 everybody. Hey I want to thank everyone who's all right now for the webinar tonight. We're really excited that they're with us. We're looking for really the last last night of just a little share on how we can help you as group leaders, help routines, get the most out of the Schuylkill Conference. My name is John. I work in Christian language office. I'd like to start us off with a prayer. It's always a good place to let us begin in the name of a father and a son, a holy spirit, man. Good gracious God. We thank you for this evening. We thank you to everyone who is out there tonight, who has joined us on this webinar, who has stepped forward to be a part of the Schuylkill Conference, who is out there to be a mentor and a guide in the faith for young people who are seeking Jesus. I ask the Lord that you pour out through your holy spirit all the gifts that they need to be able to serve you well and to love these teams well, to guide them into your arms. We thank you for the Schuylkill Conference is what a gift they are a church, what a great gift it is to be a part of them on our end and what a great gift it is for us to be able to serve such many so many awesome youth ministers and group leaders who come forward every summer to bring a deeper encounter with Jesus Christ to their teams. Well, it's just less is time. Use it to guide us closer to your heart and strengthen us as we guide teams in the same way. We just thank you Lord for your love during this Lenten season that our hearts would return to you in a deeper way than we had in a deeper outpouring of your holy spirit and that all that we would do would be done for the glorification of your most holy name and we ask this all in the holy name Jesus, Amen, by the Son, by the Spirit, Amen. All right, yeah, I just want to welcome everybody here. We are here in the Christian Average Office and three little separate office spaces tonight. I said my name is John. I'm a part of the team here in the Christian Average Office at Franciscan and I am joined by two beautiful ladies who are part of the team as well and actually these ladies head up the programing for all of our conferences and I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves. First, I'll ask Sarah to introduce herself. Go ahead, Sarah. Thanks, John. So I'm Sarah and I'm the manager of youth programming, so I focus on our youth conferences and our friends at the Scenery program. I'm Kristi Javan and I'm the director of programming and I currently work with the adult and young adult conferences. So anytime you have a question, all right, just go ahead and type it in there or pop up on our screens. They'll get forward into us so that we can answer your questions. And as we go through this webinar, we're just going to take terms of presenting. If you have questions for a particular person or a particular topic, type it in right away because after we're all kind of done, summing up our sections, we'll take time to answer your questions. And at the end, if you have any other question that's not a part of the webinar topic that you want to throw out there, you'll have a chance to do that. And I'll also be asking you for ideas and suggestions for future webinars as well. But first and foremost, please say thank you for being a part of us. We could not do what we do if you were not doing what you're doing. And thank you for laying down your lies and taking kids to the student conferences. Our topic tonight is just how to help teens get the most out of the conference experience. And there's a lot of great ministers out there who've been doing this. I'm sure you guys have tons more great ideas. But this kind of comes from some of the feedback we received and some of the ideas that we have in our office. We just want to kind of present on these. And once again, these are just some general guidelines of what I think you can do as a group leader as a chaperone to help your teens have an awesome conference experience. Now, I was a youth minister for about 15 years and took kids every summer to student conferences. And one of the first things I realized after my first conference, I should say, is that going into the conference weekend, you really need to number one, have a plan. And what I mean by that is, you know, good ministry, it doesn't just happen. And the student conference, as it exists, is like a supercharged weekend of grace that really gets young people on fire. But it is not the totality of Catholic youth ministry. It is not everything that youth ministry is supposed to be. And so it's always important to think about, if you're bringing teens and making this investment into the student conference, how is that going to be a part of your overall plan for your youth for this year? What do you want to see happen? What would you like to see happening in your teens' lives while they're at the conference? And for that purpose, you should have a plan that's pre-conference. You should have a clear plan during the conference. And you should have a plan for what you're going to do post-conference. And what I mean by that is, you know, if youth ministries, I mean, if the student conference is an aspect of your current ministry, how are you going to incorporate preparation for the student conference into those meetings and sessions? Should you have some unique experiences, some unique gatherings with the teens that are going to the student in order to prep them? Are you going to meet with the parents? Because oftentimes we hear young people come home having this radical encounter with Christ, and the parents feel left out of it. So how are you going to incorporate parents in so many of the pre-conference prayer and plan? What are you going to ask the parents to do during the conference week in terms of praying for their teens? And that's always good that what I used to do is I used to have parents sign up and do an hour of prayer. Every parent during the weekend would take an hour or two of prayer to pray for the kids throughout the entire weekend at any given time. There was somebody back at the parish, usually a parent, praying for the group. And then finally is the kids leave the student conference excited, ready, open for more. And what are we going to do? What can you do to kind of harness that energy and harness that excitement and get them on a path of deep growth and discipleship? And so this comprehensive plan isn't just like, okay, got a rank at last, got to do this, got to do it. You should have a plan for how you want to move from pre-conference through the conference and after-conference so that there's this seamless integration into your overall youth ministry program. Now if you're in a place where maybe you're just a parent or somebody who's volunteering, maybe you don't have a regular youth group right now, I think one of the things that you might consider is using the student-conference experience as a way of building something that could really survive and sustain itself around. But once again, that involves a deeper plan. And we will touch upon some of these issues in further webinars. The first thing, you know, have a plan. Now second, you know, you should have a mission. And what I mean by that is what, you know, you have to be asking yourselves questions like, what would I want to see happen in the life of young people? Oftentimes people bring young people, they put them in the room and they just hope that by some magical experience kids, my faith can come alive. But little things that you can do and as part of your mission can help make sure you're staying focused on that. And oftentimes I see youth groups at student-conferences and they don't take advantage of the small group time. Now maybe they decided, hey, we've done enough, we don't let our kids kind of roll. I see other groups sitting around that are very intently focused. And if you want, one of your goals is, I want to build community within my youth group. I want to see a stronger community within my youth group, you know. Then you definitely want to have it as part of your mission to make sure that you're forming that community throughout the conference weekend. You have kind of a plan to make sure that you take advantage of every moment of the conference. If you come in and say, well, we just want to have a good time. I guarantee you the kids will have a good time. The kids have a great time all the time at the student conferences. But with a little bit of effort through your planning and having a mission focus can mean it's not just a great weekend, but a transformative experience where they're really engaged and ready to go deeper in the relationship with Christ. You should have a mission. What would you like to see in the eyes of individual youth? Because your youth and your youth group are in different places. So know your youth and say, okay, what do I like to see happen in this young person's life? Maybe they just need to come to know what the deeper love of Christ. So you really might focus on relational ministry with them throughout the weekend or have one of the chaperones take special care of walking with them on the spiritual journey. You might have some kids who've been in two or three student conferences or, you know, just through the ministry you're doing, they're real leaders. Well, I think you want to try to activate that sense of leadership that they have and help them maybe even co-lead small groups every weekend or share their testimony on the bus on the way there. Do something to help stir the faith and give them a role in the ministry because some of them are ready to take on that challenge. But if you have a mission that kind of takes into account where the different young people in your group are and get and engage them accordingly, then what happens from the stage in the main sessions and in the breakouts, all that will mean not much more to that because it's really there's more to what you're doing than just saying, okay, sit there the way you sat there last year. You know, maybe they're ready to do more, take on a deeper leader role. If you're going to have a mission and you're going to have a plan, you know, it's going to be very important to communicate it with everyone that you're bringing as a chaperone. So many of you on this webinar tonight are group leaders. You're in charge of organizing the classroom and you've stepped forward to be a leader. Some of you might be chaperones, but if you don't communicate to everyone involved, this is why we do what we do, and this is what we're trying to help see happen in the lives of young people, then the group leaders will understand their role. The chaperones will know exactly what's expected of them or what they should be doing in certain circumstances to help this young person on their spiritual journey. So it's about knowing what you want to see happen. It's about having the ability to articulate that to everybody in your group and let them know what their role in that is so that as a team of chaperones and group leaders, you're working to accomplish the goals that you set forth to execute the plan that you have, which is not just to give kids a great weekend, but to really get them deeper in a relationship with Christ and deeper in the community that you're building through your youth ministry program. And, you know, once again, you know, the most important part is, you know, just pray for that plan and mission and ask God to show you what you need to do. A lot of you are in different circumstances. You may be in a small parish where you have 10 kids that you're bringing. You might be part of a group that's bringing 50 or more, but whatever your group size, whatever your goals are, whatever the needs of your parish are, think about how you can make sure that you're addressing those throughout the conference weekends that young