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
Thriving in Youth Ministry: Leadership, Community, and Overcoming Challenges with Ian Dunaway
You can't quite make it on your own!
This episode focuses on the essential characteristics of effective youth ministry, emphasizing the need for community, accountability, and ongoing development of leaders. Zac and guest Ian explore common roadblocks leaders face, along with practical strategies for fostering a healthy ministry environment centered on relationships.
🚨SPECIAL GUEST ALERT
Ian Dunaway
www.ShapingStudentMinistry.com
www.IanDunaway.com
Ian@g6Allies.com
💡Big Ideas
• Importance of community for youth leaders and church health
• Accountability as a tool for growth, not guilt
• Moving beyond event-driven ministry to relational connection
• Strategies for developing leaders and volunteers
• The impact of personal development on overall ministry health
That was going to be good. Snap, how about me? That's loud, it's popping.
Speaker 4:Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. Hanging out with my buddy, ian, between two hills, between hill and road, I don't know, there's a lot of inside joke in that scenario.
Speaker 3:There's so much.
Speaker 4:Okay, hold on. Cut to camera two. There has been so much pre-show for what I assume will be a 35-minute episode. Yeah, if I can manage the edit.
Speaker 3:I got to go leave screen ministry after this. What are we talking about? It's Wednesday, it's a.
Speaker 4:Christmas party. Ian, it's so good to have you with us. Man we have talked about so much. Sorry, this is Ian Dunaway.
Speaker 1:Ian Dunaway. What's up everybody. Good to see you, ian hanging out with us today.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, sir, for hanging out with us in the garage. Drove all the way from Owasso, Oklahoma it was a long 30 minutes Made that long drive down 169. So good, out today we're gonna talk about youth ministry stuff. Uh, done, done, done away between a hill and a road. The done and the done in the way is that is that for real?
Speaker 3:it is real. It's. You fed me a line like it was real. We never lie. We're all irish man, we're all like I'm the tallest person in my family, so if you see me, I'm five nine wow but we're all like strong round short and bad tempers and ian is he is gaelic for john so it's, my parents went all out, man.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they like a first, second, third, Ian, Is that like?
Speaker 3:I mean it feels like it but my mom was like oh it's. It means God's gift. I was like oh, it's not.
Speaker 4:So it's actually Horkun, so, horkun, horkun. Horkun it's some kind of Ukrainian that actually means sweet talker. That we learned. Well, we'll find out today. Back at you, my guy back at you. But yeah, no, we're talking all about youth ministry today. Man, you've been my neighbor for years and I didn't even know it, so just surprising. This is how ministry works. It's a small guilt Call your friends, call your neighbors. One of the things that we like to talk about in youth ministry is the importance of having good friends, but also.
Speaker 4:I think, having wise voices, and so that's one of the things. Maybe good community, because community can start without friends. I know it's a buzzword.
Speaker 3:It's like leadership or like intentionality or whatever, but the weight of it, I think is that idea of having iron. Iron doesn't have to know iron before it sharpens. And there's that idea of getting community together. It's going to feel it. It's going to feel it. You're going to know, and probably some of the people you don't like being around are the people you need to be around the most.
Speaker 4:Oh well, that's true, and I think the willingness to receive it, yeah, like that's one of those. Community is a buzzword for a good reason. The thing that, man, I would want for us to start as we were talking is that the people wouldn't resist the good accountability that comes with the community. I think some folks that's where they go sideways, I think people. They value community, but they resist its benefit.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe I'm 100% with you. I think that we miss community. We only get half of it right, because half of it's easy. Yeah. And I always see somebody post, and I think John Wesley's great, I think all these things are great, but when people post, well, here's our accountability. Were you with a woman you shouldn't have been? Did you look at something you shouldn't? Have been.
Speaker 3:And we look at it. But, man, when you read Hebrews 10, what is the point? That some have forsaken meeting together, but that you should meet together and spur one another onto good works. And we miss that half of it, like even even the idea. We always say this, but everybody, almost everybody that you talk to in church can tell you what was I saved from. Very few can tell you what I'm saved for, and so it's so much easy.
Speaker 3:It's so much easier to say well, accountability is that I have to walk in and feel like garbage every day. But if you and I are keeping each other accountable, absolutely I need to know where are you weak, where are you? Struggling but more than anything I need to say. Zach, are you loving your wife? Like you need to love her. Hey, are you taking care of your kids? Are you talking about the kids that aren't showing up at your student ministry?
Speaker 4:as much as you're talking about the ones that are there. Like things that, like I think, people will resist accountability or avoid it because they're like well, I haven't messed up recently, I'll just chase it down when I do screw up. Oh my man, maybe that's too late.
Speaker 3:It's like. It's like pinball Christianity. You're just waiting to hit the side Wait hit the bumpers out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I won't go to the gym until I'm overweight. Oh boy. Okay. Well, that's just complicated. It's hard. It's harder than it's hard to know. Accountability gets harder the longer you put it off. Man, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:But I think we do miss that component so often that the whole point of community and the whole point of that is not so that I would stay, because if you look at it there's four times as positives in the New Testament. Positive affirmation, the commands as there are negatives.
Speaker 3:God's not a God that's interested in keeping you away from things. He's a God that's interested in pointing you towards things, and I mean we need to hear that as pastors and as people. But the truth is, if you are like you look at Proverbs, if you're focused right down the middle, you don't have time to look left and right. Yeah, that's right, that's right?
Speaker 4:No, it's good. So we're going to talk a little bit today about some of the things that may be getting away. It's the new year, we're not even in the podcast.
Speaker 3:Happy.
Speaker 4:New Year everybody.
Speaker 3:We're already talking. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:No, dude, we're talking Because we want to get you off on the right foot.
Speaker 4:So we talked a little bit last week with Chad and some of the five things we want to youth ministry par excellence, uh, and then also french explanations for my irish friend from a ukrainian, from the ukrainian in a butchered english, in a butchered english, uh.
Speaker 4:But I wanted to share some, maybe some coaching insight.
