Nick Clason (00:00):
<silence> Well, hey, everybody. In this episode, we are going to answer this question why I believe every single youth ministry needs a strong social media presence. We're going to look at some trends, some statistics, and share with you why now is the time to double down, to engage and to make social media and a digital presence important in your church's student ministry. Well, everyone, if you and I have not had a chance to meet, my name is Nick Clason. I am an actual youth pastor in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area, host of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast. So welcome to that. Excited to have you with us. We are going to dive into some statistics and some, some trends and some quotes, and I got all kinds of fun stuff. If you are not already subscribed to our YouTube channel, hit that subscribe button, hit that notification button, hit that like button. 

Nick Clason (00:57):
All those things help us get seen by other people who also need to hear this message about the importance of digital and student ministry in your church in 2023 and honestly, far beyond. So excited to have you with us. Hey, I also wanna let you know we got a couple of freebies. So link down below in the description in the show notes. If you're listening on a podcast, hit those up. We got your free ebook on how to create a complete TikTok from scratch. And in this episode, we are also going to, with that exact same link, we are going to drop another free done for you social media structure plan, um, 40 free videos, your social media plan. I'm gonna give it to you for you and for your youth ministry. Make it happen, download that ebook. Also, if you are a video editor and you use Adobe Premier Pro, we have some free presets for you so that you can use those Adobe Premier Pro presets in your editing. 

Nick Clason (01:52):
Completely free, super easy to use, just want to encourage you to check those things out, uh, a like rating, subscribe, all those things. We are on TikTok, we are on Instagram. We are all the places. Hit the description, YouTube, hit the link in the show notes on a podcast. But without any further ado, let's hop in and let's dive in to the topic of why every youth ministry needs to have a strong social media presence. Let's go. So I was recently reading through, uh, the comment section of YouTube channel, and I saw this question and I thought it was fascinating, and I thought that it was worth exploring the question read like this, what elements can we bring into our service and our church, whether innovative or just a mood that increases our relevancy to Gen Z and Alpha? It may cost us discomfort, but we are willing to stretch. 

Nick Clason (02:44):
First of all, I love the notion here that we are willing to stretch understanding that the times that we are in with Generation Z and generation alpha, gen Z, um, most people are saying, uh, the old, the, the youngest of them are born 2010, uh, on up through young adulthood. Now they're in their twenties, mid twenties or so just now graduating college, just now getting started to, um, have a career. And in addition to all of that, joining your church force for the first time. And so if you're in youth ministry, gen Z is not in your youth ministry. Uh, maybe like your high school we would say is, is Generation Z, gen alpha, um, eighth grade, seventh grade or so, right in that range. Um, down on through, uh, having been born between, uh, 2010 and 2025. So some of them aren't even born all the way yet. 

Nick Clason (03:35):
They're in the kids' ministry, but they're waving on up. So Z and alpha are so, so completely different. I wanna share just some, some kind of state of Gen z state of gen alpha statistics with you. But those things are gonna help us frame this conversation about why social media is so important for the next generation. A lot of churches have a social presence and it operates as their outreach arm, their evangelism, uh, branch of their ministry, so to speak. And I, I think that is a great tactic and a great tool, and if you're not doing that, you definitely should. However, that being said, I think there are also opportunities to, um, promote discipleship growth, theological and spiritual connection and commitment, not only with each other, but also just with connection to God's word. And so I want to dive into some of those things, but before we do that, let's look at who Gen Z and who Gen Alpha are, what we know about them, what some of our learnings are, and what we can kind of like take from that and how that's gonna help us frame this conversation. 

Nick Clason (04:38):
So, uh, over here, before we dive into that though, over 4,000 churches close their door yearly, over 4,000 churches. This from npr.org. Um, and the estimate is this, in 2019, the year before the pandemic, before the pandemic, keep that in mind. So the pandemic was already, or, or was, or was going to be hard on people. This right here, right? Like this is pre pandemic, more Protestant churches closed than opened in the us. Um, 2014, 4,000 churches opened, and 3,700 churches closed 2019. Then that number started to shift and get a little bit more. And so churches are slowly becoming, um, starting to close at a rate greater than their opening. And you know that with that trend over time, that's going to make churches more and more obsolete, less and less relevant. Now, is that because Generation z generation alpha don't want to go to our church, perhaps, and there may be some things worth learning, but why? 

