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268 | Sustainable YM: Training Volunteers for Spiritual Care | SMC Podcast · Student Ministry Conversations

• speaker-0: Hey and welcome back to the podcast. We are excited. ⁓ we are in the middle of August. ⁓ as we talked about last week, we ⁓ were starting school and doing all the things and I feel like now ⁓ I don't know, David. This this week has been a little more chill. It's ⁓ Yes, ⁓ I I would definitely agree with that. And so w with that, Louis start Wednesday nights. actually like you're listening to this on Thursday, Thursday the twentieth, if you're listening to it the day it comes out. So we record, like we've said before, the Wednesday before. And so the nineteenth, we're starting youth tonight and so there's all that going on. We have a ton of excitement with that and ⁓ then man it's just it's a interesting time. Like a a lot of things are moving, a lot of things are happening. ⁓ but I think a lot of times this is where we kinda see like, man, do you have a plan of action or do you not have a plan of action? ⁓ and we've talked about that before, but I think that's kind of been the idea of this month of August, and that's been the idea of sustainable youth ministry or building a sustainable youth ministry. ⁓ and so we've talked about ⁓ systems that serve discipleship. That was week one. If you didn't listen, go back. ⁓ that was a great one 'cause we talked about systems as a whole for your youth program. But then we also talked about the idea that you as a youth pastor need systems too. ⁓ and so go back and listen to that one if you haven't. ⁓ and then week two, which was last week, we talked about recruiting volunteers because guess what? If you were in a youth ministry, you need volunteers. You are not a one-man show. Don't make yourself a one-man show. Or one yeah, one one person show. We I'm not gonna go there. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha. speaker-0: One man or one woman show, whatever, like you were a one youth pastor. Like don't be the one youth pastor show, we'll say that. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, you're you're a jerk. so but we talked about how you need to be recruiting volunteers, but the important thing behind that was you need to be recruiting volunteers with a goal, with a mindset, and a vision, and a focus, so they know what they're getting into before they show up. And part of that is just the idea that we need to recruit volunteers without guilt or pressure. ⁓ and so we talked about that last week and we talked about how ⁓ leaders need to be ⁓ pursued and told about the impact that they can have before they step into the ministry. ⁓ and then longevity is the goal with volunteers. The longer they're there, the more invested they are and it really, really just helps out the program. And so we talked about recruiting volunteers last week, but Part of the whole idea of like, hey, here's this here's this thing, like, we want you to be a part of our ministry. It volunteers are great, but you have to train your volunteers. And so this week we are training volunteers for spiritual care. That's the topic. ⁓ and the thing is, is volunteers don't just stop at being volunteers. They're not just helpers. You're training volunteers to be shepherds. Which is a huge dynamic for what your ministry can do because if y the students can only come talk to you, there's only so many things that you can do. However, if you train your leaders to have those serious conversations as well, then ultimately you can move towards some really, really good ministry and you don't have to be in the limelight or the center of it the whole time, which is what every youth pastor should be aiming for, is to get out of the spotlight and let youth take over and let volunteers lead. And you are there to support the people that need support. And so, with that though, how do you train volunteers? I mean, it really goes beyond logistics. ⁓ it's easy to train volunteers on logistics. Like you have a rhyme and a reason, you have a structure and a strategy for what and how Wednesday nights go. ⁓ but it's a lot more important to equip them for the spiritual care side because if we're honest. A lot of volunteers are not comfortable with leading prayer. A lot of comf ⁓ volunteers are even more not comfortable with leading lessons or leading small groups. They're even more not they're even more not okay with having the spiritual conversations where they feel inadequate themselves. speaker-1: Or someone else. speaker-0: And so that's the thing that we have to kind of take towards this. And we have to move past schedules and move past roles. And we have to start developing volunteers ⁓ that can actually care for students. And so most volunteer training focuses on schedules. focuses on policies, focuses on roles. And those matter. I mean they really do. But They're not enough. Like I said, you're you're you're training the strategy, you're training the the the logistics side of things, but your volunteers can't just be helpers. In the best way, they need to be on the front line of discipleship. And so you need to have volunteers that are willing to be making investments in the time and lives of these kids. