Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Honest Christian Conversations
Who Is Shaping the Identity of Gen Z?
Remember those teenage years? The awkward self-consciousness, the desperate search for identity, the questions about purpose that seemed to echo without answer? In this profound conversation with Benjamin Crawshaw, student ministry pastor and representative of True Face, we explore the timeless journey of discovering who we truly are.
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Think back to when you were a teenager. What were you like? Were you shy? Maybe you were on top of the world and everybody loved you. Did you have it all together? Maybe you had nothing together. Maybe you felt awkward in your own skin. Maybe you wanted to know if anybody cared, if anybody loved you. Maybe you were just confused on what your purpose was in life. And then, as you got into college, nothing helped there, because they don't teach you what your purpose was in life. And then, as you got into college, nothing helped there, because they don't teach you what your purpose is. They are there to teach you what. They're there to teach you and to get you moving on that treadmill. But then you become a young adult and you're wondering what is my purpose? Why did I go to college? Why did I graduate from high school? Where am I going with my life? If these are any of the questions that you had when you were younger, or maybe you are in one of those stages right now.
Speaker 1:Today's guest, benjamin Croshaw, has a ministry and a message for you. He is a student ministry pastor and he works with truefaceorg. They help you find your identity in Christ. This was a very meaningful conversation for me, and in the middle of this I had a wow moment for what I think has been one of my struggles in my youth and I think that's why this guest resonated with me so much and I had to have him on, especially during this tribute to masculinity, because there aren't that many men who have a heart for the youth, but Benjamin Croshaw does, and you are going to be blessed by this conversation.
Speaker 1:My name is Anna Murby. This is Honest Christian Conversations. Let's get to it. Honest Christian conversations, let's get to it Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Benjamin, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk with me today.
Speaker 1:I love the videos you've been doing for the Path. I watched the first one and I was choking back tears because I resonated with it and I binged watched all of them. I read the first chapter of that book, which is also very amazing. I never got into Pilgrim's Progress, although I did go to a Christian high school, so it was something that was required reading, but I just didn't find it interesting. But I did find this very engaging and your ministry, true Face, is amazing as well.
Speaker 1:All of this to say I guess I kind of somehow resonate with Gen Z for some reason, and I don't even know what Gen Z generation is, but I know I'm not it because I'm in my 40s, so I think I'm the tail end of millennium. I don't know, but I know I'm not Gen Z, so it's funny, but I just resonate. I think it just harkens back to the days when I was younger and I really wished I had something like your platforms to speak to me in a way that I really needed. I am ready to jump in and hear everything you have to say of how you got involved with True Face, but before we get to that, give us a brief overview of how you came to Christ.
Speaker 2:Well, we can talk about all of it, ana, we can talk about it all. And I'm not in Gen Z either. So I grew up in a Christian home. Preacher's kid Going to church was fine. I loved the people at my church. I just had absolutely no interest in following Jesus. I wasn't opposed to it. Just go to church on Sunday, say hey to everybody. Really small church, everybody was really sweet. I loved them. But it just never crossed my mind to connect it to Monday at school. So all growing up that was just again. I wasn't mad, I wasn't anti-God, it just wasn't my thing. I guess your typical preacher's kid Apathetic.
Speaker 1:I guess Apathetic.
Speaker 2:Maybe people talk about. I think sometimes it felt irrelevant and I thought God was the emperor up in the sky. So I just didn't think God cared about my Tuesdays. I didn't think he cared about my dating life. I think he wanted me to pray and read my Bible and go to church and then after that we were kind of done and I could move on with the rest of my life and didn't really see how he was interested in any other part of my life.
Speaker 2:And so, again, it wasn't. Irrelevance is the best way I can think of it. And so it was the summer after my freshman year in college and on the outside things were going pretty well in my life in college, and my old student pastor said we're going to our summer camp, that we took the youth group every year, and he said we need a chaperone. So I'm aging myself now, Anna. Back in the day we had chaperones. Remember those days, right, yes, we call them small group leaders now, but back in the day, chaperones. And he said we don't have enough chaperones, Can you go? And I said well, am I going to have to miss a week of work? And he said, unfortunately, yes, and I was like charge of the seventh grade boys. I did a terrible job as far as being a chaperone goes. And there was a guy up there speaking who was just red-faced and angry the whole week just letting us have it.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know if you've been to one of those churches where the priest is looking at you.
