Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

Youth Ministry Room Set Up & Decorating Ideas - Youth Room Remodel!

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 242

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Want to work with us to grow a healthy, thriving youth ministry? Check out GrowYourYouthMinistry.com *** Are you looking to re-do your youth room to make it more magnetic and engaging for your students?  Today, we will be taking you through a tour of our newly remodeled youth ministry room at church.  This episode is full of intentional design ideas, but also it shows how we schedule our weekend services to promote growth and provide a welcoming environment that speaks directly to the energy of our students.

Whether you're revamping your youth space or starting from scratch, this episode delivers actionable ideas that will transform how students experience your student ministry from the moment they walk through the door. Be sure to subscribe for more practical ministry insights that will help you create a youth ministry where students don't just attend—they belong.

If you want to watch the full tour of our youth room, check it out on YouTube here:

SHOPPING LIST:

  • Check-in Station: https://www.rockrms.com/
  • Mailbox: https://amzn.to/43gjQwF
  • Piggy Bank/Box for Compassion Intl Donations: https://amzn.to/3ZefnZZ
  • Husky Tool Chest: https://amzn.to/4mj7SuU
  • Door "Donut": https://amzn.to/4j4zTDB
  • Two Way Radios: https://amzn.to/4kdMxRE
  • Nintendo Switch: https://amzn.to/43vS7Jy
  • Countdown Timer for Camp: https://amzn.to/42X6dDG
  • Silent Basketball: https://amzn.to/43gn6bn
  • Anomia: https://amzn.to/4kk6BBY
  • Apples to Apples: https://amzn.to/4kcZmvq
  • Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza: https://amzn.to/4kfaQ2h
  • Coloring Books: https://amzn.to/3YNH4c9
  • Folding Chairs: https://amzn.to/4k5YM35
  • Neon Signs: https://amzn.to/3YOtqWe
  • Market Lights: https://amzn.to/43lCseM
  • Flat Screen TVs: https://amzn.to/42X5bri
  • Water Cooler: https://amzn.to/3Zeitxe
  • Storage Bin: https://amzn.to/4j0ScJN

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You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#121) FREE TIME YOUTH MINISTRY GAMES - 6 Pre-Service Games Activities

(BONUS) Youth Ministry Check in Systems - Simple Processes that Work!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we bring you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast-track the growth and health of your youth ministry. My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and today we're going to do a full tour of Kristen's youth room, so let's check it out.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So the first thing students are going to do when they come in the room hopefully we do have to remind them is they're going to stop here at our check-in station. So you'll see, we have a little flat screen computer and what students are going to do is put in their code that is going to mark them as present. It's connected to a database system that our church uses, called Rock. It is so good. If you do not have a church database system, maybe talk to your senior pastor and throw out Rock as an idea, because it is a game changer. So students come here, they check in. If you don't have digital check-in like this, I would at least have some kind of sign-in sheet or an Excel sheet at the very least. Or students are being marked present. Maybe they fill out an attendance card. Basically, you need to know who is here every single week. But then it gets a little fun, and this is what's enticing them to fill out their or do their online registration is they fill out one of these little tickets and they just write their name on it and they put it in this bucket, and we call this the lottery. Okay, so they just write their name and they put it in the bucket and we use this during service, where we put all the names in here, we pull out one or two winners and those people get a piece of candy. We make a whole thing about it. So that is check-in. And then the second thing kids are going to maybe do is they're going to come over here to our info table. So the info table, the fun draw to it, like everything we want students to visit, we try to make a fun draw. So the fun draw to filling out your attendance is the lottery, and the draw here is the would you rather? So every week we write a would you rather question? So this one says it's a big whiteboard and we leave out some dry erase markers and people write their name under the one they choose. So would you rather never leave your hometown, or have to leave tomorrow and never come back, and so kids will write their name under the one that they choose and it gets them here at the info table. And so what we have here is a couple of things.

