BTE4.07 NextGen Discipleship from Birth to Graduation: Part 1 with Jon Lee and Lane Moss

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What if the key to enriching your spiritual journey lies in subtraction, not addition? In our latest episode, I reconnect with my good friend Lane, who shares his enlightening reflections from his sabbatical. Instead of adding new routines, Lane discovered the power of letting go. This revelation sets a reflective tone for our episode, as we chat with John Lee from Northeast Christian Church about nurturing cohesive family ministries that span from birth through high school.

Jon helps us explore the innovative strategies employed in youth leadership and the importance of transitions in a child's faith journey. From student-led teachings to the strategic timing of small groups, we examine how these initiatives help young people articulate and embrace their faith.

The episode takes a practical turn as we discuss how to empower parents to take an active role in their children's spiritual development. By offering workshops and resources that speak to generational contexts, parents can engage in meaningful faith conversations at home. We wrap up by highlighting the significance of a church-parent partnership in fostering a culture of discipleship, providing insights into building a strong spiritual foundation for young people. With collaborative strategies and church support, families can thrive in their faith journey together.

Be sure to check out the new video version of this podcast on YouTube!

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• www.ciy.com
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• CIY Community Facebook Group
• Email us at [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Brad Warren.
This is Beyond the Event, ayouth ministry podcast presented
by Christ in Youth, where wehelp you maintain momentum
between the mountaintops.
Super excited for today'sepisode.
We're going to do two of thesethat are not meant to be
sequential, they're just twoperspectives on the same idea.

(00:24):
This is the first installationof that.
So we are going to be having aconversation with a guy I like a
lot.
His name is John Lee.
He is at Northeast ChristianChurch in Louisville Kentucky
Not to be confused withSoutheast Christian Church in
Louisville Kentucky.
He's been there for about 12years but he's in a family

(00:45):
minister role and want to talkto him about what it looks like
to have a cohesive familyministry rather than a bunch of
siloed individual ministrieslike student ministry,
elementary ministry, preschoolministry, whatever that may be.
What does it look like toactually create just one big
family ministry that share somereally important goals and

(01:06):
values?
So we are going to do that andthat's going to be great, but
first you get to hear from mygood buddy, Lane, hey Lane, hey,
Brad.
Welcome to Beyond the Event.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's so good to be here.
I know it's so good to be here.
If there's one thing I likemore than the event, it's beyond
it.
I'll tell you that right now.
This is where the magic happens, that's for sure, lane.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, how are you so good?
Here's a funny thing.
Normally we would have had likethis is the seventh episode of
this podcast this season.
Okay, and typically I try toget you on like episode one,
episode two, because I just loveyou and I love hanging out with
you, and that's selfish on mypart.
But had to wait to week sevenbecause you've been on
sabbatical, that's true, yeah,yeah, so you were on sabbatical

(01:56):
from sometime in September tosometime in November, no October
.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, that's right.
September, september to middleof September, end of October.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Middle of September to the end of October.
That's right, and I have notgotten to talk to you a lot
about it, so we're going to talkabout it right now.
I love that, because I have youpinned down Right and everyone
else is going to get to listento it, and that's going to be so
fun, I hope.
Does that sound great to you?
I mean, it sounds amazing to me.
Okay, I'm curious about whatyou.

(02:28):
I know you had a ton ofexperiences on sabbatical.
I know you went a bunch ofplaces, got to spend time in
California with our buddy Loganand Ana Love them.
You got to go to the GrandCanyon.
Wait, that wasn't part ofsabbatical.
That was pre-sabbatical, thatwas pre whatever.
Yeah, pre-game, pre-gamesabbatical by taking the kids to
the grand Canyon.
I love it.

(02:48):
Uh, I feel like people go intosabbatical sometimes expecting
things like hey, I'm going tocome out of this feeling rested,
I am going to come out of thisfeeling refreshed, I'm going to
have new ideas.
I'm getting you know like.
These are the things.
What surprised you, though?
What did you when you got tothe end?
What were you like?
Whoa, I was not expecting tofeel that or to think that

(03:11):
that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I you know I intentionally I tried really
hard to not go into sabbaticalwith a bunch of expectations.
I met with my my.
We're different.
Well, I had just talked to somepeople who had taken one and,
based on their wisdom, that iswhy I tried to not go in with a
ton of expectation.

(03:33):
So I did try to go in with someintentionality, establishing
some different rhythms andthings like that.
I think what I think, what Ididn't expect, is it took me
until about week three probablythe end of week three, honestly,
of six weeks.
So so, almost halfway throughyeah, it took me about halfway
through for God to finally, um,get through to me that it needed

(03:59):
to be more about subtractionthan addition.
So I went into it thinking I'mgoing to add all these things.
I'm going to do, I'm going todo this stuff, I'm going to add
this spiritual rhythm and thisspiritual rhythm and this
physical rhythm and these, I'mgoing to add these things and
then I'm going to come out of itfeeling really refreshed and
and I, and I think that what Ilearned was that, um, I got to,

(04:20):
I got to a place, like I said,about the end of week three,
beginning of week four, whereGod finally just kind of said
like there's too much, like this, we got to get rid of some
stuff before we can add somestuff and not just schedule
things, because sabbatical is bydefault, you know, at least for
me, it was getting rid of a lotof schedule things.
So that already happened.
But what I found was thatthere's a lot in my heart and in

(04:42):
my head that needed to be givenup, that needed to go, that
needed to be excavated beforethere could be any um, anything
else built and so, and so itreally became a lot about, um,
subtraction, and, and one of theyou know, one of the primary
lessons was I had to.

(05:03):
If there was an expectationthat I took into it, it was just
that it was kind of an abstractone, which was just simply that
I'm going to have something toquantify after this.
I'm going to have some, I'mgoing to have some lessons
learned, I'm going to have somethese kinds of things, and and
maybe that's true and I'mtalking in circles but I

(05:23):
realized that God wants myattention, just to have my
attention, and not so that hecan tell me something specific
or he can do something specific,or he can.
I can learn a specific, butit's just like.
No like, maybe it's just abouthaving, it's just about giving

(05:44):
God, it's just about payingattention to God and not about
paying attention to God for someother reason or so, that
something else happens, and sonot having to quantify something
there was, there was honestlymassive freedom in that, um, and
just going like oh, I don'thave to quantify what my biggest
lessons learned are here, Idon't have to, you know,

(06:04):
whatever else, I can just kindof be, and that was actually
really, really sweet.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
I love that?
Yeah, because I would have thesame mentality Like I've not
taken a sabbatical yet, I guessI will someday you should.
But like I would think, well,it's funny, my seven-year
anniversary is coming up, whichhere we go, like technically it
would make me, but I don't wantto take it yet.

(06:29):
Um so, but yeah, like, allright, I'm gonna do this, I'm
gonna do this, I'm gonna do thisover the course of this,
however many weeks, and likejust to hear you say, wait, it
was actually about doing wayless.
Um kind of important.
All right, let's do some quickhitters.
Okay, quick hit, quick hittersfor sabbatical.
How long did it take you toshut off work brain?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know, I, I'm.
I was fortunate that it didn'tactually take me all that long.
I tend to do, if I don't, Idon't do a lot of things really
really well, but one of thethings that I tend to do fairly
well is I can is is work, lifebalance.
See, obviously that changesseasonally, but whenever I go
home from work, I'm, I'm prettyhome, like I'm, I'm pretty, I'm
able to be pretty present, andso, um and so I had that kind of

(07:12):
going for me already just alittle bit.
But also we actually spent Ilaunched, on sabbatical
literally from an airport inColorado Springs as we wrapped
up our staff retreat, which wasa spiritually focused staff
retreat.
So I was able to, I had kind ofa running start in terms of
shutting off my brain, which Iwas very, very thankful for,

(07:34):
cause I do think that that gaveme a tremendous headstart in
that regard.
So, yeah, so, not very, so, notvery long enough, I mean less
than a week inside it, just afew days.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
That was beautiful.
Let's talk about what a quickhitter is really quick, sorry um
I like learned to slap buttbetter I was I was trying to,
like you know, build a littlerhythm, get it going, and you're
just like you.
Well, now I forgot them all.
Sorry, 36, is that better?
No one one afternoon, it soundslike, was what it was.

