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
BTE 5.09 State of the Union with Jayson French
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A new year deserves a new blueprint. We’re opening 2026 with a clear shift in youth ministry: equip students to share their faith with gentleness and respect, then walk with them through a real follow‑through plan that turns moments into movement. Jayson French joins us to unpack how CIY is doubling down on training, pairing students with mentors, and setting a focused 45‑day window so testimonies actually get told and gospel conversations get started where students already live—schools, teams, families, and friend groups.
We dig into the engine behind it: the follow‑through tools that help youth pastors measure what matters. Beyond attendance, you’ll see decisions for first‑time faith, repentance, kingdom work, and vocational ministry, track progress over time, and give volunteers a concrete way to coach students. This is practical, repeatable, and designed to help you tell a richer story at elders’ meetings and staff retreats—one that reflects spiritual growth you can actually see.
We also tackle a hard truth: AI is rapidly becoming a first stop for student counsel. We share why churches need clear ethics and compassionate guardrails that protect student agency and keep formation rooted in Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and real mentors. Technology can be useful; discipleship must be central. Yet the mood stays hopeful—churches are growing, teams are resilient, and students are hungry to live on mission when we train them well and model it ourselves.
Hi, I'm Brad Warren. This is Beyond the Event Youth Ministry Podcast presented by Christ and Youth, where we help you maintain momentum between the mountaintops. This is our first episode of the Year of Our Lord 2026. Hope everybody had a great Christmas, a great New Year's. I am joined uh what? This is one. The first one of 2026. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. January, it's uh January the 5th today. So there you go. Uh I'm joined by the president of Christ and Youth, Jason French. I'm so excited. Glad to be here, man. Yeah. Um, we've made this a little tradition where you come on once a year and it's great. I love doing it. Um, we are calling this episode the State of the Union, which is where you tell us what's going on at CIY, and Michael and I interrupt you by standing up and clapping. Okay. 100 times. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'm in a really inconvenient place to stand up.
SPEAKER_01:I'm just stay seated. Kind of me too, but no, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_03:Well, who's gonna like boo and not stand up? Like, we need that as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we'll get loose.
SPEAKER_03:Get loose.
SPEAKER_01:With his arms crossed. Yeah. Deadpan looking right at you.
SPEAKER_03:Who's the one person on our staff that could not be Contrarian if they had to?
SPEAKER_00:That could not be Contrarian? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I have that name in my head right now.
SPEAKER_00:Uh Corey Klein.
SPEAKER_03:Your name beats mine. Mine was Lane Moss. Oh, well, no, that's yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I would maybe say Avery Oldfield.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we got a lot of really kind people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_03:And then you've got Lou Zetter.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I love John. I really love John.
SPEAKER_01:He is. So him and I, our um anniversaries, like obviously he's been here much longer than I have, but our anniversaries line up so that we do the like every five-year dinner together. Like, I think I'm getting ready to hit 10 and he's getting ready to hit 20. 20. Yeah, is that right?
SPEAKER_03:We have so many of our staff that have been here 20 years. Um it's crazy. It is crazy. We just did a recognition with our board, and I think we had four people there that were celebrating 20 we 20 years ago. Wow. Like our longevity here is just crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Who were who do you remember who those people were?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Uh you had Andrew J. Hanson celebrating 40 years. And I know he's only 40 years. He's 10 hours a week. I know that, but still we celebrate that.
SPEAKER_01:So I mean the fact that he's in a is he in a 70s yet? Oh yeah. 70s. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then you have 40 years. And then you had uh Patrick Snow, who's got 20 years. You had MD Neely, who's got 20 years, and you had Matt Foreman, who has 20 years. Oh man.
SPEAKER_01:And it's like that every time. It's a wide uh like birth of people to the of the organization. Yeah. Like you've got set building, fabricating, uh, filmmaking, programming, and who was the last one?
SPEAKER_03:Well, if you take like it's kind of a funny I mean, it was Andy. Oh, and Andy, the president. Yeah. Yeah. He was I love that guy. He's a good man. Um and if you look at our organization overall, like it's been kind of a fun run because even with COVID, we had uh, you know, had to unfortunately release like over a third of our staff because just to make it. But even since then hiring everyone back, you know, we've doubled here in the last couple of years. Our average tenure of a staff member here is still over like 10 years. Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_01:That is that's crazy. That's very crazy.
SPEAKER_03:So when you see a lot of younger staff and new people we've hired, our tenure is still a decade.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because there's so many people here that have that have got such longevity.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, it's fun. That is really cool. Yeah. What I was going to say before you were leaving. Episode one, my bad.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna sit here quietly and behave myself.
SPEAKER_01:Um no, is that like usually people kind of go around the room and say nice things about whoever it is that's celebrating their anniversary, which is great. Um, and because John is a vice president, you talked about John and just talked about how like we're obviously growing, like still growing like crazy. We have been growing like crazy since 2022, um coming out of COVID, and just like how much of that is attributed to him and like his kind of study hand and the Holy Spirit. Well, yes, and the really good churches, the Holy Spirit at work through John was like a big deal. It is a big deal. John's great. Um, and yeah, he's our little favorite grump. We love him, we love him, we love him.
SPEAKER_03:But our growth is because we serve great churches. Yeah, 100%. We are I would tell people all the time, we are you know, in a house you have, you know, thermostats and thermometers. Thermometers just merely reflect the temperature. Thermostats set it. And what I would say is like our growth is a reflection of what's going on in the church. It's I used to tell people all the time, it is not us, it is her. It's the bride. And the bride is doing well coast to coast. And honestly, the bride's with our our team in Europe, the bride's doing well, you know, it's just there's beautiful things happening in the church right now.
SPEAKER_01:Um, this is a kind of in the weeds statistic that alludes to what you're saying. Um, but like okay, I have all this language for these things, but it's not gonna make sense to people who are listening, so I'm gonna break it down a little bit. But when we measure like retention um for both move and mix going from 2024 into 2025, if you look at just the churches that were returners in 2025, so churches that came in 24 and then came back in 25. Okay, if you had taken out all of the other 2025 churches, all the new churches we had in 2025, all those kinds of things, like we still would have grown just uh through our returner churches in 2025, which uh means that the church itself is growing. Yeah. And like we because I mean we don't retain 100% of our churches, but um yeah, but just those like 82, 83 percent of churches that came back, we still would have seen growth just among that group of churches.
SPEAKER_03:No, and I know for your listeners right now, I'm sure there are churches and youth pastors out there that that maybe your individual church is struggling right now, and maybe that can be a little discouraging to hear that, you know, wow, why why are all these other churches doing so great? But at the same time, let that also encourage you. Yeah. That there are some beautiful things happening. And I mean from you can go from California, Arizona all the way up to Maryland, you can go from churches up in Washington all the way down to Florida, from Michigan down to Texas, and man, the church is she is flourishing right now. And so even if you're individual church on a cold winter day in Illinois or Indiana, I don't know where you're at right now, uh, and and maybe that seems distant, uh, let your heart be encouraged that even though it may, it may be difficult in this season for you, you're part of something much bigger than than than one place, one town. And the movement of God's church, she is doing very, very well. Yeah. And that and you're a part of that. And so, man, hold your ground, do your work, you know, give your your hand fully to the work of the Lord, man, and your labor is not in vain.
