Joshua Noel and TJ, Tiberius Juan, Blackwell interview Pastor Ryan Green about the intricate process of preparing and orchestrating a weekly Children's Church service, emphasizing the paramount importance of intentionality and creativity in engaging young minds. He articulates that the foundation of effective ministry lies in the preparation, which not only includes meticulous planning but also the cultivation of a heartfelt connection with the children. This episode further explores how the church community can foster a supportive environment that encourages children to form meaningful relationships with God and one another. Through anecdotes and insights, Pastor Green shares his experiences in children's ministry, highlighting the impact of thoughtful, spirit-led programming on the spiritual development of children. As we delve into this conversation, we grasp the significance of nurturing a vibrant, dynamic church experience for our youngest congregants.

The dialogue further advances into the practicalities of children's ministry within ecclesiastical settings, wherein the speakers dissect the intricate processes involved in creating engaging and spiritually enriching environments for youth. Pastor Ryan Green, drawing upon his extensive experience, articulates the necessity for intentionality in programming, emphasizing that the foundation of effective children’s ministry lies in the preparation and execution of thoughtfully designed activities that resonate with the youthful audience. The speakers illuminate the importance of cultivating an atmosphere that not only imparts theological knowledge but also fosters relational connections among children, thereby enhancing their experiential understanding of faith. This segment culminates in a discussion regarding the transformative power of shared experiences in faith formation, asserting that the memories forged through engaging ministry activities can have a lasting impact on children's spiritual journeys, thereby reinforcing the notion that effective ministry transcends mere instruction, evolving into a holistic developmental experience for the younger generation.

Takeaways:

• Pastor Ryan Green emphasizes the necessity of preparation and direction when teaching children, ensuring they are guided correctly from the beginning.
• The podcast highlights the significance of making children's ministry engaging and fun, while simultaneously instilling spiritual values and teachings.
• Pastor Green discusses the importance of fostering genuine relationships with children, encouraging them to express their thoughts and feelings in a safe environment.
• The episode underscores the value of silence and solitude in children's ministry, allowing kids to reflect and listen, which can lead to meaningful spiritual insights.
• Ryan shares how the planning of children's services involves a balance between structured lessons and the flexibility to adapt based on the children's needs.
• The conversation reveals the deep impact that a well-structured children's ministry can have on a child's relationship with faith and community.

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Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 1 through 4. In the new American Standard Bible, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with the promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in discipline and in instruction with the Lord.

The letter of Ephesians, St. Paul is describing what it means to be the church. And right before this passage, he's talking about the relationships of husbands and wives.

After this, he's going to talk about masters and slaves a lot more problematic. Whole nother episode, maybe.

But what he's concerned with is how the church behaves in the everyday settings of life, whether with their family or the workplace, the farm field, whatever.

Pastor Ryan Green, why do you think Paul mentions here both the importance of teaching children correctly and also not provoking our children in the context of, like, how the church should behave and what it means to be the church?

Wow. Okay.

So when we look at this importance of teaching them correctly, I guess when we look at that, it's easier to start off and get them pointed in the right direction than to correct that later.

And then part of that is correction and making sure that as they do start to veer off course, as they do start to have issues that, you know, you're helping them get lined. And we notice this with pretty much anything we do as adults. When we start something new, we need direction. When we do it, we need to get started.

Usually we have a mentor or a supervisor, a lead, somebody that's directing us. Okay, hey, well, we don't actually do it like that. We want to go ahead and focus like this. And it's the same thing with kids.

We want to make sure that we get them pointed in the right direction so that we're not having to do a lot of repair behavior things later. And so that's what I look at that.

And I like that Paul has this kind of wide scope of it that he's looking at the entire family realizing that the church is not the services that we go to on the weekend, but it's the actual people and they all make up the body.

He alludes to that multiple times, but he includes them also saying that these are still people, even though they're smaller and shorter, but they're still people. And we want to make sure that we're helping them and encouraging them and bringing them along, you know, the correct way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to Holy Logistics we're going to be looking on the whole church podcast, what goes into making the church the behind the scenes of how you get church.

We're looking at sermons, we've been looking at organs, we've looked at church buildings, and today we're going to talk some about children's ministries. What goes into creating a service for children's ministries.

And we're here with one of my former mentors when I was doing children's ministry, Pastor Ryan Green. We're excited to have him on. He's been on the show a few hundred episodes ago, so it's been a while and we're happy to have him back.

Welcome back, Ryan.

Yeah, glad to be back. Thanks.

Yeah. Eight year episode.

Yeah, four or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.

Yeah. A little bit. A little bit less gray. Lorian was a children's pastor with the Church of God Prophecy. Like, you know, we were all involved in.

And the children. Not children's. Well, he was the children's minister, ministry director for us for the state of South Carolina for several years.

Now he is evaluation technician at Innovatis Imaging and also the director of creative experiences with the church on the road.

Broken hero. Did I get that part right, too?

Yeah, yeah.

Church on the world would have been broken era. Y' all can tell I took my meds.

Yeah, they're. They're getting there slowly, but that's a little bit about him.

If you're interested more in us, you could probably figure out a little bit more if you went to our website, purchased one of our T shirts.

It helps promote the show, raises money for podcasting needs, lets others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the church and let you know. I would appreciate it. I would appreciate it.

Yeah, that's hot.

Almighty.

TJ Tiberius on Blackwell would appreciate it.

I would appreciate it. My personal favorite shirt that we sell is called tj. Quote on the back. There's nothing on it. Yeah, it's just the logo on the front.

DJs the man of very few words, which is the entire description for the shirt, I think. Yeah. I. I do also have to say I forgot to introduce me and tj.

You did.

So, like, I'm on my minutes, am I? Joshua Noel here with TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell.

According to the last episode we recorded, he created dinosaurs by making a podcast about dinosaurs before there were dinosaurs. Very talented guy.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to hear that, you can check out the Honest out podcast network website.

The links below for shows that are like ours, shows that we're on, like, systematic ecology.

Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is a fun time talking about pop culture and stuff. Usually a little bit more light hearted. Yeah.

Another thing that's a little bit more light hearted, that we always like to start the show off. It's the ultimate form of unity. Holy sacrament around here. Pastor Ryan. It's silliness and excellent. We're gonna start with a silly question.

I. I like all of them. I was gonna say today's good.

And.

But I. I enjoy all of them. I make them, but I wouldn't create them if I didn't enjoy them.

No bias.

Yeah. But TJ and I will answer first, though. Give you a minute. Think about it.

If you could preach to any one collection of characters from an animated show, like the whole cast of an animated feature, spongebob, whatever, which would it be? Mine's. Mine's probably too easy because they're just like. It's based on modern life. Rocko's modern life. I just think I'd have a fun time with it.

They're all normal enough that I feel like I could talk to them and. And it wouldn't be frustrating. I love spongebob, but I think preaching to spongebob and Patrick would just make me angry at some point.

Yeah.

But I feel like Rocco and them would at least listen, have some questions. Probably some questions that would make me really uncomfortable. And, you know, I'm okay being the butt of the joke, so. And that's where I'm gonna go.

Yeah.

I think. Tj, what about you?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Yes.

Yeah. I think. I think all of the turtles would just be so genuinely interested, like a nice attentive group.

And then, like, if Shredder gets out of hand, you know, they can handle it. That's their whole job.

