Youth Ministry with Shane Clark

### Episode Title: **"Building a Youth Ministry That Lasts: Insights from Shane Clark"**

#### Episode Summary:
In today’s episode, host Mike welcomes his long-time friend, Shane Clark, an experienced youth minister with over 18 years of service. Shane shares invaluable lessons from his time leading Arkansas Section 3's youth and directing Nexus Student Ministries at New Life Cabot. Together, they discuss the importance of genuine passion for youth ministry, leadership development, and how to cultivate a thriving, spiritually strong youth group. 

From building effective teams to creating student leadership opportunities, Shane emphasizes serving with integrity and fostering relationships with both students and parents. His practical advice includes creating ministry handbooks, planning events tailored to student personalities, and building strong communication with your pastor. Throughout the episode, listeners gain powerful insights into the real challenges and triumphs of youth ministry.

#### Key Takeaways:
1. **Passion and Calling Matter**: Youth ministry is not just a stepping stone in ministry. Leaders need to have a true passion for working with young people and a genuine desire to serve.
   
2. **Building Relationships is Key**: Whether it’s connecting with students in their daily lives or fostering strong ties with parents, youth ministers should prioritize genuine relationships.

3. **The Law of Change**: Earn trust by being authentic. Invest in your students by learning their likes and dislikes, and get involved in their personal lives. Shane highlights the importance of personalized ministry, from knowing favorite snacks to showing up at school events.

4. **Team Building and Leadership**: Successful youth ministry requires a supportive team. Create different roles based on strengths and weaknesses, and gradually bring volunteers onto the team. Allow students to take leadership roles and encourage their growth.

5. **Plan with Purpose**: Balance fun and spiritual activities in your youth ministry. Create annual plans that include teaching key topics like relationships and apostolic doctrine, while incorporating surveys to tailor activities to student interests.

6. **Integrity and Skill Matter**: Lead with integrity and develop practical skills in both ministry and management. Building trust and developing your leadership team is crucial to long-term success.

7. **Parental Involvement**: Winning over parents is vital. When parents support the youth pastor, it opens doors to deeper influence and discipleship with their children.

#### Memorable Quotes:
- **Shane Clark**: “If you lift your staff up, miracles can happen. But if you put your staff down, it will turn into a snake and bite you.”
- **Mike**: "The most important thing to remember is, you’re not the standard. Leadership means letting others grow—even if it’s not exactly how you’d do it."

#### Resources Mentioned:
- **Nexus Handbook**: Shane discussed creating a handbook for youth ministry that sets clear expectations for students, parents, and leaders. Visit [newlifecabot.com](http://newlifecabot.com) under Nexus Student Ministries to view the handbook.
- **Youth Ministry Survey Template**: Shane offered to share a customizable youth ministry survey to better understand students' interests and needs. Reach out to request a copy.

#### Support Shane’s Missionary Work:
Shane is also involved in missionary work in the Philippines. If you’d like to support his efforts, check out his [missions account](http://newlifecabot.com).

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#### SEO Meta Description:
Learn how to build a thriving youth ministry in this episode with Mike and special guest Shane Clark. From leadership developme

Transcript

 Today's episode is a special one to me. Last week I had a brand new friend. Today, I bring you a very old friend,  not that he's old as dirt, but he's getting closer there, but I have known him for a while. We are long time friends. This is the one and only Shane Clark. And today we're going to talk about youth ministry.

Everybody give a welcome warm of applause for my buddy, Shane Clark. Yay. Hi. Woo. Good to have you, Shane. Thanks for coming on the show.  

Thanks for having me, Mike. And I don't know how to take The very old friend, but I guess I'm getting to that that middle age to where that can count, but I am grateful to, to to be on the show and to have this invite and to talk about a passion of mine and a call that I've. 

Served him for many years. And I love speaking about youth ministry, even after being out of it for a few years. 

Let me educate the folks that may not have heard most of Arkansas has heard of you, but just in case I got folks that have been living under a rock in Arkansas or anyone outside of Arkansas he did serve as section three youth leader for six years now to some folks that say, okay, section youth leader, but let me tell you about Arkansas section three. 

There's over 30, I think it was like 33 churches when he was there. That's a huge section. That's a big deal I only had 12 when I was youth leader, and we served on the board together. There's a huge difference between my 12 churches and his 30, was it 33 Shane?  

33. Yes, 33. 

That's what I thought. He's, he was gateways class president.

What a nerd. He, he did youth ministry for 15 years on staff and three years before that. So we got 18 years of youth ministry.  I have always looked up to him as someone to model my youth program after.  His was called Nexus.  There at New Life in Cabot,  under Bishop Tim Gaddy. And I'm excited to have you on the show.

Shane, start us off with the first point. What can we learn about youth ministry? What's on your heart about youth ministry? 

Wow. So getting into youth ministry for those that are maybe tuning in that are youth pastors, youth workers is a great gateway get involved in ministry. A lot of young ministers because they can relate to young people are usually started out. I would want to point out to make sure to do youth ministry  because you want to, and you have a call and a passion to not just because, Hey, I get the whole thing of

Do what you're called to do and serve and, take advantage of opportunities when they're. Given to you but make sure that you like youth ministry, make sure that you like being around teenagers and make  sure you like pizza and late nights, make sure that you like, that kind of stuff, because it's going to be miserable for both you and for those students.

If you just. If you just despise all  that so that's first and foremost, it,  young people,  they get when  you're just there looking for the bigger, better deal when you're using them to climb the ministerial ladder per se. And that's not really that's not really what ministry is for.

