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Listen To This If You Are Thinking About Quitting Youth Ministry! · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about three things to consider before you throw in the towel in youth ministry.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the ministry coach podcast where we bring you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast track the growth and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: My name is Jeff Lascola and this is Crystal Lascola.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Wow, you did that in one take.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Normally we have to cut because you can't say that I'm sure I'll add some other outtakes as we go on If you haven't ever stayed at the end of our episodes, like if you got too bored and you clicked off.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's my favorite part.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: There actually is bloopers at the end, because usually I can't get through any intro without messing up.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Anyways, what are we talking about today?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, so this is a question that has come up recently of things to consider before you make the decision to quit your job in youth ministry.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Like before, you're going to throw in the towel because you're.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you've reached the end of your rope and you're like I'm going to offer my resignation.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Consider these three things before you do, because there is a time to quit.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: That's not what we're talking about today.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it is time to quit, I don't know.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But just before you take that leap, before you take that jump, before you put in the resignation, let's just stop and talk about a couple things real quick Us, me and you.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And I'll just listen in.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: So go ahead.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And you, jeff, you could talk too, okay.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So, number one, before you quit, ask yourself this question Is this problem that I'm dealing with and maybe it's not just one problem Most of the time when people are ready to quit, it's very complex.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It's a very complicated issue.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It's not just like this person did this.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Therefore, I'm quitting.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Most of us have more stamina than that, but it's complicated.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So I just want you to think through it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Is the complication, is the problem, is the issue?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Is the reason I'm ready to throw in the towel likely seasonal?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Is this something that had a beginning and most likely will have an end?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying the end will be tomorrow or in a week.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: The season could last a year or two.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: But is it just a seasonal problem that has got you just by the throat and you can't see any way out except to quit?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: But if you waited, even if you had to wait a while, it might be over.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So an example of that kind of problem is maybe you have a really rough class.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I've heard youth pastors say you know, we got this email this summer and this one broke my heart.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It was about this youth pastor and he was super close with the kids and they loved him and they were all like in harmony until they went to summer camp and then something happened and everyone turned their back on him and he couldn't get the relationships back and the youth group was splitting and all these things that were so traumatic, you know, so painful, that would make you want to quit.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: But those kids eventually will be gone.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Especially if you just do one ministry, like if you're the junior, high and high school person who you're going to have those kids for a long time.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: That's going to be a long season.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: But for me sometimes, when I have a class that challenges me to the point where I'm like, where do I even work?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Is this a youth ministry or a prison, like a juvenile detention center or something, I think to myself they will graduate at some point.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: They are not going to be they may not graduate, but they just won't be in your ministry for the whole age.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Out of it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: They'll drop out of school kids.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it could be that, and maybe it's their parents also that are just adding fuel to this drama and this fire and their parents don't like you.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And then the parents are talking and your approval rating is going down and all these things, and you're trying and you've just had it.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: They will not be there forever.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I mean the amount of students, families, parents that have come and go in my ministry.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It's just like after you've been in it for a while, there's some really meaningful people you remember, but it's like, yeah, that was a season.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: They came and they went.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it's the church leadership Believe it or not, church leadership usually does change at some point.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're one of the ones that you've got a tough senior pastor and he's not going anywhere.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, I've had like three or four different bosses in my time in youth ministry, so he or she may not be there forever.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: That might be a season.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Or maybe the season is a lapse in your own personal motivation or drive or passion and you might just be like I thought I was passionate about youth ministry.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm not anymore.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe, or maybe it became a job and now you're tired and you're kind of passionless.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you're not meant for it, it just means you might need to like figure out how to get your mojo back, and you might be able to it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Just, we're not going to wake up every day with a student ministry fire in our hearts.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Some days we'll just plateau on our passion and I think it's not sustainable to maintain high, high passion every single day.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: But if we never have passion, then we kind of wonder.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So maybe you're just like in a weird personal season and you don't have the same gusto you had at the beginning it's kind of plateaued.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It could come back just because you don't feel it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I think emotions are really bad way to make decisions and emotion isn't always a great indicator.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: You might be not have that fire in you right now, but you might still be effective.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: You could preach a great message and reach out to kids and show them who Jesus is and the love of God.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: With little passion.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously we want it.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying passion and youth ministry.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter, it's overrated.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you for watching.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Even people who love their job aren't passionate about it every single day, every single week, every single month.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: There's so many other things, so many external factors, so many external factors.