SPEAKER_01:It's one of the great pleasures of working here, is that we get to like see, watch that happen, you know, and and observe um how much she is flourishing, which is great. Um, okay, I want to talk a little bit about Christ and Youth, this organization that we all work at and love. Um so here's where I kind of want this conversation to go. And Jason, you walked in this room and you said, What are we talking about? And I said, I'm not gonna tell you. And you didn't. And I didn't tell you because no idea what you're doing. You know, we're we I just want this to kind of be a free-flowing, you know, free association kind of of conversation here. So, um, but what I do want to do, here's the kind of core of of where I want this to head is I want to talk about CI. I want people I don't like to talk about myself. You not yourself. Well, even the organization. I'd rather talk about churches, but well, we we will get to do that through the conversation. Okay. Um, but I want to talk about maybe like the CI, the CI ecosystem, so including all of our churches. And like there are observable things for the church that people can be excited about, right? Um, there's stuff that they like know is going on that's exciting. Like, oh, we're adding events here, and now I have this option for my kids, and that's great. And you know, like this event used to not be full, and now it is full, which is fun. And my kids get to meet other churches from our area, and you know, all these great things. Um you have not let me finish a sentence yet on this podcast.
SPEAKER_03:I'm trying to listen to you right now, the whole time, trying to think what question is he gonna ask me in the next 10 seconds I have to answer.
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm gonna give you time. Okay. I'm gonna help you. I'm sweating over here going, I don't know where this is going. What do you need to ask? I just want to talk about some things that churches might not know.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That are going on here at Christ in Youth that will be maybe unique ways that we will be able to serve them that we haven't been able to in the past, unique ways that we'll be able to interact with them that we haven't been able to in the past, things that you're excited about, the culture of our organization that people might not see just by attending our events. I just wanna, so like when I say State of the Union, what I really want is I wanted you to come on here and I wanted to sit down and talk about like, hey, let's peel back a few layers that people don't normally get to look behind, and let's talk about why we should all be encouraged about the church and about the ways that CIY is gonna get to serve the church. It's 2026, brand new year, uh exciting year for our organization, I think. Um, but even moving forward from there, like what are what are you excited about? Let's just start there and see where it goes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Man, like I've I've got a few things rattling through my brain right now, but let me ask you this leading and prompting question. Is there anything in particular you're hoping I'm gonna talk about? Nope. Okay, great. We can do this then. Uh probably the thing I am really the most excited about right now as I think about the church bride is giving her a resource and a tool that uh really helps her follow up on kids that are making decisions. I've been that youth pastor and and in the times I've I've now been definitely at CIY longer than I was in student ministry, but it's crazy that I still feel like a student pastor at the core of my heart. Like I still think that way, I still feel that way. I feel like I could go back into youth ministry tomorrow, and I would love it. Like I just um you are. Yeah, it is. I mean, I still I got a group of freshman boys at my house, and we kind of got through the eighth grade season. That was a rough one. Thank God. I'm loving freshman, man.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, I know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I didn't think I'd say that, man. I thought, wow.
SPEAKER_01:It's like we don't lead a group together, but we each lead a group of freshman guys at the same church. And the eighth grade culture of that group of people was brutal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:My boy's a little rougher than your group, though.
SPEAKER_01:That's true.
SPEAKER_03:My boy's a little rough. I love them. I love my boys. Anyway, but I think what I'm excited about in terms of youth ministry is the opportunity to give a youth pastor um a tool to help him or help her follow up on the kids and making decisions. So we made um a really hard shift last year to deal with a presenting problem where we focused on vocational ministry. We saw like 5,000 students accept that call into ministry. Um, and we're already hearing stories that, you know, Ozark's looking at growing by 25%. We're hearing great stories coming out of Hope International, out of Johnson, um, out of CCCP. I mean, just all these things. I was just with there. Manhattan's got tragic, Great Lakes. There's good, good things happening. Um, but but one of the things we we wanted to help was we found there was a gap. And the gap was a lot of these kids, when we surveyed them, both qualitative and quantitative analysis, um, unfortunately, in a lot of contexts, they weren't they weren't having anyone follow up with them in conversations. And that's not through shade at youth pastors, because I love youth pastors. I think a lot of times uh a guy comes back from a week of move, or she comes back from a week of move, and you're exhausted, man. You got a mission strip still, you got VBS probably, you've got trying to get a vacation with your family if you can somehow squeak one in in the summer, if that's even possible in youth ministry, because we all know how how difficult that can be. Throw into that, like, oh, fall kickoff's coming. And you've got these really core kids who want to do really good things for the kingdom, and it's like, man, I'm gonna get to that. And the next thing you know, time rolls by, you feel guilty, you still want to. You're trying to cram in a moment or grab a coffee.
SPEAKER_01:Well, then the kid gets into school and they're busy and sports and activities and show choirs and like and you have to reply that by, okay, how many kids make decisions in my youth group, right? It was not just one kid, it's 10 kids, right? And now it's like, ooh.
SPEAKER_03:What do we do? Yeah. So we want to give the the youth pastor a tool where he or she could really follow up on students, and we're starting to see some really good things coming out of that. So what I'm really excited about is we did that with vocational ministry. With the follow-through app. With the follow-through app. And and honestly, youth pastors, if you're if you're listening right now, there's a gift in there that I don't know if you understand what it is and what we're trying to give you. So hear my heart in this. It's meant to be a blessing for you. So many times in your ministry, the only metric you can point to, to the elders in the room or to parents, or to senior pastor, are the proverbial butts and seats. It's the only tangible how many kids do we take on the retreat, how many kids are in a small group, how many kids showed up on Sunday morning, how many, how many, how many? And that gets a difficult one. That's the only metric you've got is butts and seats. What we think the follow-through is going to do is allow you to begin quantifying and qualifying some of the spiritual work that nobody else is seeing. Um, and allows you to say, hey, we want to show you these are the amount of kids that made a decision. And again, it won't be just a vocational ministry. I'm I'm foreshadowing where we're going. It's going to allow you to sit down with an eldership and say, look, we had this many students accept the call to kingdom work, and here's where they are in the journey. Even things like coming up, we we put things in there for repentance. Here's the amount of kids we had that were struggling with a sin. Here's how many of them have made progress over the last few months. And I'm just telling you, I know sometimes you guys are looking for ways to garner respect in what you do professionally. And I think that follow through not only will take great care of your students, most importantly, not only give you a tool to know that you're doing the things that you care deeply about, which are kids making decisions and making sure they're they're making progress. But honestly, if you'll if you'll be a bit savvy about it, it also gives you a story you could tell about your youth ministry. But you're gonna have to lean into it and you're gonna have to dive into it. But if you'll be smart about it and you'll put the effort in and you really get on there and look at that back-end dashboard, it's gonna give you a story to tell at an elders' meeting, at a staff retreat, at a staff meeting, when you're gathering your volunteers, and it gives you something more to tell than, hey, we had 30 last week, we had 35 this week, or we had 300 last week, we have 350 this week. It it gives you, it gives you something more tangible to talk about. And actually you can you can point and show the actual progress. And or you can even talk about, hey, these kids are stalled, what's going on? And it actually gives you something to train your adult leaders in that are that are signing up as a mentor. So I'm really excited about that. I want to talk specifically about what we're doing this next summer, but let me let you talk for a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:No, I I I'm glad you brought this up. This was the thing that I was hoping you were going to talk about. No, I'm kidding.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No. Uh so we recognize four decisions and move right now. Yep. We recognize first-time decisions, repentance, kids who want to go into kingdom work, and vocational ministry um are kind of the four things we ask people to stand up so that we can see um where the Holy Spirit's been moving throughout the course of a week of move. Um, we are starting even with Superstart this year to recognize like, okay, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, God has created you uniquely. Uh who is gonna use the who wants to use those gifts to to serve his kingdom? And we're gonna start to see some of that a little bit too, which is fun. Um, something we've never done before at Superstart, or at least not in my recent memory. Um so last year we really heavily introduced and pushed vocational ministry.