It's to serve. That's what that word means. Minister 

You're there to serve. You're not there to get off the door. You're not there to climb that political ladder per se, but make sure that  you have a call. And if you don't have a call to your ministry, that's fine. Just be honest. And you can let your pastor or whoever's asking you  to do that.

Just let them know, I don't necessarily feel a call to this,  but  I do feel 

I can help carry a burden. I would say that those are some,  I say basic, but you would be surprised  how many really don't  check that. Don't do that. So if you're getting into youth ministry, make sure when you're getting in, earn that change. I call it just the law of change.

Start depositing into your bank account. You want to earn change with people. You want to earn change with those young people. Listen to 'em make sure that you're taking those notes. What are their likes, dislikes. We would do  a.  There's probably a few years that we did youth ministry and I would just fast and I'd pray and I'd fast, Lord, what should I teach on?

What should I preach on Lord? What? And it's like the word just spoke to me after a few years and said, you know what I can save you a lot of trouble if you just ask them. So we would do a survey once a year. They just ask them, what are their favorite snacks? 

What are they involved in at school? What subject? To learn about what places would you like to go and visit if we were to do a youth trip waters, we, and we would collect all that and it wasn't just to have information, but like we had one young lady that as she got sick it was now for a little bit but we looked on her card  and we made her a gift basket of her favorite Candies and favorite stank foods and got her a little gift card to one of her favorite restaurants.

It's an effective way to minister and be personal and not just this generic cookie cutter ministry and expect your kids to feel special. 

That's 

awesome. So it just really be involved in it. Really put the effort in to make a ministry. Excellent.

Shane, you're absolutely right. And I want to talk about that very first thing you were talking about.

But make sure you like it  that when you told me we were going to youth ministry, the first note that I wrote  was stepping stone  so many times a pastor will grab a young minister in Omni, Dominion them as you're now youth minister because you're young  and the youth minister will treat it as a stepping stone to the next level of the ministry. 

And they never consider that their souls, that these kids are depending on them and you looking to them for something more  than a, than someone using them for a resume block so I appreciate that you said that youth ministry is definitely more than just fundraisers and youth services.  If that's your idea of being a youth leader, make sure that you do fundraisers to get them to HYC.

Make sure you get them to national youth Congress and youth services. I wish you would step aside, let someone else do the ministry.  I remember when I was first elected to be youth leader at Harden. I don't, do you remember Ad Hill Brother Ad Hill pastored at Whitehall UPC for a minute?

Absolutely.  Absolutely. He was presbyter at the time, and I I sat down with him and I asked him for advice. Just, I was sectional youth leader and he was president. We were having one of those sectional meetings, whatever. And I said, what advice can you give me? Cause I never done this before.

And he said, you've got to get down where they live.  And so that's what I'm not bragging, but that's what I'd spent my ministry doing going to their concerts, going to their ballgames,  going to school lunch with them, if I, taking off work and joining them in the school cafeteria. Get down in their life.

Don't just meet them every, if the only time they saw me was at church, I felt like I failed. They needed to see me in their life.  And because ministry, youth ministry is more than just fundraisers and church services. It's more than a stepping stone. So I'm glad you said that.  Good job, brother. What's next on your list? 

Kind of going in that same. One of the, one of my prayers ever since, going into Bible college as just Psalm 78 and 72, it says, and David shepherded them with the integrity of heart and with skillful hands. Did he lead them? I would always put my name in there. I was like, Lord let me shepherd  them with a heart of integrity and with skill.

And I think that goes. Those with integrity, if you're wanting  to youth minister, and maybe it's not necessarily your first calling, like I said, you don't, you can still help carry a burden. If you have a burden to serve your church, a burden to serve pastor, a burden to, to help and that's not bad. 

Obviously,  But you want that integrity. And my next part is that that Psalm is you've got to have skillful hands.  It's one thing to have a heart, but you got to have some skill. And if you're just,  it's not that much of a connector just own it it's okay. Everyone has strengths.

Everyone has weaknesses try to build a team around you. If you're the.  Only one doing this. It's going to be very short lived or it's going to be very shallow or it's, you have to have a team  of people to help. And  so I will give you some do's and don'ts from trial and error on my part, we think we're going to Put someone on youth staff.

Don't be so quick to call someone staff with without trying it out first. We've done that. That can hurt your young people and it can hurt volunteers. Ministry should help but not hurt people. And that's on you as. And  so we created what was a committee you can be a part of youth committee and like basketball.

I'm a sports fan. So we would bring you  off of the committee to help with certain aspects of youth ministry. Maybe it was to help set up and take down. Maybe it was some background work, but maybe that person. Did not want to be in front of a pulpit. Maybe that person didn't want to go and stay  up  night and do lock ins, they're fine with coming in early and help setting up tables and chairs, or maybe they're good with coming in at next day and taking things down.

Maybe you do have that fun, outgoing person that, will do all the crazy stuff. You can blend up the McDonald's happy meal and have them drink it. All the kids.  Just  go crazy about it. Bring them on for their strengths and then just use that. But if you have that one person  that shows faithfulness, that shows promise on the committee, then maybe you can start eyeballing them for staff and kind of the biblical principle of that is you always had the crowd.

That would follow Jesus. Then you would have the followers that, after the crowd left, the ones that kind of lingered and was still following. Then from those followers, you had disciples. And so you're always going to have that. And that's just, you want to get the biggest crowds you can, because now the biggest crowds you're going to get the most, you're going to get more followers.