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you might be off for a lot of reasons and your your team is supposed to be a Super Bowl contender and they're one and three right now, with the quarterback who is has a calf injury and maybe it's really affecting your day-to-day life, for example, throwing that out.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Things you would like to talk about.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Are you mad at the bangles here, not now.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: He's mad at the bangles while Joe burrow, if you're watching.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Which you probably are.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: You get that calf, figure it out, figure out your cap cuz I can't spend another Sunday like this.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying yeah, okay.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Well, we're very sorry to hear that, jeff, but you might just, I was just throwing that, I was a hypothetical.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you're gonna ride highs and lows and I just think some people think, well, I used to love it, now I don't peace out.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah peace out.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Youth ministry world it's like, well, yeah, I mean, wait it out, you could, it could change, okay.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So number two is it the job itself?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: You want to quit, or do you want to quit the environment?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Because those are hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, because they're very interlocked.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And can you really have the job without the environment or the environment without the job?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: But if you just hate youth ministry, okay, maybe it is time to quit.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: But if you hate doing youth ministry in your particular environment and that's what's making it hard for you, Maybe don't be so quick to pull the.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I always want to say ripcord, what do they push?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: The eject button when you fly?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: out of the jet.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I've seen top gun and top gun to our car.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a little button, but we get the idea.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Eject.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's like more of a lever pull the lever Right.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: So I guess that you could ask the question Can I do anything to improve my environment?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: So kind of this leadership mindset.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And you might be thinking well, I'm not the leader, well, there's a way to lead actually your organization when you're not in charge.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people want to enjoy the benefits of a healthy environment and they were like well, I want to work in a healthy environment, but people Usually don't think they can or don't want to be the one to build that healthy environment.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Kind of want to be plugged into yeah, and they think it's someone else above them's job to make the yeah.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But let me just propose something to you really quick.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's a question?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know the answer.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Do you think that perhaps God has put you in this particular?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: church or this particular ministry or this particular environment so that you could be the agent of health.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And if you think ministry is supposed to be just Layed out before you and easy, I would challenge you to read any of the major or minor prophets of the Old Testament and I would challenge you to read Paul's letters at all in the New Testament because he worked with some very unhealthy churches.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: The major and minor prophets worked in some extremely unhealthy spiritual environments and it was uphill, but they were supposed to be the agents of change in the house of God and call people back to health.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And I think we think, well, it's a church, they're Christians, they should be doing that right, you know?
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And we have so much patience for the lost and we want to reach the lost, but we have very little patience for the saved who are just clueless on how to do church well right.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: You know, and you could be the one to do it like what if God and the, to quote Esther, you know, and?
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And in such a time as this, what if God?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: When Mordecai says that to her, it's like, yeah, god has placed you in this time in history, in this church, in this city, in this job, maybe to be the agent of change to get this thing off the ground, and you might be waiting for your senior pastor to wake up and start implementing some healthy leadership principles.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And they just may never Put two and two together, right.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So one suggestion I would have is we do this at our church and it has proven to Really move some things along.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It's called the essentials, and so what we do once a year is we gather the whole staff and they have these little squares like they look like post-it notes.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Some are blue, some are green and some are red, and Everyone gets three of each color, but you can have as many as you need, depending on what your situation is like.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So the green is, let's celebrate what's going well.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So everyone fills them out, and so we did ours today.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Actually, that's why I was thinking of it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So I wrote today like, oh my gosh, our women's ministry is doing so well.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: You know it's a being a growth engine.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: There's so many women coming, it's doubled in size, like awesome job.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And then you have your red.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And these are the things.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Like this is not working.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So I wrote things.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Like you know, there's some aesthetic things going on.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: You know, in different parts of our church that we really need to call attention to.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: We have this culture of messiness.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I think we need to button up this and that and whatever.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And then there's blue, and blue is like blue sky thinking like possibilities, like what's next and so on.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: That that's like time to dream, like, oh, you don't think of all the reasons why you couldn't do something, you just think if we could do anything, this would be amazing.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And so in that way, you get to hear from everyone.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what I put for blue, or I would have told you I, ah, I wanted our children's ministry to have a team of people that like, like, think it's the best place to serve ever, you know, because they need more volunteers.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And so, like, getting more volunteers for our children's ministry and people that are gonna Stick around, like people that love, love, love being there, that's what we're doing, that's what I was hoping for for them.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So this just gives the opportunity to point out some areas where you see some unhealth and everyone gets to chime in, and then From that point, you kind of group them into categories and then in the weeks to come, this is where the hard work comes, because it's real easy to identify problems but bringing solutions.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Leaders always bring solutions, not just problems.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So then, as a team, collectively or bringing the right people to the table, you start to work on these problems, you prioritize them, not only work on the problems but work on the blue sky stuff of like, hey, well, what could we be, what could we do?
