Multicultural Student Ministry

understand your words. We sat down with the Champion Forest student team to unpack how a “one church, two languages” model becomes one student ministry that actually belongs to everyone. If your context includes Spanish-speaking parents, English-dominant teens, and first-generation families navigating two worlds, this conversation offers a blueprint that’s both practical and hopeful.

We share how one student ministry serves Spanish-speaking families and English-dominant students without splitting community. From staffing to services, we explain the model, the mistakes, and the practical moves that make unity real.

• one church in two languages with one student ministry
• culture valued over vocabulary in programming
• integrated Wednesdays with bilingual worship moments
• Sunday hours aligned with adult services for families
• intentional staffing across student, admin and production
• communication to parents in both languages at once
• planning events together to avoid silos
• defining success as connection, not room counts
• honoring family traditions and calendars
• giving leaders courage to try and learn

We’ll drop emails in the show notes below or folks that have questions

Chapters

• 0:00 Warm Up: Games And Wrestling Icons
• 3:38 Framing The Multicultural Ministry Challenge
• 5:24 One Church, Two Languages: The Model
• 9:20 Building A Bilingual Student Team
• 12:20 Integration On Sundays And Wednesdays
• 16:20 Culture Over Language: First‑Gen Realities
• 20:05 Service Design: Heart Language Moments
• 23:25 Operations: Staff, Production, And Events
• 26:10 Families, Heritage, And Planning With Care

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Uh snap.

SPEAKER_03: 0:06

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. Hanging out live at itch. We brought the whole crew today. We brought the whole crew to my right, to your left, or however the camera cuts with Donnie Gordon. Uh give it up for my friends. Justin, Tony, Santi. Guys, thank you so much, man. Yeah, come on, welcome from Houston, Texas to uh Brentwood, Nashville, Tennessee. Uh, this is my champion forest friends. Like the you guys have been so kind to have me out for several things. Want to return the favor for some of our folks, get to get you know y'all better. Uh, but before we dive into some of our ministry topic stuff today, there's no better way than to understand the grown-up us without knowing the heart of us as a child. Uh so if you watch or listen to this podcast, you know how near and dear both retro video games and pro wrestling are to this team. So I'm gonna go around the horn. Justin, either your favorite retro video game or pro wrestler, either from your childhood or now, no judgment. But like, what is like that game that like, man, this was defining in my childhood, or like that was my wrestling icon. Like, who was it? Uh video game, we're going Contra.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16

Oh, yeah, let's go back to NES. Yeah, yeah. The Contra. That was a great. Come on down at the left level. Is that right? Yeah, it was pretty I think so. Yeah. No, Cash Come on, baby. Yeah, yeah. I can beat uh the original Super Mario Brothers in under 10 minutes. Just holding down beat on going. Just going, just full tilt. It's been a long time. Close your eyes and run. Good dude. Okay, okay. For sure. Dude, solid. Okay. I do have to throw in my wrestler though, right? Okay. You remember? Jake the Snake. Dude, yes. Okay. Yes. I don't know why. My wife hates snakes, but Jake the Snake just stood out to me when I was at my grandparents' house and wrestling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54

Well, so pretty talented in the ring, but his promo. Everybody else is hollering that he would get quiet. That's right. Because there's nothing scarier than the man that whispers in the crowd that yes.

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

You know everything about wrestling. This is too much. It's too much.

SPEAKER_03: 2:11

Don't help us out, man.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

Okay, I'm definitely switching it up. I grew up with lucha libre.

SPEAKER_03: 2:16

Oh, yeah. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18

So there was this guy called the Esqueleto, which is like the body skeleton. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 2:25

And I loved it. So lucha for life, man. Okay. Do you have thoughts on Dominic Mysterio? Are you for or against? Um Triple A champion? Uh hesitation. Honestly, that was what I was locked in with. Fair, fair, fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Santi, what do you got? You mentioned Snake. I grew up playing Metal Gear solid. Dude, solid snake. Yes. The best video game of all time.

SPEAKER_03: 2:51

Dude, on that PlayStation 1 disc, the demo that came from Pizza Hut. Yeah, it was the best. That was a Thursday night. Yeah, that was it, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Hiding in cardboard boxes. Absolutely. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

Little exclamation point. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't my phone thing for a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:06

The text. Yeah. Have it be your text phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:09

Yes, yes. We're the same. Oh my gosh. Come on, dude. Come on. Luchador. Yeah. Not Luchador. Like WWE. Yeah. I love The Undertaker. That's right. The Undertaker. Oh, okay. The dead man?

