May 22, 2025 • 35 mins
Now is the time to grow a healthy, thriving youth ministry...if you'd like to work with us, check out GrowYourYouthMinistry.com *** That sinking feeling when your youth ministry isn't growing can trigger panic and questionable decisions. But what if your solution isn't going to bring the result you think it will? In this episode, we take a look at 5 mistakes youth pastors often make when they are faced with the reality that their youth group is shrinking in size. To be clear, the size of your youth group doesn't automatically equal effectiveness, and not every youth ministry is destined for thousands of attendees. However, when you sense momentum has disappeared or attendance is declining, it requires thoughtful investigation rather than hasty reactions. In this strategic episode, we take a look at the challenging reality of student ministry stagnation and offer practical tips for reversing the course.
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You may also enjoy these episodes:
(#235) SPORTS vs. YOUTH GROUP: 5 Ways to Win the Battle of Priorities!
(#240) Do Numbers Matter? What Your Youth Ministry Numbers Are ACTUALLY Telling You!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Has your ministry stopped growing and are you
worried about it?
Well, today we're going to talkabout five things you should
not do if you're in thatsituation.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we
give you weekly tips andtactics to help you fast track
the growth and health of youryouth ministry.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen
Laskola, and today we're goingto talk about five mistakes that
youth pastors make when theiryouth ministry is not growing.
When I read the title I waslike that's a tiny bit confusing
.
But here's the point of todayis, if you are not growing and
you're wondering what to do,we're going to help you know
(00:47):
what not to do and, by extension, default you will know some
things to do.
But I think sometimes we get ina panic and we're like, oh no,
it must be this or that.
We're just going to help guidethe thinking today a little bit
to know, well, here's somemistakes that you want to avoid
so you can be more likely tofind the solution to get you out
(01:11):
of the rut of stagnation, whichnone of us love.
But I will say before we jumpin here is growth is such a
relative thing and stagnation isa relative thing, and I truly
believe that not every church ismeant to be a 5,000 person
(01:31):
church and beyond.
I don't think that's the caseand I don't think that if you
aren't 5,000, 10,000, 20,000people, that something's wrong.
I don't think that every church, I don't something's wrong.
I don't think that every church, I don't think every
congregation, I don't thinkevery town or city or leadership
structure has the purpose orpotential to just have this
(01:56):
infinite growth forever and everand ever.
So I just want you to know that, going in that we've talked
about this many times.
I just want you to know that,going in that we've talked about
this many times.
But just the reminder size andeffectiveness are like, not
correlated necessarily.
It's not like.
Small churches are like, reallylike oh wow, well, no one comes
(02:19):
because they're the only oneswho are serious about the gospel
.
And that's why they're small.
And it's not like big churchesare sellouts and it's not the
reverse either.
It's not like, well, the bigchurches clearly are doing it
right and the small churcheslike, wah, wah, you know, you
could be effective at any size.
And so this is a question onlyyou can answer, if you feel like
(02:41):
your growth has stopped oryou're stagnant, or you're on
the decline or something likethat.
Not and we can't put a numberon that, but that's something
that you and your church andteam will have to answer of.
Like you know when somethingdoesn't feel right, you know
when the energy is gone, themomentum is gone, the health is
gone, the numbers are stayingstill, or on the decline.
(03:06):
And so that's sort of what wemean.
But not everything is meant tohave this exponential growth
forever, never, never.
It's meant to be effective andhealthy.
And I think those are thequestions we want to answer.
And it was a lot of like whenwe did the episode very recently
on numbers.
We were like, well, numbersjust tell us part of a story.
We want to change ourrelationship with numbers to not
(03:30):
be a source of guilt, shame orpride, but what do the numbers
tell us?
So we're going to continue thatline of thinking today and the
first thing if you notice thatyour ministry is not growing the
number, one thing not to do isnothing.
Don't just say, oh well, thisis us, because it needs a little
(03:52):
bit more investigation thanthat, and you're like, wait a
minute.
You just said every church isnot meant to be in a state of
exponential growth.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You did say that.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
What this is, a ripoff man.
Well, what I mean is itrequires some investigation Like
are we healthy and effectiveand growing for what would seem
healthy for our particularlocation and context and people,
or do I know we can grow beyondwhat we are?
(04:25):
And that's the boat I was in.
For a long time I inherited ayouth ministry of 11 kids after
coming from a youth ministry of300.
Now I'm in charge of the 11 andI left the team to do this and,
based on our church and wherewe were and the passion that in
(04:45):
the tools I had on my tool belt,I knew we could grow bigger
than 11.
It wasn't like well, this is itfor us.
I knew it would take time, butI'm like, oh man, based on our
town and how many junior hireslike I knew we could do it.
It just we needed some strategy.
I knew we hadn't hit our likegrowth potential and I was right
(05:05):
we hadn't.
So you don't just want to donothing, you want to ask
questions.
Are we simply just maintainingwhat we have or are we?
Do we have a vision for thefuture, like I did way back when
, when I was a super young youthpastor, like I did, I had a
vision for the future.
(05:26):
I knew this wasn't it.
And then you have to ask thequestion how are we going to get
there?
And that's where it gets tricky, obviously, is the how, because
we all are like, of course,they want to grow.
Okay, how do we?
How do we do it?
And that's mostly what we talkabout on this podcast.
But what you need to understandis that strategies also change
(05:51):
from like what got you from 10to 20 is not gonna be the same
thing that gets you from 20 to30 and then 30 to 40 and 40 and
beyond.
So it's not like, well, this iswhat we've always done and this
is just not.
Is what we've always done, andthis is just not exactly what
you've always done probablyisn't going to continue to work.
So what gets you to 20 kids isnot going to, and what gets you
(06:13):
to 40 and 60 and 80 and thesemilestones.
So not doing anything willnever be effective.
You'll just stay where you are.
So you know you need to dosomething.
It's coming down to the how, andwhat I've noticed is it usually
comes down to three differentthings.
(06:34):
Either people aren't reallyconnecting with other people,
they don't have opportunities tobuild meaningful relationships
Leadership is not strategic withpeople entering into meaningful
relationships or, secondly,they're not being challenged in
their faith.
So this is very common in achurch that's highly
(06:58):
evangelistic, where it's likepeople come to get saved and
that is it, and then come backnext week and get saved again,
and then come back next week andget saved again.
Now, there's nothing wrong witha weekly altar call.
I've been to a lot of reallyeffective churches that do that.
However, you can't leave thelongtime believer behind
twiddling their thumbs, beinglike how many times do I say the
(07:20):
prayer?
Go to the altar, whatever youneed to make sure.
We always say at North CoastChurch we're believer, focused,
seeker, sensitive, so we'rebuilding disciples and that has
the staying power, becausepeople's faith is continually
challenged and you give them anext step.
And if you're lacking that, yourchurch probably will be
(07:40):
stagnant.
And then, thirdly, people don'thave opportunities to use their
gifts and step into theirpurpose.
The ministry is done by theministers and they never
challenge the congregation to doanything else and they might
not have enough opportunities.