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So start to.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, what if you were the one to suggest this to your senior pastor and you guys got a huge Surgeon help simply because people were able to, people on staff were able to talk about?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Hey, like this is a huge problem and we need to address it?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You know, there might just not be a Platform like what do you do?
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Fill out a comment card like, hello, I don't like this about our church.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Love me, they, you, john do, I Know him, you know, and so I think this is just one example.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But could you be the agent of change for health and your church?
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Because if it's the environment you're leaving, try just, please, don't just Ball it up and throw it away.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Like I just want our pastors to understand how much God loves the church and how much we need to love the church and how we need to give it our best before we throw in the towel.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I think we live in a culture that is so quick to give up on people.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I think we are so quick to give up on things that don't please us or Fit us and I've been super challenged by that lately of just like, don't be so quick to give up on things just because it doesn't suit me, but does God want you there?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Can you make it better?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Don't wait for somebody else.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: How can you make this environment what it is meant to be?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: you could be there for such a time as this and there could be a lot of Opportunity for your church if you kind of address those things.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: But kind of like you were saying, most people miss Opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know you don't want to touch it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, never mind.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Going back to what you're saying, though, you said you, you do the essential meeting, you write all this stuff on post-it notes and then you come back or anything.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: You start doing the work.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: How long of a time span are you talking?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that could be a whole year, okay, so it's not like one week everybody come back.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I think you could pick off things that are like.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Some of the stuff is so simple, you know, like Someone's red thing today had to do with trash and it's like, okay, well, let's break down the boxes and throw it away, right, but some things are gonna take a long time to implement, like changing the whole culture of a particular ministry and its volunteers.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So it's not like you give every like, okay, like every week we solve a new problem, but we're constant.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I think the worst thing is like we brainstormed yay, we did nothing with it right, you know.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So when you said that they come with solutions to the problem, Is that within the original meeting or is that like hey guys think about it for a week or two and then we're gonna come back?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it it's not everybody.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: So like there's some things that only our Campus pastors and associate pastors will work on, because, as to what them, there's some things that only our admin will work on because that had To do with her.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: There's something that's meant only for our facilities team because it had to do with the building, and so they're gonna be working on it.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So you can dole out assignments of like this is your stuff to work on.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And then there's some stuff that the whole team Probably needs to come together of like, hey, how are we gonna take one step forward and solving this problem Next week, you know?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Or something like that.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, it really depends on what the the red and blue stuff are.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I mean and that's what's gonna take up most of your time the red and blue for sure.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And then I want to ask one more question.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I think you're gonna move on to your next point here, but within that meeting, because a lot of feelings can get yeah, yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: How do you go about treading that like, how do you go about navigating?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: The like because you know, the other thing it could be is Children's ministry everything going good, the senior pastor, everything going good, and all of a sudden like youth ministry, like oh my gosh, every red and we have that.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's hard.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: It is hard.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: We've had years churchwide not just at our campus where our red board was filled with one ministry.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Everyone complained about that one ministry.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: They were support ministry and everyone's complaining about it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Now we go into it with, hey, this is not about people, this is about if we're going to pursue health, there is a risk involved, like there's a risk of feelings getting hurt, but there's a bigger risk if we don't say anything.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So we're going to assume the best of each other and focus.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: We don't focus on people, we just focus on problems and systems.