Vitals for Youth Ministry
Welcome to the Vitals for Youth Ministry Podcast. Vitals for youth ministry is a biblical framework based out of Acts 2:42-46, developed by Lead The Generation that trains youth leaders to build a local church youth ministry focused on developing students into healthy disciples.
In this podcast we will focus on the topics and issues most relevant to leadership in Youth Ministry. The Vitals for Youth Ministry Podcast is hosted by Eran Holt, founder of Lead The Generation & Caleb Leake, Youth Pastor at Allison Park Church in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Vitals for Youth Ministry
Discipleship Beyond the Numbers - Tim Smith
What if the pathway to effective youth ministry isn't about chasing every good idea, but focusing on clear targets that produce lasting disciples? Tim Smith, Next Gen Director at Faith Church in South Carolina, reveals how establishing five core "vitals" transformed his approach to youth ministry after years of measuring success by numbers alone.
Drawing from over a decade of ministry experience, Tim shares how biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, missional living, and leadership development create both targets for aiming and guardrails for keeping ministry focused. These vitals function like a GPS system, providing not just the destination but the path to get there amid the countless distractions that youth pastors face.
Tim's transparency regarding his early ministry years reliance on evangelistic numbers as validation for his ministry calling is refreshing and challenging. "I would live off of endorphin hit to endorphin hit and use those things to validate why I was sitting in the seat I'm sitting in," he reveals. This pursuit of attendance and altar call responses left him wondering if he was actually "asking lost people to reach the lost" rather than developing genuine disciples.
Tim offers practical guidance for restructuring youth ministry, from ensuring alignment with your lead pastor to organizing your teaching calendar around four powerful questions: Who is God? Who am I? What do I believe? What do I do? He also unpacks his leadership training system built on the four C's: celebrate, communicate, cultivate, and collaborate.
Whether you're a full-time youth pastor at a large church or a volunteer in a small ministry, this episode provides both the philosophical framework and practical tools to build a youth ministry that produces disciples who thrive long after graduation. The days of spiritual whiplash between youth group and adult church can end when we focus on ministry vitals that truly matter.
You may be able to grow a large youth ministry on your own, but that does not mean that it's healthy, because, yeah, healthy things grow, but so do weeds, and so you need to ensure that your youth ministry the vision, the direction, the goals, the mission, all of those things are also in line with where the church is going.
Speaker 1:So, the five vitals if you're going to apply those and that's going to be the lens in which you are looking through for ministry moving forward, the verbiage may be different from the vision of your church, but as you present these vitals and as the mission and guidelines you know and values of your youth ministry moving forward to your lead pastor, just ensuring that there is an alignment there, because God blesses things that are unified Right, and so the Lord's going to bless that, that there is an alignment there, because God blesses things that are unified right, and so the Lord's going to bless that. And also, you want to ensure that when my senior graduates, or when my current seventh grader graduates, you know in five years from now that they are already in a ministry that is going to be handed off well, into the next stage of their walk with Jesus in their local church. You don't want things to look so completely out of pocket that it's a. You know they almost get spiritual whiplash when they step out of youth ministry.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to Vitals for Youth Mystery Podcast. So glad that you have joined us today. Whether you are listening on a podcast platform or watching on YouTube, we're glad you're here. My name is Aaron. I'm director of Lead the Generation. I'm here with this guy.
Speaker 3:My name is Caleb. I'm a youth pastor. I've been a youth pastor at Alice Park Church for four years and I got roasted for saying that I'm old in our pre-show.
Speaker 2:It's because you're 27 years old. And you were talking about how you're so old. Caleb just had a retreat this weekend with his youth ministry and he's feeling old on a Monday.
Speaker 3:I am feeling old. I think that's a good excuse to feel you can hear my voice, the raspy, and actually I think it sounds good. That's just because you overslept, bro.
Speaker 2:That's it. We are here today with one of my favorite human beings in all the world, mr Tim Smith. The one and only Tim Smith. Tim, introduce yourself to us. Where you serve in the ministry, your family, you know some of the good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like Aaron said, my name is Tim Smith. I'm the next gen director. Out here in South Carolina I'm at the church called Faith Church Great multi-site church, nine campuses, one big church and we love just reaching students to come to know Jesus and just become fully devoted followers of Jesus. That's kind of our tagline, that's our mission, that's our vision is to become fully devoted followers of Jesus. We've been out here five years. I got a wife, I got three kids and I got a one-year-old puppy named Tater Tot. She is the absolute best.
Speaker 2:And my dog is here too, so hey, Kota you're here Dog-friendly podcast. It's a dog-friendly podcast, it's true.
Speaker 3:Well, tim, we love having youth pastors on because every youth pastor has a story to share of someone doing something stupid. I don't think any other pastoral position has that same level of like. I have a deeper well, like I'm just mine of all these different stories and so we'd love to hear a crazy, stupid, funny, whatever youth pastor story that you've experienced, and you gave us two teases to something, so I'm just very excited to hear what you have for us today.
