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How to Train & Develop Youth Ministry Volunteers w/ Doug Fields & Josh Griffin · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today we are talking to two youth ministry legends, the best of the best Josh Griffin and Doug Fields.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We are talking all things volunteers, volunteer training.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You're gonna love it.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Stick around.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we give you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast-track the growth and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and this is a super-duper-duper special episode because, oh, sometimes I got to pinch myself that I know these people now.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And I'll say friends, that might be too big of a word for them Say it.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: These are two of the Mount Rushmore of youth ministry heads already etched in place.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, I love that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: That is a perfect description, because today we're talking to the best of the best.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: It is Doug Fields and Josh Griffin which I mean we're going to introduce them.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: They need no introduction.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: That's what.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I was going to say If you're in youth ministry, they need no introduction.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: The DYM gurus, people who helped me get through some dark years of youth ministry, back when it was more than dodgeball and you know Doug Fields spiral bound sermon notes that I was like I need something and it just really got me through.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So now, doug, I think the last time we saw each other was when and Josh, what conference was it?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It was last year at the National Day of Youth Ministry Training.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: No, it was oh when you were recording it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: You mean yes, oh, sorry.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'll be quiet, I know my place.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It's okay, we love you, we're kind of Southern California neighbors.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: So you're in San Diego and we're where Jesus would live, in Orange County, and we've had you up for our DYM 100, which we love, and this year we were so thrilled that you'd be part of our National Day Volunteer Youth Ministry training.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: You spoke on drama in youth ministry and you did such a great, great job, and I know we're going to talk about that later, but Josh and I are honored to be a part of your podcast and we're grateful for your voice and role in our little youth ministry world up here in Orange County.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Little little youth ministry world.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Big borders on that youth ministry world.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm glad we're so close together, just an hour up the freeway, so that we can partner with stuff, and you know, today we were going to.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: We get so many questions from our listeners, from our course members, about volunteers, and you guys have been in youth ministry.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, like together.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: How many years has it been?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Well, like a hundred for him and 10 for me, so it's like oh, my God, I actually last week I was in Myrtle Beach and I started Youth Ministry in 1979.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: And I asked how many youth workers were not born in 1979.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: And it was the majority of the room.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Let's just say that so.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I was four.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I was four years old, I was alive.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: That means I'm old too.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: No, you are.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: You are old, and what's funny is you look older than that.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, I've been doing youth ministry 40 plus years.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: I've got 25 in the game.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: We love youth workers and so we still serve at our church.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: So I get to be the junior high pastor.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: He's marriage and family.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: We get to do youth ministry every week and download youth ministry natural day, all that stuff.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Enough.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: How about this?
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Enough years to have some really bad volunteers and some really good volunteers.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Ah Without volunteers?
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and wish you had more volunteers Really there's.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: You can't do youth ministry without volunteers.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Well, you can't do a healthy youth ministry without volunteers.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: So I understand why people would have a lot of questions, because it really is one of the foundational or backbone skill sets in developing a healthy youth ministry.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would say I'm sure you guys agree it can be a real pain point, like not necessarily that the volunteers are a pain, but people want to do a really good job.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Like recruiting is difficult, keeping volunteers are difficult.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like now I have them, what do I do with them?
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Difficult, not knowing how to like steward that gift really really well.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And so today we're going to like I would just love to pick your brain on some of like the best practices over the years that you guys have done, have seen, have experienced.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: And I want to start out with kind of a basic question that is so funny because it comes up all the time.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: People like especially really new youth pastors.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They're like well, how many do I need?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Like I mean, do I just recruit forever?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: But what have you found to be a comfortable ratio?
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And that could be kind of a vague question but what would be your ideal ratio?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Like the sweet spot between volunteers and students.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: I think the big picture answer is more.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, really More.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: That's what I always say too.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes Josh and I finish each other's sandwiches.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Aren't you cute, aren't you guys cute?
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Now the thought really is that I don't think you can ever.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: One of the things I ask youth workers.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I say how many of you want more volunteers?