Yeah.

Yeah. I could see them as a. Yeah. Youth group at a smaller sized church. That's the feel I get with them. Lots of hanging out, pizza.

But I think you'd have some real conversations. I actually did think about them for a second, but one of them that I think.

I mean, being in kids ministry, I was like, dude, rugrats, those kids need. Yeah, those kids need a lot. And think of a force that they could be if they found Jesus. But yeah, no, they. Very exciting, entertaining.

And in the end, I think, you know, I think that they. Besides see like some care and compassion in some of the characters. So I. I think it'd be.

Yeah.

Another.

Definitely be exciting.

Yeah.

I'm gonna say Rocket power tap in like the late 90s. Like Caruso. Like server Christian movement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

See, I had some backup answers too. Phineas and Ferb. If I was a better preacher, I feel like that would be good.

The problem is I think they would take it and run with it too hard, and I don't think I could keep up, honestly. They'd be like, oh, wait, we got to tell the whole world, every nation, in tongue. All right, we're gonna invent something.

I'm like, all right, all right. I can't. Backyardigans, though. That would be fun.

They would want to act it out and I could, like, channel my inner children's master from back in the day. I could have a good time. That Backyardings would be cool. Any backup? Any runner up answers before we move on? Are we good now? Out of the system.

Okay.

All right. I think I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think I'm so.

Yeah.

Before we get into the other fun stuff with this series, Ryan, could you tell us a little bit about how you first came to the faith and what eventually led to you becoming interested in children's ministry?

Well, I mean, I started. I grew up in the church. I grew up in a Christian home. My grandfather was a pastor at one point. My dad was a pastor.

And so I grew up, you know, attending church. I believed it, but I wasn't super connected to it as far as, like, living it out.

But it wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I attended a church that the people there knew me and knew kind of a little bit of my history and past where I was at, which was far from God, and just kind of went with, you know, my sister to go check it out. That's where she went regularly. And the people there were just really genuine. They treated me, you know, they were welcoming.

They treated me with acceptance and that kind of thing. And it was something that I hadn't experienced very much up until that point, maybe with a few people here and there.

But as a whole church, they all just genuinely were kind and showing love, which I was like, now wait a minute. This sounds more like what I heard when I was growing up, like what it was supposed to be of, like, what I experienced.

And so I attended a little bit more and then just was like, you know what? This is something I want to be a part of. This is something finally that I can just jump in and say, yeah, this is what I want to do.

And it was actually a church not too far from where I live now, about 15 minutes from where I live now. I Started attending there and one morning in old school Sunday school classes they had for the young adults.

And by young adults, that was anybody 18 to about 45 was considered young adults. I was like, wow, okay, but like I hang out with your kids.

But anyway.

But no, but, yeah, no, it was. They just one day after the class they said, hey, I need some help. Is there anybody be willing to help me just for like a month?

And I was like, I can help for a month. I mean we're talking like four times. Yeah, four times, sure, no problem.

And so I got in there and then at the end of the four weeks I was like, hey, I'm just starting to learn their names. There was about 25 kids there and I was like, I'm just starting to learn the names.

Do you mind if I go ahead and do like another month just so I can kind of like remember? I mean like, otherwise I'm just going to forget. Like, not even gonna lie. Like, I'm not that great at those types of things. And so memory.

Nah, not, not that quick. But they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. She's like, it was gonna be me. And so I'll just go and pick up the next month. And so I did it again.

And then I wound up actually teaching the entire time I attended that church. It just was something that continued on and on and I enjoyed and began to grow in and just found a passion for.

And I'll say the biggest thing was I wanted these kids to experience something I did never get. I won't say that I never had a good experience in churches. I did from time to time love summer camp and different things, but I felt like we did a.

This is back years ago.

We did a vacation Bible school, you know, one of those week long things that has all the creative elements of it of decorations and games and all this. And I was like, if we invest all this into like one week, why don't we do this each week?

Yeah.

And so that's what I wanted to do was bring that, bring it to life for kids so they could have an experience that wasn't just like, we're here again. Don't worry, when it's said and done, we'll be able to go have lunch and then go play and have the rest of it myself.

But it was something that would give them something to be excited about, something they'd want to actually come and attend and be a part of and, and not just for the fun side of it, but then to begin to really engage in a Relationship with God.

Yeah, yeah. That's okay. Interesting. A lot of stuff. This is probably not the thing I should have picked up on, but. So you're in Oklahoma now.

You said that was close to where you went to church. Younger. What I met you in South Carolina. So what got you to South Carolina and back?

Actually to be a children's pastor at the church I met you at there in Somerville.

I was out here in Oklahoma, which I've lived, counted it up just like a couple weeks ago, I was talking to somebody and I've lived In, I think, 24 different houses in my life. So that means some of them were not very long, but yeah. And so I've moved a lot, been in a lot of different areas.

Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas. But it was here in Oklahoma that I started following Jesus and got committed and connected and started teaching kids.

And an opportunity opened up in South Carolina where I knew the current children's pastor there, and she was stepping out, they were moving and she'd given them my name.

And so I came out there and we just instantly, like literally on the drive out to go see somebody, felt the Holy Spirit speak to me and say, hey, you're going to live here.

And sure enough, after I think it was about two or three months, we were packed up and moved out there and was out there for about 11 years there in Somerville and then went up to Clemson, was up there with a good friend, Chuckie Chandler, for a couple years, about two and a half years left jockey and. Absolutely, absolutely. And then we felt the call to come back out to Oklahoma to be close to family.

And so it was one of those that is just, you know, we felt the Holy Spirit speak and so we responded and then he blessed and so. Yeah, it's been great.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm curious. So Charleston and then. Or, sorry, Somerville and then Clemson, you were with church, God of Prophecy. Church you're at now is non denominational.

Correct.

Was there a reason you left the church, God of Prophecy, or was it just to be back home and, you know.

Oh, no, it was. Nope. It had almost nothing to do with the church itself. Is a denomination or anything like that. Wasn't mad at anybody or anything.

It was when we moved out here, we were actually going to be living right next to a church of God of Prophecy church, like in one of their church parsonage. We were going to be renting it. That was the intention. But when we got out here, our stuff wasn't here yet.

We were doing stuff this and that and we Were exhausted.

We had just finished up a state convention, state conference at the end of July, and we were here, like, the second day of August, first day of August. So we had just packed up right as soon as over moved right out here. And so we were pretty exhausted.

And with knowing so many people out here, I was tired. And we were like, you know what? Let's just take a week. Let's just slip in. I know this church.

This church has done a lot for children's ministry over the years. I remember first training I ever went to was in Dallas by this church. But said, hey, we can slip in. We'll just attend. We'll go back out.

We don't have to, you know, worry about having to talk to a lot of people, answer a lot of questions. You know, just the.

Nothing bad about, you know, seeing friends and people to connect with, but sometimes it can, like, empty you out a little emotionally.

Yeah.

And so we were exhausted, and we're like, just. Just one week. Let's just slip in, and then we'll slip out and, you know, we'll figure out where we're going to be going to church afterwards.

But they were in the beginning, part of a myth series talking about the mission of God. Yeah, I know.

And so as we heard them speak and heard what they were doing and saw what, you know, the heart of the church was, we were just like, whoa, this is. This is exactly what we want. This is exactly what we want to see happen. And so we wound up, I think it was another week. We went back the second week.

