069: Small Youth Groups, Mighty Ministry | With Youth Pastor Don Joel

069: Small Youth Groups, Mighty Ministry | With Youth Pastor Don Joel

Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey everybody, welcome to a super super special episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast. And I should say that every single time because I think every episode is awesome, but the famous Don Joel is with us today. Don, you want to say, hey?

Don Joel 0:28
Hey! No, I’m just kidding.

Laurie Graham 0:33
We’re so excited. Dan’s gonna be speaking at the KidMin conference coming up, specifically in the area of youth ministry. But Don, you have been with us for a while. Can you tell everybody who you are and how you, I don’t know, how you met up with Small Church Ministry?

Don Joel 0:46
Yeah, totally. So I found Small Church Ministry, I don’t know, like 7,000 conferences ago. It was one of the first two, it was like the Volunteer Conference. You were doing a conference about volunteers and I had just recently become senior pastor of the church that I’m at. And I needed some more information on how to do small church stuff from that kind of a assignment and dealing with volunteers besides in youth ministry. Let me give you the background. I’ve been a youth pastor since 1990 something, 1999 is when I first became a youth pastor. And I’ve kind of run the gambit of youth, kids, college, but it was always student related until about three years ago. Yeah, 2020 I started this process, or actually a little bit before that, I started the process of becoming the senior pastor, and what that looked like in our church because ours was leaving. And here we are, three years later, and I’m ready to hand it back over to someone else because I totally have believed that I’ve been gifted and called to be in youth ministry or student ministry, and I really enjoy it. I enjoyed my time as senior pastor, but it was for a season, and that season’s over. And so, I’m heading back into the world of youth ministry, all at the same church. I haven’t left the church yet. So we’re still here and we’re still just working through it all. And it’s gonna be a process as we go through either trying to find the right person to come in and, and be the senior pastor while maintaining my, my connections, but we’re gonna diligently and intentionally try to, to bridge, to make bridges and not burn bridges. So.

Laurie Graham 2:49
Well I have to say, since that very first conference, because you were like the star, we’re like, who is this Don Joel guy? Because you’re like answering questions. And you’re, you’re like interacting everywhere. And we’re like, who is this guy? Who is this guy? So it has just been a pleasure getting to know you and your wife, Amy as well. Like she’s such a spark. I just, I have just enjoyed getting to know you both as a couple. But I just want to go back to something you said and applaud you, praise you, just give you a lot of kudos for feeling called to student ministry because so many people, like so many people look at youth ministry or children’s ministry, oftentimes as a stepping stone to move into different positions as though it’s less than. A just like I talked about small church ministry is not less than big church ministry, youth ministry, children’s ministry, ministry to other people groups, other demographics, ages, whatever, it is not less ministry. And I just love that you have a heart and you feel called to student ministry, so much so that your church wants you as the senior pastor, puts you as a senior pastor, and you’re like, man I just, I miss those kids, right?

Don Joel 3:52
I mean, honestly, God, God orchestrated this, this whole thing to be perfectly in season, right? I mean, God’s, God’s timing is great. But January 2020, I came in March 2020. We all know COVID hit. Things changed. We had to go online. My skill set takes it to the right place. We do this for a few years. And now we’re at a place where it’s, it’s okay and it’s time for me to take a step in another direction. In fact, for the first time ever, I’m not a full-time pastor. Well not the first time ever, I guess since 19, I guess 2001 is when I became a full-time pastor. I’m a teacher now. So I work in the school system. I’m working with students, and then that just reignited that spark that said that youth ministry is where I needed to serve. And so yeah.

Laurie Graham 4:58
Yeah, so you went from like, not being bivocational to being bivocational, and now back in student ministry. And I just love seeing you in your passion. So I really wanted to have you on the show today specifically to talk about combining with different churches and different youth groups for some bigger youth ministry events. Because you have done this well, and a lot of people say, it can’t be done or it just doesn’t work well, especially in rural areas. And so, I really want to talk about that in just a minute, but before we do, can you just talk a little bit about why you love working with students?