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And the majority of them raise their hand and then my response is okay, if I handed you 10 volunteers, how many of you would be thrilled?
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: They raise.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: You know you keep going on that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: But then the question becomes what would you do with them if I handed you those volunteers?
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: So let's go back to your original question ideal ratio, I mean in the old days I would say like one to three, one to five, but now I think there's so many uses of volunteers I don't think if you had one to one you would have too many volunteers, because now volunteers don't commit the same way they used to where they used to commit to Sunday morning and Wednesday night and all the events.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I think now sometimes you have to limit your scope and say OK, I know, make my life easier as the youth pastor If you committed to Sunday, wednesday mission trips, but to get people's time it's always a fight and I might need to get some people that are just Sunday morning volunteers, some people that are just Wednesday night volunteers.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: So I don't know if there's a perfect number, I would just say more.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: But maybe a better question is if I got you more than you think you could use, what would you do with them?
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: And I think new youth workers they need to.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: They need to answer that question Like if I had volunteers, what do I do?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: So they're not just standing around?
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: To that question like if I had volunteers, what do I do so they're not just standing around?
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Because if you want to keep volunteers, you have to empower them to feel like they're not just chaperones, they're not just standing in the back with their arms crossed making sure a kid doesn't throw a chair through the window.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: They have to have some engagement in the youth ministry or they're going to be short-term volunteers.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, so could you quick answer would be more and uh, maybe three to one.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Let's start there If you wanted to back me into a corner, but I would just say more answer, answer or else, well, okay.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: So you brought up a really good point and it's funny because that was actually the next question I was going to ask.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: You is okay.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So what do you do with them?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I think that is a really good direction to go because, okay, we've recruited, we have people that are excited, and you know Chris Brown, one of our senior pastors.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: He always says people don't want to be feel used, they want to feel useful, you know.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: And so, towing that line between, yeah, we're not using you, we're not going to tax you, we're not going to tax you, we're not going to burn you out, but we want you to feel useful, we want you to feel purposeful, we want you to come and leave here feeling filled up.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So what have you found to be?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Because we're meant to serve like it shouldn't be a drudgery.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: People should be stoked to come to youth ministry because they know you're going to make best use of their gifts.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So how have you guys navigated?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have the people.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: What's a really dynamic use of volunteers that keeps them coming back for more?
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, why don't I go first and you go second?
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: That way, if we're thinking the same thing, I get to win.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, I was going to say that you say age before beauty, josh, so pretty.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I wrote a book called your First Two Years in Youth Ministry and in that, before I wrote the book, I got some of my veteran volunteers over at my house about I don't know 10 or 15 of them that had been with me for 10 years and all of these volunteers could go into most churches around the country that I had been at and be great youth workers.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: But they're volunteers and I just got them together and I said help me understand what makes you a great volunteer.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Like you're invited to my house for this brainstorm session because I'm writing a book and I want to tell young youth workers like how to be a great, how to develop great volunteers.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: And almost to a person in different words, but what they said was you help us feel like a pastor.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: So I think you know at your church you get paid to be the junior high pastor.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: At my church I get paid to be the youth pastor, the junior high pastor.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: But if you can give away that authority to your volunteers and you empower them to be pastoral, which means they're answering questions, they're meeting the parents, they're doing the hospital visitations, they're dealing with the conflict.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: You're having them solve problems.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: You're giving them, this group of students to pastor.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: The more pastoral responsibility you give them, really, the more empowerment you have to you know you have you've given them to lead.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: So what I realized is that when my volunteers started getting started getting invited to kids graduation parties and I wasn't invited, I was like, oh, at first I was like why are you inviting, not inviting me?
