How Hybrid Student Ministry Works in a Post-Covid World

[Tom Pounder] Today we're going to follow up with Taylor Terpstra about what it means to have a hybrid student ministry. Are you ready? Because it's time. [Announcer/Intro Voice] You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network. [Tom Pounder] hey heroes my name is tom pounder and this is the church digital psychic podcast this is the podcast where we bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how to do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world and today i'm bringing back taylor terpstra taylor is the youth lead at sandals church and again last year when i talked to him on the podcast which i'll include in the show notes but last year when i talked to him he was a year into doing online only student ministry So where is he at now? What is he doing? And what does it look like for him and for you to possibly do a hybrid student ministry? That's what we talk about today. And I'm really excited to have him on the podcast. But before he gets on, I want to highlight the church.digital. At the church.digital, we have cohorts, coaching, we have resources, we have blogs, we have podcasts. all centered around digital and online ministry that will encourage you each and every day. We live in a digital world. We live in an online world. We live, as Jeff likes to say, a digital world. Combine the in-person with the digital online together. And what does that look like for you and your ministry? If you're looking for help, if you're looking for resources and coaching or cohorts, go to thechurch.digital today. You'll find a ton of great stuff there. All right, so now let's get into the interview with Taylor. All right, with me right now is Taylor Terpstra. Taylor, how are you, man? [Taylor Terpstra] I'm doing good. It's good to be here. [Tom Pounder] Well, I'm glad to have you back on. Okay, so last time when we talked, it was about a year ago, and you are the online youth lead at Sandals Church, and you've been doing it for about a year, and we're kind of still in the midst of COVID. Again, it's so weird that last year at this time, it was just so different than what we're experiencing now. But I want to talk to you. I want to find out where you're at right now with sandals and the online stuff. And then what are some of the things that you're learning in ministry? But talk to me a little bit about your job first. What is it that you do for your job? [Taylor Terpstra] yeah so um there's probably like the best way to describe it is like two facets to my job so one is like content and content management for our youtube channel and i would say our app at this point too which i can talk about a little bit later but um that's one side of things so distributing content and making that content that's part of my job the other part of my job is facilitating um discipleship and connection for online people so whether that is like a twitch or discord or any anything that can formulate community in the digital space like that's something that i oversee and if not indirectly involved with trying to grow create content for and steward that community well and then i also just like answer questions we do like this engagement process so um essentially like anytime there's a new person online or that is connected via a digital space like our weekend service or app or whatever if they're sub 18 and they connect that way then they're going into my email and i'm going to connect with them and find the best like one-on-one way to make sure that that person feels welcome and a part of Sandals Church. So whether they asked a question or wanted more resources or simply asked for prayer, then like those types of things will be things that I handle and deal with. So those are kind of like the two facets of my job. I view in like two different ways, like heads down and heads up time, things like that, where like I could be editing for part of the week and then the other part of the week I'm like connecting with people. So [Tom Pounder] um yeah so that's my job right now yeah that's great okay so uh last year you were doing you were really just online only at that point last year when we talked is that correct [Taylor Terpstra] Yeah, we were still meeting digitally, I think from like COVID stuff. [Tom Pounder] So, okay. So now how, and I think that's where a lot of student ministries were, uh, but you were hired to be an online only youth lead. So how has things changed over the past year? And what are some of the things that you're learning about doing online ministry with students that, that, that may be different from last time? [Taylor Terpstra] yeah i think like we went from online only during covid was super rad like i think most people that were in the same mindset as me felt really comfortable in that space where like i know what to do like i have this under control um and like knew how to like crank out content and all that stuff um which was super cool but um post-coveted there's been like i think a shift for some churches which which i've seen in friends where like their online emphasis doesn't um they're not emphasizing it as much as they did during covet because they're like trying to get people back in the building and focus on that which is good like that's good ministry to be working on, but I think that there's also a piece that sandals like we are not trying to drop online in any shape or form like we're trying to maintain I mean I think I don't want to get this wrong, but like online as of. yesterday i think is our third like we're seeing new people come in it's like our third fastest grown campus of all of our campuses so um which is a big deal and when people hear that they're like what does that mean like what does that look like and it's like it's just like we're we're seeing i think i think this last weekend we had like had hundreds of people connect for the first time this last weekend like in the hundreds which is crazy because