171: Teaching Today’s Teens: Leveraging Their Limited Availability, Perceived Apathy, & Growing Agency | with Mike Haynes

Laurie Graham and youth ministry expert Mike Haynes discuss effective strategies for engaging and teaching teenagers in small church youth groups. 

Key topics include: 

• Recognizing the challenges of over-scheduled teens
• Leveraging teenagers' natural agency
• Structuring interactive youth group time
• Adapting teaching methods to match teenage cognitive development

The episode equips small church youth leaders to better connect with and disciple the next generation.

Connect with Mike Haynes:
www.youthministrycurriculum.com

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www.smallchurchsummits.com

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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast today. Mike Haynes is joining us to talk about today's teens. We are we talked before we came on, and we just really want to talk specifically about teaching, teaching teens, because in today's world, in small churches, especially, there's so much, almost like a pushback, like people say, well, the teens don't want to come. Well, why aren't they coming? And what can we do so they actually want to be there, and they're getting some value out of it. How do we teach teens? Well, you know, not only with a generational gap, but also, like, what's happening with teens today. How can we do this most effectively? So Mike Haynes has worked in ministry for a really long time. He's got a whole like gaggle of kids in his own home, and he's really a youth ministry expert. He loves teens, he has a heart, but he also writes curriculum, and so he is joining us today as an expert in youth ministry. And Mike, I don't know how that feels to you being called the expert, but I'm looking at you as the expert. So welcome to this, to this podcast episode. Yeah, I

Mike Haynes: 1:24

appreciate the title of expert, but I'm also, I'm just not sure yet, you know. I'm like, I guess I've been doing it for long enough, but I'm also like, there's still so much I don't know so

Laurie Graham: 1:37

well, you're my favorite kind of expert, because you're always learning. And I think the best experts are always learning, and maybe what you would share with us this year is going to be a little different even next year. You know, as we all learn and grow, hopefully until the day that we die, but I really do want everybody listening right now, just to learn from you. So where do you want to start with today's episode? What do you think is the best place to start? Sure, yeah.

Mike Haynes: 2:00

So I think the pain point, the thing that we all feel, and I think the benefit of it is that we all feel it is that teenagers just seem to be more and more having other things going on, and so they can't go to youth group. For some of them is that they can't go to youth group. For some of it them, it is indeed that they maybe don't want to, and we'll talk more about that in a few minutes, but it is very frustrating as youth leaders when we know students need to be in youth group, they need what we're offering, but they are have sports. Sports has just become the enemy of youth leaders everywhere, and they're over scheduled. And so I want to start there, because I I want to let some of us off the hook. I think, I think some of us as youth leaders, we internalize our students having sports and stuff like that, and we feel a little guilty about it, that kind of Christian youth leader guilt kind of thing. And I want to let us off the hook a little bit by just pointing out that this is increasingly and universally true over the last two decades or so. And I just think that's helpful to realize, because to some degree, it kind of assures you that it's it isn't just you, like teenagers being over scheduled. That is a generational pendulum swing spanning at least two generations now, and so if we can allow that reality to sink in, I think it'll take some weight off of our shoulders. And I also I think not only do we see this in the real world around us, but as we should expect, we see this kind of take place in the Gospel and the gospel narrative that you exist within a societal framework, and for the vast majority of us, we can only push back the tide so much within our lifetime, and this is so freeing when we realize this. So I don't know if any of us have ever thought about this, but in as much as Jesus moved the needle on saying, like women's rights, right, Jesus moved the needle on women's rights in a suppressively patriarchal first century society. But even Jesus, the Son of God, only moved the needle so far right, like the Son of God himself didn't move that needle from first century Roman culture all the way to modern day America, right during his three year ministry on earth God, God uses us to push back against certain societal pendulum swings, but it usually doesn't use us to push it back all at once. And so that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it does mean that, gosh, we don't have to feel so much guilt because of the tidal wave of over scheduling of teenagers. We can kind of take a breath a little bit. And I think that that's very helpful to realize before we jump into some of the practical stuff. Yeah, and

Laurie Graham: 4:46

not just guilt, but that pressure, like that, that I think sometimes, like, I love that you talked about societal framework and stuff, because I think sometimes we're fighting the wrong fight, like we're fighting this fight against soccer and football. And lacrosse, and really, is that the fight, but, but on the flip side, like, what do we do about it? Because it doesn't really fit the framework of, let's say, Sunday school or, you know, weekly youth group on Wednesday night, but it, it is. It's like, a factor, right? So how do we work with that, or work around it.

