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Is your smaller church truly a welcome space for all?
As idyllic as this sounds, reality often sets in at the first sign of unchurched youth who don’t seem to “know the church rules” or visiting friends who seem difficult or disrespectful.
After decades of experience as a pastor, teacher, parent, community leader, and advocate, Sunny Brown joins us on today’s episode with deep wisdom for reaching today’s youth including why relationship comes before discipleship and the importance of answering the question “why” more often than we do.
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https://linktr.ee/sunnysideview
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Listen On
Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, Laurie Acker. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast. You are in for such a treat today, because we have Pastor Sonny joining us on the episode. If you’ve been listening in, we’re doing a whole month around children and youth ministry because we’ve got this amazing free conference coming up at the end of the month, the last Saturday of April, and we want you all to come. I’ve had this amazing opportunity to connect with these really cool speakers and people who minister to kids all over the world. And Pastor Sunny is one of them. She’s been a favorite speaker for us in the past as well, so we’re delighted to have her back.
Laurie Graham 0:51
But Pastor Sunny, do you want to just give a little intro of how you are related to children and youth ministry and churches, and even your experience in small churches? I know you’ve done a lot in community churches, as well as education. So give everybody your little background.
Pastor Sunny Brown 1:08
So I always like to make sure people know I didn’t get saved in the church. I actually got saved on the college campus, November 14, 2001. I would like people to know that because I accepted Christ at a gospel choir rehearsal, which is quite essential. So it was a time where I wasn’t in a building with these people. I was surrounded by a bunch of college students who were just wanting to be close to God. And so it really has influenced the way that I’ve done a lot of ministry. So as you mentioned, the last 20 years I’ve had experience in all kinds of areas. And just in this last year, I was in full-time ministry and I made the transition to become a middle school teacher. So it’s been a fun time. I get to hang with young people all the time. I get to shepherd young people who have no idea the church rules. And so it’s been a fun time. I said I might need to do my dissertation on this.
Laurie Graham 2:16
Okay. I love it. And I love that you love middle schoolers. That’s actually my favorite age. I just feel middle schoolers are still a little scary to you, but they’re still honest. Yes, they’ll still tell you what they think. They’re not going to just be too cool to be honest. So I just love it so much.
Laurie Graham 2:33
So you chose the topic for today, and what you wanted to talk about was unchurched kids in the church context. And so let’s just go for it. Why did that hit you as a topic that you felt small churches really needed to hear about?
Pastor Sunny Brown 2:49
Prior to that, as I mentioned, I was working full time in ministry. And sometimes, working in that space, being predominantly around kids whose parents know that kids need a savior is very different from what I’m doing now, where I get to see these families. I get to see these communities of people who are really struggling and are also not realizing, “Hey, there is the hope that is right here,” right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 3:23
And so as we have this conversation, what I’m seeing in my everyday classroom is people who just don’t know. And it made me really think about all the times, or some of the times where I’ve messed up, where I was thinking, kids who have come to a lock-in—I love lock-ins, especially as a middle school person. I know people just hate them, but I love lock-ins. You come to the lock-in, and anybody’s invited to the lock-in. So a lot of times we get friends of our members and of our kids, and those kids have no idea what I call the “church rules.” They don’t know that they shouldn’t cuss in the building. They don’t know that you don’t yell or hit people as if you’re having fun. They don’t know that. They just don’t have any idea.
Pastor Sunny Brown 4:17
Some of my old-school church memories are being yelled at by church mothers to not go stand in the pulpit or not run in the sanctuary, or all of these things that I was raised with. But there’s a community of folks that don’t have any idea, and it made me start to think about: are we drawing them or are we pushing them away? By not acknowledging that this child is not bad? I have this thing, I don’t believe there are bad children. I think there’s been a rough upbringing, but it’s not that they’re bad. Not that they’re a horrible kid, but they just don’t know.
Pastor Sunny Brown 4:53
And what do I look like? What kind of evangelist am I if I don’t build the relationship? One of the things that my senior pastor always says is, “You have to have fellowship to bring you to relationship, and relationship will bring you to discipleship.” Thank you, yes. It’s so good, right? I love to say it. And so a lot of times, kids will come into our space, and we want to disciple them or discipline them, and we haven’t spent time with them. And thus, we don’t have a relationship with them, so we can’t even get to that space. And we wonder. We’ll say, “This kid has such an attitude,” when really, he just doesn’t know us and doesn’t trust us well enough to allow us to have that conversation.
Laurie Graham 5:44
I just have so many things I want to talk about. We had a post in the Facebook community not too long ago, and people were talking about behavior in the church. And there was such a spark of, we get the whole “gotta teach kids respect and all this stuff.” And the woman who posted said, “You didn’t read my question. I have kids who are not churched. They’re getting dropped off.” Yeah, they have no idea. What do you think we can do in churches? Because, we have to have some order. And I totally get that stress of kids who seem disruptive. But I’m totally with you, I don’t think there are any bad kids either. Yeah. Give us some tips. Good tips. What do we do? There is a process, there is a timeline. What can we do to be the love of Jesus? Yeah, instead of the “stop running in the hall.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 6:35
So honestly, I found out this year that teachers do it at the beginning of August or September every year, when they are thrust with 30 or 20 new kids that you have to learn their names. You don’t know them, they don’t know you. One thing my school did was they spent the first week, every day. They call it “unit zero.” So it’s before you actually start the units that you’re teaching, and you spend the time playing games, getting to know each other, doing icebreakers.
