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
Youth Ministry: Superheroes, Sports Teams, Spiritual Gyms, Sprouting Discipleship & Real Talk
🎉 Let's kick it! Join us and our good buddy Cameron! as we dive into a fun fall episode. Do you ever wondered what happens when a Christmas game goes hilariously off the rails? Or how much leadership is a team sport?
This episode is packed with laughs and real talk on the wild ride that is youth ministry!
Special guest alert: Cameron Crow
Rethinking Youth Ministry Metaphors: Start thinking of your youth ministry like a “spiritual gym,” where students strengthen their prayer game and build lifelong habits of faith.
This week we are breaking down why spiritual disciplines are critical, and — surprise! — how some tactics actually boost our approach to forming scriptural habits. It’s all about equipping students for the present, not just the future, so they know they’re essential right now.
đź’ŞFrom evangelism hacks to the power of team-based ministry, Cameron brings fresh ideas on how to rally students around their unique gifts and purpose. Isolation and burnout? Yeah, we tackle those too, showing the importance of meaningful connections to keep the journey sustainable.
🎒Oh, and don’t miss our shout-out to the "Sprouting Discipleship Workbook" — a new go-to resource for disciple making in youth ministry. #YouthMinistry
Hey, and we're back with another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast, hanging out in the garage with my buddy, cameron, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:What's up, man? How are you today? I am good man. I just saw the Spider-Man helmet and that got me excited.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do Listen. Hey, you know what? I'm not really sure who's in the marketing department. Spider-man has webs. Why would he ever want wheels?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but let's give him a helmet. Let's give him a helmet. Let's put it in a garage with some gas fumes.
Speaker 1:What if more superheroes wore helmets for a safety purpose? Batman's got his costume. What if Spider-Man had his own Spider-Man helmet? I mean, batman's got his costume. What if Spider-Man had his own Spider-Man helmet? Some would argue that Batman kind of has a helmet. If Batman does, thor does Like Superman with a helmet, just like Superman with just a Las Vegas Raiders football helmet.
Speaker 2:He flies so fast right.
Speaker 1:Just in case. Just in case, we don't want Superman to have CTE. That could be bad.
Speaker 2:Then he would need the helmet To be concussed. Yeah, he may need a helmet after that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well, I mean, green Lantern needs all the help he can get. So what if, instead of the rain, like the thing? Well, dude, hey, thanks for hanging out in the garage today. Dude, you made the drive up today.
Speaker 2:So for all of our Texas friends, yeah, no, not at all. It was a fun drive, it was a quick drive, so it's nice to support Oklahoma from Texas.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, hey, listen, there's a lot of y'all moving here, yeah Well we won't go there. Some would say there's a lot of people moving into Texas, yeah, and where are they going to go next? I think Tulsa could be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be, but we'll keep them in Texas as much as we can.
Speaker 1:Well, what's going to happen is DFW is just going to grow into Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:It'll be one thing. It'll be one thing the Red.
Speaker 1:River Valley will just be one contiguous city.
Speaker 2:We'll tell that to OU and UT.
Speaker 1:Oh well not a year to talk about some of those things. Not this year? Are you a longhorn guy, are you?
Speaker 2:hook'em horns. So I grew up. My two favorite teams were A&M and whoever's playing Texas. So we played Maroon in the house and so yeah.
Speaker 1:Dang. Okay, we could get along man. Hey, Crimson and Maroon, we are more alike than we are unalike.
Speaker 2:Well, we were in the Big 12, so that's true.
Speaker 1:That's true, yeah, why doesn't?
Speaker 2:Oklahoma fall or Texas fall in the Gulf. Oklahoma sucks, oh man. Yeah, that's how we grew up.
Speaker 1:So hurtful. But you know, as long as we can all get behind that, Alabama's the worst.
Speaker 2:And it's a great year for that.
Speaker 1:Really, it's a great year, dude, especially for all my friends in Nashville. It's the best year actually for that. Who knew that Vanderbilt was even still Division One?
Speaker 2:I thought they only played baseball.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that they're a real volleyball school.
Speaker 2:They're good in their camo uniforms.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, my friend, we are so excited to have you here today. We've been ministry friends through the last couple years at various camps and things and happenings and conferences. I'm excited we get to sit down for a little bit and talk about some stuff related to youth ministry this episode in particular, about some evangelism and discipleship tools and training things. But man, tell me a little bit for folks that don't know you. You've been in youth ministry for a while. What may be? Before we talk about what is working or what should be working, what's something for you that like didn't work? I always feel like youth ministry is a story. Youth ministry is a collection of experiences, both success and failure. So, cameron Crowe, any thoughts for what maybe we should not do?
Speaker 2:Man, we're coming into the Christmas season, so one of, like, the worst games, right, every game is supposed to be fun, the messier, like that's fun. But we looked and we Googled and did, like what, some games to play and for our christmas party, right, and so we did. We found the shaving cream on the face.
Speaker 1:okay, where you little santa's beard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're saying the puff balls yep, and so we brought people on stage. Yeah, uh, we did the puff balls. It was was very successful, even at the end we encouraged them to just throw the whole bucket.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, let's get all of it out there. Just cheesy poops all the way, just dripping down. It was good.
Speaker 2:It was a good game. The next game we played was the Saran Wrap Ball game, that's the one where you take prizes and you put it in the Saran Wrap Ball. Okay, and as and as you unroll the ball, whoever gets the prize falls through. They get the prize right.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's a Bluey episode that I've seen like this yes, pass the parcel. Yes.
