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4 Discipleship Strategies That Will GROW Your Youth Group · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: As a youth pastor, as a youth worker, volunteer.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Whatever role you're in, it's just we're always ready to have a meaningful conversation with a student.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Every conversation can turn into discipleship.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about four discipleship strategies to help grow your youth.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast where every week we give you actionable and practical tips to help you grow your youth ministry.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and today we are talking about discipleship strategies to grow your youth ministry.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And our mission statement at North Coast Church for years and years and years as long as I can remember, as long as I've worked there, which has been a long time is making disciples in a healthy church environment For the staff.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We tweak that slightly and it's making disciples in a healthy and productive church environment.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: And so a decision like sometimes, as youth pastors, I think we get really excited and motivated by decisions Like how many kids accepted Jesus at camp, how many kids accepted Jesus at this altar call or whatever, and that is exciting and we should measure that and we should pay that and we should pay attention to the decisions.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: But that is really not the end of the road when it comes to what we need to be focused on.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So we always say we're into making disciples, not just decisions.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So decisions are a great starting off point, but Jesus didn't ask us to simply make a decision for him.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: He said follow me.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: And that's basically what discipleship comes down to is we're getting people to go from A to B and B to C and so on and so forth in their relationship with following Jesus, not simply.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I said a prayer once in third grade.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm good you know, and, to be honest, I think we may have talked about this on the podcast before.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I grew up believing that you know, and I don't know that it was anyone's fault.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I went to a Christian school my whole life, up until my sophomore year of high school, and I had gone to church with my parents.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I went to you know like there was Bible class in chapel and I was inundated with biblical knowledge.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I knew a lot.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: However, I was still under this impression that once you ask Jesus into your heart quote you're good to go and there's nothing that can ever take that away.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And as I kind of developed in my own faith, I sort of started to realize I think I might be missing something here.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You know that, and it was the discipleship process.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Like it doesn't just like we liken it some sometimes to like a wedding ceremony, you know, like if you and I get married and I say I do, and then I'm like, well, I have a date later, you know, see you later.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: It's like wait a minute.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Just because you said I do doesn't give you a license to do whatever you want, but we're still married, it's like, well, I guess on paper, but that's no relationship and it's similar.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the whole idea of what we're trying to teach our students is hey, guys, a decision is a really good first step.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: You've acknowledged your belief in Jesus, like in the Bible talks about that, like that confession with your mouth, the belief in your heart.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Those are all important pieces, but we can't leave out now what the journey with our students.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So how do we do that?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: How do we disciple our students so that they become Jesus followers?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Not a flash in the pan.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I made a decision.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I think a lot of times about the parable of the sower and the seed, you know, and I think the first one is very much.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: That is like, yeah, I'm excited, sweet Jesus, let's go.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And then it's like, you know you're kind of over it, or life gets in the way, or you get distracted, or you know people say Christianity didn't work for me or something.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It's like whoa.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Then you have a very limited understanding of what this is, because there was nothing that was supposed to work.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, salvation from hell didn't work for you.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Just not my.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Thing.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think we have a misunderstanding here, and one of the best books I've ever read on this and I feel like it's one of those books I should probably read like a couple of times a year for the rest of my life as long as I'm in vocational ministry is Stop Asking Jesus Into your Heart by JD Greer, and I found it at this little thrift store in Santa Barbara like on a whim.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: We were checking out and I'm like what's this bright yellow book?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: This is interesting Stop Asking Jesus into your heart, Like the title caught me like what, and I ended up taking it to our student ministry team at North Coast and we all read it and discussed it together, because the message we could inadvertently be giving our students is the one that I just mentioned growing up with of like, all we are asking, guys, is that you quote ask Jesus into your heart and there's your fire insurance, no matter what you do for the rest of your life, when the biblical narrative and what Jesus is asking us to do is a little bit more than just that you know it's simple and complex all at the same time.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: We always describe the gospel as a diamond and every time you turn it you see a new facet in the way the light hit it and you see a new angle.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I've been a Christian since I was four years old and I still see new facets of the gospel every single time I open the Bible or pray or hear a sermon, particularly Tim Keller, I mean.