Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

4 Things I Started Doing Before Youth Group that Changed Everything!

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 204

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Ever wondered how to run a youth ministry program that’s both smooth and impactful? In this episode, we will be going over the 4 things I started doing before youth group that changed my entire student ministry!  We will guide you through the essential practices of having a well-defined plan and the power of clear communication to get everyone on the same page.  Find out how these 4 simple strategies can make your youth group a vibrant and safe space for everyone involved.

200th Episode Giveaway!!  (Details below!)

Don't miss our exciting giveaway celebrating our 200th episode!  Prizes include: 1 Year Subscription to Youth Ministry University, G Shades Curriculum, Chameleon Colors Colored Powder, Black Light Castle Sports 9 Square Balls and more!

To enter the giveaway, email us at MinistryCoachPodcast@gmail.com and put "FREE200" in the subject line or body of the email.  Also, please include your name, church and location as well.  Full giveaway details, rules and regulations can be found in the description of this episode's YouTube version here: https://youtu.be/Fuf3E16tMnU

***If you are looking to GROW your youth ministry, check out the Youth Ministry Growth Accelerator!

You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#012) Creating a Safe Ministry - 3 Areas to Focus on for Youth Ministry Health

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Speaker 1:

When you have a plan, it is much, much easier to delegate. If nobody knows the plan, then your chances of people helping you execute the plan are zero, because if you don't know it or can't communicate it, then you're on your own. It gives people a chance for some forethought in what they're gonna do. Try to boil down your message and the small group content to one big main idea that you can give to your leaders so that they can kind of do a mental check. Like that you can give to your leaders so that they can kind of do a mental check. Like that's what we were supposed to accomplish. Job well done.

Speaker 2:

Today we're going to talk about four things that I do before a youth group so that things don't fall apart. Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we bring you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast-track the growth and health of your youth ministry.

Speaker 1:

My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and today we are going to talk about the four things that I started doing before youth group that have really been game changers and now kind of staples in our ministry that just help things run smoother. So I want to share those with you today. Feel free to take them or leave them, or maybe you already do them, but you can comment below your own practices as well, because we can all learn from each other. So let us know what's been a game changer for you.

Speaker 2:

Is this like day of hours before Yep?

Speaker 1:

Okay, this is like right before, because I guess there's a lot of right now is technically before youth group. Uh, cause it's tomorrow, but no, this is kind of like the last, like ditch things right before youth group begins.

Speaker 1:

So number one is a leader meeting. So our youth group starts at 630, from six to 615. We have a leader meeting, and who's included in that is all of our interns, but as well as all the volunteers who lead small groups. This is a time that I kind of feel like it's that locker room talk, you know, just that little team huddle at the beginning of the night, and it's just one more method of communication, because I do email my leaders, we do use discord, which is like a kind of a texting service. Sometimes I even have to send individual texts, but somehow and we post on Instagram people still miss communication, and so this is like all right, we're all face to face. Like everyone shows up Ha, if we were all there, we would all be face to face and we can do like all right.

Speaker 1:

Here is the game plan for tonight. So I go over the schedule, the game, how to play it, what they can do to help the game. Like this is how you can participate for things to be a big win. Like I need you guys to go hide the glow sticks while I'm explaining the game. Or, hey, I need you guys to put out the balls. You know, on base one, two and three or I need you to.

Speaker 1:

Whatever, however, your leaders are going to be helping with the game. Sometimes game instruction just goes right over people's head and if your leaders are very well versed on how to play, it just helps the game go smoother. In giving them their roles, you could let them know what is a major win for your students to walk away from small groups with tonight. You know small group conversations can take all kinds of rabbit trails and sometimes those rabbit trails are great. But I like to give my leaders also hey, here's the bottom line. If your students leave with nothing else tonight, make sure that they understand this and try to boil down your message and the small group content to one big main idea that you can give to your leaders so that they can kind of like do a mental check, like, oh, that's what we were supposed to accomplish, job well done, and then you can use this time to just for a little social catch up. You know, once in a while if it's someone's birthday, maybe I'll bring a treat, or just one of the leaders you mean, or?

