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5 Things Youth Pastors NEED TO DO Before the Year Ends! · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Student ministries can be rather thankless and it can feel like were there any results?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Like we did it every week.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I think one of my pet peeves of leadership is when people climb to a peak and, instead of pausing there and reflecting and enjoying it and celebrating, they just say but look at that peak.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That's our next one.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: When you don't actually pause to celebrate the wins each and every time, then it's just this constant chase.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about five things that youth pastors have got to do before the year ends.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: ["the Year Ends"].
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach podcast where every week we bring you practical and actionable steps to help you grow the size and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeff Lascola and this is Kristen Lascola, and today we're talking about five things that every youth pastor needs to do before the end of the year.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So when this is recorded, this is in November.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: You might be listening to it anytime and it will help you anytime, but as you near the end of the year, there's a few sort of orders of business that I like to make sure I have in place that I have done to ensure that I have a smooth transition into the new year and that I'm ready for it, and it starts as early as November.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So this might take a couple months for you to do.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: But, number one assess your budget.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So what you wanna know is do you need more money?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Do you need to ask for more money?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Or, however your context works, maybe you have to raise funds or allocate accounts differently.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: But look at your budget, what you've spent so far year to date and how you've spent it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you have a system.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Hopefully you have a budget.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you have a budget.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: If not, skip to number two or ask for a budget.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: That would be a great step one.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: May I have a budget, please?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And then look at your account and see how did I spend my money?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I just got done doing that.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I looked at every month January, all the way through year to date November, whatever and was like, okay, here's how we spent our money and got a good picture of right now I'm like I don't keep it the same, like I could do the same ministry, even though the things you wanna consider if you're asking for more money is you need a really clear why.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Well, we have more students, that's a great reason.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: We have more staff.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: We have a program or a ministry or an event that we wanna launch in this next year.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: We have big plans.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So if you're going to ask, make sure you have your reasons why.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Be ready to pitch it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, be ready to pitch it, and you wanna be a good steward of that budget, and you need to be able to show.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I managed it really well.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're not coming in the red.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you at least broke even or maybe even had a little bit to spare to show we managed this really well.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'm projecting for next year, though, so assess your budget, and if you don't need any more money, then one thing to consider is did we spend it the way that I wished we had?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Did you get to this time of year?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: This is a great time to be thinking about it, because there could be things you wish you could do right now that you can't, and if you had planned, maybe there was a conference you wanted to go to, maybe there was a course you wanted to take, oink, maybe there was a event you wanted to do for Christmas.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe you were like me I think I've told you guys this before one year I couldn't afford to get my leaders Christmas gifts so I like went to Dollar Tree and got.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I still have the scarf to prove it.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Scarfs and probably socks or something lame.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: No, it was just a scarf.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: That's it Just a scarf.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Nothing, more nothing less.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: There's a picture of you wearing it somewhere.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: It's funny.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: It's like three strands of yarn.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That's about it.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: You wore it well.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Your neck is little, so it was okay.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Pencil neck.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I remember really regretting that that year of man.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: These people work so hard and I wanted to give them something nice ish and thank them.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think they were expecting Tiffany's bracelets or Rolexes, but I mean something.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I was, but it's okay, is that why you quit?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where's my Rolex?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I just feel like it is a good gesture to have I planned ahead for this, or to have a little party for them or a thank you or some kind of appreciation, but if you're out of money, that can be really discouraging.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I think that your point we were making was go back and look at where some of those like those points were like did summer camp, like we were $700 over a budget and or maybe even like $100 over a budget and that would have been the gifts to buy, exactly.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Or maybe there was an event that you're like I could have charged for that I should have.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Or I should have charged a little more, like we did a Glover night.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Or instead of charging seven bucks, I should have charged 10 bucks a person, and then that would have gone further.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Or, ooh, we lost money on summer camp this year.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure we charge a little more because gas prices have gotten up.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: So just spend some time with your budget strategizing for the next year so that you're able to make your money go further and be a really good steward of what you do have and know if you need to ask for more.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: And also being that good steward of the money, because some of you might be thinking like, well, we don't like to charge for things.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Like you know to make it for free for students, which is great if your budget allows for that.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: But I think if you can just continue to reinvest that money into your youth ministry, it's not like it's lining the pockets of the youth pastor.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It doesn't go to us Right.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I don't get my budget if I don't spend it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: If you can, then roll that money back into the ministry for things like gifts for leaders or scholarships for students to go to camp, or I mean there's so many things there's like a cool year end thing, like I every year look at my room and I add something cool.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Like last year we got a switch with all the controllers and all the chargers and all the games Like we had.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: We were really smart with our budget throughout the year and we were able to do that.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: This year I got a big neon sign that has our ministry name in it, that because our stage is totally bare, you know, it's just like a couple of TVs.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So we got that.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So every year I kind of look and think, ooh, what can I do for the students?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: What can I do for the leaders?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: What can I do that?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I like those kinds of things like consumables it makes for a great party but those things that you can put in your room and enjoy for years to come, Like.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I look around the room and I'm like, oh yeah, that was this year and I still have those things.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I have a countdown clock in my room for our summer camp and it just makes it so everyone's always thinking about our big summer camp and it has pictures around it and a cool like logo plate around it.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: It's awesome.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And so I just look around like, ooh, that was cause I didn't spend all my budget.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I got to do some kind of fun for our room making it look really nice.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: So answer those questions.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Number two assess your goals for next year.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So I think a great thing to do for this is meet with your team and just ask these questions what is working really well?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: What do we need to continue to do?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: What's not working well?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: What is kind of like a red light, like stop?
