Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

Are Any of These Red Flags in Your Youth Ministry? Fix Them NOW!

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 186

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Are you looking to grow the size and health of your youth ministry? Check out
GrowYourYouthMinistry.com ***** Ever wondered what can make or break the effectiveness of a youth ministry?  Join us as we expose 3 red flags that could be stifling your ministry's impact.   This episode is a revealing look at how to sustain your passion and maintain consistent effort—no matter the inevitable ups and downs.  It's a frank discussion calling for stronger leadership frameworks, acknowledging that while youth group disruptive behavior is part of the package, it can be curbed with a strategic approach.  Remember, engaged adult leaders are the backbone of a successful youth ministry, and it's our job to ensure they're not just present, but actively contributing in a respectful and orderly environment.  Discover how setting firm boundaries fosters a secure environment that encourages spiritual growth and intellectual engagement. Plus, we get creative with techniques to keep youth invested and inspired, from storytelling to activities that hit home with their unique 'love languages.'

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You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#026) Increasing Your Value, Worth & Influence: Heart, Hunger, Hustle

(#105) Best Practices for Creating a Thriving High School Ministry!

(#019) Being Shepherd Minded - How Do We Identify & Handle the Wolves in Our Flock?

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Speaker 1:

You're gonna have to check in quite often, I mean I would say every week. These are questions you need to kind of be asking is what's the current state of our health? Because health is a thing that has to be maintained constantly, because once it's unhealthy. Well, now you just bought yourself about a year to get that back, because without healthy leadership, you don't have a ministry. Today we're talking about three big red flags that you might find in your youth ministry and what to do about them. ["midnight's TheME Theme Song"].

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Ministry Coach podcast where every week we give you actionable and practical tips that you can implement into your youth ministry. Huge praise report Kristen's voice is back, so that's a great thing for a podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I had to cancel a lot of things last week, but I am on day three of my steroid treatment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's lifting cars and houses.

Speaker 1:

A miracle I can talk and I am so strong. I broke a kid's finger last week by accident. We were playing ultimate.

Speaker 2:

This time it was by accident, it was by accident.

Speaker 1:

We were playing ultimate four square. I caught the ball before it bounced in my square, which means you get to throw it like a dodge ball and I chucked it so hard at Daniel I'm very sorry, daniel and he went to block. He should have just let it happen, but he went to block and the ball in its fury broke his finger. Because I threw it so hard.

Speaker 2:

You're a beast I am.

Speaker 1:

So he's like he came up to me and he's like Kristen, stop lifting weights, because you broke my finger. And he shows it to me and it's in a splint. I'm like, actually, like I just thought, cause he was like ow. I'm like, yeah, you jammed it whatever.

Speaker 2:

No, it's broken. So he's kind of a beast too, then, for not reacting that much to a broken finger.

Speaker 1:

I know he kept playing.

Speaker 2:

Good for him he got back in line. I didn't want to mess around, miss an opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, my name is Jeff Lascola and this is Kristen Lascola, and today we're talking about Red flags, and there's a lot of red flags, but we're only going to talk about three today. So this is like Red flags. There could be. So I don't want anyone to think this is an exhaustive list, because someone could be thinking well, why didn't you say if somebody teaches heresy, Well of course that's a red flag?

Speaker 2:

Number four. We'll add that to the list.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't. Well, I mean, that would be like a four day long podcast if I talked about every single red flag I've ever encountered.

Speaker 2:

And it would continue to go on, going on. So we're focusing on three.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So number one is this unhealthy leadership in yourself or others. I love what Craig Groschel says at every podcast. If you don't listen to the Craig Groschel Leadership Podcast, you're missing out. You should hop on over there after you listen to this and check out his podcast. I learned so much. But he always says this phrase everybody wins when the leader gets better. Similarly, I would say everybody loses when the leader gets worse.