Speaker 1:

yeah, no, just the leaders. Or like a just because go grab chips, chips and guacamole or chips and guacamole. Nothing gets past you, Jeff.

Speaker 2:

Because I never misspeak Ever.

Speaker 1:

That gave me a chance to clear whatever was in my throat.

Speaker 2:

It was a chit.

Speaker 1:

A chit monk.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I should be bleeped out for saying chit, but it's not bad.

Speaker 1:

I felt the same way, even as I chit, but it's not bad. I felt the same way.

Speaker 2:

Even as I said it, knowing it wasn't bad.

Speaker 1:

I'm like am I going to get in trouble for that?

Speaker 2:

No, I think we're good C-H-I-T. In case you misheard any of that.

Speaker 1:

And then you know you can also use this time as like following up with some kind of announcement, things like hey, here's what we have coming up, make sure you know summer camp's two weeks away. If you haven't let me know whether you're going or not, you probably should. Or things like hey, you know, we had a church policy change. We need to make sure that we are doing this, this and this, so it's a great time to just have that face-to-face announcement. Or you can use it for some encouragement time. Sometimes the encouragement just comes to the youth pastor and we often forget to tell our team. So I'll get really great emails from parents who love what we're doing. They love our youth group. Or thank us for something. Share that with your group and let them know. Hey, like our efforts are not in vain. People are noticing like during pickup wow, that was really smooth. Or oh, my kid hated going to church and now they love it. They've made some friends.

Speaker 1:

You can give special shout outs to those small group leaders too, to just say hey, I saw, you know Hannah, last week and there was a girl who was just so like nervous and I saw her really trying to connect her with other kids and never left her side and blah, blah, blah. Or during worship. I really appreciate how Noah was sitting with the kids like guys, we need to make sure we're not just standing in the back like follow Noah's lead, like so use the opportunity to highlight the good things that are going on within your team and within the ministry. Again, think team huddle, think locker room talk, think like pre-game hype a little bit getting them ready. And mine is only 15 minutes and I do it every single week. Very rarely do I have like a big long leader meeting training time.

Speaker 1:

I used to do those a lot more, but what I've found is that just constant little drip in every single week is a lot better than just a quarterly big huge thing for my team. Your team might function differently. I use those big quarterly things for fun, not for training, and I drip in the training every week Cause I'm like you have to be here anyways. Might as well like two birds with one stone kind of thing of like. Well, we got a little bit of training. We dripped in some encouragement, some stories, some instruction. Go team.

Speaker 1:

And in fact we really do do a break at the end of each thing, Like if something was funny that somebody said like shit or something.

Speaker 2:

I still can't get past it CH like chit or something.

Speaker 1:

I still can't get past it. Ch? Um, then we would go all right, break one, two, three, and we would all say whatever the?

Speaker 2:

funny thing was somebody said you wanted to say chit, but it's like you don't want to say it again I don't, that's it.

Speaker 2:

That's the last one all right so sorry to be serious for a second. So this obviously you're talking about, like the you mentioned before, the drip versus fire hose like training yeah, like you just talked about but that is what you're talking about right now is is beyond the, when someone originally comes on, they get onboarded and trained. That way you wouldn't have a new volunteer be like, just get 15 minutes worth of training yeah, I mean they would need a little more time.

Speaker 1:

I usually take them out to lunch and we do like a longer conversation yes, this is just kind of the weekly. You know you're already, you've already been onboarded. That's good clarification, fine tuning of leadership yeah, and you know this is just work, this is just what works, great for us. But keep in mind, like I kind of joked about earlier, I never have 100 percent attendance, so sometimes people are like, oh, they can't get there early, just go with who you have and just like well, hopefully I'll see you next week, you know, because sometimes people's work schedule, you know, doesn't really work out.

