Latest / Student Ministry Conversations / 270 | Culture of Belonging: From Attendance to Belonging | SMC Podcast
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hey and welcome back to the podcast. We are back for the month of September, which is crazy, the fact that this is Labor Day weekend. ⁓ but yeah, ⁓ September is kind of an interesting month in student ministry. ⁓ the school year's beginning, schedules are slowing down, we're starting to hit that first holiday break. ⁓ students are back from summer, they're back full swing, new students are showing up. Which is also a great thing. It's an exciting time. Youth groups are growing, hopefully. I mean, that's our goal. ⁓ but if we're honest, this is often the time of year that we start watching numbers. ⁓ and we have to be careful on how we watch numbers. Watching numbers is not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm sure that that will come up in this conversation at some point. But we start looking at numbers and we start asking questions of well, how many students came? Are we growing? Did we have more students than last September? And like I said, numbers aren't bad. Attendance does matter. You have to have people in the room. However, here's the question that I want to wrestle with today, David. What if a student can attend your youth group every single week and not feel like they belong? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ because you can have a room full of students and still have lonely students. ⁓ and so you can have a student that walks into your youth room every single Wednesday, they sit roughly in the same chair, they listen to your message every single week, they participate while they're asked, maybe they even smile and laugh and have a good time, or it looks like they are. ⁓ and then when the night ends they walk out, nobody noticed they were there. Nobody asked how their week went. ⁓ nobody noticed that they were quieter than usual, and nobody would notice if they stopped coming. That last one hurts. Technically, I mean if we're going by just metrics alone and looking at numbers for the sake of numbers, that student did attend, but did they belong? That's the different question, and that's where we are kind of addressing the conversation today. We're starting a new ⁓ theme for the month. ⁓ and that that theme is the idea of creating a culture of belonging. and there's there's more to that than just getting kids in the door. ⁓ and I I think this is something that we wrestle with a lot, and in all reality, ⁓ if we're honest, we do it to ourselves because The first question, and we've talked about this before, the first question when you a when you meet up with another youth pastor that you've like just introduced yourself to, you're like, ⁓ well, hey, how how big's your youth ministry? How many students come? How big's your church? And it's like that is the like sign of success. That is the only thing that we really kind of like compare and guide each other off of. ⁓ and it gets to the point to where it man, sometimes it's just like are are we missing the point completely? And so today is just talking about this idea of like maybe we need to move toward from an ad this mindset of attendance where the number at the end of the night is the big thing. And maybe we need to work towards belonging where culture beats crowd size. And I think that that's something that is really, really important to do. and the thing is, is I think it's also one of the biggest challenges for us as student ministry leaders. We can become really good at counting students. We can use Planning Center or we can use ⁓ Breeze or any of the other church management softwares. ⁓ we've used ⁓ we've had MinHub on the podcast before. ⁓ and so there's so many things that'll track metrics and track attendance and all that stuff. and we can become really, really good at counting students without knowing students. And so it's not because we don't care, but most of us got into youth ministry because we care deeply. ⁓ but ministry can be so programmatically complicated ⁓ that we be we start measuring what we can. ⁓ we start measuring with what's easiest to measure. ⁓ and a lot of times, especially with our own pride and our own like, are we successful? It's it's how many kids are in that room. ⁓ Attendance is easy to measure. Belonging isn't. And so how do we move from attendance to belonging? How do we go from getting students to be in the room to creating a community where students discover I am known here, I am loved here, I have a place here. Said David. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: When we look at our attendance numbers, what are we actually measuring? speaker-1: You know, I feel like More times than not, it's it comes down to a pressure that we either put on ourselves or it's an external pressure of not only are we like it's a great way to know you're growing, that if you have new people coming, then we're doing something right. And that's what we tell ourselves. But I think the other side of it too is it comes back to the comparison culture. We are so quick to look at other youth groups and go, Well, they have sixty, why do I only have twenty? They have X amount why do I only have this amount and that's why we we're so quick to remind the statistics of a healthy youth group a healthy healthy children's ministry a healthy small group is looking at the percentage of how many people you have regularly attending to the overall church size I cannot compare my small church to Brent's big church I can't compare it. Number one, I'm in a town what, a fourth the size of Abilene? If not n it's smaller than that. A twelfth. ⁓ a twelfth, yeah. I I said that and I was like, that's not even close. ⁓ I mean my church is a fourth, but I know not even that. But we're talking a bigger s metropolitan style city versus a tiny, tiny town. It's it I can't compare my gr youth group size to Brent's. It's not it's not even a fair assessment. No. speaker-0: All it does is damage you. speaker-1: But what I can do is say, what is what are the quality things that you're doing as a youth group that's effective in showing people Jesus? Now that I can compare. Because if if all I'm doing is presenting a bunch of games and we're not doing anything about Jesus, then absolutely I can Brent can go, Hmm, you should be doing this this, this, and this. You know, and of course you have to know your group ⁓ and what speaks to ⁓ because again We're a different town. We're a different area. And though we're very close to each other, I mean within an hour of each other, the the culture there in Abling is different than the culture here in Sweetwater. And the things that will be effective and work with your students is going to be different than the things that are going to be effective and work with my students. Although there is a lot of overlap too. And that's the point of like a podcast like this. Here's some things that we do that works. Here's some things that we've done that's failed. Here's some things that we want you to consider now plug and play, you know. And so I think we we've got to stop looking at it from a numerical standpoint or only solely looking at it from a numerical standpoint. And we need to ask ourselves about, you know, look for that student who it seems like is falling through the