadership capacity to run two different things and not like you're talking about. It shouldn't be a split. Know that if you're moving into this, it creates twice the amount of volunteers. Yep, yep, it costs more. I mean you're doing double yep.
Speaker 1:And it takes more effort from you, yep. And so because you're, if you're splitting middle school and high school and then teaching the exact same message at both, then it's not. You haven't really split teaching the exact same message at both, then it's not about the learning capabilities of middle school, high school Like yes, it can be about the same topic and maybe primary scripture, but the way that it's taught needs to be very different. You should prepare differently.
Speaker 2:No, you should be preparing differently, Probably how the organization of the time that you have like the, the activity, the amount of time given to group time, the hangout time, maybe even the snacks, right, like, maybe high school gets different snacks or whatever. Like there's. There's a different kind of programmatic thoughtfulness that needs to go into it. I I want to hear you're pro, you sound like you're pretty pro. So, like, at what level you said, if the things are happening and working, like, how long do things need to feel like they're having momentum before you're like considering like making the move.
Speaker 1:So the first thing that I would really encourage anyone to do if this is where they believe leave their ministry needs to go is to create specific spaces for individual grades before there's a programmatic shift. Okay, so if you've got high school students that are wanting more of that autonomy and events that are specifically for high school, before you start moving Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights into middle school high school only, or whatever to create some events that are high school only, middle school only, or I mean beforehand.
Speaker 1:you talked about a great idea of inviting high school students over to your house once a month for a specific hangout or Bible study or whatever you want to do with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, give them those little relational bits and see if that continues to pick up steam.
Speaker 2:I think for me, if you're feeling like man, this could be something and those little experiments work well then you may be ready to do some overhaul, innovation and the things that we've learned whether doing this podcast or working with church leaders like innovation should always start with really small iterations or prototypes. So instead of being like hey guys, come Labor Day, we're splitting, you should spend probably a season or a year, maybe a year of these little experimental efforts, of the once a month high school Bible study or the leadership hang Like there's just, and maybe this is I'm not. I'm not anti. I'm not anti, I just.
Speaker 2:I feel like one of the things that I've heard from youth ministry friends so much over the last couple of years is that they are exhausted, sure, and this move whether they're feeling the pressure from below because kids feel really young, or above because kids feel too cool it is is the thing that like ultimately like breaks, snaps, because it's like they were doing a thing, and instead of having like incremental more work because it was a busy summer season or it was like D now weekend, like it is guaranteed more work every week without a guaranteed reward and usually it's like lower before it's better, right, like because those first few weeks can be a real lull, and so I would say, at all costs.
Speaker 2:Protect the time that you're asking of the most number of people, because it's the thing that will inflate and deflate you the most Like. If you have a high school senior high hangout and half of them come, it's okay. Half of a smaller number doesn't feel as defeating. But if you make a big move to split around how you're organizing your week on a weekly basis and things aren't working, that feels like weekly defeat Sure, and that will run you ragged. And so, just to hear it pastoral again, I'm not against it, but I'm a little more leery of it than maybe some other folks might be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I've just I've seen it now twice done pretty well Done, well Okay Okay. And so— I'm 50-50. Right For me. You want to create some spaces that they experience what it's going to be like in a one-off environment, but then also that it's not just the environment you need to have, like an ongoing high school thing over the summer or into the spring that you ask the question is this growing?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because if it just splits and maintains, why did you split? That's right, right, and so this should be something that you move to to create their own space to learn and grow, not only numerically but spiritually. And so are we identifying. How do we measure those type of things? What are we looking for? To know whether these are successful endeavors and then to be able to kind of push into them. And then to be able to kind of push into them. The other thing that I would really recommend in this process is that you're developing a leadership structure beyond what you have. If the goal is just, well, we need more leaders, double the leaders, we'll call it good. Then you're not building a leadership structure, you're just getting a larger leader group.
