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
Leading Indicators, Dealing with Criticism, and Asking the Right Questions in Youth Ministry - Andy Lynn
Is your youth ministry measuring the right things? When attendance numbers become your primary success metric, you're setting yourself up for an emotional rollercoaster that's entirely out of your control.
Andy Lynn, NextGen Director, New Jersey Ministry Network, brings 18 years of ministry experience to this paradigm-shifting conversation about what really matters in youth ministry. After spending 11 years as a youth pastor himself, Andy discovered the transformative power of measuring "leading indicators" - the actions and priorities within your control - rather than "lagging indicators" like attendance that often leave youth pastors feeling defeated.
Drawing from Acts 2, Andy explains how the early church focused on prayer, biblical teaching, community, leadership development, and generosity as their daily priorities. The numerical growth came afterward as God "added to their number daily those being saved." This biblical pattern provides a framework for sustainable youth ministry that works in any context - whether you're full-time, bi-vocational, or volunteer.
The conversation takes a practical turn as Andy describes implementing simple daily and weekly checklists that ensure every vital area receives attention. This approach allows youth pastors to confidently know they've "won the day" regardless of attendance fluctuations. He also shares invaluable wisdom about whose feedback to prioritize, noting that "if families aren't meaningfully engaged in church, they're going to complain based on preference and entertainment, not based on kingdom principles."
Ready to transform your approach to youth ministry? Download Andy's prototype checklists, now called Vitals Playbook, and start measuring what truly matters. You can trust Him with the results when you're faithful to what God has called you to do.
My first church I went to my pastor and said I have these parents complaining about youth ministry and I have they say it's not deep enough. I have this other set of parents that's complaining that it's too deep and I was like, how do I, how do I handle this? He walks me down to the finance office and our CPA was there and he said, hey, don't tell us how much, but he goes. Andy, list off all the families that complained. I did. He goes. Can you tell us if these people are tithing? And the CPA said yes, no, yes, no, like just down a little, just like that. And he goes, andy, everyone that's complaining it's tithing. I want you to take it to heart. Ignore everyone that isn't.
Andy Lynn:At first, when he first said that, I thought he was an insecure pastor that didn't want to lose money. That was my first thought of why he did it. But later on, when I got to know him, he didn't care about the money. His point was if families weren't engaged in the church, they're going to complain based on preference and entertainment, not based upon actual, like kingdom principles. So if people are not meaningfully engaged in my youth ministry, I'm not going to let their critique weigh pretty heavy.
Eran Holt:Hey everyone, Welcome to Vitals for Youth Ministry podcast. We are glad you have joined us, whether you are listening in on your favorite podcast audio platform or you're watching us on YouTube. Hey, how you doing? We're glad you're here. My name's Aaron, director of Lead the Generation. I got the one and only Caleb Leak here with me.
Caleb Leake:Yep Youth pastor at Allison Park Church for four years, about to be a dad, two months away from that, so that's fun. Yeah, having a little baby boy? Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, having a little baby boy yeah, and we got Koda with us today.
Eran Holt:We're a dog-friendly podcast, that's what we like to say, but he's not the real guest that's on the episode today. The real guest is Andy Lynn, who is the NextGen director for New Jersey in the Assemblies of God, the New Jersey Ministry Network. So, Andy, glad you've joined us. Tell us a little bit about yourself family ministry background. Help the people get to know you a little bit.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, been in ministry. I'm in my 18th year. Let's go yeah, Some of it by vocational, some of the full time, but the last two years I've been the DYD for New Jersey having a blast. Most of my ministry has all been youth ministry and campus ministry.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, I love it. So how long were you a youth pastor then? How many years is that?
Andy Lynn:Yeah, so youth pastor was 11 years. Campus and executive would have been about three, three and a half, and then the last three years doing Youth Alive and DYD.
Eran Holt:Heck, yeah, okay, tell us about your family real quick.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, so four kids. I'm a next gen director, so what's funny is I have Vera, who's in the nursery she's 10 months old. I have Ezra, who's in preschool he's two and a half. I have a Providence who's eight years old, she's in third grade, and I, my oldest, is now in youth ministry. She's in sixth grade. Allegra is a sixth grade at 11.
Speaker 4:I've got one in every area.
Eran Holt:You are living that next gen life right there, as a parent, that's so good.
Caleb Leake:Well, dude, with all those years, I'm sure we'd love having youth pastors on this podcast, because they get to talk about their weird stories of things they regret or things they saw students do that they're like, what are you doing? And so I'm sure, with 11 years, you have a wealth of stories, but can you bless us with one of your youth ministry stories? We'd love to hear it.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, so this is the worst injury I've ever had in youth ministry.
Speaker 4:Oh, we got. We got an injury story. Let's go. I always love.
Caleb Leake:There's always like an opening line that.
Andy Lynn:I'm like, I'm so excited. It was Gagaaga ball. We played tackle football in my youth ministry which you shouldn't do, no one forgot but gaga ball, which is supposed to be safe dodgeball. Someone got hurt. So a sixth grader essentially jumped over a high schooler trying to be cool in gaga ball and landed did not get his hands out and landed on his face. It was on the church carpet. That might as well be concrete, you know, I mean. And so he lands on the carpet and it makes a sound that across the gym everybody hears it. It's like this really unique sound. It's terrible.
