Finding Leaders in Any Church, the Playbook for Leader Development, & the Third Voice

We share a field-tested playbook for building a healthy youth leadership team, from recruiting people who care to training them with simple rhythms that last. Ashton Peters unpacks “The Third Voice,” showing how mentors help students from unchurched homes grow with steady guidance.

• Leadership development as the engine of sustainable youth ministry
• Recruiting seasoned adults and diverse voices beyond “cool factor”
• Practical sources for volunteers, including the church secretary and lobby time
• Clear onboarding with expectations, shadowing, and a simple booklet
• Support roles that prevent burnout and let small group leaders focus
• Weekly huddles, monthly meetings, and an annual retreat as core rhythm
• Spiritual parenting and mentoring for students from unchurched homes
• Gritty realities of youth ministry and how teams walk through hard things
• Tools and resources for content, training, and consistency

Buy “The Third Voice” by Ashton Peters on Amazon or MyHealthy Church to grab the book today!

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Transcript

Why Ministry Must Travel Together

Ashton Peters 1:15

But you know, when I think about leadership development, there's an African proverb and it says, if you want to travel fast, travel alone. But if you want to travel far, travel together. To me, it's such a basis of leadership development, of raising up a leadership team around you. If you want your youth ministry to go far, you're gonna have to raise up a leadership team. You're gonna have to empower them, you're gonna have to develop them, you have to recruit them. And then something we often overlook. I remember, and this was several years back, talking to a youth pastor, and we were talking about leadership teams and stuff. He was really busy, and he said to me, Oh, I don't have time to develop and recruit a leadership team. I said, Well, as busy as you are, you don't not have time to do this because you're just gonna get busier and busier and busier if you don't begin to share the ministry with other people.

Eran Holt 2:02

Hey, welcome to Vitals for Youth Mystery Podcast. Glad you are with us. My name is Aaron, director of Lead Generation. I got Kayleak in the studio with me.

Caleb Leake 2:10

Heck yeah, glad to be here. Faithful co-host. Dude, and it's that time where there's the tension between do I set up my Christmas decorations now or do I wait. I used to be not until after Thanksgiving. I've changed. It's a follow-jolly season now.

Eran Holt 2:26

You know, you got really cool camo pants on. You've been hunting around recently.

Caleb Leake 2:29

The thing is, I've never hunted fished. So I'm an imposter. I also got these from old Navy, so I feel like I didn't go to like, you know.

Eran Holt 2:37

You can't buy real hunting gear from old Navy. It doesn't work. It really doesn't work.

Caleb Leake 2:40

This is fake hunting gear to make me feel like you know.

The Third Voice Book Overview

Eran Holt 2:43

Hey, uh, Caleb, we got a special guest, uh longtime friend of Lead the Gen fam with us uh on in not in the studio, but virtually in the studio. Yeah. The one and only Ashton Peters is with us today. And uh Ashton, you and I have been good friends for a while, but um excited to have you be on the podcast and uh excited for some some great news of some stuff that's happened in your life that I'll talk about here in just a moment. But before we jump into that, Ashton, tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, um, and some of your ministry experiences, what you're doing right now.

Ashton Peters 3:16

Absolutely, yeah. So I live in Springfield, Missouri. Uh so currently I serve as the National Fine Arts Coordinator for the Assemblies of God. So shout out to all the kids out there that did human videos, all those youth pastors that did human videos, mission scripts, whatever, um, you know, or short term and all that good stuff. Uh so I get the opportunity to lead that, but to cumulatively have 20 years of experience in next-gen ministry uh between local church youth ministry and what we get to do now. Uh married to the love of my life, Stephanie. Uh, we have two daughters, uh, Anna and Hattie. Uh, they're 20 months apart. Um, and so it's always, yeah, I know exactly. They are nine and ten. Wow. Come on. Two girls that are nine and ten. Uh, it's always a wild riot. It's a lot of fun. Uh, there's never a quiet or dull moment in the Peters household. But yeah, it's good. Super excited to be here today.

Eran Holt 4:02

You're getting ready to be a middle school pastor all over again. I know. Oh, it's true.

Ashton Peters 4:06

I hit this reality. Like, we were driving to church the other day, and and my oldest hattie was like, I'm about to be in youth group. But I'm like, no, you're not. I was like, oh my goodness. Yes, you are. Wow. Yes, you are. It's one thing where you're like the youth pastor to other people's kids, but when it's your own kids, you're like a whole new level to that. I was like, oh my gosh.

Eran Holt 4:24

So I want everyone the podcast fan to know Ashton uh just finished his master's degree and as a part of that finished and produced this book right here, The Third Voice. Let's go. We'll probably talk about this a little bit uh in our interview today. But um, Ashton, I um I had the opportunity you sent me an early copy of it and dude, this incredible resource. Um, I'll let you kind of um just kind of unpack it just briefly for for everybody. But um, this is a book that now I recommend to every youth pastor. Like when youth pastors text me and they're like, hey, what's a good book for me and maybe for my whole team to read? I'm like, this one right here, the third verse by Ashton Peters. So tell us a little bit about the book, Ashton.