Mike Haynes: 5:22

Yeah, that's fantastic. And what do we do to be present in the middle of whatever it is that they're going through, right and so if they are valuing one thing over another thing, right now, we may feel that they're wrong about that, or that society is wrong for doing that, but that is the reality we exist in. And so what does it look like, instead of shaming kids for not, quote, unquote, choosing the right thing, what would it look like to support them in the things they are choosing and figure out how to point them toward? You know, Kingdom work in the midst of whatever it is that they are currently choosing over church. And that kind of leads us to this, this reality that the frustration, and I think sometimes we feel like it's a threat, that teenagers have more agency over their church involvement than kids do. For any of us who have worked in kids ministry before, or we currently work in kids ministry, one of the nice things about working in kids ministry is that kids kind of just go wherever their parents tell them to go. They don't drive. No, they don't drive. They most of them don't have a ton of extracurricular activities going on during the week. And so if you've got a midweek thing for kids, they're kind of showing up if their parent wants to go to church that night. But for teenagers, they can stay home by themselves for a couple hours, and it's, you know, it's going to be okay. And kids can't really do that, right? And so if the kid doesn't want to go to church, or if they're just want to do soccer, then their parent is gonna kind of let their kid chase their passions. That feels like a threat, but, but actually, it's such a gift. It is such a gift. It is a gift because when we give teenagers what it is they're really after, and that's what we're going to talk about today, is giving teenagers what they're really after, really after. When we give them what they really want, they are a whole lot more likely than kids are to catch fire and to own their faith and to own their youth group culture, right? When kids love something, little kids, right? When they love it, they love it, and it's really cute. But when a teenager loves something, when they're really passionate about something constructive, it's not just cute, like it's inspirational, like it moves the needle. If this is why many of the greatest and most popular stories told in books and in movies center around a teenager, right? It's because their agency isn't a threat, it's a superpower, but it requires that we do our best to create youth group environments that give them what they're really after. Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 7:50

I love that you're talking about agency. It's kind of a hot word these days, like an emotional health like agency just meaning we get to choose. And there it's such an important thing, it's, it's a God given thing. Like, even in child development, like young child development, they talk about, like God gave us, like it's, it's almost like our our autonomy, our being an independent, a whole person, a unique person, we need to be able to be moving in that, in our, like, our own power to choose. And I don't mean power against God. I just mean, like, that's a gift of God, that we have choice. And I do think sometimes we push back on that, and we're like, they just need to learn. They need to sit. They need to, you know, at any age, right where, really, when we can help people really understand. No, you actually do get to choose. It carries into adulthood, into really different types of responsible adults, even into their 40s and 50s and 60s, when we don't feel like victims, because we can choose what we do. And, you know, with God at our side, it's a whole different story, right? When we do get to choose these, these things that are life changing. So, okay, keep