So think about it like this Ifthe only opportunities you have
(08:01):
to serve are in the nursery orworking with kindergartners, you
leave out most men like sorry,to just be paint with a broad
brush.
We have incredible men thathelp with our little kids, but
they're about 5%.
Well, when we do a differentproject and we just did a whole
weekend called serve your city,where we got out of the building
(08:23):
, we canceled church, did allthese service projects in our
city to show the city we loveyou, we're not just here, come
and get us, but we're going toyou.
Well, all these men who haveall these technical skills,
electrical skills, plumbingskills, construction skills that
you're never going to catchteaching sunday school, but
they're ready to get their powerdrills and their hammers and
(08:46):
spend the weekend serving thecity.
So the serving opportunitieshave to be dynamic.
Now, obviously, I just paintedwith a broad brush and I know
there's a man out there going,but I love it with the kids, and
then I know there's a woman outthere going.
Well, I can do construction.
Of course it's not 100%, butI'm saying are there dynamic
opportunities for people of allwalks of life, of all ages, of
(09:09):
all genders, of all skill levelsto use their skills?
Or is it like, well, if you'renot helping in children's,
there's really nothing to dohere?
Those are, those are red flagsthat might start to point you in
the right direction of lookinghard at those questions, those
three that I just mentioned, andthat's when some idea might
(09:30):
spark of.
Okay, I think I know where theproblem, kind of sniffing that
out and might start to lead youdown that path.
So we don't want to do nothing,but we want to try some new
things, because whatever we'recurrently doing obviously isn't
working.
So you have to get comfortablewith just trying and failing and
(09:51):
or tweaking things.
Or it's like, well, I can telllike, I just had a conversation
with one of my leaders today andwe started a program that she
was very passionate about andit's going well, but it's not
hitting the mark exactly.
So we talked for about 40minutes brainstorming how we can
tweak it.
To hit the nail on the head alittle closer, it's like, ah,
(10:13):
we're not going to get rid of it, but I think we always refer to
the junior hires as our, ourclients.
You know, I think our clientswant the candy immediately.
They don't want to have to earnthe candy when they memorize
these verses later on down theline, but they want the
immediate gratification.
So we're trying to tweak it tofit the client of like.
(10:35):
We want you to be in the wordof God, we want you to memorize
scripture.
I think our methodology might beslightly off in being willing
to tweak that and change it.
So are you investigating yourministry and to say, all right,
where, where might we beslipping in one of those areas?
And then number two a mistakethat youth pastors make if
(10:57):
things aren't going well is theymake some.
And I just said make changes,try things.
However, there's a caveat thereand a warning and an asterisk.
Do not do something drasticlike change your day and time
that you're meeting Unlessanother caveat it's on Sunday
(11:17):
night, then, yes, that is whyyou're not growing.
Okay, worst night to me, justgoing to say it Sunday night no,
of course there's going to besomebody, that's yeah.
And if it's working for you andif you have 300 kids coming,
then keep going Right.
When I was in college.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Specifically speaking to the person who is not
growing and shrinking.
Sunday night typically is not agood night.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And guess what?
I'm just a person.
I'm not like the wizard of Ozwho knows every single thing.
Like, filter this through yourown wisdom and experience.
Like, take it for what it'sworth.
I mean, I'm just a youth pastorlike you.
So, um, I've just noticed thatSunday night stuff.
When I was in college we had aSunday night I guess it was
(12:00):
youth group, but we were incollege, so young adult group,
whatever.
It was great, it was big.
They moved it to Thursday andit tripled in size.
So I just feel like Sundaynight is rough for a lot of
reasons.
That's not what today's podcastis about, but other than that,
I would say, please don't make adrastic change of your time and
(12:23):
the day.
You know, because here's whatwill end up happening is we've
talked about this before.
You're going to just makechanges, like you're going to
exchange one problem for another.
So there's going to be thepeople who are like, hey, wait a
minute, we planned our wholelife around Wednesday night.
Why'd you change it to Thursday?
And then you know you have theother.
(12:44):
So it's just like, try to keepit, just don't make that drastic
of a change.
I think sometimes youth pastorsare like, well, maybe it's
because no one can come onThursdays and it's probably not
that again, unless it's Sunday.
That's usually not the solution.
But I think we sometimes arelike, well, everything's perfect
(13:07):
, if it just must be the day andthen it just gets.
You probably will end up losingmore people than you gain by
doing a change as drastic asthat.
Just my opinion.
You know, you know your churchand community the best, but I
would say that's probably not inmy top 10 or 20 solutions for
(13:29):
why it wouldn't be growing.
That would be like all right,we've tried everything.
I guess it's the night of theweek, like, and who knows, you
might strike gold.
But I just think it would bepretty unlikely in general and
it would probably cause moreproblems than it would fix.
What you should be focusing oninstead is is this program so
(13:53):
excellent, so irresistible andso effective that people will do
anything to get there?
And that kind of brings us tonumber three.
Another thing not to do is toblame families and students for
not coming.
I think a youth pastor'sdefault would be to say, well,
(14:17):
their priorities aren't in theright place or they're not very
spiritual.
And it's like this heap ofguilt onto people, and that's
guilt is never an effectivemotivator, it's never like.
I think it makes us feel betterbecause, like, well, it's them,
not me.
But I think the truth is, if wecreate this program that's
(14:38):
irresistible, effective andexcellent, eventually people are
going to tweak their schedulesto fit that?
you know and we talked aboutthat on the sports episode is
yeah, maybe.
Oh well, I have students whoare like, oh, I can't wait to
come back.
I've been playing lacrosse.
(14:59):
You know, I'll be back soon.
Yeah, I mean, lacrosse is onTuesday, there's nothing we can
do about it, we'll see you whenyou come back.
But overall, you want people tosay this is the youth group is
the priority, and so it has tobe worth it, and we can never
eradicate their othercommitments completely.
(15:21):
But we can definitely make it astruggle for them to say, oh no
, like what are we going to do?
Or can we come late, or can weat least make it to half of it?
Or who cares if you have tocome in your uniform right after
the game?
You know, go back to the sportsepisode.
Jeff will link it below and youcan watch that and it kind of
creates the mindset that we'retalking about.
(15:43):
But the bottom line for thisepisode is don't point the
finger and don't play the blamegame.
Sometimes you can blame anotherchurch Well, it's because that
church opened up.
Well, church, well, it'sbecause that church opened up.
Well.
Here's what I would suggest Ifthere is a church in your
vicinity that is effective andgrowing and buzzing.
(16:06):
Go figure out what they'redoing well Like if they're, it's
easy to say, well, it'sprobably because they watered
down the gospel.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
How do you know?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You know like we want to just come up with some
sinister reason for theirsuccess because we feel so
insecure.
However, why don't we go andlearn from them?
I promise you I visited I can'teven count how many churches we
visited when we were small andstruggling and trying to figure
(16:39):
things out and had no money andno staff and we're like we know
we can grow, we're just.
What are we missing?
