Youth Ministry Deconstructed with Dr. David Odom

Youth Ministry Deconstructed with David Odom | What If We've Been Doing Youth Ministry Wrong?

Have we built youth ministries that attract students… but struggle to form lasting faith?

In this first episode of a 3 part series of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast, Zac Workun sits down with Dr. David Odom from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and author of Youth Ministry Deconstructed, for a conversation about the past, present, and future of student ministry. Together we talk  the history of youth ministry, the assumptions we've inherited, and why many youth pastors are feeling both hopeful and exhausted in today's ministry landscape. 

This isn't a conversation about abandoning youth ministry. It's a conversation about rethinking it, breaking it down to rebuild it.

Dr. Odom challenges youth leaders to evaluate whether our ministries are producing attendance or discipleship, activity or transformation, participation or ownership of faith.

In Part 1

✅ The surprising history of youth ministry in America

✅ How Youth for Christ helped shape modern student ministry

✅ Why youth ministry became a "church within a church"

✅ What David Odom means by "deconstructing" youth ministry

✅ Why doubt can be a sign of spiritual growth

✅ The problem with measuring success only by attendance

✅ Better discipleship metrics for youth pastors

✅ The difference between programs and environments

✅ Why small groups may need to become even smaller

✅ How mentoring relationships help students own their faith

Key Takeaways

Youth ministry isn't broken because youth pastors aren't trying hard enough.

Student doubt is not always a crisis.

Attendance matters, but it isn't enough.

Programs don't disciple people. Environments do.

"We're not just trying harder. We're rethinking what we're doing.""Student doubt is not a freak-out moment. It's often a faith-forming moment.""The question isn't simply how many students showed up. The question is whether we're helping students build a faith that lasts.""Think in terms of environments, not programs."

About David Odom

Dr. David Odom serves as a leader, researcher, and professor with decades of experience in student ministry. His book, Youth Ministry Deconstructed: Rethinking Your Ministry to Build Lasting Faith in Students, challenges churches to evaluate the assumptions behind modern youth ministry and reimagine discipleship for the next generation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey Everback with another episode of the Venture Booster Podcast, hanging out in the lovely New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with our buddy, Dr. David Loto. How are you talking about? Doing great. Doing great. Glad to see you. Oh man, so good to have you here. Glad to be here today on the road with you as we're uh walking into MPC Summer, the rest of our summer seminary traveling. So good to do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Well, thank you for being here, and uh I'm I'm privileged to uh be a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Well, we're gonna have some fun. So we're this is a three-part episode, part one, if you're trying to play catch up. Uh we're gonna talk about some things related to New Year's notebook, uh Youth Ministry Deconstructed, which is something that hold on, we'll get there. We'll get there. Uh but we want to talk through some of the big changes, movements, ways, and maybe even challenges of youth ministry today. Um so we're gonna do a little bit of uh overview. We're gonna do a little bit of what was, what must be, and how we might resolve it. So we're excited to have you deal with this. But I think for folks who can tell you a little more, uh, youth ministry is one of those things that is enriched by old tradition. So, Dr. Otellas have Okay, yes, great. You don't do this accidentally.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

No, you don't. You don't just follow into it. Uh you know, uh I I felt to call him the ministry really uh uh at a young age, at age 12. My dad was a pastor, so a preacher's kid, and so uh I felt that that meant becoming a pastor, you know, like my dad. I mean, that was just the thing. What he didn't do. That's what you did, yeah, exactly. But in college, I took a youth ministry course, and I was able to introduce to what youth ministry could really be. And uh just through a uh a series of events, God just really opened opened you know my eyes to my true calling to youth ministry. And I've just kind of never looked back. Uh just been in it uh for for a long haul. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

The opening of the eyes of the calling led through it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Uh surge in several different places, but the southeast?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yes, yeah, Texas, uh, Alabama, uh from Mississippi. Uh but uh yeah. But you know the Southeast well, which is right.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