Speaker 4:I think, yeah, um, there are folks I believe we're in, we're in a sweet season of youth ministry, of folks trying to figure out maybe what's next. I think we we have weathered the recovery of a few years of post-COVID and now beginning to imagine again, dream a little bit again, and one of the things to think about, and maybe some of the things that might be in the way I wanted to talk about in some of your work, some of your experience, what are some of the roadblocks that get in the way of like had a phone call just today with the youth minister that was like man, I think I'm ready for the next thing. And I was like what do you think that is? He's like I have no idea. And I was like what a beautiful sentiment, but again, an openness and awareness, a willingness for the next thing, but really unsure what it is Like. What are some of the things that in your work and doing stuff with G6 and with youth ministry leaders over the years, that would be a starting block for us. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh man, absolutely so. Yeah, so G6, man, our whole focus is is resilient pastors, right and so. And then the arm student minister remember that is shaping student ministry, that we do and we focus really heavily on getting guys in community and building, you know, uh, building tools that help them kind of take that burden off so they can focus on what you're saying. But yeah, we're talking roadblocks for student pastors specifically, or for youth workers, yeah, for youth ministry leaders.
Speaker 4:So for the folks that feel the burden of leadership and maybe have, at some level, like the direction of where the ministry is going, I think that is again it's a little bit of both the combination of it's second chair leadership. I'm not the leader, but I am responsible for a team, an area department, so you're feeling the pressure from above and below, which can feel like sometimes like I know what I have to do but I'm not sure what I need to do next. And that's some of the challenge, I think.
Speaker 3:So I think that one of the things is how we view ourselves has a lot to do with that. Now I know that, man, youth leaders come in all shapes and sizes and setups and so some of them are co-vocational, some are bi-vocational, some of them are not even in ministry fully. But if you're looking at ministry and we're talking about something next and you're saying, man, I'm in ministry, I want to move on, I want to go forward, you probably feel a lot like I did when I went into student ministry. I was like, man, I'm going to be a student pastor until it's creepy.
Speaker 4:And they kicked me out.
Speaker 3:But God, really I hate this idea of stepping stone ministry. One of the things I heard that was really good was and I don't think that there's necessarily you make better pastors out of student pastors, but there is a very unique incubator that is student ministry that it's very well equipped to build lead pastors out of. And if you take it from that idea, there's a I believe Richard Kuyper or Abraham Kuyper talked a lot about it that you need to view the ministry that you're looking at like a kingdom.
Speaker 3:And if you view what your kingdom, and you believe that God is the one that expands it or contracts it, but that your job is to faithfully steward it, and you start saying what I do here most of the time we get caught and this kind of leads in I'm sorry, it's a long lead-in, but this kind of leads into what I think we're talking about is that there is a certain amount of man leadership, um man leadership, um man. I think like a leadership incest almost in places where, if you're not reaching out to other people to hear.
Speaker 3:You feel stuck in the area that you're in and you need other voices speaking to you. The other side of it is if you really look at the kingdom that God has given you. I always ask this question to guys. First, if you left today, do you feel like you've accomplished everything you needed to accomplish somewhere? And If you left today, do you feel like you've accomplished everything you needed to accomplish? Somewhere.
Speaker 3:And then you start thinking, because most of the time when I talk with guys I think that here's a big roadblock that gets in the way. We don't develop leaders because we don't know how, so we just decide that they're developed. I see that a lot.
Speaker 4:So decide what, though? Decide that whatever level they're working at is good enough for us, or like, well, we just yeah, no, no, what? What's the executive? What's the executive decision that most make?
Speaker 3:most. I think that what in my experience, yeah, um, and I and this is from listen we work with tiny churches to mega churches, to everywhere in between, right, and it's the same kind of thing it's that the guys decide. Guys and gals decide if they're leading a ministry, that, um, that a Christmas party and a meeting once a year other than that is enough. Yeah, and not because they're doing anything nefarious, but because the idea of developing people. Most of the time I hear I want to do more. I don't know how. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so if you want to really see, like you should be asking the question, I think a big roadblock for this is we use leaders. If we're not careful, we look at student leaders, because your job is not just to shepherd students, your job is to be a leader of leaders. And that starts changing the game across the board, because you think, if I'm going to be a lead pastor, what's next? If you're not doing well with the kingdom God has given you here for him to expand and contract, then you're not being faithful with little. And so when you look at your people, I would ask the question how am I developing them? A question that's revolutionary for most guys I work with is I say where are we? We do leadership development tools, and one of the things we have to ask in that, as we're working, is what are the three areas that your people need to grow in? And it's it's almost like a revolution, it's like a light bulb and probably 80% of the guys that we talk to, they go.
Speaker 4:I've never thought about that, and it's because they're thinking of the work as just the function of the work. It's the function of the work. It's the function of the work, it's the job. Yeah, there's no trajectory, there's no expanse, there's no capacity, it's just a completion of a task.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I'm going to say something that might be that's probably not going to be super, but I can say it and you can just blame me for it later. It's because we have built a culture of middle managers out of student pastors across the board and so many pastors struggle with building their kingdom that they don't disciple their staff and the way the lead pastors have to look at it is I need to develop my staff so they can shepherd people, and so most of the time it is, it's the hey, they're here to do a job.
Speaker 3:I just need them to do the job, and I think that's what God's calling me to do. But the truth is they've never been developed and so it's hard to develop. Now, that is a reason, it's not an excuse. And so when we think about what is discipleship even pouring into that problem that if you go to most churches and ask what's a disciple, you'll get as many different answers as you do people you ask the question, Sure, sure.
Speaker 4:Well, because discipleship like community is a lovely word. Well, because discipleship like community is a lovely word and it's a word that, like a large envelope, you could fit a lot of other words into they all fit, they all work, it all sounds right, okay, but I think that's the thing I want to get to, though, is the development thing.
Speaker 4:So, level zero to level one of youth ministry leadership is the grand exchange that the youth ministry leader, the youth pastor, is actually ministry leader to the adults, that minister to students, like it's, it's the move from camp counselor to camp director, like that's a, that's a paradigm shift, absolutely so, that's, that's a level one development Like what?
Speaker 4:what is that, as you're working with folks that maybe see that? What is it mean to be a developer of people as you see them as part of the ministry? What are some of those things? Again, when people are asking the question, they're making the awareness. Where do they get stuck? Help us break out of the Christmas party and the back-to-school meeting mentality.
Speaker 3:I think so much of it has to do with one is that we don't treat our leaders like you said. We don't treat our leaders like believers and we don't, I think, so often.
Speaker 4:It feel even if you're just like human resources, they are, they are, and it's kind of like well, you're, just you're.
Speaker 3:you're here to do a function, Is that okay?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's great. Okay, good Storm rolling in.