Speaker 2:And so in this game I mean it was great Kids were excited about the Saran Wrap Ball game Because you can see the prizes in it, right, you can kind of see that it's coming.
Speaker 1:What were some of the things that y'all were stuffing in the saran wrap ball.
Speaker 2:We would do candy, but then we would also do gift cards. You just see that Best Buy gift card, that Apple gift card's coming.
Speaker 1:Somebody's about to get it.
Speaker 2:The only issue was two things. Number one this was a shared space. This was junior high. We weren't the only ones there.
Speaker 1:The other issue was the stage was white carpet oh, now I don't know whose idea hold on. That's not your fault, that's. That's the designer, whoever did white carpet stage.
Speaker 2:That's on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is that is a designer's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah well, and I guess the third issue is we didn't run all the games by whoever was in charge the the council of game approval yeah, like our boss.
Speaker 2:So after the game there is those cheeto balls that have been ground to a powder, orange milk dust yes, covered in shaving cream that's been stomped on by an entire game of saran wrap ball, and the entire stage is now orange. And so me and a buddy, um, we, we go and find all the scrub brushes that we can, all the bleach, all the carpet cleaner we run to kroger's and spend the next two and a half hours just giddy up 409, and so it was a khaki carpet after that, but it was never truly orange, it was more of like an eggshell white than it was.
Speaker 2:It was trendy, it was trendy, it was very trendy at the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't know if that was our best idea, so maybe for listeners at home, before you play the game, consider where you might play the game. So, it's not always the what, it's the where.
Speaker 2:It play the game, so it's not always the what it's the where. Sometimes it's the where I feel like that's going to come back again as we talk about this stuff today. Next time we played it, we played it outside, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so sometimes you just a change of location, right? Yes, context matters.
Speaker 2:There's your ministry tweet of the day, and if we could get the kids ministry over there for something before anybody else gets there. Oh yeah, it may not be our fault.
Speaker 1:Well, you listen uh, sometimes. Uh, success is knowing who to blame. No, that's bad advice.
Speaker 2:It's called ministry partnerships as ministry partnership.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, well Cameron, one of the things that we wanted to talk about is that people that are youth, youth ministry is like there's a sharedness. Uh, even if the stories are different, the calling feels the same, and so for folks that maybe don't know you as well are getting to know you. Like, how did you end up in youth ministry? Cause we've we've talked about a lot of different things that we've been into and things that about you know uh, passions or projects or capabilities, but, like man, you've been doing this for a while. So, like, how did you end up in youth ministry?
Speaker 2:Like what is that story? Like chapter of the biopic. Yeah, so I actually don't have a ministry degree. Okay, uh, I have a range in wildlife, uh, range and wildlife management degree amazing, and so I guess there's some similarities hurting locusts and trying to hurt junior high boys right, right, um.
Speaker 1:But I was running I was solving pollution, that's solving. That is dude okay, let's come back to that, because I do think the cultivating of cultures and like, like, doing the environmental work of like this seems contaminated, metaphor building, go, keep going, yeah, you yeah, so we, I was in wildlife management, I was working in ranches.
Speaker 2:It was actually looking back, I kind of saw myself running, so not just degreed but you were like working and doing. You were not just studying. I said yes, sir, so not just agreed, but you were like, like working and doing, like you were, you were, you were. You were not just studying.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, easy, easy, now, easy, uh, but you so not. Not just like I went to school for this and wanted something else. You were like like literally all the range, all doing it.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, had a business, uh, very successful uh business uh with some partners and team, yeah and and so we were doing that, running that. It's funny. The last business we had was a hunting operation and I remember my buddy saying, hey, let's do this hunting operation. I said, no, I don't want to be around people Like I was running from God looking back.
Speaker 1:Just like Jonah on the range, yes, but instead of the ocean.
Speaker 2:I'm running to South Texas. There you go, and so over time God took me to a kind of a revival at the church I grew up in, and I remember the third night the guy said if you feel called to ministry, raise your hand. He said this is the second time I've ever done this and I was like, oh good, that's not me. And I look up my hand's in the air, my family's around, so, I either have to explain why my hand's in the air?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so God called me. I remember that night. So the church I grew up in, every August the pastor would call all of the school teachers and all of the people that worked for the district down and pray over them. And this was in June, but I remember going down and I remember God just showing that to me, saying hey, I'm calling you to campuses and.
Speaker 2:I'm calling you to students, just showing that to me, saying, hey, I'm calling you to campuses and I'm calling you to students. And so he, very clearly, at the age of 30, called me out of the business world and called me straight into students. And so it um, it was. It was a change of pace, it was a change of salary right.
Speaker 2:What's the difference between a senior pastor and a youth pastor? $40,000, right, it was definitely a stack of money, but it was uh, it was different, but it was. It was cool that God just called me straight into it.
Speaker 1:Well and again.
Speaker 1:I love hearing that story because one of the things from our training team that's been traveling like your story is more and more the story that we're hearing Like, like there are more and more youth pastors that the newness of their ministry is not because they're 24 out of Bible college, but they have shifted from either teaching or working or owning a business, or even missionaries that have come home and are looking for ministry roles at home, and so there's a lot of life experience, there's a lot of desire, like the sense of calling isn't just like I was like raised up into this, like tracking into it or whatever, but it literally like I was called from this to that, and that's it's powerful man, it's powerful.