Don Joel 5:31
You know, there’s so many reasons, but one of the reasons and I don’t want to, I don’t want to say anything negative about non-students or adults. So let me just say, there is such a willingness to, to try to grow with students. Well, I think sometimes when we get to be adults, we tend to lock ourselves into our own patterns. And so, students, it’s almost I don’t want to say it’s easier because there’s a lot of whole, there’s a whole other gambit of problems, but there, there’s this willingness to, to try to become something more. And I want, I love to stoke that with, you know, to use God and stoke that fire and to help students realize their potential. And sometimes I’ve seen a lot of students who walk away from God for a while but we’re loving that foundation. And I know a lot of students who have come back as they’ve gotten older, and over my, I’m in third, my third decade of, of youth ministry I’ve seen, I’ve seen kids who have left the church and come back, I’ve seen who kids who haven’t left the church and gotten into ministry, and they’re now youth pastors. And I’ve also seen that people who’ve left the church, and I still pray for them, and still, I wait for them to come back as well.

Don Joel 7:12
I think there’s just something about it that I remember, I remember when I was younger, I can’t remember who sang the song, but I Believe Children Are The Future. I mean.

Laurie Graham 7:25
Haha wasn’t that like Whitney Houston or something?

Don Joel 7:26
I think it was Whitney Houston, yeah. And that’s such, it just stuck with me and that’s the truth. That’s like, if we don’t train the comming generation, then then we’re losing out because we won’t have the leaders, or we won’t have the disciples going forward, and we need to train them. But one of the things that I’ve always noticed in youth ministry is that a lot of times the emphasis is on treating them as children, or treating them as kids and not expecting them to learn and grow. But I love to be able to say no, you are a disciple right now. You don’t have to wait until you become an adult. You are able to grow. You are a world changer. And if you, if you’re just gonna sit down and wait until you’re 30 or 40, it might never happen. And so, you want to do it now. And so, I just, I just see, if we’re ever gonna have a true revival in our in our nation and our world, it’s going to be led by the youth.

And I think that’s one of the major reasons why we need to have good youth ministry. Not, I mean, good youth ministry is stuff that focuses on the Bible and all that, as well as the games and the fun. And not just focuses on the games and the fun. And says, okay, you know kid, we’re gonna keep you entertained. Because when I saw, what I saw growing up was, okay, we’re gonna, you know kid, we’re going to keep you entertained, and then all of a sudden, we go to big church, and it’s not as fun anymore. And I don’t want to stick around for that because there’s no ball being thrown out into the audience or there’s no. And so, I think there’s a lot of room for growth in youth ministry and that’s why I think I’m so dedicated to it.

Laurie Graham 9:32
Well, I just love that you just said you’re in your third decade of youth ministry because I think there’s also a stereotype that needs to like, get thrown out the window because so many churches are like, we need somebody young to relate to the kids. We need somebody young to relate to kids, and the best people that I’ve seen in youth ministry are not always the young ones. Like, you don’t have to be 25 and be a basketball player or be athletic or be you know, filled with, you know, skills and drama and music or whatever your church is looking for, like often times, our best youth ministers, people to minister to kids, are already in your church, they may be 40, they may be 50, they may be 70. They may be 30. They may be 20. But, you know, to get that stereotype out of the way because at the upcoming conference.

Oh, by the way, if you all have not gotten your free ticket yet for the KidMin and Youth Conference, Don is one of the speakers. And as you were talking, Don, I’m realizing most of our speakers we have, who are speaking about youth ministry at this upcoming conference on April 29, they are older. They are not in their 20s’. We’re not like, looking at that, because it’s not really the foundation, and the ministry has nothing to do with how old you are. So, if you all have not gotten a free ticket yet, you can always check out smallchurchsummits.com for whatever conference is next. You’ll always see it advertised there. And currently, right now is free tickets for the KidMin conference coming up at the end of April.