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Not well, they didn't do their job, they didn't return my email, and so it's not personal, it's just hey, there's a system broken here, let's fix it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: We don't need to fix the person, we need to fix the system.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And when we focus on that it becomes less personal.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's still hard for people to hear Anytime we hear criticism of the work we pour our life into.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: It's hard to hear, but it's just necessary.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: But our pastor did a great job of setting it up today and he's like yeah, guys, there is some risk here, but there's a bigger risk if we don't speak up because we want to make this place the best it can possibly be, and we're a team and we're here to support and help each other, and so we just need to be ready to say what needs to be said.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So if you don't have a team that has any level of trust at all, this is going to be really hard.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So I forget who it is who wrote five dysfunctions of a team Patrick Linceoni, maybe that's the number.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: One thing he talks about is you can't get anywhere if your team doesn't have trust.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So if you're like, oh my gosh, I could never do this at my church, like we would be at each other's throats, ok, let's back up a second.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe we need to read five dysfunctions of a team together and we need to at least lay some groundwork for the ability to speak truth to each other and let's do some trust-building things.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So maybe that could be your first little baby step of being an agent of change is saying, hey, senior pastor, or whoever's in charge of me, could we read five dysfunctions of a team as a team and kind of talk about it at our staff meetings.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: So something like that might be your first step if you're really in the red with relational equity with people.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: So you do.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: There has to be a level of relational equity, trust, all that.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I said a couple of things today that were kind of hard to say and I'm sure hard to hear.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: They weren't personal toward anyone, but it's like well, I'm willing, I love our church, so I'm willing to take a little bit of a risk to make sure we constantly get better.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But if I was already tensioned with someone and then I had to say something hard, I mean people would.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I've heard of staff meetings going terribly wrong for that kind of stuff.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a good question.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: We'll go ahead and link that book in the description below if you did want to take a look at it or give it for your team or something like that.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So anyways, moving on next point, All right, number three before you quit, could you develop your role into something else or something more that would help you enjoy it more or put kind of fresh wind into your sails?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: So maybe you're feeling a little stale or stagnant and you just have more in you and you're just like, yeah, I like my job.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: But I wonder, before you quit, if you could absorb something else that might excite you and get you to use a different gear and Think and work differently.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That would continue to fuel you.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes I think youth pastors are such capable leaders and they just want more.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Like it's just they want a bigger net to cast of their ministry.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: So maybe it's just you are ready for something else and it might not need to be a whole other ministry or whole other church.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Couldn't you expand your role right where you are here?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Some Thoughts for that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: What if you led a missions trip?
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: What if you took?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even have to be for youth Like what if you led the Israel trip on to a fryer church or something?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: What if you led and taught parent workshops?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: You know youth better than anyone at the church.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: So maybe a couple Saturdays or I don't know, after church on a Sunday, you do some parenting workshops and teach parents how to Navigate social media with their kid, or something like that.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: What if you got to?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe you don't get to teach on the main stage, but what if you got to do part of the service, like I've got to teach communion before or lead communion or do that Five or ten minute portion.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun and it uses a different like speaking in front of adults and preparing a different way, and you know there's a whole other challenge there.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know that kind of.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Going back to our previous point, maybe you know that your staff needs your church staff, not like your volunteers, your youth ministry staff, but the church staff needs some team Fun and you can be in charge of the team fun night.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Like plan our Pastor plan like a roller skating night in the church.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: It was so fun because we have really smooth floors, so we rented roller skates, brought in sushi and played 70s music and we all dressed up.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Was so fun.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You know like does your staff need an injection of fun?