cracks. ⁓ and and maybe you know I I'm moving probably too too far ahead too quickly here. But the example I thought of is literally this last Sunday Had a student who ⁓ didn't show up to youth group and there was a reason for it. and without going into too much detail, but kid was sad. Well, just use your imagination with a teenager. Why would a teenager be sad? ⁓ it's pretty obvious. and this student's sibling showed up to youth and then explained to the other students why said student didn't come today. Well my student leaders didn't let that sit well. So what they did was they FaceTimed said student and said If you're not gonna come to youth group, youth group's gonna come to you. And so literally FaceTime the student for the entire youth group, like the entire time we were there. They even went as far as, we're gonna make you a plate, and literally we're going to put foil over it, and your siblings going to bring food home to you. What drink do you want? What food do you want? ⁓ during the game that we had, they literally set a chair for the student and put the phone on the chair and said, Everybody pass it. To that person, the ball, and it was hilarious watching the phone get knocked down. ⁓ it was just it was silly and seemed completely like, okay, they didn't show up, we're gonna miss them. But they it was this radical sense of we see that you're upset. Yeah. And we could let you go through that alone, or we can say, Hey, you want to be in bed, we get it. But we also want you here. And so you don't even have to point the camera to yourself. If you want to point at your ceiling, that's fine. But we want you to hear because we want you to be present and we value you that much and we miss you that much. And I'm like All I can think is holy crap, this is awesome. It it may seem silly to some, but the fact that they saw this student and they were like, we're not gonna leave you alone in it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I can't help but feel like that is going to be one of those pivotal moments in that student's life when they go, When I was at a low point, my youth group cared that much. And they brought me a plate and they they FaceTime me in and they they cared about me that much and they missed me that much that they were like, no, we're not gonna let this sit. I guarantee you he'll be here tonight. Because of that very that very reason. And knowing that he's that cared about speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: That's gonna matter. speaker-0: Well and I I think that works towards the distinction that we have to make. Like attendance is about presence, belonging is about connection. And so like with that, like a students can attend because their parents make them, because their friends come. I mean you laundry list, you can throw all the different reasons out there. None of those things are necessarily bad, but with that, ⁓ none of them automatically mean I belong here. Yeah. But stuff like that, like what you just mentioned, like that is one of those things that it's like, man, like this these are my people. ⁓ which is really, really cool. And so belonging goes deeper than just presence. Belonging says, Man, people know me, people notice me, people would miss me. Like, all that stuff is huge. And so and then it also comes into the other aspect of that is like when you're when you're building that community of belonging, it also goes into the mindset of like I have something to contribute. I can help out, I can be a leader, kind of thing like that. And so ⁓ it's just the mindset of like the significant difference of like I matter to this community. speaker-1: Yeah, one one thing that my old college pastor had as a core value of the ministry is belonging before you believe. And the whole idea there was like some people may not be necessarily bought in right away. They may not even believe in Jesus. But if we create a culture where people feel like they belong, even if they don't believe, even if they're not from there, then it makes believing in Jesus so much easier because here's a people group of people who truly see me and give me an opportunity to to ask questions and explore. I mean let's be honest it's not always as easy as Jesus died for you. Okay, I accept that sometimes it takes some really intentional wrestling and if people don't feel like they have the space to do that then they're never gonna believe or I can't say never but it's gonna be a lot harder. And so help Helping people feel like they belong before they believe, I think has to be a part of all of our identities. speaker-0: Yeah. Well and that that distinction like really really matters when it comes to discipleship. Like present students aren't gonna be the ones that buy into discipleship. It's gonna be the ones that belong. It's gonna be the ones that see value in being there. discipleship is relational. And if there's no relationship, it's really hard to build disciples. And so I mean like you you look at the life of Jesus. Jesus didn't s just gather crowds, he formed people. ⁓ he he knew names. He asked questions, he challenged people. Yeah. ⁓ he ate meals with people, he walked roads together with people, he had conversations with people, he entered people's lives and he changed them. Like it it's I think that's what makes ministry unique is just this idea of like we're not and it's student ministry also is included in this, but I think it's ministry overall. It's like we aren't simply presenting information. we're walking with them as they learn what it means to be like Jesus. And so with that, I mean, I think that's huge. And the thing is is like when we when we miss out on that belonging aspect of it, we're we're missing like the the huge idea. and something that has to be kind of stopped and worth discussing is this idea that sometimes don't like sometimes students don't leave because they stopped caring about Jesus. ⁓ and I I I think that's something it's like, ⁓ well they just have other priorities and that's an immediate like side note that we just kinda throw out there and accuse them of. And it's like, but sometimes they leave because they never developed a sense of belonging to the community. speaker-1: Mm. Yeah. And I think we have to define what belonging actually means in in our context. And I think sometimes like saying that somebody belongs because you want them to belong doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna feel it. I can I can roll out the red carpet and you not feel like you belong. I could I can make your favorite meal, I can play your favorite songs, I can play your favorite game, and I can read your favorite scripture and you still feel like you don't belong. And I think that culture for our students has to be similar to ⁓ some of the things that we talked about with our volunteers and giving them a role. I think if if if our students know that there is a responsibility for them, in incoming not just because like it's good for their soul care but because they have something to contribute to ⁓ whether that's the worship team or prayer team like the more we can plug students into specific roles of serving the more they're going to feel like they belong because they have a responsibility and they know that if they don't show up they leave a hole yeah in that ministry. And so it's like ⁓ okay so if