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: They need to be building relationships and building trust with these kids so w then when they have when those students have questions, they will go to those volunteers. It's a huge thing. But then also like you gotta like we said, you gotta prepare the volunteer for the conversation. Otherwise all of that effort, all of that time and resource that they've invested in those students is gonna kinda fall short because they weren't ready for the conversation that mattered. So how do we ⁓ what what is the I guess I mean if there's a gap, David, like where where would we see most trainings kind of fall short? speaker-1: I think so often we assume that our volunteers know the job. like 'cause it seems so simple and cookie cutter, I think, to us, especially for us that have been doing this a long time. ⁓ and I think sometimes we forget like what it's like to enter a ministry and just not really know anybody or know the situations and the dynamics and and I think some of that training should also include relationship dynamics, if that makes sense. So like So if if I'm brand new to this youth ministry, maybe I've been going to church there, but just because they go to church doesn't mean they know all your people. That doesn't mean they know all your volunteers and all your students and the dynamics within that. like, hey, this this student is you know, has really struggled, parents are in and out, you know, different things like that. They're not just gonna know that. And sometimes we just assume they know all the dynamics behind because everybody in your ministry knows, the students know, but they're new and they don't know that or you know maybe they're new to your church and they don't know anything and so sometimes we have to kind of you know peel the curtain back a little bit and start asking questions like hey where are you kind of in the the relationship dynamic side but also ⁓ in I The other thing too is I think we assume they know how to lead someone to Christ. ⁓ one thing that I I love that you did ⁓ in our camp booklets years ago was at the at the back of our our camp booklet, Brent added a section walking our volunteers, our our counselors through how to lead a conversation. ⁓ like leading a student to Christ. ⁓ and I think it's really helpful material because we just assume that people know how to do that. and let's be honest, we I think have kind of It seems to me, and maybe that's just because I'm not in the Baptist world anymore, but it seems like we've kind of gone away from the the simple s steps for the gospel. Like, you know, I grew up with the ABCs, you know, admit that you're a sinner, believe ⁓ in that Jesus died on the cross and confess your sins. Like we had we had a very simple formula for how to train people in in the way of the gospel and we've kinda gone away from that. ⁓ at least it seems like it. ⁓ and so I think it's easy for us to just assume people know and I guess maybe from the the forefront of all of this is never assume they know anything. Ask really good intentional questions. Like ⁓ think think through the most important parts of guiding a student ⁓ spiritually and then ask them like literally ask them those questions like, hey, do you know how to lead somebody to Christ? If a student was ⁓ going through this thing, like would you know what to say? You know, and and your training I think should probably include some scenarios like, hey Hey, here's a scenario and base it on past experience. You don't have to reinvent things, you don't have to create some brand new dynamic and just leave names out, of course. But hey, kid comes up to you and says that they have dealt with an inappropriate. ⁓ relationship in some way. and and we could take that a bunch of different ways. How would you handle that? Yeah, stuff like that. And then walk through it with them. You know, things like that. I think there's a lot of the things that we we assume as as youth pastors and and we need to stop assuming and kind of meet people where they are and ask really intentional questions like where are you in your leading, especially on the spiritual side. But I would say even on the Harder conversations too. Like, you went to a party, ⁓ is another experience. Like you went to a party and now I get a call at two o'clock in the morning and you're too afraid to tell mom. And so now I'm going to go with you to talk to your mom, you know, kind of thing. Like Are you prepared for when you get a phone call in the middle of the night? You know, and and how do you handle that? What's the what's what's our ministry safe is what we use. Like what is our what is our ministry safe policies? What is, you know, how do you handle those those tough phone calls? Because now that you've connected with the student and they give you a call because they trust you more, how are you gonna handle that? Yeah, stuff like that. speaker-0: No, it definitely. And I ⁓ so David talked about that leading a kid to Jesus blurb. ⁓ s I I wanna time out for just a second and talk about something 'cause I'm gonna forget. ⁓ if you have been listening to the podcast for a while, first off, thank you. But secondly, we have some new resources for you. ⁓ and so we have kind of changed up the idea of our website. ⁓ and so we've been we've swit made the switch to Riverside for a podcast hosting platform, and with that this gives us The opportunity to have all of our ducks in one place. And so we have moved our website, and you're going to start seeing it in the description in the show notes and everything else as a new website, but it's smcpodcast at