Beyond the Event: A Youth Ministry Podcast
Bringing together influential voices from the CIY community to walk alongside you in your journey to maintain momentum between the mountaintop experiences of youth ministry.
Beyond the Event: A Youth Ministry Podcast
BTE4.09 Resourcing Decisions: Part 1 with Jayson French
Mailbag questions or topic suggestions? Text us!
Join us as we celebrate a major milestone in our journey—our 50th episode of Beyond the Event!
With CIY President Jayson French, we reflect on the last 50 episodes of helping you maintain momentum between the mountaintops. We're also diving into the core of what makes CIY (and youth ministry) thrive: a vibrant organizational culture. Continuous learning and self-education take center stage as we discuss the fine art of choosing resources that truly resonate with your leadership style.
Beyond just knowledge, we talk about creating environments where everyone can flourish, driven by the belief that leadership is about enabling others to reach their full potential. From managing large youth groups to empowering adult leaders, we share strategies that ensure everyone is engaged and thriving.
In a lighter moment, we unwrap a mailbag filled with entertaining tales, including a humorous hunting story with Jayson's daughter. But the cornerstone of our conversation is a discussion around the aging pastoral workforce and the pressing need for strategic mentorship. CIY is launching the Follow Through initiative to help students take the right next steps if they feel God is calling them into vocational ministry.
Be sure to check out the new video version of this podcast on YouTube!
Want to connect with us? Here's how!
- www.ciy.com
- youtube.com/christinyouth
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- CIY Community Facebook Group
- Email us at podcast@ciy.com
Hi, I'm Brad Warren and this is Beyond the Event, a youth ministry podcast presented by Christ in Youth, where we help you maintain momentum between the mountaintops. Jason French is here today to celebrate our 50th episode. Be here, man. 50? Can you? You're going to put like noise in there, right, yeah, just pretend that there's a fanfare Beep, beep, beep, beep. Probably not that. Okay, probably not that. Okay. 50 episodes that's kind of nuts, can't believe it. Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you're listening to this, do you have a favorite episode? Uh, I have some favorites.
Speaker 1:Give me a favorite, not the favorite just so one of my favorites that like is understated that I don't think enough people listen to and I don't think enough people engaged with because of when we posted it, um which we were talking about this a little bit earlier. There are times in the year where it's like there's not as much is. We did an episode with, uh, jeremy stevenson from christ Christ Church in Jacksonville about like student leadership and ministry and he talked a lot about like sacrificing perfection for like getting students involved. Like hey, if you're going to have an eighth grade guy run lights, they're going to miss some cues.
Speaker 3:You know I'm passionate about that.
Speaker 1:That's still better, you know. So that was a great episode Engagement over excellence man.
Speaker 2:Yes, engagement over excellence. What's one that you look at and go like you blame yourself, not the person interviewed, like man that one don't. Don't go back and listen to that one.
Speaker 1:I mean, all of the early ones were like it's tough for me to go back and listen to because I'm like uh, I just wasn't the sound of your own voice.
Speaker 1:I I am now because I listened to all of them. Okay, because I'm like monday morning, quarterbacking all the time like, oh, you should have asked this, you should have done this, you should have said this, whatever, or you should have asked this question this way or you should have. This is my number one criticism of myself. Shut up, brad, stop talking and let your let the other person talk.
Speaker 2:Uh, like right now, yeah I kind of hijacked it, though, sorry.
Speaker 1:No, I mean jason asked you a question and you were answering the question yeah, okay, um, but I I do want to shout out one other episode that I just really love is the episode that we did with geron scott. Geron, do you know how smart that guy is? I do not, like he has recall, like you would not believe. Okay, we were sitting here having a conversation, like you and I, right now. Okay, no computer, no phone, open, no notes, and he can just pull things like this person said this in this book and that applies to our conversation Like the context of information that he has just like floating around in his brain is crazy. He's a very, very smart. I don't have that either so I was sitting there and I was like blown away.
Speaker 1:I was like how do you remember?
Speaker 2:all of that. I can watch a movie and not remember that I've watched it a year later I, I'm a little bit like that.
Speaker 1:If I don't like, it's either that or I remember every single word. No, I don't do that In order, but 50. That's awesome 50 episodes. You now have been on three of them I have, and none of those made your list.
Speaker 2:Well, I was just getting ready to say you're an all-timer when it comes to guests. All-timer, there's a lot of ways you can we've told some good stories on this podcast we told you.
Speaker 1:We told you um also I'm just gonna tease this a little bit it may not even come to fruition. Jason has some great programming ideas for the podcast, so there may be some stuff. There may not, but there may be some stuff maybe coming down the road.
Speaker 2:Maybe that our boy, jason french, is fully responsible for because he has great ideas blame for can take the blame for him.
Speaker 1:No, it'll be great stuff.
Speaker 2:It'll be good.
Speaker 1:I think it would be good for youth pastors. Okay, we are sitting here. It is January. We just turned the page 2025. Ciy, what are we pumped about? What's like, when you wake up, get out of bed, you're like, yes, it's 2025. I'm pumped about this.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm pumped about a lot of things. I'm pumped about the health of our churches. Yeah, that honestly has me more fired up than anything. I tell our team all the time that, man, our growth is only a reflection of some really great churches and we only grow when churches grow only reflection of some really great churches, and we only grow when churches grow. Uh, but at the same time, man, our, our growth right now is through the roof and and and. For me, the excitement part of that is not just the amount of people. That's not what fires me up, it's the decisions that get made as a result of those people. Being there like that fires me up that I get excited about.
Speaker 1:Stick a pin in that. Yep, let's come back to that, sorry, what else?
Speaker 2:I'm really excited about some, or just our staff, just our health, the health of our community. You know that every year, I do a thing where I interview every single SAP person on our team. Do that every year, sit down with them either groups, one-on-one or one-on-three, and this is the healthiest interviews that I've ever done. You know I've been doing that since 2019. Yeah, even in COVID we did it, yep, but for years.
Speaker 1:I was going to say that that practice has endured some.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Rough times, but I'm really excited about just just coming to work, I think out of our staff retreat we did and some of the things we're we're putting into place to just encourage team health.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited about that that we get a really healthy team, a really healthy organization, and I love when there's not like drama. I hate conflict, it's why I'm so quick to confront, and so I love the fact that it's just a lot of health right now. There's things we get to work on, things we are improving things. We are actively trying to make better for our team and for our churches.
Speaker 1:But those are two things right out of the gate that fire me up. Yeah, it's awesome how little turnover we have. Like how many anniversaries we're celebrating has been really fun People since the day I started here, it's like oh, how do I get a job at CIO, you know, it's like people want to work here, which is really cool, and right now I got to tell them like I don't, like it's hard for me to imagine just a bunch of positions opening up on any kind of like regular basis, because people will stay here. They want to work here.
Speaker 2:We got a design position up and down, I think in the first few days of it posting.
Speaker 1:we have 30 applications already in a few days for design positions crazy yeah, it's good, it is super good, but you've been here 20 years, 22 years, man, 22 years, um, I'm I. What is today? Oh my gosh, is this your tomorrow? Tomorrow is how many years? Uh, seven years, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:So pikel is right behind me I just hit five years uh, this past august five years and producer lauren off mic four years.
