How Student Ministry has Changed Over the Past 2 Years

How has student ministry changed over the past few years? That's what we're talking about today. Are you ready? Because it's time.

You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network.

Hey heroes, my name is Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. This is a podcast where I bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world. And let's just be honest, we've talked about this numerous times, but COVID has changed so much. And in particular, COVID has changed the way we do ministry to students as well. And, you know, even without COVID, to be honest. ministry would be changing over the past two years but COVID made things change dramatically different in regards to how we minister to students and so today I brought my friend back Steve Cullum. Steve Cullum is a student pastor in Colorado and he has been doing amazing work with his ministry and so I bring him on today and we talk about how ministry has changed over the past two years. What's different? What's new? What are the things that you are taking with you as you get out of this pandemic era that we're in? and so steve has been working hand on hand with a lot of different leaders and with a lot of different students and so we have this great conversation i'm really excited for you to hear but before we get into the conversation i want to encourage you to check out the church.digital at the church.digital we have tons of great content podcasts blog posts coaching cohorts that will all help you in digital ministry, whether it's digital ministry, digital ministry, or metaverse ministry. We've got lots of different content there to help you and encourage you during this time. It's a great site to check out, so go to thechurch.digital today. All right, I'm ready to get into the conversation. Let's talk to Steve and how ministry to students has changed dramatically over the past two years. All right, with me right now is my friend, Steve Cullum.

Steve, how are you? Hey, Tom. I'm doing well. Right here in the midst of wrapping up the school year, getting ready for the summer and all that stuff. So it's kind of chaotic in the ministry world and everything, but I'm doing well. It's good to see you.

It's great to see you. I mean, again, yeah, it's that time of year where a lot of student ministries are wrapping things up and getting ready to transition from school year stuff to the summertime stuff. So, yeah, it's very busy. Well, before we get into the conversation a little bit, let's just remind people who you are and what you do. So give a quick little description.

yeah so my name is Steve column, and I have been doing student ministry for a career I guess almost 20 years had some volunteer opportunities and. internships and residencies and everything before that. But currently I am the student pastor at LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colorado, and also do various other things within the student ministry world, but have my podcast, the student ministry podcast is available as well. And through that, I just connect with others in youth ministry and we just talk shop. And hopefully the goal of that is just to connect people together and learn from each other.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, again, you said it really well, because I'm really glad to have you on the podcast, because we're going to talk about how student ministry has changed over the past 20 years or so, or just how it's changed in particular over the past two years. But you've seen a lot of change over your time. But before we do that, I do want to just say one thing. know steve and i do a lot of work for orange uh and we you know um yeah we do a lot of work for orange and and hang out with them and do some blogging and that kind of stuff uh and steve actually went to the orange conference 2022 uh and i did not and so i'm very jealous because i was watching all of what steve was posting and retweeting it and it was awesome so from afar it looked like it was great how how was it and how did it compare to previous years

Yeah, honestly, I was very surprised because I really, I didn't think it'd be back in full force because of everything. I thought, you know, a lot of people are still playing it safe. And, you know, going back into a stadium or arena with that many people, I didn't think it was going to happen. But I walked in and it was probably, I would say, about 75% capacity of what we normally are. at orange conference which was really encouraging and and it was just really great to see a lot of my ministry friends that um that i haven't seen in several years um other than like zoom calls um and you know from afar but uh but yeah it was really cool to be back in that space and to just be energized by each other again And yeah, they made some changes as well, especially with the breakouts and how they did that this year. But yeah, overall, it was cool to be back. And it felt like Orange Conference just with some changes. But the place itself, like the whole arena area has like totally transformed. I didn't even recognize it other than the original. arena itself everything else is completely transformed than an area there's like several parking garages they're building stuff all over the place so yeah next time you get down there tom i don't know if you'll recognize it