You know who's been trying to find a point. Uh I mean Tex Texans, Texas, 40,000. Yeah, right. Um late 80s, 90s, 2023, as the uh or maybe the consumer things. Definitely. What were some of your favorite parts about that? Definitely back. And we're doing a look back. We're doing a look back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I mean, yeah, yeah, some some crazy things. I I I mean, yeah, I definitely remember um, you know, uh Fire Drill, you know, the thing where you pull up to the the traffic light and the kids get out of the church van and run around the van.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah. I was at Sonic the other day and it happened. It was it was it was kids in a Tesla because it was Tumber 26. Okay, but they all got out and switched spots. Yeah, and and I was like, this still happens. It was like they made their order and then they switched spots before they got to the drive-thru. And I was like, ah, kids are still kids.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Kids are still kids, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Probably not safe in the church van, though. Not not exactly.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And and this is talk taking longer than the traffic light, you know, it's turned green and the kids are still getting in and out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Small town fun, maybe highway games, dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Not so much, not so much, but uh surely there's there's definitely that.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Did you ever play any regrettable games? We're we're past it now. Yeah, if there's any lawsuits pending, we'll hold. But yeah, anything that you're like, man, we probably shouldn't have, but we did anyway. Well, let's see.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Have you ever heard of the game Stax?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

No, okay. Okay, what is Stax?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Stax is uh it's you you circle up the chairs and everybody's got a chair.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Uh, but then you call out if you're wearing a blue shirt, move one chair to the right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

And even if there's someone sitting there, you're gonna sit in their lap. Okay. Okay. And then you're like, okay, if you're if you're wearing a red shirt or whatever, and so you get the idea. And so you end up with kids sitting on top of kids, you know, three or four or five or more, and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Just pile five high in a chair, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

You know, I mean, it's seemingly harmless fun, but you know, today I probably couldn't get away with some of that now. But yeah, so stacks.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

People I don't know are sitting in my lap.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, right, right, all the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Uh the social closeness. But nobody choked on a chubby bunny marshmallow.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Definitely had uh, you know, Fear Factor. We did all the Fear Factor games, of course.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

If it's on TV, we're bringing it up. We're gonna bring it back to Survivor on Tuesdays and now play it at youth group on Wednesday. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Or if there was a skit on on Saturday Night Live that somehow redeem in some way, we would try to put it on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

We don't know how the Spartan cheerleaders showed up uh for our youth group, but they did a lot of our announcements. And I I again I I actually thought that was a youth group invention before it was an SNL thing. I mean, come on. If you catch the kids early enough, it might be. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

But uh, you know, I think of things like uh lock-ins, uh uh a love-hate kind of a thing. You know, the kids love it, but you know, from the leader standpoint, can be pretty crazy. But yeah, so there's some you know regrettable things that that I remember happening late into the night, you know, with with kids, you know, being kids. And are we playing uh another game, uh Sardines. You ever play Sardines? Sardines, yeah. So great. Seems like harmless men. Where's Jacob and Kelly? I haven't seen them in a couple while they're still playing that game on their own in a deep dark corner of the church somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Well, you know, it's a love connection here. Right, right. That's what that's what youth group's for. That's right, that's right. Uh, but I think that is one of the things worth talking about, is uh just the driving social connections that youth ministry really at some of those either historical moments or depending on what age you are, the high points of youth ministry offered. Because I think we're seeing that show up now. And that's one of the things that we'll talk about more in the next couple episodes is that longing and need for like an incarnate relationship. We are here in the room together, we are across the table, we are uh sitting in chairs piled up too close to one another, right? Is one of the features uh that I think for so many of us we're trying to figure out how it makes sense in 2026. But I I want you to take us back to some of your your early days of things because part of what you chart in the book is is both kind of a look back and a history to what was before we get into what must be. And so just what are some of those like pillars or tenets for folks that are just kind of trying to source out like where did this all come from? Doing the archaeological dig of like what was to figure out what is.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I I because I think it's important for us to know a little bit about our history of youth ministry and for us to understand a little bit of where we've come from so that we can learn you know from where we've been and to understand our you know the day in which we live today. And so um, sure, I think that we can go back to, you know, we're thinking um 1800s and and the societies, you know, and everybody had, you know, they had the the Baptist you know youth. The Bible society, all society, all those kinds of societies. And because even then there was a realization we need to gather students, invite them to come.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Something beyond the Congregational Sunday that we equip, educate, and inform. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, yeah. And then I I think of also the significant impact of Youth for Christ and the rallies.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Originally uh, you know, geared around you know, Billy Graham and the rallies and those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

