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5 Things Youth Pastors Do That Are a BIG WASTE OF TIME! · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about five things youth pastors do that waste their time.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where every week we give you actionable and practical tips that you can implement into your youth ministry.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and I just got back from winter camp Yay.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: So if I sound a little bit raspy, a little bit hoarse, that's why I don't be yelling at people the whole time.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The funny thing is I really wasn't I think it's something about lack of sleep, that mountain air.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Mountain air, because it wasn't just me, it was like a few people kind of have like horse voices right now.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So whatever, today we are talking about things that youth pastors do that waste time.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's a prompt for like a game or something, things that youth pastors do that waste time For 400.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Please a prompt for like a game or something, things that you bastards do that waste time for 400, please.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Number one are these are all ones that I have learned, probably the hard way.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So, I'm going to like tell you how I used to kind of do it wrong and waste a lot of time.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Number one is writing fresh new communication every single week, my best hack of the last few years.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And if you already do this in our way ahead of me, good for you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I wish I would have learned it sooner.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Always save your weekly emails to a word document, edit them, copy and paste them into the email and send them.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: When you do that, do you save it as a new document or are?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: You constantly going off of the last one you sent.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I didn't know if you meant like so that you had it when you go for the next year to do summer camp signups, you can use the same email.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: You just go back and you're.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: No, I'll talk about that concept in a little bit with some other stuff.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: But this is like I have two documents I just saved to my desktop, so they're always there.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: It says parent email leader email.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I open it up worst case scenario on Monday to edit it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: But I look at what I sent last week and if it's still relevant, I keep it or change the wording to reflect like this week instead of next week or something like that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I put the new talk sheet in there so that everyone's in the loop.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I update anything having to do with the events and it's so much easier than every single week, dear parents, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And I just used to sit down and write these really long emails.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I make sure everyone knew what was going on for the week and I'm like I don't want it to become so stale that everybody just deletes it because they're, like you say the same darn thing every week.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But if, like, I'm announcing something that's happening in three weeks, you know it's like well, why rewrite that every single time?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And then there's some things that I leave on there like static, like summer camp dates July 10th through the 17th you know, and I highlight that and the link to our calendar online, like once you set your summer camp dates.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Is that in the bottom of that email always all the way until, yeah, you go?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: yeah, so that everyone's reminded every single week, and then, as we get closer, I might push that toward the top, like we're a hundred days out from winter or summer camp, or 50 days out, whatever it might be like just kind of like okay, now I'm going to start drawing more attention to it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: But those big things that are immovable, like my winter camp dates or my winter camp dates, summer camp, summer camp camp dates, or my winter camp dates, summer camp, summer camp, and then for my leaders, that would be the leader retreat, it's all.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I include the camp dates for my leaders, but then I add our retreat, which is in November, so that it's always on their mind of like, oh yeah, I need to make sure I get that off of work, or oh yeah, I need to make sure I don't have family in town that week, or whatever.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So I just copy and paste those back into my email every week and then I usually change like the first few lines, like this week we just got back from camp, so I said something about that.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: You know like, hey, camp was great, so glad you guys came.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: You know so, and I guess now it takes me like 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So it is a great time saver, and I mean each, you know.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So it was like that used to be an hour just of emails, to make sure everybody knew what was going on.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Writing a big, long letter, so saving your communication, and then another one and I don't use this one as frequently, but I start sending communication to the fifth grade parents a few times throughout the year so I save that onto my desktop.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It says fifth grade parent email, so I'm reminded.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, make sure you're sending out summer camp dates to them.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're like, hey, it's, we have our promotion event, like your fifth grader is becoming a sixth grader, here's what you need to know.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So those emails I do save so that every year I can kind of just change the dates and details but have those ready to go, so anything that's on repeat for you.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: You could have a folder in your computer like frequent email things and if you're like, say you're doing more than just student ministries, you could even have a free free why can I not say that word Frequent response email folder, so like.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, if you get the same questions a lot of times, yeah, yeah, like whether it's theologically like if somebody wants to know your stance on something, you change it a bit to fit the current conversation you're having, but you don't have to rethink and write all these things again.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Or parents like winter camp, like once they've registered, here's what they need to know.