Faith Beyond Entertainment in Youth Programs

What if we told you that the "edutainment" approach in youth ministry has failed to produce lasting faith among students? Reflecting on a transformative mission trip to Niagara Falls, we delve into our journey as former student pastors and the realization that glitzy programs often lack the depth needed for genuine spiritual growth. Listen as we critically examine the shortcomings of entertaining yet shallow youth group activities and share how Madison Church is shifting focus to foster deeper, more enduring connections with Jesus.

This episode highlights the challenges and triumphs of pushing young people out of their comfort zones to build a stronger faith. From the nursery to high school, we discuss how Madison Church is creating a nurturing environment for spiritual growth. Hear about real-life scenarios where our students applied their Sunday teachings, demonstrating that faith is about living out Jesus’ teachings through action, not just absorbing information.

Our mission trip experiences, from bonding at Cave of the Winds to announcing our upcoming journey to Rapid City, South Dakota, underscore the importance of Christ-centered, service-driven, and relational youth activities. We discuss the vital role of community and generosity in making these trips accessible to all students, regardless of their financial background. Finally, we emphasize how the essence of these trips can be translated into daily life, encouraging continuous spiritual growth and community involvement right at home. Join us as we reflect, inspire, and plan for a future rooted in genuine faith and connection.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So our students. They did just quit on a mission trip to Niagara Falls. We're going to talk about it, but you know, while we were out there I remembered how much I just love student ministry. I love working with students. For those of you who don't know, that was my first job out of college, was a student pastor and I really liked it, really liked working with you guys. Last week it made me miss working with students more often. So I was glad that, even though I didn't initially want to go on the trip if you guys didn't know that I initially did not want to go but I did go and I'm really glad that I did.

Speaker 1: 0:34

As I mentioned, I was a student pastor and when I was a student pastor the ministry took off big time. This is going to sound like a brag, but I promise it comes full circle and it's actually not. But when we took over, we had about 20 people, 20 kids, in our middle and high school ministries and we started working it and working it Throughout the summer. It grew to having over 120 people and we were in a little town of less than 4,000 people, so we became in that town, known as the youth group. When you're in a little town there's a church that has a cool youth group and we were that youth group and it was awesome. And then I got fired. I got fired and the youth group went back to 20 people and I remember, as I was reflecting on my experience, on my leadership at that time, there was no legacy. There was no legacy. We brought people in, we grew the thing, we were really good at throwing parties and getting youth group kids in there, but there wasn't any transformation. And so then, as we were thinking about Madison Church and what we wanted to do, I said well, I know what I don't want to do. I don't want to do that again.

Speaker 1: 1:44

And what was that? It's what we call in ministry, edutainment, Edutainment. There was this long philosophy for a long time we're going to merge entertainment with education, and if we could do both really well, we would make disciples. The problem was, we were really good at entertaining and we were really good at education. These kids knew the Bible stories, but it wasn't leading to that transformation, which is why then, when I leave, everyone left. We weren't making followers of Jesus, we made followers of Stephen, and that was kind of cringy. And so we said we're going to do something very different at Madison Church and what we were going to do is just throw out the edutainment system out altogether. So that's why we don't have lasers in our youth room. That's why we don't have like Chuck E Cheese mascots. We don't have huge water slides. I'm not against those things. Anyone who knows me well knows I like to party, I'm not anti-party, but I love your kids, I love our families, I love Jesus and I know that he calls us to something so much better.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Awana and Barna came together recently and they did a study and they showed over the last 50 years that kids who grow up in an edutainment church culture, only 10% of them will continue on with their faith once they leave high school and go to college 10%. I used to manage a Starbucks and if I only did 10% of my job well, or if I was doing 100% work and only had 10% results, I would have been fired. No question about it. I would have been fired. I imagine a lot of you are thinking that too. If you only did 10% of your job, of what was expected, you would also be fired.

Speaker 1: 3:22

And yet we have not made changes in youth ministry for 50 years. Why, when 10% is unacceptable, you look at this way. We took 10 of you kids to students to Niagara Falls. The stats would show us that only one of you up here right now will continue with your faith Only one. So let that be a visual reminder. If we don't change something and at Madison Church we've been trying to change it and so, like I said, I love pizza and I love parties, but we have to be different.

Speaker 1: 3:53

So we took these kids on a student trip and during that week you guys remember the Bible verse. It was from Ephesians. That's what our shirts are about Paul is writing a letter and he says when I think of all of this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the creator of everything in heaven and on earth, and I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts. As you trust him, your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is. Then you will be made complete with all fullness of life and the power that comes from God.

