Long-Game Leadership & Building a Ministry That Can Sustain Growth

We pull back the curtain on youth ministry insecurity, comparison, and the pressure to make every Wednesday hinge on one person, then map a better way—equipping leaders, planning with purpose, and building systems that last. Gabby O’Rourke shares candid stories and a practical framework to turn vision into sustained growth.

• Naming insecurity and resisting comparison
• Equipping volunteers over owning the night
• Character, calling, culture, competency as a framework
• Prayer-led recruiting of multi-generational teams
• Yearly scope and sequence for content planning
• Small group prep and response culture that disciple
• Assessing ratios, roles, and Wednesday flow
• Fixing foundations before cosmetic changes
• Opening feedback loops and receiving input well

Lead the Generation Conference is back and bigger than ever! 

Join thousands of NextGen leaders from across the country — Kids Ministry Leaders, Youth Pastors, Volunteers, and Student Leaders — for a one-day experience designed to equip and inspire everyone who shapes the next generation.

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Transcript

Naming Insecurity In Ministry

Gabi O'Rourke 1:15

Talking with youth pastors, I think that we don't talk about insecurity enough because I think there's a lot of insecure pastors. And I don't think it's because they're sinful, they're bad, something's wrong with them. I think it's because it is very easy to believe in faith for these huge things to happen in your ministry, and when you don't see it come about, sometimes for years, you can begin to question what is wrong with me, that this is not happening. You also have more comparison than ever. You have every person under the sun that's now a content creator in ministry, and you see their highlight reels, you're gonna see the best clip of their message, the best clip of their response, but you're not gonna see all of the struggles they're having in their ministry. So I think it's very easy to walk in insecurity.

Eran Holt 2:12

Hey, welcome to Vitals for Youth Ministry Podcast. So glad that you are with us today. My name is Aaron, director of Lead the Generation. I got Kay Lablique, co-host Extraordinaire.

Caleb Leake 2:23

Let's go. Happy to be here, bro. Uh yeah. I have with I'm an old man. I just played the pumpkin bowl. Uh it's a fall uh football thing we do with our students, and I'm in so much my back.

Eran Holt 2:35

You're not even 30 yet.

Gabby’s Path Into Next Gen

Caleb Leake 2:35

So actually, my birthday was just on Tuesday last week, and I'm 28. So we're right there. We're right before the 3-0. Man, okay. And my back is feeling it all.

Eran Holt 2:46

Talk to me when you hit 40 or 50. Um, hey Caleb, excited. We got Gabby O'Rourke with us today, special guest on the podcast. Um, Gabby is the next gen director at River Valley Church. And so, Gabby, thank you so much for joining us. Excited you're with us.

Gabi O'Rourke 3:03

Absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for asking me. It's an honor. Uh, and yeah, I'm I'm 31 now, so you know, the big 30 threshold.

Caleb Leake 3:15

And uh was there a difference when there was there a difference when you hit the 3-0 from before that?

Gabi O'Rourke 3:21

I felt like it, and I also felt like being in youth ministry. I felt so old at 30. And you know, now I'm just 31, three kids, my back hurts all the time. So I feel yeah.

Eran Holt 3:35

I'm just telling both of you, wait until you're 50, three kids, three grandkids, and still in youth ministry.

Caleb Leake 3:42

Like it's just it's you're at you're at Pops level, bro.

Eran Holt 3:44

Um yeah, I'm not gonna do that. Okay. But um, Gabby, we're so excited to have you uh be a part of this conversation on vitals for youth ministry. And um Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb Leake 3:56

Do you just want to quickly share too about like give us your tenure in ministry? Tell us about uh what you've done, where you've been, uh so people if they don't know who you are, uh let them know you get get to know you a little bit.

Communion Fail And Humility

Gabi O'Rourke 4:06

Yeah, absolutely. So um I started in youth ministry at 21 years old. So I actually, when I was 18, graduated high school, and I went and I did something called youth with a mission. And I thought I was just gonna go right onto the mission field and wanted to be a missionary and felt like God had called me to missions when it came to vocational ministry. And long story short, story for another day, but I got kicked out of youth with a mission. I know probably my most embarrassing moment in my business. Like, I get kicked out of like who gets kicked out of YWAM. I did. And I came home and just wrestled with what am I supposed to now do? So I started just um serving in our local youth ministry, and that was at River Valley Church, where I'm on staff now. So started serving with the youth pastor, and after about a year of serving, he asked if I would want to intern under him in youth ministry. And so I started interning under him and just fell in love with youth ministry, with next gen ministry, loved seeing the life change that occurred in the life of a young person coming to know Christ and then watching them walk into healing and freedom and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and find how God is gifted and wired them and step into it. And so uh just fell in love with youth ministry and decided to go to North Central University. Um, and right after North Central and right after getting married, uh, a man named Terry Parkman, Pastor Terry, hired me as an associate youth pastor at one of River Valley Church's campuses in Shockby, Minnesota. And so started as a started as an associate youth pastor at 21, um, served as a youth pastor for five years at that campus. So after a year, started running that ministry as the youth pastor. And after five years, um, started serving at our central ministry's location as the lead youth pastor, overseeing all of our youth pastors at River Valley. And now I serve as the next gen pastor. So I oversee our kids' department, youth department, and young adult department and have been on staff uh coming up on 10 years. Let's go, which is crazy. Yeah. It 10 years goes fast. Yes, it does. It's great. And it's it's been a joy. It's been a lot of fun.

