00:00:00:08 - 00:00:45:01 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Are you looking for and longing for? Youth ministry, leader development that is not dependent upon a leader's attendance to an individual meeting. You know, I even once heard Kurt Johnston, the, famous, like, youth ministry guru from Southern California. He said, you know, your trainings aren't as good as you think. And that was a gut punch, man. Do you want to be in a position where you've communicated to your leaders everything you could possibly ever think that you need to, and still be struggling to find more things to say at your next leader meeting? 00:00:45:02 - 00:01:09:18 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Well, let me tell you how I, as we are rounding out the final episode of this mini series that we've been doing, how I in an individual solo pod, how I produce a weekly leader podcast, and all of the things that I just teased are true of what we have going on in our student ministry and on our weekly leader podcast. 00:01:09:18 - 00:01:34:08 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And as always, there are chapters listed down below in a podcast catch or here on YouTube. Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show and the completion of our little mini series, how I. And in this episode, we will talk about how I produce a weekly leader podcast, which is a small sliver to a bigger leader culture strategy. 00:01:34:08 - 00:01:54:25 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And if you want, like all there is to know about youth ministry volunteers, youth ministry leaders, recruiting, retaining all of that, you need to check out the episode that I just most recently dropped with my boss and friend, Erin Sutton, linked right here at the top of the screen. You can go check that out, but this is a small segment of what we do to help create the leader culture that we want. 00:01:54:25 - 00:02:23:29 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry With our leaders. And so why a podcast? So let me just back up real quick philosophically and say this. Like, why are we determined and decided that we wanted a leader podcast was we had a monthly leader meeting in our context, and there felt to be so much pressure on that one meeting, for example, like at the August leader meeting or, you know, September leader meeting, we would be like, we need to make sure that we hit all of these onboarding things. 00:02:23:29 - 00:02:47:18 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We need to make sure that our leaders know about all of these resources that we have to offer. We need to like, make sure, make sure, make sure, make sure like give me a like or a subscribe. If you've ever been in a position like that where you just feel like there's so much pressure on your one time once a year, or maybe twice a year gathering of sorts, and then, you know, if you're doing anything which you should, by the way, lean into the download Youth Ministry, National Day of Volunteer Training. 00:02:47:23 - 00:03:09:08 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Like those those pieces of content and those like events are fantastic momentum builders for you and your team. We're a part of it. We're a customer, so you should check it out. Getting zero kickback from promoting it, but link down below if you're interested in the National Day information. But like if you do those things, you also feel the pressure at those leader meetings like, oh, I got them all together. 00:03:09:08 - 00:03:32:28 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry I got them all in the room. I gotta make sure I cover all the things that I need to cover. And because of that tension that we felt and we were experiencing, finally I proposed and pitched this idea to my bosses like, let's what if we came up with a weekly leader podcast and I was on an episode, of another podcast, the next Gen coaching Podcast with, Ryan Manning? 00:03:32:29 - 00:03:52:17 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry I'll link that episode down below. And I told him we had a weekly leader podcast and that it's video based, and he was like weekly, And you could tell his wheels are turning because he had a podcast, but it wasn't weekly. And the reason that I push so hard for weekly. And before you turn this off, like, remember the chapters down below if you wanna skip this part. 00:03:52:23 - 00:04:14:00 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry But the reason I push so hard for weekly is because that is your best chance to actually create a little bit of momentum and actually get your leaders to begin adopting the rhythm and the practice, if they can expect it weekly. Now, what we as churches often default into is we don't think we have the ability to produce it weekly because let's be honest, we're producing a lot of other things weekly. 00:04:14:00 - 00:04:29:20 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We've got a weekly program and a weekly sermon and a weekly worship service, like all those things. And so we're like, let's not let's start with what we know we can achieve. Not a bad strategy, but let me tell you how we do it and how we can achieve it with only one hour per month worth of work. 00:04:29:20 - 00:05:01:13 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Okay, so, I went in for the weekly, push and we wanted to make the podcast less than 15 minute weekly commitment for our leaders, and we wanted them to hit it. You know, we drop it every single Monday morning. They can consume it whenever they choose to, but the idea is if they are like avid listeners or they're listening regularly, they're getting it on their, you know, first 15 minutes on their way to work Monday morning, it drops super duper early, like 5:00 in the morning. 