But he's before Billy was Billy, he was Youth Pastor Graham. He was Youth Pastor Grant. That's exactly right. Mr. Billy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

And it was just uh tremendous. And so they but there was even there a realization within Youth for Christ that that gathering large numbers of students wasn't necessarily the the best approach. There needed to be opportunities to uh to engage uh students in smaller spaces, and so uh a shift in emphasis to things like campus clubs, and we think in terms of the impact of uh on on our high school campuses, middle school campuses with uh gatherings uh uh you know that are they again the para-church model, right? The outside of the local church.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

When when did youth ministry really make its way into the local church? I think for I mean, you probably get the phone calls too. I mean a church of almost any size in the 2020s that has gone without a youth ministry leader is often looking for a youth pastor. Oh that's a good thing. Like it's become part and parcel of the way in which we staff a church. We have a senior pastor, we have a worship leader, a kids' ministry leader of some kind, but then that youth ministry person, that youth pastor has really become integrated into the like assumption of most evangelical churches. Definitely that one way or the other. When did that really take shape? Is yeah, is that something that's more recent than we think, or has it been around longer than we thought?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Well, you know, I think in terms of uh for me in the 60s, I mean, I think we get the you know, the the overall youth movement that's happening in the country at the time with the the 60s uh and protest and and all the kind of things that are happening at that. Jesus songs, Jesus rallies, all of the yeah, and then there's a realization among uh churches and denominations to say, okay, so I we see these are organizations that are reaching students. What can we do within our local churches? And so that we began to have, you know, uh a few of those churches that said, okay, yeah, let's have a dedicated position. You know, maybe it's a a part-time role or or there's other uh duties that this person has, but we realize that there needs to be someone specifically for youth ministry.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Is it almost like missionary and residence? I feel like that's like some of those, like especially like when I think about, and I guess this is some of just the work that that we're involved in, is uh like even these like older churches that may not even really have a lot of like youth presence in the building any longer. Yeah, like it's one of those these like like legacy churches. Definitely uh, you know, some of these like historic downtown first battle churches that that you know have facilities and may even have resources, but you know, they're they're hiring a youth pastor for uh you know a handful of students that you know it's it's either some kind of like over investment, which is great, yeah, or it is almost like an internal uh missionary, resident residential missionary to the counterculture of of youth. Yes. But it is a really hard spot to be in um for that person. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

It is, it is, it definitely is, and still, you know, you definitely had uh that that sense that okay, perhaps, you know, I feel called to some type of ministry, called to pastor, but there is a role for me here, and I and I'll serve in this role, imagining that maybe there'll be something down the road. So there's still some of that, of course. I think too that by the 80s and uh we get into a more professional youth ministry role where it's much more common for there to be churches that are saying, okay, yeah, we recognize that okay, um, if our if our church can you know afford that uh and have additional peace, if we're gonna hire another staff member, it's gonna be like a youth and music guy. Yeah. Or someone to come in and do some combination, but but also the slashy roles. Yeah, right. So so we've got definitely that piece. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Now well, but then on the other hand, and this is this is I think part of some of the pillars that get built, are the youth ministries that are running functionally a church within a church. Right. I mean, I look at some of my friends, and what they're offering as the youth ministry uh is a full buffet gamut of ministries. Yeah, and it's you know, it's camps and retreats. There's an alternative weekly worship gathering, there's an alternative small group cell structure for how they meet and do. Right. And so you've got the, you know, on one hand, you've got the young person who's like trying to reach the teens in their neighborhood, yes, in their community that's that's sponsored by the church, and then you have the other person that's functionally the next gen church planner for teens and college students in the area. Yeah, just and that's also another kind of stress.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

That's a whole nother thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Does that grow out of some of that? Like, we we want to build this and we don't know how to fully integrate it, or like what where does some of that come from?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Sure. I think that that it comes out of the you know an attractional mindset that we want to do all we can to provide uh a space and an environment where students feel that it's for them, right? And so it's not gonna look like Sunday morning work.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Designed for you, by you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