Wild Youth Ministry Stories

Ashton Peters 5:03

Yeah, man, you're so kind. Thank you so much. So, kind of as you mentioned, uh, I went to school, I finished my master's last year, I have a master's in ministry and leadership. And so for my thesis, I wrote it on uh spiritual formation for students from unchurched homes. And so saying, you know, kids in our youth group, they come and give their heart to the Lord, uh, but maybe mom and dad aren't saved, they're not growing up a church home, they don't have a discipleship structure around them. Uh, you know, their parents aren't in a place where they might be able to disciple them. So, what does that look like for the church to really walk beside them and to disciple them and to mentor them just to make a really big investment in their life? Uh, and so thus came this idea of the third voice of saying the first voice in your life is God. Uh, the second voice in your life is your family, whether they're saved or not saved. Uh, but then this idea that the third voice uh is this leader, this mentor. Uh, you know, it's when someone says, Man, I have this Sunday school teacher or this youth small group leader, this youth pastor made an impact in my life. And so that's the third voice. And so we talk a lot about that culture that's filled with a lot of noise. And so students' lives are filled with noise, but they don't have a lot of voices. They don't have a lot of people walking beside them, speaking into their life, mentoring them. Um, you know, I do a whole chapter on spiritual parenting, uh, looking at Paul and Timothy and their relationship and what does that look like to walk beside students? Uh, and just we kind of we unpack everything, um, like all the good, the bad, the ugly, the hard parts of youth ministry. Um, you know, we tell three different stories in there, um, probably the most heart-wrenching stories we ever encountered. But when I wrote the book, I just didn't want to give people success stories. And so we tell three really kind of like painful stories uh to hopefully encourage other people. You know, when I first submitted it to the publisher, um, they used the word raw. I would use the word gritty, but it's kind of a gritty look at youth ministry like we we cover all the topics of students struggling with their sexuality, uh, with self-harm, um, you know, you know, just I mean, you name it, it's in there. Um, and kind of talking about how students are bombarded in culture today with all this noise, but they need these voices in their life. But then there's a lot of like practical youth ministry stuff in there as well, of leadership teams and um connecting with students and structuring your calendar in a way you can connect with students. So it's kind of both. I love one of my friends said it. Um, it's the the head, the heart, and the hands of youth ministry. Come on. Uh to me, that was so kind for them to say that. But it kind of research based. So it's not just opinions, it's a lot of research that went into it. Um, but there's a lot of heart in it, uh, but there's also a lot of practicality too as well. And so my goal when I wrote it was just to put it in the hands of youth pastors, especially young youth pastors, and say, hey, I want to share with you all these years of experience uh to hopefully encourage you and challenge you to, you know, the subtitle is uh it's a call to show up, stick within a walk through hard things with students, um, and to see youth leaders, whether that's um a youth pastor or a youth volunteer, whatever that looks like, just commit to say, Hey, I'm gonna walk beside students through the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, um, and everything in between. So yeah, come on.

Caleb Leake 7:56

Man, let's go.

Eran Holt 7:57

We'll Caitlin's ready to end the interview and go read the book right now.

Caleb Leake 8:00

Yeah. Well, actually, ever since I heard about this book, I was like, oh my gosh, that is that is exactly what a young youth pastor needs. That's exactly what what I need. So thank you for investing your time into pouring into the next generation of leadership. I would give you my copy, but Ashton autographed it for me. So it's worth a lot. That's right. That's valuable right now. You can go on Amazon and buy your own. Man, but no, thank you. And we're excited for the episode of uh how you're gonna invest into the listeners to this podcast as well. But um, before we get into the intelligence stuff, we want to learn also about you in the 20 years of ministry you've been in, means you have many stories of you doing something stupid or a student doing something stupid or anything in between, uh, because it I just say it tends to be like a plague that follow what follows us no matter where we go, you know. Um, so the floor is yours. We'd love to hear uh your story.