these people are really good at prayer these people are Good at worship, these people are good at at at at ⁓ greeting, whatever it might be. Give everybody a role of some sort and responsibility, and they go, I have a job to do, and if I don't show up, I mean it you might go, okay, but they're students. Think about it this way. ⁓ and I think one of the best the best organizations that do do ⁓ that does this is nursing homes. ⁓ we have a a person in our church who ⁓ recently moved ⁓ to be closer to his brother ⁓ because he really couldn't be taking care of himself and he called and they gave him basically a role in the in the nursing home where he essentially is like guest care or something. I can't remember exactly what it is, but like he coordinate ⁓ making sure that people feel cared about. And you might go, okay, that's just a made-up title. Does he make money doing that? No, he doesn't. But here's why it's cool because in a whole group of like in a home where people are shoved basically to wait till they die, yeah, they're giving them a position of value where they don't just feel discarded anymore. Older people in a nursing home often feel discarded. Their family stops visiting them. They pay a whole bunch of money, give up all their personal belongings and their sense of of having any kind of ownership of anything. And all of a sudden they move from this place of I've been forgotten to I have an important role that matters and helps other people feel valued too. The difference there, if we we adopted that kind of mentality in our ministry is that now you're not just here to be a number or a butt in a seat. You are somebody who brings value to this ministry. Yeah. And without you, our ministry is not as rich. Can it still happen? Absolutely. Can the ministry still happen without me? We've talked about this at length. Yes, absolutely. But it should, it should evoke a sense of I matter, I have responsibility, and if I don't show up, I'm dropping a ball. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Not it not from a legalistic standpoint. We don't want it to go too far to the other side of the room. But where they they w want to be there because they have a role that's important to them and important to them. speaker-0: Yeah, no, no. Well and I th I think there's a there's an important thing to note also with that whole belonging before believing. ⁓ sometimes a student can belong and never really get to the point of believing when they're under your roof. ⁓ I I had a ⁓ student that was a pronounced atheist. ⁓ and he wasn't he wasn't belligerent about it, but he was if anybody asked him, ⁓ he would definitely share why and his thoughts and everything else. But he also had Tons of questions and tons of interest and thoughts about Jesus. ⁓ and so he started coming around to our ⁓ youth program, ⁓ and this dude was wicked talented. He was a incredible musician. And he just kinda kept ⁓ he was really kind of enjoying just worship as far as the music. ⁓ and he's he he would be the first to admit that he loved he loved the songs. ⁓ as far as just a s like a lyric and musically composed standpoint. He thought worship music was beautiful. ⁓ he just didn't believe in it as a worship song. He liked it as music. And so ⁓ he he very much was like interested in the praise team. And I was like, Well, I mean like, you know, I I could man, you're you're com you're committed, you're consistent. Like, I'm okay with you playing piano if you if you wanna like come and play. And he was like, Man, like, do you do you think so? Could I? And so he he started playing with us. He came to he was at Youth every Wednesday night. He played on our praise team every single night. He got so pumped and so fi like fired up about being a part of a group. ⁓ being a part of a community. ⁓ and like he really, really loved his time there and like I'd pre I'd talk and do lessons and he'd ask questions and he'd challenge himself and ⁓ man, I was I was really, really hoping for this like ⁓ yes, like I got him by the time that he was done. But he d he didn't. ⁓ but he was super, super involved. But he said something that I'll never forget the last time he was there. He was like, Man, I j I just want you to know ⁓ 'cause he graduated and he was like I He was like, I just wanted to say thank you. for like letting me be a part. And he was like, I've been a part of a lot of different things. He was like, but I've never been a part of a community like this. He was like, and it was it was super, super cool. And he was like, and I can genuinely say that I've never belonged to a community more than this one. And I was like I Yes, he doesn't he didn't like make this huge profession of faith on Jesus, but like we showed him we showed him that like you can belong in in a s group in a bo in the body of Christ. It's like yes, d I mean, is our ultimate goal his salvation, sure. But if I don't work on that belonging and that relationship first, that door would have never been opened. Yeah and now hopefully speaker-1: Who knows who might come into his life at some point and be able to really make that happen. I mean, I say it all the time. Like, sometimes our role is simply to till the ground. And it's gonna be somebody else's job to plant the seeds and somebody else's job to to grow the harvest and to collect. Like sometimes it it really does take an absolute village, and it may not be your village. It may be somebody else's village, and that is okay. speaker-0: Well and I and I the thing is is also is like I know someone listening to this podcast is like, ⁓ my gosh, why would you do that? I would never allow them on my leadership team and I would never dude like if I I kinda always fall back. I think it's Craig Groschell in the Life Church that says we'll do anything short of sin to bring someone to Jesus. Like ⁓ it's just that mindset of like you know, like, why are we why are we putting barriers and restrictions on the gospel? Like, if I have an opportunity to get a student in the door that's not gonna really do anything, it's not like he was openly declaring atheism or anything. He was super respectful. Now, if it was the other way around and he was being really, really like speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ belligerent and he was like being really, really distracting and everything else. I totally wouldn't have offered that. ⁓ but like the dude was super invested. He was super involved. He was super respectful. ⁓ and every single Wednesday he had questions for me. Yeah. ⁓ and he was challenging me just as much as I was challenging him because it was like, all right, like you say you know your stuff, but do you? and like it was really, really cool. And I man, I I I need a I need to contact him. I haven't talk to him in a little bit. But it's ⁓ it's just one of those things that like the the opportunity was there. And I think I think at the end of the day Jesus doesn't care about like them being Christian before they were used. I think Jesus taught them how to be used and then that relationship taught them how to be Christian. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: So, like I I think discipleship is that sometimes. I mean, depending on your your flavor of Christianity, ⁓ we can get into a bunch of different doctrinal and denominational beliefs, but like at the end of the day, like not everybody that followed Jesus knew what that meant when they started. