140: Embracing The Gaps In Youth Ministry With Mike Haynes

If you’re in a smaller church, you know that a small church means a small youth group or sometimes no youth group at all. 

Join the conversation with youth ministry expert and G Shades curriculum creator, Mike Haynes, as he shares his vision for a “gospel lens” when it comes to reaching teens and pre-teens in any setting.

Listen in to:

• Discover effective strategies for teaching teens in any size group
• Learn about the largest gaps to overcome when relating to teens today
• Reimagine Jesus as our first model of effective youth ministry
• Hear Mike’s best tips to stop hiding behind curriculum and start showing up in the fullness of who you are

Connect with Mike Haynes:
G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum & Get a Free 4-Week Curriculum: www.gshades.org
Check out the book Life Through The Lens Of The Gospel
www.instagram.com/mikeehaynes

Join our free Facebook Community: www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry


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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey. This is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to podcast number 140 like when I was thinking about that today, I'm like, we've done 140 so we have a great episode today. We're going to be talking to Mike Haynes. A lot of you don't know Mike Haynes. We are going to jump right in, because he has such amazing stuff to share. He is a youth ministry expert. I would call him an expert in youth ministry. And Mike, I know you're pretty new to our audience. You've been jumping into the big Facebook community, getting involved in some conversations, but for people who don't know you and we just met recently, like, can you share? How did you find us? And also, what do you do?

Mike Haynes: 0:52

Yeah, so I'll answer the first one, the second one, first. So I run an amazing youth ministry curriculum called G shades, and I run that as an entrepreneur. My full time job is that I'm a high school pastor. I'm a youth pastor at a church. And so when I was constantly looking for contributors for the curriculum, because we love to have different voices contribute to support the diversity of the church, the beautiful diversity of the church, and I was looking at someone's Facebook page that I had not met before, because I was thinking about reaching out to them. And then I saw something that they had shared from small church ministry. And then I launched into small church ministry and started digging and found you, Laurie and and then I forgot to even ever reach out to the person that I was supposed to reach out in the first place. Because I was like, I gotta connect with small church ministry. This is such a cool umbrella organization, such a cool community to be part of. So that is who I am, a little bit of who I am and how I found you.

Laurie Acker: 1:50

That is so awesome. Now you said you are a full time youth pastor at a church, which means you are at a church that can sustain some full time staff. So what is your heart for small churches? Because I know you've been in, like, a big variety of church sizes and church settings. Can you talk about why you're on this podcast for small churches? Yeah,

Mike Haynes: 2:10

my first experience working in church ministry was at a church plant of 25 people, and I worked at that church for worked, I volunteered at that church for about,

Laurie Acker: 2:24

we love churches at 20 people, yeah, it's, it was,

Mike Haynes: 2:27

and it was a phenomenal experience. It was incredibly intimate. Kind of, the the moniker of the church is, sometimes you want to be where everybody knows your name. It was the old cheers reference, right? And, and I loved working at that church. And it never grew beyond like 40 people at maximum while I was there, and that was okay, like we were all okay, because it was such a cool, intimate environment, and it was a really neat place to start off doing youth ministry.

Laurie Acker: 2:55

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And I love that you said, you said, I loved working in the church, and earlier you said, Well, that means volunteer, right? And I think there's such a cool blend between volunteer and working and serving, you know. Like some people hate the word volunteer, because all of us should be serving, you know, and some people hate the word working, because we're all doing it voluntarily. But I love kind of the blend of that, because that really is the heart of small churches, is we are working and we are serving, and we are volunteering, and we're pouring out. So love it tons. Well, I'm super excited to talk to you about braid, about bridging or embracing the gaps in youth ministry, but before we get to that, you know, knowing that you've served in a lot of different settings in your experience, what are some of the biggest obstacles when you're working with teens, whether you're teaching, volunteering a youth group, a Sunday school, when you're working with teens in smaller settings, like you don't have 50, you don't have 20, you might not even have 12, you might have three on a good week. So what do you see as some of the biggest obstacles when we're teaching smaller numbers of teens? Yeah,

