We just got the okay to plan our Youth Winter Conference (don’t worry we are working through the best ways to do it still when it comes to all the stuff going on right now) and I had this moment where I was freaking out because last year at this time we were 3 weeks into announcing it and taking sign ups. And we just got the okay to plan it… so we are behind.

Right before our first real meeting to begin to chat about about all of the things, I made a list to go over and ran it by Belle who is in charge of all our big events and camps. I said, “Belle, today’s meeting is big. We need to make sure we hit all of these things so we are on the right track okay?” Belle is really good at what she does. She takes my chaotic mind and brings structure to it for everyone else.

Belle looks at me and says, “Do you not trust me?”

“No I do I just want to make sure.”

Belle again. “Do you not trust me? I have all those things on my agenda plus ones you missed.” Then she made the gesture of holding onto something tight and then letting it go. “Release it. I got you. Let me do it.”

And I took a deep breath. It’s true. I needed to let go and trust people who are really good at what they do because they are better at it than I. I know I have good ideas and can cast vision and dream big but I am not good at organizing in a way that makes sense. Belle is good at that though.

Belle helped me realize that I can’t, and don’t need to, do it all.

Get yourself a Belle.

Who on your team can call you out when your are being a leadership hoarder and help you loosen up your grip so ministry can run more efficiently?

So leader, what are you holding onto that you need to let go of because others can use their gifts that God has given them to help move your ministry way more forward and faster than if you were to do it?

One of the best things I have been forced to do and have learned to do in this season is learn to give more and more away. I realized our ministry can do more when I figure out how to do less. For other control freaks like me, I know what it feels like to feel like that if you don’t do it it won’t happen at all or in the way that you would do it.

Resist it.

If not, at least build yourself a team with a Belle to help remind you that you don’t need to do it on your own and there are others with different gifts who can help push the ministry forward.

So again I ask…

What are you holding onto that you need to let go of because others can use their gifts that God has given them to help move your ministry way more forward and faster than if you were to do it?

@justinknowles3

Last week I wrote a bit about our training and our new leader badges that had our WINS as a reminder for them in plain site (read the post HERE). I said I would talk about the QR code and new student follow up system.

We are only 1 week into this system, so we will adjust it if we need to moving forward, but we have seen it work pretty well. Follow up with 1st time students is SO important. We always say, “The first invite is always easy, but what is better than a first invite? A second one. An intentional follow-up invite back.” This is to help us make sure students don’t fall through the cracks. The best part about this… it’s not even my idea. One of our staff took this on, met with all our campuses to see how they follow up, came up with the best parts of what everyone was doing, and we made it a universal thing among all our campuses.

So here is what happens when a new student comes to one of our campuses:

• A new student shows up to a campus and they check in. On the check in tables are these QR codes. They scan it, you can scan it now to see the form yourself, (if they don’t have a smart phone a leader can do it for them) and they fill out our form from CCB (Church Community Builder, our church data system).
• Then they go to group.
• If they for some reason didn’t check in, each leader has the QR code on their badge and they can have them do the same thing when they get to their group. Totally cool.
• All the names get placed into a cue and our staff makes a profile for them and then pushes it to the correct campus and youth lead for follow up.
• When they get the notification, it triggers a 3 automatic email follow-up for that student.
• On Thursday, the following day, the lead will get an email to let them know who the new student was and their info. The lead will then connect with that small group leader and have them reach out to that student and the youth lead will shoot an email to the parents to introduce themselves, give general info about their campus, and let them know they are their to partner with them. They also get a general Sandals Church “We are so glad you came last night! Make sure to check out move.sc/youth” text.
• On that Tuesday our leads will get another reminder of that 1st time student and they will remind the small group leader to reach out and invite them back tomorrow AND the youth lead will reach out as well.
• Then on the Thursday (so week after the 1st initial connection) our leads will get a reminder to check if that student in fact did come again for a 2nd time. If so, the small group leader will reach out saying we are so glad you came again or if they didn’t come, shoot them a text letting them know they were missed we we hope to see them next week.
• One of the most important things we can do is 1) remember a name and 2) let them know they were seen last week but we NOTICED they were not there and we wanted to follow up.
• Then the cycle starts over for those who came that Wednesday.

Is it perfect? No. But is it intentional? Yes. We had over 50+ 1st time students last week so the system is in full swing right now with follow up so I will report back to let you know how it’s going.

Will all come back? We know that is not the case most likely. But I do know that more would be willing to come back because they were intentionally followed up with because we set up a system to remind us to do so.