Mike Haynes: 8:58

going. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing, and it it leads us into the fact that that's one of the universal and timeless characteristics of teenagers, is they have more agency. But there are other universal and timeless characteristics that teenagers have, and I think it's important that we tap into some of those. And perhaps, maybe we talk about one or two of the ways in which teenagers are different now than they were 20, 3040, years ago. I think that that's helpful context for us to have. But some of the things that teenagers have always across time and space, have always been interested in, is they all want friends, and they all want fun. And I think most of us instinctively, we know that, and that can be challenging sometimes in small church ministry that they want friends in particular, because when you are working in a small church, you can't guarantee that the new 11th grade girl that shows up at youth group is going to have another 11th grade girl there to hang out with. In fact, sometimes you're kind of just hoping that any other high school girl of any age shows up. Yeah, and so that's a real challenge, and I'm with our listeners on that. But the reason that doesn't have to completely stop the momentum in your youth group is because this generation does have one particular need that is distinct from generations that have come before. It's perhaps a need that all teenagers across all generations have had, but it's one that this particular generation is lacking in. It is a generation defining characteristic, and that is that this generation needs real. They need vulnerable and they need safe, because they are the digital generation. Like AI isn't even weird to them. They're on screens more than any generation before. They're totally connected yet totally isolated, right? And so, for instance, like, regardless of when you were a kid, I think this is true for all of us over the age of, like, I don't know, like, 25 or 30, right? Like, remember when you were a kid, and you get home from school and you would just go outside, let you just you just go outside. You don't even know what you're gonna do outside, yet, you just go outside yet, you just go outside and you figure it out, right? And it feels like some of that is gone and in this next generation. So this next generation, they need in person, spaces to be real, to talk about things that matter, to explore faith, to be vulnerable and to feel safe doing so social media is like the least safe space out there for teenagers, and yet, it's where they spend the vast majority of their free time, right? But at church, you can offer them something that social media can't Tiktok can't offer a Snapchat can't offer it, and Instagram can't offer it, YouTube can't offer it, right? You can offer them real. You can offer the offer them vulnerable. You can offer them safe and it that's what they really want, even if they haven't yet realized that where they find that is church. That's what they're really after. The way that a teenager from my youth group said it the other day is I was overhearing them talk to someone else, and they said they didn't even know I was listening. And so they said, I don't like missing church, because I feel better after I come here. I feel more like me after I come here. And that's what every teenager wants, and they can't get it online, and we get to offer that to them. And so when we can structure our youth group time in a way that gives them what they really want, then I think we'll discover that more and more students are interested in coming, if they can at least get there the first time to try it out. Of course,

Laurie Graham: 12:31

yeah, I was going to ask about that because you're talking about like the church can offer this unique thing of real and authentic and vulnerable. How do you offer that to the kids who are over involved in sports or whatever, or just simply don't want to come. Like, how do we do that? Because you mentioned supporting the kids, like, support. How would we support them instead of shaming them? How do we offer some of this if they're not coming?

Mike Haynes: 13:48

So the way that we can help students connect even when they're disconnected or they don't want to come is we get to model that to them what youth group is like before they get to youth group. What I've discovered is that for a lot of students, what holds them back from coming to youth group sometimes it's not even that they're too busy. I mean, maybe they are. Maybe they really do have soccer games that night. But for the ones that don't want to come, it's not that they don't like Jesus. It's more that they feel the social anxiety of trying something new when we can demonstrate to students in the hallway at church in a two minute conversation, hey, I'm safe. I'm a safe person. I'm somewhere where we can be real. I'm somewhere where we can explore right just I am that person, then I think they're going to be a lot more willing to try it out, because they know that if the space is anything like the person leading the space, that it's going to be okay. So that's for the students who just don't want to come, and then the kids who are just really busy. We may The truth is, if they're busy and they love soccer, it's their passion. They they want to, you know, be in the MLB, or they want to play in the World Cup someday, then to some extent, I don't even know if we would want them to give that up, to come to youth group, right? We kind of want students to pursue their passions, to do the things that they that they love, right? And so what we but, but it's the concept is the same. We in whatever little ways we can. We give them real, we give them vulnerable we give them something that matters in the little moments where we get to see them. When in my church there, when I got to my church, it became apparent to me very quickly that there was a kid, a six a seventh grader at the time in my church, who was a big deal. She had been in Hollywood movies. She was extraordinarily gifted in academia. She was one of those kids where you just knew she was going to get to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted to. And the reality of that situation was that I didn't see that kid at youth group very often because she wasn't available, like she was off in Thailand or in Denmark. Doing a movie or whatever, right? And so when, when that happened for me, there were times where I thought, Man, I'd really love to see that candidate youth group more often. But what I did was I just in the little moments that I got to see them, I just tried to model what youth group was. And then years later, when they were a sophomore in high school, I hadn't seen them in a couple of months at church, actually, they were really busy. I think they were filming for a new movie or something like that, and they were really busy. And I hadn't seen them for months, and they called me from their boarding school on a random Saturday night. They called me and said, Hey, I need to talk to you, because I am getting pressured to make out with someone at a party, and I don't know if I should do it, and it just caught it caught me so off guard, but they called me their youth pastor, even though I had barely pastored them in a youth group setting. And I think we get the opportunity to model that to students who are too busy, and when we do. We still get to they still get to experience youth group. They still get to experience having a youth leader, even if they don't experience youth group all that often.