And we went up to LA and OrangeCounty and Riverside and like,
looked at all San Diego, lookedat all these churches that were
having super effective studentministries, were growing and we
(17:00):
would meet their staff and tourtheir facility and talk to their
leaders and see what was goingon.
And you know, not everythingtranslates.
You don't say, okay, copy paste, but you start to maybe pick up
ideas or vibes or culturalthings that you're like ah, they
think like this or oh, theytreat people like this or they
(17:24):
design things like this, and youjust start to become a student
of the places that are doinggreat ministry.
Instead of folding your armsand huh, well, they're this.
It's like well, humble pie,let's just go and see and see
what we can learn.
And now I have people come andtour my youth group and they're
(17:47):
like, wow, can we just check outwhat you do?
That would never have happenedto me all those years ago.
Nobody would be like what areyou doing in this community?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
center.
How are you maintaining these11 kids in a random community
center?
Well, let me tell you, it's noteasy.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So see these posters of the food pyramid on the wall.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
We can't touch those.
They have to stay and thischalkboard over here.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Now this is a staple of our ministry and I would just
try my best with what I had,but nobody was coming to tour my
facility.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No one could find it.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
It means oh man, I have some stories of my just low
budget janky, rinky, dink stuffand just things I would try.
But that was the thing I waswilling to try stuff like, and I
like laugh so hard at some ofthe the harebrained ideas I had.
But it was like, oh well, we'retrying and learning and having
(18:43):
fun along the way, and studentsare usually a good sport for
stuff, and I came out with somereally funny stories.
So you know, just keep gettingcreative and trying and being, I
guess, be so curious.
I love what Kerry Newhoff says.
He says don't be critical, becurious.
(19:04):
And I think that's such a greatmindset shift when you are in
that kind of stagnant place.
So if we're not growing, let'sget curious, not only curious
about our own ministry, butcurious about other ministries
or curious about what.
Can we do that we haven't Like?
Can we just try somethingtotally out of the box?
And even though I've been inministry for 21 years, I'm still
(19:27):
trying new things all the time.
I'm going to try somethingbrand new this fall.
That I got off the phone withmy leader about today with my
student leadership team, and Itold her let's just see and then
if we hate it, we'll go back tothe way we did it before.
Oh my gosh.
Oh well, what if we strike gold?
It's worth trying.
So get very curious.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
When you do try something, I think it's always a
good idea to give it it's afair amount of time to see if
it's going to work, becausesometimes the it might be a
little more reactionary.
Something's wrong.
Let's try this that didn't workimmediately, let's stop doing
that.
Yeah, and maybe it needed alittle bit of time to be tweaked
or to grow into the.
(20:10):
You know habits and you knowthe rhythm of your, of your
youth group, so don't be superquick to pull the plug on new
ideas, kind of run their course,and sometimes you can tell
immediately.
But I would say most of the time.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yes, it might need a little bit of adjusting yes, I
can think of many that was likeI seen what I needed to see
immediately, no immediately, noimmediately no, but it didn't
cost a whole lot.
I don't think anyone's likeremember when chaos tried that
thing.
Oh man, the students likeforget about it like the next
(20:46):
day.
so it was like whatever, yeah,good point.
So number four a mistake thatyouth pastors make would be to
not question their discipleshipmodel.
So we talked about that alittle bit in number one of our
people actually being challengedAre people growing in their
faith?
Is this just a place where theycome to get saved and they just
(21:10):
hear the same message over andover and over again, like we're
always preaching the gospel?
Every message should make abeeline to Jesus, you know, and
there should be tons ofopportunity for response.
However, we need to make sureour discipleship model is
working, and I think a questionsometimes that I ask a lot of my
coaching clients is what isyour discipleship model?
(21:32):
Can you answer that?
Do you have a concrete answerof?
This is how we take people fromA to B, from B to C, from C to
D, like we're continuing tochallenge them in their faith.
How are we doing that?
Because we want to make surethat we're the type of church
and youth group that aren't justmaking.
We're not like a decisionfactory.
(21:53):
We're a disciple factory.
Like decisions are a greatstart, but it's not the end.
It's like good, good start.
I love that you acknowledgethat you want to start a
relationship with Jesus.
Let's get to work.
You know this is a daily andwe're going to teach you how to
walk daily with him.
Are we teaching students how towalk daily with Jesus?
(22:17):
Because if not, they might getdisillusioned of like I don't
know.
That's when people start to saythings like I tried
Christianity and it didn't workfor me because there was nothing
sticky about their faith, theydidn't understand what being a
disciple meant and that this isa like long game kind of thing
(22:38):
of like walking every day.
So our discipleship model istwo things we want to get
students plugged into smallgroups where they're doing life
on life, with peers and twoadults who can speak into their
life and care about them.
We want to have servingopportunities.
Them.
We want to have servingopportunities.
We use our student leadershipteam to accomplish that, where
(23:04):
we challenge them to serveinside and outside the church
and learn biblical leadershipprinciples, and so those, for us
, are our discipleship methods.
We have another one I'vementioned before, called the
deep end, which is wherestudents can do some extra
biblical challenges if they wantto learn how to dive into the
Bible a little more.
We have a lot of kids that cometo our youth group that don't
even own a Bible.
(23:25):
They don't know where to findone book of the Bible.
When you give them a verse withtwo numbers, they have no clue
what you're talking about and weteach them one's the chapter,
one's the verse.
Why don't you read this?
Why don't you memorize this?
Why don't you memorize thebooks of the Old Testament?
So we give them opportunitiesto become more Bible literate.
That's a good next step forsome of those kids.
(23:45):
So it's just making sure thatwe're giving people next step
opportunities.
We sponsor a kid.
Through CompassionInternational we encourage kids
to give generously We've'vetalked about that before also
giving of their time.
And our local schools have fcaprograms, fellowship of
christian athletes.
We encourage our students toattend those and be light on
(24:08):
their campuses.
So there's all these ways wherewe're trying to get them
outside of just.
Well, you made a decision, bye,bye.
See you in heaven.
You want to know what's funny?
That reminds me One of my.
I went to a junior collegebefore I transferred to
university for the rest of mydegree and at my junior college
I was in a communication classand on the last day of my
(24:30):
communication 101 class this guyin my class found out I was a
Christian.
He was a Christian, we had aconnection like friendship kind
of thing, and the last day ofclass he just waves go bye,
kristen, see you in heaven.
It was like I'm never going tosee you again.
So I guess I'll see you inheaven.
(24:50):
And wherever you are if you'relistening, I will I will see you
in heaven.
So it was pretty cute, I don'tknow.
That just reminded me of thatso random.
I know Funny little story foryou.
Hey friend, I just wanted tointerrupt this episode for a
second to let you know about anawesome opportunity for you and
your youth ministry.
So last year we launched ourcourse and coaching program
(25:13):
called Youth Ministry GrowthAccelerator and the response has
been amazing.
So we've helped tons of youthpastors grow the size and health
of their youth ministry and wewant to invite you to be a part
of that as well, because maybeyou're just sort of feeling
stuck in a rut.
Maybe you don't know what to donext, maybe you just have a
vague plan in your mind of whatyou're doing and you want some
(25:35):
real help to get you from whereyou are to where you want to go.
