Hybrid Ministry

By Nick ClasonBusiness Religion & Spirituality Christianity Technology Marketing

Hybrid Ministry episodes

November 13, 2025 Episode 175: The Calendar that Rules Them All! [Most Skip Step 1!]
Struggling with youth ministry planning, church communications, or ministry calendars? In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast, learn the 5 levels to create the ultimate Youth Ministry Calendar that rules them all! Most skip Level 1—but stick around for the one strategy that fixes all your communication issues and grabs parents’ attention with tips, visuals, and free downloadable designs.
FREE CALENDAR TEMPLATE
https://www.patreon.com/posts/winter-spring-141564188?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
🍂 FALL SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fall-seasonal-137477671?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
🦸 HYBRID HEROES GET THE PACK FOR FREE!
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry
SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/175
Custom Curated Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaK80OxdNPbfrvTH_6cML8VB
Nucleus
https://www.nucleus.church
👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
--------------
🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick
--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid
//BEST DYM RESOURCES
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym
//OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 At a Glance Calendars
00:44 Level 1 - Most Miss!
02:51 Level 2 - FREE Download
05:27 Level 3
06:58 Level 4 - An All Time Idea!
08:10 Level 5 - THIS RULES THEM ALL
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:07 - 00:00:24:17
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Have you been doing your planning and creation of your youth ministry calendars all wrong this whole time? Well, in today's episode, I'm going to share with you the five levels to create a solid youth ministry calendar, the one that will rule them all. While most don't make it past level one, you should stick around to the end of the video and see the whole thing because I reveal at the end the one trick that I've started adding to all of my calendars that it solves the communication problem once and for all.
00:00:34:16 - 00:01:06:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Oh, and plus there's a free calendar link down below in the YouTube video or the podcast description. Welcome everyone to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nicolas, and excited to be with you. As we're talking through the five levels of a youth ministry calendar creation. And the reason we're doing this because we're actually, and we actually are and have been in a playlist where we've been discussing different questions that I have come across on different youth pastor Facebook groups.
00:01:06:25 - 00:01:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And today, this one, I have, a question that says, hey everyone, I'm looking for examples of an at a glance calendar that highlight your major annual events. Pictures, please. You don't need to include spontaneous or smaller events, just the main ones that plan each year. And so we're going to be looking at what I have been passing out historically, and how we've tried to not only solve the communication problem, but it also helps with our, our visitors and all that sort of thing.
00:01:30:17 - 00:01:51:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So actually, there's a carefully curated playlist with all of those elements, calendar discussions and a welcome box that we have and communication issues linked right here. Tap the video. Go ahead and check it out on YouTube. But step number one is you need to have and this is the one that most skipped. But you need to have a reputable website okay.
00:01:51:28 - 00:02:17:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Because if you want a quote as this question says an at a glance calendar, then you need to have a website that is actually up to date that when people don't have the information that they need from your calendar, they know where they can go and what they should do. In fact, everyone in our student ministry knows and understands that like the calendar doesn't exist with this this piece of literature that they're bringing home.
00:02:17:08 - 00:02:43:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is, again, as the question as this is high level, this is simply highlights. This isn't every single thing. I've seen calendars designed with every single thing, the entire calendar for the year. But like that, that is not what we pass out. And I'm going to share multiple different reasons why. But one of the reasons is because our website handles a lot of the rest of the stuff that is going to be needed in order to communicate that.
00:02:43:05 - 00:03:04:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you need to make sure that you have a website that's actually like navigate. Well, that's decent. It's a decent guest experience and it's up to date. The second thing is you want something that's designed well. If you look at the one here on screen, this is one that we, are giving away. Link down below. The templated, the blank version.
00:03:05:01 - 00:03:29:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is within our church's approved brand color palette and guides. So like, these are the student ministry colors within our church's color palette. So that's the first step of it. The second thing is like when I'm designing it, I typically choose a font or two that are like our fonts for the year. And then I'm just gonna be honest, like, icons are fun, but like, emojis are great.
00:03:29:13 - 00:03:50:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I try to just like link an emoji to some of the different events that we have. And that does a great job for it. The other thing is, like you see off to the side, here's like I also try to create some sort of icon that goes with like this season. So for fall we've done like coffee cups or we've done football helmets for the summer, we've done suns.
00:03:50:09 - 00:04:11:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And we, you know, in the spring we've done flowers. And so it gets tricky, especially if you're trying to do different ones and you're like doing them year over year. But you'll see the one linked right here. And you can go ahead and get the templated version link down below in the description. But you want your design to be something that, like, feels a little bit familiar but doesn't feel identical because you don't want them to think I've already got this.
00:04:11:18 - 00:04:28:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like they need to understand, like, no, this is a new one. Hey, quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.
00:04:28:15 - 00:04:50:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created these the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.
00:04:50:29 - 00:05:10:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid here? A Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.
00:05:10:25 - 00:05:37:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. And another major thing that you're going to want to do here, which is level three, is you only want to include events that you, particularly and specifically choose.
00:05:37:27 - 00:06:00:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And want to highlight. You don't want to put every single thing on your calendar. No, no, you want things that you only want at a high level. And so the way to make it visually appealing, in my opinion, and in my book, and to make it small and concise, is to not overwhelm it with information, but to only make it things that are noteworthy for families to know.
00:06:00:21 - 00:06:23:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
For example, we a lot of times say we meet every single Sunday. We meet every single Wednesday. However, these are ones you want to know about, and these are also ones that you want to know that we're not meeting because we meet every single week. But these in particular take note. We are not meeting. Additionally, and especially as it pertains to our spring calendar, we will post things about our, about our like winter weekend.
00:06:23:26 - 00:06:44:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And we'll also post, say, the dates for our summer camp communications already gone out for that. By the time this calendar gets in the hands of our students mid-year and like December. But this one is important that it just, you know, it gets on there because it's actually going to happen during this cycle, which I should say, for context, we produce three calendars per year.
00:06:44:09 - 00:07:05:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We produce a fall one, we produce a spring one, and then we also produce a summer one. And so in light of that, we're pumping out calendars three different times per year to get into the hands of students. The fourth level, and this I think, is, one of them, the most impressive, like, decisions that I ever stumbled into.
00:07:05:20 - 00:07:24:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I honestly can't even tell you how I stumbled into it. And I would say that this is the key. However, level five, is a new one that we've recently unlocked, and I think it's even better. But number four is we make this design and then we print this using like sticker mule. We print this on a magnet.
00:07:24:25 - 00:07:43:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Here's the psychology. Here's my thought behind it. Right. Everyone passes out a calendar for the year. There's the sports calendar. There's the academic calendar. And in a lot of cases, there's the youth group calendar. But what I want and maybe this is just my competitiveness, but like I want my calendar to be the thing holding on other calendars.
00:07:43:07 - 00:08:05:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. Like if you got your sports calendar, I want the youth calendar to be the thing that is keeping the sports calendar affixed to the fridge. That puts us on top of it. And they're probably going to choose sports over student ministry. But I just like to think in my own head, like, think about all of these calendars that are on magnets, that are on people's fridges, that are at the top of line, top of sight.
00:08:05:03 - 00:08:33:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And hopefully they're seeing, and remembering and keeping us again, top of mind. The fifth and final level, which I think is like the ultimate is, you'll see here. And you've probably noticed that we actually and this is helpful because of our website, we build our website and our calendar on our website, on the provider of, of nucleus, and on nucleus, what you can do is you can link in a dot ICS, which is an iCal calendar extension.
00:08:33:21 - 00:08:48:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's all you put in like your phone. But it's also like a shareable option out of like even a Google calendar. So we create just like a Google Calendar, we keep the Google Calendar up to date. That auto populates to our website, right? Which is like again, and I said, like, you want to make sure that your, your website is up to date.
00:08:48:27 - 00:09:09:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if people land on your website, that's information is not on your your big calendar, your highlight calendar, your magnet calendar that they do end up on your website, they're able to obtain the information that they need and that they're looking for. But then we've created a QR code where they can simply subscribe to the calendar in their phones.
00:09:09:07 - 00:09:32:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this is, in my opinion, the penultimate, because this makes these, at a glance calendars great, but not the most crucial thing. I think a lot of youth pastors treat this calendars the most crucial thing. But what happens when students don't have access to it? What happens when they lose it? What happens when you give it to them and they accidentally set it down before they get it into the hands of their parents?
00:09:32:18 - 00:09:56:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If a parent can subscribe to our calendar, then they will never miss an event. They'll never miss an update. It will be populated onto the very device and onto the very app that they use to manage and control their entire life. Their calendar app. And what a better place than for your youth ministry and your church calendar to be on parents phones and on students phones.
00:09:56:22 - 00:10:18:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so put a QR code, put some sort of link where they can go and they can subscribe to the events. And so all of the events are exactly where they're supposed to be and where you ultimately want them to be at the end of the day, remember, the goal of this is communication so that people know what's going on and that they then also hopefully choose to attend your church and your event in your youth group.
00:10:18:04 - 00:10:39:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The the goal and this is not a beautiful calendar. Hopefully we can help you create one. And once again link down below free in the in the podcast or YouTube description. But the goal is communication at its core. And so that fifth and final layer adding adding a QR code so that people and parents can, subscribe to your church and your youth ministry calendar.
00:10:40:01 - 00:10:54:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Such a game changer. Well, hey everyone, the next episode is linked right here on the screen as well as the subscribe button. If you found this episode helpful, a payment for this free calendar would be amazing. A like a subscribe and share it with a friend. But until next time. And as always, don't forget. Stay hybrid.
11 min
November 06, 2025 Episode 174: 5 LEVELS OF TAMING A WILD YOUTH ROOM
There's nothing worse than speaking to an out of control room full of students.
In this episode, I explain my 5 levels, escalating to most effective, way to control a wild room with your teaching content and approach. Be sure to stick around to hear how Marvel has cracked the attention span conundrum.
🍂 FALL SOCIAL MEDIA PACK
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fall-seasonal-137477671?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
🦸 HYBRID HEROES GET THE PACK FOR FREE!
https://www.patreon.com/hybridministry
SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/174
USE SIDEKICK & PROPRESENTER AT THE SAME TIME
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/setup
COLEADER CURRICULUM
https://www.coleader.co
NEW TEACHING TECHNIQUE DESCRIBED
https://www.patreon.com/posts/interesting-new-137528798?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
--------------
🎉 FREE STUFF 🎉
We have all kinds of FREE Things that you can use in your context!
The best way to pay us back is a review or a YouTube Subscribe!
https://www.linktr.ee/clasonnick
--------------
🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid
//BEST DYM RESOURCES
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym
//OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How to Teach a Wild Room
00:48 I’m a glutton for chaos
01:56 Level 1: Tell Them
03:50 Level 2: Know Them
07:40 Level 3: Include Them
08:59 Level 4: Engage Them
10:44 Level 5: Teach Them
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:07 - 00:00:24:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, that moment that you're trying to teach, and two kids start whispering to each other, someone's throwing a sock, and somehow some how slime is involved. You know, early on in my youth ministry days, I knew that the students were the problem. But over my last 15 years, I began to wonder what if part of the chaos is actually my fault?
00:00:24:19 - 00:00:45:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Today, I'm going to be breaking down the five levels of taming a wild youth through and at the end of the show, make sure that you stick around, because I am going to share with you the shift that Marvel understands that I saw, that I began to start to see students truly lean in without needing to raise my voice.
00:00:45:16 - 00:01:11:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome, everybody, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. Today we're addressing this question. How do you handle disruptions during teaching time? I'm tired of stopping my lessons to redirect a few, and in this episode, I want to detail and outline my five levels of taming a wild room. And here's what you got to understand is that I actually invite and embrace chaos.
00:01:11:09 - 00:01:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like in our space. We could very easily, and let's be honest, probably even more, I probably even make a little bit more sense for us to do it in rows, but instead we're a middle school heavy on Wednesday night, midweek, type of context. And we put them around round tables. And last year we increased our chair intake around the tables from 8 to 10.
00:01:32:08 - 00:01:52:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we're inviting even more chaos to sit around each of those tables. That being said, it's a calculated risk that I try to facilitate and operate with the idea of community, worth and willing to take that risk so that we can get the better. And on the other side, however, that does mean that sometimes we do face a wild room.
00:01:52:21 - 00:02:12:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So with that being said, let's dive into my five different levels. Level number one is this tell them. All right. Tell them to stop talking and I get it. And that and that question you're saying like I'm tired of doing that. Now, if you are doing that on a regular basis, then maybe some of these other levels are going to be worth your while.
00:02:12:13 - 00:02:31:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But to start it off, if you have a wild room, you just need to very simply like be firm. And actually it's interesting because I asked a group of, table leaders that I have in my youth ministry, that try to actually help keep some of my students on track and keep some of our, our, lessons, like on the rails, so to speak.
00:02:31:10 - 00:02:48:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they were asking me the other day, like, how do you do that? How do you lean in to kind of that with, with students? And I ask you guys, do you guys think that I mean, like, do you consider me personally mean? And they're like, no, not at all. And I was like, but am I able and willing to be firm when I need to know?
00:02:48:26 - 00:03:12:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, oh yeah, definitely. And so you have to understand that if you're the youth pastor, maybe you're young, maybe you're afraid of like, people thinking you mean students not liking you. Like you can still be firm and they can still like you? Those two things are allowed to be the same thing at the same time. Right? And another thing that I've actually even done is like, I've gone directly up to some of the bigger tables, in the last couple of weeks.
00:03:12:24 - 00:03:26:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I said, hey, listen, do you guys want me to split you into two tables? Like, no, no, no, please don't do that. Please don't do that. And I'm like, great, I will not. But I'm also going to expect you to act like adults, which means I am not going to ask you guys multiple times to be quiet.
00:03:26:27 - 00:03:40:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if I do have to ask you to be quiet, then I will begin to split the tables. But if I can trust you, and if you can lock in, if you can engage, then I'll let you stay together. And that that has actually really worked really well for some of our tables. Because you know how it is.