Leadership Development: Core Principles

Ashton Peters 8:49

Man, I tell people you could like pick a category, really. Um so to keep it safe, I'll spin a wheel. Yeah, it was yeah, for real though. Someone asked me that the other day, they're like, tell us the funny youth ministry story, like pick your category. But you know, I will say this one didn't involve a student doing anything stupid or myself, but it is hilarious. Um and I and I'll share why it's is one of my favorite stories to tell because it's just so over the top. Uh, so we had our first church we're on staff at um had Sunday school. Shout out to Sunday school. Your church is still doing Sunday school. Uh so if you don't know what that is, it used to happen before Sunday morning service. We had Sunday school. Um, and so we were trying to grow Sunday school. That was kind of one of the directives we were given. Like they want to see an increase in Sunday school. Um so I had told uh the junior high boys Sunday school class, I said, Hey, if you are all here consistently for a month, uh, we're gonna load up. And we were in a small rural community, so there wasn't a lot of cool places to go eat or stuff like that. But 30 minutes from us was a Buffalo Wild Wings. And so I said, Hey, if you guys are here the whole Sunday school class all month long, you don't miss. Uh, we're gonna load up on the last um Sunday of this month after main service. We're gonna drive out to Buffalo Wild Wings. I'm gonna pay for you guys to get whatever you want from Buffalo Wild Wings. Uh, and so for lots of these students, they're like, oh my goodness, like like they'd just not been before or whatever. Yeah. You know, we lope with the church fan, uh, me and a bunch of these junior high boys. Uh so we're we're driving, like I said, it's about 30 minutes uh to get to where we're going. We pull into the the next major town, which is the 30 minutes away, and we get to a stop, stop light not far from the restaurant. Um, and I gotta kind of set the whole picture for you. So in the stoplight in front of us is an ambulance to the, and we're in like the downtown area. So to right beside us is this really nice wedding going on because it's like a nice outdoor wedding. This really nice wedding. It's ambulance in front of us. So, you know, I'm talking with the junior high boys, we're joking around different stuff. All of a sudden, the ambulance that's in front of us, its back doors fly open and out jumps a shirtless convict. He had on the the pants, like you know, prisoners wear. He had been bandaged up. Like it was probably a bullet wound. I don't know, but like he was bandaged up, like the big old bandage. He jumps out of the ambulance. Like, here's the ambulance, here's the church van. He takes off running, the paramedic takes off running after him. They run to the side. Remember how I mentioned there was a wedding happening? They run into the wedding, the shirtless convict being chased by the paramedic, runs into this middle of this posh wedding happening right beside us in downtown, and there's all the junior high boys with their cell phones just recording the whole thing. Like we didn't have to talk at the time. But if we had TikTok, like we would have gone like that video, probably wouldn't have viral for something. Oh, yeah. Uh, but it was just ridiculous. And so then we now this isn't near as funny, but you know, on the way, on the way back, one of the students did like the hot wing challenge, whatever they do there. Oh, yeah. Wanted to. Um, and that kid threw up three times in the church band on the way home. Yeah, and so like, yeah, it was wild.

Eran Holt 11:47

It's perfect middle school ministry, right there.

Ashton Peters 11:50

Um, it was both ways pretty eventful, one with the convict escaping, and then the other one with all the throw-up on the way back. So it still goes down. It's one of those things I'll always remember.

Eran Holt 11:59

It's all the key ingredients. You have a church fan.

Caleb Leake 12:01

Yeah. Church fan is a key ingredient to any that's foundational.

Eran Holt 12:05

It's foundational. You have a church fan, you have Buffalo Wild Wings or any kind of food item, you have vomit, right? And then you have like a compelling story that kids can talk about for the rest of their life. This is what we do.

Caleb Leake 12:18

It's a first for us to have an ex-convict running out of uh an ambulance. So you can just for me too. Only time in my life I've ever seen it happen. And that really is like those things only happen on youth trips where it's like, what are the odds? What are the odds? It follows you, it attracts it. Yeah, that's amazing. Wow.

Eran Holt 12:40

Well, uh let's jump in. We we were so Vitals for Youth Ministry, five vitals. One of the vitals is leadership development. That's what we're gonna talk about with you, Ashton. Um I'm excited for this conversation because I know that you have such a heart and a gift um for developing leaders. I think that's the whole heart of your book, is really, you know, you it's some incredible stories, but very practical, very focused on equipping. This is the reason why I also mentioned at this point, you're gonna be um one of our session speakers for Lead the Gen Conference in April next year. Let's go. Ashin's doing a super session um entitled The Five Families That You Meet at a Church. Um, and so that's gonna be incredible for all next gen leaders, kids, men, uh youth men, on and on. And so um excited about that. But this conversation, talk to us about leadership development. You got 20 years of experience. What are some of your big takeaways, your big principles that you have learned over the years or that you always kind of put into practice when you're trying to develop leaders?

Ashton Peters 13:42

Yeah, no, absolutely super passionate about it. Like you said, it's part of the reason I wrote the book, uh, was one to challenge people to develop leaders, but also to equip other people with their leadership development, like, hey, share this with your leaders. It's kind of like me unpacking some of that motivation there. But you know, when I think about leadership development, there's an African proverb and it says, if you want to travel fast, travel alone. But if you want to travel far, travel together. Yeah. To me, it's such a basis of leadership development, of raising up a leadership team around you. Um, if you want your youth ministry to go far, you're gonna have to raise up a leadership team. Uh, you're gonna have to empower them, you're gonna have to develop them, you have to recruit them. And that's something we often overlook. I remember, and this was several years back, talking to a youth pastor, and we were talking about leadership teams and stuff. Um, and he was really busy. Um and he said to me, Um, oh, I don't have time to develop and recruit a leadership team. And I said, Well, as busy as you are, you don't not have time to do this because you're just gonna get busier and busier and busier if you don't begin to share the ministry with other people, if you don't begin to empower your leaders in such a way. And also, too, it's so significant for discipleship because never was I, you know, conceited enough to think, man, every student that walks through these doors is gonna like me and connect with me. Um, I knew I needed a diverse people with diverse experiences, different interests. Um, you know, we were joking about hunting, or I'm not a hunter, I'd have the fake camo as well. I'm gonna go to Old Navy later and get me some camo pants close.