Mike Haynes: 3:58

I know, for me, and this is a heart level thing. There's external stuff, absolutely. But the most important, I think, obstacle in teaching or serving in a small in a small setting, is that my in my heart, there can be this pride, this, this, I wanted to this idea that bigger is better in in this community, we don't believe that, right? We don't believe that in small church ministry, but there's still just this comparison trap that we fall into. There's if you're on social media and you see other youth pastors and their other youth workers or other volunteers, you see people who do youth ministry, and they post about their gigantic event where 600 kids got saved. And there's just something inside of a lot of us. I know myself, where I've gone, but I'm not doing all of that. And so I think that the one that the core of one of the issues serving obstacles, serving in smaller churches with teenagers, is there's a heart check, there's there's a there's an I want to be or. I feel like I should be. There's almost this guilt because I'm not, and that can be really hard to work through. It's not gospel centered even a little bit, but it's not this. And yet we struggle with it, don't we? Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 5:13

I okay. I just love that you went there and that you were vulnerable enough to share that, because this is one of those big struggles. And even when we say we don't care about numbers, we don't know numbers are the thing there's I don't know. Sometimes to me, like the word pride, feels like, Oh, I'm proud, and that feels very shameful that you know the word pride. But I think sometimes we just have hurt feelings, like they don't like me. What am I doing wrong? How am I feeling? God? Why isn't why isn't this growing and and that personal feeling? So how do you get over that? Mike,

Mike Haynes: 5:49

and I wish if it was easy, then, you know, we all do it. But fortunately, we get to walk with Jesus for our entire lives, and he gets to get in there and work on the things that, things in our hearts that that maybe you know, are as healthy as they need to be, but I do know that what can really help is kind of what we're going to talk about today, which is embracing the gap, embracing the gaps and the different things that we experience and students experience, and gosh, it can just be so awkward, right? There's not just the heart level. Like, Oh, I wish that there were 100 kids in the room, that would be really cool to experience that. But, but there's also just the awkwardness of sitting in a room with two teenagers, and you know one of them, you're not sure if they want to be there, and the other one, you know they want to be there, and you're not sure if they even like each other all the time. And but you're having to navigate that at such a close, intimate level. It's easy. It's easy to be a in some ways, to be a large church youth pastor, you'd stand up in front of 60 kids and you just teach the thing the lesson plan, but, yeah, but gosh, when you're in there, you're really, really having to develop a relationship with these students, and that can be awkward.

Laurie Acker: 6:55

Yeah, I actually think it's more difficult to and more challenging in a lot of ways to serve in a smaller setting than a large one, because my first church, I was a full time children's director. I mean, we could have an event, there'd be easily 40 to 60 people on a slow time like it. And what happens? And we get on autopilot. We don't have to worry about numbers, and we're just on autopilot. But how many kids get lost, you know? How many are not coming? You know? So I think it is easier a lot of times to teach bigger numbers than smaller numbers. And I love that you talk about the awkwardness. So before we talk more about the gaps in your mind, Mike, what does a successful youth ministry really look like in a smaller church? Because I know from talking with you, you are not focused on numbers. I almost want to say at all, like our conversations. I've never heard that from you. So if it's not about numbers and growing in number, what does a successful youth ministry look like in smaller church, no matter the size? Well, the

Mike Haynes: 7:53

beauty of working, in working, volunteering, serving, you know, we use them interchangeably in a smaller church, is that your students, they know you, like they know you. You're not some distant figure hub who stands up there and you go, Oh, wow, they're so cool. Like, you're not that. Like they know you. They've they've seen you, like, like, snort laugh, you know what I mean? Like, they really know you. And so the beauty in that is that they get to see Jesus with skin on. That's a phrase that my old youth pastor used to say, like they get to see you and see what it looks like to be whatever age, whatever life stage you are, what it really means to follow Jesus, because they know you that for real, and it's hard to fake it with students over a 4567, year period in a smaller church, you can't fake that with students. You You are your real, authentic self a lot of that time, and students see you. And so that means that while they may not have had all of the big, grandiose, oh, all this cool stuff that's happened, you know, and all the stuff that looks really good on inside. Good on Instagram, what they have had is they've gotten to walk with a non parent, adult for a long period of the most influential period of their life, and they've gotten to see what it looks like to be Jesus as an adult, and that in some ways, they're so much better off for that, because those really cool, flashy experiences, those are awesome, great memories, blah, blah, blah. But when you talk about following Jesus for the rest of your life, which wouldn't that be cool? Like that, sometimes that means that you got to see it in somebody else. And when you are a small church, like youth ministry person like you get to do that, it's so such a it's it's actually such a privilege. It's really cool.