Speaker 2:There's more folks for you to manage. Yes, you don't just need more leaders, you need more layers, Correct, Whether that's staff, and usually for some folks that's kind of the way to key this up is we've been growing at a way long enough that we're able to staff them differently. I would say that's not a wrong kind of like. If you don't have like either part-time, full-time staffing to redirect to these things, or at least some like champion volunteers that are like I will be all things middle school, you're probably not ready. Like you're going to have to remove.
Speaker 1:In the same way that when your ministry grew from 12 kids to 20 kids to 40 kids, you had less and less contact directly with students in relationship and you had more leaders involved, this is another notch up that's going to remove you further from the week-to-week connection with students, and the thing that I think is really important through any shift like this and it's part of just growth in general in student ministry the higher capacity leader you are, the thing that I see to be true amongst all the leaders that I'm around is their ability to become more and more honest with themselves, to be able to say okay, these are the areas that I'm actually strong at, these are the areas that I'm not, and for most people, when we come into contact with either one of those, we either only want to focus on the strength or we only want to focus on the weakness.
Speaker 1:This is going to help me, because I'm going to become better at this instead of realizing, okay, how am I actually wired, and then who do I need to bring in, even as paid staff or volunteer, to help in these areas? That's good. And so when it comes to middle school ministry, sometimes in the division or the multiplication of a ministry, I see over and over again the head youth pastor moving into. Well, I'll lead high school and then we'll just go get a middle school guy.
Speaker 2:Just any old guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and then oftentimes, in the development of that, the middle school's kind of left at its own device instead of going, okay, I'm a really strong creator, like for you, zach. Right, you are man, you're innovative. Uh, you love the start of the idea and so for you being able to like, hone in, create, build and then bring in whatever the new thing is yeah, and I think that's something to say.
Speaker 2:This isn't like preferring older and younger.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe it's not true in your. It always seems to come true sometimes this time of year where, like the reward of youth ministries, longevity is the joy of teaching high school students. But, man, I have found that the ability to capture the attention of middle school students is the pipeline for growing high school stuff. And so, like, the better you are at those sixth, seventh, eighth grade moments, connections, teachings, relationships, the easier you make it for high school. That most folks that really enjoy high school ministry are the benefactor of someone that was really good at J-high ministry. And so, yeah, like, the thing that may surprise you in these, this wave of momentum, is how much those younger students actually need your attention more, because that is such a determining factor for that high school ministry. And so, yeah, if this was the master plan was, we'll split the ministry, I'll be the high school person, or I'll be the person overseeing junior high and a high school person, you may be surprised to find that the seventh grades need your attention the most.
Speaker 1:The other big piece of wisdom that I've seen wreck this for folks and has also been some of the biggest hurdles that we had to overcome, is this A lot of times, when these multiplication of a middle school, high school happens, we often think through it in the capabilities of ourself or our volunteers, instead of thinking about the people that it affects the most.
Speaker 1:Yes, primarily us Parents Parents yeah, yeah yeah, and a lot of times in the division of this we'll just stagger our time because that's when we're already around on Wednesday. So then it's like middle school starts at 6, high school starts at 7 because we're going to run it back to back. Yeah, yeah yeah. Because we don't have the facilities to— To split rooms.
Speaker 1:To split rooms, to extend the time, extend the time, and so then what we have is for parents and it's a lot of them who have both a middle school and a high school, then it makes pick up and drop off an absolute nightmare for the people that, let's be honest, have the ear of our senior pastor, yeah, and so now this new thing that we're trying to get off the ground, and we're so excited about.
Speaker 1:What your senior pastor is hearing is I'm having to sit around and wait forever and all of these kind of things, and we're making logistical nightmares for families. And so when we start to think through how do we divide this, there are questions to ask and to try to figure out a solution to. Yeah, and so as you start to build this out, think through it from a parent perspective from the very first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as much the logistics of getting there, getting home, setting up, tearing down, and for your volunteers as well. How many of them depend on the childcare or the opportunities to like share the burden of their small children if they're helping out, like there's a lot that goes into it, more than just what happens in the room, and I think that's one of the things. There is something true that a gathered time, a corporate worship, a program time for teenagers is an important weekly or regular practice. We, as our team, would strongly encourage you to find regular habits of meeting together for praise, for teaching, for small groups, for activities, for fellowship. That all matters and age-graded versions of that can be really beneficial. It's why we have kids and youth and adult and I think folks do things at different levels of separation or departments. Those can be beneficial.