people have, just a beautiful experience that isn't just like I said a great weekend, but a lasting life long changing experience with the Lord. You know, so that's basically, you know, the first two points. And that's, you know, if there's any questions at this point, feel free to type them in. Somebody just typed in and said, buy a youth group. Let's see here. Okay, I'll make that video here. Do you mean youth ministry happens in the parish or about the group of youth who will be attending a student youth conference? If you're, okay, so maybe this question, maybe you can clarify for me, Maria, are you coming as part of a Dossison group where you're one parish as part of a bigger group? Or, you know, are you talking about the fact that maybe you combine parishes? That would help me understand, but you know, I would actually say if you're even if you're a smaller ministry that's being attached to a larger group for the weekend, I think, you know, the plan needs to be kind of customized, I guess is the word, customized to the group that that you're bringing from your church, you know, and to the best of your ability, make sure that what you see your parish needs is not being kind of not not not addressed throughout the conference weekend. So, you know, so if you're, because like if I understand your question, so by youth group, do you mean the way gather youth and she happens in the parish or about the group of youth that will be attending a student youth conference? You know, it is really for the parish, the smaller group, even if it's part of a bigger group that's coming from the Dossison Forest, I hope that helps. If that didn't answer your question, feel free to ask a clarifying question. Alrighty, and like I said, any time a question pops up, you can put it in the type it into the question box, that's part of the toolbar. If you see the little arrow, click on it, it'll open up the box, it'll drop down if the arrow's pointing to the right, and then you'll see the place where you can type in the questions. But for now, I'm going to turn it over to Kristi, who is going to talk about some other important aspects of the conference experience. Take it away, Kristi. Great, thanks, John. So my first point is talk about having guidelines. Anytime you have a group of people together, you're going to want to have the guidelines to make sure that we, everyone moves and groups together and that everything operates well. So these guidelines are sometimes just for the physical well-being of your group, and then sometimes it's for the spiritual well-being of your group. So keep both those things in mind. And make sure you're communicating why the guidelines are in place. So why do we need these things? So make sure that everyone knows what the goal and the purpose of the guidelines are, which are to create a safe place for everyone, as well as to create a place that we can be vulnerable with the Lord. These guidelines can be unique to your group. I'm going to give you some suggestions, but it's important that they're unique to what you know that you need. You may talk to somebody who's been to a single conference before and kind of think through what some other guidelines that they've needed, but I'll give you some suggestions here at the end. The other thing would be you really need to make sure that there is a policy to enforce these guidelines, because a guideline that can't be enforced really isn't a policy or it isn't something that you can you can't afford this and it's not really, there's no point having it, right? So everyone needs to know about the guidelines and everyone needs to be happy. All the chaperones need to have the ability to enforce them. All the chaperones need to be on the same page that has done it enforce them. So for example, if one of your guidelines is no negative humor, that's a really easy one for even chaperones and group leaders to listen to. You know, myself, you know, we know those people they just have a negative humor. And so if you know that you are a chaperone or even though some of your chaperones have negative humor, we need to make sure that everyone's on the same page that we're all going to hold each other accountable for that. And so make sure that there's a way in which you're holding accountable. One silly example that we've done in a little bit of a group kind of youth group setting is the other scripture verse that anytime somebody said something that was negative which is reminding them of that scripture verse very gently. And then if it came up again, then we'd do it again. And obviously, you know, at some point you have to kind of say, okay, there's more serious, like, you can't just keep doing it the fact that you can't. But that's just one idea of how you can like enforce it and have gentle reminders. And, you know, obviously the adults and the chaperones need to hold to the policies as well. So when it's something like that, that way the teams can actually take part in holding you accountable as well. It's going to be that, you know, you can mess up, but you're going to get better. So it needs to be specific to your guidance. Can't you just stay out of trouble or, you know, be a good Christian group? Like, a lot of times it's the teaching moment where we're teaching them. Like, okay, what does it mean? To be together and to move the groups. Perfect example with a negative humor. It's really nice to teach them about how negativity can tear us down if that's one of your guidelines. Then throughout the weekend that's something that they'll learn. One idea is to come up with a creative and fun way to communicate these to the group. This will be something you want to do prior to the actual conference itself or like the day that you leave you can communicate it to them. But come up with a fun way to do it. Have all of your chaperones help out. Maybe everybody can share a personal testimony or just like not a serious testimony but, you know, the personal story of why this guideline is important. You know, if it's something as simple as I gotta stay in guys' areas and girls stay in girls' areas. Well, somebody can tell a story of finally that didn't happen and it didn't go well. Obviously, keep it clean. But there's just ways in which you can tell these, make it creative. You can do them in a different creative way. So think about that. Think about ways that you can do that. And some other examples of some guidelines. No judging. No putting each other down. Kind of goes with negative humor. What a person shares stays private. So talk about it with another person. So even if like say the whole small group we share, somebody shared something, don't nobody else in that small group should share about it with them. They should talk about it later even though they were all in the small group who heard the thing. So what's shared stays private. Obviously, respecting authority in each other and the facilities that you're going to see or if you're staying in a hotel or dorm. Some of those basics. Again, kind of keep them in two categories. Like what can be the things that are going to keep them safe and keep the stuff around them safe. And then one of the things that are going to make them able to be more open to the Lord. So that whole like not sharing personal things with other people, letting people feel safe to be able to share their hearts, building each other up, no negative humor, the attitude of service, taking care of your body. Some of these conferences are really hot. Make things to think that right now is super snowy outside. But it's true, like some of the conferences are super hot. So drinking water, making sure everyone's eating. That's also just as a side note, it's nice to have that guideline that everyone has to eat every meal. But if you do have anybody that is struggling with an eating disorder, you can easily hold everyone accountable. So it makes it easier to hold people accountable if they do struggle with an eating disorder. If it's just clear that everyone has to eat every meal. Give them lots of water and stuff like that. So those are some of the examples. Again, you're going to want to make these guidelines unique to your group. And what you know is needed. If you've never been to Zoom conferences before, again, it's good to talk to them that you have to come up with some ideas. A lot of these will probably carry over from some guidelines you might have from a retreat or some other gathering that you've done. So any questions about that? We'll see. I don't think so. Okay, so let's go to the next point. But if you have questions, you can type them in. The next one I had is creating community. So this is something that we just want to be super intentional about creating community within your group. It does take a little bit of effort so that everyone's not just individuals traveling together and experiencing something together. But it's actually a community experience. Evangelization, true evangelization takes place in communities. You just thought of that time and time and time again. So one of the ways that we do that throughout the conference begin is that we really encourage small groups. We encourage you. We say in the stage, teams, make sure you go to small groups. Make sure you're sharing small groups on top of the value of small groups. So obviously you're going to have small groups on the conference begin. But start from earlier. So maybe three months out from the conference, two months out, whenever you start gathering people, go ahead and create a sign into the small groups and start having them meet in small groups so that they can start to get to know each other in the small groups. They can start to share their expectations, their thoughts. Now obviously you may not get everyone together, but try to get as many as you can together and do what you can with the people who do show up. Another idea would be to assign prayer partners. So I think John mentioned this in the past that assigning prayer partners, this is prior to the conference that they would be praying for each other. But then actually at the conference they can also get together and pray together at the conference and then also continue on afterwards. So it was a great before during and after experience and it also again creates community. What you can do is have you know the small groups we encourage same gender small groups and then have within your small groups have the prayer partners as people within the small groups. So you're even going kind of like a level deeper within your small groups. The whole point of this is that they are creating getting comfortable with each other and learning how to be more vulnerable with each other. When you're in small groups a great way to create that comfortability and vulnerability is to really pray together, teaching them communal prayer. Some of you are already probably stars that isn't doing these groups really well but if you're not this is a great opportunity to learn and teach them how to pray together and pray out loud. Sometimes they really need structure to it. So I can say okay we're going to go around the circle and everyone's going to share one prayer intention that they have for someone else and one prayer intention that they have for themselves. Because sometimes teams can get really wrapped up in praying for other people and they don't focus on what they're doing in their own part. So that's a good way to like get done. Okay great if they want to pray anything to not lie for yourself and one prayer intention for someone else and actually have them say it as if they're praying it to the Lord. So don't just say I want to pray for my mom but more of well it's not saying like I'd like my prayer intention to be for my mom but the Lord say teach them how to say it to the Lord. Like God I ask that you would bless my