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And then I realized do you know who I am?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Well, then I thought I don't want to go anyway am.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Well, then I thought I don't want to go anyway, Win-win.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: So there, the fact that they're inviting those volunteers, or those kids are saying this is my youth pastor, I can give that title away.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: So the more you can give pastoral responsibilities away, like, are you doing something as a youth pastor that your volunteers can be doing?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: So this was in this last.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: This last week, I was meeting with one gentleman and he had about eight women leaders around him, and so I knew he was a smart leader because you know he had these amazing women.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: And I just said he was talking about using video curriculum.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I'm like why are you using video curriculum?
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I guarantee you, one of these ladies is an incredible communicator, or at least can become an incredible communicator.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: And the more people are tasked with those types of you know responsibilities, I think the more their heart is connected and they're going to stick around.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: That's a long answer.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: That's a great answer.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: I was of course, going to say the exact same thing, but that was pretty good.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: I would just add to it and say when I started in youth ministry, I just had a bunch of needs and I plugged people into my needs.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: I didn't care about who they were, their gifting, their talents.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: I just like I need you to be a smoker bleeder.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: I need you to get control of this row of kids or whatever kids or whatever.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: And I think there's another level, which is you're looking at their talents, gifts, passions, ability, and finding the right spot, versus just plugging holes, like I have a problem, put a person in there and then there's like the Holy grail, where you're like I have this need, for you know, we do a monthly event and this gal, her passion is event planning, and I'm like and this gal, her passion is event planning, and I'm like that's the moment and she feels mission critical and it is a legitimate need in our ministry.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: When they fit together perfectly, that person's going to be fulfilled, that person's going to stay a long time.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: You're going to have this burden taken off of your shoulders.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: That's where the magic happens, doesn't you know?
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Rather than the amateur is like I have a need here, we go fix it.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Next level is hey, what's your gifting, what's your talent?
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: And every once in a while it comes together and those people stay a long time and contribute in massive ways.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So you just hit on something like it's almost like you guys are reading my mind like the next place I wanted to go Cause is that what you would attribute longevity to?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Cause, like, I would love to know, like your individual records of, like some of the longest standing volunteers that you've had.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Like how long have people stuck around?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Or how many people do you think have come through your doors and like, hey, I want to be a part of this ministry.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You know cause?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I think for me I don't know if you agree I've kind of hit a sweet spot where we've built this team and this momentum where people are like recruiting for me, like that sounds cool.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I hear great things, I want to be a part of that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And you know what would you attribute your being able to keep volunteers for the long haul?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I probably was a lot of things you were just saying, like kind of keep that revolving door shut or slowed, and how many people do you think have come through in the last hundred years for you?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: 110 for both of them, for you, 110 for both of them.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, that was good.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I've been one church 11 years.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: One church 19 years and back to that first church for another 14.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: And there have been people that were there before me that stayed after I got there and I think that's one of the heart pieces that young youth workers, if they're listening, like those volunteers, are going to outlast you and that's what you want to set them up to.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: You know you're probably going to be transient.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's let's be honest, there's few people like you who's been at your church for 20 years doing junior high ministry.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Very few people do that.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Very few people, even 11, 19, 14, like very few people, get into the double digits in youth ministry.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: So I think the framework is to think I need to develop leaders that are going to outlast me and in order to do that, you have to do more than find them.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's the recruiting piece, which has to be ongoing.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: You never stop because there's always going to be turnover.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: People are called to other ministries more.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, more, right you're always on that finding slash, recruiting.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: But then there's the, the training piece.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: You have to train them.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: People feel unequipped, they're going to leave, and then one of the things that Josh was just talking about I would put under the idea of develop.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: So there's there's find, there's train, there's develop.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: That's where you're meeting one-on-one like you're an event planner, boom, I've got you here to.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Then you know you're not fitting in the box of a small group leader.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I want to develop you.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: If you knew you could do anything in youth ministry and not fail, what would it be Like?
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: You take that leader to the next level.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: But then there's another piece and that's sustain.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Like how do you keep people on your team?
