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Splitting Middle School & High School Youth Ministries: Practical Tips to Make it Happen · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Are you wanting to split your junior, high and high school youth ministries, but you're not exactly sure what that looks like.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Well, today we're gonna give you some practical tips on how you can make it happen.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This question comes from Tyler Norman, who is wanting to split his middle school and high school youth ministries and he's asking what his role as the youth minister would be if he makes that split, and how should he divide his energy, attention and time to ensure he is as effective as possible?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: First of all, yay for you.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Go Tyler, go Tyler.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: That's a hard thing to do because it sounds like you're a staff of one.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: That's a hard thing to do because it sounds like you're a staff of one, and we know that if you're only one youth pastor, that is a really big undertaking, because now you are working two different ministries and maybe two different nights or two different locations or something.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: You've now increased your work, but hopefully it's not forever and you are increasing the health of your youth ministry, which will increase the size of your youth ministry, and then maybe at some point you can hire someone to do the other job.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: But what do you do while you're in the middle there?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Because that's a great question, but I'm proud of you for seeking health over convenience for your youth ministry.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So ideally, tyler, what you would do is you would focus your energy on developing two thriving teams, and so, where you used to put your effort toward content or materials and stuff like that, now you want to put most of your effort toward building teams, because if this is going to be a sustainable solution, you're going to need two really thriving teams.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: You're going to need that middle school team and you're going to need your high school team because you're only one person and you can't do it all.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: You're going to be the glue that holds it all together.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: You can't do it all.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: You're going to be the glue that holds it all together.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: But you really need to start highly investing in people who are going to start owning stuff and running those jobs down the field and taking ownership over parts of ministry that you assign them.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And you're going to be the glue, like I said, you're going to be equipping them, supporting them.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: But what you really need to do hopefully these can be like intern type positions I'm not talking about necessarily paid, but intern type positions of starting to recruit people to work more alongside you, at the center of your youth ministry.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So, for example, you would have a high school team and you'd have a middle school team.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Should he decide who goes where or let his current volunteer staff decide that?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I think it definitely needs to be a discussion with them of who feels called where.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not a huge fan of like, oh we are middle school and then we transition to high school, and then we go back down to middle school and then we go to high school when the leaders go with them every grade up.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just feel like that is definitely a preference for the youth pastor.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: I'll just speak from my own experience.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I feel, like my leaders, I would rather them be loyal to the ministry, because that creates momentum, than this continue revolving door like see you in four years.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: But people that come and are committed to this ministry week in and week out, that works really well for me.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So I would talk to your leaders and say all right, we need to split this.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Who wants to stick with middle school and who wants to go to high school?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe the only way to get them on board is to say well, you're going to move with your students all the way to their senior year and that's where you need to start it because of the culture has already been set.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It's like well, we've been one ministry, now you're telling me I have to choose.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So in that context it might make more sense.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: But I would pick people from those volunteer teams.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: So let's say I had 10 middle school volunteers and I had 10 high school volunteers, and then I'd really hone in on those people and say, well, who can I pass off emceeing to like, this is a person who's great up in front, who can host the night, who can do the announcements, who's energetic and lively, engaging, and I can start to develop that skill.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: And then I'm not saying that they're already a pro emcee host, I'm saying who has a little bit of a potential that you could co-lead with for a while and make them a killer MC.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: The other role I'd look for is and also killer.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Mc could be a cool rap name, Just saying go ahead In 1989, definitely so.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: The other role I'd look for is who is really great at leading games I'm not going to ask them to plan the game but who could set it up, make sure we have the supplies and run it, so dividing the teams and emceeing the game portion.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And then I'd look for someone who has some teaching potential, who can I'm not saying that they're like, oh, I don't have any teachers on my team.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: These are people you're going to have to develop.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: So, tyler, buckle up, because this is going to be a season of really high intentional development of your team.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: But trust me, if you can do it, it'll pay off so hard in the end.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And so if you could get three killer people that are intern, like for your middle school team and then for your high school team, and then your part is, like I said, develop the heck out of them, but also plan the heck ahead.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: So that will be what saves you in this season is spend some time sitting down and developing your teaching calendar for the year and your game calendar for the year.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: If I were in your position, what I would do is I would come up with teaching series that have the potential to overlap, so I'm not running two teaching series simultaneously.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I would change up my illustrations and my you know intensity depending on if I'm talking to junior hires or high schoolers, but I would try to keep the content, the topic as similar as possible.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing I would do is I would go on DYM, download the ether industry, and here's why is because a screen game will save your life on a weekend or a midweek.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Screen games are especially popular for high school.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Um, I would do half and half games for high school.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I would do every other week one more active game and then a screen game from DYM I would do every other, and then I would use those screen games for the weekend also, and then I would look into their co-leader program.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It's like this new thing that kind of gives you a roadmap for youth ministry.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It's a graphics package, it's a sermon series package, it's talk sheets, it's everything you need and in this season, like I said, you've got to kind of put content building on the back burner and people developing on the front burner, and so any help you can get co-leader from download youth ministry will literally save your life.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And if you just want to dabble, just go to Download Youth Ministry and you could buy sermon series a la carte or you could buy the games or whatever.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: But you're going to need a lot of crutches when it comes to your content for a while until you get these teams up and running, and this whole plan with the bottom line goal of being we don't want Tyler to burn out and quit.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: We want him to, at the end of this, have two very thriving, very healthy, very separate youth ministries that are doing so well that his senior pastor says which one do you want to run?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Let's hire someone to do the other one.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Chicken and the egg here.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: What do you do first, when it's like you're building up this team, are you saying, like, okay, like let's say, starting January 1st, we're splitting.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So do you say, like, now that we've figured out who's going to be on which team, is it like, as you have split, then you're now pouring into this, the junior high ministry, and you're pouring into the high school ministry?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Or do you say we're going to split in spring and now you take from this longer runway, from now until the beginning of spring, to train up those teams, to launch them?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Like, are you doing it more right away and then training on the fly, or training and then breaking off?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like the best kind of training is on the job training, and so I would say split sooner than figure it out.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because how am I supposed to teach someone how to MC in front of a bunch of junior hires when we don't have a bunch of junior hires?
