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5 Leadership Habits of Highly Effective & Visionary Youth Pastors · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Do you want to become a better leader?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Then stick around, because we're going to give you five ways to be a highly effective and visionary youth pastor.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we bring you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast track the growth and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: And today we're going to go over five leadership habits of highly effective and visionary youth pastors Highly effective, visionary thought provoking pioneer.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how long that title was until I said it out loud Five leadership habits of highly effective visionary youth pastors.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: When did I write this?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, in my car, and maybe I just had a moment where I was like it's like your word stuffing to make sure you filled out enough to get credit for the assignment or something.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, you're going to love it, I guarantee it.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: This is sort of a leadership challenge, and I always say this every time we quantify things, it's like there could be more there could be, because I always think of the person that's sitting there like, well, you never said this.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Number six.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Right, and so they aren't the five, they are some.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Random five the five I chose to talk about today.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So this is not like, oh, there's nothing else besides these five, there's more, but let's just talk about five, because how many could you really talk about?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about these five.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: You ready, let's start.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Let's start, okay.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Number one highly effective, visionary youth pastors do this.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: They focus on solutions and possibilities, not problems and roadblocks.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Solutions and possibilities, not problems and roadblocks.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I give youth pastors a hard time sometimes for this one, because I feel like they are experts in telling me why they can't do things.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And there's a million reasons why things are difficult.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: There is a particular roadblock or challenge.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Here's your job to find a way around it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I think back to my youth ministry career and there were so many obstacles that seemed like insurmountable.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: One in particular was I really needed a safety team, and I had requested one, and the resources from the church at large were just not there to give me what I was asking for.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like, oh, we don't care about your safety.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It was just like, ah, you know, like we don't have any people to give you but check back.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And I was just adamant like, no, I need one now.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So what did I do?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I started emailing parents who had some kind of first responder experience or military experience, police experience, firefighter experience, whatever and saying, hey, would you be willing to attend a training at our church, to be on my safety or medical team?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I will put you on a schedule twice a month and then you're off and you know.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Here's the benefits.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: There are none.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: You can go to sleep at night.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Knowing you helped a youth ministry and I had to find them, recruit them, I just remember thinking, no, I'm not going to let that be a closed door, like I think this is possible.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I think, I just need to take the ball and run with it, and I think that's what we do a lot of times as leaders.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: If somebody tells us no or not now, or I can't help you, we just take that as.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I guess this is a no, it's a bigger problem, though, when you're the one yourself telling you why you can't do something Good point and instead of figuring out the how to do it, like how can we get this done?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It's here's all the reasons why I can't do it Exactly, and just a matter of will.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Well, and creativity finding a way around it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: There's usually a solution.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: There's always.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: What I found in 20 years of youth ministry is that, I don't know, maybe once like I'll just be generous and say twice there's been a problem I could not solve.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: With the right people, with the right resources, with the right amount of time, with the right enthusiasm and like tenacity, eventually I could solve it.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it takes a long time and it could take years, you know, but I feel like there's usually a solution if you want to do something bad enough, if you understand the why behind it enough.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I'll give you another example, because we're all about tangibility here.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: You're not going to like me for this one, but I promise you'll like me for the rest of them.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: But a lot of youth pastors tell me why they can't split junior high and high school, and I agree with all of the reasons, but you didn't look at the other reasons of why you should do it or how you can do it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You just got stuck on I can't do it because of this and I can't do it because of this, but it's like okay.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Well, if you understand the why and the why is motivating enough for you, you will look at these as challenges, but not nails in the coffin.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: It's like space.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a real issue.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not like all of them are real issues.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It's not like everyone has it easy, except for you.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Well, everyone else has a big church no, they don't.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Well, everyone else has tons of staff no, they don't.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Well, everyone else has a huge budget?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: No, they don't.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And it is still possible to make these things happen.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: It's just the.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Is your why big enough for you to say, hey, we're going to figure this out because this has to happen, or you just get stuck in the well, it's not going to work.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Another example is a worship team.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of youth pastors including myself for a really long time who had no worship team specifically for junior high.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I went years without a worship team for junior high and then a super handsome volunteer came along named Jeff La Scola.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: That's you.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I know him.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: You were the first worship leader and worst and worse, and we only got better, and that's why God was showing me like, hey, I'm going to give you faithful with little and then you will be faithful with great musicians.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Um, no, but I remember you were like checking out, volunteering, and then we learned that you had some musical ability and you were kind of the worship guy I can play a mean tambourine and I'm not shy to let people know that so you had some major hip action on that