You're going to be able to pull more disciples. And from that, just take time.  Learn their strengths, learn their weaknesses and communicate effectively and just let people know it's okay. It's okay to have strengths. It's okay to have weaknesses. I tell I'm very honest with my weakness.

I am not the administrative guru. Wendy Clark is the administrative guru. Now I have learned through my professional job build. Some crutches to help me. I can't just sit here and say I'm weak at this. So I'm never going to try to get better. You always try to better yourself, but I know that there's people that, that strength comes easily  and more fluent.

So why would I not, if I could build a team where I have a person that's a student and an admin, I have a, an ace that, that is  The fun person that can they can get the youth  alley, youth get together started and I got this creative genius I have. Why would you not use?  So that next part is once you're there, try to build a team.

It doesn't have to be staff, but you communicate that let them know, hey, I'm only we're going to do this for one year. I'm gonna bring you on this part. Of a youth team or, whatever you want to call it, just let them know, this, these are going to be the parameters and give them a fair opportunity to know exactly what you're expecting out of them and the opportunity to know what it is and what it isn't.

And the people that want to help you carry that burden that want to help invest into young people's lives are more than happy to do that.  

That's good. A moment of transparency. I was weak in that and I used. My small church congregation as a crutch, but  I, one thing I really felt at the most was I did not include my wife enough in my ministries.

It was almost like a separate entity. She was welcome to help, but I did not go out of my way to include her and I should have. So I just want to use my faults as a failure as a lesson here for those listening,  be sure to use what God gave you, including.  Help me  build that team.  All right. What's got next? 

Absolutely. So you've you've solo searched, 

you've 

said yes.  Part of integrity, you're building your team, you're getting some skill  in positions around you. You have skills, you have strengths, you have weaknesses. Make sure to build that team first. Make sure to  spend time to, to make sure that you serve them.

You're not ordering them around, bossing them around all the time, sitting back and taking all the glory and all the praise when the pastor says, I know.  done a great job or, you, you've grown the youth group and, make sure that you give honor to whom honors do. Let if you have that title as youth pastor, youth minister,  whatever, It's called now probably student director of it for a minute but  build your team up.

There's a little I call it the Moses lesson. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but so when Moses and Aaron through the staff down what happened to it? 

It turned into snakes or turn into one big snake. That's right.  

If you always put your staff down, it's going to turn into a snake and they're going to bite you. 

But if you lift your staff up,  miracles can happen.  Absolute miracles can happen when you lift your staff up. Lift them up. Lift them up in prayer.  Make sure that you're connecting with them. Make sure that they know that you genuinely appreciate them. shape the work that they do. Make sure that you're building unity.

You can't preach to your kids about unity and you're not treating your staff right or your bargain orders at them or getting short with them when they don't  do things the way that you would probably have done it. You have to be okay with it. They're individuals. They have individual gifts, individual personalities, individual callings, individual weaknesses, and they will not do it the way that you probably see it in your. 

100 percent of the time,  but you have to show a little grace and you have to show a little mercy because you have to exemplify how you want your youth group to react to each other.  And so as you're doing that just make sure to put that in. We tried to do something at least once a quarter. And if you're trying to build things quicker, you may want to try once a month, but once a quarter, really, it didn't seem like it was too  Once a quarter, it just gave everyone that time.

We'd have them come over to our house. This is just your staff or your committee.  And we would cook for them. We would have them over. We do a very short devotional time of prayer. We would lay hands. There's one time we just we did a foot washing just with our staff. And we led by example to serve them and to humble ourselves And invest in them, let them ask questions of us do team building however that, that may look but you want to have a strong staff.

You want to get to really know, what their strengths and weaknesses are. So you can do that.  

Man, that's awesome stuff.  Did I cut you off? Were you about to say something else?  

No. Go 

ahead. Okay. Again, I don't have a lot of experience in ministry staff building. I have  as a church pastor, working on that, but what you're describing is just general good leadership.

 That'll work in anything.  But when you mentioned giving them grace to be different,  I wanted to speak to that. Just what came to my heart. Cause I've In all areas, and I'm not going to name what area of my life I've seen this, but I have known people that had to have it their way.  And when you asked them about it, they would tell you I just know, I know this one works and I'm, I'm accountable.

So I've, I got to do what I know works.  That's not good leadership. That's not micromanagement. What that really is at its core is besides a lack of trust and people doing it right. It's arrogance  thinking that you are the standard  thinking that you are the best. And. When you step back and how  apostolic is that really? 

Jesus sent the disciples to go minister when he could have done a much better job, but he trusted them because it was part of their growth process. He needed them for the sake of the kingdom to do that.  If he did everything himself, they would have never became what they needed to be.  So I appreciate you bringing that out.

We have to let people be different, even if it's not the way we would do it, because we're not the standard.  Sometimes we have to let people do a lesser job in our eyes. Because that's how they grow and that's good leadership is letting people  do their work.  I appreciate you saying that's a good point.

What you got?  

So  you're building that you're starting to  get into building that team. You're starting to understand personalities. Next is putting it into the planning. So you can't just shoot from the hip all the time. And I know there's some things in youth ministry that it's I'm a quotes guy.

Mike Tyson said this, I think he might've taken it from Joe Lewis, but he said, everyone has a great game plan until you get punched in the mouth. In the mouth. You can think in your head, this is how the service is gonna go, and this is, but until it happens, man it.  That's youth ministry.

That is youth ministry. But I always tell people that is not an excuse to be lazy and not plan. 