Speaker 2: 4:41

There was a girl. She came up when we were working pulling weeds and like planting. There was a girl that she came up. When we were working pulling weeds and like planting, there was a girl that came up. She was crying, she was really sad and we don't know where she came from. She came out of nowhere and she was talking to us. She was like saying like, oh, like I am, like I'm really hungry. And there was like nothing, like I'm really hungry. And then she started crying and I was like oh, oh, I saw what. And I saw what was going on and I felt really bad.

Speaker 2: 5:06

And just right before that we had lunch from Wendy's and so I was like I can give you some of my food if you want. And I was like do you like spicy? And she was like no, I don't like spicy. I was like, okay, well, I have some fries if you want that. And she was like, yeah, that would be nice. So I went to go give her the rest of my fries and stuff and she was really happy. And then I gave her a hug and it looked like she really needed that.

Speaker 2: 5:29

So yeah, it's also hard. Even at the times when it is hard. You know, like it is hard, like I was definitely like having some hard times during some times, but I knew I always knew the good side was like I'm doing this for the Lord and uh, like you know, there's people here that want me to do this and like keep encouraging me. I'm glad that I have got to know the middle school girls better because of the nights that we spent together at the nighttime. We got to like talk more and get to know each other better. And another person was Steven, because we spent we spent a lot of time together during that. We were working together a lot and we had a lot of fun. I hope that I can still be connected as much as I can to God and stuff. Even when I'm like not helping people or like doing good stuff for people.

Speaker 1: 6:15

I still hope that I can like be connected as much as I can one of the things that we talked about was being grounded in this moment, and so when we were on this service trip with the students, they had very limited screen time throughout the day. I'm sure they can all tell you horror stories of me saying I need your phone before you get out of the car so I could lock it up in the glove box while we were working. They couldn't have their screens in the bedrooms, the sleeping areas, the bathrooms. They basically got their screen. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say at most 90 minutes a day. It was very different from what they're used to, especially in the summertime.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Every night we debriefed together as a team, and so we talked about like what we did together and how that played into our faith. We slept on floors. We had air mattresses. There were no real mattresses. We slept on floors. Everyone had five-minute showers, except our ladies. They would not follow that rule. We made our own lunches, our own breakfasts, our own dinners every day, and I believe that it pushed us outside of our comfort zones in a very positive way, so we could mature in our faith. And with that I want to pause because I would love to hear from a couple of you and, as I mentioned, this is whoever wants to answer this question Just grab the microphone and talk. But what was most challenging for you?

Speaker 3: 7:33

It was very hard, for it was very hot out and we didn't have a lot of screen time and it was just very challenging to keep on this exact schedule, having to do work a lot more. And it was challenging because I wasn't expecting exactly what we got. I was expecting something a bit nicer and having a bit more screen time, like break time.

Speaker 4: 8:08

I think the most challenging thing was kind of staying on schedule. They had a very strict schedule. I think Stephen was very Pastor, stephen was very nice, uh, giving a screen time, even they didn't even allow that. Um, so we got to uh pull weeds and do that. But um, even the five minute shower thing, like just waking up six, 30 every morning, get breakfast, breakfast prep, like it's, especially in the summertime, like Steven said um, it's not used to me or I'm expecting anybody at all.

Speaker 5: 8:40

Also, I think what was really unexpected is watching these kids grow. Also, I think what was really unexpected is watching these kids grow. I truly believe that going was a great thing. I think that we were all out of our comfort zone. These kids worked really hard. I mean, we pulled weeds out in the hot sun, we painted fences and I even came back with poison ivy.

Speaker 6: 9:14

Just in general, a better relationship with Jesus, because I know that if I have a better relationship with him then it'll lead me in his pathway to go to heaven and stuff like that and to stop sinning as much, because I know I do sin.

Speaker 6: 9:24

A heaven and stuff like that and like to stop sinning as much because I know I do sin a lot and stuff like that.

Speaker 6: 9:28

So it's definitely a fun experience and like it's a better way to like grow your relationship with Jesus and God more well.

Speaker 6: 9:37

I felt like there was a lot of work to do and, like you know, like a lot like stress on me, like not really like sad stress, but like there's a lot of things like going on and stuff. So like I was like there's like three things I had to do at once, but like I was still doing it slowly, so I didn't like like do it fast and like get more stressed out, but it was still like easy kind of, because it was like a lot of small things to do. So I feel like it was still fun things, though like I got to like chop up some lettuce and stuff. That was kind of fun because I like like chopping up onions and stuff and tomatoes. That's like one of my favorite things to do while cooking and I also liked that we were washing the dishes. It was kind of like fun to me because I got to like stack up the cups and stuff like after we're done dishing.