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: And that's what you've done.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: What you described Christian is you've created a community.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: So people want to be a part of your leadership and your junior high ministry.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: The fact that you've got volunteers that are out recruiting other volunteers means that they found something in that community that they want their friends to have.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So when I got to a church I worked at for 19 years was called Saddleback Church and they had a membership class and at the end of the membership class they were just launching people into like 40 different ministries and I thought that was one that was fabulous.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: But two I thought I want to be in that class.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: So I asked my pastor if I could teach, for you know, take an hour off of his plate and I taught every month.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: At that class is we're launching people into ministry, which of course, became an infomercial for youth ministry.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Like you know, if you want to be in God's will you need to serve somewhere.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: If you want to be in the center of God's will you need to serve in youth ministry.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So all that to say, as a leader, you want to find, you want to train, you want to develop and you want to sustain those leaders.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: So it's not just finding them, it's not just training them, which we're going to talk about, how we've partnered up to do.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: It's not just developing what Josh just talked about, it's also thinking how do I keep them?
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Because people, their time is valuable and if you, as a leader, you don't value people's time, they're going to move out of your ministry quickly.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: Yep, that's good.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I think when we started youth ministry because it was a long time ago and even longer for Doug the requirements were high.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: We would have monthly volunteer gatherings and now we pivot to some of that.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Training stuff and sustaining is virtual or video-based, but I think it's also encouragement, it's laughter, it's memories that community helps people stick.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: Your longevity is going to build the longevity in your volunteers 100%.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: But to get them to stick, you know if they got to be, I would say, in your home and sharing meals together and laughing, and you know building memories together we do.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: You know silly stuff too, like bowling nights, and you know they're in my house and we're playing Jackbox TV.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: You know together and laughing in memories and it all matters, it all adds up to volunteers that stick for a long time.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: What's the longest volunteer that you've ever had in your ministry?
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I like that question.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I think that's fun.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of the oldest was Marv.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Back in the day right marv was a great volunteer yeah, I found marv when he was 72, I like that and uh, so that was fun.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: And he uh, yeah.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he, um, and I got to.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I mean I got to find him, recruit him, train him, and then I also got to bury him oh man, oh I know that sounds weird, but it was a joy.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: It was a joy.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: What a gift, though.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: right yeah, and I was thinking of a guy named Chip who served I inherited him in my youth ministry at that same church and then he's still serving there to this day.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: So I was 13 years, and he was there when I got there and still going strong now.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: So we love stuff like that People stick for a long time.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I mean a long time in youth ministry.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Youth ministry is like dog years, so every year feels like maybe seven.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: So I'll take one.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: One year is great, Two is anything.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: Three, four, five, seven, 12.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Amazing yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Right Christian.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: How long?
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Have you been pastor at your church, junior high pastor, 20 years.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't you say that, like year eight to 20 has been a whole lot easier with volunteers?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and that's kind of what Jeff and I were talking about the other day.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: It's like it is, it kind of takes on its own wings.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: You know, like you build it, you build it, you build it, you build it and then you get to live in it and like my sister asked me the other day, like what's been your favorite season of your, your career, your youth ministry, your calling?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And I said I think right now, because I built it, built it, built it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So like I mean hard work of building.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: But then you get to actually live in the house and it's not like it sustains itself.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: You got to still maintain and upkeep and run it and you know, keep it nice.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But you're not like under this weight of building this thing anymore.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Now you have many hands and lots of people in the house and everyone's helping and everyone's excited.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I think the loneliest, hardest years of youth ministry are right at the beginning and that's why you know what a bummer like when you tap out early, because then you don't get to that sweet spot.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: You've got to build it first and volunteers are such a huge part of that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Like without my team I would have, I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: You know they keep, like we give them an opportunity to serve, but I'm sure you guys agree they give us so much back like support and fun and encouragement, like friendship, and we might do some difficult things but if you do it together it's a lot easier, you know, to hang in there.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: So what do you guys think?