it's like our live streams are not nearly as viewed as much as our like on-demand services so just the fact that like over the course of a weekend there's that many people that are taking their like next step to like fill out information and try to like get plugged in is super cool but with that being said like sandals hasn't dropped online in any shape or form which applies to youth it applies to our online campus and all of that stuff we're looking at um the future as a hybrid model of like we're in digitally we're also in in per in campus and like we're trying to build that relationship where campuses realize that digital ministry is a part of physical campus ministry right like they they're becoming more and more aware because of covet and postcode that like the way they connect with their communities digitally matters just as much as like their ministry on campus on sunday and so that we're trying to i would say from a network level resource campuses to be able to um reach their students digitally so like when it comes to youth i'm like hey like this youtube video that i made that's for online is a resource for you to be able to give it to students to leaders so you'll learn about these topics or talk about these things together this Jason Perez, Bible app reading plan that we're doing like this is something that you can use and leverage for your leaders and students and so like helping people learn that it's like this kind of relationship where we're. Jason Perez, We are integrated, we are not separate like we do focus on different things like my priorities are a little bit different than maybe a youth lead that is on campus as priority but. the things that we build like work together seamlessly because like what i'm building doesn't just connect students that are super far from sandals but that are local too that are a part of samples yeah and so it's like oh we got some local southern california teenagers that are seeing some stuff on youtube because it's like regionally being pushed because they're close in proximity and they've seen it and it pops up and they're like oh what's that like i want to check it out and they're like oh there's a campus close to me and then i can help i can help connect those dots for those students and like connect that person to that person it's like okay like that relationship is being built so helping people realize that it's not just like one or the other but it's like a both end scenario and that it's a major win for us to be diving into both I think that's been the biggest challenge for our church as a whole over the course of the last couple of months has been like, how do we learn to integrate those approaches? Um, because like during COVID, it was like, that's your thing, you know, and like, I'm going to do my thing. And like, like now we're trying to like make it way more collaborative. We're like, we're all building the church together but like my my focus is to think digitally first so it's like oh how how does this apply digitally where like someone else can think like oh this is how it affects my campus my flock my students all of that so yeah i'm like really excited about that approach i think that that is what is needed in this time and i think that what comes out of that is going to be the next like iteration of how we do church and build church for the future so [Tom Pounder] I think you're right on that. And actually, to be honest, that's kind of where I'm at with my ministries. You know, I'm the online campus pastor. But what I've seen my role is become is really a digital support to all the different ministries that we have at our church. And so just again, like you're saying, I'm trying to create content like video content here that I can say, hey, children's ministry, look at this stuff that you can kind of start referencing. I start trying to incorporate them. We're doing a lot of YouTube and TikTok stuff where we're trying to encourage people. So again, I see myself more as a part of the overall team rather than just my old separate entity, kind of like what you were just describing there. So I think that's awesome. So let's get into some of the stuff that you're talking about with YouTube. What kind of YouTube content are you sharing and are you using to really encourage people? [Taylor Terpstra] Yeah, I think there's one piece of content that I'm probably most excited about for this next year. It's like, we're calling it the for real show. So if you have ever watched a podcast before, it's going to be very similar to that type of feel. It's not banked on any, there's no specific like look or feel tied down for it. Like it can be pretty much anything as long as it's, The content itself is based around conversation so like that conversation can happen any place anywhere with any people of any caliber it could be staff members, it could be students, it could be. other youth leads it could be parents so the whole premise of it is to create a piece of content that helps people have something that's digestible outside of our sermons because like our sermons at this point like that's what i was working on for a long time was like making sure our sermons were hitting certain times where look and feel the same way from series to series so like it's not so jarring back and forth and then just a lot of background stuff like distribution and all that so that was like my first year was like building the service and now i'm trying to work on building the outside elements that surround the service and help like bolster that experience for everybody so this piece of content the for real show we have two episodes out right now so they come out once a month as of right now on the fourth wednesday so next wednesday will be our next episode um and they um they're built for the non-believer in the sense that they were always gonna revolve around a question so like the first episode was doubt. How have you doubted in your life? And it starts super light. Anything, you