(08:04):
Uh, no favorite experience.
So you got to do that.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
You probably wouldn't have gotten to do if you didn't
go on sabbatical to a smallchurch out there and then got to
spend the next part of thatweek with, as you mentioned,
good friends Logan and AnnaGreer and their kids, who I just
love and adore, and so I'll sayprobably that.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
That's super fun.
Yeah, I had one more, but Iactually did legitimately forget
it.
I was like, oh, we're going todo like rapid fire round and
then I swing hard.
Well, yeah, and you know whatSabbatical is about subtraction.
I tried to add a new rhythm andI shouldn't have tried to add a
new rhythm and that's what Ilearned just now, in this moment

(08:52):
.
Well, I'm glad you had a greatsabbatical Lane.
I am glad that you are back.
Oh, I remember what it was.
Oh, what'd you miss most aboutwork?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Besides me.
Well, yeah, bill Warren, that'swho it was I missed.
I'm a pretty social guy and soI just I missed seeing all my
friends and being able to bewith those friends.
And then also though alsomissed it was reg season, where,
like, registration opens andseeing like that's always very

(09:26):
celebratory and I always lovethat and it's very encouraging.
It's a fun day and so it is.
It's an encouraging season, tokind of see it.
It's a high stress season as wetry to lock in contracts and
those kinds of things, but it'salso a very encouraging one, and
so I missed yeah, so I missedthat.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, but sabbatical was a gift, total, total gift
yeah, well, it was not a giftfor me because I had to go six
weeks without seeing you, somaybe you should think about
other people sometimes um,you're right, just kidding.
All right, uh, it's time forthe mailbag.
Michael isn't here.
Want to take this opportunityto give a huge thanks to our
good friend, sam fleming uh forbeing here stepping in for

(10:02):
michael recording the podcasttoday hey, sam however, sam is
not going to lead the mailbag.
I am Okay, I'm in control.
Jeez Control freak, I am thecaptain now.
Sorry, michael Tim Gray, goblue.
Tim Gray wants to know whatyour favorite Thanksgiving day

(10:24):
food or dessert is Turkey.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Smoked turkey Like really good turkey For this, and
there are people that say thatthey don't like Thanksgiving
food.
All due respect to their momsthey have never had it cooked
right or their aunts or theirdads, or whoever cooks their or
their spouse.
Whoever cooks their food isn'tdoing it right.
If you don't like it, we deepfry our turkey.
Yeah, and it's so legit.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
It's outrageously good deep fry.
I can make an entire meal outof just the skin off of a deep
fry turkey oh my gosh, it's sogood, oh my gosh.
It's so good.
Oh, that's gross, it's thebacon of the poultry world.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
It is the skin.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, the poultry world.
Some would say that turkeybacon is the bacon of the
poultry world.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
They would be wrong.
It's not, yeah as a matter offact it is not.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's turkey skin.
I think it is funny that yourwife prides herself, oh, and
she's so good at it On herThanksgiving sides.
Yeah, like, makes just a ton ofthem.
And you said that your favoriteThanksgiving food is the one
thing.
That you make yeah.

(11:26):
So if you're, listening to thisKelly Moss.
Kelly, I went over to yourhouse one time for Thanksgiving
cause I was stuck here, Couldn'tgo with my family.
Uh, and it was beautiful, itwas really great.
Kelly made a ton of stuff.
She made this corn yeah, that.
She was like mortified by yeah.
She was like, oh my gosh, Ican't believe I ruined this corn
.
This is terrible.

(11:47):
I'm so sorry everybody aboutthe corn and I was like this is
the best corn I've ever had inmy life.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, you hold yourself to a pretty high
standard.
It was really good.
She does an unbelievable jobwith the sides and, oh man,
that's my favorite meal of theThanksgiving season is.
A couple days afterThanksgiving, she makes an
outrageous gumbo with the smokedturkey, and it is, and I pine
for it all year long.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
All right, a couple more.
You want to go more fun or moreserious?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
next, Dealer's choice .
You claim to be the captain now, so I'm going to let you steer
this ship.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, and I'm vesting a small portion of my power
into you, oh okay.
Okay, great.
What is Casey Lanier?
We love Casey.
She's the best Casey wants toknow.
Uh, what is your favoritethrowback ciy moment?

(12:50):
The one you think about overand over again?

Speaker 2 (12:53):
favorite throwback ci moment dude, that's tough, it's
.
It's tough to.
It's tough to not say the bellum the the bell in 2013 had a
big like 550 pound bell on allof our stages and all the
complications that came withthat and everything but it was,
but that was really really sweetand people still talk about it,

(13:14):
which is pretty cool.
Um, um, but also um 2016,.
Uh, we did this like reallycool like butterfly.
I was going to say thebutterfly.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, that was going to be mine.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, I was so dope, I didn't mean to steal it.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It's good we're in agreement.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Okay, great yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
It was I did love, I loved the back.
It was really really rad.
Like the cool, those like typesof reveals are always really
fun.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, I like those.
I also really liked the what dowe call them?
Like the Joseph videos.
Yeah, the Joseph mini theater,the mini theater videos.
Yes, yeah, those are awesome.
I don't know why, but like whenI think of my old COI memories
as a student Dude, I like thinkof that.
Yeah, shout out to Ali Hufferfor all of the art direction and

(14:10):
work on that.
Shout out to Ali Huffer for allof the art direction on that.
Who voiced him over?
Pelsu?
Was it Pelsu?
To be honest, I don't know.
Maybe I don't know it.
It might have been Pelsu.
It was someone with like agreat, yeah, totally deep voice.
Yep, ah, so good, uh, okay,last one Matt Berry.
In your opinion, what arethanks, matt, for all these

(14:31):
questions?
Matt submitted so manyquestions and so you're going to
hear his name a lot in the nextseveral episodes.
Matt Berry, in your opinion,what are some of the most
effective tools we can supplyleaders in our youth group with
to encourage them to own?
Wait, I cannot read.

(14:54):
I just lost it.
I just lost the ability to read.
I need Michael.
I miss Michael.
Michael, come back, baby, comeback.
In your opinion, what are someof the most effective tools we
can supply leaders in our youthgroup with to encourage their
own further personal andspiritual growth okay, these

(15:15):
might be different answersdepending on what he means by
leaders.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
If we're talking about students or adult leaders,
adult leaders, we're going togo with adult leaders.
In that case, I would encouragesome.
First of all, prioritize yourmeetings with them.
So make those good.
Don't make those anafterthought.
So don't just do kind of likethis after like, hey, everybody

(15:39):
we're touching base and I don'treally have anything prepared or
anything like that, we'rehanging out, we're getting
coffee, yeah, Like it's great tobe, it's great to be like
informal enough that it'sconversational and giving them
ownership in those meetings.
But when you have like a meetingwith all of your leaders
together, put energy into it, um, so that they know that, so
that they know that it'svaluable, Um, but in terms of

(16:00):
their own personal growth andand growing their own faith.
Terms of their own personalgrowth and growing their own
faith, I think it varies fromperson to person and how those
you know and how those peoplelearn and study and everything
else.
But, man, I would encourage acouple of.
There are some differentresources on like the Bible app,
on the YouVersion Bible appthat are Bible through a year.