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: This is like in crisis, this area and then what is a possibility for next year?
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: What do we want?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: If the question we always ask if we were able to do this in the next year, we would say it was a good year.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So, what is that?
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's a few things.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: If we were able to do this, this and this in the next year, it would be a good year.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: What is that?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: So maybe you need to up your game with visitors.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have no assimilation process and you can tell your team if we're able to have retention and follow up with visitors.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: If that is our A game next year, this time next year will be like that was awesome.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe camp needs a total makeover and you could say that would have been.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That would make our year great if we had a dynamic camp.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Whatever that is, but it probably would be best to not do that alone.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So you really want your team's perspective on that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: If you don't have any paid staff, that's okay, ask your volunteers.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: They probably have a really great perspective on your ministry I know mine do especially the ones that have been around long enough.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: One of them she was so funny the other day.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: We're like literally dissecting our relay race together.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: She's like I've been around for a long time, okay.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So when you did the banana slug race, here's what, here's where it went wrong.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: All right, we need to do this next year, like people that care and see your ministry and maybe have experience to know what was good one year and wasn't good another year, like the longevity of that.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So, number three plan your entire calendar.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So if you get to January and you're like new year, new me, what should we do?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: No, that's not the time to be brain.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: New me is to plan my calendar two months early next year.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I vow to do that.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you're already two months behind, I would say.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: So you want to plan your entire calendar for the year to come so that when you get there to the new year it's kind of plug in play and you're ready to go.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: You spend the time at the end of the year making sure you know when your camps are, your big events, your leader night outs, your leader retreat if you're going to do one, I highly recommend it and then start to fill in your weekend games, your midweek games I just do six months repeat and then your message series.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So Not all of this is published.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: What I publish will be a three month calendar for our junior hires, and then I have one big master calendar that's the 12 months.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: That has all of that on there.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: All students need to know is camps, events, retreats.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: If you take your students on retreats, I call them camps, like services, stuff like that and then for you, your leader night outs, your leader retreat, your message series, your games I don't tell the students what games we're playing ahead of time.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, prison riot if you did that.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly a lot of complaints.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: They don't need to know.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I just need to know so that when the week is coming up, I'm like, oh, we're playing Cup Stack Challenge relay this week, perfect, do I have cups?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and I just take a lot of the prep time off.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Literally, how I used to do ministry was it's Tuesday.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, let's have a meeting about tonight.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: What should we?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: do?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what should I talk about?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: What was I thinking?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And now all I do is I look at my calendar.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, we're playing this game.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, do I have these supplies?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, put that on the list.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I can't find this.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Make sure we have that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And then it's just a matter of setting it up.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not spending any time brainstorming, it's done.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So put your message series on the calendar.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Think spend some time For your own calendar.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: For your own calendar.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't publish that either.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And then students, they'd be like what I think?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: What do I wanna talk about this year?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: What do I wanna make sure we hit?