Speaker 2:You're just hoping it keeps you awake right now.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, just old bro, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So let me give you. Let me give you the most recent one. So every year we do something for our youth ministry called student conference. It's essentially just a weekend long, party slash, pursuit of Jesus, all at the same time. And so we have great services, we have great pre parties and after parties and every single year, with some of those things if you've ever been a part of that it feels like there's this pressure of like taking the, taking it up to another level the next time.
Speaker 1:And so we've had some epic after parties, but we feel you feel the pressure every year of it's gotta be bigger, it's gotta be better. And we had a campus pastor named Steve, and Steve, uh, back in the day, used to be a semi pro wrestler, so he would like be, you know, in these backwoods churches doing wrestling and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:I love where this is going already in these backwoods churches doing wrestling and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:I love where this is going already. And he said and he he's told me for years. He said, listen, I got a connection, so whenever you want I can bring some wrestlers in here and we can put on a real wrestling match with the whole thing. And I kept putting them off for years and a couple of my youth pastors were like Pastor Tim, this is the year we brought him in. Okay, we brought him and his guys in and we said, hey, you know, this is a church in that. So these are the things that can and cannot have so wait, wait, is the campus pastor wrestling like so he he was.
Speaker 1:He said I'm gonna be a part of it. So he came in as a manager of one of the wrestlers. Okay, so he's like, he's got the belt over his shoulders, he's got the knee pads on, he's trash talking all of our kids and leaders. It is wild. And like day day up, bro. They come in and I thought this is going to be some rinky dink thing. They are installing a real wrestling ring. They've got everything, like the turnbuckles, the whole shebang, dude, and I'm like this is going to be epic. And you guys know Peter Reeves.
Speaker 1:Peter Reeves is our guest speaker, so he's sitting there with me and we walk in and the service was amazing. God moved, kids' lives were changed, and now we're going to go do professional wrestling. Okay, hard, right turn. And so we're sitting there and all of a sudden they announced the first wrestling match and I realized this is not going to go well, because every wrestler came out in the most tidy, like speedo uniforms ever, like with crosses and areas. They should not be Like.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, dude, and I'm looking around and I'm just looking and there are moms in the room with sheer panic on their face and our boy, peter reeves. I look over at him and he's just dying laughing. He's like this is the most insane thing I've ever seen. And then like so I? So I'm panicking. I'm like all right, we got to start shutting some things down, I got to redirect some things because this is not going according to our conversation. I'm keeping it PG and then all of a sudden I look over and Peter Reeves is FaceTiming Micah Mack and he's like dude, look at how ridiculous this is.
Speaker 1:So long story short, it lasted two matches. I had to yell at our campus pastor Steve to get the whole thing shut down, because it was just going worse and worse and worse. I look at my two youth pastors that planned the whole event. They're standing in the sound booth like this and they are freaking out. They think they're about to get fired. It was, it was absolute chaos. So yeah, dude, that was. We're in the stages of planning for student conference this year. Got it, and that is.
Speaker 2:And you're going to have pants this time. I do have pants this time Pants this time around. We want a fully clothed after party and no tattoo reveals. Oh man.
Speaker 3:Man.
Speaker 2:I think every youth pastor knows that feeling of like we have to be bigger, we have to be better which always does lead to something where it's like you've done yourself a favor now, tim, because now, now that you crossed the line like, you didn't just cross the line, you like, you like you just sprinted past it, basically, now body slammed it you pretty much slammed the light with the speedo on we did the people's elbow to it, so.
Speaker 2:So now, now it's easy because you can just bring it way, way back down, like the pressure's off, like anything is good now you know, sometimes as a youth pastor, you have to cross the line to know where the line is.
Speaker 3:Again, you know how do I?
Speaker 1:know, where the line is, unless I cross it every once in a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah it under. Like that classic youth pastor motto, like it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, like you know which is not a good philosophy to do ministry by. By the way, we don't endorse that that's not one of the vitals no, it's not one of the vitals
Speaker 1:well, guys, here's the thing I called my lead pastor. I, while they're wrestling, I'm like, hey, you're about to get a bunch of phone calls and emails because it is not going well. And he's he. He was in a air, he was in a in an airport, he missed a flight, and he just starts laughing. He's like, oh, buddy, I've done way worse things than this. Thank god for a lead pastor full of grace. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:That's my story.
Speaker 1:Wow, no, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:That was great I mean every youth pastor I was in. I remember my very first. I just started at the church. I take a trip on a missions trip and me and one of my college buddies, his youth group, and we're fooling around wrestling each other and I backed him into the side of the van and his butt went through the van window, broke the window, shattered it. There were kids sitting in the van, so this glass goes all over them. And so I'm feeling you when you say I called my pastor right away, because I'm on the phone with my pastor, like I just broke the van window.
Speaker 1:Like they have to find out from me, nobody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true, so true.
Speaker 3:That's good. Youth pastor advice right, that's really good.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is awesome. Well, tim, excited to have you on the podcast. Love the story, amazing, incredible. Tim, you and I've been friends for quite a while. You were actually one of the leaders and one of the youth pastors that partnered with us to help develop vitals for youth ministry. If you're brand new to the podcast, you're watching, you're listening.