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: We're meeting at this time, we're getting picked up at this time.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Here's, you know, the packing list, whatever, so you're not always having to reinvent the wheel or rewrite those same things, Ones that are on repeat all the time.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: save those emails as a template for yourself, and it not only does it save time, but it helps you not miss something like oh shoot, I forgot to tell them that because it will just be the same thing every year, with just minor updates.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: You.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I know you're not a fan of this, but chat GPT if you're writing a brand new email is like your best friend because I never used it, so you need to start.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: So the benefit I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here because I'm sure you guys use it, but it's so much easier to edit and fine tune something that's been written than writing it from scratch.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: A lot of us feel like I'm not creative enough at this moment to start it, you know, and whereas you just give chat GBT the prompts and say this is kind of what I want to say, you know, and then it just boom within seconds and then you take that out and you can have it change it or you can just edit it, so it's really convenient.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I was a communication major, so like thinking of words and building communication, thinking of words.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: It's not that hard for me.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a professional at it, but when we're talking about things that youth pastors do, that waste time.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: You're right, it would be good, it saves time.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Well, if it's not a strength for you, then yeah, that's a great idea.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Or just those moments of like.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like having to create an entire email.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have chat, gpt, write it up and then I'm going to put it in my own words.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, all right.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Number two things that waste our time is doing the big meetings every single week.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I don't like meetings, I am not a meeting person and I think the weekly big two-hour meetings are too much and they're a time suck.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you do need that two-hour staff meeting.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I just don't think you need it every week.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: It could be an every other week kind of thing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: If you really need to two hour staff meeting, I just don't think you need it every week.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: It could be an every other week kind of thing.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: If you really need to pull your staff together and talk about some stuff.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I just don't think there's there is any place in ministry for a weekly two hour meeting.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I don't even think there's a place for a weekly one hour meeting.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Could just be my personality.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I hate them, but I feel like they're not efficient.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Like if you have to meet for an hour with the same people every single week, I just don't understand how much could have possibly changed in a week.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: The only time I do that is and feel it's highly necessary is when we're at the finish line for camp planning and things are changing rapidly because camp is fast approaching, but just in a normal setting.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I here's what I feel like I need a weekly meeting for my volunteers.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: When they get to youth group on Tuesday night we chat for 15 minutes about here, like it's a little huddle, like here's what's going on, here's the game we're playing, here's how you play, here's your role, here's the big idea for your small groups.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: That's 15 minutes on Tuesday night and then my interns come in Tuesday afternoon.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: If I feel like we need a meeting, we maybe will meet for about a half an hour and that's just to like all right, what are you doing, what do we need done, what needs to be set up?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And now we deploy and go.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: And then maybe once in a while we'll have a little bit of a longer, deeper meeting of like all right, like what are goals and like kind of more dreaming.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But I don't feel like that is an every week kind of thing.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I think that is a waste of time to do those big, long drawn out.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And I know some people enjoy meetings because it's like we're all together and like this is our time to like see the team.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: To that I would say take that idea and go get coffee together, go treat them to frozen yogurt, go like get tacos but just sitting in a meeting because you miss them.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: It's like this is the most boring way to catch up.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Like I don't want to just sit around the table and like, uh, it's like at least let's go out and get a taco and then talk about our lives.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't feel like a meeting.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like to me meetings are to accomplish things and hanging out is for hanging out.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I don't like the blending of the two.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: It's like let's meet to do what we need to do and then go have some fun, you know, but don't try to make a meeting like the fun time.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Then that cancels it out.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Like it's not fun when you're just sitting there.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: So any, that's just my opinion, but you look at it, where adding a meeting to hanging out ruins the hanging out Other people might say, adding hanging out to a meeting makes the meeting more fun.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I just you're a glass half empty type when it comes to meetings, Cause I just feel like this isn't hanging out.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: You are putting it's a wolf in sheep's clothing, Like you are pretending this is hanging out it's it's not, it's a meeting.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Do you do post camp meetings to like debrief or anything like that?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Sometimes for our summer camp.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll do like an appreciation dinner for all the leaders, because that one's a lot of work.