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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
The Necessary Shift in Youth Ministry, Attractional vs. Missional Models, and Making Disciples That Last
Terry Parkman shares how youth ministry is fundamentally shifting from attractional to missional models, requiring leaders to focus on transforming students rather than merely entertaining them.
• Youth ministry is at a tipping point where effective ministries will focus on outcomes (life transformation) rather than outputs (attendance numbers)
• Today's young people aren't seeking entertainment but purpose—they want to find their people and their purpose
• Missional preaching equips students for real-world application, not just emotional altar moments
• Discipleship has been diluted to mere relationships, but true discipleship produces people who look more like Jesus
• Small groups remain valuable but must be led by deeply committed leaders who pay the price of ministry
• Raising the bar for volunteer leaders actually attracts more high-quality volunteers seeking meaningful involvement
• Leaders can maintain attractional elements (good hospitality, engaging environments) while adopting a missional model
• The primary question for youth pastors: are you building into what young people become or just getting people in the room?
Mark your calendars: Lead the Generation Conference returns April 25, 2026 featuring Terry Parkman as a main session speaker.
You got to choose today, as a youth pastor, which direction you're going to build your youth ministry into what young people become or into getting people in the room. But don't compromise the outcomes for the attractional outputs.
Eran Holt:Hey, welcome to Vitals for Youth Ministry podcast. We're so glad you've joined us today. My name is Aaron, director of Lead the Generation. I got Caleb Leak with me in the studio.
Caleb Leake:What up? Always my faithful co-. Host. Yeah, five years actually.
Eran Holt:How about it Like last week?
Caleb Leake:I've been a pastor for five years, so half a decade of my life. Baby, let's go.
Eran Holt:Let's go, let's go it feels so fun. Caleb, we got an incredible guest today on the podcast. I think he's a legend in youth ministry. I think you call him the Jedi of youth ministry.
Caleb Leake:It's not my title, but yeah, I've heard him called in circles the youth ministry Jedi.
Eran Holt:But we got Terry Parkman with us today. What's up, my guy, so good to have you with us. And, man, anytime I get to be around Terry, I get sharpened in my thinking. And, terry, thank you. You've been a longtime supporter of Lead the Generation. You've been a part of multiple conferences that we have done in the past, both in person and online, and I guess this will be a good time for me to announce, caleb, that next year, on April 25th, 2026, lead the Generation conference is back and your guy, Terry Parkman, one of the main session speakers that's going to be there. So, terry, so excited to have you on a podcast, excited you're going to be part of the conference next year. Thanks for joining us.
Terry Parkman:Yes, thank you so much for having me out, man. I mean I am a fan of Lead the Generation and I mean it's been years that we've been doing this, just connecting in multiple different levels. I mean, you're an entrepreneur for sure when it comes to ministry, and so you're always cooking up something and I love the different things that you spin out of lead the generation. And the Lord. Just I mean early on, when it was in its genesis and you were talking to me about this, like even that first time I was able to come out, the Lord just said just invest in this, invest time, invest energy. And you know, regardless of whatever we have going on in our lives, god will call us to continually remain faithful to something that isn't built by our own hands, and this is one of the things that I didn't build it, but God's called me to as much as.
Terry Parkman:I can possibly do it. Thank you. Whatever God's building through you. Thank you, so honored bro, so honored.
Eran Holt:Do it, thank you to whatever god's building through you. Thank you, so honored bro, so honored that's a podcast.
Caleb Leake:Right there you can talk about that topic. That's good, man. Well, hey, before we go any further, uh, tell everyone a little bit about yourselves, for the people who don't know you share.
Terry Parkman:A little bit about yourself, terry yeah, well, uh, I've been married to one wife for almost 20 years good job good job.
Terry Parkman:Monogamy is great. One wife I got two beautiful little girls, avley and Nova, 49, and live in the Minneapolis metro area. Work with River Valley Church for the last decade in a multitude of capacities primarily next generation ministries, is what I've been doing with River Valley Recently, shifting also into embracing everything global, which really kind of hits and fits into everything I do. I serve with One Hope as their global next-gen ambassador right now and then also. Empower 21 is the largest spirit-filled network of people on the planet and I let their global next-gen lead, so leading everything next-gen for them around the world, connecting with people, partnering with them. In fact, first week in June of this year we're doing a global next gen one day in Helsinki, finland. So never done it before, but come on, why not? Let's give it a shot, let's go.
Terry Parkman:We're doing that. So I have the privilege of like just focusing on everything next gen, what God's doing around the world, seeing what like that common thread is, and then just like talking about it everywhere and seeing how it hits everybody else and really kind of a massive crowdsource is what it is. So that's kind of what I got my hands in.
Caleb Leake:I love it, bro, we're so blessed to have you and I know all these pastors listening are so blessed to be listening as well. So, to start off, as we do every time, if you've been around youth ministry long enough, you have a story of you doing something stupid, or one of your students doing something stupid, or just stupid following you, because it seems to like a plague haunt every youth pastor. I can see it on your face already. So we'd love to hear your youth pastor story, youth ministry story that you would share at the dinner table with everybody.