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: What did we talk about last year?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna repeat it and just spend time with that calendar making sure, oh, this is a four week series, oh, this is right around Easter, so I need to make sure I do this.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So when you kinda line it up with the holidays and oh, I know I'm gonna be out of town this day, I need to get a guest speaker for that weekend, it just gives you this great bird's eye view.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: And then as you go through the year, you just tweak it if you need to, and then you publish it three months at a time for students with the events and stuff.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: If you get it a little bit wrong in November, it's okay, because nobody's gonna see it until that actual year.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: So I actually go in and fill that in on the calendar that I'm gonna put out and then, before I get to that season so, for example, say, I have an event in March and I put it on my calendar but I don't publish it and then when we get in February.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I start looking at that and, oh, I need to double check that time to make sure this is what time it starts and I can adjust a few things and then publish that, print it, put it online, have it in the room, whatever for students to pick up.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying it has to be absolutely perfect in November and December.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: It just you need to have, like, your almost finalized draft that just needs an edit and confirmation details, and then you can push, send, you, do all of that confirmation and double checking before you ever print it, publish it and all that stuff, though, correct?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, because it's a big bummer.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: If, oh, no, that's not the location, Now I have to call everyone.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Or oh, if you picked up a calendar.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: One time I had this event called Bring your Parents to Youth Group Night and I had planned it the year before, and then the leaders were like, no, we don't wanna do that this year.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, that's fine, we don't have to.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Well, it was on the calendar and I didn't see it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I don't remember really, and I just pushed send and what do you know?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Only one parent showed up anyways because I hadn't been emailing them.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Or promoting it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Stephen.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: And he became a volunteer.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, crazy story.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So this dad shows up and he's like it's bring your parents night.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that was the old calendar.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry he goes.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, my wife picked it up in your room.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: We run a real type ship here.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I looked like a complete failure.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And he's like I'll just hang out.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And then he came the next week, and then he came the next week and I'm like, do you wanna volunteer?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Here?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: He goes.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is awesome.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: So now we have an awesome volunteer who's the dad of one of our students, and he's great.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And it all started because of my big mistake.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, what'll happen if you screw up your calendar, god?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: will still use it.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: It was great, but that is not ideal.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: We wanna make sure we have our details correct on the calendars, yeah, so make sure you get that done before you take a break.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: All right, number four, you're gonna love this one.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Take a couple weeks off.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Go on, you deserve it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: You've been doing your calendar for weeks.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: It's time to take some time off and give your staff that time off too.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Do you do consecutive or are you talking like one?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So the last two weeks of the year, the last two weeks of December, we always take it off.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Now I will say this I don't run midweek program, so I don't need all my small group leaders, interns, whatever.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I still do weekend services because that's just like a staple of church.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: We have to have church, but I run it usually by myself or just with it my director.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I don't ask any volunteers to come, they normally don't anyways.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: So I just get that done.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: But we take those two weeks off, no obligation, no expectation to come in into the office whatever, and just like have this little pause before we come back in January.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: That is, I look forward to that two weeks definitely.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And if I wanna go in and organize some stuff or clean out some stuff or get ready, then I do.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I just sort of like that cleansing time of.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Do I wanna be a little MIA from church in the office or do I wanna like fix my little nest, you know so that when I come back in January it's like, ah, fresh start, like everything's clean and organized and throw out the old stuff.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So, however, you wanna use that, but make sure there's just some downtime for your team.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Don't have midweek program for your volunteers those last two weeks of December and then they will be hopefully very excited to come back in January.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And then the fifth one you're also going to really love.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Celebrate.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like games, celebrate, so the end of the year.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Obviously it's the holiday season, but it's more like this was a really good year of ministry.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Job well done everyone.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We already talked about giving your team Christmas gifts, so make sure you have some money in your budget for that.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I like to do my leader retreat at the end of the year.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: We're going actually this weekend, so it feels like, oh, we worked hard, we did it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It's almost the end of the year, guys, and I do my affirmations.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Then it is such a fun night where, at our retreat, my leaders, I bring them up one at a time and I just publicly affirm them.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And last year it took two hours because everyone's like wait, can I chime in?