@justinknowles3

In my last post I went through the “Four F’s” that we have challenged all of our leaders to do this year in regards to our Wednesday nights and small groups (read it HERE before continuing to read). One of my favorite things we did in this training was give out our new leader badges with their names on one side and the image above on the other.

If what we want is for our leaders to answer “YES” to the questions that go along with these for “F’s”, we want them to see the goals every single week.

The best ways for leaders to hit the targets we want them to hit is to continue to cast that vision and remind in a practical way of what we value as a ministry. We want to make it memorable. When they remember it, they know it. They know it and they will most likely do it.

Put the wins in plain site.

The best way is to put it around their neck as a weekly reminder. HA!

It’s simple but I think effective as well.

Oh the QR code you ask? That is for another post coming later, but in a nutshell it’s something we have for when a new student comes on campus we have a automated follow up system for following up.

@justinknowles3

A few months ago I gave our team a survey with one of the questions being about what are the best leaders at your campus doing in engaging small groups. All of our staff, without knowing what others said, all said that the BEST leaders in our ministry do these FOUR things.

Last week we did a big training to challenge our leaders and ask them a the big question:

Do you know how to win as a Sandals Church Youth leader? 

Here are 4 questions we want them to be able to answer “YES” to every week this year so they can know they are winning as a leader in our ministry (In typical youth ministry form, they all start with “F’s because alliteration works):

Faith Conversation: Have you had a conversation about Jesus?

• We need to make sure all leaders bring conversations back to faith. We have had too many groups not even getting to the group questions about the message they just heard. Whenever we talk with students, as leaders, we want to always bring it back to our faith.
• Small groups: This is an easy win for this. Small groups should be going through the discussion questions we have provided for each group. The small group questions wont be everything, but they are something… and we want you to use something.
• The 15 minute rule: The 15 minutes before or after service can be the most important time during the night. It’s the unstructured, random time where conversations can happen about faith.
• Here is the ask: Point students back to Jesus in a conversation with them. Not every conversation needs to be about faith but we are missing the point if none of our conversations are.

Follow Up: Did you follow up?

• When we follow up with a conversation, a new student, with a prayer request we show that we are doing life with them and we are there for them.
• When we follow up with a new student, it could be a deciding factor whether a student chooses to come back or not. A first invite is easy. An invite back is intentional. Let’s be intentional.
• Best follow up practices:
  • “Reach Out” –  get their info / make the first contact after the night to student AND family. 
  • “Invite” – Personally  Invite them back. Different than just a Group Text invite. 
  • “Involve” –  add them to all the group chats / rosters / social media.

• Here is the ask: Call or text the student before the following Wednesday.

Family: Did you make a connection with a family this week?

• It really is interesting how many parents drop off their students and never meet the people they are dropping off their student for. It’s also really interesting for how many leaders have not reached out to know parents of their students. We have an incredible opportunity to not only minister to our students, but their families as well. 
• We all have heard stories of students who first started coming to church, got saved, and then their families started to attend as well. When we are intentional with our students families, we can really partner with parents/guardians because they are with their students the other 166 hours during the week compared to our 2-3 hours. 
• Here is the ask: Make one connection a week with a student’s family a week. 

What could this look like:

• For some families, they might come to church, so just physically meeting them and knowing their name and getting their cell phone number would be a win. 
• For some, just letting their parents know how awesome their kid is after group or through email throughout the week. Parents love to hear how awesome their kids are. 
• For some, you might be close to their family and be invited to dinners. Do it. Any time you can be with the family, it’s a good thing. 
• Take 30 seconds and send them a text asking how they are and how you can pray for them specifically. You will be amazed how simple and powerful that is.
• Shoot an email updating them on what conversations and group has been like (obviously keeping the confidence of your students) but parents love to be in the know. 
• Connect with the parents/guardians via social media. Most of GenZ parents have it. It could be an easy way to share a story or make a connection with them. 

Fellowship +: Have you engaged your students beyond Wednesday night this week?

• How are you interacting the other 166 hours during the week? We have our students for 2 hours on Wednesdays, there are 166 other hours during the week… what are you doing to engage them?
• During the week in person: When interacting with students outside of Wednesday nights is a great time to get away from the physical church building and have faith discussions with our students. Some of the best conversations happen when we go into their world.
• During the week digitally: Digital is the new personal. GenZ lives online. A majority of your students live online so we need to go where they are. A DM, a share, a comment, etc are all good areas where we can make those extra connections, the +, during the week.
• Here is the ask: Don’t let Wednesdays be the only time you connect with your students. Connect in some way with at least 2 students.

This is what we challenged all our leaders with and I am excited to see them all take it on and give some F’s (which is what I wanted to call it but obviously, I can’t ha!)

@justinknowles3