Andy Lynn:We run over there and the kid is passed out. He's not moving at this point and I gently, like you know, using first aid, don't want to hurt his neck, but I get him to come to, I get him to like wake up. And I've never seen this before. His eyes were like the cartoon eyes, like it was weird and creepy. So, my wife, we call 911. Obviously we know it's at least a concussion and he is talking to us, but he definitely got his bell rung. And so my wife gets on the ambulance with him, because we still have the whole youth group there, and so I stay with you. My wife goes to the hospital with him and we gather all the students together and the two of his siblings are still in the room with us.
Andy Lynn:So the kid that got hurt, his name is Mateo, two of his siblings are with us and I pick another seventh grader and I say, hey, do you mind praying for us? Right now we're going to pray for Mateo. So we all hold hands and this seventh grader says Lord, thank you for the time that we had Mateo. You for the time that we had Mateo. He was a good friend. And his siblings start bawling. I was like he literally was like Lord, we understood that you wanted to take him. It's too early, but we trust you. And I was like he's not dead, he's going to be okay.
Andy Lynn:It was like siblings are bawling and my leaders are laughing and and I was like I don't know what's happening he, uh, he ended up. He actually this is terrible. He cracked his skull open, oh man. He broke his eye socket and he had a brain bleed, wow. And the next day he had a picture. It looked like he fought Muhammad Ali, like totally black and blue. And so whenever, when someone's like, he ended up being a full recovery. But whenever someone's like hey, what's your worst injury, I'm like it's got, it's got it's a Gaga.
Caleb Leake:People are like really Gaga ball Like like for real and you almost lost it. According to this, kid almost lost life.
Speaker 4:Oh, man, that is so funny, lord, thank you for the time we had with material.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, that was it. It wasn't the injury that was really most memorable, it was that prayer.
Caleb Leake:I was like really Did you talk to him afterwards Like, did you think he passed away? I?
Andy Lynn:did. Yeah, I said what were you thinking he goes? I saw that hit, I thought he was dead.
Speaker 4:That is awesome, oh only a junior higher right.
Andy Lynn:I mean, that's just that's that kid is in his last year of ministry training. Wow, he's gonna be a youth pastor. Wow, yeah, so it'll be now. Now, once he's youth pastor, I'll be making fun of him forever for praying at prayer. Oh, heck yeah.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, yeah, that's incredible, that's incredible All the earnesty, though, like he's just like, I'm just going to intercede, I love that.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's so good, so good, so good.
Eran Holt:Well, well, andy, thanks so much again for joining us being a part of Vitals for Youth Ministry podcast. You were also a part of helping develop Vitals for Youth Ministry. For those of you that are maybe listening in or watching for the first time and you're like, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, so Vitals for Youth Ministry is a resource produced by Lead the Generation. It is a resource library of close to 70 training videos to help you develop yourself as a youth pastor, as well as develop your adult volunteer teams and your student leaders, and it is applicable whether you are a full-time vocational youth pastor or you're just a volunteer or you're somewhere in between. And so when we talk vitals, we're specifically referring to five vitals that you need in order to produce disciples in your youth ministry Biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, missional living and leadership development. All of those are found in Acts, chapter 2.
Eran Holt:And so, andy, you were part of helping develop this. For those of you, when you finally do get on our website, which is leadthegenerationcom, and you look at some of the vitals videos, you'll see Andy there. He won't be telling stories about Gaga Ball or Mateo on there, but, andy, just initially we're going to kind of dive into a conversation about vitals here and about youth ministry. Just, I guess, give us like kind of some of your big picture thoughts on how, using vitals as a framework or using vitals as a way that you view youth ministry Again, regardless of your context big or small, volunteer, vocational what are some of the benefits you see to a youth pastor, a youth leader having a framework like vitals or having like a lens like vitals, the way in which they look at youth ministry.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, I think the first one I would say is it's. It's descriptive versus prescriptive. So in other words, like like a description is like hey, here's an area of what healthy ministry looks like versus here's how you do it. I think a lot of programs are prescriptive Do this, do that. And I think vitals can be contextualized to an urban youth group, to a rural youth group. It can look different but still have the same vital. Like you know, biblical truth's not going to change. But contextually, how we teach it, how does it look in the inner city with no budget compared to a suburban youth ministry with a large budget? The vitals can be contextualized.
Andy Lynn:I think that's like one of the biggest things for me, I would say. The other is that it is more of a lifestyle change than like a fad diet. Right, like a lot of the stuff out there is like hey, do this and you're going to teach your kids this in six weeks, and we all know those aren't terrible. But like in the diet realm, yes, you can lose weight in six weeks, but at some point I have to eat something other than cardboard. And I think Vitals gives a more sustainable approach versus like a fad diet approach where it's. We're doing an eight week sermon series on this and I think vitals is more like hey, let me just like, let me do some lifestyle changes. That's going to change my philosophy of youth ministry, not just a sermon series, et cetera.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, I love what you said at the beginning that it's it's descriptive. Anybody, anybody, in any context, can take these things and apply them. I think that is one of the great challenges for every youth ministry is figuring out what does my context exactly need. How did you I mean, you were a youth pastor for 11 years what did it look like for you to recognize what your context needed and how to adapt and how to apply things? Because there's all these really cool ideas.