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And and let's be completely honest, there are pe there for that for that person who might be struggling with putting somebody who is a non believer in a place of leadership, let's be completely honest, we've got a lot of leaders who are closer to walking away from faith than we do sometimes with How many people have completely walked away? And these are the same people who were absolutely on fire and leading in that way. And I'm not saying, okay, now look at your congregation and go, all these people are going to leave. But statistically speaking, here, you currently have people on your leadership who will not believe in Jesus a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, because that is the climate that we're living in. Yep. Let's be honest, most of us are one really, really hurtful thing. bad experience, ⁓ parent dying of cancer, ts all kinds of things and real experiences. I'm not diminishing. I'm not. But all of us are a bad decision away from Going a completely different direction in our life. And it's happening at a rapid pace right now. And it would be short-sighted for us to not be considerate of that. And so if it if it's just as easy for us, and I the metaphor I like to use is it's like a chair metaphor. It is so much easier if you're on a chair, imagine you're you're standing on a chair and you go to pull somebody up on the chair with you. It is so much easier to knock somebody off the chair than it is to bring somebody on. the chair with you. So I might have s made that and and though Brent clearly agreed with what I said a minute ago, you might have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We I do not have leaders that are close to walking you do. Yeah. speaker-0: The thing is you don't know until they do. speaker-1: Yeah, and it's a shocker. There's a reason why all of a sudden we see mega pastor, mega you know, mega church pastor who falls and we're like, we're not really shocked anymore. We're kind of desensitized, but like there was a time where you would hear something like that and you were absolutely blown away that that would happen. and the truth is we are becoming more and more desensitized to these things, but People are walking away. It's a reality. And and I tell our students all the time, our in West Texas Bible built culture, you may not be in that, but where we are, there are more people our our mission field isn't necessarily people who have never heard the gospel ever presented. Just about everybody has heard about Jesus in our area. That's not always true, but for the most part. Yeah. More people have heard about Jesus. So our mission field isn't so much people who've never heard about Jesus. Our mission field are people who heard about Jesus, walked a relationship with Jesus and chose to walk away. And maybe our mission field is apologizing for things that we did not do. Apologizing for things that ⁓ for the hurt that people have experienced, because we gotta meet people where they are, and even if that hurt is in our own mind, like what? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You still realize the inner. speaker-0: I think you just have to make ⁓ re make it real. I mean you have to acknowledge like and especially with student ministry. I mean like the number of times that people get hurt over ridiculously weird things. Well you didn't call on me in this game. It's like, well man, I'm sorry, but like, you know, there's there's sixty people in this room. I can't call on you every time. Kind of thing like that. You can still acknowledge and say I'm sorry, but like so stuff like that and like we always kind of go back to this idea of like, you know, you can't downplay the students' feelings. ⁓ even though it sounds dumb sometimes. ⁓ there are some things that it's like, man, man Yeah, we talked about that actually like last last week, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. And so yeah, check your reflection in the mirror. Like you gotta be able to listen to these things and have these opportunities to where it's just like speaker-1: Yeah. I got It is perfectly okay for you to go, Wow, that is the dumbest thing I've heard today. But you can't tell them that. You've gotta be present and and meet them where they are. speaker-0: Yeah. And so I I I think that kinda leads into this idea of, you know, what actually creates belonging. ⁓ I think there's there's four things that we have to deal with and four things that students have to experience. Number one, students have to be known. Yeah. You have to know who they are, you have to know about them. You can't just call them hey bud or hey hey man, what's up? Like that works out. Yeah. You have to know them by name. ⁓ and I know that sounds incredibly simple. But names matter. When a leader remembers a student's name, they're communicating that you are no longer anonymous here. But learning a name or knowing a name is only the beginning. You then learn who they are friends with. You learn what they enjoy. You learn what they're involved in. You learn what they're worried about. You learn what they're excited about. What's happening at school. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: You don't need to interrogate them. Just be interested. If you show interest to a student, they will talk your ear off. ⁓ one of the most powerful things a youth pastor or a volunteer can communicate is hey, I remember you. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. What is it that you used to say years and years ago, Brent? I think it was you. It might have been somebody else, but teenagers' favorite topic is themselves. Maybe it wasn't you, but speaker-0: I mean that's true. I don't know if I said that. Yes, a hundred percent teenagers' favorite topic is themselves. speaker-1: Is themselves and so getting them to talk about themselves is something they really, really enjoy. And so you ask a question and a floodgate will happen. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It's like take take notes if you have to. Like I've even and I've told students too, like, ⁓ I've literally pulled my phone out and said, Hey, just so you know, I'm taking notes because I wanna remember this. What you're saying is important to me. And then next week I'm gonna follow up on a couple of those points. Hey, how did that game go? How did that you know, ⁓ you can't make every single game. There they're speaker-0: How did Summer with Dad go? speaker-1: Ooh, that's good. That's really good. ⁓ That's really, really good. speaker-0: Like or ha shooting that kid and I mean I've had one which is why I brought that up, you know, where where dad lives not not even just in a different town but a different state and dad doesn't get to have custody over kid all school year because he goes to school here and then all summer long he's kind of forced to go up there and he hates it. So what does that look like when you're trying to reach out to that student? Is it a hey man, ⁓ like I know I know you're up speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: with your dad, how what's how's it going? Is there anything I can do? Like here's some thing like here's some ideas for like movies you can watch while you're up there or