Speaker 1:Is there something that you would, what would be encouragement that you would give others that are maybe in that same situation, or like maybe they're even in the middle of, like, oh, I don't know, I feel like, like, like, like to the guy, to the guys like Mitch or Stephanie that are like like the, the lead volunteer at their group, that, like are wrestling with that call. What would you, what would you say? I would say go all in.
Speaker 2:Go, go all in, cause you can always go back. Right, you can always go be a teacher If this doesn't work out. I remember when I told a buddy I felt called to ministry and he said do anything else before that right.
Speaker 1:Go said do anything else before that, right, Go, try it all, try it all.
Speaker 2:And I was like I have, and so just but go all in, go all in. See what God, how God, uses you, see where he's calling you. Obviously, go talk to somebody right? We need to be calling out the call not just from the students but from the business community Right, and so there's a shortage of people that need to be in ministry.
Speaker 2:God's calling people into ministry, and we'll talk about this in a little bit more, but it may come out of our lack of discipleship that we don't have enough people that are prepared to step into ministry. So go all in and let God use you. He talked through a donkey so he can talk through me, and so go all in and let God use you, and again it's one.
Speaker 1:Let God use you. That's good. And again it's one of those, you know. I think for some folks they don't even know that it could be possible, or if they give this up, could they ever do anything else. And man, every ministry position is seasonal.
Speaker 2:But that calling if it's real and wrestling in you, that is powerful, powerful, powerful. It's hard for us to look at an economy and figure out where stepping into ministry fits into that economy. But when we trust in God's economy then we tend to have more freedom to step into that calling.
Speaker 1:What are some of the things that you feel like, having maybe seen outside, both in the business world, and then now kind of come back to the church. How has that framed up the ways in which you see like needs in youth ministry? Did you grow up in a youth ministry? Were you the product of like man? I had a great youth pastor, had a great church growing up. So how has that kind of framed like man? This is what youth ministry is like. What are those like main desires or challenges or things that you think that youth ministry really, really needs today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up in an incredible student ministry, incredible student pastor, very blessed A lot of people from that ministry-. So you saw it in a really good way.
Speaker 1:Because some people don't and they're like having to figure it out. But, for you. You had seen it, You'd lived it.
Speaker 2:It just, yeah, I mean, we had the youth pastor that would dress up as a bear and just run down the street, right. We had the fun student ministry that also went straight to God's word, right. And so, man, from a standpoint of being out in the business world and being in, I think it's just the fact of going all in the gifts that God gives you to be an entrepreneur, to be a teacher, to be somebody that communicates with others. You can use those same gifts as a youth pastor. You can use those same gifts as a discipleship pastor or as a lead pastor or a worship pastor. God's preparing you for that, and so I love Matthew 28. It's go make disciples of all nations, right.
Speaker 2:Which really is. As you go, as you go, that's right, the infinitive as you're going.
Speaker 1:Yes, On your way. Be about this, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So as a Christian, when we repent of our sins and choose to follow Jesus, we get those spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. And so Jesus says go and make disciples. Behold, I'm with you till the end of the age. The problem is a lot of us. We don't just exercise that faith. We don't go out and build that faith. We like to consume but we don't exercise so we become apathetic. God's given you gifts to exercise. Go exercise, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, so that's one of the things we talked about pre-show. One of the new metaphors that I think youth ministry folks need to rest and hear me say it, whether this is like this is not a personal attack, this is something that we are becoming more mutually convinced of is that the gym may be one of the better metaphors for, like youth group is not just classroom. Yeah, Youth group could also be laboratory to try to figure stuff out, Like students trying to, you know, tinker figure try. A youth group may also be kind of spiritual gym. We talked a little bit about how, like spiritual disciplines are not just suggestions, uh, but some of those good reps and things like what are some of the things that like for youth folks today? Like whether it's pastors and leaders or like students and families, like what are some of those like spiritual reps and disciplines and things that really, really matter?
Speaker 2:Man. I mean it goes down to the three of being in prayer, being in biblical community and being in scripture, right? I think our biggest issue is we haven't created those healthy habits. If I'm a baseball player, I grew up playing baseball and I remember, even in high school, putting a ball on a tee, going back to the basics of tee ball. And as I was going back to the basics of tee ball, I had to make sure every rep was a good rep right. Because every time I make a bad rep, that's building more and more of that bad habit. And I think for many of us, as we work on our spiritual health, we're taking bad reps and we're comfortable with those bad reps and then we allow those bad reps to define the entire habit right. So hey, I'm just not good at reading my Bible.
Speaker 1:So I just struggle with that.
Speaker 1:It's like temptation, is muscle memory right or whatever it's like. If this happens, what will I do? And if it's the bad rep or it's the lacking rep or whatever like that's, that's the falter right, like it's like the temptation is is not the sin, it's the challenge. And it's the question of like, what will you do if, like, like it's ball on T, it's swing you talked about golf earlier and like, if you keep dipping your shoulder, uh, you may get away with it for a while, but in a few years your shoulder is going to get you.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well and we're really good at telling students like you need to have a plan when you get in the car with that opposite sex.
Speaker 1:And right, right. You know, when you go on to the date, like how will you date safely?
Speaker 2:or whatever.