Speaker 1:

But do the best you can. And then don't forget to pray together. That's a big part of our meeting as well. We end in prayer for maybe a specific student or situation or a certain leader situation. We just pray for the night, for God to be present and move and that the kids would be changed and transformed through the gospel. So make sure you spend time as a team praying together during that time as well. So that's the first one.

Speaker 1:

The second thing that I do before youth group that has really been a game changer, really tightened us up is sending out like a timeline, a tech schedule, and this doesn't really need to go to every single person on your team, but the people who help you pull off the night. So I have a. So our church uses Microsoft Teams, which is a great app, tool, program, whatever for communication. So we have a little Teams thread that says Tuesday night prep and every Monday sometimes I get it out on Thursday I'm like way to go, Kristen. I send out the timeline to the two tech guys that will be in the booth that night.

Speaker 2:

My right hand man, man right, we've moved on to a new word Go man.

Speaker 1:

We didn't rehearse that. We're just in sync.

Speaker 2:

That nerdy or that.

Speaker 1:

And some of the interns that help MC run games and all of that. So what that looks like it's a literal timeline, so it'll be like 6 to 6.30. Students arrive. 6.15 to 6.30 Snack Shack is open. 6.35 bring students into the auditorium. Begin program.

Speaker 1:

Start with funny video and welcome and then move to announcements. Here's the announcements. Move to the impossible shot. Here are the questions. Move to the game. Here's the game we're playing. Move to worship transition video. After the game, move to speaker and I say who's speaking? Oh, sorry, worship songs. You know one, two and three, and then we do three worship songs, then move to the speaker and then move to small groups, move to pick up, and this way everyone can look at it and bring their ideas to the table. So, like my tech guy, for example, if he knows we're playing um poop, deck, poop, deck right, it's a game about pirate ships He'll, ahead of time, make sure we have a slide that has a graphic like that on it and he'll cue some music like yo-ho, yo-ho pirate slide for me something like that, and he'll create kind of a vision for us instead of me, just like hey, by the way, this is what we're playing and it gives people a chance for some forethought and what they're going to do.

Speaker 1:

And then everyone knows the announcements. Your emcees are ready. Maybe whoever's in charge of making the slides they're ready to go, because they can see. Oh, we're announcing beach day and we're announcing super chaos and summer camp shirts for sale or something, so they can make sure they have that already.

Speaker 1:

So we talked a few episodes back about how when you have a plan, it is much, much easier to delegate. So it's like, well, if nobody knows the plan, then your chances of people helping you execute the plan are zero. Because if you don't know it or can't communicate it, then you're on your own. But if you communicate the plan ahead of time, for me, my team, what ended up happening is they see, and they'll be like, oh, cool, like I know how to set up that game, I'll take that. Or oh, I created a new slide for poop deck. Or oh, I came up with a playlist for this game. I think it'll be really good.

Speaker 1:

And maybe they won't have the initiative to just do it and you might have to sign it, but at least you can point them to a plan of like, this is what's going to happen. Jump in, you know, and I'll even assign the MC on that. Whoever's I'm seeing is usually opposite of who's speaking, you know. So keep like the people like on stage, change it up. It's not like, well, it was Caleb doing the announcements, caleb welcoming everyone, caleb running the game, caleb doing the impossible shot now caleb's speaking.

Speaker 1:

It's just like, oh well, johnny and noah did this, and arden did this and caleb did this, and it's nice because you can move people around and keep it a. It's not as exhausting to lead program, but it's also great because it changes up.

Speaker 2:

You know we've talked about listener fatigue right the second you see a new person, you can re-engage it also helps, too, with everyone kind of having that game plan ahead of time, because it eliminates a lot of the oh you know what we should have done totally you know, and that was me for years, right, and it's inevitable. Even the most well thought out plan will still have those. Oh, we should have done you know whatever.

Speaker 2:

Like the fine tuning right, but I think it can kind of, like you know, eliminate a lot of those things, because you're kind of looking at it ahead of time. It's like, oh, we need this, or we need to make sure to do this, instead of, in the moment, being like oh, rats, you know, we forgot this oh golly gee, this is a, are this is a crestfallen day. I don't know what I was trying to be Rats when do I ever say that?