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: tambourine hand, hip hand hip, my favorite version of the tambourine.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But then you started developing people.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So it was like you for a while, and then a younger leader.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: He was like oh, I play too like I could play with you, and then another leader's like well, I could do, cajon, and you know, so it just started like developing itself it's like you're bad.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I can be bad at another instrument too, oh, jeff, he was great guys so let him fool you, I'm not wrong.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: So anyways, your point is.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean it's like, okay, well, we have one guy with some skills, let's just run with it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But for a long time we didn't.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: We didn't have anybody, but we're always looking, yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: So worship sometimes, like getting a worship band, feels like this insurmountable task, and it is really hard to find those people.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But all you need is one musician who's willing and you give them a shot, and then it attracts more musicians, and then this person and you just you've got to start somewhere, you've got to give someone a chance and you just can't wait for perfection to just get going.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: You know I just settled for you More than once.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: But it was like gal, let's start, let's just do this and not wait till we have amps and this.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And we didn't have any of these.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: We didn't have that in the budget.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It was like you got a guitar, let's do it.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So all that to say, yes, these are real challenges, yes, they are real problems, yes, there are big reasons why it is difficult, not impossible, and I just hope that in this next year we can start to move forward and become those kinds of leaders that don't look at problems as insurmountable impossibilities and just like, well, I can't because I don't have this.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Get some tenacity, like, OK, this is hard, let's get around it, let's get over it, let's get through it, but let's not let it stop us from doing what is ultimately the best for the ministry.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And one way I think about problems too yes, it's hard today, but what will your, five year from now, self thank you for?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Like, what will yourself of tomorrow wish that yourself of today did and got done for the ministry of the future?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And it's just biting this stuff off little by little and not being afraid of a challenge, not being afraid of failure and not being afraid of hard work, but looking at it like all right, we need this, let's figure it out.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So that's that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Any questions?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I'm still just simmering in the.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Give us a little uh, a line from your favorite worship song.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: That is a great worship song.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: We're moving on.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Number two.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: A habit of highly effective, visionary youth pastors is include as many people in the leadership process as possible.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So meaning don't hoard your leadership.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Hoarding leadership is a very bad idea.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Some pastors I mean I've never met any, but I hear there's some pastors with ego problems out there- no, never never, never, never.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And there is a tendency to want to be the one who figures it out or the one who's calling the shots or the one who came up with the idea.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But you can very well be your churches, your youth groups, your ministries, ceiling, if you don't allow people to speak into the program, into the ministry, into the process and how to make it better.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Don't assume that just because you're the pastor, you have all the creativity, all the answers, all the ideas.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Some of our best ideas have come from volunteers, interns, directors, everyone except for me, okay.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Even parents and students.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Have I had good ideas?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I hope you do too.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You're the youth pastor.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: You should have some.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But in the book of Proverbs it says when you have multiple wise counselors or many advisors, there's safety.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Good things happen when you have a lot of people speaking into something.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Ministry is not supposed to be a one man show, and you probably have a lot of gifts and strengths.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: You don't have all of them, so why not let the players on your team exercise their gifts and strengths?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: There's some nights at youth group when you would show up and you wouldn't see me on the stage at all.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: My interns or directors are leading and emceeing and teaching and other people are doing worship and I'm there supporting and helping and hanging out with students and mingling with leaders, and I'm on the floor helping with the game and I might not be on the stage at all, and it's letting other people shine, letting other people use their gifts, letting other people stretch themselves to find out what are they good at and really truly listening to other people's ideas.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: We had a leader recently named Heidi that came up with such a brilliant idea to start challenging students to sort of like go the next step in some like biblical challenges.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So we're calling it the deep end and it's this table where you can check out this book and do these challenges of memorizing the books of the Bible, memorizing scripture.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You get a little check mark every time you bring your Bible and then you can earn these bucks that translate to money at the snack shack.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And it was her whole idea.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I just helped her run with it, I just got the graphics printed and set the table up and got her some Bibles.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: But she had the idea and I could have said no, we're not launching another program, we're really busy, we have student leadership for that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: We don't need another thing.