00:05:01:15 - 00:05:20:16 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So hopefully that catches any leader on their commute. You know, we live in the DFW area, so a fair bit of our leaders commute pretty far. And so we wanted them to be able to catch it in their car on their way to work. All right. And within that, within us doing it weekly, we were able to hit because of the frequency. 00:05:20:16 - 00:05:43:17 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We're able to hit so many different training topics, and we're able to cover so much more ground on the information or the communication or the announcement side of what we wanted our leaders to get with just simply choosing to do it weekly. And by doing that, it also has had some other side benefits, such as help reinforce and build the culture that we want within our youth ministry. 00:05:43:20 - 00:06:04:22 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry It's brought our group chat to life because there's a weekly piece of content being delivered directly to them that they interact with, and then they'll make fun of us and throw jokes and memes and all the things that serve to build and reinforce our leader culture. So that's the why. That's why we chose philosophically. Those were our goals, those were our desires with it. 00:06:04:24 - 00:06:22:27 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And so because of that, if you're interested, if you're like, yeah, I got it, I'm in I my trainings aren't as good as I think they are. Thanks Kurt Johnston for that. But I want to offer some, some ongoing kind of training for my leaders on the go as you go. How do you do that? How do you do it in less than 15 minutes? 00:06:22:27 - 00:06:41:04 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry How do you do it in less than one hour per month? Let me tell you how. Let's happen. You ready to start a podcast? You need to determine a podcast host. And here, just down below, there's going to be links to all of these and a list of them. And then I'm going to tell you what we use in our context. 00:06:41:04 - 00:07:08:02 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So you need to choose some sort of podcast host that's going to have some sort of monthly fee associated with it. Less than $20, $20 is probably the absolute cap. But you could look into, service like Libsyn, Podbean, Buzzsprout, Spreaker Simple cast blueberry transistor casters captivate rss.com, Spotify, a gas megaphone, paddle matic and SoundCloud. I don't use any of those. 00:07:08:04 - 00:07:34:26 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Well, we actually use is we use nucleus. And if you've been listening to any of my, things on communication, nucleus is our website builder. And nucleus has a built in podcast catcher and RSS feed creator. And now if you are using nucleus for your wider church podcast, they only give you one. So if you're already using your utilizing some sort of podcast RSS feed, then you're going to need to go and get another one. 00:07:34:28 - 00:07:58:28 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And nucleus doesn't offer the ability to have a second, podcast or a second RSS feed. However, if you are in a bigger church and they do have some sort of like podcast hosting thing, just think for like your past their sermons and let's say they're using something like a Libsyn go talk to your communications director or explore what, account features are available to you, and see if you can add on a second podcast on your podcast hosting feed. 00:07:59:03 - 00:08:20:02 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry What you need from your podcast hosting feed is what's called the RSS feed. The RSS feed is how podcasts are distributed to their catchers. And so there's essentially three main podcasts, services out there. There's YouTube, which is honestly not very good, but YouTube is kind of taking over the world. So I'm just not I'm not ignoring it right now. 00:08:20:02 - 00:08:47:12 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So you can use YouTube's RSS feed, but you're going to need to get that unique RSS feed from your podcast host. There's also Spotify, and then there's also Apple Podcasts. And those are really it. Now you might be thinking there's other podcast catchers out there like I used for something called Castbox. And yes, I do. However, Castbox uses the Apple RSS feed and converts it over so I can get it on an Android phone because I don't have access to the Apple Podcast catcher. 00:08:47:12 - 00:09:09:21 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So like I said, the main ones Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Okay, and so you're also going to need to create a show, create a podcast in those individual things, and then you're going to need to take your RSS feed from your host and import it into those things your Apple Podcasts, your Spotify, your YouTube. Now listen, you will hate your life the day that you choose to do that. 00:09:09:21 - 00:09:31:02 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry You will hate your life. You're going to need emails and you're going to need two factor authentication. You're going to need phone numbers. Let me just give you a quick tidbit on that. Create something that is not dependent upon you. Don't use your personal email. Don't use your personal phone. If you need to set up like a Google Voice number that you can receive text messages from. 00:09:31:02 - 00:09:54:00 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry For the codes for your new Apple podcast, sign on things and off you go. All right. And then save those in a spreadsheet because heaven forbid, I know you're not thinking about leaving your church anytime soon, but one day you might. And you don't want those codes coming to your personal cell phone because the fact is, you're not going to need to log into these things are much of a regular basis. 