Speaker 2:But somehow the last night Holy Spirit just got a hold of me through this red-faced mean priest and brought me up to the altar and I laid down and I was just at the end of myself. I was tired of my life being all about me. I mean, all my relationships revolved around me, all my thoughts revolved around me, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I was just miserable and so I went up. I'm like crying. My seventh grade boys are like what happened to Benjamin? You know, are you okay? And I got up and never the same after that moment. It really was. I knelt down at the altar and stood up and life has never been the same since then.
Speaker 1:Praise God that is that is awesome.
Speaker 1:Your story reminds me of my son who's 13. He's kind of. Your story reminds me of my son who's 13. He's kind of meh. You know he goes to youth group. You know it's like pulling teeth telling him hey, you should read your Bible, spend some time with God. He wants to have a relationship and he's just like. He's just kind of he's not there yet. So your story gives me hope that maybe it'll happen just the way that is supposed to. So that is that is wonderful, and I am noticing a trend that you seem to really enjoy being around the younger people.
Speaker 2:We were talking this past weekend. We had a retreat and we were talking about where you feel this kind of special, like what tugs at your heart, and everybody has these different groups of people that come to mind when you think about oh man, somebody should get involved with them. I started working in student ministry when I was still a teenager, so 19 year old. I started working at a camp. My sister signed me up and, you know, agreed for me to do all these things, and so I was, in between my sophomore and junior year in college, working with high school students who were exiting their junior year of high school, and it was like that from the beginning. That was where God was pulling me was towards teenagers.
Speaker 1:That is the reason why I had to have you on during my tribute to masculinity, because there are not many people who say they have a heart for teenagers. My pastor is the same way. He loves teenagers. He's like they're annoying but he loves them. And you guys kind of are about the same in that whole area of you. Just have a heart for them. He started out in the youth group and now he's the pastor of our church, but he still loves the youth and that is not something you hear very often from any Christian. I think it's like you know, sometimes they go, I'll go there, but it's not really what I want to do. I'd rather do this. But that's the next generation. They need to have people, especially ones who care. It is important that they see that you care, so I think that's why you have thrived so much in it is because you care and they see that I mean teenagers can smell it when you're not authentic.
Speaker 2:You better believe it, you absolutely better believe they can. That is so true yeah.
Speaker 1:You better believe it, you absolutely better believe they can. That is so true. Yeah, so tell us about True Face and how you got involved with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm going to tell a very long story in a very short period of time. But I graduated college, worked at a small church in student ministry among 55 other things, went to a big church, worked in student ministry, then went to a parachurch ministry where I was working in the high school camp ministry which was a big part of my heart because that's where I came to know Jesus was at a camp, you know. So a big passion for weekend retreats and summer camps. And so I started speaking a lot the D Now Disciple Now weekends and stuff. I was kind of the flavor of the month there for a little bit when it came to in the student world.
Speaker 2:And I wrote a book for teenagers called Know God, k-n-o-w God, and did really well. And then I wrote another one and it did not do well at all. And then I wrote another one and nobody bought it except my mom and my aunt, and we launched a camp and it lost a ton of money. So things started unraveling and then simultaneously things were unraveling at home at the same time. So I kind of went on this collision course of trying to hold things together at work, trying to hold things together at home, and it was all kind of unraveling in front of me all at the same time and so then got divorced and then kind of stepped out of any kind of formal ministry, which you know makes sense, and really went into, you know, what we would call a valley season. I'm not comparing myself to Moses, but I just wrote a series on Moses, but Moses out in the desert.
Speaker 1:Wandering around. I completely get that. I had my own situation like that too, after a big mental blow and thought I was going to be doing a ministry and it didn't pan out. You're wandering around, you're trying to figure out what am I supposed to do now? What does God want me to do now? So yeah, I completely get that.
Speaker 2:I think Elijah. He was doing these things in ministry and then he fled to a place called Beersheba. He was out there and then eventually God said go back. And a really funny set of circumstances, how God had me go back and I wasn't mad at God, I wasn't mad at the church, I just was keeping my distance. So God and I were good. It was just all y'all I had a problem with, because I trusted you and you had hurt me and I just was dealing with my own wounding. If you weren't related to me, it was. You know, I wasn't unfriendly, it just my arms were crossed.