SPEAKER_03:And we'll keep doing that. We're trying to call 30,000 students into vocational ministry.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that won't go away. And those resources are gonna continue to be beefed up and and modified, and we're listening and adapting and all those things. But what's coming? Um I love what's coming. Yes. So that's what I want to say. You kind of alluded to um some some repentance things being in there and some things for other students who have made decisions. Yeah, just tell me like there's a big one coming though. Okay, okay. Summer of 2026. What am I gonna notice?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what you're gonna notice. Will you okay? First of all, we will continue to do vocational ministry. But if you want to get ready, and man, this is the insider track of what you want to start praying about and focusing on. I'm trying to figure out how I want to start telling this story because I'm so excited and there's so many things I want to talk about, but I don't want to uh I don't want to lose your listener by getting into the weeds here. Okay, we'll just state it. I think you will. We'll just state it.
SPEAKER_01:Just put it on 2x speed.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I talk pretty fast. Uh the number one thing that we're gonna be hitting this summer is trying to see if we can between now and 2032, so 30,000 kids into vocational ministry. The next piece we want to focus on is can we mobilize 300,000 students on how to give, to always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that they have with gentleness and respect. To be very direct, is that this summer we want to mobilize probably, I mean, I'm gonna say, I don't want to throw out a number. I don't want to focus on the numbers, but we are gonna push really, really, really hard uh for students to take the idea of personal evangelism serious again.
SPEAKER_01:Now and just tell the story of what God has done in their life.
SPEAKER_03:And we're gonna get into so for so long, we've been an organization that has been a teaching organization. And we're not gonna leave that. Excuse me, sorry, guys. Um, I think we want to also become an organization that, for the sake of the church, is also a training organization. And so this summer we're gonna work hard at Mix and Move to train your students on how to articulate and share their faith. Uh, and I'm hoping after that, man. I mean, I'll I'm gonna try not to get emotional here, but I hope the Baptist, the Baptisters at your local church are full. I hope you've got students leaving their moms or their dads to Christ, their brothers or sisters, the kids, you know, in locker rooms or on fields with them, you know, the kids are in choir with. I'm hoping that that students take this mantle of articulating their faith because of the love of Jesus has so radically impacted them, they can't help but share. Um, and I'll be honest with you, um, we're not gonna ask students to do something that our staff is not doing. Yeah. Uh, and so I'm also really excited that we're actually gonna spend the entire spring semester having a deep conversation about with our own staff and their role um in personal evangelism. That word evangelism has just been so hijacked in is this politically correct cultural and man, we've we've allowed the world to shame us into not articulating our faith. And we want to, I'm not saying we don't make evangelism cool again. Um I can guarantee that will not be a shirt move. But I think what we do want to say is that, man, this is a this is a biblical mandate because of the love of God, um, because of his great love for us. Um, you know, we want Christ's love to compel us, you know, and we want to we want to raise up students to be his ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through them. And so we're doing this with our staff. So we'll start, we'll start.
SPEAKER_01:We've already started.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we did. We did phase one. Phase two's coming.
SPEAKER_01:Which phase one was everyone on our staff, yeah. During our we have staff devots every Wednesday morning. Every single person on our staff was challenged to kind of develop their testimony and share in three minutes um the story of what God has done in their life in front of our staff, which is horrifying.
SPEAKER_03:But every single person did it.
SPEAKER_01:But we but we did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was phase one. We've already worked on that a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:So phase two is we will we'll start with our staff, and we've got a 16-week thing we're going to roll through on our staff devotions, which is all about the gospel and just living in that. And it kind of culminates in the middle of March. Um, we're gonna have to do, you know, yeah, I don't want to get into the weeds here, but but basically we're gonna basically train them, articulate how to do it, give them some tools, have them practice to the point we get to March, and we're gonna say, hey man, we're gonna give you kind of a 45-day window, and your challenge is that within 45 days to place yourself in a place where you can give an answer for the hope that you have with gentleness and respect. I will I'll I think Peter is dead on on that. Um, and really challenge every single one of our staff because I don't wanna I don't want our staff on stages telling students to do something that we haven't led the way in. Yeah. And I think it's important that that we don't ask kids to do something that we as adults are not already doing. Yeah. And so for you guys that are listening, I'd say number one, you need to start praying for how many students take this seriously. And we're gonna kind of give them a 45-day challenge when they leave mix and move. And then for you to start praying for God to open up their hearts and for there to be an overwhelming response of people in your church that are coming to Christ. And what would it look like if you came back from Move or Mix this summer with your students more passionate about sharing their faith than you've ever seen before? And then the question is, how do you keep fanning that flame, as Paul talks about? How do you keep keep that going? Um, and what does that look like? And so we're not gonna hit that for one year, kind of like vocational ministry. We're gonna be hitting this for several years and kind of awaken within the heart of the church a passion to share our faith again.