Laurie Acker: 10:15

Yeah? So I think I'm hearing you talk about successful youth ministry as really being highly relational. Yeah, yeah, less program and more relationships. So it's, as you're speaking. It was really funny when you said a non they get to see a non parent person in their life, right? Um. Wow. And so many of us in smaller churches, like we are teaching our kids, and I want to just give a plug out here. If you're listening and you are not involved in youth, you're qualified, like, can we just say you're qualified to have relationships with them? I was talking to a grandma the other day, and there's 113 year old that that's in her her church, and she's kind of stepping up to teach this, this 13 year old, and she's like, I just don't think I'm qualified. I'm like, you love Jesus. You've lived a life. You're so qualified. Like, get in there, because it's really important that the kids have non parent adults in their life. Yes, like, so if you're listening and you're not a parent, and you know a parent is in their teaching, can you just volunteer, just to help? Because it's so important, it

Mike Haynes: 11:14

is 100% and you are qualified and and let me, let me speak to the parent people who are work doing the Sunday school thing too, like, like, because I'm a parent, and several of my children are now in like, in my like youth program, and it's been really neat for them to see me operating in a different way. And so as a parent, it's still really cool that you get to be your child's like Sunday school teacher, because they get to see you function in a different role. They get to get a different flavor of mom or dad. And that's like a really cool thing for a teenager to see that that, yes, mom or dad, Oh, they're so, there's, so there's such a buzzkill at home. You know, roll the rules and, you know, all these regulations. And of course, we still want structured time and rules and regulations and expectations in our youth environment. But gosh, isn't it cool when your teenager gets to see you kind of be, like, really funny, actually, like, kind of, like, be actually, like, really relatable, like, actually, like, kind of have a different flavor. I think that's really neat, too. So even if you are a parent, yeah, you're crushing it. You're doing an amazing job. I'm so thankful for you.

Laurie Acker: 12:23

Yeah, I love it. So when we were getting ready to, you know, when we're talking about this podcast, I was taking some notes in preparation and writing out some questions, and I went to title the podcast, bridging the gap in youth ministry, and I went, No, that's not the word. Mike talked to me about, he talked about embracing the gap, but he didn't. He talked about embracing the gaps. So I just have to, I'm like, such a word person like that word embracing is so different than bridging a gap and embracing the gaps. Like, what gaps? Tell me your concept, your thoughts around embracing the gaps, because I know this is a big part of of your heart and of even how you do ministry, yeah, absolutely,

Mike Haynes: 13:04

it's embracing. I think bridging is very important, right? But embracing is a really important first step. I think that's why we use the word embracing, because you can't bridge that gap until you are willing to embrace that it exists and and not in like and that's hard. That's hard. I think that's hard for a lot of us for several reasons, but but the gaps that exist, there's, of course, the age gap. Of course the age gap exists, and we feel that at varying levels. But there's also the gap in experiences. There are things that you've experienced that your teenagers haven't experienced. For a lot of us, we didn't grow up, actually, I would say, pretty much all of us at this point, we didn't grow up with phones in our hands. You know, like when we were teenagers in this generation, that's so normal for them. That is a gigantic experience gap. We have no idea what it is to be a teenager with a smartphone. None of us do, right? And so unless you're in your 20s, maybe you do. But if you're 30s and up, you just don't, you don't know that. And so that's different. That's a gap in experiences. There's a gap in values. I mean, just generationally, there are things that this next generation values that we didn't value as much when we were coming up. And maybe now we've gotten to a place where we do value it, and we see that it's important, but it's important to them at age 13, and that's super, super different than what we experienced when we were coming up. There's cultural reference points that come along with that. So many times I find myself, I'm in my early 30s now, I'm starting to get to the point where I want to make cultural references that my students had never heard of before. They just have net they have no idea. And that's that's a gap that makes it all the time, right? It's so frustrating. Why can't everyone just be my age? I don't understand. And so, you know, it's open, so it's only human nature, right? We're faced with these gaps, and sometimes we're afraid to face it, and today, we want to talk about what it looks like to instead of being afraid to face it, to embrace

Laurie Acker: 14:57

it. Yeah, I have to say you're really changing my mind about bridging. And I know you're like, you're you kind of kept it in there like it was okay. But the thought of embracing the gap and being in the gap with them, to me, that sounds almost more powerful than bridging it, like I almost I might get rid of the term, term bridging the gap in my vocabulary, because our friend and pastor, he works with the small church network a lot, Tony Bryce, has helped me embrace this. Like he talks about the messy middle, and when you talk about embracing the gaps and the gaps that exist between, you know, ages, cultures, values. Use experience all these kind of things. I feel like there's a middle in there that, if we could meet in there, grab hold of it, discuss it. No, it's there. Even, just, even, just accept it, instead of trying to fight it, like, why are we bridging the gap? Why don't we just jump in the gap together? There's something fun about that that's happening in my brain right now.