So if that sounds likesomething you've been looking
for, go togrowyouryouthministrycom and
check it out for more details.
All right, let's get back tothe episode.
Okay, and then lastly, numberfive what youth pastors should
not do is not be willing tochange, because that's how we do
(25:57):
things.
So again, kerry Newhoff I lovehis leadership stuff and he says
sometimes churches get tooattached to the method and they
forget the mission.
And so they're like, well, thisis how we do things, but they
forget that the method over timeneeds to change to continue to
(26:18):
reach the mission, which neverchanges.
The mission is to point peopleto the source of truth, the way,
the truth, the life, jesusChrist right.
That is the mission and alwayswill be.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Methods are allowed to change though they kind of
need to.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Right.
But like he has this funnyphrase where he says you can
smell the age of the church whenyou walk in, and he's like some
churches smell like 1987, somechurches smell like 1947.
And I'm like, yeah, they havethat like museum smell that.
You're like huh.
(26:56):
And so our methods are allowedto change and still be totally
different is good, and it's notlike we're compromising anything
as long as we're not saying,well, I mean, there's lots of
ways to heaven.
Jesus is just one way, becausethat's what people want to hear.
(27:18):
It's like whoa, whoa.
We're never gonna change that.
But how do we get people toengage?
Those methods have got tochange over time, and so if
you're the kind of person who'slike, well, this is how we like
it, I would challenge you to saywell, who is we?
You know, if we're not reachinganyone new and it's just the
eight of you enjoying all thesemethods that you've had for
(27:40):
years and years, it might betime again to challenge yourself
, to take that step back and saywhat can we learn that other
people are doing that areeffective, are fresh, to be kind
of like a student of theculture, a student of your
ministry, a student of yourcommunity and it's like what do
(28:03):
people want?
What are they craving?
Want what are they craving?
One thing that we did was wecreate such a priority on
children and students, and notthat we leave older people out
there's always stuff for thembut we do events and things with
a focus toward the person thathas four children, all different
(28:27):
ages and stages of life.
Are we making it so easy forthem to get here on a weekend?
Do we have something that theirkids are going to be begging to
come back to?
Because we want to attractyoung families in our community,
because we tend to have,historically, an older community
where we live.
It was always known as, like aretirement community, and I
(28:51):
think that's really changed inthe last 10 years.
Probably.
We see all these new familiescoming in and so we want to
reach them of what does a youngfamily need from us?
And so you could take that foryour youth group too.
What do the kids in thiscommunity need from us?
And again, that's a questionthat maybe only you can answer.
(29:15):
Depending on, like, homeschoolto public school ratio, there's
all kinds of things in therethat people want from a church
based on those demographics, soyou really have to know, like
(29:37):
who even is available to reachand what are they looking for
from us and are we doing thatjob?
And so the bottom line questionis always are we being
effective for who we are tryingto reach?
You know I joked earlier aboutme and that leader calling the
junior hires our clients.
But if the junior hires, or thehigh schoolers, the students,
(29:59):
are your clients, what are theylooking for?
Because what we have to givethem is so valuable that we have
to make sure that we're beingstrategic, of capturing their
interest, meeting their feltneeds and figuring out what
makes them so excited to be apart of what we're doing.
(30:21):
You know you never want parentsto feel like they have to drag
their kids to youth group orchurch, but that kid should be
dragging their parents of like.
We have to go, you know, andthat does happen.
So don't be afraid to change upyour methods.
There's a lot of things that Ihave done that are not my taste
(30:45):
or not my preference, are not mypersonality necessarily, but
I've just learned that so manyof the methods are like you just
have to become unattached tothem, because then they'll
change in another five years youknow, like everyone's doing it,
and you need to be willing tomake those changes when the time
(31:07):
comes.
Yeah, and I think I've quotedhim before.
But when Craig Groeschel sayswe will do anything short of sin
to reach people for the gospel,I'm like, yeah, I mean when we
hold, I mean it sounds extreme,but we could even make a
methodology and idol, right Ifit is so sacred.
(31:28):
And it cannot be changed.
And we've always played organmusic for the junior hires and
we shall, but that was new atone point.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
So, what?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
what does it matter?
The?
The mission is reaching peoplefor Jesus.
Just don't ever forget that.
So be willing to abandonsomething you personally love,
or being willing to embracesomething that you don't
actually love.
You know people are so againstInstagram and social media.
(32:03):
It's like, of course it's awful.
Could we redeem it forsomething amazing?
Absolutely, you know it's justa tool.
It's like, of course it's awful.
Could we redeem it forsomething amazing?
Absolutely, you know it's justa tool.
It's not bad or good Secularmusic, I remember.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I like how you're using it is the defining factor
of it's good or not.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, like I had a leader once get mad at me
because I had mixed secularmusic and Christian music in the
same playlist and she was, likethis is youth group, this is
church, like you should only beplaying Christian music.
And I said, yeah, but whatabout the kid who comes in these
doors?
Can you imagine like theirbrain lighting up a little bit,
(32:43):
cause there's a song that theyrecognize?
I'm not going to put onsomething inappropriate, duh,
because he says anything shortof sin, but why not put on
something catchy that they knowthat they're excited about, to
show them, hey, like we see youand we're not like, we only
listen to.
(33:03):
You know Christian music and youbetter learn it if you're going
to, you know it's like we'vegot to be willing to change
things up to reach those who aretrying to reach.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, absolutely, we will link those.
I will link those episodesbelow.
One is do numbers matter?
And yes, they do, but we have.
It's all about a story thatit's telling.
Make sure you watch thatepisode.
And also we did that wholeepisode on sports versus youth
group how to win the battle ofpriorities for your students.
So check those out.
We're going to do a communityBefore we do that.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I wanted to tell them .
So two questions as we closeout for them to be thinking of
number one.
What do we believe that mightneed to be changed?
Is there a belief we're holdingabout church or youth group or
the way we do things that needsto be challenged?
Does our thinking need to bechallenged, because that's often
(33:57):
where it starts?
Are we thinking about this thecorrect way?
And then, kind of a fun onewhat's one new thing we can try?
You know summer's coming up.
What's one new thing we can try?
You know summer's coming up, Idon't know.
Just try one new fun thing thissummer that you think is the
direction that you need to go,not just like, uh, we're gonna
have a balloon artist.
(34:21):
That would be new ideas arewelcome what is that really
accomplishing, what we're tryingto accomplish?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So what's new?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, who knows who am I?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Who am I to say Don't shoot down the idea.
Who am I to say, yeah, put inthe comment section below.
We'll add that for the questionof the day.
So make sure you guys answerthat below if you're watching on
YouTube.
All right, this is a communitycomment of the day.
This comes from Matt Standifer,who says I always appreciate
the content you both providehere.
It is both inspirational andinstructive and it's encouraged
(34:52):
me on building a long lastingstaple in the community type
ministry.
Going into my third year now,in a small town of 2000
population, my wife and I aredoing youth ministry
bivocationally.