Pastor Sunny Brown 7:05
So now, we don’t have that type of space, unless we’re doing a camp, right? So what we can do is add some of those icebreakers into our regular Sunday time. Even if, again, we’re in a small church space, so it really gives us a lot of time to be able to have some deep conversations, or even just finding out what their favorite ice cream is. So that the next time they come, we can pull it off the freezer and say, “Oh my goodness, I got this for you.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 7:35
I believe it’s really spending that time and actually building in that fellowship time, because then you learn lots of things about people. When you start playing games, you figure out if people are competitive, if people are sore losers. You figure out if people are just very introverted. There are different things that you get to find out just from playing some nice icebreaker games.
Laurie Graham 7:57
When you first started saying, “This is what they do with the schools, the first week,” I thought you were going to say they lay down expectations. They let you know what they want from you. They let you know the rules. But here you are, they play games. And I think that goes along with what you said earlier, which was you’ve got to have a relationship and trust. That comes first.
Laurie Graham 8:22
I believe Jesus modeled that, too. He walked with people and chatted about farming. I mean, that’s where it started. It didn’t start with, “Hey, sit down. Let me unpack the scriptures.” Yeah. “And here’s the rules.” And sometimes we do that in churches. Another thing, I just know you’re gonna love this, too, but I want to hear how we can change our church cultures. I think sometimes we’ve got this glare thing going on. Somebody runs in the hallway and we’ve got somebody who does that glare—that look. And that is enough. I’ve received that look before, and that’s enough to shut me down. And I’ve been in the church a long time.
Laurie Graham 9:02
So how do we help change the culture so that even when things feel stressful or wrong or disrespectful, or “I don’t like that,” how do we change the culture so we can just be warm and smile and welcoming? Even when things aren’t going how we want them to go? How do we do that?
Pastor Sunny Brown 9:20
So I think one thing that I have seen, especially in my Sunday school days, is it’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it, right? So there could be a kid running down the church halls. And I’ll say, “Johnny, get over here. Now, where are you running?” Right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 9:40
Or if I know that I’ve told Johnny several times to stop running, I’ll say, “Now, Johnny, get over here. What are we doing? But didn’t we have this conversation before?” And so I think it’s the way that we say things. As I look at what Jesus did, Jesus was so good at relationship building. I mean, he was a connector. It was like he could instantly connect with people. And that’s one gift that I continually pray that God will continue to just sharpen in me, because it’s really—I’m not yelling at this child to stop running because of fun, right? I’m saying, “I don’t want you to fall. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want you to run into someone else.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 10:27
And so we’re having the conversation. I say, “Hey, come over here. Why are we running again? I remember I don’t want you to fall.” The YMCA teaches you that. The YMCA lifeguard class says that you don’t tell people to stop; you tell them why you’re telling them to stop. If you say, “Stop running,” you say, “Hey, stop running, because I don’t want you to fall.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 10:48
I think as adults, we are—especially my generation—so used to just being told “no” without the “why” that a lot of times this next generation, they’ll just keep doing it, because this is a “why” generation. You can’t just tell them “no.” They want to know, “Well, tell me why,” and not in a disrespectful way. But also, knowing how much technology they have, it’s very easy for them to ask their why something is the way it is, or what it is. So for them, they’re thinking, “You can’t just tell me yes or no. Tell me why. Why should I not do this? Why do we not run in the sanctuary? What makes this building different than any other building? What is reverence? Why do we think that?”
Pastor Sunny Brown 11:34
And so we have to get really uncomfortable as adults to not be stuck in “because I said so.” Instead, we should be saying, “Hey, let’s work together and let’s talk through why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
Laurie Graham 11:51
I love that you said they’re asking “why,” but not in a disrespectful way, because I totally get that. I think many things these days are seen as disrespectful if we’re not understanding the culture. To me, even the young adults these days—people have all sorts of opinions about my young adults in my family—I will just tell you, my kids are amazing. They’re hardworking, and they really don’t miss a beat. But they are looking for deeper meaning. Yes. That translates into, “Is this worth my time? Is this worth my heart?” There are so many terrible things happening in the world; they want to invest in places where it’s good.
Laurie Graham 12:30
I think kids are looking for deeper meanings. I think they’re looking for more significance than when I was a kid. Yep. They want to make a difference. They realize that their actions have impact. That’s what I see. How do we reach this younger generation in a different way, when we were brought up with, “You do what I said because I said so.” “Yeah, that’s how you respect.” How do we make that shift?
Pastor Sunny Brown 12:56
First, I think we ask them. One of my mentors from the YMCA—I worked a long time with him—his name is Mr. Young. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he does amazing work within the Charlotte communities. I asked him on my own podcast about young people, “Well, how do you do it?” He has a 100% graduation rate from his after-school leadership program. They always go on to have a secondary plan, whether it’s college, a trade, or a career of their choice. It’s amazing.
Pastor Sunny Brown 13:32
So I was asking him how he did this, and he said, “I ask kids what they thought. Before I plan anything, before I start to create rules, I pull kids in. I pull the leaders in, and I ask them their thoughts. I’m just helping to guide them to put their thoughts down.” And he said once he did that, the kids started having so much ownership over what was happening that they didn’t accept someone not living up to the standard. He didn’t have to police.
Pastor Sunny Brown 14:07
And I think as a body of Christ, we have to remember that we are discipling these children. A lot of times we’re leaning more into the discipline portion instead of the discipling piece of it. And so as we’re doing that, as we’re making disciples, they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to have ideas that are outlandish, ideas that are just wild and crazy. And it’s our job to come alongside them, not to tell them what to do, but to guide them while they’re doing what God called them to do. Because God has gifts for them, just like God has gifts for us, and I think we should be in a space now where we acknowledge that.