00:03:41:00 - 00:04:16:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You got a big table. You look over there, this is what you get. It wasn't me, it was them. It was their zoom. It was then. It wasn't me. So the second level is know them, right? No. These students know how they learn. Right. And one of the things that we have leaned into consistently is I cannot tell you in youth ministry, the last time that I spoke my entire message without any sort of gap or without any sort of break, like youth pastor, if you're trying to teach for 30 minutes straight, like, what are you doing?
00:04:16:14 - 00:04:53:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, you know that your students don't learn that way. In fact, if you look here at the Pyramid of learning, auditory lecture style based learning is the least effective of all the styles of learning. So why are you trying to keep their attention with a lecture style message for 30 or greater minutes? In fact, there's like the whole theory that, Gen Z and Gen Alpha's attention span is less than seven seconds, and we get that data from click through rates and like, bounce off rates from websites like people spend only on average seven seconds or less on a website.
00:04:53:28 - 00:05:14:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the theory is that they have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. But the reality is, is that they know within seven seconds or less if this thing is going to be worth their time. Take for example, on the other hand, the flip side, the highest grossing movie movies of all time are all greater than 2 to 3 hours.
00:05:14:04 - 00:05:37:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Avengers endgame is an over three hour movie, and when it came out, it became the highest grossing movie of all time. Why can't a movie that's greater than 3.5 hour or greater than three hours, at least keep a student's attention because it knows how to keep things moving and students, if they're interested, they will lean in. So know them and break your message up with a gap in the middle.
00:05:37:10 - 00:05:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Yet for some reason, you continue to drone on and this is what you get. The inside of a middle school boy's brain. Did I eat dinner? Is his shirt inside out? When is this? Over six. Seven? Is it actually why? I have a Patreon devoted to this. Every single week I share with you how I'm breaking up my message.
00:05:59:20 - 00:06:25:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in the past, when I was younger, listening to the way other youth pastors that are a little bit further along than me were planning and programing their services, help get my creative juices going. So for just $4 a month, $48 for a year, not only will you get my weekly breakdown of what we're doing in our youth ministry, but you'll also get access to my full seasonal social media pack in all the seasonal social media packs as the seasons rotate through.
00:06:25:29 - 00:06:43:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.
00:06:43:03 - 00:07:06:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts. See? See? Here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.
00:07:06:14 - 00:07:26:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly Hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12. Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.
00:07:26:25 - 00:07:55:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. The third thing I want to, challenge you to do is to include them, right? Like include the students. And so one of the things that we do is in addition to the breaks is while we're in the gaps of our teaching, we'll also include moments that we call table talks.
00:07:55:08 - 00:08:16:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you don't have the ability to set tables, you can also call it a turn and talk. And you still get the alliteration, which is exactly what all of us Baptists want to do. But we have to somehow try and move our students from a passive consumer to an active contributor. And I get it. Like most churches in America, especially like big church where you're senior pastors, preaching is a passive consumer setting.
00:08:16:08 - 00:08:36:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But we say you need to get involved in serve. You need to get involved in the community. You need to get involved in the life of our church. And yet then the way to get involved is just make sure that you come and sit here and listen to us talk instead. What if you gave them an opportunity to, think through this, to analyze, to evaluate, to discuss, to wrestle with the truth that's coming at them from God's Word.
00:08:36:27 - 00:08:47:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And when I'm teaching, teaching, teaching. And then all of a sudden I throw a table, talk. They're not allowed to just sit there like this anymore.
00:08:47:28 - 00:09:12:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I don't, I will, I wasn't listening. Well, what do you say to when I throw a table talk? I say, hey, listen out loud with words. Go. The fourth level is to engage them. So give breaks, create table talk. So these are both natural rhythms and breaks and pattern interrupts that are going to help with the kind of Marvel theory, the keep it moving.
00:09:12:08 - 00:09:34:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Keep it going. Don't get stale, don't get stagnant seven second thing but now when you're actually teaching, use creativity. And once again, this is why I have my Patreon, because I want to help you lean into your creativity. You can make your illustrations better, right? Like we're using Collider. And one of the lessons, was talking about a dog pooping on the lawn.
00:09:34:22 - 00:10:06:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, that's a great illustration of a self collider. Best curriculum on the planet. Use hybrid ministry. 1001 word to get 10% off your first year of it. But I punched it up a little bit. How I, I took their dog pooping illustration, and I added a photo of a cute dog. All right. And then after adding the photo of the cute dog, I decided, hey, let's name this cute dog to the point that as I'm making this illustration about forgiveness of a dog pooping on your front lawn, I had a student all the way leaned in, eventually.
00:10:06:21 - 00:10:38:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Say we named the dog Buttercup based off the sidekick voting feature. I said, hey, Buttercup, is cooked, okay? And you got to be using sidekick on the regular because you can add in things. And I added this one on the fly. In fact, on the episode, I just recorded five minutes ago, the breakdown episode, I explained to you how I came up with this and how I instituted it, and link down below in the show notes will help you know how you can run sidekick and pro presenter at the exact same time, but you need to engage their creativity.
00:10:39:05 - 00:11:00:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You need to make your your lessons and your illustrations more creative and help them lean in. And then the fifth and final, level here of, teaching a wild room is to actually teach them, like, actually teach them God's Word. In fact, in an episode link down below, I talk about a couple students who came up to me afterward and they said, you need to do that more.
00:11:00:25 - 00:11:28:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, what is that? And they said, you, you actually like, taught us, like you gave us like a sheet of paper or our Bible, and you were underlining and circling and drawing arrows and, and helping, create like parallels between different like things in the text, like, do that more like actually leaning in to teach them, not just give them a motivational message, not just give them creativity, not just break up our programing, but actually teach them something valuable and meaningful found in God's Word.
00:11:28:22 - 00:11:50:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's the fifth level of helping tame a wild room and doing all five of these things on a regular and consistent basis for us has really helped lean in and created value and opportunity within our youth ministry. Well, hey everyone, I hope you found this episode helpful. Tap the next episode. Subscribe here on screen. But until next time and as always, don't forget stay hybrid.
12 min
October 30, 2025 Episode 173: Youth Ministry Interview Tips (with a twist!)
Before your next interview, watch these 5 levels of interview tips. We'll offer 5 levels of tips plus 5 levels of tests for you to land the perfect church job! The twist at the end, most youth pastors miss!
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 5 Levels of Interviewing
00:29 Level 1: The Basics
02:22 Level 2 Apprentice
05:58 Level 3: Pro Mode
07:54 Level 4: Mentor Mode
10:17 Level 5: Boss Level
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you land a youth ministry interview.
00:00:02:27 - 00:00:05:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Congratulations. But now what? For you
00:00:05:23 - 00:00:07:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
walk in and start pitching
00:00:07:16 - 00:00:10:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Fortnite lock ins. I'm going to share with you my
00:00:10:09 - 00:00:19:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
five different levels of interview techniques that I've used in my over 15 years of youth ministry, and probably more than 50 different interviews. Make
00:00:19:15 - 00:00:25:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
sure that you stick around to the end, because I'm going to throw a twist at you that most youth pastors miss.
00:00:25:15 - 00:00:28:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome, everybody to the hybrid Ministry show.
00:00:28:16 - 00:00:44:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. My name is Nick Klassen. I am your host, and we're going to be answering this question. What advice would you give to someone going into their first interview for a youth pastor position, knowing that the only experience they have is as a leader or a volunteer?
00:00:45:00 - 00:01:02:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I said, we're going to be walking through my five levels of youth ministry, and we're going to share a tip and then a test that you are going to lay out before the church. And so the first tip is make sure that you show up on time and that you dress appropriately like this. Listen, this is the basics.
00:01:02:05 - 00:01:22:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Be there when you say you're going to be there. Dress how you feel like you should just for the job. But the test okay is a little bit of, maybe a little bit of a surprise is that maybe don't dress quite so appropriately and see how the church responds to maybe you showing up in shorts, you showing up in a t shirt.
00:01:22:03 - 00:01:38:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, listen, you have to be willing to maybe not land that particular job, but I know in my experience, there's been times where like one time I went to a church and I didn't want to go to a church that was all stuck up and where I was going to have to dress up every single week and wear a tie.
00:01:38:08 - 00:01:57:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I went to meet the youth pastor. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was like, you know what? I'm wearing shorts and we're just going to see how they respond to that. And to their credit, they responded actually really well. But there's, there's a, element in there where you're kind of like watching and observing and seeing how they're going to respond.
00:01:57:11 - 00:02:16:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, you have to know the context you have to know where you're walking into. And in most interviews that either I've been a part of or that I have hosted, the interviewee, does tend to be the more overdressed, but that all depends on the type of church that you're going to find yourself at, in the type of context that you find yourself in.
00:02:16:21 - 00:02:21:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But the very basics is show up on time and be as professional as possible.
00:02:21:26 - 00:02:44:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Level two is what I call the apprentice mode, and in this, the tip is that you need to research the church and its values. You should watch a couple or listen to a couple of sermons. You should read their about page. You should not be surprised if they don't have a denomination listed in their name, what their denomination is that they've just changed their name from.
00:02:44:17 - 00:03:12:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But you should have, some info and some basics about this church from some of the research that you've pulled up online. Now, the other thing, the test in this is that you should have questions about their values queued up that you find that you are genuinely curious about. So as you're having the interview and as they're asking you things and you notice something, they ask a certain question.
00:03:12:27 - 00:03:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I want you to earmark that, because at the end of every interview, they say, what questions do you have for me? And when I'm in the interview worksheet, I want that person to ask me questions about where I work. I want to be able to help fill out the picture for what it looks like. And when they say, I think I'm good right now, that I'm just going to be honest, is a little bit of a turnoff for me.
00:03:35:21 - 00:03:59:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in the same way, be gearing up and have some questions. So for example, at the church I work at now, I noticed that their small group system all meet on Sunday morning, which at the exact same time, so does student ministry. So I ask questions about the value of small group as well as what it means for me as a youth pastor at this church, to be able to be in and around and a part of community.
00:03:59:10 - 00:04:22:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I got what I needed. Another thing that happened at this church was I asked questions about where they stand and how they feel about social media and hybrid ministry. This is the Hybrid Ministry podcast, and since I've been here in the last three years, we've experienced two acts growth in our youth ministry attendance and in our youth ministry involvement.
00:04:22:08 - 00:04:38:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But it didn't come with a little bit of a price where some people were like, do you know what the youth ministry is doing and how much emphasis and and how much time and effort they're putting in to social media and we had to overcome a little bit of that with some people who are a little bit put off.
00:04:39:04 - 00:04:58:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But our approach to our hybrid ministry, but as you can see, it's paid off. Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day as a youth pastor, scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.
00:04:58:28 - 00:05:21:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.
00:05:21:12 - 00:05:41:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.
00:05:41:08 - 00:05:58:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry
00:05:58:07 - 00:06:04:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
level three takes me to my Pro mode, and it's to ask my favorite interview question of all time.
00:06:04:11 - 00:06:28:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the question is this if I accepted this job and I started tomorrow and I did an amazing job, I hit a home run. What did I do? What did I do? That's my tip. I want you to ask that question. Regardless of if you're new and just an, a volunteer stepping into a potential paid youth ministry position or a youth ministry veteran.
00:06:28:08 - 00:06:52:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And here's why. And honestly, the tip is the test. Because this question will show you and it will reveal. And it will, like a detective, uncover what your interviewer, what your boss, what your senior pastor, whoever it is, the personnel committee that you're sitting down with and having this discussion. It will show you what they are looking for and what they are valuing.
00:06:52:28 - 00:07:17:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As a youth pastor, when a youth pastor comes into their their church. And another thing that you might notice is they may have some very strict particular ideas and you might ask like, so how did how did it end with the last person that was here? And you might come to notice that they're trying to interview for the opposite person, especially if it ended badly.
00:07:17:08 - 00:07:35:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you that's not a red flag. That's not a reason to say no to the job. But it's it's worthwhile for you to take note of, okay, I'm up against this person's performance and the expectations that this person brought to the job, and they're trying to find someone a little bit different, and you're going to have to at least be able to speak to that.
00:07:35:16 - 00:07:53:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if they say this person has to be incredibly organized, you say, is it okay if I stack a team of people around me to help me be organized? Because that might not be my strong suit or or something like that, but be prepared to respond to that question. If I did a great job, what did I do?
00:07:53:12 - 00:07:53:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The fourth
00:07:53:29 - 00:08:18:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
level, which is the mentor mode level, is the tip I want to have for you is have a defined philosophy of ministry for yourself. If you know why you do what you do, then when you get in, you start talking Fortnite lock ins and ideas like, I'm just going to be honest, when I, as an interviewer, get a bunch of like ideas of like youth ministry stuff, I genuinely don't care.
00:08:18:24 - 00:08:37:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the reason I don't care is not because I don't think those aren't good ideas, but those aren't the real needle movers. The real needle movers are the ideas that are tied to a genuine biblical purpose. So in our church, we kind of operate out of like a four chair disciple making model. Other churches or other people like I would recommend.
00:08:37:12 - 00:09:11:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you don't know anything about a philosophy of ministry, before you hop into an interview, take a look through either one of these two books, Purpose Driven Youth Ministry by the goat himself, Doug Fields, or for Chair Discipleship by Dan Spader. Or better yet, read them both. But everything you do. We just had this discussion last week with my my current interns, residents and staff, and we said everything we do around here is incredibly strategic and incredibly tied to a reason and a biblical purpose, even if from the outside looking in, you're like, you guys are just the hybrid ministry.
00:09:11:13 - 00:09:35:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Social media people like, know every single reason by what we do on social media ties back to a particular meaningful moment and meaningful reason and meaningful purpose. And while you're in the interview, the test for you, once you have your philosophy of ministry laid out, is you need to try and listen for balance in their in their line of questioning across all the lanes of disciple making.
00:09:35:10 - 00:10:03:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
For example, they might lean heavy evangelism. So while you're in there, the test question that you might have is you may ask them about their, disciple making culture, or they might lean heavy on education and discipleship. And you might ask them, what's the last outreach event that you've had? So the test is you want to try and listen for an aim for some measure of balance and, and, churches tend to skew and lean, either strong discipleship, strong evangelism, strong worship, strong serving.
00:10:03:07 - 00:10:17:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But you want to try and listen for or ask about, right? And if you have a philosophy of ministry and they don't talk about worship at all, you might ask about what's your opinion of worship? How does you know? How does your church? How does your youth ministry attempt to approach that?