SPEAKER_03: 3:21

Okay. In Texas, man. Yeah, in Texas. Okay. Iconic, dude. Absolutely, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Living legend. Absolutely. Drop your favorite in the chat below. It's been heated as we make our way to another round of both Survivor series in WrestleMania. I'll save that for the other podcast. We're talking today, though, about a little bit the mix of doing youth ministry in a new era, new way. I love you guys individually and collectively for the ways in which you are ministering multiculturally in a city like Houston. And so in some circles, you would say, well, that's the thing that happens at urban centers, right? Like we talk about Los Angeles and Houston and Miami. These are the places that are multicultural. But I will tell you, the more and more I travel, the churches that I visit, it is, it's in every area, every pocket. The cultures may be different, but the multiculturality, the plurality of cultures is real. Small town Oklahoma, Indiana, uh, Minnesota. We have friends in Minnesota that have as diverse a ministry as anybody else I know. And the questions are, how do we faithfully minister to not just individuals, but groups of people that have a heritage and a culture that may come with family and extended family practice, maybe even some understandings of theology and religion. Y'all are living it out in a super organized and multi-tiered way. So I want to ask some nuts and bolts questions, but also some of the things that were considerations, maybe some learnings, challenges, and things that y'all have grown through. So explain a little bit what happens at Champion Forest because youth ministry happens in a big way, but there's some really unique pieces to it as well.

SPEAKER_02: 4:53

Yeah, I would definitely say so. I think some things that we inherited at Champion Forest, let's just kind of start there. You gotta understand a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:59

You've been there for a minute. I've been there for five plus years. Youth ministry's been going on for a long time. You've been there for over five. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 5:04

So student ministry, great, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 5:07

These are all your babes now. These are all your kids. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yours.

SPEAKER_02: 5:11

But uh April 1, 2020 is when I started there. Okay. So it's kind of a unique type of new era.

unknown: 5:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:17

I had to learn what champion, who champion forest was. One of the first things I noticed in a statement that they would say, kind of philosophy, is that Champion Forest is one church in two languages. Okay. So we have a big Spanish population. Yeah. Okay. So when we're talking multicultural, always been true, increasingly true. No, so the history of um they just began to recognize that uh the people that live within the shadow of their steeple. That's a statement that was made. The people that live with the shape of the shape. The parish approach, the community approach, yeah. Was was changing. And so there was a shift to, of course, wanting to start a Spanish ministry. Sure. But then inside of that, instead of just starting a Spanish ministry, it became okay, we're going to, we're gonna really go all in with this. And they made a massive shift into hiring intentionally to do so.

SPEAKER_03: 6:04

Okay, so not not an independent, not a church plant, nope, not a mission, not a church alongside a church, but again, one church, two languages.

SPEAKER_02: 6:12

That's right. And so that was before I was there. That was previous to our our current pastor now and people that have been there. Um, and so that was kind of the the legs that we're standing on, okay, right? Um, when I got there five years ago, Tony was uh a volunteer and serving in there, leading worship and helping. And uh uh it was kind of interesting with with Tony, he was a part and and and playing a big part of things, but his heart kind of shifted towards students specifically when we went to a camp. And I asked him not just to be a leader or leading from worship, but be actually a cabin leader. Okay. So he fell in love with students. And so Tony was a part, pulled him in to then kind of be a part of our team and leading our bilingual specifically minister, a specific ministry, and then moved him to other places. He's now leading middle school and bilingual at one of our campuses. And then Sante was one of our residents who is now leading at our champions campus, our bilingual ministry. Now, when we're sitting here talking about bilingual, I think it's important to understand that that's that's kind of just a phrase that we use for our Spanish-speaking students. Okay. Um, is that they're bilingual.

SPEAKER_03: 7:17

Services that are in Spanish and English, like the service itself is bilingual, or is it appeal to those that maybe are bilingual? And so how how is it offered?

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

How is it how for us the way that we offer our student ministry is one, we're trying our best just to integrate as much as we can in, but we also understand that the different uh services that are offered for parents, uh, which is in all Spanish. So there's a service that is in all Spanish, yeah, but we have a lot of students who are second-third generation. Okay. Um, meaning that they speak English. Yeah. And they really don't want to go to a Spanish-speaking service.

