Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

What EVERY Youth Pastor Needs to Know Before Making Changes in Their Ministry

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 257

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Check out our new partnership with Onward: Youth & Young Adult Pastor Cohort https://www.onwardleader.com/the-cohort  *** As youth ministry leaders, we're problem solvers by definition... steering the ship through challenges that range from predictable to completely unexpected. This episode dives deep into how effective student ministry leaders navigate change while bringing their team along for the journey.

In this episode, we will be taking a look at the Innovation Theory and how it relates to changes you make to your youth ministry.  We will also be showcasing the practical strategies for communicating the "why" behind changes, addressing concerns without giving them undue weight, and maintaining your leadership confidence even when facing criticism.

Whether you're considering splitting age groups, starting a student leadership team, discontinuing traditional events, or implementing year-round programming, this episode provides the framework you need to lead change effectively.  Your courage to make necessary changes, even in the face of resistance, is what distinguishes truly effective youth ministry leadership.

📕 Book mentioned in this podcast:
Lead Like it Matters - Craig Groeschel  https://amzn.to/4mMcZDx

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We love hearing from you all and we do our best to provide powerful and insightful youth ministry content on a weekly basis to be that coach and mentor you may not have, but desperately need.
If you have an episode idea, please E-Mail us at MinistryCoachPodcast@gmail.com!

If you have it on your heart to support this ministry, please consider going to our Patreon page at: www.patreon.com/ministrycoach

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You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#087) Youth Pastor Just Hired...What Should You Change About the Existing Youth Ministry?

(#136) How You Can Tell It's Time to Make a Change in Your Youth Ministry


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Speaker 1:

Today we're giving best practices for how to navigate change in your youth ministry.

Speaker 2:

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 is.

Speaker 1:

Kristen Laskola, and today we are talking we're like putting our leadership hat on today and we're going to talk through some ways that you can navigate change within your ministry or your church and how to address problems a little more effectively. So change and problems are like not fun, but neither is leadership all the time right. I always tell my interns and directors leadership isn't fun. It's definitely a journey and the leader's job is to solve problems Like that's sort of. What we're put in our position to do is to steer the ship and to address problems as they come. So, like you know, or when the Bible says, you should not like be surprised at the fiery trials you are under.

Speaker 1:

You know, and I feel like you can just adapt that a hundred percent to it's like do not be surprised by the problems that come knocking on your door every day or in your email inbox or your text messages, like that's what we do, like you are the chief problem solver of your ministry.

Speaker 2:

Is it almost one of those things where, if it's not happening, you're like something must be wrong?

Speaker 1:

I don't think something's wrong, of those things where, if it's not happening, you're like something must be wrong. I don't think something's wrong. I always just let myself enjoy the season, but I tell myself this will not always be the way that it is you know whether somebody you have to let somebody go, or somebody decides to leave, or there's drama with students, or I mean safety issues, like you name it, like I could never have predicted half the problems, more than half, I could never have predicted 90% of the problems you know that we face and the other 10% I was ready for and I prepared and I saw coming.

Speaker 1:

I know how junior hires act on a road trip. I I'm prepared for those problems.

Speaker 2:

But that's where the problem solving comes in, like you know, like having to figure out those 90% where you're like exactly what do I do now?

Speaker 1:

What do I do now? And then the other side like not that change is a problem, but it takes on a lot of the same characteristics of a problem because you have to navigate people through it just like you do a problem. But change can be good. That's. The difference is that sometimes change is positive but not everybody sees it that way.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of years ago I learned something called the innovation theory and I know it so well that I almost couldn't remember what it was called.

Speaker 1:

So the innovation theory and I thought it was really interesting, and it breaks down the percentage of people who get on board with change and people who are slower to adapt. So it says that only two and a half percent of people in general are innovators, people that see the possibilities and are like let's go, we're making a change and they see it. So it's important to stop on how small that percentage is, because just because you see it doesn't mean everybody else does. Maybe you're the kind of leader who is an innovator and you've got ideas and you have vision and you know what to do next and where to go next and how to continually evolve and change and grow and adapt. Well good, that's exciting. We need innovators, but you're one of very like. Two and a half percent of people have the real vision of innovation, which means part of your strategy has to be how can I now bring these people along with me? So 13 and a half percent of people are early adopters where they see something new.