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: But I'm like she's passionate about this and she has a vision for it and what do we have to lose?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Like let's go for it.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And it's been like such a huge response.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: The kids are already checking out books and completing challenges and they're like taking it like really seriously.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And it was so cool because I would have never thought of that.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I kind of thought, well, we have a program for everyone.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: That's kind of that.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But her whole idea behind it was there's a lot of kids that come like early but they don't necessarily want to play gaga ball or run around.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: They are more introverted, maybe, and they would like something like this to like occupy their time and put their energy toward I.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: She's like I think it would be a great place for them and I was like, yeah, that's such a smart idea.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And that only on your midweek, or you do that on Sundays?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, only on our midweek, but it turns out introverts and extroverts all want to be there.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: They all are excited about it.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So listen to the people who have been in your ministry and when they have ideas, listen and do your best to execute it if you think it's a good fit.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: And even if I always tell myself, just because we try it doesn't mean we do it forever.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: You know like this could be a season.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: We do the deep end and then it's not fruitful anymore and we stop.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: And that was cool.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: But don't be afraid to try new things that other people come up with and you will learn something new, your ministry will be more multifaceted and you won't be the ceiling for ideas and creativity right Number three, and this one has changed my ministry probably more than anything else.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Honestly, this has made me a highly effective visionary youth author, if I do say so myself a trailblazer, one might say being ahead, always ahead, never behind, never on time, but ahead always.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: So at the time of this recording, it's December, and in November I had all of my next year's ministry calendar done.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: And then today now I'm working through I got all my midweek games done.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So I know it's not even the new year yet and I already know what game I'm playing every single Tuesday for the year 2025.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And then next week I'm going to work on all my weekend games.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get that done and then I'm going to plug in all my sermon series and then I'm going to make sure all my leader birthdays are on my calendar and all my events.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And here's why because when you're ahead, you create margin for excellence and creativity.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I used to fly by the seat of my pants and I would get it done by the skin of my teeth.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I would get it done and it would be fun, but I would be exhausted because all of my energy was going toward, like, simultaneously, brainstorm and execution and those are hard to do on the same day.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Like I want to use my energy not toward what should we do, but how can we do it, incredibly, and be one step ahead.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So, like if I look two weeks ahead and I'm like like, oh, we're playing human curling, then I can make sure, oh, let's think of some really funny creative team names and let's make sure we have all the skateboards ready to go.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: And did we order tape on amazon?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Let's make sure we have tape for the floor.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Don't tell the campus pastor, but we're taping the floor like little things like that.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Or do we have enough candy for the, for the game, like for prizes and stuff like that?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Because so many times and I'm sure this has happened to you I would be caught in a shoot if we had only like, I wish I had run to the store, I wish I had ordered two more hours.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: What you're doing now, it becomes excellent in your execution and it conserves your energy for not just what's urgent but what is important and living.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And, oh man, I wish I could just like help everyone get there, because your life will be so much better when you're living in the space of important, not urgent.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Take care of all the urgent things, because inevitably some random urgent thing will come across.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: But now you have the margin to be able to hopefully take care of those things and not double up on the urgency.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like just a million emergencies happening at once.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: But you're already done, you're already ready to go, so you have time to spend on problem solving or helping somebody or being interrupted and doing what the important work of ministry is is being present, being there for people, not like not now I have a sermon to write.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: You know, or I don't know what game we're playing, or oh, I don't know where the supplies are.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It was in a bin.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Where's the bin, you know?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And instead of like no, we already knew what we were doing.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: We knew where all the supplies were.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: We're ready to go, we know what we're speaking on.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: We have a sermon illustration.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: It's a creative one because we've been able to take care of all these important things and then you kind of fine tune it instead of, like I said, like the skin of your teeth, yeah, and that is such a like breath of fresh air place to be and for me, and I would hope it would be for you too, so life-giving.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I can be that youth pastor.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I can't be the frantic youth pastor for very long.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It's soul-sucking.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Burnout is on your horizon, yeah it absolutely is, and nobody can be that person for more than a season.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And I don't know.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Youth pastors give up for a lot of reasons and I've got to believe there's some out there that have given up because they were always stuck in the urgent and can never move past.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: And what does it cost you?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, an afternoon to plan your games, like it took me like two or three hours to plan an entire year of ministry.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny because we have an episode called how to plan your entire year of youth group games in 30 minutes.