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3 Unacceptable Mistakes Youth Ministries Make with Events · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Today we're talking about three common mistakes that youth ministries make with their events.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: 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.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: My name is Jeff Lascola, and this is Kristen Lascola.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: And I have an update, and then we'll jump into the episode.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: We did our worship night yesterday.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: We had done like an episode about how to plan a worship night.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: So we did a student ministries worship night with high school and junior high.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you've been listening to our podcast, I'm a huge advocate of splitting middle school and high school ministries, and nothing has changed.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: I still am.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: However, for this particular event, it was so amazing because I realized the high schoolers taught the junior hires something about worship, and the junior hires taught the high schoolers something about worship.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: So the junior hires love to jump and dance and have hand motions.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: And there's that song that goes, He pick me up, turn me around, set my feet on solid ground, whatever.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: We have like a whole thing to it.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: And every high schooler was doing it with us.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: And it was, I talked to the high school worship leader after, and she was saying she feels like the hand motions really gave the high schoolers permission to engage in a fast song, but in a structured way.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like I'm out here doing weird stuff that no one's doing with me.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: But if it's synchronized and we're all doing it, you get to be expressive in a synchronized way so you don't feel like you stand out.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: But then for the slow songs, like the high schoolers are very used to having rugs in the front where they can get on their knees and raise their hands and you know, change up their posture if they want to.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: And we had junior hires on their knees.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: I have never once seen a junior hire on their knees during one of my youth group worship nights or even at camp for that matter.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And they were, and their hands were up, they were holding hands with each other.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: They are like students were like crying and hugging, and it was so cool.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: So I loved that.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: I loved combining, and we sprinkled a couple testimonies in.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: So like I recorded or live?
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, recorded.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: So we recorded one of our junior high leaders and one of our high school leaders, and they shared part of their like testimony.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't necessarily like, here's how I came to faith, but more like, here's currently where I'm at with God and what he's been doing in my life.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: One of our leaders lost her brother, her twin brother.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And so she like was just talking about how God's shown up for her in that situation, and our other leader, she was kind of reflecting back on where she was as a Christian when she was in high school, and how like God has shown himself like into her adult years and how she's become so much more confident in her faith.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I did a little devo on the Hebrew word yada.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: It was like a worship word used in the Psalms, means like your arms spread open.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Our high school pastor did the communion message, and it was amazing.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: And then the students all went in the back and got communion.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: We played 17 songs, and when the worship team said we're done, the students weren't having it, and they kept chanting, one more song, one more song, and they were exhausted.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: And I see the band like look at each other, and then they went back to the beginning and redid the first song, and it was amazing.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: I think the kids would have gone all night.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: I think it was an hour and a half.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: It felt like 20 minutes.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: It was amazing, but it just shows me they could have gone two hours because we ended up the event was supposed to be an hour and a half, and it ended up like an hour 45 because they wouldn't quit.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: So it was so, so, so cool.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: So if you've done your worship night like we've been talking about, I would love to hear any variations to that that you found were really helpful because I got a text from my worship leader today, and she was like, We're doing this again.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, absolutely.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: This is also a standalone night, not on a normal um youth group night.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we did it.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, we don't have youth group Sunday night.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: So we did it Sunday evening six, six to seven thirty.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: I didn't everyone's like, Did you do that on purpose?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, some sometimes six Did you put the number seven after six on purpose?
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes it just exists that way without us having to be, you know, those people.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, TikTok people, whatever.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: This is like I feel like a really long TikTok social media trend.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: I know.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: We're in like sheesh, like that was here for five minutes, and I loved that one.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: It was funny.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: Why?
5:22
SPEAKER_01: Why six seven?
5:23
SPEAKER_01: No one knows what it means.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Nobody I think because it keeps coming up so consistently.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: I know it's from that song, and then the basketball thing.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Because there's so many times this number six and seven kind of go together, and then so I think it just perpetuates this.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, hopefully next year by this time it will be gone.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, I was telling our seven-year-old the other day, because she's now saying six, seven.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, do you know why six is afraid of seven?
5:49
SPEAKER_01: Because seven, eight, nine, oh, and you know, that was my generation.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: So OG of the classics are still good.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: So we normally don't banter like that before we get into the and I hate when podcasts do that because I'm like, just come on, I'm on time crunch.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: 45 minutes later, point number one.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I know.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, point number one.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: So today we're talking about three common mistakes youth ministries make with events.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: And I made one of them yesterday.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: So I have to confess when we get to that one.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: But number one, not being ready on time.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Oof.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: It's a bad look that when students and heaven forbid, parents are arriving, the youth pastors know where to be found because they are running around doing all kinds of things that should have been done an hour ago.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: And it just looks like we're not ready for you.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm not ready to receive you.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: You can just kind of stand over there while I put up the streamers or whatever you're doing.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Streamers.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Who would put streamers up?
6:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Why?
6:58
SPEAKER_00: For the birthday party.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Kids would just tear them down, anyways.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: True story.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: One time I set up all these color-coordinated balloons for an event we were having, and I was so proud.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Helium and everything.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: And this kid just grabs a pen and then just jumps from one to the other and pops them all before we had even started.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: And I look at him and I'm like, my face must have been like ghostly white.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, What are you doing?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Or angrily red.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I still remember the just utter confusion of like, we've decorated this party for you guys, and your job is to jump to each balloon.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: But that's such a junior high response, though, to be like, Why did you do that?
7:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they don't know.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Innate.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: They're like, I saw something that needed to be destroyed, so I destroyed it.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: That's my job.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: I am.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: But it's not even that much thought into it.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: It's like literally, I don't know.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: My my being just forces me to do these things.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: My being.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, the voices.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what is the vibe?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Here's the question: what is the vibe when somebody shows up?
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Is it still we're in the middle of the hustle and bustle and you know, putting up the balloons or I don't know.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Screamers.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Streamers, getting the candles and the birthday cake, whatever you're up to.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Or are you ready and present?
8:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing I think a lot of youth pastors struggle with.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: We're like the movers and shakers, we're getting things done, we're getting things ready.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: It's very hard before our program for us to be present.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: We're doing one last tech check.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at our notes.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: We're doing, you know, like there's always some little last minute thing.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: But I would really challenge you to be ready, ready to receive families, parents, students, your own leaders, you know?
8:54
SPEAKER_01: And depending on the event, maybe it's going to be harder or easier for you to do.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: But I would really encourage you to like if your program starts, let's say, at seven o'clock, let's be ready at 6:30.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, it's not like, well, I have until seven o'clock.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know what your like youth group kids are like, but mine show up so early.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Like a half an hour before youth group would be like the deadline, absolute last.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: They just come so early.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: So if you have kids coming early and hoping to kind of hang out, not that you have to accommodate someone an hour before.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's a kid there, and I'm like, I can't like just sit with you.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Like this is it's five o'clock, you know.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's reasonable to say 30 minutes prior to your program starting, you should be relaxed, done, ready to receive people.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: And then number two, a mistake commonly made by youth ministries with events is not having enough adults at the event.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: And having enough adults kind of helps solve the first problem we were talking about of like you being ready.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can't be the only one who's there to greet students and parents if they have questions and new kids and all of that.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm so proud of my volunteer team because when we have an event, they are on the hunt.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: They like a few of them are extremely good at spotting the confused parent.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Like they're very good at spotting the new kid who doesn't know what to do.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: They're very good at spotting little like questionable behavior pockets.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Junior hires are so bad at hiding their bad behavior, you know, because they keep looking over their shoulder and you're like, I wonder what you're doing.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: And they'll be like, No, whoa, no.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, why'd you keep looking at me?
10:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, you don't just look at me with your phone out in a huddle when you're texting your mom, you know.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: That's the other thing they always say.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: And I finally said, then tell your mom, like during sermon, hey, put your phone away.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: It's my mom.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, then tell your mom not to text during the sermon.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Tell her to wait.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's reasonable.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: She can go 30 minutes, right?
11:16
SPEAKER_01: But it's like their behavior betrays them.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: So if you have leaders out there, they can usually spot that stuff before something goes down, you know?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: And you always want to have leaders spread out too.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: Another thing is like if there aren't enough leaders at your event and people are getting into trouble and nobody's around to see it, it can be really like can make you look really bad when you go to talk to a parent, like, well, nobody saw, you know.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, if they're very committed to hiding it, they will.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: However, it I don't want it to be for the reason, well, we didn't have enough supervision.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, so supervision, having enough leaders for that, but also having enough leaders just for relationship.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's a lot of kids that like need an adult to kind of come alongside, like, hey, I recognize you.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: What's your name?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, you're blah, blah, blah.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: What grade are you in?
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh, here, let me introduce you to these people.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Or do you know what we're doing tonight?
12:19
SPEAKER_01: Or do you know where to put your stuff?
12:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's almost like these like hosts everywhere, like kind of helping the night, you know, move.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Especially if those kids are new.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And then like relationship just for their own kids, like their own small group kids, like hanging out, having a relationship with them, getting to know their friend if they bring a friend, but and then just enough leaders to help things run smoothly.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, say you're doing an event with transportation, having a leader take attendance each time kids get on and off the bus to make sure we didn't leave anybody uh in and out or Chick-fil-A, you know.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: Um having leaders help with like luggage, like that's a really big one.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: So that like if you're going somewhere and you need to pack their bags or helping leaders or having leaders help, like when we do big events, like and we take attendance in a different way, they take attendance for that.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: So it's just nice to have more hands, more eyes, more ears, and people know what they're doing.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So I've always said this everything is better, whether that's church, youth group, camps, events, retreats, whatever it is.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: It's always better with more leaders, provided you have the right leaders.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Because if it's the wrong leaders, maybe it's worse.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: But all my leaders are 10 out of 10.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, how it's exponential.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Every single one that shows up, we get 10 times better.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, make sure anytime you play an event, tell your leaders, I'd love for you to come.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: If it's something that they might not want to go to, try to sweeten the deal for them somehow, you know, buy them dinner or have leader snacks available somewhere, or you know, some kind of leader perk that is gonna make it like all right, we're gonna sleep on the floor, but maybe we'll get a burrito out of it.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Just always try to find ways to thank them to make it special to appreciate the extra effort they're going to.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: So number three, who a mistake.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Is this the one you made?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'll tell you the mistake I made.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the five years.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: It was gonna be number four, and I took it out because your title said three mistakes.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I can change those are arbitrary names.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, guys.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: Jeff said I could do four, so maybe I'll do one more.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, bonus number four.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Secret menu.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting to that.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Are you?
15:03
unknown: Yeah.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: Jeff overselling and underdelivering.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: This is tale as old as time.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Where youth pastors, when they announce things, they act like this is gonna be the coolest thing you've ever been to.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Like it's gonna be so epic.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Winter blast 2025.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Now, I hey, I'm not opposed to marketing.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm not opposed to making things like hyping stuff up.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: However, I am against hyping something up and then it not being anything close to what you sold them.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: That they will lose trust in you pretty quick and watch your camp and event attendance shrink.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Tell them what it is.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's not in your control.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: One thing that happens to us all the time is the place we use for winter camp always says horseback riding, paintball, and then that's what the kids expect.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: And then we get there and we're like, oh, that ride's broken, that Disneyland.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know what?
16:16
SPEAKER_01: I just stop announcing it now because I'm like, this has been show up and you'll find out.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: One year we actually got to get kids on horses.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: The rest of the that's always the one that's they're like, Oh, we don't have enough staff.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm bringing 300 kids up here.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Can you find some people to have help them horseback ride?
16:34
SPEAKER_01: No, they cannot.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And then the paintball is the other one.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: The boys look so forward to paintballing, but if it drops below a certain degree, the paintballs get too hard and you can't play.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And even so, I just, you know, this is me venting now.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm just very annoyed because the kids get so heck, then crap.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: That's like what they want to do.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: The they've been scheming the whole time about like who we're gonna shoot.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and the teams and how you know, they're so pumped, and I just got tired of disappointing them.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: So that was outside of my control.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: But what was inside of my controls, fine, I just don't announce it anymore.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: If you happen to go on their website and see it, then fine, cats out of the bag.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: But I don't announce that stuff anymore because they always let us down.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: But other things like within your control, like if you're hyping something up, like think of it in terms of when you see the picture of that burger on the ad, and then you get it and it's a soggy clump of stomped and smashed.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I guess it's still a burger, but you made it sound or look something else.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: So when you're advertising, promoting an event, use actual footage from your event because otherwise, it like if you go to like stock footage of glow night and there's all this paint and cool stuff, and that's not what you're planning on doing, then you better either do what the picture says, or you better like just use a picture from your past event.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is this is what I'm offering you.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: This is what we do.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not 2,000 people here, right?
18:18
SPEAKER_01: And where's all the like fog?
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And where's all the foam?
18:22
SPEAKER_01: And where's all the cake towers?
18:26
SPEAKER_01: So make sure you're like being true to what you say.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: I've heard, you know, over the years students get disappointed of different things, like they said it was gonna be like this and it wasn't, or they said this.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: So I try to be very true to here's exactly what you can expect.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: And then if it's more fun than that, great.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not gonna be like, oh, it's the most epic thing in the universe, you know, if it's really just hey, we're having a glow party and you're gonna get glow sticks and glow paint.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna play glow in the dark dodgeball, we're gonna do some glow in the dark just dances, we're gonna play glow-in-the-dark hockey, and then we're gonna crash and go to bed.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, that is really what's going to happen.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's just another point of like keep photo and video files of what you do because they come in so handy for promotion so that kids can see what you do.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously for social media as well.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: But when you come around to that event the next year, you can, and then it's so cool when they know the people in the picture or video, they're like, oh, that was that was Mason.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, he's in high school now and he went to this stuff, or hey, there's me, and I look little, you know, because it was a year ago.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And do yourself a favor and log all that stuff and organize it so that it's not like a sea of footage that's like, where the heck is the winter camp from 2024?