Laurie Graham 10:50
So Don, specifically, I want to talk about the way that you have been able to pull off combining youth groups from different churches, different denominations into camps, into lock-ins, into these cool events. And before we do that, I am not like this person who says every youth group needs to be big or kids are losing out, at all. Like I think small youth groups are often a better breeding ground for developing leaders and discipleship like I’m not into, send your kid to a bigger church or a bigger youth group. But I do think there’s some power when kids see other kids from other places loving Jesus, having good, clean fun, and getting together. And so, when we talk about combining groups, a lot of people have said to me, oh, it’s too hard, denominationally, we believe differently. You know, you have to be in a city to do this because we’re rural, and there aren’t churches around. So can you tell us just how did you get started? I think it might have been a camp? Where did you first like, experience combining other churches together with kids and other leaders and how did it go?

Don Joel 11:55
Yeah. So look, like I grew up in a small church where my aunt was the Sunday school teacher, my grandfather was the piano holder, my grandmother was the song leader, my uncle’s the pastor. And so, our church was our family and another family. And that was my youth group, kind of, some of that. And then, I remember the first time we met with another church. And it was like, there’s other people who believe this too. Okay, great. I’m not alone. And so, that has always been something that I’ve wanted to instill in my groups, is that we’re not alone. Just because we’re a small group here, doesn’t mean that there’s not other small groups or other big groups that we’re not, we’re all part of the family of God. We’re all one big family. And yeah, denominationally, you might worship different than I do, or we might have some of the, the small rocks might be a little bit different, but as long as we agree on the big things, as long as we know who God is, and we are in agreement on, on the, on the non-negotiables of faith, then it doesn’t matter what day you do communion. It doesn’t matter if you, you know, whatever little small denominational differences might be, those don’t matter.

What’s important is that we’re getting kids together, who want to share their love of God with each other. And, and that’s the, the backbone of understanding how to bring churches together. One of the things, or, let me answer your question. The way that I first got involved in it was I was, just became a youth pastor. So this was 2001. And the, the camp that was associated with my church, needed a camp pastor for one of their camps, and they asked if I would do it, and I was like, yeah, totally. I don’t know anyone. I have, like, 10 kids, I’ll bring my kids, and the camps about, I think the camp was about 60 kids at the time. And I said, okay, I’ll bring, I’ll bring my kids well, we’ll come up to camp and we’ll have a good time. And I was the camp pastor there for that camp for like six years in a row after that, but they brought in another new guy who just happened to be from a little town called Sparks, in Nevada, and that’s my friend Darren, who’s one of my best friends now. And I had no idea who he was, but he was going to be the worship leader. He brought his kids to lead worship. And so, we spent a lot of time talking to each other late nights, kind of saying, here’s how things should go.

Don Joel 14:54
And so, afterwards, we’re like, why does camp have to end? Why does this, this experience have to end? Why don’t you bring your kids down and we’ll do a lock-in we can, you can spend the night at my church, and then we’ll, we’ll go and yeah, it’s a few hour drive, but you can come down and we’ll come up there another time. And so, we started to do this, almost taking turns of hosting it between him and I. And then we said, okay, well there’s other people who are at this camp, other churches, let’s invite them too. And so, there was a camp in, or a church in, in Napa. And so we started meeting the three of us. And we had, and we all had smaller groups, but when you get together, you get this thing called Critical Mass right? There’s a point where you have enough kids to play those games that you can’t play when you have three or four.

Laurie Graham 15:49
Exactly.

Don Joel 15:50
You can’t play the same games you played with the three or four, because the three of the four, you can get to know them better, you get more intimate, you can those kinds of things. But now you can play the kickball tournament, you could do these different things, and you can have a lot more energetic games perhaps. And again, so we start looking forward to these, these moments in time where we’re, we’re connecting our little family with other little families and becoming a bigger unit.

Laurie Graham 16:21
So it sounds like that happened pretty organically for you all. It wasn’t like you were looking at combining to get events. So you just kind of met up and it kind of happened organically?