Mike Haynes: 15:49

Yeah, it's this beautiful, intergenerational thing. You and I talked about that the other day. The beauty of this intergenerational kind of thing, it's messy. It's like, we don't, you know, there's some moments where we're like, I don't know what you're talking about, but this is cool. I love that we're hanging out, right? And again, the beauty of small church ministry is that there's so much more need and there's so much more opportunity for intergenerational worship ministry experience of Jesus. It's a beautiful thing.

Laurie Acker: 16:18

Love it. Okay, I'm gonna mute myself, and I'm gonna have you share what how do we do this? Give us some solutions that's a lot of gaps to fill or to sit in or to jump in together. So if you got to, like, lead a youth ministry workshop today, you know, in the next 10 minutes or so, what would you What's your advice? What's your best go to what's your solutions? How do we embrace these gaps?

Mike Haynes: 16:43

Sure, sure. So my entire thing, this is, like, my whole thing, it's like the brand that G shades is built around and all that kind of stuff. But my whole thing is that we all like to think, all of us truly believe, deep down, that we see life objectively, but we don't our perception of ourselves, of the world around us, of other people, of God, our perception is shaded. It's shaded by our past. It's shaded by our wounds. It's shaded by our personality. Our perception is shaded by our influences. It's shaded by our sin nature. Our perception is not objective. It's very, very subjective. And so when ever I'm faced with something uncomfortable, like embracing the gap, for instance, in life or in ministry, I always, always, always want to try to see not through the lens of my past or through the lens of my wounds or through the lens of my sin nature, but instead through the lens of the Gospel, the lens of what Jesus came to do and the life that he came to bring the fullness of life that He came to offer to us by grace. And so I always want to go to the gospel. I always want to go to what Jesus has done and who Jesus was, and see if we can find some kind of cue, some kind of hint toward what it is that he would have us do in the situations that we find messy and difficult and uncomfortable. And so when I look at that, when I put on my gospel lens. I put on my G shades, as I like to call on my gospel shades, and and I see this, this gap that exists in small church youth ministry. I often look at Jesus and the disciples, because it's true that Jesus taught his disciples in sermons, in a lot, in a major way, but, but he actually spent three years, we know this. We spent three years with his small group of disciples. And I forget this all the time, because, you know, there's paintings and there's just common, you know, cultural references, and so I can forget this all the time. But Jesus disciples were not grown men in their late 20s and early 30s like the 12, like they were. They were most likely teenagers, maybe, maybe young adults by the time, by by our standards, right? They were maybe considered young adults, you know, but, but probably quite a few of them were teenagers. And so when you kind of back up and you look at that, you realize that Jesus, day in, day out, you've got 30 year old Jesus and a gaggle of high school and college aged boys, and they're walking and they're eating and they're laughing and they're sharing, and I don't know, just in my mind, we don't know where all the conversations were that they had. The Scripture doesn't record the nitty gritty of it. But can you imagine the gap, I mean, between the incarnate God of the universe and high school boys. Can you imagine the gap in interests? Can you imagine the gap in intellect? Can you imagine how many times Jesus had the impulse to reference something from the distant, distant, like way back past that these guys had never heard of because they weren't born thought of, and it wasn't recorded in the Old Testament, scriptures. And so there have been so there's so many gaps that Jesus must have, must have absolutely had to embrace in order to spend this kind of time influencing these guys over the course of his ministry with them as a 30 year old, you know, I just think it's so beautiful. And yet, despite this immense gap, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, did what he always does, and for three years, he crossed the gap. He embraced the gap. He stood in the messy middle with his small youth group. He embraced the gap. You. And again, I mentioned this just a minute ago, for me, that gospel lens is cool, but it's also a little frustrated by it, you know, like, all right, that's cool. I can put that in front of my eyes and and that helps me see, you know, maybe what I should the attitude I should have, you know, toward my students and, you know, kind of embrace the gaps. But the frustrating thing is, we don't have all the tips and tricks. We don't have the conversational techniques that Jesus utilized to do that for three years. Like for some weird reason, God didn't see fit to give us all of that in the scriptures. Instead, he just decided to give us something probably better, the tips and tricks for talking through a lesson with a couple of teenagers, instead of giving us all the tips and tricks and conversational techniques, God gave us His Holy Spirit. He gave us His Spirit to reside within us and to guide us into every kind of uncertain situation imaginable. And so that when you kind of package together that entire kind of gospel reality, I just think that that's got to shift our approach that we would begin to Emmanuel toward our teenagers as Jesus Emmanuel. If I can use that as a verb, it's not a verb, but I use it as a verb sometimes because I'm silly. If we can Emmanuel toward our teenagers the way that Jesus Emmanuel toward his view, I just think that that would make all I think that that would make those obstacles, which are very real. We would start to see them removed. We wouldn't even see them as obstacles. We would see them as opportunities, because we've embraced the gap. So if I could, if I could just package it in a cute, pithy, silly little statement, like I just, the way that I think about it is like, when three show up, we show up like, that's, that's the way that Jesus did His ministry, that when three show up, we show up, we show up at the fullness of ourselves. So instead of hiding behind the lesson plan and kind of just sticking real close to the lesson plan because we're we're feel uncomfortable, either with our own set of expectations of, oh, these kids didn't come, that I thought were going to come, or whether we're just feeling awkward because of the gaps. Like, instead of hiding behind our lesson plan, like we would show up with the fullness of our personality, the fullness of who God has created us to be, and we would have the conversation with students. Would get into the messy middle with them and show them what it looks like to be Jesus and to talk through this lesson plan in a way that's very, very conversational, and in a way where we're sharing too, where we're at and where we've been, and what that looks like. So I just think it's an incredible opportunity that we have. I think that Jesus modeled it for us, and I think that when we see through the lens of the gospel, we get to do that too. And I hope that we will. I hope that we'll embrace the gaps, because I think that it's so important that we do. I think students are better off