Speaker 1:And then we just it's so blanket, but we don't talk about their prayer life.
Speaker 2:We don't talk about reading scripture, we don't talk about how easy it is on a Sunday morning to not wake up and go to church, like we don't talk about those things. And the reality is those students need to understand that their spiritual gift, that they were given, they were empowered by the Holy Spirit, is the same spiritual or the same importance as the adults in the room right.
Speaker 2:And if they're lacking from the body, the body is lacking. It's important for them to be there, and it's important not just in biblical community, but it's important for them to be in God's Word so that they can stand against those fiery darts right. We want them to understand their importance and their value. So if we can get them to create those healthy reps, it helps them understand who they are and their place in the church, yeah, that's good, well and again, not just next generation and waiting.
Speaker 1:but I mean, if the things that bring students, the things that vitalize students today whether it's band or sports or clubs or things like they're all active and they're team-based and there's challenges, like even your gamer students love unlocking an achievement, or, you know, it's even your social media kids, like your snap streak of of like I'm doing this every day, they get it, they get all of it. I think we're almost just afraid to like spiritualize it. Or this is the thing I want to ask you like make it specific enough to be imitatable. Likeul talks a lot about imitate me as I imitate christ, and I think sometimes we keep it so big that it's not always helpful. So you named it as the three. Would you drill down just even a little bit more of like? I know that in like in the new sprouting work, but y'all talk about like some of the goals and accountability stuff. Like how do you make the prayer not just a habit? Like, what are some of those habits of prayer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know Some of the goals that have been set. Yeah, so in our book Sprouting Discipleship Workbook for Students, our goal is to create this spiritual, healthy habits right, and so we want them to learn how to pray, we want them to learn how to be in scripture, right. Those are solid things that they need to grow, they need to learn in. But, like, how do they pray, right? We? We don't model that a lot.
Speaker 1:Jesus disciples ask.
Speaker 2:So your kids are probably, they're probably wondering right, and so we try to spend time in prayer. For us in our ministry is is vital. I got to a point where I quit doing like teaching the application part of my message. I turn them into prayer points.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so I say, instead of you hearing from Cameron Crowe, why don't you go talk to God? And so we have a prayer team, a student led prayer team in our ministry, and then those students lead out a prayer time at the end of our service and say you go talk to God and we give them some prayer points, and so we want to teach them to pray, right. They give them some prayer points, and so we want to teach them to pray right. They need to know. And then the distractions of prayer, right. If I'm having a bad prayer rep every time is my phone on next to me, right, or do I just not know how to pray?
Speaker 2:Do I not know?
Speaker 1:the Acts prayer model, the Luke 11?
Speaker 2:Do.
Speaker 1:I just sit confused for three minutes and think it's not working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, has it been modeled for me that I just say grace or sing a song right before. I have a four-year-old and three-year-old, so we sing a prayer song before a meal.
Speaker 1:Like how did prayer songs for teenagers they love music.
Speaker 2:Make it happen, make it happen, yeah, but you know, I mean I love what Shane Pruitt says, like if we, if they can learn algebra too or they can learn all these high complicated things that are common core math. Right, If they can learn all that, they can learn the spiritual disciplines and the important things in the Bible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if they can study physics and bench 225, they can pray for 10 minutes a day. Yeah, that's again. I think a lot of it is and dude what you're sharing about turning application into like prayerful moments and prayerful points, you're hitting a nerve.
Speaker 1:Because, there's so many times that I hear folks preach like this amazing lesson or teaching to students and it's like the content's great and they said a lot of sound things and the application was like go do it. And it's like well, that's encouraging. But like if that room, if your youth group time on Sunday or Wednesday, was not just meant to be informative but instructive, like that's that lab conversation. Like a lot of times, like youth ministry ends up being like an auditorium or a classroom and not a laboratory, or like a gym or a work, like have them work it out. Like if the prayer emphasis is like praying for your friend. Don't wish them well, let's pray for our friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we do so.
Speaker 2:For us, our goal is as a youth ministry and there's so much inside of this but we want to come alongside our parents so that our students are continuing to attend church and be a part of a church after they graduate high school. There's so much in there and so we firmly believe that if we not just teach them but we show them and then allow them to live it out, their faith in those practices, and lead those things out, then they're going to step into another part of their life stage, continuing to do those things. If we tell our students, you're the generation now, well, we need to fully enact that. We need to fully give that to them. I heard a guy say one time that the way we challenge our students will show us who they will be right Like. We have to challenge our students to be more. We have to give them the ability to fail, because the reality is a lot of us student pastors we're just trying stuff out. Somebody's giving us the ability to fail and let's just turn it over to them right.
Speaker 2:Sustainable youth ministry says we need to make a youth ministry that we can just walk away from and we're so fearful sometimes that we have to show our value and show our worth that where we should be going. Look at those students, those students that student right there who is teaching on a Wednesday night.
Speaker 2:That student who is leading a connection team leading a prayer team, leading a worship team, that student is going to live out their faith more. They're going to go and be able to live against those and fight against those challenges of doctrine and things that they encounter in college and continue to live out their faith. And so we need to make them not just say they're the church of tomorrow or today, but we need to equip them and give them the opportunity to.
