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
Ten Years, Still Showing Up For Youth Ministry Games & Taco Bell
Ten years in and we’re still showing up, still laughing about late-night Taco Bell runs, and still fighting for youth pastors to feel seen on that drive home after midweek. We rewind to the After Nine roots—two friends comparing notes before weekend trainings—and trace how a simple idea to be a caring voice turned into a decade of community, practical help, and honest talk about the inner life of ministry.
We mark ten years by tracing our start as a late-night voice for youth pastors, then share honest, practical ways to celebrate volunteers and students without adding noise to busy calendars. The thread is clear: what we honor out loud is what our ministries become.
• origin of After9 and the late-night drive home vibe
• why healthy ministers create healthy ministries
• celebrating too quietly and how to fix it
• practical leader appreciation ideas that scale
• milestone moments for teens with simple spiritual markers
• training your heart to notice wins, not just problems
• building community with low-cost, high-meaning gatherings
• choosing meaning over more events in busy families
Thank you guys so much for being with us in this journey
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Youth Ministry Butcher podcast, but not just another one. It is a big one. Ten years, baby. Ten years of podcasting this month. Yes, 10 years ago this month. Chad, do you know where you were on a Friday morning?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Um I I basically told you the running gambit. I would commit to this for six months of driving to your house. Yep, on Fridays to record two episodes and have a lunch. Really, I was just there for the lunch.
SPEAKER_00:For the lunch. If I'm gonna be honest, uh hold on, hold on. We're gonna hold. Okay. I'm sorry. Chad, you became green. Hulking out?
SPEAKER_02:If you were one of the oh, I know what it means.
SPEAKER_00:Don't, don't, don't, don't ask no question.
SPEAKER_02:What is this ring tell you?
SPEAKER_01:What does this tell you?
SPEAKER_00:Best story.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I just start over again. Yeah, we'll just start over.
SPEAKER_02:All right.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast, but not just another one. This is our 10th anniversary episode. We did it, man. Ten years, baby. This we're done after this, right? This is we're done.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, here's the thing. Have we fulfilled the good? At this point, our moms have stopped listening. Yeah, they have. And so really, what more do we?
SPEAKER_00:She still asks if I do that thing in the garage. Yeah. That thing. She's like, you could park a perfectly good car in that garage, but no matter what.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so 10 years ago. Ten years ago. So if you're if you're not an original listener, which by the way, we were not the Youth Mystery Booster podcast back then.
SPEAKER_00:We were not. So you're gonna be hard pressed to go find the original episodes. They may be under different titles. The original podcast 10 years ago started with the name After Nine. Why did it call why was it called After Nine, Chad?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so Zach and myself were doing training in Oklahoma at that time. Um we were continuing to run into like uh rural youth ministers, bi-vocational youth ministers, and you know, we were doing trainings on how to like recruit volunteers and have better, you know, small groups and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00:My curriculum can help you. Uh and and at that time it was, you know, you and I met, and I was like, Zach, it feels like we had a chain of like four weeks in a row where we're being sent out. So we love our Oklahoma friends. We are honored and always thankful for the ask to be a part of what they were doing, but they were sent out like four Saturdays or something in a row. So our commitment was let's check in with each other and do coffees on like Thursday or Friday before we go out, just trying to learn and grow. Hey, how did it go? What did you learn? And over those course of coffees, we were like, man, like we are hearing them talk about that, yeah, the volunteer and the curriculum thing is a nice conversation, but I just I need some friends, right?