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: No, I'm talking about.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I went through and did the calendar so January.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I changed all the dates to match 2025.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And then I wrote in all the services, all the descriptions of all right winter camp meet here at 4 PM, like I, literally, not just games.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Then I wrote in all the services, all the descriptions of all right winter camp meet here at 4 pm, like I literally.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Not just games.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: No, I'm saying the whole year.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I can just push print and I have a calendar for spring 2025 right now, but all of that takes a little bit of time to add in, like the dates and descriptions and locations and times, because they could change a little bit year to year.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It's ready to go, so now we've got time to do cool stuff, important stuff, life-giving stuff, and that excites me, and I want you to get in that space for this next year too, because I think it will excite you as well.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: All right, any questions?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: no, but it kind of goes.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: You've talked about before taking your youth group from good to great and from great to excellent, and having that margin is what kind of can get you from one category to the next, because whether it's games, sermon, you know whatever it is having that extra time to think like oh, this illustration would be perfect and I have the time to do it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, this addition to this game or this music for this game would be even better and I have time to find it you know, and just kind of playing in that that area of margin is going to take you from good to great, great to excellent.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, and that is a great segue, because number four of habits of highly effective, visionary youth pastors is make stagnation your worst enemy.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So I think I brought it up on a podcast before, kind of along the lines of what you just said.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Here's where momentum comes from, and momentum is like sort of the opposite of stagnation.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Right, we're not just sitting, still doing the same, it's just getting stale.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But here's what Andy Stanley says.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: If you don't listen to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast I just love it, I've learned so much on it, and he has this phrase that he's repeated a few times on his leadership podcast is he tries to make things that are new and then go from new to improved and then from improved to improving.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And that's where momentum comes from.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: It's new, then it's improved and then it's improving, meaning that you're always moving in this forward direction, taking things looking at them like well, let's try something new Now, let's improve upon that new thing.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: What could we have done better or different?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: How can we spice it up, put the sprinkles or the glitter on top, and how can we continue to improve that as we go?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Are we always getting better?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And like?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: That's the question to be asking Like, what are we settling for?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Are we always moving in a direction of excellence, getting better, improved and improving, improved and improving?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And he says you know, be careful, like you don't want to make things so different that every time people show up they're like what is?
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: this place Like I don't know.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I never know what to expect, but that there's new things to keep it fresh and interesting.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And this one I have to really check myself on, because I plan so far in advance.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: It can just become a plug and play hamster wheel of like.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Here we go again.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: But when we look at it it's like, well, this is a good thing, it was new at one point, for example, we played a brand new game on tuesday and it was super fun.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: It was called steal the cookie and and it was basically three teams.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They were 15 kids per team that got to play the round and then we numbered them one through 15.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: If your number is called, you run to the table and you have to eat whatever's on the table.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: The first one to finish it wins.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: It was hilarious.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Here's what would have made that.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: That was new and I thought, okay, what could improve?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I said it was so funny to eat, see these kids stuffing their face with cake or pudding or sardines or whatever they were eating.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But if you were far away, you just saw the back of their head and maybe them shoving food in their mouth.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But we've got to get a camera with a live feed that feeds up to the big screen so you can like be in their face, and it would have been hilarious.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So what did I do in my notes?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I wrote super fun, loved it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Here's what I would have done differently to make it even better next year.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So that was an example of taking something that was new.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: How do we improve it?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And then the next time we play it, maybe we improve it again.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Like, whatever we come up with different items.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Well, this item was too hard.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Sounds so stupid saying this out loud, but I study this stuff.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The donuts were too dry, took them too long to eat.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Should have given them something else.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Cause it was like we were all just sitting there and it's like they couldn't even eat three mini donuts in less than like three mini donuts.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So it was like the donuts are so dry that these kids could just not get it down and I was like, oh, this is taking a long time, so little little tweaks that just keep things, and that's a dumb example.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: There's way more meaningful examples out there, but we just played it last night, so it's fresh in my head.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: So always being improved.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And that segues into number five perfectly, which is evaluate everything you do.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: So I kind of just gave you an example of how I write myself some notes on games, so I don't know how long it's been since we mentioned this.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: If you're not keeping logs of what you do, start this year, that's perfect, you can start fresh.