We're still trying to figure out getting into a house and all that, get things situated, and then went to visit my cousin, spent a, you know, weekend with him and visiting his church. But then that next week, we were like, I think this is where we belong. And we didn't even.

We attend the broken arrow campus of our church, but we didn't even know there was a broken arrow campus until, like, that week. We didn't have any intentions on attending there. We just saw, and we're like, hey, this is just right down the road. Let's check it out.

But just immediately fell in love, was connected just with our hearts to it, and then got connected, you know, a few months later in other aspects.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's really cool.

Like a good koga boy. You just follow the spirit. It leads you where it goes.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. See, that's one of the challenges. So, like, I ended up leaving church.

God of prophecy and with the Lutheran Church now And it's, you know, I'm not mad at anybody. Just there are differences of beliefs and how the service is structured. I feel like I just. Yeah, I appreciate about it. You know, stuff like that.

Nothing like I'm like, oh, I hate those guys.

But it is one of those where, like, you know, every now and then I'm like, man, yeah, I do miss a little bit more spirit led speaking in tongue stuff sometimes. And, like, realistically bringing back the topic, I kind of miss children's church. That's why conversations like this are difficult.

Because I'm like, man, I do. I do miss being a part of that. So that was. That was fun.

Yeah. If Josh could clap, dance or sing, he would probably still be in the church. God promise.

Probably. We're.

Yeah.

The Lutheran Church is lucky that I have no rhythm.

Yeah, they're lucky to. The Lutheran Church is lucky to have you as the stance that we're taking,.

Apparently.

Yeah, yeah, we let them. We let you go.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, for this series, we're going to have a special segment called Real or Fantasy? Which it should be called Fact or Fantasy. But Josh also isn't good at, like, alliteration.

Yeah, that. That does sound better.

Do that.

We're asking everyone a series of rapid questions to kind of start off to help us get us a sense of what really is real, what's a fact, and what is a fantasy concerning how the. The sausage of the church gets made, if you will. Hopefully with no pig intestines. But you might find out, I don't know.

Pigs are good.

I find out in this segment. So, yeah, okay. So what monthly expenses does a church have that many people might not think of?

I think for us being in the children's ministry area, it's how much we spend and how often we have to replace, like, fidget toys.

Be it not so much the fidget spinners from, you know, 10 years ago, but the different sensory toys that kids interact with to help them focus in today's society where tension is struggling.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Speak of struggle. What is a struggle that church leadership faces regularly that might shock some people.

To think about, oh, wanting to quit. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't really talk about that, you know, stand out on the pulpit and be like, hey, guys, I don't want to do this anymore.

You just gotta figure that out off stage.

I had a friend, they became a children's pastor. Oh, probably. Probably 10 years ago. And everything was great. They loved it, enjoyed it.

And then one day they were like, look, I Don't know if I could do this anymore. It was the Sunday afternoon, like, I'm done. I was like, oh, you are finally a children's pastor.

You've made it past the honeymoon and now you're actually in it and dealing with and all the stuff. And yeah, it's one of those things. The struggle is real. And so. Yeah, but you'll find out real quick if you're meant to be there or not.

Right.

So what's the most interesting room in your church and how does the layout of the room serve the functionality?

We have a lot of creative, interesting spaces that are a lot of them very similar. But we have a faith builders class which is actually special needs kids.

And so that room is set up specifically for them, having some sensory items, a wall of stuff that they can interact with and engage with. But the room is not like fully packed with everything. There's a table, there's a chair. It's meant to be more of a one on one type interaction.

When we have kids involved in, in that we have a very low ratio of teacher to kids. So that way you get more of a one on one experience.

And as they move through that room, it's not set up like a traditional classroom, but it's meant more to engage and connect with them. And that's our associate kids pastor. That's actually where he uses that as an office throughout the week. Like he's like, this is just the best room.

Yeah.

And he just, you know, he doesn't have like get anything for his desk. Just go to the wall, grab something.

That's right.

So, so how important is the layout of a worship area in a church building?

No, it's, it's vital. That's why we spend so much time focusing and looking at it.

It's one that as soon as I walk in, I start looking at where things need to be to help reduce distractions. Like, okay, so if it's a kid's space, it's an adult space. If it's a space that has people in it, they're going to get up and go to the restroom.

So how can you arrange it to where that's going to be the least disruptive? What's going to give them the best focus and best opportunity for flow?

Right.

Very, very creative experience directed there. Good answer, good answer. This is actually your secret third interview.

But the hard part, in one or two word answers, could you explain who's responsible for each of the following areas of your church and if you don't know or don't have an answer. You'd say you don't know or you don't have one.

Yeah.

So landscaping?

No idea. It just magically happens.

Yeah.

I picked weeds the other day. Walking in, I saw one and I grabbed a weed and I pulled it.

The Holy Spirit. The answer is the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

If you don't know, it's the Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Budgeting.

Oh, that'd be Brenda. Our executive director is probably over the big picture of it now.

There's other people involved in it, but we even have people like the associate kids pastor. He handles a lot of it for the kids on the move, taking care.

Of it, hospital visits.

Oh, I don't know who's directly over that. I'm in a group chat that has the different directors. If we see something or know something or hear something, we put it in there.

And we have some lady that coordinates that, but she'll coordinate that with some of the staff.

All right. Wedding and funeral arrangements.

I heard we have those, but I've never seen one. All right.

Theological correction.

Oh, this is one of my favorites. We actually have a department called cotmu. It's our. Well, I say cotmu. That's actually just even a part of it. But Pastor Blake.

Oh, goodness, I can't remember his last name right now. But yes, he heads up this team of spiritual formation, and that involves all of our Bible studies, all of the teachings we do on the weekends.

We have three campuses, and all three campuses teach the same subject matter each weekend.

And so that's poured into, developed, organized, and now each pastor develops it for his local congregation and shares it with his stories, who he is and his way of teaching and communicating. But, yeah, that spiritual formation team, they're great to be able to handle that and keep everybody on track.

Building maintenance.

No, no idea.

Worship set lists.

Okay. This is going to come from.

Straight from our worship leader, who is over production, worship, and communications from the front, with the exception of the teaching. He handles that whole part, even though announcements and all that. Now, he does that for his area.

For they have a director, liaison to children's ministry. We have that.

They have a team that comes through and different worship leaders for different classes, and that is in partnership with the kids pastor on what we're teaching, and so they'll work with them on. Hey, these are the songs we want to do. These are the ones we're working on. Do we have this? How's this going? Are we ready to do this one yet?

And so between the kids pastor and that liaison to kids on the move from the worship team.

All right. And teaching.

Teaching. Lots of people do that. We have. Oh, goodness. All kinds of teaching, pastors, teaching people. I'm a teacher. We even have teachers in the nursery every.

All kinds of teachers.

Yeah. Just. There's a lot of teaching to be done in a church.

Lots of teaching. And we start that all the way in our nursery.

A.

Our very first nursery with infants. They have songs, stories, things that they read, sing, pray over the kids, all that. So it starts right there.

Parking lot traffic.

Oh, I don't know who's in charge of that, but there's a guy and man, this team is like on it. They're out there. They got the bright colored shirts, they got the walkies, golf carts, all that, like, they're there on it.

Oh, yeah, they gotta be church your size. They gotta be. I've never thought that was a problem.