Speaker 1:

Maybe you just, I don't know. I feel like all of our lingo today is just one or two degrees off.

Speaker 2:

Oh rats.

Speaker 1:

Oh kids, we can say that, like, if something goes wrong, next time Junior hires, just rats, this is just this plan has been foiled. Yeah, I said rats, OK you're like a villain from like Bullwinkle or something that's, I feel like it'd be like an old cartoon.

Speaker 2:

The villain would be a rat. Noxious gas you fiend. Ok, sorry, that's it for that.

Speaker 1:

Moving on Number three, something I've been doing before youth group. Maybe you don't need to do this because your kids are chill. Mine need lockdown sometimes, so I realize I need to make sure that every room not being used is locked.

Speaker 1:

That just really takes away any temptation for theft or hiding or misbehavior or kids getting into trouble. I just try to eliminate the possibilities of places where they could get into shenanigans. So obviously we use all the small group rooms but I just make sure those are locked until we actually need them. I have a security guy go around and unlock them during worship and then they're ready to go and kids get out of worship. But in the meantime, if kids come early, you know they were just kind of helping themselves to opening doors and going in and playing games or taking candy or video games and just making sure we're keeping the environment safe.

Speaker 1:

So another aspect of that is I put a radio. If you don't use radios at your youth group, I mean, maybe you're not at the size where you need one, but I feel like they are a game changer. So I have a radio, my staff has a radio, security has a radio and we're all on channel one. Well then I go and put a radio in all the small group rooms and I put that on channel two. So if we were ever God forbid in some kind of lockdown situation, I could quickly turn to channel two and I would radio small group leaders lockdown and they would lock their small group rooms, pull the shades.

Speaker 1:

And they would lock their small group rooms, pull the shades. It's just a good way for all of us to be able to communicate with everyone at all times, just in case something were to ever happen. Another reason, a lot less serious, is because sometimes our pickup line is getting really long and leaders are not dismissing their small groups, and so it's like maybe they're having great discussion and I wish it could go all night, but at the same time it's a school night, parents are here, we got to go. So I'll switch to channel two and I'll say all right, small group leaders, you're now five minutes over. I need you guys to dismiss. There's parents out here waiting. Can you wrap it up and do some follow-up during the week if you need to, or something like that. So, um, I just have found putting a radio in each room where I can get a hold of small group leaders instead of just having to go knock on each door, open the door, find them, or whatever knock hello.

Speaker 2:

Can I come in?

Speaker 1:

but also, like there's been times where I've been like is every small group out, because there's been a parent here and I can radio like Hannah, are you guys still in small group? Oh yeah, sorry, finishing up, you know, and they can send somebody out. So those have been game changers for me. And then, along with the door locking thing also, I prop our bathroom doors open. Also, I prop our bathroom doors open. Obviously there's doors on our stalls, but I've just noticed that tends to keep the secrecy and little scheming away a little more, not that they never do, but keeping those propped open helps us with safety and behavior. So that is number three. Number four, and this one's a lot more fun.

Speaker 1:

One thing I love doing before youth group is just making sure we have our hospitality game really strong, meaning the snack shack is open, kids can go buy treats and hang out. We have a coffee shop. We make sure that's open. We have music on things to do, we have Gaga ball or you can put nine square out or whatever, get a football game going. But just creating an atmosphere that when somebody shows up, they see the energy, they can see something's going on. People are having fun, there's not just everyone sitting there on their phones or something awkward, but they can kind of like blend in and find something to do. Music is always great too, because it takes the pressure off of conversation. Like conversation is good and we want to encourage people to do that, but it kind of fills the noise or fills the space if people aren't super comfortable with each other quite yet.

Speaker 1:

It gives them kind of a background noise to lean on a little bit.

