Welcome to the Youth Ministry Booster podcast! The most honest and hilarious podcast in student ministry. Hosted by Zac Workun and Chad Higgins. We are the biggest fans of youth ministry leaders like you!
We are here for you with the humor and the help to engage, entertain, equip, and encourage.
Youth ministry is better together. Learn more @ http://www.youthministrybooster.com
In our 6th installment of the #womenInYM series a new friend Emily Acton stops by. You may recognize her name from the Stuff You Can Use Youth Ministry Facebook Community where she serves as a moderator, but she is also middle school minister (and one that just started in a new church!).
Key Takeaway: Ask questions humbly. Listen closely. Collaborate without an agenda
Adults handed me ministry before I thought I was ready. Literally, Keys were being handed to me.
I learned by trying and failing, this is how I learned to use my gifts
The moment of being invited to a student’s story as they are invited to God’s grander story is so special to me.
When people show confidence in you it is easy to feel you like you are special
Reading one youth ministry book does not make you an expert
Ask questions humbly. Listen closely. Collaborate without an agenda
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.- Frederick Buechner
Hey everybody, welcome back to episode 52 of the Youth Ministry booster podcast. This is our sixth installment featuring women in Youth Ministry, celebrating them, encouraging them, and today is one of our friends, emily acton who is one of the gatekeepers or managers of the stuff you can use, community group, which is where you may have seen her name, but where she's serving is in middle school ministry alongside her husband and leading that group. It is an incredible story of starting somewhere new and it is a wonderful interview that you're going to love today. Before we get into the interview though, there's a couple of housekeeping things that I wanted to share with you. Number one, if you haven't posted already on twitter and Instagram, Hashtag those posts, women in Yam, women in Youth Ministry and let people know who are the women of Youth Ministry that you are thankful for, that you were celebrating and you were encouraging. You can do that in a really official way. At youth ministry booster.com/giveaway. We're actually going to give away a subscription box of choice and a year of youth ministry booster. For a winner for that, a woman in youth ministry and so you can nominate someone if that's your spouse or your friend or someone's mental up to you. If you're a guy in youth ministry or if your women's ministry, it could be you signed yourself up, nominate a friend, share and let people know because we want this month it'd be an appreciation of women serving in youth ministry all month long. It is high time and overdue and we are so happy to share and so if you haven't checked that youth ministry booster, one of the prizes that were given away, you can go. You've finished your booster.com right now and get a free month just to see what it's all about. It's our appreciation gift to you. We want you to check it out and see what the inside of the network is like where folks are finding mastermind groups and care for the ways in which they are administering. But until then, this is our interview with Emily Act and I'll catch you at the end.
Speaker 2
Hello and welcome to youth ministry booster. My name is Chad Higgins and I am so excited to be with you today. We are talking with emily and emily. How are you?
Speaker 3
Oh, I'm doing so great. Doing Great. How are you?
Speaker 2
I am doing fantastic. Not Emily. Tell the people where they may have like seen you or heard of you online. A large facebook group from something. Right? Like if they're going to. I can. Where have I seen that name? Where, where does that come from?
Speaker 3
Yeah, so I actually, I do digital marketing for stuff you can use. I love my work. It's incredible. So I spend a lot of time on the stuff that you can use a facebook community. Yeah, it's wonderful. I do a lot of moderating there, a lot of interacting with a bunch of wonderful youth pastors. So I get to work with a and now Campbell and it's been a blast.
Speaker 2
Emily, I just assume that you are the gatekeeper for the stuff. You can use facebook page. Is this greg or no?
Speaker 3
Sometimes I am. I am the gatekeeper with a number of wonderful moderators, so on occasion
Speaker 2
I in my mind like that's how I want to perceive your work in front of a computer screen going. We'll let that through. Not a chance. That's good. I love it. I love it. Well, tell us a little bit more of. I mean, you are much more than a scrolling facebook all day, right? Tell us more about you. Where are you from? How'd you get into student ministry? What did that look like for you?