Laurie Acker: 23:10

when we do okay. I love this so much. I'm gonna just totally start quoting you on emmanueling Other people like that is so cool, showing up in the fullness of who we are, not hiding behind the curriculum. I was taking notes as you were speaking. I'll probably go back and listen to this podcast and take more notes. But can I ask you, how, like, how do we do this, because what happens in a lot of smaller churches is it's like, okay, I'm willing, but I've never done this before. I have no training in youth ministry. I'm scared of teenagers. They are not gonna like me, right? Like that is often the case when we're in front of teens, because, again, they're sometimes have their arms crossed, and they definitely know who they are, or they're trying to figure that out, and so a lot of people don't know what to do. And I love that you talk about hiding behind curriculum. But can you talk about how we could have a curriculum or a lesson plan, and how that's not something to hide behind, like, practically speaking, what would a Sunday school lesson look like, or a Sunday school time with three kids in the room? What does that look like to show up in the fullness of who we are and not hide behind the curriculum?

Mike Haynes: 24:16

Yeah, I love the question, because I think, you know, I would give this example if we if you were doing your lesson plan, your Sunday school lesson, you guys want to talk about the woman at the well, and you didn't know how many students were gonna, you know, show up, but, but you had a couple that showed up. You had two and whatever, maybe you feel a little thrown off by that. Or your lesson plan says to just kind of walk through the passage. And maybe you're supposed to kind of kind of manuscript your way through the teaching plan. I get all that. And the lesson plan probably had so many good words. Oh, so many good theological words, and they're so important. It's so good to teach students and kind of kind of really walk, really walk through the Scriptures and break them down. That's really great. But I think when we've got just a couple of us in the room, we get to get playful, like we get to get playful, we get to explore. We get to start to ask more questions than than doing more talking. And I don't think that this is, this is not, I don't know that this takes special training. I think it just takes a curiosity, right? I think it just takes that we approach the lesson with a little bit of curiosity. And so we start to ask questions like, like, all right, man, there's four of us in the room. Okay, okay, so we can explore. Her So, so the woman of the well, she felt really judged, invisible, worried about what people say. When was the last time that that you felt that way? I could share. I'll start, you know, because I know why you think. I'll start. Let me tell you about the last time that, when I was a teenager, a time where I felt invisible, a time where I felt judged, a time where I felt worried about what people will say, Right? Kind of playfully, we get to, we get to ask questions. Like, okay, like, he had five husbands, yo, like, like, five, like, that's, like, that's a lot, and it's even more in the first century. Like, that's, that's a wild amount of husbands in the first century. And so, like, like, playfully, what do we think? We don't know. We don't know. Okay, we're just, we're just making stuff up here. We're just kind of digging into the just getting into ourselves, into her world a little bit. What do we think went sideways in each of those relationships? Because, because these, these kids, these students, you know, they they, some of them, they've experienced some drama, you know, some relationship drama. Maybe their friends have, let's, let's just kind of, what do we think may have happened there? And just kind of get students into the world of IT and but then you can bring them back to the serious note, where really take this woman's story seriously, because it deserves to be taken seriously. And we can ask questions like, what walls Do you think this woman's built up over time to protect herself given how painful her story has been, and have you ever felt that? What walls Do you think maybe you started to put up because of some of the stuff that you've been through, and maybe your lesson plan has questions like that when you explore the woman at the well. But I think if your lesson plan was more of a manuscript, more of a sermon, it's possible that you may not have been able to dig into the story and immerse students in the world of the story like that. And I just think when you do that, you get to kind of be very human and very playful and very serious, and you get to share, and you get to have other students share that. These students share their story too. And I just think that's a really neat way of exploring the story of the woman at the well. And that's what it would look like to not hide behind the lesson plan. It would be to put yourself your beautiful, amazing personality and life experiences and infuse it into whatever Bible story it is that you're exploring.