Nick Clason (05:45):
And where does social media play into this? I'm gonna give you that in a second. But first, 56% of Generation Z claim to be Christian. And you might think, oh, that's pretty good. That's encouraging. I thought that might be lower. I did. However, 25% of Gen Z claim to have no faith at all. James Emery White wrote a book called The Rise of the Nuns. And this is that trend right here being played out. This is the highest classification of no religion at all by any generation. Gen Z, millennials, Xers, boomers, all the things. Gen Z the highest at 25% claiming to actually have no faith whatsoever. Furthermore, the five biggest terms, when, when, uh, this is done by a study from Barna, the five biggest terms that Generation Z used to describe their faith were these five growing at 47%, open at 38%, curious at 35%, spiritual at 33%, and then exploring at 32%. 

Nick Clason (06:48):
And so what that tells me is that Gen Z, while they may have a classification, right, of not having religion, um, not claiming one at all, they are open and they are willing and they are curious. And so I think that pairs well and creates a really good kind of groundwork and ecosystem for us as student ministry leaders and personnel to, uh, continue to answer some of their questions. Here was where this gets fascinating, and I think personally where the rubber meets the road. In response to this statement, Barna said, Hey, the statement is this. The church does not answer my questions. 13% said that that statement was completely true. 13% said the church does not answer my questions 24%. That's somewhat true. So more true than not that the church doesn't answer their questions, um, 28%, somewhat not true. Uh, so, uh, it's getting a little bit better. 

Nick Clason (07:46):
And then 35% said that's, that's not true at all. Okay? What I wanna highlight and kind of pull out there is that 37%, almost four out of 10 people would say that the church doesn't really answer their questions yet. However, they would classify themselves as growing, open, curious, spiritual, and exploring. And so if there's an opportunity for the church to lean into a demographic that is curious, open exploring, um, asking questions, why would we not answer those questions? Well, I hear your rebuttal on the other end of the camera, right? Well, I, I am handling those, uh, questions I am asking and answering big questions through my teaching series, through my bible studies, through my devotionals, and that's great. However, pew Research recently said that 58% of evangelical protestant church attenders attend church get this at least one time a week, 58%. So that means out of your, uh, your a hundred percent membership, people who call your church your student ministry home, only six out of 10 are actually coming on a week to week basis to even hear that teaching. 

Nick Clason (09:00):
Also, Warren Bird, on our last podcast, we, I, I shared some, some snippets from Warren Bird, uh, but Warren Bird says this, he says, people tend to over exaggerate when it comes to this question. When it comes to their church attendants. They overinflate the numbers, right? They want to look better perhaps than they actually are. And if 58% are actually attending at least one time a week, then there's this to keep in mind that there are still 40% who of their own admission and of their own classification are not hearing your weekly messages unless they're actually there because only 58% are attending at a week to week sort of clip. And so what should I do about that? You're asking, you're like, I am trying to answer their questions. They say they're open, they're spiritually engaging. This is where I think that all churches, especially all youth ministries, should be posting their weekly message content. 

Nick Clason (09:55):
And you should be doing so uploading to YouTube. Okay? Here's the thing. You probably already have a soundboard that you're using in your room, and if you do, in most cases, you're able to add a minimum capture the audio, and you can start uploading that to podcasts. But YouTube is king right now, and I wanna share with y'all why after this. So here's the reality. If you head back into the archives of any of my podcasts, YouTube videos, um, we talk a lot about YouTube, in fact, episode, um, 33 http://www.hybridministry.xyz/033, link in the description link in the show notes talks about how to start a YouTube channel completely with links to all the gigs that you're gonna need and how to do that directly off of your phone. It will help you upgrade your audios just ever so slightly. I am now using, I got a couple lights here. 

Nick Clason (10:49):
I got a camera that I'm recording off of. I'm also going to drop here in just a couple weeks, probably next week. Um, a a complete gear rundown of us after a year of YouTube upgrading our camera equipment. And I say a year, I look at my watch here, which actually gives me my date today as I record. This is July 31st. We officially launched our YouTube channel at the student ministry that I work in, in January 1st of this year because we, our church changed their name. And so I was holding the YouTube channel to launch along with the name change and all that stuff. We, so far this year on YouTube have posted well over, um, I think it's over 200 videos. Um, I'm trying to go to it right here on live, that auto channel player player, oh, 399 videos. I just uploaded a short this morning, uh, by this afternoon, I'll post my second short. 