Speaker 2:And so in the second half of COVID, there was a lot going on. God was beginning to help me learn how to grieve and peer under the hood of my own soul. But my work? I was struggling to find work for the first time in my adult life and reached out to Robbie Angle, who's the president of True Face, and like, hey, I'm reaching out. I've never done this before, I'm not good at this, but do you have anything? So he started sending me these projects to edit and so at one point I called him. I said, hey, who is this for?
Speaker 2:Like I know some of these ministries y'all have like a what do they call it? Like a psychographic. It's kind of this person. This is the target person. He said, oh yeah, it's Brad. And I was like, well, tell me about Brad. And he said Brad is a middle-aged, stuck Christian. And so he started to describe Brad and I was like I think that's me, I think I am Brad, you're talking about me, and so I'm at it and God worked it out in only a way that God could. It's like having me be the chaperone at a camp where I come to know Jesus. Right, god's having me edit these resources that are targeted to me.
Speaker 2:And so then Robbie started wrangling me in a little bit more. Can you go from 10 hours a week to 20 hours a week? And he's pulling me in and I get to know the True Faith staff. It's a very small staff, but they absolutely practice what they preach, which is, you know, high trust, authentic community where we can be known and experience, you know, grace and all this stuff. And I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa. But y'all take it easy here. But I think they were really patient with me as I learned to uncross my arms and connect the dots between loving God and loving others and trusting God and trusting others. So I'm a big fan of True Face because I am True Face. I am the True Face demographic and really helped me walk my way out of the valley back into engagement with the community and with what God's doing in the kingdom, his timeless kingdom. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So what kind of demographic does True Face work with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, historically it's been for everybody. It started 30 years ago and they started off working with business leaders to create these high trust environments. And then, some point along the way, they wrote a book called the Cure that you may have heard of, and this was really about for people who had spent a lot of time in the room of good intentions and exposing them to the room of grace and talk about the difference between living in this performance-based walk with Jesus, where you're doing everything for God, versus doing things with God, you know. And so they had reached just a lot of people who felt stuck, you know, had not experiencing a ton of peace and freedom in their lives. And so then, you know, it was a lot of different ways some small group studies, some in the church, a lot of stuff for individuals.
Speaker 2:And then Robbie and I, who both have, like you have, teenage kids of our own, started thinking well, what do we want to say to our own kids? Started with our biological kids. He has a couple teenagers. I have a teenager and a 12-year-old who's kind of like a 30-year-old. So she's kind of she's a tween, she's like a tween middle-ager. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And then it kind of expanded out to the students in the student ministry. I work with 30 students in the student ministry I work with and then by the time we were done, I was doing a ton of Gen Z, gen Alpha research, a ton of work and research with Gen Z. All of us were doing a ton of work, but by the time we were done it was just a project for everybody. So it really was. If you're 15 or you're 50, the path. I don't know if you've seen the cover.
Speaker 2:The cover's pretty cute. Yeah, absolutely gorgeous cover. It's for anybody. But this was part of what our attempt to reach the next generation. But this was part of what our attempt to reach the next generation because we had reached a lot of believers who were stuck. But that represents a lot of years of maybe walking in performance, walking in religion, where we're like what would happen if we caught them before all of that? What happened if we got to your 13-year-old son before he got, or got to him while he was still, as you say, meh, you know, trying to figure it out? So that was the big goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you absolutely nailed it. I was looking through the website for True Face. I love that. You've got groups and everything and you just you can see that you just want to engage. That's what the whole website is is engaging come alongside people, help them out of their stuckness, their legalism, which I was steeped in for many years, until I was 30 years old, and I'm still chipping away at some of it now. It's a process but it's definitely by God's grace.
Speaker 1:I have been leaps and bounds different but yeah, the Path, my goodness, that's probably a book I'm going to definitely get and have my son read and I would love to have my eldest read it too, but she's kind of going through her prodigal child phase so she doesn't like reading anyway. But maybe I'll just have her watch those little videos because they were enough to choke me up, all of them so far. And, yeah, I can see how it resonates with everybody because I think, like I said, it resonated with me because of who I once was and what I wish I had had somebody say to me back then. And, of course, teenagers they haven't gone through anything yet, but you're doing to them what I wish someone would have done to me, and maybe they won't appreciate it right now, but at some point, while they're going through things, they're going to remember you know what? I read this somewhere or I heard this somewhere, and it's going to resonate and they're going to be like oh my goodness, this was from back in the day.