Speaker 2:So but the amount of people have been here 20 years, 15 years. We just celebrated two, two, 20, years.
Speaker 1:Jennifer and eric have been here 20 years. Yeah, the longevity of our executive team. Just everywhere Loses the least, at like 15 years. Have we ever added it up of just like how many years of experience we have represented in this building?
Speaker 2:It's very different than when I first got here. Crazy, a lot of people that stay this long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really kind of Well that you're going to deflect this, and that's fine. I'm going to this on mic. Our compensation has gotten so much better under your leadership. We're paid like real people with real jobs, which is so cool, and I think that's a huge part of it. And people like working here. They like being here. Well, that's a huge part of it. And people like working here, they like being here. Well, that's a good team and we it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's. It's fun when you enjoy the people you come to work with. Yeah, and there's not a day at CY that goes by that I don't at some point don't have like a sincere good laugh. And you know what I do matters. But I know, if I look at the greater scope of eternity, who I do it with matters just as much. Yep, and when it comes to things like pay and benefits, I think we try to stay as competitive as we can. I don't think it's ever right to use the name of Jesus as a reason to take advantage of someone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe a workman's worthy of their wage and we want at the same time be respectful of that so we can keep our prices down for students as much as possible.
Speaker 1:you know we we don't ever want that to get out of whack, but at the same time, I just don't, I don't believe in mistreating people under the umbrella of of kingdom work. I'm very glad that you don't, don't uh enjoy, I do.
Speaker 2:I will say this I think more and more churches could take that to heart.
Speaker 1:Be up front with you yeah, I mean it's hard, right, you know it's one more learning, though it's a different, oh a hundred percent people are figuring that out ministry it was.
Speaker 2:It was a rough man. My first decade of ministry was brutal.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh do you remember like your first salary?
Speaker 2:yeah, what was it? I lived in southern california and I made eighteen thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1:No benefits you have to have to make $18,000 a month not to live there. I did have healthcare.
Speaker 2:That was even low then. And my second one I made $25,000 a year and I thought I was just living large man yeah. And yeah, I think again, I don't think any of us get in this for the money. That's not the intent, and I know we're hijacking the podcast right now. I don't think any of us get in this for the money.
Speaker 3:That's not the intent and I know we're hijacking the podcast right now.
Speaker 2:This is what we're here for. But when you've got, when you've got people working diligently, trying to become professionals you know being not trying to become becoming professionals at their craft with college educations, you know I think I think they deserve to be treated with, with respect and dignity. And part of the way not the only way is you pay people appropriately. At the same time, you can pay somebody well, but if you treat them like trash, that won't matter, right? And I think part of the reason why we have such a wide back door in ministry sometimes is compounded by two things One, we didn't pay them properly and, in addition to or separate issue, we didn't treat them properly. And for me, we measure success of an individual on two axis points. We're really getting off tangent. I'm sorry I'm about to take it even farther. So keep going.
Speaker 1:Keep going.
Speaker 2:We really measure employees on two axis points. There's a vertical axis on do you get your stuff done that matters, and then a horizontal axis of how do you treat people along the way. And a lot of times churches know, man, they'll, they'll, expect the youth pastors to get a lot done, but won't always focus on man, what is it? What's a fair compensation rate to to treat them properly? Um, you know, and, and I think both those access points matter, and so we try to measure our staff on that. And, man, we, we keep a lot of staff. Sometimes we have to let some staff go and I hate that.
Speaker 1:Um, and that's another part of it. That doesn't happen very often, no, but it does it does happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't want to. I'm not trying to dodge it, because for me, in a servant leadership culture, you have to do that. Yeah, you know if, if you really want to other people in the organization.
Speaker 1:So we really got off the rails, man. No, I'm going to dig in. So you went to. It was our Christian college I did.
Speaker 2:You got a degree in, Just a bachelor's degree in Bible, bachelor of biblical ministry or whatever.
Speaker 1:Okay, A lot of people go that route right and then they become a youth pastor and then they crushed it being a youth pastor and then they become an executive pastor or senior pastor or whatever, and their training is not in organizational culture, right, it is in. You know how to be a good youth pastor, how to preach, how to teach, how to study the Bible. You know all of these different things that we talk a lot about at Bible college and you might have one organizational leadership class thrown in there in your sophomore year that you don't remember anything from. It's like how does somebody who says, okay, I feel like I am gifted to preach the word, to teach the word? Um, and I am a preacher, how does that person also become somebody who fosters like the type of environment that you're describing? Because that doesn't just happen. You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean you've been extremely intentional here about our culture, not just you. You, john lives at or jennifer have been extremely, you know, intentional about that. So like how, how does that happen? You know, what would your encouragement be to somebody who that might not come supernaturally to?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, uh, I don't think it has to come supernaturally, I think it can come pretty practically. It's kind of like what you alluded to in a second, that a lot of times people go to school for one thing and then they graduate and they just simply stop learning, and that, to me, is the tragedy. I mean, I did get a master's degree, but you don't have to pursue the master's. I think it's beneficial, I think there's health in that. But, man, the amount of resources and knowledge at our fingertips right now is so immense that anyone remaining uneducated on how to create a healthy culture, that's on them. That's on them to not put forth the work and the effort it takes to get on and to read books, to read articles, scholarly articles, to get on YouTube and to learn. I mean, if somebody isn't figuring that out, I think I'd look at it, I would question their drive and desire to actually want to know it, because it's out there. To me, the harder thing is not just growing in that area, brad, I think the harder thing is learning what to weed out.
Speaker 2:You know, like I always tell people, man, there's two theories of leadership, going back to George McGovern, like 60s. You can go, theory X or theory Y, and for you to figure out, what type of leader do you want to be? And it really comes down to what do you think motivates people. Do you believe they're intrinsically motivated or they need external motivation? And then figuring out as a leader, to say, man, when I create a culture, what kind of culture do I want to make? Do I want to make one that's more theory X or one that's more theory Y? And then in that case, then, man, I'm going to steer my education towards theory Y books, theory Y, articles, no-transcript. So I'm going to surround myself with those resources.
Speaker 2:But, man, anybody can do this if they'll just put in the work. I say anyone, I may back up. The supernatural part that I would push back on is what Paul says when he says I gave some to be, and no doubt that there is also a supernatural ability to leadership, that that is ordained and given by the holy spirit. But that doesn't keep even somebody who, who is not supernaturally trained or supernaturally gifted to, not. They can still learn, yeah, and they still cultivate it and grow in that area. So, yeah, I misspoke earlier.
Speaker 1:what'd you say? I just meant like very naturally gifted, not like super naturally gifted, but that's a good point too. Yeah, but you started talking about the Holy spirit and I was like what did I ask him?
Speaker 2:No, that's what?
Speaker 1:no, that's great, no, that's, that's really good stuff. So, um, yeah, I think the thing I want to pull out of that, though, is have a lot to do. There's a lot of stuff on your to-do list, and it's like you have to prioritize this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you want to have a healthy culture, like just being a good preacher and having good bedside manner and, you know, being a kind person to the parishioners in your flock or whatever is like not going to just magically create a healthy work environment you have to want to do that.