Once in my life, you know, especially our 10 o' clock service. Yeah, we're rolling through that. That service is packed. All seats are packed. We have people sitting in the lobby area.

And by people, I mean roughly anywhere from 20 to 40 people sitting out in the lobby.

Yeah, that's great. Greeting and welcoming people.

There's a team. Yep, they do it.

Yep. That's got to be nice. That's gotta be nice. That is the last one we have. But it must be nice to be like, oh, that's someone else's job.

We see them and like, even in kids ministry, it's a challenge. I see the schedule each week of the host team is for each service because we do want. We have like five services.

And so we have different host teams for each services. And some will may start one and finish and you know, the other one. Another team comes in. There's some overlap there, but it's.

It's something that we're always looking.

I mean, like, it doesn't matter where you're at or what's going on or what ministry, you're always looking for volunteers, people to step in and do it. Unless you're on a worship team.

And then everybody wants to be up front, but you know, sorry not to jab at the worship teams, but like, you know, lots of people want to be up there.

Yeah.

One of my favorite things so far, the series, we had a guy from Cornell, Zimmer Organ. I can't remember the company name. Yeah, Build Organs. But his. The church he attends downtown Charlotte.

So they have parking lot people, not because they have so many people, but because they have a literal parking lot. It is in the middle of downtown, so it's like you literally have to have somebody directing traffic or not everyone's making it to service, man.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, especially these days.

Charlotte's awful, but. Oh, God, all our Charlotte heads out there. Lamelo balls. Going to a different team. It's going to be a lot safer to drive.

You can worry a little bit less.

So anyway, one of the things. So children, I think we usually think of, like, children's church, maybe VBS or like, whatever. I always think of camp growing up.

That was like, the big thing for me where Team CJ and I met. I love church camp. It was my favorite thing ever.

I probably one of those things I miss the most because, like, job I have doesn't really allow for me to just leave for a week in the middle of summer. But, yeah, wish it did, because that was awesome.

We have.

Yeah. One year, though. One year when I was in Charleston, which. It was really cool.

When I was in that area, I was going to Charleston Southern University, learning a lot of theology and that kind of stuff, and then being mentored with Ryan and he was giving me more practical books. A lot of the times where I'm like, okay, so I learned this cool theology stuff, and then Ryan's helping me figure out what to do with it. So that was.

That was really cool. And then we did a lot of children's church, which involved a lot of creativity.

I think it really challenged me to use my brain in different ways, problem solve, et cetera. And I remember there was one year we were having church camp, and you were like, man, I want to do double dare.

Josh, if you can figure out how we can make mass quantities of slime, we'll do this. So you gave me a job. We figured it out. It was a lot of fun. Could you just. Just for kicks and giggles, for those listening, maybe unpack?

Like, what was the process like? One, coming up with the idea, then two, like, we had this really cool church camp. There was really great services. You got all the pastors in.

And we also did double dare. What was the process like? And I don't know. What was the results? I guess.

Well, I mean, that was completely nuts, and I got in trouble for that. Yeah, A little messier than maybe anticipated. And it took a lot longer for everything to dissipate than maybe the videos said things would last. But.

But anyway, it was lots of fun. And I'll be honest, I don't even remember what kicked it off as far as, like, the beginning, but I mean, because that was, you know, those.

A few years ago, a solid 15 years ago.

That makes me feel old. I don't like that. Maybe.

Maybe just 10, but you think. I think it was last 12, but yeah.

And so we did it and just had this idea of, you know, of stepping in and, you know, giving all that we had to be able to follow Jesus and looking at people that did that. And then what better than to have just this fun, crazy, insane time with sliming people and all that.

And I actually was remembering back to mixing them up in five gallon buckets there at the church before camp. Yeah. First to find the right consistency so that when we got there, we could do it. Yeah, yeah, that was. That was fun times there.

And probably one of the best camps that I got to leave.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of my favorite being a part of.

I remember before camp with the slime, trying to figure out how to get it into water balloons because kids pools, and we had to, like. We went to the dollar store, had like, you know those water guns where you, like, pump, and that's how we.

Ended up like a giant syringe.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think this is actually why I wanted to bring it up too, was I think people hear this stuff and they're like, man, that sounds like a lot of fun or a lot of excitement or, hey, I'm glad you did that for the kids and gave them a good time. And I think a lot of times it gets left out there is still. Even to the silliness. Yeah, of course. I would say this. There's a spiritual component.

One of the things me and my brother, there are a few moments in our lives that we go back to, and we're like, oh, man, hey, do you remember this? And all the time my brother will bring up.

Do you remember that time that we were both covered in slime in the middle of, like, the camp grounds in the grass, and we just gave each other, like, the biggest hug, and I'm like, yeah. He was like, that was weird. But, like, that was a good moment, right? And I'm like, yeah. And me and my brother will always hold on to that.

And.

Yeah. So a lot of people look at that. Oh, man, that was a lot of silliness. Y' all did all this. How much more do you spend for just some silly thing?

And I'm like, no, how much did we spend? How much effort did we put in so that me and my brother have that memory forever?

How many of those campers are going to remember that the rest of their lives, you know? And, like, to me, that's where the silliness you see, where it actually is important.

Yeah, absolutely.

Slime camp. Did you.

I was like, did you miss slime?

It was.

It was probably a junior camp. Yeah, I was.

Yep.

It was sophomore. Okay. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Oh, man. Big old foam letters.

I can slime you next time you come. If you throw an egg at you.

Well, I'll tell you, it actually reminds me of something I saw today, and it's from Esther Moreno, and she says this. You don't honor children by saying they matter. You honor them by preparing like they do. And when I saw that, I was like, wow.

And so I screenshotted it because I'm going to be sharing it with my team this week, just to let them know, like, it's the preparation that goes in that shows that we care about these kids, because these are memories that they will hold, you know, like, forever for the rest of their life. The relationships, those types of things. They probably don't remember anything that was said.

Like, I mean, seriously, come on, tell me something that your pastor said this last week. We forget. But you remember the experience.

Sabbatical.

That's his fault.

But, you know, like, it's hard to pull out those words of this and that. But you have these experiences that go with us, and you remember the fellowship that we had, the encouragement that we had, those types of things.

And so that's what we want to do. We want to make sure that we're encouraging them for the day and so they can grow up and be pointed in the right direction.

But, yeah, that they have those experiences that they look back to and, like. Yeah, I remember when that happened. That was awesome.

Yeah, it was awesome, too.

Sliding all right through that area. Yeah.

Yeah, I bet it was. I don't think, but we had a.

Water slide with slime. Pj.

I can't imagine how Mad Romper was. So tell us a little bit about Willie George and the church on the move and the emphasis that they place on children's ministry.

Oh, man. Our founding pastor, I learned about him when I first started getting involved in children's ministry.

They had their own curriculum at the time with puppets and all of that, and got to find out later that that's why he's actually started the church, was to have that foundation for kids to have a great children's ministry. He wanted to make sure that they were learning about Jesus.

Now, before this, he actually was a children's evangelist and going around back in the 80s and stuff, back before people actually even talked about it, did those types of things. And he was coming up with these crazy ideas. And so he was cutting edge children's ministry back in the 80s. And so he founds this church, starts it.

He's doing bus ministry because that was real big back in the 90s, doing buses and running out to different neighborhoods. And they had so many buses that they would do bring kids in.