Nick Clason (11:42):
We'll be at video number 400 since January 1st of this year until now, July 31st. We are currently at 202 subscribers. Not crazy numbers, not anything that you wanna write home about necessarily. But if you had the opportunity to reach 200 additional people in your student ministry or in that 202, there are probably people who, well, I do know this. There are students who subscribe to our channel. There are parents who subscribe to our channel. Would you not want the opportunity to speak to those people? And that's the key, right? If Pew Research says only 58% of people are attending church once a week, then YouTube offers you an opportunity to share that message with them. But why YouTube? 3.48 billion people according to Hootsuite, roughly 45% of the world's population use social media. That's where they are millennials, which is not necessarily our target demographic. That's us as the youth pastors. 

Nick Clason (12:39):
However, this is a trend worth watching because millennials are setting the pace, I think for some of these younger generations. Millennials say that they prefer YouTube to traditional tv two to one. That's crazy to me. I don't, but that's how millennials are, are consuming it. And that's also how Gen Z and Gen Alpha are consuming it. I had a kid yesterday walk up to me and I was recording some videos for some of our social media stuff, and he's like, oh, I wanna do it. I wanna do it. Look, I have a YouTube channel. I have over a thousand subscribers, and I was low-key jealous of him. 'cause that's my goal right now is to get my channel up to a thousand subscribers. I was like, no, you don't. Let me see. And he showed me, and he is just doing like goofy Minecraft tutorials and stuff like that. 

Nick Clason (13:17):
He has 1.1 K subscribers via his YouTube channel. It is bunkers. Uh, also check this out, 51% of YouTube users say that they visit YouTube, get this daily. So why should we be on YouTube for all of those reasons? So if you wanna know how to start your own YouTube channel as a church, as a student ministry, you definitely should hit up episode 0 3 3 link in the show notes for that, and we will help make that happen. Um, help you get the gear and all that type of stuff going. Now, here's the thing in our context, this is why I want you to hear this in our context. We are in a large auditorium space. We have a soundboard, but it's not retrofitted and it's not graded to livestream. Okay? Our big church auditorium is, but our main service is not. And so because I didn't, uh, we're gonna be delivering live messages and, um, I, I also wanna post to YouTube. 

Nick Clason (14:09):
I had to have a kind of like reconciling moment. What I decided was I was gonna do video. If you're watching our YouTube right now, it's just like this direct to camera. I'm talking directly into the camera with a scripted teaching video. We've got a teleprompter. It goes right in front of the camera here and it scrolls and you can watch it and you can read your notes and you can deliver a message with a YouTube hook that's hopefully engaging, um, with video, uh, lower thirds, uh, text that'll bounce in, bounce out sound effects. You can weave in other clips, B-roll, all that type of stuff. But it's made for YouTube. It's not just a camera perched in the back of the room, which is what most of us do for time reasons. And here's why that's important. In episode six of this podcast, me and my previous co-host, Matt Johnson, looked at some of the findings of the Future Church. 

Nick Clason (15:00):
Um, this was from Barna. They, they dropped an ebook a little over a year ago called Six Questions About the Future of the Hybrid Church Experience. We pulled out some stats, we chatted about it. I'll drop the link to that episode in the show notes. I'll also drop the link to the Barna ebook in the show notes if you wanna explore more about that. But I wanna 0.2 things out to you from that ebook. It says, 60%, 60% of those participating in church that offer an online service during the pandemic say that this is the only digital offering that the church makes, their live stream of their service. And furthermore, 63% of church adults believe that the church should use digital resources for the purposes of spiritual formation and disciple discipleship. 63% of churched adults, not Gen Z, not gen alpha, the church adults in this classification. 

Nick Clason (15:55):
So this is millennials, this is Xers, this is even maybe some boomers giving us some of this data. Um, according to this ebook, they have a quote in there that says, churches, if if churches more than a building, can digital ministry be more than a sermon? And I would contend the answer to that is unequivocally yes. We're gonna dive into the nitty gritty, the tactical, and give you a free downloadable resource on how stick around for that. But before we do, I wanna drop one more eye-opening thing out of this ebook. It said, this faith, this is, uh, a stat I'll, I'll put the, um, graph on YouTube if you're following and watching there. Faith expression during the pandemic, the question was, do you use the internet? The percent answered yes. Um, there are three categories practicing Christians, church, adults, and dropouts. 66% of practicing Christians say that they use, uh, faith, uh, in the internet. 