Caleb Leake 6:24

Let's go. Okay. Well, then 10 years in next gen ministry means lots of stories of you doing something stupid or an intern or a student doing something stupid. I say it's like a plague that follows every person. And then there's YWAM.

Gabi O'Rourke 6:39

Oh my yes.

Caleb Leake 6:40

We don't need to go there.

Eran Holt 6:41

We don't need to go there. We'll stay waiting for that one.

Caleb Leake 6:43

But no, we every time we bring in somebody in next-gen ministry, we love asking them what's their story. Uh, because it seems like every single one of us has them. And uh, yeah, 10 years, you definitely have to have one. So the floor is yours, Gabby. We'd love to hear your your next gen ministry story.

Gabi O'Rourke 6:58

Yeah, that's so funny. There's definitely stories after 10 years. Um I feel like the first one that honestly came to my mind is probably my most humbling, embarrassing moment of leading people in communion and choking on the elements on the platform as I'm trying to like lead them into the presence of the Lord. Isn't that heresy? That's like that's communion. And um, I go up there and we had a whole student section at our Sunday services. And so they asked me, would you lead a communion? And I'm like, absolutely. And so um I have the elements in my hand, you know, the cracker, the cup, and some of our senior leadership was there that Sunday at the campus on the front row. Oh no. And so I'm young, I feel pressure at this point in time on the platform. I don't want to mess up. And I go up there to partake in communion and lead the congregation in partaking in communion. And I give, you know, the moment with uh the cracker and the bread, and the Lord breaks bread, hands it to his disciples. This is my body broken for you. Every time you eat of it, eat it in remembrance of me. And I tell the congregation to partake in the bread. And so I put the bread in my mouth and I had like broken the cracker. It's like this tiny little wafer cracker, but I broke it in half because I was nervous of this happening, of choking on the cracker or not being able to like get it down. And so I break the cracker in half. Well, it was so small that I just like inhaled it. And so I like put it in my mouth, I go to swallow it, and then I go to start talking and I'm choking on the cracker. Like I get the cracker is stuck in my throat, and I'm trying to like lead them into the next part of communion with the cup, and I just can't get anything out, so I just kind of let the worship team play, and I'm like, we're still at the settle, you know, like and so I'm up there discreetly like hacking into my jacket, trying to get the cracker out. And so then I go to lead them in lead in taking the cup, and my throat, like it's I feel like my voice is cutting in and out. I'm like coughing as I'm telling them to take the cup. I'm trying to like shorten this moment of like just quick summarize. This is the cup and just drink it. And I'm just coughing through the whole thing. I sounded like I had a frog in my throat, but I like stumbled my way through it. I have them take the cup. I drink the cup thinking that's gonna wash down the cracker, this grape juice. But the grape juice is like that much, so it really didn't do much for me. And of course, you know, you're going back into worship and you're trying to like, let's go, like we're worshiping, and you're trying to like get them there. And I just it was a train wreck, and I go off of the platform, and one of our executive pastors just looked at me and said, That's the most fun I've had in communion in a long time. And I just started laughing, and students are on the front row just watching their youth pastor, just you know, failing in this moment. I had a couple people tell me they thought I was choked up. They thought that like there was just so much emotion in the room. Yeah, it kind of works. Play into it. It was not, I was not choked up. I was choking.

Eran Holt 10:34

Um when I think about always done for me, you know, like you know, wow, you can lean into that.

Caleb Leake 10:39

It's just is there a video of this? Like, do you have video recording of this?

Gabi O'Rourke 10:43

And I wish there was. One of our other pastors leading on the broadcast on our Saturday night choked on the communion cracker like two years ago. Oh, yes, so that was on video. So he he like took a clip of it and posted it to his social, like laughing at himself. But this was like eight, nine years ago. So I do not have it anywhere on video.

Acts 2 Vitals And Today’s Focus

Eran Holt 11:06

Wow, I think River Valley River Valley might need to upgrade the the little wafers that just dissolve instantly in your mouth.

Gabi O'Rourke 11:14

Yeah, multiple pastors fighting for their lives.

Caleb Leake 11:18

Unless that's okay, if it's more widespread, I'd love to hear if you're a youth pastor and you've you've given communion and you've had this happen in the comments. Please let us know. Stale matzah cracker, the ways that's. Did never happen to you? You were like 20, 20 years in youth minutes? Hey, stop with the dates. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. You already said you're 50, bro. We get it. You don't need to hide anymore. But never happened to you, you never choked out. No, I don't know. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I burped into the mic once, and that was bad. I went up for Altar and I had a few Slim Jims before I went up. Slim Jims on the Alt. So hungry. And then uh just ripped a burp on X and it was like That's classic youth vibes right there.

Eran Holt 11:54

Sorry. I just say to Slim Jim, I just need a little protein hit right before I went up on stage.

Caleb Leake 11:59

So I get it. I've done weird things at the mic too, but never choked on a cracker. Now I gotta be aware of that. But it sounds like you being aware of that made you choke on it because you were like, I don't want this to happen.