But they had this value of making sure that they were important and they were valued and that they got to hear about God's word.

And then also Moving on to 180, the youth ministry, that that was that next step and making sure that we were building up, you know, like as a whole church, as a complete church, helping them all begin to experience and grow in their walks of faith.

Awesome. Yeah. Which, I mean, I can see why you ended up there.

I can remember going to training with a puppet ministry called One Way Street Ministries. They did puppets back in the 90s. I don't know, they may still be in business, I'm not sure. But they were the top people.

And they did a conference there at Church on the Move. And I got to go there with my team and we got to see it.

And I don't know if you've ever heard of the Christian rock band Thousand Foot Crutch from years ago.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah. But you didn't join a band.

No, no, never joined a band.

Not that, that, you know, I would like to see you at Winter Jam. But yeah, we can put that all back.

I would go. I would go.

I'll be sitting in the stands.

Yeah.

So how much of planning an event or a service for children is trying to have fun with your budget or coming up with ideas that will captivate the kids and how much of it is spirit led ideas that come to you?

Well, I mean, everything we do starts off with prayer. Like before we do anything, we look at, you know, beginning to pray over the event. Is this an event we should have? Is this something we should do?

I think. Josh, were you around when we did Professor Frizzle?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I love Professor Frizzle. I was hoping we'd bring him up.

Yeah, he was. I got to talk about him just the other day. But yeah, that was a character that born out of necessity. We Had a plan. We had to shift.

And I was like, okay, God, what are we going to do? All of our backup plans failed. And so I was like, okay, we need inspiration. Like, I have to figure something out.

And I've got, like, two and a half, three weeks. And so just like that. Jumped in on it and just prayed, and the Holy Spirit began to give ideas.

And so as I began to see things, I was like, oh, hey, what about this? I was doing something the other day, and, you know, you're just walking through a store, and you're like, oh, this is kind of cool.

Begin to play with. I was like, oh, this is interesting. And so I'm throwing it back and forth.

This ball that, you know, changes colors as it goes out and comes back after you. What it's called.

Exactly.

But we're in Hobby Lobby throwing it back and forth. Me and my kids probably get in trouble, but. Or people at least looking at us. And so I take it, we put it up, and we go on our business.

And then, like, a week later, I have somebody asking me about writing a lesson on Paul. And I was like, dude, you know, it was just like that. He transformed and changed, and so he was this, but then he became this.

And so we want to make sure that we stay consistent. We're not back and forth. And so it just. I mean, it was one of those things that.

Just keeping an eye open and heart open to whatever God wants to encourage me in and that. But trying not to work too hard.

That's what I found, is when I try to work hard at finding something interesting, it takes a long time, and it's slow. If I just let it happen and focus on other things and just be open to what we're doing and the kind of vision and idea that we want to see happen.

Hey, we got this going on. Okay, cool. What's the.

What's the theme?

All right, we're. We're there. Okay. All right. And then just let things, you know, show up and pop up and let the Holy Spirit encourage us.

And then as soon as he does, like, grab it, run.

Yeah, yeah.

Those balls are really cool, though, so.

They're really cool. I'm playing schedule unplanned question, so I'm trying to make sure I word this well.

So before going to you and learning from you in Charleston, I was in Wilmington for a little bit, and I helped a few churches with their children's church areas. I'll say I was really good at getting kids captivated. Reading the Bible part was probably Fine. But, man, I did some stuff.

Like, I look back on, we had one that we were like, literally flipping over tables and stuff. And I'm like, that was probably a little reckless in a lawsuit waiting. And I got really lucky there.

Like, you know, I'm looking back sometimes I'm like, man, I needed some structure. And then I also know of times where, like, I've been a part of different churches and I've seen them use it.

Like, they get out these lesson plan books and they're doing it to the T. And I'm like, man, even the game somehow was boring.

Right, right, right.

You managed to be structured, still have a lot of fun. I don't ever remember there being like, we're flipping tables over at kids getting hurt. Like, where? How? I don't know. How do you do this?

Like, do we need to find a lesson plan and just have more fun with it? Or, you know, like, where's the balance in this weird question.

Well, there was one time that I. I did have to use a fire extinguisher. And so perfect that. I mean, that has happened. But that. Paul, if it's science related, follow the ingredients they say and don't.

Kind of like, this is kind of like it. Hey, flour. It's kind of like. What's that? Baking soda that puts out fires? You know, it's not.

It's actually not super flam.

There's a reason why grain silos explode and go up. I experienced a big. Right there that day, and I was like, oh, wow, this is real. Okay, we gotta fix this right now.

And I have kids sitting in front of me. All right, what are we gonna do? So that was a great time. But no, I. It comes back to being prepared.

We start off like, I sent out at the beginning of this week because I'm currently leading a third through fifth grade team, which this is the last few weeks of it. We're shifting, and we're gonna actually have a fourth and fifth grade class and then a first through third grade class.

And so we're kind of adding a class, breaking up the ages a little bit differently and doing that. And so to the team, though, I send them out this thing at the beginning of the week.

And it has the scriptures to study, it has our big idea, it has the three main points of the message that we're going to be teaching. And so with just one sentence, like, after it, like, here's the point, here's something about it.

And so we start with that, and then we just pray as we're you know, going through the week, we're reading through some scriptures and then we look at the lesson and see what it says, but making sure that you're prepared and ready to actually have it in your heart and you're communicating it out of your heart and in that way. Like, how many times did you see me read from a lesson plan?

I don't think ever.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I don't think ever.

I had one almost every single time. And so whether it was one that was formulated or one that I actually wrote myself, I always had a lesson plan. I always had outlines.

I always had things that, you know, that keep me going. But I would always practice them and rehearse them ahead of time so that I knew what I wanted to say.

That once I was there, I was just able to just communicate and be in the moment and share it with them and then be able to follow Holy Spirit as he's leading. And you see something's happening, like, oh, I got to actually engage and interact with this kid in a real meaningful way.

We'll get to that other stuff in a little bit, but let's focus right here for now. And so you have freedom when you're prepared.

And that's, I'd say probably the number one thing is like, if you know what you're talking about and you know what's going to be happening, you can make those adjustments on the fly because you've already got in your head, oh, wow, we're doing this. Yeah, we can cut that or we can adjust this. We can let those things happen. I mean, like, we're super structured.

We got an hour long service that typically is an hour and 10. But we're doing some remodeling right now and we have part of our hallways cut off, so we had to do a different flow.

And so because it's not a one way street, and now it's a come in and loop around and go back out the same way you came in. It is very tight for in between services for us. So we went from an hour, ten to an hour.

So I mean, you got to be just like right on it and be ready to make adjustments as it goes through. And so it's one of those if you know it and you've got it, you can communicate out of that. And kids respond better, people respond better.

I mean, if you see somebody reading something, you're like, oh, they don't know what they're talking about. But if they are, you know, just, just genuine in it, you, you can see the experience. And we don't have outlines.

I mean, like, goodness, I'm like squirrel. But, you know, so I have that there just to kind of like keep me on track of. This is here, this is here.

I even have times written down on our production sheet for our kids class. We start here. This takes three minutes. This takes five minutes. This takes, you know, five minutes. This is 12 minutes for this.

I have it all written down. Why? So that I can kind of keep an eye on where we're at, how it's going. I look up, I see where we're at. I see where we're at on the outline.