Terry Parkman:Absolutely Depends who's at the dinner table. I'll share this one. It's fairly tame. It's the one that came to my mind immediately. So I was a pastor, a youth pastor, in North Dakota. I was born and raised Bison State baby. I was in North Dakota and we did camp and I was asked to be the sports director and so I took it, because you get the nicer room in a nice room on a campground but I got to stay in my own room. Nobody was around. It was awesome and camp director could go anywhere they wanted and it was fun. Or sports director, I should say not sports director title is important there I'm making up games.
Terry Parkman:I'm like I don't even know what to do, so I'm making up everything I can. And I made up this game called flower power and it was a nylon filled with flower and it was kind of like smear the clear. You remember that? Like somebody's got a football and then you tackle them and then you take the football and they got to throw. Oh okay, you hit them with the nylon filled with flower and it poofs and it's okay and it's usually fine, right. But I'm driving around on my like sports guy golf cart and I see this kid he's 10th grade and he's walking up to girls and just like wow. And so I walked up to this kid and I go and I'm, and I'm, and I pick up this thing like this growth popular flower power nylon, and I'm walking up to this kid I'm like dude, you got to gotta stop. And he turns around and he hits me and I didn't even think I took the one that I had in my head. I go wham and he goes down.
Terry Parkman:He was out like a light. He's down and the and the dyd is there in the golf cart and she looks at me, looks like the kid just drives off I'm out I saw nothing.
Terry Parkman:So then then, then this is the best. So at the I said we had like a water balloon launcher and I said, all right, if you catch this, this is like 700,000 points and nobody's catching a water balloon, like it's going to blow up, you know what I mean. And so I'm launching them. But I pulled it straight back and set it down and so it would zoom across. And it zoomed across and it hit a kid square in the chest and he flies back and falls down. It's the same kid. No, it's the hand of God. That was the hand of the Lord, that was just his mind. Vengeance is mine for the Lord. That kid he caught it.
Eran Holt:That's the Holy Spirit for me.
Terry Parkman:It was poetic. That's one of my favorite stories because I got to see the hand of God at work.
Caleb Leake:I think every youth pastor has a moment where they wish they could do that too. Oh close.
Terry Parkman:Where it's like I wish I could Today. I'd be not a ministry, for sure, for sure. But that kid's over 18 now and he's fine.
Eran Holt:He's fine, do you still?
Caleb Leake:have a relationship with him? Do you know him? I don't even know who he was.
Eran Holt:I don't If you're out there, you're listening. We'd love to hear the other side of the story.
Caleb Leake:It was a sports director years ago, hit you with a nylon thing of flour.
Terry Parkman:Nylon.
Eran Holt:And then in the chest with a water balloon. I thought you were going to say the kid put something else in there, like he had rocks in there or something.
Terry Parkman:He was just hauling off on girls and when he hit me I was like poof.
Eran Holt:Yeah, no, turning the other cheek here from terry parkman.
Caleb Leake:no, no, no, no hitting girls, bro, he deserves to get leveled to be honest, it's like come on bro you just say you didn't have a mark.
Terry Parkman:He showed up to chapel that night.
Eran Holt:He was fine we'll pray for healing anyways, even if he does love it, love it. I remember playing that game at a camp. You were looking surprised, caleb. I don't think you've ever heard of that. No, I've never heard of that game, but we did it with socks, we just did with socks. And then you know, yeah, people got hurt.
Terry Parkman:It was great though those are the best, like genic sport camp sports games.
Eran Holt:Yes, yes, yes, they were yeah yeah, you're all too tame, you gen's ears. You're weak, you know it's because there's phones.
Caleb Leake:Now I have to worry about what parents are gonna see. It's true you guys can hide behind the anonymity of like not knowing anything.
Terry Parkman:You know, kids won't remember the camp any painful moment on the sports field, or questionable one, can be solved by a great night at the altar. Yes, that's it. That's it the kid's like it's okay and for everything's forgiven and you're good to go as a pastor.
Eran Holt:But now Not now With a phone, not now, oh, so good, love it. So, terry, we call this podcast Vitals for Youth History Podcast. It's based off of a framework that we use as a part of Lead the Generation in training up the next generation and the current generation of youth pastors, youth leaders, full-time, part-time, bivocational, whatever level they're at, and it's based on the five vitals found in Acts, chapter two. So biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, missional living, leadership, development. And if you're not familiar with the podcast or you're not familiar with that resource, roll on over to leadthegenerationcom.
Eran Holt:It's all free, 100 hundred percent free, 70 plus training videos, playbooks for what you can do during the day, uh roadmaps for how to use the the resource it's incredible, we even have an online assessment tool that we just released um that that helps you assess your own youth ministry according to the five vitals in acts chapter two, um. So that's what vitals is. But, terry, we wanted to talk with you, kind of do a deep dive on one particular vital, the vital of missional living, and just kind of like pick your brain, have you coach us and be the coach for, like those that are listening on, how do we like level up? You know, helping students live on mission, right? And so, terry, let me just kick it to you like just kind of big thoughts that you might have initially when you think about missional living, you think about helping students live on mission. What are some of your big thoughts that could be helpful for us, especially those that are youth pastors right now and they're trying to help students live on mission?
Terry Parkman:I think one of the most important things as a leader of the next generation, if you're focusing on youth ministry and you're focusing on what's going to impact them, you got to focus on broad trends. Broad trends always impact the way the next generation moves and so many people think it's micro trends. But micro trends come and go every six or seven days and if they stick around, it's every four months and they will change culture. And if they stick around, it's every four months and they will change culture if they stick around for four months. You know, if they stick around, those micro trends stick around for 12 months. Now it's embedded in all culture and so, like you got to look at broad trends, big things, and what will happen and I think this is something that people sleep on is the church has effectively shifted from a attractional model to a missional model. Yeah, and he's talking about it.