SPEAKER_01:And the cool thing about doing this with students is, excuse me, you're talking about this, and I'm thinking, like, oh, here are the five people that I have relationships with that don't know Jesus, right? It was like, I've been in ministry all my life. Most of my friends love the Lord. Um, I obviously interact with people who don't know the Lord and need to flex some of those muscles in the ways that you're talking about. But like, if your kid is in school, private, public doesn't make a difference. If they're not in school, if they homeschool, but they're on a soccer team or whatever, they are every day interacting with dozens of hundreds of people who don't know the Lord. Like the opportunity for that age group in particular is just so fertile. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:So we're gonna give us some really practical training tools to help them succeed. Um, and I know I've made this a passion of my own heart, my own life. Um, you know, we've got uh a guy that I've been kind of sharing the Lord with for the last uh, you know, last year or so, and just watching the journey he's made and watching his response to the Lord. And then, you know, he's gonna go to another church, didn't go to my church at all. Is it John Luz Adder? No, it's Michael Hester. Michael, no, it's uh it's honestly, and he can hear this podcast. He'll he'll know exactly. No, I'm not getting it. You don't see it. Because I didn't know I'll say his name. I'm I'm not there to say his name at all. I hope he's I hope he's listening. Um, that man, he knows I've been praying for him on a regular basis. Like I tell him that all the time. It's like, Tommy, been praying for you, man. And I ask him every time I sit down to get my hair cut and I sit down in the seat. Tommy, you know, we always, there's always a moment where we talk about I uh my son goes, We'll be able to get our hair cut at the same time. I was like, Sy, I'm looking for an opening, be praying, find an opening, you know, for every time I go in to talk to Tommy about Jesus. And just watching what those openings have done and those moments I'm able to articulate who Jesus has been, what's happening in my faith and my life, and watching, I've been talking to him, Lane's been talking to him, Titus has been talking to him, MD's been talking to him, we all go to get our haircut, but watching Tommy start talking about Jesus, where it kind of culminated in this, he's like, hey man, I'm thinking I've been going to this church. I was like, Tommy, you're going to church. And if you knew Tommy's background, um, and Tommy would not be, he'd say it. Um, he'd he'd tell you he was a former felon. Like he's got he's got a crazy story. Um, but all of a sudden, just watching what happens and the way the Holy Spirit starts igniting his heart. He starts going to, you know, a church here in town. And the next thing he tells me, like, I hey my hey, my son's gonna baptize me. And then he's getting baptized. And then Tommy, like you all have to see Tommy if you understood this. You know, he's a little older than I am. He's like, Jason, a crazy thing happen. I had this guy come into me, man, and uh he's going into prison for some stuff he shouldn't have done. It's pretty bad. And I was scared, and man, I was telling him how bad prison's gonna be because I was in there, man. He I was there, I was just telling him. And uh, I'm not gonna say the exploit that Tommy said, because Tommy's a new believer. Uh and I kind of want you, but I won't. Get the beep, get the beep button ready, Michael. We're gonna do that. And uh so Tommy's Tommy's sitting there cutting my hair, he's telling me the story, and he goes, and Jason, craziest thing happened. I I scared this guy, told him all that kind of stuff, and he walked out. And all of a sudden, he walked out of the out of the shop, and I realized I was like, Tommy, you didn't talk to him at all about Jesus. Tommy, why didn't you tell him about Jesus? Why'd you talk all about scaring him? And all of a sudden, Jason, I realized, oh my word. He goes, God just talked to me. God just talked to me. And he goes, he said a word that was awesome. He goes, God talks to Tommy. He's just like, he goes, it's a crazy thing ever happened in my life. God talks to Tommy. And I was like, I said, Tommy, God does talk to you. So the last time I wanted to get my hair cut, he started telling me, Jason, I had four people come in today and we're sitting in here and we talked about the Lord. I tell them, I tell them about what Jesus is doing in my life. And I want to see that contagious type stuff happen in your church. It's incredible. I want to see kids leading their dads to Christ. I want to see students leading their friends to Christ. And so as a youth pastor, if you're listening, man, I want to encourage you, be on your nose on your knees every week. Like be praying for kids to catch this fire and what it could mean to your church and your community. And honestly, in my own life, Jesus has changed the trajectory of my family tree. And so it's not just about leading a person to Christ, it's about leading a fire. Families. It's about changing family trees for generations. And so we're going to ignite this fire, not just this year, but for the next few years. It's going to be something we really talk about a lot is the importance of the church taking evangelism series again. Um, I got a confession I can make as well, but you talk for a minute.
SPEAKER_01:I want to stay here for just a second because now I know why it's worth it for you to get all these bad haircuts, is because you're trying to leave people to I've got to find somebody big.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I gotta find somebody big.
SPEAKER_01:Uh Tommy's Tommy uh sounds like a great guy, and that that's super fun. I love that story for several reasons. I want to kind of ask you to help me um with uh just kind of a point of tension that I feel a little bit. Um so Tommy, this is incredible. Um I love that so many people were involved in his journey uh to finding Jesus. You, Lane, MD, Titus, he's going to this other church, his son is baptizing him. Like there is a community of people um who are uh who are helping this man find and follow Jesus and and that's great. Um so high school student. I'm a sophomore in high school, I have friends that don't love Jesus, and I love Jesus, and I want them to follow Jesus, right? How do we emphasize the importance of them sharing their story, sharing their testimony with gentleness and respect and and talking to their friends about Jesus without discouraging them when maybe things don't go the way that you want them to go. Or like we we wouldn't we want students to feel the weight of the importance of doing this without like punishing themselves if like oh I did a bad job because this person didn't end up following Jesus, you know. I'm trying to put myself in my own shoes when I was in high school. Obviously, I I have a more mature way of thinking about that now, but like well, just help me understand how you would like talk to somebody about that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think I think I would hopefully want to approach the motivation from a a completely different mentality. Right. You know, I love what Corinthians says, Paul writes, for Christ's love compels me. That sharing the gospel is yes, it is a this man this biblical mandate we have as believers. But I look at it going, man, we are emissaries from a king that peace is here, peace is available. And I I don't think we need to help students need to take it personally if someone rejects that peace. They they are merely his ambassadors, compelled by his love, not not guilted out of obligation, shouldn't feel bad, and take it personally if someone rejects that peace. Their their role in this is to say, man, the love of Jesus has compelled me that I need to tell you that peace is available, that you are invited to be a part of a new kingdom. And if somebody wants to reject that, man, I I can't do anything about that, but I I don't want them to feel guilty. Right. So I think I I would want to say for a youth pastor, man, make sure you've got the motivation centered on the love of Jesus compelling them. For me, I love to talk to people about Jesus because I know that I come from like I'm the product of a one-night stand. My mom was on her way to abort me. Like, I know that my story is mom had three marriages. I love my mama. She's great. She's she's past now, but I love her.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and later in life, she did really. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Like she and I were baptized on the same day and Jesus transformed. But that's the whole point is like, I when I talk to Tommy, like I just want Tommy to have that same transformation in his life and his family with his son that I've had in my family. Like, even when I talk to my son Silas, like Silas, you can choose, you know, whether or not you want to accept Jesus because you know, Silas's story before he he came into our home, we adopted him, was messy and difficult. And I'm just like, Silas, I want you to accept Jesus because it has the ability to completely transform your future and not just your future, but your children's future, like for generations. And so I think for students to not walk in feeling like, I failed, like, no, they didn't fail. If you had to put any of that, say the Holy Spirit didn't do it. Like, if that makes you feel good, the pressure is not on you.
SPEAKER_01:No, man.
