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2025 Leaders Gathering Breakout: How we build our weekly Elevate experience and why we created the “Super Series” strategy.
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REFERENCED IN NOTES
ELEVATE YEARLY SERVICE STRATEGY
ADDITIONAL LINKS
BREAKOUT Q&A SUBMISSIONS
CONTENT
| How do you come up with and create content? |
One of our best rhythms each year is an "offsite" retreat for our staff in the Fall semester to plan ahead for the upcoming year. Prior to this retreat, we will have ideas for the upcoming year but then finalize many of them at this retreat.
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DISCIPLESHIP & DEVELOPMENT
| Is there a discipleship growth track for student leaders? |
We encourage students in a few ways to grow in leadership and in their faith. One way we accomplish this is by getting high school students to be a part of a small group. Our high school small groups are school based and lead by volunteers in their homes. Middle school students are directed to attend Six78 (our middle school environment) during the weekend services for their small group time. Another way we guide students is to join a serve team. Whether at Elevate or on the weekends, students that serve are exposed to leadership skills and spiritual family. Our summer leadership program (NGSL) for high school students is the best way for students to grow in their relationship with God, be developed as a leader, and build meaningful relationships. |
| What are ways that students can build ownership within their youth ministry that is sustainable and not temporary? |
Having the right structures in place is essential! For example, some of the ways we foster ownership is through established teams and roles.
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| What does your student leadership process look like? Requirements, resources, acceptance into the program, etc… |
NGSL (Next Gen Summer Leadership) occurs each summer for 9 weeks. This program is for students 10th-12th grade. Students apply from February until applications close in later April. Phone interviews are conducted after the application deadline. After all phone interviews are completed, as a team, we sit down and review each applicant. Decisions are made at that point based on who has a potential call to ministry. After decisions are made, we contact each applicant to let them know if they have been selected for the program. NGSL officially begins the first week in June. We meet every Tuesday from 10-5 and Wednesdays from 12:30-9 or until Elevate is finished and cleaned up. Students are also expected to serve for one service each Sunday and attend another. Each day consists of worship, prayer, devotional time, small group, track time, group bonding/game, and a teaching by one of our Pastors. For the devotional, time we use the Foundations book with a Bible reading. Track time is used to train, learn, and receive feedback in specific areas within the church. Students stay in the same track throughout the summer. The tracks we offer are worship, youth, kids, and production. Students are expected and asked to clear any schedule conflicts to participate and be engaged in NGSL throughout the summer. |
| How do you build a strong student team? | Simply by calling them up to how we see them and what we see in them. We give our students responsibility and help them succeed by checking in with them frequently and providing authentic feedback. When students feel utilized and valued they will rise up to the task! |
| How do I be an effective youth ministry volunteer and disciple students when I am kind of scared of them and find it hard to connect? | Don't feel intimidated! Students are willing to open and connect with volunteers even when the volunteer inadequate to connect on some level. Students aren't as scary as they seem! Ask them questions that you would like to be asked. Find their hobbies and ask about them. Don't pretend to know everything. If they bring up something that you don't know about, ask for clarification. Students are looking for authenticity, not the coolest person to talk to. The same goes for feedback. If a student needs to be corrected they will receive it when it is authentic and brought to them respectfully. |
| How do you build a team of core students? |
There can be various ways to do it! The way we do it is not the only way. In generally, we want to create a culture that is student-led ministry. Students and leading students to Jesus, the focus is not on the preacher or the adult making it happen. We want them to always feel ownership.
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| What does your program look like for student who volunteer? How do you disciple the kids who serve on a large scale. |
This is an area where we are growing and learning. Students are encouraged to serve whether at Elevate or during a weekend service. We have many different serving opportunities on the weekends from kids, greeters, parking, worship etc. We also have serving opportunities for Elevate. We have student leaders who communicate with their student teams and help them to find their serving locations. While our student leaders help with a lot of the serving process, our adult volunteers are also there to facilitate serving teams. Outside of serving we encourage all students to be engaged in a small group. For high school this is our school based small groups on Sunday nights with volunteers in host homes. Middle school students attend Six78 on the weekends during one of the service times. Both of these environments offer discipleship between adult volunteers and peers from the same schools. |
| What is your summer student leader internship schedule? |
Our general schedule is Tuesday 10am-5pm, Wednesday 12:30-9pm, and serving Sunday mornings.