Terry Parkman:I'm telling you everybody's gonna start talking about it. I haven't heard anybody talk about missional living except for the last 12 months. Like this is huge because the church has effectively from an attractional to a missional. So every few generations we have an attractional age in the church. Right, we find something that we love and then we beat it to death for a few generations and then we're like, oh, we need an update. And so we do an attractional age. Well, after every attractional model comes a missional model, and what that means is people aren't wanting to be entertained and I know that's a shallow way of saying it but attracted, they want to be put on mission. They're like I got to do more than just show up and have mid coffee with mediocre wifi and you know, everybody's got LEDs. It's not cool anymore. Like, like, let's, let's do something, let's, let's do something new, let's turn up the lights, let's turn them up. You know what I mean. And so what happens is people go to missional.
Terry Parkman:Now, 2025 was supposed to be the year that attractional fell off, but because of COVID in 2020, it ended. The nail in the coffin happened then because people came out of COVID, they came out of lockdown and they started going back to the church and they went back to an attractional model and a lot of, and every time there's an attractional model, churches quadruple. They're just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They grow because people come back right, but what you build has to shift or else it'll start to die down. And coming out of COVID, attractional leaders stumbled down on a model that didn't matter anymore. But nobody told them.
Terry Parkman:That's why you had 40% of people, after they came back to church, left the church to go find something else. And what they were looking for even though they couldn't say it at the time was to be put on mission. And if I can make it easy for any youth pastor today, it's if I'm being put on mission and living my on mission, call it's. I want to find my people and I want to lock into my purpose and I want to join those two together. And any church, it doesn't matter how attractional or non-attractional it is, you could have pews, you could have shares, whatever If you have the recipe of people and purpose and it's locked in and you're actually leaving church, having moved forward and put your hands on something and gone on mission, that church will grow.
Terry Parkman:And in the next five years we're going to see a tipping point in youth ministries, to where more youth ministries explode, not because of the attractional model or the cool or the cool effect, but because of the missional. I'm going to lock you into a purpose with the people. That's running in the same direction and we're going. That is the broad trend that you got to understand. Now, if you're preaching, filter everything through that Whenever you work, develop your leaders. Filter everything through that, because if you have a leader that's not on mission and a student that is a student's, going to leave not because they don't love your youth ministry, but because they don't resonate with your leaders.
Eran Holt:I said a lot right there but that's kind of like the broad trend and we can boil it down from there if you want.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, yeah, let's go. Your head's exploding. So is mine. Okay, so that's why he's youth mystery jedi. Yeah, um, okay, so, yeah, I. I think I want to get into the the because that's a great setup and I'm like let's go the practical side of it. So, when you're talking about changing and adapting from attractional to missional, what are the biggest things that need to change for someone who's like, okay, I'm ready to adapt.
Eran Holt:That's great. What do I need to shift? Great question.
Caleb Leake:What are the big key areas that you're like, or even perspectives? Maybe that are the things that need to shift to begin to make that change.
Terry Parkman:Well, I think it's really good when there's a couple angles. You got to go from the top down and bottom up Whenever you're reshifting and redeveloping youth ministry, because many times we reshape our youth ministry hoping it resonates but we're playing darts in the dark. We don't know where the bullseye is. So let's really frame that bullseye for a youth pastor Working from the top. You want to develop your leaders. If I'm serious about my walk with God and I'm looking for guidance as a student and I have a leader that's looking at the small group material on their phone the minute the small group starts and they've never looked at it before, that I'm not going to take them seriously and I'm going to find somebody who is serious. So my volunteer leaders just can't be warm bodies that are over the age of 18. All right, they have to be people that are also on mission with what God has placed in your heart for the youth ministry and they got to lock in and as a leader, you got to give them freedom to contextualize that. They're not going to run that on mission call the same way you do, but they're going to run it the way that God has created them to do it and that's what your youth ministry needs. Okay, if your leaders aren't there, then the bottom up piece can't happen. And the bottom up piece is discipleship and biblical literacy and biblical fluency and cultural discernment. You add those things in and those four things are key. Okay, discipleship, making people look more like Jesus. If your leaders aren't doing it and if they're not on the mission of God, your students aren't going to want to be around them.
Terry Parkman:Yeah, I get biblical literacy. I understand the word of God, I read the word of God, I'm consistent in the word of God. But can you speak the word of God? Okay, I used to run a Chinese, a couple of Chinese restaurants in high school fun fact, and Chinese, but I couldn't speak it. When they were talking, I could get the gist of what they were saying. I couldn't. I wasn't fluent. You know what I mean. And so are we not only biblically literate, but are we biblically fluent? All right, in our discipleship pathways?
Terry Parkman:And when you preach, are you being attractional or are you being missional when you preach? So let's add that component to it. You've got to make sure that you're being missional. Is what you're saying? Helping students to connect the dots and understand the Word of God, speak the word of God but live in a way that redeems culture around them.
