To cap off the incentive train from our Youth Winter Conference (click HERE for more info) I filmed a Vlog style video to capture the journey for our students. There really is a lesson in this whole thing for me.

I really didn’t think we would hit 300 students for the first time ever putting on this event. I didn’t think we would have to wax our armpits (see post HERE) or would ever get a tattoo from it. But the fact is we had over 800 sign up and we ran out of incentives is just a testament to if we listen to Him, reach out on a vision He has given us for our ministry, step out, He will constantly exceed expectations.

This tattoo will forever be a reminder of that for me.

This fun little video is from our Youth Winter Conference incentives. You can check out the post HERE for more info.

I love this little video series because 1) it helps remind students about Youth Winter Conference (you can check out the post about it HERE), 2) It lets all of our students see a bunch of our other youth pastors and get to know them and 3) Show we are human and have feelings too and can have fun.

If this does not make you laugh, I don’t know what to tell you. More installments of these videos to come.

@Justinknowles3

I know events in youth ministry are one of the thing 1) youth pastors love to do and 2) is a good way to create some momentum with the young people in our church. In reality, fun breaks down walls and fun is the language of students. It allows relationships to form and let’s be honest… who doesn’t like a little bit of fun in their lives?

But I think we need to move past throwing events just to throw events. I think 1) we need to plan better and more strategic ones to move the ministry forward and 2) need to stop throwing random events on random days. How many times have we put together an event on a Friday night to where it was good, new people came, but the friends who were invited never stepped foot on your campus or were seen again? Lots of time, energy and budget are spent on events like that and we need to be more creative and strategic.

I really do believe that one of the best things you can do is only plan events that are attached to your already existing youth services. Yes, sure, there are always exceptions to any event but I think if 90% of what you plan is attached to services it is way more effective and you get more bang for your buck.

I have been doing this for the last few years and we started doing it in my current ministry now and we have seen some great results because of it.

Why?

• You get 100% participation. Everyone is already there and will stay (at least for a little bit) to the thing you have planned for after. 
• Friends get the invite to service, they get to experience what services are all about, they get to experience what a small group is and why we do it and then have a little bit of fun after.
• The hope is they are exposed to the great community and the Gospel when they do come and they get to see something that the world does not offer them. For us, everyone is placed into a small group and I believe (if done well) once students see what comes along with that, it’s something this generation is attracted to. 
• Events after service are shorter because we don’t want to go super late (especially during the school year) but if you do them well, it won’t matter. There is nothing worse than an event that should have ended 20 minutes ago. End it on a high note…early. Leave them wanting more.
• An event once a month is a great goal. These don’t need to be extravagant. The goal is to: Create a fun and memorable event for your students to invite a friend too. 1) It creates an inviting culture with the expectation that students are supposed to invite friends (sidenote: the event needs to be quality because students will not invite new friends to something they don’t find valuable) and 2) it’s to keep students after service for 15-30 minutes than normal. This allows an opportunity for leaders to make new connections.
  • Examples of the types of things our campuses have done:
    • Cereal bar
    • Glow in the dark dodgeball
    • Breakfast for dinner
    • Extreme Bingo
    • Game show night
• We have found that we have had a higher percentage of new students come back a second time because of 1) connections that were made and 2) they had a different perception of what church was.
• We have been doing what we call “1st Wednesdays” since September and we have seen 30% growth because of the inviting culture this has created.

No more time and budget spent on events that are not strategic to your vision of reaching new students who don’t know Jesus. We need to think through how to encourage our students to be bold about inviting friends into something that our world cannot give to students today. A community of people who care for each other that stands out because he believes in Jesus and takes his commandments seriously.

Evangelism and discipleship are important, but I think having some fun is also. I think it’s a stable in youth ministry. I also think youth workers need to get a little more strategic and think through about how effective the events we throw actually are. It’s a simple switch, but I think will see more of the results we desire.

@justinknowles3

A few weeks ago we pulled off our first-ever Youth Winter Conference. I won’t lie to you when I say it was more of a success we would have ever thought. I have had people reach out to me asking what was it, how it was set up and what did we do so I thought I would just lay out a basic overview.

What was it?

• Youth Winter Conference was Sandals Church Youth replacement of a traditional winter retreat. It was a 3-night event we held at our broadcast campus where we would bus in all of our campuses to one location for 3 nights in a row of a program and event after. We did it on Wednesday-Friday nights from 6pm-9pm).

How much did you charge?

• We charged $59. which is a steal for what students get. Typically a weekend away is $200-$275 so we wanted to create a cheap way to have a retreat but still give the same vibes that a camp would build a ministry.

Why not do a typical DNow or conference?

• Each night was from 6pm-9pm (10pm on Friday) and usually, the weekend would have you stay the night at places. We didn’t want to do that. 1) We have Saturday services so we wouldn’t be able to make it happen on Saturday and 2) I didn’t want to have to deal with logistics of finding places for over 800 students.
• Since students went home every night and went to school the next day, they were able to talk about the event during the day and invite friends to come later that night for a discounted cost.

What did each night look like?