00:09:54:00 - 00:10:12:14 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry You need to get them started, kind of set it and forget it. But when you're setting it, just make sure you set it up in such a way that it can live beyond your tenure at your church. That's small hack. You'll thank me later. And then once you get those things set up, you're ready to get going. You're ready to make it happen. 00:10:12:14 - 00:10:31:21 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Now, if you want to do some sort of ramp up launch, I have, in just second chapter down below how to launch it. Well, and how we did it and how we got the word out and all those things you are going to need a show to be on your RSS feed. You are going to need some sort of show to to kind of trigger the beginning of your thing. 00:10:31:21 - 00:10:52:23 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So consider a trailer, consider some sort of like, teaser of sorts. You know, we I have my boss shoot like a selfie style video less than 60s. And that was our very first episode. But then we use that kind of as promo. And I also got the feeds for Spotify, for Apple Podcasts, and for YouTube kind of started so that we could start pointing people to those things. 00:10:52:29 - 00:11:13:22 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry They could start subscribing and they could start bookmarking and all those things on their devices. All right. Now, what about gear? Well, you're in luck. I have, a blog and, former episode on my podcast listed down below in the show notes hybrid ministry that xyzzy slash articles slash studio. And in that you're going to want to scroll to the podcast Mike section. 00:11:13:24 - 00:11:41:02 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And those are the microphones that we use. We also use videos so you can see the the camera that we use there on that same blog. Or you can set up a cell phone camera, which, by the way, full disclosure. So what I'm using right now here on this episode, and you can set up, a camera if you do want to have video, we use, so we do use the YouTube RSS feed, like I said, but I also post individually in its own YouTube playlist, our videos. 00:11:41:06 - 00:12:00:18 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So our leaders have the option for audio. They also have the option for video. And there are some things that are fun for them to see on on video. Like one time every episode, me and my friend Darren, we cheers like 3 to 1 cheers. And then one one week we did like, we were like, let's break these mugs. 00:12:00:18 - 00:12:14:16 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So we went cheers. Because they're almost always empty. Because we act like it's the morning. But we often film like in the afternoon or whatever. And so they're almost always empty. And so we'll like clink real hard and like, you can tell there's no coffee. And, you know, we'll joke about how there's no coffee and then we're faking it or whatever, all the things. 00:12:14:19 - 00:12:29:11 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry But the last time we crashed the mugs together, and then we'll just say something like, if you're not watching, you're definitely going to want to go back and watch that one, right? And so if you want a camera, get a camera. If you want the podcast mix, just check those links out down below and we'll get you taken care of for that. 00:12:29:13 - 00:12:47:01 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry All right. So what about the format. What do we do on our show? Like I said, our goal is 15 minutes or less. Honestly, we almost always, go ten or less. And so part of the way that we're able to do it is we don't sit down. We don't do a new half long form podcast, no Shade to carry. 00:12:47:01 - 00:13:09:02 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry He's the goat at what he does. But we our goal is 10 or 15 minutes or less with a nugget of training. Okay. And so here is our, format. So when we sit down to record, we batch record, we record for at a time essentially a month's worth of podcasts, and we sort of create little mini series within those four months. 00:13:09:05 - 00:13:29:25 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Here's the thing. You're a youth pastor, you're in on church communications. You are good at creating series. So create a series of training topics. Let me just give you a few of the ones that we've done in our context. So we've done a podcast called The Secret Stuff, like the Secret Sauce to having a great youth ministry small group. 00:13:29:25 - 00:13:47:16 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And there's like, you know, your quiet time and your prayer life and those types of things. We also did a let's envision a students experience from the parking lot to the front door to in our main room to in a small group. And so those are all four different little episodes, right? They all kind of build off each other. 