00:10:17:06 - 00:10:21:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The fifth and final level, which is the boss level, which is where the twist comes in?
00:10:22:03 - 00:10:43:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The tip is this. The tip is flip. The interview and interview them. Right. The the bottom line about all this is this is the church isn't just choosing you though. They are. You're also choosing them. You have to decide, do I want to work? Here's this type of place I want to be. Do I like them right during this interview process, do they?
00:10:44:02 - 00:11:00:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They treat me well because here's the fact they're going to treat you in the interview process as well as their as well. Excuse me, as well as they're ever going to treat you. And can you see yourself and can you see even maybe more importantly, especially if you have a wife and kids, can you see your family there long term?
00:11:00:27 - 00:11:19:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. This is the secret cheat code that sets you apart. That is the test. That is the twist is that you are going to be interviewing them. And you see all throughout the test I offer our different little like subtle tests where you're trying to gain Intel and you're trying to come to an understanding of the church as well.
00:11:19:16 - 00:11:42:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the cheat code for this is that when you learn to interview them, they also because A you're going to be curious. They like that. They like when people are curious they like when people are asking questions. So if you think that this helped you level up your interview game, hit the subscribe button that you see here on screen, as well as hit this next episode button.
00:11:42:21 - 00:11:58:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We're going to be answering some more questions and, trying to head through different layers and levels of youth ministry. It will help you both crush your weekly ministry as well as help you get a new job in the future. But until next time and as always, my friends, don't forget stay happy.
12 min
October 23, 2025 Episode 172: The Cellphone Problem in Youth Groups
In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, we tackle the cellphone problem in youth groups and reveal a 3-step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry that actually works. Instead of fighting students for their phones, you’ll learn how youth pastors can use a variety of tools to their benefit, including how to turn phones from a distraction to an actual asset. If you’re looking for practical youth ministry tips, phone management strategies, and digital discipleship tools to keep students engaged, this episode is for you.
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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/172
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--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Phones in Youth Group
00:23 How Do you Keep Kids off Phones?
00:38 Step #1
01:24 Step #2
02:15 Step #3
04:09 Idea #1
06:09 Fall Social Media Plan
07:22 Idea #2
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this episode, we're going to talk about my three step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry.
00:00:08:05 - 00:00:17:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But what I also want to show you is how I've turned phones from a distraction to an asset in our youth ministry. And frankly, it's
00:00:17:01 - 00:00:24:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
a lot easier than fighting kids to get rid of their phones. Welcome everyone to the Hybrid Ministry Show.
00:00:24:10 - 00:00:29:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, we are answering this question.
00:00:29:05 - 00:00:34:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What are the ways that you have been able to keep students from being on phones during lessons and smog?
00:00:34:17 - 00:00:34:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Glad you
00:00:34:26 - 00:00:51:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
asked. Here's my three step strategy. Step number one is a central parking location. Like you read the comments of this post and just about everyone has either like some charging stations solution a little like hanging basket,
00:00:51:02 - 00:00:54:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
place for them to just like, leave their phones in the middle.
00:00:54:23 - 00:01:11:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Some different pictures, some different links to different things. We even had at our church at one point in time, we had like cell phone lockers. So this is like lockers with temporary codes where you go, you put your phone in, you create your own code, and then you come back and you get it. At the end of the night, we no longer have them.
00:01:11:12 - 00:01:30:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I tell you why in a minute, but, that's an option that was like the most, like next level solution. But basically everybody does it. Like, you just make that the thing. Hey, everyone, put your phones here before we go on into the room for youth group. The other option, let's be honest, like one of the good things that they could be using on their phone is like the Bible app.
00:01:30:26 - 00:01:49:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so if you're teaching from the Bible, you're going to give them some sort of like scripture lesson, and they're going to pull their Bibles out on their phone to read it. But then you know how phones work. That's because distraction there, over there, then playing clash clans in a minute, and they're no longer reading the Bible because you stopped reading the Bible in your lesson.
00:01:49:19 - 00:02:15:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, the solution set in two is just very simply like, provide paper Bibles, like if you want kids not on their phones and you want kids in the Bible, provide paper Bibles everywhere, all throughout your space so that there's no excuse for it and or also encourage, and even like potentially bribe and reward students who do bring their paper, Bibles to youth group to engage with Scripture in that way.
00:02:15:23 - 00:02:16:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The third
00:02:16:13 - 00:02:20:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
and most effective way, in my opinion, this is more of like in a small group setting.
00:02:20:04 - 00:02:25:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're in like a large group, room, this doesn't quite work. But in a small group setting,
00:02:25:04 - 00:02:35:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm a huge fan of the idea of a thing called a group covenant. Okay. And a group covenant is essentially something that you do at the beginning of a small group term or cycle.
00:02:36:09 - 00:02:55:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So you got to think about this. If you have like groups that never break for any sort of rhythm or any sort of reason, then you got to create natural kind of like start points. So, you know, beginning of the school year, maybe like beginning of the calendar year, something like that. Or in certain contexts I've worked in, we've, we had three distinct small groups cycles.
00:02:55:12 - 00:03:15:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we had the fall, the winter and then the summer. And so and then each of those ran for 12 weeks at a time or whatever. And so, during the beginning section of those, you, you have a small group covenant. So you talk about rules and expectations. What's the expectation in this group for treating one another and all those types of things?
00:03:15:21 - 00:03:20:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, in that the other thing that I recommend,
00:03:20:13 - 00:03:41:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
is you ask, what are we going to do about phones? And you let the students decide, and that's more powerful than you having temporary cell phone lockers. That's more powerful than you having paper Bibles. When you let the student say, decide and dictate what's going to happen with phones, that's where the wind is found.
00:03:41:10 - 00:04:07:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you just simply ask, what are we going to do about phones? They come up with it. And I've always found that students in a group covenant setting actually make stricter rules than rules that you would probably want to make for them. And so let them decide through the avenue of a group covenant, which, by the way, is one of the things I did not see in the comments of the description, however, of that of that question.
00:04:07:11 - 00:04:24:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, this is the hybrid ministry show, and so I would be remiss to not talk about the ways in which I have actually tried to use phones as an asset. And so in our student ministry, when I started here and this episode links right
00:04:24:00 - 00:04:31:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
here, I detailed and discussed how our hybrid ministry strategy has to our growth over the last three years.
00:04:31:29 - 00:04:55:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when I got here, one of the moves we made was we went from rows to tables. That was a major decision and quite frankly, a thing that people had. Some issue with that at first. But now we do tables pretty much consistently. And whenever we take them away, people like you don't like rows anymore. So it's just funny to watch how people kind of change and transform over time.
00:04:55:18 - 00:05:21:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But one of the things that we're leaning into is sidekick. And so we have a poll, a QR based poll, which is one of the features of the new beta sidekick, which, by the way, if you didn't know, you can jump into co-leader or co-leader Premium plus, with code Hybrid Ministry 1001 word. They'll give you 10% off co-leader, which also gives you access to all of the sidekick stuff.
00:05:21:08 - 00:05:41:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the benefits and they're still kind of working out some of the kinks, about sidekick and its relationship with the legacy version. But one of the kinks or but one of the best parts about the new version, the beta version of sidekick is, the, the poll voting. And so we use that all the time.
00:05:41:20 - 00:05:59:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so poll voting kids get their phone out their skin and they can vote. They can use it for games. They can use it for messages. We even use it sometimes in the pre-roll. I tell you what, I'm going to do that I'm going to link down below our sidekick set up because, it's still not all the way full proof yet.
00:05:59:12 - 00:06:09:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so sometimes pro presenter is a better option. And so we actually run both on two different machines, and show you how we set that up. Link down below.
00:06:09:06 - 00:06:16:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey, quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media?
00:06:16:11 - 00:06:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.
00:06:45:27 - 00:07:05:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid. Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.
00:07:05:24 - 00:07:22:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry.
00:07:22:24 - 00:07:37:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The other thing that we use is a feature called Digital Notes, which is just a US leaning into the resource and the platform of the YouVersion Bible app, live event section that, YouVersion includes.
00:07:37:06 - 00:07:59:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we set up a YouVersion live events, reading plan. Or it's not even a reading plan necessarily, but a YouVersion live events to follow along with the notes every single week. And like I said, we sit at tables and so we have like a little placard, plastic about this big. It sits in the middle of the table and it says, follow along with this week's digital notes, and it's got a QR code.
00:07:59:28 - 00:08:27:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the QR code stays the same. But then on our QR code service generator, we turn around and we change the link to that every single week. So we change the link to the newest, iteration of the digital notes of the YouVersion, events plan. And so, they can also, you know, navigate into it and find it on the YouVersion live, section of the YouVersion events, and they can follow along.
00:08:27:10 - 00:08:49:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
As you know, we're very like, video centric and hybrid ministry centric youth ministry. So we create thumbnails for all of our talks. And so all of our in-room talks also have the thumbnails that go at the top of the YouVersion live events plan. But the, other beautiful thing, frankly, about the YouVersion live events plan is you can link to things external.
00:08:49:16 - 00:09:10:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So once they're on there, you got them hooked in and you can help them follow along. You can ask them questions and they're things that they can interact with. They can highlight scripture, they can take notes. But then you can also include external links. So we have a next step like form on our website that we use. And so at the end of every single lesson we say are you ready to take a next step?
00:09:10:12 - 00:09:30:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Click here to let us know and it'll navigate them off to our website. And then the final piece in the YouVersion events is we include a Bible reading plan that relates to the topic of sorts. And so any single given week a student on the YouVersion live event plan, they are encouraged or asked at least if they want to take some sort of spiritual next step.
00:09:30:13 - 00:09:37:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And they're also fed some sort of Bible reading plan. And so I want to point that out as a way to say we have
00:09:37:13 - 00:09:55:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
use phones and sidekick gives us a sliver of that. But our digital notes really opens up a wide avenue of ways that we can help students take next steps and be more intentional and meaningful during the lesson, so that they're using their phones to follow along with what's going on.
00:09:55:15 - 00:10:15:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, I told you I made a calculated risk with tables. I also want to let you know that phones is another calculated risk. And in fact, like one of the one of the comments on this post of the question that I'm reading said, man, just let kids have their phones, stop making it a fight. And like I tend to actually agree with that guy, but I will let you know.
00:10:15:00 - 00:10:37:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like phones are still a fight and they are still a distraction. Just last week, two nights ago in our youth group, one of our leaders, one of our table leaders. So we have students that are in, senior high that are leading groups in discussions. He was playing a game on his phone, and one of our staff one up, and they said, our table leaders are allowed to play games on their phones.
00:10:37:01 - 00:10:54:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And he knew the answer to that was like, no. And so he had to go to that kid and say, hey, put your phone down. So if that's coming from one of our leaders, it's there's that much even trickle down to the rest of students. So, well, hear me say, what we do is not foolproof, all right. But it's a calculated risk that I'm willing to take.
00:10:54:01 - 00:11:12:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one that when a student brings their friend for the first time and a mom and dad. Imagine this. Your parent, you send your kid to imagine you send your kid to a completely different denomination or different religion to go with one of their friends, and then they don't have their phones for an hour. How would you feel if you couldn't get in contact with them?
00:11:12:17 - 00:11:32:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know, we're the millennial generation of of parents. We want to have contact with our children, especially if we've paid for and given them a phone. And so we try not to make that an obstacle for people to be able to come into our ministry. But again, it's a calculated risk and one that we are, used to, fighting and using.
00:11:32:11 - 00:11:48:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So let us know down below in the comments what you do in your youth ministry as it pertains to cell phones. And go ahead and subscribe what you see right here on the screen and check out the next question. Video. There's also here on screen. But until next time. And as always my friends, don't forget stay happy.
12 min
October 16, 2025 Episode 171: Grow Your Youth Group: EXPLOSIVE Attendance Secrets
These 5 Shifts in my approach to volunteers revolutionized by youth ministry.
These aren’t quick hacks — they’re the foundational principles that changed my thinking but they led to real, measurable growth.
The best news of all, not for me in the moment, but you is that each of these shifts were like levels in a video game that come with the big bad boss of a failure story that I had to defeat, from one of my 15 years in youth ministry, each boss becoming more and more epic, the final one left me questioning not only my job, but my career in ministry.
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 5 Levels of Volunteer Shifts
01:14 FAQ Playlist
02:04 Level 1: Chaos
04:21 Level 2: Lone Ranger
07:38 Level 3: Event
11:08 Level 4: Desperation
15:03 Level 5: Arrogance
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:08 - 00:00:25:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
For years, I thought the formula to youth ministry growth were better sermons and bigger events and flashier games. But I'm just going to be honest, none of that, none of it moved the needle. It wasn't until I learned not only that volunteer leaders matter, but it's when I unlocked these five shifts. It directly impacted the size in the health in the reach of my youth ministry.
00:00:25:04 - 00:00:46:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These aren't just some quick hacks. No, they're foundational principles that have revolutionized my thinking and led to real, measurable growth. But the best news of all for you? Not necessarily me. In each of these moments is that each one of these shifts, similar to like levels in a video game, come with a big bad boss of a failure story.
00:00:46:23 - 00:01:08:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I'm going to share each and every one of those failure stories with you until I had to defeat a different boss in one of my different 15 years of youth ministry, each boss becoming worse and the failure stories becoming more and more epic until we get to the final one, which left me not only questioning my job in that church, but also my youth ministry career.
00:01:08:27 - 00:01:29:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We're going to share these together in the hybrid ministry. So welcome everyone. Glad to have you. Well what's up everybody. Welcome to the Hybrid Minister Show. If you didn't know, we've been in a playlist here, talking and answering some different questions that I stumbled across in youth pastor Facebook groups. And this one today says I have officially crossed the line of 50 small group leaders.
00:01:29:00 - 00:01:47:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And for those of you who have 50 plus volunteers that are deeply invested in a week, how is you? How is your leadership of that team different than maybe a smaller team or so those of you who've crossed that line, how did you shift your leadership? So we're going to talk about the five levels of leadership, shifts that I've made.
00:01:47:02 - 00:02:07:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, frankly, I'm sitting right now at a position with greater than 50 leaders, and I would attribute, some of these shifts to be, what, some of those kind of, like, main things are. So with kind of that context out of the way, let's look through and chat through the five different levels. So the first level was the chaos level okay.