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Every time I hear him I'm like, do I even know the gospel?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I've never seen that before.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not like, ooh, a new gospel, it's just the way he said it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, you're right.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: So, so good.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I love Tim Keller, but anyways, how do we do this?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So for me, in my opinion, I think that the number one way to get people on a discipleship journey is through serving.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I think that is the most powerful way to metaphorically get people off the bench and into the game when it comes to their faith in Christianity.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So to me, that's the number one tool.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: But let me go a step further and say how we get them.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Serving is really, really important, and I think that's sort of where, like, the secret sauce is is not just like all right, here's a badge.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: You're in room two with the three-year-olds Bada bing, bada boom.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: See you later Serving discipleship.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Did it check?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It's a little more intentional than that and I make fun of that, but I think that's the way a lot of churches operate is oh, you are on a serving team.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Now let me move on to the next person.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Are you serving?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And we think, just like, making a decision is the end all be all of being a Christian.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: We think being on a serving team means we did our job and it's like well, how did we do it?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Though?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So it's not just, you know, go watch these kids or go push this button or just set up this stuff, or whatever their serving job in particular is.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: It's done in the context.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I like to do serving in the context of like a leadership team, and we talk a lot about student leadership teams, you know, and how they're just vital to the culture of your youth ministry.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But what we want to do, and why it's important to be a part of the team, is because I want to teach you godly character and leadership principles, and then you serving is when you're putting those into action.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So it's like serving is the platform that you use, the more important thing, which is these character lessons we're talking about.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So, for example, we had our first SOS meeting on Friday.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It was super fun.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: We have the biggest leadership team we've ever had in my youth ministry.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Kids are excited to get involved ever had in my youth ministry.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Kids are excited to get involved, and what I was talking to them about is I was telling them a story of a girl who I just randomly ran into in a subway and I was like oh yeah, I'm taking this sandwich down to the beach.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I'm having an event for my youth group and she's like what church do you go to?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And we started chatting, chatting, chatting.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: She was a young adult, she was out of high school and she just started opening up about how she went to a church.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And she's like I was kind of emo in high school and so I got made fun of a lot and basically the story was she got bullied out of the church and she's like you know, I really want to go back to church someday, but I don't know like I had such a bad experience.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just watching it online.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So it was really excited for her that it wasn't like so God isn't real.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You know, it was like she understood the difference between Christians that are jerks and that God is still God.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't like this very lost cause.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: But she was like, ah, I'm not really ready to step foot back in a church and I said I don't blame you.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I said, whatever, take your time, you know like it'll, it'll still be there and you'll find the right one when you're ready to come back.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But so what I did is I took that lesson to my student leadership team and I said, hey, the way we treat people is the difference between them continuing to come to church and them being so scared of the people there that it's now a barrier to their relationship with other Christians.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I said how sad is that?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: So what can we do?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, maybe your job is tech, but when a new kid walks in the room, how do you treat them?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Well, let's look at how Jesus treated outcasts and if we're following Jesus's example.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So now we're doing discipleship, like discipleship's happening.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, this is how Jesus treats people.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: This is how you can treat people.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: This is what's at stake.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Now I'm giving you a job through serving, where you can actually do this.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know like you see a new kid who's kind of nervous and you say, hey, why don't you come and sit with us?
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Why don't you be on our team, whatever?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So Any kid can do that, whether they're a part of a serving team or not.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But I just feel like when they're a part of a serving team, it's this extra training ground where I get this opportunity to really, like, speak these lessons into their lives and challenge them with this godly character stuff.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And so you know we teach students all kinds of lessons every month how to put people above yourself.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Like when you're uncomfortable, are you willing to sacrifice that for the sake of someone else.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Well, how did Jesus sacrifice his comfortability for us?