Exactly.  

In the Old Testament, we see a very detailed plan in the tabernacle. We see a very detailed way that things were done and supposed to be.  And I get that's Old Testament, but there's principles behind that.

Even the creative universe that we live in now is so detailed. If you think about just, if with one piece or parts of elements were missing,  we just couldn't, we couldn't exist on the world. Or if gravitational was just a tad bit off, it would be disastrous. The Lord is very detailed to the amount of DNA that is needed to blood cells, to,  to breath to, it's.

It's amazing. And so we to need to make sure that we plan. So we would always do a yearly calendar. And before people think my goodness, you're trying to plan God out of a service. No, I'm not. This is how it would go. So please  If they tuned out, don't tune back in. So we would come  up with events that we'd like to do.

We'd come up with some weekend activities, just fun things. Not everything has to be super spiritual. It's okay to go and do some putt and go cards or we would do, just different activities again, from these surveys that we would take. So we knew what the kids would like to do.

We knew if they were sports fans or if they were video game fans, or if they were outdoorsy. And so that's what we did. What we would, that's what we would tailor. You got to tailor that to your group and its personality. It's not for you to try to make them into your personality.  So you have to do that.

So we would have certain things that like we knew for the month of February, we were going to talk about relationships.  That's because that's a huge deal in teenagers  

relationships. 

So we knew with Valentine's  Day, it opens it right up. So we knew that we were going to do that. We knew that we were going to separate guys and girls.

Wendy would take the ladies. I would take the guys. We would talk. We would Do some generic kind of talking on relationships, but we'd break it down. We're going to talk on relationships with our parents, we'll talk on friendships,  we're going to talk on dating relationships, our relationship with God. 

Like we break it down. We need that. That's where it was going to go. We knew one of those months that we were going to talk on apostolic doctrine and we knew that we were going to talk on the oneness of God. We were going to talk on repentance, baptism, Jesus name, filling with Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues.

We knew on that last one that.  As they could take notes, but we were going to, we would have elders in our church, and again, they would do this very nicely. We gave them a script of questions to ask the young people, and we did let them know, do not try to  give them the third degree interrogation and send them out crying.

But they would ask them, these questions on one. Do you believe what you believe? And so we knew from 7th grade to 12th grade, but they were going to get at least 6 months of nothing but direct.  apostolic  doctrine teaching and they would have six years worth of notes on that to carry with them.

And I would tell them, make sure that keep these notes, but we would have those staples mixed in with our month, but then we would meet probably, it changed a little bit, but for the most part, it was the last Sunday of the month. We would go and grab Subway or, pizza.

We, we would take care of it. Because they're given a third time,  and we would plan that month out. Who's gonna teach this Sunday? What lessons are we gonna do? And we would have those surveys with the top seven,  top eight subjects that the kids want to learn about. It's not about I know something about this, we're gonna teach it.

No. We're gonna teach what they want to know.  We're tailoring this for them. Again, those surveys are phenomenal. Anyone.  I have them but you on a word doc, just holler at me, I'll be more than happy to share it, we have it on the cloud you're welcome to our survey, put your eth group name on it, ditch yourself take credit, but it's, it helps, man, it helps and we would, but But we would have  big chunks of the year already taken care of to know that we're teaching on doctrine, teaching on relationships, we're going to teach on unity those core things.

And then we would see what they wanted to learn about and we would make a month's lesson plan on around those subjects and not just what I called canned. Sermons or canned lessons, which I'm not against getting some help and getting guidebooks. But I would, my hope would. 

Be for my staff and for those listening use those as templates. Don't just read it robotically to people. Make sure again, you have that heart of integrity to lead and to shepherd and gain some skill with,

Maybe using that to help you but make sure you're hearing from God on, on how to speak and what he would speak to your young people.  

And that's awesome.  I don't have anything to add to that. You covered it perfectly.  Good job.  I will ask you though you've offered me that survey, but could I have it and offer it to my listeners? 

Absolutely.  Absolutely.  On with that,  we would always we picked one day and brother, daddy my pastor was, is phenomenal tobaccos. That's.  Huge  to be a successful youth pastor. You have to have a pastor that will back you not cut your legs out and let you do it. But in that you have to communicate with your pastor.

You're,  again, I'm a sports fan so I'm gonna put it, you're, you have a major role in your church. As a student leader and you have to make sure that you're in harmony with your pastor and his vision. I see you, I see youth ministries. You may be the running back. You're going to be on the, you're going to be right  behind your pastor on a lot  of things.

Now he may hand you the ball sometimes not, but the first thing on any good running back, I don't care how fast you are,  how tough you are, if you cannot block and protect your quarterback, you're not going to see the P at old. You're not going to get in the game. You have to make sure it's blocked for your pastor.

You have to make sure that he's not going to get blitzed by anyone or anything that you say and or do. Don't say stuff for shock factor. Don't do things for shock factor because you think it's going to put,  protect your pastor's name, protect your church's name, and protect your young people.  I'm just going to throw that out there.

There'll be a  freebie. I just want to make sure that is said, because it's needed. There's a lot of times you're in that youth room and youth pastoring. You really are  youth pastoring. You're not youth teaching, but you're help creating a music ministry, you're help creating a prayer ministry, you're teaching, you're preaching, you're following up, you're doing guest services, you're doing outreach, you're

You're doing all those things as a lead pastor would do. And so it's a lot of responsibility to do that. And with that, you just, you really have to check yourself, keep yourself humble and understand that you're doing that under your pastor's umbrella. So respect that. And just keep that in the forefront of your mind While you're ministering to make sure that you're in tune,  but I say that so one of the major things that we did that a lot that I'm not seeing a lot of  deep mixture state. 