Speaker 3:I was making sure we were aligned. So no, but I think, but I think so much of the volunteer leadership and so much of that struggle with them is that we look at them as a person to do a job. We look at them as a job, not as a person, and so we treat leaders like batteries in a remote Once we use them we replace them and we're okay with that.
Speaker 4:Got to have them. We got a drawer full of them. I need more of them. Yeah, or you got to go find between the couch cushions, but you're pulling them out, or we do the thing where we borrow from the remote that we use less. That's right.
Speaker 3:But here's my question. The first question we have to start with I think is a good one to ask is when my leaders lead this ministry, will they be better believers or will they be tired believers? And that's not a pipe dream, that's reality for us. And so what I? What I think that every I really do so my, my dad I think this is big. My dad always raised me. I don't know if he raised your parents, raised you this way, but mine did it on the limericks.
Speaker 4:Like he would teach me limericks.
Speaker 3:I'd remember things like like uh, he'd always say if a job be great or small, do it well or not at all.
Speaker 1:And as a kid I was like I'll pick, not at all yeah yeah, you know one of the
Speaker 4:things though. Wait, wait, is this multiple choice? Is this a joke? What's the punchline? Can I pick C?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but here's the biggest one. It's a huge approach shift for most guys, and I see this on the Facebook groups, I see this in one of the conversations that I have. My dad told me something that absolutely shaped me from all the way from childhood into adulthood. In ministry, methods are many.
Speaker 3:Principles are few. Methods always change, Principles never do. And when we look at this from a principled approach, you've got to ask this question. Every student ministry is unique. Every ministry is unique Now. They have principles that are absolutely overarching. But if you want to be a shepherd, I think that one of the biggest roadblocks is that we could probably switch out a student pastor's title with event planner, Because that's the only standard they're given. You run this. You do dodgeball. Listen, if dodgeball was going to fix student ministry, it had done it 25 years ago and it was cool.
Speaker 4:The first time, and so it's just this idea of saying or of changing the name of the thing that you were doing by another, arose by any other name would be, Still stays. What's the limbering there?
Speaker 3:Man well we could probably that one's for the after show. But all that to say, when you look at your ministry, you need to ask this question from a principled standpoint. Where do my?
Speaker 3:people need to grow and so I think the biggest roadblock I mean, as we're kind of breaking these down lack of shepherding. And you need to look at yourself and realize, like most guys I think, so often the mentality is because we're trained to do this. It's just the culture. I have leaders to get away from things, but man shepherds. I said this to you earlier.
Speaker 4:I think the best shepherds are the one covered in sheep manure and the one that have scars from beating off wolves. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and so this idea that. So I have guys that I'll ask the question hey, where do you? You just need to ask the question, because I think that seeing problems is a spiritual gift. I think that what you do with it makes it a spiritual curse, and so you either have the chance to become critical or you have the chance to actually address a problem. And so I think you need to go back a couple of things. I think you need to go back and say what am I complaining the most about? My leaders.
Speaker 4:And so that's a really healthy check that I think for anybody right now. Like what, what, what is the thing that you like to tell your spouse or your best friend as your favorite complaint about the people that you lead? Yeah, Like that is telling man it's. That is a tell for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Most of the time, too, it's stuff like it'll be, things like man. I just wish that they were better at leading. I wish they were better at leading discussion.
Speaker 4:I wish they spent more time with the students.
Speaker 3:Yes, I wish that they would do it. And then you start saying, okay, some of those things you shepherd by example. So if you want them to spend more time with students, I have a rule. Show them the way. I have a rule with my leaders. I say you're not allowed. When you come to Sunday morning, you're not allowed to sit around by yourselves.
Speaker 3:You have to be with kids, because this is their hour, not yours, and so and we push that really hard and we do that with kindness yeah, there's some things you can absolutely do. On the other side of it, then you have to ask the question. Okay, do I complain? Because my people are passive, aggressive and don't know how to say things. I mean because, listen, I know that you're probably only served at perfect churches but there's just not a lot.
Speaker 4:It actually has made it so easy. That actually has been a real great thing. Yeah, I highly recommend it actually.
Speaker 3:Well, I just maybe my advice to anybody listening is if you're at a perfect church, just leave right, cause you're going to mess it up, but people listen.
Speaker 3:If Jeremiah said it, the heart is wicked beyond all understanding. Who can understand it? That's what we deal in, and so part of not being discouraged is when you say okay, like I'm going off a personal experience from a guy I talked with and we were talking and he said listen, my leaders. He started it negative because we all do. He said my leaders are so young in their faith and they don't know how to lead a small group and they're not even reading God's word and I don't think that they're leading well in their homes. And I said, okay, great, that's three. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I said now don't look at them as problems. Yeah. Look at them as growth areas, because here's the thing we know this from serving with churches the only really unhealthy church, the only terminally unhealthy church or ministry is the one that's not fighting to be healthy.
Speaker 4:There's so much corrective work that can be done for those that are willing to do the work 100%. So, whatever you feel about the situation that you're in, the passion that's leading you, if there is even an inkling of we can see and name and try, things could be okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we do that and so this idea. I said, okay, great, and so what? We do our leadership development is we have a team that's read about 10,000 books, which is crazy. I'm not on that team.
Speaker 1:I read the books I need to read because I want to learn.
Speaker 3:I'm just not a vivacious reader alone and uh, but, but I got to learn, so I do it. The but we. What we do is we custom curate three books for them, on one book on each one of those areas. We break that down into videos and then we say because then the argument's going to be well, nobody reads, yeah, Well then they're not getting the content. Well then we don't discuss. Well, because I know that. And so we break it down into videos and send it to him. So this guy is now.
Speaker 3:He said okay, now my leaders are going through Knowing God by JI Packer, and he said we're deepening their spiritual understanding and their level. And then three we're taking them through one of the most incredible discipleship books I've read, called the Invested Life. And we're taking them through the Invested Life so that they not only understand that they need to be discipled, but what discipleship is, both theoretically and practically. And so he's finding things, he's finding areas to grow that are it's absolutely. That would be a roadblock, and it was a roadblock until he starts having the conversation in a healthy community that says, hey, I'm not going to give you a method. Let me ask you the principle when are you growing your people?