Speaker 2:You don't know what vitals for youth ministry is. You can go to our website, lead the generationcom check out vitals. It's a resource library of about close to 70 videos now that help you understand the five vitals that you need. To produce disciples in your youth ministry, you need five vitals biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, missional living, leadership development. So, tim, you were part of the team that helped develop this. We were honored to have you there being a part, speaking into this, and so I guess I'll just give you a real basic question to get started, because I think it's just it's just helpful for youth pastors to kind of understand when they're thinking about things like vitals and what's my philosophy of ministry and what's the framework by which and through which I want to do youth ministry. Yeah, what, what? What are some of your just initial big thoughts in regards to youth ministry and vitals for youth ministry. What do you feel like that looks like in your youth ministry? Just talk freely about it for a moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me, and so I was a youth pastor for a little over a decade and now in my current role, I oversee 10 youth pastors as kind of like their lead coach and encourager at our campus. And from leading them and also looking back on my experience, one of the things that I realize and just know to be such a reality is when you start youth ministry, or when you initially step into youth ministry, it can get really tough knowing which direction to go, which target to aim for and which good idea to chase, because there's so many, yeah, and you can get so caught up chasing so many good ideas and so many different directions that you're not actually making the ground you think you're that you're making? Do you think that you're making? And so, for us, one of the things that we've realized and that Vitals I think does for youth pastors and people launching youth ministries or people looking to just kind of hit restart on what youth ministry is, is, I think Vitals helps. Number one I think it helps give clear targets for what youth pastors should be aiming for.
Speaker 1:Um, growing up, basketball was my thing, it was um, it was Jesus, and basketball that was. That was essentially it growing up. And my dad. He taught me how to shoot a jump shot and my dad's thing that he would always tell me is he would say if you aim small, you will miss small. So he told me he said, tim, stop looking at the hoop. That's like eight-foot target. If you miss, you're going to miss in a huge way, he said. But if you aim at something small and specific, even if you miss, you're going to be off just slightly and the ball still may go in.
Speaker 1:I encourage our team is the things like with vitals and knowing your mission and knowing your values is if you have very distinct targets that you're aiming for. That, even in all of your imperfection, even in all of your hard work, you may not hit it exactly, but if you aim small and specific, even when you're off, you're probably going to, you're probably still going to reach the destination and what you're trying to get to. And so one of the things that I love for vitals is it gives five clear, distinct targets that you are looking to hit as a youth pastor, because you're going to, like I said, you're going to be hit with a million great ideas, different programs, different events that you could do. But if you are looking through the lens of these are the targets I'm looking to hit. Man, you are going to be accomplishing something great for the kingdom, um, weekend and week out, and so I think it helps. Number one it helps give a target. Number two, I think it helps give guardrails. Um, guardrails are are a beautiful thing, like, I think, driving down the road, you road, they have those on the highway, they have the metal guardrails that are along each side. Those things will keep you from veering off into chaos, veering off into danger.
Speaker 1:And for us we have a motto at our youth ministry is keep it simple. We're busy and we do a lot of things, but we keep it simple. We've essentially said that if there's an idea, if there's a program, an event, an initiative that is not accomplishing our vision, that's not accomplishing those vitals, we don't do them because those things act as guardrails and keep us from veering off into obscurity, veering off into just being overly busy, being overly extended, all of those things. They keep us from veering off into obscurity, veering off into just being overly busy, being overly extended, all of those things. They keep us on mission and then, finally, they help act as a GPS for us because you know you could drop me right now, aaron, in the middle of the wilderness of Washington State, which sounds beautiful.
Speaker 1:I've heard like the mountains and the trees are amazing. You could drop me off there. I know my address here in South Carolina. I know the destination I want to get to. I would have no idea how to get there if I don't have a step-by-step process on how to get back. And we all, and we all know in youth ministry what the destination is it's making disciples of Jesus, of the next generation. Right, we know where we want to go, but how to get there is a whole nother story. Yeah, and so for us, you know we utilize things like vitals and our missions and our values to help us understand the step by step process. So they act as a target, they act as guardrails and they also act as a GPS system for us to know the step by step process and where we want to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that that's so good. Yeah, that's so concise. Yeah, I love that that's so good, yeah, that's so.
Speaker 3:So concise, yeah. So if, if there's a youth pastor who's starting cause, even like, okay, that is like man, the worst thing that can happen is you're doing all this work and you're like what are we? Are we even doing anything that's moving us forward? Even though you can be chasing ideas that feel good, not having like the end destination really can make you just end up missing it.
Speaker 2:Of the five of the vitals, are there one that you feel like is one where everyone should start, or maybe like the beginning one you think like this is where you need to get things moving, or like which vital were you thinking about when you decided to do wrestlemania as an athlete.
Speaker 3:No, I'm sorry I'm sorry I think that was the living.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say don't, don't do that to me. Um, honestly, for us, one of the big things, aaron and this came out of a conversation, I think even before vitals became a thing. I think God was already stirring the idea of vitals in you. But you and me had a conversation a few years ago, man, about what are we preaching about, what are we teaching about, what are we discipling with our kids, and I know the vital that you have landed on within vitals is biblical truth, and you made a statement that has stuck with me for forever and it's taught you always talk about preaching to the root, not the fruit, and so, for us, we changed our entire sermon calendar and how we do small groups here, based off of forming everything, off of biblical truth, not just feeling the need and feeling the pull to just do things, to preach things or to teach things according to what culture is saying or the fact that, hey, it's February, so we have to do a relationship series, so we've got to do this February, so we have to do a relationship series, so we've got to do this.