SPEAKER_02:Uh you and you and I feel alone. We had ourselves, and then we also had other youth ministers in our towns because they were a little bit larger.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so we wanted to basically at first it was like, how do we connect these people to where they have community with each other? Yeah. Um, we didn't at that point really think as as broad as as we have now. Um, and so it was like, well, let's at least be a positive voice for them once a week. Yeah. And so really we started off just trying to create a listening exercise with youth ministries in Oklahoma. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, and so nine o'clock on Wednesday night was prime time for a youth minister to be deep in their feelings, either positive or negative. That on on riding high or riding low after a midweek uh seemed to be a truism for a lot of youth ministry folks. So at 9 p.m. Central, we wanted to be the voice in the car as they were driving home, getting to their house, maybe in you know, the drive-thru at Taco Bell, uh helping them make better choices.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because back then we used to talk a little bit about the drive-thru at Taco Bell on a Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because if you're a youth minister and you had a good night, yeah, right, you go to Taco Bell as this like victory lap. Victory lap. Shaloopa spike, maybe like it was boom. It was it was a it was a great night, but we're super pumped about it.
SPEAKER_00:But go ahead and make that one supreme. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There's also a sad Taco Bell.
SPEAKER_00:There is a sad Taco Bell. And it's like what's the Gordita Crunch. I just need the mouthfeel and the noise. Just I need a quesadilla and a Gordita crunch because I'm gonna drown these feelings in a Mexican pizza. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, let for a moment. We're gonna sidetrack because this is an important conversation. The chalupa is the victory lab.
SPEAKER_00:Chalupa is the victory lab. And you're saying what is Gordita Crunch is the sad.
SPEAKER_02:Sad Gordita crunch.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, maybe that's just for me. Personal choices. Um I feel like those pinto beans. Bean and cheese, bean and cheddar, dude. Bean and cheese burrito because it's real cheap and it's got high calorie density for low cost.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not talking about the burrito. Cup of beans? I'm talking that is the sad thing.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's not sad. That's that's hey man, uh that's like I don't got the scratch to make the bills this week. Taco Bell. That's college Taco Bell. These guys are still employed. Youth pastors are still employed, they're just sad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. If you're eating beans out of a cup and you're out.
SPEAKER_00:You got fast food cup beans, brother. Reach out. We got a phone number that's 1-800 Lifeway, L-I-F-E-W-A-Y, and we'll figure out why you need a little more help in your life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, dude, stop. I'm gonna get so many emails from our customer support team going, why are middle-aged men?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, calling, calling, dude. Do cheddar on pinto beans, absolutely. Yeah, well, you because you can get a side of nachos, that's a cup and cheese, and you can dip those beans, add that cheese. We're we're making a value meal out of the uh value menu, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:So all right. So basically that's that's why we started because we felt like that was the conversation right there that youth ministers needed.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was representative of a lot of youth ministers were living week to week. Okay. If a Wednesday was good, they felt good about what they did. If a Wednesday was bad, they wanted to quit on Thursday. And we wanted to be the voice to help bridge between because there was a lot of other conversations. There were blogs that were going out, books being published. At the time, there was only a couple different podcasts because podcasting technology and podcasting platforms were pretty restrictive. I think at the time it was like us and Jody and a couple others. And so that was kind of like the leading edge of like a youth miniature specifics podcast that wasn't just tips. Like a lot of folks had kind of converted their blog into a podcast forum. We were having the conversations about like, don't give up yet, don't lose your witness because the mom got mad at you about something you were unaware of. And it was just a lot of those like emotive, interior felt things that for those that are in this community of calling that we all share to help kind of bolster and encourage and support. It was the well, it was it was the friend conversations we were having over coffee that we wanted to have with that non-imaginary, imaginary third-person listener to have in the car with them to kind of build them up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and and from the very beginning, always one of our kind of key elements of youth ministry booster in general is we believe that one of the key ingredients for a healthy student ministry is a healthy student minister. That's right. And so not only do we want to provide hopefully um solid advice, great tips on student ministry, um, but it all comes back down to even those emotions and even spiritual well-being. Love, supported, pray for. We're not this like isolated vacuum of leadership.
SPEAKER_00:Like, we're not a widget in the ministry machine. You're a you're a person with feelings and devotion and relationships. And if you're off center, off-kilter, it's really hard to steer the ship rightly if you're not in a good spot yourself.