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: So I have four logs that I update every single week Weekend message, weekend game, midweek message, midweek game.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And I say who spoke, because we have a rotation of speakers, what they spoke on what week in the series.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It was so like today I wrote in week two, travel light series from Life Church, caleb spoke on distractions.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And then when I go to plan my year next year, I can look at well, what have we covered, what's lacking, what do I want to cover, and then I can write myself notes in that.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: So when I logged the game steal the cookie, I said super fun, here's the food items we use.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: These worked well.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I was looking for like non-chokable items, mostly like cottage cheese that was a good one and pudding and cool whip, cool whip, uh.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And then I added a note in there would have been way more fun with a live feed camera.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Let's add that for next year, because by the time we play that game again, I may or may not remember what food items worked.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: What would have made it more fun.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So we evaluate everything we do, and the sooner you do it the better.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So we had a leader retreat in November.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I sat down with my team after the weekend.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, give me some feedback.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Let's write notes right now, while it's fresh in our mind what went well, what could have gone better, what could have made this a better experience for everyone, what would have made it go smoother.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And they can be the tiniest tweaks ever, like we should have started the hike at nine instead of 10 because we needed that extra hour for whatever.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Or the bacon went too fast to make sure you order double next time, or so it could be as dumb as that, but just so that we're following that philosophy of always improving, making the experience better.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: So we used to have a sushi log.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Do you remember that, yes, we would go to sushi restaurants sushi log?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: do you remember that, yes, we would go to sushi restaurants and I had a little journal and I would say the name of the restaurant, the name of the roll and we would rate them out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, and I think I know for sure we did get 110 yeah, the dawn roll.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: It was amazing when we stopped.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Well, the reason we started doing it and the reason I'm annoyed that we stopped doing it is because we've gone to restaurants, can't remember if they were good or not order it and you're like, oh that's right, I know, cause it like some of them sound good.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Like yes, Fooled me again and then you eat it.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You're like oh, this because we never reorder if it's a seven or below, yeah, it's a waste of my time or money.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: These are expensive.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: So reorder is eight and above and then you get a seven or six and you're like for the love, like that was fifteen dollars, I will never get back.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, so like, hey, take, even when it comes to your food, make sure you're logging.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: That's very important.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I think we take food very seriously.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I take food very seriously, well like you said, when you're eating out, you're spending.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: That's very important.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I think we take food very seriously.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I take food very seriously.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Well, like you said, when you're eating out, you're spending money.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It's like this better be good my life is riding on this experience.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: So we ask is this the best way to do it?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: How should we be doing it?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Is this the best use of our time and resources?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I look at things and I'm like you know what?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: That was way too much time for not a lot of output.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of done with that.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I have a note in my game log that I came across today that says this game is horrible to ref.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Nobody ever plays it right, no matter how many times I describe it.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Get rid of it, you know.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And so I'm like I'm not putting this on the calendar again.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And I told my guy's director.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like can I just officially retire this game?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: He's like go ahead whatever.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, I'm so angry at this game, but how many years do?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, put it back in the calendar, because you forget the pain until you read that log and you're like, yes, this is why I hated it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And so here's a great little nugget to think about Don't just work in ministry, work on ministry.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And so that's this idea of we're evaluating what we do.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: We're not just like I did it, but did I do it well, did I do it right?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Did I do it best?
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And again, going back to number two, include as many people in that conversation as possible.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: A really good time of the year to do something that our church has called essentials is meeting with your team and saying all right, we've talked about this before.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: End of year, blue, red, green category what's going really well that we want to continue to improve upon.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: What is red meaning?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Or no green is what's going really well that we want to improve upon.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Blue is possibilities, like what's next?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Like blue sky, thinking like if we could do anything, what would we do?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And then red is like emergency.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: This is broken, this is not working.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And get your key players, your key team members, key volunteers, whoever you run alongside, and look at that and say, all right, we have a whole fresh new year ministry coming up.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: What mistakes do we not want to repeat?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: What needs to be fixed?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: What are the possibilities?
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: What's going well that we can improve upon and don't sleep on the stuff?