SPEAKER_03:You just do your role of being a good ambassador. Let God make his appeal. And and sometimes, you know, it's it's like casting seed, you know, in the parable of the sower. You know, our job is to be a bit crazy with the seed. Throw it everywhere you can, man. And we don't get to determine whether that soil is rocky or whether it's thorny or whether it's good. I think that's the Holy Spirit. But what we can do is we go a little crazy with the seed and just say, hey, man, I'm gonna let the Holy Spirit decide what takes what takes root and what doesn't, but I'm not gonna feel guilty or bad because it doesn't. I'm gonna leave that. That's God's job, not mine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and that's well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I remember when we did the parable of the sower, I don't know, three, two years ago, whatever that was. Um, like I remember sitting in a meeting where Nate Carnes talked about how it's the gardener's job to make the soil good, not ours. Like if if if the soil is rocky and it's gonna be made good, it's not my job to remove the rocks from your soil. Like I just throw the seed and then I gotta like God, you know, work out what he's gonna work out. And um, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Nothing where I feel I had a I had a moment of confession after the whole Charlie Kirk thing happened. And two tangents on that. People always ask me, number one, let's deal with this real quick. I had someone just bring it up to me the other day. Was I surprised by the response, you know, after Charlie Kirk, you know, if people want to know about the Lord, I was like, no. How could anybody in youth ministry be surprised by that? I was not surprised in the least bit. I've been seeing this upstream for the last 10 years, like this revival that we're seeing right now of you know, of kids and even from college all the way down, coming to Christ, y'all, that's been happening. We've been seeing that. That is not a new thread. That is just a culmination of what was already taking place. And so I've not been surprised by that at all. Uh, you know, and again, I I get a chance to live, live upstream. I think what I was surprised, where I had to apologize to the Lord about, and maybe this is something that that your listeners can take to heart as well. The Lord put it on my heart a couple of years ago to really take training people to share their faith seriously. And I kept, you know, you scope and sequence things out. Okay, Lord, we got to do this, we're gonna do vocational ministry, got to get that all out. Then we're gonna do this. And as soon as I'd hit that, the one I did feel conviction on is not how many people responding, but how few people we had actually trained and were ready to have the conversations. And that's the part that grieved me. And I had to say, Lord, I'm sorry. And so my thing for for you all that are listening, for youth pastors, is man, we've got to, we've got to take seriously equipping and training our students to share their faith. And it can't be, you know, the way you share the gospel is invite your friend to come to youth group. We have to equip them to go into the places where they're at. And so my challenge to you is what are you doing to truly equip your students to articulate their faith with gentleness and respect? Have you done a really, a really good job at taking that mantle of your role as a leader, your role as a discipler? Have you taken that seriously? And I would say, man, spend less time coming up with games and videos, and maybe even just a little even less time trying to make your sermon perfect and triple the amount of time you're taking training your kids on how to share their faith, you know, fueled through the love of Christ first and foremost, not out of guilt, but out of love. And we want to come alongside you and help you do that this summer, you know, to really give you some good tools and even allow your student ministry to unite their language a little bit, some of the nomenclature. Um, we want to help them do that because we love the church.
SPEAKER_01:And this isn't something that we're saying, like, you guys should do this. Have fun. Like we are creating resources that are going to help do this. I don't know if we can get in on that.
SPEAKER_03:No, I can tell you a little bit. So what it's going to look like is if you have a student that stands up this summer, says they want to be a kingdom worker, um, I think it's gonna be 45 days. We're still finishing some details on that. The challenge will be will they share their faith within 45 days after the event? And I know you're like, why 45 days? Why not?
SPEAKER_01:Strike while the iron's on.
SPEAKER_03:It is, it's just a matter, like it doesn't have to only be 45.
SPEAKER_01:But sometimes you've it's no, it's 45 or you go to hell.
SPEAKER_03:No, you don't. I think sometimes we can all agree that sometimes constraint, whether that be on a diet or whatever it is you're doing in life, constraint can be a good thing. We're gonna use a constraint of time to like, okay, not someday. I got 45 days. There's a sense of urgency. Yeah. We're gonna immediately put them into community with somebody from your church. They're gonna choose a mentor and they're gonna talk to that mentor and kind of maybe identify four or five people they're thinking about. Um, could be a friend, could be a family member, and then that mentor into a covenant relationship with them saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna agree to pray, set an alarm on my phone, we're gonna pray every day. I'm gonna pray every day for you to have this opportunity. And they're gonna sit down with a student and say, Hey, can you give me your 15-second transformational statement? Or can you give me your three-minute testimony? Hey, could you kind of sit down using the maybe the three C's is what we're talking about using, and kind of scope out what you're gonna share about brokenness and about how God brings healing and kind of what does it look like if somebody does want to have a deeper conversation with you? And so it's not just about like standing on a street corner and preaching, and man, sometimes that works, but it really is equipping them to say, in the moment when God opens the door, can you recognize a divine opportunity and take it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And pull, like take the shot and go for it and not allow fear to paralyze you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um I feel like there's a thing that I've been wanting to talk about for about 15 minutes now that I just haven't. No, it it relates to this. And I was like, do I bring this up? Do I not bring this up? Bring it up. But I well, the answer to this question might be no, and that's okay. But is this at all inspired by your relationship with Richie Shiliday? Like, has he informed any of this for you? Do you feel like?
SPEAKER_02:Hmm.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I I love what we do on engaged trips and share the testimony. Yeah. And when I saw what Richie was able to do, even have my own son stand up and share his story of his past. Uh, and I'm not gonna get into that now. Some of you guys know that that we adopted my great nephew. Uh, love that boy. Um, but man, he had a he had a rough go. Um, you know, I do love what Richie does when he has students share their stories in three minutes. And so I think the three minute thing, uh, it did inspire me, but I don't want to throw because Richie and I are very dear friends. I love that guy. So it's not meant to throw shade at him. Honestly, Brad, this is something the Holy Spirit keeps me up at night on. Yeah. This is the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And the Holy Spirit's been on me. He's been nagging at me. You need to do this, Jason. You got to call more kids a vocational ministry, and you got to train students to share their faith. Um, because what what I'd say, and I don't mean your church when I say this, but generally speaking, broad strokes here, not talking about first something church or something or some community church out. I'm not throwing shade at your church. But generally speaking, the church has kind of abdicated her role at training people to share their faith or even asking them to do it. Like it doesn't happen often that somebody gets challenged from the stage or from a platform or even one-on-one, you know, to go share the gospel. Um, it's just it's kind of we just kind of let it drift. Yeah. A little bit of mission drift the church has generally. And I mean big C church. I'm not talking about your church. Don't get all offended.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I do appreciate kind of the correction that this strategy seems to be making to something that I was raised in. I was raised in a tradition um where the conversation about evangelism was a little bit more like, hey, your friends are gonna go to hell if you don't, you know. And um so this is a, I mean, there I get so many people have that story about the sermon of somebody who gets hit by a bus, and you know, it's like whatever, you know. Um, and that like the scare tactics are really not it, and you've kind of alluded to that. So um I do love that this is kind of a refreshing reset and approach to like, hey, no, we are compelled by by the love of God to share our faith with gentleness and respect with people who don't don't don't know him. And that's just a more nuanced approach that I am really excited about. Um I don't know what time it is. 1028. What time do we start? Um I started recording 43 minutes ago. Oh my gosh. Okay. Um I want to talk about something else. Okay, but I don't care what. What else? What else is exciting?
SPEAKER_03:I did have something else, and you can edit this right right now. Because I'm trying to actually there's something that the the whole the Holy Spirit prompted me to talk about something. I'm trying to remember what it was. And maybe his prompting has left that. So I'm I'm good with that as well. Uh what was it? Lord, can you remind me of what it was that you said we should talk about? Jesus, help me remember that. I was like, oh, we should talk about that a little bit. Yeah. I think the if it pops back into your head, okay, okay. It did pop back in my head. Um I'm curious um um about the the church's general silence. And this does nothing to do with s with CIY and where we're going. I uh and and maybe I am not a prophet. I'm not. So when I I'm not saying I have a That I have a prophetic voice. Um and so please don't misunderstand that. But I'm I'm deeply concerned by the church's silence as it relates to all things AI right now. Um I'm deeply concerned.
SPEAKER_01:I think AI How well hold on one second. How how what are you observing that makes you say that? Is it genuinely that you're observing nothing?
SPEAKER_03:Like that we're not talking about it, or um, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to call out any any churches in particular because I think that would be really toxic and dangerous. But let's just say I've talked to a lot of churches. Yeah. A lot. And this is not a topic of conversation they're having. Um, it's almost like we as a church have our head in the sand right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like that's something that's happening over here and we're doing our thing over here.