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: But is that a hanging out or is I mean like meetings?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Do you ever have meetings Like?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I will text them individually and email them and say hey, if you have any feedback or want to debrief or something you think we could have done different, just send it to me.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But then we celebrate with like okay, and I'm buying everyone dinner, you know, let's all just celebrate.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And then we might tell stories of like this was so cool, or oh, what was your favorite moment?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You know, but I like fun and I don't think meeting and fun can go together for me ever, no matter what you do, it's just not going to happen for me.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess and I can't really pinpoint where all of our listeners are at with this but I guess, just assessing how much time am I spending in meetings each week?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Does this meeting?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Asking yourself the question, does this meeting need to be weekly, or could this be biweekly, or could this be monthly and still be as efficient?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Does this meeting need to be two hours?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Could it be one hour?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: If this meeting is one hour, could it be a half hour, Like, are you just being as efficient as you can with your time and everybody else's time?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the leader likes meetings because they're like hey, all my people, you know, and everybody else's time.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the leader likes meetings because they're like, hey, all my people you know and the people are like why am I here?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: This is pointless, you know, especially if we have a lot to do.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: That's me.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I'm an efficiency person, so I'm like I can be efficient at having fun, but I cannot be efficient at a meeting.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Well, if, you're, you're asking a lot of your volunteers just to begin with, kate, you know you want them to be there however many weeks, three weeks out of four, at least every month, to be at a program.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: And then if you're asking that on top of that, and there's these weekly meetings and there's it's like, oh, I'm not cut out for this, so you better make it worth it of like, oh my gosh, like I'm glad.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So if it's just for the sake of it, you might have to swallow your pride.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I think meetings make leaders feel important, so they keep them, you know, instead of just saying, well, I guess we don't really have anything to talk about.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Like that feels like shouldn't we have something you know?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So just assess how you're doing that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And then, number three, redoing stuff because you didn't save it is a huge time waster.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So this could be anything from the emails we were talking about to talk sheets, like discussion sheets for your small groups that's kind of hard to say.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It could be your sermon notes.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: It could be graphics for games.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Like so often we play the same games like two times a year.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Like a weekend game two times a year, you know.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And so like say, we're playing human foosball.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: It's like we should have a slide for that, Not like all right, I'm going to spend 30 minutes making a little graphic slide for it.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, if you play the same games, you should always have the same game slides and logos and graphics.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: So just plug and play.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Those should all be saved somewhere, and I cannot tell you how much time it saves, Like, even like when we do the battle.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's like the rules they're already there.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: My winter camp, summer camp packing lists already saved already there.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: My leader meeting notes for summer camp already there.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So make sure things that you know you're going to use again, take the time to save them in a place you will see them and remember them so that every year it comes around you're just ready to go, and with messages too, you know, especially if you ever have like guest speaking opportunities.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: A lot of times I just pull from my archive and my notes of just like oh, I did this really cool talk on Daniel, so now it's an easy yes to speak at a chapel or a Christian club or FCA or something like that, because it's like, oh, I have those notes.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah something like that, because it's like, oh, I have those notes already to go and that was easy to refresh my memory, not just build something from the ground up every time or ask chat, gbt or you know whatever GPT, gpt, P or B P, chat, gpt.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Chat GPT.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: It can hear you right now too.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Hello, chat GPT, hope you're having a good day.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I got your name wrong.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Like when I said it out loud, I'm like that didn't sound right GP.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I can't talk.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: It's a weird name.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Anyways, next.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Another thing is this is going to sound so counterintuitive, but a lot of youth, pastors and leaders in general waste their time trying to develop their weaknesses.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And I think, like people always say, like, start improving what you're not good at.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Like, assess yourself.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Like I'm really good at this, okay, well, whatever you're not good at, spend time developing those skills.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But actually research shows the opposite, that you should build on your strengths.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: So what are you already like a 90% at?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Lean into that and become really proficient, because you clearly have the natural gifts to do so.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: The things that you're not so good at.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Don't see that as this goal.