Okay, how are we doing? What do we need to adjust? Okay, so I'm going to need to make an adjustment here. Oh, but we're at the end. We've got roughly 10 minutes left.

Well, that means we're going straight to gain because we're going to wrap up with a review game at the end nearly every single time. But sometimes we skip something and then realize, no, we're going back to that.

We're going to cut this and we're going to come on back just because we know that that's where we need to be.

So, yeah, we do a lot of similar things with podcasts.

Actually, I was going to say it.

Sounds nothing like doing a podcast.

Yeah, yeah. TJ's probably watched me delete a few questions and add a few things as we were going right now.

If you take the outlines that you have next to you and then compare it to what we have currently, it's not the same.

Yeah, never. So you've mentioned a few times already and I've known you a while. You go to all of these different conventions. You mentioned the church right now.

You went to something like that. It was like a workshop or something. Could you maybe tell us some about those kind of events that are for people who are doing children's ministry?

What are they like and how have they helped you over the years?

Well, there's children's ministry or any ministry. Like they got a SALT conference, they have a worship leader conference. They have, you know, conferences for everything now.

And they have even better you, you can stream them webinars, all kinds of stuff so you don't even have to like pack up and go.

But if you can, getting a way to go to one of those things is incredible because it allows you to break away from all the regular day to day stuff and just turn your attention and be with other like minded people, people that are going through the same things that are dealing with same things because you can easily feel isolated and alone. And so this gives you that community to be there with. It's refreshing and encouraging.

And so I was thinking back, I was like, I remember when I went to years ago, Willow Creek, like one of the biggest churches of the time, they were running like 30,000 up just outside of Chicago. I think it's Barrington, Illinois, but huge church. Got to go to their annual conference one time.

And it opened my eyes to see things in a different perspective. And that's kind of one of the things that I think is really important in these is seeing just things from a different perspective.

But like, while that was huge and big and amazing, the most impactful one is one that the Church of God of Prophecy does. The icm, their Institute of Children's Ministry, they do it every other year.

So they're not doing it this year, but they'll do it next fall, probably beginning in November be my guess. I don't have the dates or anything, but that one there, they bring in great people.

I mean like top notch communicators, speakers, people that are doing it.

That Esther, she's actually been there one time, one of the people from Church on the Move, a former Christian Education, Christian Education director, was one of their guest speakers. And his daughter Yancy, who does kids worship and that kind of stuff. She's been there a couple of times and super connected with them.

But it gives you a personal connection with people where you're in groups because it's about 100 to 150 participants.

So you can sit at a small table, have those intimate type relationships where you're talking with, you know, five or six people and being able to grow and encourage each other.

Nice. That is great.

So could you describe in detail what the process is like from the moment that you start planning an event or a service all the way up until time for the children to arrive?

Yeah. Okay. So I mean, it's different for each thing. I did an event the other day at a church that they did a one day vbs.

It was an assembly of God church that I know some of the people there. And so they asked, invited and I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it. And so went there. But getting ready, I was like, okay, what's the theme?

What's the time frame? I need to know the logistics of what is expected and what, what box do we have to fit inside?

And so once I got that, I was like, okay, Lord, what are we going to do at this time? What do you want to see happen. And they had a general's kind of direction. I was like, okay, cool. All right. They're doing an outer space thing.

Hey, you know, I did an outer space theme. Huh? Be fun to be an astronaut. Yeah, I like being an astronaut. Cool. All right, so space it is. I'm going to be an astronaut. What are we going to do?

And so I started going through some resources. I found that just had different types of creative elements. And as I saw them, I was like. Went through a lot of them, looked at it, I was like, okay.

Oh wow. You know what'd be cool is if like we turned this into which this was from like an eight week series that somebody had done.

I was like, what if we turn this into like a mission? It's a one day mission. We're going out to do this and we're coming back. And so we got to just really kind of work on it and workshop that.

Of what do I have? What is available to me? I worked summer camp with a guy that he would show up with like all kinds of playground equipment type stuff.

And he'd get there and he'd look, he's like, okay, so what do we have? All right, we got some hula hoops and we got some playground balls. Okay, so what kind of game can we play? All right, this is what we're going to do.

Like, I mean, I'm telling you, like within 10 minutes he's got a game that he's leading 150, 200 kids in and they're all like, just like, ah. Because he just looked at what he had. And so for me it starts off with that. Finding out what the box is that we have to fit in the time frame.

Is it day? Is it 9? How long is it? Then praying. Okay, what do we want to do at this time? What's the focus? What's the core point?

We want to be able to communicate and then what's available to us? What kind of resources do we have?

What kind of things can we do and bring in and then go from there and then find out what are these criteria that we need to meet? Checkboxes. Well, this needs to be fun. Okay, so let's, let's look for. We're going to have to have some of that.

What other elements do we have to have in this for our services? It's real simple. I have the outlines, I have the weekly run sheet that we do. Okay, so these are the boxes. We have to have a key verse.

We have to have a big idea we have to have a teaching. We have to have two songs, and we just go through and make sure that we've got each one of these checked and we filled them with the right thing.

And then look over and say, now, is this what we really want? Is this the event we're wanting to do? When I. When I look at this, is this something I get excited about?

Okay, I see the flow here, where we go from here to here to here to here? Or is this something I need to scrap and start over?

And sometimes I scrap it and start over working on a lesson right now that it's a finished lesson, except there's parts I just don't really like. So I. Instead of thinning it out, I'm scrapping it and, okay, well, what are the key things that we want to get here?

As I looked at it and went through it, I was like, I don't know that we need to do all this. What if we focus in on this? We got a shorter time frame right now, so let's do this, this, this. Tidy things in.

Now, how does that flow from piece to piece of making coherent, you know, thought processes?

Because everything has to be, you know, I won't say linear, but at least, like, needs to kind of go in the same direction instead of bouncing here, there, and doing all that. So you want to take them on a journey, whether it's an event or even just a service. And so you want to make sure that it has that flow.

You see this in stories, movies, writing styles. Some of them are different. Some of them, I'd say more of modern movies, they kind of.

They start here and it's a little slow, and then they'll kind of build and have. But they get up right before the end, up to this, like, kind of crescendo. We did it, we accomplished it.

And then they'll just kind of release into the end. And you see that it's a very traditional one of modern movies and styles.

And so you look at where you're at and what you're doing, and, well, what kind of pace do we want to see? When do we want to have the crescendo? Do we want to have that at the end? Like it's modern for movies? Do we want to have that at the middle?

One thing we've done is in a lot of services I do, our prayer time isn't at the end of service. It's in the middle of service. I can't always dictate the end because that's by adults when they're done.

And so by move it up to the middle, I dictate that we did the most important thing. Then we'll adjust after that to what we can cut and allow.

And if we get cut on short, short on time, nobody's getting cut on praying, nobody's getting cut in hearing the word and worshiping, it's the additional elements that get cut. And so that's kind of how we start, is that we have our box. We pray about what we want to put in that box. What do we have?

And then making that logical path of this fluid and smooth and to then, you know, communicating and getting those resources out to everybody.

Cool stuff.

Yeah.

And make sure I can do it well.

Right. You know, but at this point.

Well, I mean, I was asked today if I was going to be able to do something for this weekend. And I've been hesitant to tell them no, that's the answer. Nobody likes to hear that, but we're just not going to be able to do it well.