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Like how you know I love everything you said and I think so much of it is true Like keeping people, it's taking care of them, right, like you talked about the fun that you guys have and I've hung out with you guys.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You're you're like my youth ministry spirit animals.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Like you're so fun, like the funnest, funniest animal.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: What animal?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and I both llamas.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Of course you're llamas.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: That's the only answer.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Good answer.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And so, like that fun, I think you guys are magnetic and charismatic and you really care about people and there's all this fun energy that's obvious, that it comes so easy that way to you guys.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: What about, like the equipping, like when, when you have a fresh volunteer and you know like they have a willing heart but maybe they don't have the experience or the skills and that now is your job as the pastor to teach them how to be a pastor of their small group.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: What do you do?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: What has been a big win?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: What have you missed over the years?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: What do you wish you had known in years one through eight?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's two parts to that.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: There's what I would call the formal equipping and then there's the informal equipping.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of youth workers what they do is they say I've got three small group spots, they recruit to those three and they check the box, throw them in yeah, check the box, and then they're off to the next thing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: And I don't think you check the box, you have the, you have a rhythm of training, whether that's you're handing out.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: You're handing out you know, a chapter of a book that I read on relational youth ministry.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: You're having them listen to a podcast.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: You're giving them a video.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: You know, when I first started, it was monthly meetings and they were at my house and so it was fun.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: But but then I've realized you know sometimes what those monthly meetings were were information meetings, and people can get information over email now.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: So when you do a meeting or a training, it's got to be powerful, it's got to be strategic.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Use your veteran volunteers to teach it.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's a good hack to have.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: If you've got a volunteer that's been with you for four years or longer, you call them a veteran volunteer and they can teach on what newbies need to know.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: But there's the formal teaching side, but there's also the informal, and the informal is pulling.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: If I pull Josh aside and say hey, josh, I noticed in that group over there one you locked eyes on Joseph and I love how you were so great with Joseph, but in doing that you turned your back to everybody else and I just want to encourage you like body language or whatever.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I'm making this up.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: But there's that informal where you're just putting your arm around that leader pointing out the good, like make sure you don't just point out the bad.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Josh and I played pickleball today and he just points out the bad.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: He doesn't point out the good.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: There wasn't much good to point out, but the few things.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I just need the few.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: So, if you're going to point out the bad, you got to highlight, you got to highlight the good.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: So, and Josh, why don't you talk about formal training?
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: but there's formal and there's informal, yeah and formal training for us is kind of a life group is our small group leader.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: We do a formal training a couple hours.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: We have a handbook and a video that we watch and, if I'm honest with you, I got done with that this year and I went.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I don't think we did a great job.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: I think there's some gaps in our training.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: We did a great job.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I think there's some gaps in our training.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: So we've added a once a month, right before life group, we'll give you a quick meal and another training and I'm going to email a quick you know a quick video that I shot with the tip of the week or a text based thing that I forward along.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: So I kind of doing some drip trainings as well and what I'm really trying to do is save our big gatherings for celebrations, for stories and mission critical stuff that everybody needs to get on the same page about.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: So I would say, reserve your training time for, like, really big celebratory here's the kickoff training, drip along the way and then make sure that you do that personal coaching, informal stuff as well.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe once to one to three times a year there's big gather junior high, high school, college.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: However you do it, get on the same page.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Remind people they're part of a bigger team.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Here are some of the essentials.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: You need training on the drip training.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: This is a little self-promoting, but we have something called Youth Ministry University where we've got I don't know 150, I don't even know 10-minute videos and they're just short training how to remember names, how to be a good small group leader, how to lead a cabinet camp, how to get kids talking, how to discipline without being a jerk, how to challenge kids to take the next step in their faith.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: And what and the really?