Speaker 2:

Number one this has been a game changer for me. This is a mailbox that I just got at like a hardware store, but it has a lock, and so you can't. You can only put things in, you can't take things out. So, for example, when kids are trying to turn in permission slips or checks for payment on something, here's what they would do. They would always just hand it to me and then they would go do their thing. Hold my stuff, mommy. Yeah, exactly, and I'm like I don't know where to put it. And then I would set things down and then I'd forget where it was and then people would say where's my check? It never got cash. And I'm like, yeah, because someone handed it to me and I didn't know what to do with it. So now, anytime students have something to turn in, I say, go put it in the mailbox. And then we check this once a week and we put things where they need to go.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that we have here is an event calendar, so it is double-sided. This was for spring, march, april and May on the back and it has all of our events on there. Mostly I give these to parents, especially new parents that come in the room, because it has all my information down here, like my cell phone number, my email address, so if they have any questions about the ministry, they can get in touch with me right away. The other cool thing on the info table that I love is this so this is a little piggy bank with our Compassion International kid from Uganda and we put all her information here and then we encourage the kids to give their tithes and offerings in here.

Speaker 2:

But they get to see exactly who it's going to and in fact, if you sponsor Compassion International Kid, you know that you get lots of letters. So I always put her most recent letter up here so the kids can read it and know who they're giving to and that it's a real person and all of that. So the other thing we have up here is our info cards. So this is for a brand new student who is not in our database, so that this student probably couldn't check in. They're brand new and they fill this out and then they put it here in the mailbox and then we input them into our system so that they'll be able to check in the next time and then their parents will get our emails. They'll be recognized by our church as existing. If your church again doesn't have a system for that, maybe shop around for something.

Speaker 1:

So this is like a super heavy duty table. Where did you get it and why does it need to be an X tool?

Speaker 2:

chest or something. So someone gifted this to me. They said, do you want this tool chest? And I was like no. And then I was like, wait, yes, and the reason I love using a tool chest for my info table is because it has drawers so I keep all of my candy in here. This is what we give away for prizes. That's's not locked up Well, it normally is, but for the video it's not. And then just some extra decor, some leader bio boards. You can keep your extra flyers in here, extra tickets. It's just pretty cool to have something that locks and with drawers, so that you can put the flyers away or keep extra in there.

Speaker 1:

You didn't even talk about the wiener dog.

Speaker 2:

And this is what you're getting into when you come into this room. A student gave this to me and I'm like yeah, we just want to make it very clear. This is what we're about. This is who we are. There's one of my shirt, too.

Speaker 1:

There's a whole lot in this room, so you're going to catch on to the theme really quick. So this was. You did a redo of your room fairly recently.

Speaker 2:

Fairly. Recently we repainted, re-graphic, redesigned the room. You will notice it is pink. It is very, very, very, very, very pink. But it has been a hit. Everybody loves it. It's been so much fun. Oh, before we get into the rest of the room, let me show you something about the door. So, for security reasons, we have these things called donuts that's what we call them. They're just, they almost look like mouth guards.

Speaker 1:

What's the actual term for them? Do you know? I don't know Door guards.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and so what we do is we put them in like this you just put it on the door and then you lock the door and then you leave the door like this so that people can come and go without getting locked out. But in the case of an emergency it's actually really great because the door's already locked. I don't have to go find my keys and go out in the hallway and fumble with my keys and try to make sure the door is locked, but it's already locked and then if there's an emergency and we're in like a lockdown situation, you just pull the donut out and shut the door and voila so it's locked from the outside, but not from the inside yes, another security feature that I would highly recommend, if your room has windows, is shutters that are able to close, because if there is ever an intruder, if they cannot see in a room and they can't open a door, they move on.

Speaker 2:

That's what studies show that intruders move on if they can't see into a room and they don't know for sure that anybody's in there. So I hate that we even have to bring that up, but that's where we're at, okay. So then what a student would probably do is come over here to this table and you will notice it is empty. It's because we have mice sometimes. So on Saturday night service, we put cookies out. On Sunday morning service yes, for the mice, for the church mice we put donuts out. So the kids always know they can come and have a treat and then they're going to find something to do, and there's a few different things they could do, and I will show you that. So we have two TVs, we have seats available and video games going on both of them. So our kids love Mario Kart, super Smash. I think we have one other game on there, I don't remember what it's called.

Speaker 1:

Zelda over there, I think.

Speaker 2:

Really.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't think so. Maybe you guys lost it.