riverside.com. And with that, ⁓ you can access all of our episodes, but then we have a new feature that is a newsletter that you can subscribe to. ⁓ and the subscription for the newsletter is going to have bits and pieces of extra information and extra conversation. on topics for each of the episodes that we do. And so with that, it's gonna be really, really cool. And I bring that up because I'm going to put the file for the for those images or for that ⁓ leading a kid to Jesus in our newsletter. So if you go to smcpodcast.riverside.com and you click on our newsletter tab, then you can see all of the newsletter tab, ⁓ all the newsletter blog posts that we have so far. And then also you can subscribe to the newsletter if you want it sent to your email address. I bring that up right now because I feel like that's important and I'm gonna put what we're talking about, the leading a kid to Jesus, I'm gonna put that file in our newsletter post for this week. So if it'll come out on Friday morning, ⁓ and then that way or actually Yeah, no, it'll come out it'll come out Thursday morning. So it'll come out with the blog post on Thursday or with the podcast episode on Thursday. And so if you are listening to this the day it comes out, you should already be able to go and look at it. And that way there's resources, but it'll have a little bit of extra conversation on our topic for each week. speaker-1: Did you already put the what was it that we talked about last week about your ⁓ volunteer packet? Did you put that on there too? speaker-0: No, I have not yet. But we talked about that. So did one I did one last week, ⁓ already and so it's kind of an additional conversation. ⁓ and so if you look through on the conversation, it'll say this week on the podcast and it'll talk about that. ⁓ and then I'm gonna have files ⁓ for whatever we talk about directly under that. And so all you have to do is go look for the look for the w podcast or the blog post from that week and then you can find all the files. ⁓ because a lot of the times you can't put that into the podcast episode descriptions, and that was one of the big struggles that we were having. ⁓ and so this is just giving us an opportunity to be able to do that. So it's on our newsletter, smcpodcast.riverside.com. I'm going to try and make a forward where you can use student ministry conversations.org to get to our website too. But I have not set that up yet, and I don't know if I'll have it set up by the time that this episode comes out. But that is in the future. But right now one more time smcpodcast.riverside.com. ⁓ but yeah, I I I feel like I just had to bring that up right now because I'm totally gonna forget by the end of the ⁓ by the end of the episode. speaker-1: That definitely felt like one of those podcast ads that like stop in the middle. Thank you for watching the Student Ministry Conversations podcast with your hosts Brent Aiken and David Pruitt. Now now enjoy this this ad about Student Ministry Conversations with Brent Aiken and David Pruitt because our ad We are speaker-0: We are only about we we owe are only about seven hundred thousand listeners away from being able to use ads, so like speaker-1: Only seven hundred thousand. speaker-0: Kidding, but we we definitely are not looking at doing ads anytime soon outside of just blasting our own stuff occasionally like that. But that was a good reminder, and it was I felt like that was when I needed to say it. Because like we will have what we just talked about in the newsletter post for this week. So, but with that, like you said, the gap in most trainings is this idea of like they're unprepared, they're nervous, they're unsure how to respond to things. ⁓ And s a lot of times they know where to be, but they don't know what to do or what to say when a student opens up and they kind of freak out. Or they like they don't feel like they are the one that ha like has the authority, I guess, to answer. And I think that's a big thing too. That's huge. And so talking about this idea of like, you know, spiritual care isn't complicated. It's listening well. It's being present. speaker-1: Nope. speaker-0: And it's pointing students towards the truth, which is Jesus. speaker-1: The one thing I I feel like speaker-0: ⁓ you sorry, I was just gonna say listening well, being present and pointing students towards the truth. speaker-1: Thing I say all the time is that we we feel this sense of having to have an answer because we were trusted with a big question. And sometimes the best answer that we can give is I don't know. I'll get back to you. But you have to have to have to follow up because if you don't you communicate to that student that they're they're issue was not important enough for you to to ⁓ bring back or to check in on kind of thing. And so it's so important. But one of the the greatest things you could do is not BS an answer. And I know I probably shouldn't use that term, but like that I think sometimes that's the apt term for it. Sometimes we literally pull stuff out and it has nothing to do with and it can be very damaging. ⁓ some of the most damaging things ⁓ that people experience in their walk and a lot of reasons why people walk away ultimately from faith is because we say the Wrong thing. and we represent Jesus really poorly at times. And it's not necessarily an intentional thing, but I've seen people in really bad grief situations be told horrible spiritualized things