Speaker 1:It's no, like we're going to preach the word and we're going to let God's word transform our hearts and our lives and if, if the root is transformed, the fruit will be transformed Right. And so for us, like the number, the very first of the vitals that we really leaned into was biblical truth, because for us, we were always preaching the Bible, but it was through the lens of a topic of our youth ministry that we can say they know who God is, they know who they are, they know what truth is, they know where it can be found. Like there's some very distinct pillars that we have decided we will preach about every single year, no matter what, and for us that was the biggest shift and it's actually like really changed the culture of who we are and everything else is just looking number one through that lens yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3:We've seen, actually we've had a lot of people talk about that similar, uh, that similar idea of like preaching to the root and just not the fruit. Yeah, I forget what. Um, one of them said he was talking about like preaching for behavior modification, switching that to make it something that's gospel centered Sorry, my voice is insane. When it comes to small groups. I'd love to dive into that. How have you noticed, like, or how have you changed your small groups to be something that reflects that vital of biblical truth? How is it different from before? You made that something that was so important to what you're doing made that something that was so important to what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so number one like a way to properly handle small groups is you need to make sure that you are training and equipping your small group leaders to first handle those conversations and not just hand everything over. But they need to understand they're not, they're not preaching a sermon, that this isn't their opportunity to stand on a soapbox, but this is actually the opportunity to facilitate conversation among students. That's based in a biblical worldview. So some practical things that we have done is we've just really set up our training with our leaders on what it looks like to lead a group, how to lead conversation, how to be prepared and in the word and bathed in prayer ahead of time, and so it puts a lot of the pressure and the onus on our youth pastors to be equipping well ahead of time, not last second. And there's great things that exist, like Right Now Media and things like that, but not just tapping out and saying I don't got to work on this, I'm just going to outsource it to something else and hand off curriculum, but we're really setting our leaders up to own it and lead it well.
Speaker 1:Number two, practically, like I said, is we decided we were going to buy Bibles for every student in our youth ministry, and so we have Bibles on hand every single week. Now, if a kid doesn't have a Bible at home, we will give them one they can take. But we have Bibles on hand for services and for small groups every single week, and we we even tell them, like, turn to page 100 and whatever, and this is who, and we remind everybody, this is who the author is, this is who the audience is, this is why they wrote it, all of that kind of stuff. And so we're constantly looking for the context. We don't assume that kids know even very basic Bible stories. We don't assume they know David and Goliath, the knowledge and tools that they need to discover the truth amongst themselves and with the Holy Spirit, who's revealing it to them in scripture. And so we've really leaned heavily into it being a Bible study that is willing to have conversations instead of just sitting in curriculum.
Speaker 2:Love it. Let me mention here, you know, just to give some some good context for those of you that are watching and those of you that are listening, especially if you are a youth pastor. Maybe you're a vocational youth pastor but you're, you know, maybe in a midsize church, you're listening to Tim talk and you, you know, you're like, well, this guy, you know he's at a multi-site and he's over 10 different youth pastors or whatever. Or maybe you're a volunteer and you do this out of passion and it's bivocational for you or whatever.
Speaker 2:One thing that I'd love to celebrate here is that Tim and his youth pastors and their church, faith Church, have donated probably close to two years worth of their sermon series that he's referring to right now, and they're on our website, leadedgenerationcom, under the resources area, and they're absolutely free. So, tim, thank you for that, because you know, obviously you guys, you know you spend the time to develop the sermons and the small group guides and the graphics and in some cases there's even like bumper videos with them. It's really great stuff. But I know for some youth pastors, they're out there listening to this and they're thinking, well, that sounds great. I just don't know that I even have the time. Well, here's a great resource for you. You know that can do that, so that's great.
Speaker 1:I know, caleb, you've actually used some of those too, also on our end, aaron. You know our team is made up of full-time, part-time and volunteer, and so the same reality whatever your reality is, as maybe watching or listening today our youth pastors are living within that reality. We've got moms and dads leading youth ministries and I've got full-time youth pastors. We're all over the board. And so I just want to encourage you, no matter where you're at and what it looks like in your leadership role is, man, lean into the resources that are made available. And I just want to say, aaron, I'm so excited about the resourcing that you guys are offering and even some of the leader training that I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit, but I'm really looking forward to that, because, even though we may look like we have a ton of resources, man, we we really are needing help in a lot of these things, and so, man, there's nothing wrong with looking into some of the resources that are available out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think I think it's a good move.
Speaker 2:You know, just, depending on where you're at in your youth ministry journey or depending on what your context is, you know, um, you know some of you in situations where you have time in your weekly schedule to sit down and and and write out sermons, and you you've been trained, you've, you know, you've done some development of yourself in that way.