could be talking about toppings on pizza to what your favorite type of car is, all of that stuff. is like all intentionally built in there so that when someone watches it they're not like this is christian content this is a church talking to me but that like these are people what i want it to be perceived as is that these are people that are christians that have an opinion but they're not telling me how to live my life but in fact just sharing their own experiences because what i want to create is this idea of if people can share their experience with god and with the church and it's like positive and that's like um things are they see that like it's actually a good thing to have in your life and that it might like change things that it would encourage somebody who's not either a part of the church or who is like on the edge or whatever they may be in their situation that they can start thinking in a way of like oh maybe this could be for me and then they would watch more content and they would maybe like be interested and if they have specific questions that those questions get talked about but that they're not never answered in a direct like black and white way but more from like personal experience because like any gen z study you look at like no gen z student wants to be told how to live their life what to do because they're all figure it out themselves like i'm going either they have knowledge at their fingertips right like a wealth of knowledge and so what we're trying to do is provide some of that knowledge that they could look for as they try to figure it out for themselves what faith looks like in their life or religion looks like in their life and then as they watch that resource maybe they will build a personal connection with our church and have a relationship there and then we can help create that experience for them um yeah i think that's my favorite content piece that we're working towards that's kind of the vision for it um the episodes have turned out super cool like it's not it's not even meant to be like a super high caliber production thing either like you'll see some of them have been filmed in the studio but in the future episodes some of them have not been filmed in the studio like i'm going with the next batch to be like iPhone film because I want it to be like more raw because I'm trying to really lean into our vision as Sandals of like being real. And so I think that if I can portray that in a creative way not only with the content itself but also with like hey we're not trying to like put on a show for you but we're trying to like really just give you some real experiences that people have had and then you can take that for whatever you think it is yourself and digest it so yeah i'm excited about that concept piece [Tom Pounder] that's cool um so uh yeah one of the things i learned over covet is that people became less concerned about production stuff and more just about being real like i see people doing tick tock videos they're laying in their their chairs kind of back and stuff you know they're and people people love it they they don't need the high production stuff so i love that that element that you're taken from how how long are these episodes [Taylor Terpstra] um they can be as long as we want to be honest like i think i'm trying to hit around 30 minutes like 20 to 30 minute episodes depending on like if the content is like really good like i kind of gauge it on that like i i give a 10 minute buffer like if the content is like super hefty at the end and then like super back weighted then i'll leave like 10 minutes at the end So 20 to 30 minute episodes. [Tom Pounder] Do you do like some sort of call to action at the very end or what's the connecting point to anything else? [Taylor Terpstra] Yeah, no, no call to action. um because i'm trying to not be a church i guess is like the best way to describe it like churches do this like call to action thing and like we have we have like these next steps that everyone needs to take and um that's okay like it works for sure but i also want it to fit in the online space and i don't think like next steps fit in the online space or call to action like i'll give them a recommended video at the end that i think that like should fit like a normal youtube thing not like our thing like it's gonna be like at the end there's gonna be a video recommended for them that's one of our videos that might maybe a sermon or maybe another for real show that ties with the same theme or category i'm trying to keep it like thematic right if someone's looking for um if someone's like looking to have their questions about doubt answered then i'm gonna throw them every content piece about doubt that i have but i'm not gonna say your next step is to connect to sandals church yeah we do have a number that they can text that's in the description of our video that um that will get them connected in some shape or form depending on what they ask but that number isn't i've made it as easy as possible for a student so like that number is It's not, hey, give us your information. We're going to plug you into a database. You're going to go into someone's queue, and then someone's going to connect with you. That number goes directly to me and a Google Voice number. And then what that number does is it's a question, a prayer request, or if someone just wants to talk. And so those numbers, I text back any text messages i get on thursdays and they get responded to once a week and and then they follow up i'll follow up with people if there's like this deeper stuff going on but usually usually it's simple prayer requests or like someone does have a genuine question and they want to answer like for those pastors out there like i had a question um this week we uh our sermon on wednesday was about heaven at home and uh just that they're real right real places and i had a student text in and she was like my friend is um my friend is a christian i'm a christian as well we