mom for just your reason and such and such. They really need that invitation to do this. Oftentimes it's just they just need a little invitation and a little bit of teaching and structure just to really get out of themselves and get a little uncomfortable for the sake of something good. Another place that's a great way to create community is really anytime you gather and we know that a lot of times that time of gathering is fundraising. And so when you do a fundraising event those can be great community building events as well. Sometimes there are more community building events than they are raising money which is awesome and that's okay too. That's valuable and great, great things that's going to build up your group. So use those events that you already have scheduled to keep in mind community. If you have maybe an info meeting that do a little community building in the part of the night. So they'll just have all the information but do some community building in that as well. And then all is about really getting their hearts and their minds ready. The stuff that you're doing in building community for the conference is getting the hearts and the minds ready and killing the soil for what's going to go out of their hearts. And so the next topic is is Sarah's going to touch on it specifically about killing the soil. So this idea of these are kind of the practicals that I've mentioned is just going to go into the more in depth thing. I don't think there are any questions. It looks like how many kids are in a small group? I think no more than 10 but I think it's sweet but I don't know John you can tell me what you think about this but I think it's sweet by six to eight. Do you agree? Yeah, yeah we have most of our conference sites have a rule where you have to have one chaperone for every 10 young people. So that's going to be the maximum ratio. But with that it's always more difficult to manage a conversation amongst 10 people than it is you know like Chris was saying six to eight would you know eight would be the most that I don't want only because I don't want to be able to give everyone a chance to share and give them the personal attention. The great challenge of course when you're coming to a student conference is how do you find enough adults to have a six to one ratio? If you can't do that it's not going to ruin the event but if you can I highly recommend it only because the more personal attention that you're able to give within a small group to each person the more chances to share the more enriching it will be for everyone involved. Yeah six to eight students we spot 10 it doesn't seem hard to manage so but I wouldn't go over 10 if at all possible. I sometimes see groups at the student conferences and it's like a huge large group. I really just my personal opinion is to encourage that because people get lost in those big groups and everyone may want to share but there's some there's a time and a place for that. That's not a small group that's a that's a yeah it's a sharing big sharing. So what kind of can you another question what kind of community building would you do during the info meeting? I'll share a couple of ideas that I have and maybe John and Sarah can share any that they would have as well. I know Sarah's going to touch on this too but you know one way of building community is obviously getting vulnerable with each other. So when people know my story and they know more about what you know where I'm coming from and then that that creates a connection. So if I were to to hear and tell you a little bit about my life and it would be more connected to me and we would have a little bit deeper community. So anytime you can give opportunities for that. So have them all split up into a group and share why they want to come on a student conference and be honest like it's just that they were made to go or if they you know whatever that would be maybe somebody else sharing testimony about their experience that I conference. Somebody sharing a testimony and then having you know go to the person next to them to share like what struck you about that testimony. Getting them to talk really is helpful in those types of things. And again on a meeting info night it can be simple it can be short it can be you know again at the beginning turn to the person next to me and tell them why you're coming on student conference. And then they can just be you know to have them split up into groups of three and just have four get to know the questions with each other. So those are a couple ideas that I have anybody else have any ideas on what they could do at an info meeting night to create community. I think everything you suggested was great just another just even smaller ideas just to play some fun icebreaker games there's a lot of good resources online just give them an opportunity to be goofy and have fun and a lot of times that breaks down those walls to enable those conversations that Christy was talking about in small groups so just something that lets them be themselves and goofy and they might be hesitant at first but by the end they all seem to really enjoy it. Yeah I think those those suggestions are great. The idea of fun I think it was Plato said you can learn more about somebody in five minutes of playing that you can't file hours of conversation because you just there's something about fun that reveals what's going on in people's lives in a deeper way and does break down barriers. So you definitely want to have a fun icebreaker. You know when you do an info meeting there's two different kinds there's one where you maybe were prepping the teams but we always had at least one of that too where we brought the parents in and the idea that you know we are been entrusted to take their teams their children away for a week and to encounter the Lord we don't want to leave them behind you know we don't want to make them feel left out so some ideas that we've tried in the past as we had some of the adults that we knew who had active faith lives get up and share their testimony with everybody you know so that they can see that their parents had this personal encounter with Christ and what it meant to them we had teams from past summers together a customer like Christy suggested and then you know I mean a great way of building that community too is to do some sort of communal prayer experience as part of it so you have a little bit of fun go through your guidelines and we always do the guidelines with the parents present because we've wanted the parents to understand that that we were going to take care of their kids that we weren't just going to throw them on a bus it was going to be chaos and when you have those guidelines and you present to both the teams and the parents and you hand a copy of the parents and say please review these with your teams later it just makes it all the more real and it brings the parents into the process of knowing oh there are expectations and you know there's a personal story about guidelines you know we've had we've always used the Studentville Conference experience as a way of bringing kids who are kind of on the fringes are not involved in youth group into the process and that's a great challenge because when you have a youth group that's kind of focused and has a culture maybe throughout the year you've been building up a level of trust and then all of a sudden for something really significant you have a few wild cards in there and also this comes from a conversation just a couple weeks ago with the youth group but I'd like to bring more kids I just can't control them you know and I started talking about like okay this is how you can help that process you know there was there was an incident where one of the kids who was new kind of really shut down a small group by some inappropriate comments and they were really outside the guidelines so you know we had to sit down and re-establish trust and walk through with this young person but they had a great growing experience they realized maybe for the first time in their life that the power of their words and even though it was I would say minor collateral damage because of that it all got resolved throughout the conference weekend and this young man became a regular attendee or youth group because he experienced a lot of forgiveness but the whole people of Colorado was a good thing to have him clearly stated like Christy said is an absolute must and to bring parents into that process I just think it makes it easier for you so um you know all the ideas for that close meeting is definitely are great ideas and and things that you should be working on okay another question is that here is how do we involve this youth who is not registered but comes to regular meetings without making them still left out of the experience so I think what you're trying to say is that you often will do some of this with like your entirety group and it's not people that are registered as well is what I'm understanding that as one suggestion would be maybe just to have make sure that it's only people that are registered there's a difference between like an info meeting night where it's like hey come and find out more about this and to get people excited about coming versus kind of a more hey this is for all those who are registered so I think knowing you know having specific specific targeted meeting sessions is a good idea so that so that you're not making people feel left out and you're saying okay some people here this is you know this is more specifically a recruiting for lack of a better word meeting or this is more of a actual time where we're digging in and it's what this is specifically for people who are already registered would you agree with that John any additional thoughts on that one? Yeah you know Matt when I wrote the question I was thinking like what if you have a kid who's a regular member of your youth group and he can't vote a student really doesn't register everyone goes off and has this wonderful experience to make and they all come back on fire in this case like I missed out on and I think part of that you know this is why you know I mean you know if you set up the student bill of conference which needs to be part of that comprehensive experience then what happens in student bill you can you can use that to build that kind of community for the young person and I've dealt with this I've dealt with kids who've been heartbroken to the point of tears because the you know the year that they want to go to a student bill year out of camp or a wedding or you know some sort of tragedy that they have to cancel and you know it's it's just up to your youth group to really make sure that and I think this is part of your plan is to say coming out of the summer we're not going to be a click of where the student bill kids of the youth group were the ones who had this and everyone else and didn't get to go to student bill so you know too bad for you but really giving them that challenge to you need to you need to share what God has done with somebody who hasn't come and pray with them and pray that they experience the same thing that you experience that's your challenge in that way people aren't holding on to it like oh this is so wonderful for me but really they're bringing other people into that and kind of by sharing that love and you know helping them you know not feel left out of the because they were part of the student bill group that went and there's maybe some other things we can talk about this we're going to have a whole another webinar of you know some good ideas to work with your teams coming out of the conference that I think will really help with that as well I do want to be the next question and we're going to go on and we'll come back for the end the end you know what just for quick there was a something type didn't say