What are we going to do next? What do we have planned?
It's something we say often as youth ministry leaders, but is that really all there is? Is ministry just a matter of planning?
Do we really need a better calendar? Is all about what we can plan?
We are talking spiritual health inside of Youth Ministry Booster and we have been asking what we need.
What we really need is...
Discernment.
The collective effort to not ask, "what do we have planned?" but to seek what God might have for our ministry through story-telling, celebration, and noticings.
God's Plan.
It is something we have to be reminded about, like our almost 8 year history of podcasting. Back in 2015, our 'After 9' era, we were self-funded *resourceless* and attending our first conference in Texas with a pop-up banner, borrowed office chairs, and a bowl of gummy bears.
There is an invaluable lesson you can only learn when you feel like you have nothing,. It's the lesson about asking the right questions and discernment in youth ministry leadership.
So we hope this humorous and helpful reminder gives you hope.
What are we going to do next? What do we have planned?
It's something we say often as youth ministry leaders, but is that really all there is? Is ministry just a matter of planning?
Do we really need a better calendar? Is all about what we can plan?
We are talking spiritual health inside of Youth Ministry Booster and we have been asking what we need.
What we really need is...
Discernment.
The collective effort to not ask, "what do we have planned?" but to seek what God might have for our ministry through story-telling, celebration, and noticings.
God's Plan.
It is something we have to be reminded about, like our almost 8 year history of podcasting. Back in 2015, our 'After 9' era, we were self-funded *resourceless* and attending our first conference in Texas with a pop-up banner, borrowed office chairs, and a bowl of gummy bears.
There is an invaluable lesson you can only learn when you feel like you have nothing,. It's the lesson about asking the right questions and discernment in youth ministry leadership.
So we hope this humorous and helpful reminder gives you hope.
ASnap and we're back with an episode of Youth Ministry Booster Podcast hanging out in the garage. You told me to bring it in hot. You told me to bring it in hot. Hey, I'm Zach Workin hanging out with my best friend, chad Higgins, in the garage talking about.
Speaker 2:You stole my life.
Speaker 1:You stole my life, sorry, Hi. I'm Zach Workin, I'm Chad Higgins, so we're hanging out in the garage today. We're talking about all things Youth Ministry, eventually but I've been told to give a little preface, a little spoiler warning we're coming in a little hot today. We're wired up. I don't have coffee in front of me because I've already drank all of my coffee and my pre-workout from this morning. So we're a little heated. Had a little bit of a thing with the six-year-old before we got to school today. So, anyway, fired up, ready to go. Chad Higgins, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Good, okay hold on, you can't just brush by. I had a little thing with a six-year-old Could have been like street fire with a six-year-old.
Speaker 1:Put that kiddo in the hospital. You got her. Your six-year-old yeah, yours, mine, all of ours could be anybody. It was mine. No, it's fine. So relevant to a conversation later today. Our six-year-old has gotten really proactive. They do the Stephen Covey habits of a leader at school. They have the eight things.
Speaker 1:It's do-listen, they get after it, and so one of them is B-Proactive and he kind of has named that and he really has been doing that. I don't know what your six-year-olds are like at home, but for mine he's up early he was at six something this morning picked out his own clothes, got dressed, brushed his hair, put his plate by the sink and was ready to go. So much so that he went and hid in the car, in the garage for us to find him which he's done before, but never 20 minutes too soon he's just out here in the garage just hiding and I was like okay, but he forgot to put his socks on, so there was no socks laid out. He didn't put his socks on. So I'm going around the house trying to find him and I'm like giddy-a, giddy-a, giddy-a.
Speaker 1:I holler him, come out of the garage. And it's like building to a crescendo. Giddy-a, he's in the car and he's like huh. And so he was trying to surprise me. But I scared him Because you're yelling, Because I'm hollering for him, and he didn't know that I was looking for him, and so then we had a whole meltdown. I was like I was just trying to surprise you. It was amazing, it was yeah, so anyway sorry to my kiddo.
Speaker 2:Now we're going to back up for a moment, because you told me a part of that story earlier that you did not share. Oh, I don't have a detail out you talked about he had forgotten to put on socks, but there was a specific like to that. You want to share a little bit about this rule.