that are not biblical because we're trying to help in a moment. ⁓ when sometimes the thing we need to do is take a step back and go ask somebody else. ⁓ a lot of times, and I'll be tone, I'll be totally honest, there's even times where I I feel very confident in an answer and I will still give myself time to go talk to my pastor to make sure. Yeah. Because it doesn't hurt to phone a friend. speaker-0: I think that's huge. Like checking yourself, like a hundred but like ⁓ allowing volunteers to have that established idea of like not having the answer is okay. And one of the things, and I'm I'm talking about this with my students tonight as far as like sharing testimonies, but I think this goes into the conversation of volunteers too, is like sometimes volunteers can easily think like I haven't been through enough. Or it's been so long since I was a teenager or my testimony isn't interesting or I don't know enough Bible or what if someone asks me something that I can't answer? Like the idea is to bring ⁓ back to John nine twenty five when the the Pharisees are like, you know, like, well, what did he do? What like talking to the blind man and like Jesus healing the blind man? And they're like, Well, what happened? How did they he's like, who did ⁓ like, did he have the authority? D da da da da da da and he's like One thing I do know, I was blind, now I see. Like and it the man didn't have every theological answer. He didn't have all the responses that he needed to have that like would have been church answers or the correct biblical answers. All he knew and all he did was point them to what Jesus had done. And so like I think if there's any clarity for like teaching your volunteers, it's this idea that like the right answer is pointing them to Jesus. Yeah. Now you can have insight with that, especially if it's something that you've gone through or something that you've wrestled with yourself, but like at the end of the day, like Hey, point let's go back to Jesus in this. What would like what is the idea behind this that like where would we see Jesus? Like where can you find Jesus? And always pointing them back to Jesus is the significance and the importance. speaker-1: That's it. And I think it's a really important to remind volunteers as well as ourselves. ⁓ I'm talking to you too, as as the as the youth pastor, it is not we our job to be the primary spiritual care facilitators for these students. It's their parents. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: We need to give ourselves the freedom to know sometimes we only get this much time with a student. If we get real lucky, we get this much. You know? ⁓ and so sometimes we get so focused on having because we only get so much time. And I think that there should be a fair amount of urgency in our conversations, of course. But at the same time, remember to point him to Jesus because we only get ⁓ for so so long. Yeah. And then really encourage their parents. Like I I tell our students all the time, Hey, if y we're having this conversation, I would love for you to then go home and talk to your parents about it. And I tell the parents the same thing, hey, this is what we're talking about. Here's my notes. Ask these questions. speaker-0: Yes, that right there. I was about to bring it up. like if you want parents to love you and your ministry, send them emails every week that say, Hey, this is what we're teaching. Here's how you can bring it home. Like I I let and this is one of those things like I don't think we think about this too much. Parents fall under our volunteer training. speaker-1: T job buddy. Yep. Yes. They're volunteers too, whether they show up or not. speaker-0: They are they are like required volunteers. Like they don't have But with that, like it is our job to teach them too as like how to like how to navigate these situations. ⁓ and just a second I have speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, that's a good point. While he's waiting, one thing that I've been doing with our our stud or our parents is like here's the specific questions that we asked, here's the questions we didn't get to because we ran out time. I would love for you to ask these questions to continue the conversation. ⁓ and and what I tell our parents is backtrack a little bit, you know, say, Hey, what did you what did you get out of it? ⁓ how did you know, how did you answer this question and then go into the questions that weren't answered or weren't given the opportunity to ask and see what they say? And I tell parents too all the time, like, hey, if you get a really cool answer, let us know. I'd love to or if you get another question. Like if you're if you're talking with your kid, and they bring up and they say, Well, I was a little afraid to ask in front of everybody else, but I was kind of thinking this thing. Then you text that to me. I'm not naming names, but I will address it. You know, like I did a I totally threw out the playbook on Sunday night because I had three different students who had a question about a specific thing and and and talking about feeling disconnected from God and and it was interesting. Three different parents reached out and said, Hey, ⁓ they were they had some questions about this and ⁓ and I was like, well that's funny. another person texted me that too. ⁓ and then after the third one I was like, throw it out. This is what we're talking about. You know, and that really you know being