Laurie Graham: 17:04

Yeah, I love that tons, because we had somebody on the podcast last year, Pastor Jeff Shouse, who talked about how he was hearing in the community that he was these people's pastor. Like, Oh, that's my pastor, that he had never seen that, like they never went to his church. And I remember him saying, that's when I realized I was I was the community pastor. And I think what you're saying like in a in a youth ministry situation, when you're that Sunday School teacher or that you're that youth group leader, when the kids know that you have a connection with them, when you love them, when you accept them, when you smile at them, when you're not writing them off like everyone else did, because they're not showing up, you're not judging them. I think it is a different connection. And most of the kids, they don't have that somewhere else. They don't have that person in their life. And so I love that. All right, you're ready to talk about teaching yet? Or you got anything else before we talk about that one? No, let's,

Mike Haynes: 17:55

let's get into the practical that was super philosophical, and it's important. But with all of that as our lens, I want to share some practical tips on structuring a youth group time and then, more specifically, teaching teenagers in a way that keeps them coming back. So talking,

Laurie Graham: 18:11

yeah, no, I love that. And before you jump in, I just want to see, what I've seen a lot is that so many people think the way we teach children is the same way we teach teenagers. And when you're used to teaching kids who are in third grade or fourth grade, we have this system, and we think we can just transport that into teenage years. And that's one of the reasons I was really excited to have you on this podcast, is to talk about that it is different. You can't import the exact same structure and system that you taught when kids were 10 to 16 year olds. I do believe that's sometimes why we lose them, is because they don't want to be treated like that. They're not treated like that in schools, in in public, in, you know, any other spaces, even in their homes, but at school, at church, there's like a tendency to keep the same system or setup that we did in Sunday school. So tell us what's different and how we can do better. Yes,

Mike Haynes: 19:08

that's that's fantastic. It's such a good point. The kids in students are different, and while some of the structure that I lay out for a youth group environment might feel a little bit familiar to to the way that a kid's ministry is structured, even if some of the external structures feel similar the philosophy by which we approach those structures, the paradigm is totally different because we're working with developmentally a different age group. So the way that I've always heard it said is that middle schoolers, they think like they process like engineers. They want to tinker, they want to do that kind of thing, whereas and then and then high school students, they engage like philosophers. They're starting to develop the brain development that allows them to abstractly think. And so they want to wrestle, they want to argue. They want to debate, not contentiously, but philosophically in a way that's really fun, and playing around with ideas and expanding their horizons. And so we get to take what we know about the cognitive development of middle and high school students, and we get to bring that into our space for the glory of God. It's a beautiful thing when science and faith work together, and we get to see how God created us, and how we can leverage that. And so I want to talk about just before the teaching time. For those who are wondering, well, how do I, you know, how do I even get the get to the point where we're teaching, I would encourage 10 minutes of hangout time. And this can feel awkward in a small church youth group, because you don't want it to feel like empty, like no one's here yet. There's one or two students here. There's gonna be four or five maybe, but those four, the other three, are running late. And what do I do with these one or two kids? And my advice would be to just go on Spotify or iTunes, search some hip, cool youth ministry playlist on Spotify, you don't have. To make it yourself. Just find one and then play that in the background. Just play a little music. It really helps to ease the ease, like just set the tone and all that kind of stuff. And then I'm a big fan of this. Have an easy card game or an easy access social game that people can just join as they arrive. It's all about lowering walls. It's about relaxing the I'm at church stiffness, right? That students occasionally walk in with. And so some some hands on suggestions. I am a in my youth group, we are big fans of uno no mercy. Uno regular Uno is great, but uno no mercy is hilarious and super cutthroat. And so it just makes for more engaging moments. Taco, cat, goat cheese, pizza is another great game, card game, super fantastic. I'm also a big fan of Connect Four, where two kids just play Connect Four, and then as students come in, you just have them join aside, and they just become fans of that person. And then too, if we want something a little more active, you can very easily, with a little bit of tape, you can make some a four square on the ground and get a kick ball, and you can just have some four square going, or something like that, if that fits your your group dynamic. So, big fan of hangout time, only 1015, minutes. But if we can get that going in a way that's helpful, then students end up having their walls lowered a little bit.