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: What's going well that we can improve upon and don't sleep on the stuff that's going well?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Use the new, improved, improving, like this game is awesome.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Could we add a new version of it, a twist to it, unexpected something to it Like?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: So just keep thinking creatively.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And again, if you've done your work to be ahead, this stuff should be a little bit more of a snap than feel like.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Just play dodgeball because I'm so exhausted.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, the last time we played, the price is right.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Those challenges were a little too hard.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's change the challenges.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Or, oh, nobody won a prize, okay, let's change like.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I modify that game every single time I play it, because something needs to just go a little bit better.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I've never played it the same way twice.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So not, I'm talking a lot about games, I don't know why, it's just an easy example for me right now, but that applies obviously to every single thing we do Our messages, our illustrations, our aesthetics of the room, our social media.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Like, how can we put all of who, what makes us, us, through this ringer of becoming visionary and becoming more effective in this new year than we were this year?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and most of you probably are taking at least a portion of this Christmas season off If this is when you're watching this video or this podcast, but it could be a good time to just set aside a few hours and kind of tackle some of these things like you're talking about.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: There's a couple episodes.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I would guide you to Number one.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: We did do that episode about how to do an entire year's worth of games in under 30 minutes and then also just how to plan your calendar out.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: If you haven't done that, it'd be a great episode just to kind of get a refresher of maybe some things key things you want to put on your calendar and then filling it in with the smaller stuff.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: So make sure you guys check that out.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Um question of the day this week is have you ever or did you ever cheat on an exam?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Confessional time.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Not that I recall what's boring.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I don't, I was smart's boring.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I don't, I was smart.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Jeff, I don't need to cheat touche no, but I told on a girl who did in seventh grade she probably still holds it against you.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: She doesn't know.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: She doesn't know I think she wrote stuff on her leg and she was like wearing a skirt, and so she would kind of like move it and then like cover, kind of like move it and then like cover it and then move it and cover it, or it was on the inside of her arm.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I knew she wrote it somewhere on her body and maybe she like kept like going like this with her sleeve.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But I was like you are so obvious and I'm kind of like, uh, I'm gonna do my civil duty and make sure you get in trouble for that snitches, get stitches she never caught me neither but no I don't think I've ever cheated on a test I can think of at least twice.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Um, that I did, and one of them I mean yeah, it was my fault because I cheated, but I didn't think it counted for anything and apparently it was like a placement test came back to bite you yeah and so apparently I was doing really well in a certain subject and my parents are really proud of me.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I was like oh, I just copied those answers.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to finish.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I was kind of sick of taking the test and I was like this doesn't count, so, anyways, not proud of it, but yeah, put in the comments section below.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I've cheated on like homework I don't think I cheated on it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: That was like daily, like copied my friend's homework.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, I don't want to you guys and for our daughters, who may or may not be listening while we're recording this cheating is bad.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Don't do that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Put in the comment section below if there was ever an exam or homework that you cheated on when you're in school I don't think you want to say that publicly well then tell on someone else who did maybe you don't want to say publicly, who knows, we've, we all graduated right we're fine it's all good, our teachers aren't coming for us.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: On the youtube comments I, I ran, not ran into you, but I I on social media.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I was talking to a teacher I had from seventh grade and I was still calling her mrs and I won't say her last name.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: But she's like at this point, jeff, you can call me by my first name, no no I respect you too much.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Still, mrs, all right, this message comes from, or this, sorry, this.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: This message is sponsored by this message.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: What the heck this community comment is from Amy Nelson, who says I started watching your podcast last summer when I shifted my perspective on my part time job as our youth director.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Your podcast has been a huge part of my professional development and I've learned so much about intentionality and streamlining my processes.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: My favorite part about your 200 episodes has been seemingly limitless ideas they have spurred for me and the genuine passion I can see in both of you.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Here's to 200 more.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Keep up the good work.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Cheers to that.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Amy.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and yeah, hopefully there are 200 more episodes.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: We're already 220.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: That feels like a lot Three or four into that goal.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah time to end this.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: You see, when she wrote that we were on episode 200, this is now 224 and thank you so much for watching and listening and we'll see you next time are you looking to become a better youth pastor?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Then stick around, because we're going to give you five ways to be a highly effective and visionary youth pastor.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I said youth pastor, do I?
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Throughout the years, throughout the years.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Do you want to be a highly effective youth pastor?
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Well then, I don't like all the poisoning.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: And visionary.