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Label everything you do.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, oh, that I learned that the hard way.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: It was just like, why am I doing work three times?
19:57
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know where I saved it.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and my saving system is not organized.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: As youth pastors, if you stay in it long enough, you should be able to recycle messages and flyers and games and all kinds of stuff.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: So keep it okay.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: That point really quick that reminds me of did you have to do like when you're in school, like the magazine drives where you have to like contact.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I think I've told you the story, but they they have like the pitch where they come to the school and say, like, all this crazy stuff that you can win, you know, Nintendo and blah blah blah.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one of them, it was like a pretty low bar of like sell this many magazines, and you'll get six feet, and they had this picture, six feet of licorice, and they had this person like buried in licorice, and like it was just all over the place.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And so you're like I'm picturing like a like a phone booth six feet high of like all this licorice, and I reached that tier, and then when it came time to rewards day or awards day, they gave me a pack of licorice that was like if you if you put them one by one, it would have been six feet of licorice.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Like a pack of red vines, so like, hey, buddy, there's put those in one line it's six feet guaranteed.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Hey, give or take that to the bank.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I want to be my grandmother had to order 17 magazines to get red vines?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, it was just so deflating.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Like Dollar Tree.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And they're stale.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: No, it was a sobering moment in the world of the city.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Also, licorice is gross.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
21:43
SPEAKER_00: As a kid, that's like gold.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't think licorice would motivate me to do anything.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: I thought my parents were gonna have to bring the truck.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna get this like one ton of licorice home?
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Where will we store it?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll eat it today.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: But no, it was one pack, one single pack of red vines.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: All that to say, don't overhydrate your events.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: And then at what point is this child labor?
22:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, like having you guys hustle your family to like.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: You're putting them into like a scam where it's like pay one penny for your first magazine, and then you'll never be able to cancel the$29 a month fee that they'll charge you.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I was getting Martha Stewart living for like years.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how that's how it works, that's how it works.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Because you always like for this.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And then you never do.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's so funny.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so number secret number more is do what you say you're gonna do, or else.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, I isn't the same thing as the last one.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: No, you'll see.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: I see why you would think that as an amateur, but nay, stay tuned.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, for example, last night the event was from 6 to 7:30.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Kids don't care, parents do.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: So it was like 6:35.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, whatever.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't love this, but we're wrapping it up.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And then the worship team was kind of trying to get the kids dismissed, and the kids wouldn't leave, and they were chanting one more song.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And what are you gonna do?
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Like, no more worship for you.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, of course you're gonna do it.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: I go to the back and I see one of my leaders, Andy, and he's like, Oh, you're sweating, aren't you?
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, How do you know?
23:52
SPEAKER_01: He goes, I know you.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: He's like, You're looking at the clock, you're freaking out.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, because I don't want to lose trust with parents.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: I want when we say we're gonna do something, like according to parents, I want that to be what happens.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Meaning we are on time, like you can count on me that it's not like, yeah, they always say that, but it goes 15 minutes late.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: And here's why does it matter totally?
24:19
SPEAKER_01: Last night I let it go because it was worship, it was a one-time thing, we were on fire, whatever.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And some of the parents came in, they were like, This is amazing.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm always thinking of the the non-believing parent who is already very skeptical of this whole thing that their kid is going through.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Now you made them wait outside for 15 minutes extra.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: They don't have the lens of, oh, but they're just so into it.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: They're like, um, I have to work at 6 a.m., like hurry it up.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, not forever, but I never ever want to create barriers, especially for non-Christian parents to bring their kids.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: I want my parking to be as smooth as possible for that reason.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: I want pickup, I want everything to be easy peasy so that they gladly let their kid do this.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: If they're religious skeptic, I don't need to put anything else in their way.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: So I always want to earn the trust when we do events.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: We are doing what we say we're going to do.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: If I say we're going to be back from Sky Zone at 8:30, we better be back by 8:30.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: We don't like, oh, well, they wanted to stop for ice cream.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: No, too bad.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: I, this maybe is too far, but I even tell them, like, hey, you're gonna have to do prairie quests next week because you guys are already over time and the leaders will be like, well, we didn't get to prairie quests.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, then start there next week because I have a parking lot full of parents wondering where their kid is on a school night.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, and I now in my heart, if I have to choose between pickup and prayer, of course I choose prayer, but sometimes I have to look at I can't go out to the parking lot and explain to 75 cars, well, it's just they're really into it right now, while they have a screaming toddler who's past their bedtime and you have to work in the morning and they still haven't finished their homework.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Or we could plan our time well and fit it all in.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: And then we don't have to say no to any good thing we want to do.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: That's on us to make sure we're managing our time well.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: So we do get to prayer, so we do get a full worship experience.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: And so start on time, end on time, get all that stuff done so that people look at us as a trustworthy entity, you know, because it goes deeper than just, well, I appreciate your punctuality.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: It's a reflection of we are who we say we are, we do what we say we're gonna do.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: You can trust us, we are reliable, we're gonna take good care of your children, we're gonna take good care of your family, we're going to respect you, we're gonna respect your time, we're going to respect the agreement we had that you will allow your child to come knowing it ends at this time.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Because parents have a lot of factors to consider, and it's just not very courteous of us to just say, Well, what we're doing is really important, so you can wait.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: What did you commit to?