Terry Parkman:The biggest thing with missional living is you are locked into the mission of Jesus, the mission of day, and it's this that Jesus came to redeem and reconcile period. I want to redeem the lost and I want to reconcile them to the father. Find something else that's the mission of God and we'll talk about it, you know. But if these students every week aren't being locked into the mission of redemption, like, can I redeem culture around me, can I redeem this relationship, can I redeem this um and can I get them closer to the father? Like, if those two things aren't in it, you ain't doing missional living. So, the top down with leadership, the bottom up with discipleship, cultural discernment, biblical literacy, biblical fluency, you know, on mission living, those are the two directions you have to work. But your preaching's got to line up. It has to line up.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, I love that it starts with leaders too. Because, I've only noticed that, as I've been in youth ministry and something you've really worked on me with, and also that Vitals has been super amazing about like like how do I get my leaders to take that next level?
Eran Holt:because that really is the cap, yeah, and it dripping down that missional way of living through all the leaders is, yeah, absolutely. I see I see a lot of youth pastors um, you know, people have relationships with, and, and even some of those that we coach through through, lead a generation. Great desire and willingness, terry, to move from the attractional model to missional. Oh yeah, they grew up in the attractional model, they inherited the attractional model, right um, they were trained in it, right um, so they identified their own personal gifts in within the attractional model. Like I can, I can roll with this and this will be really good. I see a great desire to shift and change, but I also see a lot of struggle. What are some of the barriers that you typically see in youth pastors, whether full-time or whether volunteer, in making this shift?
Terry Parkman:Your metrics of success are still tied to an attractional model and your senior leadership still values success based on an attractional model, the whole while you're doubling down on what they call success and you're seeing a leak in the back door, a revolving door in your youth ministry, and that's the tension, because attractional really did boost numbers and it does boost numbers and you do it. And I'm not saying attractional model, get rid of the LEDs and the chairs and the coffee and whatever. Like, I'm all for cool church, I love it. I love it, yeah, but that is not a now, a style and not a model. You can have a missional model in an attractional style, a missional model in a liturgical style, missional model and whatever style you want, yeah. But I think one of the biggest things is how. What do you value? Do you value outputs or outcomes? And that's the biggest thing. Outputs are this they're what you can count as a result of something that's happened. So, how many butts were in the seats? How much money was given? How many people are showing up? How, how much? How many posts did you have? Those are outputs.
Terry Parkman:And if you count outputs and I know there's other, like youth ministry thought leaders who think the opposite. You know more faithful in reading the word of God, like that's the fruit, okay. And you got to met, and that's qualitative. Outcomes are qualitative, outputs are quantitative. And you got to choose today, as a youth pastor, which direction you're going to build your youth ministry into what young people become or into getting people in the room. Now, getting people in the room is euphoric. It's amazing because when you hit it, you hit it, it's awesome and it feels great. The problem with that is then you just keep feeding that dog and you're wondering why your kids aren't deeper in Jesus. You kind of got to choose what's going to happen Now. The good news is missional tends towards outcomes All right. Attractional tends towards towards outputs. So just put missional first and if you got an attractional style, keep it there, but don't compromise the outcomes for this, for the attractional outputs does that make sense.
Eran Holt:oh yeah, and I think, I think you just you hit it really well that when you fill that room, when you're in that attractional model and you fill that room, it does feel euphoric and it, it, it, um, sometimes it it it really exposes like the what's happening in our own life as a leader, when it comes to our heart or our identity. Right, because we're all wrapped up in that and I got to have that again and again and again and again and again. We're not even thinking like, like, are we really discipling students?
Terry Parkman:We're thinking like this feels so great, let's just run this play over and over, and the youth pastors that are called legends are the ones who are really good at ensuring the room gets filled or the followers happen on social media.
Eran Holt:Yeah.
Terry Parkman:We think that they're gurus because they have more followers or because they can do an attractional model and keep people coming back over and over. And all they did is they created a mechanism of getting people in. And I'm not saying they're not telling people about Jesus and I'm not saying people aren't getting saved. I think they are, because the Lord will reach anybody in any context he wants. However, if we're trying to align with culture and get people locked into missional living, we're at a tipping point to where we've shifted from an attractional to a missional.
Caleb Leake:And we have to. As much as we went attractional and we went all in with that 25 years ago, we need to also now go all in missional. Yeah Well, another huge tension point that me and Aaron always talk about is youth pastors, who struggle with lead pastors, who are kind of what you talked about. Who do you want more of those outputs than the outcomes? Because it is like, wow, look at what happened From afar, it's easier to see an output than it is to see an outcome.
Eran Holt:So let's talk about that, terry, because I don't know if it was in a session. I heard you at a conference somewhere or whether it was a conversation we were in, but I remember you telling a story of a conversation you had with your lead pastor when you were still leading the youth ministry at River Valley. Day to day, day to day. And and and how? How did you manage that conversation with your pastor to help him allow you the freedom to make the shift that you made?
Terry Parkman:Yeah. So that's when everything I don't know if you remember, about seven years ago, everybody started talking about discipleship. Yeah, and it's because we separate like I need to preface with this we separated like discipleship and evangelism should never be separated. We've made them into two and evangelism should never be separated. We've made them into two different programs, and that's been a victim of the attractional age. It's like, well, let's get track to track to track to track. Oh crap, Like we don't have Sunday schools anymore. Let's do small groups. Oh crap, our small group leaders aren't deep and they're barely serving Jesus. Let's give them a video to play and we call that and we reduced discipleship to that. And so that's why we've had such an anemic season a couple decades of discipleship.
