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22 May 2025

5 TIPS | Promotion like a Pro! Beginning vs End of Summer

By |2025-04-29T21:21:17-07:00May 22nd, 2025|Help Me With..., Hybrid Ministry, Mental Health, online youth group, Podcast, Technology, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|8 Comments

When should you promote elementary students—right after school ends or just before the fall kickoff?

In this video, we’re breaking down the pros and cons of beginning-of-summer vs end-of-summer promotions to help you make the best move for your ministry.

Whether you promote from 5th to 6th or 6th to 7th, or just want to avoid the chaos of unclear grade promotions—this one’s for you!

And if you’re interested in seeing more of what the Hybrid Ministry Show has to offer, I’d love to encourage you to check out more!

15 May 2025

Youth Ministry in the Summer? Should You Shut It Down or Show Up Strong?

By |2025-04-29T21:23:56-07:00May 15th, 2025|Help Me With..., Hybrid Ministry, Mental Health, online youth group, Podcast, Technology, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|0 Comments

Summer is coming, and youth pastors everywhere are asking—do we keep programming or hit pause?

In this video, we’ll break down the pros and cons of both options and help you decide what’s right for your ministry this summer.

Stick around till the end for a FREE resource: 100 social media ideas to keep students engaged—even if you hit pause.

Plus 3 tips for summer ministry, regardless of the direction you choose

And if you’re interested in seeing more of what the Hybrid Ministry Show has to offer, I’d love to encourage you to check out more!

8 May 2025

How I’m Doing 3 Months of Social with THIS One Resource

By |2025-04-30T14:32:05-07:00May 8th, 2025|Help Me With..., Hybrid Ministry, Mental Health, online youth group, Podcast, Technology, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|0 Comments

This is your youth ministry summer social media game-changer.

With 3 months of ready-to-go posts, training videos, and templates, you’ll never stress about what to post again.

Designed for youth pastors by a youth pastor using a proven hybrid ministry model.

This video unveils 8 dynamic [custom] post types, we walk through how to use, edit and post in this video!

You’ll never worry about it, again! (Oh, and look like an absolute pro while doing it!)

And if you’re interested in seeing more of what the Hybrid Ministry Show has to offer, I’d love to encourage you to check out more!

1 May 2025

From No Budget to Pro – Summer Camp 2025 Photography & Videography Setup Guide

By |2025-04-11T08:53:53-07:00May 1st, 2025|Help Me With..., Hybrid Ministry, Mental Health, online youth group, Podcast, Technology, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|4 Comments

Want pro-level camp content without a pro-level budget?

In this episode, Nick Clason, of Hybrid Ministry, breaks down the exact gear, tips, and hacks you need to capture incredible summer camp photos and videos—even if you’re starting from scratch.

Whether you’re using a phone, DSLR, or just your creativity, we’ll help you level up your visual game to create that momentum back at your church that camp deserves!

And if you’re interested in seeing more of what the Hybrid Ministry Show has to offer, I’d love to encourage you to check out more!

24 Apr 2025

How I Produce a [Weekly] Leader Podcast in under 1 hour

By |2025-04-01T08:02:32-07:00April 24th, 2025|Help Me With..., Hybrid Ministry, Mental Health, online youth group, Podcast, Technology, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|0 Comments

You need to train your volunteer youth leaders, but how do you produce a podcast, which gives you the outlet to offer more trainings than you even know what to do with?

And how do you not lose your life to it?

In this epsiode I outline and detail how I produce a weekly leader podcast in only one hour per month!

Yes, I’ll show you everything I do from getting started, the gear, and maintaining it!

And if you’re interested in seeing more of what the Hybrid Ministry Show has to offer, I’d love to encourage you to check out more!

13 May 2024

Following Up With Visitors and New Students

By |2024-05-13T11:43:29-07:00May 13th, 2024|Youth Ministry Hacks|7 Comments

When you get a chance to hang out with new students, do you have a process of making sure you can follow up with them? Do you follow up with them?

If you don’t have a process, you won’t follow up with students.

Here’s my suggestion to you and it’s in three parts:

Get Their Info

Every time you meet a new student, get their information. You need four things:

First and Last Name

Grade

Gender

Contact Info

What contact info do you need? That depends on you. What are you more likely to use to follow up with a student? Their phone number? Email? Street address?