Don Joel 16:30
Originally, that’s kind of what it was. We were also both really new to ministry. We hadn’t, we knew we loved God and we knew that we wanted to work with, with teenagers and, but we didn’t know everything. And so, we, we worked well together. That’s one of the key things is knowing the person that you’re going to work with, so that you can grow from each other or, and depend on each other for certain things. Like he’s, like Darren and I, if you’ve ever, if you’ve, if they came to the Tech Conference, they know Darren and I from the Tech Conference. But we, we work really well together. And it doesn’t always happen. There’s, there’s been times where we’ve invited people that just didn’t work out, or they weren’t the right fit for the group.

Laurie Graham 17:21
So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work so well. So let’s talk about like how, how it can work well, and maybe some of those obstacles that came up, because you already brought up some like, if the leaders really aren’t on the same page vision wise, and they really want to keep their own, like nuclear youth group, because that’s happened to us before on mission trips. We would take our kids on mission trips each year and we would go through Group or Youth Works usually where they would mix other groups together. And sometimes it was really difficult because one, you know, one youth ministry was like they were going to be like the king of the hill kind of thing. And, and it really was. It felt very competitive. And other times, and I do think maybe it does have to do with the leaders, you know? Like, when the leaders are humble and they really want their, you know, they want to watch this happen and, and mix, it’s a very different kind of thing. Like, can you think of ways to set up, set this up for success from the beginning?

Don Joel 18:16
Yeah, well, I mean, if you’re going in blind without knowing each other, it’s a little bit more difficult. So currently, so after I left LA, I moved up here to this small little town in northern California, where people ride horses to church nd it’s, it’s a different world. And so, we have, we have a small little group here and I knew that I wanted to kind of reinvigorate this whole joint youth group kind of idea because it was just something that I’ve been missing. And so the first step was, well, I need to get to a camp because that to me, is kind of the home base, right? I feel like camp for this is the easiest way because other kids are coming to camp, other groups. I can meet the leaders there. Let me talk to the leaders. And that as far as, I guess, that’s what I knew. So I was like, I’m just gonna do it this way. And so, I found the camp, went to that camp, and met some great people and started to to do this.

I met a guy who, best way to say this is, he wasn’t Darren. And so we didn’t work as well together. But we worked well together. I gave him grace for being young. He gave me grace for being older and more set in my ways. Again, I’m an adult, so I got stuck in my ways. You know, he was the kind of youth pastor that, you know, was loud and I’m more of the guy who’s reserved and a little quieter, for the most part, until I get goofy and then I go crazy. And so, well, he’s just always windows down, yelling out the window to the kids and, and having to good time. It kind of does make actually, I will take a quick step to a different topic real quick before I forget it.

Don Joel 20:25
You mentioned earlier that youth ministry leaders don’t have to look one way. And I think that’s so true. In fact, I remember when I was young, when I first started youth ministry, I specifically looked for people who were older than me. I wanted grandmas and grandpas to come in. I wanted older adults to come in to be able to give the kids something that I couldn’t give them, some wisdom or whatever it might be. And now that I’m older, the volunteers I’m looking for are the younger ones who have the energy who can stay up all night because I don’t necessarily have that anymore. And so, the kids, I think kids need, need the whole range of leaders, not just one person or two people that look the same.

And so, with this other guy that I met at the camp, he, he brought in that energy that I didn’t quite have as much of anymore. And so, we started going alright, well let’s let’s do a lock-in, again, again, it kind of followed the same pattern. It was camp, then lock-ins together. And then we took it to the next step, which was alright, well, let’s, we were trying to figure out, what could we do? What can we do? We want to do an event that’s not a lock-in, but it’s a little bit bigger event, bigger of an event and not camp. And so, we said, let’s just look around. So he thought of like an overnighter at a miniature golf course. And I was on, I was on something, Airbnb, and there’s this parkour gym popped up in our, in, not in my area and not in his area, it was in another area, about an hour from both of us. And we’re like, let’s meet there and do this, we’ll rent the place for the night. Kids can run around, parkour all night long, then we’ll get them to sleep. And then we’ll go to a water park the next day. And so, we started planning this event out for his church and my church. And then, we’re like, hey, why don’t we invite the other camp kids, the other camp churches, and have them join us? And like two of them, two of the churches joined in. And it was a lot of fun. And the kids had a great time.