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely, man, you're, you're directly right on that. I think the other question is why do you want it? Not only do you have to want it, I think, what's your motivation for wanting it? Um, and and that, for me, is is what really changes culture is when your motivation for desiring healthy culture you know, for me, my motivation for creating healthy culture what are you going to say?
Speaker 1:I already know it. What Say it? What is it, Michael? Do you know it? I actually am not sure. Oh, he's going to talk about the Imago Dei.
Speaker 2:I will.
Speaker 1:I gave you an opportunity to just smash that one out of the park. I know I will. I gave you an opportunity to just smash that one out of the park, I know. No, that's all right.
Speaker 2:It's our first pillar in our five cultural values is Imago Dei. Yep, in that man, my desire for creating other culture has less to do. I don't want anybody going like, wow, french, you created such a healthy culture, or lose that. Or, jennifer, somebody else, how the org team does such a great job so that we can somehow get our accolades in this Like that's not even it.
Speaker 2:For me, it's because I want to realize that God has given us these talents, and what could we do if we really fostered an environment where these people could excel and they could grow and they could flourish? And so for me, the culture is more about creating an atmosphere where they can flourish and they can grow and see why did god knit you together in your mother's womb? Uh, and one of the things I don't want to be held responsible for is the lord to say man, I gave you lauren and that's all you did. Or you had michael hester and that's that's all. Or brad, like, come on, they were. They were gifted for so much more. And I want to. When I heard him say well done, good faithful servant, I think it's going to have a lot more to do with our people and so I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm driven to see growth in our people more than I'm driven for people to to say, wow, that's one of the top 10 places to work and wherever.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean right, oh no, I I totally, you know, see that, yeah, but anyway, that was a tangent, uh, so it was a good one, though that was a good one um, it is in the world where this podcast is published. Uh, january 20th, so got a lot to look forward to this year, um, but one of the big things is we will have just finished up our first superstar event of the year, which is like it's happening. It's 2025. We're doing it, michael. How is Superstar Florida?
Speaker 3:You know what we really did it. Anyway, I might be on a plane right now. You might be. Yeah, when you're listening.
Speaker 1:Well, we're 50 episodes in. We're not ditching this tradition. It's time for the mailbag. Did you guys wait?
Speaker 2:hold on. Did you get to go see Superstar when they were rehearsing Mm-hmm Well?
Speaker 1:he was there all week. I got to go a little bit. I got sick like sick, sick.
Speaker 2:I was out like I did the all skate with all of them. We do a thing for your listeners, we do. I went home and was in bed basically Tuesday night, wednesday, thursday, friday.
Speaker 1:Well, you said a couple of times during that meeting you were like ah yeah, it's weird what I was saying.
Speaker 2:It's like I don't know if I'm saying this very clearly, but yeah, I didn't get to see any of it. I apologize to Corey and Rob, but yeah, I felt bad.
Speaker 1:You'll get to go to a couple though. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, start off strong with a question from matt tibbett. Okay, he says a question for frenchie.
Speaker 2:If you don't know tibbett, he is a mix of like, great youth pastor and wonderful redneck is it fair?
Speaker 3:I honestly I don't think I've ever met, oh gosh matt tibbett's a case you live in arkansas. I've heard, I've heard matt goes to move missouri one. He does, matt. I'm at move missouri year Really, so come and find me. You need to meet Tibbett and once you meet.
Speaker 2:Tibbett, you'll never forget.
Speaker 1:I'm buying a quarter beef from Matt Tibbett this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's raising his own cows. Yeah, he raises his own cattle. He is one of the best bow hunters I know Pretty amazing bow hunter. Yeah, he's incredibly at archery. So yeah, he is legitimately.
Speaker 1:I get in trouble because I say this about everybody. But one of my favorite people in the entire world, Like he yeah, he doesn't even make my top 10. Okay, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Tim, if you're listening.
Speaker 1:Anyway what does Tibbett want to know?
Speaker 3:Okay, what's the most unique story you have where someone, whether it's you, a loved one or maybe your child, has harvested a deer, memorable, wait, wait. The most memorable, the most unique story yeah he's, he knows the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he knows exactly what he's asking. I also know the story and please don't make this the first episode of this podcast where we have to put the explicit oh man I'm gonna be careful. Yeah, there's some creative ways around us he said deer specifically yeah, he said I could tell bear stories because we well, we already did the bear story. We did bear stories. Yeah, we've done.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's the story I teach my kids to hunt at an early age and we are fortunate enough to have enough land we can hunt right behind my house and, uh, his, we says his kids, three boys. We got three boys, one daughter, one daughter. And one of the things that I love is we go out in the deer stand together and we sit, got this two-man stand that we grew up in, typically where we hunt, and it's always epic. My daughter and I we laugh so hard up there. I'm surprised we ever see any deer. We will literally just get just laughing and having a good time.
Speaker 2:My daughter, one time I trained her to shoot, taught her how to how to hunt. She was up there and she was hunting with a. It was a Marlin 3030. Cause we live in a lot of brush, it's great, a little brush gun, a compact lever action. And I taught her we have a scope on this Marlin Marlin, on this Marlin 3030.
Speaker 2:I taught her to you know, go up the legs, and I'm not trying to get gross here but in terms of how you harvest a deer, there's a specific place for shot placement. That if you, if you, you know in the scope. I said, hey, do you see the leg. She's like, yeah, and I said, okay, go up, up, up, up up, okay, right, when you get up to that area the shoulder we Okay.
Speaker 2:And she's like, I can't find the deer. I can't find the deer. Did you find the leg? Yeah, I found the leg. Okay, all right, you know she was too low in the shot. She went up the leg and she fired and the deer ran off and I was like, hey, you hit it and she did. Oh, did she ever hit that deer? And unfortunately we found out the next day we had to bring in like tracking dogs and stuff that my daughter had not gone up the front leg. My sweet daughter had gone up the back leg of this buck and had shot this particular deer right in its mouth when you wouldn't want it to be shot.
Speaker 2:if you were a dude deer. I don't think any deer wants to be shot.
Speaker 1:Shot the deer in its man parts Makes wants to be shot, but yeah, yeah, shot the deer in his man parts.
Speaker 2:Uh makes for a great story, but yeah, it's. Uh, it's pretty epic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh man, that's tough. The deer went all night.
Speaker 2:That way we had to be in tracking dogs and find it the next day. And we did harvest the deer we got it but yeah, it's just crazy.
Speaker 3:So was the was the deer dead when you know it's not dead, and had lived all night that way.
Speaker 2:That's sad. Oh, yes, that is not a lethal wound, surprisingly, Like I thought that would be dead. My mind's like you'd be dead from that kind of shot. I would hope so At that point it's like Can you imagine that deer trying to explain to other deer during it?
Speaker 3:That's a long story, man.
Speaker 2:Oh man, like that's a long story. Man, yeah, oh man, the the eunuch deer. Oh man the eunuch, uh, french, you can ask her at the time that she shot a deer the only time, only time, she shot it because after that I don't think she was too eager. No, she's been pretty embarrassed about it. She brought that question up over chris's break when she was home from college. It was like did you know there's a question on there?