00:02:07:13 - 00:02:22:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So like in this chaos level I would constantly be frantically getting things set up. And I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit of a time optimist. And so what that means is like if I was like, okay, youth group starts at six, that means I need to get there at five to start getting things ready.
00:02:22:20 - 00:02:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I quickly learned I had to start moving that time back more and more because, you know, one of the things that would happen is I'm getting ready when students start showing up and I think they're going to show up at like 550, but instead students show up at like 530, and I am running out of time to get things set up.
00:02:40:18 - 00:03:02:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I feel chaotic in my spirit as they're there. And I'm also not able to give them any sort of attention or any sort of like relational equity, because I'm getting set up. So the next week I bump it back to five to maybe say 430, so I get a little bit more time. But then as I grow and as things in the ministry get more and more elaborate, and as we add more and more elements, I need more and more time.
00:03:02:05 - 00:03:21:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So the shift I had to make was the shift from the chaos to the control. Right? And so I could be in control. I could make that a moment that I actually owned that thing. And that was honestly a very like level one, very rookie mistake. And so the main shift I had to do is I had to start getting ready earlier.
00:03:21:08 - 00:03:36:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I had to start planning before Wednesday. I had to start planning on Tuesday, I had to start setting up earlier in the day. Whatever I needed to do. And the feel is this is that, early on, kids would walk in while I'm getting ready and I would be annoyed that a kid is there and like, I shouldn't be that way.
00:03:36:25 - 00:03:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, I'm a youth pastor, right? And so the shift, the very simple shift I had to make was if I just get set up earlier, then when a kid walks in, I'm done. They're not taking away something that I feel like I need to do, and I can devote and give my full attention to that kid who shows up early, which is a great thing for that kid.
00:03:53:27 - 00:04:14:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And with just that small, subtle shift, I started to see, more and more kind of like growth. I was more prepared for my leaders. I wasn't scrambling to get them things like printed out and handouts and service orders and all those types of things like those are all ready to go. When I started to do that, when I was more in control, when I was in less of a chaotic vibe, that all started to help.
00:04:14:23 - 00:04:35:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, there wasn't much right in that first level, as it pertains with volunteer leaders, because the second level here is the lone Ranger level. And for many, many years in youth ministry, I felt like it was my job because frankly, I'm getting paid by the church to do the youth ministry. But it wasn't until I started to learn this idea of delegation.
00:04:36:01 - 00:04:57:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right? And, the only real moments where I was able to get to a spot where I realized I had to go from Lone Ranger to delegation was when I had to defeat this big, bad boss. One Thursday. I was sitting in my office and I had, like, 20 to 25 new student, welcome. Like postcards that I had to write.
00:04:57:12 - 00:05:21:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It was just something that we had to do. Every time we had a new student, we had to write out a card. And every single week at this church, I was getting more and more new students, like 20, 25, like I was at a multi-site megachurch, and I was getting more than 20 new students every single week. And so I was, I had just started, taking over that position full time, independently.
00:05:21:04 - 00:05:37:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I had worked with, a coworker for, several months, and it was my first week without her, as kind of my counterpart in my my boss walks in, who's my campus pastor who didn't know anything about these cards or anything like that. It wasn't him who assigned those to me. And so he's like, hey, you got a minute?
00:05:37:28 - 00:06:02:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was like, literally, no. And I didn't look up. And I kept frantically writing while he's at my door and I'm trying to talk within. I'm trying to have conversation with them. I can't even remember what it was about, but. And I knew that that was rude. I knew I should have put my pin down. I looked at him, but what that was going to mean was I wasn't going to get to leave work on time when I needed to leave work, and that was also a value of mine.
00:06:02:07 - 00:06:25:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so in that moment, I was like, I never want to get to the spot again. Like, I need to delegate some of this off. I need to do what only I can do. And there are plenty of volunteers and there are plenty of people. I had an amazing check in team that could have very easily at the end of check in when you know, it's like, let's say the event starts at six and it's 610 and most of the students have checked in.
00:06:25:06 - 00:06:46:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They're there for the next hour and 20 minutes like they had plenty of time to write 25 notes between five of them, you know what I'm saying? But I didn't delegate it to them. So therefore the fail was that it ended up on my desk the very next day. And I had, instead of five cards to write, which is what five different volunteers with 25 cards would have, written.
00:06:46:15 - 00:07:06:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I wrote all 25 of them, and so I had to learn to start delegating. And it took a minute. And that's part of the the, the fail in this is that it takes a minute to get up over that initial hurdle of creating a system of delegation, like getting the postcards down there, telling them where they are, telling them how to check on who the first time guests are.
00:07:06:20 - 00:07:27:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You know how we're going to handle that, because they might not know in the moment, like when a kid checks in. But once we get past all of that, then, I start to experience a little bit more, success. And I beat that level. Of delegation. We all know that there's only a certain amount of capacity that any one person has, and you might be a person with an extraordinarily high capacity.
00:07:27:25 - 00:07:47:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But as your church and as your youth ministry grows, you're going to reach a breaking point where you definitely need to move on and defeat that big bad boss to delegation. Which led me then to my third level, where I had to shift my mindset, from the event is this is the event level. I had to move from event to hybrid.
00:07:47:03 - 00:08:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the fail is that early on in some of my early on days, every single event was crucial, and every single attendance marker in that event was even more crucial. So if we had a big event, the first thing I was doing was I was checking guest cards and I was checking our, check in kiosks because I wanted to see how many kids we had.
00:08:06:21 - 00:08:24:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I thought to myself, you know, like, if we have this event and last event we had, say 50 kids, I wanted to get to 55, or I wanted to get to 60, or I wanted to get to 65. And I started to put all my effort and my worth honestly into that bottom line number. And I started making it all about events.
00:08:24:26 - 00:08:46:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then Covid happened and what I realized during Covid, was that we had and I actually share this entire story right here at this video linked up, here at the top of the screen in my 100th episode, I made a little documentary style, like, kind of how and where this hybrid thing all came from. But what I realized was that there were multiple avenues of touch points.
00:08:46:02 - 00:09:09:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, my very first day, on a job at a church was the first day of Covid. And in that I realized, out of sheer like constraints, like we didn't have in-person, I couldn't speak to the students live in a room. So all of the normal touchpoints were gone. And so I had to get creative about how we can still connect with students through writing things like postcards, which probably were some of that started.
00:09:09:17 - 00:09:27:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I wasn't delegating quite yet. Right. Or, social media or all those types of things. And that's really where a lot of this hybrid stuff came from, realizing that we can still do pastoral care even when we're not in the room. Now, I wouldn't recommend, like, Covid going back to that where we we're never in the room and that's never a possibility.
00:09:27:29 - 00:09:45:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But there's some both and right there's there's the both of being able to be in the room and also some of the pastoral care that can happen when we're not in the room and we can lean in to some of that sort of hybrid thing. And so the fail was when I would ride or die based off of some of those event numbers.
00:09:45:25 - 00:10:02:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I had to get over and realize that Covid allows me to have more touch points with it, which is honestly the entire reason why this podcast exists. Hey quick break, let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media?
00:10:02:15 - 00:10:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed.
00:10:32:02 - 00:10:51:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly Hybrid hero Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast? They get this pack completely for free. So if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799.
00:10:51:27 - 00:11:11:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. The fourth level is to move.
00:11:11:11 - 00:11:35:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is called the desperation level. I don't know if you've ever been there before, but you look at a spreadsheet and you just realize, like, man, I have so many gaps. I have so many holes in our, volunteer schedule and so you're desperate and you're recruiting people that, might not even be the best fit. You're recruiting people that you don't even really want to recruit, but you are desperate.
00:11:35:16 - 00:11:55:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, the shift I had to make was I had to move from desperation to confidence. And the confidence comes from this. Right. And I don't know how to tell you to to move from this aside from prayer, and just a mindset shift. But the confidence should come from the fact that this is not your student ministry.
00:11:55:06 - 00:12:12:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And while, yes, you're being paid to run and manage this student ministry, this is God's church. And Jesus told Peter that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church, that he is going to set up like you have the ability. And so therefore, you should have the confidence to lean on that promise. This is God's church.
00:12:12:20 - 00:12:31:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is God's student ministry. And so you don't have to be desperate. He cares more about it than you do. And so I will tell you one year, this is the boss that I had to defeat. This is the fail story that I had to overcome. One year I was, rolling hard. Like the weeks were just going by me to do.
00:12:31:10 - 00:12:49:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And all of a sudden, like, the the drop dead deadline for me where I needed to have all my leaders in place for small groups and new students and promotion week, we did it at the end of the summer. And so it was like early to mid August, which meant by like Labor Day or maybe even a little bit before that was going to be back to school.
00:12:49:14 - 00:13:04:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We were going to be having new students roll on up into our student ministry, and this particular class of students had a couple of kids in it that were, known throughout the entire church that like, they were tough ones. Right. And so I was having a really hard time because no one really wanted to be their leader.
00:13:04:23 - 00:13:27:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, I was I was trying in that moment to practice the confidence. And I remember, low key inside freaking out. But I was sitting in church, okay. And I just, I remember exactly where I was sitting, and I looked across the auditorium a little bit of the ways, and I laid eyes on just this dude.
00:13:27:06 - 00:13:45:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I knew, that he worked with, the homeless shelter in town. I knew that he had kind of like a, history of volunteering in sort of that arena and and he worked with a demographics that were maybe a little bit, above and beyond what our normal volunteers were used to working with, let's just say.
00:13:45:08 - 00:14:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I looked at him and I felt the Spirit of God say, go ask him. And so I went straight over to him and I said, hey, I got an idea for you, and I got a proposition. And we hadn't even really met. Right? Like his, his step kids were in my ministry, so like, we had that relationship like him, and I hadn't really talked very much, and he jumped in, and it was a beautiful pairing.
00:14:06:16 - 00:14:24:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It was a beautiful like decision. Like he was exactly the right guy for that moment. And I just remember I look back at that story a lot of times and that's a success story, frankly. But it was almost a fail story because I almost didn't have enough volunteers to start the year. But God reminded me, this is my student ministry.
00:14:24:21 - 00:14:43:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This is not yours. And so, you should still put the work in. You should still make the asks, you should still do the recruiting. But at the end of the day, you can operate out of a position of confidence. And quite frankly, this is something that I'm always working on because even in my current setting right now, we're still short a few volunteers.
00:14:43:23 - 00:15:03:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I'm not trying to be desperate. I'm trying to come from a position of strength, and I'm trying to come from a position of confidence. And when I did that in my spirit, well, maybe not all the holes got plugged from a pragmatic standpoint in my spirit, I was able to rest and relax and just lean on God and realizing this is his student ministry.
00:15:03:25 - 00:15:20:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Which leads me to my fifth level. And it was the arrogance level, right? Very similar to level two, which is the Lone Ranger level behind the Lone Ranger level is this idea that, like, I can do it and I want people to know that I can do it, that I can do an amazing job in the Lone Ranger level.
00:15:20:03 - 00:15:43:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's I'm just bad at delegating. But in this level, not only was I bad at delegating, I refused to delegate because I wanted the glory. I wanted the accolades, I wanted the credit and the the massive fail story. And this is, I was brand new in a church, and I changed what they did for camp. So the first year I went, it was my actual very first week on the job.
00:15:43:09 - 00:16:04:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I went to camp the very next year. I knew in my spirit I wanted to run my own camp. I wanted, all of the the glory, all the accolades that went along with that. And I could have gotten my leaders on board, but I was a being a lone Ranger and b being arrogant because I wanted to prove that I could do it, and I wanted them to be impressed with what I could do and what I could pull off.
00:16:04:12 - 00:16:21:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And frankly, what we pulled off was great. And we had a lot of like, God still used it, right? It's like that verse where where Paul says, like, I don't care why people are preaching. Like the fact that, Jesus is being preached like that's still the wind, but like, in that, like I lost a lot of equity.
00:16:21:12 - 00:16:42:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I lost a lot of track record. I lost a lot of trust with my leaders. And one night I was sitting out outside on, like a bank at the camp, kind of in a private spot, fielding a phone call from my senior pastor who said, hey, listen, if you wouldn't have handled this conversation a little bit better, we might be talking about your job.
00:16:42:06 - 00:17:03:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I was I was in that moment was one of my deepest, darkest, worst kind of moments in all of ministry. And simply, it was because I needed to make the shift from arrogance to humility and realized that the the leaders that God had put around me got to put around them, put them around me, to help maybe overcome some of the weaknesses that he knew that that I had.
00:17:03:15 - 00:17:28:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I could lean on them and I could trust them. And they were willing participants and willing people there that wanted to help me. I had to defeat that big, bad boss of arrogance. So these five leadership shifts have absolutely revolutionized my thinking. From chaos to control, from Lone Ranger to delegation, from event based to a hybrid ministry strategy, from desperation to confidence, and finally from arrogance to humility.
00:17:28:26 - 00:17:38:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And I pray, and I hope that you can make those five shifts in your youth ministry and in your volunteer leadership delegation rooting you on. And don't forget, my friends, to stay hybrid.
18 min
October 09, 2025 Episode 170: How to Ask for a Raise: Expert Gives Tips & Tricks
What if I told you that most youth pastors are only getting raises half the rate of inflation — if they’re getting them at all?
Today, I’m breaking down real data from the national Youth Pastor Compensation Survey with insights from experts like Dan Navarra — so you know exactly how much you should be getting paid.
And interestingly, the one thing you need to start right away, to ensure you’ll actually get one!
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https://www.chemistrystaffing.com/resources/2025-ypc-report/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMwI1hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHqRw5WscWSmiwBp5afBLz6uDGPKbmjGo1ZFahIvz20EJATyQOAKVxSicskUE_aem_y46XwdlOda44MkOTNbiDxg
2026 DATA
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 How to Ask for a Raise
00:42 What does the Data Say?
02:56 What about inflation?
04:05 What about curriculum usage?
06:42 What about Social Media?
08:41 What about Seminary?