Why Equipping Leaders Beats Going Solo

Gabi O'Rourke 12:10

Right. I was in my head about it. And um, I have not choked since. So, you know, hopefully that track record keeps going. That's growth right there.

Eran Holt 12:20

Let's go. Exactly. Oh, goodness. Hey, well, this is probably a good moment for the Lead the Gen family to get to know Gabby, who is coming to Lead the Gen Conference next year, April uh 25th, 2026, doing one of our main sessions and gonna be leading us in communion uh at the at the conference as well. And so we're excited about that. Um, we're doing the full loaves of bread where you have to tear off a whole chunk and kind of like, you know, you gotta bring it community bread. Community bread. Yeah. Just gnaw like the corner of the bread, you know. Um but Gabby, we are excited that you're gonna be part of the conference and I'm looking forward to that. And um I'm sure you're gonna it's just gonna be incredible having you come and share and be a part of that. Um, do a main session for us. Absolutely amazing. Um, but thanks for being part of the podcast today. Yeah. Um, we're talking vitals for youth ministry. Um, if you're brand new to the podcast or to the Lead the Gen fam, uh Vitals for Youth Ministry is based off of a framework in Acts 2. Five Vitals That Are Needed to Produce Disciples, Biblical Truth, Spiritual Transformation, Healthy Community, Missional Living, and Leadership Development. So, Gabby, we wanted to talk with you about leadership development in particular, kind of go deep dive with you on that. Um, excited to kind of hear you unpack some of your thoughts given the journey of leadership that you've been on over the last 10 years with you know interning and youth ministry and youth pastoring and and all the way now, you know, sitting in the role of a next gen director overseeing kids, youth, and young adults. So um just help us jump into the conversation. What are some of your your big thoughts or maybe some guiding principles that you lean on often when you're thinking leadership development, whether it's um the development of yourself as a leader or whether it's the way that you have systems and processes for developing uh the leaders around you and serving in your various departments?

Character, Calling, Culture, Competency

Gabi O'Rourke 14:13

Yeah, absolutely. Um I love leadership development in in general, but specifically in ministry, because I think one thing I learned pretty quickly, and I learned this from leading under Pastor Terry, is that my job as a pastor is to equip leaders, volunteers, the people of God to do the work of the ministry. And you read that in Ephesians 4. If God appoints apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And when I started in youth ministry, I remember feeling like on a Wednesday night would rise and fall on me and how well I preached and how well I had charisma and could lead the night and could create culture in the room and momentum in the room. And I very quickly realized that actually the most important thing I needed to focus on was the development of my teams and my leaders. Yeah. Because I could preach an out-of-the-park message in my mind, send kids into their small groups. And if their leader was not developed to disciple them in groups, that message would be in one ear and out the other. Right. Or I could have a hundred and some, two hundred and some kids on a Wednesday night in the room, and I cannot personally know every single one of those teenagers and their story and what they're walking through and how they need to be discipled and what God wants to do in their life, but a team of 60 plus youth leaders can. And I quickly realized that I was focused on the wrong thing in youth ministry. And a lot of my focus in youth ministry when I first started was about me. How can I be the best preacher and the best this and the best that? And I quickly had to shift my focus to go, how can I build a team that are the best leaders in the room, the best disciplers of teenagers, and are not just filling a seat on a Wednesday, but are answering a call of God on their life. And I'm helping draw out and cultivate the gifts of God in them to steward every life in this room to the best of our ability for the glory of God. And so leadership development, it matters. And especially now as a next gen pastor, I watch this progression happen in young youth and kids and young adult pastors when they first get hired of them owning, leading everything. A night rises and falls on their ability to do ministry. And then you watch over time a shift occur in the best way of going, no, no, no, I'm actually going to equip a team to run and build and reach the next generation. And so when it comes to leadership development, it's a big focus of mine. It's a focus of mine with our kids used and young adult pastors, but also ensuring that the volunteers that lead on Sundays and Wednesdays and within young adult ministries are discipled and developed and great leaders and that we're empowering them to reach the next generation well. And so, in that, um, you know, we develop leaders through a multitude of ways, but I think about some of the biggest things that I think we have to develop leaders into is, you know, character. Do you have the moral authority to lead in the first place? We're not just here to fill space, we're not just here to run a program. Uh, I tell our leaders, you are taking on the highest level of commitment you can give to the church because you are discipling the life of a young person. You're shaping their view of God and their understanding of the word of God. And this is more than just filling space for a program. You are gonna be a mentor to them. You're gonna be a person that they call, that they look up to. The words you say carry weight. And so are you leading from a place of moral authority? Do you have the character to even do this in the first place? Uh, the second thing is we want to see leaders in our next gen ministries that again aren't just filling a space, but they have a conviction to reach students and they're answering a call on their life. And are we helping disciple and pull out the gifts of God in them in what they're called to for ministry? You know, we also want to develop culture. We want to ensure that uh they are not just, you know, sucking life out of the room or again, just being a body in the room, but they're breathing life into the culture of our church at large and helping push that forward. And ultimately, they should be pushing forward kingdom culture, not just the culture of River Valley. Um, and then also competency. Like, are they competent in next gen ministry? And are we developing them to do, you know, the A to Z of next gen ministry, so to speak, of they know how to lead a small group, they know how to do a mandatory report, they can lead a kid in the prayer of salvation, they can handle hot topic conversations and point students back to the word and correct theology and how to rightly divide the word of God. And so we kind of look at those categories and areas when it comes to developing volunteers, but also developing youth pastors and kids' pastors of you got to have the right character. You got to be answering a call of God on your life. This is not just a stepping stone to something else. You need to be competent in next gen ministry and you have to fit the culture of who we are as a church and be unified in that. But I just I love leadership development because it matters. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Right. Uh, and so we need strong leaders reaching students because again, youth ministry, even kids ministry. It's just I love longevity in ministry because you realize the longer you go, this is not like a stepping stone to get to the next thing in ministry. Right. We've been entrusted to raise up young people to know the Lord and the power of his might and the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and to follow him for the rest of their lives. And that's an honor and a privilege and a joy that we need to steward well. And I think we steward it best when we develop people under us to raise up the next generation with us. So those are my like initial thoughts when it comes to the why behind leadership. That was a lot.