Speaker 1:

And any kind of leadership this is your personal leadership, this is your small group leaders but if the leadership culture at your church and your youth ministry specifically is what we're talking about is unhealthy, it's going to bleed out and it's going to affect everything you do. You know it doesn't matter how fun your event is. If the leadership's unhealthy, there's nothing you can do to stop the effect of that. So here's some questions to ask yourself. We've talked about the three H's before hunger, heart and hustle and there's a lot of different ways you could measure health. But I think, for simplicity's sake, I think that's a good temperature. Check hunger, heart and hustle. The check that temperature in yourself, check that temperature in your small group leaders, your interns, your volunteers, whoever is underneath your leadership. So what do we mean Hunger. It means that you haven't become apathetic, your leaders haven't become apathetic, you're not complacent.

Speaker 1:

The mission is still driving you. You still wake up thinking about what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? How are we going to accomplish the mission of sharing the gospel with students, getting them to grow in their faith?

Speaker 1:

Keeping that hunger for the mission and I think the longer you're in youth ministry you can become a little complacent everything's Groundhog Day, the year's kind of repeat itself, the week sort of repeats itself.

Speaker 1:

So keeping that hunger can be a challenge, but you can't allow yourself to check your heart out, check your brain out. But staying fully engaged and hungry for what's next, what is God going to do, what has got to yeah, it's the same week schedule-wise, but it's a different week of ministry stay hungry, and I think that is a sign of health. The other one is heart, and by that we mean that you're doing it for the right reasons, that you realize what's at stake here, that you stay a humble leader, that you stay connected to and all of our faith and spirituality is kind of tied up with this one too is our heart in the right place, because we all know ministry will be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, kind of thing, and keeping your heart in the right place when those lows happen, you realize, yep, this is a low and the mission hasn't changed. Just because this is hard doesn't mean the mission has changed.

Speaker 2:

Right, and those lows last way longer than the highs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they do, whether they really do or just mentally Not talking chronologically, but just impactfully. I agree. And so if your heart is healthy, even when you go through a hard season in ministry, you understand, I'm in this for the right reasons. I'm in this, you know, like that faithfulness it's like, it's not determined on like, oh, this is so hard, this must be wrong but it's like this is hard, but I know my why.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know it's. You know population of heaven is my why right. It's for kids to understand who Jesus is. So was it a hard week? Yep, but the mission remains. So that's the heart piece, and then the hustle, that's another. The third part of the temperature check is are you results driven and get stuff done? You know I think we've talked about before we can have all good intentions and love the Lord and be a really nice person and people like us, but if you don't get stuff done, it's unhealthy. You know you're not a leader At that point. You're just a nice guy. You're just a person. You know it's like.

Speaker 1:

Who was that? I think it was Mark Clark, and we've quoted him before when he was talking to a potential hire. And this guy was talking about like I just want to take people out to coffee and just get to know their stories, like I'm not going to pay you to be a Christian, like that's what Christians should do, like pour into people. I'm paying you to do a job in the church and also build relationships with these people. So if you're the kind of person who's like, no, it's just organic relationship.

Speaker 1:

Everyone just comes and hangs out and you know it's like so you're a Christian, you know, and so are you being a leader. Do you have that hustle of like? You know what's next, you know how to get there and you know how to execute the right action steps, bring the right people to the table. It's that tenacity of like get stuff done, make things happen. That's what leaders do, you know. I think we forget that sometimes because we think being a pastor or a youth leader is just like hanging out that's a big part of it, but also moving, making things happen and bringing people along for the ride.

Speaker 2:

Totally.

Speaker 1:

So also If, after we've done that temperature check, speaking of the health of leadership, asking yourself what is the culture of our volunteers? So unhealthy leadership? You know there's just this. It's hard to put your finger on it sometimes, but when you walk into a team of leaders and you could just tell like nobody's excited, everyone's sort of bored and checked out or frustrated, and so unhealthy leadership is in our volunteers and interns and leaders. Those who we lead has a huge effect. So we have to be healthy, but so do they right.