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And that was the first year that it happened.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Usually it's just me talking to the person, but then the people watching were like, oh, but I wanted to say this, this, this, and I'm like, oh my gosh, but it was beautiful and we had snacks and we could just take our time.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: We're in this cozy cabin and it was just great.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: It was a two hours very well spent.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: So celebrate, give gifts, give affirmations.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I think another really great thing to do at the end of the year, during a celebration with your team, is give stats of what happened that year.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I think student ministries, you guys will probably agree, can be rather thankless and it can feel like were there any results?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Like we did it every week and it was fun and we had some breakthroughs, but we need to get a picture, and so what our church does, what I love, is they publish an end of the year magazine talking about all the ministry that happened that year so that people can say, whoa, we did a lot, I kind of forgot about that, or oh yeah, so you don't have to publish a whole magazine.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But what you kid.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't know they did that.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Really, we get it every year.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I'm never noticed, oh my gosh, don't waste your ink on us, I guess, like don't send it our way.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're taking it and not letting me see it.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just like how you buy snacks and you hide them.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I've been hiding.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You know you got a weird stage of life when you're hiding vitamins too.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't want you to eat my elderberry gummies.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it was recently.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: You want me to die soon?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: No, well, I will.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: So there you go.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I just wanted all of them for me.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I used to just hide snacks because you didn't deserve my snacks, the bad stuff and the healthy stuff.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I know, anyways, anyways.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Stats, like tell them, guys, you may have forgotten, but we baptized this many kids this year, we took this many kids to our camps, this many kids made first time decisions.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And if you don't record that stuff, if you're sitting there going like, well, I would love to know that I don't even know how many kids I don't remember.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Start recording that, because it really does make you reflect on, wow, we did some awesome stuff this year.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Or maybe we need to offer more baptisms, because I don't know if we baptized anybody.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You know, whatever it is, but it just kind of gives that team celebration of whoa like we're actually doing this kingdom work again, because I think it becomes invisible throughout the week, like week after week.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You just forget all these wins you know, and then it gives you that gusto to keep going because you're like that was a good year.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But man, do I have it in me to do it all over again?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: But when you hear those things it's like, yeah, we're effective.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: God is with us.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And then you know, with all of that, in the words of King Solomon, eat, drink and be merry, or something like that I love the book of Ecclesiastes.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He basically says just eat, drink and be merry.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: You know and I love doing that with our team it's like we're celebrating, we have good food and we're hanging out.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: We're celebrating Job well done.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I think one of my pet peeves of leadership is when people climb to a peak and, instead of pausing there and reflecting and enjoying it and celebrating, they just say but look at that peak.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That's our next one Now.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I already talked about setting goals.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not against that, obviously, but when you don't actually pause to celebrate the wins each and every time, then it's just this constant chase Okay, good job, but here, we got to go here.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Next it's like okay, we will get excited.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Let's take a breath.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like, let's take a week and celebrate, let's take some time and just come down and revel in we did it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: We don't have to constantly chase, chase, chase.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: That's, I think, a recipe to exhaust your team and your staff, your volunteers, because they're just like, is it ever enough?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: You know, and you just it's not that you don't go and there's never a feeling of we made it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly, at least for a second we made it here.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: This is our goal and we made it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And if you skip right over that, yeah, it's like this never-ending goal that never has any reward or acknowledgement.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And we don't want to say, oh, I've arrived, no more goals, it's all about pace.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I think is there's a million goals still ahead of me.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I've been in ministry.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: After this year this will be year 20 for me.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I'm in year 19.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: After the new year it'll be year 20.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I still have a ton of goals, like I haven't reached all the peaks yet.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: But the pace of knowing like don't run people ragged and just say, oh, good job, high five, okay next.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, good job, high five.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And I remember people would literally think we need to.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I've heard people say this before, but they'll be like we got to take some time to celebrate.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Let's celebrate what we've done?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, move on.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And they literally thought that was a celebration because they said we have to take some time to celebrate.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And they sat there.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: We got it.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: We got to celebrate this and I'm like where's the cake?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Where's the roller skating party?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Where's the sushi?