Laurie Graham 14:49
I love it. One of our challenges, I think, as small churches—actually as churches in general—is that we’ve taken the word discipleship and we have, I believe, lessened it to just teaching kids the Bible. Discipleship is just teaching the truth of the Word, but there’s so much more to discipleship: raising up leaders, helping with application, teaching them to have godly relationships, not just teaching them information-wise, but modeling and building them in significance as they are part of the ministry, not just to sit and listen to this information. Does that resonate with you at all?
Pastor Sunny Brown 15:30
Absolutely. I think as adults, we have to get out of the way. That’s the truth. And what I mean by that is not just that we let them have the whole car, right? But the only way a teenager learns to drive is if somebody lets them drive. They’re probably gonna hit the curb a little bit. You start small, you start in a parking lot where there’s nothing else, then you get on a street road, then you graduate to a highway, right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 16:00
But what happens is, we don’t do any of that. And then when these young people are 18, 19, or 20 years old, we know that data says that they walk away from the church. Or even the ones that are still there, they’re not equipped to lead because we never let them lead. We never let them mess up while we were there to pick them up. And so again, it just takes us being more flexible, and being able to say, “Hey, I’m gonna walk alongside you. This may not be my cup of tea. I don’t know it. But a lock-in is gonna work on this day. But let’s do it. Let’s try it. Let’s make it work.”
Laurie Graham 16:40
Yeah, yeah, I love it. When we think about discipleship and teaching kids, that’s usually where behavior comes in, right? Because we want them to sit and listen and hear the Word of God. We need to teach it and we need to handle it respectfully, and we want them to know the Word of God. But I’m picturing Jesus and how he did discipleship. Mm hmm. Because he did teach the Word of God, but he ate with them. He took them to the garden to pray. He walked with them as they were going to this next town. He hung out with them. I think of that as discipleship. He involved them in ministry, right? He told them how awesome they were. He said, “Hey, you’re gonna be the rock.” Yeah, “I get that you’re failing all the time, but you’re gonna…” There was so much more than teaching scripture. Yeah. I don’t mean to minimize scripture. I almost felt like I had to go back to that because I thought, “Oh, I hope nobody thinks they heard me just say that discipleship isn’t just teaching the Bible.” But it’s not. It’s that involvement process. And yeah, I don’t know. It’s that life, it’s the life skills, too, right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 17:47
Yeah, I think not only is it the life skills, I think that you’re right, it is the spiritual, it also is the natural. I also think about how Jesus also knew that Judas was right there. In the end, he knew that “Mr. Mess-up” was going to come alongside and get those same tools, even knowing that this could be a mess here, right? That it was going to be a mess. And so I think that oftentimes, as we’re thinking through it, discipleship is also showing up to a football game and supporting your students. It’s also helping a single mother, showing up and asking, “Hey, do you need someone to be there with at the PTA meeting with you, or even meeting with your teachers? What can we do to assist you?” Does a student need tutoring? How are their reading levels? Do they need any help? I’m sure there’s someone in there that we can get. That is discipleship, where I care about you as a person. It’s not that I only care that you have memorized scripture, or that you’re preaching, or that you’re playing an instrument. But I also care how you’re doing in school. I also care that your Girl Scout troop is selling cookies, and I also care that you have a baseball game. So you’re right, there’s a natural and a spiritual side to it when it comes to discipleship, and we do miss it often.
Laurie Graham 19:22
Yeah, yeah, too often. Okay, let’s go back to your outreach. We started off talking about unchurched kids coming into the church. Let’s take that to the teaching setting. Okay, when we’re not just talking behavior and hanging out at lock-ins, but when they come to teach, I am usually pretty aware of all the Christianese that is even preached from pulpits. Oh my gosh. Somebody who didn’t grow up in the church, I think we’re crazy. It’s all about killing a lamb. I mean, it is. We’re talking overheads, and we’re referring to people getting thrown in fire. Isn’t it? I just think, “Well, what do we do? How do we adjust our teaching so that we can actually reach people and they feel welcome in the church setting if they’ve never been there?”
Pastor Sunny Brown 20:13
Honestly, my oldest daughter turned 19. I remember when she was about six or seven, she was really into reading. She was brilliant; she skipped grades, she loved to read. I remember I had an NIV Bible or something, and she was reading it. I said, “Okay, let’s do comprehension. What does it mean?” She was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I just read.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 20:41
Then I started looking at the different Bible translations and what the reading level was. So I’ve moved around, and it depends on where I am, but I am always really mindful to always have a physical Bible with me that a third grader has read because that’s really the first part. When we’re reading those stories and we’re reading, I don’t want you to have to figure out what I’m saying. I’m going to say it to you as plain as possible so that you can get the meat of it. Now, as you get into Sunday school and start delving into different things, or maybe a Bible study, you can start delving into it. But at first, you’re here at this lock-in. You’ve never been to church before. I want you to know that Jesus is the light. Yeah, exactly. Right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 21:34
And so I think that’s the first thing: ensuring that we are saying it in a manner in which the youngest, the least of them, can understand. Remember, Jesus said to the disciples, “Suffer the little children, let them come.” I’ve had pushback about this, by the way, especially from some churches where they’re like, “Oh no, we only read this version of the Bible, or this is the only one that is most correct,” or whatever the case may be. And I remember saying, “What the Scripture says, ‘Suffer the little children, let them come.'” When we think about that, it’s okay to get uncomfortable to do something a little different so that they can come. They have that option of understanding. I want you to get to Jesus.
Pastor Sunny Brown 22:21
So that’s what I was saying. The first thing is really being aware and being cognizant of that language. The other thing I was going to say, and it ties into what you mentioned earlier when you were talking about how Jesus was, I think about Jesus as the greatest teacher that I’ve ever learned about, that I’ve ever known. When I think about that, I see classrooms all the time in professional development, my own classroom. I’m trying to get my principal to let me go to a deskless classroom where it’s just chairs and couches, and they’ve got things to write on. I just want to move the desks out of the way. I want you to come into this space and feel like this is a comfortable space for me to learn. I have couches and these chairs in my library in my classroom, so the kids rush to those chairs. They love to sit down and do their assignments, and they do their assignments more timely when they’re in these comfortable chairs.