SPEAKER_02:So, one of the things that we wanted to talk about, we're here at Etch, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:So the the different this is Zach's garage got tall. We're with our buddy Donnie today, too. Come on, Donnie. Yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes, sir. We we are we are recording before the conference starts on the Tuesday morning setup. That's right. There is not a crowd here, it's not like live crowd. We have Donnie, which that's really all the colours. That's all the crowd we need.
SPEAKER_00:That's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but so one of the things that we wanted to talk about today specifically, even as we celebrate 10 years, yeah, is the importance of celebration.
SPEAKER_00:Celebration milestone markers in ministry, both for you, the minister. And I want you to hear me say that like you need some of these for yourself first and foremost. Uh, we talk about etch a lot because etch was kind of our first event as we joined the Lifeway team. That was a kind of hallmark key moment in that way. Um, but one of the things that we'll dig into here in just a few minutes are the milestone markers for your teenagers. I mean, the teen life is filled with some of the obvious ones, literally turning 13 as a teen. And then whenever they're maybe moving from middle school to high school is a key transition moment. Um, maybe you know, getting the car keys is another moment, whether that happens at 16 or 18, and then ultimately graduating. There's some like defining moments in this. And I think we have to see those as opportunities to come alongside with some spiritual markers as well. So we're gonna talk about milestones and celebrations a little bit today.
SPEAKER_02:Let's talk about, I want to know though, from you when we think about celebration, because celebration is not a new thing that I would say is in the like vernacular of a lot of you know, communicators of speaking to student ministers of like, hey, make sure to celebrate. How do you think people are celebrating incorrectly? Incorrectly.
SPEAKER_00:Uh celebrating. So, number one, I think people are celebrating too quietly. I have been alongside too many church leaders. Well, they'll have like a big hullabaloo of a fall fest, and it will be the staff meeting on the Tuesday after the event on a Saturday and Sunday. And it was like, hey everybody, fall fest, good job. Yeah. And it's like the applause goes to like a circle of 10 people instead of it being like, man, treat, treat, treat the celebration of the thing with as half as much energy. Like, like folks will go to camp and get back and like send a really long, thankful email, which is good. Like, you need to thank people by name, share some stories. But where's the not just the pre-party that gets everybody signed up for camp, but the post-party of like, guys, that was awesome. Like, where is not just for those that went, but for those that made it happen? I think, I think celebrating too quietly is something that we can probably course correct.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's interesting. I I I think that I think probably some of it just comes down to like you're tired, right? Like you're done with the thing. You put everything into it, absolutely. And and now it's like, well, we got to move on to kind of the next thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What are what are some of the benefits that you see of places that celebrate well? Yeah. Um, what are some of the benefits? And then I want us to talk really like ground level for somebody that's like, oh, I'm kind of tracking.
SPEAKER_00:That were again, we talk a lot about how words get filled up like envelopes, we need to break them down. So, literally talking yesterday here at Etch with a new buddy Tyler about team is growing, I'm adding more leaders, and some of the encouragement that we went back and forth about was man, when you only have a couple leaders, it's easy to have like a coffee or a meal and be like, man, thank you guys for helping in youth stuff. When you have 10, 12 leaders, that's almost like event level prep. And so we talked about when the growing ministry happens, is not to outgrow what you do for the students, uh, outgrow the ways in which you celebrate, train, and encourage the leaders. So like that was kind of our joke with him yesterday is like whether it's like one to two, one to three, if you're doing three big things for the students in your ministry, you should have at least one thing going on that's for the adult leaders that make it happen. Yeah. Like, yeah, like they take the students bowling. We had D now, but where's the like laser tag and pizza night for all the leaders and their spouses? Yeah. Because like that's, I mean, yes, it's so fun to take kids to laser tag, but some of the best experiences have been like the big dinners, the bowling nights, even just like ice cream together with like all the folks that volunteer and make the ministry happen. Because they're fun people, they like being around teenagers, and what's even more fun than that is being fun people without the responsibility of keeping up with all the teenagers.