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: little bites if you feel like man in my youth ministry we're weak, send it to everybody.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: Or if you're like this leader, this one would be perfect for her, send that one to just her and let her dig in on that topic as well.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: So the I wish we could gather more.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: When I started same thing, we called it Steak Out and it was come to the Griffin house.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: We'd cook steaks on the grill and talk youth ministry training every month.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: We can't do that anymore.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: It's just not realistic.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Plus, if you do it, you're going to have a certain type of person who's free once a month to come.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: You know families with kids or older people that don't want to be out at eight at night, whatever.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: So you're also going to limit your pool of volunteers that way.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: But this type of training Youth Ministry University we even used the National Day training for our volunteers and it's for inspiration and encouragement and they're like we're part of not just youth ministry at our church, we're part of this thing that's changing a generation too, which is kind of fun as well.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: So I like opening up volunteers minds to know that, man, there is hope for the generation.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: You're making a difference and this is one small part of what God's doing across the whole country.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you guys have Youth Ministry University and this big day and I felt lucky enough I got to be a part of it this year the National Day of Volunteer Training.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: It was so much fun and you guys brought in some big guns for that too, which was like, oh my gosh, like Sean McDowell and these names and the way you guys filmed it.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It was just fun and the editing and all that.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So tell us, like that one is a little newer.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So like how would a youth pastor use that you were?
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: terrific Thanks for being a part of it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: We're honored to see it all over the country now too, yeah.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have an ongoing thing that's called youth ministry, universitycom, and it's just the.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: That's the video training with Josh, referred to as drip training 10 minutes, all kinds of topics.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: But for six years now we've showed.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: We just picked a day, we made it up the national day of volunteer youth ministry training.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Literally man day and we had hundreds of hosts all over the country, churches that said, hey, we'll host other people, and we put together a 9 to 12, 9 in the morning to 12 training.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: That was all video driven and so they're again short, 12 to 15 minutes, high energy, a lot of fun, great editing, humor breaks.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, trying to raise the bar too.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: Visually it's fantastic.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Plus it has animations and silliness and jokes and the hosts and all that too.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And so what we realized last year?
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: We showed it at our church, but we didn't show the whole time because Josh and I wanted to do some specific stuff for our church.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And then we got this idea wait, maybe other youth workers are like us, maybe they don't want to show the whole three hour session.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: So this year what we did is we offered we put a three hour session together with yourself, and Josh did one, I did one, sean McDowell, jessica Sanchez, rosa Jones yeah, it's dynamite, fun topics.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: And so we put it together and basically said you can do it however you want.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: If you want to show all three hours, great.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: If you want to just you don't want to host it, you want to just show it to your own leaders, you can do that as well.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Well, and pick a day too, because there's no one day although it was very successful, there's no one day that works for every church.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: You've got this or that or something cooking, and so we said do your own day, do it at night, pick, make it two hours, so you can kind of take the pieces that you want and make your own national day, and still all over the country, the world now, which is really fun.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: You're a part of something bigger, but you can make it unique to your context now too so, and you crushed it.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: It's been fun to see you did a thing on how to deal with drama in your youth ministry, which is perfect.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: We put you in a drama room for that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very meta.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Which I'm not sure.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that that came across as clever as it was, for us he had to be there.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: There's one shot that we wanted to make it really established that you were in a drama room, and so we used AI to add more seats to the side.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: No way, that's a true story I know, Wow, I didn't know that until just right now.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, the lighting was dramatic.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It was like dark with like the one light and all of that was pretty dramatic lighting, but you guys hit it on the head Like what I loved about it Cause I watched it all.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: It's like you could make it one big long thing or just little bite-sized things.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And the other thing I really loved about it was the discussion was already built in, you know.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: So there would be a session on, like adolescence and anxiety or something like that, and then the volunteers got to talk about it and it really sets, I think, the youth pastor up for success of not having.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I think youth pastors have the hardest time writing curriculum.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: You know we talked about like the, the pain point of recruiting volunteers.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: But the other question we get all the time is like where do these resources come from?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Do you just like write your own stuff?