Whatever you use, get the same thing each time. And determine HOW to get that info as well. Is it a card students fill out? Is it an online form they scan with a QR code?

In our ministry, I had students fill out a card and they got a big candy bar from me when they turned it in. You may want to give them a cool t-shirt or even a gift box, but that’s totally up to you!

Whatever you do, do the same thing each time because of step two.

Have a Plan for Follow-Up

Do you text every student after they come to youth group? Do you send them an email with links to next steps? Do you send them something in them mail?

Whatever you do, have a plan! It’d be best if you had students know that you are glad they showed up and let them know they’re welcome back anytime!

It’s totally fine to have a prewritten text or email or letter to send out to students. You can make it personalized with a few extra words or not. That’s up to you!

Put Follow-Up on Your Weekly To Do

Following up with students SHOULD be important. But if it’s not on your weekly list of things to do, it won’t get done.

Make it happen at the same time each week. Like every Thursday after youth group night. Or every Monday after Sunday is over with. Whatever you do, make sure it happens each week at the same time.

That will help you recognize when you have visitors and when you don’t. Knowing that will let you see if your group is inviting in friends or if they aren’t.

And if they aren’t, then you can learn what you can do about it!

Any extra thoughts? I’d love to hear them!

5 Apr 2024

How do I Sign Into the NEW Sidekick?

By |2024-04-18T14:59:22-07:00April 5th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog, Sidekick: What's New, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|6 Comments

DYM Gold Members Rejoice! Sidekick is included in your membership!

1000’s of your youth ministry friends are using it every week. If you haven’t poked around yet and tried out Crowd Voting, the FREE section, the one-click integration to DYM products you already own, the “presenting from your phone or iPad”… there’s so much. And, we’re making it better every day.

Here’s how to log-in:

Let us know what you think and what you’d want for us to include in the ever-growing FREE category next. Even 100’s of your recent DYM purchases are instantly available in Sidekick to insert in just 1-click!.

Let us know if you have any questions,

Doug & Josh
[email protected]

19 Dec 2023

And the Winner of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest Is … Chosen Using Sidekick, of Course!

By |2023-12-19T08:25:06-08:00December 19th, 2023|Mariners Youth Ministry, Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog, Youth Ministry Hacks|0 Comments

Our Mariners Church Student Ministry Volunteer 🎄Christmas Party🎄 was last night (’tis the season), and the Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest is always SO fun … but choosing a winner has never felt quite right. Sure, there’s the “audience applause” gauge, the crowd favorite, and then there’s me—always biased to the Star Wars-themed holiday gear, naturally.

🤔 If only there were a way to have people cast their ballots so we get an actual popular vote of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Enter: Sidekick.

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

AND IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!

We picked our 6 finalists and had them hit the stage. Then everyone whipped out their phones for a serious and scientific showdown…

Some of the best parts about Sidekick Live Voting are:

  • You can only vote once (no cheating)
  • Voting is anonymous (no hating on people who voted differently than you)
  • You can choose whether or not to show voting results in real-time (you can build suspense)

For our event, here’s how we set up our Live Voting Presentation Settings:

We toggled the “Show Live Results” to OFF so we could gather all the votes in secret. And then, only after all the votes were cast did we dramatically reveal the winner.

AND IT WORKED PERFECTLY!

It was close … but we all knew the real winner that night: Sidekick.

Just kidding… well sort of. Sidekick was the tool that helped us easily solve the annual debate of who won the ugly Christmas sweater contest. So in a way, because of Sidekick, we all won. Perfection!

How will you use Sidekick +Phones this week in your ministry?

Josh

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

11 Dec 2023

How a Silly Idea Called Llamabucks Changed Our Youth Group This Fall

By |2023-12-11T23:47:43-08:00December 11th, 2023|josh griffin, junior high, junior high ministry, Mariners Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas, Youth Ministry Resources|11 Comments

Last week I had 11 students tell me last week’s memory verse from youth group.

Now, maybe that’s not the most incredible thing in your context, but I added a memory verse to our program over a year ago and this was exactly 8x the most we’ve ever had recite a verse from memory. Now, you could certainly chalk up part of that to poor leadership on my part for the past 365 days, and that’s certainly a contributing factor. But what accounted for the change?