The the song selections and the worship and the spaces are going to be specifically designed for students. And uh yeah, I think all that can be great. And I'm not necessarily thinking that's all bad, but I think that the problem uh comes when a student can come into those spaces and never interact with anything else with anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one older, no one younger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. That that that's to me, that's not really the the church. That's that's really kind of a church within the church that's uh that I don't think is is biblical.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Do you think, and that's where I think some of the conversation that we'll pick up around that word deconstruction comes from, are some of these models that we've built that have really failed to activate young people in the local sea church, but also big sea church. That it became you know, it became the the shopping mall of ministry goods instead of uh the life working discipleship journey um beyond just the five, six, seven years that we might have them. Sure. So I guess that would be that would be one of the questions to really, I think, for us to just at least that I want to ask you is like, what are we actually deconstructing? Because I know that that's a word that gets fired up for a lot of people, the people that work with young people, because that's often a signal that whatever happened at church has failed. Has failed, right? Like you know, big deconstruction or church hurt, like these are some of the TikTok popular phrases to describe their faith journey that maybe maybe hasn't ended, but it has sharply diverged or detoured because what has happened has not been uh received or digested or uh helpful enough to carry them forward. Yeah. So when you say that we're deconstructing youth ministry, all right, Dr. Odom, here's the here's the the $250,000 question. What are we actually deconstructing? What are we deconstructing?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

That's a great question. Right. Because that's the million dollar question. It is. I think that uh I think for me, certainly, I'm not talking about faith deconstruction, but I I think it's important to address it. I think that um that that certainly uh there's a point at which I'm um not opposed necessarily to the the process of evaluating and assessing our own faith. Right. And I think that everyone.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I'm like, I actually I'm glad you're asking this question. I'm glad you're asking these questions. I'm actually pretty happy you're asking about like what is the nature of God in a world that seems broken. Come on. I'm sorry your pastor didn't bring that up. You didn't you're growing up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Right, right. Because what we what we want to see in the lives of students is that they're moving from uh a faith that is maybe a faith of childhood, a faith of maybe their parents, a faith, you know, of of their pastor or whatever, of their leaders, to ownership of faith. And that requires reflection, that requires questioning. That that's going to involve some doubt. And so that part of faith deconstruction that is asking those questions and and probing assumptions that maybe we have about faith, I think is a positive thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Obviously, we don't want to see people walking away from faith and and and and feeling and rejecting the gospel. Um, but that's not what youth ministry deconstructing is about. It's it's about uh using the the terminology and the tools of deconstruction and applying that specifically to youth ministry and and and saying, let's take a critical uh examination of the assumptions uh and the way in which we do youth ministry and and let's ask some hard questions about the way tr youth ministry has been done traditionally uh and the way we're doing it now, and to say, is this uh uh is this effective for discipling students over a lifetime of faith? Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Well we're gonna ask some of those hard questions because I I do I do think that for folks listening, they may be feeling it. Yeah, and that's in summer is one of those times that we're we're in the thick of it, whether it's camps or mission trips or you know, the calendar has gotten busy with youth ministry activity, definitely. And so the questions, at least for me, at the end of a lot of busyness are like, why do we do all that? Did it all work? Was it all worth it? And I think for a lot of us that maybe have been in youth ministry for a long time and are now you know on this side of COVID or in in the the cultural climate that we find ourselves, we're both hopeful in some ways and then exhausted by other things. Uh and so to see some of our students show up or or or turn up uh with questions that are like, Man, I wish I would have known that we could have asked differently. Right. Uh and I think to ask it of the thing itself. Because I think that's one of the things for youth ministry that we'll spend most of our time next episode talking about is like what are the viable and valuable forms. Because I do think some of what what we're working against is as much structural uh as it is. This is not just if we had a few different sermon series, we might have fixed it. Like this is not because I see that and there's folks that are feeling it that are like, okay, this is the call to like apologetics. Yes, or this is the call to like, you know, more Bible study. And and maybe, maybe those are elements, but I think you're offering something much grander, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Well, I hope so. And and the other thing is that I'm not saying you just need to try harder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the other message that we've got. You just weren't you just weren't you just weren't as you weren't committed enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