(16:21):
I think that just getting youradult leaders in your scripture
every day is massive, and soencouraging them that there are
some very accessible tools tohelp do that.
The Bible recap is a great onethat does a chronological
reading through the Bible everyyear and then has like a short
accompanying podcast with it andyou can do that in the U

(16:43):
version.
But there's all kinds of them,but that one's really really
good.
Um, Tara Lee Cobbles the girlthat does that, and so her recap
, kind of at the end of it, isgreat.
So those kinds of things, uh,spiritual formation books that
are approachable and practical,like the common rule by Justin
Whitmore, early um made forpeople by him.
Um, practicing the way by JohnMark Comer is a really, really

(17:06):
good one on spiritual formation.
That's really practical, easyto read um, easy to implement.
A lot of those kinds of things,Um.
But also I would say like, ifwe're going to like, maybe do
the common rules with your groupwith like a group of leaders,
um, the rhythms journal that wedid at move last year, if you're
a youth pastor, uh, maybe takeit on to do that with.
Like, get somebody see how manyof your leaders want to do a 21

(17:28):
day rhythms challenge with you,Um, and just try to do that as
a team.
Do the stuff you're challengingyour students to do, um and
encourage it, and then and dothe stuff you're challenging
your leaders to do.
Do it with them.
You know, speed of the leader,speed of the team.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Speed of leader.
Speed of the team.
Speed of the leader.
Speed of the team.
I have a big statement.
Okay, I would love to hear it.
I'm going to throw it out thereand you swat it down.
Okay, if you feel like itshould be swat down, okay, it
should be mandatory for yourleaders in student ministry to
be in a small group Like anadult small group.

(18:03):
Yeah, dude, I different,different churches will take
different philosophies on that,but I don't, I mean I don't
disagree with it, um, like ifthey don't have their own
authentic faith community, likethat's the number one resource
that you can give them to createthat with your students.

(18:23):
Yeah, that that's my opinion.
Yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
You hate it.
Truth bombs from Brad.
We're rebranding this podcast.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Okay, we're going to go talk to John Lee.
It's going to be great.
I can already tell that we'regoing to love this conversation.
Can't wait.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
So I'm just excited to see how the beard's doing.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, honestly, me too.
You'd have to watch on YouTubeif you want to get that piece of
information.
But always remember, if youwant to submit questions to the
mailbag, you can click the linkin the show notes, or you can
email us at podcastcycom, or Ialways post something in the CY

(19:05):
community Facebook group so youcan post them there.
But, uh, that's enough on that.
Without further ado, let's gotalk to John Right.
John Lee, thank you so much forbeing here with us today,
excited to have you.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Thanks, man, looking forward to it.
This has been an excitingjourney for us.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Hey, so you've been in Northeast for a long time.
How long?

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, so I've been on staff now for 12 years.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Which is like fairly consequential in the world of
church staffing today.
I mean, that's insane.
So, uh well, here's what I wantto ask.
You were originally brought onas a youth pastor.
Um, what made you want to doyouth ministry specifically,

(20:01):
like I know that's a bigquestion.
If we can do like cliff notesversion, like why did you want
to be involved specifically inyouth ministry specifically,
like I know that's a bigquestion.
If we can do like cliff notesversion, like why did you want
to be involved specifically inyouth ministry?

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Uh well, first off, um shout out to Tim my, uh, my
youth pastor growing up.
Um is an opportunity to kind offollow a little bit in his
footsteps and that inspiration,um, and how he led me.
Um.
I'm a youthful, a quirky guywho loves middle schoolers, so
shout out to all my middleschool pastors.

(20:30):
They're obnoxious, they smell,they're loud.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Middle school pastors .

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Well them, and then obviously our students, you know
.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Middle school students refuse to not have fun,
like for better or worse, theyjust refuse to not have a good
time.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Exactly and you're never sure of what's going to
happen.
Yeah, for sure, I've gotstories for days oh my gosh, but
yeah, no joke.
Middle school ministry, forsure, is kind of my niche where
I like to pivot towards.
I always like to describe it askind of one of those last
malleable years with students,um, high schoolers.

(21:07):
I love them to death, uh,they're so passionate about what
they're so passionate about, uh, whereas middle schoolers are
still intrigued and very curiouson what can be, uh and so that
not concrete, um, you know flowin their relationship with Jesus
.
At that point in time, it'sjust really cool, um, to be a
part of.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, I feel like the reason I asked that question is
I feel like a lot of people getinto youth ministry this isn't
everybody's story, but youalluded to this just now.
A lot of people get into youthministry because they made
important decisions about theirlife and ministry and journey
following Jesus in those yearsbetween sixth grade and twelfth
grade and they're like oh, Iknow this is a time of huge

(21:51):
impact and I want to be involvedin students' lives during this
window of time when I know thatthe Lord really reached me in
some unique and specific waysunique in specific ways.
So you kind of said that like Iwanted to be in youth ministry
for that reason.
You said the junior high or thelast like malleable years.

(22:13):
Yeah, so I'm curious what thementality shift for you was when
you decided or were asked orwhatever that kind of journey
looked like.
Uh, going from I'm focused onstudents and specifically I
really really love junior highstudents to, hey, from the time
a kid is born until theygraduate from high school.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Um, honestly, what changes it for, I would assume,
most people is having kids ofyour own.
So I've got two boys, afive-year-old and a
seven-year-old, and trying toarticulate the gospel as if they
were middle school studentsdoesn't work, it just it doesn't
.
And so being able to havetransitioned into a position now

(23:02):
where I do oversee birththrough high school, it made me
critically think about how do wewalk through all of the steps
in forming a foundation forstudents so that they could
leave high school and not justgo to college, but that we
actually launched them into aworld successfully where their
foundation was concrete, a worldsuccessfully where their

(23:24):
foundation was concrete.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Okay, so when you stepped into that role at
Northeast which?
How long have you been in thatrole?
I'm going on just over twoyears now, just over two years,
were the, were the ministrieswithin that kind of like siloed,
segmented a little bit, or wasthere already a bit of cohesion
there, like what was that alllike?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, so there there was some gelling.
We have the right staff here,which is phenomenal.
So, stepping into it, I've hadthe opportunity to hire a couple
of people to fill some roles,but we have had a rock solid
team where the lines were dottedto work with each other, but
strategically there wasn't awhole lot happening within

(24:05):
handoffs, and I'm not going tosay it's perfect right now
either, like we've still workingon what all this looks like,
but there's now a cohesiveeffort to help in those
transitional phases from birththrough high school.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, very cool, do you do?
I'm curious if you resonatewith that as a dad of three boys
, one of whom is in junior high,two of whom are in high school.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, it's crazy that that absolutely and what you
said about you know you can't,you don't articulate the gospel
to a child the same way that youdo to a middle schooler or
really necessarily to the sameway that you do a.
You know sophomore, junior, youknow senior, high school.
One of the things I'm curiousabout is with your approach to
the, you know, to the to justkind of the whole, the whole

(24:52):
scope of birth to graduation.
And I don't and I know that youknow, in an ideal world you
have, you know you you've got alot of students that you see for
that entire duration, butobviously you got kids moving in
and out.
You know throughout, somewherein that range.
But is your, do you all approachit by?
Do you just kind of try torearticulate with each stage of

(25:14):
growth and cognitive abilitiesand everything else, or is it?
Do you really take kind of moreof a building approach to like,
now in junior high we want tobuild on what they did in
children's church or preteenministry.
Now in high school we want tobuild on what they didn't.
Does that make sense?
Is it kind of a?
reteaching or is it a building?

Speaker 3 (25:37):
It's, it's a.
Ironically it's a bit of ofboth and, and what I mean by
that is there are nuances ineach of the ministry areas that
they walk through to help teachnew things, new principles, but
our effort is to help make achild's faith more their own as
they progress through ourministries.
So, whether we like it or not,kids that come to kids' church
come because their parents bringthem, so part of their faith is

(25:59):
an identity through theirparents.
And so as we move towards thatsophomore junior year the most
critical year, when a kid getstheir driver's license and can
choose to go to church we wantat that point in time for them
to articulate their faith thatit's their own, that they own
that piece so that it might winon a Wednesday night when we
hold youth.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
So hard question maybe.
How does that impact yourstrategy with a first grader
when you're thinking aboutcreating independence for them
in their faith when they're 16years old?
I'm curious practically, howthat actually plays out in

(26:39):
Northeast.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah, so for me we take a bit of a leap and we're
still in the water, if you will,testing it to see how it's
working.
But one of the structure modelsthat we shifted in our hour and
10 hour and 15 minute programthat we have each week was to
move our small group meetup tohappen at the front of our
service and then to move largegroup to the end.