Speaker 1:

And so, as the leader, being able to see, ooh, there's some pockets of unhealthy, maybe that's something like you need to have a conversation with a leader about their social media. I've had to do that so many times and the younger they are, the more frequent that conversation is. Do they have the tools and the support that they need to do their job well? Are they seen, are they known, are they loved, are they cared for? Or do they kind of feel that means to an end vibe from you of like we're just here to do stuff? I think leaders, we were talking about people just being too like, let's just hang out. That's ministry. I think there can be the other side of leadership that's like so results driven, you forget the people you know. It is a very rare leader and I have met very few of them. That does both very well.

Speaker 1:

Results driven, gets stuff done, but cares and loves people so well along the way. That is the dream mix.

Speaker 2:

I think it's because it's a razor fine thing. You know, like almost picture like a triangle where on one side you have results and the other side you have more, like the relationship side, and balancing on that tip of that triangle is nearly impossible.

Speaker 1:

You're gonna slide one way or the other, it is it's so hard, and that's why I think I haven't seen very many people do it well. You know like you think of leaders and you're like oh, you're this one, oh, you're this one, oh you're you know, that is, we could say, the goal.

Speaker 2:

You know you can grow in that area.

Speaker 1:

It's a totally learnable skill, even if you have a natural bent, and so asking yourself like, okay, what would I say? My leaders commitment level is like Are they eager to be there or are they always looking for a reason?

Speaker 2:

not to.

Speaker 1:

That tells you a whole lot. If it's like I want to be there, I can't wait. I'm sad if I have to miss. I miss very infrequently or any little, I'm sick.

Speaker 2:

I can't find Somebody I know has a cold, so I'm not gonna be able to make it.

Speaker 1:

I heard the word cold today and now I don't feel good and that takes a long time to diagnose. I guess you could say, like, because you have to kind of figure out why. Like what is it? And it could be a lot of different reasons. Why are you looking for reasons not to come instead of you can't wait to be here, right?

Speaker 2:

All the reasons you're gonna make to be there, in spite of things that might prevent you from being there Totally.

Speaker 1:

Is your small group really difficult? You know like you have to start investigating, Like as the leader, the followup with your leaders, the attention to your leaders, I mean that should take up a lot of your time. Don't underestimate. I used to underestimate how much time leader caring for leaders took and how much time communication took, Like just telling people what we're doing and making sure everybody knows.

Speaker 1:

Those two things take most of my time, honestly, Because without healthy leadership, you don't have a ministry. So following up with leaders oh, this one's discouraged about this. I probably need to follow up with them. Or this one had a really rough night in their small group. Maybe I need to go in and have a talk with their small group. This one has a really difficult personal life right now. What do they need from me? Do they need permission to take a month off?

Speaker 1:

and then come back and then making sure those leaders represent God and the ministry and the church very well Not that everyone has to think and be exactly alike, but you wanna make sure they're representing your church in the right way. And obviously we wanna make sure they love students, you know, and most people who are willing to give up two hours on a Tuesday or Wednesday night do love students, but again, are they there for the kids? And so just you're gonna have to check in quite often, I mean, I would say every week. These are questions you need to kind of be asking is what's the current state of our health? Because health is a thing that has to be maintained constantly, because once it's unhealthy, well now you just bought yourself about a year to get that back.

Speaker 1:

So if you can do all these little things in like frequently checking in with leaders, asking these critical questions, doing a little digging, investigating, taking the temperature, figuring out the pulse, and that's what a leader does. A leader is in charge of the biodome, of youth ministry, of like are all these elements working harmoniously together and you're sort of the shepherd gatekeeper of the people, but also of the health and the nuances and you know, like, everything that goes into making people and their interactions and their roles healthy, and it's intentional and it takes time and it takes a lot of conversations and it takes a lot of intentionality, but your future self will thank you because and your volunteers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because again, once you lose it, it's so hard to get back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think the two temptations might be if you have just, let's say, two volunteers and one of them is fired up, loves being there and is just like ready to go, and the other one's struggling with a lot of things and you know, inconsistent things like that, the temptation might be one of two things either Pouring into the one that's loving it and it's like such an easy conversation because they're so excited to be there, and Neglecting maybe the one that's inconsistent because you're a little annoyed at them and you know they're always a little more difficult to talk to.