Speaker 2:

It's great for that new person. I know we've done multiple episodes on kind of how to welcome new students and make sure you check them out, but that if you are a new student, your parents drop you off. You walk in If everyone's yeah, like on their phones, it's really awkward. If everyone's just sitting there, conversation's really awkward. Everyone's just sitting there, conversation's really awkward. You don't want that feeling where, like the record scratch you know everything stops and they look at you versus if there's nine square, if there's gaga.

Speaker 2:

You know pit going on. You can, you can just watch and not feel as awkward because it's like okay, I'm doing something. I'm either playing the game, watching the game, and then conversation kind of naturally happens from the doing of the activities.

Speaker 1:

Or you can blend in so that nobody really notices you're alone because there's so much going on. If you don't have a coffee shop, you know, one thing I've done in the past, before we had one, is just put out Cambros of hot water and hot chocolate packets and let students do that. Another like tactic for hospitality is if people have something in their hand or something to do, like, oh, I can go over there and get a hot chocolate. So that took some time.

Speaker 1:

I had to get it and stir it and hold it and like it just gives you something. You know that it's not as awkward. And who doesn't love hot chocolate? And you, I mean, I don't. If you have high schoolers, you could do more of a hot chocolate bar. My kids don't deserve that privilege because they just will scarf everything down.

Speaker 1:

You know they don't respect the process Like no just take a little bit of marshmallows, a little bit of candy canes, a little bit of chocolate syrup or whatever whipped cream. They just are like, well, whipped cream, the whole cans for me.

Speaker 2:

Oh marshmallows.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to dump them in my backpack Like they can't be trusted with just candy out available for fun. It's massacre. But maybe your kids can do it so you can create fun little things like that. You can change it up each week, like one time under high supervision we did like boba, so it was like junior high boba. I didn't do the whole tea thing because our high school did that looked fun, but it was a lot of work. So I just bought the boba balls and then gotite and then one or two different flavors that like pump flavor. What's that brand? Like Tori or so.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I know they always have it at coffee shops, Anyways they have fruity flavor.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, you mix the Sprite with that stuff. Or you could do like Italian cream soda bar, which is basically the same ingredients, except switch out boba for half and half. So just like little fun things like that, I think, create an environment of like, oh, like, I grabbed my drink and I'm kind of holding it and walking around or got a snack and, oh, what do you know, it's time to start. So some kids can hang out and hang out and hang out forever, and some people need help because it's like I'm not super comfortable or social, I'm new or whatever, and we want to give them some help to create, you know, a softer entry for them.

Speaker 2:

So all that longer merge lane to pull on to the freeway.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and you know I'm such a strategic person I feel like all those things for me. It's not just like I heard a criticism of a church once where it was like they give coffee to entice people. I think we talked about this out in another episode and I'm like, or it's just, hospitality and helping people feel welcome.

Speaker 2:

It's not, they have chairs with cushions on them.

Speaker 1:

It makes it seem like hansel and gretel, like I'm gonna give you candy and then eat you or something, but no, it's just to be nice like ever heard of that just making someone comfortable?

Speaker 2:

and being nice, it's okay, you do only decaf coffee, though, right though, right, they don't know that.

Speaker 1:

Jeff, yeah, our coffee shop only serves decaf to the junior highers. Smart, you know they don't need that on a school night at 8 pm. But um, nobody does nobody. But yeah, they can still buy like a coke or dr pepper in our yeah our mountain dew yikes. No energy drinks. Can I give a psa?

Speaker 1:

do not let junior hires have energy drinks I, we just got back from camp, but and this kid, this tiny kid he probably only weighed like 60 pounds at the most had this giant sour patch kid energy drink and that had this huge warning label on the back not for people under 18. And I said you're going to throw that away? And he's like I just bought it, only in one sip. I'm like, nope, no way I like this. I cannot, with a clean conscience, let you drink this under my supervision. So he threw it away. He's like I drink them all the time. I'm like I don't know about that, but I just don't think junior hires need energy drinks.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

Feels unsafe. Maybe I'm just a parent or something and I'm like not fun anymore.

Speaker 2:

But I'm like Well, if they put a warning like that, that's scary.