(27:04):
And this is one of the thingsthat I noticed.
If you were a decently smartsix or seven year old and you
went to a large group andlistened to the best of your
ability, you could articulatewhat you heard.
But what I didn't like aboutthat was leading a kid and
helping him drink the waterinstead of showing him where the
water was and letting him do ithimself, if that makes sense.
Yeah, so our small groupopportunity now allows kids,

(27:28):
especially in elementary and alittle bit easier in upper
elementary, let's be real butfor them to be able to go
explore the word, theself-discovery in their
relationship and the meaning ofthat story, what it means to
them in those small groupcontexts, but then go rehear it
in powerful ways, whether thatbe video, object lessons or

(27:48):
acting it out with students upon stage getting fun with some
of the grow curriculum stuffthat we use personally, so that
they can rehear what they'vealready learned themselves.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, Is that a model that that is consistent in
middle school and high schoolstudent as well?
Small groups on the front endof programming and then it's not
.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
We break out of uh, our high school into groups.
Um, it's just the way thatservice is geared up for a
Wednesday night with uh 90minutes we have because it's
kind of jam-packed into both,where they do a full service
with worship and stuff, and theninto a teaching.
But it's pretty cool because,especially in our summer

(28:28):
programming I know I'm gettinginto details here, but our high
school pastor does not teach atall and this may get into a
question later on on likestudent involvement and
leadership and making faiththeir own but we have a student
teaching team, like atheological team, that comes
through to teach eight to 10weeks in a row throughout the
entire summer.
So it helps students engage intheir faith in a meaningful way

(28:51):
in that way too, Hearing fromtheir peers.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah way and that way too,Hearing from their peers, yeah,
that's awesome, yeah.
So I think the thing that makesthis conversation like hard for
some people and by some peopleI mean me, um is some brads,
some, some brads some brads outthere, just really struggle with
this.
I feel like your position issuper important.

(29:18):
However, I also feel like thethings that you're saying a
church could theoretically belike yeah, we can achieve that
by doing this in elementaryprogramming, this in middle
school programming, this in highschool programming, like over

(29:39):
the two years that you've beenin this role specifically and
I'm not asking this because Ithink your job is not important.
I want to be very clear aboutthat but I do want to ask you,
like why is your job important?
You know what I mean.
Yeah, so typical pastor's plateinside of their.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, um, so typicalpastors play inside of their.
You know, siloed ministry areais going to be volunteer teams,
students doing their best to hitum, student leadership groups
doing their best to try toattempt to do something with
parents more than just a parentinformational meeting.
My role is a bigger bridge tothe resources that we have for
parents than it is for anythingstudent-wise.

(30:19):
Now my job also is like themanagement side of what it looks
like to work with personnel.
Somebody's got to do it.
You got to work with, you know,a larger team.
So it's helping connect thosedots and working between
different ministries within ourorganization.
But my, my bread and butter andpride is truly trying to figure
out what we're doing as achurch holistically birth

(30:39):
through high school for ourparents to walk through this,
because we'd be foolish to thinkthat the 90 minutes you know to
maybe two and a half hours weget a week with our students is
going to be the thing thatholistically shapes their face
for the long run.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
That's great and, yeah, I mean you're, you're
totally right at.
You know, youth ministries are,you know, best case scenario,
are partners in what parents arealready doing, right, like you
know, absolutely.
So what is that?
Has that taken on any kind ofpractical shape?
For, again, ideal world,students are coming with their
families, parents are coming aswell, all that kind of stuff.

(31:16):
But, as you mentioned, asstudents get older, oftentimes
they're coming by themselves.
Maybe parents aren't.
They're coming as friends, doyou have?
Is there?
Have you done anythingpractically to engage parents
who aren't attending church withtheir like with their students?

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, I mean we're in such an interesting phase um
generationally, if you will, onthe most disengaged parents
we've ever had in the churchworld with Gen Z and Gen Alpha
Um.
So where we're, what?
What ironically is happening iswe're having more engagement um
at um, I guess adversely, fromour students who are passionate

(31:55):
about Jesus, talking to theirparents about Jesus and what we
could ever do, which isbeautiful.
We've seen students baptizingtheir parents, which is amazing,
a dream, you know, in ourcontext, of what we would hope
to happen in the, in the familyunit.
Um, that's, you know, broken isa harsh word, but it, you know

(32:18):
it is, is.
I mean, you've got kids leavingtheir parents.
But what we've attempted to dois we run, twice a year, parent
workshops that try to hit onculturally relevant topics that
sometimes some people can saythat's a little too spicy for me
.
I don't know if we're going toget into that one, but they're
relevant and parents, with orwithout a faith background, want
to know where the church standsor wants to walk alongside
their kids.
So people have shown up andhave appreciated at least some

(32:41):
of the vulnerability, instead ofjust kind of hiding behind the
curtain waiting for an accidentto happen or somebody to say the
wrong thing.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
So is your connection to parents meant to be similar
no matter what age a kid is inyour ministry meant to be
similar no matter what age a kidis in your ministry?
Is the idea that the parentknows what to expect of
Northeast Christian Churchwhether they have a
four-year-old or a second graderor a senior in high school?
Is that kind of the idea?

Speaker 3 (33:10):
That's the idea that a parent can know what to expect
for their child um a year onend, um, but then also like
benchmarks, milestones on likewhat where should my kid be in a
foundational aspect in theirfaith yeah, so, which is really
neat, I want to dig like wayinto that.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
So how does that actually play out like what,
what?
How are you resourcing yourparents?
Okay so cause, I think a lot, Ireally here's why I really think
a lot of churches um get uhlike going back to why youth

(33:50):
pastors go into ministry.
No, youth pastors go intoministry because they want to
talk to kids' parents.
You know, they want to program,they want to play games, they
want to build relationships,they want to do all kinds of
things that are great.
But like I feel like a lot ofpeople in ministry can almost
get I'm going to use the wordbogged down by like programming

(34:14):
and kind of miss the forest forthe trees.
So that's why I'm asking thatquestion and I'm interested to
see how you've kind of addressedthis.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, so one of the biggest things that a part of my
current role is right now ishelping create the more
tangibles for our parents.
We've got a ton of visiontargets as a church, but one of
our specifically is todisproportionately invest in the
youth, especially the mostcommitted.
And we can disproportionatelyinvest in the youth by providing

(34:44):
excellent Wednesday night orSunday morning programming,
depending on age.
But there are people that wantto go above and beyond.
So you talk about being boggeddown.
Unfortunately, in culture,that's part of a choice.
You're choosing, unfortunately,sometimes to say this is more
important than this.
It's just life choices.
So we wanted to create contentthat allows a parent who says

(35:04):
you know, this is the mostimportant thing.
It's going to take a little bitmore time and energy on my part
, but I want to invest in thisbecause I believe this to be
disproportionately the mostimportant thing for my child.
So I'm in the process right nowfor sixth through 12th grade on
creating a I guess parentpathway is kind of what it's
called that'll allow parents tohave content to equip them to

(35:27):
help disciple their child, and Ithink at the heart of it, no
parent doesn't want to discipletheir child, or whether they
know it or not, they'rediscipling them towards
something, and every believerwants to disciple them towards
knowing and understanding.
Love Jesus.
What I feel like most parentshave expressed a lacking in is
the tools to do it, and there'sa ton of great resources I could

(35:51):
list off stuff from Preston,sprinkle or whoever to walk you
through amazing, tangiblediscipleship models.
But one of the things that Iwant to iterate in any program
is a program's not going to fixa kid.
It's a relationship they wantwith their parent to help
disciple and influence them.
So in the model of what I'mcurrently creating, there's an

(36:15):
opportunity for some really coolworkshops to take place twice a
year, but then the rest of thecontent is self-led by the
parent.
Because I want to put the powerin the parent's lap for them to
have those hard conversationsthat they can all explore, those
answers together, even if youdon't know, but then also
provide them with a base ofcontent that can help inform
them on a biblical worldview, onhow to, how to uh, you know