Speaker 1:Well, so that's one of the topics that we want to zoom in on today, because there's no greater area, I think, of opportunity than finding ways to equip students, call it for evangelism, with evangelistic tools, faith sharing, testimony, gospel conversations. However you want to frame it, whatever you want to bucket it with, this is an area that you are not going to accidentally win. I think, in terms of evangelism, most student ministries that struggle in this area is they were hoping for an accidental win. You may accidentally have a really fun time. You may accidentally have like a really like moving worship night. I don't think you're going to accidentally get good at evangelism. So, cameron, help us out a little bit. What are some thoughts, some ideas or some equipping things that are specific and zoomed in enough that that can be an equipping target, that are specific and zoomed in enough that that can be an equipping target strategy for us and our students?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think number one, the biggest, most important thing for us to do, is to plan ahead right. We need to have a yearly strategy. I'm not saying you have to have like a six-year plan of what you're going to do every day. It would be good to know, like your incoming, your incoming sixth graders or seventh graders, where you want them to be. But have a plan for what you're doing, because if you're not planning it, if it's not on my calendar, my wife knows it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:It's not happening. That's true for anything that you're doing, whether it's your fall fall event, winter D, now summer camp or your evangelism training. If it's not on the family calendar, it's not because they didn't want to, it's because you didn't make the space for it. Brief announcement.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's actually a good point, Like make your calendar, give it to your spouse.
Speaker 1:Let them see it. Let them see it and approve it and say yes or no.
Speaker 2:So we try to plan that out. We have an evangelism strategy, try to have a discipleship strategy, and then where does that fit in your calendar? And schedule those things out, yeah, right. And then, from a practical standpoint, find the method that works for you, because the only method your students are going to use is the method that they like Right, yeah, and and whatever it is, use it. If it's the four, if it's three circles, if it's the Roman road, whatever you, your kids love to use, yeah, road, whatever your kids love to use, stick to that right, use it, train it, teach it. One of my favorite ways to train it is I use it as my invitation. I close every message. I do the exact same way.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're just embodying it. You're embodying it. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:I love the four right. The four is the heart. God made you, god loves you, God wants you. Yeah, division, sin affects you, separates you, kills you. But the cross Jesus came for sinners, died for your sin, rose from death. And then it has a decision Will you turn from your sin, turn from yourself, trust in Jesus? And so I use that. Yesterday, before we filmed this, I preached in our big church, right.
Speaker 2:And I use that I use it every time and so, over and over and over, my kids are hearing it and they're hearing it, and so not only do we spend a time working through it and training, it and kind of role-playing it, training it, because that can be helpful too.
Speaker 1:but there is a little bit of that of catching it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing is we plan times to go out and do it. Not just go out and do it, but go out and fail at it, okay're going to go and we tell our students we're going to go fail.
Speaker 2:I was in sales a while back and I read a statistic that said it takes 20 no's before you get one. Yes, now we know from crossover statistics, from crossover evangelistic weekend before the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, that 11% of the time that they have a gospel conversation with someone, that person will choose to follow Jesus. So that's better than 10%. So, statistically, if I'm selling a product, I need to get my 20 no's out of the way so I can get to that. Yes, we tell our students get your 10 no's out of the way and go after that?
Speaker 2:yes, You're just going through that. Yes, right, dust your feet off, move on. So let's go out, whether it's door to door or go to a mall that has like a safe environment, safe setup, and let your kids go out and fail. We will turn our, we'll give them a sheet of paper and we will watermark the symbols onto that sheet of paper so they can draw it out and see and see it and say go, fail, okay. And they come back when they they know they're gonna fail. So when they get the yes, they're so excited, right. And when you go to a mall, that poor shoe cleaning guy in the middle of the mall, here's the gospel like nine times.
Speaker 1:He's getting nine conversations just from your one group. He's either turning or burning.
Speaker 2:There's no choice in them, but we want to give them the chance to fail. Go fail, because the hardest thing for them to do, and for anybody, is to. In our oikos right, the devil loves to attack us to a point to where we don't feel comfortable to share the gospel, and so the hardest thing to do is to go into your group that you're responsible for sharing the gospel with and actually have that gospel conversation. So go fail other places, get really good at it, but at the same time, let's also pray for the lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the hardest place to share is at home or at high school, absolutely. At the same time, let's also pray for the lost. Yeah, the hardest place to share is at home or at high school, absolutely. But again, I think this is one of the things. I know, that a big heart for both your work and your ministry is missions around the world for stuff. You guys came back from a trip recently, yeah, and I think that's one of the a hundred invaluable things that those kind of trips can offer is both perspective and opportunity. Where it feels like a fail safe environment because I will probably never see these people again, yes, whereas you know, having a gospel conversation with the student that you sit next to in chemistry class, like why I see him every day, that feels like really overwhelming, although it's also the most relational that some of these fail safe environments are really really important, yeah, yeah, what happens if they don't like me?
Speaker 2:Things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:We man we love. We try to take our students on an international mission trip.
Speaker 2:Our goal is for every student to go on an international mission trip before they graduate right we want them to see the need for the lostness and how great it is and the impact they can have on the world. Yeah, and so we go through Send Relief. Send Relief is an incredible resource. You literally just get there, pay the money and, as a student pastor, I don't have to do anything. Imb Students has an incredible resource. They just run it and it's so easy to just step into it. It's just again scheduling that time in the calendar so that they can do it.