Nick Clason (16:48):
They use the internet for faith practices during the pandemic at 66%. Church adults at 56%. And dropouts, even those who've dropped out at 36% say that, um, as a faith supplement, 52% of practicing Christians, 42% church adults, and 30% of dropouts as a faith supplement. And then as a substitute for physical church, 50% of practicing Christians say that 46% of church adults say that. And 30% of dropouts would claim that. In addition, they broke that out, uh, with, uh, a deeper classification of church, gen Z Church, millennials, church Gen X, and church boomers, obviously, no surprise to you, gen Z was the highest of that. 67% as, um, for faith purposes, 56% as a faith supplement and as a substitute for physical church, uh, that was at 58%. So Gen Z, and mind you, this was old enough. So at least 18 years of age Gen Z. 

Nick Clason (17:43):
So that's not counting kids in our youth ministry. And that's not counting Alpha, 'cause none of them were old enough to be pulled on survey. So if it's that high in churched adult Gen Z, how much more for the teenagers in your youth ministry? Uh, James Emery White has a quote out of his most recent book, hybrid Church, rethinking the Church in a post-digital age said the vision. This vision, talking about the metaverse, this vision led Zuckerberg, c e o of Facebook to change the name of its company to Meta. Zuckerberg described a grandiose vision of a metaverse as an even more immersive and embodied internet. When or where you're gonna be able to do almost anything that you can, uh, imagine, get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create as well, uh, as entirely new categories that don't even fit how we think about computers or phones today. 

Nick Clason (18:37):
If you, uh, wanna reference point, think of the movie Avatar. The Metaverse would be a shared social space where avatars represent users, a world that avatars interact and inhabit. And in that metaverse, you could own virtual property just as you would physical property or even create, uh, your, even create your own virtual property. Not to mention, you can buy and sell property. The last step in achieving all this would be a full three D telepresence v uh, via VR or AR glasses. Hubo technology is a technology company that manages hybrid and virtual events, predict that soon events will be, um, less about chronology and speakers and more about exploration and interaction. That quote right there is worth weight in gold. Um, I, and I'm just kind of picking it up 'cause I read this at 1:00 AM last night, the end of a standard webinar is coming near and being replaced with live streaming VR entertainment and Oculus Rift parties. 

Nick Clason (19:34):
What Emory White says is this, and this is what made me pull this quote out. Needless to say, the internet is not gonna be flat for too much longer. And why do we want to do this for Gen Z and Gen Alpha? This is the internet that they are going to be ushering in and growing up in. They're spending time on the internet, on their phones. And while there are, uh, digital hygiene things that we as youth pastors need to model and teach our students to do, I think gone are the days of just, Hey, no phones. Like, yeah, that's easier. And we all know that like reducing our technology use helps us. However, you got a new kid walking into your student ministry, are you really gonna take his phone and lock it up in a locker and tell 'em you can't have it until the end? 

Nick Clason (20:18):
Is he coming back after his first week of visiting your church? Probably not. But if you help teach students, Hey, here's technology, here's resources. Here's a way that you can grow in your faith beyond the walls of this sermon and service while I'm up here trying to answer your questions, but give you more to study with because this is what I was studying this week as I was preparing this content. And here's something for you. Here's a P D F, here's a checklist, here's a devotional, here's a prayer guide, whatever the case might that's gonna help students grow in their faith. And all of that can exist and live on your digital platforms. In particular YouTube. But wait, I'm so busy, but wait, I don't have time. I'm already preparing messages. I'm sitting in meetings. I'm running C c b or I'm running church data management reports. 

Nick Clason (21:05):
I don't have an admin. I used to have an admin. I might get an admin. I'm probably never gonna have an admin. And I'm stacking chairs and I'm repainting the youth room and I'm patching the wall from the kid whose butt fell through the thing. I get it. I'm there. I'm a youth pastor being in youth mystery 12 and a half years. Here's why this, uh, this is why we are dropping this resource. So we are going to be giving you all the month long social media posting tool done for you and your youth ministry free ebook link in the show notes. When you download that, you're gonna get a link to two eBooks, my TikTok from scratch, and now this month long youth ministry social media thing. Let's dive into what is actually going to be in that. Let's go. So we will detail this a little bit more in the ebook, but essentially I'm giving you a basically 40 ideas that you can post, uh, five days a week. 