(36:37):
approach anything within ourculture.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's great, yeah, it is.
Oftentimes it is, it's a.
It's a for parents.
Oftentimes, I think, just like,just lack confidence, um to to
have some of like theconversations that they would
love to have, or they're they'reafraid of pushing their kid
away somehow, or you know,whatever it is they're afraid of
losing them.
Um, and yeah, encouragementwould be no, no, no, no, like,

(37:04):
find where to get the resourcesto build the confidence.
I feel like you can effectivelyhave these kinds of
conversations because guess what, your, your, your kids are
having them right.
It's like let's have them in aplace where you know yeah, I
totally agree, that's good.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
No, I love it, and I think one of the other things
too is and we can all share anunderstanding, especially being
around students the currentgenerations right now are
different than our generation inyouth ministry and are
different than the generationbefore that and different than
the boomer generation, and sohelping parents even get a
better understanding of what'shappening within gen z and gen

(37:43):
alpha, it almost takes precedent.
And understanding that and then,as you understand what's
happening in that culturalcontext of now, with these
generations working towards anunderstanding of what a culture
of discipleship andintentionality looks like in the
home, like that's.
Those are the.
That's, honestly, those are thefirst two months of just a

(38:03):
commitment from a parent.
Now I want you to come to asession to understand this
generation first, because nobodyknows what the hexagony means.
Still, we're gonna digress andmove on.
But then what does it look likeas an intentional parent to
begin to understand on healthyrhythms and restrictions in your
house that build a culture ofdiscipleship before we can even

(38:27):
start the program?
Because that's what's brokenright there in and of itself.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yep, it's so funny because generational stuff like
that just really fascinates me,because the more I have looked
at research that's done by likevery smart people about some of
the different generations,starting with my own, the more
you see that generations likestereotypes, generational

(38:54):
stereotypes almost form as likea reaction to their parents
stereo like generationalstereotypes.
You know what I mean.
So I've, I've, and it's likethat has to, and we all grew up
in homes with parents, it's youknow that that creates distance,

(39:15):
when there's like a lack ofunderstanding, where the parents
are like this is the way we dothings and the kids are like is
it?
Though you know?
So it's.
It's fascinating that you'resaying one of the first steps is
like to build that bridge, um,with like some generational
intelligence.
That's really cool with likesome generational intelligence.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
That's really cool.
Yeah, I just, I, just, I thinkit's, I think that's the key is,
students want to be heard.
Yeah, and oftentimes, you know,I have many conversations with
parents who are like well, youknow how come that came out in
small group and I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
It's like, and I always tell them like, hey, are
you, do you want you?
I was like, and I always tellthem like, hey, do you want me
to tell you the fluffy answeryou want the last 10%.
And it goes back to what is theculture in your home, on being
able to be approachable and beable to talk to.
And if you can't create thatenvironment inside your house or
you've lost it, how do yourebuild it?

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, which I'm sure takes a long time.
I mean, I'm fortunate that Ifeel like I never didn't have
that in my home, Like but yeah,it is so true.
Like if, if a kid gets to apoint where they feel like they
can't talk about things in thehome with the parent, like how
much effort and how long wouldthat take in order to rebuild
that trust feels like it wouldbe very difficult.

(40:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Well, can I, can I go back to this?
Because I think this is huge.
One of the things that I've,one of the trends that I've seen
is is, I say, trend, um, it'sgenerations of believers who
don't know how to articulatetheir faith.
Um, and and not just articulate, and not just articulate their
faith.
A lot of, and not justarticulate their faith.
I think there's a lot ofbelievers that can articulate

(40:59):
theological truths about who Godis, about who Jesus is,
hopefully, about who the HolySpirit is, but very few of even
those believers can clearlyarticulate what Jesus has done
for them.
Yeah, know how to tell theirstory.
Yeah, know how to tell theirstory.
What does?
What has that meant for theirlife?

(41:19):
And so?
So I want to go back to just fora second, because I think it's
key, because now you're talkingabout not just student ministry,
right now you're talking aboutgenerational ministry, as you're
talking about equipping yourhigh school students to be able
to articulate their faith, andputting together this
theological team or thisteaching team that works

(41:40):
throughout the summer to doteaching, because ideally, then,
what you're doing is you'recreating a new generation of
parents who are more clearlyable to articulate what Jesus
has done for me and, honestly, Ithink that if there's parents
who are more comfortable talkingto their kids about, this is

(42:00):
what Jesus has done for me.
This isn't just who Jesus is.
This isn't just.
This isn't just what you know,that like some facts and some
truths, those are all good, butthis is specifically my story.
This is who I was, this is whoI am because of Jesus and
because of the ongoing work ofthe Holy Spirit in my life and,
um, then I think that that makesthem all of a sudden way more

(42:21):
approachable as well, um, totheir kids.
As they, as they try toarticulate struggles that they
have and and what they'rewrestling with with faith or
with doubt or with sin or withwhatever it is temptation then
they're, then, all of a sudden,they feel more comfortable
talking to their, talking totheir parents about that.
So what's that team look likefor you?
As you do that and I don't knowif it's a, you said, a

(42:43):
theological team, you know andso how many kids is that?
How do they get on that?
Is there an age range?
Is that upperclassmen?
Only, unpack it just a littlebit.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, yeah.
So primarily high school, theway that we have tried to help
equip and build a student leaderis to be somebody more than
just a door greeter.
One of the favorite sayings Ihave is that the same Holy
Spirit living in me is the sameHoly Spirit inside of our
students.
There is no such thing as ajunior Holy Spirit.
So empower and equip.
So it takes time, so I'll tellyou right now.

(43:15):
If you don't feel like you gotanything on your plate, add this
to your plate because it willallow your ministry to flourish
in a new light because it'sself-led.
So we do a my Story series.
We have, at least the last twoyears it's been a part of our
overarching goals for anybodyliterally birthed through high

(43:35):
school to be able to know theirstory and where it fits into the
story of the grander story ofGod, and they had to figure out
their goals from that.
But with that, one of thethings that was birthed was
creating more student leadershipopportunities between social
media teams, photography teamsand this theological team that
comes through to help learn andequip and understand what public

(43:57):
speaking looks like and how toarticulate and share their story
in a bigger way than what weare able to walk through inside
of our my Story series, butoftentimes those are the
students who will come throughin our summer to help take over
and get a platform to come andteach a sermon and it's a full
sermon.
We're charging students to finda way to help teach on a

(44:18):
scriptural basis for 15 to 18minutes to their peers and it's
intimidating for some kids rightout of the gate, and other kids
are flourishing because theyhave the opportunity.
The unique and beautiful thingabout it is the first year we
did it, we didn't know what toexpect and we ended up having to
extend that sermon series, ifyou will, to allow for the

(44:39):
amount of students who foundpower and joy in being able to
share their story and the impact.
That's happened.
And what's cool is that it'sbled its way into middle school
in beautiful ways on studentsowning their faith and
articulating it in front oftheir peers.
Students owning their faith andarticulating it in front of
their peers in a little bit moreof a unique setting, but in
settings that we find superhelpful and super appropriate

(45:00):
for a middle schooler to standup in front of their peers and
share.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
So rad.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
So I'm curious.
That's funny that you said that, Lane, because I have wonderful
parents.
I have lovely parents.
I've never heard them.
I didn't realize that I'venever heard them talk.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
I like.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
I didn't realize that I had never heard them talk
about that until you said thatjust now, that they've, like
they raised us to believe inJesus and um, taught me some
really important like tenets ofwhat a life of faith looks like.
But I have never heard myparents be like, hey, this is
something I struggle with andthis is how Jesus has helped me

(45:41):
or them talking about himhelping them overcome or
transform or really anything inany way, which is kind of a
funny thing to think aboutlooking back on now.
So I think it's really coolthat you have your students
doing that.
Is that something you coachparents on as well, like in some
of these meetings, or have youhad any luck with that?