Terry Parkman:That discipleship started to swing in. So I went to Pastor Rob, my lead pastor, who's amazing, and I started talking about these trends and I said you know, pastor Rob, I can build you a big, sexy looking youth ministry, and I can do it as long as I'm here in this position, and I could get thousands of people, but I don't know how many are going to heaven. I just don't, and I've been doing this too long to care about having big things. I I sense this shift taking place and I need to shift our model to be more discipleship driven than evangelism driven. So you don't get rid of them.
Terry Parkman:But discipleship comes first and anything you invest has to come out right, and so that's why discipleship and evangelism are together, because whatever comes in comes out, and if Jesus is truly coming in, then it can't. It's got to be organic coming out of students. I said go on a shift. The model will look like that, but I think we're going to shrink because we're we're building from the core to the crowd and not the crowd to the core. And that was the model for years the crowd to the core, crowd to the core. But the problem is the bigger the core, the thing that people understand is the bigger the core, the bigger the fruit yeah, right yeah, it's not.
Terry Parkman:You know, you don't build a core by building the fruit, you build the fruit by building the core. Yeah, whenever you have a big piece of fruit, the core is a lot bigger, right, yeah? And so I want to build the core and I said but people are going to fall off on the edges so we might dip in numbers for two years before we come back up. And he said do it. I said, don't look at my numbers. For two years he goes cool. And, bro, two months, we doubled, months of doing this new model. We doubled and we thought we were it. We're like, oh my gosh, like we are the creme de la creme, like everybody loves our style, our preaching, we are the best, am I the best? I'm the best.
Terry Parkman:And so we did a survey, because you need to keep yourself honest. And so we did it over a period of four months and we asked kids the same questions in different ways. And it's basically this question why are you now bringing your friends? And it boiled down 93% of them said I am now bringing my friend because now we finally have a place where we get to talk. Wow, so you weren't bringing your friends because we wouldn't shut up on the stage.
Terry Parkman:You needed a more relational place on the floor, and so we shifted it based on the trends Again, those trends that are going to affect everything. So I just got ahead of it and I redeveloped and I saw the fruit of it by building the core, and that just exploded and now everything is discipleship driven, where discipleship comes first right and it wraps evangelism, and so that's kind of the model moving forward and that's what we did. Now I'm not going to say I don't push towards numbers. I do because I believe the more people I can get in the room, the more I can infuse with the gospel. However, I don't change what I say or change what I do now because of who's in the room, because I'm not driven towards numbers and I'm not going to cater to the numbers, I'm going to cater to the outcomes.
Eran Holt:Kana, what are you thinking? You know because, like, I'm loving every minute of this, but I'm reliving like when I used to be a youth pastor. You're in it right now. You're five years in.
Caleb Leake:And you and I've talked about making this shift from attractional to missional for a couple of years now. Well, and I think it's, I think I'm finding, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely deep in thought, cause I'm doing my own self-evaluation of like, okay, what are, what are some of the things that I'm noticing in my own youth ministry. I think it's so easy to just like fall into attractional and I'm like, oh, there's probably some attractional things. That part of my ministry, specifically, the, the crowd, the crowd. What was that you said?
Caleb Leake:the crowd to the core, yeah, I think I might be a victim of that, of like, yeah, let's get the room and then I'm going to understand who's who's my main people and I'll build from there no-transcript. And yeah, I would say for youth pastors who do find themselves struggling and wrestling with that, where they feel like they're in the in-between and they're wrestling with where do I take the steps? What are good ways to evaluate yourself on if you're really hitting what you're?
Terry Parkman:aiming for? Does that make sense? Totally? Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things to understand is there are things the attractional model does for you. Like you got your service flow locked, you got your setup locked, you got your hospitality unlocked. I think the attractional model gave us a great injection of good hospitality. You know what I mean and as cheesy and as cliche as it sounds now, back then it was such a breath of fresh air when people would say welcome home your family here Like now we're like you're not my family.
Caleb Leake:This ain't home.
Terry Parkman:But back then, dude, like it was so refreshing because church didn't feel like home, it didn't feel like family. So it does a lot for you and allow the style to what it does and don't feel bad, don't like go back to crappy looking church and stripping it back and thinking it's going to change everything and make something more spiritual, because it's crappier doesn't make it more spiritual, right, and so just let it do the work for you that it needs to and you focus on what you're infusing in them and just do it over and over and over. And, honestly, I handed a lot of the attractional piece off to my volunteer team. I'm like yo, let's take this to another level, let's go do this, let's go do this. But I spent my energies not on that but on outcomes. So when I developed my leaders, we were all outcome driven in that training, in that development and everything. But the task of the environment, which was attractional, I left to them. So you have outcome-driven, developed people creating an attractional environment.
Terry Parkman:Now, this attractional environment now pushes towards outcomes rather than outputs and all it is is how you develop those volunteers and leaders. And so I wouldn't stress, let it be what it is, because you got to contextualize right. I'm not going to go to China and change the way they do it, because we're now in a missional age. I'm going to contextualize for China to reach Chinese. You've still got to contextualize for, you know, gen, gen alpha to reach gen alpha, and we're gonna be having the beta conversation in 10 years too. But you got to contextualize for gen alpha. Let it happen, do it, but let the modus operandi, the motivation, be outcome building and output building.