Speaker 2:

Those are probably the people who are excited for the iPhone when it first came out and like whatever the current when it first came out and like whatever the current version is they have like.

Speaker 1:

I remember when it first came out. What was that?

Speaker 2:

Like 2004, maybe something like that.

Speaker 1:

And I remember I wasn't one of the early adopters.

Speaker 2:

I was just like what is this? Like, yeah, why is everyone freaking out? I take more of like a. You try it first and tell me what it's like. And then I'll decide if it's something I want or not, kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

And now everyone's on board, right. So it was like this percentage of people that was psyched and excited and knew this was big. But, according to the innovation theory, only 13.5% of people are those early adopters. And then there's the early majority and those are the people that like, get on board early on but they're not, like they need some convincing, right. And then they're like yeah, that's great, but there's an equal amount of people who are the late majority that'd be me so it's like they will come eventually.

Speaker 1:

They'll come around, but they have questions and they have hesitancies. So the early adopters, like you can imagine those, like we said, those are the people in line at the apple store or wherever it got released.

Speaker 2:

Whatever you're releasing, I want it exactly they're like.

Speaker 1:

I don't need to ask any questions.

Speaker 2:

I'm there and I think that happened too, like there were products where people were just signing up and like getting in line for it's like, what is it?

Speaker 1:

I don't know what I want it right and then the early majority sees the early adopters have it and they're, like I do, like that phone okay I'll go get one, or all they needed was a referral from a friend and that friend was like no, seriously, this thing is going to take off. It's awesome. You should get one of these phones and then the late majority has. I think you and I were like some of the last people of our friend group or our social circle to have a smartphone.

Speaker 2:

I remember I got made fun of for my flip phone forever and then I finally got one I don't in 2000, and 20, 13, 12 I don't remember like I waited a really long time I think, depending on what it is, I'm on one side or the other of the majorities early majority or late majority but not usually anything quicker than that.

Speaker 1:

Well, and there's more.

Speaker 2:

Yes, 16%. My father, here we go.

Speaker 1:

Do you think your dad listens to our podcast?

Speaker 2:

We'll find out.

Speaker 1:

Richard, are you part of the 16% laggers?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So the laggers are? They're a tough crowd and it's only 16%, so it's not that big of a deal. But the laggers are characterized in the sense of no matter what you do they're, they're not going to like it. I don't like it, no matter how many times we talked to your dad about sushi and no, we can find a role that you'll like it's bait.

Speaker 2:

It's bait.

Speaker 1:

It's bait, absolutely not. It's like, well, it's bait, absolutely not. It's like well, wait, but they have things that aren't fish, and they have tofu and they have vegetables. I had it one time in 1963 and I never want to have it again yeah, he is definitely the definition of a lagger, like, no matter what you say, no matter what you do, right, you can have meeting after meeting, after meeting with charts graph, they're not gonna like it.

Speaker 2:

It's like if if laggers had a posture, it's arms crossed yeah, and how many of you youth pastors right now are listening to this and thinking this is my senior pastor. That I work under or is it you? Are you the laggers calling out everybody today?

Speaker 1:

you might be. And so even if you're the best innovator in the world right, you're super charismatic, you've got vision, you've got ideas even the best innovators in the world will always get these percentages, according to the innovation theory. So take that as an encouragement, because this is true across the board, that if you're having trouble like we've gotten emails from youth pastors, youth workers, youth volunteers, who will reach out and say, hey, I've got ideas. It's just I can't get anyone to come with me and everyone's like just so hard, it's like I'm pulling them uphill and it's like nobody will listen to me. And yeah, I mean based on these percentages and numbers that's why it's difficult of how people perceive change and innovation. So think of Jesus, as someone gave me this math once and I'm like that's so funny. It says so take the number of people in your ministry, divide that by 12, and that's how many Judas's you should have and that's how many Judas's you should have in your ministry?

Speaker 2:

That person with 11 kids in their group. They're like, yes, that's probably the one we don't have.

Speaker 1:

Because they're like. I mean, one in 12 people is a Judas, right? So let's look at it this way there's two ways to bring people along with you to a destination. Okay, so number one you can go ahead of them and then invite them to join you I've worked for leaders like that. I've had friends who are leaders like that, that they are the idea people and they are already running up the hill and you better catch up you didn't even realize.