Laurie Graham 22:58
Okay, so Don, I love everything you’re saying. You’re saying, you’re talking about, you know, equipping other leaders. And by the way, most volunteers in small churches become accidental leaders. Like, when you’re talking about, you know, so many volunteers are leading youth ministry. Amen. And praise God. And thank you for doing that, volunteers, who are leading youth ministry with no training, but how cool it is to be able to connect with people like you. And that’s one of the reasons we exist as Small Church Ministry with our community, with our Network with our conferences, is we know that. Like, people don’t have a lot of training in small churches, but there’s so many, there’s so many ways to grow. And so many generous people in small churches like you, sharing, hey, this is what works. This is what we’ve tried, this is what hasn’t worked and things like that.

But I want to go back to you saying that it kind of just happened when you met up with this, this new kind of partner in crime for youth ministry. But it sounded super intentional to me because you were at this camp, you were thinking of I’d really like to recreate you know, this community of youth, youth groups that get together. And I mean, I’m hearing you say you met the leader ahead of time, you talked, you made sure you had some common ground, and honestly that you liked each other and could work together. And I think that might be one of the big mistakes a lot of youth programs make when they try to connect with other churches is they just say, hey, let’s do this. Instead of connecting as leaders first, and sharing some vision and making sure the two leaders agree or the three leaders agree, or the four leaders come together. Because I will say, if the youth leaders are not on the same page, or the volunteers, or whoever the adults are, those kids are going to pick up on every little feeling and every little, you know, I don’t know, kind of, when we’re disgenuine or something like they pick up on that. So if those youth leaders, those volunteers, those adults who are connecting aren’t connecting well, those kids are never going to connect well, like would you agree with that?

Don Joel 24:56
Oh, definitely. Definitely. I think that, you mentioned earlie, this idea of a humble, being humble leaders. And I think that’s super important because both times, in both, in both instances, especially when working through camps, we would have churches that would come in, that we’ve had leaders who either wanted to take over and just say, okay, it’s my show, or we had leaders who said, I don’t really like what you’re doing so I’m going to pull my kids out and go do my own little thing, even though we’re supposed to be working together. And those instances cause so much harm, actually, in the unity of God’s family. It takes time to repair, it takes intentional time to repair. And, and one of the things that you’ll like, all of, in both of those accounts are actually there’s like three or four that I’m thinking of, in all of those accounts it wasn’t the students that had the problem, because they were having a good time. It was the leaders that had the problem. And then the students had problems because the leaders, they picked up on the leaders problems. And so, it’s one of those things where it’s important as leaders to to get on the same page.

Laurie Graham 26:25
Yeah, yeah. Well, and again, you know, we’re talking about doing joint events, it’s not necessary for you to have a youth group, that’s a small youth group to join up with other churches, like, it’s not necessary, it’s not essential, you can have a great ministry to youth without ever doing this. But let’s talk about the benefits and the joys, when it works out well, of actually combining with other youth groups. I think one thing that I’m thinking of off the top of my head, when I’ve done this kind of thing is just the growth and even the processing with the students about other churches. I remember combining once for something and my kids were saying, boy, they don’t know how to clap, like they can’t clap during the worship songs. And we had a great conversation about how that denomination, they don’t clap in their services. So when they went, and the kids knew the music because they would do youth music that other church did in their youth group, but they never clapped. And so it was really a great conversation to have with, with our, the students in our youth group saying, yeah, all churches aren’t like us. Let’s talk about this. And what did you learn from that youth group? So what are some other benefits that you’ve seen when you’ve combined, let’s just talk about a few different ones that we’re thinking, just off the top of our head?