Caleb Leake:you can go on instagram and get these amazing ideas honestly, we even hear awesome ideas through these vital videos because there's youth pastors who share. Here's what I did, here's what I did. But you have to find the right fit for you. How did you find things that were right for your context, identifying that I know that's like such a big picture question, but I think that's what youth pastors are trying to evaluate is like where, where can I make things work for me and how do I actually even fit things within where I'm, you know, doing ministry?
Andy Lynn:I think if we, if we boil it down a little bit like, just get biblical with it, right. So if a pastor's job is to shepherd his sheep, right his flock, that god's entrusted to him, he has to know his sheep. And in that season, so you know, there are times where a shepherd brings a sheep uh, to a further pasture because he realizes they're missing some nutrients or he realizes they're too fat, so he's going to take a lot of the breath to get some water, you know, from a different place. I think we have to lead from amongst the sheep. Right, we have to lead, we have to know them.
Andy Lynn:And I know in my youth ministry context there were seasons where I had really discipled students and I focused more on getting them to share their faith and getting them to lead in the gifts, and there was times where I had a really large group of unsafe kids and my time was spent more evangelism and discipleship. So I think my only advice to somebody would be like, you have to be with your sheep. You can't lead your sheep like they were last year, you just have to be with them. Cause there was, I think I led in 11 years of youth ministry. I think I led probably seven different youth groups even though I didn't is my point like same youth group, just in different phases of where it were.
Eran Holt:Yeah, that's, that's interesting distinction that you just said there, like you know seven different youth groups, but I was at the same place. So I hear you saying that you, that you and I have as as leaders, we have to recognize the changes that are happening in our students and the changes that are happening in culture around us, the changes that might be happening in our immediate community, right, the diff, the age differences, because sometimes you look around and you're like, oh, I'm middle school heavy right now, or I'm senior high heavy, or I'm girl heavy or I'm guy heavy. You know, whatever you know, like you, you kind of have to recognize all that. Um, any practical advice? Um coach us for a little bit, andy, like practical tips on on how to become aware of that or how to, how to recognize some of those changes that are happening in your youth ministry.
Andy Lynn:Oh man, it's good I think kind of back to the vitals conversation a little bit If I have some short-term metrics that are not attendance-based, like, let's say, I want to make sure, I want to challenge my students to be abiding in the Word and like, once a month I have an abiding challenge, or whatever my youth group context is, I need to be able to measure things within my group. Uh, that's not attendance, and I think sometimes, um, we lack proper metrics to really zone in on that. Um, I'll give you just some, like some super practical examples, if I can. So the reason why I brought up vitals, with it being descriptive if I'm measuring biblical community, if I'm measuring my leadership development, if I'm measuring that, and every week I'm engaging my leaders and every week I'm engaging students, I'm going to realize where we're not hitting on all cylinders in some ways. But practically, I would say if you have a small group-based ministry, you should not run a small group every time. I'd recommend spending some time jumping to each small group. So I would spend time in the middle school boys' small group and the high school boys' I had a leader on the female side that would do the same thing and constantly asking my youth leaders guys, what are you sensing, what are you seeing? So we did a post youth group huddle every night and so our youth group ended at nine. So from nine to nine thirty, we did a youth group huddle and my leaders honestly they I would see them saying the same thing, like Andy, we're losing them after the 15 minute message. We have to change up our message style. Andy. I'm noticing that these games they're not into. We have to change up our game time. So I honestly think we, probably every nine to 10 months, really once a year, shifted our youth ministry pretty dramatically and from the outside in. You may not notice it, but how we ran every piece and my leaders I'd say my most practical tip would be listen to your leaders but ask your leaders.
Andy Lynn:And I think why a lot of youth pastors don't ask their leaders is, I think some of their identity has become how good their group is. But if I care more about the mission being accomplished than getting accolades, then I'm totally cool with the critique Right. So I think, opening ourselves up to critique from the leaders, and then I would say, critique from students that you trust that are leaders, and then lastly, critique from parents, because kids will unload on their parent more than they will on you, mom. That was boring, dad. I want to come, and a lot of times we shut that down too fast. I think we have to listen to it, get to know our sheep a little bit better and make adjustments. I love that, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that takes a lot of security.
Caleb Leake:Like my leaders are going to give me feedback and the parents and students are going to get feedback.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're right.
Caleb Leake:It does. So how do you find the balance? Because there's there's certain student and leader voices not even just students, sorry, not student leader but students and leaders and parents voices that it's like that's not worth listening to. But then there is the gold. Like how do you distinguish between the two? How do I know when I'm being somebody who just needs to let go of my insecurities and how do I take what they're giving me and say that's so? I know we're going like so ethereal and so like heady, but I think this is really important to recognize, like yeah, yeah, what's the gold? Am I throwing away gold because I'm insecure?