Speaker 1:

They left the building. You're like and they're like hello, I'm over here, come and get me. You're like oh shoot, we're late, you know, and they're just going, and they're going alone and they're going fast, and they invite you to get on board with their ideas. The second way is to take people there with you. This takes longer, this is harder and it actually sometimes costs more money. I'm going to give you a case study for an example. So we are growing at our campus, which is a really exciting thing. We know that we're turning cars away. We're because we have solved the problem. We were turning cars away. Every service, people were leaving, there's nowhere to park and we were running out of seats and all kinds of things, and so it was like OK, we know that there is a problem, we don't have enough space, we don't have enough parking spots, but nobody really knew the size of the problem.

Speaker 1:

And so I said, can I just take this problem? Because if we know the size of the problem, then we can know the size of the solution. So I worked on figuring out exactly the size of our problem how many parking spots do we need, how many seats do we need and then I can work on a realistic solution. So me and my friend Chase were working hard, we figured out all these numbers and so now we had a solution. So here's now the implementation part of the change.

Speaker 1:

So something had to change. We can't just keep turning cars away. Or we didn't want to, I mean I guess we could have. We don't want to, we don't want to tell people our church is full Bye, like how, like awful, is that Right? So we knew exactly our growth percentages, how many parking spots we needed, allowing for, you know, a cushion and everything. And we went over all these statistics and growth theories and I mean we just like hit the ground running on this thing. But now, just because we have the solution doesn't mean problem solved. We have to get people on board with the solution, because him and I can't together, just the two of us, like we solve the parking problem. It's like, well, here's what it's going to take. We're going to need our staff and our volunteers to park offsite, and they're going to have to walk to the church and we have two offsite locations that are going to work size wise. But we're not just going to send them an email and be like we have a solution for you to park elsewhere.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

So what it really came down to is we had this huge event and we themed it, all fun and it was a great team night. And then we started telling them about the problem and I mean, it was actually a really good problem to have and we were showing them our graphs and they probably didn't care, but we wanted to show them like, hey, we've thought long and hard about this and if we are correct on the future and these numbers and where all this is going, we have a solution and here's how we want you to be a part of it. And then you know the heart behind that is. You know if God is continuing to bring us people and they're turned away simply due to a parking spot, like not on our watch.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you could agree. And so it took time, it took money, it took all these things to bring. We started with just our volunteers, which is like 100, 200, 300 people alone. You know I 300 people alone. I just said three numbers. I don't know how many volunteers we have at our church. I think it's like 300.

Speaker 2:

Over three services.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that's another thing to bring up it wasn't so much that capacity was full in the church, parking was full.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we've split like we've done. We're not split, but we went from one service a long time ago to two services, to three services. So adding cause some people might think, just add another service. You know, breakup it's like. Well, that wasn't the problem. The problem was we can fit more people in the building fit cars yeah. And so that's kind of where this, your solution, came from.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we spent this whole night doing all this thing. We all wore baseball jerseys or whatever, and it was all these prizes and games, team theme. Yeah, and I'll never forget. At the end of it, one of our volunteers came up to us and goes he's like so you guys did this whole thing just to ask me to park at rite aid and we're like yes. So will you, and he's like oh, all you had to do was ask. But because?

Speaker 1:

he's the 13.5% he is the kind of person that is an early adopter and he's like, oh, I'm sold, I love the church, I love the vision. You don't need to like, you know, convince me. I'm like, yeah, I would have started last week. Somebody else might be like, and I don't know who, nobody came up and said any of this.

Speaker 1:

But you know, if these percentages are right, there are people with the hesitancy of, like I'm already serving at this church, I'm already volunteering. Now you want me to park far away. Like, oh, is there anything else I can do for you? I have my kids with me. So what do we? I now I have to walk all them from Rite Aid or whatever it might be. So you know there's. You just have to plan, whenever you're implementing change, to hit people at all those different percentages and bring them along with you. Yes, it would have been quicker to just say, hey, we need parking.

Speaker 1:

Please park at Rite Aid. It could come across as like a memo or a policy or something like that. You could have even added a little heart behind it to say we really are excited to welcome new families to our church, please do this extra service. And blah, blah, blah. You still could have done it that way. However, I don't think you could have hit every like. There's no face-to-face, there's no Q&A, there's no like. It's more of this gentle, holistic approach of like.