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Where's the balloons?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: This isn't a celebration, this is words and it's boring and I hate it here I'm just kidding.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: But it was just like you literally thought just saying the words maybe it's like one of those people like the speak things into existence.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't do a good job like this is terrible.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So Really really celebrate your team and just make sure they know they are not means to an end.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: They are valuable and you guys have got to Really revel in the wins you had this last year.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you cooling along the lines of you talking about stats.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Some of you might be thinking we didn't really have any, we didn't do any baptisms or we didn't have any Accepting Jesus for the first time, and you may not have any of those.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Me or youth ministry is really small, but there's probably things that happened throughout the year.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: These like little wins, like connections, breakthroughs with students a kid who was super shy and wasn't involved is like on your leadership.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Now there is a so much that you can celebrate.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to specifically be fitting a number into a bracket, you know so make it a story.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I like that you brought that up.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be like for baptism eight.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It could be stories of life-change yeah and, oh my gosh, this whole entire family comes now because their high school or it started coming to our youth group.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I know I mean our church used to do these things called your story and they would find someone who had this like God moment at our church and they would like kind of Like the pastor would tell their story.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: They would be kind of anonymous and it was just so cool that, whoa, I had no clue that God was moving in someone's life right here at our church like that.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So if you have those like sometimes the pastor is the one that hears those things and doesn't always remember to pass it on to the team, but make sure they know.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And at the end of the your story they would say that's their story, that's God's story and that's your story, meaning, you got the order wrong, but yeah.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: God's story, their story, your story.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Their story, our story, god's story, I think, is how I don't think so I think the your story was last.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Anyways, the whole point was we all shared in this.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Like this is a God story.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Therefore, it's all of our stories, because this is our God, and look at how he's moving in the lives of people.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: That's worth.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Celebrating, I know.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I said celebrate I was trying to make a point, but whatever, that's fine.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Moving on, hey, if you guys obviously are here and you're like, yes, plan a whole calendar, I would love to do that.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you're in luck because we have an entire episode all about how to plan out your entire calendar for the year.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: So make sure you go ahead and watch that.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And also, if you want to learn how to plan an entire Years worth of games in 30 minutes or less, we also have an episode for that.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And not to completely overwhelm you with those two things, but I'm gonna add a third.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: If you do have the time and you want to get some ideas for what gifts to get your Volunteers this Christmas, go ahead and check out the episode.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I need to watch that.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I couldn't think of anything.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, make sure you guys check out all of those, one of those, none of those, whatever's up to you, whatever you have time for.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: But right now we're gonna do a question of the day, and that is if you find a spider in the house, what are your actionable steps after that?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: What, what happens?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I used to Go and get you.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: No scream or my dad.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I don't scream about a spider, depends how big it is.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'd scream about a spider, but me it's kill it immediately because I Don't want it to hide.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: So I like find the closest thing near me and just like squash it and I just Do it like I don't want to do it, like I just like kind of hold my breath and do it, just get it done.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I I'm not like I'm not gonna scoop it up and put it outside or anything like that.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, no way.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: If I saw a larger critter like a mouse or a rat in our house, I would scream.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Would scream or a frog.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the snake in our house twice.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: No, I lived here.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in the back room that one time and then before you we were married.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: There was one on the mantle somehow in On the fireplace man, no idea how it got up there, but I saw one in the garage once so there's three three times.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Four there's another one in the garage oh.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he came in twice.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I also saw a scorpion in our house.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I picked up a scorpion.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I Was, I'll give you the short version I there was a blanket and I went to move it and I felt something I thought was like a wood chip or something on it, and so I pinched it and pulled it out and looked and saw that I was holding a live Scorpion.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And how I didn't get stung, I'll never know.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: And I just threw it down and it started to scream no, but I had a mild heart attack if you were to scream, what would it sound like?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: can't do my voice.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: It's kind of horse right now, right from all the screaming I've done for all the spiders.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, I saw spider, I'm like you, I don't want to let it get out of my eyesight.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's usually when all of a sudden you come back and you're like okay, it was there, now it's probably in my shoe or something.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah so, yeah, I try and use whatever is handy, like literally Grasping at things without taking my eyes off of it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I've seen a lot of spiders get away from you, though.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you were a real critique of my spider killing abilities.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: You're very good.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I always made me wonder then why don't you do it yourself?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And now I do that.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Didn't you notice?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I said I used to go get you and then I realized you're not good at it.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: She was like you, gotta like push it and then squish it and then turn it you gotta twist it, smash it, scrunch it, pop it back, it pull it, pull it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And then you take its legs off one by one.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: No, because you would like go like.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I would do trickle away and scurry around usually be like 15 feet above my head and I'm using like the very tip of like a baseball bat should have jumped and punt yeah, and then it would always fall and then you'd scream, so it was not fun for anybody.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So now I my own exterminator now.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I taught you to grow up and kill your own spiders.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very capable.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: All right, let's do a community comment of the day.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: This comes from Rosalva Martinez, who says love all your tips.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: God bless your family and Ministries thank you.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you, that's very kind of you.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I like that comment.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Well, you guys have your homework, you know where to go next.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: You can do your plan, your calendar, you can do the 30 minutes of games, you can do the gifts for your leaders, or you can do all three.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: But we appreciate your guys watching and listening.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And we'll see you next time.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about five questions that every healthy youth Healthy youth ministry.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Plot of.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I thought he said youth ministry paramount.