 Hi everyone, welcome back. We had a good break, got something to drink. Let's continue. We move on to chapter 4 in this session. Very simple chapter. The organizational aspect on the Youth Ministry. Now if you remember, if you can recall in the Worship Ministry, we studied about the organizational aspect and the spiritual aspect. So there are two different aspects to any ministry. It's very important that we cannot forget the organizational aspect of a ministry and only be focused on the spiritual aspect of it. So both goes hand in hand. If your organizational aspect is not strong enough, then it will eventually have some sort of an impact or an effect on the spiritual aspect of it. So that's what we're going to learn in this chapter. Chapter 4 is the organizational aspect of the Youth Ministry. You will see a chart in your PDF how it's structured here at ABC. We have the senior pastor under whose supervision the youth pastor is accountable to the senior pastor. And then under the supervision of the youth pastor, you have multiple teams from the Youth Ministry operations team. We look at all those different teams and what they do very briefly. So Youth Ministry operations team, creative team and the core team leaders, youth life group leaders and youth worship coordinators. There's just a few. But these were the teams that were what I had while I was the youth pastor. And there are more teams that's added, but this is basically the gist of it. So if we're going to build anything big, we need to have a strong base and so your structure is that base. Your teams are that base like the foundation on how high you can build or how strong you want to build your ministry. So from the senior pastor, what is the role of the senior pastor in the context of Youth Ministry is that he provides general vision, direction and motivation. He provides general vision, direction and motivation. And then he shares his goals for Youth Ministry through the youth pastor. So we have to remember, although we have different ministries in a church, you could have a children's ministry, youth ministry, teens ministry, women's ministry, men's ministry. What is my missing? We need to remember that all of those ministries are under the supervision of the senior pastor. He's the senior pastor, he or she. And ultimately, the senior pastor is accountable to God for his ministry, for his actions and everything that they do. And so the senior pastor will have a vision, a heart for a particular ministry. The responsibility doesn't simply end by hiring a children's church pastor or a youth pastor and say, okay, you're the youth pastor, you lead youth ministry, however you want to do it. But I'm sure that's been done. But the role of a senior pastor is that he provides guides by giving a general vision saying, okay. And I would regularly have this meeting with my senior pastor, Pastor Ashish, on his heart for youth ministry. Because when I joined, the APC was almost already 18 years old. And so he has seen multiple generations of young people come and go. He's seen the highs and the lows, the success and the failures, the positives and the negatives of the youth ministry, what has worked well, what has not worked well, et cetera, et cetera. And so all I had to do is receive from the richness of his experience. And so, you know, from his wisdom. And so he would give me an outline of his heart for the ministry. And yet, at the same time, give me the liberty to make all the big decisions. His overall outline would be, okay, we need to equip our youth. We want to empower them so that they would go out and evangelize. You know, they would be the evangelists at wherever they are, that they would share about Jesus freely with their friends and our colleagues for that matter. And so that was just an outline, a general vision that Pastor Ashish gave me as the senior pastor. And so if you are the senior pastor of your church, this should be your role. It's not just hire a church pastor or youth pastor and let them, you know, just tell them to do whatever they feel like doing. But that's not entirely a sense of freedom, I would say. There should be accountability in freedom. You know, like the people of Israel, they were set free from Egypt, from bondage and slavery. But God just did not bring them out and, you know, okay, now you go do whatever you want to do, you know, this is the land flowing with milk and honey. No, he gave them the law, right? He tells them, I brought you out of Egypt unto myself, right? He tells them, they are set apart. And so freedom, a false sense of freedom is saying, okay, you know, there is no accountability. There's no responsibility or commitment. And there's no vision, et cetera, et cetera. But a right sense of freedom will always have a sense of accountability, sense of responsibility, commitment, faithfulness, et cetera, et cetera. And so this works both ways. If you're the senior pastor, make sure that you give a general vision direction and motivation to your youth pastor, youth leaders, et cetera. And if you're the youth pastor, please be open to receive general vision, direction and motivation, okay? Don't be a stubborn person by saying, okay, no, I'm the youth pastor. I will do what I have to do. Now it doesn't work like that, right? Once again, just reflecting back to worship ministry and how we learned