Speaker 2:But the thing that we want to strongly encourage you from is to think through not just the room and how we're going to do, the things that we can control, but maybe account for the things that impact others. Can't control all of it, but we can consider both our intent and our impact for the ways in which we are planning to do ministry really, really well. We want the best for you. We want you to be excited about it. One of the things that I would say is to never make these big shifts lightly Experiment these big shifts lightly Experiment, innovate, try things always. But big shifts in ministry should come with big seasons of prayer, big counsel of wisdom from folks that are stakeholders in this and big rollouts for the communication of how you're going to share it. I remember talking with somebody that was excited about it and it was like in June of a couple years ago, getting ready for August.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, you know, camp was great in june. I think we're gonna do it in august. Oh, you're gonna spring it on him. He's like no man, we'll have a couple months. And I was like man, that's a big ask for a family unit like. This is something that should be like months and months in advance, like they should be looking forward to it, counting down to it. I I'll never forget his comment was well, I don't even know if I'll be excited about it by then and I was like, oh well that, that tells me a lot that if you wouldn't still be excited about making the shift in nine months, because it's really hard to undo Experiments.
Speaker 2:we can try, they could fail. We can move on big shifts and how we do, ministry of where and when and for who these are things that can really hobble things that are going well, especially if we're experiencing some of that goodness and momentum right now the other thing and I love what you're talking about of timeline, of rolling it out, because as you begin to talk about what you're going to do, you've got to have enough time to talk about why you're going- to do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and so to be able to start to cast vision, first of the importance of both growth caring for students better and then explaining not just well you got two times, but the amount of new leaders you're going to be able to.
Speaker 1:Double up, double up, right, the care that each student is going to get. Now you're actually talking to parents and students of why this is effective, all of those kind of things. It also gives you enough time to really develop a great plan of rolling this out to both your leaders recruiting leaders, getting them on board, all of that kind of stuff, because you should have enough time with the new leaders to start developing relationships in your current model to be able to then come into your new one. So you're not both in the midst of change and vision casting at the same time. You can do those separately. And then you start to develop relationships in the room.
Speaker 1:And now, when everybody's going through the shift, you're not trying to build new relationships in the midst of the shift. The other piece of that for us is this Once you go to that shift, in communication of it you're not communicating, hey, we're going to try this. Yeah, because the minute you start communicating hey, we're going to try this then you're communicating, hey, I need everybody to put your evaluation cap on for the next year, let me know what you think. Right, because then you're going to get everybody's opinions.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then when everybody's trying to figure out whether they like it or Because, then you're going to get everybody's opinions and then, when everybody's trying to figure out whether they like it or not, you're going to have a good portion of people that do not like this Right.
Speaker 2:With any change and that's a necessity of making change is that people will not always like it.
Speaker 1:But to be able to roll in and go here's why we're doing it and what you're doing it and then internally, with your staff and all of these, you can determine we're going to set guidelines. We're committed and it may not be a forever commitment. It may be a trial period internally, but that trial period needs to look like 18 months, two years, three-year window, and it needs to be.
Speaker 2:You know, hey, kids minister loves this senior pastor loves this young adult. Everybody's excited. We're all excited about this because we've been talking about it, praying about it, we've sought wisdom both from staff and stakeholders for it. So again, we are for it and excited for you. This is one of the questions that we see get asked a lot in this season and we wanted to offer as much wisdom as possible in the excitement that you're feeling. I don't want to temper it, I don't want to bottle it, but I think sometimes every moment of excitement leads us to wanting to drum up more change or innovation, to see what else is in store, savor what's happening while it's happening, evaluate why it might be that way and continue to invest in your students as you move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey. Thank you guys so much for joining us here at Youth Ministry Booster. Make sure to like and subscribe. Connect with us on social media. We would love to hear from you and to be able to serve you and your church any way that we can Take care.