Yeah, well, it was funny because the last year that we went to Orange in person before they had the two years, well, one was digital and then the one year they didn't have it. I remember they were working on like a parking garage or they're working on some stuff. But again, it's been two years since I've been down there. And so if I go down there next year, it'll be three years. So, you know, it will be really different. So. That's great, though. It's exciting to see that. And I mean, I just hope now that Orange is back and they're doing the conference that youth specialties will do a conference again this coming year. So that'll be fun. All right. Well, Steve, let's talk about what we want to talk about. And again, the idea is youth ministry is constantly changing. If you were doing the stuff that you were doing in the 90s, you're not going to be effective anymore. But over the last two years, we've seen a dramatic shift in how student ministry has changed. So what have been some of the things that you've seen that has really kind of struck a chord with you?

Yeah, I think, I mean honestly Tom we're still trying to figure it out, I think, and, and real talk, I don't know. My opinion is that I think we, we as a church have rushed through this pandemic so much to get back to quote unquote normal. that i don't know if we were able to really settle in the the the change the the pandemic all the stuff that the pandemic brought enough to fully process how things really need to change moving forward um but there are several things that i've picked up on within our local ministry and other youth pastors that i've talked to um and i think the biggest thing is something that needed to happen i think probably almost all of these are things that needed to happen anyway And the pandemic has just accelerated them. Probably didn't accelerate them nearly as much. And so if you're listening and like, I think, you know, think through those things still, you know, push the ball forward for sure. Don't have that tendency to go back to how it was before. Push it forward. Go into directions that we haven't been before or maybe haven't been for a long time. and so i think honestly that the big thing that comes to my mind is is this idea that for a long time we've we've treated the the program as the thing um students come to our program it happens this time this day and and we pour all of our effort we pull our all of our finances everything into this program that we run for an hour or two a week and all of a sudden the pandemic took it away. I don't have my program. My central thing that was my ministry is gone. And so I think that's the biggest thing. I think a lot of the other things kind of stem from that. But the biggest thing that comes to my mind is we've got to be willing to kill that program or at least not make it the central thing of what we do. We actually need to actually pastor students and their families, like reach out to them. And sometimes that's going to include digital ways that we'd be able to be thinking about how to connect with them, even if we're not face-to-face. But it also is face-to-face stuff. We've got to be willing to go over to their house and, or, you know, stop in at their games, all that stuff that there's just ministry outside of the program, I think is so important.

man you hit on so many great things there and i didn't even think about this but you're right i think we were in such a rush to get back to the old way we were doing it that we never fully embraced a new way and we never really fully processed the new way uh to do things and as soon as we could get back in person we were back in person and we were just expecting people to come back and truthfully i wonder if that's why we're like still struggling with church attendance where it was so terrible because people don't want to go back to the old way they they don't want to do that um and then i also i liked what you said again when when the pandemic initially hit and we weren't able to meet in person we were going out and finding creative ways to go to them And like going like I remember for our senior graduation stuff, we weren't able to do our graduation dinner. And so we went to every house individually with a gift and the sign. And we had a socially distancing. But we went to people and we were checking in on people. We were calling people FaceTime. And now it just seems like, OK, that's what we that's what we did during the pandemic. We don't have to do that anymore.

And I mean, that's vital for student ministry. it's so it definitely is and and what i experienced during that time was yes we had to think outside the box um but that was a good thing it was a good practice for us to go through but it also there was a freedom in that for me it was like man i don't have to figure out how to do this put this thing together and everything i just gotta i just gotta go out and and reach teenagers and their families like just pastor them hey what are your needs are where how can we be praying for you do you need some toilet paper do you need some you know hand sanitizer whatever it is that's you know low how can we help each other and and it felt like the church was actually being the church more than just putting on a program

love what you just said there i mean we were pastoring people that's why we got into ministry yeah it's the pastor people not to do programs right you know it's so funny because again i serve dual roles i do the online stuff and student ministry stuff at my church And we were talking about our online experience and how we can make it more excellent and how we can make it better. And again, that's important. But I told them, I said, guys, we're going to have to have someone else look at that kind of stuff, because really, when I'm in the chat, my focus is ministry. And how can I meet the needs of the people in our chat room? Not how I can make the guitar sound better online. I really don't care about that. Like, I mean, I just care about our people experiencing Jesus during this time. So I think that's, man, you're hitting on so many gold nuggets here, man. I love it.