Andy Lynn:So this is going to be a weird example. Hopefully I don't offend anybody that's hearing this, but I'm ready to be offended. Let's do it. My first church.
Andy Lynn:I went to my pastor and said I have these parents complaining about youth ministry and I have they say it's not deep enough. I have this other set of parents that's complaining that it's too deep and I was like how do I, how do I handle this? Like they're saying I have family saying opposite things, you know, and I was like 23 in youth ministry he walks me down to the finance office and our CPA was there and he said hey, don't tell us how much, but he goes. Andy, list off all the families that complained. I did. He asked CPA, he goes, can you tell us if these people are tithing? The cpa said yes, no, yes, no, like just down a little, just like that. And he goes andy. Everyone that's complaining it's tithing. I want you to take it to heart ignore everyone. That isn't here's the deal.
Andy Lynn:At first, when he first said that, I thought he was an insecure pastor. They didn't want to lose money. That was my first thought of why he did it. But later on, when I got to know him, he didn't care about the money. His point was, if families weren't engaged in the church, they're going to complain based on preference and entertainment, not based upon actual kingdom principles.
Andy Lynn:So what I found was later on to answer your question I wouldn't encourage people to do that. I'm not saying go to your finance office, do they tithe, do that. I'm not saying go to your finance office, do they tie it. But I would say if people are not meaningfully engaged in my youth history, I'm not going to let their critique weigh pretty heavy. So if I have a parent that's all in, I found I got some of the best critique from parents that would take a bullet from me. But then they would also say hey, andy, would you consider this? But I knew, no matter what I decide, they were still all in.
Andy Lynn:I did not take much critique from the crowd. So I took critique from the core and it wasn't open-ended like an email out. That would be a terrible idea. I'd pull aside a few parents and say, hey, tell me how's it going, what are you sensing? What is the Holy Spirit telling you? What are these things? And then I found that feedback to be great. Same with my leadership team. If I have a volunteer that comes once a month versus my youth staff. That's all in. I think your core group can tell you a lot because they're in it, they're dedicated, they got their finances in it and I think the crowd. We should still hear it, but I wouldn't change based on the crowd. That's good advice, that's really good it, but I wouldn't change based on the crowd.
Eran Holt:Yeah, that's good advice. That's really good.
Caleb Leake:Looking for like a level of ownership. Yeah, yeah, that they're taking.
Eran Holt:And the principle that you're driving and that you're coaching us to, andy, is that principle of having you know spiritual ears as leaders, to be able to hear feedback from all different sources, discern what needs to stick, what needs to be dismissed, and then allow that feedback to create awareness in us as leaders of what's working and what's not working in our approach. Right, if vitals is descriptive and I love the way you'd break that down between descriptive and prescriptive but if vitals as a core is descriptive in the way that we build our youth ministry, right, we're saying this is the foundational, so these elements never change. But the prescriptive side of youth ministry is where we deal with our methodologies, where we deal with relevance, where we deal with what changes do we need to take or make? Right, it's like we've probably all said it in youth ministry, it's like the word of God doesn't change, but the way in which we preach it or teach it or deliver it, the method might change. Right, in order to make it more effective. Right?
Eran Holt:So in the library, the Vitals for Youth Mystery Library, there's a couple videos, andy, that you do for us. One that I'm thinking of is like a biblical framework for Vitals. That's what it's called. It's one of the first videos I tell everyone to watch because it walks um, you, you walk us through Acts, chapter two and point out all five of the vitals. And then there's another one you did for us that's called, uh, building a youth ministry around the vitals.
Eran Holt:And um, I'm highlighting those because in in one of those videos I'm not sure which one it is I think it's the latter of the two I just mentioned you talk about healthy metrics and you use the phrase leading indicators and lagging indicators, which I know is a business term, but you break it down so simply and I think it's so helpful. Would you mind just kind of diving into that real quick, just because I think there's a lot of youth pastors. Again, regardless of whether you're a volunteer or vocational, large church, small church, it's easy to have the wrong metrics and to be overly consumed with or give too much time and attention to the wrong end when we talk about lead versus lag measures. So break that down for us real quick.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, I love this. It's a business principle I learned when I was bivocational. I wish we talked about it more in churches because I think Jesus honestly uses this principle all the time in talking to his disciples. But the idea is, when a business is trying to measure success, there's a line that I think is important Be really careful what you measure, because whatever you measure will become important. So if I just measure, for example, attendance and finances, what happens? Well, attendance becomes really important to me and finances become really important to me. And then what happens is I am willing to do whatever it takes to increase those.
Andy Lynn:The problem is that number one is usually not sustainable and oftentimes can cause us to drift away from the mission. So, a leading indicator. The idea is what can I put in place that, over the long term, will cause a lagging indicator to happen? So let me use it in a non-ministry sense. I think this might be a little simpler first. So let's say, my lagging indicator is I want to be able to run a marathon. That's my lagging indicator. I in the future, but I don't start off with a marathon.