Speaker 2:

Or the other side. Well, they obviously have got stuff going on and really need to pour into them and you know, making sure that they're good to go and their life is good, but now I'm kind of ignoring the one that was super amped to be there. And then it's like you can't neglect either. Sure, you need to. I mean, maybe you pour it more into the one at in certain seasons, but you can't go like I haven't talked to that person in months because I thought they were good to go and yeah, and that scale will tip and all of a sudden they're not doing well and so it's a.

Speaker 1:

it's a delicate dance, I think yeah, and you can break this off into like little chunks. Like write a list of your leaders and as you look at each name, kind of ask yourself what do they need right now? What do they need from me right now?

Speaker 2:

And if you're the only name on that list, you need leaders.

Speaker 1:

There's what does me need right now me need leaders. Yes and you know, and then you can kind of bite it off a little bit out of time. Well, monday I'm gonna focus on Jeff and Jed. On Tuesday I'm gonna focus on Jesse and Johnny. Sarah and Dara. There was girls in my Bible study in college named Sarah and Dara and they were best friends. Sarah and Dara, where are you guys? I thought about you the other day Only dare I've ever met. If your name's Dara, comment below.

Speaker 2:

I know a Dara. I used to know a dare. I haven't talked to her in a long time. How dare.

Speaker 1:

Mom jokes, ma'am jokes. So yeah, that's, that's number one red flag Unhealthy leadership, the whole, the whole ship is gonna sink right. So that's why I'm like I have to talk about this and I could probably talk about this all day, but we're gonna move on another red flag in your youth ministry. To address a Media Lee would be a power dynamic shift.

Speaker 2:

Now, what is a power dynamic shift? I wasn't southern, but it became it as the word came out to save yourself by getting southern.

Speaker 1:

You're like I can't speak. What if I put an accent in here? Then can I see.

Speaker 2:

Good recovery. So if you're from the south and you stumble over a word, do you know your accent?

Speaker 1:

become.

Speaker 2:

West Coast or northeast, or how does that work?

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, I don't know. Comment below.

Speaker 2:

How do you recover from a?

Speaker 1:

Anywho, number two power dynamic shifts. So here's what that means is the leaders are no longer in control and the students Mutiny overthrow new and it's very clear you are not in control.

Speaker 2:

This is very, very common. Oh, and it's bad, and a lot of times I feel like this happens when there's a new leadership. Like you, you know, the old youth pastor left for whatever reason. Maybe they were fired, maybe this decided to move on and a new youth pastor comes in. It's like, oh no.

Speaker 1:

Substitute teacher.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there's this like you could well. No, you know, I'm just saying you can tell this has not been run Correctly for a long time. I don't respect the new leader, no no, no, it's more just the fact that you come into a situation where you're like, ooh, there's a lot of unhealth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I think so. There is always gonna be a percentage of disrespectful students. That is just a law of nature. I love never not be there. There will be. There's a percentage of every type of student.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and they're in. They need to be labeled and maybe one day we'll go through a list and give them actual names. There's the kid that does this for them. I don't want to say them on YouTube.

Speaker 1:

What if they're offensive? But Anyways there always are the disrespectful kids. Yeah okay, so we deal with them. But the problem is when that little percentage, what should be About? I feel like for me it's always about five percent, that like five or under. It's usually not that many. I had one class where it was a 50 and that was rough. That was like 12 years ago.

Speaker 2:

You remember?

Speaker 1:

that class. They were bad, but since then I would say it's always about five percent or under. So you know, I know who my troublemakers are gonna be, I know who my disrespectful kids are gonna be. But when, when you watch that, two, three, five percent Become the majority. And now this is the culture and this is the vibe, and we're in charge. We don't care about you leaders, we're using you. And that's how I would feel is. You do not care about what we're doing here, you want to use us, you want to use our program to accomplish your goals right the power dynamic shifted.