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: To like I'm going to conquer this, you know, and become the best graphic designer there is, because you might just not have a natural bent that way and when you could be sharpening a skill that can be sharpened and you can become an excellent speaker, if that's kind of your gift, whereas the other one you might put all this time and effort to and you're still going to be like a C plus.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: So the goal would always be to find somebody who can do those things very well.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Our campus pastor does not like anything having to do with technology.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: You know, he's really good with people.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: He's really good face to face.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: He's really good, like, at caring for people.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: But if it has to do with tech he's like, ah, no, no, no, I don't want to do it.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So he hands that off to people who can do it like with the snap of a finger, what would take him like 15, 20 minutes to figure out and they could have it done like almost with the next breath, like literally, so you can surround yourself, hopefully, with people that can pick up your slack on those things and for you that that could even be students, because you might be thinking like, oh must be nice, like to have people to pass off things to you know.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: But like social media, for instance, I think that's another one that youth pastors waste a lot of time doing.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Well, shout out to Scout Norman.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: She is one of our students who she started really young, when she was a younger high schooler, and like we would just teach her little by little like how to use the camera and let her come to events and stuff like that she does all of our Instagram reels at events.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like everything that was posted from winter camp was all her.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't log into our social media once.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think Caleb did either, it was all Scout.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: So that's something that I used to be like, oh shoot, I need like material for our like Instagram story and for a post and all, and I would be like trying to get pictures and stuff.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And I would just see her at winter camp sitting on like the wall like editing and adding music and just looking at her phone and I'm like, oh, she's posting for us.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Like how awesome, she's really good at it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: So if something like that, like if you're never going to be a guru at Instagram or social media, give it away to someone.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: One of my directors.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: She's in school for graphic design.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So when we need a game, slide for a game instead of me, I would just Google, image search something and copy and paste it into a with the watermark.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I don't even.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I have no shame, I've done watermarks so many times Like what, what, what else am I supposed to do?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: She has a knack for that and can do it and does a really good job, and then she gets some practice in.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So sometimes it's being creative of you know, passing that stuff, stuff off to people and then doing what you're really good at, you know, and letting them do what they are good at, instead of, like I want to be a jack of all trades and be good at everything.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I used to kind of think like that Like I want to learn to play the guitar because I never want to be without a worship leader, and then I want to learn how to do graphic design, because I always want to be, because I think my goal was I want to be as independent as possible.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be dependent on anyone else.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But while I was busy trying to make myself into something I wasn't like, I was spread so thin that even the things I was really good at felt B, b minus, you know.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Instead of like I'm a, I'm a good teacher, and when I give it my all, I'm a great teacher.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And it's like I'm a bad graphic artist and when I give it my all.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a bad graphic artist you know, so that's the sentiment there and you know that's work too, like like developing that team around you, you know, and praying.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I think you can pray for those gifts on your team, like God, send me someone who's good at this, or help me to have the right conversation with someone who would be excited to do social media for us or do graphic design for us or do like I don't know what, whatever it is you can hand off.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about things like I'm just not good at organization.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That is true A lot of people are not.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: It's not so much a task as it is a like skill.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, and it's a learned skill like you can learn to be more organized if you can pass it off, go ahead.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I think I've always felt that organization is a learned skill and you can discipline yourself to not drive everyone around you crazy because you, because to me and I guess where this is where this one's hard for me, because I don't I don't see the disconnect of like why can you not return an email?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Like that's not a skill, that's a discipline.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And so for me me and you may disagree I feel like organization is in a category much more of discipline than skill, because a lot of disorganized people, I feel like how it manifests to me, it's like that wasn't had nothing to do with your skills.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You don't know how to text back.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: You don't know how to text back.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You don't know how to write an event in your calendar.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You don't.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I think sometimes it could be more keeping on top of those things, and which is a discipline True.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: So I discipline myself.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: The second somebody writes or sends me the date I have to walk over.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Write it in my calendar, because if I just go oh, I saw it and move on, I will forget.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I've been burned so many times where someone's like, okay, see you at 10.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, see me at 10.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: What's at 10.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: ?