SPEAKER_03: 7:51

Yeah, that almost feels different than the school experience they may have Monday through Friday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the heritage is there, and maybe there's some language at home.

SPEAKER_02: 7:59

Okay. That's exactly right. And so at the church, during our hour that we're gonna have our on Sunday mornings, we're a Sunday school kind of based church. Come on, yeah. And so uh we realized that that hour we want to offer something for those students, second, third generation, all of those students. And so I needed people that could speak the language for family and people that came in. I I speak zero Spanish, Zach. I mean, I I probably should, yeah, but I don't. Um, but just being able to have a team and people around that that are strategic and and specifically loving all students that way is a big deal. But here's I I I I'm not like I said, I don't speak any Spanish. Okay. Um, but something I noticed early on in my own ministry and then at Champion Forest is I love people. And that transcends the the language. That can transcend a lot of things if they know that you genuinely care.

SPEAKER_03: 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 8:50

And so the way I look at the students that come into Champion Forest is they're my students. Yep. Just like you would if it was anything else. They are they are genuinely mine, and these guys can speak to that even more. Yeah. But I personally, for me, that was a as if I'm gonna be the leader of the student ministry, I had to look at that and say, okay, um, every single student that walks through these doors, they're they're mine. Yeah. And own them that way. Yeah. And that means that I'm even if I can't speak the language, I'm gonna stand there and I'm gonna smile. Yeah, and I'm gonna high-fi. Yeah, and I'm gonna plug them in and I'm gonna be a part of everything that's going on there with them. And so uh hiring specifically and strategically is important for me.

SPEAKER_00: 9:24

But yeah, and to add to that, I feel like from the moment we started, we had it clear that he's a student pastor, he's the guy that we want these students to get to know. Yeah, you know, we were brought in to because we know the language, but we know Justin's heart. We know what what's going on on Wednesdays, what's going on just in all of our student activities, that we don't want them them to miss it. We want them to feel like what we have going on is for them as well. It's not just for English, it's not for Spanish, but like we said, it's just one ministry, once just different languages, and we want them to be a part of everything that we have going on. Yeah, it's been pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01: 9:58

Yeah. Also, I mean, I get to love it. I mean, I grew up first gen, right? I grew up uh in a Spanish home, and mom was like, You speak English at school, you speak Spanish at home. Yeah, right? And everything I was learning was in English. So we're having this conversation where I'm talking to her in English, she's responding in Spanish. Yeah. So when it came to ministry, it just looked completely different. So um, first gen, I we're we're learning um in the culture, and I'm just I'm kind of clashing between like, hey, this is what I'm surrounded with, this is what my friends do. Um, but back at home they celebrate this, so it was really hard. So I I get to really love, love, love, love what I do in uh leading bilingual students and just being able to pour into them and understand them. And one of the things that we always say is it's really not language, it's culture, right? It's culture. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and something some something that I've learned and that I've loved about, like I said, Justin is that Justin obviously doesn't look like them, but a high five doesn't have a Spanish or an English. Come on, yeah. It's a smile. And they even mentioned it today of like students are looking for faces that are looking for them, right? And there's that's not called that that's not language that has nothing to do with it. That's just it's a culture of welcome and hospitality. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it's been really awesome to see our student ministry and our bilingual students just come together. Um, and it's been just so much fun. Dude, that's great.

SPEAKER_03: 11:17

Yeah, say a little more, especially Tony, because it sounds like that's such a personal experience for you. What are some of the conversations or challenges that you would want other youth pastors to know about students that are feeling that way? That maybe like one language is being spoken at school, another language is at home. And so, like heart language, faith language, church language, how how would you encourage someone that maybe doesn't know both languages but cares deeply for those students?

SPEAKER_01: 11:41

Yeah, I feel like one of the things that I've really loved seeing and doing is that you don't have to be an expert, you just have to be interested. Okay. Right? Yeah, um, and I think you have to understand that the fact that these students are walking into a room, it wasn't their decision, right? And they yet they're walking into something completely new.

SPEAKER_03: 12:00

Yeah, parents, grandparents have brought them there.