Speaker 3:And then you don't have to be the. That's the thing. We've moved past the world of needing to be content creators. We need to be content curators, and so we curating the best stuff, and you don't have to be. I think the other side of it is another roadblock in all of this is this idea that we overlook the process for perfection, and so many churches are looking not for pastors in process but for perfect ones, and then so, too, so many times we look at leaders. I mean, I talked to a guy the other day that he hadn't started a small group ministry, for it's taken him three years to start a small group ministry. And I said why? I said were you in a coma for two and a half years? And I didn't say it like that, but I can say that. And I said but why would you do that? And he said well, I mean, and his response was just well, the leaders just aren't where they need to be. I said man, that's not how God works.
Speaker 4:God works on people in process. That's wild Again. That's for the shepherd that stinks like sheep. For a Jesus that calls untrained fishermen to speak. Who took a woman who?
Speaker 3:took an almost prostitute at the well and made her one of the first evangelists.
Speaker 4:Like you, talk about perfection and John. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean it is. We serve a God that saves you where you are and then wants to grow you where you need to be.
Speaker 4:What is say more about? Why, again, is it go back to a lack of development for themselves? I mean, what, what, what is, what is the thing that holds is? Is it a, is it a fear of control, Like what, what, what is it that? What is at the heart of church leaders that would have them, have folks that would be willing enough to volunteer of their time? And then is it just we've become so program minded that we aren't able to actually develop people, or what, what, what, what are the things that, what, what are we doing to get in the way of ourselves to be who God's called us to be?
Speaker 3:It's a great question. I think some of it has to do with shallow metrics. We that when we measure shallow things, we measure temporal things, we have a shallow, we get shallow results. Yeah, yeah, yeah and so you know, if you, if you really only need numbers I mean, we said this earlier I could throw an event called free beer and probably have 500 kids.
Speaker 4:I mean there's a way to get the whole high school there.
Speaker 3:There is, yeah you can do it, um, but you're not discipling them, and so there's there is a low standard there. But also, I mean, we're asking questions. You and I could talk, and we could both talk for days, right, but here's here's the biggest, it's a problem, and it's a problem because of a lack of priority, and so there's these kind of we'll go back to two things, but one we don't invest in our people the same way that we invest anywhere else in our life. So tell me this if you're going to, like, we tell everybody, go get a college degree, go get a seminary degree, that's an investment that you're making in yourself for future ministry. But they're not doing that with leaders. So, like, we have our development and all that. I was talking to guys that had million dollar budgets and I said, listen, you'll pay less than hot dogs to actually walk your leaders.
Speaker 3:And so and we're teaching them not to go through a course, not to go through some type of pre-made plan, but to be leaders, self-feeders and readers and develop themselves too. And the statement is always the same Well, I just don't have the money for it. You mean, you don't have $500 here, you don't have a thousand. You have that money because I've got guys that have 10 kids in their student ministry paying their money.
Speaker 3:And so the truth is, you will invest in what you value, and we don't value what Jesus valued most of the time. If you value your sheep and you value your people, you want to develop them, but and I hate to say this because it gets into all of us even if we don't because here's the other thing this is the roadblock that leads to all that Is naming your priorities without living them out.
Speaker 4:Okay, say a little more there, because I think that's one of the things.
Speaker 3:Did I hit?
Speaker 4:a nerve. Well, you hit a nerve because I've sat in enough church leader conferences. I'll leave it at conferences.
Speaker 3:I've sat in some church staffs so I'll take it further for you.
Speaker 4:Some conferences where folks have taken the stage with life suggestions that were not life practices, in a hope that the audience might be the test case for their proposed solution, for their, their proposed solution. Um, so what? What is one of the things that you've? What? What are some of the revealing priority things? Again, I go back to you, you named it right.
Speaker 4:Uh, I, I'm always a little bit nervous. When I asked him man, what are you reading? And learning and they're like ah, you know, I'm good. I'm good Like I haven't, I haven't learned much recently. Or I'm like what, what, what are the things that fill your time? It's one of them. And it's always like distraction based and not like growth.
Speaker 3:I think that I can say this on your podcast with certainty and I can say without getting bleeped the dirtiest phrase in all of Christianity. You know what it is.
Speaker 3:I know I should, but it is the. It is the dirtiest phrase in all of Christianity. Why tells you that you know God has told you to do something, but you've placed something else as a priority. And that's what I hear. You hear I don't know. But then you hear well, I know I should and that's what I hear with leader development. But to your point, I've served on church staffs and I think, not even being the test case, we had a mission. I hate mission statements sometimes because they're so dumb. I love explaining why I think everybody one of the things we do in our cohorts- the first cohort.
Speaker 3:We have them read about eight books over the year or watch videos over them, and one of the first things we do is we have them read Start With why by Simon Sinek, and so that you can explain why do I do this and what am I doing. Why, what and how?
Speaker 4:Because I think why statements are better than mission statements and that maybe seems like it's it's kind of it's a little bit semantics, but I'm with you. But I think a lot of times mission statements are written as sentences, whereas why statements are responding to the question which?
Speaker 3:is really helpful because I think ask the phrases in your culture and you need to have a really open mind to hear the results. So I was at a church one time big church. We were growing, we were doing a lot of stuff. I'm not an event-driven guy. I don't think that's good, I don't think that's healthy ministry overall and that's a personal opinion and I think it's backed well through ministry. But I think relational ministry is what we have to do.
Speaker 4:Well, but the problem is imagining outside of it, so we're going to come back to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to come back to that.
Speaker 3:So, that being said, I was at a church, though that as we were growing. Here's the statement we made. It wasn't even on the wall. We're a church of small groups. Small groups is our DNA. Small groups is our backbone. 15% of our church is in small groups. Well, that's a real small backbone for a real big person, tiny vertebrae. Yeah, or one church. I was at a church where the saying was they quoted I can't remember the theologian now you'll know who said the church exists for those outside of it.
Speaker 4:It's the only organization that exists for those outside of it.
Speaker 3:And so one part of their statement was we exist for those not yet here. But then they got angry and bothered when we brought a lot of new folks showed up, of course, yeah, and so, and it was always how dare they disrupt the us with the?
Speaker 4:they?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And my thing is this it's very in vogue to say we believe in leaders and we and we value leaders. But if you, if you really look at your ministry and all you're doing is one or two parties a year or you're telling them a couple of things, that's not valuing them. And so when you name a priority but you're not living that priority out and listen, sometimes, being a ministry leader, you don't have to be a jerk and you don't have to be a rebel. So many guys in student ministry leave and go be jerks. Wait, there's a third way I know.
Speaker 4:That's wild.