Speaker 1:

Let's bring the family in on the thinking and don't be afraid to let people in a little peek behind the curtain to see, like why I'm making the decisions. I am because then it gives you a little more buy-in. And some people are probably bored to death by our numbers and statistics, but I wanted them to see we're not taking this lightly. We're not just willy-nilly saying I don't think we have enough spots. Can you park it right? It's like no, I know exactly how many spots we need and I know how many people were expected to grow this year and I know that we can fit them in if we work together. Because, man, it breaks our heart and I know it breaks your heart to turn someone away from church. A new family right ah, killer.

Speaker 1:

And so like when we can kind of like all get our head in that same huddle and we're all thinking now together. I think it like now guess, guess what? They're all parking where they need to park and we have plenty of of parking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We have not had since we've launched this. We have not had to turn one car away, not even close, and yeah, it like before, it was every single service, every single weekend, like sorry, we're out of parking every time. So it worked and people are like I don't mind I don't mind, I don't mind.

Speaker 2:

And you said, you, that you started with volunteers.

Speaker 1:

You didn't start with volunteers, you started with staff, staff parks, off-site, right yeah, so we started with only staff parking off-site, you're right, and then volunteers we didn't want to, but so what we did is we staff parked further away.

Speaker 1:

So we gave the volunteers where staff was parking, and then staff parked further away and then gave volunteers the closer of the off site. So it was like, hey, staff will make the larger sacrifice, like we had to, like, cross a signal and all of that which we didn't mind. You know, I even counted the official amount of steps that it took to go from one to the other call me weird, yeah, because I wanted them to know. It's really not that far what is that number?

Speaker 2:

I can't remember now. 483 steps. No, I'm just making that up. Oh, I was like, wow, you have a really good memory.

Speaker 1:

So then, let's talk about this 16%, these laggers, your father we can't leave him behind? We can't. So what do we do with them? We give them our, our heart, we give them our concern and we invite them along always. And the important thing is the 16%, the laggers, the ones who are like I don't like it. You've got to hear them, you've got to listen to them. Most of them just want to be heard, but, as the leader, you don't give them undue weight because they can derail the whole.

Speaker 2:

Thing.

Speaker 1:

You know. So it's like I hear you. I understand I'm going to give you the respect of a conversation, but what leaders can tend to do is freak out about a very loud negative person and then they think the plan sucks, nobody likes it. What are we going to do? And they start to panic because somebody's really upset. You have to keep percentages in mind and when you know it's the right thing, you keep pushing forward. Do we want them to come along? Absolutely? Is there a potential to lose someone? Yes, and I think that's where a leader has to be brave and to know this change might make you so upset that you leave. I can't do anything about that.

Speaker 1:

I know this is the right decision right when you know this is the right move. Now, if you have a majority very wise people in your life saying whoa, whoa, whoa, like you want to listen to that, but in the same breath, you always need to expect a lagger. So a lagger is not a signal that no, no, no, no, don't do this. It's like, well, yeah, you're one of the 16%.

Speaker 2:

Of course, that would be or you're one of those 16%. Get on board or get out of here.

Speaker 2:

Or you could look at it as like the one in 12, like the judas thing for all you judases um so but they're, those are usually like you'll hear from them the most because because they're so like impacted or against the change I think all the other categories will probably be like yeah, cool, sounds good yeah and it's the lagger that'll be like oh, I don't know. You know, and that's right. Sometimes that's the voice you hear, and then it can really make you second guess yeah, and I mean innovation is hard.

Speaker 1:

leading through change is hard like it's almost like when you have an idea every like our senior pastor said once, like every tip of the sword is pointed at you, you know like where it's like like if you of the sword is pointed at you. You know like where it's like like if you're the one who's like leading it. Like I know this way, come on and people are kind of like I don't know, you know and and that's a hard position to be. And that's why another level of why leadership is hard. So a little scripture encouragement for you is hard. So a little scripture encouragement for you.

Speaker 1:

Ecclesiastes 721 says do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you, and I love that. Not everything is meant for your ears, not everything is meant for you to take to heart. I heard a pastor recently give a really great example of this. He's like, imagine like I'm driving home from your house and my wife and I are talking and we're like, oh, like, did you see like some other design stuff in the house? Like ah, yeah, I didn't love that. And he goes the way we meant. It is like we love design and it wasn't our taste moving on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but you'd take it really personally. But if you were to, hear exactly.