SPEAKER_01: 12:02

It wasn't their choice. So whatever they left behind, whatever change they're going through, it's not because they wanted it. So we're we're seeing students walk in and feel out of place. What is this? I'm not used to this. And understanding that that's how they're walking into it just completely changes everything, right? And I think it's it's super cool to be able to see students walk in kind of like, okay, what am I getting into? Like nobody looks like me or like, hey, I this is this is so different, but be able to see a smile, yeah, be able to see people that are looking for them, that are excited to see them. Okay. And I feel like that's been such a big thing for us in our student ministry that I've just loved and enjoyed. And we'll throw Justin up on stage and we'll make him speak Spanish. Everybody will laugh and they laugh. It's great. But they know they know Justin, right? And um, I think it just like one of the things is you start off with a high five, then a handshake, then a hug, right? And that's no language, that's nothing to do with it. So I feel like understanding where they're coming from and and just the things that already they're hesitant about walking into and just loving them has been a game changer for us. It's awesome. Um, and also like being able to see somebody that looks like them in everything. Yeah, right. At the time, I was leading worship in Spanish and I was leading in students. So they were walking in and seeing, like, okay, I look like him. Yeah, you know, he's on stage leading.

SPEAKER_03: 13:31

Yeah, and they got to hear me laugh really loud and just hi-fi them and switch it to Spanish, uh, but also see other people that didn't know Spanish do the exact same thing and feels like I think that in whether it's it's an intentional hire or an intentional recruit or an intentional student leader, like I mean, this is the ways in which we we we feel belonging when we see ourselves in others that also are are belonging. Um, I want to ask some of those nuts and bolts questions, though. You talked about leading worship in Spanish. Um, when you do uh fight for, have hold, uh promote. Sorry, I'm trying not to say the word champion too many times here. Um but like the connection, whether it's like a freedom weekend or summer camp stuff, what do the services look like? I mean, obviously, like a lot of the students know English, but Spanish don't like, but there's like heart language thing there. Like a friend of mine calls it the faith language, like like when you pray and you feel God speak, what what language does God speak in or whatever? And so, like, yeah, so Santi, if you want to like like how does that work in services or how do we minister in those ways that you would maybe encourage us to guide us, give us wisdom.

SPEAKER_00: 14:34

Yeah, and and you're saying uh heart language. I I I pray in in Spanish. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to communicate with the Lord and and I and we get that. Um it's something that even with our volunteers, with our leaders that we have, we we try to be intentional with who we're surrounding these students with. Uh that they are able to have conversations, that they're they are able to be uh being led by those who have that same uh gospel heart language that is in our native tongue. Um but something that we we understand is that they're jumping into this this culture, into this this country, and they are in that process of of learning the language. And we we've seen I've seen previously that sometimes when we when we separate and we say, all right, y'all, y'all speaking Spanish, y'all that's your heart language, it can create an us in them. Yeah, yeah. So we we wanted we valued the unity. So it's something that we walked uh constantly in the way we uh divide up the groups and we bring in Spanish.

SPEAKER_03: 15:37

Maybe it's a a moment in a song that we will maybe a chorus in Spanish or a prayer, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:43

Exactly. But it with the end goal of bringing these two cultures together, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 15:48

Uh, which our global God and his his great kingdom, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:53

So it's been sweet to walk in that okay and and seeing uh that unity come about, not just from uh Spanish students uh just joining into the English, but students jumping in with a tambourine and seeing songs of Spanish, even in in our camps, in our in our freedom weekends, our student events, we see that both sides just meeting in the middle.

SPEAKER_02: 16:13

That's great. So Sunday Sundays is where there is that separation, and that's just basically because of when service times happen. It's like service for expansion. That's what it is. Now, some unique things that we do at Champion Forest is all of our teams have bilingual Spanish-speaking people on them. So our entire production team. Okay. Uh they they they start. So at every level, yeah. Every level of our church is that way, so that when it flips from the the main worship center flips from English service at 1045 to a 1230 Spanish service on Champions Campus, right? And so when it does that, same, same room, the same room flips, but you know, one church, two languages. Yep, the production team, the people that are there, and there's just such honor between the staffs and and the way we work together. The neat thing, I think, too, when it comes to even how the dynamics, these guys are on the student team.

SPEAKER_03: 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:58

And so they office and work, we work together.

SPEAKER_03: 17:00

It's not student ministry means student ministry. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 17:02

And so when they whenever we sit at the table to talk through events and planning and things and even putting together family groups or teams for camp, right? We we do our best to mix them. We have your your your no your friend request and who you're gonna be with, yeah, and your cabin groups, yeah, but then trying to mix those where it's not just, oh, here's a whole Spanish-speaking the 9 a.m.