Laurie Graham: 22:18

You know, I just want to just jump in there, even for Sunday school on Sunday morning, that hangout time, even if it's five minutes like building that into your teaching time can take it can make your teaching time more effective, because it does lower walls. I'm so glad you brought up uno, and I'm so glad you brought up these things that can be done with two people. You know, it you don't need a big youth group to create a great environment. So this is awesome. Okay, keep going. Yes. Love

Mike Haynes: 22:48

it. Love it. Next. Announcements and game, it might be like, well, we just played a game, and that's true, but that game was kind of probably a little bit more unstructured, just kind of as kids are coming in. And if that works, and you want to do that for 25 minutes instead of 10, that's great, but if you want to play a structured game of some kind, I think that that's fantastic. My Wednesday night at my church, we usually have about eight students in the room, and they really do not like getting up and moving. They don't like those types of games. They just want to chill. They're tired. And so in my context, every week for the past two years, we have played a variation of would you rather. This is just what's worked for us really well. Literally, every single week, I propose a would you rather scenario, two scenarios, and then, instead of directly voting, right after that, students get to raise their hand and ask follow up questions about the scenarios that I presented, which I and I answered their questions just totally on a whim based on whatever I think is funniest or the craziest answer. And inevitably, after 10 minutes of that, both scenarios get insanely convoluted and really crazy. And then after doing that for a while, everyone's giggling. The scenarios are so weird now and so nuts, and then it's a whole lot more fun to vote for which scenario they'd rather choose. But if your group loves games, there are tons of sites out there where you can find lists of games and G shades, the company that I create curriculum with G shades, and we also provide weekly games in our curriculum plan. So 15 minutes of games, again, announcements to it's about lowering the walls. It's about helping everybody to have fun. Oh my gosh, these kids aren't so bad. I can hang out with these kids. I like this youth leader. And then the walls are lowered and we're ready to get into the teaching time well,

Laurie Graham: 24:37

and you know, as you say that, so I just know we've Sunday school teachers right now listening like, like, starting to like, you know, like, go into, you know, convulsions thinking, Oh, I'm gonna lose my time. I'm not gonna get my curriculum done. But can we really think about a meaningful 15 to 20 minute teaching time. Like, I'm sorry. I love 20 minute sermons. If you can't say it in 20 minutes, just just, you just don't need to. Like so much is filler what we do. And if you can get kids ready for a 20 minute time of teaching, or 15 minutes, or even a 10 minute, like deep thought, it's so much better than trying to get their attention. Keep it for an hour, because their brain is none of our brains are engaged for an hour. Like, why do we try to do that? I don't even get it. So, okay, keep going. Mike, yep,