00:13:47:21 - 00:14:05:21 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We did this little series on why certain stuff matters. So we do yearly debriefs with all of our leaders. So why debriefs matter? Why fun matters like camps or retreats matter. Why group covenants matter? This was sort of during the holidays. We did a bunch of one offs like five tips for caring for Hurting Teens. The ten Minute Rule Ministry. 00:14:05:21 - 00:14:30:27 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry During the holidays, we did a little four part series on on Generation Alpha and what makes them different. We talked about, some like group tips, like how to lean into the awkward silences, how to, when you're allowed to skip the lesson, this game changer that you won't want to miss? We have, like, a little, moniker in our student ministry where we say students are welcomed, wanted, needed and known. 00:14:30:27 - 00:14:54:15 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And so we did an episode on welcome to didn't episode on wanted. We did an episode on needed, and then we did an episode Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry. Right. So as you can see, those are just some ideas for content that you can use. And so we, we block them like that, we sit down, we record in a one hour block, we record all the audio, we record all the video, we don't break, we, we start recording. 00:14:54:17 - 00:15:10:22 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And then when we're done, we're done. And we keep everything rolling. The video is still rolling, the audio is still rolling. And then we'll talk for a minute. We got a little, you know, a little table or sheet you can see down below. Our at all let you see like our videos and stuff like that. You can go check out what we do. 00:15:10:25 - 00:15:26:28 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We got a little sheet. So we'll talk for a minute. We'll, we'll make sure. Who are we? You know, shouting out all the stuff. We'll get to all that in a minute. But that's, that's how we block record. Then the format of our show is in three parts a shout out, the piece of content or the little nugget of training or whatever we want it to be. 00:15:27:05 - 00:15:49:07 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And then finally we'll end with, some sort of story and we call it story time. And so those are our three segments. And so, any time we, we start in our four part series, the very first episode of that, our shout out is for anyone who's new to our team. And so, whenever someone would join our team, historically, we would want to like at the next leader lunch or whatever, say, hey, thanks so much for being here. 00:15:49:07 - 00:16:03:16 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry This is so and so. Here's a little leader gift for them. Welcome to the team. Right. Well we were forgetting that. Sort of like let's just add it to the podcast and then we take their little leader gift which is a mug, and we store it for them in our leader work room, we have a little whiteboard we write, welcome to the team. 00:16:03:16 - 00:16:23:17 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So and so we draw a little arrow, grab your mug okay. And we actually kind of create a little section in our, our leader room. Like our workroom which is all like podcast prizes. Okay. So after the first episode, then we do some sort of shout out, so what's a leader that's been crushing it? We shout them out and we'll often give something away. 00:16:23:20 - 00:16:42:11 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And that's, you know, around Christmas we'll give them, like, a silly mug. Recently we got some, like, free ice cream gift cards. We'll give away the ice cream gift cards, like, whatever we kind of have laying around. You don't have to do that, but we'll do some sort of giveaway. I use sidekick for that, put all of their names into the picture, and I just create some sort of criteria. 00:16:42:11 - 00:17:00:01 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry So like, hey, if you came to the last leader lunch, your name is in the picture. If you've already, RSVP to the next leader lunch at time of recording, your name is in the picture. You get the drill and then sometimes, instead of creating shout outs and doing a giveaway, we will do leader Roulette. So we'll put their names in for some reason. 00:17:00:06 - 00:17:19:11 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry RSVP to the thing, right? And then, their name pops up. We don't know. We run it on sidekick. Whoever pops up will say, hey, you want ice cream? And, here's a shout out. And so we call it leader Shout out roulette. We tell them like, we don't know who's going to pop up. So we're going to be coming up with these shout outs kind of on the fly. 00:17:19:14 - 00:17:39:22 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And it's a fun little challenge. Then we hop into the content. You heard some of the content that we've done over the last year. And then finally we end with some sort of story. And that's a way for us to, you know, think youth group chronicles, like it's those, those types of stories that are happening within our youth ministry or a funny story that we have heard about or something that's even happened in our past. 00:17:39:22 - 00:18:05:14 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And those are, hard to to get at first. But once our leaders start listening, they start telling us stuff and we always blur and bleep out all of the students name. So if a student ever runs across this on our YouTube channel, they're not feeling like isolated or whatever, and we make the stories vague enough that they're not going to know, and, and, you know, we just kind of go from there and students don't really listen to these anyway, but if they do ever stumble across them, they're not going to be hopefully embarrassed. 