Speaker 3 (46:03):
No, yeah, it is.
So when I talked earlier aboutthose parent workshops, um,
we've, we've walked through, um,what that looks like inside the
home.
Um, which is beautiful, uh, forparents to figure that out.
And it's cool because in someof them we're just talking about
the whole rhythm restrictionkind of lingo about right now.
But what that provides theopportunity is those

(46:24):
conversations to happen morenaturally around a dinner table,
because they're restrictingtechnology in some meaningful
way for a first or second graderso that it's forcing
conversation to happen at thetable.
And oh, when you have thatopportunity now, here's ways to
take advantage of it to shareyour own faith.
It's very cool to see parentsget excited about what's

(46:44):
happening and see their kids.
And what's neat is and Iempathize for any of the youth
pastors who don't feel thesupport from their lead pastor I
encourage it, like, start withprayer and then go talk to them
about finding that support.
But allowing there to be spaceand room for those stories to be
shared on a Sunday morning in alarge group setting to adults

(47:04):
almost stirs the pot for thoseparents and even the older
generation to say I got to getmy stuff together.
This kid is 16 and he's doingmore with his faith right now
than I've done in the last 10years.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
It's awesome, oh man, that's why we do what we do.
We love it.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
That's so incredible.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
That's right, um, okay.
So, uh, we've been talking fora while and I I want to kind of
get to something and make surethat we have plenty of time, um
to talk about it.
So, um, I want to talk aboutyou.
Go to Northeast Christianchurch, which is um, in the
grand scheme of things, a largechurch.
Uh, and I know that you arevery sensitive to the fact that,
like, not every church isprivileged to like be in the

(47:49):
position that you guys are in tohave like an extra pastor
necessarily.
So I want to talk about twodifferent groups of people who
are probably listening to thispodcast.
One is, um, a youth minister at,like, a medium to small size
church who, um has, um, you know, no team and has the burden for

(48:18):
, like, the student ministrykind of entirely on their back
and has a very, very full plate.
Um, I want to talk to thatperson.
And I also want to talk to aperson who might be at a larger
church but does not havesomebody in your position and
has, like, maybe, a studentministry team and an elementary
ministry team and a preschoolministry team, but they all kind

(48:41):
of like exist in their ownworld.
I'm curious what you think likethe most important first steps
are to kind of start walkingdown this road of having a
cohesive, like family ministry.
What do you guys call it Nextgen ministry?
Is that what you do, familyministry, family ministry?
What do you guys call it Nextgen ministry?
Is that what you do, familyministry, family ministry?

(49:01):
Okay, to having like a cohesivefamily ministry model and
philosophy and values and etcetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Sure, in the larger church.
First it takes intentionality Iknow that's a little bit of a
loaded word and you know what doyou exactly mean by that.
It's going to take one of thepeople on one of those teams to
be intentional to say this isimportant.
So if, if you know that you'reswimming and you're, you know,

(49:31):
drowning in all the the week toweek and month to month, to do's
and the events and the campseasons and the retreat seasons,
um, all of that's still goingto be there and it's going to
take effort and intentionalityfor somebody to say, hey, our
parents matter.
But what's more important first,in my opinion, with saying it's
important and intentional, thatwe're going to prioritize this,
is to take time to swim withthe fish.

(49:55):
And what I mean by that is it'shard to identify what is the
core issue inside of yourcontext of ministry until you
actually ask people what theissue is.
If you don't take time to spendwith parents, then you're gonna
miss the mark on how to helpraise up spiritual leaders in
the house, as those parents andI know it's easy for us to point

(50:17):
the finger and say that'sspiritual formation or adult
ministry, that's their job.
You gotta get, I said know,it's easy for us to point the
finger and say that's spiritualformation or adult ministry,
that's their job.
You got to get that, I said.
But it's a partnership in whatwe do and you guys identified
that earlier in our you knowshow.
Today, where we're talkingthrough.
Nobody got into youth ministryto hang out with parents.
But parents will always havemore discipleship opportunities
than you'll ever have as a youthpastor 100% discipleship

(50:38):
opportunities that you'll everhave as a youth pastor.
A hundred percent, that's right.
Swim with the fish.
So that's what I would say isthe first thing to do is that's.
You know, if you have successwith sending out emails and a
survey, go for it.
They're trash in our context.
I don't do those, I just go setup coffee meetings.
Hey, talk to me, what's hard totalk about Jesus, about with
your kid right now?
Where do you guys findintentional rhythms or time to
do that?
And that's honestly what endedup creating some of this pathway
stuff alongside of our leadpastor that is passionate about

(51:02):
helping equip this nextgeneration and parents more
specifically.
But that's what I would say.
You got to figure out.
Who's that one person that'slistening right now that says
you know, this is important.
And I'm going to go ahead andjust cast vision for what it
would look like in our largerchurch context to have unity
across our ministries and thento build out a roadmap.
What are our baseline metrics,our baseline values that we want

(51:26):
kids to know in each of thesephases of life and say, okay,
this is what we hit, let'srepeat, this is what we're going
to do.
You know, for Priest K, we wantkids to know that the simple
truth that Jesus loves them andwants to be their friend.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Right, you know that the simple truth that Jesus
loves them and wants to be theirfriend, right, you know.
So put yourself in the shoes ofuh.
Your context, primarily asyouth ministry youth pastor who
catches this vision is, like,this is important.
I want to do this Now.
I have to go talk to an uh, anelementary pastor and a
preschool pastor, um, and try toget them on board with this and

(52:01):
then also try to like,coordinate some first steps.
How, like, what's the dreamscenario for how that
conversation even goes?
Like, what are you asking?
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Yeah, I think.
I think it would bebroadcasting and helping the
elementary team and thepreschool.
You know, pastor, understandthat right now, if we look at
the context of ministry and welook at this generation, there's
some signs that point towardsus failing our kids and going

(52:38):
off to college and them nothaving a firm foundation.
So if we can lean into andunderstanding that, if we
emphasize strategy and emphasizeintentionality as a holistic
approach, then we have a greaterchance at helping launch a kid
off into the real world withsomething better than just what
we have to offer.
And again, I believe it's trulythrough parents.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Yeah, no doubt.
And and cause, every runner'sgot to.
Every runner in a relay has gotto buy into their role, right,
like, like, if I don't startthis strong, then when I like
cause, we all cause, like it ornot at some point in every
ministry is going to hand thebaton to somebody else, right,
until maybe you get into likeadult ministry or something like
that, but like a children'spastor, ideally, is going to

(53:23):
hand the baton off to a youthpastor, maybe even a, or a
preteen pastor, middle schoolpastor, who's going to hand the
baton to the next?
Who's going to hand the batonto the next who's going to?
And so there's gotta be somekind of vision casting, right,
and just like, hey, we are,we're running the same race here

(53:44):
, like, we're not runningseparate races, we're running
the same race.
And so we just got to maximizeour, you know, we got to
maximize our leg of the race andthen hand the baton off cleanly
and set the next leg up really,really well If we're going to
run, if we're going to run itwell, and so I.
But I think that takesespecially if you're at a medium
to a small church that's got totake a lot of humility, right,
because you don't have oneperson saying, hey, this is
whatever.
I am saying that this is whateveryone's going to do now it's.
I can put myself in a position,you know, as a having been a

(54:07):
former youth pastor at a, at amedium to small church, to go.
You know, I could have beenyoung and idealistic and just
gone to a children's ministerand said, hey, like, here's my
plan for how we're going to takekids from, you know, birth to
graduation and here's how you're.

(54:29):
You know, well then you'restepping on a lot of toes there
and stepping on some programsand some philosophies that that
children's pastor is proud ofand has worked really hard on,
and so there's going to have tobe a lot of humility too, of
like.
Okay, once we've establishedthat we're running the same race
together, what do we need to do?
What's the give and take looklike in order for us to pass and
receive batons?