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And I go back and look and I'm like, oh my gosh, why did I not write that down?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: So it's a discipline.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Like everyone has a skill to write things down.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Everyone has a skill to text back.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: It's to me like a little bit of a cop-out to call that a skill, like I'm just not good at it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's like I mean, I don't know how to write javascript like that is an actual skill I don't know, I don't think people write.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: His job is scripts.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: You know beep boop boop computers.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I think they got rid of that, but I could be wrong.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I remember trying to learn some of that in college.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Beep boop boop computers.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And we were trying to learn how to write.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: What is it called?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Html like code like that yes, that's what I'm talking about and I was like this is insane.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I cannot write code and then the teacher would show us how to like.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, if you want this line to be green and this line to be blue.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Now we go back to the html and you write this and I'm like this is wild, like I, that was a skill, whereas I feel like this is like well, so you have a pen right and you can write, so write it in your calendar, ta-da.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: What about remembering it?
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: It's not a skill, but like I don't know so the discipline would be look at your calendar every single day, multiple times a day.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I do that, like I have to look at my calendar multiple times a day, so I almost feel like the skill would be the discipline.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Like get a better, just a skill.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I think we're going in circles.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, just having, yeah, maybe it just is more of a discipline.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Join the conversation in the comments below, we're moving on Another thing youth pastors do to waste their time other than talking about.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Skill and discipline for way too long is writing your own curriculum.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I think that there's nothing wrong with it.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes when you write your own curriculum it can turn out really good.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I would at least encourage some kind of jumping off point because, like you said, with the chat, gpt stuff, it's like well, okay, this is good, not great.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I need to like take the ball now.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: And that's how I feel with curriculum.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: It's like all right, like there's some stuff here and this is stuff I never would have thought of.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I want to change this question just a little bit and I maybe I'm going to add another one and instead of it taking me 45 minutes to write something from the ground up took me 10 minutes to kind of tweak it to fit our group a little bit better.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So I think not using curriculum is a mistake, like and I'm not saying like you are like reading a script like a robot, but it is such a time saver as a jumping off point of giving you a structure to go off, of giving you a, you know, like and then just kind of putting it in your own words Totally and fitting it to your group from there.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: But the bulk of the work has already been done.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Because I feel like people who are always going to be writing sermons from the ground up, discussion sheets from the ground up, Every week.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Then that is your full-time job.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: There is.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: No, you don't have time to be organized, disciplined or anything else, because, literally, if you have the privilege to only be a teaching pastor, that would be realistic.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But youth pastors do not have that privilege.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: We have so many other things we do besides teaching that it seems like our time could be better spent elsewhere.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And that's not to say like teaching's not important, because I don't want you to hear me say like, ah, who cares?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Spend five minutes, get up there, give it your best shot.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying like I feel like sometimes, when faced with a decision of like, I feel like sometimes, when faced with a decision of like should I pour into my leaders or should I really study for this sermon?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to study for the sermon, or should I return this email that's been sitting in my inbox for two days, or should I spend a little more time diving into the theology?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, our teaching is important and that's why we're here to preach the gospel, but the truth is we get paid to do a lot of things besides just teaching.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: So when you need a little bit of help so that you can cut down your prep time, not cut down your quality, then things like G shades, things like co-leader things, resources from life church are hugely helpful, um, and sometimes those things like we'll have bumpers and graphics and things like that that really enhance it to make it look like you spent a lot of time on it.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Talk sheets for the smaller leaders.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it just gives you that little cushion of like, wow, instead of spending six hours developing a sermon, I can spend, you know, one or two, you know, I don't know, depending on the topic and how familiar you are with it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I just look back at my past and I feel like I used to spend way too much time sermon prepping and, however, I feel like I'm a better teacher now, yet I spend less time sermon prepping.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's because of maturity, but I also feel like I didn't use any curriculum, any help, any tools back then.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It was just literally ground up every single week and it got exhausting and I remember telling one of our pastors that he's like how is you know your ministry going?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like it's a lot.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I teach like two or three times a week between weekend services, midweek service, student leadership team, and then if I was a guest speaker somewhere like at a chapel or something at a school, he's like, oh, like, why don't you just save your talks and redo them?