from 1 Chronicles chapter 25, we saw that Asaph and his sons, He-Man and his sons, and Jirithin and his sons, they were all under the supervision of the king, that is David, right? They were all submissive under his leadership. And so they served one another by being under the supervision of the king. And I think that's very important to something beautiful about it. Okay, so that's the role of the pastor and what's the role of the youth pastor. It's kind of still the same, but you're just taking the general vision direction and motivation that your senior pastor gives you and you're kind of amplifying it. You're making it a little bigger, you're magnifying it, right? Not forgetting you're still a pastor. The simple meaning of that is to still shepherd, you know, to guide for your flock, to provide for your flock, to protect your flock, to care for them. That's what a pastor simply means is that you are called to be a shepherd, guide them, protect them, walk with them, journey along with them, do life with them. Basically, that's what it is. So that's the role of the youth pastor is you emphasize on the vision, you make it bigger, amplify it, magnify it, and then you continue walking with the young people by getting to know them. Okay, all good. Yes. Fantastic. Okay. Thank you. So the next thing or the next foundation of having a successful youth ministry is in having a strong core team, right? A strong core team. And this is important in so many levels. One is to so that the youth pastor does not have all this burden of handling various aspects of youth ministry so that he or she doesn't have to feel like they have to do it alone or they have to do everything by themselves, right? Because if that happens, if that continues, you know, the result of that is you are going to be physically and spiritually worn out or what they call it as a burnout, right? Is because you're doing everything. And so it comes down to one of the key responsibilities of a leader is should be in building a team. And I can tell you in experience that it is not easy. Can I hear a name and especially a youth core team, right? Now, the young people, like I mentioned, if they are committed, you know, they will give you their everything. But until they come, you know, until they take that step of faith into that waters, you know, the hardest thing is to bring them to the waters. You know, so, yeah, that's it's not going to be easy and as a leader, as a pastor, be patient. It is very easy and it is very possible that to get to get discouraged in this journey. Like, you know, there will be week after week after week where you're where you are doing things by yourself. And, you know, I have been there, I know a couple of individuals or at least one individual from this class who's doing that kind of taking care, leading worship, preaching, you know, double duty, triple duty. Sometimes you're the setup team, you're the media team, you're the welcome team, you're the sharing team, you're the sound team, you're the worship leader, you're the worship team, and then you're also the preacher. I have seen individuals do that. I'm sure you have seen individuals do that. And while there is some fun to it, it's a little bit of fun in it, it's not going to sustain for long. And it is not advisable to do everything by yourself. Right. And so that's why it's important that you build a strong team. Right. And so currently this is what the youth ministry team looks like. You have the core team. In just a minute, I'll share the responsibilities of the core team in just a bit. But so the core team, what do they do? During my time as a youth pastor, there were approximately 15 of them in the core team, a 15 member core team. And you should also remember that APC has five locations in the city of Bangalore. Right. So we have APC Central, which is the largest congregation. And then we have a church in Bangalore, South, North, East and West. So four plus one. And the youth pastor is not only present. So he can't be in all five locations at once unless we decide to go on Zoom, which we found out during the pandemic. But it's a different story. You know, the core team and the core team comprised of individuals from all the other locations. There were at least three individuals from Bangalore South or Bangalore East, Bangalore North and Bangalore West. West and North were relatively small. But the point was to have individuals from every other locations so that now, you know, they are my extension. They are like my extension. They are my hands. They are my representatives. They represent the vision of the youth ministry to the youth in their location. Okay. So the core team is important. They share in your responsibilities. And then there are the youth life group leaders. You know, life group leaders are a cell group depending on what you use. Life groups means small groups or cell groups in our context. And youth worship coordinators. You know, they are coordinators who have been organizing just for the worship leaders and the worship team for every youth event like the youth camp, youth retreat, youth meetings, et cetera, et cetera. So not all the pressure is always on the worship pastor. And then there's the creative team. You know, how can we come up with something creative to interact with the young people on our social media page or our