Speaker 3 (54:46):
well, you know so there's got to be a ton of
humility in that process right.
Yep, there is, and you know,huge shout out to all the
nursery directors, pastors,re-cares, you guys rock,
Absolutely.
Nursery directors, pastors, youguys rock.
There's a patience greater thanme and I'll ever have.
I promise that.
But the cool thing is is like Ihave somebody on my team right

(55:09):
now that is so passionate aboutthe littles, not because they
love holding babies and I dareanybody to say it's just
childcare, because it's.
It is not childcare.
Like there are no way orfoundational opportunities in
their nursery, right now that weare teaching kids simple truths
about who God is and empowering, more importantly, a generation
of parents who feel the urge tocome back to the church after

(55:32):
being gone for so long and sayoh man, I got a kid that I got
to raise and I'm responsible for, and Jesus meant something to
me when I was a kid, so I betterstart now.
And I got a director, I got ateam lead over that.
That's like we're going toraise the bark, we're going to
meet these parents.
This is a huge priority.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Well, and to your point, if you can catch parents,
then if you can catch parentswhen a kid is two years old and
get them bought into this ideathat they play the most integral
role in the spiritual formationof their child, then you're not
having to like play catch upwhen that student is in sixth

(56:09):
grade and is already like in themiddle of asking some really
hard questions and making somereally important decisions.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
So I want to say this because I think this is super
important when you're looking atvision casting big church,
small church, whatever it is, asa youth pastor to rally the
parents or a family pastor or akid's pastor or a nursery direct
doesn't matter.
One of the foundational thingsthat we've taught parents to
begin to understand is that it'sno one else's responsibility to
be the primary discipler ofyour child other than you.

(56:39):
And I think what we've noticedwithin our context and our
culture is that the church hasbecome the same thing as what
most of our kids go to.
They get taken to soccerpractice to go get taught by the
coach to learn, to practice toget better.
They go to school to learn bythe teacher to go grow in their
academics.
They go to ballet to learn tobe a better dancer, and they do

(57:00):
all those things from theprofessional.
We are a partner.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Just as much as a parent is that professional in
their faith and that's the toolto equip them, to help them
understand the vision of like ohwow, this isn't just a drop off
thing.
I actually have to participatein my kid's faith.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Yeah, and it's like you don't want to negate the
fact that and I don't think thatyou're saying this but that
other adults and other peers ina student's life play a key role
in their faith journey.
Absolutely you don't want totake that away.
But at the same time you wantto emphasize yeah, but you like

(57:40):
to emphasize to the parent likethis is not going to do what you
want it to do unless you arelike fully bought into.
This process is a hardconversation yeah.
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent,that's.
That's really cool.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
But how encouraging is it for a parent to hear early
on from a family ministry staff, from nursery on up, like, hey,
here's the plan, like here'swhat we're going to be doing,
you know.
Like it's not just, we want youto know that when your child is
here, like we're not just weare not just thinking about the

(58:19):
next 90 minutes, we are thinkingabout the next 18 years, and so
here's, so, here's our plan andhere's how, like we aim to
partner with and to grow withand to do all of these things.
That's so encouraging as aparent, that's so encouraging to
me to go like, oh, it's notjust childcare, you know, it's
not just.
You know, whatever, it's this,and this is a thing that I can,

(58:40):
you know this, this is what thepartnership looks like.
That's, I mean, I.
I think that's really, reallyspecial.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Well, and for you like you just went through a
couple of big transitions, kindof in a row, where you had some
kids going from eighth grade toninth grade, you had some kids
going from fifth grade to sixthgrade, those types of things and
to just like know that the waythat you interact with those
ministries is going to feelfamiliar and the way that you

(59:08):
interact with those ministriesis going to continue to support
you in the ways that you havealready felt supported by the
ministry before, I think is justlike a huge comfort thing and
helps to like build momentum asthey cause.
You mentioned confidence earlierand I do think a lot of parents
lack confidence and there is inmy mind like a fear that maybe

(59:32):
your elementary minister likecrushes it at this and is like
really good at instillingconfidence in parents and then
they hand off to the studentministry team and that same like
fervor for equipping parents isnot there and all of a sudden
those kids are facing like newand different challenges and all
of a sudden parents start likequestioning themselves and
asking like am I equipped to dothis?

(59:53):
Can I have these conversations?
You know, I just feel like theramifications of this are huge.
Maybe I'm rambling, I don'tknow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
No, I think that's super valid and I think what's
funny is even to look at it inthe context of, you know, some
of our smaller churches or evenmid-sized churches, where the
youth pastor that is inheritingthese kids is 24 years old,
maybe freshly married, doesn'thave kids and doesn't understand
that role and I articulatedthis at the beginning that my

(01:00:23):
lens shifted as soon as I hadkids, so I don't know what that
means for that person that's 24,other than I would encourage
you to swim with the fish.
So go get parents on a teamthat can help you discern how
and what they need to equipother parents.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
No doubt I just a couple of things.
I mean.
I remember being when I, whenmy boys were real young and
knocks my youngest, he, he'sbeen the, he's been the one
that's consistently just kind oflike a terrorist.
He has, just like he, he justthinks a lot Right, and not that
the other boys, like they,don't think and ask great

(01:01:00):
questions and everything else,but he is constantly, ever since
he was a little dude and Iremember, like you know, singing
with them at night and prayingwith them and kissing them
goodnight and walking out of theroom and you know, and the two
bigger boys were asleep and Ithought Knox was asleep too, and
so you think you're home freeas a parent, is asleep too, and
so you think you're home free asa parent, just like you know.
It's that, it's that wonderfulfeeling.

(01:01:23):
Everybody's asleep.
And as I'm walking out the doorI just hear Knox go dad.
I turned around.
I was like what, buddy?
And he's like come here.
So I walked over to him and hesaid if Satan is defeated, why
do I still do bad stuff?
And I was just like, gotta know,man, I'll see you tomorrow,
like I did my best yeah, let mejust drop you off at church miss
renee's gonna no, I it reallywas, though it was, and it was

(01:01:49):
one of those moments where I wasjust like sheesh man, like my
job is to study and communicatescripture and truths and these
kinds of things, and I broke outinto a sweat and so we talked
about it for a minute and thenwe did pick it up again the next
day, but, but there's a but.
There's a lot of those kinds ofconversations that kids are
asking them you know they wantto.
You know they want to know.

(01:02:18):
And so parents need to like youknow, just to give parents going
to be.
So let me just, like you know,relieve anyone of like feeling
like that's the kind ofconfidence they need.
That's it's not, but knowingthat they can like comfortably
sit in those questions withtheir kids, you know, and it's
OK to, and then and then though,yeah, then to be able to then
go and and partner with partnerwith people at church that do it

(01:02:40):
practically and I don't thinkI'm shifting gears too hard here
, Maybe I am, but practicallyfor you all in your family
ministry.
How much autonomy does eachministry have in their like
program and philosophy?
Does that make sense, Like inlike their teaching series?
Is that, is everybody operatingindependently but under the
same umbrella, or is there likesome or like, are you moving

(01:03:03):
through certain things annuallytogether?
What's?

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
that look like We've made a goal is to create same
page series for parents where,no matter preschool through high
school, their student will hearthe same Bible teaching and
that they can all be on the samepage and have that kind of a

(01:03:31):
conversation on the way home orat the dinner table at night or
through the midweek, with someof the content that we send home
with parents for our you know,k through five ministries and so
Do you mean like, hold on, Ihave a, I got to jump in.
Do you?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
mean like thematically, like everybody is
talking about grace or everybodyis talking about sin, or do you
mean like you're finding a wayto teach Romans eight to
three-year-olds?

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
A little bit of the More of the first.
Okay, but more importantly, Ithink, where we found the most
success is, again, one of ourvision targets is to be a church
that knows and honors the Bible, and so by doing that, you got
to read it, and so we said samepage series.
Super easy.
Let's work through the you knowbook of Job and we're gonna all

(01:04:20):
the whole church we're doingthe book of job and it might
take two weekends to do it, butwe all work through it and then
it allows our parents to have umtheir baseline of knowledge
around it and whateverformational experience happened
in their service.
But then the take-home contentthat we give.
Hey, here's what we did when wewalked through this and here's
some really cool questions foryou to talk about.
A same page discovery series.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Yeah, okay, sorry, I kind of I feel like I derailed
that train a little bit, but wasthat?

