Latest / Student Ministry: What They Don't Teach You / Episode #1 - Expectations vs Reality
Transcript
- speaker-1: ⁓ Welcome in to the student ministry podcast, the things they don't teach you. My name is Blake Lewis. speaker-0: I'm Brandon. Brandon Allen. Nice to meet you. speaker-1: Is Brandon. Brandon is the fun part and will be the more the part that you will enjoy more. And then I'll be the boring X's and O's guy. speaker-0: Hey, we need both of those man. Gotta have both of speaker-1: We do, we do. But ⁓ so Brandon and I have been friends for gosh, what does that mean? Twelve years, man. Yeah, a long time. ⁓ doing ministry the entire time together. And ⁓ what's really fun about us is we both do ministry, I feel like at a pretty good level. ⁓ you for sh you for sure, ⁓ then I'm here as well. ⁓ but we we do ministry at a pretty good level, but we also do ministry very differently. And so it's really fun. speaker-0: Well. speaker-1: ⁓ so what's kind of the whole point of what we're wanting to do here with the things they don't teach you podcast is to kind of bring you in on some of our conversations that we've had, some of the things that we've learned ⁓ together. And so ⁓ the goal of this podcast is to help you learn some stuff that we've learned along the way. ⁓ we both, Brandon and I have both been to seminary, we've completed seminary, and ⁓ I think we both hold seminar speaker-0: What you have completed. I have not. ⁓ No, I haven't. I've not completed it. My wife my wife yells at me all the time and sa I'm a dropout. She calls me a dropout. You didn't know this? Well I've got a lot of hours in it, but I just I haven't seen the ball go through the hole yet. You know what I mean? It's a basketball. speaker-1: Not there. You have an honorary seminary degree for sure. You've done an speaker-0: I'll take it. I'll take the honorary. It is funny to me like how much people like invite me to go do stuff and speak and all this stuff. I'm like, Y'all really don't know. Like I've been to seminary. I just have not completed it yet. Life just happens, man. You know what I I'm not a studious person. speaker-1: Well, it's totally fine. And I think this is a great ⁓ balance between us that you know, the things that we want to share you today are things that they don't necessarily teach you in seminary. And now by no means is this bashing seminary. I think seminary is great. ⁓ I I made a lot of great connections there. I learned a lot of really good things in seminary. But we want to be able to share you some s share with you some stuff that we've learned along the way as we've done ministry together and so help you give you some nuggets of wisdom. So, Brandon, you wanna tell them what we're gonna talk about today? speaker-0: Yeah, just to to lead in, man, me and Blake talk, I don't know, three or four times a week. ⁓ it's kind of funny. My my my wife says that I talk to him more on the phone more than I talk to her, which is not true, but it is funny. I love making her jealous. And so ⁓ you know, we we always just asking questions, bouncing ideas off each other. So this podcast is basically that. It's just when we're on the phone and just, hey man, how y'all what are y'all doing with this? How what is this happening? And so, ⁓ yeah, so today we're gonna talk about ⁓ Expectations versus reality. When you think about student ministry or any job, I guess I guess you could say, you know, we live in this age of social media, and ⁓ you know, social media is not a real place, and it makes you think that everything is this utopia and everything is great. But we know that there's a expectation versus a reality, especially when it comes to student ministry. You get on social media and you see all these amazing buildings. And these amazing TikToks and the sermon clips are incredible. And that is just like, I don't know, what, two percent you think, Blake, of what the reality of ministry is? And so a lot of times people look at those highlights and think, man, I wanna do that. I wanna if that's what ministry is about, let me do it. I can hang out with the kids and smash cars and you know, have the fog machines. You're like, man, that's awesome. I wanna do that. And ⁓ what people don't tell you is, man, there's so much more than just a Wednesday night or one of those things. And so today we want to just talk about that. What does it look like with the expectations of student ministry versus a reality of it? speaker-1: Yeah, and I think a lot of where expectations come from is what how you grew up in student ministry. ⁓ like I I know for me the the ministry I'm at now is the ministry where I started as a student. When I was fourteen, fifteen years old, I started attending church here at First Baptist Halton. And ⁓ the ministry here I always kind of joked around was the sports car. And it was it was ready to go. Scott Sullivan was the student pastor here and ⁓ he was so organized, he had everything running well, he had parents plugged in. It was just a great, well-run