Eran Holt:That's never been a lagging indicator for me, ever my whole life, but go ahead.
Eran Holt:Use the illustration, just go ahead.
Andy Lynn:So it means I'm going to need to lose weight every week. I should probably start with a 5K and build up to maybe a 10K and then I'm going to build up to a half marathon and I'm going to keep building these things up. But there are leading indicators I put in place that will one day yield a lagging indicator. So in a business sense, your lagging indicator is net profit. But your leading indicator might be like was I efficient in ordering? Did I hire appropriately? Did I do all of these things right?
Andy Lynn:In Acts 2, we see the clearest biblical principle which vitals is based on. It says you should be praying together, you should be dedicated to God's word, you should be dedicated to biblical community, you should be dedicated to leadership, development and generosity and all these things. And then it says at the end and God added to their number each day those who were being saved. So in youth ministry usually we want to count how many people were at that event, how many people were in that service. The worst thing is to lead in youth ministry with the wrong metrics. So if I lead with attendance and finances, I will never have a healthy youth ministry. But if I lead with, are my students praying? Are my students being shown how to read the Bible? Are my leaders being developed every week? Are my parents being communicated to? If I have the right leading indicators, the lagging indicator of more students coming and getting saved and being baptized are going to grow and I'm going to measure those as the byproduct of me leading properly.
Andy Lynn:So the overall idea is I can't put the cart before the horse. I need to measure things that produce a biblical environment for God-driven and Holy Spirit growth. And if I put the cart before the horse and I try to do God's job of adding the number and making it bigger, then I'm never going to produce all in sold out disciples for Jesus because they're not learning the basics. That's what each of the vitals do. So what I find is the vitals are really my leading indicators and lagging indicator is my group. My group is healthier, we're experiencing miracles. My group is growing and notice those aren't vitals. The vitals you have are all leading indicators and the lagging which? Again, I'm not against measuring a lagging indicator, but we don't lead with it. So I'm going to take attendance every night, but attendance in youth ministry is like this it just depends on the season and the time, but I'm going to measure the vitals and expect God to grow it.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, as a youth pastor that really helps take the weight off of performing or hitting a certain standard of like this is what makes me look or feel good. It actually is like okay, now I can, I can take off that, allow God to take care of the things that I'm not even in control of, Cause some of those things we would put, you know, goals on of, like attendance, um, or how many kids say yes to salvation, or whatever it's like I can't control those things.
Andy Lynn:No, I think, Caleb, what you just said is perfect. So, a leading indicator. To be a leading indicator, you have to be in control of it. Yeah, yeah, so a lagging indicator. You're not in control of it, but you are, as you till the soil. It's like a farmer they can't make a plant grow, but they can till the soil, treat the soil, plant the seed, remove the soil, treat the soil, plant the seed, remove the rocks. And they're going to pray and hope it grows Right. So I think in youth ministry we base our success on things outside of our control, and then we wonder why we're stressed out.
Eran Holt:And I'm reflecting back to, like so many, especially my earlier years in youth ministry. I think I made certain programs or certain events that we did, the ones that I really liked, and then I just was like man, I really vibe with this event or this approach and, and listening to you walk us through leading versus lagging, I definitely chose some programs that I loved and I and and they were they definitely were lagging right Indicators, but I made them the lead, or I attempted to make them the lead, and I think that part of that was for me probably the way I was wired and I needed to grow up and I needed to mature in my view and my understanding of ministry in general and specifically my philosophical view of youth ministry and what my role was as a youth pastor in discipling students right. To unpack that just briefly, like if, if you're really blessed as a youth pastor, you get to be involved in the lives of these students for maybe seven years, like at max, you know, and then it's like they come to you from kids ministry and then they're going to go and you know some of them will stay around but most of them won't. So we do have to see clearly our role as youth pastors Like this is my role, like this window here and I've got an advanced discipleship in the life of this student. But I mean I spent way too many years just loving some of those programs and part of it was a maturity issue for me.
Eran Holt:The other part of it is probably the remnants of, like the attractional youth ministry model that probably really put too much emphasis on what we would now call lagging measures or too much emphasis on some programmatic side of youth ministry. Andy, do you see that trend? Have you experienced that? I know you have a lot of youth pastors in your network that you are coaching and that you're working with. Have you kind of seen that trend where youth pastors are trying to adapt or evolve out of that attractional youth ministry model into something that's more? You know, biblical balance, leading measures, lagging measures.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, absolutely so. There's a big movement across our country. A lot of youth ministers and probably a lot watching these videos are bivocational, so they are two jobs or maybe they're volunteer, and so what's fascinating is some of my healthiest youth ministries across the state are not our full-time pastors, and I think it's really simply they don't have time to stress and worry about all this stuff that I used to do as a full-time youth pastor. They're like I have enough time to pray and prep and develop my leaders. I don't have time to come up with crazy games. I don't have time to come up with these cool, giant, gimmicky events, and what ends up happening is they're doing the healthy things and their groups are growing. I think the biggest challenge I face in my role is we have about 200 churches and I am trying to get senior pastors to ask the right questions, so a lot of times the senior pastor will ask their youth leader really just simple things how many came out to your youth night? Was it a good?