Laurie Acker: 27:42

Yeah, and I think some of that is taking the pressure off that I am here to get through the lesson you know, it's almost like a shift in Why am I in this room right now with these teenagers, am I here to get through the lesson? Am I here to be Jesus with skin on? Like, I love that so much, and I think it also. I think youth ministry can play a lot into our insecurities, as I've already mentioned. Like, can they even relate to me? Like, do they want me here? But when they know you care and you ask questions, like you talked about curiosity and you really want to know them and love them, like there is a shift that happens. It's almost like we have this tight grip on the curriculum, and if we can let go of that, and know the curriculum is is a tool for us to use in order to be Jesus with skin on. Not you know, we can be Jesus with skin on by embracing this tool, but that this is a tool to help us get to the deeper things. So you have developed some resources and curriculum that I know. You sell these, and you have been a youth director for quite a while, you know, working in youth ministry. So this is my big question. Why did you decide to pour your heart and energy into actually writing. I know writing curriculum is tough. I did it at one of the churches I was at. Like, there's a lot that goes into writing curriculum. You have five kids, I believe a wife who's a neonic nurse, is that correct? Neonatal nurse? Yeah, you are like, you are like, a busy man. So let's get to the why. Why did you decide to pour your heart and energy into developing resources for other churches?

Mike Haynes: 29:18

I love the the world of youth ministry. When I when I was growing up, I wanted to play for the Lakers. I know that seems like a hard left turn, but when I was growing up, I really wanted to play for the Lakers, like I wanted to pass the ball to Kobe and then have them never pass it back. And that was my plan. That was that was my dream. And then around 14 or 15, the dream shifted, because I was five foot five at the time, and so the dream started to take a necessary shift, and I just fell head over heels in love with youth ministry. And I've never stopped loving youth ministry, and as I've been exposed to the broader community of youth ministry, I just I love what we do so much, and so I began to embrace that God had given me, like a real passion for like writing and teaching, and what I was seeing out In the youth ministry community, as far as teaching resources and curriculum, I just felt like there was something missing. I just felt like this, this scene through the lens of the gospel paradigm. I just wasn't seeing it anywhere else. And I just thought, what if my the combination of who God has created me to be and then this faith paradigm that I feel like me and the Holy Spirit have been. Really vibing on lately, like, what if I combine those two things? And despite the fact that I don't have, I'm just a guy, like, I don't have some giant organization backing me or anything like that. Just like, what if I, what if I started creating resources to the best of my ability to to help the youth ministry community that I love so much, and so that's why I decided to do this in, like, to your point, like, it's a lot of work. It's so much work, but I don't think I've regretted it a day in my life. It's so fun, it's so fun.