Speaker 1:

So I'm here and I've got a game planned, I've got worship, I've got icebreakers and videos and music and food and a message and worship small groups. I've got all these great things. That is what we're doing, and, and when it becomes mute me, they look at all those elements and they're like, nah, we're gonna do our own thing, and they just basically use you as a place right to hang out.

Speaker 1:

See their friends, yeah, which destroy things destroy things, be disrespectful, bully other people, steal things. I've had, you know, a culture of students. I couldn't leave anything out. They stole the offering. They stole when we were doing our starving to serve famine thing. They stole the money we raised for world hunger.

Speaker 1:

I'm like what is wrong with you, you know. I mean, and then these kids aren't Christians, they don't have the Holy Spirit. I'm not here to judge them. Like, how do you act when you don't have the Holy Spirit controlling you? Well, sins controlling you? I get that, but there's like this, oh no, when this slippery slope starts to happen. So here's, here's why I mean, it's obvious why that's a red flag right. How can we get it back? That usually happens when we don't have enough help. So, the more leaders, the better, and the more leaders who are fully engaged, the better. Having an adult in the room is not the solution. Having adults who are fully engaged are it's part of the solution. For me, security cameras was also part of solution.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm the tasers Channel frauds but it's not a joke.

Speaker 1:

I've many a night been in our security office rewatching security footage because they're lying to me about what happened and I'm like someone is having a consequence. I gotta find who the right person is. So I asked our security departments and still more cameras, because I'm like how many times can I ask you did you throw the thing at this person? And now they're crying and their parents are upset? No, I didn't. And better question All right.

Speaker 2:

Well now, what With how many security cameras you can have. Why is it with students? Not even really knowing where they are because they're fairly hidden. But why is the perpetrator always in that one? Well, it's right between camera A and camera B.

Speaker 1:

Every every time.

Speaker 2:

It's innate they somehow they know where these cold pockets are.

Speaker 1:

I've had to do ones where it's like, okay, I can't see their face in this shot, but I can see their shoes in that shot. So I have to now match the shoes to the shoes in this shot because they somehow got in that blind spot, like goodness.

Speaker 2:

Security problems. Can't win, can't win.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, this is it's hard to diagnose it on an episode like this of like here's what you should do, because every toxic student culture is a little bit different. Sometimes it's like here is the perpetrators. We know exactly who these people are and we just have to keep a really close eye on them. And there's depending on if this, these kids are willing to grow and learn and respond to relationship. That makes a big difference. You know cause? We can come alongside them as leaders and be like hey, we're not against you.

Speaker 1:

We're for you, like we love you. We're here to point you to Jesus, to have a relationship with you, and they're not picking up what you're putting down. It's really difficult. So, then you're just regulating their behavior because they don't want any relationship. But if they'll let you in, I mean I'll take a punk all day who will let me in and we can walk alongside this person baby steps and continue to get them closer and closer to Jesus.

Speaker 1:

But when you have those mockers, people who could care less, and they're gonna always row the opposite direction of you.

Speaker 1:

It's like that's so hard, it is so difficult and it becomes really discouraging to leaders and it becomes really discouraging to students who are like doing the right thing. So I would say, like as much as you can, accountability, because people need to know that you're not just turning a blind eye to bad behavior and letting people walk all over you. You know you have to. What works for me is drawing these firm boundaries in the sand of like, hey, if you're not interested in what I'm doing right now, I'm going to give you the freedom to walk out that door.

Speaker 1:

You know that would be like at church, when their parents are in the auditorium. I'll say things like I'm not gonna compete with you anymore. I have a message. I want you to hear it. I think you would. I think God can do something powerful in this moment.

Speaker 1:

But if you're not into it, I can't fight you anymore. You're being so disrespectful, you're talking over me and I give them the freedom. There's a door, so the door is your choice to leave or if you're gonna stay, here's the expectation. You need to be quiet, you need to listen, and if it's not for you, I need you to do it for other people, because I'm protecting them, because they need to hear it. And if this becomes the you show and you detract from what we were trying to do this morning, I'm not being a good leader If I'm letting you spoil it for everybody.