Yeah. And I, and I think, I think, yeah, we, we did need to, I mean, rethink digital. And I think, I think the biggest thing is, you know, what you just hit on too, is we have to like, be able to think strategically around that. I think Kerry Newhoff said, tweeted something just the other day about how, if he was to go back. and his early ministry and tell his his younger self something that yes vision and mission is very important but even maybe possibly more important is strategy we've got to be able to think through like how are we actually going to reach the people in our community and and digital did open up a whole other possibility um one of the things that we did during that time was we were running online game nights for our students to be able to hang out and get together. While I was reaching through the game nights, some kid in Pennsylvania and I live in Colorado. it was awesome like i was able to like think broader than just our community now our goal is still to reach our community but it was cool that god was open the doors for us to reach you know broader than that um but what is our strategy behind that why did why do we do certain things and i think that goes back to programs as well like if we're gonna run a program like maybe only run that program if that is the best thing for you to do. Only do this thing online if you feel like that is the best thing for you to do and you actually have the capacity to pull that off. I think that's what we're trying to think through as well because there's so many possibilities. There's so many opportunities out there to do ministry, but how has God gifted you specifically, your church specifically, the team members that you have on, whether volunteer or paid staff? How has God put those pieces together in order for you to carry out your specific calling within the whole kingdom?

Yeah. And just to give a heads up, I mean, you and I talked about your online gaming and how that was awesome. And so it's on a podcast. So I'm going to include that in the show notes so you can refer back to that and see what Steve did for that. Are you still doing some gaming stuff right now for your ministry?

No, we actually haven't, which is really interesting because I think during a season, I think I was one of the many, but kind of gone to as like, oh, like Steve knows how to do the whole online game thing. And we're not doing it now. And because I think. it really what i was just talking about we had to evaluate um what our capacity was what our our tool set was what our real our goal um was and how to achieve that through a specific strategy and yeah most of the the people the teenagers within our community right now really did long for being back in person in some way and we actually saw triple growth in our high school ministry right when we were able to come back because they long for that in-person connection so much we saw friends being brought every week multiple friends like i don't i really don't think we've had a week without seeing a new face at our student ministry program um because they're longing for that so much at in person so we just we thought you know we don't have the capacity right now to be able to do both we're going to pour more into the in-person kind of stuff for now even though we know that that's a that's an area that we should focus on but we don't have the capacity or anything to be able to pull it off well um and so we've kind of abandoned it for now

I mean, but that's totally fine because again, for every season, there's something and that during that season, the online gaming stuff was really effective for you and God was using it in a very powerful way. But again, like so many of us, if you keep on trying to do so many things, you're not going to do them well and you're going to burn yourself out. And so, I mean, you have to really kind of pick and choose. There's lots of good things to do, but you have to choose what's best for your church and your ministry. So how have your in-person gatherings changed over the years?

Our in-person gatherings have went from very much what you would probably call like the stereotypical 90s, 2000s youth group nights with student band, high energy games, all the program, basically. And we are so focused on small groups right now that some people from the outside looking in going, do you actually have a youth group? Because we're so heavily focused on small groups and we've seen that shift over the last several years, not just within COVID. COVID, as I said earlier, just kind of accelerated that. So that's probably the biggest thing that as far as like our week to week kind of program and our ministry, we've seen a shift that we needed to make within small groups specifically.

do you do a small group night at your church or do you do small groups in communities

We do it at our church for now. The desire is there to do it in communities. I would love to do it at homes. Our leadership right now has stated that we just feel more comfortable doing it at the church because we can kind of control a lot more. And you do have leaders right now. We're still, I think a lot of people are in full-time recruiting mode right now. And so we don't have all the leaders we really need. And when you don't have that it's hard to, you know, have a group but at a home and all of a sudden you're like oh one leader can't be there and now you're alone with the kids and it just creates all these like kind of logistical things that are leadership just, we decided not to not to jump into that right now so we haven't met the church.