SPEAKER_03: 17:21

service, the 11 a.m. service or whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 17:24

We try our best to do that. And what's really fun is we're able to sit there and talk about hey, how does this fit for a Spanish family? Yeah. Uh a Spanish-speaking family. How does this fit uh with what we're doing? And so uh being really intentional of planning things together, yeah. Uh being intentional of breaking it down. So Sundays are split, Wednesdays are all together. Okay. It's just one student worship service that's there.

SPEAKER_03: 17:44

6 30, it happens.

SPEAKER_02: 17:45

Yeah, it's going down, right? And and so, but on the stage, there are Spanish-speaking students that are leading worship, yeah, that are a part of it. Because this is who you are. That's exactly right. And so our entire student ministry is really blended. Yeah, I don't know how else to say it. Like it is in every way, and we're talking Spanish speaking, but there's every mix you can think of in our student ministry.

SPEAKER_03: 18:07

That brings I got two more questions to ask, and one relates to the families, because again, I think that is something we talk about, the culture, not the language. Um, you know, students may or may not be adjusted, acclimated learning because of where they're at in school, public or private. Um, but for the families that maybe are not as familiar or maybe have a really rich, specific cultural heritage, whatever it might be, what have been some of those conversations, especially for someone who's hearing this and like, man, that's me, that's us. I want to show grace, but I'm unsure. Yeah. What's the things maybe either you have learned along the way or you would coach? Where it's like obviously they have like multifaceted, rich family history, connections, heritage. How do we find ways to honor, bring up, address, or what are some of the things you've learned that you've either done right or wrong to be to be helpful in that way?

SPEAKER_02: 18:53

I'll start with this, and you guys can point it out. I think one of the biggest things is just being curious about their culture. Okay. Like just simply asking, what do you do? I've learned so much about Spanish culture. Yeah. Uh like it's unbelievable the things that I'm learning uh about Christmas Eve when they celebrate Christmas. We celebrate. They celebrate Christmas. So think of this your church has a big uh Christmas Eve service. Yeah. Well, when you're planning a big Christmas Eve service and everybody's gonna be there, we're not gonna be there.

SPEAKER_03: 19:24

They're not showing. Good for you. Five, five, five similar services every hour on the hour.

SPEAKER_01: 19:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 19:32

Because that's it. That's all night. That's right. That's what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02: 19:35

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_03: 19:36

Yeah. I had zebra. No hard feelings. We're not gonna be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:40

And so we as a church, I mean, it's that we had to shift some things. Like, that's okay. That's cool. Good, be with your family. That's what you're going to do. That's how that's what we wanted anyway. That's right. That and then they eat really late a lot of times. So 10 o'clock dinners and whatever. It's awesome. Community feeling.

SPEAKER_03: 19:55

I love a 10 o'clock tamale, man. So we had a church. When I was in Oklahoma City, we had a family that like uh they'd come by the church office always like on the way out or whatever, and be like, if you come back later, we're like, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, 10 p.m.

SPEAKER_01: 20:06

is the seasoning.

SPEAKER_03: 20:08

It takes almost ready. It's almost ready. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:11

Oh, it is so much fun. Zach, the other thing I would just say, man, is just like genuinely loving the people that are around you. And we sit there and talk about staff. The Lord's allowed us to have uh the opportunity to hire a staff. No matter what, pull in people from the different cultures that you are ministering to that are within the shadow of your steeple and have them volunteer with you, yeah, learn from them, ask them, help them to plan with you. Dude, absolutely ask them to be a part of um so that you can. Yeah, is there family things coming up I should be aware of or whatever? What does summer look like?

SPEAKER_03: 20:43

And just finding out, yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_02: 20:44