SPEAKER_02:Well, back in back in my day, oh wow, uh, one of the things that we we would do radio? Radio. We'd gather around the old VHS. Oh, yeah. Um, for for us, and I I wouldn't have called it celebration, but I think it's really what it was. Fellowship or uh yeah, for our volunteer leaders, and I think I've told this story on here, but um you know, for us it was yeah, come home. Wednesday night, we had a bunch of night, yeah. We had a bunch of college students as volunteer leaders. And so Wednesday night after all the student stuff was done, there was Buffalo Wild Wings not too far from our church. Open invite, right?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it was like it was like youth group after dark. Yeah, yeah. It was literally your after nine, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you didn't have to come, but it is like we're gonna be there. You're welcome. They used to so on Wednesday nights. Oh, this is gonna date you. Yeah, this is free advertising for B dubs that's I think struggling right now, if we're gonna be honest. Um Wednesday night. Bone in, bone out, brother. Uh they used to do 50 cent legs. Oh, okay. Um, most people didn't even know they did legs. Wow. Uh or could get it at them for 50 cents.
SPEAKER_00:50 cents. You could pay for dinner with loose change. Three dollars.
SPEAKER_02:Three dollars gives you six legs, and let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_00:Your laundry money could be B dub's money. Let's go.
SPEAKER_02:When you roll up and you're like, I'm gonna be buying legs for all these people. For all these people?
SPEAKER_00:Golly, just a roll of quarters. Amazing. But but I mean that's it though, right? It's one of those, like, in the same way that teenagers, like, dude, a pizza, a switch, a circle up, a conversation is kind of the core principles of it. That meal together in community is what they're looking for. Like a lot of folks that we've said this before, let's say it one more time clearly on this anniversary. The first yes that a volunteer says to youth ministry isn't to the work, but it's the person that asked them to help, which is you. And if you give away the time that they could have with you, you're giving away their first yes. It's gonna change, and hopefully they grow and they learn to love it, and the student connection or the stories of transformation keep them grounded to it, but you're the one that asked. And they said yes to you. And so, in so many ways, that foster relationship that they have with you, the trust, uh, the leadership, the wisdom, the opportunity rest on what they have with you.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so primarily we've been thinking about how it affects your volunteer leaders. Yeah. What do you think celebration does for the heart of the youth minister? And what is a lack of celebration do for the heart of the youth minister?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Uh the lack uh means that you're not training yourself to listen to what's going on beyond what you can see. Uh one of the things that celebration should create is a chance to hear from other people. Now, I I know that some folks, when they plan celebration, it does feel like one more event that they're directing, they're planning, they're coming up with stuff. But some of those key moments should be the collection of what's happening in our ministry, for good or for bad, hopefully more good than bad, that can be retold to others. Yeah. Because everybody sees it from their perspective, even you. Like you aren't in every group, you aren't in every conversation. And when some folks stand up to share the ways in which this moment blessed them, or the change in the life of this teenager was awesome or exciting, you need to actually listen, hear it, feel it, because you're caught up in the doing and you're missing some of the being and the happening.