But we've had a lot of positive feedback that I'm  fine with anyone reaching out to us. So if you've ever went to a public school or have students in public schools, chances are the majority do. But public schools will give you a what's called a student handbook. That student handbook has to be  supposedly read.

Now whether it is or not, who knows. But it does have to be signed and returned in order for your child to attend. And so we created what, on our handbook. Our student ministry is called Nexus Student Ministries. Nexus obviously being a connecting point.  So we connect to God, family, and other believers.

But we created the Nexus handbook. And in this handbook, it talked about how to be involved. We had three tiers of ministry. How you can be involved from whether you're a first time visitor and wanting to get involved to someone that's seeking after the Holy Ghost and wanting to get involved to someone that's living a life filled with the Holy Ghost and just really wanting  press towards that calling.

So we had it in writing. We had,  these are the these are the rules to go on a youth trip. 

This is what we expect. This is what we expect with participation in fundraisers. These are how we expect young people to act. This is what happens if they don't. We had it all because here's the thing.  Again, ministry  should help and not hurt people.  So when you do this, you're creating accountability for yourself as a minister, creating responsibility for parents and students alike, and we're all agreeing to it, but this  is. 

Why is I'm not going to treat, Brother Yates kids any different than I want to treat, Brother Shane's kids. This is what we expect. You signed it. We turned it in. We would do that every year. And we have that handbook. If you go on to newlifecabot.  com, go under next to student ministries brother Jason, sister Lexi are still using that.

So you can go on and look at it yourselves. But Wendy and I,  just on that communication and tools we really just, we're like, why let's just take the time on the front end and do this and put this out there. And that way, no one.  No one can say one thing or another. It's all fair. We have that level of accountability  and it just makes things and makes your relationship with parents, makes your relationship with students.

You don't have to have the awkward talks. Why so and so get to do this and they and I don't or why do they get to do or why can I go on this trip?  It's all there.  It's all there. And it will really save you a lot of heartache, a lot of hurt feelings. And it's going to help you to garner relationships with parents and with students.

And in youth ministry, a lot of us are great with making those relationships with students. But then we totally neglect trying to create relationships with parents, 

and 

I will tell any and all youth ministers potential youth ministers. If the parents don't back you you're not going to be a youth pastor to them. 

They,  those parents have to say, hey,  listen to this guy.  Listen to this lady. These people care for your soul. These people have integrity. These people,  if they don't, you might be a youth teacher. They might sit in there for 40 minutes and listen to you but you're not going to pastor them. You're not going to lead them.

You're not going to have that change with them. So you have to make sure to  connect with parents, which means you have to talk to them.  Other times than when just your little kid is getting on your nerves or disrupting the class, let them know and again maybe you just put it in your phone, like a reminder  goes off, hey, text so and so's parents about, how they worship the previous Wednesday night, take so and so's parents in or drop a card in the mail or, do a mixture of all of those things on, talking with them face to face Wednesday after service and just let them know just how proud you are of their child.

No one likes it. If every time they see you or hear from you, it's about how their child did something wrong. 

Time they see.  You, it's that's going to be the Bible that says that the that the enemy is a accuser of the brethren. The opposite of accusation always they're doing this, they're doing that. It's being an encourager be an encourager to that family, be an encourager to that kid, come behind them.

And maybe it's the littlest of things of, man, they've been faithful lately.  I'm so happy for them or they, you can find something you can help encourage those students and those families.  

Absolutely. And I don't mean to,  okay I introduced you, you said that we similar had similar policies.

So I feel like I have to address this because it's there. I also had similar things and I wanted to clarify that just because you have it in writing does not prevent  those conversations. It just gives you a leg to stand on because I had plenty of people who signed it  and still wanted to challenge it. 

They really couldn't because  I had it in writing and I explained it,  

but and it makes it nothing personal. It's not personal It's not you versus them you versus their kid  It's not personal 

Exactly. That was the thing and I want to encourage if anyone is thinking yeah, I'm gonna do that. You better have convictions with it  don't Establish any kind of policy that you don't really believe in.

Make sure you  make sure it's something you believe in. Cause it will get challenged. I'll be honest with you. The people that fall at the most were not my students. It was the parents.  Who were not living up to that standard that I was asking of their kids. So therefore they didn't think it was necessary or they felt convicted and they felt challenged.

And  I got more pushback from the parents because I was asking for an attendance requirement, because I was asking for fundraiser participation and I was expecting Bible reading. And  so you better be able to stand your ground and explain why this is necessary. And that was part of my document was explaining.

Scripturally and explanation, a little essay, whatever, on why these things are being taught and required. So if you can't defend it and explain it,  don't require it  because you will be called out on it. 

And again, this handbook was, yeah, this handbook was created with brother daddy. So we did not do anything and put something out there without his backing to know that. 

But that when we were challenged that is back in this as well. And so that's when we did again, at least once a year, we presented the handbook.  We would have brother ga in there. We would discuss the handbook go over it quickly. Again, I'm not gonna sit there and read it word for word. They can read.

They're intelligent. I'm not gonna insult them. But we'd have it back. And but and  you do you'll have some  again, you're not wanting.  Yeah. Yeah. Not wanting to control them or parent them. You're not the parent. You're the youth pastor. But yeah, I'd highly suggest go to newarkcanada.

com click on  the youth ministry, read it, but definitely make it, you got to make it your own. You can't just take ours and just be like, oh, that works. Every youth group's different. Every church has their own personalities. 