So more hustle, more apologetics. Got it. Thanks, Delphine. Yeah, no, exactly. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

No, so so my my criticism and my desire with the book is is not to be critical of youth pastors, youth ministers themselves, but to just embrace the challenges and the frustrations that just I mean, this is where we are, but to just simply say, let's rethink what we're doing, let's see what changes we we might make. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

All right. So, what are some of those big questions we should be asking? What what are some of the things in the same way that someone on TikTok is addressing? Yeah, the ways in which their faith uh has mattered to this point that they're rejecting certain parts, like youth ministry as the enterprise, the thing that's now a hundred plus years old, the ways in which the first Baptist church that some of us grew up in have had, you know, a legacy of maybe not oil paintings of their youth pastors like their senior pastors, or maybe there's some chalk art, sometimes chalk art or the ways in which it's passed from you know James to Timothy to Ryan to Joshua. Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Well, I think that uh for for me it's it's about asking questions about related to the way in which we're measuring our success. Okay. Traditionally, we've we've typically measured success through attendance and participation. I mean, we're counting people. Who can we get here and for how long? That's that's the main thing. That's what uh our pastors uh expect. That's what you know our our our our members sort of push us and they're asking us, and we ask as one another at you know, as youth ministers, how many do you have this week? You know, that's kind of thing. Or how many kids do you take in the camp?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

That's the oil check of like how are things going? You're like, you're just shouting out numbers. 45, 71.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

He's doing all right. All right, doing all right. And what that means is that at one time I you know I counted 45 kids at one event, you know, that kind of thing. That's my number.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

If we're generous with the roles, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Right, exactly, exactly. So we we're all in on it, and we're always going to be counting numbers, but I think that there are other metrics that we could use. And so I I just want to to to encourage and challenge us to think in terms of evaluating ministry differently. And so uh thinking in terms of of discipleship and the effectiveness of discipleship and thinking about um the spiritual growth of our students and and their practice of disciplines and these types of metrics that are that help us get closer to what is actually uh helping us to produce uh you know faith for a lifetime and and and faith beyond the youth group. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

A little bit maybe more uh detailed of a scorecard. Right. I I do think that's one of the things that um because the other conversation that always comes as the rebuttal to how many, you know, how many just like the camp is we're not about numbers.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

You know, like that's that's like the that's like the rejection of like, hey man, I I see where you're going, I'm gonna cut you off. Right. I'm gonna offer the spiritual answer. We're not about numbers. We're not about numbers. But one of the things that I was taking with the book is that you actually offer, we probably should actually care about more numbers. There you go. There's actually some like more actually we should be measuring more things than we are.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

More things than we are, right? That that oftentimes I'm thinking primarily of that attendance or participation, but there are other numbers, other metrics that I could be looking at. For example, uh the number of people uh uh serving, yeah, right, the number the number of students that I have involved in in ministry settings, uh, the number of students that I have involved in in mission opportunities and those kind of things. Because now I'm I'm getting into a number that is is helping me understand a little bit different level of commitment and a different maybe a uh a different level of maturity that's involved.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, well, it's a more detailed picture, and I think that's one of the things I mean attendance is, I mean, for lack of a better illustration, it's it's the pounds on a scale. Yeah, right. Like how how many of us have looked at the pounds on the scale and thought wrong. You know, it's like it's right. I'm I'm worse off than I was. But you know, for but for those of us that have been on a weight loss journey, sometimes like you actually gain weight because you gain muscle. Sometimes you want to lose you wanna lose weight 'cause you because you want to lose weight. You don't know if you know you have a number in mind, but you know, the other the other number that feels better than the pounds is the way the pants fit, right? Whatever. Okay. Drop in a shirt size feels way better than just a you know, just a flat number on a scale. Exactly. And so actually the numbers matter more. And I think that's one of the things from what you've from what you've said and what we've read that's so helpful is that like we can actually design some of these numbers. Like that's where the attendance thing, there's very few situations where you can control how many kids are gonna be there on a Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, or camp event. Right. You do the best. I mean, this is where we get really excited about marketing ploys and incentives and sign up bonuses for camp or whatever else. Uh, but the things that we really care about are things that we can help design. Like, this is part of like what those leadership meetings with senior pastor, discipleship pastors should be is like is is serving a priority. Okay, in what ways are we tabulating that? In what ways are we? I mean, number of baptisms is you know, it's if we have a second number in Baptist life, it's better than which you know is a is a great number. It's a great number. This is something that we actually should care about. Actually, it's got spiritual significance, life change, right? Yeah, exactly. But I think even more so, especially from our friends that have been in the industry for a while, is that we have these other markers that are even smaller and yet also significant. Like we we've talked about before with friends, like the the time that a middle school student offers to pray for their small group. Come on, that's no worthy. Like that's that's worth a phone call to mom and dad of like hey, like I just wanted you to know Elijah voluntarily without being like goaded or guilted, so that he'd pray in small group. Just wanted you to know that that's that's huge. That's huge, yeah. Because that is the because that is, and you said it rightly, and maybe this is where we can explore more the ways in which like youth ministry is are we succeeding in the handoff from what we've offered to what they've owned, and what you've placed in the middle of that, which I don't think I've I've I've thought about until now, is is doubt. Like, like taking everything as you've heard it and then being willing to like ingest, hold, care, curate, or own their faith comes from a level of doubt of how does it work? How do I fix it? What's it about?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