SPEAKER_02:I I think we grow deaf of looking for positive.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you got to retrain yourself. Like and again, so some of the yes, some seasons are harder than others, but there is something good happening. And we're not trying to sugarcoat or glaze or spin, but something good is happening, and what you celebrate often defines what people emulate. And if all the stories are disciplined, behavior issues, or lack of engagement or talking during sermons, even if it's just two kids, two girls, freshmen, taking notes with their zebra midliners against the audience of middle school boys that are disconnected, like you have to lift up the good. You have to celebrate and see the good amidst the bad. Cause in some ways, that's what joy is finding it. Finding it against the grain of the trend to create the opportunity for others to see the value of it. What's a celebration for you right now in your life? For me and my life right now. Um, so right now, we've talked about it before. Shout out to my J High boys. Uh, my co-leader. I feel like you bark at a lot of students. They get it. It's fine, it's their thing. Um, the co-leader in my Jey High group is a young man that I've known since he was a little kid. So he's an awesome young man, has grown up, graduated, went and played soccer abroad in Europe, has come back, has taken a job to his home church, and him and his old youth pastor are the co-leaders for the J High guys. Because I've got a fifth grader, and he was asked to help out there, and he found out we got to work together, and it's been a dream. That's true. It's been a dream.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it took a long time to get there, right? Yeah, that wasn't like an overnight thing. So now when all these fifth grade boys are like, why do we have to listen to you? And Gunnar's like, because one day you could be me. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh for us, uh, just in our church, it's just a sweet time.
SPEAKER_00:Uh we've there's you know when you've taken have you talked about the roles you've taken on? Like you're like a fully committed church member now.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, dude.
SPEAKER_00:You went from minister on staff to like, you're about to be a chair of a committee.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nope. Not doing that. Well, I mean, you are leading the college group. The next stop for you is in one of the key committees.
SPEAKER_02:There's so but there's a group of other like adults that are right around our age that we've just really started to get connected with really well. And we had a bunch of people over at our house the other night, which uh just feels right. Yeah. Um, I made some great poor uh poor Carnita tacos, smoking the meat, hanging out. We had 17 people at our house. Yeah, it was a little chaotic. Um, but it was so much fun. It was the best kind of chaos, right? Oh, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:Best kind of chaos, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh kids are just they're getting into every closet we have.
SPEAKER_00:Um, our house that one middle school son is like just taking over your Xbox and changed all your profiles.
SPEAKER_02:You did bring my KD down a little bit. Sorry, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Shout out to you, X Lord74.
SPEAKER_02:Uh no, but man, just hanging out. Yeah, it got to the end of the night. It was that is that sweet moment when you know it went well. Yeah. When everybody's just hanging around and it almost, it's like there's just constant talking. Yeah. And then everybody's like, oh, we gotta get kids late. Yeah. Um, and so that was just really, really fun.
SPEAKER_00:And again, back that's it's one more thing, right? You it's one more thing on a weekend night, and you can't do it all the time, but to not have those little moments to look back and just be like, man, this is this is the sweetness, right? And I think that's my encouragement is if your schedule's so busy that you couldn't even imagine this, imagine less of what you have planned. We are gonna say it a lot today at ECH. And if you're at some of the breakouts hearing this, hopefully you're hearing it as a reminder. Every family in your church is already busy. So if your plan was to offer more, it's not gonna work. Nobody has more time. But what people are really hungry for is making meaning out of the time that they have.
SPEAKER_02:I just want to remind you guys, thank you guys so much for being with us in this journey.
SPEAKER_00:This has meant a lot. Yeah, this has meant a lot.
SPEAKER_02:A whole lot to us. And the fact that we get to celebrate um with you guys and with this incredible team uh is something that we could have never dreamed about. Ten years ago, when I said, All right, I'm gonna do this for six months.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, every Friday, drive to your house and record. Sorry, fool's wisdom. He's like, I'll drive to your house, you edit the podcast. I was like, I don't know how to do that. And you're like, well, you can figure it out while I'm driving. Sometimes you learn on the road, sometimes you learn on the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was that was the deal. I'll drive, you edit.
SPEAKER_02:Bet that's awesome. Hey, thanks for being us with us. Thanks for watching.
SPEAKER_00:At least six months, six months more, ten more years. What do we say? How many more?
SPEAKER_02:I'm constantly, I'm constantly just giving you six months more.
SPEAKER_00:Six months. All right, we'll we'll re-up in six months and see where we're at. Until then, we'll see you next week.
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