Speaker 1:

I've got to tend to them as well. I want you here. Can you do it? You know something like that, like drawing this firm boundary of like. You know there's certain students I've just told I'm not gonna fight with you anymore, I'm not gonna compete If and then. Another talk I have with students quite often is hey, being here is a level of trust. I am not equipped, nor do I want a one to one ratio where leaders have to partner and walk arm in arms with students everywhere, because we can't trust you to be, alone for five minutes.

Speaker 1:

If that is the level of attention and supervision you need, this probably isn't the place for you.

Speaker 1:

So if you can show me you can be trusted, with a reasonable amount of freedom, I'd love for you to be here. If you cannot, I don't think this is the church or the youth group for you, because I've got to make a safe environment for everyone and I don't really trust you because of this, this and this. You know and I'm kind, but I'm very firm because I have a protective nature, like I'm protecting the culture, the ministry, the students.

Speaker 2:

And your volunteers.

Speaker 1:

And my volunteers. I want you here, I have a place for you if you can follow these boundaries and that's how we bring back the dynamic back to no, the powers of my corner. You can get on board or try again another time, and I don't yell, I'm never angry. I try to keep it positive, I try to keep it encouraging. But I make it very clear in order for me to be a good leader for everybody, like I'm gonna be a good leader for you and I'm also gonna be a good leader for them. These are the boundaries and I think that's fair. I think a lot of youth pastors struggle with discipline and you know we could talk more too about when to get parents involved and stuff like that, because sometimes parents will say, oh my gosh, I wish I knew and I was like if I called a parent every time a kid was disrespectful, that would be my entire week, like I'd be on the phone. Okay, they said this and it was rude. Bye. Like sometimes I don't involve parents until we're at a point where-.

Speaker 2:

Repetition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or they've done things that are threatening their safety or someone else's safety.

Speaker 1:

So number three, another red flag to address very quickly is when people you're sensing apathy or disengagement from students especially. You know leaders also, but we kind of already talked about that. So why do students become disengaged? Why do students become apathetic to church and to youth group and to their faith and all of that? Number one they might not be, you might not be challenging them.

Speaker 1:

So I I think I've talked about this on the podcast before is I always try to teach above their grade level just a little bit, not so much that it's like, okay, well, I have no clue what you're saying like professor of school, like this is so boring and I can't attain anything, but I try to say a few things that might kind of blow their mind or rock their world or challenge their thinking, to make them realize you better come, because it's not gonna be like. I remember thinking when I was young we're gonna go to church and I already know what they're gonna say and I've already heard the story and they're gonna say make sure you're a good person and make sure you're nice and make sure you don't do bad stuff.

Speaker 1:

Like that's really. I was like, what is there left to learn? And that was in my immaturity, obviously, as like a junior hire, but I wanted someone to blow my mind a little bit, that we've barely scratched the surface of who this God is. And he will blow your mind the more you know who he is and how this all works together. And science proves that. History proves it. Let me show you this and bringing in different teaching elements, like a cool video illustration or some. Like you know, they always say readers are leaders, or leaders or learners or something.

Speaker 1:

That's what you say it's a statement, but I think when you I read a book by Doug Fields a long, long, long time ago about speaking to teenagers and he was saying read articles, read stuff from all sorts of fields, because I mean you take these illustrations and these stories and these examples from all these different genres and it brings the gospel to life in so many different ways, and so he's like just read and learn and explore tons of different things so that you have something very rich to say and how it all points to Jesus and it makes your teaching so much more dynamic, so engaging students, challenging them through your teaching, making sure you're not saying the same thing every single week or that the messages aren't just such a softball pitch that they are like tuning you out.

Speaker 2:

It's good, too, to keep a kind of like a story bank, even if you have to write it down or put it in your phone like in notes or something. But when things happen in your life, that's just like this is a great story. How can I make this part of an illustration or part of a message? But if you don't write it down a lot of times, those things will kind of forget it. And then when you go like I wish I had an illustration to show this, and if you haven't been writing that stuff or remember it, then it just kind of goes like well, I just have to say this boring story.