like something like that. Just like stuff like that. Yeah. And so like students have to be known. Number two, students have to be missed. One of the most powerful texts you can send is, Hey, we missed you tonight. speaker-1: Keep them going. speaker-0: It's one of the simplest and most practical practices and most powerful practices in youth ministry. Notice when people aren't there. Not in a way that creates guilt. I I don't do that. not hey, where were you last week? Like that's not how you write that. speaker-1: sheer amount of I I think I've talked about it here, but the sheer amount of students that I've seen like when I go to the schools and I'm around other youth pastors and I and I don't mean this in a in a shady way, but like Or to throw shade, I mean. ⁓ but like the sheer amount of times that I see students going, ⁓ I'm so sorry I wasn't there, I was and then like it got to a point where I was hearing it so much where it was like, ⁓ I'm sorry I had this thing and like you could see the worry on their face. Like they're gonna be judged or they're going to be excommunicated or they're gonna, you know, fail a grade or something, and I'm like Or you know, when I have a student come up to and they're like, Hey, I'm really sorry I missed because of it's okay. Sometimes just simply saying, It's okay. We love you. We miss you're doing well. speaker-0: That goes into church. That church. The number of people that are just members of our church that I see in public and they're like, ⁓ we're sorry we haven't been there in the last three weeks. I'm like, first off, like I and this sounds terrible, so like I I say this kind of tongue in cheek, but like David said, Well, my my church has about right now we're probably in the realm of four hundred on a Sunday. ⁓ and so it's like I didn't even know you were gone. Like why are you telling me this? Like and that sounds terrible, but it's like man I can't like I I have my responsibilities on Sunday mornings and and that's worship and youth and I don't know adults are gone. Like speaker-1: By the people think that because you're leading worship on a stage, you notice every single person because you can look out. No. You are looking at people, but you're not necessarily noticing people. speaker-0: You your your your gaze is hitting them, but you are not in like intentionally focusing on Play this next call. Yeah, but with that though, going back to the idea of like, you know, where were you last week is not the right way to address that. It's hey, hey, we missed seeing you. Like we missed you last week. Yeah. ⁓ is everything okay? How are you doing? Like that goes from a like ga guilt and shame response to a ⁓ wow, they actually noticed that I was gone and they actually care enough to ask. speaker-1: Yeah. Like speaker-0: One communicates accountability, the other c communicates care. and here's the thing, you don't need a perfect attendance system to do this, you need leaders that pay attention. Like at the end of the day, like we d we take attendance on Planning Center or whole church uses Planning Center. ⁓ and some days we miss a lot of check ins because we do it ourselves. ⁓ I'd love to get to the point to where we just have kids check in as they get there. ⁓ but it it's one of those things that it's like, man, like that that that has a very different dynamic. ⁓ but like a lot of times I'm like, hey, like I count forty seven kids in this room and the roster only says we have thirty-two. So when we split into our groups, just write down who's in your group real quick. stuff like that. Like it's important. speaker-1: Who didn't? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. I think the other thing and we talk a lot about this in in here is the importance of getting students to step up and lead certain things. Yeah. Like when you notice that somebody is missing, yes, you can absolutely reach out, but also be you know, have a couple of students that strategically you can go, hey, will you check in and make sure they're okay? Yeah. And a lot of times by doing that, my favorite response to that honestly is this. Yeah, I already texted them, this is where they're at. And I'm like, God bless you. Because Because I knew I could count on you because you're the kind of person who cares. And like and I have I have basically a male and female in junior high and high school. always that they're ready that I can I can hey will you reach out and I can tell you ninety percent of the time by the time I ask them to to check and make sure this person's okay they've either already texted them or if they're they're present but they they have like disappeared to the bathroom because they're upset ⁓ they've already gone or sent somebody else to make sure that that person's okay and I'm like man that is such a cool thing like when you're like hey will you check and then you realize they've they're already on it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: on top of and they're paying attention you're like, man, I've got a great group. speaker-0: It's great. It's great. And the thing is is that that kind of bleeds into our next kind of s ⁓ number three as far as like so we talked about students need to be known, they need to be missed. Students need to be needed. Yeah. And so if you give students jobs and you allow them to invest themselves into what they're doing, this is where belonging moves from I am welcome to I have a place. I have a responsibility. I have a job. I have a s people are ri like requiring things of me. And when you have that ⁓ it gives students meaningful opportunities to contribute. And it's not, hey, can you just help me stack chairs? Although that's fine. If you have a break like a put up and tear down crew and that's their job, that's okay. That's fine. But like sometimes it needs to be more than just hey, can you pick up chairs or hey, can you pick up trash or hey, can you do this? Have someone lead a prayer. Have someone welcome new students. Have someone join the worship team. Help with technology, serve younger students, share a testimony, help plan an event, participate in service opportunities. Yeah. Like, don't just give students jobs though, give them ownership. speaker-1: Yeah, they're gonna know if they're just basically grunt workers. They're gonna feel it. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And so I mean the thing is is like there's there's a difference. A job says, Hey, this needs to be done. Ownership says, Hey, we believe you have something to contribute. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Sorry, go ahead. speaker-0: This changes how you're good. I was just gonna say it changes how students see themselves. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean use their unique gifts and passions. Like, ⁓ I say it all the time, if it doesn't exist, start it. one of the best ways to see students really grow as well as help grow your ministry is to give them the freedom to try new things. It may not work and be honest and have those those conversations and go, hey, can we maybe pivot a little bit or can we rethink? You know, let's go back to the drawing board or whatever. But if someone goes, I really want to try this thing and I think it would be effective, it may not be in your DNA, but be willing to to let them try things and fail. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: makes a huge difference in their life and it teaches them a lot about how they can use their gifts and passions in a in a way to be creative. Or maybe it's a thing that works one time and won't work again and that's okay too. But giving them the the freedom to try things and explore things is vitally important to their their life as a Christian. speaker-0: Yeah, no, definitely. I think that's a huge part. and so number four, last one. students need to feel safe being themselves. belonging requires authenticity. And so the thing is is like students shouldn't have to perform a version of themselves to fit into our ministry. We should be fighting against that regularly. We should be fighting against clicks regularly. They need to know I can ask questions here. They need to know that I can admit I'm struggling here. They can admit and they can know that I don't have to pretend I have everything figured out. That doesn't mean that there are no boundaries. Healthy ministry absolutely needs boundaries. But the room should be for honesty. ⁓ because if students believe they have to look spiritually perfect to belong, eventually they'll either pretend or they'll leave. And neither creates discipleship. Belonging begins when students realize that they don't have to perform to have a place. When that and and I've had a conversation with a senior this year. It's just this mindset of she's like, I hey, like, you know, I I'm kinda forced into leadership positions on in my school. ⁓ all the time, I really don't feel like I I I want to be a leader at youth. I just want to sit and actually get to learn and get to get to like work on understanding and work on embracing Jesus myself. and I'm not saying no leadership forever, but I'm saying like this year not. j I just can't. And I I'm I have to be okay with that. I mean there's definitely part of me that's like ⁓ no, you're a senior. I want you to lead. I want you to and like there's obvio obviously like all of us want those seniors that are in leadership. But sometimes they're not, and that's okay. And sometimes like building that authenticity or building that culture of belonging hopefully gives those opportunities to speak up and say, Hey I I'm I really don't think I can do this. And and y especially with practice and time, you can typically tell the ones that actually mean it and the ones that just need a little extra push to get out. and so I think that's a huge dynamic to understand. So like don't don't just start pushing people. and but I think it's I think it's something that's vitally important. is like just having that space and having that awareness that they can speak up and say, Hey, look, I I need I need to step out, I need to back off because I I see myself in a position to where like it's not beneficial for me or other people for me to be in leadership. speaker-1: Yeah, and then that's where you can be specific and saying, How can I help you in this season? Yes. You know, and and by navigating that, it may be it may be something where it's not an entire year. It's for this next month, I really just I gotta get myself refocused and recentered. Okay, how can I help you? What resources can I give you? How can we pray and stuff like that? And maybe by the end of the semester they're like, All right, I'm ready to jump back in. And you're like, Great, fantastic. You saw a Need you feel the need. ⁓ and they felt seen and heard in that. And it's a ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, like my conversation with her was like, Hey, that's totally fine. I said, However, on the other side of this, I said, You you you can't leave accountability without keeping accountability, kind of thing like that. If you don't want to be accountable as a leader, I need you to be accountable as a learner and I can't help you where you are if I don't know where you are. So I was like, You have to be communicative with me. You have to share what you're struggling with, you have to be open into the idea of letting me know where you are so I can help you learn and help you move to that next part of where you want to be. ⁓ And so I I a lot of times I say, and it's not the perfect example, but ⁓ it's worked pretty well for me is I say, look, on a on a scale of one to ten, where are you in your faith? speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: One being like I have nothing I have no clue about Jesus. I'm just here because of my friends. And ten is like, man, he is my rock. I spend time with him every single day. Like I cannot do life without Jesus. And like typically somewhere it falls into the the four to seven or eight range. ⁓ but then I'm like, Well, hey, why do you why do you say that? And that's where the gold comes out. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. speaker-0: Because they're evaluating their own faith and they're trying to put a number but then put an explanation to that number together on why they feel where they feel and why they are where they are and what that next step might be. And so it's a huge one. I've actually had a student a couple of years ago that I asked that question. ⁓ we were in high school, like our high school group goes and hangs out at a restaurant afterwards, and we're sitting at Chick-fil-A, and I like, Hey, like, so I don't wanna pry, but you never gave me your answer, like one to ten, like where do you think you And she was like, ⁓ five. I was like, okay. I was like, that's kind of stuck in the middle. Like, like, can you tell me why? And she goes, Well, I know about Jesus. I know what he's done. I know what he I know what he means. I know what he did. and I definitely believe in him, but I haven't given my life to him yet. And I was like, Okay. I was like, so my next question is what's stopping you? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. speaker-0: And she was like ⁓ well nothing I guess. And so in the Chick-fil-A parking lot she gave her life to Jesus. Like And it's just one of those things that was like we we made all kinds of jokes about the Lord's chicken and, you know, ⁓ everything, which rightfully you have to. But it was just this dynamic of like sometimes that's all they need. ⁓ is they need that place to be honest and they need that place to think for themselves and evaluate themselves and challenge themselves and belonging brings that. speaker-1: Yeah. Where they can go, Maybe I am more ready and maybe this is not as complicated as I'm making it. Mm-hmm. And that's a great step. I mean that's pivotal. I mean ultimately we're all in that position in some way, shape or form, you know? speaker-0: Yeah. So I mean at the end of the day we have to shift the culture and I'm gonna go through this fairly quickly 'cause we we're gonna this th we had a lot of content for this episode and I'm I we try to keep it under an hour. ⁓ so ⁓ how do we actually move from a tendency focused ministry towards a belonging focused ministry? I think it starts with three major shifts. ⁓ and I I think all of these are important. I think all of these can kind of be ⁓ interpreted into your own way. ⁓ but I think these three are important. ⁓ shift one is from platform focused to people focused. This doesn't mean that the platform doesn't matter. Teaching matters, worship matters, programming matters, but none of those things are