ministry. And so that was the only student ministry I ever knew. So whenever I took on the title of a student pastor in Nacodish, Louisiana at a church with like eight kids, ⁓ I thought, well, hey, this is what student ministry looks like. It's gonna be smooth, it's gonna be easy. And ⁓ I quickly found out, like probably many people, that's not how that works. And so ⁓ just being able to build up a ministry at Nacodish and then be able to come back here and then help put some tweaks on it. I mean, there's Huge difference between what I was expecting what really had to happen. speaker-0: Yeah, that's and that's the beauty of both of us is because I grew up in the opposite I grew up in a little small country Baptist church and we had kids in our in our church, but like there was no student ministry. Like we would do trips and stuff together. We had like Sunday school, but like I grew up not really understanding what a student ministry is about and what a healthy one looked like. And it was because, you know, the church that I went to, they didn't have the funds to get a full-time student pastor or get somebody that can do that. So they just did the best they could. And I had a, you know, and it helped it didn't help me greatly with my walk with Jesus either, because I didn't really understand how Jesus could connect with me as a preteen or a teenager. And so it wasn't until I got to college and, you know, I got saved in college through FCA and all those different things that I started hanging out with other churches in the area I was at in Pondville that realized, ⁓ snap, like, you know, there's student ministries that teach you about Jesus at a young age. And so Part probably the reason why I'm a student pastor now is because of like that passion of making sure students have a better experience with Jesus at a teenage level ⁓ than I did. And so yeah, you're right. Like that what how you were raised really shapes your understanding of what student ministry is about. Because I can tell you right now, me and Blake had a completely different understanding of what a healthy student ministry looked like growing up. He had a sports car. I had that beat up nineteen fifty five Corolla, all right. I know they made Corolla back then, but you get what I'm trying to say. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, and and something I would add too is something that so yes, I think where you come from and we what you knew it creates your expectation, but then your reality is you have to do stuff about it. You can't just show up and expect things to run. And so one of the things that my my piece of advice for this, and we want to try to keep each episode around fifteen, twenty minutes. We know everybody's busy. So on your ride between hospital visits or whatever it is you're doing, you can maybe throw one of these on. But one of my my just pieces of advice to help your reality of student ministry, try to meet your expectations is to surround yourself with people that are doing ministry well. And so I whatever that means for you, that could be other pastors, that could be other student pastors. I mean, I can't tell you how much networking has helped me become a student pastor that I am today. I have a list of guys that I love to call and visit, check in on. And then what's really fun is I'm so they may think I'm checking in on them to make sure if I can help them, but really they end up helping me probably more. Then they realize that I get to hear what other guys are thinking about or what other guys are trying to plan. And that helps me think through ministry and keep me focused on is the things I'm doing still doing well? Do I need to tweak some stuff? ⁓ Brandon, we we have a mutual friend, he's more who's your former middle school pastor, Wylan Bailey. ⁓ he has ⁓ pitched out this idea that he has his merch store. And so when I saw he did it, I messaged Wylan and Wylin's twenty two. What is he? Twenty one, twenty two. speaker-0: Twenty two. I think it's twenty two now. speaker-1: Yeah, he's twenty two, ⁓ young buck, you know, still green in ministry. He's doing really well down in Baton Rouge. ⁓ but I I remember calling him and say, Hey, tell me about this. And he walked me through it. And so I stole an idea from Wyland. And so no matter where you are in ministry, you can learn from other people. And so I would say to help help move from this expectation of what I want ministry to be into a reality is you need to surround yourself with people that are doing ministry well and pick their brain, you know, ask them questions, learn from them. And so that's kind of my piece of advice. speaker-0: From a sports standpoint, you know, we always call it being a student of the game. You know what I mean? Like you want to be a student of the game, somebody who's always learning. And that's one thing, if I say to help me be very successful, is just being a student of the game. No matter when we get around conferences, on the phone calls, when I'm around other student