Yep. 

And you have to work with your pastor on it. 

Absolutely. And you keep throwing around that title, youth pastor.

That reminds me of a true story I know of I want to tell my listeners just from experience and I'm, cause  your pastor had a different definition of what a youth pastor was than some other pastors that I know.  Not every pastor has the same expectations and goals. Understanding of what a youth pastor is.

So if your church calls you youth pastor, make sure you talk to your pastor and ask him, what does he expect you to do as you, as youth pastor? Because some people  they just use that title loosely and they do not expect you to actually be Pastor and get personally, they just call it as a glorified youth leaders.

All it is. I knew one, I knew of one young man that  he had before he was ever youth leader, he was just a young ministry. He had sat down with a pastor. And was picking his brain and because he noticed that pastor had  other titles in his church. He knows he had a men's pastor and a youth pastor and this young man had never seen that before.

So he asked him, how does that work? And  the elder pastor told him I  trust these people to actually pastor their department. He goes, I trust them and I give them that authority. And that's what they do. Okay. Later on in that young man's life, he became youth. He had been youth leader, and then he got titled youth pastor. 

The only training he had ever received on what a youth pastor was that other pastor. So he  just assumed that's what it was. He was later got in trouble by his pastor for  getting too involved, making this one of the youth was coming to him about for advice on things that  the pastor thought it should have went to him and you're not their pastor.

I thought that's what you pastors did. The man said, we never discussed this. And so anyway, make sure you get expectations straight from your pastor.  Cause not every church has the same. Understanding of what a youth pastor does.  Just trust me on that.  Not going to name names, but I know the story  and it happens. 

But I was laughing when you were talking about the  requirements, just because I just have so many memories.  Yes, because I too had requirements for those things and just brought back memories.  Good times. Good times. Keep teaching us, Elder. Talk to us. 

And on that, again, I want people to read that because you'll see that. That we're not stringent, but we want to be fair and to try to  help young people show ownership but not dictate.  Oh, no, you're 

totalitarians. You're dictators. I know you. 

Yeah.  But the far furthest from the truth, man I brother Bishop Carney had that saying and it stuck with me as if you're going to err on the side of mercy.  If you're going to make, if you're going to have to make a judgment call, do it. I'd rather fell on the side of mercy but but if you're putting those things together, you have the integrity, you're starting to do those planning.

I really think you'll see an uptick in your ministry. The next is you have to build student leaders. You have to as adults, we've had our time in youth ministry. We do not have Peter pan syndrome where we just think that we're 16 forever. And we're the ones  running around, on the paintball field, shooting at young people with paintball guns or throwing water balloons.

And you can have fun and but. There's just a weird, you got to have that proverbial. Is it it's not for you just to go and have fun and do things. You, everything for a youth pastor, a youth worker has meaning. If, from the very get go for taking our kids paintballing, I'm making sure I'm taking the ones that are the first ones that's their first time or the ones that don't feel like they have. 

Athletic ability or I'm gonna make sure I'm putting them on my team. I'm gonna have a couple of my aces and I'm going to help them get a win. I want them to feel what it's like to have a victory to have something to talk about. I want to make sure  that I'm sitting those those French students up for the best that I can to do that, but it's one thing for an adult to do it because we have to. 

It's a totally different thing when their peers are doing it. So look for those students that are catching your vision. Look for those students that are connecting, doing those things, being faithful.  And give  them opportunities the way that we would have on Wednesday night service is it was a full fledged youth service.

And at first we did not have enough to do music on our own. So we would, have quote unquote canned music that we would play in and have worship to, but we would have a student come up And just to, welcome everybody, we would have another student come up to present a crowd breaker or a game and I would help that student with that game.

I would give them a choice of 5  and I would let them know. Hey, we'll get the materials for you. We'll get the prize for you. All you have to do is present it. And help lead in it. But other than that, we're going to take care of everything. We're not expecting you to go buy everything to do everything.

Our job as a youth pastor and youth worker is to set them up for success. You want to tee up that softball right there for them to crush it. And then you're going to celebrate it. That's all them. That's all their idea that's all their success. And you're going to have. You're going to build them up.

You want to encourage them and get them confident because you got to remember what it's like in your teenage years, man.  You can't forget that one year, you're  playing with toys and outside playing. And then your parents won't say, you're too old for that. 

What are you doing? Then the next thing you're like, Oh, okay. So you try to act a little bit more adult ish and then your parents were,  and I'm from the South or  you're getting too big for your bridges. Who do you think you are? You're on this scary rickety bridge between childhood and adulthood. 

And you don't know when you're fixing to fall off the edge or, that next step's going to break because, at one time you're being too childish and then the next hour you're. Who do you think you are trying to act like an adult? It's ah, what do you do? And we're to shepherd them across that bridge and help them.

gain godly principles and foundations and to enjoy this part of their life and not be miserable and not just go through all the stuff that, that a lot of young people do. And so it's just very important to keep that forefront of your mind on why we do what we do. And so when we do events, when we do things we won't set, we won't set  that to, to help include.

The youth because you're connecting them to the vine that's where they're going to get life is being connected to the church being connected to  God and connected to the body.  If you cut off a part of the body I mean it's it's going to decay it's going to die it's not healthy. It has to be connected and so that's what we're doing as you pastors but we would, we'd make sure to put a couple people at the door. 