Eran Holt 15:12

Hey, true story. I was, I was, I was, I was, I spoke at Arkansas camp this summer and I wore a pair of camo pants for one of the nights. They are actually my actual hunting pants that I wear for like archery or whatever. But I like and I knew that the one middle school came up to me, like he knew that I was a hunter because he came up to me. He's like, bro, nice sitka pants. Like he knew the brand and everything. He was like, super real one.

Recruiting Beyond “Cool” Volunteers

Ashton Peters 15:36

That's all. I'm buying my hunting pants at Old Navy. So you you do, and so like you have all these different diverse groups in your youth ministry, different interests. Um, and so just to like raise up a leadership team that has different life experiences, they like different things than you, they've lived different seasons of life. That's so significant. You know, we would always try to recruit people uh that were not young, uh, which I know shocks people because usually the next thing why tell people you need to recruit a leadership team, they're like, Well, we don't have a bunch of young adults in our church. I'm like, well, that's okay then, um, because your best youth leaders are going to be people that are seasoned in life, they have some experience, they know how to really care for teenagers, they know how to speak into teenagers' lives. Obviously, love young adults. We ran leadership colleges for several years, investing in young adults. And that's significant too. Um, but I would say you start where you're at. Um, and so whatever the demographic of your church is, start there. And I still look back. Um, you know, I tell, I tell the story in the book. There's a a side story in there called Invite Grandpa into Youth Group. Um I still think back to Ray Fertita, who was in his late 50s at the time when we um recruited him to be a small group leader for us. And he was the junior high boy small group leader. Um, and he was probably one of the best small group leaders I ever had because he cared for students. He wanted to invest in them. Um, he cared, you know, and also he had lived enough life. He owned his own business, he was a contractor. And so students, too, they were asking him all kinds of questions, you know, because they were gonna get ready to buy a car one day and different stuff. And so to them, having someone with life experience went a lot further than him being cool. I mean, he would show up straight from work as contractor closed, like covered in drywall dust and stuff. Like you would find him right in the middle of these junior hires, and they love spending time with Ray because Ray cared for them. And so I think we have to recruit, um, and I tell people, you know, the only requirement is that you care for students. That's the only requirement. And then, of course, we all obviously had different logistics and stuff than you know, then you do your background checks and communicate expectations and stuff. But that was my starting point, was not saying, hey, I'm looking for someone that's cool, um, that has a bazillion hours to give. I'm looking for people that really care for teenagers to invest in them.

Caleb Leake 17:44

So yeah. Okay, so let's get real practical here. I'm always thinking through the youth pastor perspective. And um, I remember when I was a young youth pastor, but also when I talk to young youth pastors, they're like, kind of like what you're saying, I don't have the time, or I don't have anybody I can recruit. What do you say to people who have those questions of like there's no time in my week, or I really don't have anybody at my church? My church is either small or it doesn't have the right people. What would you say to that?

Ashton Peters 18:10

I would say you have the right people.

Caleb Leake 18:11

Yeah.

Ashton Peters 18:11

Um, whoever you have. Like, um, you know, if God's calling you to those things, he's put those people in your in your church, in your congregation. But you it's just the change in perspective. And I'll tell you, this is kind of like one of those life hacks. Um, if you're looking for good leaders, I would do a few things. And I and hey, and for just kind of a qualifying statement, two of the churches we went to, we had to build our leadership teams. Like we didn't have leadership teams when we got there. And so I'm not saying this from someone that just showed up and had a bazillion leaders, like, you know, we didn't have leadership teams in two of the places we served. And so there was a lot of work that went into building these. So two things uh that always were super, super good for me. I was one I would always ask the church secretary. Um, and so I would go to the church secretary, uh, because they kind of know a little bit what's going on everywhere in the church. Um, and oh, there's the thumbs up thing, it's always weird.

Eran Holt 18:58

Yeah, thumbs up for church secretaries. Cool special effects, Ashton. That's I always such a trendy next-gen leader. Wow.