Eran Holt:Yeah, terry, you mentioned that this shift from attractional to missional affects your preaching. So, specifically, what were some of the ways you saw it affect your preaching?
Terry Parkman:What are some of the things that, um, you would coach others in. I'm going to say this, but I'm not. I'm not going to ask you guys to answer and I am. Have you ever were preaching and you wanted to say something, but you edited on the fly because you didn't think it would resonate as well, even though it was a hard truth? You're like I'm going to, I'm going to pull this back a little bit, and it almost came out apologetically. Like you know, this is what the word of God says, and what we're not trying to say is this. But what the Bible does say is and we've watered that down so many times and that's attractional. All right, you will know it when it hits you. Right. Right, I'll say this. This is a strong way of saying it, but we become a coward in the word of God when we cater to attractional, when we preach yeah, and faith and courage. When we're motivated by faith and courage, we will take the word of God and plug it into their next step. Now I want to frame this up here for you, and some people have heard this before, but I think it's so potent.
Terry Parkman:You look at where Samuel's a little boy. He's sleeping by the Ark of the Covenant, right, and here's a voice of God Say Samuel, samuel. He goes over to Eli and he says Eli, did you call me? He goes, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. And three times this happens. Finally, on the third time, eli goes. That's not me, that's the God. The next time you hear it say speak, lord, your servant is listening. If Eli was a youth pastor today, he would go over and say God's speaking to you audibly. Let me go hear what God is saying. I'll translate it in the way that I think you should hear it, and then I'll go tell you what to do.
Terry Parkman:That's what we do when we preach. That's what we do. We're telling them our experience and not putting them on mission for their experience. If you're going A to Z, if they don't, if you're going a to z and that z is your z, instead of giving them their a to b, like they got to leave and go on mission, what's the next thing they're doing? How are they locking that in? And not the way you see it, but you're teaching them how to go home and leave the four walls of your church and say speak, lord, your servant is listening and going on mission. That revolutionizes the way you preach. So everything punches towards. How do I get them on mission? I can't go into their schools, I can't go in their homes, I can't go into workplaces, I can't go into their friend groups and I'm constantly going to continually be more irrelevant as I get older. So how do I put them on with what's true?
Terry Parkman:Yeah, you know that alone will convict your preaching. Yeah, and I'm not saying like preach with middle fingers, like don't do that, don't be that guy, but what I am saying is, don't water it down and let them wrestle with the word of God rather than wrestle with you.
Caleb Leake:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I also never want to be someone who's sanitizing the word of God because I'm afraid of how I'm going to look and yeah, I heard another pastor talking about that and that massively convicted me of like, am I truly preaching the word of God or am I giving them something that's second best and that's scary Also, as, as somebody who is a steward of giving the word to students like it scares, the fear of God comes at me. I'm like I don't want to. I do not want to do a disservice to the word of.
Eran Holt:God for students. Yeah, well, terry, terry, another question on the preaching. So I'm just just curious. Well, terry, another question on the preaching. So I'm just curious has the shift for you to missional preaching made you be more?
Terry Parkman:topical, or more expository in your preaching, or just more expository, yeah, more expository, but not snooze fest expository at all. Because application when you're trying to get people locked into their next step in mission, it's apply, apply, apply, apply, apply. Because there should be three handles for three different audiences in the room, minimum. Some people are like aim towards one. You got one audience, you got one thing. If they catch it, they do. If they don't, they don't. That's a good way. I think that's good too.
Terry Parkman:But if I'm talking about the story story of and it's one of my favorite sermons Elisha picking up the mantle and hitting the Jordan River and walking across, he's got three inflection points Ask for, you know, double, because you know what you're being called to do on mission Pick up the mantle, don't talk about it, be about it. And three step out in faith, hit the water and walk out. That's a free sermon for some of you, but there's going to be people who are at one of those stopping points three handles as I apply, expository, the way they should go down. And so I'm applying, applying, applying, applying, applying, applying over and over, because I am desperate not to wrap it up in a nice bundle, but to get them to do one of those three things, come on, and if I can't get them to do that and then live it out, I miss my opportunity. For those arguably 25 minutes at most you should be preaching as a youth pastor, not 40, like 25 at most, like that's for all of you. If you can kick it to 20, even better.
Caleb Leake:You know so yeah, so getting them to take action steps, then, because this is actually, as every message you're preaching is every missional message, all about hey, next action step, here's what you need to do, here's where you need to do, here's where you need to go beyond the Wednesday night. That's what I'm thinking, because I think a lot of these pastors are preaching, at least for me.
Caleb Leake:I sometimes just preach for the altar tonight and then see you later. We'll see you next week, but are you going? You're going for beyond Wednesday. What's the action that should be taken?
Terry Parkman:How does it affect your life after this? You can't make an emotional decision and not live it devotionally and that's it Like. Am I evoking emotional decisions? Because I can do it, terry, can camp preach, for sure. I can camp preach the night down. But thing is, I'm not just going for emotional, I'm going for devotional. So how does this connect to their next step and how do I hold them accountable? Not through me, but through the Word of God.
Terry Parkman:So I preached on judging once, right, and then I talked about the measure on which you judge others will be judged to you, and I took out a tape measure and I said we make mini judgments and it was like a 12 foot tape measure and if every inch on this tape measure was a mini judgment, you would need four of these tape measures to fill the day, to fill your week. It would be from here to this city. So you're judging people. Enough to wrap around the world with your measurement. How many inches are you of judging?