As  greeters, we'd make sure to have another one to do a welcome. We'd have one to do the games. We'd have one to lead us in prayer. You're using four young people right there.  We'd have one take attendance. You see how you can break this up and where you don't have to use adults all the time.

You can help and use young people and get them included in doing things in the service. Now, once we started growing because a lot of people just think, we got the keys to the Cadillac per se, we got this great big youth group when me and Wendy started at New Life was still.

Still, a home missions growing church we had eight students on our attendance list and only four of them showed up.  So that's what we started with. And when we left, we had over 70 showing up. So it, you can make it work. You really can, you can use those four and connect with those four and reach out to the ones and start bringing them in and just doing those things.

It's it really is possible. You really can do it.  It's gonna take work and it's gonna take a lot of effort. But you can do it and it's absolutely worth  everything. It's worth every dollar spent. It's worth every late night hour of sleep that you miss. And we were bi-vocational we did not.

We're only on, on staff for about five years, but but, the rest of that time, I was working a full time demanding job going to camps, coming back and using all my vacation on Congress and HYC's  and camps. And but it's worth it to see young people's lives changed to see them go and carry the gospel to the world and do what we're  commanded to do.

It's phenomenal.  

Yes, sir. Absolutely. And it's just, it's so interesting because you and I didn't really share a whole lot of notes in our friendship, but yet we have so much similar. I too had a special service just designed for the kids and because I believed in teaching them how to do that. So  you mentioned earlier having a pastor that backs you I want to give a credit  that gets often overlooked now that I've had the experience of being a pastor  as I never appreciated having a Wednesday night. 

Dedicated to just taking the kids straight to the back or, we'd worship and then we could be dismissed.  But as a pastor,  I became significantly aware that I was missing my youth group  and I wanted their attention.  And I realized just how much my pastor was trusting me with every service that he let me take those youth.

away from his teachings and his preachings. He was trusting me  because that's precious time because the pastor doesn't get a whole lot of opportunities throughout the week to talk to the youth.  So if your pastor allows you a service,  you really need to not take that for granted and just be, thank God that your pastor is trusting you  and give it your best. 

Absolutely.  

I did not appreciate it as much because it was just something that was always done. But when I became a pastor, I, Oh,  now I feel it  now. I feel it. Yeah. Cause I sure wanted my, it sure was tempting as pastor to say, no, I'm keeping the kids out tonight because I had something burning in my heart, but no, I got to trust my  team. 

All right.  I'll trust them.  

That's why you invest in your team. When you invest in your team, you can do that confidently. Because you've poured into that team, their personalities, you trust your spirit,  you can do that.  

Yep. Just be grateful for  pastors that work with you.  

Absolutely. 

Carry on.  

For those that are still listening in, wow. I love youth ministry. I could talk about it  for a good while, but  the hope is you if you're starting ministry when we started with really four showing up we had to pick, you're not going to just do everything right off the bat, pick two things that you're excellent at and try to do those with excellence.

Ours was a couple of events  and we would do those events and we would do them with excellence. And events, once we started growing we'd do three. And I know different people had different.  Different strategies, but we we would do one that was really  created for an outreach.

We would pick a Arkansas Razor Bank football game. We did a tailgate at one of the parents' house where we would show the game, but we would bring in bounce houses for those that  weren't football fans. We had to grill out and feed the kids we'd have bago and horseshoes and, just some different games and that we would have some prizes for the best and for the worst.

And we just made it a good time. And that was a huge event. We did that. Then we had a a guys and girls day. We'd all meet at the church Wendy and a cup. The ladies would take the girls me and a couple guys would take the guys and with the guys, we may go go to the driving range and some of these kids never touched a golf club in their life, man, but it was hilarious.

We would just go, it's cheap and we would just, man just go crazy and just go into the driving range then take them and go eat.  Wings and then we might meet back and all go ice skating. Wendy would take the girls and they may go shopping. They'd go downtown to some of the the shops there and go get like boba tea and ride the trolley downtown Little Rock and then meet us ice skating and then we'd ice skate and come back.

And that was great. But it's, it's these things that you can bring friends to. It's going to be fun. It's going to be these experiences. And then from there, you just grow with it. And you do the same with your spiritual side, what are some things that you do great.

Can you do  and just really, make it obtainable, set those obtainable goals and just try to grow it each year. If you know that you can do two things and it may work, let's try third and don't feel bad when it doesn't.  Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah, you can't defeat yourself.

You're gonna have to try  and don't and I do repeat. Don't take it out on your kids  when they don't  succeed. That's on you. That is not on those kids. They're kids. You're the adult. You planned it.  Do not take you. You just can't. You cannot be that way again. That kind of sneaks into that arrogant spirit.

You cannot. Why didn't you show up? Why didn't you? Man don't those are kids.  Those are kids.  You celebrate what did go right. You get to choose what you concentrate on, magnify and help bring that type of atmosphere to your youth group. You really do help set that personality trait.

So just as simple as it sounds, be kind.  Just truly be a kind person towards  young people towards your workers, your volunteers, even if you're a volunteer  yourself. They don't have to back you. They don't have to be there but they are and they're trying. So just  remember that, be kind, celebrate, and when things don't that's the job of a leader.

You take all the blame.  Put those kids on. Nope, that's on me. Whether it wasn't, it's on me. I take all the blame. You get all the credit.  

Absolutely. That is leadership. And I applaud you for having Patience with those special kids that don't like football. That was awfully you. 

Absolutely.  