Speaker 1:a search it through there and now you just brought up in the room so she saw it on facebook she did does sydney listen to the podcast?
Speaker 3:oh?
Speaker 1:she, uh, probably she will now she replied oh, god bless her, she's a great girl okay, uh, we have a question from matt berry.
Speaker 3:Um again, matt. This is the second time I've said this. Thank you for all the questions. Thank you, matt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, matt is our number one supplier for questions oh, you're only allowed to ask me all bad questions if your name is matt yeah, yeah, that is now the.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's, that's now the rule. So alex weirda is now named matt alex weirda. Okay, um, there's a question from him. I'll ask later. Okay, uh, anyway. So, matt berry. That's, that's now the rule. So Alex weird is now named Matt Alex weird. Okay, um, there's a question from him. I'll ask later. Okay, uh, anyway. So Matt Barry is asking what are the most effective ways to scale CIY events for larger youth groups, think youth groups taking trips with 75 to a hundred plus students on them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, I've done that back when I was in youth ministry and no doubt things have changed since then. You know, I'd say the power of a move event, mix event, superstar, it doesn't matter, the power is the same whether you are. We've got one church that'll bring three or four thousand kids, but still our bread and butter typical size youth group, brad, I think is still what around 27 to 32, youth, 25, yeah, somewhere in there, and a lot of churches that still bring like eight people, yes, or five, yeah, yeah, a lot of minivans.
Speaker 2:So it's a big spectrum and I'd say the truth remains the same in terms of scale, the quality of getting kids in good small groups with adult leaders at care, that's the most important thing. You can scale large and small in the direction you want, but make sure that you're spending a lot of time in those small groups, especially youth group time at night, so important. There's a lot of things you can do to scale in terms of like. When we were starting out, we couldn't afford the busing on our own. We first started going. I think the first time we started taking a larger group it was like 60 to 75 kids and I was like, oh okay, man, it's more than one charter bus, we can't afford two. And so we learned to scale by partnering with some churches in the area and splitting some of that second bus cost and again, this has been a long time ago.
Speaker 2:Those are some things that we learned to do. You know, we tried also not to allow our scale as we got large and large and took larger and larger groups to always try to draw unnecessary attention. Our kids love the identity, but not to the point that it made other groups feel like isolated or like they weren't welcome, and so we try to make sure that, as our groups even some of the groups we took that were 300 plus making sure that the way we interacted in a room wasn't so distracting. So I think that's the other side of scale as well, but I don't know if I answered that question very well or not.
Speaker 1:I think you are. It reminds me of that moment that happens at Move or Mix, where a team is on a break between dodgeball matches in the dodgeball tournament and an adult leader sitting there next to a student and the student says, hey, did you hear what the speaker said last night? And like those little moments and conversations that happen all throughout the week, all the time, that are really where the magic happens. Like that is to me, like everything that we create in the big room is to set up that conversation. You know what I mean. But the only way that you maximize the number of students that are able to engage in those conversations is to make sure that you bring enough adult leaders with you. And I know, like in our registration policy we say that you have to have one leader for every 10 students that move and eight students that mix, but it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the more you can even like get that ratio down or up.
Speaker 1:What do you do with the ratio Down?
Speaker 2:Change it, change it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, more adults, yeah, yeah, the better, the better experience is going to be for your students across the board, I feel like the larger we get to, and I mean it's complicated, it's expensive and I recognize that.
Speaker 2:But when we got large as a group we did either more intentional things on the front end or the back end. Normally on the back end what we tried not to do is because it was such a large group coming home we would try not to just take the vans back everyone gets out and they're gone but a lot of times we would finish, move and actually go spend another day or two at a retreat center with that group of students trying to really anchor in what was gained. And that man over years that paid tremendous dividends because it allowed kids to get over the initial, you know, this mountaintop experience allows us to kind of come down a bit together as a group and really settle in. After a couple of days, man, what have we learned? And I felt like for scale as we grew larger, that became really important. But I also know, man, that's just more work, it's more planning, it's more details, it's more money, it's more everything. But it was huge for us.
Speaker 1:I have another really practical one that helped me out a lot when I was in youth industry. You might disagree with this, I don't know. Let's see what happens. Probably not, maybe, but maybe not. Let's see what happens. I think that especially the larger your group gets, the more youth faster. Like, the person who's in that like I'm, the person in charge role should not be leading a small group and, like along the lines of what you're saying, empowering all the adult leaders in order to be in the right place, but also, the more kids you bring and the more leaders you bring, the more for lack of a better term, like fires there are going to be to put out the more trips to walgreens or cvs you're making the er, whatever it may be you're going to be making the ER, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:You're going to be making All kinds of crazy conversations that are going to be happening and empowering your adult leaders. I know that we all got into youth ministry because we wanted to be sitting in those circles, and so that's a really hard decision to make, to be like okay, I'm going to empower my adult leaders to do this so that I can live like up above the entire event and kind of make sure that all of the ducks are in a row all over the place. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you feel about that kind of thing? I think it's really wise and would say, man, that's great wisdom. I think the one tension you want to avoid is there are some guys that do that too early and they, they want to almost be disconnected, and I've seen those guys. I'm like man, you, you are always at the coffee shop. You're never with your kids or your adult leaders. I see that at move. Sometimes I'm like what's going on, man? I want to ask that question. I don't out of respect, but I'm like what are you doing, man? Uh, but, but I do think that, the more especially when I think of some of the students we would take that were troubled and adult leaders. We have a hard time with them.
Speaker 2:I would say, hey, man, I'm going to pull that kid out of small group today and I want to go for a walk with them in a public area, all that kind of stuff, using good wisdom. But just say I want to have a conversation with them, I want to pull them out. Or sometimes I knew a kid had a decision they wanted to make an adult leader or a confession of repentance they needed to deal with. They didn't know how to handle it. Sometimes it would let me bring that adult leader in and that kid and we could all three sit down together and I could show them how to have those conversations. And so, yeah, the more you've got margin to do that, the better, because if you're leading another group, you don't have margin.
Speaker 1:That can't happen. There's no margin.
Speaker 3:You can't do it yeah I don't really know if this is specifically what matt was was looking for, but I think I think the way that you know we're talking about answering this question, talking so much about small groups, I think, is an important detail. Um, I I hope that every like, every one that comes to our events understands this. Our events, I guess, technically are large-scale events, even at our like smaller ones but, like you know, I work in the live production department.
Speaker 3:Like my whole thing that I do at our events is the main sessions, but I think ever, I hope everyone understands that what we believe at our core, the most important time at our events is small group time, absolutely, um and so like. Even though we're talking about, you know, bringing tons of students and figuring out how to wrangle those students or whatever the case may be, a small group is such an important thing to really make sure that we have that figured out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you're exactly right, Michael. That is the core. One more one more. Yeah, so we have a question from Matt Alex Wierda.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Matt.
Speaker 3:I'm saying Wirda correctly. Is that right, Brad?
Speaker 1:Yes, you are.
Speaker 3:He was your college roommate. He was my college roommate. I know that from the future it gets revealed in an episode a few weeks from now.