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It's junior hire and high schoolers mixed together, so I would just that's how I learned.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It's like we're doing it, let's go and you're to.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: It's like a coach player mentality.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: You know like I'm going to be alongside you, we MC together, or you know I I have you teach little bits, like I'll just have you share your testimony and then you know I'll have you use this prepackaged curriculum to kind of just get your feet wet.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: But you didn't have to create it from the ground up.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And then I'm going to have you know, and so I think they actually need to be doing it in order to learn it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: That makes sense.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: It's just a really heavy load for the pastor because it's constant mentoring, constant coaching, constant discipling until they have wings of their own and can fly.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: That's why take everything off your plate, plan ahead.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Don't be because if you're trying to brainstorm like what game should we play, but I also have to develop you, no, you have to have the plan set, all the help there, buy the package curriculum by the $4 game on DYM and be done with it and then focus on the person.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So I say you got to do it at the same time.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: But that's a good question.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Next question I have is a lot of people would like to um and I'm sure parents are a fan of this too but it's like, instead of having it's like junior high is Tuesday night, high school is Wednesday night or whatever night you choose Instead of having it the like junior high is Tuesday night, high school is Wednesday night or whatever night you choose, instead of having it the two nights, saying we're having both Wednesday night and this is assuming you have enough space, I guess, to account for both.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: But sometimes they'll do like we meet and play games together and then we split off Like what are your thoughts on those situations?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: People aren't going to like it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you have to be at the same location at the same time and then they're just separate, it's like okay, sunday morning my kids are in junior high room, high school is in their room, we don't really cross paths.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Tuesday night we get the whole church to ourself and it's junior highville and we grow because we have the room for it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: More and more kids come because I feel like they know their space.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You know they say when the room feels 80% full, a person attending feels like it's 100% full and people are a lot less likely to invite their friends if things feel like they're at capacity.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: So those are a couple reasons I like to keep it only junior high, only high school.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: If I were a pastor that had to do both and I had to share space, you know I would have to do what I had to do and maybe I toggle back and forth between the two ministries.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: But it's to me more ideal to have it be your own space, your own night.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: But I get like, hey, that's two full nights of program that I would have to do.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Right and it's easier said than done of program that I would have to do.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Right, I think there's a lot of like getting your feet wet and then getting a little further in and then getting deeper and deeper.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: But I think from what I'm gathering from you is you're saying just jump in or just rip that bandaid off, sure, split your nights and just go for it.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it will be.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: There's that initial maybe you will have.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: They might both shrink like and it's kind of that um, multiplication by division totally, and all of a sudden people think like it's, it feels empty, all of a sudden right.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: But I think ultimately don't stay the course yeah, people panic because they're like we split, no, I have nobody.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, well, there might be, I mean, any change, and that's a drastic change.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a pain point that you're going to have to continue, but again, it's a long-term goal of health and I'm not a huge fan of like let's combine for the game and then break up because this problem remains the same.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think high schoolers want to invite their high school friends to anything where there's a seventh grade boy there if they get to pelt him in the head with a dodgeball, it might sweeten the pot a little bit I mean maybe, but you know there are games that only high schoolers like to play, and there are games that junior hires prefer to play.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So you are, I just watering it down yeah, what's that saying?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: if you try to reach everyone, you're reaching no one.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And maybe that's a little bit too dramatic of a statement for this context, because some people might be saying well, there's not a huge difference between junior, high and high school, you know, I just think there is a huge difference between them.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And the games that my junior hires want to play, my high schoolers don't.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: The style of worship that my junior hires want, my high schoolers don't.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: The level of teaching that my junior hires want, my high schoolers don't.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: The level of teaching that my junior hires want is not.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It's just none of.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: It's the same yeah, no, it makes sense but I've heard people that are like we stayed together and it's awesome.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: So I mean, do here's what I was telling.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: One of our listeners today is like you have to lead your ministry, you have to lead your ministry, you have to lead it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: I am one pastor and that is just my opinion, and since Tyler was asking, I'm like, hey, and if he's doing it, I'm going to help you.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But if you find, for whatever like your context is, for some reason, it just works so well and you're bursting at the seams and it's healthy and growing combining, then by all means, I guess, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I personally just I, I think and I we cover this, if you guys want to check out another episode, all about splitting your middle, middle school and high school and the point we kept or you kept point driving home was ideal.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This is ideal to split, so there might be these outliers where you say yeah, but this and yeah but.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: A combined youth ministry is better than no youth ministry.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You know that's for sure.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: So if you're doing youth ministry and it's combined good, Like it's better than not doing it at all, I'm sure you're doing great.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: But you're right, Like in an ideal world it would be that way.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Can it always be?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: In an ideal world, I'd have a $50,000 budget, right?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So ideally, if you can split and make it work, it really just comes down to are you willing to put in the hard work and effort for a season to make it happen?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so make sure you check out the other episode we did why you know splitting your middle school and high school is a good idea.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: It can end up being a controversial topic, which I did not like at face value.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I'm like, how would that be controversial?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: But it kind of does get that way.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: But I think Well, check it out, let us.