Terry Parkman:Are you adding to the measure of judging today? Are you increasing your judgment value around the world? Or are you adding value to other people through the way you speak to them, the way you lead them to Jesus the way you pour into their life, or are you just living a life of judgment Because I'm sure in which you judge? You will be judged, you know, and so that alone created handles for us to go through small groups and social media content and everything else to push it to the next step, but it's got to land in their hands. I wasn't convicting them, I wasn't saying you're the one who's a judger, you're the one who's hating on people. I didn't say that. But when you let the word of God do its thing and you apply it deeply to everyday life.
Eran Holt:they're going to have to missionally take that, contextualize it and move it forward. Yeah, yeah, so good. I um, as I'm, as I'm listening to you talk, terry, I'm reflecting. I think it was a couple of years ago. I was listening to you, uh, speak at a conference and I wrote something down in my notes that kind of haunted me, not only in this season and what I do in youth ministry and helping develop others, but even from when I was a youth pastor and I don't know if I'll get your quote exactly right, but you said something to the effect we've exchanged enhanced relationship for biblical discipleship. Do you remember saying that?
Eran Holt:Yeah, yeah yeah, Okay, but I felt like this deep sense of like there were too many times when I was a youth pastor that I assumed discipleship was taking place because students were in relationship in a healthy small group setting. And so it kind of wrecked me in the sense of realizing like, oh man, just because we have a healthy small groups and healthy relationships and healthy community doesn't necessarily mean that my students are actually becoming fully devoted followers of Christ. You unpack it a little bit in the context of this shift we're talking about from attractional to missional, because that was one of the things attractional gave us was small groups, get in small groups, right and that. And then whenever you'd ask a youth pastor what's your discipleship strategy, they're like small groups, Like that's the answer.
Terry Parkman:That was the answer. Yeah, but, but. But okay, I'm going to be nice. Small groups aren't the demon, however, they're not the problem. So, like some people, I'm getting rid of small groups. They're the problem. They're not the problem. The problem is our lack of development of leaders who lead those small groups. That's the problem.
Terry Parkman:Often, what we call discipleship isn't discipleship but a celebrated relationships. The two factors of a winning small group are you're growing and people keep coming back. So what are you going to do? Are you going to keep giving them those hard biblical truths that convict them week after week, or are you going to attract them to make sure you ring those two bells right? What you probably have is biblical community. Maybe Depends what your small group's about. You know, if you're out here watching Game of Thrones and talking about the biblical value, that ain't a small group and that's not biblical community. Let's pray about what your viewing habits alright, like, let's pray about that instead. But no, like, what you probably have at most is biblical community and celebrated relationships, because if people aren't walking out wanting to draw closer to Jesus and looking more like Jesus, it's not discipleship.
Terry Parkman:When people today say, yeah, but what is discipleship? There's so many definitions. What's discipleship? That's the lowest hanging fruit, and the fact that we're confused shows how diluted that has been. So I think that we need to truly make discipleship discipleship and the outcome and the fruit needs to be people looking like Jesus and going on mission with him. Now that means that you might not have a ton of people flooding that small group and have a small group. That's like common interest, free market, we play basketball and we read a chapter of the Bible together and pray Do it.
Terry Parkman:I think you should do it, but I don't think you should call a small group unless there's a value of Jesus and what he's called us to do in the middle of it. Like have it. If you want to get together and do like a Saturday barbecue and you got a bunch of people from church and you're calling it a small group, have Jesus in the midst of it, beyond just the prayer for the barbecue, you know, and have that be the discipleship. Because if people aren't one step closer to Jesus, then it's not discipleship, it's just not.
Terry Parkman:If there's, if there's not bearing their cross to follow him, it's not discipleship. If they're not denying themselves and dying to themselves, it's not discipleship. Like am I wrong, like that's what the Bible does say Other than those things. We're fooling ourselves for the sake of attractional measures and that's the problem. And I think if we shift the outcome to being missional and infusing a missional mindset into every small group leader and doing the heavy lifting, I think you're going to see a change. Keep doing the small groups, but make sure your value is appropriately placed on them, if you're going to call it discipleship.
Caleb Leake:Yeah. So okay, for people who are training their small group leaders, what were wins you gave your small group leaders of? Like this is how you know you had a great week or night or month as a small group leader. How do they know they're, like, on track, doing the right stuff, winning, you know. Or, on the other side, how would they know they're not doing a great job, you know?
Terry Parkman:I'll say this first I love small groups. Where people are, it's blowing up and you can't have a living room big enough because kids are hungry, I love it, okay. You can't have a living room big enough because kids are hungry, yeah, I love it Okay. Attractional means you have to keep feeding them, to keep with what's attractional, to keep them coming. Yeah, but if you can grow a living room full of students and it's because of your deep dive in the word of God that builds itself, yeah, you kind of got to choose which direction you're going to go. But when I'm developing leaders, here's the deal, and this is a symptomatic issue that we have with volunteer leaders in our youth ministries we think, because of warm bodies there, that they can be a leader and they have to equally pay a price to follow Jesus and to serve students, as we're asking students to pay a price to follow Jesus too. So if these leaders aren't going deep, if they're not spending time with Jesus, if they're not going deep in the curriculum, if they're not spending time with students, if they're not praying over the students, if they're not laboring in intercession over students, why are they a small group leader? Well, we need more adults. Well, maybe sometimes adults don't come to your youth ministry because they don't find a way they can plug in the mission of God that he's put in their heart into your ministry because your ministry might be too attractional. When I elevated the bar of development and what a volunteer leader is in my ministry and some people fell off because they weren't willing to go there, but boy did people come in because they were looking for a place that would meet the mission of God in their life. So maybe your lack of volunteers as a pastor has less to do with people wanting to do it and more to do with your bar being so stinking low. They feel like it's a waste of their time.