Speaker 2:And so our goal is to get our students out there to see the need for the lost. And as they see the need for lostness, then their desire, through their prayer life and through their experience of sharing the gospel, will spur them on to live for Christ. And when you evangelize, we know that when someone repents of their sins and chooses to follow Jesus, it's a miracle. They go from death to life. I tell our students all the time you go to a funeral person gets out of the casket. That's called a miracle.
Speaker 1:Someone's like a zombie.
Speaker 2:Well, that too, but it's a miracle, right, and so too many movies.
Speaker 1:The middle school, yeah, the middle school mind, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:But that's a miracle and if our students can, experience those miracles, man, they'll never chase anything else.
Speaker 1:They'll never chase anything else. They'll only go after that. So we talked a little bit about some of the fail, safe environments or feeling free to fail. One of the things that we had talked about because it is, I think it has to be a part of our ministry strategy and conversation is the role in which, like campus ministry not like church campus, but like school campus ministry plays like whether that's Bible clubs or gospel groups or FCA or Young Life or first priority stuff. What are some of the things that like campus ministry for a youth minister taking evangelism seriously, what does that look like for you? What are the thoughts, what are the wisdom related to campus ministry in both training up leaders and then as a ministry leader yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one of the first things to kind of just know is that you can't go stand up in biology class and just yell, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, you can. It's strange, you can do it once, it's strange Right, but there are so many ways.
Speaker 2:There's legal ways. Now you don't want to go in and be like this is legal and I can do this.
Speaker 2:But if you go in and love on the administration, if you go in and show, just kind of earn the right to be there, you can go in and have a huge impact through your students. Right, and part of it is knowing what's my strategy as a ministry, what's my discipleship strategy, what's my evangelism strategy? Right, because there's so many different campus ministries. There's some that are heavy discipleship. There's some that are heavy evangelism. There's some that are focused on a certain population of students, some that aren't. Some, based on the leadership that you have, can be, can be focused on different things. The question is how does it fall into your strategy and your ministry plan?
Speaker 2:For me, I firmly believe a campus ministry needs to be evangelistic. Right, we work very hard on planning out our year, planning everything out. Every church works very hard to have a good Wednesday night student ministry, so we don't need another Bible study. Right, let's go in and reach the lost. Let's give our students a platform to actually go out and to reach the lost. Show them how. Right, I tell you how to do it. On Wednesday nights. I show you either at those opportunities of knocking on doors or going to a mall. I can show you a little bit at the school, but the school's all you. So let me help create this platform. Yeah, right, and so the best analogy, going back to kind of that gym sports analogy, the best analogy and mindset that I have found is the students are the players on the field. Right, middle school football coach. That quarterback makes a terrible play. He's not going to call timeout. Rip the helmet off that middle schooler.
Speaker 1:Put it on and get under center Right right, right, that looks stupid, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:For us, and a lot of this is the legalities as well. For us, our job is to have practice, to train those students outside of that time to go in and be successful. We may call timeout and pull the kid to the side like, hey, you need to get a hold of this group. Or hey, little Johnny doesn't need to talk the whole time.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, Right we kind of manage that, but probably should have planned for more donuts next time. Exactly Right, we need to sugar these kids up.
Speaker 2:If they don't have diabetes, they can't have the Lord.
Speaker 1:Let's let's do donuts at the end of the time, not the beginning of the time.
Speaker 2:And so, but knowing kind of that, right and go talk to the administration. What's? You may have been on campus, you may have a great idea, but go let the administration feel like they're owning it and then also be comfortable with them saying no. That's a weird statement to say, but there's so many different other groups that could be there that you may go further by letting the administration understand the risk. Let them say no, but let them also creating other opportunities to come in the campus and love on students.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that shift is such a missional approach too, Like that's one of the things that youth ministry in the season that we're in now, some of it may feel more like a missional work than a ministry work we were talking over coffee this morning like there's just some youth ministries that need to reevaluate where they are established and where they are entrepreneurial and like going into new places, and sometimes missionaries will tell you like we went to this village and they said no, and we went to this one and they said yes, Especially if you're serving in a place that has a multiple high school, middle school, district, town, like you know, city of Tulsa.
Speaker 1:It's got a lot of schools and, depending on where you're at, where your kids are coming from, you may lean more into one than the other because of your kids or their relationships. That's part of how relational stuff works is you can't, you can't favor them all. It's the ones that seem to have, you know, a mutual sharing, a person of peace, to use the Luke 10 model. But one of the things that you said that I think is really important to kind of like, just kind of like lean in on, is that idea of it being like a coach, but not just a coach and a player, but a coach and a team sport. So what are some thoughts on just like the ways in which, like evangelism for the youth in your ministry isn't just on little Johnny or isn't just on Stephanie, but what are some of the? Again, I love the idea of like making the evangelism thing, like the training activity together, but like what are some of the other ways that we could kind of even like draw out that team metaphor more?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, recognizing each player's role or the way that they've been equipped.
Speaker 1:I'm a gospel kicker. Yeah, okay so, but talk more about like the team approach, though, because I think that's one of the things that it feels always like. Evangelism is like an individual sport, and I think there's something to like all the other things that we're doing in ministry that are so communal, that why is this one always feel like it's farmed out to one person?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one thing, I kind of God, just hit me in the face with this last summer. We were studying through the spiritual gifts, we were looking at all of those things and as we were studying through the spiritual gifts I realized that, yeah, we're all called to evangelize, but we may not all be called evangelists. So, how do I take my student who is um? We use the uh Lifeway spiritual gift test right.