Laurie Acker: 31:02

That's so awesome. So when I was on your website, I saw, like, a lot of different options for curriculum with like, different topics, and a lot of them were, like, four week studies and things like that. What makes G shades unique, and how does it serve a small church? Well, and this is why I'm asking so many small churches, we get into these curriculums and they're not working, because they'll say things like, break your group into smaller groups, and we're like, we only have two. Can't really break into smaller groups. So I know you've served in a lot of different settings. How could your curriculum choices actually serve a small church? Well,

Mike Haynes: 31:34

yeah, I would say a couple of things. So there are, we just talked spent, you know, 30 minutes talking about not hiding behind the curriculum, and that's important. But the truth is, for a lot of smaller churches, it would be really helpful to have a video that you can put on, and then that way, after the 10 minute video is over, you get to just have discussion and conversation with you know, the students who are in the room. He sheets is one of the only curriculums that comes with video curriculum at like the and so, like, we just believe that every church should have that option. And so that's really helpful. I think, for a lot of small churches, we also create, like, the large group, small group method, like we have that, but we also have a version of every single lesson that is. It's more meant for, like we're sitting in a circle, or we're sitting in a small triangle, because there are three of us and we're just kind of like doing the Sunday school lesson type of thing. It's not, I'm gonna talk at you for 20 minutes, and then you're gonna break into by grade and gender. It's just like for those of us who are in the room, I'm gonna say a couple of words for a minute or two, and then let me ask the question, and let's dig in, and then let's do a little activity, and then let's come back to the Scriptures, and then let's and it's just kind of more this Sunday school lesson. I think that's really helpful for a lot of small churches, because maybe standing up in front of, you know, two kids is not in talking for 20 minutes might not be the vibe. That might not be what works best in the small church. So the other thing that I'll mention is that with G shades, because I've worked in small churches, and because I have worked in churches that don't have the budgetary resources to go out and buy a bunch of things and get a bunch of stuff every week. We don't have this big games budget and programming budget, like the games that we suggest, like, we reuse a lot of equipment in the game. We say, oh, go out and get this equipment. We suggest this, and we provide links for that. We then go, All right, well, we're gonna use that like, four or five times over the course of the year, instead of asking you to go get more things. But there's also a lot of the games and the activities that we suggest is stuff that you can just find at home, and we think that that's a really important aspect of it. So yeah, we try to create curriculum that is really helpful for small churches. And again, I just love the youth ministry community so much. There's nothing I would rather do with my life than to create resources that are

Laurie Acker: 33:48

helpful. I love it. So you said the lessons have videos, so I didn't catch that. So is it you on video teaching?

Mike Haynes: 33:56

It's me. Sometimes it's probably about half of them are me and then, but we also have lots we have contributors. And sometimes it's me, sometimes it's, you know, sometimes it's a some guy from a Methodist Church. Sometimes it's some girl from a Pentecostal church. Sometimes it's, you know, we just have a lot of contributors that come in a lot of different voices, and, yeah, and the videos are all about, right, in that 10 minute range, you know, you know, this next generation, they like, they like tick tock. So, you know, 10 minutes is even pushing it for them. But okay,

Laurie Acker: 34:28

I love this even more, because so many people in smaller churches like, they really, they're they're volunteering because there is no one else, or they're willing, but they don't really know and how cool to be able to put in a video have, I'm just, I don't know your other contributors, but your your energetic face and enthusiasm, like speaking for 10 minutes and then being able to, you know, kind of push off that with questions and discussion. Like, I love that so much. I just love it. So if somebody listening actually goes to your website, this is just you guys. I didn't tell him I was plugging his curriculum, but I'm plugging his curriculum right now. If they go to your website, they're gonna see, like, a bunch of different options for like these different topics. Do you have one that you would say, try this one. Like, this is where you would start. Like, just to check it out. Check out what I do. Grab this, like, your favorite, maybe your favorite little bundle, or whatever that would

Mike Haynes: 35:17

be, yeah, honestly, I'm not even gonna plug something paid. I want, I just want everyone to try it for free. So, like, go to, if you go to the website, there's a free four week, like, four week series called range, and it's a series. Kind of, it's like a series, kind of, on, like, kind of, like your relationship with God and that kind of stuff, and staying rooted in your relationship with God, that kind of idea. And I would encourage everyone to try that out. It's gonna have the video messages. You'll get to see, like, the hybrid, like, kind of lesson Sunday school lesson plan, guide kind of thing. And, and you'll get to have the, you know, experience what the games are like, and all that. Like, try that. It's free, please try it out and see if it's a good fit. And then after that, what? As soon as you download it, I will reach out to you, and we, I would love to have a conversation about whether or not G shades is a good fit, how it can be a good fit. We could talk about budgeting, like, like, we'll figure it out. Okay, money's not a good reason for a church to not have what they need. Okay, so we'll figure it out. But