Speaker 1:I remember that I got to get out of this situation that I'm in, so it's evergreen material, apparently because it resonates with 40-year-olds who have five kids, and also with young people too, which is God is so good, that is so beautiful that he can make that happen. His word does not return void. It doesn't matter what age you are and how far you've gone. I just I love it.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate all of those kind words. I think these truths are timeless right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It just. Maybe the sequence, maybe that's not a great word, but the path, the steps along the path, may be a little bit different. So when I started in student ministry the student ministry I was working with at the time, who had four students, by the way, so they were a band, by the way.
Speaker 2:So, I was out there, they would play some songs and then we'd switch places. I was out there and they would play some songs and then we'd switch places. It was called Insight, which I-N-C-I-T-E, so after a while changed the name to Sons and Daughters, because I was thinking what is it that I want If I only have a limited number of things that teenagers could remember by the time they're done with youth group? I want them to understand identity. You are sons and daughters of King Jesus and he's a good Father.
Speaker 2:So along this journey with Tal, tal's the main character, the architect taking this leap with Jesus, the first step after that is the table, which is all about identity. Well, for me and Ana, this may be true for you as well when I took that leap with Jesus at camp, it immediately went into two different things. One was like trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. So trust, and then you get involved, you start doing things to what my view of God was and how I think God viewed me. I still kind of saw God as the emperor up in the sky, but I was just getting more gold stars than I was before, but I didn't see God in the way he describes me. I have it up there, chosen, holy, dearly loved saint, that's out of Colossians, and seeing that I'm a loved son of King Jesus, who's a good father, and that that is a my identity as his son, is not something that can be stripped away, it can't be earned, it can't be taken. That that is true of who I am as a follower of Jesus. I'm, you know, sealed by the Holy spirit, I am his kid, I am his child and really starting there.
Speaker 2:And really starting there, that's where we started on the path. Because if we went straight into okay, trust, it's like well, who am I trusting here? I'm trusting God. Well, I'm getting a lot of different pictures about who God is and I'm hearing a lot about who God is and who is God.
Speaker 2:Anytime we start looking at our creator, then eventually it shapes our identity the creator and the created. They go hand in hand. And the same with vice versa how do I see myself is typically connected to how I see God. So we started there. That was one of the places that we started. That was different from how I grew up, which before we get to faith, before we get to learning and what it looks like to grow, or what it looks like, these gifts of spending time with Jesus. Before we get there, let's start with who you are as a son or a daughter of King Jesus, who is a good father, so the truths are timeless. We just started there, as opposed to starting with faith, as opposed to starting with more knowledge and more behavior, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, friends, have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet? If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship. You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions. You can leave your prayer requests. You can leave your praise reports. This is a community. This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus name. Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well. I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you. But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list. If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, to my website honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Identity is something that's definitely important to know. I mean nowadays the way they're throwing things out they're trying to the colleges and high schools. Elementary schools are trying to shape what they think you are or what they say you should be. Elementary schools are trying to shape what they think you are or what they say you should be, and everyone's questioning their identities in more ways than they should be, and it's no more. It is very important nowadays to actually know what your true identity is, because we're all searching for truth. We want that absolute truth. Some people say they don't, but then you say, well, how do you know that you don't really want absolute truth? How would you know? So everyone wants some absolute truth and we all need that anchor of you know who we are. It's what we're all looking for. We want to know why are we here on this earth? Am I really just here to die one day and turn to dust and that's it? No one wants to live for that. You have to have something to live for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think you could speak into this too. You know people have said well, now we're in a post-Christian culture, so what is it like now to try to reach the next generation? No-transcript, because they're getting fed information, information, information, but a real, authentic something. Real and authentic. The value of that is elevated. Well, that's the gospel, right? Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2:When Jesus walked around, when Jesus met the woman at the well, it wasn't a bunch of information, it was an authentic encounter. And then she left knowing just a little bit more, but not a ton more. She became the first missionary to Samaria. So it was Jesus asked a lot of questions, he told a lot of stories and he did very little preaching, right, but he looked people in the eye, he listened to them, he asked them questions, and so I think that's what the next generation is searching for, and I think that gives us maybe more freedom than maybe it did in the late 90s and early 2000s, where it was get a bunch of people to show up for the pizza party and then you know you can talk to them about Jesus and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It's like no, you can be as real as you should be or as you are, because if you're not, they're going to see through it. So you might as well show up as who you are. If I'm going to talk to my students about identity, well, I better check myself right. I can show up as a loved son of King Jesus, who's a good father, and not find my identity in any other aspect of what I'm doing, and so I can just show up as myself, and sometimes that just means me saying I don't know. Sometimes that means me opening up about you know, it was a tough week for me and I don't. I'm not like TMI oversharing with my students or anything like that.