And if I can't do it well, oh, the first time I do it, I want to do it kind of mediocre. Let's start off and let's make sure that this first time that we bring this in and do this, that it's exciting.

And then if we have like some times that are down, let's put them in the media middle of like some great times.

Right? Right. Yeah.

So if you had to put it into one or two sentences, what is the call to minister to children meant to you and how is the work that you do influenced the local congregations that you've been a part of?

For me, it's just a call to help people learn about Jesus, whatever age they are. I've been in kids, adults, seniors, media, ministry, helping, you know, in just all of those. And it all comes down to helping people see Jesus.

When we look at kids and the impact there.

I got to go back to that church that I first attended as a, you know, a young 22 year old following Jesus for the first time and starting ministry there when I did. I remember these two twin girls. They were the first kids I ever baptized. They were like 6 years old. They were sharpest kids I'd ever seen.

Really got intelligent questions that they would ask. I'm like, oh, it's a really good question. That's like deep and so. But, you know, enjoyed the time with them, watch them kind of a little bit.

And then I moved off. Well, now one is the worship leader, another one that was in that same children's ministry. He's a worship leader at another church.

One of them went on missionary trips and doing mission trips and doing those kinds of things. And so what we do there is we are building the church.

We're creating disciples, people that are following Jesus and have that opportunity to be able to grow and use their gifts, whether they're young or old. We've been doing like a youth worship team at our church. Now, that started a few years ago, and these kids are growing and growing.

And they started off at like, 14, 15. Well, now they're like 17, 18.

And so, you know, they've been growing through that and able to do that in other areas and really be able to encourage the kids there. Now, where did this start? This started with younger kids. And how did they get that? Well, they start off with the foundation of Jesus.

And so everything that we do is building upon, you know, encouraging each other. And I think that's almost kind of like what we're supposed to do is encourage the body. So whether it's young or old. Yeah.

Use your gifts, whatever age, and be thankful that you're a ear or a nose and move on with it.

All right? Yeah.

So if you had to give just one piece of advice to someone who's looking to be a better children's minister or to help kickstart their churches, their children's ministry, anything like that, what would you tell them?

Pray. I mean, like, seriously, like, you have to have that relationship. It's. Oh, you know, it's said and said again.

We're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know, I'm supposed to pray. No, no, seriously, though, really, like, that's what you have to be doing. You have to have that relationship.

If you're not connected to the vine, how are you going to be able to produce fruit? And eventually it's not God producing fruit. It's you just trying to manufacture and do this. And hey, there's great teachers out there.

Like, people all over teach in schools and in universities and on the Internet. Mark Rober, he's a great teacher, actually love watching his stuff, but that's all he is.

He gets people excited about science, and that's cool and all, but what we want to do is make something that has an eternal impact. And so without prayer, without being connected to Jesus, none of that's ever going to happen. And so you have to do that.

And then, like, we were created as creative beings, Right? Like that. That's back to Genesis, the very beginning, with imaginations and all that. And he created us that way.

And so once we spend time with him, allow him to open that up inside us and unlock it and then be open to the things that he lays before us and puts before us.

Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned him, though, Mark Rober.

If, you know, if he had been around back in the day, you probably wouldn't have started that fire in front of all those kids.

Oh, no, I definitely would have started that fire. That was one of the greatest teaching times I ever had.

That was so impactful, the lesson that came out of that, like, how we put out our problems, like how we think we can do it ourselves. And then how we tried to hand it off. Because I tried to hand it off to my assistant. She was like, oh. And so.

Which, I mean, seriously, I tried to give a flaming pan to this girl that was helping me teach, and she's like, I ain't touching that. And so then I'm there carrying it myself and drop it on the floor and flames go up. And then I remember, oh, yeah, there's only one way to do this.

It's fire extinguisher just sitting right here. And so I was like, we try to do this with our problems. We try to handle them ourselves, fix them, you know, our own way.

Get other people to help fix our problems. But really, God's the only one that can do it. And so that lesson was huge. I tried to recreate it, but it wasn't quite the same.

When I knew there was going to be fire, I think it was the fear wasn't really in my eyes. Like, it was that one day. That day it was real.

Listen, Shout out Stephen Puckett. I always remember the time that he preached at camp and broke a bunch of TVs and stuff.

I don't remember everything about the sermon, but I know it had to do with the not to. Stealing time and using your time wisely. I know what it had to do with. And I remember the TV's being broke, so I guess it was affected.

You got the main point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, it's really fun.

To break TVs, actually, was the point.

Yeah, yeah.

We actually did a video on that the other day, just a week or two ago. How much fun. Smash. Yeah, they were in a smashing. Talking about how our words can be destructive. Dude, they smashed so much stuff.

Sounds great.

It was so much fun.

Yeah.

I also still just really hate anytime someone asks me, hey, can I throw that in the fryer? Because say no to burning stuff is just so hard for me. I've gotten better at It.

But some part of me still like, what if we did just throw that in the fire? See what happens?

Let's see.

Usually a bad idea, for the record. All right. But, Pastor Ryan, one thing get a little more serious that we do like to do every episode.

We like to ask our guests, if you had to give some advice, that was just something practical that our listeners could stop and do at the end of this episode, something tangible that they're able to do. What's one thing that would help better engender church unity?

Spend time talking to them, to other leaders. It's real easy to get frustrated and to get bothered by people you don't talk to.

Whether this is a relationship in your home, whether this is a relationship with people you work with, whether this is a relationship at church. When you don't talk to people, you start to build up your own thoughts of how they're feeling and what they're experiencing.

But when you stop and spend time with them, you get to see what's going on. And not that, you know, motivations are always important, but it helps you to understand more of what's going on.

And so, like, if you're connected with another ministry, well, then you care about what they're doing, and if you care about what they're doing, then you're going to help support them, and then they're going to help support you.

That Professor Frizzle thing we did was one of the coolest things at our church, because the whole church jumped in, came together, and in three weeks, we knocked out a pretty killer event. That was awesome. It was so much fun.

And so that happened because everybody jumped in, everybody cared about what was happening, and everybody got to see what it took to make it happen. And so spending time with them, getting coffee with them, have a meal, you know, just. Just taking time to talk to them, and then pray for them.

If you're praying for somebody, like, really, truly with your heart, maybe at first you're just, like, going through the motions, but eventually you get to where you're truly doing it, you're going to care so much more. Yeah. And so people you spend time with and people you pray for, you'll wind up being close to.

And if you can, even if, like, you aren't able to lead the whole team to do that, maybe you just start doing it yourself. I was just like, hey, do you.

Think we can get together?

I wanted to just see what's going on, ask questions about what other people are doing, and when they see your interest, they'll Begin to open up more once they realize that you're genuine and that you care, not that you're trying to get information.

Yeah, right.

So what would change in the world if everyone did that? Oh, wow.

I think we'd be more open and we might even. I was reading a passage that said, let's see, what was that? And make room for other people's faults.

I can't remember exactly where it was because I've been reading, like, studying for something. And so it was a bunch of different passages that I was jumping. But talking about us being a new creation and putting away the old things.

It's like, put away these old things and make room for other people's mistakes and faults. Like, you know, you make mistakes, they're going to make them too, and just make some room for it.

And once we start doing that and like, we start to get along, we start to help each other and fighting and arguing and then we're all moving, like, in the same direction.