Pastor Sunny Brown 23:21
And so sometimes when we think about behavior, when we think about classroom management, when we think about our regular youth ministry, sometimes we’ve got to think outside of the box. Maybe what I grew up with just doesn’t work. It’s evolved, or maybe it doesn’t work all the time. Maybe we have half of the class with desks or chairs, and the other half has big blankets, or whatever the case may be. We’re just really challenging each other to think a little bit differently about our space.
Laurie Graham 23:54
One thing I love about you, Sunny, is that your perspective is broader than the church. And I think we all need more of that. We have a tendency in our churches to get really huddled—this is our church experience. And your experience working at the YMCA, being involved at your kids’ schools, going back to college, it has given you this perspective that I just wish everyone had. Go out to the soccer fields, everybody. Quit complaining that the parents aren’t coming to church, and we’re all going to go to soccer fields. Figure out what’s going on, right? Go see, go get to know people, because the core of who you are whenever I talk to you is just so relational.
Pastor Sunny Brown 24:42
I learned from the great connector, Jesus Christ.
Laurie Graham 24:44
How do we lose that? How do we intellectualize our faith, the core of who we are, and our meaning, and what we’re giving to people? We can lose that. And I just love that about you, Sunny. I just want to tell you that. Your sole focus is on relationship, your smile. When you connect with people and you speak, it’s like you’re just looking right at everybody who’s in the audience. So sweet.
Pastor Sunny Brown 25:12
I think for us, again, just studying—as you mentioned, I graduated with my master’s last year—you do a lot of data research. So, for fun, I started researching things about the church. I realized that sometimes we love our church so much that we get pushback from people who don’t like the church. What happens is, it almost becomes an exclusive VIP club. It’s here, and you’re over there. But in reality, it should be a place where the doors are always open and where anybody can come. If you’ve got to stumble in, if you’ve got to crawl, if you’re running and leaping in, come on in. My desire is that, especially starting within our youth ministries, as we continue to build out and all of the amazing work that you and your team are doing, to just remind us often that when people get to our churches, they should hear, “Welcome home,” no matter how they got there. We want it to be home.
Laurie Graham 26:27
Yeah, yeah, I love it. So we are so excited to have you back at another conference speaking. Do you want to give a little bit of a teaser of what you’re going to be talking about and why everyone should come?
Pastor Sunny Brown 26:40
No, I want people to just come, because let me tell you this every time: there are so many amazing speakers. I like dropping in on everybody. Now let me tell you, Laurie is very particular about “you better be on time to your session.” So I’m always like, “I’ve got all these things set,” and I’m always like, “Man, I want to stay for this last one, but I gotta go in.” It is amazing. It’s amazing to see. I love being able to watch it back when we can as well. It’s just, there is such a need for real people who actually do the ministry, to be able to have those conversations with everyday people that we can’t afford a huge conference. It is so having that option. I just want everyone to come. Come to the whole thing.
Laurie Graham 27:37
I love it. Yeah, and let’s keep learning and growing. I really think learning and growing is part of keeping our passion alive in so many ways, but we need to be around each other and be encouraged.
Laurie Graham 27:50
And so, Sunny, I’m so glad you’re gonna be there. And so, is there anything else you want to mention before we close out here about kids outreach, small churches, Jesus? What, what else is on your heart that we haven’t covered or talked about?
Pastor Sunny Brown 28:07
I hate to sound like a broken record, but now working in the school system, I am seeing something that I missed for 20 years of ministry. And that is that the reading, literacy, and math gaps in a lot of our schools—our community schools right next to our churches—are severely lacking. And a lot of times there are churches surrounded by them. So think about the outreach that we can do by just going to volunteer to tutor. I mean, an hour a week! What if we got 10 people at our church to come in to do it? The impact that it could have on that community, the impact that it can have on those children and their families’ lives. I’ve learned that a lot of their parents also have third-grade reading levels. So now we’re expecting fifth graders to surpass where their parents are, and it’s hard to do. It’s really hard to do. So, I’m always trying to encourage people to start with our local mission. Get to a school once a year to help with tutoring in math and reading. Do what you can, and please, please, please represent Christ, even in the classroom.
Laurie Graham 29:23
Yeah, well, to me, that’s real outreach. That’s impactful outreach. We spend so much time and effort and even money trying to throw outreach events. Yes, and we say, “What’s the impact? What’s the impact? What’s the impact?” And here we can go and actually make a difference in the life of someone on a regular basis with an hour a week, or even less? Sometimes some schools are having volunteers come in once a month, to think about the impact! I just love that you really left us with that, Sunny. So, Pastor Sunny, how can people connect with you? How can they find you? Listen to your podcast? What do you want to throw out there? How can they find you?
Pastor Sunny Brown 29:57
Of course, you can find me on Instagram. It’s @TheProfessorB (B as in brown). And then my podcast is The Sunny Side View, and it’s on all platforms. Please, please, please listen and share with me what you thought about any episode. I love to do this.
Laurie Graham 30:22
Awesome. Well, this was very fun. Thank you for taking the time to be on here today and to just spread a little more of your light around the world. And for everybody who’s listening, don’t forget to grab a free ticket to the Kid Min and Youth Conference coming up on the last Saturday in April. That’s traditionally when we hold it, so if you’re listening three years down the road, I bet it’s the last Saturday in April again. We do have quarterly conferences, but grab a free ticket. If you are not in Kid Min or youth, you’re not in the children’s ministry or youth ministry, or know others who are, please share the word. We would love to get as many people there, excited, re-motivated, and re-energized with new ideas, new learning, and new connections as we can. Alright, everybody, that’s all I got. So until next week, be a light.