Speaker 2:And then there's others that are just like I just love kids and I got like 10 kids in my church and I'm just trying to like help disciple them, and so you know like this conversation can be helpful for you because we're pointing it back to resources like Vitals for Youth Ministry that will train and sharpen you as a youth pastor, even if you're a volunteer, and that's all free, as well as like the opportunity to be like all right, here's a. You know like I'm thinking about the one sermon series that we have on our website from you, tim, on the Book of John, and I think it's like a. I think it's like an 18 week sermon series where it's just like great, here's the next four months of your teaching laid out for you, we, we, we did about two years where we only went through books of the Bible.
Speaker 1:So I believe um book of Acts, book of John, book of James, we did Daniel, we went a little Old Testament um this last. It's been a game changer for our students. It really has.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Can I go back. I'm always the practical guy. I feel like that's where I always love going. So I think, as a youth pastor, it can be sometimes intimidating when it's like I have to put the trust in my leader's hands. And training leaders sometimes can feel like okay, especially because a lot of youth pastors aren't even in small groups. For the most part they're like overseeing a collection of youth pastors or sorry, overseeing a collection of youth leaders. So as far as training leaders, what do you do that you found has worked? What are the things that you're doing that you think really helps leaders catch the ownership of making you know their, their small groups really good?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for us it's one of the things that we really tried. Our absolute best is to be as consistent as possible, and so we try to develop consistent training rhythms and we also try to keep those training opportunities consistent. So we kind of created an outline of what it looks like to train our team and we call it celebrate, communicate and cultivate. And so we open up all of our trainings with hey, let's celebrate what God is doing amongst our groups, let's shout each other out. That's when we really see culture shift, is when we really see culture shift, is when we realize it wasn't just the leaders saying, hey, this is how great my group is going, but hey, johnny's group is crushing it and I'm seeing it. And I'm seeing, you know, this huge culture shift within because I'm seeing Johnny show up to all of Jimmy's football games and things like that. And so we open up with celebrating just what God is doing to help stir the faith of those who may be struggling.
Speaker 1:At the time we communicate. So what are expectations, what are upcoming deadlines, what are resources that are being made available? And then we cultivate, which is we pour into them. So we really lean into personal development and growth for them and we lean into spiritual development and growth for them, and we lean into practical growth for them.
Speaker 1:And because we want to look at our leader holistically, not as just someone that is serving us, not as someone that's just helping us pull ministry off, you know, by the skin of our teeth every week. But we're actually ministering to the leader. They're not just ministering to our kids, we're ministering to the leader. And so looking at them differently has been a huge shift. And then the fourth C that we'll throw in every now and then is collaborate. So celebrate, communicate, cultivate and collaborate. And that's when we bring our leaders in on the process and we ask them hey, what's working, what's not working, what are some ideas, what are some directions, what are some shifts that we could make? And the more they own, the more that we've seen the excellence rise within our small groups and even just our weekly gatherings.
Speaker 3:Heck yeah.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I love the collaborate part too.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean the alliteration the rhyming that's so anointed.
Speaker 2:Just just that by itself that's what you know.
Speaker 1:It's good. I I like I said, I've been in the youth ministry for over 10 years. Alliteration ain't happening and it ain't working that's so good.
Speaker 2:Um tim, talk to um the youth pastor who's watching or listening today, and, um, they are kind of coming to the realization of, like man, I really kind of need to restructure my youth ministry around the framework of vitals. And you know, we've kind of kind of almost segueing back to where you started in this conversation, where you said, man, it's really easy to kind of get drawn away in different directions and get overly focused on certain activities or certain programs or certain styles or models of youth ministry, and and then we find ourselves years down the road and we're like, man, this isn't actually producing my youth ministry Isn't actually producing what I wanted to produce disciples Right.
Speaker 2:So talk to that youth pastor for a second, what are some practical tips you could give them to to walk through that process of maybe restructuring or evaluating their youth ministry and helping it to become more aligned with the five vitals that produce disciples?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So number one I think the starting point for everybody is you need to be in line with your lead pastor's. Mission for the church Is you may be able to grow a large youth ministry on your own, but that does not mean that it's healthy, because, yeah, healthy things grow, but so do weeds, and so you need to, you need to ensure that your youth ministry the vision, the direction, the goals, the mission, all of those things are also in line with where the church is going. So, the five vitals if you're going to apply those and that's going to be the lens in which you are looking through for ministry moving forward the verbiage may be different from the vision of your church, but as you present these vitals and as the mission and guidelines you know and values of your youth ministry moving forward to your lead pastor, just ensuring that there is an alignment there, because God blesses things that are unified, right, and so the Lord's going to bless that. And also, you want to ensure that when my senior graduates, or when that my current seventh grader graduates, you know in five years from now that they are already in a ministry that is going to be handed off well into the next stage of their walk with Jesus in their local church. You don't want things to look so completely out of pocket that it's a it's. You know they almost get spiritual whiplash when they step out of youth ministry.