Speaker 1:So our boys are basically like little teenagers. So they've got cool sneakers and they love crocs. So when we have gym day at school, we have to wear sneakers. But whenever we have rotating specials, art Music Gym, whenever it's Art or Music Day, they can wear crocs. But we always wear at school at least crocs and socks. We can't go crocs, no socks.
Speaker 2:Is that a working rule or is that a school?
Speaker 1:rule. It's a working rule, at least I don't know if it's school rule or not. Probably school our school. You probably can go barefoot for all they can.
Speaker 2:So I need to know from our listeners if you were to wear crocs and some may, okay, I need to know. Are you a Crocs and socks? Crocs and socks.
Speaker 1:Or you know, socks in the crocs. So now I will say, on the weekends when we're hanging and we're just going to the store or whatever, we can go crocs and socks. My fear is at school they're gonna get their shoes muddy and then I got my kid just walk around, we go to the bathroom just barefooted, and I don't know about you, but elementary school bathroom barefooted, that's how you get the athlete's foot.
Speaker 2:I don't know how you get athlete's foot, but I'm pretty sure that's how you get the athlete's foot no fits, but I don't think of you know, a single ply Nike sock. It's really the great barrier that you think it is. You don't know my ear cushioning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a real membrane there, I don't know, anyway. So yeah, we go crocs and socks at school. I love it. Crocs and socks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Crocs and socks. Dude, crocs and socks sounds like maybe one of the better band names that I've ever heard.
Speaker 1:Especially if the album art is crocodiles wearing stockings. Yeah crocs in socks, that is-. It also sounds like a Dr Seuss book. It probably we should write that that's our kid's book, Crocs and Socks, coming to you. It's about the importance of foot hygiene. That's Crocs and Socks.
Speaker 2:It also is interesting that an animal known for being boots would be wearing socks.
Speaker 1:It's like wearing socks outside your boots right, yeah. But then what if that didn't? You know cause-? Oh wait, hold on, dude.
Speaker 2:Just keep the foot soft. Let's talk about this. If you ever in the wild, okay, sock, crocs and socks no hold on. You're out of Walgreens and you roll across a dude in boots with socks. Over the top of those, you need to run for your life, okay, like somebody that guy's got dastardly plans. Oh yeah, I don't see it Like-.
Speaker 1:He's got evil intent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he is broken out of a hospital somewhere.
Speaker 1:So Crocs and Socks. So if you youth ministry leader love your Crocs cause we know that a lot of youth ministers basically it's like they dress it down for Crocs and they dress it up for hey Dudes. By the way, did you know that they're owned by the same company?
Speaker 2:My wife has been trying to get me to buy. Hey Dudes.
Speaker 1:Don't do it. You're not ready. You're not ready.
Speaker 2:You're not ready. She's like they're so comfortable and I they're gonna be people that unsubscribe because of what I'm about to say. But I just can't do it.
Speaker 1:We want true fans.
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm not ready for the hey Dudes.
Speaker 1:Well, I find the problem with the hey Dudes is, once you start wearing hey Dudes, you don't wear any other shoes and I just I feel like part of footwear is right shoes, right occasion. And I feel like, if you're like hey Dudes, I've got my dress hey Dudes and I've got my like athleisure, hey Dudes. I don't know, that's too much soft sold comfort If I'm gonna get into hey Dudes, I'm gonna go spary. Well, but that's what they've got. The ones that look like sparrows. They've got the hey dude.
Speaker 2:Have you ever worn?
Speaker 1:sparrows. Hey, dude, boat shoes you ever worn sparrows.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't bro, you want a good shoe. Is that a comfy shoe?
Speaker 1:Get a sparrows.
Speaker 2:This episode of youth mystery booster, brought to you by sparrows Boat shoes, for the youth minister, who doesn't own a boat yet.
Speaker 1:I Don't know. Yeah, I do like the idea that they're boat shoes and I've never being in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:They seem like the worst boat shoe imaginable.
Speaker 1:Boat shoe imaginable, but also in Oklahoma, like we're not around enough places where it's like we clearly got off a boat, right, right, like I mean Sparries and Target or at Olive Garden, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Why are those boat shoes? I don't know, sailors love them.
Speaker 1:The little tassels on the top cannot help me sail Well top-side, or you kick them off, I guess. Right like nails out, I want those five finger.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I'll grip down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably is a good boat shoe, I mean. But hey, dude, they float, All right.