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And you know what was at stake for him and what's at stake for us.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: You're having these deep conversations and then giving them action items.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So sometimes you know I've talked about before these students will need a nudge.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You know like I'll be like shoulder tap, like all right, blue sweater, brand new.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I already said hi, I mean, my conversation can only go so far.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Go and invite her to sit with you.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like okay, so let's talk about rejection.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: You may walk into a situation where you get rejected right now Again, what did Jesus I mean, he's very familiar with rejection like, but what is at stake is greater than, oh well, you're rejected and then you move on, you know, and so you start to peel away, like we're getting to the heart of Jesus, we're getting to the heart of.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to emulate him in this situation and so sometimes I push them toward it, you know.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: And then we have a talk about it afterwards.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Or I see, one of our students was really great with a special needs student and she was just taxed at the end of it because it was very high needs relationally and a lot of touching and a lot, you know.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And I just kept looking at her like you're doing great.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: You're doing okay, you're doing okay.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And she kind of broke at the end of it, like oh, I'm like really overwhelmed and I'm like, I see you, you did a really good job and you loved that girl and it was hard.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Now let's talk about how love is hard sometimes, like love takes from us.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: It's not always this like ooh, like this giddy feeling.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Sometimes love just sucks the life out of us.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Let's bring it back to Jesus.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Like how did he love us in a way that just literally depleted him, like I can think of a million examples, right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So we're always bringing it back to Jesus and when we have that in the context of a serving team, I think we have a platform to really sharpen them and then send them out, just like Jesus did.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So it's like the huddle.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: We talk about it.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I see you, you're going to sometimes feel like a sheep among wolves.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Now go.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know, and that's what he did.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: He paired them up and sent them out and it was the team huddle and you know.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: But he didn't make it easy for them and I feel like we need to challenge students.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: That's part of discipleship is challenging them, and that's why I like, again I do.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I like doing it in the context of a student leadership team, because when you sign up for that team, you're saying please challenge me, Please disciple me.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go deeper, I'm ready to go further.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And now I feel this permission, even more so, to be like hey, this is what you signed up for, this is ministry.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I know you thought it was going to be just like yay, I get more attention now and my picture's up in the youth room, but this is loving people.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: This is tough.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So that's the first way of get students serving.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And secondly, how we disciple students is through a thriving relationship with a caring adult which would be hopefully more than just you.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It would be their small group leader.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So discipleship it's just impossible for it to happen outside of relationship.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: There's just no way.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So if you don't have a small group ministry in your youth group, I cannot emphasize that enough.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Relationship is the key to everything we do in youth ministry.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So small groups for me are an absolute, non-negotiable.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Like if I I honestly, if I didn't have small groups in my ministry right now, that would be the number one thing I would do.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I would do that before student leadership team.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: It would be.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I don't even know how to do a youth ministry without small groups.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Like it basically is talking for a lot longer.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: It is playing more games.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Like that is like the hub of everything we do.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So students need to be known in a capacity that their small group leader can know them and disciple them and have a window into, like what's really going on in a crowd.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: A window into, like what's really going on in a crowd.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: You can hide very easily.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: You know you don't have an opportunity to ask questions, you don't have an opportunity to share.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Like at the end of a sermon I never say does anyone have any prayer requests?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Like that's just for me and my size and setting and context.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It's not the setting for that You'd have a lot of neighbor's cats who are lost and pray that they come back.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Because that would be the most safe prayer request.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Imagine a group like your crush is sitting right next to you and you're really going to raise your hand and say whatever.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Or those girls that intimidate you a little bit and you think they're going to make your hand and say whatever.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Or those girls that you know intimidate you a little bit and you think they're going to make fun of you.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Or just joe schmo, like you don't even know his name, like you're really going to open your heart now and share a real prayer request, but in the context of a small group, with a small group leader that you know cares for you and you have a relationship with.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: That's where we get real and we can talk about real things.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And then you know training your small group leaders of how to have really good and meaningful conversations with students.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes I struggle with that, you know, because the small groups, like.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: One thing we struggle with majorly is keeping them small enough for this kind of stuff to happen.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: We have a very good problem that students continue to invite their friends.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I see new faces every single week but what that does to our small groups is they keep getting exponentially bigger and I'm running out of space and I'm running out of leaders and sometimes we keep them together, but it's like the depth of relationship.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: It's like the depth of relationship can only go so far when you're in a room full of 21 other seventh grade boys, like that's not really healthy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: So that's what I really struggle with is keeping the size small enough to where we can open up and share and it's not just like a surface level discussion.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So make sure you're keeping your small groups at a good size to where you feel like everyone's getting a chance to share, everyone has a connection with each other, everyone feels safe and has some relational bonds so that now life can start to happen and we can talk about something real and not just answer the questions on the talk sheet but like talk about what is going on in our life.