Speaker 1:And so, utilizing the vitals even if you have to change some of the verbiage of the vitals to align with the church just ensuring that number one you are in alignment with your lead pastor, I would say that the second thing I would say is practically start with your leaders first. Don't just change everything tomorrow. Yeah, like don't do that. Okay Is lead with vision, with your leaders first. Help them understand where we're going and why we're going there first. Clearly define that for them. Help them understand the things that maybe you're already doing that fit within that vision. Help them understand why some of the things that they may like or things that they're used to may be removed because it's no longer in line with that vision. And give them a solid on-ramp for, hey, this is when the change is coming and here's what I need from you. There's that collaboration that we were talking about earlier is here's what I need from you for us to get to where we need to go. So lead through your leaders first, before you just make all the sweeping changes, or else you will lose a ton of leaders because you didn't lead with vision and understanding.
Speaker 1:Number three, I would say categorize what you're already doing within the vitals and remove things that don't fit. And so, if you're going to restructure and you're going to reorganize, it all goes back to aim small, miss small. To reorganize, it all goes back to aim small, miss small. So I would, if it was me, practically I'd get my whiteboard out, which is right here, and I would write down every vital at the top and then I would just start listing off everything that we do and I would place it underneath a vital and then I would create an other category and if something is an other, I would, I would prayerfully consider just eliminating it from my ministry.
Speaker 1:It may be good, but it doesn't mean that it's God. You know what I mean. It doesn't mean that it is exactly what you should do. Not every good idea should be held on to, and so just keep it simple aim small, miss small. Only do the things that are accomplishing the mission and the vision of what you have. And then, finally, I would say vision drives calendar and budget. So once you categorize all of those things, then you got to think through all right, my next 12 months, yeah, how? How are these things flowing out through our ministry in a way to where I'm not just filling my calendar now with a million things, but I'm strategically utilizing my calendar and my budget, no matter how big, no matter how small that it is to. You know to follow vision. Vision should drive your calendar and drive your budget, and so, very practically, those were probably the first four things I would do.
Speaker 2:Tim's taking us to school today.
Speaker 3:Bro, he is, that's so good I was thinking for youth pastors who are feeling intimidated or overwhelmed. It's like those are a few really simple, easy steps that they can start to take and, yeah, it will allow you to stop having to work as hard to reach things you're wanting to get to. When you have that strategy, philosophy that's taking you where you need to go. I love that it does that where it's like it kind of catches itself because we know these vitals are proven, we know that these things work, and so when you build around it, it's not about striving to make things happen, it's just about doing what God's calling us to do and submitting to that process.
Speaker 2:And I love, I love the fact that you're coaching us, Tim, to start with, you know, making sure we're in alignment with our senior pastor, with our lead pastor, as well as then start the process of understanding and teaching vitals with your immediate adult leaders, because sometimes we'll get that backwards and we'll we'll do what you, we'll do the your last step, which was like get the whiteboard out and organize everything, and then we're like, cool, let's get it, we're going to ax all these ones that don't fit Um. And then when we do it, if you do it out of order, then what happens is your, your pastor or your leaders around you are like what is happening, what's going on, you know, and they don't have any buy-in, um, and so then you're trying to, you know, get them up to speed, um, in the emotion of their disappointment or their frustration with things that you've pruned or things that you've cut. So, um, yeah, I, I appreciate your answer and just how like systematic and you know the thought, the thought processes for that Um, I guess another question I have for you, tim, and then and again, I just know that this is a sweet spot for you, like you mentioned it earlier in our conversation about taking time to plan your calendar specifically related to preaching and teaching, right? So I guess I'm going to give you a two-part question and you can answer it in whatever order you want. So, one, tell us what you're doing now. Tell us what an annual year roughly looks like now for you, because I think that could be really helpful for youth pastors to kind of get inside your head, like the way you think about your annual preaching and teaching calendar.
Speaker 2:And then two, are you doing any planning of preaching topics, teaching topics around the five vitals, you know? Is it all just? Does all of that just fall under the biblical truth vital for you, or are there certain messages or certain series that you feel like highlight? You know, maybe one or two of the other vitals?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for for us, um, we literally like this is kind of crazy. While you were talking, I had to pull all this up is? I just met with some of my student pastor captains, uh, two weeks ago and we were literally wrestling with, all right, what does what is a consistent sermon calendar look like for us? And so we broke it into four quarters is where we landed is every year we were going to have four quarters. The first quarter, january through March, is we are literally asking the same question every year. So who is God? So that could be. We're talking about the Trinity, the life of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, where's Jesus in the Old Testament? The names of God, god's story, the story of creation, the heart of God, all of those things we're every year. No matter what we are answering who is God from January to March.
Speaker 1:The second question we're asking is who am I? So? Because once you know who God is, then you can discover who you are in him. If you try to define who you are before you understand who God is, you will get things completely out of order from that point forward. So we ask that question.
Speaker 1:Second, the third quarter of every year is what do I believe. Okay, so those are the practical teachings, understanding, there's some theology, some apologetics, so many different directions that you can go. And that is the third quarter. And then the fourth quarter is what do I do? Do so, what does it look like to be a missional, um, disciple of jesus? Okay, we, we have talked about now what's the order? Um, we, we like the order of order one and two who is god, who am I?