Speaker 2:But, modeling authenticity, to be like yeah, I don't know, we're in this together. I don't have any answers for you on that, but let's journey together and talk about it, and I think that has an even higher value than it used to and has an even higher value than me saying here. Let me give you some more information. They got a lot of information right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They want someone to care, and if you don't care, they know it and they're not going to trust you, they're not going to open up to you, and, working in a student ministry, it is very important that they know you care, because that's where you can build the trust, that's where, like you said, you can plant the seeds of what their true identity is and that's where you can start building this relationship where you're sharing the gospel with them in full and then maybe they're more willing to trust God because he sent them somebody who's showing them what Jesus is really like you know Now, you sound like a student pastor.
Speaker 2:You sound like a really good student pastor. I don't know what you were saying at the beginning about like hey, that's not my calling. Did we record what you just said? Because that was. You get the soundbite from your own self, not the guest.
Speaker 1:I think it's because I I didn't feel that when I was in youth group or even the college years. I think that's what I was missing. I had all the knowledge. I'd been going to church since I was a little kid. I knew everything. I knew all the Bible stories. I was very legalistic, I was very good. I didn't question things, I didn't have any doubts quote unquote because if I did, I was a bad Christian. I didn't have any of that stuff. I was the good girl and nobody noticed me. Whenever I went to youth group, the pastor's daughter always gave me the stink eye and I have no idea why, because she never even talked to me.
Speaker 1:It was a big church that I went to at one point and every single Sunday they kept asking me if I was new and it's like nope, I was here last weekend. No one ever sat with me. I was super shy and quiet. It was a really awkward experience for me and I didn't feel loved. I didn't feel seen, I didn't feel appreciated or anything. By the time I was able to start driving myself to college group, I only went if I felt like it. No one was going to keep me from going. I have my own car, I don't have to go. I don't feel like doing this and I think I just missed that authentic connection from a church family that truly cared.
Speaker 1:It wasn't just about numbers or having fun and playing the games, making the kids excited to come. There was no substance there and I think kids are wanting substance now. They've been oversaturated with stimulation, with all the things that are inauthentic, the fake reels and everything. Ooh, I got it all together and people are just getting overloaded and they're tired of it and everyone just wants something real that they can hold on to, that they can go. You know what? This is truth. This is real. I need this and I think that's what I missed in my youth years, so maybe that's why I can speak to that now.
Speaker 2:You're speaking to it powerfully.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:And yeah, everything you're saying, I'm like, yeah, how do I double A in that?
Speaker 1:I'll talk to your youth ministry anytime if you want. I've been through some stuff ministry anytime if you want. I've been through some stuff. But yeah, I think people who are pouring their hearts and their time and their effort and authenticity into the youth today, in my opinion I appreciate them. I don't know how everyone else feels, but you all should have more hats tipped to you for this, because it is not easy, especially with all the things they're able to learn, all the things they can find on the internet, even if they're not really looking for it pornography.
Speaker 1:These kids don't know what it's like to have to go catch the phone that's ringing and it's on the wall and you can only go so far with the cord. They don't know what that's like. They don't know what it's like to hear that really obnoxious, high-pitched squealing of you getting on the internet. They just they have it.