My wife is a stay at home momof four girls homeschooling, so
it's a lot but totally worth it.
Just wanted to say thanks andto keep it up Woo, I love that.
That's awesome.
(35:12):
We appreciate that and we willbe praying for your wife and all
the four kids and homeschoolingand all that, I bet she's a
rock star, she's a total rockstar.
Thank you guys, so much forwatching and listening and we'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Do numbers really matter in youth ministry?
Do numbers really matter inyouth ministry?
And if they do, how so NumbersDo they matter?
Find out today on 60 Minutes.
Has your ministry stopped growing and are you
worried about it?
Well, today we're going to talkabout five things you should
not do if you're in thatsituation.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we
give you weekly tips andtactics to help you fast track
the growth and health of youryouth ministry.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen
Laskola, and today we're goingto talk about five mistakes that
youth pastors make when theiryouth ministry is not growing.
When I read the title I waslike that's a tiny bit confusing
.
But here's the point of todayis, if you are not growing and
you're wondering what to do,we're going to help you know
(00:47):
what not to do and, by extension, default you will know some
things to do.
But I think sometimes we get ina panic and we're like, oh no,
it must be this or that.
We're just going to help guidethe thinking today a little bit
to know, well, here's somemistakes that you want to avoid
so you can be more likely tofind the solution to get you out
(01:11):
of the rut of stagnation, whichnone of us love.
But I will say before we jumpin here is growth is such a
relative thing and stagnation isa relative thing, and I truly
believe that not every church ismeant to be a 5,000 person
(01:31):
church and beyond.
I don't think that's the caseand I don't think that if you
aren't 5,000, 10,000, 20,000people, that something's wrong.
I don't think that every church, I don't something's wrong.
I don't think that every church, I don't think every
congregation, I don't thinkevery town or city or leadership
structure has the purpose orpotential to just have this
(01:56):
infinite growth forever and everand ever.
So I just want you to know that, going in that we've talked
about this many times.
I just want you to know that,going in that we've talked about
this many times.
But just the reminder size andeffectiveness are like, not
correlated necessarily.
It's not like.
Small churches are like, reallylike oh wow, well, no one comes
(02:19):
because they're the only oneswho are serious about the gospel
.
And that's why they're small.
And it's not like big churchesare sellouts and it's not the
reverse either.
It's not like, well, the bigchurches clearly are doing it
right and the small churcheslike, wah, wah, you know, you
could be effective at any size.
And so this is a question onlyyou can answer, if you feel like
(02:41):
your growth has stopped oryou're stagnant, or you're on
the decline or something likethat.
Not and we can't put a numberon that, but that's something
that you and your church andteam will have to answer of.
Like you know when somethingdoesn't feel right, you know
when the energy is gone, themomentum is gone, the health is
gone, the numbers are stayingstill, or on the decline.
(03:06):
And so that's sort of what wemean.
But not everything is meant tohave this exponential growth
forever, never, never.
It's meant to be effective andhealthy.
And I think those are thequestions we want to answer.
And it was a lot of like whenwe did the episode very recently
on numbers.
We were like, well, numbersjust tell us part of a story.
We want to change ourrelationship with numbers to not
(03:30):
be a source of guilt, shame orpride, but what do the numbers
tell us?
So we're going to continue thatline of thinking today and the
first thing if you notice thatyour ministry is not growing the
number, one thing not to do isnothing.
Don't just say, oh well, thisis us, because it needs a little
(03:52):
bit more investigation thanthat, and you're like, wait a
minute.
You just said every church isnot meant to be in a state of
exponential growth.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You did say that.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
What this is, a ripoff man.
Well, what I mean is itrequires some investigation Like
are we healthy and effectiveand growing for what would seem
healthy for our particularlocation and context and people,
or do I know we can grow beyondwhat we are?
(04:25):
And that's the boat I was in.
For a long time I inherited ayouth ministry of 11 kids after
coming from a youth ministry of300.
Now I'm in charge of the 11 andI left the team to do this and,
based on our church and wherewe were and the passion that in
(04:45):
the tools I had on my tool belt,I knew we could grow bigger
than 11.
It wasn't like well, this is itfor us.
I knew it would take time, butI'm like, oh man, based on our
town and how many junior hireslike I knew we could do it.
It just we needed some strategy.
I knew we hadn't hit our likegrowth potential and I was right
(05:05):
we hadn't.
So you don't just want to donothing, you want to ask
questions.
Are we simply just maintainingwhat we have or are we?
Do we have a vision for thefuture, like I did way back when
, when I was a super young youthpastor, like I did, I had a
vision for the future.
(05:26):
I knew this wasn't it.
And then you have to ask thequestion how are we going to get
there?
And that's where it gets tricky, obviously, is the how, because
we all are like, of course,they want to grow.
Okay, how do we?
How do we do it?
And that's mostly what we talkabout on this podcast.
But what you need to understandis that strategies also change
(05:51):
from like what got you from 10to 20 is not gonna be the same
thing that gets you from 20 to30 and then 30 to 40 and 40 and
beyond.
So it's not like, well, this iswhat we've always done and this
is just not.
Is what we've always done, andthis is just not exactly what
you've always done probablyisn't going to continue to work.
So what gets you to 20 kids isnot going to, and what gets you
(06:13):
to 40 and 60 and 80 and thesemilestones.
So not doing anything willnever be effective.
You'll just stay where you are.
So you know you need to dosomething.
It's coming down to the how, andwhat I've noticed is it usually
comes down to three differentthings.
(06:34):
Either people aren't reallyconnecting with other people,
they don't have opportunities tobuild meaningful relationships
Leadership is not strategic withpeople entering into meaningful
relationships or, secondly,they're not being challenged in
their faith.
So this is very common in achurch that's highly
(06:58):
evangelistic, where it's likepeople come to get saved and
that is it, and then come backnext week and get saved again,
and then come back next week andget saved again.
Now, there's nothing wrong witha weekly altar call.
I've been to a lot of reallyeffective churches that do that.
However, you can't leave thelongtime believer behind
twiddling their thumbs, beinglike how many times do I say the
(07:20):
prayer?
Go to the altar, whatever youneed to make sure.
We always say at North CoastChurch we're believer, focused,
seeker, sensitive, so we'rebuilding disciples and that has
the staying power, becausepeople's faith is continually
challenged and you give them anext step.
And if you're lacking that, yourchurch probably will be
(07:40):
stagnant.
And then, thirdly, people don'thave opportunities to use their
gifts and step into theirpurpose.
The ministry is done by theministers and they never
challenge the congregation to doanything else and they might
not have enough opportunities.
So think about it like this Ifthe only opportunities you have
(08:01):
to serve are in the nursery orworking with kindergartners, you
leave out most men like sorry,to just be paint with a broad
brush.
We have incredible men thathelp with our little kids, but
they're about 5%.
Well, when we do a differentproject and we just did a whole
weekend called serve your city,where we got out of the building
(08:23):
, we canceled church, did allthese service projects in our
city to show the city we loveyou, we're not just here, come
and get us, but we're going toyou.