Escaping The Urgent With Strategy

Caleb Leake 20:17

There's a lot to unpack here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First off, you're also speaking our language when it's like, nah, it ain't just a step in stone. Come on, we're we're raising up the next generation of leaders, baby. I'm like, fire me up. Come on, Gabby, I want to join your team. Um, okay, so let's let's go, let's unpack this one step at a time. So at the beginning, you kind of made the observation where you're saying, uh, you know, you as a young youth pastor, as well as many of the people that come on staff, tend to have their priority in the wrong place when it comes to the way you do ministry. This is me too, in that like I'm almost the superhero youth pastor. It's like I can do it all, or my message, and I know you've talked about that. Yeah, yeah. Like, my message is gonna save the world. Yeah.

Eran Holt 20:55

Um I definitely I definitely thought that when I started in youth ministry, like, we'll be good, I'll just preach really good sermons.

Caleb Leake 21:00

Right. And you quickly realize it needs to be way different than that.

Eran Holt 21:03

Yeah.

Caleb Leake 21:04

Um, but I think oftentimes the reason this happens is uh there's the the tension between urgent and important, and sometimes important things don't feel urgent, um, and sometimes the urgent things just will consume all of our time. And so it's like I gotta develop a message this week, I gotta you know, get my small group curriculum out this week, but we don't focus on the important things being developing my team and recruiting new leaders and finding the right leaders like you were talking about. Yeah, how do you train uh leaders to make that shift from just living in the urgent the whirlwind of the things I need to get done to the things that are the most important that won't like if you're if your team isn't perfectly filled out, you might not always feel it every Wednesday night. It might be like we can survive, right? But how do you get them to move into living into the important things that will have a longer impact? Does that make sense? The question I'm asking.

Yearly Scope, Sequence, And Systems

Gabi O'Rourke 21:57

Absolutely. And I think it's helping them begin to think long term and strategically about their youth ministry instead of week to week. Um and I I hear this a lot sometimes. I love, I love strategy, I love creating strong plays that are gonna work in for us, our campuses, to set up all that God wants to do and the lives of a young person. But I'll hear a lot of times like, I want to be led by the Holy Spirit. And so, like, I need to pray this week about my message this week and my small group material this week. And I just want to be open-handed to where the Lord wants to lead. And it's, I would say, yes, let's be Holy Spirit-led and open-handed. And also the Holy Spirit can lead our strategy and our playbook in the development of what we do on a Wednesday. And so if we're living week to week to week, I think we're doing ourselves a disservice and our youth ministry a disservice. And so it's helping youth pastors think long term. So even just last week with our youth pastors, we did a 2026 content scope and sequence. In the scope of the whole entire year, what are the big rocks that our students need to be discipled in? And then what's the sequence on how we're gonna preach on those? When are we gonna do um, what sermon series are we gonna do, what illustrations with that? And we map out with our youth pastors, starting in November, all of 2026 sermon series. And we'll tell our youth pastors, as the Lord leads us, we will shift and make pivots to this play. But this allows for your sermon writing and your small group writing to happen a month before the next month. It allows for you to get small group content in the hands of your leaders two weeks before the next month, and you can get all four weeks in their hands to go, this is how this series is gonna build upon itself over the next four weeks. So your leaders can be reading through it and praying about it and come prepared on Wednesday nights to disciple students accordingly. If we're going into a series on the Holy Spirit, let's get that into the hands of our leaders early. And then in our leader meeting, teach our leaders about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have a moment for them if they have not been filled or been baptized in the Holy Spirit to allow them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, like helping youth pastors see how one thing impacts the next thing, which impacts the next thing, and to think long-term in that way. Um, and I also think just time management in that. If you can build out a structure in your week so that you're not going week to week to week, it's gonna give you the breathing room to now do the important things and not just live in a state of urgency all the time. Right. Um, and then you're right, like we have campuses all the time. It's the constant, we need more leaders, we need more leaders. And it can feel if we live week to week, like, oh, we can do this, we can, we can make it happen. And then all of a sudden, growth begins to happen at a campus. And it's like, wow, they've popped at this number, but now they dropped back down. Right. And they popped and they dropped back down. Why are you constantly dropping and can't sustain what God's giving you? Maybe because we don't have the leaders to sustain, right? And if we can work on the important things and create create this bucket that can hold what God wants to fill it with, now we can continue to sustain growth and reach more students. So I don't know if that helps answer it. No, but those are the things that come to my mind when you ask that question is helping people think long-term, strategically, time management so that you can do your best work and not just urgent, quick, immediate work.