These are big things that like take some wrestling that may not smooth over in a 75-minute program on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

No, no, definitely not. Right. And and oftentimes when a student is expressing doubt, it's a freakout moment for us. We're thinking about our own failure. We failed, you know, the church. Okay, what have I, what have I said? What have I done? What have I not said and done? What we have to recognize is rather than a freak out moment, it's it's a faith-forming moment. This is an indication that this student is is actually thinking about their faith on a different level, right? They're thinking about their faith um that's the ministry won't actually be working. Right. And they're thinking about it differently, and and it's completely normal as an adolescent is moving out of uh uh you know childhood towards adulthood, they're thinking differently, and we want them to be thinking differently. And that means that we're gonna have to be comfortable with students wrestling with Dow.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Is is there a way that we can become more comfortable with it? I mean, I think that's one of the things, just to ask it kind of kind of bluntly, like I mean for a lot of folks, I mean, what what we're kind of positioning as the thing that we're deconstructing is is the smooth or the easing or the program. I think that's that's what that's what's gonna have to get blown up at some level, right? Is how efficient we can be. Yeah. Um and I think uniquely poised is if ministry feels like there are fewer attending, we actually have more opportunity for the disruptive kind of doubt that would produce that. But how do we get comfortable with that? Because we just we just advocated that having less is okay, and they may have tougher questions than you were ready for. Good luck.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Good luck, right? Well, I would I would try to I would seek to try to get out ahead of that in the sense of saying, okay, let me uh let me investigate and and be aware of the kinds of questions that students are asking about about the existence of God, about uh the validity of scripture and these kinds of things that that I can be willing to address them myself and bring them up, yeah, either in conversation or or teaching series or whatever it might be. And then along with that, to say to students, I'm willing to talk with you about that. Let's have conversation and and keep it from being uh taboo words that we don't say and that we don't want to we don't want to talk about that and right because we're gonna be freaking out that they're going to lose their faith. But let's let's lean into the to the reality that students actually need opportunities and spaces to have these conversations.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Not just a youth room, youth space. That's yeah, that's what we're advocating for. Come on, yeah, not just not just not just the room to come on, but the space to ask the questions. Because I think that's the gift. Like that's that is that is what youth ministry can offer that's different than the Sunday morning. Because we want them involved in the weekly congregational, intergenerational worship. But as a 16-year-old that maybe, you know, gruffs, grunts, has questions, and doesn't know if we can fully adopt everything that we've heard, right? Youth ministry maybe is at its best. And I think, again, rooted in that history of how do we answer the counterculture, right? Like how do we in the spirit of what you know, what do we do with these Jesus loving protest and hippies? Like how do we how do we in 2026 love the counterculture of students asking the big questions of what does it all mean? And I mean, I think we're seeing some of that now with students that are like um rejecting some of the ways in which like social media and screens are taking a hold in their life. Yeah. Um I think there's you know big political conversations people are having. I think there's um some of the ways in which uh you know faith feels like it is defying a social norm. So therefore, uh youth ministry leaders, like what is what are what are you willing to disrupt to create enough space for? Because that is I think I think that's the scary reality, is uh, and we'll talk about it in part three, but everybody's busy and everybody's tired. Yeah. So there's no more space left to add in. Right. So we're gonna have to dig or blow up. And I think I think we're gonna have to get really comfortable with that. Yeah. Okay, before we get into part two in a little bit, uh, give us before we before we end, what are some of those building blocks of better? So questions, spaces, if if we're taking notes, doctor, right. Uh what what what what are the ways in which we should be uh evaluating and assessing um building towards better? So instead of just like, you know, we get it, it feels like it's not working, we're asking some of the questions, but like, what are some of the building blocks to build back better?