Mike Haynes: 25:24

love it. And so that's where we hit. Made the lesson time 1520 minutes. If you've got a 90 minute youth group, maybe you can stretch it to 30. That's fine. But this is where you're you're sitting down and again, in a small church. I love this environment, because the big churches, the honestly, the big church youth groups, end up presenting information, spiritual teaching to students in a way that probably isn't the best way for them to process it. And so I love preaching. I'm a big fan of preaching, just straight monolog where you preach the gospel. Goal to kids. I think that that's so important. But the beauty of having four or five kids in the room is that it honestly, usually doesn't make sense to do that, and so we end up doing more of an interactive lesson. We're sitting in a circle in the beauty of small church ministry is that you already are incentivized to do it that way. And so what teenagers love? And we talked about this before we talked about the developmental aspect of rain development, right? Teenagers love being active participants in exploring their faith. So with that being said, what we do at G shades is we create what we call small church guides, and those are interactive lesson plans crafted specifically for smaller youth groups. And I think everyone listening listen. I'm shameless bug. I think everyone listening should use our stuff, but I'm going to tell you exactly how we structure our small church lessons so that if you don't want to use our stuff, you're still equipped to do exactly what we've learned. Is a great way to do things. So number one, when you're talking about the lesson time and structuring it, number one, you want to introduce the lesson the topic with a seemingly unrelated anecdote or relatable observation. Students are coming into youth group. They're thinking about a lot of things out there, and so as you begin your lesson, you meet them out there in the world with their where their distractions are, right? Just meet them out there with something relatable and seemingly not Jesus related, and they'll follow you out there, which means, when you transition, they'll follow you to where you're going, but you got to meet them out there. First number two, connect the dots to a spiritual tension or spiritual problem, and the way that you do that in small church ministry is through discussion or through an activity of some kind, right? So, so that anecdote, that relatable observation, it connects to a spiritual problem that teenagers typically face. And so if you can ask a few open ended discussion questions, you give them a chance to discover the connection, to discover the implications of the connection on their own. And if you have time, you can also do a short interactive activity that kind of drives home why this spiritual problem is such a problem. Again, it's about giving teenagers a chance to be active participants in exploring and discovering aspects of their faith. So those are the first two, three you want to open the relevant scripture passage, read it together, pause along the way to explore or define key terms. And I got to admit, sometimes this just has to be a five minute monolog, like sometimes you just got to teach, but wherever possible, you want to give students a chance to weigh in. What do they think? How do they interpret the passage, and what do they think? Some of those tough, you know, terms that we find in Scripture that maybe feel a little churchy, and kids don't necessarily know what they mean. What do they think that means? And the key to this is you want to create an environment where their viewpoints are valued, even though sometimes their viewpoints are objectively wrong, right on the Bible, sometimes that kids just say heretical things, and it's because they're processing, they're exploring, they're discovering, and we want to create a safe space for them to do that. So that means that we do everything we can during this teaching time to teach truth without unnecessarily making teenagers feel embarrassed. And I think that's

Laurie Graham: 29:09

I love, that you said like their viewpoint is valued. You didn't say you have to agree with it. You just said it's valued. And I think that is just a really big human component. We want to feel valued. We want to feel heard and understood. So love that, yeah,

Mike Haynes: 29:23

and that is that's important too, if I like because Viewpoints online, on Instagram, if you comment something, and we know this as adults, because we've been in the Facebook groups, and we've, you know, you have worked really hard to make small church ministry not one of those Facebook groups. You know, Wrong place online. You comment something that's objectively incorrect, and you get slammed, and teenagers experience that. And so it's really important that we make our in person spaces a safe space where their viewpoint is valued even if their viewpoint is wrong, and we find a way to gently turn the corner and express the truth of what Scripture is saying. So that's number three. Number four, we process the application of the scripture, and we do that with discussion. We can do that with teaching. It's fine to do that in a monolog format, but I think it's maybe more powerful when we do it with discussion, where we ask some questions that help students explore the then and there of the text and a few questions so they can begin to connect the dots on the here and now, the how the Scripture addresses the spiritual problem that was brought up earlier in the lesson. Again, they get to discover that, and for some of them, they'll be right there. They're tracking with you. They don't, you know, you don't even have to tell them. They know. As soon as you read the Scripture, they were like, oh, but it's great when they can explore that together as a group, even if it is as a small group. And then finally, you close, and I think it's really helpful to close with another interactive activity or some kind of reflection. An exercise. Sometimes you want to close with something light hearted, like, you know, a gamified teaching element, but, but other times, it's great to give students a pen, some paper, throw on some worship instrumental music on Spotify, and just give them five minutes to prayer journal how the lesson applies to them. And maybe they don't have to share what they wrote down. Maybe this time is just for them, and maybe for some of your students, this realistically might be some of the only time that they intentionally spend with Jesus that week. So I think if we can close with that, it really supports that they start to build a personal relationship with their father and with their Savior. So that is how I would encourage us to structure a teaching time, a youth group time in our youth groups. And again, this is exactly how we've laid out our teaching time with the small church guides in G shades.