Hey, Laurie Acker. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast. You are in for such a treat today, because we have Pastor Sonny joining us on the episode. If you’ve been listening in, we’re doing a whole month around children and youth ministry because we’ve got this amazing free conference coming up at the end of the month, the last Saturday of April, and we want you all to come. I’ve had this amazing opportunity to connect with these really cool speakers and people who minister to kids all over the world. And Pastor Sunny is one of them. She’s been a favorite speaker for us in the past as well, so we’re delighted to have her back.
Laurie Graham 0:51
But Pastor Sunny, do you want to just give a little intro of how you are related to children and youth ministry and churches, and even your experience in small churches? I know you’ve done a lot in community churches, as well as education. So give everybody your little background.
Pastor Sunny Brown 1:08
So I always like to make sure people know I didn’t get saved in the church. I actually got saved on the college campus, November 14, 2001. I would like people to know that because I accepted Christ at a gospel choir rehearsal, which is quite essential. So it was a time where I wasn’t in a building with these people. I was surrounded by a bunch of college students who were just wanting to be close to God. And so it really has influenced the way that I’ve done a lot of ministry. So as you mentioned, the last 20 years I’ve had experience in all kinds of areas. And just in this last year, I was in full-time ministry and I made the transition to become a middle school teacher. So it’s been a fun time. I get to hang with young people all the time. I get to shepherd young people who have no idea the church rules. And so it’s been a fun time. I said I might need to do my dissertation on this.
Laurie Graham 2:16
Okay. I love it. And I love that you love middle schoolers. That’s actually my favorite age. I just feel middle schoolers are still a little scary to you, but they’re still honest. Yes, they’ll still tell you what they think. They’re not going to just be too cool to be honest. So I just love it so much.
Laurie Graham 2:33
So you chose the topic for today, and what you wanted to talk about was unchurched kids in the church context. And so let’s just go for it. Why did that hit you as a topic that you felt small churches really needed to hear about?
Pastor Sunny Brown 2:49
Prior to that, as I mentioned, I was working full time in ministry. And sometimes, working in that space, being predominantly around kids whose parents know that kids need a savior is very different from what I’m doing now, where I get to see these families. I get to see these communities of people who are really struggling and are also not realizing, “Hey, there is the hope that is right here,” right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 3:23
And so as we have this conversation, what I’m seeing in my everyday classroom is people who just don’t know. And it made me really think about all the times, or some of the times where I’ve messed up, where I was thinking, kids who have come to a lock-in—I love lock-ins, especially as a middle school person. I know people just hate them, but I love lock-ins. You come to the lock-in, and anybody’s invited to the lock-in. So a lot of times we get friends of our members and of our kids, and those kids have no idea what I call the “church rules.” They don’t know that they shouldn’t cuss in the building. They don’t know that you don’t yell or hit people as if you’re having fun. They don’t know that. They just don’t have any idea.
Pastor Sunny Brown 4:17
Some of my old-school church memories are being yelled at by church mothers to not go stand in the pulpit or not run in the sanctuary, or all of these things that I was raised with. But there’s a community of folks that don’t have any idea, and it made me start to think about: are we drawing them or are we pushing them away? By not acknowledging that this child is not bad? I have this thing, I don’t believe there are bad children. I think there’s been a rough upbringing, but it’s not that they’re bad. Not that they’re a horrible kid, but they just don’t know.
Pastor Sunny Brown 4:53
And what do I look like? What kind of evangelist am I if I don’t build the relationship? One of the things that my senior pastor always says is, “You have to have fellowship to bring you to relationship, and relationship will bring you to discipleship.” Thank you, yes. It’s so good, right? I love to say it. And so a lot of times, kids will come into our space, and we want to disciple them or discipline them, and we haven’t spent time with them. And thus, we don’t have a relationship with them, so we can’t even get to that space. And we wonder. We’ll say, “This kid has such an attitude,” when really, he just doesn’t know us and doesn’t trust us well enough to allow us to have that conversation.
Laurie Graham 5:44
I just have so many things I want to talk about. We had a post in the Facebook community not too long ago, and people were talking about behavior in the church. And there was such a spark of, we get the whole “gotta teach kids respect and all this stuff.” And the woman who posted said, “You didn’t read my question. I have kids who are not churched. They’re getting dropped off.” Yeah, they have no idea. What do you think we can do in churches? Because, we have to have some order. And I totally get that stress of kids who seem disruptive. But I’m totally with you, I don’t think there are any bad kids either. Yeah. Give us some tips. Good tips. What do we do? There is a process, there is a timeline. What can we do to be the love of Jesus? Yeah, instead of the “stop running in the hall.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 6:35
So honestly, I found out this year that teachers do it at the beginning of August or September every year, when they are thrust with 30 or 20 new kids that you have to learn their names. You don’t know them, they don’t know you. One thing my school did was they spent the first week, every day. They call it “unit zero.” So it’s before you actually start the units that you’re teaching, and you spend the time playing games, getting to know each other, doing icebreakers.
Pastor Sunny Brown 7:05
So now, we don’t have that type of space, unless we’re doing a camp, right? So what we can do is add some of those icebreakers into our regular Sunday time. Even if, again, we’re in a small church space, so it really gives us a lot of time to be able to have some deep conversations, or even just finding out what their favorite ice cream is. So that the next time they come, we can pull it off the freezer and say, “Oh my goodness, I got this for you.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 7:35
I believe it’s really spending that time and actually building in that fellowship time, because then you learn lots of things about people. When you start playing games, you figure out if people are competitive, if people are sore losers. You figure out if people are just very introverted. There are different things that you get to find out just from playing some nice icebreaker games.