Speaker 3
Absolutely. Yeah. So like I mentioned, I work for stuff you can use. So I have my hand in a lot of youth ministry related marketing and equipping through them. Uh, but I also
Speaker 2
are there. They're not really doing anything right now. Right,
Speaker 3
doing anything.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like I rarely ever year. So if you can use. So I don't know.
Speaker 3
Yeah, of course now, you know, we grow curriculum but nobody's ever heard of that. So shameless plug for numbers and grow curriculum are amazing. So go check it out. Um, but anyways, so I do that. I'm also in middle school youth leader at first Christian Church of diversity where my husband is a youth pastor, so, you know, where, uh, kind of these partners in crime forever trying to dream up new things to do with the youth and it's a complete blast. Uh, so we've been there for one month, a whopping one month, but I've been probably involved in youth ministry in some capacity since 2012. So it's been, it's been a little, have a little bit of a process moving towards, uh, where I'm at now. I think as far as the. Go back to your question, what got me into youth ministry. Yeah. It was this really beautiful, unexpected succession of people handing me ministry before I even read what was going on. Um, and it's odd because I didn't have a youth group experience myself growing up. Um, I think there were three really big things. Um, so back in 2012 I was new, both do faith in the church and I was really just kind of all in on trying to find places to plug in and serve. So I was approached and I was asked, hey, will you volunteer with the PRI team ministry? So our fourth through sixth graders when I was like, ah, you know, sure, I guess I'll give it a try. And honestly I was so awkward at first it was God bless, you know, the other leaders for, for sticking with me and mentoring me because they had it in their minds that they were going to keep pushing me out of my comfort zone. You know, I just kind of blinked my eyes. And before I knew it, a couple of years later, like I was leading lessons every week I was rummaging through the house trying to find the best ways to create object lessons and can use props and teaches effectively as I could with these really, really dear know preteens Wade come to love us so much. Um, and who I loved teaching and I remember being so excited just having ownership in these lessons and um, you know, being given leadership even maybe before I thought I was ready, but other people thought that they could kind of like pushed me out of the nest in this sense. Uh, so I got it in my mind that what I was going to do for the rest of my life was like, right youth ministry curriculum and write children's ministry curriculum. So I ended up going to Taylor University to study professional writing. Um, and kind of around that same time that I was getting involved in this like three teen ministry, I was involved in a student led a retreat ministry where again, it was these group of wonderful Jesus loving ladies who got a group of, of students together and said, hey, you plan this outreach to your friends. And they let us plan it on the front end. They let us facilitate it, um, during the event. And so I got a lot of this experience both on the programmatic side of youth ministry and the relational side of youth ministry. Um, and there were just a lot of these moments of realizing that I couldn't, I couldn't accurately vocalize how alive it made me feel to be reaching out to students. And there were plenty of moments of just seeing how God was working, where I realized that this ministry matters and ministry to youth is important. And so, uh, like I mentioned, I ended up at Taylor University where I ended up involved in this, a youth revival ministry, which is kind of strange. But again, your comes that theme of adults handing me ministry before I thought I was ready and I distinctly remember planning this prayer retreat. I'm in Michigan for high schoolers and so much about it was a flop. And um, but there was something so beautiful and, and being able to use my gifts and serve and try and fail in this safe place where I'm kind of, these keys were being handed over to me. And so, uh, there's this really great quote actually that I love a lot by Frederick Buechner. And he says, uh, the place God calls you to is a place where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet. And they had come to this point through all these experiences of realizing that my deepest gladness was storytelling and storytelling, especially in the context of student ministry. So I rearranged some things to make it happen. Um, I ended up studying public relations in youth ministry, which I know is an odd combo. Um, but again, it's funny because God's led me to this place of, you know, marketing for Steph you can use and also serving in a youth ministry. And here I am at this intersection of the world's deep hunger and my greatest gladness. And it's been incredible to see God work through it and lead me to youth ministry through it. It's been a really interesting ride. Um, it's not over yet. I know. So
Speaker 2
crazy. Like in the moment of our story here, like, this makes no sense. Why am I getting this to get this degree and at this time and why are they trusting me with this? And, and then you like get a few years down the road and you look back and you're like, okay, makes sense now. I'm, I, I often look at my own ministry career and I'm like, why have you gifted me in these different ways? This doesn't seem at all useful. Uh, and then, and then you realize like, oh, this is how it's shaped me, this he's molded me and these are the people that he's put in my life. Um, will you read that quote one more time because I would love to like take it in a little bit more.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. So it's by Frederick Buechner. He says, the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
Speaker 2
Hmm. That just seems like it needs to be written on a mirror somewhere. Um, okay. So you've been in student ministry a while. Tell me one of your favorite youth ministry moments.