Yeah.

This is really crazy. This is like a. Like a humble flex. Cuz, like, you guys know I have terrible memory.

So when I remember something, I just have to like, hey, guys, I remembered something. I remember like 400 something episodes ago. What? Ryan's practical action was the first time. So this is just mind blowing that.

I remember this because I don't.

You told us to have churches. Go do some community service or something together.

But don't wear your church's shirt because you're together, but not because you're advertising your church. I don't know. I've held on to that this whole time, so I guess it was a really good one.

I did also hold on to that. I just didn't remember. You said it.

There's a few of these practical actions.

That I'm like, that was.

That was gold. Yeah.

I wonder where I got that from.

Who knows? One last thing that we like to do before we get to the outro, stuff we call our God moment. Not sure if you remember.

I'm pretty sure we did it at the time. I think we started early. I don't know if we started that early, but we do our God moment.

We ask everyone to share a moment in their life recently where they saw God.

Whether it be a blessing or a challenge or a moment of worship, whatever it is, I always make Josh go first to give the rest of us enough time to think. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?

Yeah. I'm not sure if we've recorded since the last time I went to Kentucky. But I went to see my grandmother.

She was recently put on hospice, and she's never been super talkative. For context, she talked her ears off that first day we came, so I got to talk to her a long time. It was so cool.

And then she got tired and didn't talk for, like, the next week. But she talked our ears off that first day. And one of the stories she told us was really cool, was about how they.

One time they took some of the kids to Disney World. And my one aunt I never got to meet, she passed the year before I was born, always wanted to ride the log ride.

So they rode it once, and then the guy was like, y' all want to ride it? She was disabled, so she didn't have to do the lines. And before my grandparents could say no, she was like, yeah, yeah, let's do it again.

So they all had to ride it again, and they. They hated it. And to me, that was a really cool moment, because my whole life, that log ride at Disney World has been me and my dad's thing.

I had no context for it. It was just my dad always took me on that. So every year I go to Disney, I have to ride the log ride. What?

Me and my dad do it to have that extra context of, oh, that's why my dad wanted to do the log ride. I don't know. That was super meaningful to me. That opened up, like, this one little fun thing that I do to. Oh, wait, no, there's.

There's meaning behind it, and that was kind of cool. So we'll go with that.

Yeah, we've written that together.

We have, we have. But we haven't written it since they changed it together.

No, we have not.

Yeah, we need to.

But for me, by God moment, this is. This is the first time I've recorded anything in, I think, three weeks. Yeah. So this is the longest.

Well, I guess second, but the first was, like, two hours ago. So, you know, this is the first time, and it's been weird and it's been strange.

It is the longest I've gone without recording something in eight years, you know, so it's been. It's been super odd. There's just, like, a piece missing from my. My life and my routine. I also got promoted, which has been very difficult.

And Josh and I once again have the same job. Yeah. But I'm strong enough to get through it. And you know why? God.

You got okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Ryan, do you have a God moment for us?

I think for me, it's we do something called like, a silence and solitude, Just a moment of quiet. With our kids. We take about two minutes each week, which is really kind of awkward to think that we do this with third through fifth graders.

But we sit just completely quiet. We encourage them not to talk, not talking to anybody. You're not even talking really to God at this point.

You're just there sitting and listening, just in a moment of quiet. And we have some soft music playing. But it's in this time that they're able to sit and hear and just be able to open up.

And we give them little prayer cards in case something comes to mind that they want to write down or something that comes to mind that they decide they want to pray about. And, you know, when we're short on time and all that, we kind of look at, is this a good use of time?

I mean, like, you know, we had to cut almost 10, 15 minutes. Is this something we can shave a little bit? And as we're looking that we're wanting to keep it. We have a couple prayer requests like this last week.

That one was, if we're gonna die, what's the point of living? And this was from a third through fifth grader.

That's a big one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other one was in regards to being alone and that her parents had died. She lost one when she was about 1 years old, so never really knew.

The other one was about a year ago. And that was something that she was thinking about at that time.

And so it allowed us the opportunity that meanwhile, that happens, we move on to the next segment. We kind of stair stuff into a couple things happen, and then we have our game.

But while I am leading a game of chaos up at the front, our other teacher, she's in the back and she's looking through those cards, and she's able to take just a moment because we made space and made that time to be able to interact with those two girls. And it's like, wow, this is a lot. Okay, let me make sure that. See, is there anything we need to follow up with?

You talked about who does visits and all that kind of stuff. That all starts at our classroom level being communicated up and then letting people know so that they can go from there.

So it starts with those relationships, and so that there. She just reaches out to each one of these kids while chaos is happening. She's having a real moment in the back that she talks to me about afterwards.

I mean, I see she's talking to kids, but I know she knows what she's doing so she's doing that. I got this. And I mean, we're screaming and hollering and so we get done. She explains it and I'm like, wow. Yes.

We make sure that this happens every single week. We want to make sure now. And I say every single month, as many as we can, we make sure that we make that space.

Maybe I learned how to stop talking a little bit quicker because I do way too much of that.

But we've got to make room for these kids to be able to just stop, pause in a moment of fast paced life that we have today where they're always distracted and always bombarded. That was a moment for me this week that says, no, we got to make sure we do that. We got to make sure. I got to make sure I do that.

So that was a moment just in this last few days that was like, wow, I got to stay focused on it.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. Good stuff.

So love it now. If you're listening still. Thank you very much. Please consider sharing.

It's been a long time.

You know, we've gone longer a little. A couple times.

People listen to podcasts. Hang in there. I don't know. They got commitment.

Yeah. But thank you for listening.

Like me listening to like three times. Speed.

Yeah. Share it with a friend. Share with an enemy. Share with your cousins.

Listen especially your cousins.

Gotta share with cousins. Go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts to promote our show.

It helps raise money for podcasting needs and it helps others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church. One of Josh's favorite shirts is the Trinity knot.

Yeah, I do love the. I'm wearing it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got part of the. The Nicene Creed on it. And then it has at the bottom, one church, one God. Big fan of that.

Also just has the opportunity not. It looks good in green. I love green, you know, such a good color. Ryan Green's also a good pastor, so what a coincidence, you know? Yeah.

Also check out some of the other shows on the Onazole podcast network. We mentioned Cismak Ecology earlier. TJ and I've.

The few times we've gotten to record have been with each other because we both have the crazy schedules that usually just makes it easier for us to record with each other and not with anyone else, it turns out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we hope you enjoyed it. Coming up, we'll be talking with a representative from a Lutheran church about the calling and seminary process for the denomination.

After that we'll be speaking with someone from the Amy Zion Church about the ongoings and the behind the scenes work of the organization of a church domination. And then finally at the end of season one, Francis Chan is going to.

Be on the show probably if someone tells him about it.

Yeah.

If anyone ever asks, he's got to be invited. Yeah, yeah. I, I think we did this bit from the time before Ryan was on the first time. That's how long this bit is going on.

Someone please contact him so we can move on to a new bit. Yeah, we're not doing it. Yeah, yeah. We're getting tired of this one little behind about the Pope.

Let's do a little whole church behind the scenes. The planned next bit was for Pope Francis. That's how long it's been happening.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. If our listeners would have worked quicker, we might have been able to make it happen. Yeah, that's their fault, truly.