Speaker 3:All right, anyway. So Alex has a question that I think we're going to ask this question actually a couple different times on the podcast. I'm going to sort of like shift a little bit of what this question is because, jason, I think what you might have to say about this actually would be pretty interesting. Alex is asking what youth ministries are you guys referencing right now to bounce ideas off of Jason for you, I think we can broaden that a little bit and not just talk about youth ministries but, like who are the people that you meet with and ask questions to and try and figure out? Like, what are the things that other people are looking for, what are they doing, what are they valuing? I think how you answer this question, being in a leadership position, I think would be a little bit different than what we might get from people who are working for our programs.
Speaker 1:But it's important for you nonetheless to keep your finger on the pulse of youth ministry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, how do you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, there's a few people that I want to be careful because, man, my mind is racing with names that come to mind that I want to talk about and so I'm trying to filter that down, that list from the 10 that popped into my head to like, okay, let me give you three that I'm talking to you right now. One of them I really like talking to a lot in the area of youth ministry specifically is Mike Branton. I've got a huge regard for Mike and some of the stuff that he is doing right now in terms of activating students within Sun Valley out in Phoenix is pretty remarkable. I was actually just blown away hearing what even CCV I know we look at them like they're just this huge, massive church and there's nothing practical they can do but honestly, hearing Jake talk about some of the things that they're wanting to do to get students embedded into the school system Jake Hancock.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean just some brilliant stuff that Jake and his team are talking about. I'm like man, everybody needs to hear this Like this is really really good. You know, I could talk ann wilson and some of the stuff they're doing right now at at taking students that want to go into ministry and cultivating, um, a whole, like whole pathway for them. Basically I can't remember they call it, I think actually they call it called. I think they stole that name, which is great steal. It take it. But they've got a whole thing they're doing there and what's happened at trader's, the explosion that's happened under Aaron's leadership of just calling in people into ministry.
Speaker 2:And there's other churches out there and I know right now I mean I can't have the church. I'm thinking there's some cool things going on at Northeast and Louisville. There's some great things happening at churches all over and I need to stop because now I'm going to start leaving people out that are friends of mine that I'm not mentioning, and it's just not going to go. It's going to go well, but there's a lot of churches out there doing some really special things on the leadership side. Um, you know, it kind of depends on the context and the conversation. Um, you know, there's, there's a church that right now has my attention big time. Uh, not because my daughter's going to work there, uh, which I'm really excited about, I don't know, this.
Speaker 2:She got the official offer, she'll start there in June and she didn't even graduate college until December. But I told her I was like man. I can say this is going to be a trouble. If I've got what might be a favorite church in the country, it might be this one, because they're doing things. It's just so incredible what they're doing there and they got my attention because they're doing things. It's just so incredible what they're doing there and they got my attention because they're doing things differently. And that's CU Champaign-Urbana under Jason Epperson, matt Clark a lot of really good people there, central Illinois, yeah.
Speaker 2:Central Illinois, champaign-urbana. And man, that's a church I'm paying attention to a lot, because some of the altruistic things that we would say back when I was in college, I'm like man, I want to be a part of churches doing this. I'm like Jason, you're doing those things. I didn't think it was possible and just some beautiful stories came out to see you and I'm constantly asking Jason, man, how are you doing this? And how do people not know you're doing this? But some of the cool things and I say cool, no, it's so, it's so disrespectful Some of the spirit filled things coming out of see you right now. I wish every church. I talked to him like man, if you could take one trip right now and go visit a church, I'd say get time to go, spend a few hours or a few days with Jason Epperson at CU and meet their staff and hear what they're doing. I think it's revolutionary.
Speaker 1:I think it's revolutionary.
Speaker 2:I think it's just spectacular, but yes, it'd get a job. I'm hoping to uh congratulations, I am I've got him.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at our thing right now. I've got him on here. We're gonna try to get him yeah he is notoriously hard to pin down he is, he is, but.
Speaker 2:But if you want to see a church that's doing some things different, uh, see you as that church yeah, they really are, which, honestly, he is hard to pin down.
Speaker 1:This probably contributes to his ability to be a little bit of a visionary kind of in the clouds kind of guy, so we appreciate that.
Speaker 2:But that can also get down. He can get pretty, pretty detailed as well.
Speaker 1:I mean he's he's a good leader, yeah I agree, okay, um, wow, we have already been talking for a long time. Sorry, 45 minutes. No, it's okay, but I brought you here for a specific reason and we have to talk about it now. So earlier you actually kind of alluded to this. You talked a little bit about, like, we want to grow in numbers, but not for the sake of growing in numbers. We want to grow in numbers because we want to give more students the opportunity to get out of their comfort zone a little bit and be in a a space where they can hear god's call on their life, for whatever that may be.
Speaker 1:I might not be saying that the way that you would say it, but um, this is a uh organizational initiative uh that we have to see more students called into vocational ministry at CIY events. Not just that but that is step one, step one. Why? When did this start for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think vocational ministry is a piece I mean. I think we also want to see I think in the next few years we're hoping to see 300,000 students trained to articulate their faith with gentleness and respect. I think we want to equip churches to follow up with kids who make decisions for repentance, that need help, kids that want to go into kingdom work industry. We started there and part of it is Brad.
Speaker 2:When you look at the landscape and man, I don't mind saying I've got gray in my beard. I've got no issue with my age. The fact I get to do what I do at my age is fantastic and I don't shirk away from that at all. It's given me a lot of wins and a lot of losses over the years and I appreciate, appreciate the gray, but the graying of of the american pastor is is pretty intense right now. When you consider the average age of a pastor in the us is 54 years old. Yeah, 54 is the average age man. 25 of all pastors in the us are going to retire by 2030. That's intense and I don't know that people recognize the wave that's coming.
Speaker 2:I saw somebody made a post on Facebook the other day about you know, don't go to Bible college, get your youth ministry degree, and I'm like you don't know what you're saying, like you have no clue what's happening in the emerging storm that's developing on the front of the church, which is you've got more pastors retiring, more pastors graying at any point in history, like it is coming like a freight train, and so part of what we're recognizing is man.
Speaker 2:We need to do a better job at equipping churches to follow up on kids who make decisions, and I love the church. You know my story. I fell in love with the church long before I knew who Jesus was. But we found a gap and I want to say it respectfully. The gap, brad, was that kids were making decisions at our events and then we would get their information and then we would follow up with those kids and we did a huge survey, qualitative and quantitative analysis on that of the actual students who made the decisions and what we found was 90 plus percent of them never had a follow-up conversation with an adult about that decision. 90% of the kids who stand up and say at CY events I want to go into ministry, 90% of those kids no one ever talked to them about it again.
Speaker 1:So that's crazy. It is crazy. Can we actually back up for two seconds? When did you feel the call Like? When did you recognize your call for ministry?
Speaker 2:I feel compelled into ministry, and that's different. I think there are people Do you feel the call Like when did you recognize your call for ministry? I feel compelled in a ministry and that's different. I think there are people who feel called. They get this supernatural thing that happens in their life. I never had that. That was not my story. You feel like you chose ministry. I felt compelled to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when did that?