I'm a new youth minister do you recommend any certain type of small group iceberg your questions and Katie we have your email from a registration and I will make a note to myself to email you a PDF with what I consider the best small group questions I've ever written and I did not write them but they're awesome so I will in there and there's different I get to know you questions going deeper questions how you know some questions that start the process of being vulnerable and then some heavy hitters that really help break up and they adopt a message in addition you'll receive when you go to the conference some questions that are put together by Sarah and her team that really nail unpacking the talks and stuff that you're going to hear at the conference as well Katie so we're going to have I'll give you some general tips and then you'll also be receiving some very specific questions that will help throughout the conference weekend and now everybody wants the PDF okay I will do a general email blast to everyone I'll be sitting on that computer thank God for cutting pace all right yeah just for the sake of time and we'll open them you've been listening to questions everybody gets a list of questions that's my open moment all right so with that we're going to pass it on to Sarah and we're going to enter into the next the next part of of the presentation Sarah take it away great and so I'm going to be talking about like Christy mentioned how to spell the soil how to really prepare their hearts for what God wants to do on the conference weekend and as Christy alluded to that community building is key it's the foundation for trust and relationships so that they will be encouraged by you they'll be open to no experiences they'll be willing to share what's on their heart with you and with their fellow teens going with them on the conference so that is a huge foundation and you can do this collectively as a group in some of your meetings when you come together but also in that small group an individual setting that John and Chris you've been talking about and so collectively I think it's great to start by just acknowledging that everyone here is in a different place with the Lord and really giving them freedom and permission to be where they are and that God's going to encounter them and meet them where they are and God's love being the foundation that's the drive and force of all of our conference programming in the midst of the schedule and the midst of everything that we do in the conference weekend the basic foundation is we want the teens to know God's love for them so if they're already hearing this I feel like we can't hear that enough I can't hear that enough I'm constantly coming back to that and what that means for me and my life and so giving them permission to be where they are I'm really just emphasizing God wants to meet you God loves you and has a plan for you I'm really setting the stage for them and our host do a great job of this on Friday night of our conferences but them hearing it already before the conference would be a huge benefit to them and as I was hearing that I was thinking some teens might not even know where they are in their relationship with God because they've never thought about it or never have taken the time to so I think it's important to really have the environment as prayer and some time in silence perhaps having them journal or write a letter just really pinpointing and thinking about where they are with the Lord how might be calling them to change what change should they want to see in their life how might he already be tugging asking them some questions to get them to think they're so busy running from one thing to the next maybe not having time to process past encounters they've had in the group or what God might be speaking to them because they just haven't had the time to sit and listen so I think that's important to really have them pinpoint where they are and just acknowledging that where they are is a good place to be another thing you can do is start to introduce the theme of the conference many of you may know our theme is Thirst and our scripture is Romans 5-8 but God proves his love for us and that while we were still a sinner's Christ died for us so introducing that theme to them and again it comes back to the foundation we want them to encounter Christ's thirst for them especially focusing on the cross and his sacrifice for us and returning God's thirst by thirsting for him and really realizing that he is the only thing that will really satisfy so just starting to scratch the surface with that theme might be a huge benefit to them in preparing their hearts for the weekend and then on a small group basis to really empower your small group leaders and your chaperones to as Christy mentioned get to know their teens and to find out where they individually are because when you know where they are on the journey you're really able to prepare them well so you would speak very differently with a team who maybe is only coming because a friend invited them or is doubting that God has even reeled to maybe a team who's been to several conferences or has gone on many retreats and already has a relationship with Christ and wants to go deeper so it's really important to empower your small group leaders to get to know where their group is and so through intentional questions creating an environment where you think have one on one conversations maybe if you have an opportunity for a couple community events as it gets closer to the conference having small group leaders try and have someone on one conversations with them again to know where they are to prepare how to minister to them on the weekend and then lastly having teams minister to one another John alluded to this as well we'll just having maybe if you've taken her to a conference before having them share about their experience or even if you haven't if there are some teams that are just solid and are on the journey with Christ just to share about it cares are so receptive to pure witness so just to share and create excitement and enthusiasm how bad could be working in their life I wouldn't say are their experience so great and so I'll take a moment pause and look at the questions see if there's any if you have any questions about that you can type them in I don't think I see any so and then the next piece to that is just you know fertilizing as well how can you already give them opportunities to encounter Christ before the weekend and so a lot of the things I'm going to mention are things you probably already do but perhaps maybe you can do it just as a group going to the conference and also a lot of these things are aspects of our schedule so especially for teams that I've never come you can start to give them a little taste of what they'll experience on the weekend so for example I'm going to Mass as a group perhaps having a time of Eucharistic adoration together telling them what that means and that Jesus truly present in Eucharist perhaps having time of worship worship is a huge component of our conference is an opportunity for them to start to understand what it means to praise and have them exposed to praise and worship confession if any teams are open to go before the weekend obviously confession is a huge part of our weekend so many teams go and it's beautiful but if they're open to going ahead of time that their heart might be even more well-disposed for what God wants to do on the weekend even practically if you've gone you know the lines can be pretty long so if there's teams that maybe you have a desire to go early that might be a great opportunity for them as well as well as just getting some prayer support from the community as I mentioned getting the parents involved perhaps doing one of these things with the parents there and that idea is to just have the parents interceding maybe having parishioners draw names of the teams that are going letting them know people are praying for them so just see how important this experience is and just how people love them and are supporting them and want to see them grow in that relationship with Christ and kind of the final point just does an overarching thing I wanted to mention is in all this preparation and sharing that experience and being open to God's encounter is to not push emotions to allow them to expect God to work to know that God is going to be there and show up but it's not always about emotions and feelings a lot of teams will measure their encounter with God or how much God loves them or was with them by the emotions they might feel on the weekend or they might look around and see a team being touched by the Lord and crying or something like that and think well what's wrong that I'm not experiencing that so just as it was good in the beginning to affirm you're all in different places it's really important to say God is going to work in the way He wants to work in you personally and to not be focused on how God is working in everyone around you but to really have that expectation that God's going to show up but not in the specific way which He's going to work particularly with feelings and emotions so it doesn't hinder the experience and they're just open to how ever God wants to speak to them on the weekend and then overall just framing the trip as a pilgrimage a weekend away to really counter the Lord and of course an opportunity for community and fun really an opportunity to step out of their everyday life and to see what God has in store for them so I know John I mentioned to and I in your plan just having how are we going to keep this fire burning and so I know we'll see if we have questions but John is going to share a little bit more how we're going to try and help you do that as well This is the first of monthly webinars that we're going to have for youth ministers and group leaders and they're going to be different topics so I just sent a link to everybody or I chatted a link to a box account that if you click on the link right now I said my first message was hey everyone here's the link where you can download a word doc of my favorite model of questions and then I sent the next one it had a link in it has anyone I can I don't know did everyone receive that link and can try to click them on it to make sure they can get that file if you would just chat that the questions if there's anyone who's tried the link and can't get through let me know because right now everyone on the it's there right now just clicking your chat box on that link it'll download it'll open it up in our box account and you just hit download and you'll have it on your hard drive on your computer and I'm just assuming because you got on got on here that you were able to we'll be able to do that so it's not that technologically challenging yeah I can't I mean like it's interesting having served on both sides of the conference stage you know I sat in the audience with teens for many years praying anxiously that they would have this in common with christ being a great admiration of how wonderfully the conference conferences will run and then and only just with sometimes a tear like what am I going to do with these kids after I get back to conferences how can I help them through and like what do they experience and how can I help them it's it's it's very challenging you know and then but I think part of it is just knowing what you want to see happen and all the suggestions I started Richard shared are just really it's kind of youth ministry one-on-one but sometimes I think we have a tendency to over complicate you know the way we do ministry now our job here in the office is simply to create that space where kids can encounter christ the much harder job is on your shoulders which is to walk with teens after the conference experience is over and be able to share the