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Okay, great. Well, I I think in terms of we we joked about youth rooms and space. I like the term environment. Okay, good. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Environments rather than programs. Oh, okay, okay. Because it here's here's the just the the We love a good language. Come on, come on, fix the language. So here's what I'm talking about. But what I'm thinking of is that that what we're really seeking to do is create environments where spiritual spiritual growth can can thrive, right? Where our students can can grow spiritually. And so it's much like we think in terms of a of a greenhouse or a hothouse environment for plants, yeah. That's the the environment is exactly the right temperature, yeah, the the right humidity, all it's perfect. And so what's gonna happen, the plants are gonna grow larger and more fruit and all those kind of things. That's exactly what we want to see in students. And so when I think of environments, I want to think in terms of uh certainly small group environments. We're all about, okay, we get that at Sunday school, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

But small enough to be seen, yes, uh uh rich enough to ask questions, right? But but you know, large enough that we actually have to hear other opinions.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Exactly, exactly. So we've got typically the environment. I love it. So we've got the youth group environment, we've got the small group environment, but I want to challenge us with even maybe even smaller, right? The more intimate uh uh where it's maybe three to five, right? Um a microgroup environment.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

That that triad mentoring. Exactly, right. I do think a D group, I think we'll have D group D group language, all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Because what's happening there is we're making a a jump from large group and and and youth group gathering to small group where people may be believers, maybe not be believers, maybe not a part of our church. And we're excited that. But when we get to a D group, we get to a microgroup where we've got a gathering of just maybe a couple of students that are committed to their own spiritual growth.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Right. And it may represent a very small fraction of our overall youth ministry. Yeah, but I want to offer opportunities for those that are committed to spiritual growth to do a deeper dive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

See, this is this is where I think the history matters so much because I know that in years past, like there's open and closed group conversations that like we've got to reclaim. Right. In a lot of places, every small group is an open group. Well, and that's that's not that's not uh that's those aren't the right environments, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Well, we do. We feel the pressure in ministry, we feel it from our pastor, from other leaders, that everything that we offer has to be for everyone. Yes, right. Well, because we want everybody there, we want everybody.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Everybody there at everything we do at every single time we offer it. But that is not thriving.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

It's not, it doesn't make it doesn't make sense. And you're gonna have to work through the people are gonna say, well, you're playing favorites because you're meeting just with these groups, or hey, why didn't you invite me in? And what we we try to say to that is we want it to be. But we also recognize that not everyone is ready for that. Not everyone is is committed or available or committed or available. And so I want to provide an environment for that time of spiritual growth to happen. That's good. And then the last one I want to mention is I just want us to think about the the students in our ministry that may feel a call to ministry, yeah, right? That uh that that last environment is a mentoring relationship, okay, a discipling relationship where where there's someone that feels that call to ministry that could benefit from from you and I having those conversations and and inviting them to participate in ministry alongside of us and have some of those experiences while they're in middle school and high school. Yeah. And uh and that's just a tremendous opportunity and for us to think about them as environments rather than programs. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

All right, you heard it from us. This is part one. We're breaking down what youth ministry was and the hope of what youth ministry can be. And so, whatever questions you have about the youth ministry you're involved in, would you be willing and open enough to deconstruct some of the big things related to the programming, the calendaring, and the activities to break through for the ways in which the ministry that you hope to see would be fruitful to grow, thrive, and endure? We'll see you back next week for the next part.