Well, all these men who haveall these technical skills,
electrical skills, plumbingskills, construction skills that
you're never going to catchteaching sunday school, but
they're ready to get their powerdrills and their hammers and
(08:46):
spend the weekend serving thecity.
So the serving opportunitieshave to be dynamic.
Now, obviously, I just paintedwith a broad brush and I know
there's a man out there going,but I love it with the kids, and
then I know there's a woman outthere going.
Well, I can do construction.
Of course it's not 100%, butI'm saying are there dynamic
opportunities for people of allwalks of life, of all ages, of
(09:09):
all genders, of all skill levelsto use their skills?
Or is it like, well, if you'renot helping in children's,
there's really nothing to dohere?
Those are, those are red flagsthat might start to point you in
the right direction of lookinghard at those questions, those
three that I just mentioned, andthat's when some idea might
(09:30):
spark of.
Okay, I think I know where theproblem, kind of sniffing that
out and might start to lead youdown that path.
So we don't want to do nothing,but we want to try some new
things, because whatever we'recurrently doing obviously isn't
working.
So you have to get comfortablewith just trying and failing and
(09:51):
or tweaking things.
Or it's like, well, I can telllike, I just had a conversation
with one of my leaders today andwe started a program that she
was very passionate about andit's going well, but it's not
hitting the mark exactly.
So we talked for about 40minutes brainstorming how we can
tweak it.
To hit the nail on the head alittle closer, it's like, ah,
(10:13):
we're not going to get rid of it, but I think we always refer to
the junior hires as our, ourclients.
You know, I think our clientswant the candy immediately.
They don't want to have to earnthe candy when they memorize
these verses later on down theline, but they want the
immediate gratification.
So we're trying to tweak it tofit the client of like.
(10:35):
We want you to be in the wordof God, we want you to memorize
scripture.
I think our methodology might beslightly off in being willing
to tweak that and change it.
So are you investigating yourministry and to say, all right,
where, where might we beslipping in one of those areas?
And then number two a mistakethat youth pastors make if
(10:57):
things aren't going well is theymake some.
And I just said make changes,try things.
However, there's a caveat thereand a warning and an asterisk.
Do not do something drasticlike change your day and time
that you're meeting Unlessanother caveat it's on Sunday
(11:17):
night, then, yes, that is whyyou're not growing.
Okay, worst night to me, justgoing to say it Sunday night no,
of course there's going to besomebody, that's yeah.
And if it's working for you andif you have 300 kids coming,
then keep going Right.
When I was in college.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Specifically speaking to the person who is not
growing and shrinking.
Sunday night typically is not agood night.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And guess what?
I'm just a person.
I'm not like the wizard of Ozwho knows every single thing.
Like, filter this through yourown wisdom and experience.
Like, take it for what it'sworth.
I mean, I'm just a youth pastorlike you.
So, um, I've just noticed thatSunday night stuff.
When I was in college we had aSunday night I guess it was
(12:00):
youth group, but we were incollege, so young adult group,
whatever.
It was great, it was big.
They moved it to Thursday andit tripled in size.
So I just feel like Sundaynight is rough for a lot of
reasons.
That's not what today's podcastis about, but other than that,
I would say, please don't make adrastic change of your time and
(12:23):
the day.
You know, because here's whatwill end up happening is we've
talked about this before.
You're going to just makechanges, like you're going to
exchange one problem for another.
So there's going to be thepeople who are like, hey, wait a
minute, we planned our wholelife around Wednesday night.
Why'd you change it to Thursday?
And then you know you have theother.
(12:44):
So it's just like, try to keepit, just don't make that drastic
of a change.
I think sometimes youth pastorsare like, well, maybe it's
because no one can come onThursdays and it's probably not
that again, unless it's Sunday.
That's usually not the solution.
But I think we sometimes arelike, well, everything's perfect
(13:07):
, if it just must be the day andthen it just gets.
You probably will end up losingmore people than you gain by
doing a change as drastic asthat.
Just my opinion.
You know, you know your churchand community the best, but I
would say that's probably not inmy top 10 or 20 solutions for
(13:29):
why it wouldn't be growing.
That would be like all right,we've tried everything.
I guess it's the night of theweek, like, and who knows, you
might strike gold.
But I just think it would bepretty unlikely in general and
it would probably cause moreproblems than it would fix.
What you should be focusing oninstead is is this program so
(13:53):
excellent, so irresistible andso effective that people will do
anything to get there?
And that kind of brings us tonumber three.
Another thing not to do is toblame families and students for
not coming.
I think a youth pastor'sdefault would be to say, well,
(14:17):
their priorities aren't in theright place or they're not very
spiritual.
And it's like this heap ofguilt onto people, and that's
guilt is never an effectivemotivator, it's never like.
I think it makes us feel betterbecause, like, well, it's them,
not me.
But I think the truth is, if wecreate this program that's
(14:38):
irresistible, effective andexcellent, eventually people are
going to tweak their schedulesto fit that?
you know and we talked aboutthat on the sports episode is
yeah, maybe.
Oh well, I have students whoare like, oh, I can't wait to
come back.
I've been playing lacrosse.
(14:59):
You know, I'll be back soon.
Yeah, I mean, lacrosse is onTuesday, there's nothing we can
do about it, we'll see you whenyou come back.
But overall, you want people tosay this is the youth group is
the priority, and so it has tobe worth it, and we can never
eradicate their othercommitments completely.
(15:21):
But we can definitely make it astruggle for them to say, oh no
, like what are we going to do?
Or can we come late, or can weat least make it to half of it?
Or who cares if you have tocome in your uniform right after
the game?
You know, go back to the sportsepisode.
Jeff will link it below and youcan watch that and it kind of
creates the mindset that we'retalking about.
(15:43):
But the bottom line for thisepisode is don't point the
finger and don't play the blamegame.
Sometimes you can blame anotherchurch Well, it's because that
church opened up.
Well, church, well, it'sbecause that church opened up.
Well.
Here's what I would suggest Ifthere is a church in your
vicinity that is effective andgrowing and buzzing.
(16:06):
Go figure out what they'redoing well Like if they're, it's
easy to say, well, it'sprobably because they watered
down the gospel.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
How do you know?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You know like we want to just come up with some
sinister reason for theirsuccess because we feel so
insecure.
However, why don't we go andlearn from them?
I promise you I visited I can'teven count how many churches we
visited when we were small andstruggling and trying to figure
(16:39):
things out and had no money andno staff and we're like we know
we can grow, we're just.
What are we missing?
And we went up to LA and OrangeCounty and Riverside and like,
looked at all San Diego, lookedat all these churches that were
having super effective studentministries, were growing and we
(17:00):
would meet their staff and tourtheir facility and talk to their
leaders and see what was goingon.
And you know, not everythingtranslates.
You don't say, okay, copy paste, but you start to maybe pick up
ideas or vibes or culturalthings that you're like ah, they
think like this or oh, theytreat people like this or they
(17:24):
design things like this, and youjust start to become a student
of the places that are doinggreat ministry.
Instead of folding your armsand huh, well, they're this.