love of Jesus and help them after they come down off the mountain and the feelings wear off you know so you know the part of that is helping them up the model you know and understanding what they're going to experience when they get there and telling them stories that you know if some kids don't know how to get up the mountain then uh then they you know they might not be able to I ain't want to try to say you might not know how to get up to the top so part of it is getting those kids to the top where they can have that that really deep encounter of christ like the transfiguration type experience but then also having that plan to walk down with them so having the plan is important have the mission have those guidelines they're absolutely like like imagine where you pick up basketball we used to do this a lot this whole elementary school about half a mile from my home and the game you could turn into a bra every time because it'd be like you follow me no I didn't then we start punching each other you know without rules everything breaks down really quickly and the whole process of what you're trying to build with all the community I can't emphasize enough the guidelines are essential the creating the community is a great idea you know it's just key to everything that you're trying to do as youth ministers because while we all at while the fact we can have a personal relationship with christ it's best experienced within community and it's best experience when it's shared with other people in community and that's something that we as adults don't even know how to do well to share our faith in one another and so it's even more difficult I think sometimes to teach young people how to do that but you can model it for them that's the great thing about being in practice for it you can model vulnerability you can have your chapter owns model what giving testimony about God is you can have the model spontaneous prayer you can have them model how to really affirm someone when they share something well you know these are skills that are more taught by example than taught through a lesson you know I do one two and three and you'll have the perfect small group you know and so you'll have a chance prior to comes to model what you're trying to create see happen during the conference weekend tilling the soil absolutely essential we see kids come from all across the gamut you know you know some kids who are really into their faith some people who are far away from from God you know the miracles that we see are young people who you know we get this thousands of times I went into that student conference Saturday night did not believe in God I don't know what happened but I know that God was me he's real and they're like on fire they're crying you know what Sarah said is cute we don't want to push the emotions you know we don't want some kids oh you go in there you're just emotionally vomit all over everybody you just go like fly everywhere you're crying they're like no just tell them you're going to encounter Christ and ask them just to be present to Christ and open their hearts if he leads them to tears he will do that but we should not be pushing them people to tears because if it's not coming from the Lord it's not a reaction to what God is doing then it could be a hindrance to the real spirit moving so letting kids know that in advance I mean I started over a few years ago walking into a Saturday night at night I was there helping to run some things behind the scenes and I heard a youth minister say exactly oh when you walk in there you're just going to cry like crazy you're just going to experience God like and if you're crying crying crying I'm like what if they don't they let you walk away thinking you know I didn't experience God you know so we don't want to we don't want to kind of set them up for disappointment you know but fertilizing that soil you know you know I probably shouldn't talk too much but my wife taught me how to be a gardener I was never a gardener my wife taught me how to be a gardener and the first thing I learned was in order to make things grow sometimes you have to blend the soil you got to fertilize you got to stir things up you got to prep before you can expect fruit to be produced and so my job in gardening was to do that to haul them in there or to dig to do all the heavy lifting and then she'd get the dig little holes and plant seeds or plant little plants to see all the beautiful things happen but I did all the dirty work which I didn't mind doing because it was necessary every spring we'd have to amend the soil and till the soil where our garden is if we want things to grow and that's absolutely essential the more you till the soil and fertilize it get these kids ready the greater the fruit that will be produced on the conference weekend and you know that's why I say that the most important ministers at a student conference are not on the stage it's you guys out there who are who are doing the work you are grateful humbled by your service because it's about you doing what you're doing we don't have a job to do what we're doing so we love you guys and we wish the best for you I think there are a few more questions that came through and I want to invite everyone at this time if you have any questions that were not a part of this a topic that wasn't mentioned yet we already have a couple of those that we'll get to we'll take time to talk about those and if you have any other ideas for topics that you would like to see in future webinars please feel free to enter that at this time as well so Sarah, Chris, do you see any questions that we need to address? Yes, we do have a question oh go ahead no go ahead there I have teens who have been to conferences and feel that they are missing out because they have not had some bad experience at the conference are there speakers or times to build up students who are solid and so that whole gamut that we're speaking to teens who have had a rough past or different things like that versus teens who have just always been on the journey and have been good kids and so a couple things that we try to do and just really empowering our hosts to again address that wide spectrum of people that are there and in the back of all the speaker's minds just reminding them of that wide range of the audience of you know you'll have such a mixed bag of life experience in the audience and to keep that in mind as they're sharing and I think among our speaking team you know there is a variety of witness from the stage as well and then in terms of the programming especially for you know kind of like you're asking to build up teens who are solid or offering something deeper for teens in our programming and our workshops to different things like that we're really trying to look at it what can we offer some of those teens who are great solid and on the journey but are looking for something deeper and so for example this coming summer we're going to have a workshop called Life in the Holy Spirit just greater depth on what it means to walk with the Holy Spirit through the Holy Spirit is and how they can pray with other people and things like that so we're trying to keep that in the back of our mind as we come up with topics for those who are ready to go deeper and then again just in general from the main stage just emphasizing to the speakers to remember that wide range of experience in the room so from then Christy or John do you have anything to add to that? I mean I'll add that I was a teen and had a similar experience you know I was a teen that was pretty good for the whole part and ended up with anything wrong and I always wanted that testimony or that story I think one thing you can do as a youth group leader and as a chaperone or you know group leader at the conference have some of your chaperones or some of your if you have young adults helping like share stories to people who have not necessarily then the pride of the son story but or maybe the older brother story you know the story of the person who didn't necessarily have all these external I wouldn't call them fleshies then but somebody that just you know was struggling in other ways unfortunately I did have that time of my life where I did go off and become the prodigal son and they came back and I saw that there was a part of me that just felt more loved because I had fallen more and he had loved me more and that was just a misunderstanding of God is his love for me so a lot of that is just being patient with them on the journey but we also have to be teaching them along the way that that it's not about just those people that have a story everyone has a story and and helping them see that but like Sarah said we do make an intentional effort to tell our speakers to speak to that wide range of audience you'll see it specifically in our men's and women's sessions we've made a concerted effort over the last couple of years to not just be talking to you know the week we have for example the women's session we have girls there who have are no longer versions that maybe sleeping with people more often than not and then we have people there who are or haven't ever kissed anybody or dated anyone so speaking about chastity to that wide range of people we focus a lot on virtue and about we still touch on chastity and modesty and all of that but really keeping a positive point on it so that would be one way in which we've done some of that yeah those are both both great great comments to that concern and I think that's and part of this you can actually maybe talk to them about you know the difference between St. Paul and St. Timothy you know St. Paul of course had that radical conversion as he was traveling on the road to Damascus who lived the life very apart from God persecuted and brought about the murder of early Christians right whereas St. Timothy grew up in the faith you know his aunt his grandmother were you know friends of Paul's he was always around faith with people he never had this deep conversion and yet the call that Paul gave to Timothy was no less dramatic and powerful in the life of Timothy as the call that Jesus Christ himself gave to Paul on the road to Damascus which is you know give your life completely to God you know if you're looking at other people's stories and trying to base your faith on what other people have gone through then you're comparing it to the wrong person measure your life against the standard of Christ and ask them to be the ones who radically go even deeper with the word you know for for and another thing is just to remind them that to whom much is given much is expected and to be and to let them know that there's a I guess I don't want to get too in depth there's got to go on but there's something called like cramped grace like those who have not fallen in sin have not fallen in the serious sin because God had been preserving them through grace and through protection to keep them from falling for a particular reason and it's not about the radicalness of your conversion but the depth of of openness and response to that grace that's there I mean we'll never know the sins that God preserved us from we were too focused on the sins we committed but when we get to heaven I guarantee you the story that God will tell us is more about the sins that he kept us free from through grace that we know it was preemptive mercy that was being poured out on us and that might be a good topic to talk about during the year of mercy with these young people feeling like oh I didn't really do anything bad I need to to have this following the way I said no preemptive mercy keeps us keeps preserves you in purity and pre-pervert that you know preserves your integrity your wholeness because God is probably you know asking you to do something amazing and so let them know that this is not a bad thing