Uh, that's, that's awesome. Um, I've always wanted to do small groups at, at, in the, my church, but we've never been able to really figure that out. Well, we actually just do them in different people's homes. Um, but again, different area, different times, different places. Um, what, uh, how has the last two years, what has it done for your leadership team, your volunteers? Has it been harder for you to recruit and train volunteers or how has that worked?

Yeah, I think in the beginning, we had already made that shift to go to a more small group focus. So the shift to online groups in that moment was actually fairly easy. We basically just needed to train some of our leaders how to use Zoom or whatever platform they were going to use. And getting the word out, communication was really the hardest part in the beginning. um it was it was almost impossible to recruit anybody during that time though because you're like what what are you recruiting to i don't know i don't know what it's going to look like in six months let alone next week but so it was really hard to recruit just people at that point but we did have a bunch of leaders who stuck stuck with it during that time so very very thankful for them um but since then i think we've we've seen a more of a need to to pass ownership over to our leaders um so they're not just small group leaders they are really owning the ministry almost kind of treating them as as youth pastors of their their small group And so, more ownership, more equipping them, more empowering them. And so, as we're recruiting them, that's kind of what we're calling them to now. Like, it's not just, hey, I need someone to lead a discussion, you know, for an hour on a Sunday night. No, I need you to be able to dedicate some time to really pouring into some students because number one, they're not always going to come on a Sunday night. So you gotta be able to reach out to them, care for them and be texting them or go on social media, wherever it is, meet them where they are, because that's the ministry outside the program. And so that's been the biggest thing for me in recruiting. taking care of our existing leaders but also recruiting new leaders is really being able to articulate what we're calling these these leaders too but at the same time that's a huge ask for a lot of people like that's the that's a big ask for for volunteers who already have their own families own jobs all these different things and so we have also began creating some additional opportunities for volunteers within our ministry that are at a lot lower capacity so that people don't have to just jump all the way into small group leader and all that entails, but they could also do some other things that they require a little less time.

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. And I know you and I kind of talked about this a little bit offline a little bit. But, you know, with with volunteer leaders, as you're encouraging people to reach out to kids throughout the week, one of the best ways to do it is through your smartphone and, you know, just doing the smartphone. But with that, I mean, again, this is something that the thing about over the past two years, it's really accelerated that. Hey, you might have to start if you don't have one already implement some sort of social media policy or, you know, smartphone policy, whatever you want to call that incorporates texting, FaceTime and stuff, because again, it's a messy thing. Kids are on their smartphones all the time and you want, you know, leaders to be able to connect with them. But you also want to protect your leaders from any kind of false accusations or. want to protect the kids from other stuff as well so yeah it's a tricky thing to kind of go around so if you haven't figured one out yet you're you're not alone and i'm still trying to figure mine out too but it's something to consider absolutely steve what else have you seen

I think this is across the board. It's not just within our ministry here in Colorado. It's across the board. Every youth pastor I talk to, mental health is a huge struggle. It was before. And again, pandemic only accelerated it. And so we are seeing so many students who are struggling. with depression anxiety um suicidal ideation all that stuff and on top of that honestly like it's it's become i'm gonna choose my words wisely it is become uh addictive i guess in a way um it's it's past the point at least with with gen z it's it's past the point of like accepted where it's almost encouraged. And so I think we have a lot of students who are attaching themselves to some sort of anxiety or depression, even when their life is actually pretty good, but they feel like they need to say their life is not so good so they can either get attention or they fit in. or whatever but also at the same time we have this this could be a podcast in and of itself um we have we have our own like we have a bunch of students who have so much information at their fingertips um about all the world that's going through but also like i laugh about it because i tell my mom all the time i was like don't go to dr webmd like go to actual doctor but we have a bunch of students who are like able to find out you know all this different stuff from some credible resources and some not so credible resources and their own diagnosis and all these different things and so they have a friend that's struggling with whatever they're jumping on top of that and going, oh, you probably also have anxiety. You probably also have depression like me. And so there's just false narrative that's being told as well. And so as youth pastors, like we're trying to tell them about Jesus, but at the same time, we're like, man, the mental health has got to be addressed in some way and all of those different ways. So that's only become like, you know, going from, you know, priority five, six to all of a sudden that is priority 10. It needs to be.