Speaker 2:happen. I was probably I don't know that it was ever just a single moment where, like I try my best to attribute it to oh, it was the sermon that a guy preached in all of Missouri. You know it was this mission trip I took, but honestly, it was a culmination of God, just kind of speaking to me saying I know you could go do that. You know people are like, well, if you could do anything else besides ministry, you should do it. I'm like that's not my attitude. There's a million other things.
Speaker 2:I would have been a really, really good attorney. I have no doubt I could have done it. I was going to go into politics. I would have been really good at that and I would have been successful at it. I don't mind saying that, but Christ's love compelled me. I was convinced that one man died, therefore all died, that those who live should no longer. I was raised again and from that point on I just said man, lord, you purchased my life. I feel like I owe you a return on that investment and I feel compelled to give you the best of who I am because of what you gave to me. And it was more of a mental decision of saying God, I want to give you my life more than it was some moment where I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me.
Speaker 2:My father-in-law sorry, my wife's grandfather had that. He was the holy spirit. Like spoke to me my father-in-law sorry, my wife's grandfather had that. He was picking corn in a field in arkansas. God spoke to him going to ministry.
Speaker 1:I didn't get that same. That's my story, is it? No, not at all. Never picked corn in arkansas, he was just working as a farmer. Um no, that's incredible. So you're a very like, I would say, disciplined person.
Speaker 1:So like it's not hard for me to imagine you just being like this is what I'm gonna do and going and doing it. But I also know you and I know that there are probably people that you look back on and it's like I don't know if I like. Are there those people that it's like I don't? I don't really know if I would be here or if I would have made it or if I would have stuck with it if it wasn't for this person's influence in my life.
Speaker 2:Man that that probably hit even more after, after I made the decision to go into ministry. There are a few times I wanted to quit. I mean, one time I literally had the LSAT book sitting next to me and I was. I was headed at home and I was studying it because I was going to. I was headed at home and I was studying it because I was like I'm done with this ministry stuff. We're going to law school. I told Janice we were married. I was like this sucks. Sorry, I probably shouldn't say it in the podcast. I hate this. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so that's a polite version for me. I was just like this is miserable. I hate this. Ministry is horrible. I had a couple of different times I wanted to quit at two different churches and there are different individuals. I think that, well, holy Spirit won. But then there's some people that really pulled me out of it and showed me the healthy side of ministry. I had some leaders in my life that really restored my love for the church and my belief in it, and so one of those would be a guy named Dick Williams who's passed away now. His son, joe, is up at New Life in Arkansas, I was really discouraged with the church.
Speaker 2:My first experience was a little difficult and felt like I got pushed out of this place when we were having a lot of what I felt was a lot of success. But because I was young and it was a big church, didn't feel like they honored that because I wasn't the guy that my new boss had picked and so, yeah, I was really frustrated and so I had an executive pastor tell me like man, you're doing a great job, you're killing it, he goes, but you're never going to make it here because you're not the person he chose, but Dick Williams. I went to work for him and he really restored my faith in the church. I had another rocky run at a church and I wanted to quit. That's when I had my LSAT and I went to work for a guy named Scott Greer and Scott Greer helped recultivate my heart and love for the church and so there's been other people in my life that have done that, but those are a couple.
Speaker 2:Andy Hanson would be another one. I'd say you know, love Andy. Who's that? He's a former president of Christ in Youth youth still on staff with us. I love andy. If you're watching on video he's, he's everywhere he's back here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love him there. He is right next to jason oh, my word.
Speaker 2:I did not know that was there jason, those are everywhere I know it annoys me. There's one in the bathroom the other day. Don't touch it who started that?
Speaker 1:do we know? I don't have any idea, but it's ours. Uh, okay, anyway, back to our our for real conversation kids not following up. Yeah, yeah, but having people that that are like for you and that are like discerning voices in your life, you know, helped you to like stay the course and continue to be in ministry. And we were learning. You were saying the reason I asked that is because you were saying we were learning that a lot of kids felt like they had not had that same support.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we found out that just the majority of churches did not have a pathway to follow up. And I don't want to throw shade at youth pastors here. I don't think there's any health in that these guys or these girls. They get back from a trip, they're getting ready to lead a missions trip, or maybe in a smaller church it might be a VBS or even a larger church there might be something going on, or they've got fall kickoff coming up a million things or they're dealing with this kid that's got a porn addiction, or these adult leaders are going through a divorce, or they're so tired from summer that now they just need a break. And things happen, man, and sometimes when there's no plan, nothing gets executed. And so what we're working on right now is just giving a youth pastor really actually giving the kid their plan of how they're going to follow up on what God's doing in their heart and their life, but also helping a youth pastor have some really tactical things. That Caitlin's building. I think you're going to bring her on to talk about it. She's really building some really tactical things. That Caitlin's building. I think you're going to bring her on to talk about it. She's really building some really tactical ways that a youth pastor can track what happened to that kid.
Speaker 2:But it is difficult, man. I mean, the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few and I think, brad, if I'm going to be really candid with you, you know, pretty direct, I don't know that the workers are few, few. I I right now, I I think the holy spirit is right on that but I think part of the reason why they are few is that we never followed up with them, like we just like there was that, that bible translator that was going to go to work and and, and she had a gift in linguistics and we never followed up. There was a future worship pastor that your church not necessarily your church, but a church can't find like yeah, well, they, they were removed eight years ago. And that children's pastor that you need so bad, well, yeah, she was there six years ago and she'd be available now if you would have followed up and I start looking around, like the amount of preachers and pastors that we've just left. It's interesting. We followed up with all those kids and they basically, in the quantitative analysis, they would go through and click.
Speaker 2:Did you pursue ministry? Yes? Different set of questions. Did you pursue ministry? No Different set of questions. The one that pursued the ones that did it was the same thing over and over. They had an adult that followed up and then it believed with them and they were given opportunities to serve. Like that hands down, that's what it was. The ones who did not. Everyone wants to say it's parents.
Speaker 1:That is a false narrative that pastors are are are putting out and we're not. I want to be very clear. This isn't like a kitschy thing that we made up.
Speaker 2:No, this is. This is data from a lot.
Speaker 1:Is it data or data? Data yes, yes, both dead data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from hundreds, yes, yes, yes, a strong sample hundreds and hundreds of students who have been in this position yeah, and I think the amount who said that parents are the reason they didn't pursue it was like six percent or less. I think it was actually under five percent, but I don't want to, I don't want to overstate it, so let's say six to be conservative yeah it was under six percent.
Speaker 2:I believe it's under five percent said that the parents are the reason they didn do it, but we always want to say, oh, it's their parents. Their parents don't want them to. Because that narrative sounds good, it feels good, because we all know that one parent, which is true in this.
Speaker 1:many cases right, but far and away the biggest reason that students go into ministry is because they have an adult who believes in them. Yeah, and they are given opportunities to serve. Hands down.
Speaker 2:And we can address this issue of the average age being 54 and 25% are out to retire if we get on it right now. But it means we've got to follow up. We got to follow up. We got to follow up. So you know we have to follow through so students can follow up.