Speaker 1:You don't have to go to a dictionary anymore to figure out the things you want to know. You can get online. You can go on YouTube to a dictionary anymore to figure out the things you want to know. You can get online. You can go on YouTube. Their world is so different from their parents' world, from anything, and they probably think that we just can't relate to them anymore. And it couldn't be further from the truth. We all, at the end of the day, we are all the same in the fact that we all just want to be loved. We want to know who we are and why we're here. And, yeah, if they can see that you're a real person who doesn't have it all together, and I think they can trust you a little more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's really. I mean, I have a boy in my group awesome kid, shy, quiet. They got a soccer match where they're playing in the state tournament and showing up. This is like student ministry 101 from back in the day. You show up and it makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference just to show up in their lives. I do think again to the point that you're saying when you're talking about the dictionary, the internet, all this at your, so then it becomes it's like all, it's like eating fast food all the time, all the time, right. And then you're you start like, huh, I'm kind of craving a home cooked meal. I kind of want a salad. I never want a salad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Inundated this way, and I just want something different from that, and this is what the gospel offers. This is what authentic community offers. It's something so different from AI or fake news or all this stuff that you were talking about that's being thrown in front of them, and so we carry with us something that is perfectly positioned for the next generation. So we're talking about a generation of people who have information overload. They're looking for something that's authentic, and it has to do with an encounter that's real. Well, that's Jesus, right, jesus is perfect for the next generation, and so that's why we did this too. The experience guide is because, like my students, I don't know. Yeah, the path experience guide is to create these physical experiences. About half the students in my student ministry read. The other half wouldn't read if you paid them to read. We have those animation videos that you're referring to, so if you read.
Speaker 2:In a group we can watch this five minute video, because some of them are not going to read the chapter, and then it's not like just a couple of discussion questions, but we get to actually live it out and play it out. We talk about shame and you can write down on a dry erase board some of the messages that have been given or you have attached to about who you are in these negative messages attached to, about who you are in these negative messages, and we speak truth over each other where we can mark those out and replace them with truth that comes from God, and one of God's favorite ways to speak is through other people, speaking truth over your life. We have this affirmation exercise that we do at the very end, where you speak into, you speak some affirming words to each other, and that I mean that's just a huge deal for people who just don't hear that very much, which are teenagers these days. I guess adults don't really hear it that much either, for that matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a beautiful ministry getting involved with youth. I was actually involved with the youth for a little bit before I had my. I think it was my third or fourth child, I can't remember. But I look young enough to where a couple of times people thought I was in the group, which I guess is kind of flattering but also embarrassing.
Speaker 2:Now you're noticing I wasn't here last week. You know all this when I was a teenager, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, I enjoyed being in the youth group. I would have loved to have stayed, but as my kids two of my kids were getting older and I knew they were going to be joining and I want to be their mom hanging out in their youth group, it's like that's your going to encroach on their territory because they might need that space where they don't feel comfortable telling me things but they might feel comfortable telling somebody else and yeah. So yeah, but it was. It was always a blast to be involved. I mean, we had parties where you could wear your pajamas. We had dance parties. They did silly things on the stage. Dramas we had dance parties. They did silly things on the stage. Are there any stories you can tell us about things that you do in your ministry that are silly, or sometime where you remember something really funny that happened?
Speaker 2:This is just the first thing that came to mind. We do have a few yearly annual traditions. When I first started and again it was pretty small. After, I think after a couple of years, we worked up to like I don't know 11 students or so, and it was Super Bowl Sunday and our student ministry starts at 3.30 and the Super Bowl is usually like 6.30 Eastern or something like that. So we still have our youth group, and so set it all up like this football theme, right. And so then I was like all right, we're going to play football, and so split up the two teams. And we started and they're looking at me like what do we do? Like have you never played football before?
Speaker 1:And they're like no, I was like watch football before, and they're like, no.
Speaker 2:I was like, are you going to watch the Superbowl? And they're like, no. I was like, are you going to watch the Super Bowl? And they're like, maybe I don't know. And so I was like, okay, this is not the football crowd, which is totally fine. We'll figure out what crowd this is and we roll with it.
Speaker 2:So this year now, which is like five years later, super Bowl Sunday, we played football again and it was like half the students really got into it. So we decided next year we're going to do like a full on, we're going to paint the field. There's a couple of guys in my church who are going to be refs and then some of my other students are going to do the halftime show, and so we're going to do a full. We're going to have our full on Superbowl at youth group. It may work, it may not work, but we're going to give it a shot. We just started working on our own little kickball field for people who want to do kickball, making it a little more of an official looking field. So just your classic student pastor taking things and trying to make them a way bigger deal than they actually are. But we have people who like to get out and play games, and part of me creating these games is to get people moving a little bit for their own mental health.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of my students. They've just been in their room on tablets and devices all week. I'm like, even if you don't play, just get up, move around, get outside, look people in the eye. You make interaction contact. But we have all kinds of like you know this art setup where where we're doing all kinds of crazy stuff artistically, so it's not like hey play a game or you can't do anything yeah, you have these outlets.