it's a very beautiful thing and that they need to rejoice in it and be able to celebrate that in their life and not be oh I need a better testimony you know right um yeah we're getting a number of questions and another one was uh let me make sure we don't skip over sister mary claire you asked how do we praise and worship the teens who stare at you and act as if they hate you when I stand when you ask them to enter into worship sister my only response to that is young people will not praise Jesus until they have a reason to praise them I think worship is always a response to what God does first and to try to focus kids into that posture who've not had that radical encounter with Christ is is like trying to put the wrong peg in the square hole it just doesn't work you know young people when they're at a sporting event they can jump up and scream and pump their fists and it's a reaction to what they know it's a response to what they see and when they taste and see the goodness of the Lord that desire of worship will be brought forth by the Holy Spirit my only advice there is continue to model your joyful worship of the Lord let them stare at you because they're only staring because they don't know who you're worshiping yet and as you help them to come to know Christ they're hunger for Christ and their desire to express their love for Christ will deepen and strengthen in their own lives so it's it's a challenge because we're already there we want everyone to jump on board but I think we've all had a story where we had to grow into our desire to praise God and we just need to be patient with young people especially those who don't know the Lord and don't really have a reason to praise him yet but hopefully if they have a good conference experience by Saturday night after adoration they will they won't be able to keep themselves from singing so I don't know if you guys have anything you want to add to that but go ahead I think an adder is just going to do another question that came through this question is how do you suggest we identify where the kids are on their journey and what are good questions my favorite way of doing this and maybe just because I'm a very visual person but it's also kind of on I don't know I think it just works with everyone no matter where you are on your journey is I ask them to to take a moment close their eyes and think about if you and Jesus were in the room together where like where is Jesus and where are you like physically and so ask them you know think about okay so think about your experience your relationship with Jesus so for God how are we going to do it like where where is he and where is he so and then I give examples so they kind of know what to talk about like are y'all like hand in hand I mean you know you have to choose your audience if you have a mature audience or not or are y'all like looking at the same book are y'all like sitting on this lap and beholding you are you crying on his shoulder are y'all is he like way in the corner over there and you're way in the corner over here and y'all are like way separated and so I just ask them really to think about that and then I have everybody in the group share just where would you say you are with your with with like if you had Juneteenth summer so anyway that's worked out really well and it's really beautiful what some of the people share and it really gives me a blessing to where are they like I remember one time one girl shared that her and Jesus were just like what do you call this forehead forehead to forehead just gazing at each other's eyes and I was like that is just a really cool visual you know I've had other teams that are very honest and they say you know I'm we're like in my back is to him and I'm looking at the wall or I'm trying to get Jesus' attention but he's over there doing something else so you really get passed into that so it's a good way to ask that question to identify where they are on the spiritual journey without I don't know just to create a way to do that so that's a suggestion that I have for that question so you have anyone that I'm just a question that happens my mind when I read your question was I'm having to pick a word to describe how they view God might be helpful to help them know where they are just in their vision of who God is in their life and it might be positive or it might be negative that might be another helpful question to help identify how they see God and therefore will affect the type of relationship they have with him and then also just in terms of prayer like some of them might not even really know what it means to have a prayer time but like how often do you think of God or how often do you talk to him and some might say whatever talk to him or some could say well throughout my day I'll talk to him when things are going on and so those are two other simple questions that could be helpful to help identify Yeah and in that document that I said that I was the link for there are some general questions you know I say one to ten how important is God or your relationship with Jesus to you how often do you pray who do you pray for what does prayer mean to you I mean these are the kind of questions and this is why once again especially if you want to accompany kids on a profound spiritual journey you need to take the time to get to know them to build that relationship to hear their story you know when it comes to small group leading you always tell people to lead small groups you got two years and one month use them in that proportion you know don't be speaking more than you're listening you should be listening a lot more than you're talking as the leader and so to ask the right questions you know you don't want to answer the yes or no but ask those kind of questions that get them thinking and you might even you know for young people who are unfamiliar with being vulnerable or opening up you might even ask them to write the questions down you know and young people you know they go online to these kind of uh there's certain websites where you can type in what you're struggling with and you can do it anonymously and they have no problem knowing that some of these sites are just unpacking their garbage but you know as soon as they feel like they might be found out the loss can come up but these questions are just little probing questions that get them thinking because they might not have ever been asked to consider what is your relationship with God like they might have to come to the conclusion that I don't really have a relationship with God they might come to the conclusion I don't know what a relationship is you know I mean but if we ask the right questions and we give them a place for you hey it doesn't matter how you answer we're here to help you discover more about yourself and I'm on that journey then they're going to they're going to open up and so there's a lot of good questions in that document that I sent you and what Christy said is giving them a little bit of a guided kind of meditation that's not too heavy to think about like Sarah said you know just asking those great the right kind of questions that help them think not with the rational point but more of that feeling side like where are the those those those are good because they're not really in touch with their hearts in a while away so all great suggestions in the document has that in that kind of stuff as well okay a couple of other questions that come on one was I'll just do two that can we can go through real quick we have small books where they can take notes at the conference and the answer is no we don't so if you have people you know if you want to encourage them to bring a journal if they want to take notes but we do not provide like a booklet or anything to take notes in so that's something that if you feel like that would be valuable so let's just know about that and then another question was do you suggest letting kids see all the small group questions or keeping the questions just to be adult my recommendation is keeping this just to be adult leaders because I think and I don't remember John are we doing a small group webinar on small groups yeah we're going to do a whole webinar that's going to have a lot about the small group process in it so yeah we're going to go much much more depth in one two interview April or May so stay tuned you know we'll be sending out the email blasts and you'll get the information of the sign up link so the short the short answer to that question is that I wouldn't recommend getting it to the teams because as a small group leader you're not going to necessarily ask all the questions that are on the sheet you're going to think through what's going to be back to this group you're going to come up with questions on the slide because the Holy Spirit's going to inspire you to ask a certain question you're going to reward the questions to fit it for the group and such so as a small group leader kind of always thinking of like okay how can I do this question back to the group and so it gives you the freedom to do that if you don't give them the list of questions ahead of time so my recommendation is not to do that or did you want to answer some of these other ones or yeah so um there's a question is there a way we can know which breakout would be specific wait I'm sorry is there a way we can know which breakout would be for specific spiritual levels as leaders so you can help the teams choose correctly and so um something that we do is we create a little short video um of the schedule and just briefly going over the flow as well as some of the content for the talks as well as the workshops and so we're actually going to send that link out to you so you can watch that video and it'll give just a brief blur to help you know which ones might be a little bit more depth um versus um not and I can tell you right now what the topics are if you're curious so as I mentioned the life in the Holy Spirit um we're doing another one titled um Love, Same Text Attraction, Love and Same Text Attraction we're doing one on Thursday for Truth which is going to talk about different aspects of the faith almost like apologetics but just really just teaching them about different elements of the Catholic faith and then one on the Christian life um just about discernment hearing God's voice and how to use their talents and gifts for God in this glory so those are the four workshop titles for this year but there's more detail about them in the videos um uh that they'll send you the link there on the chat and if you've never been to a conference before how that works is it's two there's two workshops at um one time so there's two rounds of workshops and there's two options during each round so all of those four they'll get to hear two of them um and choose two of them but again you can hear you know more information on that video I think John just sent out that link so the YouTube video and you'll see it just we go through the entire conference schedule so if you're familiar with what we do um that's a that's a good one for you to check out um there's another question here John I wonder if you could answer this is how do you suggest the body of small groups other than now and she knows yeah yeah um that's a really great question and I want to talk about it you know Kerry also asked the question how do we suggest you know what are some good questions I gave some good questions I was a little touched upon the first part like how do you identify where kids are on their journey you know I mean I think there's there's there's a couple of levels that we find young people in our youth groups at number one is pre-advancalization these are young people who've never really had a chance to respond to the question do you want to make Jesus Christ the word of your life and that question usually