Laurie Graham 7:57
When you first started saying, “This is what they do with the schools, the first week,” I thought you were going to say they lay down expectations. They let you know what they want from you. They let you know the rules. But here you are, they play games. And I think that goes along with what you said earlier, which was you’ve got to have a relationship and trust. That comes first.
Laurie Graham 8:22
I believe Jesus modeled that, too. He walked with people and chatted about farming. I mean, that’s where it started. It didn’t start with, “Hey, sit down. Let me unpack the scriptures.” Yeah. “And here’s the rules.” And sometimes we do that in churches. Another thing, I just know you’re gonna love this, too, but I want to hear how we can change our church cultures. I think sometimes we’ve got this glare thing going on. Somebody runs in the hallway and we’ve got somebody who does that glare—that look. And that is enough. I’ve received that look before, and that’s enough to shut me down. And I’ve been in the church a long time.
Laurie Graham 9:02
So how do we help change the culture so that even when things feel stressful or wrong or disrespectful, or “I don’t like that,” how do we change the culture so we can just be warm and smile and welcoming? Even when things aren’t going how we want them to go? How do we do that?
Pastor Sunny Brown 9:20
So I think one thing that I have seen, especially in my Sunday school days, is it’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it, right? So there could be a kid running down the church halls. And I’ll say, “Johnny, get over here. Now, where are you running?” Right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 9:40
Or if I know that I’ve told Johnny several times to stop running, I’ll say, “Now, Johnny, get over here. What are we doing? But didn’t we have this conversation before?” And so I think it’s the way that we say things. As I look at what Jesus did, Jesus was so good at relationship building. I mean, he was a connector. It was like he could instantly connect with people. And that’s one gift that I continually pray that God will continue to just sharpen in me, because it’s really—I’m not yelling at this child to stop running because of fun, right? I’m saying, “I don’t want you to fall. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want you to run into someone else.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 10:27
And so we’re having the conversation. I say, “Hey, come over here. Why are we running again? I remember I don’t want you to fall.” The YMCA teaches you that. The YMCA lifeguard class says that you don’t tell people to stop; you tell them why you’re telling them to stop. If you say, “Stop running,” you say, “Hey, stop running, because I don’t want you to fall.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 10:48
I think as adults, we are—especially my generation—so used to just being told “no” without the “why” that a lot of times this next generation, they’ll just keep doing it, because this is a “why” generation. You can’t just tell them “no.” They want to know, “Well, tell me why,” and not in a disrespectful way. But also, knowing how much technology they have, it’s very easy for them to ask their why something is the way it is, or what it is. So for them, they’re thinking, “You can’t just tell me yes or no. Tell me why. Why should I not do this? Why do we not run in the sanctuary? What makes this building different than any other building? What is reverence? Why do we think that?”
Pastor Sunny Brown 11:34
And so we have to get really uncomfortable as adults to not be stuck in “because I said so.” Instead, we should be saying, “Hey, let’s work together and let’s talk through why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
Laurie Graham 11:51
I love that you said they’re asking “why,” but not in a disrespectful way, because I totally get that. I think many things these days are seen as disrespectful if we’re not understanding the culture. To me, even the young adults these days—people have all sorts of opinions about my young adults in my family—I will just tell you, my kids are amazing. They’re hardworking, and they really don’t miss a beat. But they are looking for deeper meaning. Yes. That translates into, “Is this worth my time? Is this worth my heart?” There are so many terrible things happening in the world; they want to invest in places where it’s good.
Laurie Graham 12:30
I think kids are looking for deeper meanings. I think they’re looking for more significance than when I was a kid. Yep. They want to make a difference. They realize that their actions have impact. That’s what I see. How do we reach this younger generation in a different way, when we were brought up with, “You do what I said because I said so.” “Yeah, that’s how you respect.” How do we make that shift?
Pastor Sunny Brown 12:56
First, I think we ask them. One of my mentors from the YMCA—I worked a long time with him—his name is Mr. Young. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he does amazing work within the Charlotte communities. I asked him on my own podcast about young people, “Well, how do you do it?” He has a 100% graduation rate from his after-school leadership program. They always go on to have a secondary plan, whether it’s college, a trade, or a career of their choice. It’s amazing.
Pastor Sunny Brown 13:32
So I was asking him how he did this, and he said, “I ask kids what they thought. Before I plan anything, before I start to create rules, I pull kids in. I pull the leaders in, and I ask them their thoughts. I’m just helping to guide them to put their thoughts down.” And he said once he did that, the kids started having so much ownership over what was happening that they didn’t accept someone not living up to the standard. He didn’t have to police.
Pastor Sunny Brown 14:07
And I think as a body of Christ, we have to remember that we are discipling these children. A lot of times we’re leaning more into the discipline portion instead of the discipling piece of it. And so as we’re doing that, as we’re making disciples, they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to have ideas that are outlandish, ideas that are just wild and crazy. And it’s our job to come alongside them, not to tell them what to do, but to guide them while they’re doing what God called them to do. Because God has gifts for them, just like God has gifts for us, and I think we should be in a space now where we acknowledge that.
Laurie Graham 14:49
I love it. One of our challenges, I think, as small churches—actually as churches in general—is that we’ve taken the word discipleship and we have, I believe, lessened it to just teaching kids the Bible. Discipleship is just teaching the truth of the Word, but there’s so much more to discipleship: raising up leaders, helping with application, teaching them to have godly relationships, not just teaching them information-wise, but modeling and building them in significance as they are part of the ministry, not just to sit and listen to this information. Does that resonate with you at all?