And then for me, once again, the hiring side of it, I made sure that I had an admin that could speak Spanish. Yeah. Um because that's emails. We would, we would, when I first got there, was we'd have to send the fake the parent email. Yeah. Okay, Spanish person, yeah. Spanish ministry office to be translated into Spanish. Yeah, so when the opportunity arose, I was like, you know what? I need to hire somebody that is Spanish speaking. So when we create a parent email, it's already ready in-house and ready to go. Right. And and somebody that understands so when somebody calls on the phone, how to answer that, how to answer some of those things. So the the strategy that would be a big part for me. But again, because I don't speak Spanish, but I love my Spanish-speaking people. That's awesome. Right. And so that's my heart of it. And these guys are incredible at doing so. So jump in.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Yeah, I feel like with when it comes to families, I mean, understanding that the end goal is for their kids to adjust to our church, right? So it was a lot of conversations between Santi and I, and we were trying to figure out okay, what is the end goal? And we came to the real realization that it wasn't growing our Spanish ministry, it's getting our students to connect with our English students and plug in. So that's the whole church, yeah. That didn't feel like a loss for us. If we had a student that started coming to our bilingual service and then we didn't see because he's sitting in the English service, to us that was a check mark because that's what parents want. So a lot of the times uh what happens is that because we don't know, we think we can't be a part of it or we can't touch it, right? But parents want their kids to adjust, parents want their kids to connect. So they're gonna drop them off. Yeah, they're gonna show up. I mean, we've heard from parents like, hey, we know, because they know that they're coming into a new place, right? And a place that their their kids don't know. So they want them to plug in, they want them to create community. So parents are always willing, right? And I think it's been really cool to see like that is the end goal for them to get adjusted here and and learn the language and love the culture and fall in love with it because that's the end goal. That's it, right? So parents have always been like um very open and very willing when it came to our events. That's why we all we don't plan bilingual events and English events. No, it's we're having this big event. You're invited, we're gonna be in here together. That's awesome. And I think that's been really, really cool.

SPEAKER_00: 23:03

Yeah, like in a practical uh side of it. When we moved to the country, we were part of a Spanish uh church, and we went we were part of a Spanish student ministry. Yeah uh but myself and my sister, we were having a tough time connecting in that that Spanish church and that Spanish uh student ministry. So my parents made the effort and the sacrifice of, you know what, I'm gonna choose to go to an English church where I'm learning still the language just for the sake of my student, my my kid, myself and my sister, to be able to connect. We had some friends there, but they made that sacrifice of saying, you know what, I'll give up my time in church freely because I want you to connect and I want you to encounter Jesus. You know, so at the end of the day, that is that is our hope and our desire, and that's our goal for them to connect and for them to encounter Jesus. You know, that's every conversation with parents.

SPEAKER_03: 23:56

Well, one more question for you, and I think more just a question of like wisdom. Someone's listening, they're excited, they they see the need and they see that this is this is more than I understand, but I love the students that we have, but I'm afraid of messing it up. I'm afraid of offending, of saying the wrong thing, of maybe putting my foot in my mouth or taking a step back. What is the wisdom or encouragement or the like like help help us feel a little more free to fail because there's both grace and goodness for those that would endeavor?

SPEAKER_00: 24:27

Yeah, yeah. I feel like if if the heart's in the right places, the heart posture Okay, you're you're you're going about student ministry with the goal of uh getting to encounter Jesus and connecting with community. If that's your heart posture, everything you do, it's they'll they'll understand. If you make if you mess up and you say, Oh, you're from this country and this is the opposite different country, they'll they'll receive it'll be it's fine. They won't there won't be this this hard feeling in that way.

SPEAKER_01: 24:57

Yeah, I feel like one of the things that we're coming across is that students see like if you're genuine or not. Honestly, they see it a mile away. And um, I think a lot of the times we go into it as like, okay, I just I want you to be that mo that other number. I want I want to bring all your friends in for the wrong reasons of like, okay, I just want this to grow. But I feel like nowadays, students see when you're being real, when you're being honest, right? And that is with a high five or with a smile. And I feel like don't be scared to mess it up.

SPEAKER_04: 25:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 25:28

You know, like have them see you be excited to see them. Yeah. Right. My my high five is gonna mean so much different from Justin's high five, right? It's gonna mean completely different. And um, that's the goal, right? To be able to see them. And one of the things we were talking about this last night, and we were just talking about bilingual student ministry, and it's like it's not where you come from or or what language is. Do you know Jesus or do you not know Jesus? Yeah, and that is it. And I feel like if we approach every single student, um, bilingual student, uh, a new student like that, I feel like we've just we've aimed to the heart. Awesome. Truly. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 26:05

Well, fellas, thank you so much. Uh, we'll drop some emails in the show notes below or folks that have questions. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. Hanging out at Edge 2025. Uh, hopefully we'll see you all back next year. We're gonna be having lots of great both booth conversations, podcast recordings, and breakouts galore. So thank you, fellas. I think it's dinner time. Let's go eat.

SPEAKER_02: 26:24

Yeah, exactly.

unknown: 26:24

All right.