Speaker 3:You don't have to be complicit and you don't have to be as rebellious in most circumstances as you need to see it and navigate your people through it. And so when you see that in your church you need to question in your mind those things with your pastor, when you hear your pastor say, well, we don't believe in numbers, well then, why do I have quotas every year?
Speaker 4:And you need to think that there's so many spreadsheets for us not to believe the numbers. That's wild.
Speaker 3:And so so much of that, I think, is that we name priorities that we're not doing. Don't tell me that you're focused on your community when you're not doing everything you can do to serve school campuses or local communities or all that. And we, I mean, we do whole things on that in our, in our, in our cohorts, but but this idea of it's one thing, and Christians specifically, I think it's the enemy and enemies great trap that we love to feel good and say things that feel good and then not actually do them. Yeah, and, and it's kind of this idea when I was preaching at a D, now we have a, we have one sermon series that we really love, called even if, and this idea that are you willing to follow Jesus even if?
Speaker 3:he isn't who you wanted, because the truth is, the Jesus that we need is very rarely the Jesus we want, even after we get realized, and and so I won't even go into the context of the passage, but it's great. But this one of the things that came out of that was it's one thing for us to be Jesus-centered and it's another thing to be Jesus-adjacent, and so many students in your ministry are Jesus-adjacent and not centered. And I would even say the same thing for mission it's one thing to be mission-driven, but most guys and gals are struggling because they're mission-adjacent but they're not going in the direction of being driven.
Speaker 4:Well, okay, so let's bring it back. Cause that was one of the things that you shared. We talked in some of the pre-show stuff about events, and relational youth ministry, which is the new relational youth ministry, has come back in vogue after a few years of being dormant, yeah.
Speaker 3:Sad thing is, jesus loved it too, so I think we should just keep doing it.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, sad thing is Jesus loved it too, so I think we should just keep doing it. Well, he loved it. But again, I think here's the rub for youth ministers we are building towards relational youth ministry, but not ex nihilo. Like we have the burden of the history of the programs and the camps and the D-NOWs, and so we're trying to exit, in the same way that churches that are about small groups and community are trying to do that in 50 minute blocks on Sunday morning, like, hey, we're about community, we've got, okay, we've only got 14 more minutes.
Speaker 4:Before we grab this baby up is the thought of the notion that, like, we may have to blow up a little bit, not just our aspirational hope but some of our design intent, again under the burden of not being in charge but being responsible too. So what are some of the things that you've encouraged and equipped? Because, again, it starts with a mind shift. I do think we have to set our mind differently to the work that we're about, but also we have to lead differently and design differently. What are some of the roadblocks of our own best hopes or plans or programs that get in the way? Because developing leaders everybody that's going to hear this is going to be like yep, I need to do more of that. But Ian, who has the time? I agree with what you're saying. I know I should. I can't add more to my plate. How do I get more? Where am I supposed to fit that into my week? My week's already accounted for.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so to that point and I'm not saying everybody can do this you need to hear. I mean, you've got to do what you can do Within this you need to start at one, communicating the why. Here's the worst thing about pastors, and this is what we know from serving lead pastors all the way down to any pastor that connects to us. So, no matter where you're at on the org chart, we work with them. And so much of the struggle that there is saying, man, I'm stuck in this system, how do I move out of it? And so, for student pastors specifically, I know that you're not always in the system, but here's what's funny Pastors burn out and the people we spend our lives trying to help other people, and then we become the worst version of ourselves doing it because we don't develop ourselves, we don't take care of ourselves, we just don't. We don't do self-care.
Speaker 4:And in the midst of all, just giving out of the husk of ourselves. Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:One of the funny things is I can watch a student pastor set and counsel and love a student for the gospel yeah. And then watch them be an absolute tool to somebody, to an adult or to a pastor. And then I hear about this conversation that I'm with a pastor and I go. Why would you ever say that you would?
Speaker 4:never tell a student to do that.
Speaker 3:And the reason is because we're exhausted. So if you can step back for a minute one, there's three principles I've always built student ministry on and I wrote and released an ebook for it. It was like a pamphlet kind of ebook but I sent it and a lot it was helpful to a lot of people. But there's three principles. It's and it comes from Jesus when he says you know the, the harvest is maybe the workers are few, but before that he is walking through the towns and villages and he's healing.
Speaker 4:He has compassion on the people and he sees them.
Speaker 3:His heart is so moved. Yeah, and you need to one. You don't need to go and word vomit. If you're looking at it. You need to evaluate your week. Sometimes we're just wasting a lot of time and we're not paying attention. Evaluate your week, I still. I will argue this until I die. There is zero. There is no system that exists that you cannot tweak to be more relational. So when we look at this, I would ask the question one if I, if I feel over, what are you overwhelmed by? Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, are you overwhelmed by? I got my pastors making me do events.
Speaker 4:Odds are if you want to Cause the feeling of anxious and overwhelming will balloon into whatever size you give it. And I think that's that's an important thing. The name is some of our worst fears actually will fill whatever space was left.
Speaker 3:And anxiety is different than being tired.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:So anxiety tells me I'm afraid of what's going to happen.
Speaker 4:Well, I think, I think our tiredness comes from a procrastination that feeds our anxiety, that's fair. That's a separate podcast. It's good. The worrying about work until work is done is a kind of procrastination that produces an anxiety that just leaves you exhausted.
Speaker 3:Well, no, you're 100% right, but there's such a thing as being tired and then there's such a thing as being afraid, and sometimes the problem is I mean, sometimes, if you know so many places say like this is another unmet expectation, that it's okay to fail, but then every time you fail it's punitive yeah, and so mistakes are not negligence. But if everything is treated like negligence, eventually it becomes a self-prophecy it becomes negligent yeah and you become that way, and so this idea.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like the in chronicles of narnia, when lucy's back with prince caspian and she almost gets attacked by a bear yeah my best lucy is like uh, uh, you know. She's like oh, that bear attacked me, you know. And she goes. I don't think it could talk at all.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And the response was if you treat an animal dumb enough, long enough, it'll do that.