Speaker 1:And then we've we've wrestled with the idea of maybe changing what do I do to the third quarter, because that directly follows up summer camp and everything God did in my life. So I'm going back to school to be missional, but, yeah, so that we literally justifying that as a youth ministry. Now, that's not the world's best answer, probably. I'm sure there's people that can give you some other great strategies. That's where we've landed for us, and so, for us, we believe that biblical truth is is obviously in there, especially with the what do I believe and the who is God, the spiritual transformation that is, that's within the arc of who am I, and missional living, the what do I do? Element, and so in healthy community, also falls underneath all of those things. And so all four of our quarters, kind of intentionally. They all hit a different vital. That is a part of what we're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what I think is beautiful of what every youth pastor should catch is maybe they're not going to do it exactly like you, tim, but the strategy behind it, if I want these things in every month and every quarter and every semester of what I'm doing. So maybe it's not the exact method. You know, youth pastor, if you're listening that you're going to take and say, okay, we're going to do, this month is this and this month is this. But it's starting to ask yourself the question do I have something like this in my preaching calendar in my small groups, that we're aiming towards something? And if not, how can I start to begin to do that? And Tim's is a great way, but obviously modifying it to your context.
Speaker 2:Well, there's good balance there. That's part of what I hear too, cause I think okay. So think balance like like healthy balance, diet, right, I mean that's like goals for all of us right. We were actually talking about that before we hit record, like like we'll talk about Tim running a half marathon and me trying to cut back my caffeine intake, right, but it but, it's all like we.
Speaker 2:you want to live, you know, healthy and balanced life. Healthy, balanced diet. Discipleship, you know, falls into that model quite a bit too, right. So if you, if you don't have an intentional strategy as a youth pastor, a youth leader in your youth ministry, regardless of size, if you don't have an intentional strategy for um like that goes along the line with what Tim just said, what you will most naturally do as a leader is you will lean on your preferences or your areas of passion, yep, right, and so you'll be like the youth pastor, who's like it's all apologetics, it's all, just do you know what you believe?
Speaker 2:Or you'll be the youth pastor that's like it's all about community and love and grace and relationship. Uh, or you'll be the youth pastor that's like it's all about just your prayer, life and Bible, you know. And so you end up very unintentionally, mind you, we end up producing disciples that, um, that are just incomplete I guess is a good way to say it Like their diet is incomplete as a result. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you been through? Did you go through that phase, tim? Yes, and I'll tell you like for me it literally probably took at least five years for me because I struggled with. I felt like I had to be an evangelist. I didn't understand, like I thought every week was an evangelism outreach, every single week, and I felt the pressure to have as many people in the room as humanly possible and have as many hands raised as possible. And if I could give good numbers to my lead pastor or my lead youth pastor with those events and the hands raised, then I was crushing it. And there are seasons and there are times when God will say, hey, this is a season where we're going to maybe lean more evangelistic or we're going to lean more discipleship, whatever. Need more discipleship, whatever.
Speaker 1:But man, I realized I was raising up a group of students and saying go be, world changers reach the lost and I was and then I'd watch them graduate and I would ask myself was I asking lost people to reach the lost? Because I don't know if I actually had them digging their roots down deep in, down deep in totally understanding who the Lord is, who they are, what it looks like to live a lifestyle fully submitted to Jesus Christ. And there are seasons where the Lord is going to have you lean into certain things or have a certain bent. But my bent was evangelism, evangelism, evangelism, which is great for an evangelist, but for a local youth pastor, my job is to is to develop fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, and evangelism is an outgrowth from that.
Speaker 2:It's not the priority, and so for me it took way too long to see what I needed to shift and I'm saying yep, cause I cause I did the same thing. I would go, I take my kids to the you know the camp or the retreat, the convention event, and I would listen to you know that guest speaker or that youth evangelist preach and I'll be like that's it and that's who I need to be like and that's what I need to model my youth ministry after this kind of environment, this kind of you know, production, this kind of preaching. And that that was my target, that was what I went for. And I got stuck in that, that rut way too long in probably my first like five to seven years as a youth pastor. That was just all I was focused on.
Speaker 2:And then, but fortunately, you know God, god graced my wife and I with the opportunity to stay at the same church for quite a long while. So after I saw my very first group of like sixth graders that came in graduate from high school, it became a lot easier for me to in real time assess the question of discipleship, which is what you're talking about here, tim Like am I really producing disciples? And I was like man, this is not working, like this version of youth mystery we're doing isn't working, and so some soul searching, you know, and we got to figure out, like you know, how to change our model. How's that hitting you? Cause you're just like you're getting. You're like two, three years away from seeing that first group of students. I was just thinking about that, yeah.
Speaker 3:My, my first classes are sophomores right now, so not far away. Yeah, I think everyone has that bent towards wanting to be an evangelist of like it's the only thing I need to if I get more people in, more people raising their hands doing a great job. I'm not wired that way, so I felt guilty a lot. I'm not good enough for this kind of thing, but it's like it's part of it is. I am called to be evangelistic, but that doesn't mean I'm an evangelist and that also means there's so much more to what God is calling me to and helping students dig deep. That's also what I love to do, and so I feel less guilty about doing that part of my ministry than I did in the past because I felt like well it's not moving the needle, quote, unquote, forward the way.