Speaker 1:

I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Like it's just kind of a good idea to keep those things readily available, and that's what Doug says.

Speaker 1:

He's like I have a folder and I put all the like he would you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Doug got that from me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, You're welcome.

Speaker 2:

Doug.

Speaker 1:

But you know this was an older book, but now it'd be like I don't know, get a one note or something like that, or ever note, or whatever that is.

Speaker 2:

One note.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's like where you have all these online notes, like a place where you can keep them all and so what the heck is the internet? Anyways. Also, are you speaking their love language? If students are disengaged or disinterested or apathetic, you may not be speaking their love language. So what is the love language of your particular students?

Speaker 2:

Candy.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, we've talked about that. My love, my students love language pretty much comes down to fun and candy. That's really all they want to do. So we have a lot of games, we have high energy games, we have music. It's fun, it's a vibe. Then you will have all the cookies and candy and donuts and whatever and you are having a good old time. That's probably not a high schoolers love language. What would a high schoolers love language be? Our high school passer does something really cool on Saturday nights where the high schoolers don't necessarily want to play a run around game. Some of them do and they come out and play gaga ball with us, but some of them, the girls, are like well, I dressed up, I was trying to be cute, I don't want to play gaga ball. So he'll walk them all to ride aid, which has, like this ice cream counter there, like the old thrifties, you know, and everyone gets ice cream and that's the game.

Speaker 1:

We all walked like a little field trip over to ride aid. Which is a connection, a connection point Totally and came back to church and they look forward to it all the time and it's something special that I don't do, that he does. So it's kind of this cool perk and privilege when you go to high school, oh, we get to walk off campus during church.

Speaker 2:

It's like awesome, yeah, that's Saturday night. You said Saturday night. That's an actual service for us, not a mid-memory non-service.

Speaker 1:

So what is their love language? What do they want to do?

Speaker 2:

Well, you could do that for a mid-week too, if you had a ride, aid or 7-Eleven close by.

Speaker 1:

I am not taking my jeans there, no, no, but if it's ever smaller.

Speaker 1:

it's a smaller group and it's feasible to do something like that yeah and it is, it's perfect and they all, like high schoolers, like know how to act in public. So it's very easy, it's a win. And then another question is it getting stale? Is it just? Are people checking out in apathetic because maybe you need to change things up a little bit? I have my tried and true things that, like this is a win every single time. But the methodology, the way you can do it, the way you promote it, the game you play, the music you I mean make sure you're changing things up. If your youth group feels stuffy, stale, boring, what do you need? To just shake up? Change up, add a new icebreaker, add a new food element which my kids love.

Speaker 1:

One night I did like Boba Bar and they can make their own Boba drinks and stuff, and I mean that's so dumb. But it was like ooh, something different, you know, so just always be thinking like are, is it just so cookie cutter? And everyone knows what to expect every single week, and then we're gonna do this, and then you're gonna say this, and then we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna watch this and consistency is valuable and is good, but I think you're kind of staying like within that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I know we're gonna have Tuesday night program from 6.30 to 8.30 and all the major elements will be present, but could we do something like more surprising?

Speaker 1:

or exciting or different, or, you know, if you're starting to feel like it's stale, it's not like, well, we do worship too much, let's change it up and cancel worship. No, it would just be, you know, changing up the elements in a more creative way so that students' interest stays engaged, so adding cool new things. Whatever that is for you it's. You know, it's just a question you have to ask, like, what is stale?

Speaker 1:

And if you don't know the answer to that, because I don't know your youth ministry, so I don't know the answer to that. But you know who might your leaders and who also might is your students.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they'll be brutally honest.

Speaker 1:

What do we do? That's just tired. What do we do that is just not engaging? What do we do? That's boring. What do you love that we do? What do you wish that we did? You know? Asking questions Because, remember, just because you're in charge, just because you're the youth pastor or the youth leader, doesn't mean you're the end all be all of creativity, it doesn't mean you know at all.