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the best ways to get your students
00:00:03:13 - 00:00:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
inviting their friends to your group, as well as build momentum for the overall team. But here's
00:00:09:13 - 00:00:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something that someone might not tell you about some of these theme nights is that in every single one, there is an opportunity for a huge mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful.
00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time I
00:00:21:14 - 00:00:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
even thought I might be getting fired.
00:00:23:19 - 00:00:37:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so before you try this for yourself, in this episode, I'm going to share with you my five favorite theme nights from my last 15 years in youth ministry. And the one mistake I learned from each of those, so that you don't have
00:00:37:02 - 00:00:39:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to learn it the hard way for yourself.
00:00:39:12 - 00:00:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey my friends, welcome back to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I have been in this recent playlist asking and answering different questions found in different youth ministry
00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Facebook groups. And this
00:00:55:19 - 00:00:55:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one
00:00:55:27 - 00:00:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
says, hey, what are some theme nights you've done with your group that your kids have really enjoyed?
00:00:59:20 - 00:01:03:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like Jersey night? Crazy hair. Looking forward to some ideas.
00:01:03:16 - 00:01:03:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And
00:01:03:22 - 00:01:03:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so
00:01:03:28 - 00:01:23:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I figured, hey, I want to share some of my best theme nights. And I've discussed this before in some recent episodes. In fact, we did kind of like a fall playlist master class thing where I talked about my strategy for youth ministry. And oftentimes I'll make a theme night, a cultivate night, which is a bring your friends and invite style night.
00:01:23:22 - 00:01:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the very first, invite style nights that I did as a youth pastor was one that I grew up as a teenager doing my youth pastor shout out to Pastor Tim Blow. He did an event
00:01:36:16 - 00:01:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
called Duct Tape Night. And, then I went several years later to intern for him, and he also did it.
00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then when it was my turn to be a youth pastor, it was time to do duct tape night. And so we do all kinds of different duct tape. We buy a bunch. We encourage students to, you know, bring like, bring something made out of duct tape that they made, will play, you know, games with duct tape or I even have a game I download youth ministry, called duct tape Trivia.
00:02:02:28 - 00:02:23:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's one of my very, very first vivid early on games. And then we'll even play, like, steal the bacon. But in the middle, we'll we'll play, like, steal the duct tape instead. But one probably like the star of the show. Like the thing that kids and students and even leaders look the most forward to is the duct tape a student to the wall challenge.
00:02:23:00 - 00:02:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, like, I was, like I said, within my first couple, months, even weeks of of taking this new job and got a couple kids and decided to duct tape them to the wall. And that's all well and good. No one got hurt. I mean, if you get enough duct tape, they literally can stick to the wall and they're not going to fall down.
00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That wasn't the problem.
00:02:42:27 - 00:03:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What was the problem was as soon as, they started to fall off the wall, we started to take them down off the wall. It took the paint with them. Mind you, I'm in week, like, three and a half of this job. And so, you know, it's Wednesday night. The entire church is their kids ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry.
00:03:00:12 - 00:03:01:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so at the end of the night,
00:03:01:18 - 00:03:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all the adults like how duct tape night go because, like, they knew about it, heard about it, but had never, like, seen an event like this before. And we're like, oh, good, good, good. And I was talking to my, my senior pastor, my boss. Right. And I was like, oh, it's awesome.
00:03:14:25 - 00:03:31:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We had this, we had this, we had this many new kids, whatever. Oh, also, I had, kid, pull some of the tape off the, some of the paint off the wall with the duct tape. So just, you know, tell me, like what color paint that was, and, I'll. I'll repaint it. No big deal.
00:03:31:29 - 00:03:53:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And he goes that we had to have that, like, specially painted with it in a very special way with, like, a sponge and like a finish. And the person who did that doesn't even live here anymore. They live in Georgia. And like my eyes, I'm just, like, wide eyed. Like what have I done? So I have to somehow get this wall repainted.
00:03:53:26 - 00:04:14:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But reach out to this person who doesn't go to the church anymore. And so within my first couple weeks of ever having a job, I took paint off the precious youth room walls that had been done in a very special and particular way, and so I've learned when you do that duct tape thing, don't put it on paint.
00:04:14:05 - 00:04:34:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I did put it on a brick wall, but it was a painted brick wall. So then in future years, I, stopped putting it on paint because it definitely was always taking the paint in the finish and the drywall off, but it is still an amazing and great event that you can theme, around duct tape. And it's it's a little bit niche and it's a little bit off the beaten track.
00:04:34:06 - 00:04:51:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's not your typical style of night. This one right here is one that we just did three weeks ago, and we called it our Back to School night. But in front of the, night, we spelled it with a k parentheses with the K. Back to school night, and we went medieval
00:04:51:21 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
themed. And, if you're due, I am member.
00:04:53:27 - 00:04:57:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Back in January, they dropped a, game called
00:04:57:02 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Loot and Lunacy, and we were going to play Loot and Lunacy at some point in January. But I remember we were in
00:05:04:13 - 00:05:14:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our run through in our Q to Q and the game. It's just like long, like there are ten sides, ten questions, and they're each like a minute and 30s or so long.
00:05:14:09 - 00:05:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you needed to carve out a good 15, maybe even 20 minutes to the whole game. And so that night, right on the moment, right on a dime, I actually decided to switch to another game. So I held loot and lunacy just in my back pocket, knowing I wanted to go back to at some point in the future.
00:05:32:11 - 00:05:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when our back to school came around, I was like, let's, let's build a night around loot and lunacy. And in the meantime, we built up all of these sort of like ren fair ideas around it. And so, you know, we talked about, you know, the importance or not, the importance of we it was an invite.
00:05:50:04 - 00:06:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we didn't have like a message or anything, but, we had all sorts of different, like, medieval themed games. We did the impossible shot with the bow and arrow. We did like, a giant scavenger hunt. We got a joust. We even looked into getting turkey legs, but that was either a impossible or B cost prohibitive.
00:06:08:01 - 00:06:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can't remember exactly the reason why, but either way we didn't come up with it. But then in and around it, we played Loot and Lunacy and we broke it up into two chunks. We played some at the beginning and we played some at the end. And, you know, here's the fact is, I actually, because this is recent, I detailed an outline this entire episode over on a recent bonus Patreon podcast episode.
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:40:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get on and I talk every single week. Actually, as soon as this episode hits stop, I'm gonna turn around and a record and recap last night's, last night's Youth Mystery, which was we had an
00:06:40:20 - 00:06:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
amazing, like, custom game that came out of like one of our, team members just heads like, it was fantastic. And I can't wait to share it with you.
00:06:50:03 - 00:07:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So click the link down below. And guess what? You also get access to the seasonal summer social media pack. Hey quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.
00:07:11:03 - 00:07:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry.
00:07:30:17 - 00:07:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12.
00:07:51:03 - 00:08:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. Moving on.
00:08:11:27 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Talking about back to school bashes. That was a like back to school night, medieval themed back school bash. The mistake I made in that is that. Do you know how to spell medieval? I spelled it wrong so many times. And emails out to parents. The whole thing. And I
00:08:31:02 - 00:08:33:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
still don't even know if I know how to spell it.
00:08:33:05 - 00:08:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Grammarly tells me it's medieval, but I was spelling it MLG. Easy io.
00:08:40:18 - 00:08:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I had to spell it mega. I even I like it, I messed it up
00:08:45:24 - 00:09:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so many times. So don't be like me and look up how to spell medieval before you send out emails to parents. But, typically a back to school bash for me, growing up in youth ministry and this is like a big event, a party and a bunch of, like, those giant inflatables and like, you know, obstacle courses, not bounce houses.
00:09:06:16 - 00:09:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Exactly, but like, obstacle courses, jousts, Velcro wall, like the hanging wrecking ball, the bucking bronco, like stuff like that. And so one year I had, created a special events team, and there's a guy at our church who's super awesome, super willing to help, but, like, didn't want to be, like, necessarily like a youth leader. But he was like, I'll be on like the events team, which was great.
00:09:29:24 - 00:09:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I had our students helpline the night and like what they wanted for food. And they said they wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, which was great and so called ahead place to order. And you know, all the inflatables, all the things are going, kids are showing up, but the food's not there. And I had sent this guy and his name was Tim to go out and grab the Buffalo Wild Wings.
00:09:50:12 - 00:10:09:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Order. And I had placed it ready to be picked up at, you know, let's say 615. Well, he told me that when he got there that they didn't start preparing the order of nearly 250 wings until he arrived at 615, and it was supposed to be ready to pick up at 615. And I said, no, it was supposed to be pick up.
00:10:09:07 - 00:10:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, that's what I told them. And they even said, oh yeah, but we want your wings to be fresh. And so he was like 45 minutes late and all the kids are like, where's the wings? So when you're doing catering and when you're doing a big giant pickup order like that, like just make sure the restaurants don't do harebrained stuff like wait until you get there to start preparing it, which is going to then make it like an hour late.
00:10:33:01 - 00:10:52:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good grief. Event idea number four is last year actually linked right here? I discussed our Christmas movie bracket. And what we did out of that. And again, this is another good plug for my Patreon as I discussed in detail and outlined all of this in my Patreon as well. But we did a bracket which is movies go head to head.
00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, this was the member resource back in, youth ministry back in December of 2024. So if you remember, you might even have access to this for free. Otherwise, I'll put the link down in the show notes. You can go grab it for just a few bucks, but kids vote head to head on different Christmas movies.
00:11:09:18 - 00:11:33:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then what we did was that was just running in the background. In the month of November. But then what we did was the winner was what became our Christmas movie night. And then my boss shout out to Darren, he did a, he added a flavor of bring your own chair to the Christmas movie night. And so kids are coming in and in shopping carts and in camping chairs, and one group even brought a full air mattress to sit on.
00:11:33:18 - 00:11:54:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we took all the chairs out of our auditorium and we played the movie, up on the screen. And the kids brought all their own chairs. Now, the mistake that I made in this event was trusting that ChatGPT would know where all of the homeland Swearwords were, because I actually edited, I was going to edit out any cuss words from the Home Alone movie.
00:11:54:16 - 00:12:22:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so ChatGPT told me. And then what happened was, by the grace of God himself, I was thinking about a certain part of the movie, and I remember, oh, there's a swear word there. And I didn't edit that out, so I had to go back in and reedit it, a reedit another edit that after one I had already made, because the first one I made was I was trusting ChatGPT to give me accurate information, and alas, it gave me some accurate information, but not entirely accurate information.
00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So check your AI chat bots people. And then finally, the fifth idea that I have is a Super Bowl party. If you are a youth group that meets on Sunday nights, you're obligated to do something with the Super Bowl. Now, what I would recommend from a philosophical standpoint is if you're ones in a group, don't add a Super Bowl party to it.
00:12:41:23 - 00:12:55:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're sending a group, you've got to figure out what you're going to do. And so I remember the first year that I was at a church that had converted from Wednesday to Sunday. And so in comes along the Super Bowl and all of a sudden people were like, oh yeah, we got church and don't we? And they're like, where are we going to meet?
00:12:55:29 - 00:13:13:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we had a Super Bowl party at my house and it was averagely attended. It wasn't great. And so, the and everyone was like, well, we got a party with these people every year and we do this this time of year. And so I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not competing with the Super Bowl anymore.
00:13:13:07 - 00:13:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not to mention, I like sports. I want to watch the Super Bowl. And if I'm running a party, I don't get to watch. I don't get to lock in. I don't get to pay attention to the Super Bowl. And so the mistake, I would say, of, doing the Super Bowl party is actually having one. However, if you're a Sunday night meeting youth ministry, what do you do instead?
00:13:31:28 - 00:14:03:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, I, I moved up our party, in the next couple of years, and we started doing, like, a pre-game or like a tailgating party. And I know those have negative connotations, but just like a before the Super Bowl party of the Super Bowl party. But we're done by the time Super Bowl parties are so big obstacle course in the middle of our, our space and, some football trivia and, I think we did, like, Nerf wars in a room, actually, and I ended up hiring a DJ, which, another mistake was that deejay was awesome.
00:14:03:17 - 00:14:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, he wasn't like some, like, low level DJ. He was so good. And the music was so loud, and the kids, complained. They're like, I couldn't hear myself think. And so I had to go ask him to turn the music down a little bit. That was another mistake. But all in all, super fun. I encourage kids wear jerseys and whatever, but we did it on Super Bowl Sunday, just a few hours before the game started, and then if you are like me and you like sports and you like football, you wrap your event up and you're home in your recliner by 6 p.m. and you're watching the game, you don't have to
00:14:35:19 - 00:14:52:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
worry about commercials. You don't have to worry about halftime shows except for your own stuff. You just get to enjoy the game for itself. So those are five of my favorite theme nights. Comment down below what your favorite youth ministry theme night is, and tab this video here on screen so that you can check out the next one and be sure to give us a subscribe.
00:14:52:29 - 00:14:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, and as always, my friends, don't forget, say habit.
14 min
October 02, 2025 Episode 169: Don't Try These... Until you Hear My Mistakes!
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the BEST ways to get students inviting friends and to build momentum in your group.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you—every single one of my theme nights has come with a mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful… and one time I thought I was getting fired…
Before you try these for yourself, let me give you my five best theme nights from 15 years in youth ministry—and the one mistake I made in each, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.
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SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/169
Fall Masterclass
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLfP12NPWmpBzXoCcEsAyBF
Duct Tape Trivia
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duct-tape-trivia/kids-ministry/games-1029.html
Loot & Lunacy
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/loot-and-lunacy/games/video-enhanced-9909.html
Patreon (K)Night Episode
https://www.patreon.com/posts/back-2-school-k-137095993
Christmas Movie Bracket
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-ultimate-christmas-movie-showdown/christmas/christmas-games-9784.html
Patreon Christmas Episode
https://www.patreon.com/posts/hybrid-christmas-117617122
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🛠️TOOLS I USE THAT CAN HELP YOU!
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//VIDIQ
https://vidiq.com/hybrid
//BEST DYM RESOURCES
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//OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Youth Ministry Theme Nights
00:42 Theme Night #1
04:37 Theme Night #2
08:52 Theme Night #3
10:35 Theme Night #4
12:25 Theme Night #5
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the best ways to get your students
00:00:03:13 - 00:00:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
inviting their friends to your group, as well as build momentum for the overall team. But here's
00:00:09:13 - 00:00:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something that someone might not tell you about some of these theme nights is that in every single one, there is an opportunity for a huge mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful.