It's like well, humble pie,let's just go and see and see
what we can learn.
And now I have people come andtour my youth group and they're
(17:47):
like, wow, can we just check outwhat you do?
That would never have happenedto me all those years ago.
Nobody would be like what areyou doing in this community?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
center.
How are you maintaining these11 kids in a random community
center?
Well, let me tell you, it's noteasy.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So see these posters of the food pyramid on the wall.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
We can't touch those.
They have to stay and thischalkboard over here.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Now this is a staple of our ministry and I would just
try my best with what I had,but nobody was coming to tour my
facility.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No one could find it.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
It means oh man, I have some stories of my just low
budget janky, rinky, dink stuffand just things I would try.
But that was the thing I waswilling to try stuff like, and I
like laugh so hard at some ofthe the harebrained ideas I had.
But it was like, oh well, we'retrying and learning and having
(18:43):
fun along the way, and studentsare usually a good sport for
stuff, and I came out with somereally funny stories.
So you know, just keep gettingcreative and trying and being, I
guess, be so curious.
I love what Kerry Newhoff says.
He says don't be critical, becurious.
(19:04):
And I think that's such a greatmindset shift when you are in
that kind of stagnant place.
So if we're not growing, let'sget curious, not only curious
about our own ministry, butcurious about other ministries
or curious about what.
Can we do that we haven't Like?
Can we just try somethingtotally out of the box?
And even though I've been inministry for 21 years, I'm still
(19:27):
trying new things all the time.
I'm going to try somethingbrand new this fall.
That I got off the phone withmy leader about today with my
student leadership team, and Itold her let's just see and then
if we hate it, we'll go back tothe way we did it before.
Oh my gosh.
Oh well, what if we strike gold?
It's worth trying.
So get very curious.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
When you do try something, I think it's always a
good idea to give it it's afair amount of time to see if
it's going to work, becausesometimes the it might be a
little more reactionary.
Something's wrong.
Let's try this that didn't workimmediately, let's stop doing
that.
Yeah, and maybe it needed alittle bit of time to be tweaked
or to grow into the.
(20:10):
You know habits and you knowthe rhythm of your, of your
youth group, so don't be superquick to pull the plug on new
ideas, kind of run their course,and sometimes you can tell
immediately.
But I would say most of the time.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yes, it might need a little bit of adjusting yes, I
can think of many that was likeI seen what I needed to see
immediately, no immediately, noimmediately no, but it didn't
cost a whole lot.
I don't think anyone's likeremember when chaos tried that
thing.
Oh man, the students likeforget about it like the next
(20:46):
day.
so it was like whatever, yeah,good point.
So number four a mistake thatyouth pastors make would be to
not question their discipleshipmodel.
So we talked about that alittle bit in number one of our
people actually being challengedAre people growing in their
faith?
Is this just a place where theycome to get saved and they just
(21:10):
hear the same message over andover and over again, like we're
always preaching the gospel?
Every message should make abeeline to Jesus, you know, and
there should be tons ofopportunity for response.
However, we need to make sureour discipleship model is
working, and I think a questionsometimes that I ask a lot of my
coaching clients is what isyour discipleship model?
(21:32):
Can you answer that?
Do you have a concrete answerof?
This is how we take people fromA to B, from B to C, from C to
D, like we're continuing tochallenge them in their faith.
How are we doing that?
Because we want to make surethat we're the type of church
and youth group that aren't justmaking.
We're not like a decisionfactory.
(21:53):
We're a disciple factory.
Like decisions are a greatstart, but it's not the end.
It's like good, good start.
I love that you acknowledgethat you want to start a
relationship with Jesus.
Let's get to work.
You know this is a daily andwe're going to teach you how to
walk daily with him.
Are we teaching students how towalk daily with Jesus?
(22:17):
Because if not, they might getdisillusioned of like I don't
know.
That's when people start to saythings like I tried
Christianity and it didn't workfor me because there was nothing
sticky about their faith, theydidn't understand what being a
disciple meant and that this isa like long game kind of thing
(22:38):
of like walking every day.
So our discipleship model istwo things we want to get
students plugged into smallgroups where they're doing life
on life, with peers and twoadults who can speak into their
life and care about them.
We want to have servingopportunities.
Them.
We want to have servingopportunities.
We use our student leadershipteam to accomplish that, where
(23:04):
we challenge them to serveinside and outside the church
and learn biblical leadershipprinciples, and so those, for us
, are our discipleship methods.
We have another one I'vementioned before, called the
deep end, which is wherestudents can do some extra
biblical challenges if they wantto learn how to dive into the
Bible a little more.
We have a lot of kids that cometo our youth group that don't
even own a Bible.
(23:25):
They don't know where to findone book of the Bible.
When you give them a verse withtwo numbers, they have no clue
what you're talking about and weteach them one's the chapter,
one's the verse.
Why don't you read this?
Why don't you memorize this?
Why don't you memorize thebooks of the Old Testament?
So we give them opportunitiesto become more Bible literate.
That's a good next step forsome of those kids.
(23:45):
So it's just making sure thatwe're giving people next step
opportunities.
We sponsor a kid.
Through CompassionInternational we encourage kids
to give generously We've'vetalked about that before also
giving of their time.
And our local schools have fcaprograms, fellowship of
christian athletes.
We encourage our students toattend those and be light on
(24:08):
their campuses.
So there's all these ways wherewe're trying to get them
outside of just.
Well, you made a decision, bye,bye.
See you in heaven.
You want to know what's funny?
That reminds me One of my.
I went to a junior collegebefore I transferred to
university for the rest of mydegree and at my junior college
I was in a communication classand on the last day of my
(24:30):
communication 101 class this guyin my class found out I was a
Christian.
He was a Christian, we had aconnection like friendship kind
of thing, and the last day ofclass he just waves go bye,
kristen, see you in heaven.
It was like I'm never going tosee you again.
So I guess I'll see you inheaven.
(24:50):
And wherever you are if you'relistening, I will I will see you
in heaven.
So it was pretty cute, I don'tknow.
That just reminded me of thatso random.
I know Funny little story foryou.
Hey friend, I just wanted tointerrupt this episode for a
second to let you know about anawesome opportunity for you and
your youth ministry.
So last year we launched ourcourse and coaching program
(25:13):
called Youth Ministry GrowthAccelerator and the response has
been amazing.
So we've helped tons of youthpastors grow the size and health
of their youth ministry and wewant to invite you to be a part
of that as well, because maybeyou're just sort of feeling
stuck in a rut.
Maybe you don't know what to donext, maybe you just have a
vague plan in your mind of whatyou're doing and you want some
(25:35):
real help to get you from whereyou are to where you want to go.
So if that sounds likesomething you've been looking
for, go togrowyouryouthministrycom and
check it out for more details.
All right, let's get back tothe episode.
Okay, and then lastly, numberfive what youth pastors should
not do is not be willing tochange, because that's how we do
(25:57):
things.
So again, kerry Newhoff I lovehis leadership stuff and he says
sometimes churches get tooattached to the method and they
forget the mission.