Instagram page? How can we keep it interactive and yeah, there's the decor team, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I'll probably share a Google sheet in just a minute on how we plan for a youth camp if possible, but yeah, just give me a minute. So building a youth, a strong youth ministry begins with having a vision, identifying your audience and then immediately having a strong team is very crucial. You know, the wider your team decides how deep you want to go as well. So, you know, I hope that made sense. The wider your team will allow or give you the freedom to go deeper in each of those areas. And now because you have a strong team, you as a pastor have this freedom or more time in your hands, so to speak, to make relationships a point. So that you are not breaking your head about all the logistical part while you've done your bit. You've given responsibilities to different teams. They're handling it. What's that word? You've delegated. Right? That's the word. Delegated responsibilities and commitments to different teams. All you have to do is follow up with them. But now, since you have more time on your hands, you can make relationships your point, like engage with the individuals now, getting to know them, getting to know the people of the core team. I know catching up for a coffee, you know, getting to do life with them, whatever it is, right? So the point is you are building relationship. You know, the talks like relational leadership, this might come under that category. But in general, you know, why are we doing ministry? It could be children's ministry, youth ministry. Why are we doing church? It's for the people, isn't it? If not for them, what is ministry? What is the point? Are you with me? And so it's important that we care for the people, engage with them, make time for them. And by doing so, you are showing that you are a leader who's interested, who's intentional in the well-being of their lives to lead with care. And I've always kept this close to my heart is that the young people or the youth, they don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care. They don't really care how good your theology is. They don't really care how well you're able to articulate the Trinity and all these doctrinal things, you know, show some of them do care. While that is important, they don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care for them. Okay, this is very important. This is basically the core of the youth ministry is that they need to know that they are cared for. They are the sheep, you are the shepherd. It is our responsibility to guide them, lead them, protect them, etc. And that leads to mentoring young people or discipling them. Now, sure, discipleship works both ways. For example, you know, the disciples of Jesus, Jesus went to them and said, follow me. That was their call and invitation. But the disciples had a choice to say yes or no to that invitation. And so it's one thing to want to disciple and it's another thing to wanting to be discipled. Okay, so you need two hands to clap. So if you are not able to mentor, if you are not able to disciple a certain individuals, although you might be building as a leader, it is also their responsibility to say that I want to be discipled by you. And I think we can bring them to a point, we can try our bit by making relationships important, by hanging out with them and letting them know that you are for them, that you care about them. And after you've done everything you can, and if they are still not interested, then we can't blame ourselves. Okay, am I making sense guys? I know I've kind of spoken quite a bit for 20 minutes now, but is this all making sense somewhere or something? Okay, all right. Thank you. I trust you guys. So make relationships important, lead with care and disciple your young people, mentor them. All of that is going to determine the success and the progress of your youth ministry. And finally, and I can't stress on this enough, is rely upon God. It's a posture of humility and the Proverbs says, in all your ways acknowledge Him. Don't lean on your own understanding. Don't lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him. So and I learned, I've learned a great deal from that scripture is why I wanted to add this point in youth ministry for a pastor is that I remember, you know, the first year as a youth pastor, I was very dependent on God for everything I wanted to do in youth ministry because it was the first year and I didn't know what to do, you know, in terms of, you know, what topics do I choose, Lord, what do I do this month? What topic do I teach on, you know, et cetera, et cetera. What theme do I choose for the youth camp? It's a big deal, isn't it? Youth camp, 150 young people are going to be there. We, you know, we're going to have some kind of a theme or a topic that's going to make everybody want to come. What's it going to be? And I remember the first year as a youth pastor being very, you know, dependent on God, you know, in everything that I wanted. And I realized and because of the success of the first year, like, okay, the youth camp first year was a success and everything went well. The ministry is grown and somewhere in the second year, you know, I was like, huh, okay, you know, I got this figured out. I think I can do youth ministry now. There was, if