Yeah. You, I don't know. Not everyone's going to be, you have to plan it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to  plan that. You have to and like what you like. So doing this for a total of 15 years as a youth pastor, you have multiple generations that kind of come through.  Our first generation of young people loved video games and music and hated any kind of sport.

So we did a lot of video scavenger hunts. We did a lot of video game tournaments. We did a lot of jam sessions in Fun things like that. Now the next generation  after that was  Play Doh. Opposite. They did not have, but they love sports. And we would use the local high school here in Cabot.

The girls would go and play  tennis if they wanted to. The guys played flag football or we'd switch it up and the girls could come play flag football and the guys would riff and and we would try to play tennis and. And we just,  we did that more times than I can count, but they loved it.  Go back to our house and we'd grill for them and just make a day out of it. 

We would do glow in the dark volleyball. We would go to the youth room. We only had one service on Sunday. So Sunday night we would lay down like glow sticks and take them to the floor and just outline a volleyball court.  And do the same with the netting with glow sticks have all the kids wearing glow sticks that we're not running into each other.

We would buy a clear beach volleyball and stuff glow sticks in there and  just turn on some  Christian music and just order pizza and have a good time. Again, you're  wanting to put this to the personality of your audience. You're young people, put some efforts from creativity into it yourself and  just make some great memories.

But there's, that one after that, they didn't care for sports. I didn't care for video games. They wanted to go outdoorsy. Those that don't know me I am not the outdoorsy guy.  I'm not. And I had to lean on my team on, what are we going to do? And they were the ones that, hey, let's rent something at Pinnacle Mountain and put some hammocks up on the mountain and just, hang out and just play some Ultimate Frisbee and, do the fun things and stuff like that.

And  Some of the guys are canoeing and just things like that. It's  

okay. Yeah. I'm not outdoorsy. I would have struggled there and I did 

make it what they want it to be. 

Yeah, I did struggle because I 

wasn't outdoors.  But because I'm outdoorsy,  I'm not going to shut that down. Be like I don't know how to do that.

So we're not doing it. We're going to do what I want to do.  My job as the youth pastor is to help these kids. It's not, you have to humble yourself and okay, I'm fixing to learn how to make a tent and I'm fixing to learn how to do this stuff.  You learn how to make bonfires and  the proper way to stack wood and all sorts of fun stuff. 

You finish choosing adventure. 

I like taking them to my kitchen and teaching them how to wash my dishes.  

Yeah, I would advise not to do that.  There is  walls against things such as that. 

Wax on wax off. It's all a lesson. It's all practical. 

Shane, I do have to wrap it up, brother. What you got for me? Give me one more point.  Close it down. 

I'm gonna close it down  it here.  I think it's just the  there's no feeling the victories because you never know what young people are going through. You never, ever know, and they walk through the door,  walk through going through.  You may think you do, but There's so many. We had a couple of young ladies that really took  one of my servants heart and went  and they would look for people that were  standing on the walls in the cafeteria, looking at their phones, trying to act like they were busy, but it's because they don't have, they don't have friends. 

And so they would invite them to come and sit with them.  They would leave their friends and just try to combine it. There's a young man  that was thinking of  taking his own life. His mom had found a letter, a suicide letter,  and confronted him.  And he said that he was in a much better place now that he had these friends.

And it was the two young ladies from my youth group. The superintendent of Catholic schools  gave them what's called a panther. Award called in the parents and teachers faculty and they called me and I got to be a part of seeing  not a church, but the district superintendent leaders of our school district recognize these two young ladies and  the impact they had on literally saving a life.

 Youth ministries real.  This is real. This is  really  eternities.  These are real lives.  And  there's just a lot of dysfunction and there's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of insecurities and there's lot of inconsistencies as youth pastors, we have to make sure that we're their security.

We got to make sure that we're consistent. We got to make sure that we're trustworthy and we got to make sure that we put the effort in that they expect us. We're the church, we're the body of Christ. And we have to rise to that occasion to the very very best of our abilities spiritually administratively.

In all those areas. So I would,  I, I would I applaud every youth leader, every youth minister, every youth worker, every committee member, every parent that volunteers a little bit of their time and effort to back through.  Pastors and leaders and allows them at that grace and forward to to grow and to do their ministry, what they're called to do keep it up.

Our world needs it. This is a phenomenal generation. Your work's not in vain. It's going to produce and it's going to be, it's going to be worth it all.  

That's awesome.  Shane, I think you've done a great job of.  Not only teach given points, but revealing  the effort required  and  good job, my friend,  I appreciate everything you've done.

I appreciate you coming on here and showing us and teaching us better.  And I love that story. That was a wonderful story. Do you have when I was introducing you, I failed to  introduce you as a missionary. Do you When  you don't plan on going back to the Philippines anytime soon though, do you?

Yeah. It's my hope to be back there hopefully within the next year or so. 

Okay. Folks, when I post this, I'll try to include a do you have a a link or anything you can share with me that I can put on Facebook or anything?  

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I do have  a missions account from headquarters from uci, so yeah, I don't mind sharing that. 

Okay I'm probably still have it from our last conversation if it's the same one, but I'll put that out there. Anything else I need to push for you promote.  

No, there's nothing to push promote just

Love young people, do it with the heart of integrity. Let it be said of you that you let them make sure for them at the heart of integrity and the skillful hands that you lead them,  keep that in the forefront of your mind communicate with your pastor serve your team and love your youth group.

Let God use you. 

Awesome. Outstanding.  Thanks Shane. Love you, brother.