Those tracks also dictate where they serve on Wednesdays and Sundays. They have time in their tracks for practical training and sessions, as well as time to work on and plan out their assignments for serving that week. |
HEALTHY LEADERSHIP
| How do you make sure you don’t lose your own children and put your family before ministry? Do you try to protect yourself from burnout or do you pour yourself all out and not worry about it? |
We believe this has so much to do with proper rhythms & rest! Prioritizing the sabbath is a mandate, not a suggestion. |
| How to make sure your students know you’re available as a leader, mentor, and friend? What should I do to communicate that in my actions and words? | Be authentic, genuine, and available! |
| As lead youth pastor… what’s that look like? What’s your role? How much do you teach/ interact directly with youth vs manage lead leaders? | The role has grown as our church has grown. No matter how much our church grows, I continue to be a "player / coach." Is it time with staff and leaders? Or with students? Both! You need both to keep you grounded and honest. As the leader, you have a stewardship of your time and investment, so you must be intentional who gets the best of you. Outside of my family, I want to give my best people energy to my staff team and a handful of our key students and adult leaders. Despite that, we never graduate from being available and taking the time to talk with any student or parent or leader. |
MARKING MOMENTS
| Do you take your students to camp or conferences? If so, which ones? Is there a lot of free time? We experienced teens trying to sneak off with the opposite sex during free time, how do you handle/avoid this? | We prioritize the camp experience. We're pretty old school! Go to a campground, take away your phone for the week, sleep in cabins with your small group, do quiet time in the mornings, etc. Free time sneaking away is definitely one of the bigger battles in a camp! Leaders staying engaged with their students is essential. "Free time" should be for the students, not free time for the leaders. Meaning, leaders still are with their students at all times. Groups are free to do whichever activities are available, but they are not free to go wherever they like without their leaders. Groups stay together, or can split half and half with one leader each. |
SERVE TEAM
| Do you have resources for your volunteer training, orientation, and handbook? | Here is our Elevate Leader Handbook site. We send it to each volunteer before they serve for the first time and then again after their first serve, with instructions to watch the training videos. |
| Do you do leader training refreshers? What does that look like? | We have an annual leader training for all volunteers that serve in Student Ministry. During this training we celebrate, honor, and serve the volunteers that serve our students each week. This is also a time that we equip and refresh leaders with practicals such as leading a student to Christ, what to do when students share harms, and safety practicals for our environments. We meet during a week night evening from 6:30-8:30 have some time of celebrations, videos from students saying "thank you," informative sessions, and dinner. |
| Do you do take breaks for your small group leaders? Why do you or do you not? What’s the strategy for sustaining strong leaders? |
Our high school small groups occur twice a year (fall and spring). Small group leaders have the option to continue serving if they choose. When choosing leaders, we look for people who are passionate about discipling the next generation. We always have at least 4 adults designated for each high school small group. One "seasoned" couple and a pair of young adults or young married couple. There is no secret sauce for sustaining leaders. We focus on maintaining relationships and valuing each volunteer. When they feel like they are a part of a family and making a difference, they tend to stay. We make it more than a check box for serving. |
| When building a greeter team, do I recruit the greeters or the team leaders first? | We recommend recruiting the team leader first! You want your team leader to have buy-in on the people on their team, and let them be a part of the recruiting process as well. |
| What does your follow-up process look like? | Volunteers attend a "first serve" before they are added to any serving team. During the first serve, they have a host to answer any questions throughout the night. The first serve process allows the volunteer to decide whether or not serving in Student Ministry is a good fit for them. After a volunteer attends the first serve, we send a follow-up email the next day to ask if they have any questions, if they would like to join the team they tried out, if they would like to try a different team, or if they would like to be connected to a different serve team within the church. We have seen that allowing the volunteer time to process and think about their first serve helps them to decide without feeling obligated to join a team or ghost us without ever hearing back from them. Once we hear back we proceed according to their decision. |
| How do you get YA/Adult volunteers to commit? | We have seen it is not about getting all the volunteers that we can find to serve in student ministry rather than finding the right volunteers. The longevity of the volunteer is directly tied to their heart and desire for the next generation. We are not perfect in our processes and we have volunteers that come and serve and leave a couple of weeks later. We also have volunteers that have served with us for years and will continue to serve. It is all about how we steward them and their heart for wanting to serve students. |
| What pointers or advice do you have for volunteers MC’ing in student ministry? | They all need reps and coaching! It's our job to set them up for success. This involves getting them their direction and info more than just a day before. We aim to get clear direction to all our Hosts/MCs six days in advance, so they have plenty of time to think on it and practice. They show up early and run through it in person, get coaching, and then receive positive and constrictive feedback after as well. Preparation and feedback are your friend! |