Speaker 1:No, I switched that wrong, we got to follow up so they can follow up. No, I switched that wrong. We gotta follow up so they can follow through the follow through initiative yes yeah, but I mean it's already starting. You know, like this isn't, this isn't an eight years from now problem like their churches. There are people listening to this podcast right now who have had open positions on their church staffs for years because it's like we can't find the right person.
Speaker 2:The amount of calls I get of churches looking for youth pastors or worship pastors, whatever else it is. My inbox is loaded with them. I'm like sorry man, they were at our events or they were at a camp and it's not an issue to see out why. Like this has happened at camps, it's happening everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got to really come alongside our churches and give them tools, and give the kid tools to follow up so they can follow through yeah, and we're not going to like lean super heavy into the specifics of that because, like you said, we're going to follow up on this conversation, uh, next week with with caitlin and a guy named matt stevens at calvary christian church.
Speaker 1:They're doing some really cool things out there, um, with all this as well, and get to kind of get into the nitty-gritty on that. But, um, wanted to hear kind of your heart for it and hear you talk about. I think you do a really good job of painting a picture of the stakes, because the stakes are high, real high. Yeah. Yeah, it's like if, if we don't address this now, because if we get to a point, it's one of those things where it's like, if we get to't address this now, because if we get to a point, it's one of those things where it's like, if we get to a point where we're kind of at that moment where people are starting to walk out the door and retire, go to their well-earned and well-deserved seasons of rest, you know, um, it's not a problem that we can solve overnight no, it's not.
Speaker 2:And and I want to say that it's it's a compounded problem by second thing. And, man, if there are church leaders listening to this, I need you to key in now. You can't just open the front door and not close the back door. And what I mean by that is we have so many people that are leaving ministry and I want to say, man, in any job you need to have some level of grit. Things get hard. I've had hard ministries. There have been moments I've wanted to quit. I just acknowledge that, even on the podcast.
Speaker 2:But we've got to figure out how. If you've raised a Timothy up from your church, do you know where they are? Do you know how they're doing? Have you followed up as an eldership, with any of your responsibility of tracking them, of knowing how they're doing? And if you're a youth pastor right now listening, oh yeah, my church has sent me. They've never followed up on me. Okay, great. What about the church you're working at right now? How good are you at following up with the kids that have been raised up, not just under your youth ministry, but under the prior youth ministry, two, three decades before you ever got there? We've got to figure out how to make sure we're doing good care on the back end to keep that retention high. And, man, I think you do that by elderships praying for the Timothys on a regular basis. And when I say Timothy, that is not like Timothys.
Speaker 1:Gendered yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't mean that. Timothys, yeah, timothys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm passionate about seeing more young ladies, like your daughter. Yeah, my daughter's going to ministry. But at the same time, what I would say is like, what's your plan as a church? How are you following up? Do you know where they are? Are you praying for them on a regular basis? Are you calling them and asking them? Are you telling and saying is there anything I can be praying for? Are you calling and saying, hey, if you get discouraged, we want to help you. Like we want to help nurture you back in and help get you to a healthy place? How's your marriage going? How are you being paid? Like, making sure we're paying people an appropriate salary so they can stay in so many things. I mean a lot of youth ministry, forums and the amount of people there that are just being paid poorly. Like church, we've got to make sure that we are paying these people an appropriate wage, regardless whether you pastor, youth pastor, children's pastor. Like, make sure we're doing that as well, and I champion that. I mean I really, I really do so.
Speaker 3:You thought you could send this to your senior pastor.
Speaker 2:So you need to listen to this. But close the back door in your timothy's and make sure, whether on the mission field or they're across town, churches have got to follow up. In the timothy's they've already taken responsibility for sending out. You know the same way. They got to follow up. Yeah, they got to follow up I mean it's, it's a.
Speaker 1:It circles back to the conversation we were having earlier, where it's like a huge part of the reason that that back door even exists is because we don't pay people maybe what we should be paying them. We don't respect work-life balance very well in ministry a lot. You know, there are all of these like cultural things that it's like these problems kind of solve each other in some. Not solve each other, but help each other in some ways.
Speaker 2:Um, as well, and yeah, and brad, I think one part of it I mean. I would tell youth pastors out there, by far and large, youth pastors are making more than youth pastors ever made in the history of youth ministry I, which is great.
Speaker 2:I mean, generally speaking they are, and I know that sometimes you know whether it be a Boomer or a Gen Z. They can look at it and say, well, man, we didn't make that much when we were doing it. It's like, okay, well, that wasn't healthy either. Like I know, you didn't make that much money, but it wasn't healthy. Like I remember and I'm not going to allude to whether they're gone years past, I can tell you it's been a long time ago Found out that one of our staff members and it's been probably almost about 20 years ago, not quite Found out. We had a staff member that was actually on food stamps and a full-time staff member, and I wept when I found out. I wept and I was angry when I found out. And we've got people using the name of Jesus in a way.
Speaker 2:And I understand, man, if there are issues in churches. Sometimes I'm like, man, do an audit and see what you can do. I don't know all of your church's finances, I got to paint with a very broad brush, but I would generally say, man, do like we did a massive national survey of churches not for profits, all of it and said, man, this is the appropriate wage people need to be paid at, and and we chose to say we don't want to be in the 90th percentile, but I don't want to be in the 50th percentile. So, mark hansen, what do you want to be? And I was like I want to be in the 75th percentile. That's where I want us to be, like that's a really healthy place to be. It's not too excessive and it's not too low. But for churches to really take that seriously, before they go hiring more staff, man, take care of the ones you already have.
Speaker 1:well, yeah, that's a that's a, a tight line that you've been willing to to walk is like when do we like? A lot of times we get to places in in our in our work life when we say this would be so much easier if I had someone else working alongside me on this, or someone working under me helping take care of this or whatever. When do we actually need that like? When is it actually necessary for us to bring another person into a new position? Versus can we actually accommodate this with our current staffing and take the money that we would have paid somebody else and reinvest it back into our staff? Because I do think on church staffs, nonprofit staffs a lot of companies operate this way. The solution to the problem a lot of times is like okay, let's go hire somebody to do this job for us, and that's something that you've had to navigate as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, honestly, it's not just take care of our staff. That is definitely a part of it. The other part is I want to keep prices down for kids. Yeah, like I want to see more students. You know it's camps expensive, man, it just is. But I want to keep that barrier to entry as healthy as we can possibly keep it and so making sure that we don't get overstaffed and that we're not paying staff at unhealthy wages, too high or too low. I think both those things are things that we've got to pay attention to and watch. But no, we take the benefit package that we offer our staff something seriously, and I would just encourage churches to do the same and there are a lot more churches out there, man, that do this really, really well.
Speaker 1:It's definitely been a point of emphasis for a lot of churches, absolutely, and it's the best I've seen in all my years of ministry.
Speaker 2:This is the healthiest I've ever seen. It Great, and I see a lot of churches starting to take this seriously. But honestly, as you see millennials and Gen Z move into leadership, I think it's only going to get healthier because they've lived under it. That's what happened to Gen X people like me. It was so hard in ministry that we were like man, we're going to do everything I can to make sure that people not that I don't want them to experience pain, but that's unnecessary pain that doesn't have to be there.