Speaker 3:And so I get it. I get where so many guys are at, because I've been there too. You feel like you're just becoming a dumb animal because you feel like you're treated that way. My encouragement to you is this One if you're told you have to keep doing a lot of things the same way, we can tweak. You need to tweak how relational it is, and what I mean by that is if you say I've only got Sundays and Wednesdays, then you need to start up front loading with leaders and start assigning students to leaders to follow up with and to connect. You need to pour into them. You need to take your hands off of a lot of things, because you're not. There's going to be students that don't like you and students that you don't like, and that's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, but what's not okay is to leave them in the cold, because there's always a leader that's going to be able to connect with them and you need to be okay to not be everything that's that exists. Being all things to all people doesn't mean that you can absolutely be the person that makes every connection. So start building systems, not to make more systems, but so that you can walk quietly through Wednesday night when kids are there and talk with them and you're not rushing.
Speaker 3:So, that Sunday mornings you're setting in on groups and hanging out and connecting with your kids, not covering every single hole that needs to be filled Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Recruiting leaders is key, but I'm going to tell you we're in the age of millennials and I wish I had the study I can't remember if it was the US Department of Labor, but it was a secular study that said millennials right now are 80% more likely to stay somewhere for five years or more, stay somewhere long-term, if they will just invest in them more than what their job training is. And so one of those things is if your leaders don't like, I want to, I want to do. I have this tie, this policy of use me and abuse me when I go to a D. Now I just want you to man if.
Speaker 4:I can, if I can, pour into your leaders let me do it, If I'm here for the weekend fill my time.
Speaker 2:I'm here, I want to hang out with students, but I remember I was getting.
Speaker 3:I was in tears I don't usually until I had kids, by the way, which is the best thing ever. Until I had kids, I didn't know. I had tear ducts, and so God has really overwhelmed, because I usually got angry. Anger is a cheap emotion. It can be good, but it's easy to pour everything into. When you can grieve or when you can feel things deeply, it's a good thing. And I remember I was doing a leader training and I was going to do a D now and this guy wanted me to do leaders on Saturday afternoon and I and everything in me and I you know, everything in my traditional church was like okay, I'm going to tell them eight reasons why they're terrible.
Speaker 3:I'm going to tell them seven reasons why they can get better. And I'm going to tell them that, you know, and I'm going to encourage them. And I was listening to the song carbons by John Martin McMillan yeah, and it's about Mephibosheth essentially and my heart. I just started tearing up and I realized those leaders, in the midst of their weekend, did not need to hear and I wouldn't tell them they were terrible, but they did not hear how they needed to get better. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They needed to have life breathed into them and they needed to be encouraged. And so I walked through the story of Mephibosheth with them and I said I need you guys to understand something you might feel like you are nailing your head against the ground constantly with these kids, but everything you do you're inviting cripples to the table, and that you were a cripple to the table too, and what you do here makes a difference when a kid goes crazy and and to to be able to do that idea. And so when we talk about developing leaders, you're not just. You're not developing just skillset. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You've got to develop a believer who knows they're loved and cared for. You need to be okay when there are leaders that are more popular with you with kids, because that means you're doing a great job. Even head pastors don't see that. They get insecure a lot of times with people doing well, but it makes you better and and so so much of these roadblocks. I think that they're self-induced because we're just not used. It's uncomfortable to be developed and it's uncomfortable to develop.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um, and we haven't seen it a lot, and so I think that I mean, I think there's a large portion of that and there's a real tension too that I think sometimes, especially in youth ministry uh, if you do get some really good leaders, they're probably older than you.
Speaker 4:And it's hard to be a developer of people. It is difficult when they're older than you. They feel like, well, they probably just know what to do. But there is something to not be mistaken about you are at a level of like. You've been picked, hired, chosen, elevated, to not be the end all or expert, but enabler.
Speaker 3:Curator curator of what's next? Yeah yeah, yeah, well, absolutely. I had a leader who told me the same thing, and his wasn't even that. They know enough to do anyway, his was. And this is where that deep heart of shepherding and development comes from. Is that everybody's in process. The point is just helping them find their, and then that's the difference between being authoritarian and being a shepherd is that you're not. Your goal is not to drag them and to tell and to order them around.
Speaker 3:I mean, sometimes you got to give orders, but largely what you're supposed to do is to see where they're at and help bring them where they've never been, like you should be the guy in the machete in the jungle hacking them down and I and I and to, to encourage you, one of the best leaders we have in our cohorts, um, and I won't say his name, but he but I love him to death and he's, he is, uh, he's got all these kids and he's got leaders and he told me. He said I'm going to develop my leaders with they're doing. He was, he was nervous I've been there nervous that you're like two decades older than me. Yeah. How do I even help you? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And he said I'm starting to realize now that they've always wanted the leadership and I haven't been given it to them. Yeah, and I, and if I I mean if I can tell you anything make mistakes, just make mistakes, doing it and trying to lead and develop people, I think if you hold your people, I had a guy one time who told me and he could not, he was so mad he wouldn't do any development with his leaders.
Speaker 3:He said I'm telling you right now, man, and he said it was so funny he talked to him.
Speaker 4:He's like I'm going to tell you right now. That's exactly what he said. Do you love it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he said I'm going to tell you these, these, these, my leaders, they will not meet the bare minimum. They just won't even meet the. I went they need to be here on Wednesday night at 5 o'clock and I said, well, hold on, they're just getting off of work at 5. I said, can I ask you a question? I said what if you had a football coach and your kid was playing for that football coach and he yelled at that team and said they won't even meet the bare minimum? And then you found out they were having to play every game without pads.
Speaker 4:And he went. Well, that's not right and I.
Speaker 3:I said it doesn't mean that you have to stay here, but I said sometimes we got to lower the bare minimum and we have to change the bare minimum because, again, it's answering a question that nobody's asking His people. When he started doing it for the first time ever, they'd been poured into. Some of them cried when they received a plan. That was an intentional plan, but over 50% of his people were reading through books for the first time and actually applying it, I mean just because they needed it. And when he started it and he changed the minimum and he met them where they were at. That was the key.
Speaker 4:And again that is probably the roadblock for so many leaders is being heads up enough to parse perceive. I really feel like we we can get so guilty of doing that. That's the danger of the hustle or busy culture is that we had so much of a plan and so much of things to do that we weren't aware enough to perceive enough to to be helpful enough. And I think that's one of the things that your help may not be the more to do, but the well-met and the relational insight to see, because one of the things that's true about church volunteerism is that those folks are giving of their time because they believe in value already and we cannot underestimate that willingness as anything other than a desire for growth. I think so many folks serve because they do desire to grow.
Speaker 3:Do you think there's a fear to put your head up, though, sometimes because they're afraid to challenge that system? Because I see that too. But what?