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and you know like he's trying to help me make my life easier, but it was like I just felt like I had to write these sermons out of thin air every time when I could have been like so much more relaxed and doing other things you know so yeah, along those same lines.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: if you want to check out an episode we did about things that you can do to save some of your time and add more hours to your week, make sure you check that out.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: It'll be in the description below.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: All right, the question of the day this week is what is the weirdest thing you've ever found in someone else's house?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: So I had a boyfriend named Jeff La Scola once, funny coincidence, and he saved his kidney stones in a bottle underneath his sink.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, if they're not a bottle.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: It's in a ziploc bag, oh, ziploc bag.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So underneath the the sink it's for research in the cupboard you just see a little ziploc bag with teeny, tiny little kidney stones odd shaped.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: They look like grape nuts tell you what they didn't feel teeny tiny but um like does anyone else know of someone who keeps their own personal kidney stone collection in their bathroom?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I am making a gravel path in our backyard and I needed some extra stones it was weird.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like you know what it was weird, you know what if you haven't passed a stone?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: You don't know the joy it brings you when it does pass.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a trophy for those of you that have passed the kidney stone.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Did you save it?
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: put it in the comments no, they didn't, I guarantee you, they did not man, I should throw you under the bus.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: What do you have?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: did you fish it out of the toilet or did you pee it into your hand?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: oh, dealer's choice, which is worse I want, I'm asking.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I fished I've never asked I've never asked this question before.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: It never occurred to me.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: How did you get it?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: you're gonna get burnt by the molten lava the deeper you go I don't want to.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: I would fish it out and wash it off.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: It's not like I've never had urine on my hands before.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: This podcast took a drastic turn, let's, let's have my turn my turn to share.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: The weirdest thing I found was we stayed at um.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: It was a staff retreat and we stayed at a really nice house in Coronado.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I remember they had one or two giant narwhal tusks or horns or whatever Tooths, those giant horn oh, that was kind of sad On display.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: They were real.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if that's even legal, but they were there and yeah oh, I just got sad.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I know it was.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: That was weird.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It was a little weird.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It's like an ace ventura when beautiful home he goes into that room and you know ace ventura like loves animals, and it's like when nature calls that right, and it's like all the like animal heads and the taxidermed animals you know taxidermed animals.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Is that a term?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: And he's like hyperventilating that's how I felt with the narwhal tusk tooth horns.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I think technically they're a tooth I think you're right, which is weird because they come out of their head um.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: They poke through their oh, that sounds horrible I believe?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: yikes, I don't know.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I was reading in some little like kids national geographic the other day my kids dentist office where I get my teeth cleaned.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're the weird one.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Anyways, put in the comment section below what's the strangest?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: thing I make you insecure about your kidney.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I don't care, hey, if anybody's dealing with any kidney stone issues.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I can tell you everything you need to know because I've passed over 25.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I stopped counting at 25, so I've been telling people 12 and they've been shook, and now it's 20.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't double it because 25 just seemed obscene it is.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: That's why I stopped counting, because it kind of got ridiculous and I think I actually just lost count at one point jeff yeah, well, I saved them.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Um, put in the comment section below.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: If there is anything you saw strange in someone else's home, let's do a community comment of the day and then we'll call it a day.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: This comes from ricky hammonds, who says and this is in regards to what he loves about this podcast he said the thing I enjoy the most is how I feel like weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: You guys have helped me plan better and invest more into my team.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Ooh, I like the part where he said weight lifted off his shoulders.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I like the part where he said invest more in his team.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I like the part where he said hi, my name's Ricky.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: He didn't say that, but it was implied.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It was implied.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you, ricky, appreciate that, and thank you guys for watching and listening.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: And we'll see you next time, right?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Anything to add to that?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Anything to add to that?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nothing to add to that.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Well, is that what I sounded like?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Well, you kept going and I thought you were going to try to get in there.