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Like, where do you find discussions?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Where do you find training?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Where do you find, do you make it up?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And I think you just set the youth pastor up for success of like download a massive file and then push, play and let's watch a fun, high energy, well put together video in bite-sized chunks.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: We're eating, we're laughing, we're hanging out, we discuss.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: You guys want to watch another one, let's do it.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And you know you, if you have a smaller youth ministry, you could do it in your house and make it just intimate and like a fun day, you know, or make it more formal and hosted it at your church with tables and all of that.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: But it was just, you know, the full package that took the guesswork out for youth pastors, especially young ones, or you know ones who are like I would love to do a training.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Like when, where do I even start?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: It's just like the full package.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So if a youth pastor was like, okay, you sold me those are great.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Where could they go to find both of those resources, cause they're gold?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: You could go to dymtrainingcom, and that's there.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: We're so unorganized with that dymtrainingcom, TrainMyVolunteerscom, YouthMistoryUniversitycom.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: You can go and download Youth.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Ministry.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: We've got too many dot coms.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: We like domains.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: We'll put all the links below.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: It'll be easy.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: We'll Google all of them and figure them all out for you.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Right now we have over 500 locations across the country that they went to trainmyvolunteerscom and they either sign up to be a host, which means they show it, open it up to their network of youth workers.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: That's why we picked a day like September.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: 21st was the day for the last five years and this year we said we don't care Pick any date.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: The last five years and this year we said we don't care Pick any date.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: So people are going to be doing this probably into January, because that's another time to train in the new year.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: But all that information is on dymtrainingcom and thank you for being a part of it, kristen, thank you for talking about it with your audience.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: We want to make youth workers' lives easier and that's why we started Download Youth Ministry to save people time, because we can't train your volunteers, we can't disciple your kids, we can't help your parents, but we can save you time so that you can do that.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you guys have.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I have on my calendar.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: At least once a month I plan out my games and the last Sunday of every month it just says DYM.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: So like we play a runaround game and then this and that, and then the last Sunday, last weekend of the month, all my interns and staff know it's DYM.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So either download a new one, go back in our archives what we've already bought, because you do, you guys make.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: You just make it so simple and it's good stuff.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't think we have to compromise on quality.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And can I just say, as someone who started out with a shoestring budget, thank you for making things affordable for youth pastors.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You know, it was always like, yeah, I would love to have this or that, or like, yeah, who wouldn't?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: But it's like on my budget, like I'm shopping a dollar tree for Christmas gifts for my leaders.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So you guys were.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: You just know your audience so well and that comes through in everything you do.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: So thank you guys.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Josh and I have been criticized by every business person for the last 12 years and saying this will never.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: You'll never make it, you'll never make it.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: We hear it a lot.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: You're not charging enough, and you're not wrong.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: We care deeply.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: We stand shoulder to shoulder with youth workers, and so I grew up in a year for 12.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: We've served in little and massive churches and we just feel like you can do really fun stuff really cheap.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: We even try to give half of the resource you know the cost of it back to the youth worker that made it, and so we want to help youth workers win and down with youth ministry and this other stuff is our attempt at doing that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: So thanks for the kind words.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: It means a lot, yeah, yeah, so thankful for you guys.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for being a part of today.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: What a treat for us, what a treat for our audience, and I'll actually see you guys in a few weeks.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: You're part of our Download Youth Ministry conference.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, coming up in October out here at our church, so there's still a little bit of room for our events.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: Dym training We'll have that on there too.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: So there you go.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll link everything below so you guys can find all that I.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I just want to go a little shout out here, going back to 19 I think it's 1992 when the dream team was in the olympics the men's basketball.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm in the presence of that right now because I'm just there's like magic.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: There's jordan who am I?
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: There's bird I'm bird and I'm like the water boy.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: It was like thanks for letting me come along.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: You know what I?
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: appreciate it.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I played basketball and water is very important yes, water boy football very well, but very talented, that's right hydrate everybody.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: hey, josh doug, thank you guys so much for being here and thank you all for watching and listening.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And we will see you next time.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And we are talking all things volunteers and volunteer training.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Today we are talking how did I start before?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: You guys just hear my stomach growl.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: What Josh is to hot dogs, I am to volunteers, so I can talk volunteers all day long.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: I do really like hot dogs, I know.