flexible as a youth pastor to go, this is something that the students were continuing to chew on, this is a really, really good opportunity because if one student's thinking it, another student probably is too. For sure. When you get three different ones, okay, we can really dive into this topic. And and I was sad we ran out of time. We couldn't go into it, but they really wanted to talk more about it. I'm like, great, let's do it. And so we did it that night. And it was great. Great conversation last Sunday. So yeah, you know, the more the more you talk with your parents and the more you you engage with them and ask those questions. ⁓ the better the better it is for us because we're not necessarily having to constantly be creating more material wondering if it's actually making a difference. Yeah. You get direct feedback and you know you're speaking to specifically what your students need for that, for that day, week, month, whatever. speaker-0: Yeah, no, definitely. And so I I I walked over to my bookshelf. ⁓ I know they've kind of gotten some flack over the last couple year, year and a half, two years. But parent queue, these books are great if for parents. Like, and basically you can buy them as a set or buy them individually, but it's parenting your ninth grader, parenting your tenth grader, parenting your eleventh grader, whatever. And like literally you can buy these books on parent queue and Like literally they're like, take home I'm showing this on camera for the people that are listening audio. But like there's all kinds of stuff about like what's happening with your ninth grader or like adults who might influence your ninth grader, like parents, community leaders, church leaders, grandparents, your friends' parents, coaches, club sponsors, high school teachers, tutors. Like it talks through all these different things about like what it means to have a ninth grader, and then it talks about like in this year you w Will fuel passion. Like this is ninth grade. ⁓ so they will keep pursuing an authentic faith and discover personal mission. Like you can say things like, How can I pray for you this week? What when do you feel closest to God? Like stuff like that. It gives like Like David said earlier, as far as teeing me up for th what I was about to say, this is like an absolute tee up for parents. It's really, really cool. And the thing is is like it's a great resource. And so, ⁓ super important, super cool thing to have. ⁓ and then also like there is a website that's the parentq dot org, ⁓ that's also a huge reference as far as parents go. It has articles on faith, it has articles on different phases of stuff, like it's a huge resource for ⁓ Mm-hmm. For it like just giving your parents the opportunity to go find answers. ⁓ and the the the people that are leading it are really, really good. I mean, Dr. Jim Burns is one of the main authors on there, ⁓ which he has been a faith and family person for a really, really long time. He does a lot of focus on the family stuff. ⁓ he does a lot of things, and so the parent queue is really, really cool. ⁓ it's a huge resource that we use. But then the other idea is the mindset of like, and I've So much success with this and granted it might work for you, it might not, but if you're creative or if you feel like you're creative, ⁓ then one thing that I would recommend you do is just when you talk to your parents or when you send out those weekly communication texts or emails, throw in a little blurb and say, Hey, what are you struggling with right now that I can step in and help you out? Because then you will get ideas for resources directly from the parents and I hadn't I haven't brought this up in the podcast in a while, but I had a parent reach out to me a couple years ago ⁓ and was like, Hey, so we eat dinner as a family every single night and one of the things that always happens is my kids are asking me questions about things that they're hearing in high school and I don't know a accurate and correct biblical response on how to handle these conversations. So could you make like a resource that would just take these questions? And she gave me a list of questions. And she was like, could you give me a biblically accurate response to these questions? But then also maybe throw in some ideas of like other links that we could go explore together as resources. And so we took this idea and made something called Table Talks. And so there are these five by seven cards that have a question. And then it has a biblical answer for the question. It has ⁓ QR codes that go to three journal articles on the the specific qua topic and then like just goes through how they can have the conversation sitting at the dinner table. ⁓ and it was a super, super big hit. I had some professionally printed, and we gave them out in packs, which was really, really fun. ⁓ and it was neat. Like it was a cool resource and we still have digital copies that we give out to our parents, but like It was not my idea. I literally said, Hey, how can we help you? And one parent chimed in and said, This has been a struggle. Is there any way we could come up with a resource for this? So like if you're creative, like use that. But it was such a cool opportunity. ⁓ and we had so much fun answering the questions. ⁓ and they were hard questions. ⁓ they were questions that parents are definitely struggling with and trying to figure out how to handle, but it all happened over the