Speaker 2:

I don't know who knows. Mostly they just play Mario Kart or Super Smash. So we have two flat screen TVs with the switch going, so some kids will stop and do that, and then this is actually the most popular thing we do. This is our ultimate four square. So we've done a video on how to play ultimate four square. I'm not going to go over the instructions right now, but we've just permanently painted it on the floor and we repaint it probably once a year, every 18 months or something. But this is where, like the active kids go. The other place they are going to go is, you'll notice, in the donut is a hoop, and let me tell you we can link this on Amazon. This ball was a game changer. You're welcome. Jeff suggested it. It makes no noise because I was going crazy and it's soft. So I've gotten a few concussions in this room because I keep getting hit in the head with the ball, and so the kids do. You think I'm going to make it? I do not. Okay, thank you, you're right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So too many people. When you had a regular basketball, it was flying off of that rim and people sitting over here just standing and just innocent bystanders were getting pelted in the head with a basketball yes, Myself included and so I said why don't you move to one of the soft foam basketballs? They're amazing and, yeah, we'll link that in the description below. It was like like an indoor basketball.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I give it a 10 out of 10. So kids are playing basketball, kids are playing four square, kids are playing video games. And then if you're, if you're more of a chill guy, you'll come over here and you'll say, why is there a broken cup in this basket? And I'll say, I don't know these people are slobs Because middle school. Yes, so what we do? I thought people would be interested in this. They are not, so I might just take this home.

Speaker 1:

Life Magazine from 1952.

Speaker 2:

Bible. Hello, is fascinating, all the biblical sites in Israel. I mean, come on, so I just put some games out. We have, you know, a few little board games, and then cards.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I found about 40 cards lying around and now find the rest of them.

Speaker 2:

Do not recommend cards. And then I put out some coloring books if people want to color, but most of the time this is where this happens.

Speaker 1:

This is just this is this Place to be on your phone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's all they do here really. Actually, we have been playing more games. It's been fun. So that is basically what we do before service and then, once service starts, you'll see we have chairs that match the room, which I love these chairs. So if you're in student ministries, I would highly recommend very durable metal chairs no cushion, nothing that can stain, nothing that, like hot chocolate, will absorb, that Dr Pepper will absorb. It's just. These are industrial, junior high proof chairs and they come in so many colors so you can make them match your room.

Speaker 1:

It's also nice that they are foldable chairs so you can, if you need to use the space in your room, fold them up and put them on the side. Yes, I mean they stack. You can, if you need to use the space in your room, fold them up and put them on the side. I mean they stack, you know, or they don't stack, they fold and just get out of the way. So much nicer and neater than just big bulky chairs. But if you have the space, you're set. But it's just a good feature to have too, I think.

Speaker 2:

Yep, normally, I don't know why the girls sit on the left, the boys sit on the right. Yep, normally, I don't know why the girls sit on the left, the boys sit on the right. And then we have our stage. So this is where we do announcements, this is where the worship leader comes up and leads worship and this is where we do the message. You'll notice, above the stage, we have market lights hanging. We have one, two, three, four, five, six strands of market lights. How many bulbs? Count the bulbs? And the reason I wanted to show you that is because it's going to. Is it going to?

Speaker 1:

mess you up if I turn this off. No, it might mess the camera up. It won't mess me up.

Speaker 2:

So this is more of our vibe for worship. So for worship we like to turn off the lights and then just keep the market lights on. A lot of you are in rooms that are like the lights are either on or the lights are off. Do not recommend You've got to create. Have the opportunity to create a little bit more of ambiance when needed, and I think market lights are perfect for that.

Speaker 1:

You have stage lights too. Do you guys ever use those?

Speaker 2:

Uh, we do have stage lights and, yes, we do use them for worship.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to turn them on right now, cause I don't know how, but um, so when worship is going and you have those two flat screen TVs, uh, on each side of the stage, are you showing lyrics or what's being shown on those?

Speaker 2:

Do you want me to show you?

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so this is what we have rolling. We have footage from past camps and past events that are always rolling prior to service. This is our pre-service stuff. So this is footage from winter camp and then we have footage from summer camp, um, from different competition series we've done, and it just gives kids something to do and watch, like I mean, and it gets like them excited about upcoming events, or maybe they're like I want to go to summer camp, but what does it look like? I don't know, and they can just sit there and watch that and then for well, yeah, so then for worship, we, this is what it would look like. So we do a motion background with the lyrics and the worship leader would get up there and, yeah, we choose to choose something that's kind of fun junior high motion background. Anyways, that's that. All right, I will turn the lights back on.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, and do you want to talk about the sound booth? Yeah, do you know enough about the sound booth?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I operate it all the time. Okay, so this is our sound booth and this is where all the sound booth stuff happens.

Speaker 1:

All the sound boothing occurs in this room.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm not going to explain every piece of equipment, but we have a sound board, we have a floor board in here.

Speaker 1:

I think you've said all we need to hear An amp.