• We wanted to make it super simple but effective and able to maximize the time we had. A typical night worked as such:
  • 6pm – Busses and students would start to show up. We had lobby games, snack bar, photo booths, and games happening.
  • 645pm – We had what we called the “Anticipation Stage” where we had some of our youth leads gather everyone outside the doors and get the crowd going with some games and giveaways. A fun way to build up hype before.
  • 655pm – The doors would open.
  • 7pm – We went into a fun, interactive video that would set up the night. You can check those out in the post I did last week HERE.
  • We would go into 3 worship songs.
  • Then into a quick crowd game and intro of the speaker that night.
  • One more song.
  • Message.
  • 1-2 response songs.
  • Dismiss to the event.
• Each night had a different event:
  • Night 1 – Extreme Bingo (You can check that out for FREE HERE)
  • Night – Taco truck and inflatables.
  • Night 3 – Silent Disco.
• When the event was over, we would gather everyone back into the main auditorium and dismiss by campuses once there ride or bus got there. It worked out really well.
• Josh Griffin (from DYM), myself and our lead Pastor Matt Brown spoke.

Random thoughts and ideas of the event overall:

• The busses were a hit. There is something about riding a bus as a group that brings people excited and gets people pumped up.
• We had an option for students to pay for all 3 nights or they could do individual nights depending on schedule. the nice part about that is if they couldn’t do one night, they didn’t have to miss out on the whole thing.
• Wednesday night we handed everyone an invite card where they can go to school and invite friends for $15 for the next nights’ event. That went awesome and every night we had more students sign up for one-day admission.
• Everything was done in-house to keep the cost down. We had a great worship team from within our church and had volunteers run most of the stuff pre-post service. We thought about getting “big name” speakers but since it was just our church, my thought is students don’t know or care about “big name” typical conference speakers. Some might, but most don’t. I think we might keep that trend going in the future.
• I loved the simple structure of the event. Because we had so many moving parts with registration and busses, it was nice to be able to do a simple, powerful and effective program.

We chatted a little bit more about this in the latest Youth Ministry Hacks Podcast episode. Click HERE to listen.

So there is the overview. Feel free to comment on any questions on here or in the comments on the DYM Group FB page.

@justinknowles3

Youth workers, behold! I present to you a unicorn of youth ministry!

This gaga ball (that does 4square as a side hustle) is 5 years old! For 500 youth nights It has been used, abused and misused by students and staff alike, and it still bounces back. It’s obviously not what it used to be—no grip, completely slick, oblong with random lumps all around it. It’s dirty and ugly, and yet it always bounces back.

The ministry this spectacular ball hails from was barely surviving 5 years ago, and now that same ministry is thriving. The ball however has given itself fully to its purpose and appears to be just “surviving” now. And yet… it always bounces back.

This is a good ball because as long as it has air in it, it is fully committed to its mission, and it always bounces back.

At the end of my call I hope the same can be said of me.

T.J. McConahay is the Student Ministries Pastor at GracePoint Church in the greater Seattle area. TJ has over 13 years of Full-time youth ministry experience in the Pacific Northwest. His #1MinuteMessage videos have been viewed over a million times on TikTok and Instagram He is a part of the DYM Facebook Community. You should join in on the GREAT discussion and ideas happening there!

So you want to jump-start your ministry?

Do you know what you should do first? Meetings.

Yes, I know, we have death by meetings, but this is the key thing to jump-start anything in ministry to make sure the change is healthy and will last without losing people along the way. If you don’t get buy-in from your leaders and they don’t follow you, are you really leading anyone?

Do we really need more meetings? Most of the time things get stagnant because we stopped paying attention, got complacent (into a rhythm) and stopped listening.

What kinds of meetings?

Before any re-start, I would spend a month meeting with: God, your leaders, and core students. When we do this – when we listen – we bring people along in the process. When people feel like they are a part of the process, the change that needs to happen to reach goals won’t be met with as much resistance because they have been with you in the process. Then the re-start and jump-start can begin.

• God: We don’t want to go where God is not leading. Take (at least) 1 full day alone, phone off, to pray and be with God asking for direction.
• Leaders: They are your boots on the ground. They are in groups with students. They have some great insight and could be your biggest catalyst or biggest hurdle.
• Core students: You are there to serve them. Lots of times we plan what we plan because we think it will be cool, not because it’s what is best for students.

So what should you ask in these meetings if we are to first listen before we strategize a plan?

Meeting with God:

• How is my heart?
• What do I need to work on to be a better follower of you?
• Am I loving what I am doing? Am I still called to this?
• Am I using the gifts You have given me to really further Your Kingdom?
• Are my values aligned with Your Values?
• Where do You want us to go?

Meeting with leaders:

• What is the best thing in our ministry right now?
• If you had the power to change something, what would it be?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our service?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate us at outreach/reaching new students?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our teaching/small group curriculum right now?
• How do you follow up with new students?
• What is one thing you can bring to the table to benefit our ministry?
• What is the biggest thing you need from me as the leader of this ministry?

Meeting with core students:

• What do you think about….(insert event, series, etc)?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our student services?
• Is the service we put on worth being invited to? Why or why not?
• On a scale of 1-10, how comfortable are you inviting a friend? Why?
• Are the events we are throwing worth being invited to? Why or why not?
• On a scale of 1-10, how are the leaders we have serving in our group? Explain.

Doing this sets the groundwork for change. What happens now is you can come up with a strategy that makes your people like they have been heard and takes in their consideration, feelings, and opinions; but allows you as the leader to make decisions. Everyone has been brought in before change even happens.

Is everyone going to be on board for every change? Probably not. But people will know you care about them and their opinions. It’s not a quick fix, but it’s a smart and strategic move. A jump-start in ministry can be explosive when people are in the know and are on board in the process.

@justinknowles3