Laurie Graham: 31:46

Can you give us those five things just in a row for people who are driving, and they're like, oh, shoot, what were those five things? And by the way, if you're driving right now, do not take time to write it out. You can listen at home, but just review us, just real quick. Mike, what were the five things in order? Absolutely, for

Mike Haynes: 32:00

those who are driving and do not want to text while driving, introduce number one, introduce the lesson with a seemingly unrelated anecdote or relatable observation. Number two, connect the dots to a spiritual tension. That's discussion. It's an activity. Number three, explore Scripture together and allow that to be an interactive thing where students perspectives are valued. Number four, process the application through discussion. And number five, close with another interactive activity, or reflection exercise. Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 32:35

you know, one of the things I love about talking with you, Mike is just the the edge of of taking into account development of kids, like early on you talked about, you know, the difference between children and even junior high and senior high. You know, kids when they are young, the way their brains work. They need concrete. They need black and white, they don't. They're not even thinking abstractly, like, it's confusing. I will never forget when I heard and read the statistics on children's sermons. You know, when we do object lessons, children don't get that. They don't connect a piece of spaghetti with a structure, like, they don't like object lessons for children and children's sermons, they're really for adults, little kids never get that. They don't. They're fun. It's entertaining, whatever. It's fine. But children need concrete. And you mentioned Junior hires start to tinker, like, tinker with ideas they and they get really squirmy and and honestly, junior high these days pretty much starts fifth grade. Now, developmentally, it's not just seventh. So if you've got those elementary kids and you're like, what's wrong with them? There's nothing wrong with them. This is part of their development. When teenagers push back or argue, there's nothing wrong with them, they literally are getting into abstract thinking. And I think of the hardest lessons I've learned, or the most concrete or the things I hold on to in my life, I learned those lessons. I experienced them. I processed through them. They aren't things that were just told to me. And I think when we can help teenagers wrestle and process and apply, not just tell them, this is the way it is. This is what God says. This is what I'm going to tell you, works better because I learned it in my life. Well, how did you learn it in your life? Like you wrestled with it, you struggled with it, you discussed it, you processed it. I think that's some of what, just some of what I love that you're talking about is just that awareness there's nothing wrong with these kids. This is developmentally what's happening. And as you mentioned earlier, life is a little different. Now. You know there is a difference in our development, as well as our relational connectivity, just in life. And so I just love it. I love everything that you just shared. Yeah,

Mike Haynes: 34:44

yeah. I think it's, it's it's when we when we appreciate some of these things that we're talking about. It really does help us to to operate within youth ministry with much less angst and much less worry, and we feel less shame, and we shame kids less too. And so I think it ultimately it ends up being better. So see, I hope that that what you know, what we've talked about today, is helpful. You know, before we start to close out, I do want to just share a couple of practical do's and don'ts. I think that this kind of encapsulates some of what we talked about. So some practical do's and don'ts, don't take yourself too seriously. This is so much easier said than done, but the truth is, a lot of us operate in youth ministry, and the reason that we struggle sometimes is because we just haven't we just haven't gotten to a place where we're secure enough in our identity to handle the fact that teenagers are sometimes a little sassy, or they sometimes laugh when we don't feel they should laugh, and then we get a little caught up and feel embarrassed, we feel shame and and then we start to snap. Right? If we cannot take ourselves too seriously, I think that's going to be really helpful when we're teaching students. So number one, don't take yourself too seriously. Do though? Number two, do? Give examples from your own life, especially the teen years. You can give examples from your current life, that's helpful, and teenagers will listen to that, even if they pretend they're not they are. But if you can give examples from your life when you were a teenager, if some of us can remember back that far in detail, that is so helpful, because again, while so many things have changed about being a teenager. There's a lot that stayed exactly the same. That's number two. Number three, don't shame students for missing youth group. We talked about that earlier. It's not helpful. We don't want students coming to youth group from a place of shame. That's a really bad start. And for some students, they just aren't going to be youth group kids, and it doesn't mean that they're not Jesus kids. And we can't conflate the two, that if a student's not involved in choice, involved in churches, we want them to be, that that means they don't follow Jesus. I was thinking about the fact the other day that Steph Curry, you know NBA player, right? Steph Curry, he's a Christian. Loves Jesus. I would be willing to bet that Steph Curry's church attendance is a little spotty because he's pursuing his passion and being the best in the world at something. We have a lot of students who are attempting to do that, and that means that their church attendance is going to be a little iffy. Sometimes. Let's not shame them for that. And then number four, do support them in the things that they pursue outside of church. And so if you can, if you have the time to make it to a game, to make it to a play, to make it to a competition, do it. If you don't, it's okay. Don't feel shame over that. You're busy, too. I get that. But if you can support them with a text, if you can support them with a note of encouragement, if you can support them by sending flowers to their house when you know that their show just ended doing those kinds of things again. That just makes it so that they may never come to youth group, but they know that they have a pastor anyway, and that's really, really helpful.