Don Joel 27:35
I am not perfect. I know that that’s very hard to believe, but I’m not. I can’t be all things to all people. I’m not Paul. And so, I had, the very first time when I was talking about Darren, I had a couple kids who really connected with him. And to the point where, like, they were, when they were graduating, they drove to go see him to show thank you to him because of all that he poured into them. And that hurts a little bit. Like, that’s the ego. Cause I’m like, what about me? But and, you know, they said thank you for me too. But the fact that they had someone else that was feeding into their lives, and I can help establish that connection, that’s, that’s what is important, right, is that they had someone else that could, could love on them, and show them who Christ is, in a way that I couldn’t. And so when we have, when we joined together, we have more opportunity to have more people speak in the kids lives in different ways that are that it’s just as important as how we speak into their lives.

Laurie Graham 29:00
Oh, so much. Yeah, because in small churches, a lot of times you have one, two, maybe three people MAYBE, like who are really involved in the youth, in the youth ministry. And so they’re, they’re getting a little variety, hopefully. Right. But it is so important for them to see other people of other ages, of other hobbies, of other interests, other, you know, education, other, you know, just levels of everything so that they see other people who love Jesus, maybe that they relate to in a different way. Another thing, as you’re talking that I think is a great benefit of combining youth groups for occasional events, is really the conflict part.

Like, I think there’s so much growth in conflict. And I think when you bring other people in who are part of different, just different church cultures, different ways of doing things, you’re gonna have a little conflict. And I think honestly, that’s kind of a beautiful opportunity to, if you can talk about it with your group, say, hey, we’re bringing it to groups together. This is gonna be a little different, you know, and when there is a conflict, to be able to, you know, process it together. So did I just say that conflict was a benefit? But honestly, I think in some combined times, I think sometimes it is. And I know you already talked about this one Don, but one of the big things is just having that critical mass. So what are the kinds of things you can do when you have 30 kids, as opposed to 5? Talk about some of the things you’ve been able to do, that really wouldn’t work so well with 5.

Don Joel 30:19
Well, I think about just the renting the parkour gym. For 5 kids, that would be a little bit overkill. One, I know they would’ve had a really good time, it would have been fun. But cost is there. If I can make it for 30 kids at $10 a kid versus $60 a kid for 5 kids, or whatever it might be that, that is a better bang for my buck. Now, yeah, food costs go up and all of that, but you can still have a, there’s still some cost benefit that’s going to be there. So, one of the things is being able to do bigger events, things that you may not be able to do on your own.

Laurie Graham 31:06
That could be cost prohibitive. And I think that’s really true because some of those things, when you have a larger group, the cost per kid comes down. So we can do a few more adventurous, fun things that maybe we couldn’t have afforded on our own.

Don Joel 31:19
Yeah, one of the things we do, like when we go to camp, we rent out an ice rink so we can go skating. Where if we took 5 kids, I mean, we would have been just, we couldn’t rent the whole thing out with with six bucks per kid, we can now afford to rent the whole thing out. So that’s one side. Well, other things you can do is, like I said, there’s, there are, there are games that you can play that are for bigger groups, you know, those, those kinds of things. You can do tournaments better. Here’s another thing is breaking them up into smaller groups across the groups. So their not just with the same little people, little clique that they may have come with, or their friends. They’re having to negotiate their faith or discuss their faith with people who maybe they don’t know as well. And so.

Laurie Graham 32:14
And maybe with people they’re not related to. Because let’s be real about small churches, like when, I mean, for the past, you know, I don’t know, the last 10 years of my life, when we were taking our kids to church, we’d be like, okay, so who, who was in youth group today? And they’d say, the van because it was our kids and our neighbor who we brought in our van. So how fun is it to be able to see people outside your, you know, sometimes really your family or, like you mentioned two families, sometimes that’s, that’s your youth group. So. Well, before we go out of time, I want to make sure that no one listening thinks we are like pro go find a big church because the youth groups bigger, because that is not what we’re talking about. I love a small church youth group. I love it when there’s two teenagers in a church.