Yeah, I'm glad you said that because one, mental health is definitely something that the stats don't lie. Kids are really dealing with a lot of stuff and for a variety of different reasons. But the reality is, I think what you said about, you know, almost kids may be pressured to feel like, oh, this person has this. I have to have something to, you know, and, you know, it's not necessarily always attention getting, but it's just something to try to explain what they're thinking through and feeling through. And I had a person who was a teen that I was talking to within the past month who they just could not fully articulate what they were going through. And they kept on going round and round in circles. And it was almost making me dizzy. It's just like, yeah, mental health is definitely something that has escalated over the past two years for sure.

yeah yeah and so yeah i would encourage everybody if you're not connected with mental health organizations in your community if you don't have a plan like who you can refer people to if you don't have a plan on how to train your own volunteers and how to deal with some basic mental health stuff um it's time to get on that because we we've got we've got it all around us before it was you know a few of our students now it's well over half of our students that are really struggling in that area

Yeah. Um, well, Steve, as we kind of wrap up, do you have any more thoughts or yeah.

Yeah, I think, um, I think two other things, um, that really hit, I actually, I'd say three, um, quickly is discipleship, um, has become more and more of a focus. We've got to not only disciple our students, but I'd say our leaders and our parents. um and not only help them become disciples but disciple makers that's that's huge because we've got to start replicating it's not just enough to come to our program and come to the church every week and that's it um we've got actually if we're going to make a significant dent in the in the the spiritual you know um world like we really need to be able to make disciple makers um and then i'd also say um we need to start planning ahead, but with flexibility. I think, I think we, too many, too many other people I've seen that, that just go week to week. And it's just like flying by the seat of your pants. They're not going to have a plan. But at the same time, we cannot foresee another pandemic coming out of the woodwork. So we have to be flexible in our plans, but still plan. And I think the last thing that I'd say is I've seen an increased need for networking and coaching and connecting with each other. We have way too many youth pastors that are jumping ship. and not just going to another church but stopping ministry altogether because they're just burnout they don't know what to do they're they don't have any support any of that stuff and they're jumping ship all together and uh and how are we actually going to make an impact on this next generation if we don't have some some people that are called by god to lead that charge and so um yeah we've got to be networked and connected together because if we're expecting of our students for them to be connected like we got to be doing that ourselves

right let's talk about this for a little bit because i think these the last three things have been awesome uh well you all your points have been awesome but these last three things the discipleship thing i think it's easy to think oh discipleship's a trending word with churches and everything like that but the reality is if you're doing student ministry right i think you're you're you're doing discipleship and again that's what i think about like how we're going away from program and high program high energy high crazy stuff and we're focusing on discipleship because ultimately discipleship is where you want to get to anyways but if you start with a big outreach event you're going to the funnel of hey you want to be discipling these kids in small groups in a one-on-one conversation so discipleship's not some buzz trending thing this is something that student ministry leaders should be doing And there's lots of great resources out there for discipleship. The other thing you mentioned about networking with other youth pastors, you're a part of a networking group. What's the networking group that you're a part of?

Yeah, so a couple of different ones, but the one I'm mainly involved in is National Network of Youth Ministries. So I lead up the Colorado coordinator. So goal of connecting every youth worker in Colorado with a network that is close by where they can grow together, connect with each other, encourage each other, and that sort of thing. So yeah, National Network of Youth Ministries is a great resource.