Speaker 1:

if you were to hear it, you probably would never talk to me again and you would just be like, how could he? And you would be so hurt, but the level of weight that I meant it was just kind of like I love them. I had a blast man. Their color palette was off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, not my, not my choice, but good for them. So and that's, I think, a lot of wisdom in Ecclesiastes to say like you can't like pine over every little word and phrase and opinion and whatever like, as a leader, sometimes you need to rise above that and just kind of be like I'm not going to please everyone, everyone. Some of you will or won't get that, get it. You know. You don't have to announce that some of you will get this, some of you won't, but you just know laggers in your heart like this is all right, like clockwork, in three, two, one, where's the person who's gonna have a problem?

Speaker 1:

and again, you give them your heart, you talk, you listen, you hear them out, try to qualm their fears or whatever Qualm, qualm their fears, qualm.

Speaker 2:

Calm. Do you have any qualms with calming their fears?

Speaker 1:

It's 946 and I just cleaned up a fountain of puke in the bathroom from our kid.

Speaker 2:

I am tired.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for witnessing it.

Speaker 2:

I was on my way to clean it up and throwing a fifth, and you were kind enough to take one for the team. Why can't kids aim and hit the toilet bowl when they throw up? It's a topic for another day. Um, why don't you bring this home? What is something like not the barf? Why don't?

Speaker 1:

you wrap this up, why don't you?

Speaker 2:

wrap this up, land the plane here, so, like in the in context. I know everyone probably has their own. You know what they're thinking of in regards to this, but give us some examples of what this might look like in youth ministry yeah.

Speaker 1:

so like it might look like you wanting to start a student leadership team and you think people saying we don't have enough kids to do it. It's like like okay, well, you got to start somewhere. I think a big one could be splitting middle school and high school. I think a lot of youth pastors deep down know that's the best move, but they're really afraid of the crowd. The crowd isn't always correct, so you can't give undue weight to them. Isn't always correct, so you can't give undue weight to them. So if you know it's the right move deep down, you go for it.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you're going to get rid of an event like that you just don't think is serving your youth ministry anymore. You don't really see it's not serving your purpose. You know, sometimes people get really attached to a certain tradition. But you know, craig Groeschel, if you want to read a great simple book, lead Like it Matters, and he talks about this whole idea of focus on the things that are the most important and don't get sidetracked by all this ministry fluff that you could be doing. Just pick the things you do really well, that have a big impact, and just focus there. Don't spread your net too wide. So is there an event? I got rid of an event last spring that we had done for years and years and years because it wasn't really producing the fruit that I thought it would and it got really crowded with Easter and small group night out and I didn't want to take those away. So I took the event away and guess what?

Speaker 1:

Nobody really seemed to care or notice, which told me that I made the right decision. So it could be a lot of things like that.

Speaker 2:

If you're not meeting during summer and you make want to make the decision to continue meeting through the summer that can be a big pushback on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Even though it is the right decision to make.

Speaker 1:

So Henry Nowen said don't give your worth to the grade givers of the world. And we can kind of wrap up there with that encouragement of everyone's going to try to grave you as a leader, as a pastor, as a youth worker, whatever your title is. And we can so often get into a performative mindset and we give our worth away to the people who are grading us. But we need to be careful of how much. I mean. On what authority are they grading us? You know, maybe great authority, but there's always going to be an opinion, there's always going to be somebody who thinks they could have done it better, that you did it wrong. But you know, that's why it takes courage to be a leader and to do what you know is the right thing.

Speaker 2:

Next, yeah, strong, all right, let's do what you know is the right thing. Next, yeah, strong, all right, let's do a community comment of the day. This comes from natasha engman, who says love the tour. This was again from the youth room tour episode. Love the tour and how helpful it was to see more of how you run your youth program. Cool, yeah, if you guys haven't checked that out, make sure you do. It was a full tour for your youth night from people love that episode, including natasha outside of this room that we normally film in.

Speaker 2:

It was in in the world, out in the world in the church um, just being able to see kind of like the full breakdown of the night from start to finish.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, thanks, natasha.

Speaker 2:

Appreciate you for the comment and thank you guys for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Today, we're talking about the best practices when emailing your parents of your youth the parents.

Speaker 2:

Today, we're talking about the best youth night that you guys happen to do.