Speaker 3
So there's a lot of moments that could easily claim favorite. I think there've been, as you know, in student ministry, there's plenty of awkwardness. There's plenty of really like touching, like come to Jesus moments. Um, but I think my favorite one, it seems really small and it might seem kind of silly, but I think it's still really affects me and it happened at this middle school conference called junior high journey that they used to have in the Indianapolis area. I don't think it exists anymore, but it did a couple of years ago. So I was there with a group of middle school students and I was one of the leaders. So in my group I had a couple of middle school girls and uh, the one girl who was in my group had invited her friend. Um, so we'll call the friend Nicole because I'll refer back to her in the story and to my knowledge, uh, this girl Nicole didn't have much of a faith background. I'm, her friend had invited her, you know, wanted to introduce her to faith. And so this conference was a really great place to kind of do that. So I just, like, I fell in love with hanging out with these two girls. They were just silly and had wonderful thoughts and just a, it was a blast to see them, like really interact with the content that was at this conference. Um, and, you know, there, there were a lot of amazing things that happened there, right? Like they were meaningful conversations and I was able to present the Gospel and all these good things that happened at conferences. My favorite moment in this moment that's still has a lot of impact on me was during one of the last sessions and the communicator was talking about this passage in revelation two. So in this passage there's an angel talking to the church in pergamum and he says, um, he, he's talking about this idea of I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. And so the communicator had this invitation time. I'm kind of at the end of his talk. He invited all the students to come to the front if they felt so bad and uh, they could get their own like little white rock as a reminder and object lesson sort of deal. Uh, so, you know, it was, it was cool. And Nicole went up and I was happy to see her go up, but I was, I had held back and I was waiting for her and her friend and the other girls to get back. Uh, and these, these white rocks, let me just add, they weren't anything special. It was like these little, like a little flat stones you meet, you might see in like a fish tank or a, like a flower vase or whatever. So I'm waiting for her to come back with her rock. She comes back and, and she, she grabs my hand and I feel her press something into it and like, what is she doing? And she, because it's loud and there's music playing and she's, she kind of like, she has my hand and she's pressing something into it and she kind of looks at me and she smiled. I'm like pauses for a minute and goes and sits back down. And she had gotten me one of these little white rocks too. Um, and so I guess for some context, I'm a big part of my philosophy, abuse ministries, this idea that we're not just here to tell students how to behave, do what the Bible says, but we're here to invite them to partake with us in this really grand narratives of redemption and we're inviting them into this bold and beautiful story. And then this moment we're in, Nicole has, has my Hayden, hers and she, she has this rock that she's pressing into my hand that she had gotten for me and she was inviting me to take part in her story. And she was, um, she was inviting me to see how God was working in her and she was saying, emily, like, I want you to be a part of this. And Yeah. And, and I think, I think in that space, that space where there's a student inviting you into their story and you seeing that story interact with this really, really grand story of redemption. There is just something. So holly and so sacred that happens. Um, and so I actually, I still, I keep that rock on my desk and looking at it right now I'm surrender my computer monitor and it might seem small and it might seem silly, but just this moment of being invited into a student story as they're being invited into God's grander story is so special to me. So, um, yeah, that's, that's a moment that really stands out to me. That's so cool. That's such an amazing moment because so many are. It's like
Speaker 2