pastors, I'm always asking questions, just being curious, man. Just like constantly trying to learn. The moment you think you figured it all out in student ministry, you will fail because then you will stop growing. And so ⁓ I remember, you know, being in Pondville, Louisiana, you know, Alexander's right there. And so that person for me, when I was young in ministry, I had no idea what I was doing. I I was gonna be a football coach. ⁓ graduated, God called me into ministry. So ⁓ the church I was just helping at a little small church said, Hey, here's the keys. And ⁓ I had no idea what I was doing. And so like I learned very quickly because I coach football and play football. Like when you don't know, you begin to just ⁓ surround yourself with people. And so ⁓ Billy Longsberry was at Calvary Baptist in Alexandria. And I was just, hey Billy, I'm coming to hang out with y'all on Wednesday night. I'm just coming to learn. Just figure it out. And so they did it. You talk about doing ministry at a high level, man. Billy killed it. And so ⁓ I would just go sit in, you know, I would just go on Wednesday nights when I didn't have church and just go sit and learn and just see, ⁓ snap, this is what it looks like. This is what ministry is. And so to some degree, you've got to figure out a lot of things on your own. Some of it's just trial by fire. But you can you can save so much headache. by just getting around other people and just learning from them. The amount of things that like people who've been in ministry now for like five plus years who will text me and ask me questions, I'm like, how do y'all not know this? Because and I'm like, ⁓ because I learned that by just going and sitting in the room with somebody else who was doing it. So for me, it it was, it became a reality a lot quicker than somebody else. But they because they just didn't. They've been trying to feed it on their own. And that's okay. You just save a lot of years when you surround yourself with other people. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say maybe start making that list. Like I literally have a list in my office. I have names written down of guys that I love to call and visit with and and to kind of talk shop with about student ministry. And so if you don't have a list of those guys, you may have met people or maybe have relationships that you haven't really organized it out. I would say write out a list and then try to stay ⁓ in touch with them because ⁓ as a young student pastor, I longed for that. I longed for people to reach out to me to talk to me. And so you can't sit on your little island and say, Man, I wish people would talk to me. Well, no, you get up and you go call people and you make phone calls and you like I've the last few years, I've I've looked people from around the country, ⁓ and I won't say their names, but like I've called different people. I'd I've emailed them or messaged them, Hey, would I could I have thirty minutes of your time so that I could call and be able to ask you some questions? And so that takes a little bit of humbling to be so, hey, you know, I don't know everything. And I want to be able to learn and grow. And so I would say, man, find people that you respect, reach out to ⁓ Most people in the student ministry world are incredible and want to help other people grow. And so reach out to people, ask people questions so that you can move again that expectation into a reality. speaker-0: Blake, let me ask you What what's one thing? We'll start with one thing. Do you feel like is that fool's goal in student ministry? That, you know, that thing of like, man, I can't wait to be a student pastor so I can do like it's gonna be this. And then you you realize in ministry, yeah, this wasn't what I expected it to be. Does that make sense? It was one of those things you're just like, man, that I did not see this coming in student ministry that you see now. speaker-1: And ⁓ for me it the first thing that comes to mind is camp. And now don't get me wrong, I love camp. Camp is incredible, camp is fun, spiritual highs, all the things. ⁓ but like once you get to a certain number of students going to camp, you're really just kind of the mean principal. I mean, like, or you're just the guy that like I'm here to fix everything. And so for me, camp is there is high moments, there is really good moments, but I'm really bouncing from and I'm a middle school pastor for context, anybody that doesn't know. And so from my middle school camp, I'm bouncing from I got a runny nose, I miss mama, you know, I'm, you know, I stub my toe on the field, you know, or whatever, or kids throwing hands at stuff, you know, because middle school boys think they're tough. And so, like, literally by the end of camp, it's been great. But I'm just like, I'm done answering questions, figuring out problems. And so camp, which for again our kids is one of the highlights of the year, and for me too, it also is one of the most stressful that you the once you're In the seat and