Speaker 1: 10:30

What he said was fun that week was doing dishes. So when I talk about pushing these kids out of their comfort zones, I mean it's no exaggeration. I think for some of these kids it's not to make light of anybody's situation, but I think for some of these kids it's not to make light of anybody's situation, but I think for some of them this was one of the hardest things they ever had to do in their lives so far. I mean, it was very challenging, very difficult, and they all did, by the end of the week, really really good job adapting. The whole purpose of this trip was to grow toward Jesus. It was to grow toward Jesus. It wasn't just to go out and serve for the sake of serving Incredibly important serving is and volunteering, but this is all about Jesus and it's about helping our students connect the ideas that they're learning on Sundays to real life application.

Speaker 1: 11:18

We don't just read the story of the Good Samaritan. We don't just read Jesus' words about serving other people. We don't just say, oh yeah, I'm supposed to do that. Following Jesus means we do it Now. We didn't have to go all the way to Niagara to serve Now. That's part of why we do it, though, to get the kids out of their comfort zones, to show them something else than what they're used to, what they've grown up with, and to come back with this new knowledge that you don't have to just go to Niagara to serve. You can do it right here in Madison, wisconsin.

Speaker 1: 11:50

And so what we hope to show that last week was that to our students was that faith isn't just about information acquisition. There's no theology test when you die and go to heaven, like there's no theology test. I've read the book a lot, okay, and there's no reference to that, directly or indirectly. When we get in, it's by God's grace alone and the work of what Jesus did on the cross. And what we are now told to do isn't just to load our brains up with a bunch of information, but rather live our lives in such a way in which we say yes to Jesus. That leads to an inner transformation, that leads to serving other people, and so so at the beginning of the week it was super duper awkward.

Speaker 7: 12:30

We were in the back, we were the youngest group, so we were the shortest, and then all the other tall groups were in the front, and during the singing portion of the sermon we were all like super divided and clumped in our groups. And then towards the end we were all kind of in this big horseshoe shape around the stage and we were all singing and swaying and it was really amazing how we all came together even though we were so different. But it was also really cool because so we split in half, our groups split in half and then joined a different group for working and we kind of did it by age. So there was the older group and then the younger group and we partnered with a group that was also from Wisconsin and that was super duper unexpected that we would all be from the same place.

Speaker 1: 13:28

So as I said, you know, it's all about growing toward Jesus, who says in Matthew 7, 14, anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise like a person who builds a house on a solid rock. And so what we're trying to do at Madison Church with our student ministry, with our kid men, with our nursery, all the way up through high school, is really, if you can visualize a runway and now I don't know next to like nothing about airplanes. I've been in them before but I can't tell you how they work. I can't tell you any of the science. I've never taken an academic physics class, like not in high school, not in college. So I know less than everyone in the room, but I do know that the plane doesn't start off in the air. Okay, so that much of my experience tells me. It tells me that we need a long runway in some cases to get that big plane up in the air. And that's the visual I want you to think of when we're thinking about Madison Church's student ministry program that we have at our church. And really the runway is going to start when the kids are born and we're trying to establish within our nursery a safe and caring environment. We want the kids to know that church is a safe place. We want the kids to know at that young age that people here care for you. And that means we do background checks on all of our volunteers, we do training, we make sure that the environment is safe. I know for some of you or you're watching or listening online you grew up in a church and it wasn't a safe place. There's trauma, there's crisis, there's abuse that occurs and we have gone out of our way to not just avoid that but stay in front of that to make sure it doesn't happen here. Because this very first phase of the runway is critical and it is about making our kids feel safe and protected here at Madison Church.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Then we kind of, as we go down, as the kids get older, we're moving further down the runway. We want to help them believe. Why do we believe, what we believe and is it trustworthy? And how do you hold these diverse beliefs, even within Christianity? Because all of our families are different. They have different backgrounds. Some come from Pentecostal backgrounds, some come from Catholic backgrounds. We're a non-denominational church, which means we're a melting pot. You just kind of throw us all in here. And how do we help our students not just find Jesus but follow him, and that's where we start getting into the elementary ed and even our middle school ministries, and so we're really trying to help them, not just to continue to belong you belong here. There's a sense of community, friendship, it continues to be safe. But now we're trying to build on the foundation we've already laid and high school as we get into next year.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Middle school leans into this, but especially in high school it is about becoming like Christ. Now remember what I said 10% ditch under the old edutainment system, under this system that we have, and the research is rather new. So it might be a fluke, but of five years of research, the number flipped to 90% of people continuing with faith afterwards. When you do this system, that's focused on discipleship. So it's a mirror of what we're getting, and so what we can do then is to say, well, the 10 people we took on this student trip, nine of them will continue. If the data is reflective, and what I mean by becoming like Christ in high school is a lot of the content now will be become. We're talking about Jesus a little bit, and now how does that inward, what Jesus is teaching you, affect your everyday life, when you go to school, when you go to work at home with your siblings. It's going to be practical, practical, practical and just hammering that because we want to be like Jesus Again anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it. And so that's what we're trying to do here at Madison Church. And so the other thing we did while we were gone it was called Rooted in Scripture.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Every day these kids got 30 minutes of devotion time, private devotion time. This wasn't social time, it wasn't phone time. They got their little devotion book and you can see from the picture on the left there that's Marissa Daily devotion time. All of your students did great with this and it is such a big deal. As a matter of fact, when I talk about that 90% number with the kids, what they found was the biggest contributor to kids continuing faith after high school was daily devotion participation.