00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time I
00:00:21:14 - 00:00:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
even thought I might be getting fired.
00:00:23:19 - 00:00:37:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so before you try this for yourself, in this episode, I'm going to share with you my five favorite theme nights from my last 15 years in youth ministry. And the one mistake I learned from each of those, so that you don't have
00:00:37:02 - 00:00:39:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to learn it the hard way for yourself.
00:00:39:12 - 00:00:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey my friends, welcome back to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I have been in this recent playlist asking and answering different questions found in different youth ministry
00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Facebook groups. And this
00:00:55:19 - 00:00:55:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one
00:00:55:27 - 00:00:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
says, hey, what are some theme nights you've done with your group that your kids have really enjoyed?
00:00:59:20 - 00:01:03:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like Jersey night? Crazy hair. Looking forward to some ideas.
00:01:03:16 - 00:01:03:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And
00:01:03:22 - 00:01:03:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so
00:01:03:28 - 00:01:23:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I figured, hey, I want to share some of my best theme nights. And I've discussed this before in some recent episodes. In fact, we did kind of like a fall playlist master class thing where I talked about my strategy for youth ministry. And oftentimes I'll make a theme night, a cultivate night, which is a bring your friends and invite style night.
00:01:23:22 - 00:01:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the very first, invite style nights that I did as a youth pastor was one that I grew up as a teenager doing my youth pastor shout out to Pastor Tim Blow. He did an event
00:01:36:16 - 00:01:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
called Duct Tape Night. And, then I went several years later to intern for him, and he also did it.
00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then when it was my turn to be a youth pastor, it was time to do duct tape night. And so we do all kinds of different duct tape. We buy a bunch. We encourage students to, you know, bring like, bring something made out of duct tape that they made, will play, you know, games with duct tape or I even have a game I download youth ministry, called duct tape Trivia.
00:02:02:28 - 00:02:23:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's one of my very, very first vivid early on games. And then we'll even play, like, steal the bacon. But in the middle, we'll we'll play, like, steal the duct tape instead. But one probably like the star of the show. Like the thing that kids and students and even leaders look the most forward to is the duct tape a student to the wall challenge.
00:02:23:00 - 00:02:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, like, I was, like I said, within my first couple, months, even weeks of of taking this new job and got a couple kids and decided to duct tape them to the wall. And that's all well and good. No one got hurt. I mean, if you get enough duct tape, they literally can stick to the wall and they're not going to fall down.
00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That wasn't the problem.
00:02:42:27 - 00:03:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What was the problem was as soon as, they started to fall off the wall, we started to take them down off the wall. It took the paint with them. Mind you, I'm in week, like, three and a half of this job. And so, you know, it's Wednesday night. The entire church is their kids ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry.
00:03:00:12 - 00:03:01:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so at the end of the night,
00:03:01:18 - 00:03:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all the adults like how duct tape night go because, like, they knew about it, heard about it, but had never, like, seen an event like this before. And we're like, oh, good, good, good. And I was talking to my, my senior pastor, my boss. Right. And I was like, oh, it's awesome.
00:03:14:25 - 00:03:31:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We had this, we had this, we had this many new kids, whatever. Oh, also, I had, kid, pull some of the tape off the, some of the paint off the wall with the duct tape. So just, you know, tell me, like what color paint that was, and, I'll. I'll repaint it. No big deal.
00:03:31:29 - 00:03:53:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And he goes that we had to have that, like, specially painted with it in a very special way with, like, a sponge and like a finish. And the person who did that doesn't even live here anymore. They live in Georgia. And like my eyes, I'm just, like, wide eyed. Like what have I done? So I have to somehow get this wall repainted.
00:03:53:26 - 00:04:14:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But reach out to this person who doesn't go to the church anymore. And so within my first couple weeks of ever having a job, I took paint off the precious youth room walls that had been done in a very special and particular way, and so I've learned when you do that duct tape thing, don't put it on paint.
00:04:14:05 - 00:04:34:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I did put it on a brick wall, but it was a painted brick wall. So then in future years, I, stopped putting it on paint because it definitely was always taking the paint in the finish and the drywall off, but it is still an amazing and great event that you can theme, around duct tape. And it's it's a little bit niche and it's a little bit off the beaten track.
00:04:34:06 - 00:04:51:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's not your typical style of night. This one right here is one that we just did three weeks ago, and we called it our Back to School night. But in front of the, night, we spelled it with a k parentheses with the K. Back to school night, and we went medieval
00:04:51:21 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
themed. And, if you're due, I am member.
00:04:53:27 - 00:04:57:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Back in January, they dropped a, game called
00:04:57:02 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Loot and Lunacy, and we were going to play Loot and Lunacy at some point in January. But I remember we were in
00:05:04:13 - 00:05:14:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our run through in our Q to Q and the game. It's just like long, like there are ten sides, ten questions, and they're each like a minute and 30s or so long.
00:05:14:09 - 00:05:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you needed to carve out a good 15, maybe even 20 minutes to the whole game. And so that night, right on the moment, right on a dime, I actually decided to switch to another game. So I held loot and lunacy just in my back pocket, knowing I wanted to go back to at some point in the future.
00:05:32:11 - 00:05:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when our back to school came around, I was like, let's, let's build a night around loot and lunacy. And in the meantime, we built up all of these sort of like ren fair ideas around it. And so, you know, we talked about, you know, the importance or not, the importance of we it was an invite.
00:05:50:04 - 00:06:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we didn't have like a message or anything, but, we had all sorts of different, like, medieval themed games. We did the impossible shot with the bow and arrow. We did like, a giant scavenger hunt. We got a joust. We even looked into getting turkey legs, but that was either a impossible or B cost prohibitive.
00:06:08:01 - 00:06:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can't remember exactly the reason why, but either way we didn't come up with it. But then in and around it, we played Loot and Lunacy and we broke it up into two chunks. We played some at the beginning and we played some at the end. And, you know, here's the fact is, I actually, because this is recent, I detailed an outline this entire episode over on a recent bonus Patreon podcast episode.
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:40:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get on and I talk every single week. Actually, as soon as this episode hits stop, I'm gonna turn around and a record and recap last night's, last night's Youth Mystery, which was we had an
00:06:40:20 - 00:06:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
amazing, like, custom game that came out of like one of our, team members just heads like, it was fantastic. And I can't wait to share it with you.
00:06:50:03 - 00:07:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So click the link down below. And guess what? You also get access to the seasonal summer social media pack. Hey quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.
00:07:11:03 - 00:07:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry.
00:07:30:17 - 00:07:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12.
00:07:51:03 - 00:08:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. Moving on.
00:08:11:27 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Talking about back to school bashes. That was a like back to school night, medieval themed back school bash. The mistake I made in that is that. Do you know how to spell medieval? I spelled it wrong so many times. And emails out to parents. The whole thing. And I
00:08:31:02 - 00:08:33:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
still don't even know if I know how to spell it.
00:08:33:05 - 00:08:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Grammarly tells me it's medieval, but I was spelling it MLG. Easy io.
00:08:40:18 - 00:08:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I had to spell it mega. I even I like it, I messed it up
00:08:45:24 - 00:09:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so many times. So don't be like me and look up how to spell medieval before you send out emails to parents. But, typically a back to school bash for me, growing up in youth ministry and this is like a big event, a party and a bunch of, like, those giant inflatables and like, you know, obstacle courses, not bounce houses.
00:09:06:16 - 00:09:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Exactly, but like, obstacle courses, jousts, Velcro wall, like the hanging wrecking ball, the bucking bronco, like stuff like that. And so one year I had, created a special events team, and there's a guy at our church who's super awesome, super willing to help, but, like, didn't want to be, like, necessarily like a youth leader. But he was like, I'll be on like the events team, which was great.
00:09:29:24 - 00:09:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I had our students helpline the night and like what they wanted for food. And they said they wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, which was great and so called ahead place to order. And you know, all the inflatables, all the things are going, kids are showing up, but the food's not there. And I had sent this guy and his name was Tim to go out and grab the Buffalo Wild Wings.
00:09:50:12 - 00:10:09:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Order. And I had placed it ready to be picked up at, you know, let's say 615. Well, he told me that when he got there that they didn't start preparing the order of nearly 250 wings until he arrived at 615, and it was supposed to be ready to pick up at 615. And I said, no, it was supposed to be pick up.
00:10:09:07 - 00:10:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, that's what I told them. And they even said, oh yeah, but we want your wings to be fresh. And so he was like 45 minutes late and all the kids are like, where's the wings? So when you're doing catering and when you're doing a big giant pickup order like that, like just make sure the restaurants don't do harebrained stuff like wait until you get there to start preparing it, which is going to then make it like an hour late.
00:10:33:01 - 00:10:52:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good grief. Event idea number four is last year actually linked right here? I discussed our Christmas movie bracket. And what we did out of that. And again, this is another good plug for my Patreon as I discussed in detail and outlined all of this in my Patreon as well. But we did a bracket which is movies go head to head.
00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, this was the member resource back in, youth ministry back in December of 2024. So if you remember, you might even have access to this for free. Otherwise, I'll put the link down in the show notes. You can go grab it for just a few bucks, but kids vote head to head on different Christmas movies.
00:11:09:18 - 00:11:33:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then what we did was that was just running in the background. In the month of November. But then what we did was the winner was what became our Christmas movie night. And then my boss shout out to Darren, he did a, he added a flavor of bring your own chair to the Christmas movie night. And so kids are coming in and in shopping carts and in camping chairs, and one group even brought a full air mattress to sit on.
00:11:33:18 - 00:11:54:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we took all the chairs out of our auditorium and we played the movie, up on the screen. And the kids brought all their own chairs. Now, the mistake that I made in this event was trusting that ChatGPT would know where all of the homeland Swearwords were, because I actually edited, I was going to edit out any cuss words from the Home Alone movie.
00:11:54:16 - 00:12:22:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so ChatGPT told me. And then what happened was, by the grace of God himself, I was thinking about a certain part of the movie, and I remember, oh, there's a swear word there. And I didn't edit that out, so I had to go back in and reedit it, a reedit another edit that after one I had already made, because the first one I made was I was trusting ChatGPT to give me accurate information, and alas, it gave me some accurate information, but not entirely accurate information.
00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So check your AI chat bots people. And then finally, the fifth idea that I have is a Super Bowl party. If you are a youth group that meets on Sunday nights, you're obligated to do something with the Super Bowl. Now, what I would recommend from a philosophical standpoint is if you're ones in a group, don't add a Super Bowl party to it.
00:12:41:23 - 00:12:55:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're sending a group, you've got to figure out what you're going to do. And so I remember the first year that I was at a church that had converted from Wednesday to Sunday. And so in comes along the Super Bowl and all of a sudden people were like, oh yeah, we got church and don't we? And they're like, where are we going to meet?
00:12:55:29 - 00:13:13:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we had a Super Bowl party at my house and it was averagely attended. It wasn't great. And so, the and everyone was like, well, we got a party with these people every year and we do this this time of year. And so I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not competing with the Super Bowl anymore.
00:13:13:07 - 00:13:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not to mention, I like sports. I want to watch the Super Bowl. And if I'm running a party, I don't get to watch. I don't get to lock in. I don't get to pay attention to the Super Bowl. And so the mistake, I would say, of, doing the Super Bowl party is actually having one. However, if you're a Sunday night meeting youth ministry, what do you do instead?
00:13:31:28 - 00:14:03:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, I, I moved up our party, in the next couple of years, and we started doing, like, a pre-game or like a tailgating party. And I know those have negative connotations, but just like a before the Super Bowl party of the Super Bowl party. But we're done by the time Super Bowl parties are so big obstacle course in the middle of our, our space and, some football trivia and, I think we did, like, Nerf wars in a room, actually, and I ended up hiring a DJ, which, another mistake was that deejay was awesome.
00:14:03:17 - 00:14:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, he wasn't like some, like, low level DJ. He was so good. And the music was so loud, and the kids, complained. They're like, I couldn't hear myself think. And so I had to go ask him to turn the music down a little bit. That was another mistake. But all in all, super fun. I encourage kids wear jerseys and whatever, but we did it on Super Bowl Sunday, just a few hours before the game started, and then if you are like me and you like sports and you like football, you wrap your event up and you're home in your recliner by 6 p.m. and you're watching the game, you don't have to
00:14:35:19 - 00:14:52:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
worry about commercials. You don't have to worry about halftime shows except for your own stuff. You just get to enjoy the game for itself. So those are five of my favorite theme nights. Comment down below what your favorite youth ministry theme night is, and tab this video here on screen so that you can check out the next one and be sure to give us a subscribe.
00:14:52:29 - 00:14:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, and as always, my friends, don't forget, say habit.
15 min
September 25, 2025 Episode 168: Job Switch? Youth Pastor Top Tips
Leaving a Youth Ministry Job is tough, in this video, we're going to explore some top Youth Pastor job switch questions, such as: Is it wrong to look for a new church job? When you start looking, when should you share that information with your current church? How can someone go about expressing concern about current job frustrations without burning bridges?
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Should You Stay or Go?
00:26 4 New Job Principles
07:12 Tell Them Early
10:42 Tell Them in the Middle
12:41 Tell Them at the End
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:23:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In this video, we're going to look at when a youth pastor takes a new church job. What are some principles that you can live by? And I, as a 15 year youth ministry veteran, have made several job transitions. But I've learned some things along the way, and I want to talk about some of the pros and the cons about when you choose to share this with your church leadership and what I recommend doing.
00:00:23:24 - 00:00:44:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show, everybody. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. My name is Nick Klassen and in this episode we're going to be answering this question. What are some what is some advice for looking at other church jobs while you're still working at your current one? Specifically, according to this anonymous poster, they said they're currently in negotiations with their current church.
00:00:44:26 - 00:01:10:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They love the place. However, the workload is undoable. They're not willing to budge on adding staff to the student ministry instead of looking at other jobs to get an idea of what other church staffing ratios might look like. And in the midst, they may have found what seems to be better circumstances over and over again. Should they let their current church know that they're applying, or should they wait until they get a real response in interviews from the other churches?