Eran Holt 25:34

So you mentioned right there just a moment ago about you know, you can't sustain it. We we we grow, but we don't sustain growth. One of the reasons for that being a lack of leadership, a lack of leadership team, a lack of leadership structure. Um I think I I forget the leader that said this, but but uh I I read somewhere a leader that said your your ministry is perfectly designed to produce what it is currently producing.

Gabi O'Rourke 25:59

But that's great.

Eran Holt 26:01

Right? So I'm wondering for you, Gabby, like was that what was the moment for you as a younger leader when all of a sudden you're like I I have to develop my team, I have to fulfill this Ephesians 4 mandate on my life as a pastor to equip the saints? Was it a was it a moment like you just mentioned where like we were not sustaining the growth that God is busting us with, or was there or maybe that was a part of it, and there were some other things that popped into play there? I'm just curious because I know a lot of younger leaders really struggle with this. We really struggle to make that shift. What was that personally like for you? What were some what was that eye-opening moment like that made you made you step back and say, I gotta reconsider and rethink and reprioritize my focus? Yeah.

Prayer Walks And Recruiting Laborers

Gabi O'Rourke 26:46

Yeah, I would say, so I started as an associate youth pastor, and then the youth pastor I was serving under went to Tulsa, Oklahoma to lead a youth ministry there. And I stepped in as the youth pastor. And when I stepped in as the youth pastor, we had really strong youth ministry, and I felt a lot of pressure to keep that strength and reach more students. And so, like in a good way, felt that weight and pressure. And I remember um, this thing sounds so overly spiritual, but it was. It was the Lord. It was, it was a powerful moment. I remember on a Friday morning, I went and I just did prayer walks around local high schools and middle schools of the of kind of the student body that we were reaching. And I went to Shockby High School because that was the area that I was pastoring in. And I just was walking around the high school and I was praying over the high school, and I was praying huge vision, faith-filled prayers. I'm like, Lord, I want to reach this many students. I want you to do this in the school, I want this breakthrough in these things that we see, like addiction and suicide and all of this stuff break through. And I want River Valley Youth, Shockby Campus, to be the leading factor in what you're doing in this community. And I'm praying these faith-filled prayers, and I just remember feeling this impression from the Holy Spirit of I felt like the Lord was like, I want to honor all of these prayers, Gabby. Like these are great prayers, and I am with you in it. And I want to do everything you're asking me to do in your youth ministry. And then I felt like the Holy Spirit said, but none of this will happen without the leaders to do it. And so ask the Lord of the harvest for laborers because you do not have enough laborers to cultivate this harvest of salvation and freedom and healing and breakthrough and life change that you want to see in this area. So I just felt like the Lord kind of stopped me in my prayer and was like, yes, I want to answer this, but I can't answer it until you have a team that can go into the harvest field and work the harvest. And so all of a sudden my prayer started to change. And I was like, okay, Lord, I want this amount of youth leaders. And I want youth leaders who are not just here to fill a space, but are called to ministry. And I started to assess my team. And when um his name was Sam, when Sam left the youth ministry, I was one of the first female youth pastors, I was the first female youth pastor at River Valley, and I had a lot of strong females on my team, but not enough male leaders on my team. So I'm like, Lord, I want male youth leaders that feel called to this and want to raise up men of God. And I need moms and dads. I had a lot of 20, 21-year-olds. And I'm like, Lord, I need parents in this thing with me. I need wisdom on my team. I need some gray hair on this team that has been through or no hair. Or no hair. We'll take them, Lord. Sorry. And um, I just remember God just in his faithfulness blowing me away with answering the prayer, not just of freedom, healing, salvation. We did see that. But first bringing the right people to the team. I remember there was a Wednesday night. Some guy just walked in with his kid. He's like, hey, we're brand new. We just moved to this area. Um, we were living in New York, we were part of this church there. I would love to serve as a youth leader, and we're plugging our kid into youth ministry. And so I did the background checks and I met with him and I did the onboarding process and everything. And he just jumped in and was my best youth leader. He he served with me for five, the full five years that I was the youth pastor there. He was youth leading. Um, had a couple moms in their 40s saying, My child's a teenager, I want to serve in the youth ministry. We had um a couple just male interns come out of the woodwork of young adults, being like, I feel called to be a youth pastor and I want to start interning at this campus under you. And I, I really feel like this is overly spiritual, but I feel like I wasn't doing anything other than asking God for it and just praying according to what the Lord told me I needed to ask for. And so I said, Great God, I'm gonna ask for you to bring the laborers and believe that you're gonna do it. And that I think shifted the focus was this moment in prayer with the Holy Spirit where the Lord just convicted me, challenged me, and impressed new things on my heart that our ministry needed.