Speaker 4:do you think yeah, I mean I think there's a fear of challenging the system Again, I think it's the pressure from above and below, I mean that is. I mean I think there's a fear. Challenge to the system, again, I think it's the pressure from above and below. I mean that is.
Speaker 4:I think one of the most unique things about youth ministry is it attracts some folks that might be the most entrepreneurial, innovative, creative leaders and yet not the finality or executive of leaders, and so I think sometimes there's a lot of that like I'm afraid to speak out, and some of it just goes back to not having enough of those heads up conversations with your senior leadership. And so I think that's one of the things that I would encourage. If that's not a regular part of both your personal development but your professional development is getting in not just the staff spaces but the relational spaces with those that are upline from you senior leadership to you, executive pastor to you where you're not just meeting about the work but meeting about the development. And it may just be as simple as man what are you reading, how are you learning, how are you growing? Because that's a great start for gauging where they're at. I think a perceptive leader can see up and see down.
Speaker 3:I think to that point. This is why you're right the heads up side. I'll tell you what I wasted. Most of my time in almost 20 years at Institute of Ministry I've wasted. The one thing I wasted the most time on was worry, and when I think about it, because at the end of the day, if you're going to not be at that church very long and get fired, you're going to not be at that church very long and get fired. You're going to get fired, it's going to happen.
Speaker 3:So why worry about it? And so the idea of saying, if I need to look at like, I also think you've got to have some trust with your pastor. Unless it's immoral, unless it's unbiblical, unless it's ungodly and it's not making mountains out of molehills, right, you need to be able to think okay, I want to be supported one day. I want my leaders to support me, so I want to support him here. But I also know that odds are. This is a generations-long problem with development. He might be in that place too, and sometimes you get to help shepherd from below that pastor. But I think that it would be a big deal for us to sit down, especially during this January season and to say it's a great time to do this, it especially during this January season.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And to say great time to do this. It's a great time to do this.
Speaker 4:It's going to do it in December, january Everybody's reading a new book in January. Cause they committed to that in the gym, they did.
Speaker 3:They did the first five minutes. Five chapters, that's fine, but it's hey, we'll start there. But I would tell you that three chapters is a third book in most places. Yeah, fair enough, listen, I'm the worst for that.
Speaker 4:I remember going like 52 books a year and then I was like a book and I was like, oh, that's a lot of books. Are you, are you the, are you the friend? That's like listen man, you don't have to commit to the whole book. A book is a friendship and you can break it off whenever you need to. Whenever you're done with it, you can break it off. Oh, yeah, yeah, books are relationships, man, you need to end them before they end you.
Speaker 3:That's it, I did not think that I will say audiobooks, though have you dumped some books.
Speaker 4:You've dumped some books. Yeah, you're like eh, undownload Some books are terrible man.
Speaker 3:Don't read it if it's terrible. That's the other side of it. You're not committed to finish it, that bad book right. So you're always reading top-notch stuff and that's part of what we do. But I think to what you were saying and sorry I get so focused. I need to laugh more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but as we're talking about it and we're thinking through it, I think that we worry so much. But, having grace with your pastor and I think if you would take the time to slow down and listen, calling guys like you, calling guys like me, the biggest thing is listen. I want to push as many people into into cohorts that we're leading as I can. That's where the help comes, because you can say in a cohort, this is what I absolutely I benefited from. This and it's part of what led me into G6 to do this is that I had people along the way and most guys don't. It's why so many drop out of ministry, why so many burn out. Sometimes people need to drop out of ministry, but it's far less than the people that actually are burning out. And, at the end of the day, I had people in my life that did not gain or lose from listening to their advice. They just wanted what was best for me. And you need those objective voices in your life. That's why, when we do cohorts and we do those things you need to be.
Speaker 3:I'm going to tell you at this point if you're not willing to pay for something and make an investment, then that's on you. So if you're hearing this and you're going, I don't care where it is, I don't care if it's my cohort or somebody else's, I don't care if it's my membership or somebody else's, whatever it is. If you're not making that investment and then saying I'm going to evaluate that this is good, it's not good, I'm going to move on to another one. If you're not actively seeking good places, you've got at one point it's going to be on you and I don't want that to be the case because you need. I had people around me that when I'd said I mean, we know ministry is hard it breaks my heart when guys looked at me and said I was worthless. When guys looked at me and said I was worthless.
Speaker 3:When guys told me that I wasn't good enough to do this, or that the whole staff I served with hated me. And they didn't. Guys that were broken too, but I was 20 something, or 30 something and you know I'm still 30 something and I hear those voices in my head. I had people that I could go back to and say this is breaking my heart. Yeah. I, what do I do? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they would tell me you're not, that this is not a good place for you. Or I'd say I wanted a place that I could rethink and write a ministry plan without my pastor seeing it and then I could go present it to him without it being word salad. And places like that are indispensable because why do we think that community is relegated just to the body as attenders? We're supposed to shepherd in community, we grow in community, we learn in community and the number of guys that I've had that go, oh my gosh, I've never thought about that. Oh, this is huge. Or we talk about budgeting. Budgeting is the biggest, I think one of the biggest traps for student pastors. There's no very few people teach you how to do it. You and I would be out of business if head pastors said and I pray for that day, I pray God puts us all out of business because we'll be in a great place. Because when head pastors would say I'm going to get you, I'm going to develop you into who God made you to be, and I want to teach you everything I know,
Speaker 3:and I'm okay when you push back or it doesn't work. If that would happen, everything would change. But as it is, you have people now around you you're listening to people right now who absolutely do that for you, because the truth is, the world is broken and that brokenness didn't stop at the church door. Things are just not ever going to be perfect. And so when we talk about all this, yeah, if you have low standards for your leaders, or no standards other than signing a covenant and making sure that they don't look at porn or something like that, that's not a ministry that's going to thrive long-term. That's a ministry that's trying to get out of things, not do things. When you talk about, if you're not looking at your people saying God, where do you want me to lead and shepherd these people? A shepherd's job is not just to fight off wolves, it's to help his sheep feed. And so if you're not helping them feed, right. If you're looking at your budget and going, I don't know, 10% of my budget seems like a lot to waste on leaders. No, it's not. If you get rid of whatever you can. And the other side of it is the three principles I think are so important that we got lost on because we're both good rabbit trailers. Find your ministry.