it's isolated to the student only can your story of like this student going like this special moment for me and I want you to be a part of it. Like beautiful. And I believe probably very much a testimony to the impact that you had in her life. I mean our weekend and before and all those kinds of things like that. That's really, really special. What an amazing man. I, I, my encouragement to you is because I often tell myself this, there will be moments in ministry that aren't at all special like that. You know what I mean? That are frustrating and hard and like you want to remember the moment of that rock being pressed into your hand of going, okay, like the junks worth it. Right? And especially when it comes to students, like oftentimes we walk through, Vilma racking our living room, right? To have moments like that. I don't know how many couches I have bought in my own actual house that I've had kids destroyed over the years. Um, but at the end of the day, I believe it's worth it. Right. So if you, you get to go back in time, right? I mean, you're still, people are handing you stuff Friday. If you could sit down and give yourself like specific wisdom or insight for you specifically, what would you say to yourself?
Speaker 3
Oh definitely. Just to check my pride at the door. Like you mentioned, like when people are just handing you ministry and they're, they're showing confidence in you. It is so easy to feel like you're the most talented person in the room and it's so easy to feel like, like you're so special and that's, it's so counterproductive. I feel like sometimes, you know, and I was so guilty of this even as I was, you know, studying youth ministry, you feel like you read one youth ministry book and suddenly you're an expert, you know, and I had been so guilty by that. Um, so definitely just asking more questions and listening more humbly and I'm collaborating without an agenda. I know, especially in team settings, I've been guilty of um, you know, I'm collaborating, but in the end I still want my ideas to win out,
Speaker 2
brainstorm, brainstorm.
Speaker 3
So, so guilty 100 percent and I recognize that, but it's, you know, I think back on all a lot of amazing ministry has happened, but it's just when you bring other gifts to the table,
Speaker 2
like
Speaker 3
that ministry just becomes more powerful. So yeah, being more humble, not having an agenda, accepting feedback, all that I would say is probably something that younger me could have really, really used
Speaker 2
for me. This idea of pride is very much like thinking of herself over anything else. Pride can look very boastful. Pride can also be very. I'm self deprecating and some ways for people and I think that it's important that we understand that the ministry that we do is ultimately not about us our own glory in it or our own buildup in the end either. And so I, I think that that's wise. I think finding a place where pride isn't, um, a stumbling block. It is something that we constantly beat out of herself. Right. Well, emily, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, it's been a pleasure to hear from you and talk with you and finally meet you. Um, we will definitely see each other on facebook, I'm sure at some time and, uh, hopefully, uh, in person in real life. And so, um, thank you so much for joining us on Youth Ministry today day. If you're joining us through your earpods or on itunes or wherever, we want to thank you for being here and we'll see you tomorrow as we hear from another amazing woman in student ministry. There you go. That's our interview with emily and emily. Thank you for sharing your honest words and the powerful insight that are calling might be in the middle of where the world needs it most and that we might feel a deep gladness about it. Uh, thank you so much for sharing. If you want to get in touch more than will check the show notes below. For contact information or head over to the stuff you can use a facebook community group. She'll be there gatekeeping and moderating. Emily, we are thankful for the work that you do for the ways in which you lead and for sharing today. If you like what you heard, you don't wanna miss any of them. More episodes of either true booster podcast, especially in October, featuring and celebrating and encouraging women and youth ministry. Make sure to click subscribe on your apple podcast, Google play or wherever you enjoy your podcast content and if you feel up to it right and review. We always appreciate those. Thanks again and we'll see you back tomorrow.