Eran Holt:night.
Andy Lynn:And both of those are lagging indicators and so when I meet with the senior pastor I say, hey, can I challenge you? Can you ask your youth pastor questions like this Tell me three youth leaders you're developing and spending more time with? Can you tell me what parents you're going to call and encourage this week? These are all things within our control. So I'm trying to get our senior pastors to help shift because that really is whatever questions the senior pastor if the youth pastor knows my senior pastor is going to ask me this about the youth group they are trying to win there. So I'm trying to get senior pastors hey, can we shift our metrics so that we are leading with biblical values and then God's going to do his thing, god's going to grow the group if we are doing those vitals correctly.
Eran Holt:So let me ask you I know you want to jump in too, are you going to say?
Caleb Leake:I wonder if you're going to say the same question.
Eran Holt:Well, we might maybe we will, I don't know, but like. So, talk to the youth pastor who is serving, a lead pastor who asks those questions all the time. How would you encourage them to lead up in a humble yet biblical way? You stole my question.
Caleb Leake:I stole your question. Yes, let's go.
Speaker 4:How do they?
Eran Holt:lead up and, like try to reframe the conversation to what we're talking about here.
Andy Lynn:So I've never met a youth pastor that had a real job description. I'm sure they exist. They're out there somewhere.
Caleb Leake:They're buried in the archives.
Andy Lynn:I don't know. When you look at a secular job description, it will have in there how they're successful and what their metrics are. In a real job description, most ministry ones talk about the task to be completed. They don't really go over heavy how they can be successful. I think if a youth pastor, youth leader, wanted to lead up, my advice would be to write down um, I think using the vitals would be great. Hey, pastor, here's what I'm going for every, every week and every month, and then quarterly I'm going to examine our attendance based on what we're doing and we're going to make shifts. But I would say they need to have a meeting and go over expectations in the role and um and just kind of they're going to have to lead up with like, are you cool If these are my metrics of success? I'm going to measure how much I'm praying for my students. I'm going to measure my development of my leaders. I'm going to measure my equipping of the parents. These are all pieces that I'm going to measure. Are you cool If this is my metric of success? I'm going to go all in on this and I would get buy-in.
Andy Lynn:And they're going to have to kind of retrain their youth pastor, because I even find most senior pastors don't have healthy leading indicators and I'm not trying to sound arrogant, as, like most of our senior, I don't want to sound that way but my heart breaks for senior pastors because I think they stress out on things outside of their control and they lose focus of what they can control and doing that with excellence and worship to Jesus of their control and they lose focus of what they can control, and doing that with excellence and worship to Jesus.
Andy Lynn:I think it, um, it can do undue stress on it, cause, again, the way we measure some things is, if I'm not in control of how much people give, I'm not at the end of the day, that's between them and Jesus but I can set the tone and teaching them about giving. I can control that. Yeah, I can equip that I can. So there's a lot of things I can do to prepare the soil, um, and I think that's what we should be measuring. But, to answer your question, I think, sitting down with senior pastor, I think they're gonna have to make a job description for themselves with these metrics and get the senior pastors by it. Yeah, I.
Caleb Leake:I love what you're saying too, because there's still a level of honor of like I. I'm still going to take the like. I'm not going to throw away attendance metrics entirely and say like who cares, right, you know, but I will still track that monthly. It's just not going to be the main thing that I'm focusing on and the main way I recognize if I'm winning or not. I think sharing that with a lead pastor of hey, there's a level that I'm not just flying blind here, like we're doing, is producing anything but what I can control. I'm going to measure that and see and tell you whether or not I think I'm winning and doing a good job of what we're trying to accomplish.
Andy Lynn:If we don't switch what we measure, we can't change what's important. So it's like we have to measure the vitals so the vitals become important. And I'm using vitals here, it's biblical values. Right, we have to measure biblical values so that the right things become important. If we only measure attendance, honestly, even this is going to sound crazy. Even salvations and baptisms, they are in our control. Yep, like we celebrate them, that's really god's win. Like I don't save anybody, right, right, that's stressful, like I, we celebrate that, but with my team, I think when you start, what's cool is when your team starts to get it.
Andy Lynn:So back in the day, when I was really unhealthy, I celebrated attendance and started my team. But then, when we had a down night, my team was like what's wrong? Where are all the kids? What's happening? And slowly, when we started celebrating students using their gifts on a youth night, we started celebrating parents being engaged, all these different things my youth leaders were like dude, so-and-so did the prairie, they did great. Hey, did you notice that leader grew in their gifts? Hey, that kid learned the soundboard tonight. Those are all things in our control. And when we start celebrating that our team does, there's a big shift, because then it doesn't matter if we have a really low attendance youth group. We can still win.