Enter: llama bucks.

Back at Fall Kickoff we introduced a new currency in our youth group, playing off of a llama theme that has kinda taken over. No more prizes, just llama bucks. Serving? Get a llamabuck. Ask a great question in your small group time? Score a llamabuck.

SAY A MEMORY VERSE? Get a llamabuck.

And this thing has taken on a whole life of its own. Despite us having a really horrendous resume and zero experience in distributing an internatioal currency and inflation … we’ve given out thousands of llama bucks. And they can be used in two key ways:

  1. Use them in small amounts right away in the llama store outside the youth room to grab some Nerd Ropes or a Liquid Death (it’s just water people) or some JHM merch.
  2. Save up for the Llama-auction on January 13th, 2024. We have a big event planned with lots of fun, big items (most requested was an eBike, we’ll see, sounds expensive) but we’ll have fun items for students to bid on to use up their bucks.

Reward what you want to see happen in your youth ministry. Not a new idea, just our spin on it … and it’s crushing right now.

Josh

11 Sep 2023

Winning Youth Ministry: Training Volunteers

By |2023-09-11T14:32:47-07:00September 11th, 2023|Youth Ministry Hacks|3 Comments

Volunteers are the unsung heroes who invest their time and hearts into shaping the spiritual growth of the next generation. In the world of youth ministry, nothing is as crucial as ensuring your volunteers are well-trained and fully equipped for the incredible task they’ve taken on. Let’s dive into the significance of training volunteers, how it benefits them, strengthens your ministry, and impacts your church.

Empowering Your Volunteers

Let’s start with the heart of it all: your volunteers. These are the individuals who selflessly give their time and passion to nurture the faith of the youth in your church. So, why is training them so important?

Through training, your volunteers acquire the necessary skills to engage with and make a meaningful impact on the lives of young people. This includes honing their communication skills, mastering conflict resolution, and becoming experts in lesson planning. Training often includes personal spiritual development, which allows your volunteers to deepen their own faith as they guide others on their spiritual journeys. When volunteers receive thorough training, they gain the confidence they need to tackle the challenges that come their way. A confident volunteer is an enthusiastic and dedicated one.

Strengthening Your Ministry

Having a standardized training program ensures that all your volunteers are on the same page, delivering a consistent message and experience to the youth in your ministry. Proper training encourages your volunteers to bring fresh ideas and innovative approaches to your ministry, fostering creativity and adaptability. Volunteers who know their roles and responsibilities well are more efficient in planning and executing activities, ultimately lightening the load on youth pastors.

Impacting Your Church

The positive effects of volunteer training don’t stop at your youth ministry’s doorstep—they have a wider impact on your church community. A vibrant and well-organized youth ministry can attract more families to your church, contributing to overall church growth. Volunteers who feel valued, equipped, and confident are more likely to stay committed to your church for the long term. A thriving youth ministry has the potential to engage the broader community and draw new members to your church family.

Hey! This is a great time to talk about training your volunteers!

Sign up for National Day of Volunteer Youth Ministry Training. This event is about to become your secret weapon for supercharging your volunteer training efforts and setting your youth ministry up for unprecedented success.

  • Date: September 23, 2023
  • Cost: Just $199 for your entire volunteer team
  • Location: Take your pick between hosting it at your church or attending one of our 300+ locations

Here’s the best part: the cost is per group, not per person. This means you can bring as many youth ministry volunteers as you can gather, making it the best deal in youth ministry.

On this special day, your volunteers will receive youth ministry-specific training from renowned speakers like Christine Caine, Albert Tate, Doug Fields, and more. It’s going to be a fun, helpful, and momentum-building experience that will leave your volunteers inspired and ready to make a profound impact on the lives of the youth in your community.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to invest in your volunteers and, in turn, elevate your youth ministry and church. Mark your calendar for September 23, 2023, and get ready to equip your team for an amazing ministry year.

In conclusion, remember that your volunteers are the backbone of your youth ministry. By giving them the tools they need to succeed, you’re not only investing in their personal growth but also in the future of your ministry and church. So, gear up for the National Day of Volunteer Youth Ministry Training, and watch your volunteers soar to new heights.

Need something to start training your volunteers right now? Check these awesome resources out from DYM!

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