Speaker 1: 17:37

It wasn't just Sunday mornings and it wasn't just small groups. It was actually Tuesdays when there was no church activity planned, ors, when there was no church activity planned, or Friday, when there was no church activity planned. It was a daily devotion, not just for the students, but it was when the family had a daily devotion time. That could be something where you go around a table at dinnertime or breakfast and you have a meal together and you're talking about faith. It could be something organized, like the books we buy your students. It could be something like that. But devotions are a big deal, and they got to practice that while on this trip, we also had a church service time every evening, and so I want to ask now for the students here what was the most encouraging part of the trip for you? What was encouraging?

Speaker 7: 18:20

Having that so we were like super busy and always on the go during the trip, but then having that 15 minutes to sit down and apply it not just back to the bible, not just back to service, but to ourselves and our life experiences back home, that kind of painted the whole picture instead of just well, this is an aspect of faith and this is a different aspect of faith, but it brought them all together and it really gave us a chance to let it settle and stick with us.

Speaker 1: 19:00

The other aspect of the trip wasn't just service and wasn't just growing in faith. I mentioned our mission at Madison Church is connecting people with God and each other. So this was still a very relational trip. That's part of why I, when I'm picking an organization in which we could travel with, it had to be Christ-centered, it had to be service-driven, but it also had to be relational, and this trip was. There were a lot of relational aspects, and we see in Mark a story of four men arrived. They're carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd and so they dug a hole through the roof above Jesus' head and lowered the man on his mat right down in front.

Speaker 1: 19:35

The New Testament, especially the early church, it's all about relationships and community, but what we see in this story specifically is how friendships, and spiritual friendships, can help other people out not just spiritually but also physically. And so we did a lot of things together as a community. I mentioned devotions, I mentioned all of these other things, but, guys, we did have some fun. I want to just kind of rattle off a few of the things that we did for fun. We went to Cave of the Winds. We went to the Niagara Falls and walked around and got to see all of the falls. We went to Cedar Point and we ate all of our meals together, without screens, and so those were big aspects of growing together. As a matter of fact, I think we've got a really fun picture of Cedar Point. So this was me dragging one of our students on one of the tallest and fastest roller coasters in the world. It's all about building relationships with each other.

Speaker 7: 20:26

So I don't go to this church normally, and not just last week when we were in New York, but in the months leading up to the trip I got to come here and I mean I know Cassidy and Bastion and their families and everything, but coming here it's I go to a Lutheran church. So we kind of get what Stephen was talking about. We get the. This is the Bible, these are the verses, blah, blah, blah. But then here is more about applying that knowledge and those messages. And getting to know the individual people is awesome, but the church as a whole was amazing.

Speaker 8: 21:13

And then getting to know Jesus more was amazing too it's awesome Elizabeth well, like yeah, like Elizabeth said, I like knew a lot of the people here, but like getting to know like Irie, alex, annalie and Joel better throughout the trip because, like two of them were in my group so I had to talk to them, like just getting to know them better and getting had to talk to them, just getting to know them better and getting chances to talk to them.

Speaker 1: 21:40

So I want to announce we are already registered for a 2025 trip. Yes, Already registered. So that is where we are going next year. For the kids who don't know, we are going to Rapid City, South Dakota. We're going 10 hours the other direction. Isn't that wild. It's 10 hours to Niagara Falls. It's 10 hours to here. Same distance. We'll learn all sorts of things. This week we will be taking not just 10 students this time, but 12 students, because high schoolers can join us this year.