the destination. At the end of the day, they're tools to get to the most important part, and it's not how is what we're doing helping us know and disciple people. Maybe the better question after youth grew I mean ⁓ the question becomes that. Sorry, I've notes r I read wrong. ⁓ the question isn't like was worship good or was teaching good or was all this stuff happening? Like, did it all work how we planned it? Maybe it is, hey, how is what we're doing here helping us know and disciple people? Because at the end of the day, that's the goal. That's what we're doing. And maybe the question isn't did the program work or was worship good enough or ⁓ was my lesson okay to who did we connect with tonight? I think that's a huge shift from platform focused to people focused. Secondly, I think a shift from big moments to consistent relationship, and we've talked about this before in the podcast. We love big moments. We love camp, we love mission trips, we love retreats, we love special services, we love Christmas parties, we love Easter events, but God can work through those moments, but belonging usually isn't created in those. Okay? It's created through small repeated moments. It's created through a volunteer who sits beside a student every single week. It's created through a youth pastor who remembers what's happening at school. The leader who asks the second question. ⁓ the adult who notices when a student isn't themselves. Those moments don't make great Instagram posts. They're not the ⁓ hey, look at all this stuff that we did. But they can make lifelong disciples. Belonging is rarely built in a moment, it's built through a pattern of moments. speaker-1: Right. It's the easy to miss stuff. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. speaker-1: often becomes the most pivotal moments a student will remember. And that's the funny thing is like sometimes like we've talked about these Ebenezer moments in our in our student ministry. and I think those are absolutely important. But sometimes we think Ebenezer moments are these big like platforms of like God really got a hold of me it was this huge monumental moment in my life. And sometimes it's like how did you know? I knew because for the eighteenth time this person sat beside me even though I was a total jerk to them. Yeah. That seems so small, but it was just the moment that light clicked on for them and it was because of all those little moments that led to it and they go, You looked at me a certain way and I just felt seen. That seems small, but to them it was everything. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah Yeah, definitely. No, and that's the thing. ⁓ and then I mean yeah, a hundred percent. It it's those moments. It's the moments that are the small, week to week, maintained moments. ⁓ shift number three, from programming to pastoring. ⁓ this might be the biggest shift. ⁓ programming asks what are we doing tonight? Who's gonna be there? Pastoring asks who are we caring for tonight? ⁓ those questions can lead to completely different decisions. Maybe the schedule says you have ten minutes for small groups, but the conversation is going really, really well. A program says we have to move on, pastoring says what does the student need right now? So that's the difference. Sometimes the most important ministry moments are the ones that weren't on the schedule. And we talked about this just I think last week, right? ⁓ on this on the mindset of like, you know, having a time and a space and having having like ⁓ these opportunities that are unplanned and not consuming every waking moment of every ⁓ time that the students have free. ⁓ because sometimes we need those unplanned moments for those huge decisions and huge moments to happen. Okay, ⁓ and so finally, ⁓ this is our last bit. I appreciate it for listening on and hanging out with us for this long. But five ⁓ just practical ways to build belonging. ⁓ let's get extremely practical with this, as as practical as we can think of. ⁓ if you're a student ministry list ⁓ leader listening to this, ⁓ here's four things that you can implement this month. ⁓ and literally have them in your program by the end of this month. rock solid continuing on for the remainder of the school year. Train your leaders to notice. We talked a couple weeks ago about training and practicing your face in the mirror, but we also have to train your volunteers on who is new, who is alone, who seems different tonight, who haven't I seen recently, who keeps showing up but doesn't seem connected. You're creating a ministry culture where leaders aren't supervising students They're shepherding them. That's a huge dynamic change, and it's really, really important. It's not about where to stand, what time to arrive, what activity they're responsible for. You're teaching them to notice the things that matter. Secondly, create smaller environments. Large gatherings create energy, smaller environments create connection. We've always ⁓ we've probably most of us have probably heard the expression ⁓ circles are better than rows. ⁓ just this idea that small groups, tables, circles, one on one conversations, serving teams, mentoring relationships, the goal isn't to make the entire ministry s feel small, it's to make sure that every student has somewhere to be known. Build a first time guest pathway is number three. ⁓ think through what happens when a student walks into your ministry for the first time. Who greets them? Who introduces them to other students? Who helps them know what's happening? Who follows up afterwards? Who remembers them next week? A first time visitor shouldn't have to figure out your culture by themselves. ⁓ and then we should make belonging easier by doing this, hopefully. ⁓ because When they don't have to figure it out on their own and they are walked through and they are given the opportunity to just be there, but they're being a part of the belonging process already, it helps in the long run. And then number four, track connection, not just attendance. And this might be a significant change for some ministries, and honestly, this is probably one that we need to track metrically wise a little bit better. keep attendance. Absolutely. You need to know who's there. You need to know who's not. Trends are important because when you track trends, when you track attendance, you have the opportunity to see when your ministry is gonna be at a high peak, when your ministry is gonna be at a low peak, depending on what's going on at school, ⁓ and all those different things. But consider tracking things like who is connected to a small group, who has a consistent adult leader, who is serving, who is new. Who has stopped coming? Who seems disconnected? And ⁓ the beautiful thing about a lot of these ⁓ management softwares like Planning Center and Breeze and ⁓ all the other ones, a lot of them have this built-in automated, whether it's like lists or something to that nature, but you can build these lists that basically say, Hey, take everybody that has been in youth for the last month, like who has attended youth in the last month. But missed last week. And it'll auto form this for you to where you don't have to go hunting. You don't have to remember, ⁓ well, they were here last week. You can run a list and computer will do it for you. Like it it's it makes it really, really easy. Then