SPEAKER_03:And I think AI is the most, especially in student ministry, is the most disruptive thing that we will ever face. Um, and what's coming for the generation of students we we work with that as youth pastors, um, we have got a mantle here that we've got to pick up for the sake of our students and and raise alarm. Now, you know that I'm heavily involved in AI. And man, I understand everything from gentic to generative to automated intelligence. If we get into talk about LLMs and all that world, you know, it's it's something that I've spent no small amount of time, you know, um thinking through. And I utilize AI in so many ways. You also know that I've banned uh chat GPT from our from our staff using no more chat GPT. No, we won't, we we will not allow our staff to use chat. Um, and basically that's because of Sam Altman, um, because I do believe that within the world of AI, um, and I'll just say this, I think there are um Paul warns us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and principalities, you know. And I do believe that there are some principalities and evil that are involved right now in all things AI. I do believe there are technology oligarchs out there that that do not have mankind's best interest in mind. Um, and I do think that it is not a technology, you know. I was someone, someone the other day kind of got in a little bit of an argument because they want to say, oh man, this is just like any other, any other technology revolution. It's like, no, it is not. It is not. It this is display.
SPEAKER_01:I say this with respect. I'm not trying to make you feel like gentleness and respect.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:But like you were around when the internet This is not what the internet is. That's why I'm saying is the internet. It's not it. This isn't me saying this. This is somebody who lived through that.
SPEAKER_03:No, we don't. You know what I mean? We don't we always want to boil things down into metaphors and make comparables. There is no comparable to what students are facing right now. Um, one, we've we've done a hard cancel at CI. I'll finish that statement on Chat GPT because of what Sam Altman is doing with generative porn. Um, we just will not be affiliated. Now, I understand that the whole world of open AI gets even more complicated because nearly everything, not everything, I mean, even Copilot is built in the open AI plot. We can't we can't dive too far into it. I know we can't dive too far. No, you know me, man. You know I'll get out of the weeds.
SPEAKER_01:Uh your listeners probably have to be banned because they made bad ethical choices. Yes. Yes. That's that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I need to stop there. Yes, your listener has no idea how deep I can get the weeds on this. Yeah. Um, but uh rolling back, I think what I'm read what I'm deeply concerned about, I would tell churches to raise caution on, is the loss of agency that is coming for a minor. And by the loss of agency, uh, what I mean is their true inability to process and think on their own. So I can use things like AI because at my age, I've got so much life experience. I've I've I've dealt with issues, I've made, you know, correlative decisions based on pros and cons and all the things that play out there. I've processed, I've sat in silence, I've I've had to seek the voice of God, you know, all that stuff in my life. I've got this deep well.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lens through which you're viewing the information that AI is giving you.
SPEAKER_03:But you're looking at students, and number one reason a student goes to AI is for counsel. And so now you've got them go back to Romans, you've got students now using technology and a space reserved for the Holy Spirit, and it's dangerous. They're not going to their parents. They're not even going to a pastor. And I think for churches to recognize, you all need to be careful right now because there's coming a point where AI is trying to set itself up as the pastor of your church. It's trying to set itself up as the pastor of your conversation, of your, of your congregation. It wants to give the marriage advice, not Bible. It wants to give the the counsel as it relates to depression or anxiety or anything that scripture would speak to. You know, and honestly, the number one reason why students are going to it is for counseling. And there's a lot of danger there, and even the loss of agency where students don't even know where to go for advice anymore. They just go there. You know, I tell people when you drive by a feedlot and you see all the cattle that are fed so well, man, their water's given to them. You buy that feedlot, they got a safe place where no predators can get to them. Man, everything's great. Yeah, why not feedlot? Exactly. And I think what technology is doing is it's placing a younger generation in a feedlot, a mental feedlot, an emotional feedlot, where their dependence is gonna put them in a place where for the upcoming generation, you're gonna see a complete incapacity to even know how to make a decision or how to do anything without the use of this technology. And I'm trying to tell you, church, this is an affront to the Holy Spirit. And again, I don't I don't get into the automated intelligence issue. That's fine. I got no beef with that. Um even some of the agentic stuff doesn't, I understand it's gonna cost people jobs, but I also understand that. Like I get it. But there's some other things happening here that we're just like taking, well, it's just the way it is. I'm like, why aren't we taking a stand against some of this? Because it's literally leading a younger generation to slaughter. Um it's dangerous. And I think there are, I definitely think that in some capacities, not every AI is bad, but I do believe some of those are influenced by rulers and principalities.
SPEAKER_01:Again, and I well, yes. And I want to book in this again by saying we use this technology. We don't you use this technology. Yeah. This isn't a blanket statement about like, it's not this is bad and we should never touch it or use it and avoid it at all costs. It's just like you have to develop an ethic through the guidance of the Holy Spirit around what an appropriate use of this technology is, and then help your students understand that as well. Is that kind of what you're saying? It is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think it's time for the church to take a much more active stance in in pushing back against some things within this culture. And man, we we're just sitting there Sunday after Sunday plugging along as if as if everything's normal. And there is, man, there's a I'll say it, there's a raging lion seeking to devour. And I'm like, church, where are you at? Yeah, why aren't you saying something? Why are you telling kids they shouldn't be in this space? Like what they're doing with generative porn, what that's gonna do to marriages, like the ability for you to just put anybody's image in there and do whatever you want with that human being, you know, digitally, like, and then it's gonna know your thoughts. When you think about what scripture says about search me, oh God, and know my thoughts, AI's doing that all the time. And now it's gonna start doing things for you. As a pastor, I didn't tell you, man, you should be fleeing Chat GPT right now, because it's gonna come for your marriage. Trust me, the way they're gonna make money in this thing is getting you addicted to generative porn. It's just coming, man. And we need to be throwing up major red flags and cautions right now. It's gonna make things like we understand the cultural phenomena of things like OnlyFans. Never been on it. Let the Holy Spirit sus that right now in your own heart. But culturally, we know what that phrase is. We just know culturally, it's gonna make things like that seem like it's gonna put them out of business. Like what Sam Altman is doing right now with Chat GPT is dangerous, Brad.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and it's something that like it's evil. It I agree. It um it's a it's something that has been coming for a long time too, though. I know for a lot of people it feels like this is a very, very recent development, but when you think about like, I mean, social media algorithms are AI, and we've watched people be put into echo chambers and radicalized by algorithms because they're seeing on social media only what they want to see and only voices that agree with them, right? On and and I'm not making a political statement about that at all.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just saying like it just slowly walks them down an ideology.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. It's like you start in a very gray space and then it leads you, it pushes you into a much more black or white space on on really any issue. And so we've already seen the effects of that, and this is that to like the tenth power.
SPEAKER_03:Whatever we begin to tolerate, we will eventually come to accept.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So anyway, think about AI. Um, on a lighter note, no, about AI. This is this is still about AI. Okay. Um if you struggle to think about it, to like wrap your head around the stakes of AI, this is gonna sound silly, but there are two movies that I think uh the actually have helped me think about this in a really critical way. Critical. Why? You got a smile on your face, Brad. Well, because we've already talked about this. Oh, yeah, like we talked about this off mic. But there are two movies that I actually think have helped me understand what is at stake. One of those movies is James Cameron's masterpiece, Terminator 2 Judgment Day. Okay. And the other one is Steven Spielberg's understated AI Artificial Intelligence. Have you ever seen that one?