Finding Leaders In Any Church Size

Ashton Peters 19:06

I know. Um and so, but I I found the church secretary, kind of knew everyone. And I still remember, like in one church where we didn't have hardly any leaders, pulling up my chair, sitting in the little atrium there with the church secretary. I said, okay, tell me who is the best youth leader I have not recruited yet. Um that's actually how Ray that told the story about. That's how I got Ray. There were three people she gave me the names of. And so I kind of started on the mission to recruit those three people. Yeah. Uh, because some of your best leaders are too busy to be involved in your ministry. Um, like they're not gonna show up and just say, hey, I want to help out. Like you have to recruit them. And that goes again and again and again, the best leaders I ever had, um, they were high capacity individuals that had a lot going on. Um, and so they were gonna, I wasn't gonna be able to make an announcement from up front on stage and they were gonna come up to me and say, I want a volunteer youth crew. Usually the people that do that like run, like just the only time we did an announcement and the people that signed up afterwards, I was like, Jesus, don't let them pass the background chat. Like that's all I'm asking for. Uh, just because you you never know what you're getting into people that are almost too eager to help. And so it was that recruitment. The second thing I would do um is when I was looking for leaders, is that kind of at the end of service, I would hang out in the back and kind of watch um and see where people were interacting, um, who are people having conversations and seeing maybe someone that wasn't involved in an area already that I could have a conversation with. Um, and so then I could kind of start the approach of talking with them about that. We always had a booklet. Uh I made it in Canva. Shout out to Canva, best friend. So, like nothing spectacular. And before Canva, I think I made it in PowerPoint back in the day, even. So Microsoft Publisher, baby. Microsoft Publisher. Um, and so, but it I would have this really simple packet that would outline a few things to them. It was kind of um, it would say, Hey, this is this is what it takes to be a leader in the youth ministry. This is kind of the requirements, you know. You need to pass a background check. Can you do these things? I would outline the expectations for them. So I kind of say up front, like, hey, um, you know, I want you to show up at this time. Um, you need to stay until this time. You know, this is kind of the different things that we would require. Um Our leaders, so they knew up front because you don't want people just to make an half-hearted commitment, you want them to be fully invested in this. And so you want to kind of walk through up through what those commitments look like. And so, kind of for the whole, don't have time, I would say a few things. One, uh, reacclimate your schedule because this is significant. It's going to give you huge dividends spiritually. And so, even if it starts as like one hour out of your week, give the one hour because say you recruit two leaders. Well, now they're discipling multiple students. So you have ex you've multiplied your time and your investment first. Yeah. Um, but two, make it a system. And so for me, you know, we had these little booklets we would do, um, and they were helpful because it kind of answered everyone's questions up front. And so it kind of outlined, hey, thanks for your interest being part of the youth leadership team. These are the steps to be part of the youth leadership team. These are the commitments. Um, I had a whole thing I call the ideal team player, which was three kind of commitments I asked for from them, those on the back there. And so it kind of helped with the initial um conversation with them. I'm not having to answer a bazillion questions. I would say, hey, you know, I think you would be fantastic serving the youth ministry. Can I give you this booklet? And you look over it, kind of outline, it outlined the ways to serve. So if it was like, you know, serving the cafe or being a small group leader, stuff like that, it would outline those things and said, then I would love to follow up with you with what works for your schedule once you look over this booklet. Um, and so it was somewhat kind of systematic then in my approach to it.

Caleb Leake 22:35

Right.

Ashton Peters 22:36

So I kind of that helped us. Uh, but then as well, just kind of getting names. I mean, everywhere we went, I would get names and make lists, get names and make lists, talk to key people in the church, say, hey, who's someone who's someone who would be great working with students? Um, and then two, and sometimes as well, I recruited leaders that wanted to serve in the youth ministry, uh, but didn't necessarily want to be with teenagers. And you're like, well, what does that mean? And so, like, to me, my youth leadership team had two groups of people. They had people that wanted to really be with students. So they were my small group leaders, they were in youth service. But you know, sometimes we had some parents or even retirees in the church and they wanted to serve. Um, and so they were, you know, in the lobby and they were writing the visit first-time visitor cards, thanking them for coming, or they were showing up early to run the youth cafe. And so I kind of let people specialize. And so um, I would jokingly say to a few people, is like, you don't even have to like students. As long as you like serving, I can find a space for you. Uh, because we had some that didn't serve directly interacting with students, we still took them through all the process that we required, all of our volunteers. But I would I wasn't telling them, hey, you need to hop up front and be jumping around in worship or play the crazy games. Like, if you just want to serve and you're looking for something to do on a Wednesday night, um, I can find a place for you to serve, if that makes sense. And so it was kind of a broader approach. I think sometimes people are narrowing and looking in for a small group leader for their youth group, which is huge. I love small groups, but you need more than that. Like I wanted my small group leaders with students, praying for students, um, hanging out with them. So I had a whole nother group of like a support team. They're kind of in the background and they're like I said, they're writing the follow-up cards, they're making sure check-in's ready to go and check-ins closed up, they're being a presence in the lobby in case a parent shows up with a question. Um, and so it was kind of building out um these both kind of components there.