00:18:05:20 - 00:18:23:23 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Now, last thing you've done all the work you've bought, all the gear, you've come up with, the format, you've started filming all those things. How then do you launch it? I'm glad you asked. Let's check it out. Last section. So this is what we did. We created a little stickers on Sticker Mule with a QR code that took them to our website. 00:18:24:00 - 00:18:43:05 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry I'll link the website down below, which pulled in a section of our playlist from our nucleus, sermons kind of database. And then, and the way that I schedule that is we schedule, like I said, a weekly message. And so the leader podcast drops at five on a Monday. And then the the message of the week drops at six. 00:18:43:05 - 00:19:03:16 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry That's our sermon that we're teaching that Wednesday night. But remember, we pre-filled those that drops at six. And so when you go on our main page, the most recent message is going to be there because it posted one hour after the Leader podcast. So the only time the Leader podcast is highlighted on the main section of our website is from 5:00 am to 6 a.m. Monday morning. 00:19:03:18 - 00:19:25:12 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Now, if you go to the leader page on our website, it's highlighting the leader podcast playlist. So we make sure whenever we post that it's leader podcast playlist and that that little, playlist is a featured section on the website there. But so we, created a QR code to that section of the website, to that playlist. 00:19:25:14 - 00:19:50:00 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And then we also put a little piece of copy like, hey, make sure you subscribe, make sure you whatever. And we did a giveaway, right. The first round of podcasts I put in like our group chat screenshot that you are subscribed to our leader podcast, and anyone who screenshotted it and posted it in our group chat, they had an opportunity to win something, to put their names in sidekick and that honestly, that kind of started the whole giveaway thing and now it's just kind of a staple of what we did. 00:19:50:00 - 00:20:10:04 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry We didn't go into it with that. The that being the intention, but that's kind of how it started. And then we did three weeks worth of like promotion around it. And what's funny is my boss was like, let's do this at our next leader launch. Let's launch it there. But when we recorded our first batch of episodes in July, I was like, are we really? 00:20:10:04 - 00:20:27:15 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry Do we really want to sit on these pieces of content for that long? And he's like, no, not really. I was like, do we need an in-person event to launch it? He's like, dude, you're the hybrid guy. You tell me what we should do. And I was like, all right, so, one week, let's buy, like, you know, elevated breakfast. 00:20:27:15 - 00:20:46:08 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry You know, we give donuts every Sunday morning. Let's do, like, breakfast burritos just for our leaders in the later work room. And let's have a little, like, sign in there. This is leader podcast is coming. And then the next week I can't remember what we did. We did something else food breakfast related. And then the final week we blew it up only for our leaders breakfast all the way around. 00:20:46:10 - 00:21:18:10 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And we brought in like, espresso coffee cart. And on the sleeve of the coffee cups, we printed a sticker with a QR code that said Leader Podcast, you know, and so they could scan that so that they could subscribe and all that stuff. And then all those three weeks were doing, like, weekly giveaways. One of the things we did during that three weeks or month of ramp up of launching is I took the the pilot episode and, which is just, you know, my, my boss, selfie style video. 00:21:18:16 - 00:21:36:13 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And I put that video on loop on a TV in our leader workspace. So they walked in and they saw it. And so for three weeks or a month, everything was leader podcast, so everybody knew about it. And then as we've gone as people win stuff and whatever, we'll shout them out. We'll say, hey man, great job. So and so. 00:21:36:20 - 00:21:53:24 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry They got the shout out this week on the podcast that'll be in our leader group chat. And so if they're active in our leader group chat and like they're coming every Sunday to our leader workroom with the prizes on the on the wall, they're they're gonna know about our leader podcast. And so that's how we kind of keep it in front of them. 00:21:53:24 - 00:22:16:14 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry And like I've said, it is is built an amazing amount of camaraderie around and among our leaders. And so that's why I think you should do a weekly leader podcast. It's a month out of our our schedule to film it. And then a little bit of time to edit it and then boom, off we go. So thank you so much for being here at the Hybrid Ministry Podcast. 00:22:16:14 - 00:22:23:01 Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry This is how I do a weekly leader podcast. And till next time, as always my friends, don't forget to stay hybrid.