Speaker 1:It's so robust it is.
Speaker 2:But I tell my kids, I say your parents use this app called the Facebook. Yeah, Right and on that app they can take a test, that is a, an assessment to tell them what's the best dog or how many years they have left on the earth, right or, like you know, I don't know but they're, you know, like they have all these assessments, and so this is an assessment right.
Speaker 2:And how we answer the spiritual gift test will give us an idea of like places for us to serve, but also ways for us to share the gospel. Okay, say more, say more for us to serve, but also ways for us to share the gospel. Okay, say more, say more. So we found that majority of our students, maybe even our students that are immature in their faith, they'll lean into the helper. We see a lot of kids that are the helper because they're kind of timid and want to be behind the scenes. That's why this becomes like a spiritual gift, a personality assessment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they're learning who they are. But as they jump into these roles, we also use this for our serve teams. Right. So you're good, you have this spiritual gift which could lean into this serve team. Right, but how can you share the gospel? So what's a good gospel approach for someone who is a helper?
Speaker 1:A helper or hospitality or encourager.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:The mode of which may be determined by. That's really that's good.
Speaker 2:And so the way this plays out someone in our ministry, someone that has a spiritual gift of helping, or is a helper, we'll put them on our connections team and as somebody new comes in and fills out, we have a card, a guest card, and one of the questions says do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? And so, as they fill that out, they're helping that student and if that student says yes or no or I have questions, they'll have that conversation with them. Or as they're serving food, right, we have a place where students can come and get food. As they're helping out serving food, they're having those conversations. It's how can I use my act of service to serve in a way that God has gifted me?
Speaker 1:So it's not always the confrontational cold call, sales call of like walk up and talk to a friend in this way, but literally creating environments and opportunities. Man utilizing the mealtime for the servers. I love that the card for someone that has questions about what it means to follow Jesus is not just an adult initiated conversation but maybe like literally the ball on a tee for a teenager to be like man. Well, you, you kind of know her and they, they've already created some of that interest right. Like to use the old sales language, like we already had the lead form or whatever. This is your chance. Like it's not going to be weird because Chris already marked down that he, he has questions. We've already got the ball rolling.
Speaker 2:The ball's already rolling.
Speaker 1:There's already been like it was our job to set up the opportunity. We would love you. One of our leadership students, who you know has this encouraging gift, has this, you know, prayerful spirit to go have the conversation with them. I think that is again evangelism. I think for so many folks becomes it's just the hard training of a tool or it's just the cold call, the cold sales call of you know, you hear a gospel conversation and that just sounds like somebody that was going to try to push a sales technique on people or whatever. Again, as a kid that grew up doing EE faith and all of the whatever, like I learned, I had all the sales manuals, but just the idea that it would be framed around their gifting, I think is a really, really powerful differentiation to make.
Speaker 2:So they've already learned how to fail, right? We've taken them door to door. We teach them. We sit down and say, okay, somebody walks up to you with a card, what's your conversation going to be? We role play that out. How do we have that conversation? Because the Great Commission is go make disciples of all nations. Right, it's not. If you're an evangelist, go make disciples. So we have to find these students in their comfort zone, show them and teach them in their gifting as well, like how they can share the gospel in their gifting. It's not just the guy staying on stage, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, because if they only see someone talk about the need for Jesus with a microphone and a stage, they assume that's the only venue or platform that that happens or whatever right Like it's. It's a little bit of the street preacher thing of like some of the guys doing that are just mimicking what they saw somebody in a pulpit do. They're just doing it on a street corner, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, man, I just have a couple more questions for you, just about youth ministry in general. One of the things I really value about you is that you care deeply for a lot of other youth leaders, ministers, pastors, workers. I mean I think it was probably just through Facebook groups. I think we've cultivated our friendship, Like it's. I mean now we see each other at conferences and camps. It's great.
Speaker 1:But you were always a guy that was encouraging and thoughtful, because people that leave Facebook comments they'll tell you who they are, but the way they comment they'll tell you who they are. But just, I really respect and thank you for that. And so I would just want to hear from you, maybe to an audience like what are some of like the challenges and roadblocks in ministry, and maybe what would some of your encouragements be? Because I do feel like we're in a little bit of a season where, like I mean, it feels like some things are happening and yet there's still like this nagging, like frustration, or like like I feel like I'm the only one doing this, or like where have, where have all the youth pastors gone? There's a lot of those, I think, some of those consternations and feelings. So, like Cameron, for you like, where are the roadblocks, where are the and what will be the encouragement that you would give?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the isolation is a huge thing. I remember some statistics that if you are in a network or if you even have just some partners, right yeah, statistically.
Speaker 1:Just some people, just some people, just some people. Right, yeah, like you can. You'll be there for 4.3 years, yeah yeah, four plus years, yeah, the statistic that actually keeps people at churches longer actually has less to do with pay and more to do with friendship. Yes, Just food for thought.
Speaker 2:Yes, because it's never paid. But if you can get into a network, get into some people that can pour into you, because you're just pouring out, you're constantly pouring out, always being asked of yeah, always being yep the other thing is I love Jim Elliott's quote wherever you are, be all there.
Speaker 2:Right, Go all in, be all there. You have been called to be there, be all there. And the problem we, I think we face as youth pastors and as people in ministry we're scared of burning out. Right, we want to finish the race, we want to run the good race, but we tend to be fearful of burning out. So we try to find balance.