Caleb Leake 24:13

Yeah.

Eran Holt 24:14

I think it's so smart. I actually some of my best small group leaders didn't start as small group leaders, they started in more of that support role. Yeah. And and I found out after the fact in their heart, they kind of wanted to have a relationship with teenagers, but too insecure, intimidated by teenagers, didn't feel cool enough, young enough, all whatever it was. And but they wanted to help out, so they were, you know, cool, I'll run the cafe or I'll I'll run the parent info table. And you know, and then after, you know, I I I'll never forget I had a a guy that started, he came and served one time helping load luggage for us to go to camp. He was like one of the dads. I would recruit dads to come and load luggage, and then he'd be like, hey, then the next year he actually came to camp just just to do security, though. Like, you know, it's like I'll help you keep the kids. You know, you know, and then and then after that it was like, well, if you need if you need security on a Wednesday night, I'm like, yeah, sure, come. And I and it took like two or three years, but eventually he became a middle school boy small group leader. He was one of my best leaders when it was all said and done.

Caleb Leake 25:16

You you need those strategic opportunities. I call them the gateway drugs, where it's like, what can I get them hooked on?

Eran Holt 25:22

You might want to rebrand that, but it's uh we get what you're saying about it.

Ashton Peters 25:24

Yeah, I like it that big win opportunities, beginning. Well, and one thing we would do too is we had we called it it, it wouldn't be full now, but back in the day it was cool. Uh we had we call it the pit crew, which stood for the parent involvement team. And so it was kind of an entry point for students or for parents to be involved. And so it wasn't a weekly commitment. They filled out a little card that said, Hey, when we're going to camp, I'll show up early, help you load the luggage, or I'll cook out for the big fall outreach or whatever. And so it was like this first step. And some parents never took the additional step. They said, Hey, when you need help, but what it did then was it helped supplement the leadership team. And so I think sometimes our leaders get burned out because they're carrying the weight of everything. Yeah. Like realizing our youth leaders as the cooks for our retreats, for loading the luggage, for being the security, for managing check-in.

Eran Holt 26:13

Oh, and I also need you to be an incredible small group leader and have deep, intense spiritual conversations with kids.

Ashton Peters 26:18

Oh, yeah. 100%. And then I need you to be up at the altars every week praying with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everything else. And so, like that, that's uh that's a wide spectrum of needs there. And so I realized if we could kind of make smaller commitments that my leaders could stay more engaged because I wasn't asking them to do everything. My small group leaders are being small group leaders. And then I had parents and I had other people doing other stuff in the process.

Support Roles That Prevent Burnout

Caleb Leake 26:38

So that's beautiful, not only because you expand what your team is capable of doing, but also again, you create those gateway opportunities, not drugs. I'll change it, I'll change it. All right, yeah, yeah. You create those moments where they can do that. But I I, you know, rarely do leaders come in and they are ready to go and ready to fire on all cylinders. Um, and so talk to talk to us about like the development process of taking a leader who says yes and is ready, but is most likely raw. Maybe they have some good areas and good things they're talented in, but they have things they need to be developed in. What did you do to develop your leadership?