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
was that where you were heading?
Yeah, that really was.
That really was my question,and I love, yeah, talking about
just like, what are these, whatare our values as a church, how
you know, and how does thattranslate to each area of our
ministry?
That was really, yeah.
How often do you do that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
It can depend on the year.
I want to say this past year, Ithink, we had eight or 10
weekends that were geared likethat that's super cool, which is
really neat.
Yeah, it's different and again,so I didn't really explain our
context in ministry but highschool ministry we moved off of
doing programs Sunday morningsbecause we've noticed that a
failure to launch a student intothe real world was a failure to

(01:05:25):
integrate them into what thereal world looked like in church
.
And so we have a studentsection, which is cool.
It's rowdy, it gets mentionedfrom our lead pastor because he
thinks it's pretty cool too, butwe just occupy a section at our
11 o'clock service and weintegrate them in a
multi-generational experience.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
So it's not weird when they go to college and
that's their experience oh too,totally yeah, and and shout out
to and and just just becausethis is a little bit of a soap
box of mine, churches,incorporate students into your
service let them let them servein your adult services.
Let them serve and that.
And please sacrificeprofessional environments For

(01:06:03):
perfection.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Whatever your idea of perfection is.
Yeah for the sake ofdiscipleship, we did an episode
of this podcast with JeremyStevenson about students serving
.
That is one of my favoriteepisodes we've ever done,
absolutely so if you'relistening to this and you
haven't listened to that,there's a whole conversation
about that Cause.
That is a huge deal.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Yes, yes, for sure.
Yeah, I want somebody to cometo Northeast and say do high
schoolers run this church?

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Yeah, so you can be like, yeah, people serve people.
Come on, yeah, yeah, a hundredpercent, we we've got to wrap up
.
I've taken up like so much ofyour time, I know, but I do want
to ask you this question what?
So two years you've been kindof on this journey of what, and
you've been super humble thiswhole conversation and said I'm

(01:06:49):
still learning, we're still kindof throwing stuff at the wall,
we're still figuring this out,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What has been, in your mind,the biggest obstacle to like
implementing a strategy likethis and what would be your like
?
Because I don't want people tothink, you know, we kind of
talked about that hypotheticalsituation where a student pastor

(01:07:10):
goes to coffee with elementarypastor and, uh, preschool pastor
and they all sit down anddecide, okay, we're going to
resource parents really well,and that's great, kumbaya.
But what is like a hard thingthat you've had to deal with as
you've been on this journey?

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
That's a fantastic question.
Yeah, I mean I can be, you know, pointing it and look at you
know it's taken me way too longto write this curriculum.
Like this is a frustration.
This stuff should be inpeople's hands right now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Um so it takes a great deal of time.
That is an important thing tosay.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Yeah, I've been working at this for a year, um
minus a hard drive crash, whichwas unfortunate.
I've only got four months outof nine months of content that
I'm trying to write right nowand I'm about to just have to
put on the burners and go hardat it for the first quarter and
get it ready for summer launch.
But I think I would point backto the parents who are just

(01:08:06):
disengaged.
It's been the most frustrating.
The hardest thing to figure outand I think the hardest thing to
figure out is theresponsibility of the church.
What do we own and what isuncontrollable?
Yeah, how do we partner withstudents and provide those
mentors, those small groupleaders, those adult figures in

(01:08:27):
their life that can have thatinfluence where a parent might
be totally absent and don't evencare, you know, two rips to the
world on what it looks like forthem and their kid to have a
relationship with Jesus.
And it's in a world wherechurch has brought up all the
time and deconstructing and allthis stuff.
Like at some point, parents, Ilove you so much, reconstruct it
for your kid's sake.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Put it back together.
Yeah, because at the end of theday, jesus matters more than
anything in this world and allwe want to do is help, partner
with our parents and understandthe marriage of what a home and
the bride can look like in abeautiful way what absolutely
percentage of your parents would, you guess, have like bought

(01:09:10):
into this on some level?
We're well over half.
I'd'd say that.
That's so cool it is, yeah, it's, it's really neat to see.
So, again, I talked about itearlier, but those parent
workshops are probably one ofthe biggest things and you just
got to be able to be vulnerableand confident in your teaching
and if you don't feelcomfortable, find a teacher to

(01:09:31):
come in and help teach, lean inon your lead pastor.
We just walked through humansexuality and we're getting
ready to walk through sexualidentity and they're hard
conversations but it mattersbecause it's relevant to the
conversations that are happeningat home.
And so if you're not able toput yourself in the place of
being the parent at home,getting grilled by these
questions, or why they can't, orwhy they shouldn't, or no, you

(01:09:52):
can't be with that person, thenyou're doing a disservice to
your parents.
Be vulnerable, be humble, butyou can't let your limitations
on your knowledge limit theinfluence and impact that you
need to learn to have in thoseavenues, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Lots to chew on today .
Lots to chew on today, John.
Thanks a bunch, Lane.
Do you have anything else?

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
No, just quickly.
Resources you mentioned.
Preston Sprinkle has some goodresources.
He's so great.
He's so great YMS guest acouple times, which is great.
I don't know when.
This is Shameless plug beforeYMS.
It is Well then, get registeredfor YMS 25, because Preston

(01:10:38):
will be there.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
In like two weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
That's okay, we got room.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
We got room.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
San Diego has room.
So then, the, but also, likeJustin Whitmore Early has a
great book called Habits for theHousehold that are so good,
just about creating some ofthose rhythms and habits within
your home that again don'taren't.
It's not about having all theanswers, about being comfortable
sitting in space with your kidsand and, and like you talked
about, uh, john, is is just likethe, the vulnerability and

(01:11:09):
humility of growing together,you know, and of taking and of
taking steps together.
Um, is just so yeah, so sweet.
So, dude, I love it.
Awesome man, grateful for yourministry, bro.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
So good.
Thank you and for anybodylistening.
You can reach out to these guys.
If you know them, email them,shoot them an email and if they
can connect you to me, I wouldbe more than happy to have a
conversation.
And, if anything, just praywith people and help uplift you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
That's yeah, I love it, man.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Thanks a bunch, john.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Appreciate you bro.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
You bet, guys Appreciate y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Lane, thanks for jumping on that conversation
with me.
I thought it was so good as aparent.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
I'm not a parent.
I'm curious, as a parent, howyou felt about that conversation
.
Oh, it's so encouraging, and Imean, um, the we always say kind
of around our house you'llnever walk alone.
And that is true.
We want that to be true of oursons, we want them to know that,
but we also want that to be forKelly and I to know that too.
And you're never, you neverwalk alone in parenting.
You never walk alone, becausethat's what the church is for

(01:12:14):
you can be for you, you know, um, so you're not alone in, um,
you know, in the spiritualdevelopment of your children.
Um, I just think it's, ifpeople will buy into that, then
it can be so, so, so encouraging.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
So love what they're doing.
Yeah, it seems like they'relike laying that out in a really
cool way out there too, soanyway, uh, I thought that was a
really great conversation.
Appreciate you being here forit.
Will you Lane close us out byreading our blessing with joy?

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
May God show you grace and bless you.
May he make his face shine onyou.
May you experience the love ofChrist, through whom God gives
you fullness of life.
May you be strengthened by hispower, through whom God gives
you fullness of life.
May you be strengthened by hispower.
May Christ himself make hishome in your heart, that you
would be full of his love andgrace and that those you serve
would see Jesus in you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
Today's episode was produced by Michael Hester,
Lauren Bryan and me.
Special shout out to guestproducer sam fleming for jumping
in.
Appreciate you, sam.
Thanks for being here.
Uh, huge thanks to john lee.
Huge thanks to lane moss.
I thought it was a greatconversation.

(01:13:31):
Excited to circle back on thisagain in a couple of weeks with
ann wilson and john luzatter.
It's going to be a wonderfulconversation.
Remember, hey, subscribewherever you listen to podcasts.
You can subscribe on YouTube.
Whatever you want to do In themeantime, you can reach out to
us on the CY community Facebookgroup or by email at podcast at

(01:13:53):
CYcom.
We'll see you next time.