00:01:10:15 - 00:01:34:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I know it's not, but it almost is. I can go on behind their back, but my main goal is to really see if I'm off on what I'm asking for. If you've been in this place before or have any advice, please help. Well, the first thing that I want to say is that I believe that there are four principles when it comes to looking for a new church job that you should just, you know, be aware of and like, have kind of on your horizon.
00:01:34:19 - 00:02:01:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Number one is it's not disloyal to look like there's nothing wrong with looking for I, I understand it like you say, saying here, like it feels like I'm doing something wrong. I'm going behind their back. I understand that feeling. I've had that feeling. But you got to understand that there is nothing inherently or morally wrong. Now, if you're doing something sneaky or you're lying, like if, of course, there's like a moral, you know, a moral obligation baked within to that.
00:02:01:12 - 00:02:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But like in the grand scheme of things like you haven't done anything wrong. The other thing is, like you don't you're not obligated when you're like looking for other jobs to tell your church. That's my personal opinion. And that's what I believe from like a moral, ethical like dilemma. Right. Hey, quick break. Let me ask you a question.
00:02:20:21 - 00:02:41:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Are you still waking up every day as a youth pastor, scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this, the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors.
00:02:41:02 - 00:03:01:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts. See, see? Here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid?
00:03:01:28 - 00:03:19:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12. Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.
00:03:19:22 - 00:03:42:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. The third one is like you should try to keep an open communication about your workload. And according to this question, it sounds like you are.
00:03:42:03 - 00:04:10:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Or at least you're attempting to. And like I would. This is why I am such a strong, proponent and advocate for regular one on one check ins. So like, for example, at one church I worked at, my boss had like an open door policy and it was like, hey, come find me if you need me. And like for my personality type guy who, like, doesn't really like to be told what to do and doesn't really like, love taking advice from other people, wants to kind of figure it out for themselves.
00:04:10:24 - 00:04:30:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like I never needed him like. But there are times he's like, you never come to me. And like, he took that as like me being uncomfortable and teachable and just, like, wasn't like my vibe, right? But my very next job with my very next boss. Regular one on ones. Not my favorite thing, to be honest. Because again, same thing personality like do things on my own.
00:04:30:12 - 00:04:49:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
However, it helped me stay just like in the loop of like how he was feeling about me, how he was feeling about my job performance. Like what I could do better. And like when you when you in a regular one on one get feedback about like what you could be doing better, like what you're doing well like that's a natural normal thing when you're never having regular one on ones.
00:04:49:15 - 00:05:11:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like then when you do have like a talking to, so to speak, with, like your boss, like then you're getting in trouble. And so if you don't have regular one on ones, first of all, that's on your manager. But second of all, like an opportunity for you to lead up in this moment and ask like, hey, can we have the regular check in where we can evaluate and analyze like how this is going and like what we could do, you know, to make it better?
00:05:11:18 - 00:05:31:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one thing I say to the staff that I lead is like, don't just bring problems but bring solutions. And so if you feel like the workload is unmanageable, it very well may be and you may be getting to a spot where like you do have to make a decision and you do have to choose to leave. However, what are some other solutions that you could bring to your manager, like perhaps some of this like workload?
00:05:31:11 - 00:05:47:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can hand some of these things after some of my unpaid volunteers, and I can start to treat them as like quasi staff members, you know, certain things like that, like what would it look like to be able to do that? And I don't know your current context in all of your current situations, but if you truly did want to stay, what would it look like if you did something like that?
00:05:47:14 - 00:06:12:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Then my fourth and final option is until God calls you anywhere, like bloom, where you're planted, which means like as soon as like you start looking elsewhere and maybe even like get your heart set on somewhere else. It's really easy once that like Seed of potential is planted in your head that you just like want to chase it and you're ready to mentally check out where you are and start to check in somewhere else.
00:06:12:08 - 00:06:30:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And my encouragement is just continue to bloom where God has you planted for the time being, and God God in his timing. And I can. I can say this based on my own experience. God is always perfect in his timing and God. When it's clear that it's time to go, God will make it very clear when it's time for you to go.
00:06:30:16 - 00:06:47:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In the meanwhile, stay completely locked in and bloomed. Where are you planted? Now? Listen, I get all that stuff. Sounds great. Those are like for kind of like, high level principles. It's not disloyal to, like, you don't need to disclose to your church when you're looking. Keep it open communication about where your workloads are and do everything you can to bloom.
00:06:47:22 - 00:07:08:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where are you planted? However, in this next section we're going to explore when are the three different? What are the three kind of different like options of telling your your bosses, your senior pastor, your church that you're considering looking and what are the pros and what are the cons? Because factors you could really do any of these three different scenarios.
00:07:08:07 - 00:07:31:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And there are pros and cons to all of them. Let's check it out. So as I said in the beginning, I've been youth ministry for 15 years. I've made I've been in five different churches, some part time all the way back in college, others full time, you know, several years, just couple of years, like, and in every single step of the way, I've made different decisions about when I chose to disclose that I was looking.
00:07:31:12 - 00:07:54:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So let's talk about when you tell your church or your boss or your senior pastor or whoever it is as your direct supervisor, that you feel obligated to let know that you're looking when you tell them everything. Okay, so I worked in church one time where they said, hey, if you are starting to get like squeamish and squirmy about your job, let us know and you got to think about it like, of course I would say that.
00:07:54:01 - 00:08:11:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Why? It helps them brace for impact, right? And it does. It does in a way. Put them in the driver's seat. Okay. And we'll get to that and we'll talk about that in just a minute. But if you do tell them everything. What are some of the pros of that. Well the first pro is it does build transparency and trust with your current church.
00:08:11:14 - 00:08:32:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. It let them know exactly where you're at and you won't blindside them with any sort of decision. Additionally, if you're feeling this sort of way about like your workload, and you let them know, like, hey, listen, I'm looking. I'm seeing this. I'm seeing that, like, it may actually also lead to a resolution. If they do value who you are and what you bring to the table in your work, you know, I think and they do want to retain you.
00:08:32:28 - 00:08:55:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Then you've if like, it's more than just say, hey, like this is hard. You're like, hey, this is hard. And I'm looking that might put a little bit of like a different fire underneath them if you tell them early on and then the third pro and this is like it could potentially allow for a smoother transition if they support your exploration and potential future interviews, if they're on board all the way.
00:08:55:08 - 00:09:10:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Now, you know, because if they're not, for example, like you got to figure out how to do that without getting like exposed or caught. And again, that's where it feels like, you know, it feels like you're doing something wrong. But just like put yourself in the shoes of like if you are like a CFO at like a big company, right?
00:09:10:24 - 00:09:28:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And like you're like, hey, I have a job interview. Somewhere else, like, I don't know, I guess, like sometimes that can be like a tricky thing to do, but like, for the most part, like, transitions, people moving up, people moving out, like, that's kind of normal part of, like everyday life in church, we tend to take it a little bit harder because there's like a personal aspect to it.
00:09:28:29 - 00:09:49:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So the cons of letting them know everything early on is this is it could strain your current relationship. Right. And that's the tension, like the pro is it builds trust and transparency. The con is it could potentially strain it. And the fear is if it strains it is like will they ever fully lock into you as like the youth pastor at that church, or will there always be a seed of doubt?
00:09:49:12 - 00:10:09:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like as soon as something gets better, soon something gets rocky. You're out. You know, I mean, the second con is, it might lead to immediate pressure, or even termination if they see you as disloyal. And that obviously, this worst case scenario, if you let them know and like I feel to be somewhere else, let you go and you know, that would strengthen you got to provide for your family.
00:10:09:25 - 00:10:33:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can't really be without a paycheck. Like I get that fear. You know, it's probably, unless it, you know, and like, have evidence that it would happen. Like, it's probably not going to happen if the people that you work with are reasonable, but, you know, it could. Right. And then the third thing is like you also risk the word of it spreading and potentially affecting relationships within your church or even like on your church staff.
00:10:33:28 - 00:10:54:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what people think about you. And you know, whether or not they believe that you're going to be kind of like around for the long haul. Here's the pros and cons in the middle, which spoiler this is typically the one I choose. But I will be honest, like a lot of church like early on interview stuff like, it ends up being a pretty prolonged period and ends up fizzling out.
00:10:54:22 - 00:11:16:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if they say no to you, I feel like that's God closing the door. And then be like, you don't again have to disclose, have people question, you know, whatever. Tell them in the middle the middle spot for me, is often a like an in-person like sort of site visit. And that's where like, all right, I feel like I need to, like, say something.
00:11:16:01 - 00:11:45:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Okay. I haven't always done that. Just full disclosure. And, when I have not done that, and then I just, like, told them all the way until the end after I accepted, wasn't super great. And but otherwise. Right, like, I would like to tell I like to try and tell them, like, if I go to a site visit, like, hey, there's this this opportunity, that's kind of like where I would prefer if I could and if I feel safe in the job that I'm in all that type of stuff.
00:11:45:23 - 00:12:04:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So the pros of telling them in the middle is it balances transparency with also some caution, while giving you time to kind of assess where you're at with some of the current options. The second thing is it allows you to gauge their reaction once you have concrete offers. Right. And then also helps kind of strengthen your position as a staff member.
00:12:04:26 - 00:12:22:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then the third one is it may encourage them to act on your needs like, you know, for example, like you're feeling overwhelmed, when they now see that, like you're serious and like you actually have something like on the actual line. Of course, the cons are it could backfire if they discover your job search earlier and you didn't tell them.
00:12:22:13 - 00:12:40:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then, of course, it damages trust even more. You could be risked as seen as manipulative if you're using it for like just simply a negotiation tactic to stay put. And then the third one is it may complicate leaving if they retaliate or do choose to make a sudden change and you don't yet have an offer, you know, signed all the way.
00:12:40:09 - 00:13:10:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The final one is don't tell them until you accept it all. And in full disclosure, I've done this a couple times and it hasn't been amazing. So I, I will say like, learn from my mistakes. Not necessarily what I would recommend, however, here are some of the pros, right? The pros are you maintain your current position, your income, your security, all that stuff the entire way during the search, you avoid potential conflicts or pressure from your current church leadership, and it gives you full control over the timing of your departure, which I would say you're entitled to.
00:13:10:27 - 00:13:32:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. The downside is how the church chooses to react. And like, you can't control those types of things. However, I think the earlier you tell them, the more trust and transparency you have. And, it also helps them kind of like I said, like, brace for some of that impact. The cons are could risk damaging your reputation if they do find out through other means could also burn bridges.
00:13:32:18 - 00:13:48:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like again, people's feelings might just be hurt and like, they like they feel like you never, gave them a fair shake. And then finally, they may leave. It might leave a lot less time for, like, a smooth transition. All that type of stuff impacting your ministry. Let me just leave you with this kind of, like, final bonus hack.
00:13:48:10 - 00:14:08:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like when you're leaving, it's natural to feel bad and to want to stay and to hang on as long as you can have done that a handful of times, like, hey, stick on for six more weeks, like after they know they start to make decisions without you, they have to they have to move on. And the longer you stay, you're just like a dangling dead fish, like you run out of stuff to do.
00:14:08:15 - 00:14:25:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
They start dishing your work off to other people. And so, well, you do want a smooth transition, especially for the students, and you want them to feel like they were able to say goodbye, within the office and within the decision making framework and culture. Like it is better if you let them know. And then it's a quick kind of departure.
00:14:25:17 - 00:14:40:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, hey, I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did give it a like, give it give us a subscribe. We're going to be answering some more questions. So you can do that right here on the screen. Or you can see what the next video is going to be, that we're going to be answering from some different questions that we're finding in different youth pastor Facebook groups.
00:14:40:12 - 00:14:43:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, my friends. And as always, don't forget stay hybrid.
15 min
September 24, 2025 🚨BIG ANNOUNCEMENT🚨 - The Future of Hybrid Ministry!
Hop into this EMERGENCY POD! Big News on the horizon!
I've got a special guest here, my former boss, and more importantly, friend, Darren Sutton, to explain all there is about the future of the Hybrid Ministry Show! And what this Deep-Dive Cohort is all about.
Deep-dive cohort link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvUGUy6e3NDPK_DQNsRettn2mhT2Pedyn8ccl8WSlSTGvAwA/viewform
9 min
September 18, 2025 Episode 167: Top 5 Youth Ministry Books Every New Youth Pastor Must Read
Welcome to Nick Clason Theological Seminary—or as my new resident called it, NCTS. I’m not actually starting a seminary, but if you’re brand new to youth ministry and wondering, "What books should I read?" You’re in the right place. Today I’m breaking down 5 must-read youth ministry books and 3 video courses that will give you a solid foundation for preaching, programming, and discipling students in today’s world.
SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/167
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//📚 RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Knowing Him:
https://www.sonlife.com/store/books-studies/knowing-him-50-day-study/
E-BOOK: https://www.sonlife.com/store/ebooks/knowing-him-50-day-study-ebook/
Communicating for a Change
https://walmrt.us/4fPAYze
Lead Small
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Small-Ideas-Every-Leader/dp/0985411627
Sticky Church:
https://walmrt.us/4mZu252
4 Chair Discipling
https://walmrt.us/4lHUgbc
//📽️ VIDEO COURSES
Access to Youth Ministry University:
https://www.ymuniversity.com/
-Programming Like a Pro
-Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
-Family Ministry
Or go Platinum:
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/platinum-membership---annual/membership-shop-10009.html
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Nick Clason Theological Seminary
01:12 Brunch & Learn
04:25 Knowing Him
06:47 Communicating for a Change
08:09 VIDEO: Programming Like a Pro
10:24 Lead Small
12:18 VIDEO: Family Ministry
12:59 Sticky Church
14:19 VIDEO: PDYM - Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
15:24 4 Chair Discipling
15:51 HONORABLE MENTION: Your First 2 Years in Youth Ministry
16:09 Biblical Ministry is Timeless
--------------
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:27:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome to the Nicholas's Theological Seminary, or as my new resident recently called it, the n c t s. Now, listen, I'm not actually starting to sing you, but if you are brand new to youth ministry and you're wondering, like this person and this youth pastor Facebook group who said, hey, I am new to youth ministry and I've been out of the youth ministry position for 11 years.