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: That's Christian community.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: That's what students need.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: They need a place to be real and to be vulnerable, and that's the part of, you know, discipleship like we're talking about.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So I think our small group leaders are sort of the key to that and you could give them examples of like, hey, here's how we go below the surface with students and that happens over time.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not just like you go from zero to 60, but you know you get to know students and then give them like the questions to ask, you know to if they have the opportunity to get below the surface with students and when students are ready to open up, they really open up.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Junior hires tend to, I feel like, open up a little quicker, you know, than high schoolers, but high schoolers tend to be able to go a little deeper sometimes.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It just depends.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And so the third method or tip for discipleship would be possibly changing up your sermon style.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So we were talking about in a meeting this week how I think it's Kara Powell from the Fuller Youth Institute and how she's talking a lot right now about how the like lecture sermons style is just dead Right and it's like just you getting up there having a monologue.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah, like I am right now is just like very dead.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I'm very interested though.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Keep going, okay.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I see you keep swallowing your yawns.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not, you're not.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: No, I'm very interested, though, keep going Okay.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I see you keep swallowing your yawns, no.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not, you're not.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, then you're making weird faces.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I'm probably burping.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a burp.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm like you're swallowing air.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I can tell what a weirdo I'm burping, probably, I think you figured it out.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So you could do more of like round table discussions.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: This was one of our senior pastor's ideas for us this week.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: He's like so what, if you like, throw out a Bible story and you guys all read it, and then you ask a question like why did Jesus blah, blah, blah and then, you give them some time to talk about it, and then you ask a question like why did Jesus blah, blah, blah?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And then you give them some time to talk about it and then you kind of go around the room All right, what'd you guys come up with?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And so it's more interactive.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: You could kind of do it like a talk show a little bit.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You know like Do you mean like changing it up kind of every now and then, but like not completely changing your format?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: To this we now are just a talk show.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I not completely changing your format to this.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: We now are just a talk show.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, if it works for you, why not?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't think, as he was talking about it, it worked very well for him when he was a youth pastor and he saw a lot of fruit from it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: He said, however, you need to be able to control a room and you need to have, you need to know your group to know if something like this will work.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: My students I love them.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: They're so cute, so fun.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know that we could be totally successful at this.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I think I could do this with my student leadership team, but on a typical Tuesday night youth group, I don't know that they're mature enough for this to work.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But I think it could work very well with our high school group.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You know, know that they're mature enough for this to work, but I think it could work very well with our high school group.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I've guest spoke for them and observed their like demeanor and their culture and their vibe.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I think it would be excellent for them.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And so I remember being a part of that, I think, like you know, in a college group or something, and it would be like your table talks about it, and then we turn our attention back to, you know, the main group and the speaker, and they might even pass the mic around like, all right, what did you think?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Or what answers did you guys come up with?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: And now it's like a Bible study, but like on a larger group scale, and I think that's a great form of discipleship, of like, hey, we are grappling with the scripture together.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: It's not just like, uh, I'm the speaker, you're the listener, but I'm bringing you into this process of well, you're gonna have to dive into the scripture and answer some questions.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna spoon feed you every single point, one, point two, point three.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: You, every single point, one, point two, point three, tie it all up with a bow and it's done.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You know and like, obviously, as the one running it, you should be prepared and know these answers and know how to steer the conversation.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But it just gives more buy-in and it's a discipleship tool for how to deal with scripture and it gives them tools to think critically about scripture, to dig deeper, to ask good questions, to do a little more investigation, to ask the question why, instead of just sit there, like you know, feed me.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: You know it's a life skill and it makes it more exciting as well.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And I like to point students toward, you know, bible study tools that they can use themselves.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like guys when I prep a sermon, I go to enduring wordcom.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Guess what you can too.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: You know it's not like I'm the one who is only allowed on the internet and these commentaries, everyone can do this.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So if you're stuck on a verse or you don't understand, guess what, we might have to do a little more work and look it up and teach them how to study the Bible.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I think that's a tool that they usually don't develop until they're an adult and have to do, maybe, bible study homework.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So that's another tool of discipleship.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, this one's more of a mindset, and I call this one five-minute discipleship, and it's just this idea that every single time you see a student, it's an opportunity for discipleship, every single time.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And I've noticed single time, and I've noticed I think this is so ingrained in how I operate now that I'm like when it comes to students, like it's amazing, like what a little five minute like before youth group starts, or in between first and second service, or staying late, like some of the best conversations I've had with students.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I remember one time after youth group a student stayed late and we were in the kitchen cleaning up and it was turned into like a half an hour conversation about just some struggles she was having.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And it was like this very deep, connecting moment, so much so that she wrote me a letter after and said I don't know if that meant a lot to you, but it meant a lot to me and I just wanted to thank you so much for like being available and it was just like we were working alongside each other and you know, she just started opening up about some stuff that was going on.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: It's like plan for that unplanned time, like can you ask a good question?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Can you just like?