spawns out of a personal encounter with Christ so it's hard to commit your own if you don't know if you like try to get you know do a shopping wedding with a woman that you just met or a man you just met it just doesn't work and so for us to to understand there's some kids who need to have that encounter there is just one level then there's people who are in evangelization they're seeking God but maybe they're not quite there but you're evangelizing them they're part of your youth group and the ultimate goal of evangelization is to get them to the point where they understand what it means to give their lives to Christ and then make a a personal and in public proclamation and I've made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life we do this in the context of youth group because this is the community that's going to support your decision this is the community that's going to stand by you to help you live out that commitment and so you might have a lot of young people that maybe they've never had that radical encounter um and maybe the encountering God in the sacraments we all have yet they haven't had that grace activates that they can firmly make that decision to make Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives and then you're going to have other young people who they've already had that encounter they are they've made Jesus Christ the Lord of their life but they really haven't adapted that to an overall comprehensive view of themselves like they might not be areas of a life that are still in sin they might still be struggling with different temptations and doubts and so you know not that those are not a normal part of ongoing conversion but you know they've had this encounter they've accepted Christ but they haven't conformed their life to the gospel yet so you have a lot of kids have been evangelized but need to worry about conforming their life to Christ and that has to be with teaching the high pray how to go to confession how to you know what christian living looks like because a lot of them you know they have this wonderful mountaintop experience they they need to sink those roots deeper and then you have i maybe have two kids in your in your youth group that are like i know what i know what i know and i'm ready to go with the Lord they may still struggle occasionally with sin but they've broken from all the habitual sin in their lives they've made Christ the Lord over everything they're actively praying they're seeking Christ in the sacraments beyond Sunday they're you know they're witnessing to their faith they've reached the level where they're really living as true disciples of Christ and those are four kind of distinguishing points on youth conversion that you can look at and it's always good to know that they may come back and forth you know like a kid who might have a strong relationship with God they might go through a divorce or a situation in life that causes them to slide back and kind of things fall apart for a while and so it's very fluid and you know i'm certainly going to want to put in the box and say well you're in this and that's all you'll ever be you you want to get because knowing where they're at is about making sure you're engaging them with the message where they're at not not to label them or or to keep them confined it's really know how you can best serve them where they're at on their spiritual journey these questions that i said a lot of them will help growth feel that if they you know if if young people can't tell you if they've made Jesus Christ the Lord your life then that's a pretty good indication they have you know i mean it really is a decision that you remember and so as you break up your youth group there's two schools of thought number one guys and girls for sure and and for a number of reasons they need to be in separate groups the issues that guys want to talk about they'll talk about honestly with other guys but they may not talk about it for a women and vice versa it's just it's just a standard rule most people who've been doing youth ministry know this rule what gets more tricky is do you take the younger kids who are all younger in your spiritual journey put them in small groups and then take the kids who might be more advanced and put them so they can talk about more advanced issues because then you can focus on conversations that help them meet them where they are and invite in the same with the kids who may be younger in a faith there's another school of thought that says hey put some of these older kids in there to work with the younger kids to bring them up you know they can witness they can share they can role modeling kind of be big brothers and sisters in the world I personally think there's other opportunities for that kind of mentoring to happen in a youth group environment and would recommend although you're very free to disagree with me keeping your more advanced together and you're younger because really you know the community you can create amongst these guys coming up you know and sharing this faith and engaging them as a group and talking about those issues can be very key and it would be very different than how you taught in a small group of young people who have maybe made Jesus Christ lower than life and are more advanced in their faith now there's definitely a need to to get these groups mixing on other levels within different environments within youth ministry but I think because of the spiritual nature and you know the the small windows of time that we have on conferences to make things happen it would you'd be better serve serving kids where they're at and leading them where they're at rather than trying to create you know across across you know these boundaries or these these different levels I should say and that's like when I throw that out only has an opinion and I know some people might disagree that's fine it's just my personal so uh so that happens uh real quick a future talk about adoration yes one of our webinars coming up will specifically deal with the unique and powerful spiritual manifestations that you see at a student conference and how to pass them including being slam the spirit crying laughter and and and really what should be the response because I think that's absolutely essential for us to to make sure that that that experience is the best for the young people so that will definitely be a topic that we're going to be discussing in one of our future somebody asked me to repeat my statement about being preserved from sin and this is a book that I I read it was really profound and talked about the mercy of God not just coming to us after we sin but because mercy is God's unmerited favor his unmerited grace it is possible for God to pour mercy out on us before we have the opportunity to sin in order to preserve us from that sin it's not a radical crazy thought it's a realistic and and honest spiritual movement that God chooses he preserved a lot of sins and grace and those saints that were preserved in grace I think for someone like Maximilian Colby as a young child was blessed visited by the Virgin Mary and offered him a martyr's crown or a crown of glory and he wanted a bow he said I'll take a bow you know we see what happened in his life where do you have something like St. John Paul the Great who his mother died when he was young and right after his mother died his only sibling died he came home when he was 20 but his father down on the floor all these tragedies happened to him and yet he had such profound faith and you have stories of saints and a gust who was living in sin and then you have St. Jerusalem as a little child you know all these different saints come from all over the place and God leads us where we are and I really believe it that some of the saints and he still does this today as he senses mercy it precedes us we haven't earned it we don't deserve it but it precedes us because it's his good pleasure to keep some people from falling instead because of the particular location or life of the calling too so what else guys um John maybe if you have a question that you could we could brainstorm but as a person so that's about that because it's a common question I have about 15 kids attending I'm not sure if one of my chaperones had his quote confirmed their life to the gospel and I'm not sure if they're prepared to lead a small group so how do I handle that so when you have small groups when you have the chaperones that are coming that maybe aren't walking in their faith to the way that you would want them to be in order to lead a small group or maybe you don't feel supposed to lead a small group um John what would you say John sure um in the last ministry job I had I showed up at this parish where you know there's there's two things that you can do you can you can start a youth group and you can get the people that you that God has sent you that are awesome or you can work with the people that God sends you who are just who they are and part of what I see is the responsibility of the group leaders to work with the adults that they're bringing I always said to them as we started this youth ministry process and they said I want to come on I want to help a youth group and I started asking them about their faith and and yes okay I'm not doing this or yes I'm doing this and and I wanted to say you know what I said to them is if you want to be affected with working with young people uh you know you you need to be letting that be the overflow of what God is doing in your life so you don't have to be perfect but you have to be letting God work in your life every day and so maybe you have a a chateau and this is even a more unique situation because maybe they're only going to be helping you for this weekend maybe they're not an ongoing court team member maybe they are but if they're only helping for that week and then you just really need to sit down with them and say uh we're going to pair you up you know here's here's one of the ideas pair them up with one of your teens that may be more advanced in their faith who could kind of help co-lead the small group because if this guy can't witness to the faith you know then maybe one of the teens could help out doing that but the adult chaperone if he's being authentic and letting the God this here this heart is open to God and God is working to him when he speaks and when he reads God will use that we God doesn't call the equip you know he equips the calls and and so he will use the chaperone and I think you know one of the things I was very clear with is if you are if you're a moral symbol you need to go to confession and if you will not you don't have to be perfect but if you don't see the need for yourself to rid your life of those things that separate you from God then we're not going to be able to to lead kids anywhere because we can't leave them unless we're adding them there that's our there ourselves now once again you know do you want to sit down and ask this volunteer if you know 20 questions about their lifestyle no I think you need to just say we would really hope that the way we're living our life is a life that's in pursuit of God and I'll tell you what those group leaders and chaperones that I brought to conferences with me had just a profound conversion as the teens there so I think maybe what you could do is to be praying that the chaperone really jumps into this process and has his own conversion as well if they don't feel they're prepared to lead a smoke you can help them get prepared we're going to do this whole webinar we're going to be more expanded on some more basic technical and advanced ways of leading a smaller group that are that have proven time and time again to be helpful so yeah I would recommend that you get them on that with us and have them be a part of that because you know it will really