Yeah, there's lots of great around. So I'll include a link for national youth workers there. Again, I see you talking about a lot and you actually had a meet up at the Orange Conference, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome just to get a bunch of youth workers together and eat some amazing barbecue. So that's always good. But yeah, I think there was like 45 or so. And honestly, it was kind of thrown together. We were like, hey, we got to do something. So we planned this within like a week. and yeah we had 45 other youth workers there because we need that connection and so many of them honestly tom like so many of them were not connected at all we weren't reaching people that were already connected um we were reaching like probably i'd say 35 of those 45 were not connected at all in any way and they know knew nothing about networking but their desire is so much there so i would encourage everybody like if you've not reached out to other youth workers in your neighborhood in your community like make a list just go to google or whatever and just like make a list of like five other churches you want to connect with and just start there make that phone call stop by their office um we've got to be in this together and um and if we're not like that that's that's on our responsibility as well as as a youth worker we need to reach out to fellow youth workers

i mean sometimes you just gotta cold call someone and just say hey you want to go grab some lunch or coffee together i mean didn't share war stories that can be so refreshing for someone totally it doesn't have to be a part of a national organization it'd just be you and locally i like i like what you said there yeah steve this has been awesome um you you're great you got tons of great insights um thanks how can someone connect with you uh if they want to connect with you

Yeah, probably the best way really is my website. It's stevecullum.com. So that's S-T-E-V-E-C-U-L-L-U-M. And yeah, links to my social media and blog and podcast and anything is pretty much on there. But if you do want to find me on social media, it's at Steve Cullum, pretty much on all the things out there. And the podcast is the Student Ministry Podcast. You can find it on pretty much every podcast app out there. And yeah, it'd be great to... to feel free to connect with me and ask any follow-up questions or anything like that if i said something that even rubbed you the wrong way i'd love to have a great conversation around that as well that that's awesome and please tell me you're you're enjoying twitter and you love twitter a lot yeah yeah twitter's still my uh my go-to social media for myself like it's been the ministry itself has kind of went in some different directions i feel like instagram is kind of that thing but twitter is still for me um even though there's a lot of craziness out there and who knows where elon musk is going to take it but but yeah it's still it's still my personal social media choice

Yeah, I love seeing your posts. So again, follow him on Twitter. Check out his blog. His podcast is awesome. He's got a lot of great stuff. So I'm going to include all his links in the show notes so you can follow him today. Steve, thanks, man. It's always great catching up with you.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Tom.

All right, so what did you think? What stood out to you from that conversation? You know, I love talking to Steve. Again, Steve's been in ministry for over 20 years, and he's been doing some great stuff, and it's just always great to catch up with him, but he had a lot of great insights, and one thing that he talked about that I forgot to mention in our interview was the fact that, you know, you go from week to week planning, and in COVID, for a long time it was week-to-week planning because you didn't know if you're gonna have to shut back down because of number of cases and whatnot but now is the time that you have to start planning ahead again you know again it was always great for ministry to be planning ahead six months a year ahead of time now again it could change you know but at least you're being planned out well the week-to-week planning needs to stop and we need to start going back to long-term planning and strategies so that we can minister to students more effectively. That was something that really encouraged me and really challenged me and something I wasn't able to mention with Steve, but it was something that really struck a chord with me. But what struck a chord with you? What encouraged you? What challenged you? What made you think? What is something that maybe we talked about that we didn't share that you're feeling? I would love for you to put in the comment section below or hit me up on Twitter, at TAPounder. I would love to continue this conversation online. And actually, Steve is on Twitter as well. We would both love to continue this conversation online. So make sure you hit us up on Twitter or definitely in the comments section. All right, heroes. Well, thanks so much for being with me today. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe to it. It's on iTunes. It's on Spotify. It's on YouTube. You can also find it at thechurch.digital, along with a lot of other content there. So we'd love for you to check it out today. Alright heroes, well I hope you have a great rest of your day and until next time, have a great one.