SPEAKER_03:I've not seen that one. Of course I've seen.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I was in high school whenever I've seen. Haley Joel Osmond plays a little robot boy that a family adopts after their son uh dies, or not dies, goes into a coma. And they like develop a relationship with this child.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. You know. So anyway, like I'm being serious. I know this seems silly, but it's like if you uh start to think about AI and just get stressed out and are like, I don't even know, like, I don't even know what to like how to engage with all of that. Movies are a really approachable way for me to begin to think about some of these things. And both of those movies really informed, like for me, okay, this is a big deal. And that neither of the like both of those movies were made a hundred years ago, which is crazy. So not a hundred years ago.
SPEAKER_03:I think for me, when I think about it, and man, I'm gonna really gonna date myself because these are books that are so old and a little eccentric, they're out there, they're they're allegory. But it's a little bit of I've got a little bit of Lord of the Rings um with this ring and how it takes dominion, it takes power, yeah, it takes control. Uh, the other one actually has a little bit to do with the old, old school books back from like the 90s when they that whole series by Paretti called This Present Darkness. And um it was in talking about some of the the spiritual dimensions. And I think what I would say is church recognize demonic forces that are at play. And am I saying that about AI, AI? I am not. I am not. But in some of these spaces, man, I think there's some demonic forces at play. And we need to, we, and if you've ever, if you're sitting there as a pastor and you're like, oh, I don't know about that, if you've stopped believing in demons, then man, you stop believing scripture. I'll just say that. That there are forces of wickedness at work. And if you're thinking they're not actively looking for ways to take control of humanity to rob God of his glory, man, I've never seen an adoption as fast in my life as what I'm seeing right now.
SPEAKER_01:And speeding up.
SPEAKER_03:And just blind adoption.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Caution, church.
SPEAKER_01:Extreme caution. Jason, I'm gonna need you to finish this podcast by talking about something a little cheerier. What is something that when you wake up in the morning, you're just excited about? Actually, you know what I want to ask you? This is this has nothing to do with anything. Okay, but you're a man of uh tradition. You love traditions. You love um, we've talked on this podcast before about like the the rites of passage that your children go through. Yeah. We just got done with the Christmas season.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right now, we in this world are getting ready for it, but by the time people listen to it, they just got done with it. Do you have any good Christmas traditions that you do with your family that you love?
SPEAKER_03:We do. And they're not, they're not complicated, they're not rocket science. Um, every Christmas Eve, my wife will buy an ornament for every kid that kind of represents what happened to them this year. And I don't need to go into what those ornaments are right now, but it's just kind of a cool thing. So we sit down, we open those ornaments, and then we always read. Is your ornament just Sam Altman?
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_03:No, it's not. It is not. Uh actually, my ornament this year was a uh it's a little symbol of a state. Uh uh sorry, it's a it's a it's an ornament that has a symbol of four different states in it. It's got Arizona, it's got Kentucky, it's got Illinois, and it's got Missouri. But sure, where are your four children? My four children, yeah. So I've got four kids and they're spread all over. So that's kind of a it's just talk about where my heart is, yeah. It's in four different states right now. Uh and then we always read the Christmas story, and then we always read Twas and the Night Before Christmas, and then we play board games, and my wife gets pajamas for everybody. I have, I don't, I'm not a pajama guy, so she kind of quit buying it for me. Uh yeah. And then the kids all sleep downstairs, even though my oldest is now, you know, 29 and my youngest is 15. It is still tradition where they'll even go down there with their spouses. And I mean, it is just, it's a thing.
SPEAKER_01:Like everybody camps out downstairs.
SPEAKER_03:I'm like, I'm too old. I'm in my bed. I've been so I didn't crap anymore. I'm upstairs in my bed. Uh and then the next morning, like we have to make two different types of cinnamon rolls because of my kids are picky about some of them like the little canned ones that are terrible and they're they think they're the best. I'm like, whatever. And then does Janice actually like make some? Uh yeah, she makes cinnamon rolls. So we we do that. That's crazy. Yeah. It's it's obnoxious. But yeah, that's kind of kind of what it is.
SPEAKER_01:But okay, now that you're in that peaceful, lovely headspace, tell me about something at CIY that you're excited about. AI doesn't seem like something you're excited about. No, I'm worried about. I know, but I asked you what you're excited about, and then you started talking about AI.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, sorry. It's fine. My bad, my bad. Welcome to the mind of Jason Rich. Um, I am, and I know you're gonna think I'm just I always it's it's a it's a drum I beat all the time. I'm excited about the church, Brad. Great. I'm excited about what's happening in her. I'm excited about just her growth. I'm excited about the the way that youth pastors are are seeing such like there's just it's a good season in youth ministry right now. Like, and I and I love that. And I think when I when I look at it, it's the conversations I'm having with churches when I'm out and about because I travel a lot. And and I'm hearing some really compelling fun stories about what Jesus is doing in a local church.
SPEAKER_01:And so I'd say that's how you're on the spot, but can you like can you give us a couple allegories, a couple little things that it's like this is a cool thing, this is exciting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, without without speaking directly about certain churches, and they probably wouldn't even care. Um, there's some really cool ways that churches are mobilizing students to be utilized again. And there's a big shift happening in churches where having kids just attend and do the butts and seats type thing, uh, I'm seeing a shift right now that I've prayed for for a long time, where I'm seeing more churches mobilize kids for ministry in ways that that I've never seen. And in starting to measure that and and take that seriously. And honestly, I'm seeing more student pastors, you know, take seriously. Um, I mean, I would if I want to talk about what's going on with my friends out at like Sun Valley or CCV or man, what my my friends are doing up at CU in Champagne Urbana, I could talk about people over in Louisville, like Northeast. There's just some things going on at churches around the country right now that where they are really taking training the next generation for ministry very seriously. Um, and they are doing some really cool things to encourage our students to get integrated and plugged into community. Um, and it just makes my heart feel alive. It's it's it just that's what gets me fired up about doing these events is to call these people together and encourage them and challenge them and mobilize them for ministry. Well, I'm excited about that.
SPEAKER_01:I'm excited too. We're gonna have a whole bunch of events this year. When this comes out, we've got YMS coming up. We've got about 17 super starts coming up. I don't even know how many moving mixes coming up.
SPEAKER_03:We got a bunch of engaged trips. Seven engaged trips in March alone. Like a one one or two week span of March.
SPEAKER_01:Right. A lot of people are doing the yeah, the spring break mission thing now. I'm leading one of those. I'm going back to Riot. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. Um, with Northridge Christian Church in Georgia. Nice. My buddy Joey. It's good. Shout out, Joey. Um, anyway, so I I hope that you get a chance to interact with a lot of these guys at some of those hundred events and that they get a chance to interact with you and continue to hear your heart about some of these things. And uh just really appreciate you spending some time with us today.
SPEAKER_03:I love it, man. Any time to talk to the church and encourage her, even if I'm warning her, but yeah. It's also encouraging. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Yeah, thanks, Jason. Thanks, Michael.
SPEAKER_00:Are we not doing mic'd up? It's time for mic'd up.