you gotta make all the decisions is when you finally see, dang, there's a whole lot that goes on that I gotta do. And so for me, that was that was Camp. What about you? speaker-0: I wanna build off of that. And this will be a a whole different episode. Probably need to be a whole series in this in this whole thing. But like the the biggest thing for me has been like ⁓ more numbers. Like people, everybody when you're young in ministry, no matter if student minist or just ministry in general. ⁓ we want more numbers, right? Because we equate more numbers to more success. Yeah. And you just think, man, the more people I get, the better it's gonna be. And what people don't realize is like more, and I it's my favorite phrase. I stole this from the late great Biggie, right? He has a song called More Money, More Problems. I always say more kids, more problems. Because people don't understand, man, the more kids you have, the more ignorance is in one room, right? The more stuff that's gonna break, the more drama there's gonna be, the more leaders you gotta deal with, the more parents you gotta deal with, the more budget you gotta deal with. All of these things, the more coordination you gotta have. And so On the outside, ⁓ man, I want 400 kids in my youth group. And yeah, it sounds great. And yeah, praise God. Like you got more kids just learn Jesus, all those different things. Yeah. But people don't talk about the issues that come with having more kids. And so I was thinking about that when you were talking about camp. I was at camp this year, and ⁓ you know, we go to both me and Blake both go to Camp Fuego. Shout out to Camp Fuego in Louisiana. Shout out to incredible camp. But like our kids have these things called DGs, like they're small groups they have. And there was one day that week that I remember I got a call from one DG leader and she was like, Hey, I need you to meet me here. I gotta talk to you about a kid. And this is not a joke, this is real life. And so it was maybe 200 yards from where I was sitting to where this this this ⁓ DG was with one of my students. And if you ever played Pokemon, the classic Pokemon, when you're walking through like a grass or something. And every two steps, like a Pokemon will show up and you gotta fight that Pokemon. I'm looking at this DG leader, right? And as I'm walking, I got stopped five times by other DG leaders with another kid that had they had to talk to me about. I'm watching this person that I'm trying to get to and it was like a Pokemon. Like I'm just walking and like every five steps, another one would grab me and be like, Hey, I gotta talk to you about this kid. And it was just the epitome of like more kids, more problems, man. Like I'm ahead to do this w to deal with this one issue. And like five other issues popped up. And it was like great conversations and things they need to tell me about. But it was just like, this is exhausting. Like this is great that I have all these kids and yeah, we got 200 plus kids at camp. But it's like, yeah, more kids, man, more problems. And so people don't understand it. They talk about expectations versus reality. ⁓ man, you got all these kids. I'm like, yeah, I'm thankful for it. But if y'all only knew the amount of headaches, the amount of conversations that we have. Again, praise God. If God has blessed you with that many kids, that that means that you are doing a great job. But if you're young in ministry or you've like, man, I just want more kids, you better understand it comes with a lot of headaches. It comes with lot of a lot of other things that you gotta be ready to deal with. And so don't just think all these big numbers is is awesome. It comes with lot of trial and fire before you can like do it at a high level. speaker-1: Totally agree. And so I as we wrap up this episode, this is just kind of a taste of what ⁓ to expect. We have all kinds of topics that we've already kind of laid out on a list of things that we want to help address or talk through. And so ⁓ please follow the the page on Instagram or follow us on Spotify, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, we'd love for you to do that. ⁓ Brandon, will you take us home and wrap us up? speaker-0: Yeah, man, we are excited. We can't wait to spend more time just having conversations. Again, this is like what me and Blake talk about while we're just on the phone. And so that's kind of what we wanted it to be. It's just two guys having a conversation about student ministry and hopefully giving you guys some wisdom and some nuggets to again help you not make the same mistakes that we made. So look forward to these episodes. If you have any conversations or any questions that you have, feel free to reach out to us, leave a comment, whatever social media you see. We love to have a conversation about it. But until next time, y'all be good. And more kids, more problems, but we're gonna get through it together. speaker-1: See y'all soon. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: Whoa.