Nick Clason (22:01):
So there's seven days in a week. I recommend that you take two off just to practice Sabbath and, uh, not working whatever your two days off that you want to be. So for example, I post Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I don't work on Fridays in the office or Saturday. So I don't post either of those days. And each of those days I post two tos. I recently talked a couple episodes back about how we went from three down to two, and then I'm gonna give you three or I'm, I'm sorry. I'm gonna give you, uh, a video thing to post every single day. So for me, my Sunday, I post the message hook from our teaching video that we do, we we capture it like this, then I clip it out and make it vertical. And I post a game on Monday. I'll do Meme Monday, and then I'll post some sort of spiritual practice video, either a talking head or pre uh, existing resource. 

Nick Clason (22:50):
I have some resources in the show notes on Download youth ministry that you can ahead and grab if you want. Um, on uh, Tuesday I'll post a message clip, and then I'll do some sort of game or fun thing, uh, Wednesday, another spiritual practice video, and then a recap of our Wednesday night youth ministry, just some B roll and some audio that I did the sync auto sync on TikTok around cap cut. And then finally the third message clip, and then another game or activity. And so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna help teach you how to clip those messages. Um, I want to, I wanna let you know about a, a resource. I'm gonna include the link in the show notes called Auto Pod. It is taking my long form sequence in Adobe Premier Pro and shrinking it and making it vertical. That's something that you can use and that's helpful, uh, to you if you are a, a video editor in that way. 

Nick Clason (23:38):
If not, just clip it in on your phone using cap cut and, uh, you cap cut's a super powerful tool you can use. Um, and then, uh, and then also I'm gonna give you about 10 to 15 different game ideas or activity type ideas that we've done in our youth ministry. You can check it out, link to, um, you can check out our student ministry link in the description, cross Creek Student Ministry, social, go to our shorts, watch just some of the goofy stuff that we do. But I'm gonna give you ideas on how you can repurpose like d y m type games or other fun things like that and use it on camera or, or one thing I did yesterday was I, uh, me and a student took the camera around and he asked people, Hey, we're going back to school soon. What do these back to school? 

Nick Clason (24:22):
Emoji phrases mean? He'd show them a picture on the phone and then they would try to guess, um, and to like incentivize them to actually choose to be on camera. We'd give 'em a fruit snack if they said yes, and then I captured it, and then I'm gonna go edit it and post, um, and have the, uh, emojis pop in. But if you don't wanna do all that right, you can just video it and just do like a quick picture and picture overlay of the emoji phrase. So there's all kinds of ideas, but all of that is going to be done for you. 40 ideas, replicatable, reproducible, the same framework, but also different videos every single week on your social media because vertical short form video is still king, bro, I missed all that. Great. We offer free transcripts for every single episode at our, uh, podcast page, hybridministry.xyz. 

Nick Clason (25:14):
This is episode 0 6 0. So you can go there, pick up the free transcript, also link in the show notes for free editing presets for my TikTok video and now my, um, month long social posting tool done for you for youth ministries. Check that out. And hey, listen, if you're not in youth ministry, grab it and adapt it to your church. Because here's the thing, you don't have to just be silly and goofy in youth ministry churches wanna see their pastors having fun as well. So, uh, hope that you guys found this episode helpful. Hey, if you did, would you do me a favor and just share it? I would be forever grateful if you shared it, if you liked it, if you rated it, if you reviewed it, if you dropped a comment so I could engage with you in the comments. So pumped to be here walking through this with you. 

Nick Clason (25:56):
Listen, I'm in the trenches just like you. If you're in youth ministry, if you're in church communications, if you're a social media manager for a church or business, I'm right there with you. I'm doing this podcast in my free time early morning before everyone else gets into work. And then I'm gonna turn around. I'm gonna start working right after this because I'm doing it with you. And so I want to be along on this journey with you. Make sure you follow us on TikTok, subscribe on YouTube, hit me up on Instagram. And until next time, and as always, we are making digital discipleship easy and accessible. Don't forget to stay hybrid.