Speaker 1:I don't like the word balance because, balance means I'm always grading both sides of the scale, Pulling with one hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah so there's always a score.
Speaker 2:I try to find harmony, we try to find harmony. So that's both of our, my home life and my ministry life, both thriving but working together. I want my kids to know that daddy gets to go to church. I want my kids to know that daddy likes church. We pray for pastors.
Speaker 1:We might even go sometimes when we don't have to go.
Speaker 2:My kids are so confused. We go to Sunday morning church, they go to preschool, they go to women's events where they're being watched. We go to all this stuff and they're just like why are we here? We? Love it, but we want them to know that there's beauty in sharing the gospel. I want my family to see that Daddy went to Senegal to share the gospel.
Speaker 2:It hurts, it's hard, but Daddy went to golf to share the gospel. Right, it hurts, it's hard, but daddy went to go share the gospel because we want to shoot those arrows out and so we want our kids. My wife is a PK. Her dad did an incredible job saying we're doing ministry together. She loves ministry. She loves the church. There's times where we have to protect conversations from our kids, but we want there to be a harmony in it and not a balance, because the reality is I can't do ministry on 40 hours a week.
Speaker 2:Nobody can If you're jumping into ministry. You know it's not 40 hours a week. Quit trying to put it in that box. But let's figure out a way to where we have harmony in it in ministry, to where we can have joy and be successful and also be a great model for our family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then tell me a little bit more. I know you have a new resource coming out, sprouting. One of the things about it is making it right-sized to equip students, because I think that's one of the other challenges. If the challenge for a youth leader is connection and community I think we've heard it today in evangelism but the development of youth as disciples in a structured, growing way. Give us a little bit more about the ways in which Sprouting outlines it and then maybe the right format for how it's best deployed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Sprouting Discipleship Workbook. You can find it at sproutingdiscipleshipcom. It is designed for a discipler to sit down with their disciple right. One of the hardest things in student ministry is I can tell my leaders I want you to disciple your students, I want you to go out and spend some time. We can get them to sporting events. But past that we kind of struggle. How do we get them to disciple? And this resource you put it in front of them and they go alongside, they work alongside with their leader. There's a leadership, a discipler guide in there that kind of coaches them through the way that they can disciple in their context and then they can sit down and just talk with the student. It lays everything out, they can read along with the student, and so the resource is designed to create healthy spiritual habits, no matter where you are in your spiritual health, whether you are a mature Christian or an immature Christian. You are in your spiritual health whether you are a mature Christian or an immature Christian.
Speaker 2:This resource is designed to help you grow deeper in your faith. It's great for small groups. It's great for?
Speaker 1:Well, you've said earlier an emphasis on the small, like groups of, maybe like one to five, one to six, one to seven. This is not like that. You may have multiple groups going through it, but this is not one to many. This is one like. You may have multiple groups going through it, but this is not one to many, this is one to small.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yes, sir, it's designed for that interaction. We want that student as their—let's say they're—in every chapter there's a part where it challenges them to set a goal for the week on how much to read the Bible, how much to be in prayer.
Speaker 1:So if that student puts four— so literally not just to learn, but to grow.
Speaker 2:No, it's to grow. We're coming alongside you, right.
Speaker 1:Putting the work in a workbook.
Speaker 2:Yes, do the work, and so we want them to sit down and go. Okay, how did I Was I successful this last week at reading the Bible five days a week? Did I only read it four days? And maybe the reason I didn't is because my phone went off and I jumped over to my phone. How can I set myself up for success next week? And so it's designed to build those, and it's also going to teach things like what is the Bible, what is prayer, what are ways to pray. There's a section in there for how to fight against and handle spiritual warfare, how to get back up when we fail. So many students are doing an incredible job, and I know us as student pastors. We dive in, we dig into the student, we pour into them and then, all of a sudden, that student hears something from someone else and they go a completely different direction, but we're always there when they come back.
Speaker 2:When they fail, we're always there and so there's a chapter that says how do we get back up? Yeah, yeah, god can still use you and still wants to use you, because he went to a broken person. He only uses broken people. So our brokenness, because we fail, shouldn't prevent us from continuing to grow in our faith. And so how do we get back up? And so it's been an incredible resource. We've had parents use it to disciple their kids.
Speaker 1:Some of those conversations, some of those tough conversations at home that maybe they're unsure of how to get into the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah we give it to our leaders and encourage them to disciple one or two students. Other church members disciple one or two students that clearly have been background checked, and all that fun stuff. And then we also have given it to our students. The very last chapter is how do we carry this on? How do we, uh, move forward? How do we pass this on to someone else? And so students? It's it's easy enough for a student to walk a student through, but it's also, um, easy enough for an adult to take it in the direction that they want it to go.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it.
Speaker 2:Well, cameron, thank you so much for the time today for hanging out in the garage. I'll get you a signed Spider-Man helmet. I guess I don't even smell gasoline fumes anymore, so I don't know what's going on. It's all in the aroma. Now, yeah, you know middle school camp.
Speaker 1:You smell like Axe. Come to the garage smell like Axe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Weed.
Speaker 2:Eater for being the sponsor of this episode.
Speaker 1:Out with you and thanks, brother, and we'll see everybody else back next week Snap.