you say, ⁓ well, hey, I have their number, I have their number, I have their number. I'm gonna send out individual texts to all of them. Some of y'all might already have their phone numbers in your database and you can text from your platform out to these kids. ⁓ and so all of it is a really, really good thing, and it's really, really important to have as a opportunity to just keep them connected. ⁓ because eventually what you measure communicates what matters. ⁓ if the only number we celebrate is attendance, we shouldn't be surprised when attendance becomes the primary goal. So, challenge for student ministry leaders as we close out. Here's the challenge. Take your current student list. Don't look at it as like a spreadsheet. Look at it as a group of teenagers that God has entrusted in your care. And ask who is known, who is connected, who is needed, who is on the fringe, who would notice if they stopped coming. And then ask the harder questions. Who am I unintentionally overlooking? Because every youth minister has students who naturally attract attention. You have some that thrive off of it, and they are very, very hard to get away from. They're outgoing, they're funny, they're talented, they're involved, they're easy to lead, but Jesus consistently teaches us to notice the people that others might overlook. So we need to work on building ministries that do the same. Any closing thoughts, David? speaker-1: Yeah. Nope, that's that's everything, man. Like being intentional, and staying involved, especially for the students that have a lot going on. ⁓ I've got a whole group of students that live ⁓ thirty plus miles away from us and yeah, it is hard for them to consistently and sometimes they have to just choose one time a week. They can't be here three times a week. They can only do one. Yeah. And because the core of our ministry happens ⁓ well. those other two times, I've gotta be really, really intentional to make sure that they don't feel like they've they're falling through the cracks. And so that's me reaching out and and going, hey, I may not have you ⁓ at all those times, so how can I how can I reach out to you and make sure that you're you're staying involved in in yeah you know practical ways and in and being able to communicate. And but one of the big things that I've started implementing, ⁓ mostly 'cause Brent does and I thought it was brilliant. The more he talks about like we have to be investing in the parents as much as we invest in our students. If our parents are our primary disciple makers, then I need to do as much as I can to get as much resources to our parents to help them win as much as our students. And so what I started doing is taking taking my sermon notes and turning every single one of our our whether it's a sermon, whether it's a a resource, whatever it is, our Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night curriculum into a Personal reflection guide and a weekly challenge. I started putting that on our Group Me where our parents and students can access it at any time, any place, anywhere they go. And every lesson is on there. And what I what I put on our event calendars to our parents is here's our current series for the month. Or if it goes longer, it goes longer, but whatever. Each each month has this is our current series on Wednesday night, Sunday night, and Sunday morning. Ask your student about what they're learning and how you can help them. Them in what they're and and then from there they can literally go in and say, This last Sunday morning we talked about, this last Sunday night we talked about when's and they have practical questions. And so those questions are questions the students can be wrestling with, and they're and the parents can honestly be wrestling with too. Because I've had some parents go, This is really good. Like I've been really thinking more about it, and I kind of want to know, like I kind of want to hear your sermon. I'm like, well, great. Sunday night, we'd Love to have you, you know, that kind of thing. And it's it's also opening doors for our parents to get more involved, which is incredible. And so you might go, that's a lot of extra work. It's worth it. Because I could tell you the conversations I've had in the last couple of months with our our parents have been incredible. And the conversations and and when I think about those those students that are on the fringe that can't make it to all those things, but they still get that material, they go, I don't feel like a total bum missing out now because I feel like I'm still a part. And then I and I I invite them and say, hey, you may not have been able to make it on Sunday night, but if you have any questions, reach out to me. I'd love to go over it with you. Or I'll go get coffee with you. Or I'll go I'll go to your school and we can talk about it. Like it's fine. and that's that's gonna be those moments where they still feel like they belong even when they can't be there every week. Yep. It's not because they don't wanna be, but because gas is expensive right now and they can only make it once. speaker-0: Yep. Yep. And so Yeah. So the challenge or the question I want to leave you with today is if every student in your ministry truly believed that they belong, what would have to change? speaker-1: That's okay. speaker-0: Okay. So with that, let's pray as we've been doing. ⁓ and then we will close out this episode. But thank you for listening. Also, obviously, ⁓ word of mouth is the way that we do this. So we've had a huge influx of podcast listeners as of late. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you were new here. ⁓ we have a ton of episodes. Go find some that work for you. ⁓ you can search on our website, ⁓ smcpodcast.com ⁓ and you can go and find the obviously we're at two seventy. ⁓ so we have a few. ⁓ and with that, there some of them are the older ones we had guests where we interviewed guests. ⁓ the newer ones we've been me and David, so there's tons of content. ⁓ we'd love for you to be a part. ⁓ and then also just share it with your youth pastor friends. That's really the only advertisement we do. ⁓ and we've been doing it for going on six years. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: So we love it. We appreciate it. Thank you for listening. Thank you for any apart. And if you want to be on the show or you have some contributions that you'd love to throw in towards an episode, we'd love to hear from you. ⁓ shoot us an email, podcast at student ministry conversations.org or find us on Instagram or Facebook at Talk Student Men is our handle. ⁓ but let's pray. God, thank you for entrusting us with students. ⁓ I just pray that you help us see beyond numbers, help us see people. ⁓ give us eyes to notice the students who feel invisible, ears to hear the students who need someone to listen, ⁓ and hearts that are willing to slow down enough to care. ⁓ help us create ministries where students don't have to earn belonging. ⁓ help us create ministries where they are known, where they are loved, where they are challenged to become more like you. ⁓ I just pray that you will help us remind ⁓ help us remember that our calling isn't simply just to fill rooms. ⁓ it's to shepherd people. Give us wisdom as we lead our ministries into this next season. ⁓ we just pray all these things in your son's name. Amen.