Eran Holt:That's so good. You know, one of the things we've said about vitals is we've said that vitals is. We've used like, little phrases to help explain it. We've said this a lot, even in this podcast. We've said vitals as a framework, right? Sometimes we'll use the phrase vitals as a lens, like I wear glasses, so everything that I'm seeing right now I see through this lens. So vitals is therefore a lens in how I see youth ministry. I want to see these five vitals, these biblical values in Acts 2, produced in the lives of my students.
Eran Holt:One of the phrases we've also used is as vitals as a movement from attractional youth ministry to more missional, discipleship focused youth ministry. And I think that's kind of the heart of what we're talking about here in this conversation is is I, if I, if I measure the wrong things right? Um, then I've emphasized a potentially unhealthy aspect right, rather than the main mission that we all agree with. Mind you, like no one, no one. I've never heard a youth pastor ever say I don't really care about the discipleship. You know what I mean. Like no, no one says that Right and and and if someone does say it.
Speaker 4:we would not agree with them. We would say well, you should probably read your Bible, you sinner.
Eran Holt:However, even in this conversation, all three of us are pointing back to different seasons where, in ministry, we found ourselves distracted or we found ourselves unwittingly measuring the wrong metrics. And then, even early in our conversation, we measure the wrong metrics and then somehow we emotionally build our identity around the success of those metrics right, so that's an important conversation for us to have.
Andy Lynn:It's funny when you oh go ahead.
Caleb Leake:No, you go.
Andy Lynn:It's just funny what you just said, struggle Belt. There was times where there was a prom because we had our youth group on Friday nights in one season, and if a prom can jack up your identity, it's a problem. I'm terrible. I'm a terrible youth pastor. Everything's ruined. Why did the high school do this to me? That's pretty bad.
Caleb Leake:Or if it's like flu season and half your youth group is sick and you're like I'm just terrible. But it's like flu season and half your youth group is sick and you're like I'm just terrible, but it's like everyone's out with the flu, bro. Yeah, what I love about this is that it is it helps the framework and then the lead and lag help you define what is going to work in my context and what is the win in my context specifically. And it's so flexible because every youth ministry is so different and that's how it should be. Like my youth ministry is not supposed to look like anybody else's and youth pastor where you're listening your youth ministry is not supposed to look like mine, and that's totally fine. That's actually what God is calling us uniquely too.
Eran Holt:Yeah, well, and I love the fact that we're talking about biblical principles. Again, we're calling them vitals, but we're talking about biblical principles that can be and should be applied regardless of your context in that world. It's far too easy to see what a larger church or a full-time vocational youth pastor is doing on social, on Instagram and being like.
Speaker 4:I'm a failure.
Eran Holt:We're never going to be able to do youth ministry the way. We don't have that kind of budget, and so that just wreaks havoc in your heart and in your soul and renders you ineffective in the highlight reels and all of that and lose focus on the mission yourself. We all do this, we all. We all struggle with this, and so I think important conversations like this are important. Andy, let's send it back to you here and we're heading towards, you know, kind of wrapping up this conversation.
Eran Holt:This has been so good, but coach, coach the youth pastors that are listening, right, coach them. If they're kind of new in youth ministry or or I mean, even maybe they're a veteran but they're really trying to make a change, the direction that this whole conversation has been. They're really trying to be like I need to rethink you know how I'm doing youth ministry and get more in line with with something like vitals, or or maybe they're just brand new and they're like I'm just trying to wrap my head around and trying to survive week to week. How would you coach them? What are some good first steps, some real practical things that they should be thinking about, or good first steps to take?
Andy Lynn:Yeah, I think if you're full-time or by vocational, it's going to be similar. You're just going to apply different hours to it. So what I coach my full-time guys with is I try to get them. This is going to sound a little bit micromanaging, but at least to start I think it's helpful. I set up for them a daily checklist and a weekly checklist, and what it is? It's real simple. I'll give you some practical examples. Like it might be spend 20 minutes praying for your youth group by name. And then it might be hey, your next one, let's say the youth group is a 30-year student youth group. Hey, our goal is to call every single parent within a one-month period. So you're going to call four parents this week. Hey, it would look like that. Hey, you're going to spend two hours on message prep to start, but you're going to have extra if you need it back here.
Andy Lynn:So what I do is I help them throughout their week. They'll set up a checklist where, in about two to three hours a day, they can make sure that every single vital is attended to. So, for example, they're going to cover prayer praying, for they're going to pay in the two hour span on one of the days, you're going to find a podcast to send every single one of your youth leaders and you're going to prep your huddle hey, you're going to. And it's just, it's lined out that way. And so what it is is during the week, within about 10 or 12 hours, they're going to knock out the bulk of things they can control that. They're working on every single vital in their youth ministry and if they're full time, that leaves them like 20 plus hours to hang out with students. Come up with a crazy cool game. Like they have really a lot of time, but I think some guys spend so much time on the game or the graphics or an event that they don't take 30 minutes and call a parent yeah, which is actually more the bread and butter of youth ministry. Right, hey, I'm going to call a student leader, I'm going to develop a podcast or whatever.