Laurie Graham 32:59
I believe God works in big youth groups. I also believe He works very differently in small churches. You know, one of the benefits I love about small churches, for youth and for children, you know, whatever age, one of the things is that all the kids can find a, can kind of find their their little niche in there. Because a lot of times bigger youth groups, there’s like a attraction either toward the athletes or the music kids or they’re doing theater or they’re doing puppets. And so, a lot of times those interests, sometimes you’re kind of the the one person out. Well, if there’s only four people in the youth group, that honestly can be a benefit because there’s so much individual attention that can go to students in a smaller youth group. So, I just want to say I’m not telling anybody to leave your church to go to a big youth group, we’re talking about the advantage of being a small group, and also peppering in some group events for some of these larger activities and for some intermixing. Don, what are some of the benefits you have seen with small churches and, you know, small youth groups?

Don Joel 33:58
Oh, yeah, for sure. My very first church, I was the the family pastor, basically. I had two families in it. They each had three kids who varied from first grade to college. And so, that was my group. And so, we do things and we would do things together, go places, and I would have the college kids help with the little ones and, and so it was just kind of a family outing. This group that I’m working with currently, we are a small but mighty group. We have about, I think we have about 12 regulars, I would say

Laurie Graham 34:44
That’s a good size for a small church!

Don Joel 34:45
Yeah, it is. It’s and we don’t really meet though for a youth group. We meet once a month for a dinner and play games and talk and then every, every week, every Thursday morning we get together before school for prayer. And so they come to the church, we eat breakfast together, we pray together, and then we go to school. And, and so it’s a lot of fun. It’s just the way that it works here. And that’s something that we couldn’t do as a larger group. It’s, it’s a family, right? We become that small family. We come together for breakfast, we talk, I couldn’t cook for 100, I can cook for 12. But, and so, the way we do this, those are the benefits, right? That’s the benefit. So the benefit is that we are able to, to get to know each other on a more individual basis, where I know what’s going on in my kids lives. I know, when we do prayer requests, I know that their mom is sick, or that their parents are having issues, they’re fighting at home, and I can, I can help walk them through it. And then, I also know that someone’s praying for him. And they also have friends who are praying for him. And they’re willing to share these things.

I, you don’t necessarily see that in a group of 50 or 60 when, you know, you don’t have time to go around individual to individual and say, give me your prayer requests. You say, hey, throw it out on the card and we’ll read it out loud or something, but this is an intimate way to get to know each other, and take it beyond just the games. However, we also have a lot of fun. We play a lot of fun games. We do a lot of crazy things. We’ll go on scavenger hunts. We’ll go do those things. In fact, I just had a family who moved to a town about three hours north. And I was talking to their dad, I saw them recently. And their dad’s like, so I was talking to my kids the other day, and they go to a huge church now, huge church. And, and they said, Don spoiled us. I’m like, what do you mean? And they’re like, well, we can always tell him what game we want to play and we can get to play those games. And we always got to like, like, tell him how we want youth group to go and kind of talk about we wanted to talk about. Here, we just have to show up and we play whatever games that want us to play. Sometimes we don’t even play enough games. And then they’re talking about stuff that doesn’t even apply to us. And it’s like, no, you’re right. It’s, I much, I tailor the youth group experience to the kids who are there. And I think that’s something a small youth group could do better than anybody else can do.