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Could you plan a fun Lake day or Bike ride?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know something that you guys would enjoy doing a silly bowling thing, whatever.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So I don't know.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: You could.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: You could head up something new and a lot of senior pastors.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like if you bring the idea and you bring the know-how and the passion, what are they gonna do?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Say no, you can't plan a fun night for our staff like they're not good.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, who would say no to that?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I think again we sit back and say, well, we never do anything.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It's like okay, then plan it you know if, if you need something more to add to your role, to make it More dynamic for you.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Here's some examples and there's plenty more of things you could absorb, maybe to kick it, kick you into a new gear that will Re-excite you.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I heard this great devotion today from a passage.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I know I've read it because I've read the whole Bible, but I don't remember it at all.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: It's from second Kings and it's Elisha.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: He's about to die and he's talking to King Joe Ash and this is second Kings 13 and he's telling King Joe Ash like how to Defeat the Syrians and that because they're going to battle and God is gonna be with him.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And he says like open the East window and start just shooting your arrows, shoot your arrows, shoot your arrows.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And Joe Ash is kind of like timid.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: He's like okay, whatever, and just starts like Yay, like one, two, three, I did it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And then this is what Elisha says to him.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: He says in verse 18 take the arrows.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: So he took them and he said to the king of Israel strike the ground.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So he struck three times and stopped.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: And the man of God was angry with him and said you should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it, but now you will strike Syria only three times and it's kind of like this weird story.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Like what is shooting arrows out your window have to do with Syria and like whatever.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: But if you don't use enduring word for your sermon prep, I highly encourage it.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Enduring word calm and I was looking at the commentary for it and it was Like he makes this whole connection of like just keep shooting your arrows right.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Like that's where the victory is.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Like we stop shooting.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we just I don't, I don't have enough passion to shoot, I don't have enough faith to shoot.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of done.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I think I've shot all my arrows.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Like what's, what is there left to do?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And it's just this encouragement of like Continuing in faith, of like I'm going to keep moving forward.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep doing what God has created me and asked me to do, because there is a victory.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And Even when we get kind of complacent and we lose enthusiasm and we're just like where's the victory?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I've been doing this for a while.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Nothing ever changes.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Everything is always the same.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I love that story of like if you had shot more, you would have won more like just keep going, because God Might not be done with you yet.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And the cool thing is Imagine if he had shot more arrows, he would have got more victories.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you shot three, you get three victories.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: But what is what's that saying you?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: you miss all the miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I think maybe that came from this story who knows so it's.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: It's what?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: What person Kings?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Second Kings 13 18 and then it's quoted by Wayne Gretzky, quoted by Michael Scott.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: The Bible is powerful.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I just think that's crazy, though.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So what?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I guess we're gonna boil it down and end here of, like, what Shots do you need to take to get that victory?
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Like, is it just over?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Is it just?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Or ours?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Like whoa, look at all these arrows.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: What if?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I did this?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: What if I did this?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: What if I did this?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: just keep shooting arrows and see where the victory not literally, though, because that could be a whole other problem in your staff meeting.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I have eliminated all of my problems.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I only took four Arrows that's a small staff.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Jd, our campus fester.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: He actually did bring his bow and arrow and he shot some arrows today in the church.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: It was out the window at a haystack.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: A bail of hay, I guess.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Depending on which window that could have been a problem, it was the garage door thing he opened, yeah, so he had plenty of room, but yeah, it was.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's, that makes a lot of sense.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: So keep shooting, guys.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Just shoot your arrows when.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Where's the victory?
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Let's keep going.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So that's a little encouragement for you.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: We did a while back an episode called how to Find Motivation During Frustration.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: If you do want to take a look at that, just to kind of continue the discussion here, we'll link that in the comment section below.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Right now we're going to go into a question of the day and we really want you guys to answer this, if you're watching on YouTube, because it's going to tell a lot about you and we are going to pour our hearts out to you right now.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: No, it's not going to tell a lot about you?