we, you know, again, the Bible says guard your heart, isn't it? It's like, why does it use that language in terms of guard, you know, or protect your heart? When I think of those words guard or protect, I can imagine children, for example, because we guard our children. We protect our children. Why? Because they are weak. They don't necessarily, they can't necessarily defend themselves. And therefore we protect them, we guard them. And if the Bible is saying protect your heart or guard your heart, because it's simply by saying that it's a very dangerous thing, you know, that thing you have called heart. It's because out of that flows everything else. And if I did, and I realized that because there was a point in my journey as a youth pastor where I did not protect my heart enough and cried began to creep in. By saying that, hey, you did this one year, you got this now, you figured out the formula, you understand the chemistry now, you know what to do. You know the right things to say. You know how this is going to work out. And, and, you know, God is so good. He's so kind. He's so, he's so beautifully merciful and patient and kind and gentle that he gives a slight nudge and says, so you don't want me this year. It's the most gentle question, you know, I've ever been asked, and it absolutely wrecked me. You know, humbled me, broke me. And, and, and so that point is coming from the place of really brokenness and, and also pride in the sense that I'm not very proud about, you know, what the posture of my heart back then was. And so I felt like, you know, that having that point in there, we rely upon God in, in, in every aspect in every day, every week, every month, regardless of how many years you have experienced as a leader or a pastor. It is so important that we rely upon God in all our ways that we need to acknowledge him. Okay, so that's the, that's another important point. So let's look at some of the responsibilities or the expectations that is set for the core team members. Okay, they're just going to get a little bit more into the organizational aspect of it. So I hope you don't mind. So what are some of the expectations that is set for the core team member. Right. So the core team will comprise of a few selected youth leaders from each location. I'm just reading from your notes. The core team will work with the youth pastor to plan to organize and mobilize the youth and help fulfill the vision and mission of the youth ministry at APC. The core team members are requested to be regular to the youth core team meetings. The core team members are to lead by example and serve the young people at APC. The core team members will maintain a strong spiritual personal walk with the Lord and demonstrate Godly example in life and conduct core team members will see their responsibility as ministry unto the Lord. Our core team members will be regular in attending monthly core team meetings. I think that's repeated. The core team members who are team leaders or volunteers will send in regular updates on their areas of ministry to the youth pastor. So you see the responsibility of the core team members are not for the faint heart to know. There is a lot of responsibility and expectation that is set from the core team members. Let me see if I can... While I try to get a planning document for the youth camp, let me share this. As much as, yes, they are volunteers. We understand that they are volunteers, that they are giving their time in volunteering for the church. But nevertheless, they have said their yes, saying, yes, I will do all of this. That means, you know, as a youth pastor, if an individual says, actually, let me just get a Google sheet, maybe that can explain something better. Just give me a minute, guys. Please bear with me. Sorry, guys. Okay. There you go. I think this is the one. This is quite a fun sheet and not a very complicated sheet, but it's something how we go about planning for a youth camp. I'm just going to give you an insight into that. It's nothing fancy. It's a simple Google sheet. Okay. Can you all see it? Yeah. Okay. So this is like the planning, a simple planning thing for the youth camp, 2022. That was the last youth camp I led. I started off with the schedule, just planning, okay, day one, day two, day three, the dates up at 27th and all that. When are we going to depart from Bangalore or the blah, blah, blah, you know, what's going to happen after we arrive at the campsite. These are all the organizational aspects of it. Okay. And I'm sure, you know, some, most of us have done some of all of these things, but day one, what's going to happen after we reach somewhere, somewhere in the middle of this, we forgot to add breakfast. So we will add breakfast. And there's room allocations that happens for all the attendees. There's lunch, then there's a kickoff session, activity number one, whatever that was. There's a snack, okay, session one begins with worship dinner. And then we have worship night. We actually had a retro night team based on from the 70s on the 80s. So we asked everybody to come dressed as 80s. It was quite fun that evening. This is just a schedule. So you can see who's doing what, who's speaking, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Then we obviously have the budget. So this is kind of getting a little bit more candid with you guys. So you all