Laurie Graham 37:44
Don, I really love that you shared that you’re, you’re not, you don’t do the typical weekly youth group. Because so many small churches, they feel like we need a youth group, we need to be meeting on Wednesday nights, or Sunday nights, and we need to do all these things. And what you shared was you, you guys do dinner once a month. That’s what works for you all. And then you meet together for prayer before school, which is another individual thing that works in your culture, in your church with what works with you, even as an educator. Like how cool is that. But I love that you share that because I do think we got to get out of this mold, that it needs to look like a typical youth group because that is not, there’s nothing in the Bible that said you have to have a youth group or Sunday school or, you know, a thing for young moms or whatever. Like there’s nothing in the Bible. It’s just, we’re, we’re loving people and we’re teaching about Jesus. And that can look a lot of different, a lot of different places. But for somebody who’s listening Don, who says, well, that’s really nice, but he’s got 12 kids, and I’ve got 2. Like, there’s two high school kids in our whole church. We don’t know what to do. I have a heart for kids. But literally, I’m just beyond like, how, what, what encouragement would you give that person?

Don Joel 38:51
I would give them, I’d start with this. You have two kids who are willing to put in time and come to you and hang out with you. That, to me, is a blessing like to be able to have anybody, right? Like if you have one, you, I think you often have said, do it for the one, right? You do it for the one, you do for the two, and you spend the time with them. And you get to know them. And you have so much freedom to be able to do things with those two that you couldn’t even do with 12, right? Lke, there, there has been times where my youth groups been two kids. And, you know, I’ve just gone over, there was a pair of sisters, I’ve gotten over their house and we eat dinner together and I would sit and we would talk about the Bible and we were just, and that’s what it was. And it was an, it was probably one of my favorite times as a youth pastor, is being able just to go and say, hey, let’s talk. Let’s just talk this out. What’s going on? And be able to go to their, their sporting events or go to their concerts or whatever it might be. Enjoy it. Enjoy who you have because they don’t have to be there. For some reason, whether it’s God calling them there, or they’re just in the need of someone else in their lives, they’ve chosen to be there. And to open your heart, and to allow them in is the gift that God wants you to give them.

Laurie Graham 40:44
Well, Don. We are totally out of time. I am so grateful to spend this time with you. I’m so glad you came on to share just part of your story. And I just have to say you all, you need to get to know this, Don Joel. If anybody wants to connect with you, is the best thing just like, in the Facebook community, or how could they even find out about your church or?

Don Joel 41:04
Yeah, I’m probably the Facebook community or just go to arbucklecommunity.church ismy church. They could go to a website called Geek Believer. Yes, I am a geek. And I’m a believer. So a geekbeliever.co .CO is the name of that website. And so there’s a podcast that was there. It hasn’t been made in a long time, but was associated with it for a while. So you can go there, check things out, and my emails are all over that as well. So.

Laurie Graham 41:39
That’s awesome. We will make sure to drop the link and I’m gonna be checking out that website. That’s hilarious. I didn’t know you had that. But Don is a regular in our Creative Solutions For Small Churches, Facebook community. So if you all have not taken the plunge to join that Facebook community, yet, it’s a free community. There’s over 7,000 people in there now, all from small churches. And I want to tell you, just to brag on ourselves a little bit. I think we’re the most generous sharing community like, that’s on the internet, because when somebody in a small church has an issue, and they’re surrounded by people in small churches, like people just reach out to help all the time. Like, here’s an idea. This is a solution. We’ve had tech solutions, you know, things for Children’s Ministry, Women’s Ministry, Men’s Ministry Outreach, Missions, people are partnering up everywhere. So definitely check out the Facebook community, Creative Solutions For Small Churches. And if you have not gotten a ticket yet for the KidMin and Youth Conference, just go to smallchurchsummits.com. This is our 11th conference. Can you believe it Don?

Don Joel 42:36
It’s amazing!

Laurie Graham 42:39
11th conference for small churches, this is our third one for children’s ministry and youth and we’ll be talking about at all, everything from relational ministry, to teaching mixed ages, to events, to keeping a team or building a team or keeping your team healthy. It’s just going to be it’s going to be pretty epic. So if you have not gotten a ticket yet, definitely grab one. And I guess, I better be quiet now because we’re running over time and just say hey, everybody, until next week, be a light.