Speaker 1:

And you know like constantly asking people who sit from a different vantage point is really powerful. And then, lastly, people might disengage because you over promise and under deliver. So it's like fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Because that whole vibe of like every time you say we're gonna do something cool, we don't. Or you say it's gonna be so fun and it's late or we're gonna have this.

Speaker 1:

oh it couldn't. We couldn't get the pizza truck because of this. It's just don't make promises you can't follow through on because people will disengage. And then you become almost this point of mockery like let me guess it's gonna be the best thing in the world, and it's not Just make sure what you're promoting is true to what you're going to deliver. And then people will get excited if it's worth getting excited over.

Speaker 2:

And if sorry to interrupt you, but if that stale kind of feeling it's if you are doing, if your service in your midway program is very predictable and stale, missing doesn't matter. If a student misses, they're not gonna be missing anything that they haven't already seen or done or care about, Whereas if you keep it with that element of surprise and kind of shock and awe or I might miss something, I better be there and it really kind of increases your retention rate with that too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if there's no FOMO, then it's like why come?

Speaker 2:

You know, it's just gonna be the same old, same old every single week and if you have a pattern of when I tell people we're gonna do this fun thing and we hype it up and you live up to that expectation, people will believe you and they will want to be there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they will, and they'll trust you and it'll be like you said we wanna create something nobody wants to miss. Going back to the leader thing. Are they looking for reasons why they can't come, or are they doing everything they can do to get?

Speaker 2:

there. So there's a couple of places I can send you. If you wanna get more information from podcasts, we've already done in the past One of them. If you're struggling with some students that are maybe misbehaving, we do have an episode all about kind of protecting your flock and kind of knowing when do you need to maybe ask that student to not come anymore or for a time period, and things like that. So I'll link that down below. And then also we did a really cool interview, I think last year maybe the year before, I can't remember it was a while ago with Hayden, who was a high school pastor, and he offered some really good tips for how to engage with high school students and how to keep things fun for an age group that really can be finicky.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're a hard sell on things, sometimes Hard to get them real excited, right so make sure you check that out if that's something that's interesting to you.

Speaker 2:

Okay, we're gonna do really quickly here a question of the day, and that is are you notoriously late or notoriously early? Sub question, which is worse?

Speaker 1:

I am exactly on time to the dot on the minute, so neither I'm always on time.

Speaker 2:

And that's the worst.

Speaker 1:

Worst is? Oh, it depends what context we're talking about, but I guess I'd rather have people early than late.

Speaker 2:

if I had to choose, yeah, I'd probably agree, although I'm notoriously late, the only one that drives me crazy is when junior hires get to youth group really early and I'm not ready for them and we're still setting up and I can't watch them yet and I don't have leaders.

Speaker 1:

Or when you're hosting people at your house and you're not ready for them.

Speaker 2:

But most of the time, like if someone's at a meeting with me and they're late drives me crazy, like a social thing drives me crazy.

Speaker 1:

Dinner when I'm starving drives me crazy. So I guess if I had to choose it be, I'd rather not have you be late. Yeah, I would agree. Put down in the comment section if you're watching on YouTube.

Speaker 2:

Are you notoriously late or notoriously early, and which do you think is worse? And then, right now we don't have a community comment of the day, but we did want to give a shout out to our newest Patreon supporter, Victor Grif. We appreciate you supporting this podcast.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, victor Chacha, if you, if you guys, have it on your heart to support this ministry through giving.

Speaker 2:

Make sure you check out patreoncom slash ministry coach and you can get that link down below as well. So we thank you guys so much for watching and listening and we will see you next time when I watch it when I'm editing.

Speaker 1:

It'll make much more sense to me. Today, we're talking about tips to help you navigate criticism you make, you may or may not receive the giving and sharing of criticism. Welcome to the ministry coach podcast, where every week we bring and bringing.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, what are you saying?