And so they're like, well, thisis how we do things, but they
forget that the method over timeneeds to change to continue to
(26:18):
reach the mission, which neverchanges.
The mission is to point peopleto the source of truth, the way,
the truth, the life, jesusChrist right.
That is the mission and alwayswill be.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Methods are allowed to change though they kind of
need to.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Right.
But like he has this funnyphrase where he says you can
smell the age of the church whenyou walk in, and he's like some
churches smell like 1987, somechurches smell like 1947.
And I'm like, yeah, they havethat like museum smell that.
You're like huh.
(26:56):
And so our methods are allowedto change and still be totally
different is good, and it's notlike we're compromising anything
as long as we're not saying,well, I mean, there's lots of
ways to heaven.
Jesus is just one way, becausethat's what people want to hear.
(27:18):
It's like whoa, whoa.
We're never gonna change that.
But how do we get people toengage?
Those methods have got tochange over time, and so if
you're the kind of person who'slike, well, this is how we like
it, I would challenge you to saywell, who is we?
You know, if we're not reachinganyone new and it's just the
eight of you enjoying all thesemethods that you've had for
(27:40):
years and years, it might betime again to challenge yourself
, to take that step back and saywhat can we learn that other
people are doing that areeffective, are fresh, to be kind
of like a student of theculture, a student of your
ministry, a student of yourcommunity and it's like what do
(28:03):
people want?
What are they craving?
Want what are they craving?
One thing that we did was wecreate such a priority on
children and students, and notthat we leave older people out
there's always stuff for thembut we do events and things with
a focus toward the person thathas four children, all different
(28:27):
ages and stages of life.
Are we making it so easy forthem to get here on a weekend?
Do we have something that theirkids are going to be begging to
come back to?
Because we want to attractyoung families in our community,
because we tend to have,historically, an older community
where we live.
It was always known as, like aretirement community, and I
(28:51):
think that's really changed inthe last 10 years.
Probably.
We see all these new familiescoming in and so we want to
reach them of what does a youngfamily need from us?
And so you could take that foryour youth group too.
What do the kids in thiscommunity need from us?
And again, that's a questionthat maybe only you can answer.
(29:15):
Depending on, like, homeschoolto public school ratio, there's
all kinds of things in therethat people want from a church
based on those demographics, soyou really have to know, like
(29:37):
who even is available to reachand what are they looking for
from us and are we doing thatjob?
And so the bottom line questionis always are we being
effective for who we are tryingto reach?
You know I joked earlier aboutme and that leader calling the
junior hires our clients.
But if the junior hires, or thehigh schoolers, the students,
(29:59):
are your clients, what are theylooking for?
Because what we have to givethem is so valuable that we have
to make sure that we're beingstrategic, of capturing their
interest, meeting their feltneeds and figuring out what
makes them so excited to be apart of what we're doing.
(30:21):
You know you never want parentsto feel like they have to drag
their kids to youth group orchurch, but that kid should be
dragging their parents of like.
We have to go, you know, andthat does happen.
So don't be afraid to change upyour methods.
There's a lot of things that Ihave done that are not my taste
(30:45):
or not my preference, are not mypersonality necessarily, but
I've just learned that so manyof the methods are like you just
have to become unattached tothem, because then they'll
change in another five years youknow, like everyone's doing it,
and you need to be willing tomake those changes when the time
(31:07):
comes.
Yeah, and I think I've quotedhim before.
But when Craig Groeschel sayswe will do anything short of sin
to reach people for the gospel,I'm like, yeah, I mean when we
hold, I mean it sounds extreme,but we could even make a
methodology and idol, right Ifit is so sacred.
(31:28):
And it cannot be changed.
And we've always played organmusic for the junior hires and
we shall, but that was new atone point.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
So, what?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
what does it matter?
The?
The mission is reaching peoplefor Jesus.
Just don't ever forget that.
So be willing to abandonsomething you personally love,
or being willing to embracesomething that you don't
actually love.
You know people are so againstInstagram and social media.
(32:03):
It's like, of course it's awful.
Could we redeem it forsomething amazing?
Absolutely, you know it's justa tool.
It's like, of course it's awful.
Could we redeem it forsomething amazing?
Absolutely, you know it's justa tool.
It's not bad or good Secularmusic, I remember.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I like how you're using it is the defining factor
of it's good or not.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, like I had a leader once get mad at me
because I had mixed secularmusic and Christian music in the
same playlist and she was, likethis is youth group, this is
church, like you should only beplaying Christian music.
And I said, yeah, but whatabout the kid who comes in these
doors?
Can you imagine like theirbrain lighting up a little bit,
(32:43):
cause there's a song that theyrecognize?
I'm not going to put onsomething inappropriate, duh,
because he says anything shortof sin, but why not put on
something catchy that they knowthat they're excited about, to
show them, hey, like we see youand we're not like, we only
listen to.
(33:03):
You know Christian music and youbetter learn it if you're going
to, you know it's like we'vegot to be willing to change
things up to reach those who aretrying to reach.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, absolutely, we will link those.
I will link those episodesbelow.
One is do numbers matter?
And yes, they do, but we have.
It's all about a story thatit's telling.
Make sure you watch thatepisode.
And also we did that wholeepisode on sports versus youth
group how to win the battle ofpriorities for your students.
So check those out.
We're going to do a communityBefore we do that.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I wanted to tell them .
So two questions as we closeout for them to be thinking of
number one.
What do we believe that mightneed to be changed?
Is there a belief we're holdingabout church or youth group or
the way we do things that needsto be challenged?
Does our thinking need to bechallenged, because that's often
(33:57):
where it starts?
Are we thinking about this thecorrect way?
And then, kind of a fun onewhat's one new thing we can try?
You know summer's coming up.
What's one new thing we can try?
You know summer's coming up, Idon't know.
Just try one new fun thing thissummer that you think is the
direction that you need to go,not just like, uh, we're gonna
have a balloon artist.
(34:21):
That would be new ideas arewelcome what is that really
accomplishing, what we're tryingto accomplish?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So what's new?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, who knows who am I?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Who am I to say Don't shoot down the idea.
Who am I to say, yeah, put inthe comment section below.
We'll add that for the questionof the day.
So make sure you guys answerthat below if you're watching on
YouTube.
All right, this is a communitycomment of the day.
This comes from Matt Standifer,who says I always appreciate
the content you both providehere.
It is both inspirational andinstructive and it's encouraged
(34:52):
me on building a long lastingstaple in the community type
ministry.
Going into my third year now,in a small town of 2000
population, my wife and I aredoing youth ministry
bivocationally.
My wife is a stay at home momof four girls homeschooling, so
it's a lot but totally worth it.
Just wanted to say thanks andto keep it up Woo, I love that.
That's awesome.
(35:12):
We appreciate that and we willbe praying for your wife and all
the four kids and homeschoolingand all that, I bet she's a
rock star, she's a total rockstar.
Thank you guys, so much forwatching and listening and we'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Do numbers really matter in youth ministry?
Do numbers really matter inyouth ministry?
And if they do, how so NumbersDo they matter?
Find out today on 60 Minutes.
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