Laurie Acker: 36:12

that's so sweet. I did not know you had a free four week curriculum. So everybody just, should, you just should get it and try it. So I will just say that. So Mike, we are almost out of time. This has probably been one of my favorite podcast episodes ever. Like, I'm going to be promoting this one as, like, one of our top podcasts, because, I mean, there's so much gold in what you said. And I want to say not just for teens, but also for children's ministry, also for the women outside the church, also for your next door neighbors, like this, this concept of embracing the gap, like realizing there's a gap, and just getting into it. Like, I just think is so amazing. But before we close, do you have any last thoughts, or is there anything you wish I had asked or talked about or like, something that you're like, oh, I need to say that.

Mike Haynes: 36:56

Yes. The only thing that I would say in this is, this is like, I just Yes, I just want to close with this thought. And this is, this has been, like, the Holy Spirit has just been, just been all over me with this lately. And that is this, like, as a as a church worker of any kind, volunteer children's ministry, overarching pastor. Do you Do it all because you are the only person who is at the church like whatever it is. I just want you to know like you, not not like you, are so significant. Like your your what, what you bring to the table matters so so much like and I think part of the reason that we make the kinds of mistakes, I'll be so bullish call them mistakes, of like, hiding behind the curriculum and hiding behind the lesson plan is because we haven't embraced like this is like another gospel lens thing, right? Like God said that in Christ we are infinite value, that we are immeasurably valuable, and then I think we're surprised when that rings true in our ministry efforts. But like, if we would like, just like, you matter so much. You are so significant. Don't take the you out of youth ministry. Like, please don't, because the you part in the youth ministry matters so much. The fact that it's you doing youth ministry is so significant, and so God ordained. So please, please do not hide, like, bring the fullness of who you are, and trust that, like, God is going to use that, and he's going to multiply that and not multiply it numerically. I mean, he might, and that's cool. But like, multiply it in terms of instilling deep, deep seeds of gospel transformation in your students. So that's just, I just, I love to close with that, because I just want everyone to know who's listening like you matter so much, because Jesus died to make that true. So please walk in that reality.

Laurie Acker: 38:45

Wow. Okay, so we're gonna make sure to drop your links in the show notes. But where can people find you? Somebody's listening right now, and they're like, oh, I want to connect with this guy. Where do Where do they find your website? Where do you hang out on social? How can they connect with you?

Mike Haynes: 39:00

Yeah, on my website, the website for G shades is just g shades.org, G, S, H, A, D, s.org, and again, try out the free, the free four week series and just see if it's a good fit, and we'll talk more after that. And then on socials, I'm on Facebook, I am the only Mike Haynes I know on Facebook that is a black guy with dreads. So that's that's that one is me. So find me and connect. And I would love to just like chit chat back and forth. That sounds awesome. And then on Instagram, you can find me at Mike e Hanes, at Mike e Haynes, and in I'd love to connect on Instagram too. I don't post a lot on social media, but I am. I check social media a lot, so I'm happy to connect with whoever about whatever, like, let's just talk about the Lakers. That's fine, too. So

Laurie Acker: 39:51

yeah, yeah, for sure. And he, Mike, is also in our our Facebook community. So if you are in the creative solutions for small churches, Facebook community that is such an amazing place. It's a free community. There's like, 12,000 people in there now, but you can actually tag him in there. If we have youth ministry Conversations, I'm going to be tagging him because the group is real big, and we like to connect people who are in small churches serving in certain areas, so you can look them up and find them in there too. So well, I just had a blast today. Mike, thanks for spending time with me like so, so good. I'm really excited, and I'm excited to introduce you to our group, our. Unity. But I also feel so honored to meet you. So like, you know those connections that happen across the miles just just feel so God led so often, right?

Mike Haynes: 40:43

Yeah, yeah. This is super fun. And again, it just is like a it felt random, but we know it wasn't. So this is

Laurie Acker: 40:50

not random at all. All right. You all so wherever you're listening from, please share this podco podcast episode with somebody in your church, whoever's working with teens, older youth, college age ministry. I personally have never thought about Jesus hanging out with a gaggle of youth like I never even thought of him as a youth director, and pretty much that's what he was. So thank you, Mike for shifting my perspective in a lot of ways. And everybody who's listening have a great week, and we will see we will talk to you again next week, and until then, be a light you.