Speaker 2:However, on the super bowl sunday, I'm like you're gonna have to either be a fan or you're gonna have to play, or you're gonna be a part of the halftime show and you're gonna have have to come up with what that is. So it's going to be fun because they're entertaining. They really are. They're awesome.
Speaker 1:I remember my son last year in youth group. They did a costume thing around Halloween and like a contest and they gave the winner a little trophy. My son won and that was his first year in youth group so he was really pumped about it because he's short and shorter than everyone else and everyone always says you don't look like you're 13. Well, he was 12 at the time. He dressed up as Frodo Baggins and he had the whole get up and everything and he won and he was so excited and they did like this big presentation for him and everything.
Speaker 1:He was thrilled. So, yeah, youth group can be super fun. It can be a blessing to these kids because maybe that's the only time they get to see that someone cares. So it's again. It's wonderful that you were involved, that you have such a heart to want to do this For True Face. Is that a ministry opportunity that anyone can get involved in?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if my audience is listening to this and they're super pumped and they just want to get involved, where would they go to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can check out anything at truefaceorg. But to look at the stuff that we've talked about, taking a look at a little bit of the animation videos that you've talked about, the path book, the path experience guide, truefaceorg forward. Slash the path so that's T-R-U-E-F-A-C-Eorg. Forward slash the path T-H-E-P-A-T-H so you can see a chapter, a sample chapter, for free. You can check out our animation videos, see what the experience guide in the book is all about. And I think to me the experience guide is even more powerful almost than the book.
Speaker 2:Now, some people they want to read the book and be like let me check this thing out and see what it's all about. I totally get that before they're like jumping in. But for people who want to live out these truths or maybe question or talk about these truths, we really did work very hard to create actual experiences so to move things from the left side of your brain to the right, into your emotions, into your body. So I do. For people like your son, who involve their student ministry, doing something like that, an experience guide might be a way to engage his heart that other things aren't grabbing a hold of right now.
Speaker 1:So it would be a good tool for student ministry to try to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're halfway. All the animation videos are almost done. We're done with four of them. So I'm waiting until we're dropping one per week over the next four weeks until they're all done. I'm waiting until they're almost done. We're done with four of them, so I'm waiting until we're dropping one per week over the next four weeks until they're all done. I'm waiting until they're all done, and then we're going to start the Path Experience Guide with the student ministry that I work with. But yeah, I think it's super powerful because you can watch the video as a group. It's five minutes long. You don't have to, like I said, wait on them to make sure they did their reading to show up ready to talk about it. You can just watch it and then jump right in with your discussion and these interactive, immersive experiences.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I have one more question before we go Would those videos be something that an eight-year-old or younger would be watching? Because I have an eight-year-old who she asked some pretty deep theological questions and yeah, I think she might like it, just because visually they might like the videos. I just didn't know if it was something that you thought people with younger kids might get something out of it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a seven-year-old and, yeah, I would watch these videos with her and see if she had any questions that came up out of it. Would watch these videos with her and see if she had any questions that came up out of it. Now, tal's journey the main character into seeking success and then finding it to be unfulfilling and looking for other options that's probably not going to connect with people who haven't experienced a lot of disillusionment in life. But especially once you get to episode three, once Tal has taken the leap into identity, into trust, into shame, into community, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's what I was wondering, because I was like these are cool. I'm going to make my kids watch these Might as well. Yeah, it wouldn't hurt. There's so many non-good shows nowadays. It's like anytime there's anything good, it's like binge, binge, child binge, it's okay, exactly. All right. Well, thank you, benjamin. So much for coming on and talking to me today. This has been a very encouraging conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review for the podcast wherever you are listening, or click the link in the show notes. If you have feedback for me, use the leave a message or voicemail links also in the show notes. You can check out my website honestchristianconversationscom to leave a review or feedback as well. Join the community and become part of something bigger than yourself. I look forward to our next conversation.