Facing Insecurity And Feedback

Caleb Leake 31:06

Right. Man, that's a beautiful example of a bold faith dream, feeling like God had placed something on your heart, but then practically walked. out in obedience what God has laid out in front of you. And man, I think, I think also sometimes youth pastors get so busy that it's like they're not even praying those kind of prayers of God, what do you want for this ministry? Or like here are the things I want to see and like praying around schools and praying for breakthrough in that way. Like that's beautiful to then also then walk it out into now let's have my team get expanded because those things are not an opposition. Like it's not that me focusing on my team is me not walking out the plan that God has called me to. It's actually me setting myself to not be capped by where I currently am and being set up to be in the place where when the Holy Spirit does move and and students do show up, it's like we are ready to go.

Eran Holt 31:56

Caleb or or or Gabby, did did either one of you wrestle with um leadership insecurities as a younger youth pastor when you were starting to recruit like like brand new leaders? Like you talk about like like I got moms coming in 40s. Well no I'm just I did. I really did and I just I'm I I this this is the reason I'm curious. I'm curious because I still see a lot of younger youth pastors that really wrestle to recruit and build a team.

Gabi O'Rourke 32:24

Yeah.

Eran Holt 32:25

And I and I'm always wondering like well what's the root thing there? Is it really just a lack of the skill of recruiting and developing leader? It could be that in part or or there's some other dupe deep deeper rooted things there.

Caleb Leake 32:37

Yeah I I can go first. Yeah I think um without a doubt was I insecure I probably am still working through some insecurities five years in I'd be lying if I said I wasn't um I I think specifically recruiting anybody who was older than me was really hard um because I felt like who am I? I'm under like I'm I'm just this like power how can I lead you? Right. How can I lead you? I think I tended to say no for people before I even asked like it's like well they're busy so like I don't want to ask them and like I but then later on as you start to just rip the band-aid off and keep going for it you realize those leaders are the best leaders that you want like it's the parents it's the people who have wisdom like not that having 21 year olds or younger leaders aren't great. They're amazing but you have an imbalance in your team if you don't have those older leaders too and so it was a little bit of just like get over it bro rip the band-aid off and make the ask um and those have been such key integral parts of my team is the parents and even the grandparents who are on my team but yeah it's you the bald grandparents that are on my team specifically those ones. Yeah.

Pride, Comparison, And Humble Teams

Gabi O'Rourke 33:45

Gabby how about you absolutely I think there's a lot of insecurity when you're recruiting somebody older than you more seasoned than you and somebody that you are aware has more wisdom than you and insight than you. When I was you know 21 22 even now at 31 we have leaders on our team that have served in the youth ministry for a decade. They are in their 50s, 60s, tons of wisdom and um there's moments of insecurity as a young mom of going, I need their wisdom to speak into me not just as a pastor, but as a parent because I don't know what I'm doing and this is new and there's areas I feel like I'm failing in and I talking with youth pastors, I think that we don't talk about insecurity enough to be honest, because I think there's a lot of insecure pastors. And I don't think it's because they're sinful, they're bad, something's wrong with them. I think it's because it is very easy to believe in faith for these huge things to happen in your ministry. And when you don't see it come about sometimes for years you can begin to question what is wrong with me that this is not happening. Right. And so I just have to work harder I have to preach better. You also have more comparison than ever. Right. You have every person under the sun that's now a content creator in ministry and you see their highlight reels and you see you see edited posts of their messages. You're gonna see the best clip of their message the best clip of their response the best clip of their Wednesday night but you're not gonna see all of the struggles they're having in their ministry. So I think it's very easy to walk in insecurity and I mean yet the best way I can put it is you just you have to rip the band aid off and get over it. And I think I had to learn I had adult volunteers come in when I was very young just took over for this guy named Sam who was a phenomenal youth pastor is still a great pastor planted a church with his wife and they're amazing. But there was insecurity of I'm not Sam I'm not wired like Sam and I have 40 year old volunteers giving me feedback. And their feedback is pretty black and white like this needs to grow. We need to develop this and they would give me the feedback and it was easy for me to first take it personally. And I had to learn that actually because they believe in me and support me, they are giving me feedback. And that feedback should make me better and not make me more insecure. And it didn't mean that I had to do every single thing they asked for there was some things in a multi-site church that they would give me feedback on that I'm like I actually don't have a say in that in our church. But there was other things that I did need to hear and receive and help shift and develop. I had to get good at asking my leaders questions and opening up a feedback loop for them of I'm not in groups, what are you seeing in groups? What are you seeing in response time? Where do I need what do I need to be aware of that we can grow in and get better in um I remember Terry saying insecurity will kill your ministry and it just will and you just you have to get to a place of security to go God's appointed me to this he's called me to it. If I'm in this seat it's because for whatever reason God saw me fit to do this. And it's not because I'm perfect and I have it all together but by the grace of God he's gonna sustain me and lead me in it and he's gonna help cover the gaps where I'm weak and he's gonna bring me leaders that can speak into it and develop me and give me feedback. And that's not a negative thing. That's a positive thing. And no matter who you are any new season in leadership, there's going to be insecurity and there's going to be blind spots and areas you need to grow. Right. And you need teams of people that can give you that feedback and help develop you right as you develop them. And so that's what I would say about it. But I think absolutely there's I was insecure there's moments still in my role that insecurity can come up and you just have to make a decision to say I'm not gonna feed into it. I'm not gonna live by it listen to it cave to it. I'm gonna walk secure and how God's anointed and called me to walk.