Pastor Sunny Brown 15:30
Absolutely. I think as adults, we have to get out of the way. That’s the truth. And what I mean by that is not just that we let them have the whole car, right? But the only way a teenager learns to drive is if somebody lets them drive. They’re probably gonna hit the curb a little bit. You start small, you start in a parking lot where there’s nothing else, then you get on a street road, then you graduate to a highway, right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 16:00
But what happens is, we don’t do any of that. And then when these young people are 18, 19, or 20 years old, we know that data says that they walk away from the church. Or even the ones that are still there, they’re not equipped to lead because we never let them lead. We never let them mess up while we were there to pick them up. And so again, it just takes us being more flexible, and being able to say, “Hey, I’m gonna walk alongside you. This may not be my cup of tea. I don’t know it. But a lock-in is gonna work on this day. But let’s do it. Let’s try it. Let’s make it work.”
Laurie Graham 16:40
Yeah, yeah, I love it. When we think about discipleship and teaching kids, that’s usually where behavior comes in, right? Because we want them to sit and listen and hear the Word of God. We need to teach it and we need to handle it respectfully, and we want them to know the Word of God. But I’m picturing Jesus and how he did discipleship. Mm hmm. Because he did teach the Word of God, but he ate with them. He took them to the garden to pray. He walked with them as they were going to this next town. He hung out with them. I think of that as discipleship. He involved them in ministry, right? He told them how awesome they were. He said, “Hey, you’re gonna be the rock.” Yeah, “I get that you’re failing all the time, but you’re gonna…” There was so much more than teaching scripture. Yeah. I don’t mean to minimize scripture. I almost felt like I had to go back to that because I thought, “Oh, I hope nobody thinks they heard me just say that discipleship isn’t just teaching the Bible.” But it’s not. It’s that involvement process. And yeah, I don’t know. It’s that life, it’s the life skills, too, right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 17:47
Yeah, I think not only is it the life skills, I think that you’re right, it is the spiritual, it also is the natural. I also think about how Jesus also knew that Judas was right there. In the end, he knew that “Mr. Mess-up” was going to come alongside and get those same tools, even knowing that this could be a mess here, right? That it was going to be a mess. And so I think that oftentimes, as we’re thinking through it, discipleship is also showing up to a football game and supporting your students. It’s also helping a single mother, showing up and asking, “Hey, do you need someone to be there with at the PTA meeting with you, or even meeting with your teachers? What can we do to assist you?” Does a student need tutoring? How are their reading levels? Do they need any help? I’m sure there’s someone in there that we can get. That is discipleship, where I care about you as a person. It’s not that I only care that you have memorized scripture, or that you’re preaching, or that you’re playing an instrument. But I also care how you’re doing in school. I also care that your Girl Scout troop is selling cookies, and I also care that you have a baseball game. So you’re right, there’s a natural and a spiritual side to it when it comes to discipleship, and we do miss it often.
Laurie Graham 19:22
Yeah, yeah, too often. Okay, let’s go back to your outreach. We started off talking about unchurched kids coming into the church. Let’s take that to the teaching setting. Okay, when we’re not just talking behavior and hanging out at lock-ins, but when they come to teach, I am usually pretty aware of all the Christianese that is even preached from pulpits. Oh my gosh. Somebody who didn’t grow up in the church, I think we’re crazy. It’s all about killing a lamb. I mean, it is. We’re talking overheads, and we’re referring to people getting thrown in fire. Isn’t it? I just think, “Well, what do we do? How do we adjust our teaching so that we can actually reach people and they feel welcome in the church setting if they’ve never been there?”
Pastor Sunny Brown 20:13
Honestly, my oldest daughter turned 19. I remember when she was about six or seven, she was really into reading. She was brilliant; she skipped grades, she loved to read. I remember I had an NIV Bible or something, and she was reading it. I said, “Okay, let’s do comprehension. What does it mean?” She was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I just read.”
Pastor Sunny Brown 20:41
Then I started looking at the different Bible translations and what the reading level was. So I’ve moved around, and it depends on where I am, but I am always really mindful to always have a physical Bible with me that a third grader has read because that’s really the first part. When we’re reading those stories and we’re reading, I don’t want you to have to figure out what I’m saying. I’m going to say it to you as plain as possible so that you can get the meat of it. Now, as you get into Sunday school and start delving into different things, or maybe a Bible study, you can start delving into it. But at first, you’re here at this lock-in. You’ve never been to church before. I want you to know that Jesus is the light. Yeah, exactly. Right?
Pastor Sunny Brown 21:34
And so I think that’s the first thing: ensuring that we are saying it in a manner in which the youngest, the least of them, can understand. Remember, Jesus said to the disciples, “Suffer the little children, let them come.” I’ve had pushback about this, by the way, especially from some churches where they’re like, “Oh no, we only read this version of the Bible, or this is the only one that is most correct,” or whatever the case may be. And I remember saying, “What the Scripture says, ‘Suffer the little children, let them come.'” When we think about that, it’s okay to get uncomfortable to do something a little different so that they can come. They have that option of understanding. I want you to get to Jesus.
Pastor Sunny Brown 22:21
So that’s what I was saying. The first thing is really being aware and being cognizant of that language. The other thing I was going to say, and it ties into what you mentioned earlier when you were talking about how Jesus was, I think about Jesus as the greatest teacher that I’ve ever learned about, that I’ve ever known. When I think about that, I see classrooms all the time in professional development, my own classroom. I’m trying to get my principal to let me go to a deskless classroom where it’s just chairs and couches, and they’ve got things to write on. I just want to move the desks out of the way. I want you to come into this space and feel like this is a comfortable space for me to learn. I have couches and these chairs in my library in my classroom, so the kids rush to those chairs. They love to sit down and do their assignments, and they do their assignments more timely when they’re in these comfortable chairs.