Speaker 2:

Whatever you guys use, what? Yeah, so we put all of our slides in pro presenter and these are great. So this is the pre-show and this has all of the videos that I was talking about of the events. So we would be playing these as students come in and then we put up the countdown, meaning you have five minutes to go get hot chocolate, fill out your attendance card, whatever you're doing, and then our logo goes up. Oh there, it is Beautiful.

Speaker 2:

And then we come down here to announcements, so we always start with a funny video. Then we do down here to announcements, so we always start with a funny video. Then we do the lottery and that was the one I told you, where we pick a name out of the hat or out of the bucket, and then we have our announcements Youth group coming up, camp coming up and then we always do donate to Joy. We give her a shout out and then we get into game time. This weekend we played Stop the Bus Pretty sweet graphic. And then we get into game time. This weekend we played Stop the Bus Pretty sweet graphic. And then we do a worship transition video and it has sound. But do you want the sound? No, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

I like this, though no food or drink in or on the tech booth. We say on because they put it here on the rim and then the ball will hit it and it goes splash.

Speaker 2:

So if this is a cup of coffee and then the basketball, comes.

Speaker 1:

Say it another six ways so I can figure out what you mean. Okay, what's over here? So, for example, if I had a cup of water Moving on, you have a bunch of leaderboards. Explain these real quick. Okay, so or am I jumping ahead?

Speaker 2:

These nope, these are all of our student leadership kids. So we mostly do bio boards just for our adult small group leaders on the week on Tuesday nights. But up in our room these are all the kids who signed up to be on our student leadership like student discipleship team called SOS, so like they have their picture here and then we ask them these questions that they fill out. We put it up on the sound booth and people come by and read it and look at it. So what's your name? What's one food you can't say no to? What's your favorite movie? If you could travel anywhere, where would it be? Your dream job when you grow up is what?

Speaker 2:

My favorite part of chaos that's our youth group is what most of them say worship. My sos job is the disney character I identify most with. Is what? And my favorite app? This is kind of a fun way to platform the student leaders and kind of give them a shout out on a regular basis.

Speaker 2:

And then let's talk about the walls, what we have on the walls, because any space that you're in really has to scream junior high or really has to scream high school. Whatever age you work with, make sure that people come in and they go. Oh, I know exactly who this room is meant for. It should not be boring. If you work with junior hires, your room should be matching their energy and their vibe.

Speaker 2:

So let's look at the walls, because they were all very intentional. Well, I don't know if you saw the sign behind our sound booth we have a neon sign that says chaos with because that's our youth group name and the border is all things we're known for donuts, pizza, soda, whitewater rafting and dachshunds on skateboards. So that pretty much sums up our vibe. And then you come over to this wall and we have one of my favorite parts of the room, which is our whitewater countdown clock. So Whitewater is our big summer camp and currently 58 days, 15 hours, 11 minutes and 55 seconds until we leave, and then we reset it when we get back every year. But this we had our graphics department build the sign around the exact measurements of this countdown clock.

Speaker 1:

So your room used to be like blue and green and gray or just blue and green, uh, kind of just blue and green. Did they redo that sign to match the colors? Oh, I thought it was the same sign. Nope, yeah, they added the pink.

Speaker 2:

And then we have a couple of pictures from whitewater up on the walls, um, just on gator board. I don't know if you guys ever use Gator board, but when you have pictures printed on it it is so cheap Well, I mean, relatively speaking, so cheap, very cheap way to do pictures. So this is our picture collage. So we pick, like our nine favorite pictures of whitewater and you can see they're edited so that the colors all match. You know, shout out to caleb for that.

Speaker 1:

he did a great job editing it so, and these are all about 18 inches by 18 squares, I think so yeah so, and they're set up in a collage of three, three rows of three but are those two feet? I can't tell, I don't know. They're and they're set up in a collage of three, three rows of three, but are those two feet? I can't tell, I don't know, they're big they're big.

Speaker 2:

And then over here we got these giant stickers that are vinyl. One of them is a giant piece of pizza. One of them says chaos, junior high, which is our logo and our name. One of them is a giant donut around our basketball hoop, and one of them says Chaos, junior High, which is our logo and our name. One of them is a giant donut around our basketball hoop. And one of them is a bottle of soda, because students bleed soda and that's all they drink.