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I hope not, but yeah it would be a funny a funny thing to write down, or scary, depending on who you are.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: The question is, what was the thing you got in the most trouble at school for?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, I could probably think of one where I got in more trouble.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, no, okay, this is probably the pinnacle of my consequences.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So I used to pack a cup of noodles for lunch and my school was great.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: They would put out hot water and because we all would bring a cup of noodles, so unfortunately, we forgot forks that day.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So cup of noodles, no forks.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously, use your hands, right, gross.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So we are just putting our hands in the soup, eating the noodles.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And this noon duty came up and she's like that is unsanitary, she's not wrong.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And here is our consequence.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: We had this thing at my school called red feet and there were these two footprints on the black top that were red and when you got in trouble you just had to go stand on red feet, like a time out, I guess, and I was in elementary school until the time was up or whatever.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: So she's like that is unsanitary.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And I was like I don't have a fork and she's like you need to go stand on red feet.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So I just stand on red feet for eating cup of noodles with my hands because I didn't have a fork.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: That kind of seems like an overreaction from here.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I agree, that's not the worst thing I did, but that was the worst consequence, because the worst thing I did was also at lunch.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: We had lunchables and it's those little discs of turkey and those little squares of cheese, and one of our noon duties had left her car windows cracked.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Same noon duty teacher, no different one.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And we were trying to see if we could get from where we were sitting Sliz BMN Sliz group game yeah throw the turkey in her car and I made a few, but they didn't know who did it and so nobody would confess.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And then I felt bad and I went up and I said hey, I'm sorry, I threw the lunchables in your car and she goes.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Kristen, I would have never guessed you.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And that made me feel even more bad.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, all right, my reputation's gone.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: But she didn't give me a consequence.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: She just I mean, her disappointment was my consequence.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Ooh ouch.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: What does the parents always say?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not mad, I'm disappointed.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's more of a consequence.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: I in first grade it was at the bus stop going to school, which I kind of feel like shouldn't have been-.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Don't try to justify it.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: The action was bad.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like it should not have been the school to discipline me.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Because it happened off of school property.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Because it happened off school property and we weren't even in school.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So just putting that out there.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: But I threw a tiny rock at Bobby Brohard.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: He was like I was in first grade, he was in fourth grade and I hit him in the neck and he cried Like the back of his neck.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think you feel bad about it.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I feel bad for Bobby, although he was kind of a jerk, but it was more.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I remember just I'm like oh, he's crying, oh well, you know, like, so we went to school Like everything's totally fine, and then I get pulled out of class and they're like oh, you know the principal's yelling at me and stuff like that.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: And I was kind of like, what are we talking about here?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And then I figured out it's like oh, you mean the thing that happened, like at home.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Basically I'm like we getting trouble at school for those things too.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: So I got it was confusing for a first grader, but I got detention, but it was kind of like red feet, but it was like for the next.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: I think they said for the week you have to stay on like this one area during your school, during your recess period, and I thought it was just for the first day.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: So I went there and paid my sentence and then the next day I didn't go and then I got in more trouble which I didn't know.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I was supposed to keep going, but to this day I'm still like I don't know, like maybe a stern talking to, but it's like like what I mean that was Maybe because it was the bus stop and it was like Okay what if it was like not to be a technicality, but it's like what if it was walking to the bus stop?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: What if it was really early in the morning?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: You know Like, or the bus drops us off and we're walking home and then something happens.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I am still a little miffed at that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Well, if that hadn't happened, you would have never got a consequence.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So maybe that was God avenging Bobby real hard.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Could be yeah, maybe Because you wouldn't have gotten.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a consequence.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: So there you go, I wouldn't, and I definitely deserve the consequence.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: No, no, if ands or buts.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Hey, if Bobby's out there, what would you like to say?
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Bobby, I apologize for hitting you in the back of the neck with a rock, but-.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But nope, just leave it at that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Healing it's healing.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But hey, do we have a comment of the day?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: The school district I went to.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: This was an at-home issue that needed to get addressed.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do a community comment the day.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: this comes from s81116.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: This is an AI robot, Thanks.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: AI, he or she writes Game changer, pun intended.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this podcast.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Kristen and Jeff are the perfect team and so fun to listen to.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: The things I've learned have been invaluable and they willingly share resources.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: We now have played seven of their games and my kids have loved them all, which is saying something for my picky group.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Thanks for what you guys are doing.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Cannot rate this highly enough.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you 1-8-7-1-8-7.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: AI for writing a great podcast review.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you really do Appreciate you guys watching and listening and we will see you next time.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking all about how to unstick your stuckness.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I think just may never put two and two together, right?
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: So excuse me.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: So one suggestion Is that excusing.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Don't, don't do that.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Kids Stay in school, All right.