Onboarding And Training That Stick

Ashton Peters 27:12

Yeah. So I'll say the first thing, this one of the number one reasons why leaders oh, it's got a thumbs down. What the doesn't like that word? Okay, one of the number one reasons why leaders quit on you is because they weren't well trained. Um, and so that's that's kind of like the looking in the mirror thing to see, okay, I have to acknowledge, not always, but a big reason why leaders quit is because they weren't well trained, they weren't well equipped. And so for us, we kind of created a system almost like um onboarding an employee. I know that sounds odd, but you know, if you're gonna be on blood on, you know, onboarding at your church or wherever, there's a process you go through. You know, you show up and you get this on week one, and then on day one, you get your paperwork, and then, you know, day two, you you get your shirt or whatever. And so we kind of created that as well of like, hey, here's like an introduction to the youth ministry booklet they would get. You know, they would get um a hoodie we gave only to our leaders. And so that was kind of like their welcome to the team gift. And then we would kind of start the process there. We would then connect them with a leader that was already serving. And so we would always pair them with someone. So whatever they wanted to serve in their first month, they weren't doing anything on their own. They were paired with another person. So if they wanted to help in the cafe, if they wanted to be a junior eye boy small group leader, they were paired with someone else. So from there, there's three things I stand by for developing your leadership team. Um, and they're this we would huddle weekly. Um, and so they had to show up five minutes early before we opened doors for service. And in a huddle, we would kind of give a whole like, here's what you need to know for the night. Uh, here's the here's the you know, the lowdown, this is what we're doing, this is what you need to focus on. They would be informed that way. And I was communicating throughout the week as well with stuff. Um, but we had that weekly huddle, then we had like a put our hands in kind of moment. I still have a picture in my office of our leadership team putting all of our hands in, like, you know, because we we were developing team camaraderie. So we would huddle weekly, uh, we met monthly, and so we would stack a meeting monthly for our leaders on top of something else happening in the church. Um, and so whatever that looked like, we didn't do another night of the week. And so, you know, we would do it after Sunday morning service. Uh, one church we were at had multiple Sunday morning services. So I asked for Lee Pastor, hey, for uh one Sunday a month, can everyone go to the 9 a.m. service? Then the 11 a.m. service, I meet with our leaders. It's just once a month, but they're also gonna go to church and aren't gonna skip church, they're gonna be there first. Um, you know, we did when we were on staff at a church that had Sunday night services back when people had Sunday night services. We would do it one hour before Sunday night services and serve them a small snack. And so it looked different in everywhere, but we didn't ask another night of the week. So it wasn't like coming on Tuesday night, or you know, I was talking to someone once they're like, you know, we had these Saturday morning meetings and no one showed up. I was like, like, dude, I'm not coming to your Saturday morning meeting. You know, he told me, I was like, problem number one. And so we would do, we would find a time they were already there, and we would stack it on top of that. We made sure there was some kind of food. Um, and then that kind of would vary. You know, we would get grandmas in the church that wanted to invest in the youth ministry, and I would say to them, I know you want to champion the next generation, and I know you want to invest to them, and you're not able to be here on Wednesday nights, or maybe you don't desire to. But you know, one way you can really impact the next generation is once a month, I'm feeding our youth leaders, and I would love for you to create whatever your favorite dishes and bring it. Uh, and so often we weren't even spending money on these lunches because I was helping some of the other people in the church and the older people in church feel like this was their connection point to the youth ministry. That's cool. So they were often baking, showing up with whatever they had. And then times when we had youth budget, then we would sometimes cater and we just had like a rotation of like, well, we'll get Chipotle this week, we'll get whatever subway, stuff like that. We did that. So we we met monthly, and that was more than a calendar review. We like went over some kind of leadership teaching. And so it was something based off whatever season we were in as a youth ministry, whether that was praying with students in the altar, whether that was kind of saying this is where we're going, but this wasn't like just looking at a calendar. Yeah. Like I just emailed them out those. Um, you know, and we planned these out for the year. The year, because people are busy. And so at the beginning of every year, we said these are it, it turned out to be 11 because we took off Christmas. We would have like a funny Christmas party, but we wouldn't meet. I said, these are the 11 times out of the year I need you. I'm telling you almost a year in advance. This is my commitment to you. Block them off. We did the same um kind of cadence to it. And so if it was the second Sunday of every month, we almost always kept the second Sunday of every month, even if that was hard for me. Even though I was coming back from something and doing whatever, like we wanted to keep the same kind of rotation there. So people just kind of knew this is my commitment, second Sunday of every month. Uh, and then the third thing we did is we would retreat annually. And we put a lot of work into those. And it was one of my favorite things to do was to do a leader's retreat. And it looked different over the years based off of um budget, based off leadership team. Um, and hey, I was running these retreats when I was a bi-vocational youth pastor. So I was working full-time and still saying, hey, one of the most important things I can do is invest for a half day in my leadership team. Um, I still laugh. So our first leadership team retreat we ever did, uh, we only had a handful of leaders because we were rebuilding youth mystery from the ground up. And I wanted to be able to hang out with the leaders but also feed them lunch that day. And so we brought, it was me and my wife, we we brought three crock pots from our house and started the food that morning in the crock pots for lunch that day for the leaders so we could like do the leadership teaching that morning and then turn around and still eat lunch together afterwards. And so I think sometimes we, and this is all of us, myself included, we're looking for excuses. But when you say, Hey, I'm gonna commit to this, um, and I mean that was and we did that on almost no budget. I mean, I think I bought enough to make us nice spaghetti, not cheap spaghetti, you know, not spaghetti. Like we probably had real garlic bread instead of hot buns with garlic salt on them, kind of thing, but nothing spectacular. Then we gave them like a little gift, said, Hey, we appreciate you. But you know, we would see buy-in happen there. And to us, we were creating culture through that. And we we would see with every leader's retreat, there was a lift. Um, and we would do different ways. And so we were on staff at One Church, they did like a dream team thing. And so we would stack ours afterwards, and so they would do it, you know, one like every quarter, they would do those. I would say, Hey, you know, we're gonna feed you lunch afterwards, stay with me for another two hours. We're gonna do some stuff that we're gonna do something fun together if you want to go afterwards and have fun. Uh, but those three things huddle week huddle weekly, uh, meet monthly, and retreat annually kind of became the backbone of all leadership development we did.

Caleb Leake 33:24

Yeah.

Ashton Peters 33:24

Clinic.

Caleb Leake 33:25

That is a clinic.

Ashton Peters 33:26

That's amazing.