Speaker 2:There's no doubt that I also don't have a problem with people saying that, man, I choose to live hardship. Paul, you look at his life. He wasn't paid a good wage and so I want to be careful that we don't raise a group of people who aren't willing to sacrifice. And there are places and margins where you should sacrifice. I don't doubt that. But the tension is like hey, man, let's be careful that we're doing the things that we can do to make sure we're taking care of our people the best, the best of our ability because the flip side of that coin is taking advantage of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't want to do that?
Speaker 2:no, but I also know I don't want to lose the call to sacrifice either. I think we have to keep that tension. We got to keep that, that in our in our hand as well. Yeah, um, you know, when you you hear paul's story, you know he was you, you know content in all things, whether he was in plenty, which he was, you know or in little or in little you know he was in both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good stuff. All right, we are honing in on the end of our time here. Okay Loaded question. Is there anything left unsaid? Is there anything you feel like? Oh man, I would have really loved for this conversation to have gone here and it didn't I don't think so I only grab you like once a year.
Speaker 2:So I don't think so, I think just making sure that I don't want you pastors to weaponize this conversation when it comes to finances. Um, make sure that you are part of the solution, not just part of the problem. Yeah, you know, make sure. Make sure that, man, before you start asking for you know more money. Are you actually putting in a hard day's work? Are you putting in your 40 to 50 hours a week and actually hustling? Are you bringing growth to your church? Are you bringing health to your church? Are you actually a contributor or are you just a consumer? Because I feel like people can weaponize this conversation about salary, Like I need to make more money. It's like, yeah, maybe you need to do more work.
Speaker 1:Right, I was actually talking to a youth pastor I respect a lot and he's like I mean, when the going gets tough, your options are to walk away or to fight to make it the kind of place that you want to stay. Exactly, you know, and I'm going to fight to make this the kind of place that I want to stay.
Speaker 2:But I, some guys and some girls out there that probably don't make a lot of money, that don't do a lot of work and and I think, man, they probably do some self-examination before they walk into, you know, the senior pastor's office or an executive, or to an eldership, you know you better search your own heart and and you should really examine the fruit, not the fruit the Holy spirit is producing. But the fruit of your labor can be measured, can be weighed, and and make sure that you know if, if a worker's worthy of his wage, better make sure you're doing the work yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being here, jason. You bet man 50 episodes. Come on now we did it great job, pikel, thanks, yeah, what do you call him? Uh? Why do we call you that Paykel?
Speaker 3:It goes all the way back to Believe in 2018, actually, I'm pretty sure we went to Believe Florida and there were like three of us there named Michael it was me, mike Branton and I don't remember who the other one was, but there were three. There were three and there were a couple of guys that were on the tour and they're big fans of of a cartoon on Cartoon Network.
Speaker 2:Rick and Morty called Rick and Morty, it's not an immediately recommendable podcast or cartoon show.
Speaker 3:But there there's an episode where I'll explain this as briefly as I can, because there's just a lot that goes into it. There's an episode where the characters Rick and Morty are watching interdimensional cable television where they can change the channel on the TV and every new channel is like just a random channel in a random other dimension than the one that they live in, other dimension than the one that they live in, and uh, they're watching one channel and it's like a news anchor, yeah, named michael, and they get bored and they change the channel and it's like a cooking show with this.
Speaker 3:The host is named pikel gotcha and they come to find out that michael and pikel are actually conjoined twins and they have to film their programs at the same time and it just turns into chaos. That is chaos. In order to make sure that we were keeping straight who's who, I think they decided to go with Mike, michael and Pichel. Okay, and so I was Pichel. Instead of getting irritated or annoyed or offended or anything, I decided to own it and it has stuck all these years later, gloriously.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do have one, so he's named after a D-list character on one episode of. Rick and Morty yeah.
Speaker 2:You can cut this, but I got to ask you one last personal question. We're not going to cut it. Go, you can cut it, it's okay, Just bro. Just bro, your NFL fan base.
Speaker 1:I can't. Why are we doing this right now?
Speaker 2:I think Brad wants to cut it down your NFL fan base have got to be some of the biggest whiners right now. Win more games. Why no one's whining? Oh my word, it's blowing up in my feed all over the place.
Speaker 1:The algorithm is feeding you what you want to see. I don't want to see it.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't want to see it but it is like the amount of people blaming the Chiefs for why your team did not make the playoffs. You didn't want to play us, it's fine.
Speaker 1:No, bro, we played you and we beat you. You didn't want to play us now.
Speaker 2:Okay, win more games. It's not our job to get you into the playoffs.
Speaker 1:No one said it was your job to get us into the playoffs. They just said you don't want to play us. He's a Bengals fan.
Speaker 2:If you don't know this, he's a Bengals fan. I'm a Chiefs fan. The amount of garbage the Chiefs are getting for not getting your team into the playoffs, as if that was our job, banter, I don okay well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1:Joe Burrow blew Patrick Mahomes out of the water in every imaginable statistic Joe Burrow is amazing. So you just wait till we have a a real defense that that would help, and uh tell me to get that.
Speaker 2:I'm storming back next year. Tell me to get that.
Speaker 1:The first eight weeks we also had an injured, joe Burrow, like there was the whole wrist thing at the beginning of the season, like it's not just like ah, we farted away eight games but why can't they just go like oh, we didn't make it, it's our fault because that's no fun. Okay, would you do that if it was the chiefs?
Speaker 2:I I mean I did that for decades make out of all? No for decades, for decades, we were the worst a lot of 2 and 14. Bingo seasons. 2 and 12 seasons. I know I live that as a cheese fan. It was brutal, brutal on that note.
Speaker 1:Uh, I would love for you to go ahead and read our blessing over our beautiful listeners. Are you still?
Speaker 2:upset over all this. So who you? Pulling for right now, at this point, the recording you have ravens bills. Who wins for bills? I hope, really. I think. I want the bills.
Speaker 1:You have Ravens Bills. Who wins Bills? I hope Really. I think I want the Bills in general.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right Over the Chiefs. Yes, what do you?
Speaker 1:mean over the Chiefs Chiefs to Texans? Who wins that game? Chiefs, you think so?
Speaker 2:All right, I think Texas defense is pretty good. I want Chiefs-Bills again. Do you? Do you and you want the Bills to be the Chiefs? Okay, bad, or going to be close? I always want it to be close, okay, all right. Well, sorry, we pulled all of our starters. I forgive you. Okay, blessing, sorry, it's hard to shift right now. May God show you grace and bless you. May he make his face shine on you. May you experience the love of Christ, through whom God gives you the fullness of life. May you be strengthened by his power and may Christ himself make his home in your heart, that you would be full of his love and grace and that those you serve would see Jesus in you. That's it, amen. Thanks, man.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks, michael, of course, michael.
Speaker 1:Today's episode was produced by Michael Hester, lauren Bryan and myself. Thank you so much to Jason for being here. Really is a treasure and always great to talk to him and hear from his heart about why we're doing the things we're doing here at CIOI. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe to our show on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back in a couple weeks, so I don't know what we're talking about. I've gotten really bad about that. I don't know what we're talking about in two weeks, but we'll be back, I promise. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to us on the CY community group or at podcast at CYcom. We'll see you next time, thank you.