mindset of just a parent. responded to the question that I asked of like, hey, what are you struggling with and how can we help you? So really, really easy opportunity for you to have more buy-in from the obligated volunteers, the parents. And so like and we say this all the time, your parents are the biggest disciplers of this. It is an absolutely huge thing that we have to like stress the importance of parents being the primary discipler. speaker-1: Mm. And I would encourage now that we're in this topic it's a little bit full circle, but you know, that resource of how to lead a a kid to Christ, I think you absolutely should be having that conversation with every one of your parents because if they really are the primary ⁓ if we as parents are the primary disciplers in our household, then we can't just put those we can't just give that to the volunteers who are showing up every Wednesday night or Sunday night or whenever you meet Sunday morning. ⁓ it needs to go to all your parents. And so the more resources we can get, like I got to thinking about it and I was like, I usually just send it in our parent meetings, but got to thinking we use Group Me And I was like, I could totally create another topic and just put parent resources and start throwing a lot of cause I I do a parent devotional every single time we do a meeting. And it's usually and it's it's something specific to Parenting a teenager. ⁓ it's real simple, devotional that I just write for them. ⁓ and I always try to throw a resource in there that just kind of helps with ⁓ and it it always comes down to a conversation I've had with our other parents. Like, hey, this is just something I've been struggling with. Okay, great. I would love to try and and speak into that if I can, you know, that kind of thing. And so again, it it just helps you. Build relationships with your parents too because they see, ⁓ he's listening and he cares. You know? And that makes a huge difference. I've had some parents literally tell me, like, hey, I really appreciate that you gave us that resource. That was something I was really struggling with. And it's nice to know I'm not crazy. Like and I'm like the sheer amount of times that I feel like I'm just absolutely winging it as a parent, which I mean, come on, everybody feels that. But you know what I mean? Like it's it's really, really important. So If we stop looking at our parents as someone to please so to speak and start looking at them as your obligatory volunteers. I don't know if that's the right right term. I mean we used it earlier. ⁓ and it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. But at the same time they are volunteers. They are directly discipling your students and they have more influence and more time speaker-0: It's it's a tongue in cheek. speaker-1: with your students than you ever will. And so pouring into them has to matter to you and your ministry. And if you're not doing it, then we need to start. And so ⁓ the more resources you can. I was looking up the parent queue ⁓ as Brent was talking about it and they have everything. Like not just those. Like I was looking through literally it goes from baby to twelfth grade. speaker-0: It's all phased by the Please, yeah. speaker-1: So like this is something you could give to your children's ministry. speaker-0: Sure. Yeah, there this is ev there's even articles in there about your adult like kids that are now adults. Like how to minister to them. And so it's it's a really it is a full circle it's a full circle event and it's really, really cool. I use that resource all the time. Occasionally I'll throw in a section in my parent emails and I'll just take some of the topics off of Parent queue and I'll just throw hyperlinks into my email with the titles of these articles where parents can go read them on their own. And it's just something extra to give to parents that gives them a leg up and the The ministering and shepherding their kids. so going back to the volunteers though, how do you train for like if you're not training necessarily the spiritual care, because it's not necessarily that complicated, like we said, you're listening well, you're being present, and you're pointing students towards the truth, like that is spiritual care. What do you train for then? Mm-hmm. I I think you can kind of boil this down to four different elements, ⁓ and that is teach listening skills. So many people don't know how to listen now. You have to teach your volunteers how to listen, and then also listen before they speak. Let the student fully air out what they have to say, then respond. There are so many adults nowadays that want to like, ⁓ well I know exactly what you're dealing with, and the students like, No, you don't like And so you have to give them the opportunity to actually talk and the volunteer needs to listen. So teaching listening skills is a huge dynamic of volunteer training that you need to be doing if you're not. Good. speaker-1: And I I just wanna sorry, I just really wanna drill that down because I think we need to hear that as youth pastors too. No, we don't know what they're going through. Just because we were teenagers once does not mean we that we know how to be a teenager post COVID, post The world the world is getting crazier and crazier. You know, and there are times where I look back to when I was a kid and the older people would tell us how crazy our generation was. And now like at thirty six I'm