Caleb Leake 38:11

You got to be rooted in something too because there will be discouragement. People will outright question if you're the right person to and I love what you said about how you know young leaders uh like they they tend to let these insecurities drive them and when things aren't happening or the dreams they've had aren't coming true, it tends to lead to that question of well it has to be a me thing, right? I think like a quick story for me like I um accepted uh the youth pastor job here at Allison Park Church five years ago and uh I felt like I had a big dream where um whenever I accepted the job I was in a prayer meeting the next day and I got this vision like very clearly from God of like me on the stage but then I was handing the mic to students and they were they were praying and people were being healed and they were prophesying and I was like okay I feel like this is what I want to do. And for four years none of that happened. I was like the students aren't there and it must be a me problem. I'm like I'm not able to actually raise up students in this way. Yeah. And then just this year like we've started to now equip and empower students to like lead stuff from the stage and just had a student last Wednesday preach and he preached the house down. And so I felt like now after five years of what I'm finally seeing something that I've been praying for and believing for finally come to pass. But if I hadn't been faithful and stuck with it and I just let that discouragement of well it's not happening so it's a me problem, I would have missed out on the fruit that God is now bringing through. And so it's so easy to give into that insecurity and think it's it's you. But maybe it's just the process of God developing and as you're faithful he blesses that and he brings you into the place you need to be to begin to see that kind of stuff.

Practical Team-Building Assessment

Eran Holt 39:48

So I I think it's hard to we all we all wrestle with insecurities I th I think you're you're lying to yourself if you if you say that you've you've never wrestled with that and in in uh I think insecurities can be a gift. Yeah I think I think it can be a gift that helps you maintain a humble posture in your heart. Because most insecurity is rooted in pride we don't always see it that way but it is so pride is the real problem there right I I need to I need to feel a certain way about myself or I need to appear a certain way or I want to control the the opinions that other people have of me and so all insecurity is rooted in some form of pride and so in that regard if you can learn to embrace it and embrace the people that God has brought around you in order to help you and to be a part of your team you know then that insecurity becomes a gift in that way because it helps maintain help you maintain a humble posture. Right. Absolutely and if you don't know and if you don't work through that then what you end up doing is you end up never asking the people for help around you that God has already postured in their heart to say yes to you.

Caleb Leake 40:56

Right. Right. Or you disqualify yourself and you leave you're like it's not I'm not the right guy. Right. Which yeah that's so I think so many youth pastors miss out.

Eran Holt 41:06

Gabby what would you say so we so the the the the audience for this podcast is really broad. We have a you know we have the vocational youth pastors but we also have a lot of part-time and bivocational and even volunteer youth pastors in smaller contexts so as we kind of wrap up our conversation um coach us a little bit here coach the youth pastor that's out there that that's listening and saying maybe they're wrestling with some insecurity or maybe they're just saying I'm really feel like I'm not good at at building my team and or recruiting. So what are some practical give us just maybe one or two maybe three real practical first steps for that that leader that's kind of struggling to put their team together.

Gabi O'Rourke 41:44

Yeah that's great. I would say you need to first just take like a zoomed out assessment of your ministry and we coach our youth pastors you need to look at different categories of your youth ministries. So your youth leader team, the recruitment of that team, your volunteer leader development, student leadership, your actual Wednesday night service flow from the second a kid pulls into your parking lot to the moment they leave, to then what you're preaching on your series, your small group content you can kind of take your youth ministry first into those chunks. You can also look at like systems, security, safety, you know, your check-ins, your mandatory reporting, your security teams, et cetera. But if you first just look at you know your basic rocks of what does your youth leader team look like, what does student leadership look like? What do your physical Wednesday night flow look like and what content and small group material you're preaching on. And you should assess each of those four areas and you should be asking yourself do I have like a one to eight leader ratio in my youth ministry? Do I have one leader per eight students male and female and where am I lacking? Do I have youth leaders that I can entrust to have salvation, Holy Spirit baptism, hot topic, um, you know, giving etc have all of these conversations with students and disciple them. Do I have a leader team too that's committed? Are they here on time? Yeah consistently on Wednesdays and if the answer is no, you need to ask yourself why and when you ask yourself why you need to ask yourself what am I personally doing as a youth pastor that is creating this culture? And that's not to dog on you. It's just asking yourself are you meeting with your youth leaders one-on-one? Are you doing leader meetings?

Eran Holt 43:40

Yeah, that's good.