27:23
SPEAKER_01: That's important.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, so you could look at it on that sense as well as like, well, God said, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: So, in a sense, it is spiritual to end on time and be reliable and trustworthy in that way.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, you've now kind of set the precedent that if you're gonna be kind of loosey-goosey with time, they may say, Well, then I'm not gonna get there at seven or whatever you're at 8:30.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Good point.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes they go till the 845.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna show up at 8:45, maybe nine even.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: And then you're sitting there, have you called your mom yet?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, your mom's not here, like, why are we still here?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden now it's you're waiting on them because you were so loose with the timing.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: That reminds me one time, a long time ago, we had this girl who wanted to stay late.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Her family was not a Christian.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, she was like, I think the only Christian in her whole family.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if she was a Christian.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: She was just coming to youth group and she wanted to talk to a leader about some stuff, and the dad flipped out, kept texting one of the kept texting his daughter's phone, like she was ignoring please release my daughter.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Why are you holding her?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Like thinking we were holding her against her will.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: But he's not, he's not a church goer.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have a relationship with him.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't just walk in and be like, hey, Kristen, where's so-and-so?
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, she's meeting with her leader, she'll be right out.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, sometimes you don't get the benefit of this relationship.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: And so he's like thinking this kid's about to be kidnapped because why isn't she out in the parking lot for pickup?
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, he came in finally and was storming the castle, just like, and one of my leaders, like, whoa, and he's like, No, where's my daughter?
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Like freaking out.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, how scary for a parent who doesn't know us and has no relationship with the church, maybe had a bad experience at church, and now it's 15 minutes past when his daughter is supposed to be out, and he's heard horror stories about all kinds of stuff.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And where is she?
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, I can I can put myself in your shoes.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: Like that was a really scary experience.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that's an extreme example, obviously.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: But however, let's let our yeses be yeses and our no's be no's.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Let's do what we say we're going to do to keep trust.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the bottom line.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: We did an episode a while back about how if you had.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: An event and maybe just didn't quite go the way you thought it would.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And in other words, it was a flop.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Here are some ways to kind of like analyze that and go back and say what went wrong.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And some of these things, actually, I think we may have even touched in that episode, but make sure you check that one out.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to do a community comment of the day.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: This comes from Amy Oldham who says the timing of this podcast.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I always forget to tell you, this is again from the worship event video.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Episode just how many.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: So this is Amy Oldham who says You're wearing the same shirt in that episode as I'm going to be.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I only have so many.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: The timing of this podcast is perfect because we are about to meet with our student leaders and discuss the possibility of having a worship night this coming school year.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for finding ways to make your ideas work for smaller youth groups.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: That's a goal that we have.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Is that we want to make sure everything is I was a smaller youth group for a very long time.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a youth group of, you know, two or two hundred, that it'll it would work for that.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I wanted to combine for the worship night because I I'm like, I don't know how many junior hires are going to come to this.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: If we include high school too, at least we'll get a critical mass of people so that it won't feel weird.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's the argument people use to combine their sixth through twelfth graders.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Only for worship.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, and because it was our first time, I didn't know what to expect.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: So next time, I mean, I liked it.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: I but I think we could have because yeah, I think we could have handled the room on our own numbers-wise, just junior high.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: But it was cool for that one time.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Amy.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Let us know how it goes if and when you do plan that.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we thank you guys for watching and listening.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next time.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: To Tony.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: To Tony.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: You're my friend.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Can that be in the takeout?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: You can look at my ear.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: Tell me more, tell me more.