Speaker 1:

I know, know.

Speaker 2:

so anyways, those are all four so, yeah, there's a couple episodes I can direct you to. There's one we did all about safety of a youth ministry and we did talk about the walkie talkies, the radios. Are they walkie talkies or the radios?

Speaker 1:

same thing isn't that the same thing? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Whatever we talk about, and uh, there's some other things that you can do to kind of make sure that your youth ministry is safe, not only for the students but for the leaders and for the parents to know that their kids are in a safe environment. So I would definitely check that one out.

Speaker 1:

All right, no, energy drinks makes a safe environment.

Speaker 2:

Seriously, I think my life got a lot better when I stopped drinking energy drinks. I wasn to the point where it was like a crazy addiction, but it was bad. I feel like it really messed my stomach up. Yeah, those things are toxic. We're gonna do a question of the day and then we're gonna do our giveaway. Winner for this week. This is the last two weeks this week and then next week will be the end, so make sure you stick around and see if you won. Question of the day is what is something that you love or appreciate about the town you live in?

Speaker 1:

We live in like a kind of a unique town, I would say. As far as Southern California goes, you know what I love about it. I love the bountiful harvest. Our town has so much produce so we grow like everything. And just at church yesterday there's this humongous like bag of, like hundreds of plums just from someone's tree at their house so they just brought them in. You can take them. The week before that, uh, andy brought those golden nugget tangerines from his farm.

Speaker 1:

Tons of that. I would get avocados all the time. I found tomatoes growing in our church parking lot and they're in my fridge right now. Shh, don't tell anyone, because you know once word gets out they're all going to be gone. I just think it's so cool, like how, everywhere you go, there's so much produce and people are just so generous to share. Like our neighbors will give us watermelon and zucchini and then we'll give them oranges when our oranges are going.

Speaker 2:

Weeds. We grow a lot of weeds.

Speaker 1:

If only you could eat weeds A beautiful weed salad. But yeah, I love that. I think it's so cool. Even in our church parking parking lot there's rosemary growing everywhere.

Speaker 2:

sometimes I've taken a little sprig for soup probably for me it would be along the same lines. Just we you know Southern California is obviously very populated, overpopulated, but the town we actually live in and I'm sure for how many people live here, people would think that's still pretty populated, but it's very fairly rural and I feel like you are not it doesn't have a city feel at all to it's much more small town. So I I do enjoy that because you can. You can get to the city but then you can leave and leave the city, you know, and not have to deal with the city and leave this right, both of them.

Speaker 2:

all right, let's do um and make sure you guys put in the comment section below what is something you love about the town you live in. All right, so the winner tonight? What they're winning is a one year subscription to Youth Ministry University.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

And if you aren't familiar with Youth Ministry University, it is a training platform brought to you by Download Youth Ministry Within all access paths. You can help you and your volunteers increase your skills and be much more effective in youth ministry. The instructors for this include Josh Griffin, doug Fields, cara Powell, doug Franklin, sean McDowell and so many more. Yeah, it's like a super all-star lineup. Make sure you check out Youth Ministry University at ymuniversitycom and to see if it's a great fit for you and your team. Such an awesome opportunity, and the winner for that is Aaron Cole. Congratulations, aaron. We will be in contact with you and I'm sure YM University will be in contact with you for how to sure ym university will be in contact with you for how to get your one year subscription. So congratulations yay, congratulations.

Speaker 1:

I was gonna say you're welcome, you're welcome and thank you, ym university for donating.

Speaker 2:

That. It's really awesome. Thank you guys for watching and listening, and make sure you stick around for next week because there's one more giveaway that we're doing and also it's not too late to enter, so make sure you get your entry in and you can potentially win that prize, which is going to be G's Shades curriculum.

Speaker 1:

Ooh, everyone loves curriculum. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Thank you guys, so much for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Today we're answering more of your youth ministry questions. Today we're answering your questions about youth ministry.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where every week, welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where every what, what do we have for today? What do we have for today?