like, ⁓ gosh, like this is getting crazy, crazy. To pretend like we know what they are going through with the extra special bit of social media dynamics literally happening in real time. You know, in in our day it was someone would pass a note and sometimes it would have something to do with you, sometimes it wouldn't. But most of the time we didn't write it down because that would take time and we were too lazy for that. Now they could literally just point a camera, take a picture of somebody doing something silly, throw it on Snapchat for everybody to see and speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Just like that, your kid is you don't know what they're going through. Don't pretend like you do. Just be present. And that's really what it comes down to is you know, just because we know a solution a lot of times doesn't mean that we know what they're going through. And so listen to them all the way through. I love what Brent said there. Listen to everything they have to say, and then maybe start with saying something simple like, I'm sorry you're going through that. Even if in your mind you're like, that is the dumbest. thing I've ever heard in my life. And there will be times you're gonna hear something and you're gonna go, seriously? Like you cry like I'm a pretty I'm a pretty graceful, like empathetic person, but even even I have my limits where sometimes I'm like, that made you cry? ⁓ buddy, buddy, let's you know let's rethink some things. But I mean But at the same time, there are gonna be times, and Brent and I make this joke a lot. Practice your reactions in the mirror. This sounds stupid. If you've never heard this before, it sounds stupid. But have your volunteers literally go look at themselves. And honestly, one of the best things that they could do is go look up Gen Z trends on you know, just Google Gen Z trends and things that are saying, or things that teenage confessions or something silly like that, and just watch yourself in the mirror as you like record yourself in the mirror, whatever, whatever you gotta do, and see what your face does when you hear stupid things. Because the truth is more times than not. We don't mean to, like we think that we're being totally focused, and they say something, you go that little moment of reaction, if they're looking at you intently and they're telling you something that scares them absolutely to death, and you go, and you get that judgy face, you lose You need to hear that. If your face, even if you didn't mean to, it was an involuntary reaction to something that just seems silly or crazy or hard, that little bit of a face, that wall will go up. And when that wall goes up, it's gonna be really, really difficult to keep that trust. Now, if you already have a great relationship with them, you can say, ⁓ I'm I'm sorry. I you know, sometimes like I've even had a face where I was there, like, uh-oh. Did I go too far or whatever? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Like, ⁓ that's my op I I'm sorry that I reacted that way. I don't know why, you know, or just be really bluntly honest and say, okay, that sounds silly. Like I've I have a relationship with students where I can just say, ⁓ okay, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Can you expound on that a little bit? Like, I say expound, expand ⁓ on that, a little bit because I don't know, that seems a little odd to me. make it make sense, you know, kind of thing. And then they're like, ⁓ okay, but you're still showing them that you care. Even in the midst of, okay, you you lost me there. Let's ⁓ let's figure out how to get back, ⁓ kind of situation. And it I think it makes a difference in those moments, 'cause at the end of the day we're human beings. We're going to have a reaction to things and and we can't help what our face does when we hear something that just seems completely crazy. But practice your reactions, it makes a huge difference in whether or not they feel like you're really listening or judging. Because the moment that they think you're judging them, that wall goes up and it's really difficult to press forward until that wall comes back down. So just own it. You know, that's like I said, sometimes the best thing you could do is say, I'm really sorry. That seems off to me. Let's talk let's talk through that. Like explain why that and then they go, ⁓ okay. You know, at least you're owning it and you apologize for you know, the dumb look on your face. speaker-0: No No, and I I I think that's huge. I mean practicing, but that's that's part of listening skills in all honesty. And the other thing that like it kinda bleeds into s the second thing is this idea of give conversation examples. Like you need to have conversation examples of what might come up and how to address it when it does come up. ⁓ it's just gonna help them out. ⁓ it's gonna give them opportunities to once again feel prepared for those conversations. ⁓ and then also normalizing like we already talked about, normalizing Is not having all the answers, and it's okay to be like, hey, I don't have a great answer for that, but I want to make sure that I do. Can I get back to you on that next week? That just shows that you're serious, that you listened to them, and that what they asked is important. Like, which those are the three home runs that you can give a student all in one answer. ⁓ and so do that though. Last one is provide support and follow up with them. If you say you're gonna do something and you don't do it, you're gonna absolutely cut that relationship. And sometimes it does not come back. So, confidence grows for all four of these topics, or for all four of these things that you should be teaching, not topics. ⁓ confidence grows through practice and permission. You are giving them permission to do all these things, you give them permission. To not have all the answers. But you also give them examples, you teach them listening skills, you provide support and you follow up. speaker-1: Encourage your volunteers as often as you can to know that they can do this. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: That whatever it is, they got this and that you trust them and that the students trust them for a reason and God has put them in this position for a reason. You know, it it we talk about it a lot as as youth pastors is remember your calling. ⁓ It just looks a little different than ours. And so remind them God called them just as much as they called us. It just looks a little bit different than the rules. And so encourage, encourage speaker-0: Very much. And that's that's the huge dynamic that we have to do. And so the thing is is a well run ministry is helpful, but a spiritually caring ministry is transformational. If they n if students know they can ask questions, they will continue to dig deeper because they have the permission and have the security to do so. So your volunteers don't just manage students, they should be on the front line of helping them shape their faith. We're gonna end with that. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh. So with that though, as always, let's pray. Don't forget, like I said, website smcpodcast.riverside.com. ⁓ also share this with your youth pastor friends. ⁓ we definitely are kind of picking up steam, which has been pretty fun. ⁓ and so it's been encouraging to us, and we've actually had some great comments and feedback on like people that actually listen to our podcast, which is cool. We would love more. So if you're listening to this and you're like, Man, I have five seconds, shoot us an email, shoot us a message, email podcast. student ministry conversations dot org or at talk student men on Facebook and on Instagram. We would love to hear from you. and how long you've listened or what's your favorite episode or what would you like to see an episode on or anything like that above. We are here for you. speaker-1: You wanna be on the podcast? ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ and so like if there's something that you're like, hey, Like I'd probably be interested in coming on the podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and say we have the rest of the entire year mapped out week by week, and so I can send you what we're gonna be talking about, and if there's one that like really resonates with you that you wanna sit in on and be a guest, that's cool. We'd love it. ⁓ because we'd love your voice to be in the conversation too, as that's been a thing from the get go. ⁓ and so, with that being said, new website, newsletter Place to find our podcast, SMC Podcast at Riverside Dot or dot riverside dot com. Reach out to us, contact us, let us know feedback. Does our podcast like is it something that you love? Does it suck and you hate it? Like we want to hear it. I don't really care what it is. We just want to hear from people. ⁓ and then s thirdly, like if you want to be on the podcast, like David said, reach out to us. Email podcast at student ministry conversations dot org or at talk student men on Facebook and Instagram. Check us out. We'd love to hear from you. But as we've been doing, let's pray and we'll close out this episode. God, I think for today. I thank you for ⁓ just the the the preparation and the planning that has come into the month of August with school starting and everything else. God, I pray for the youth pastor that's either just already got it got started, into the f swing of fall, or is getting started in the next week or two. ⁓ God, I just pray that they are prepared, they feel confident in their tr the their continued decision to follow you. ⁓ and that they feel ⁓ just a reassurance of calling in the place that they are. ⁓ I just pray that as we are thinking through curriculum and volunteers and events and all those things that our discernment and our ⁓ is focused on you, what brings people closer to you? We are what points them to you. That is the main goal of what we do. And God, I just pray that you give us wisdom and discernment on how to point our ministries towards you and not how cool our ministry is. ⁓ just give us boldness, give us confidence to speak up when we need to, ⁓ and allow those conversations be to ⁓ come from students that have been in our ministries. Allow them to have boldness and allow them to have clarity in what they want to ask so that they can come up and approach the volunteers and the leaders in these ministries ⁓ to have those conversations because at the end of the day, God, we want to be better ⁓ equipped and better as youth pastors so we can prepare and bring more students and point them to the truth of who you are. That is our goal. It's always been our goal And God, I just pray you help us with that. Be with the ones that need an extra dose of you this week. Give them peace, give them patience, give them courage, and just remind us daily that you love us. In your name we pray. Amen.