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And I I sometimes feel this pressure of like I only have you for three years and in that I see you twice a week for a couple of hours and if I can get a good conversation in with you, I totally am going to take that opportunity.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: So what does that look like Walking down the hall at church instead of just like, hey, dude, how's your weekend?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Just like hey, remember that thing like last year, like how are you feeling about that?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Or how do you feel like you've grown this last year you know in your faith, like, or what has God been teaching you this year?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I like asking, you know, my students who have gone on to high school, like so like where's your faith at, or what?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Who's your small group leader?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: What are you learning in your small group?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Where are you being challenged right now?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And just taking that opportunity, just we literally are just walking down the hall to the bathroom or something like that, or sitting next to each other on the bus on the way to an event or in the car if we're going somewhere.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: But camp a lot of times is a really great time to have those conversations.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I remember when, uh, this is back at forest home and one of the boys in my cabin asked a question, I could tell there was like a lot on his heart right as we were going to be going to like the nightly worship or something was happening, and so I thought I'd be serving better by staying back with this kid and talking with him than going with everybody else to the nightly worship thing, and so we did that and he just totally opened up about some of the stuff going on in his life and it was a really impactful time that I'm really glad.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I didn't like, well, you know, we got to get going you know, because I mean, I would have enjoyed that, and I'm sure he would have too, but we really wouldn't have like gotten, you know, to the heart of what was going on in his life, had I just been in so much of a rush to keep the schedule you know.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Right and exactly what you're saying.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Like you're, you always, are ready, you know, to like, take this where it needs to go.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Like time is short a lot of times with these students, so take every opportunity for a meaningful conversation.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You know I've just noticed being an expert at asking good questions.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You can usually get to with you and this kid to the heart of what's going on.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I just sometimes start asking about their family or their friends or little things like that and you'll kind of read between the lines of well, I don't't know, I don't really have any friends.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Well, what happened?
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had a friend and was there falling out or just be a really curious good question, asker, and not in a way and this is why question asking such an art because you don't want to come off as like I'm an investigator, you know and tell me everything, but just a genuine curiosity and care.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And people tend to open up and not always.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: It's not like I have 100 percent success.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: You know of whatever.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But when I can tell people are not into it, it's like all right, well, good, I'm glad you're here.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: You know I missed you.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Give them a hug, you know, give them a compliment, let them know that you're a fan and you can move on and try again another time.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: But as a youth pastor, as a youth worker, volunteer, whatever role you're in, it's just, we're always ready to have a meaningful conversation with a student.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Every conversation can turn into discipleship, because, because sometimes discipleship is restorative, just like I care about you.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So you know, in the beginning we talked a lot about discipleship as challenging them and like accountability and pushing them.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But discipleship, on the other end too, is Jesus models a lot of just the care and the concern and the relationship and the love that he had for those who were his.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And I think we model that through just seeing every opportunity or every interaction as an opportunity, like nothing is gone to waste, nothing is just.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know they say that there's no neutral interactions.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: You know they're just either positive and moving us closer to a goal, or they're negative and taking away from the goal.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: But there's very few neutral interactions.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: You know they're doing something and the crazy thing is sometimes you don't even know.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Like I had a student write me a letter this summer about how much I mean to her and how much she looks up to me and all of that, and it was like the probably the best part of my entire summer actually.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: But I had no idea.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It's not like she all the time was like Kristen, I love you, you're the best.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: It was just like intentional, intentional, intentional every time I saw her and not much feedback either way.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: But then like oh my gosh, this letter of her pouring out her heart about it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: She got me a gift and just wanted to say thank you and all this stuff and I was like, wow, like there's so much going on underneath the surface with people sometimes that we just don't even realize yeah, if you guys want to go deeper in any of these topics, I would guide you to one of several episodes.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: If you're looking to start a student leadership team, make sure you check out the episode we did all about how to launch a student leadership team.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: And then also we recently did one about how to encourage students to sign up, because just because you have one, maybe you don't know how to pitch the idea to them in a good way.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So make sure you check that out.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: And then also we have some a ton, I think on small groups, but we'll link them all below.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: But one of them in particular is how to run an effective small group to make the most of the time that you have with your students.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: It might even be something that you want to send to any of your volunteers to help them lead a small group.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: So here.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You need this.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: You might benefit from knowing these things.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: All right, we're going to do a community comment of the day.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: This comes from Michael Stevens, who says oh, and also this comes from the episode we did on the youth room tour.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: They love that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going through those right now.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: And so this is the next one.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Who says Michael?
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Michael steven says you have my dream set up.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I'm at a small church plant in utah, but I got a ton of great ideas.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you hey, michael, I hear you.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I was once at a very small church plant not in utah but here and this I, when you guys watch that, just know it's my dream, set up too, and it was about um 12 years, something like that, 12 or 13 years in the making before we got to have a room like that.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: But I feel it when, like I hope you guys are never like well, well must be nice.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: It is nice.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: However, you should have seen it before, like we weren't even in this building.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: We were just Gorilla church, where you have to bring everything in, take everything out.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: So, for those of you who have to do that, definitely feel for your I see you your plight, so thank you, michael, we really appreciate that and we thank you guys for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: When they go out to get them, can't they only bring one highlighter?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: What are they called Glow space?
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Are you looking to have more energy in your smaller youth group?
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Well then, stick around, because I have five ways.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about five ways to take a small youth group.