help them know what their role is at the conference so I hope that helps I mean I know that we we don't want to take a risk if somebody has like an axe to grind with God it doesn't believe the gospel and is you know speaking against teachings of the church they're going to undermine your ability to reach these kids you don't really you can't have someone on your team like that but if they're of good will seeking award maybe they're not completely the most perfect disciple if they're trying and they can be authentic with the teams and love them and be open to the experience with the teams I believe that they can be effective on another question I think was do we have any unique and fun ideas for community builders on on the road trip like things you can do on the road trip well first I'll say there's lots and lots and lots of good books and sites out there that have great ice riggers and fun you know ideas for that so if you do just quick search on mine you'll find some pretty some pretty solid things maybe this is something we can add on some of the webinar jobs like a few ideas that are a little bit more tried and true in the future but there's lots and lots of resources out there in regards to ideas you can do for the sites and things and though I know we have both here in the office called ice riggers volume one volume two or something like that so again there's lots of good stuff out there in regards to that is the best to keep close friends together in a small group or separate them um yeah and share you also had the other question we'll get to both of them I had like once again I think it really just is your personal preference I don't know if it's better because like I've seen some guys if they're the if it's the kind of relationship where it's iron sharp sharpens iron and these guys already have it in their relationship that they help each other get closer to God then I would say keep them together if they're like oil and gasoline in the match when you put together you get this explosive combination of distraction and noise and goofiness and you know sometimes you just have those kind of personalities between friends then I would separate them if they can't work to help you you know if your mission is to develop deeper community to create an environment of trust and sometimes these relationships can be can work against that but if they're if they're good together you know and they really have they hold one another accountable and they've already been on a spiritual journey there's really not a problem with that live view and once again you need to know your team's well enough to to make that judgment you know to the best of your ability we like to mix it up like if you have three people who say they want to be together or four people like hey we all want to be a small group we would usually say that like well we'll put two of you in this one probably two of you so no one's alone yet you don't create a clique you know two friends together okay is once you put four people who are kind of clicky that could undermine a small group as well you don't want three people sitting over there saying well these four people over here having this great conversation weren't we're left out you know you you really want it to be more creative with it even playing field to the best of your ability and then you ask how to get a man who admits he has no belief doesn't even know if he believes in God he attends youth group weekly how and where do I begin to introduce Jesus there first thing just affirm him why would somebody who doesn't believe in God keep coming to youth group and I think that's also maybe an affirmation of what you're doing he may not believe that there's a God or we can miss totally but there's something about what you're doing that's drawing this young man and that's a beautiful thing you are working with you're on the cutting edge of where I think youth ministry should be not just preaching to the converted but working with young people who are struggling but those who feel they have no faith would feel they were welcome in the long and I would say that's where you start sometimes the greatest obstacle to people's hearts is their head you know other times the greatest obstacle for them to be able to say I believe in God up here is something happening in their hearts you know there's a lot of people who know Christ as a concept as an idea that they really want to uh cling to but they you know the journey from the head of the heart is not helpful other people their hearts are aching for the Lord but there's something in their mind I just can't believe that that seems too ridiculous that needs to be overcome but whatever you do whatever you're in this situation show when you're witnessing the gospel to them you're it just being Jesus all right that's the way you're going to help over help him overcome whatever obstacle is inside and you know I would also you know just in that help him to understand what is his obstacle you know what makes it hard for him to believe because if he knows what it is and you know what it is then you can both like be praying for it you know and your belief is something that we have to be able to willingly step into but if we're chained or restricted you may not feel free to even enter into that so I hope that helps you guys anything you want to add to that there was one other question that I think we can answer it says in the past about three years ago you all had a four week session prep brief ministers together no over with teens will you be sending anything like this to us this year I think if you're referring to the series of videos that I created where it was like how to do that stuff you know we are going to have those available but we're updating them so yeah we're going to have videos on our website we need to sign off here in four minutes I just looked at the clock so I want to be faithful to let everyone get get back including Sarah and I know Christy wants to get home to her her baby her husband hubby so you know and I need to go home to my wife and kids too so what I would recommend is just keep looking at student bill fuel we have a section and this has been a work in progress we launched this fall and we've been launching it kind of in ways and the next way we're really going to be tackling is creating resources for you guys like I said the most important ministry that happens at a student bill conference is is brought about by people like yourselves and so we want to walk with you as youth ministers before the conference during the conference and after the conference so there will be uh we will uh you talk about that I saw your notes here you're good um there will be stuff for you guys up on the fuel site so that you can download this this link that I just sent you for the uh the small reflections I'll transform that into a PDF and put that up there downloadable from the group leaders and in chapter you know youth ministers and in chaperone sites so it's going to be stuff like bible studies that we're going to be preparing to get kids ready for the conference that will be ready in April so you can have a couple sessions in April maybe a couple in May to get ready with your teens as well as getting your courting ready last year we had this fruit to the holy spirit kind of thing after the conference we're going to do more stuff like that bible studies we did are um at the disciple engagement where we have 30 videos for young people to watch to learn how to become uh better disciples we're going to create more resources like that and give them to you to use with them we just have uploaded the judgmental moose nest j you what you're wondering what's judgmental moose nest j just go to student will feel you'll find it there in the next couple days it's great stuff for you to uh to look at and we're going to be creating a webinar page where you're going to be able to find all these webinars and as well as links to sign up for future webinars so somebody asked about you know when what are the future dates we'll we'll have those ready for you the next email so you can be marking your calendar well in advance so you're looking for an email in the next week or so which will kind of nail this down for you so before we wrap up the close of the prayer i wanted to give um sarah an opportunity to talk about what i think is one of the best things that we do and christy have made it just an amazing uh program so takeaways here okay so before all of our youth conferences we have a program called francis can lead if you haven't heard about it it's a week long uh discipleship leadership week for changing your youth group that are ready to take that next step deeper and kind of ties into a lot of the things we shared about on this webinar we first focus on their relationship with christ and bringing them deeper into prayer and then giving them tools to be leaders in their youth group to we teach them how to share witness we teach you about servant leadership and humility and on friday at the end of the week they would rejoin your youth group coming for the conference weekend and we really encourage them to serve and just be present to all of those coming to share their witness to serve you as a group leader in any way possibly co-lead a small group if that's a desire that you have for them um so it's a beautiful opportunity for them to grow deeper in faith but also for you and your youth group so there's a lot of information on our website so if you go to our website um there's a tab at the top lead uh that you can click on it's an online application process and so there's a lot of details on the website as well and if you have any questions you can email us at franciscan lead at franciscan.edu all right thank you thank you one minute or less what's that i said there you have it in one minute or less thank you sarah and thank you all for being a part of this once again you'll find this um this webinar uh posted on our stewville field site on the group leader section in a few days um in the meantime go and check out all the resources we have for you there there's gonna be more stuff for group leaders coming up in the next month or so like i said prep resources for your teams for you for your core team for your uh for everybody and we're really excited about bringing those to you we're excited about being able to serve you this summer at one of our conferences like we said you guys are amazing you're why we do what we do and a big part of that we're we do with great joy because you know it's our honor and our privilege to be able to serve you in this way so until next time if you have any other questions you know my email address is um was sent out with all of the uh with all the invitations to the to the webinar so if you have any other questions or ideas or comments or concerns that you didn't get to express on this that you want to send to me especially ideas for resources or future webinars feel free to shoot me an email uh we're really busy in the office this time as you as you can imagine but i will take the time as soon as i have a free moment to answer your emails in any way possible and uh you know once again thank you um sarah would you mind closing us in a prayer for jenna's father holy spirit amen we're glad we just asked you to brought a holy spirit upon us and every single youth that will be coming to our conferences this summer i pray that you might already be preparing their hearts for the work that you want to do in them that weekend i pray special blessings upon all of our group leaders and chaperones that you would bless them abundantly and then give them the graces they need to serve you and i pray that we may glorify you lord and everything that we do amen amen all right everybody have a blessed week have a blessed land we'll see you this summer