Speaker 2:

So we just tried to say what makes junior hires junior hires, and the pink was a risk. I will give you that. However, I think it turned out so fun, so good. It doesn't to me doesn't look tacky. Maybe you have a different opinion, but I think it just looks really energetic and that was what we were going for. Like, we want this room to scream energy, because that is who our customers are. They are the most energetic people probably in the whole church and they're fun and they're bubbly and they're exciting, and so we wanted the room to match who they are.

Speaker 2:

Another cool thing is I love having these storage cupboards, so we keep stuff that we use regularly in here. And then one thing I keep this one locked because we actually have a Bible book store. So every week if a kid brings their Bible to church then they can spend their Bible books, which we give them at the chaos store. So I have to keep it locked up because you know, can't trust the junior hire, sorry. So we have these bins and it says $3, but that doesn't mean real money, that just means chaos bucks. So three chaos bucks can get you a full size candy or some chips or a soda, and then for a little more we have a $5 bin and we have these tech decks that they like and some fun bright colored sunglasses. And then in the other 10, oh, not the other, just in the $10 one we have these little squash mellow key chains. They really love these. They give them as gifts Some slime packets.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's risky.

Speaker 2:

These are not very popular, so I don't know. These are those little pop pops. What are you calling?

Speaker 1:

Those little pop it, things Pop it.

Speaker 2:

Some merch like a shirt, and then these are pretty cool. There's a place around where we live called the habit, and they gave us a bunch of certificates of achievement. So if they get 10 chaos bucks, I fill this out for them and they can actually take this to the habit, which is a fast food like burger place, and they can get a free kid's meal. So that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

So that is kind of those things where it's. I think we've said this a million times, but all it takes is you asking and the worst that can happen is a restaurant or somebody just saying no, yeah, you know it was like, would you guys be able to donate 10, you know whatever to our youth ministry and give them the reason behind it and stuff, and they say yes, or no, and a lot of times they're willing to help out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's worth a try. So I actually don't know how we got those, they just kind of showed up one day, but they're pretty cool. And then another thing we like to have here. This is kind of like extra, but our pastor got really sick of junior hires leaving the room every five minutes to get a drink of water. So we actually have a water station in our room for students. We leave it here and, trust me, the cups are the most annoying thing in the world because they do this all service, yeah, and then you have to take them away do you guys have a like subscription to your or however that works for?

Speaker 2:

your water or that you do yeah, okay, so they come in and they replace it. Huh they will come in and replace it, or they just drop off they just drop it off and then we put it back on the thing um. Another thing that I love having in the room is a lost and found, so I got this big plastic chest it's like an outdoor pool floaty.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, cushion, you know, storage bin, I don't know where this came from.

Speaker 2:

I just things appear and I make use of them. So this is awesome because it's big and look, whose sleeping bag is this? I don't know, but I don't have to go find out, I can just put it in here and then I can tell everyone hey, make sure you check the lost and found, and then if I've had it too long, I just donate it. But the thing that was driving me crazy and maybe you have this problem too is that I was constantly having sweatshirts, water bottles, pillows, just in my youth room and it just looked like someone's closet threw up and I'm like what am I supposed to do with this stuff? I don't want to throw it away, but it's just such a mess. So getting this permanent lost and found has been so convenient and it helps keep our room as tidy as possible. It's not always clean in here, let me tell you. It can get pretty messy. So I'll show you the outside of our room too, because we've been doing some work on that and we kind of wanted people to know who we were before they even walked in the room to get kind of excited about junior high.

Speaker 2:

So this is our main hallway and you'll notice that we carried out the theme onto this huge wall. We didn't know what to do with this wall. But then when we painted the room pink and we went with the like wiener dog motif and all of that, our graphics department came up with this three dachshunds on skateboards huge thing. And then we have these surfboard signs above our door that say who we are chaos, junior high and then the logo on that one. So we make sure from the outside people know who we are. We have this decal on the window that says Chaos, junior High. And then on the back wall we have an arrow going high school to the right and junior high to the left.

Speaker 2:

So the room I just showed you and that we just toured together. Keep in mind, this room is only for my weekend services, so Saturday night service and Sunday our two Sunday morning services. We have our youth group on Tuesday nights and the way we use space is completely different on Tuesday night. This just functions as a small group room on Tuesday nights and we actually utilize the entire church for our Tuesday night youth group program. So we'll probably do an episode of that in the future to show you all the different elements of a Tuesday night big youth group party. This is simply for weekend services, but thank you guys so much for watching. I hope it was helpful and we'll see you next time.