Speaker 3:Having a hundred kids in the room, they all raise their hand and they're all down front of the altar. You know, like just having a simple conversation over coffee or talking to my leaders about how they're doing that with someone that is now way more of the focus of like oh, that's my win and what I want. But I think everybody thinks that way, which I wonder why. Why would that? Why is that? Is it just because that's the easy fruit to see?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think that I think I'm going to let you answer this question too, tim, but my initial reaction, caleb, is that part of it is the attractional youth ministry model that we've been in for decades, and so that's what's been passed on to us, that's what we've learned, that's what we've learned, that's what we've taught, that's what we've inherited, or maybe even that's what the that's what the youth ministry is like, that you grew up in, you know, and so some some of it is is probably that.
Speaker 2:I think some of it is also a natural, like maturing process that we all go through as leaders, right, you know we don't, we, you know, we don't always recognize it when we start in youth ministry, you know, in our like early twenties, and then by the time we're like an old man, like 27 years old or something like that. That was for you, but you only need like a couple of years, before all of a sudden you start to realize like, oh, I need to. You become self aware, hopefully that I've like, I need to grow up in this particular area of my thinking or of my practice or of my leadership?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, Tim. What thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, for me, my, my entire life I already I mentioned earlier sports is so much of the value that I didn't realize I was placing on myself was based off of the accomplishments in which I was a part of. And, to be just completely transparent, guys, I wanted to utilize numbers, size of the youth ministry, outreaches, events to validate why I have the job that I have. That, in the depth of being so insecure and not feeling worthy enough to do what the Lord has called me to do, I thought those moments validated it. So maybe anybody that questions should Tim have that job? And mostly it was me saying should I be in this position, like nobody else is more aware of how broken and fragile of sinners that we are than ourselves?
Speaker 1:And just being hard on myself and just saying, man, I don't know if I belong in this role, but then I would live off of you know that, that, those emotional highs or whatever you know, those chemicals that get released in your brain from a mountaintop moment. Yeah, I would live off of endorphin hit to endorphin hit and I use those things to validate why I was sitting in the seat that I'm sitting in, instead of allowing the fact that I'm sitting here because God said I should be and he's entrusted me with these kids, and so once I realized that I could lay that down at the feet of Jesus and pick up what it is he actually wants me to carry in this role, it freed me up. So much to say. It's about raising up disciples, not about validating my job.
Speaker 2:It's so good I love it, man that this whole conversation has been so great. Tim, thank you for just the coaching and then even just your vulnerability. I think it's so helpful for for all of us and I think it's helpful for any and every youth pastor that's listening, whether you're, you know, volunteer in a small church context or you know, whether you're serving full time somewhere in a larger setting. Um, tim, real quick as we, uh, as we wrap here, uh, just cause I thought it was so practical, give us the four C's again for how you train leaders, um, and then also give us the four areas the court, the four quarters of your preaching, what and then also give us the four areas, the four quarters of your preaching, what you guys are doing right now.
Speaker 1:Yep, so how we train, the outline of our meetings is we do 10 minutes to celebrate each other, then we go into communicate. So that's all the details, everything that they need to know, that's coming, dates, resources, all of that stuff. Communicate, then we cultivate, so we pour into them personally, as leaders, spiritually, we, we love them and lead them well, and then, um, not every time, but at least once a quarter, we cultivate. I mean we collaborate. That's the fourth c. Collaborate is we bring them in on owning where we're going, improving, improving things, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I feel the anointing, just with the four, the alliteration, I really do. I'm telling you, man, it's drippy.
Speaker 1:It's drippy. And then our, our four quarters in our sermon calendar are number one, who is God? Number two, who am I? Number three, what do I believe? And number four, what do I do? So those are just such big umbrellas. Obviously, every single year you can preach entirely different sermon series. You're not repeating your series, but the theme is the same.
Speaker 2:So good, so good. Well, tim, thank you for joining us. It's been incredible For those of you watching or listening. Tons of free resources on the leadthegenerationcom website Vitals for Youth Ministry, great training for you as a youth pastor, plus a lot of those videos on there will help you train your volunteer team, as well as even some of them will help you train your student leaders. And then you want to check out some of faith students. That's Tim's youth ministry. You want to check out some of faith students sermon series. They're on our resource page as well on the lead the generation website all free. So thank you, tim, for that. Thank you for your time. This has been incredible. Any last thoughts?
Speaker 3:No, Tim, is there any way people can reach out to you if they want to talk to you or ask questions about stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So Instagram, um, it's really easy. My handle is at pastor Timmy, or you can email me. My email is Tim Smith at. Faith is hereorg, and you just reach out. If there's anything I can ever do just to encourage you, to equip you, that's what I would love to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's incredible. Um, thanks for being with us today. If you love the podcast and you're listening on a podcast platform, we would love it if you would take time to give us a review. That'd be great. If you're watching on YouTube, we'd love it if you would become a subscriber to the channel and be a part of all of the future and past Vitals for Youth Ministry podcasts. As we have going on Until the next time, god bless, we'll see you guys.