Fix The Pipes Before The Decor

Conference Info And Ways To Connect

Gabi O'Rourke 43:41

Do you have leader trainings? Do you have any sort of here's how to do youth ministry playbook for your leaders and if the answer is no, that's okay. Don't harp on yourself. Just do that. Um so you need to ask yourself why what am I personally doing? What what is being communicated on a Wednesday to the team, you know, and what are the expectations I have if they're not showing up or they're showing up late, well do you need to set a call time that's 30 minutes earlier so that even if they're late, they're still there on time. You know, like it's just little shift like that. Ask that about your student leaders, you know, or is 10% of your youth ministry student leader ready? Can they be student leaders? Your student leaders will shape and create the culture of your youth ministry. So as much as your youth leaders do, your student leaders will and we want to see 10% of our students in student leadership. In student leadership we have to ask ourselves how are we developing them in leadership? How are we giving and empowering them to have ownership in youth ministry so it's youth doing ministry and what are our systems for that development and then finally are we empowering them to go into their schools? What's our systems for that? You know Wednesday night structure, you should be asking yourself is your Wednesday night service and structure even setting you up to win with your volunteer and student leader teams do you even have pre-service prayer? Do you have a response culture? Do you have small groups or your leaders just filling a seat? Do you have serve team roles in the lobby where they're greeting, they're checking in new students and they're not just clumped up talking to each other. We don't want our volunteer teams to just be a young adult ministry of young adults hanging out ministering to each other. They can have their own young adult ministry and on Wednesdays they're ministering to students, but are we giving them actual jobs to do? And then content are we even setting up our leaders to win in the content do they know before Wednesday what you're preaching on and how they need to be prayed up and ready to pour into students in that topic. So those would be like practical handles. And then just a final thought you know you had mentioned obviously it can take a while sometimes for vision to come into fruition and it can be frustrating. It can feel like what am I doing wrong? Why is this taking so long? And we had a youth pastor he started almost four years ago he's amazing and he he took kind of a dying youth ministry at one of our campuses there was eight students a couple of leaders that should be a youth ministry of 50 some students and immediately he had vision of I want a youth ministry of 50 students. I want to grow this thing and it was slowly growing you know it was like at 15 then at 20 but it was not hitting 50 and he was frustrated and we just looked at the ministry in the best kind of way that I could describe it when I told him assess your ministry. You need to look at everything and just make an assessment I kind of shared this visual with him of my husband and I we bought a house five years ago and it was a fixer upper house and there was a lot cosmetically that we wanted to fix. Like that was just ugly. The kitchen was ugly like blue laminate countertops just hideous and we're like we're gonna update the kitchen and we're gonna knock out this wall and you know we're gonna be like chipping Joanna gaines in here like just it's gonna be beautiful in a year. And over the course of that year uh we had to fix different pipes in the house we had to replace our washer and dryer. We had to get a new heater because our heater broke um and all of a sudden money just started flying out the window to all of these things that nobody could see when they walked into our house but that literally allowed our house to function in the way it needed to function. And it wasn't until last year that we updated the kitchen we lived with the laminate blue countertops for five years because we were fixing all of these foundational things in the home first. And I do think as a youth pastor you need to look at the house of your ministry so to speak. And I think a lot of times the first thing we want to fix is the decor it's the kitchen it's the let's renovate and all of these cut medicine things our response culture, our worship in the schools, you know, the literal layout of our Wednesdays, um, the illustrations we bring to the table in our sermons, but we fail to look at our heater and our plumbing and just the foundational stuff that's not fun to look at. But if you never look at those things, you will have a house that is broken down and not sustainable even though on the outside you got all the decor popping off. And I would just encourage youth pastors look at the pipes in your house, look at the water heater, look at you know your washer and dryer, all of these things because that has to be fixed. It has to be steady it has to be strong so that then you can get to the fun stuff. Yeah that outward facing that people see but now it can be sustained when you get there.

Caleb Leake 48:47

So good.

Eran Holt 48:48

That is that was a master class and like you you every youth pastor needs to write that all those questions you just need to take the last seven minutes of Gabby talking and just every youth pastor needs to watch that over and over again.

Caleb Leake 48:58

Here's the other awesome thing too is like this you know this podcast is based on vitals for youth ministry and there's a free assessment you can take to evaluate the health of your ministry. So if you want to if you want to understand what's going on in the pipes and the all the inner workings of your youth ministry house it's like it's a free resource that I've used and it's so good to peel back the curtain and take the blindfold off to say what's really going on. Yeah.

Eran Holt 49:23

Yeah. So you're talking about framework and infrastructure and that's really the whole concept of the five vitals anyways is like these are the foundational things. Right. What those look like in your context the bells and whistles the decor that's it should look different. It should look you know unique to you know who you are. Gabby this has been so good. So good. Thank you. I think you have um youth pastors um and leaders that listen to this podcast and watch it um you're you're helping elevate their game you're helping kind of take their their thinking to a higher level as far as how they assess their youth ministry how they build youth ministry build their teams all it's so great. So um this conversation makes me more excited that you're coming to conference uh next year and um it's gonna be just an incredible day um and uh for those of you that aren't familiar with what we're doing with the conference go to the website leadthegeneration.com check it out um if they want to connect with you Gabby how would they do that what's the easiest way for someone to to get a message to you to find you where you're at on social.

Gabi O'Rourke 50:15

Yeah if you want to connect with me you can follow me on social at Gab Rourke. My last name's a Rourke but I had to drop the O for my handle it wouldn't let me do that whole name. So Gab Rourke um or you can shoot me an email and my information is also on River Valley Church's website as the department head um but you can shoot me an email at gabby.ark at rivervalley.org you can reach out to me on social media shoot me a DM and I'd love to connect with you.

Eran Holt 50:40

Yeah absolutely incredible so thanks everybody for joining us for today's episode of Vitals for youth ministry podcast um if you love this content give it a like give it a share give it a review on whatever platform you are watching and on we look forward to hanging with you the next time we're together thanks so much we'll see