00:00:27:26 - 00:00:59:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So anyone have any new books or resources that will help me with today's youth, ages 9 to 18 at this new position? They've had trouble the last year with getting volunteers, kids showing up and committing to events. If anyone has any advice on these things that would help. Thank you and good luck with your ministry. If that's you, or if you're asking a question like that, well then today you're in the right place because what I'm actually going to be doing is I'm going to be breaking down five must-read youth ministry books paired with three video courses.
00:00:59:07 - 00:01:30:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And those two things paired together are going to give you a solid foundation for preaching, programing, and discipling students in today's world. Welcome, everyone to the hybrid ministry Show. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. For a quick bit of context. Just as a reminder, there are always chapters listed down below. In this episode, I'm breaking down what you should be reading and what you can be using as prep as a new or, building a foundation in youth ministry.
00:01:30:18 - 00:01:54:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this really came to light in, recent days. My boss, Darren, who was, a and still is a 30 plus year youth ministry veteran, moved on to a different role, and I stepped into his seat and I inherited a team, with a combined less than one year of paid professional, full time youth ministry experience.
00:01:54:22 - 00:02:16:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There are four of them, but every single one of them has less than a year, and in some cases, less than six months of paid professional, full time youth ministry experience. They're eager. They're awesome. I love our team. But they're all very young. And so I started kind of thinking through, like, what are some of the things that we should be, that they should know?
00:02:16:08 - 00:02:41:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what are some of the things that have been foundational to me that I have known? And so, in previous, years when, you know, Dan was on the team and I was his right hand man, him and I kind of in tandem led these, lunch and learn kind of like workshops. And so I went back through and I looked at what we did last year, and then I looked ahead and, I started, like, thinking, like, what was some of the most core or, like, foundational things for me growing up.
00:02:41:24 - 00:03:02:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so this is essentially like my, like, must have go to like types of things, for youth pastors and frankly, for people in ministry because some of these things are not actually only like ministry specific. So, there are going to be links to every single one of these listed down below in the description. Make sure that you go check those out.
00:03:02:10 - 00:03:21:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
There may be a small affiliate commission. Won't change the price for you. Some might not have it. Like, I don't know exactly. Which ones are which, but you can go ahead and check those out. But the first thing and so like in our what I'll do is I'll share, here on screen, if you're watching on YouTube, I'll share are like brunch and learn schedule.
00:03:21:13 - 00:03:51:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we meet once a month, for discussion around some of these topics. And now, I'm, I'm building it and setting it up in this particular way, to try and space out some of the obligation and some of the reading that I'm requiring of them. However. So, like, you need to understand, like I'm putting, like, shorter books, after longer books, and then I'm doing a video class in between some books and stuff like that so that it's not only reading and there's like videos in there.
00:03:51:14 - 00:04:07:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's why I'm breaking it up, kind of the way that I'm breaking it up. But like, you can kind of go in any, any direction and like, depending on the appetite that you may or may not have for learning, that may or may not be better for you. So go ahead and try and kind of like take, take this with a grain of salt.
00:04:07:29 - 00:04:31:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm not saying you have to go in any particular order. I may recommend like a particular order, but you can go in, in whatever or you want. And I'll explain what each of the books kind of focus on. And so depending on your context, you can kind of, grab it, in that way. But for us, starting off, we're doing a 50 day devotional study from Sun Life called Knowing Him.
00:04:31:07 - 00:05:01:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And now what is awesome about this book is a it's a devotional, so you can, like, add it and make it a part of just like your daily morning, like quiet time reading. And what it is, is it's an exploration through the life of Christ in 50 days, in chronological order. My senior pastor and then also like the founder of Sun Life, Dan Spader, and many of the guys kind of in that arena have sort of found the value in looking at the harmony of the Gospels in the chronological order life of Jesus.
00:05:01:23 - 00:05:31:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And that's what this 50 day study is, kind of built around. And I kid you not like, I'm not saying this hyperbolically this is perhaps the most beneficial, like devotional study that I have ever been through in my life. It's so impactful. So several videos back linked right up here talked about my, event strategy, the, the spiritual CPR and that kind of came, from the roots in the foundation of like, a sun life kind of strategy.
00:05:31:23 - 00:05:49:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this knowing him, is really like the core, kind of like foundation. Or like the, the chronological ness of, of it all. And so was really been cool is, my team right now they're working through this. And, one of the guys, he goes, you know, I just kind of assumed, like, I've been through a million Bible studies.
00:05:49:05 - 00:06:12:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I just kind of assumed the questions would be kind of lame and kind of basic. He's like, the study's fantastic. And the questions are really, really making me think so it's really, really good. And, we at a as our church, we try to position our church and thus our ministry after the chronological nature of Jesus and, and follow his blueprint and disciple making pathway for making leaders.
00:06:12:15 - 00:06:32:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, this devotional really helps, get our, our team into that headspace of, doing ministry like Jesus and exploring it through kind of a chronological lens. There's not a great way to buy this, honestly. They have kind of like a print on demand sort of deal, and our church, doesn't, want to pay tax because we're tax exempt.
00:06:32:14 - 00:06:47:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And there wasn't a very easy way for me to figure out how to not do tax. But they do have a completely free e-book version of it. And so if you don't mind the e-book version and then maybe write down your answers in, like, a journal, then you can totally go that way and it's completely free.
00:06:47:26 - 00:07:09:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The next book that I recommend to all of our team as they're communicating is, in my opinion, the best communication resource out there from one Andy Stanley. Now, listen, I know that recently some of his, comments and some of his thinking have become a little bit polarizing in the church subculture. But you can't argue that he's not one of the best communicators out there.
00:07:09:20 - 00:07:42:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so he has a book on communicating for a change that I absolutely love. And so, some of our team has already been through that. And so for this, for our brunch and learn, I'm taking through, two people who have not yet been through that. And we're not only going to read it and discuss it, but we're also going to workshop like a future message for them, in this sort of way that Andy, builds out his, his messages, which is in his, his kind of famed and patented outline of me, then we, then God, then you, then we, and the the sort of thesis for his whole book is drive towards
00:07:42:16 - 00:07:59:23
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one main point and then tell a story you know about you, that's the me. And then broaden it so that it includes everyone. And, you know, create this tension like, this is not only a new problem, but it's a we problem. But here's how God solves it. And here's one thing that you can do as a result of that.
00:07:59:23 - 00:08:20:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then finally, if we all did this, imagine how the world could be different or the world could change to really, really good framework. And I basically use it every single time I preach. Next. After that, we are moving into our youth ministry university, which we are platinum members at our church. If you're not, you should go check it out on Download Youth Ministry.
00:08:20:06 - 00:08:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
At least check out Collider, which is an amazing, you know, scope and sequence curriculum. You can use code Hybrid Ministry ten, if you want to get 10% off co-leader for the year. But we're using a, we're using the programing like a pro, which is Justin Knowles and Josh Griffin, and they're sort of like a programing course that they have on WAMU.
00:08:42:06 - 00:09:02:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so, I wanted to get our, our team thinking and talking about creative programing and, you know, that's actually a really, really high value for me, something that I care a lot about. In fact, that's one of the things that I talk about on my bonus, Patreon hybrid heroes podcast every single week. Hey, quick break.
00:09:02:22 - 00:09:19:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day as a youth pastor, scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet. You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall.
00:09:19:06 - 00:09:42:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's why I created this the fall seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing you can grab my pack right now over on Patreon.
00:09:42:16 - 00:10:02:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12 where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting.
00:10:02:28 - 00:10:22:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. So in addition to social media, in addition to programing like a pro, that is one of the things we're taking our team through.
00:10:23:01 - 00:10:46:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We are also then, after that, we're going to take them through the book Lead Small, which lead Small is actually sort of like written as a job description for small group leaders. It's kind of meant to hand to small group leaders. It's a really quick and fun read. And so, in the middle of sort of like our year, I dropped lead Small on them because I think it's probably going to be the quickest of all the reads that they're going to have to do.
00:10:46:22 - 00:11:10:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we'll have a discussion and that'll be, really us thinking and strategizing as staff about how we can equip our small group leaders to continue to lean into some of the core, kind of like five lead small principles. My friend Carrie Rae, who's, over on staff at y, AM3 60, he's famous for saying, like, any youth pastor could have written this book.
00:11:10:18 - 00:11:50:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Orange just went ahead and did it. And once again, I know that there's some, you know, stuff going on around with orange, but the core principles of Lead Small, which are taken from Scripture, are also, not, you know, they haven't, ceased to, to be relevant. And so they're still very useful to creating a good culture of relationships and connection and small group and most youth ministries, I would argue that are greater than 25 to 30, which is probably most of us are going to need to have a pretty strong lead, small culture, because, you as a youth pastor can't provide care for greater than 30 students.
00:11:50:01 - 00:12:16:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you need to, enlist small group leaders to help continue on in that care. It's a biblical principle. We see, Jethro challenged Moses to do that when Moses doing too much. And Jethro says you need to delegate. And and that's what we as youth pastors also need to do. Not because we don't care about students, not because we don't want to be in students lives, but because we want to equip our small group leaders to be kind of the torch bearers for some of that shepherding and pastoral care.
00:12:16:19 - 00:12:38:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so that's what the lead small principle is all about. The next thing we're going back to, why I'm university and we're looking at family ministry, just basically thinking like, how do we partner with parents? That's a core kind of like principle that all of us in youth ministry, should care about. That's what orange is kind of built off of, you know, like, the church and the churches.
00:12:38:07 - 00:12:56:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What is I think the church is red. No, the family is red because it's their heart and their love, and the church is yellow because like the light of God. But together they should make orange. Right? And so it's partnering with families in your student and in your youth ministry. And so, youth minister University has a whole family ministry course.
00:12:56:27 - 00:13:19:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we're going to watch that and then we're going to discuss that as a team. This book right here is essentially my, small group, curriculum strategy guide. It is Sticky Church, written by Larry Osborne. And I read this book all the way back when I was an intern myself. And his whole premise is your church will grow when you're small.
00:13:19:15 - 00:13:43:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Groups are sticky. So it's but it's more than just lead small culture. It's what's the curriculum and what's the driving force within your small groups. And his premise is essentially you should do a sermon or whatever your main messages, sermon based small groups. And some of you, totally agree, which, you know, if if you are like a subscriber to co-leader, you understand that that's exactly like what it is like.
00:13:43:19 - 00:14:06:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You listen to the message and then you break into small groups to discuss it. In our context. We teach on one night and then our small group curriculum is taught on a whole nother day and a whole nother calendar time of the week. Which is similar to like a big church model where if you go to church and then you have small groups that meet decentralized host homes throughout the community, and they're discussing the pastor's sermon.
00:14:06:12 - 00:14:25:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's a similar sort of mindset. So this comes from, I'm sure other people have this this idea in this mindset. But, I remember at first from Larry Osborne and I found this book to be incredibly helpful and incredibly impactful. Towards the end of the year, we're finally going to get into the why I'm university purpose driven youth ministry discussion.
00:14:25:09 - 00:14:45:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The only reason that this isn't higher, and the only reason that I don't recommend this sooner, is because, we kind of did like the knowing him, which is going to be a, a ministry philosophy and a ministry purpose, conversation and discussion. And so what I'm doing is I'm bringing this back around, bookending it at the end of the year.
00:14:45:07 - 00:15:04:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the book dug this book. Phenomenal. I love this book. I was just trying to cut down on the reading, and I saw that there was a video course. And so we're going to go ahead and have take our team through the video course and just kind of explore the five different purposes of the church, which again, we are already kind of like our team.
00:15:04:24 - 00:15:23:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Our team has a good understanding of that as it pertains to like Jesus's disciple making pathway, like those sections on the pathway often are tied to different purposes of the church. So this will, be reiterating it and meshing into that way of thinking just from like a slightly different angle. So I'm really excited to bring this one back around.
00:15:23:28 - 00:15:47:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then finally, the ultimate bookend for church discipling by Dan Spader, one of my all time favorite books as well. It's he's the founder of Sun Life. And so just like we have four steps on our church's pathway, he has four chairs. And that it's going to pair really well with that knowing him and then that purpose driven youth ministry discussion I will give and I will give a nod.
00:15:47:26 - 00:16:06:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And the only other reason I didn't include this book for all youth pastors is, this is like the goat of all youth ministry books. Is your first two years in youth ministry? The only reason I didn't include it for our team is because, as interns, they've already gone through it and read it. And so, I recommend that one as well.
00:16:06:18 - 00:16:24:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Written by Doug Fields as well. Phenomenal and fantastic book. And so if you're in youth ministry and if you're wondering, like, what do I do? How do I connect? Now, listen, you might be thinking, if you wrote that question like, how do I connect with teens in like this new world that you're like, these aren't that new of resources?
00:16:24:24 - 00:16:48:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you're right. And maybe it's because I'm an old fuddy duddy. Or I think that some of these things are tied to the Great Commission and are key to like some, some youth ministry like purpose, which, you know, purpose driven youth ministry for church discipling and knowing him are all like youth ministry strategy and church ministry strategy, doing and running church and making disciples like Jesus.
00:16:48:18 - 00:17:08:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then within that you got teaching and programing. So those are in there. And then finally, leading small group. So you got lead small and you got sticky church. And then the last piece is how do we partner with parents? And that's why we included that family ministry piece. All these things really help hopefully give a good holistic view of of good youth ministry.
00:17:08:05 - 00:17:25:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, you know, I've been youth ministry for 15 years. These are some of the core things that have helped shape my thinking and some of what I do as well. And let me just say kind of one final piece, like, if you're not a platinum member, you should become one because they give you a conference registration ticket and some of those do.
00:17:25:22 - 00:17:47:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I am 100 roundtables conferences, have been some of the most formative things to my youth ministry thinking and, my, my honestly, my health and my longevity in being a youth pastor for more than 15 years. So, hey, hope you found this episode helpful. We're going to be answering some questions in the subsequent episodes. It'll be linked in a playlist, or you can tap the video that you see right here on screen.
00:17:47:29 - 00:17:56:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey, subscribe or like or a share would really mean the world to us if you found this episode helpful. But until next time. And as always, my friends, don't forget stay hybrid.
18 min

About Hybrid Ministry

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Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To…

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About Hybrid Ministry