Speaker 2:So what lakes you? What are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:Well, so we're coming up on an important anniversary. We are almost eight years into this journey together. When this one comes out, we will be in the month October of when we started doing this eight years ago, and so you wanted to make the comment. We have some studio changes that are happening the next month. We got some. We got some chairs that are new ish. They came from the dining room.
Speaker 2:They sorry, karen, they are new chairs out here here, which I'm thankful for because you've been watching the last couple weeks. Zach tried to pull a smooth one over on me and has had his chair much higher than mine and now we're roughly the same height.
Speaker 1:A little, I die we actually. We are about the same height in real life, like yeah, you're probably a little taller than I am.
Speaker 1:We're roughly the same build, yeah. So people always asked like you're taller than I thought you would be and I say, well, because I'm on video I'm always seated, stop like. But in our eighth year we want to reflect just a little bit, just a little bit of self-indulgence, and then we'll get into our topic of today, our very first conference. So it's conference season. We just finished the essentials runs. We have Edge coming up, texas conclave. Do you remember the very first time that we went to Texas for a conference?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we went and brought chairs, we went to. We went to our very first conference ever in Texas. Now, this is back when Zach and I this is before we even started a youth ministry booster it was after nine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we had a cast only.
Speaker 2:This podcast was originally called after nine podcast Because the whole theme of it we were youth pastors at the time and we wanted to create a podcast that youth pastors could listen to right after a Wednesday night Yep, most of them about nine o'clock. Yeah, it was that, those feelings of the after-on feelings, right, like whether you wanted to like eat your feelings away because it was a horrible night. Or you felt like you know, chalupa spike in the Taco Bell parking lot because it was so good.
Speaker 1:Right, felt till, felt, felt terrible. One of the things that we had heard is that like the hour of call it nine o'clock, yeah, was like the most like swinging hour for a youth ministry either top of the world, yeah, bottom the barrel. So we strategically released episodes Wednesdays Evening as someone to listen to, to help be an encouraging, maybe humorous or guiding voice, whether you had a good week or a bad week, and so that was kind of and so we went to this conversation now back then, like it, like here here's just the reality and the truth.
Speaker 2:Like you and I funded everything by ourselves like for a while.
Speaker 1:And funded by youth pastors for youth pastors.
Speaker 2:It was just that. It was just that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and so we just turned to that Taco Bell money into a podcast.
Speaker 2:That's actually where it all came from, and so um we to do a booth like we, we had to put in our money and and get a booth. But like we didn't have, we didn't have a budget, uh, no, we did. We bought like a little pop up banner, yeah, um, but we took, like your chairs, right, how do you have? No, it was your chairs, my table.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was the chairs out of your office. It was the because they were cut, because they were kind of like orange and white yeah, which was like kind of the color scheme, color palette of the podcast, and so I had like a little table set up so we could do live podcast. Because those are fun, I stole.
Speaker 2:I stole the fruit bowl off of our kitchen table. Yeah, yeah, yeah Put mints and gummy bears in it. That was the other thing. We didn't have any actual swag and instead, instead of getting like closed wrap candy the worst idea ever Like like we get an F a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should have given them socks to scoop it.
Speaker 2:We had a five pound bag of gummy bears, Like who's just walking by a booth going. You know what I want? I want these loose gummy bears.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they did, they did. Most of that bag was pretty slobbery by the end, but they did so thank you, youth pastors, for if anybody still has any lingering symptoms, that's probably where some version of the flu came from, but that's where COVID started. I don't know if we could say that, but it was a lot of fun because it was all shoestring and we were lined up with other folks. I think the end of the hall that we were on was a lot of shoestring people Like it was good.
Speaker 1:But we drove down to Dallas Fort Worth area made it happen, because that was the big thing is like we had our friends in Oklahoma, but we wanted to go make new connections, and so the way you did that was you posted things online and you went to conferences, and so we did.
Speaker 2:That's so good. I remember we could only afford one night of a hotel, right? So we got up really early.
Speaker 1:Stupid early, stupid early, probably too early. And then yeah.
Speaker 2:Those were fun times.