Andy Lynn:So I sit down with them and I say, guys, it's really simple, if you do these things, you have won this day in youth ministry and you have won this week in youth ministry. But it has to be really easy and it has to be quick. So my goal is that a youth pastor does this from like nine to 11 AM and the rest of the day they have freedom to be creative, hang out with students, work on an event, like I'm not trying to monopolize all their time. It has to be really simple. For a bivocational person, I do the same thing, but it might be five hours in the week, cumulative. It's just tighter. It's going to look a little bit tighter based on how much time they have. But just you have to start measuring things that matter daily and weekly, and so when there's a week, let's say they do every daily checklist, every weekly checklist, and they're like Andy, not that many kids came out to the youth group. I'm like that's okay, did you win? They're like yeah, I won, I was consistent.
Caleb Leake:That's amazing.
Andy Lynn:And then I'll tell you this From doing this for about three years I've been coaching youth pastors. For probably five to seven, I have never seen it not work. And I'm not trying to be arrogant, it's not like my idea, it's God's idea in Acts 2. I have seen a lot of youth pastors get flustered and stressed out and have these giant budgets trying to make events and programming work. But my simple advice would be come up with a daily checklist and a weekly checklist that's very attainable. You've heard of smart goals. Right, they're measurable, they're attainable, they're realistic, they're timed If you do that for daily and weekly and make it easily attainable. I're realistic, they're timed If you do that for daily and weekly and make it easily attainable. I think most jobs. When I worked in the secular field I knew when I left if I got everything done man.
Eran Holt:Isn't that the?
Andy Lynn:opposite. In ministry, we leave and we're like there's so much more I could do, which is true, but what if we? If we boiled it down and I bottom line, if I had to simply categorize it we need to start measuring our obedience to what God has commanded us to do and if we're obedient and faithful, our God is faithful and he is miraculous and power to move mightily in our midst. So I think if we measure our obedience and faithfulness and expect God to move, and then the lagging indicator, just to be clear, I still measure attendance and missions. I just don't lead with them. So I still use Playcenter or whatever you use for check-ins. I want to follow in trend because what I found in my youth ministry? There's three or four months a year that were dead months. So for me in New Jersey, may was one of our worst attended months of youth ministry the entire year. I don't know if that's true for you, caleb, do you have a low month.
Caleb Leake:no, yeah, so my, my low month is it's not may, I think it's, I think we're april, but we're right, right in that, like late spring, when seniors and people are just stressing out about homework, that's like, yeah, we recognize that.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, Yep, so for me it's after Easter to about mid June is like a graveyard. There's not many people there. So like if, if attendance is my metric, then I think you still got to measure to know what to expect and the lagging indicator. But yeah, I know, I'm sorry I'm talking too much, but simply, simply, I would say daily and weekly checklist, maybe a monthly checklist, and just mark your wins that way.
Eran Holt:Yeah, that's so good.
Caleb Leake:Absolutely Well, Jared or Jared, my gosh, Andy, what the heck. And I don't know why that came out. Andy, if there's a place people can reach out to you, where can they find you at? Where could they ask more questions? That kind of thing.
Andy Lynn:Yeah, they're more than welcome If you'all want to do my. My email is probably the easiest way. I'm not. I'm not a giant social media fan. I'm on it but just not on it a ton. But my email is real simple. It's Andy A-N-D-Y-L. My last name's Lynn, so it's andyl at N-J-A-Gorg, new Jersey, a G that are. So Andy L at NJ. G that were email me. I'd love to talk. I can send you checklists. I have prototype checklist for daily and weekly wins.
Andy Lynn:I can send that to you, I'll help you develop it, yeah.
Eran Holt:Yeah, yeah, if you send it, send that even to me and he will try to have those be a part of the show notes for for, yeah, both audio and video. That way you guys can download them, which is really cool and throw your email on there if it's not on there, that way people can click on it and reach out to you. This is really good man, it is awesome. Yeah, really really good. Anytime I'm around, andy, I feel sharpened, I feel challenged and I love the way you break things down, especially like the lead and the lag, which is why I ask you that question. And when we were in studio earlier this year doing that specific video for Vitals, for Youth Ministry, I was sitting there like, oh, this is so good.
Speaker 4:And then my second thought is like I wish someone had told me this in year one of youth ministry I that blew up on me and so many mind games that I played with myself and so many unhealthy conversations that I had with my wife or with my volunteer leaders or with my pastor, you know like that.
Eran Holt:So this is just incredibly helpful. So, andy, thank you so much, and if you want to hear some more great stuff from you, know Andy, send him an email or jump on the website. Hear some more great stuff from you, know, andy, send him an email or jump on the website. Lead the generationcom. Click on vitals. Um, there's about 70 plus videos on there. They're all free, um, and so you can. You can really sharpen yourself, sharpen your team of volunteers. Uh, a lot of the videos, I would even say, are really good for student leaders. So they're all there to help you. Um, so, all made possible through the generation and through a lot of just generous support that we've received to make it available for free. So we're grateful that we're able to do that. Andy, thanks for being a part of this conversation, thanks for being a part of Vitals for Youth Ministry, and we'll see all of you on the next podcast. Thanks so much.