Speaker 1: 22:10

So again, which brings me to kind of like wrapping this up generosity of Madison Church was a huge, huge, huge aspect of this trip. We spent over $12,000 to make everything happen. Now, if you're doing the math real quick, if you're a parent, you're like well, my kid only had to raise $770. And if you did the math and multiplied that all together, you're like you only fundraised for two thirds. That's correct. I did private fundraising on the side for this trip and I raised the other one-third and so that was all done privately. I was able to secure a $2,400 scholarship last year for the kids. Over 70% of our kids did receive scholarship money, so over 70%, and I want to say two or three had over 50% of their trip paid for by scholarships, had over 50% of their trip paid for by scholarships. Scholarships are about equity, ensuring that everyone in our church, regardless of socioeconomic status at home, has an opportunity to go on these trips. Your generosity is fundamentally critical. One of the things that we were able to do was all that, above and beyond giving that we were doing. If you remember coming and we were doing that giving campaign, I took 10% of that and I moved it to the student fund for the trip. And so we took 10% right off the top and moved it to the student fund. But right now, looking at next year, the account that we have is the student ministry trip. That will now be a permanent account at Madison Church. We originally established it as a temporary bucket but now, going into our new fiscal year, which starts tomorrow, it'll be permanent at Madison Church and that thing is sitting at $0 right now.

Speaker 1: 23:44

We broke even on this trip and I expressed to some of you I did not think that was how it was going to go. I was texting toward the end of the trip. I was like, hey, I think we might've blown this by a couple grand, and so then when I got the final numbers and saw we broke even, I was like, well, that's another miracle of this trip, because I was doing the math the whole time and that was a real fish and loaves situation, because I did the math a lot and I was sure. But what I want to encourage you to do is, if you've never given to Madison Church, I want you to prayerfully consider maybe giving for the first time and when you give online, you can indicate that you want to give it to the student trip. Right now, all of the money that we raise will go toward a scholarship fund and again, this is about equity and so if you want to give to that, that's a huge help.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Like I said, there's somebody who actually doesn't come to our church anymore. They moved out of state like three years ago. They were the ones who wrote the $2,400 check last year for the students for this, and what I hope you hear is that this trip was more than roller coasters and it was more than going to see Niagara Falls. You heard from them like I had fun washing dishes and learning about Jesus and applying my faith. This was life transforming for these students, and so if you would give to that, that would be absolutely incredible for us. The other thing to do you might be sitting here now or watching, listening online and saying, well, look, I can't write a big check. Well, one. I want to say that anything helps and there's a compounding effect. When all of us in the room and those watching or listening online, when all of us throw in what we can, it adds up very quickly.

Speaker 1: 25:16

Okay, that's the first thing, but the second thing is volunteering. If you've heard what these students have gone through and you're like I want to participate in the next generation of helping people find and follow Jesus and not abandon their faith the minute they get the chance to. We actually absolutely need volunteers. Holly right now is our only high school volunteer to work with the high schoolers next year. Jake, who's not here this morning he's Joel's dad. They're having another trip and this one's a family trip. He's our only right now middle school volunteer. We have four elementary school volunteers.

Speaker 1: 25:53

So all of the great things that are happening at Madison Church, we have like six or seven people who are like hanging in there doing absolutely incredible work Ginger and Megan and Sue and we have all of these people who are doing incredible work, but we need reinforcements because we keep getting more students. Imagine that we're doing the right thing at our church and more students are coming, and so if you feel like you would be good with students, we could help you with that. In addition to being good with students, you do have to pass a background check, Okay, so just throwing that out there. If you don't think you can do that part, we have other ministries at Madison Church, just not with the students, and so my application for the talk today is I hope that what you see is that one we have a very strategic plan at Madison Church for helping your kid from birth to graduation, not just find Jesus, follow Jesus, grow in their faith, but post-graduation.

Speaker 1: 26:43

For most of you in the room who are adults, I hope what you see is that we need you. This is a community. We need financial generosity, we need your volunteering time, we need your investment. You make this church better and we need your participation, and so I hope that you will be a part of it. Now I do want to wrap up here. Kids, you spent a week focusing on serving others and growing toward Jesus, and now that we're home, we must branch out into our own places. The mission trip hasn't ended. It continues here at home, with our families, our friends, jobs and school. But I want to remind you we don't do this alone. Community relationships, family, your church is a huge part of this. And so any last remarks, now that the trip is over what do you hope for your life?

Speaker 7: 27:29

I definitely changed a lot on this trip. It definitely changed a lot on this trip and I think my relationship with God has kind of started. I mean, it was already there, but like more so, and I want to keep going at this rate too, and not just me and God, but like Ginger was talking about the rest of Madison and this church and my church, and I want to expand my understanding of humanity and Jesus.