Speaker 1:It was good times, but that was eight years ago and again, the questions that we were asking were questions that we thought were maybe the questions not being asked. I want to bring us back to it this month because I think, sometimes, youth ministry can often stray into territories of tell me how to do it. Yeah, let's get it done. And I get it like proficiency, competency. These are concerns, sure, but at the end of the day, the heart of it I mean, what's what we're spending the next 60 days inside of the booster community talking about is the spiritual health questions, and I think the stress point is it's the questions Like what are the things that we're actually asking? Because when you ask the wrong things, you get the wrong answers. So one of the most important things you can do is to ask the right questions.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you're a youth ministry booster member, you know that over the next 60 days, our focus is on spiritual health. If you're not a youth ministry booster member, one of the different things that we're doing this year is we're breaking everything up into these 60 day goals that everybody makes for themselves.
Speaker 1:Instead of 10 one month kind of themes, it's five, 60 day challenges, which works out to be the same 300 days of the year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so over the and we're kind of in the middle of it by the time this episode comes out. Yeah, um, but we are. Everybody has their own um 60 day spiritual health goal that they're going to be checking on inside of their mastermind group and challenging, encourage each other, um, but, yeah, you're, you're exactly right. Discernment is unbelievably important in that process of knowing what to ask. Yeah, and I see this a lot and and I know that I was guilty of it along the way too it's like you feel like if, if I just know the next like tip or trick, like I can figure out, like how to do this student ministry thing better. But I think wisdom and discernment allows us to know one like where we are, where our students are, and like how to navigate, like how to navigate oftentimes the difference between just like good or maintaining, and like leading your, your student ministry.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think and I think the leading part is is the tension, and I think for some of us, leading it means I'm going to drag right, I'm going to pull the sled like like a horse in front of a cart, I'm going to lead this where we're going. Um, but sometimes that has us eyes down on just like what can I do? What can I get done? Like willpower is not the energy that should be driving your ministry, like it should not be, like let's just make it happen. I get it. There's like a day where we're like we got to get these things painted before tomorrow or whatever. But if the primary engine for your ministry is just like the brute force of your energy and exertion, what do you do when it runs out? Because it inevitably will run out.
Speaker 1:And so I think one of the things that I would want to ask differently is how is your leadership team, or you as a leader, discerning the work in the will of what God has for your ministry?
Speaker 1:Okay, that's slower, it's more prayerful.
Speaker 1:I think it accesses a lot more capacity than just what I can do, because we're listening for what God is doing in the lives of our folks and guiding us to do, but there are. There is a concern that I have that in ministry right now, a lot of folks are planning it all out, right, like it's all, like, well, here's what I think we ought to do. And so it becomes this the shape of it is the shape that they plan, the shape that it takes, and I am nervous that that's making us spiritually unhealthy in ways that we will have to reckon with later. If it's a ministry built on our desire, our plan, and the old adage of like playing first and then ask God to bless later, it's popping up in ways, because I do think there is an anxiousness that we feel in a response to the anxiousness that our students are feeling, and I think we have to. We have to zig when they zag and we have to be more prayerful and discerning instead of feeling more hurried or rushed or dogmatic in our programs or whatever.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting because I think I like, I think of scripture or scriptural stories, like giddy in right, like these moments where I think sometimes, like in our own leadership, we're not thoughtful of, like really seeking the Lord first. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like I know, sometimes, like in my unhealthiness, I'll search for like the next best idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like a Facebook group or even in like a good leadership book.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, and I think that those are helpful, right, yeah, I think those are helpful along the way, but I can retroactively look back at leadership moments in my life of unhealthiness and they started from that place, instead of allowing those to be like ingredients that came after, like seeking God and those kind of things. So scenario here for you.
Speaker 1:You missed scenario.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you get to sit down with a listener. You do this really well, right? You get to get coffee with them. Yeah, and it's youth pastor who's walking in, feeling overwhelmed a lot going on all of these things. Right, what advice, as far as like discernment and wisdom, would you begin to give them?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:As they like, maybe even feel stuck right now, in the moment, but want to get unstuck.
Speaker 1:It's the question that we often ask each other. That's just a rewording or retooling, instead of saying things like man, what do you have planned next, tell me a story about what God's doing in your ministry. I think youth ministers get really excited about their latest like shirt, event or thing, because it's the thing that happened before didn't go well, maybe the next one will right. We're very future oriented that way, and so I think asking for I mean, tell me a story of something that's happening that's really great in your ministry.