both believe in god and um she is gay and knows that being gay is a sin and is worried that she's going to hell so i guess my question is do lgbtq plus people go to heaven and that's like the question so pastors out there let's be answering those questions so students don't have to have to ask those huh so yeah that's awesome dude that's that's so encouraging that they ask you those questions uh do you do this as a premiere like youtube premiere or do you just post it up there at a certain time They're posted at a certain time, no premieres anymore. YouTube chat features suck anyways. The live chats just suck. So I did it because I would be the only one monitoring it and because I want the hybrid model to fit, so I don't do premieres anymore. We used to during COVID, but I think that... it's not bad to premiere video like do that if that's working for you but for us it like was not working for our time zone time frame stuff like that so i think that the best win for us was to just post it at we post it on wednesday night at 6 30 psc like same time youth starts the video goes live on youtube but our views come in different days of the week like wednesday is not our day for views for our youtube video it might be saturday it might be tuesday like just random the views come in over the course of the week so like the way that i track metrics for that is not on wednesday night i do we do what's called a plus six metric so the six days the video's gone live how many views has it gotten within that six day period because then we posted a new video after that and then what's been cool is that over the last year i've been posting these sermons right and like different videos and stuff is that like one of our most viewed videos right now is a video on youtube from one of our past sermons and so like and so like be encouraged that someday something is gonna be something is gonna be there for people that is like made it may not have been made in the time for those people but they're like looking and searching for that stuff so that's why it's so important to have a very valuable title that's not clickbait but that's like genuinely about what you're talking about like how is your video bringing value to people's lives like answer answer questions make it make it that format so that when people are typing in a search bar that they can find that content and it's valuable to them i can't stress that enough because clickbait titles are the worst yeah because you want to see what you want to get so [Tom Pounder] No, 100%. I know from our church's YouTube channel, we get videos in our top 10 per week that are from like years ago. And again, it's just, if you just keep those videos up there, don't take them down. God's going to use them in some way, shape or form in someone's life. And so that's really encouraging. Okay. So are you doing any short form content to kind of help out too? And what are you doing? [Taylor Terpstra] yeah um we do sermon clips um i think like i'm not satisfied with sermon clips like where they're at but they're definitely it's a easy short to make so i think in the sense of recycling content and being able to use it like sermon shorts will always be valuable i just think like getting creative with them is important and like how you [Tom Pounder] how you market them is really valuable. [Taylor Terpstra] So I don't do. uh at the time when we interviewed i was doing tick tock but i don't do tick tock anymore so that was able we have a different staff member that was given um she was given all of our like she's given oversight over social channels essentially so like i can still post there if i want to but that that like planning and content planning is all done by somebody else. It's just super helpful because then it's like a little bit less that I have to do. But yeah, TikTok YouTube shorts have been something we've been experimenting with. I think that as YouTube continues to invest, YouTube is investing a lot in YouTube shorts. So like post them, like don't not post YouTube shorts, but use that platform. But just know that it's like. kind of throwing something at a wall and you're not really sure like who the community is or like what the target is like you're just kind of hoping it sticks like i've had i've had a youtube short that had like six views and then i've had a youtube short that hit like 1.3k views and it's like what the heck did i didn't do anything different it's just like the content itself so i've tried to make sure though that those shorts always have a pinned comment and then that connects to the full video that the clip is from oh nice so i think that that is something that's valuable that's something we've started to do on our tick tock as well with like Um, if you have a clip from the sermon pen, a con pin, the full length content as a comment. Um, even if it's from, I don't know, on Tik TOK, I don't think you can pin. Maybe that's on Instagram. I'm not sure. Some of them, you can't pin your own comment yet and someone else's. So then that's when I would use like my personal account to like, make sure that it gets been, but that's cool. Yeah. [Tom Pounder] That's cool. We've been doing YouTube shorts since the summer, almost every day to some capacity, doing some little devotional, and they've been really, really encouraging. Okay, one last question for you. You talked about this hybrid model, so you're doing a lot of online stuff. What are you doing to connect in person? Are you connecting with people? Are you coming to youth events? Are you a small group leader of a group? What's that look like for you? [Taylor Terpstra] um so in person stuff i don't go to like youth nights on a campus i mean i could i guess it's i i do the big events so like i'm at anything that's like cross campus like camp conference like i'm a part of that for sure um because we all have like responsibilities to carry like that's part of part of being a youth lead is like i'm still a youth lead right like