SPEAKER_01:You this is your favorite thing in the forgotten.
SPEAKER_03:I forgot. Because I got him all distracted by the days of AI.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What's the point? Sorry, there's mic'd up. Let me let me let me let me know what it is. Let me tell you mic'd up is a time where Michael gets to talk about whatever he wants because we don't do the mailbag anymore. And so I know what it is. I missed having Michael talk, and so Michael talks. And we respond.
SPEAKER_00:Man, I was racking my brain just trying to come up with something.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's on me because normally we do mic'd up like before it's a weird episode. No, it's a weird episode.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a weird episode.
SPEAKER_01:This is like that thing where you say goodbye to somebody at church and then you walk out to the parking lot and they're there in the same direction. Yeah, and you have to say goodbye to them again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like I've already said bye and thank you to Jason, and now we're gonna do this, and it's gonna be a good one. I'm good with it. Yeah, what do you got, Michael?
SPEAKER_00:All right. Jason, when we did our staff retreat in Colorado.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:This was a year and a half ago almost, something like that. I wasn't there. Um, unfortunately, Brad was not there. He was dearly missed. Um, Brad, are you gonna be at the one this year? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Was it appendix? Uh no, I I had an abscess in my voice. Yeah, I knew you had something going on. We had to like cut oh yeah, I remember. I remember now.
SPEAKER_00:Um there was one afternoon where you and Nate Carnes went fly fishing up the mountain. Loved fly fishing. And I went with you guys. Okay. I didn't go fly fishing, of course, you remember. Yeah. Um, but I went with you guys because I wanted to just like explore, you know, some of the upper parts of the of the mountains. Um, and I I took the rental um with me and just kind of like drove around with my camera. And um, fun fact for the listeners, I was shooting my first or second roll of film ever at the time, had a great time doing it. Um anyway, uh, we agreed on a time for me to come back to the spot where where you guys were dropped off to pick you guys back up for us to drive back down to um uh to Bear Trap.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:On the drive back, I know this is a long setup. On the drive back, I think probably no fewer than seven times, you said thank you, Jesus, because of how great the afternoon was. That is something that stuck with me quite a bit because that's not a thing that has you know had previously been a part of my sort of like normal um. Uh state of being or state of mind is to just like after I have a good experience, oh, I should thank the Lord for that experience. Um so that you know that's something that I've actually tried to carry with me uh moving forward. Um I want you to be encouraged in that. Thanks, man. Um but here's the question. Okay. What is something that you've been thanking Jesus for recently?
SPEAKER_03:Man, I think what instantly comes to my mind are two things very quickly. One is I got some time on a deer stand. And there are moments where it is not about the hunt. I I am not hunting white-tailed deer, man. I am hunting the heart of Jesus. I am hunting time of the spirit. And man, there are some some quiet moments where Jesus just spoke to me. I'm 20 feet off the ground, the leaves are falling around me, the wind's blowing, and I'm seeing animals move and all that. But man, there's just a stillness and a subtleness that comes there that just makes me say, Thank you, Jesus. And I think that's that's one. And then two is it's small, you know. I'm trying to figure out how to how to, you know, raise my 15-year-old right now, who's so different than any of my other kids, got all of his own issues, man, and we're walking with this kid. He's just had a tough start. And and I know he's got issues, like I just know it, like for real, I know it. I'm not stupid, I I get it. My head's not, I'm not buried, but I'm watching him try, man. And I'm seeing him in the midst of his sin and his struggle, get up every morning. He walks over, he grabs his Bible study that's going through, and he sits down and he reads it. And I just keep telling myself, man, it is not about one moment, it's about a diet. In the same way that that physical health doesn't come from one meal, it comes from eating consistently. And so I've been saying thank you, Jesus, every time I look over and I watch him, and he walks over and he sits down in his chair, and I think he's reading, I'm assuming that he is. He hates to read, but I'm assuming that he is. But I think I say thank you, Jesus, that at least he's putting the effort in to try to pursue God, and I just say, God recognizes effort. Please, Jesus. Just see the kids in my chair right now. What are you doing to me, man? He's trying. I know he's broken. I know he's full of sin. I know he's got issues. We got you gotta see this kid trying. Help him. Help him. He's just he is making the effort. Even if it's just to please me as a parent, okay, whatever, man. But he's not defined about it. I don't have to tell him to do it. I don't remind him. Go to your devotion. It's not that, man. He just knows how screwed up he is. And I watch him walk over and he sits down in the chair and he opens it up and he reads it. Does it play out in his life? Oh, a lot of times it doesn't. Like, it just doesn't, man. I'm kind of crying because he's just a broken kid, man. He's just full of sin, full of struggles. Like, I know it. But I've been saying thank you, Jesus, of that after he leaves. And today I went out on my deck with my coffee. It was like 35 degrees, and I drank my coffee on the deck looking out on the river, and I was like, Thank you, Jesus. Sorry. That's great.
SPEAKER_01:I love Sonic. Me too. He's a good kid. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna watch wrestle tonight. Yeah, I can forward to it. He's a freshman wrestling varsity, 138. Tough weight.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy. Um but yeah, he's dedicated. He's a dedicated athlete. He is, yeah, which is cool to watch too.
SPEAKER_03:If he ever pursues Jesus like he's pursues CrossFit football, wrestling and baseball, buckle up world.
SPEAKER_01:Well, keep praying that he does, you know. Um, all right, Michael, thank you. Yeah, Jason, thank you. Goodbye for real now. See you, man. Thanks. In a like five minutes in the office. Yeah. Thanks, Michael.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:I get to do the wall of honor today. So I'm very excited to add to our board here uh my friend, someone who I've spent a lot of time with over the years at CIY events, Brandon Craig. Michael, I want you to guess how many years Brandon Craig has been in student ministry. Um 35 years. That's very close. I don't actually know what the number is, but you're like right on. Guess how many churches he's worked at? Is it one church? It's one church. Wow. The man has worked at Belmont Christian Church in student ministry for decades. Like, I think that longevity is such a big deal. And that guy has just been investing in that community, Belmont Christian Church. It's in um wherever Virginia Tech is, Blacksburg, Virginia, um, and has like seen all of his kids go through their youth ministry. He has one more son who graduates, I think, this summer, either this summer or next summer, and then he's done. And he's like, that's when I'm hanging it up. Um, but he's just a really, really faithful guy, faithful to that community, faithful to his family, faithful to the Lord and the calling that he's placed on his life. And I love having Brandon at events because he's so encouraging, and just it really is an honor to watch him do youth ministry. So wanted to add Brandon to our little wall here. Uh thanks a bunch, Brandon. Keep up the good work at Belmont Christian Church. Uh okay, we're done. Today's episode was produced by Michael Hester, Lauren Bryan, and myself. We're gonna be back um we're gonna be back in a couple weeks, maybe a few weeks. We ran into some scheduling hiccups, but uh, we're gonna be back in our next little mini-series is about um whether you kind of play the hits when it comes to programming, like stick to uh stick to what's normal or try new things. Um there are kind of advantages on both sides of that. We're gonna dig into them with uh with John Lee from Northeast Christian Church and with Tyler Hensley from Forum Christian Church. I got a little of a Kentucky, Columbia, Missouri represented there. So uh if you don't want to miss that, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, you can reach out to us uh see how community Facebook see you next time.