Caleb Leake 33:26

Yeah, every every youth pastor needs to write that.

Eran Holt 33:29

By the book.

Caleb Leake 33:29

Yeah, I got the book. I hate to give the commercial.

Ashton Peters 33:33

No, everything we did there in the book.

Eran Holt 33:35

Everything's in the book.

Ashton Peters 33:36

I'm giving you the best of what I got in the book. I really have.

Eran Holt 33:39

So buy the book, come to the conference next year, and uh hear Ashton in person. Yeah.

Caleb Leake 33:44

I I love what you said there. Of like a lot of us do tend to just make excuses for ourselves to not do these things when really it is it is simple, attainable things. It's like right you just did is smart goals, right? Like specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely. Like you you nailed out for every youth pastor. That is something you can do.

Huddle Weekly, Meet Monthly, Retreat Annually

Eran Holt 34:04

Um well, consistency is key. And you and and this is what you just modeled for us, Aston. When you're like, hey, we're gonna meet 12 times a year or 11 times a year, we're gonna meet once a month, we're gonna meet the second Sunday of every month. Here's the schedule. Here we go. You're you're consistent then. Um, you learn how to have a great leadership meeting, right? Right, rather than we don't waste everyone's time, right? Right. If I can email it to you, then I'll email it to you. But whatever we do in a meeting can only be done in the context of this meeting, you know, so on and so on. So and that's how you create great leadership culture, right? Then, you know.

Caleb Leake 34:35

And and you ready? You know, you're like, I don't know what to talk about in the content. Guess what? There's a thing called Vitals for Youth Ministry, and it's a collection of videos that you could literally just play. Yeah, you could hit play and say, Let's watch this together, and we'll talk about it. Well, and I've done that, and it's totally free, and it's so good. And sometimes even just sat in my leaders and watch it throughout the show.

Eran Holt 34:53

And and both of you guys were a part of the the development of Vitals for Youth Ministry. Both of you guys sat on Zoom calls with us and the rest of the team members for close to a year before we started producing content. And um, Ashton, we ended up not being able to get you in any of the videos because you were you live too far away. Uh but you're not awesome. But there you go. So um, but excited. This is a great conversation, man. I want to honor your time, Ashton. But thank you so much for for being with us. Looking forward to having you again at the conference next year. Um, if you don't know what we're talking about, um we'll roll a promo video after this episode and you can check it out. Go to the website, leadthegeneration.com. Ashton, how does everybody get a copy of the book in their hand? Where do they go?

Ashton Peters 35:34

Yeah, man. Um, Amazon. Okay. Head to Amazon, Amazon.com, just search the third voice, Ashton Peters, and it's going to take you right there. Uh it's also available on MyHealthy Church. So if your church has a MyHealthy Church account, you can go into MyHealthy Church. Um, you can also go there too and read a sample chapter as well. That first chapter we kind of unpack what the third voice is uh and kind of sets the stage for all of it too. So you find it there awesome.

Eran Holt 35:55

People want to reach out to you. Uh, what's the easiest way for them to get a hold of you on social?

Ashton Peters 35:59

Yeah, social um Ashton K. Peters uh is my Instagram, Facebook. Um, I love hearing from people. So yeah, um, feel free to shoot me a message. Um, I answer my messages back. Uh, and so don't worry. Well, you know, like sometimes you wonder, like I listen towards anyone. But like I like I absolutely love like hearing from people, uh, you know, answering questions. You know, I was talking a couple weeks ago with someone about development leadership team, and they said, Hey, will you send us the booklet you made? Uh, 200%. So if you, you know, you heard me talk about the booklet we gave to our leaders. If anyone's looking for it, uh, we could do that. Or I guess and it's you, Aaron, we can get it somewhere on the website. Yeah. Because it's just, it's simple, it's right there. We found if we could create simple systems uh that were consistent, uh, eventually we were gonna get there. Sometimes it took a long time, sometimes it took uh not as long, but if we just kind of kept moving forward, we were eventually gonna get towards what God had in our hearts. Let's go.

Eran Holt 36:52

Love it. So good. Ashon, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation, great episode of this podcast, and uh looking forward to it. Uh you being at the conference. And um, thank you, man. Thank you. Yeah, so can't wait to be there. Yeah, gonna be great. Um, hey man, thanks for rolling with us for this episode. If you're still hanging uh tight with us, uh thanks. And uh if you love the content, give it a like, give it a share, give it a listen, give it a review, whatever you do out there. Press the buttons, ring the bells, all that kind of stuff. That just helps us out. It's great. And uh again, we'd love to see you at the conference. Go to the website, check that out. Ashin will be there doing one of our super sessions, hanging out for the day. It's gonna be great. Pick up a copy of his book, The Third Voice, on uh Amazon or uh My Healthy Church website. So thanks so much. We'll see you on the next episode of Vitals for Youth Ministry Podcast.