Even though I'm online-based, I still have youth lead responsibilities. So anytime youth leads are called upon for any type of work or big event stuff, I'll get in-person tasks and stuff for that. When it comes to small group stuff, I am not leading an in-person physical small group. I attend a small group for myself, but not a student-led small group. my focus with like community for online has been our discord server which is like trying to make sure that like every single every single monday we have um we have like a prompt for the week like for conversation and that i let them know that i'm praying for them and ask for prayer requests and things like that so i think like we have to we don't move away from a small group model because sandals is all about small groups but like online is different in the essence that like students are not going to sit in a zoom call with you talking about jesus like as idealistic as that is like it's just not going to happen and so you can dream you can hustle as hard as you want like that this won't happen it's not going to take off and so i'm trying to find those avenues that students already do community in in in different ways and try to like shift it slowly and subtly to like point towards jesus um so yeah my group is discord [Tom Pounder] Yeah, dude, that's awesome. And you know, I probably need to have you back on to talk more about Discord because I need to get more involved with Discord. But I look at it and I'm like, this is not for me. I'm in my mid 40s, you know, I'm like, ah, but my kids like it. And that's something I need to start experimenting with. um taylor this has been awesome man uh it's been great catching up and seeing what's going on i truthfully when i sent you the email to do the podcast i was wondering if you were still doing it because again things have shifted so it's so encouraging for me to see the vision of sandals that they still see the value in this and that your your role has changed But it's changed in such a great way that you're still offering digital expertise and you're doing stuff to minister to students in this capacity. I love it. I'm so thrilled that you're still doing this, man. [Taylor Terpstra] Yeah, I think that it's definitely not as popular as it once was, but I think that churches that don't grab hold of the vision of Matt Kallroos- Digital first being like where it's at that, like if you're not thinking digitally your church loses a lot of potential to grow, to be honest, and so I think that. Matt Kallroos- The next 10 years of the Western Church will be based a lot on if churches are able to. Adap well the last analogy I want to leave you with Tom is something that my boss said, and it like has killed me like it's like it's like this is the thing that i'm thinking about every day and it's. Using analogy that like master chess players when they're like learning to play chess at a high high level, they are forced to play without their Queen. right and like because the queen is the most powerful piece in chess and so when they learn to play without their queen they have to get more creative they have to learn like how do i how do i win without using like this powerful piece that way when they bring that back into play they're insane like they can do things that they've never thought they've been able to do And we've been comparing recently at Sandals that the queen for churches is the weekend service. And COVID forced churches to learn how to play chess without the weekend service, right? and now that we have our queen back and it's like oh my gosh you have our queen back we're so happy like we can play chess again but like the reality is we still have to focus on how do we do church without the weekend experience um as a whole right because that's like where ministry happens digitally and so part of being the hybrid church is we're going to use our queen we're going to leverage our queen and it's going to be something that we do and we'll never stop doing but we're also trying to leverage the rest of the board to be able to like truly grow and like reach people i mean we're trying to reach lost people at the end of the day so [Tom Pounder] And lost people are online. They're on their phones. They're hanging out there. And so that's a great thing to end on. So, well, Taylor, as always, it's great talking to you. We are going to have to catch up sooner than a year from now. It will have to be before that. So, dude, thanks for being with me today, man. [Taylor Terpstra] Yeah, thanks for having me, Tom. [Tom Pounder] All right, so what did you think of the interview? I loved talking to him. It was so great to catch up on him, and I wasn't kidding. When I sent him that email, I was really curious if they were still doing online student ministry, and they are. It just looks a little bit different today than it did last year, but the reality is it's evolved, it's transformed, and they're still including digital and online as a key component to their ministry. So what encouraged you from this interview? Definitely put in the comment section below or you can even hit me up on Twitter at TAPounder is my Twitter handle. I would love to continue this conversation and see what you're learning, see how you're growing and see how digital is still a part of your ministry, especially if it's student ministry. If digital is still a part of your strategy for student ministry, let's talk about it some more. I would love to hear what you're doing today. All right, heroes, well, thanks so much for being with me. As always, if you like the podcast, go and subscribe to it. You can also go to thechurch.digital to check out information there. The YouTube, it's on Apple iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on everywhere. But again, you can go to thechurch.digital today and find it all there and subscribe to it. All right, heroes, well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week. And until next time, have a great one.