| What does going “all-in” look like for a new or first-time volunteer in youth ministry? What does it take? | Volunteers that come for the first time are taken through a first serve process. During their first serve they are placed with a host who stays with them the whole night to ensure that every question they have is answered. After the first serve process, we send an email the next day giving the volunteer the time to think about if serving with students is a good fit for them. The volunteers that choose to continue serving with us are added to a serving team. On that team, they are welcomed as family and included from start to finish in a huddle, group text, and prayer. What we often see is that once a volunteer feels needed and a part of something they are in it for the long haul. We do not have attendance requirements for serving but we see that our volunteers that feel needed and seen are the ones that return week after week. |
| What does you leader training look like? | We host a once a year leader training for all volunteers serving in student ministry. During this training we celebrate, honor, and serve the volunteers that serve our students each week. This is also a time that we equip and refresh leaders with practicals such as leading a student to Christ, what to do when students share harms, and safety practicals for our environments. We meet during a week night evening from 6:30-8:30 have some time of celebrations, videos from students saying "thank you," informative sessions, and dinner. We also have training videos on our Elevate Volunteer website that we ask all new volunteers to watch before being placed on a team. |
SMALL GROUPS
| What is your format/system for small groups? Or creating life changing relationships? |
We gather with middle schoolers in groups every weekend during our Six78 class. This meets during weekend services and consists of games, a teaching, and small groups.
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| What are some resources, tips, for Jr high small groups? (Bible study, discipleship) | We encourage to start lighthearted / fun to just get them comfortable and talking (asking questions about things they're interested in). Then bring them to 10-15 minutes of good discussion and pray. |
SUPER SERIES
| What are your favorite "Becauses"? Which have you seen be most effective? | This has changed for us over the years! We used to do a lot more giveaways and more extravagant things, and we don't do much of that at all. We still maintain doing free shirts for all first time guests and the friend that brought that. Consistently, a well designed t shirt that your students think is cool can be a great tool (and great marketing afterwards). Besides that, great food can be a big help too! |
| Where can we get the super series and your playbook? | Here is the Super Series Strategy Document |
| Could you share your verbiage on how you do the salvation on Super Series? | You have to be super clear! Here is our typical close to a message at Super Series...
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WEEKLY SERVICE
| What is your Guest Experience process and how do you get First Time Guests to come back and take next steps? | First time guests check-in and will out our first time guest form to get their info. If they came by themselves and don't have a friend there, we introduce them to a student on our Connections team who is trained to host them and introduce them to others. We also have a "Plan Your Visit" form on our website where parent's can plan their student's visit in advance. In this case, one of our leaders gets their info and is texting them beforehand, meeting up with them as they approach the building, and walk them through the whole first time guest process. |
| How is a typical Wednesday night service structured? Do you have multiple service structures you rotate? |
6pm -- Volunteers Arrive
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| Throughout years of believing for more students to come and find God, how were you able to remain in a posture of humility when the youth group did start to grow? | Meditating on John 15 helps me a lot!!! Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. Apart from Jesus, I CAN DO NOTHING! - Jesse |
| How do you create an environment that welcomes everyone while trying to be a place that seems “cool” for students to invite their friends. | Our goal is not to be most "cool" place for students. They can get "cool" a lot of different places. What they can't get everywhere is a place where are seen, valued, loved, listened to, and that is genuine and authentic. That's way more our goal than just cool! We still do want it to be a fun environment, and one that students want to invite their friends to. One of the best things to do is consistently ask groups of students questions like: "Why do you like coming to Elevate? What keeps you coming back? What about what we do makes you nervous to invite a friend to church? What could we do to make it easier for you to reach one of your friends and bring them to church?" |
| Do you think successful youth ministry requires group/gatherings every week? | There are so many different churches that have different strategies and still effectively reach young people. That said, we are big believers in weekly gatherings and do believe it is part of the strategy for effectiveness. |
| How do you engage/interact with a youth group smaller than 10 students? How do you work around that dynamic? | Think about it like leading a small group! Big focus on relationship. You don't need to preach a message. Think about it like if you were hosting a group of people at your house. Have some food, hang out together / play some games, and then gather together to read the Bible, talk through it, and pray. |