Speaker 3:No matter what ministry you're in, we try and change the wall color when our foundation's cracked. And you can look at it in the three things that we go into depth on this and I'm happy to share it with you. But this ebook that we have it's Find, engage and Connect. Jesus did this, and when Jesus walks from healing people to then telling his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. So lead the way. And we look at that and we go oh yeah, that's a great passage. But the ramifications of that are how many? How often are you? Do you have people around you to help you be self-aware? Are you complaining about the kids that didn't show up to the kids that did, and then they feel like worthless and you're not even able to build relationships with them.
Speaker 3:But like you I mean you talk about this. I mean I and I love where you set it up we have this situation where we say well, my relationship, my ministry is not built to be relational. Well, are there not? People there, it absolutely is. My dad was a relational salesman. He couldn't sell ice to an Eskimo. What he could do was that he knew that banks that he would. He sold bank equipment. Banks eventually bought from him after months because they knew every Tuesday he'd be there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know every Wednesday kids are going to be there. You know what Go after the ones that didn't show up after. But when you've got those, you say well, I don't have a relational setup, it's all event-driven. I'm sorry, but you've got two days a week at least you have 52 options. Just start from there 104 options really to start connecting with kids and so learn their names. The truth is the difference between being seen or being found and not is usually just being seen.
Speaker 3:No student should ever come into your ministry and not be seen and not hear their name. It's the sweetest thing that can be spoken Engaging, meeting people where they're at. Jesus not only saw the crowds that were broken and had compassion, he engaged them and he knew what they needed. And you're talking to a Jesus if you say, well, I didn't have enough attendance. Well, you know what. Jesus sent 5,000 people home because he said you want what I can, you want my food, you don't want me.
Speaker 3:And so engage your people where they're at. You know what If your kid needs a Bible, buy them a Bible Budget for that. If you've got a student who's struggling with porn, like so many are, then you start working on them with that. If you've got a student who wants to go through Leviticus in a Bible study because they're bored, well, it's going to be tough, but do it, do it. So meeting and helping your leaders do that. And then you connect. So you don't just find and engage in where they're at, but you connect and you continue to help lead them in that way.
Speaker 3:And so when you start finding those things it really puts you in a position. Part of that relational ministry is working into your day that you would show up at schools as much as you can, and even strategies for getting in schools is tough. But in the midst of all of that, I think the shift from relational to event. I do think it's an inadvertent thing, but it's a lot easier to plan an event than it is to deal with the messiness of people.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, and I think that's the mess that we have to be willing to wade into.
Speaker 4:That's the sheep manure and one of the things that might be the most surprising about how someone could grow this year is their willingness to make aware the mess. So, ian, for folks that are open to receiving and doing, what's a word for 2025 that you would encourage folks with, maybe generally in this season of ministry, as the ways they're thinking about? You know, they got the new book, they've hit the gym three weeks in a row Now they're feeling great, but what is a key reminder or an anchor point to keep us shepherds of sheep and not planners of events? Because I do think that's a tension that many can feel, because you know.
Speaker 3:One's a job title, One's a job. One is a job that we have to pay. Do we have to do? Right, yeah. One comes with the job, but it can't be the job right. Sorry, I was bouncing around.
Speaker 4:I had a lot of coffee. It wasn't quite a limerick.
Speaker 3:Man. So what would the advice be?
Speaker 4:What would the work be for these guys? Man? How do you keep us grounded? I think that's one of the things we drift into. What we can control Absolutely, I think that's the fear of what others might do or whose students might be there. When we doubt, we become fearful, and so we return to that which we can control.
Speaker 3:That's 100% right, man. I would tell you because you're right, if your ministry is only ever as big as you, it's a really small ministry, yeah. But I can control it, I know, but you can control it.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, I know every single part of it, yeah.
Speaker 3:If drawing a crowd was, uh was good ministry man, there'd be a lot of really terrible people that were good ministers. Right yeah. Man, I would tell you if, if I could say anything to you and help keep you grounded, it's to honestly evaluate your ministry and evaluate where God has you and then choose this year to spend whether it's the budget, money and the time on self-development and leader development.
Speaker 3:And that's the reason for that is and I honestly, I'm just going to gonna say it this way just join a cohort yeah I don't care if it's yours, I don't care if it's mine, I don't care if it's another one that you know, but get yourself into a community of people that will help you be self-aware it'll help challenge you. That that's the problem, that I think that the biggest encouragement is that if your answer to anything is no, I'm good for now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, then you're not good, then you're not ready for what's next, and I think that's the we want to. Don't. Don't make community the aspirational thing that you would say from the stage. Well, what was your students?
Speaker 3:what did? What did elijah? I love what god said to elijah, when, or what god said to the people of israel and to elijah. And the idea was like if I bring rain, you haven't dug cisterns or wells you haven't done anything.
Speaker 3:Maybe that's the best way to encompass this is that if you want a word, I always struggle because I don't do the words for the year. I'm just, I'm an odd duck, but I think if you were to do that, I think that maybe that word would be this needs to be a year to dig, because if you are constantly asking God for a blessing or a shower or progress and you are not prepared for it, then what are you one? What are you saying of what you believe to God and what are you saying about the people?
Speaker 3:So, man, if you need to dig through personal development, if you need to dig leadership development, you can dig.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's good, man. That's good. That's good. All right, my friend, help us out. We're going to close this out. If folks want to stay connected with you online or the social meds or the emails, what's the best?
Speaker 3:way to get a hold of. Ian, so you can find us on shapingstudentministrycom. My email is ian at g6allies and, honestly, my cell phone. I don't even care to give out my cell phone, well hold on.
Speaker 4:You can put that later but, I'm not going to do it. I don't know how you guys roll, but I would tell you let's not get you doxed here for everybody else, but I would say Podcast as well, right, oh, absolutely Shaving Student.
Speaker 3:Ministry podcast. So if you, go to. But if you go to Shaving Student Ministry, if you go to shapingstudentministrycom, you'll see everything that we do. Yeah, um, but man, yeah, you can catch us on our podcast, catch us online, but you can absolutely always reach out an email, ian, at g6alliescom. I'd love for your church too, as a whole, because we serve churches as a whole to check out g6alliescom. Love it, man.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, Dude. Thank you so much for being here. It's an honor to be here, man.
Speaker 3:It's so good to have you this week. A little cold outside it's interesting.
Speaker 4:We did it 57 minutes in. We did it. Yeah, All right.
Speaker 2:Snap Good good, it's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun, it's.