Laurie Graham: 37:46

Love it. Love it. Any, any parting words before we get off the air soon, like we're coming close to the end of time here.

Mike Haynes: 37:54

Yeah, I just want to share that, that this teaching, you know, structure and things, all of that stuff. I hope that it's helpful. I recognize also that it's a lot of work. It is much easier to hear it on a podcast than it is to craft a youth group night like that, from scratch in doing so can sometimes that takes you away from the other amazing things that you do or wish you could do as a small church leader. And so before we go, I just want to mention that G shades, we've created a curriculum subscription. It's called small g. It's planned for small churches, it's paced for small churches, it's priced for small churches. And so within this curriculum plan, we have video messages. That's for the time where you are just exhausted and you just need a video somebody else teach the lesson, and you can just afterward, look at the paper and you ask a few discussion questions. We have games that for every single week of the year. I mentioned our small church guides earlier, but the crazy thing is that within those small church guides. We've even got adapted lesson plans for when one student shows up to youth group. So now, when just one kid shows up, you're not on your own. You still have a lesson plan. It's just adapted for that you you and that one kid to kind of walk through the lesson together. And so I know that teaching teenagers can be intimidating. I know they're over scheduled in all of that. It's a lot to take on when you're leading in a small church. And I want to help, and I think small g is a great way to start doing that. But whether you use G shade stuff or not, I really, really hope that what we've talked about within this podcast episode is helpful for you, so that you can teach the next generation in a way that keeps them coming back for more.

Laurie Graham: 39:36

You got it? We're gonna drop the link to G shades curriculum in the show notes. That's gonna be there. But if you wanna hear more from Mike, okay, like we do. We love Mike. We love his curriculum. We love what he stands for. We love what he teaches. He is speaking in just a couple weeks coming up at the small church Kidman and youth ministry conference. You can get a free ticket. Like, just go to small church summits.com. Grab a free ticket. Our online conferences are 100% free. They are a hoot. They're really fun. If you're kind of like, oh, it's online, please just come and check it out. It's different than any conference you've been to. And he is doing a presentation there. And we're just, we're happy to have him in our community, Mike, we are happy to have you in our community. And for those of you who are thinking about checking out his curriculum, I just want to give a shameless plug here. Mike joined our community sometime last year, got to know us a bit, and literally interviewed people from small churches to come up to tailor make his curriculum. He literally started a second set of curriculum because he realized the curriculum he had may or may not be easily adaptable to smaller numbers, so he actually redid a whole nother set for smaller churches. So please check it out. And I'm all for not reinventing the wheel. So when you find a good resource, when you find good people, when you find good guides, like let's. Let's utilize it. Let's share what we have and and jump in and support each other in small churches. Because small churches really are changing the planet. They are. They just are. We hear story after story on this podcast in our communities. So be encouraged. And if there's one kid, if there's two kids, if there's one kid who's doesn't come all the time, like, let's just, you know, be Jesus with skin on, in our attitudes, in our the way that we smile, the way that we reach out when somebody is not there, right, like we can do both. Let's minister to the kids who are common as well as the kids who aren't. So any last closing, closing words, Mike,

Mike Haynes: 41:32

thank you guys for listening. I'm really thankful to be part of the small church ministry community. I'll see you in a couple of weeks at the conference, and if you're interested in checking out g shades, you can check us out at youth ministry curriculum.com.

Laurie Graham: 41:44

Awesome. All right. We will catch you all in another week. Talk to you again soon, and until then,