Pastor Sunny Brown 23:21
And so sometimes when we think about behavior, when we think about classroom management, when we think about our regular youth ministry, sometimes we’ve got to think outside of the box. Maybe what I grew up with just doesn’t work. It’s evolved, or maybe it doesn’t work all the time. Maybe we have half of the class with desks or chairs, and the other half has big blankets, or whatever the case may be. We’re just really challenging each other to think a little bit differently about our space.
Laurie Graham 23:54
One thing I love about you, Sunny, is that your perspective is broader than the church. And I think we all need more of that. We have a tendency in our churches to get really huddled—this is our church experience. And your experience working at the YMCA, being involved at your kids’ schools, going back to college, it has given you this perspective that I just wish everyone had. Go out to the soccer fields, everybody. Quit complaining that the parents aren’t coming to church, and we’re all going to go to soccer fields. Figure out what’s going on, right? Go see, go get to know people, because the core of who you are whenever I talk to you is just so relational.
Pastor Sunny Brown 24:42
I learned from the great connector, Jesus Christ.
Laurie Graham 24:44
How do we lose that? How do we intellectualize our faith, the core of who we are, and our meaning, and what we’re giving to people? We can lose that. And I just love that about you, Sunny. I just want to tell you that. Your sole focus is on relationship, your smile. When you connect with people and you speak, it’s like you’re just looking right at everybody who’s in the audience. So sweet.
Pastor Sunny Brown 25:12
I think for us, again, just studying—as you mentioned, I graduated with my master’s last year—you do a lot of data research. So, for fun, I started researching things about the church. I realized that sometimes we love our church so much that we get pushback from people who don’t like the church. What happens is, it almost becomes an exclusive VIP club. It’s here, and you’re over there. But in reality, it should be a place where the doors are always open and where anybody can come. If you’ve got to stumble in, if you’ve got to crawl, if you’re running and leaping in, come on in. My desire is that, especially starting within our youth ministries, as we continue to build out and all of the amazing work that you and your team are doing, to just remind us often that when people get to our churches, they should hear, “Welcome home,” no matter how they got there. We want it to be home.
Laurie Graham 26:27
Yeah, yeah, I love it. So we are so excited to have you back at another conference speaking. Do you want to give a little bit of a teaser of what you’re going to be talking about and why everyone should come?
Pastor Sunny Brown 26:40
No, I want people to just come, because let me tell you this every time: there are so many amazing speakers. I like dropping in on everybody. Now let me tell you, Laurie is very particular about “you better be on time to your session.” So I’m always like, “I’ve got all these things set,” and I’m always like, “Man, I want to stay for this last one, but I gotta go in.” It is amazing. It’s amazing to see. I love being able to watch it back when we can as well. It’s just, there is such a need for real people who actually do the ministry, to be able to have those conversations with everyday people that we can’t afford a huge conference. It is so having that option. I just want everyone to come. Come to the whole thing.
Laurie Graham 27:37
I love it. Yeah, and let’s keep learning and growing. I really think learning and growing is part of keeping our passion alive in so many ways, but we need to be around each other and be encouraged.
Laurie Graham 27:50
And so, Sunny, I’m so glad you’re gonna be there. And so, is there anything else you want to mention before we close out here about kids outreach, small churches, Jesus? What, what else is on your heart that we haven’t covered or talked about?
Pastor Sunny Brown 28:07
I hate to sound like a broken record, but now working in the school system, I am seeing something that I missed for 20 years of ministry. And that is that the reading, literacy, and math gaps in a lot of our schools—our community schools right next to our churches—are severely lacking. And a lot of times there are churches surrounded by them. So think about the outreach that we can do by just going to volunteer to tutor. I mean, an hour a week! What if we got 10 people at our church to come in to do it? The impact that it could have on that community, the impact that it can have on those children and their families’ lives. I’ve learned that a lot of their parents also have third-grade reading levels. So now we’re expecting fifth graders to surpass where their parents are, and it’s hard to do. It’s really hard to do. So, I’m always trying to encourage people to start with our local mission. Get to a school once a year to help with tutoring in math and reading. Do what you can, and please, please, please represent Christ, even in the classroom.
Laurie Graham 29:23
Yeah, well, to me, that’s real outreach. That’s impactful outreach. We spend so much time and effort and even money trying to throw outreach events. Yes, and we say, “What’s the impact? What’s the impact? What’s the impact?” And here we can go and actually make a difference in the life of someone on a regular basis with an hour a week, or even less? Sometimes some schools are having volunteers come in once a month, to think about the impact! I just love that you really left us with that, Sunny. So, Pastor Sunny, how can people connect with you? How can they find you? Listen to your podcast? What do you want to throw out there? How can they find you?
Pastor Sunny Brown 29:57
Of course, you can find me on Instagram. It’s @TheProfessorB (B as in brown). And then my podcast is The Sunny Side View, and it’s on all platforms. Please, please, please listen and share with me what you thought about any episode. I love to do this.
Laurie Graham 30:22
Awesome. Well, this was very fun. Thank you for taking the time to be on here today and to just spread a little more of your light around the world. And for everybody who’s listening, don’t forget to grab a free ticket to the Kid Min and Youth Conference coming up on the last Saturday in April. That’s traditionally when we hold it, so if you’re listening three years down the road, I bet it’s the last Saturday in April again. We do have quarterly conferences, but grab a free ticket. If you are not in Kid Min or youth, you’re not in the children’s ministry or youth ministry, or know others who are, please share the word. We would love to get as many people there, excited, re-motivated, and re-energized with new ideas, new learning, and new connections as we can. Alright, everybody, that’s all I got. So until next week, be a light.