Terry Parkman:And so I took time every four to six weeks having a team night developing them in the content. Okay, so I would have every sermon planned out a month in advance. Every sermon planned out. I would do the heavy lifting, get it done. I would build the small group curriculum and then, whenever we would meet us in a team night, we would do all the fun team stuff. But then we would do artificial scenarios where they would get into small group One person was a small group leader and they would all work through the content together, finding the sticking points, so that they could ask questions. And then I would send them material that they could deepen themselves before they ever led the small group If they weren't willing to do it. And instead I found them at small group on a Wednesday night doing this, looking at their phone, reading it. They weren't a small group leader.
Terry Parkman:Just because you're a leader doesn't mean you're a small group. Volunteer Doesn't mean you're a small group, right. And so where are you going to put the threshold? At what point are you going to be tired of it so much that you're like whatever, I'll give a rip. Anymore Leaders leave. We need this youth group. Or are you going to do it today, cause you're going to do it eventually? Yeah, you know what I mean.
Eran Holt:Yeah.
Terry Parkman:I don't mean to be like this with everybody, but like that, no, you're not, it's good, it's actually so good, I don't.
Caleb Leake:I don't think it comes off at all like that. I think it is like it's reality check and it is. I don't think any youth pastor wants to find themselves five years, 10 years down the road being like what did I spend my time on? But we?
Terry Parkman:all do, but we all do. Why do my leaders suck? Why are they so rough? And it's because I put the bar so low. I remember saying when I first started ministry I want this to be easy, for my leaders to come to the easiest part of their day. No, I don't. When Jesus calls us to follow him, he calls us to come and die. And if I give them opportunity without paying a price, that's entitlement. I give them an opportunity while making them pay the price, that's empowerment. The difference between empowering leaders and having entitled leaders is them paying the cost of ministry, and if I take that away, I rob them of that opportunity.
Eran Holt:Yeah, so good. I think this is the exact challenge that we need. Like everything you've said in this podcast, this is a challenge we need because I sense so many youth pastors are frustrated with the attractional model. They know it's not producing results related to discipleship at the level which they want, but they've only known the attractional model or they've only grown up in it, or they've only seen that modeled for them, and so they're struggling to find a way like how do I get rid of this, how do I get out of this? Or how do I adapt this, how do I tweak this?
Eran Holt:I really appreciate your approach, terry. I think it's super balanced for you to say what you're doing at Tractional now keep it. That's just your style, that's your gifting, that's who you are right, that's how God made you. So go ahead and use those gifts, but filter those gifts now through the model or the framework of missional. We have to be on mission, we're on mission. It's brilliant, it's brilliant and it makes me excited to hear you. Whenever you come to the conference next year, april 25th, shout out for that. Registration will be available soon online. But this has been so good, terry, thank you. Thank you so much. Absolutely incredible. Never disappoints, terry Parker never disappoints.
Caleb Leake:It's okay. Thank you guys.
Eran Holt:Hey Terry, for people that want to connect with you, where are you at on social, all that kind of stuff? What's the easiest way for them to find you?
Terry Parkman:Yeah, I got to be better at social. Truly, you and I were just talking about this Old guy problems yeah. I'm like if you type in my name, everybody else has me on their YouTube stuff, but I don't have them.
Caleb Leake:I got to do it.
Terry Parkman:Right now you can find me on social media just at Terry Parkman, across all platforms Also, terryparkmancom. That's where we're building out a lot of the content for the future here, especially now that we're talking about the future of the church through the next generation lens. But I'm going to start shifting to talking about future leaders and what the next generation today Gen Alpha and Gen Beta the style of leadership they're going to embody down the road that's going to completely disrupt the church. So I'm going to be dropping a lot on there too, so stay tuned.
Eran Holt:Nice. No, that's going to be great, that's going to be so good. This has been incredible. Yeah, I'm like sad that we have to, like you know, like we're up against our time here, but I'm like I feel like we could just talk for another I don't know an hour. I keep my mind blown a few more times.
Eran Holt:This is one of these episodes those of you that are watching, those that are listening it's like if you didn't take notes the first time, you're like, okay, I'm gonna have to go back and listen to that again and then stop and rewind, and stop and rewind it like again and again, again. So, um, this is. This has been absolutely incredible. So, um, if you are a fan of, uh, lead the generation and vitals for youth ministry podcast, we would love it if you'd give us a review, give us a shout out, give us a share. Hit that subscribe like button, whatever platform you're on, and you're going to get more incredible interviews from incredible leaders and thought leaders, like Terry Parkman, and it's been incredible. So, terry, again, thank you for joining us. Caleb, as always, thanks for being an incredible co-host to this, and we'll see all of you on the next Vitals for Youth Ministry Podcast.