know, it's very rough in it. Okay. So you, you have the, the transport planning for buses, how much is going to cost all the prices, the stay, how much is going to cost per person. You know, haul charges, campfire, extra bus drivers paying for them. Biscuits for travel, first aid kit, decor, miscellaneous, or an area. And if there's any for the guest speaker. So I have to put this budget first and get it approved by senior pastor. And then once everything is done after the camp, I have to send back a report on the actuals. Okay. This is the estimate for how much is going to cost, what's going to cost. And then here I have the actuals and I'm going to send it to him in a more beautiful way. But anyways, okay, the different teams, the core teams. So here we have to make a youth camp happen. A lot of these teams, you know, have to work together. When you have the transport team, we need someone who's going to coordinate at least seven people. We have three, we had three buses and 125 buses. We have three, we had three buses and 125 to 330 odd people. It's not a joke. Right. So we need someone who would coordinate with and it was 45 people per bus. 45 young people per bus and 45 in one bus. Okay. 45 itself is like a, it's a big number. Right. And so you need individuals who can take a coordinate with all these, you know, individuals and letting them know which is the pickup point. What time the bus leaves, if they don't make it on time, the bus will leave, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. Okay. And then there's a registration people who are involved who will take care of the registrations and the room allocation team, the food team. That means at the end, before the end of every session, there should be two individuals or more who will inform to the kitchen saying, okay, the session is finishing is the food ready and whatnot. And then they'll communicate to me saying, okay, now the lunch is ready. Everybody can go for lunch, et cetera. And then there's the games. No youth camp is, you know, ever complete without games. And so who are they going? Who are the individuals who are responsibility of that particular, you know, thing. And then there's worship, sound and setup, who's going to MC hospitality. There are speakers, making sure everybody, the speakers receive a water bottle or if they received, if they have a presentation, PPT that they received from the speakers, making sure that they received it, making sure they have their rooms all well organized, et cetera, pick up from the bus stop or train station, whatever. First aid kit, making sure that there's a doctor or someone qualified enough to take care of some unfortunate events during the camp decor, you know, decor, so that it doesn't have to be a boring hall. And overall coordinator who's in charge of ushering and photography, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, this, I mean, the list just keeps getting extensive. This is the checklist each team has a check, checklist first aid kit. You know, I mean, I don't think all of this is important, Chris, but anyway, so the checklist is huge. I'm sharing all of this just so we know that the organizational aspect is huge. And this is just for one youth camp. Right. Was that helpful. Okay, right. Okay, so any questions based on that? Any thoughts that you want to share? Yeah, thanks. Yes, I think you know, planning for a youth camp is some of the most fun times I've ever had in the ministry. Everybody's coming together. Everybody's excited. Everybody is pumped and things like, yeah, Pastor, I will do this, we do that, you know, we take care of this, we'll take care of that. And and at the same time, there are those individuals who are certain responsibility will be given and it will not be taken care of. And so it's not always walk in the park. You know, why I'm sharing all of this and why I shared that the all, you know, the details of this is that although they are volunteering, you know, and if they don't do their part, there's nobody else to fill in for them because they said yes to take care of, for example, transport. So if Sam says he doesn't do his part, you have to, as a pastor, I have to hold him accountable saying, okay, you said you're going to do this, you did not do it. You know, it's not that okay, I'm a youth pastor, now I'm a pastor, I have to be, you know, always forgiving and all of that. No, there's a difference between being gentle and being holding an individual accountable. I hope you understand what I'm saying, right. And so all of that goes into playing, making a youth ministry successful, having a strong team, having a clear planned detailed, you know, kind of a list if I have to say. Okay, and the rest of the things in this document is about just the events, everything that happens at APC monthly youth meetings, what happens, how often do we meet and every other event that happens, that's basically it. Okay. So that's about it for this session guys, I am not much really pause here for today. And if you have any questions or if you want to ask or say something. Please feel free to share. All right, then if there are no questions or thoughts, we'll end our session for today. Thank you for joining. I hope there was something that you could learn from today's sessions. God bless you and I will see you once again next week. Take care. Bye.