Speaker 1:A parent, student, a family a leader that maybe got to see something really cool happen, like share, tell me. And if they don't have access to a story from the last few months or the year, then that's a good check engine line. Okay, if your best story is from a couple years ago dude bro, three years ago, camp, so good. But if the last few weeks you haven't been attentive enough to see what God is up to or shepherding enough to see what maybe that means. Those are the two things that, like I think can be. Those are my dirty car check engine lines.
Speaker 1:We've talked before about like you're feeling disorganized. You can check a person's car and know how he's feeling about his work. If I haven't been moving at a pace, a click enough, or I can like have actual stories about, like if there was no space in the week to meet with someone for coffee, to listen intently enough when I was with them and not just imagining my next meeting or thing, then I'm not in the right place. I'm not in a discerning mode, I'm in a doing mode and there's work to do, surely. But if you don't have enough time in the week to discern, like Brian was sharing this or Tim was telling me the other day, like, and not just reporting what they said, but like listening for how they were talking about it, like those things really matter. And that's, I think, actually one of the skills that ministers can really hone is listening for what folks are saying with the words they have.
Speaker 1:People will not always tell you directly, but why did he call and want to meet this week? You've been kind of blowing him off, but he really wanted to meet. Something's going on. Dissern, that man like this kid hasn't been around for a few weeks. We could send a note, we could make a call. Something's going on. Tyler never misses what's going on and not noticing enough to know. Not just like the attendance report showed something, but that metric, that number is feeding your pastoral heart to shepherd and discern what is up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you use the word pastoral heart and I think that that's really important in this. I'm a big word guy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Words matter.
Speaker 2:I think words are really important, for not only like titles, not what I'm talking about here and I think sometimes the words that we use about ourselves in the work helps us understand its shape and remind us of the prior war Dio's of our work. I think if we just refer to ourselves as like a leader, you know what I mean. Or communicator, which is the thing that I hate the most. Like what are you communicating? We'll save that one for next time.
Speaker 2:I think it is important for us to remember like we're called the shepherd and those kind of like older phrases and words have these like imageries tied to them that I think are really, really helpful, like this idea, like every time I hear shepherd, like I think of that, like so differently, david, view of this boy setting on, you know, a hillside, like overseeing the sheep, and it's just like there's no celebrity in shepherding. There's not.
Speaker 1:There's celebrity pastors. There are no celebrity shepherds, right.
Speaker 2:There's this in attentiveness, right, there's this like watchfulness, there's this care of knowing, like the goods and the bad of like this sheep will surely wander Right, this one's always a good one, you know what I mean, like that kind of understanding of the flock that I think is really, really important and healthy and good. But I also think it puts it in mindset of like our priorities, right Of like there's a different skill set that has to be nurtured and grown to be a good shepherd over being a really hype communicator. Yeah, yeah, and I think, I think there's no hack no, there's hacks for hype.
Speaker 1:There's no hacks no for care.
Speaker 2:There's a there's a steadfastness that we have to find in our own self of like realizing that if we're going to shepherd and care for students to be more mindful of what God is doing in their life, like we have to be adults who are mindful of what God is doing in their own life, yeah, that we would be diligent in prayer and diligent in his word and diligent in serving, and these things that we're called to, that at our very core, are the process of us dying to ourself that he may live through us. And we don't get that from the next best blog article, right, like you get that from being in the presence of God. Yeah, and I think for us, our encouragement today is, if you're watching or listening, the frustration that we often find in our ministry and where it's at, can stem back to the reality of where we are in our own spiritual health. Yeah, not always, but a lot of times it's the thing we remind you the most.
Speaker 1:If we can make one plea weekly, is that, before anything else of the day piles up, would you spend time, presence with a shepherd learning how to shepherd, with a chance to refill your pastor heart, to renew your past oral call and before the next thing you're going to plan, communicate or program, would you be someone who's discerning with the question Lord, what do you have for me and these today? Hey, thanks for listening. Glad to have you a part of the booster podcast community. Would you think about leaving a rating, subscribe or review? We'd love to know the ways that we can serve you more in your ministry, in your work of caring for this generation. Next now,