Ministering to Students in Challenging Times

Ken Allen

Well, all right. We wanna welcome you, again, where we’re doing this through our leader character church help office. My name is Ken Allen, church help strategists for the office. And on behalf of Mike Jackson and our office, we’re glad that you’re here with us this morning, as we can continue through some challenging times for ministry. And today we’re considering student ministry in challenging times. Again, we wanna take the most advantage of the moments that we can share this morning. Maybe for 20 minutes or so Scooter’s gonna share and then we’re just going to do a Q&A. And again, scooter Kellum is in the office of collegiate ministry and student ministry. And he is the one who does our student ministry. And so we’re grateful for our youth ministry. Grateful to have him here today. He has already been doing webinars with student ministers around the state. So he has his finger on the pulse of what’s taking place in youth ministry in various sizes of churches, and youth ministers, et cetera, and the churches that they’re serving. So he already has an idea of what’s going on around the state. And so we’re grateful that he can join us today. And a scooter again, thank you for being with us.

Scooter Kellum

Thank you Ken. I appreciate you having me on here and getting to share a bit and getting to talk to my people, youth pastors.

Ken Allen

Amen, well, let me lead us in prayer and we’ll let you get started. Father again, this day we’re grateful for all that you have done for us. That you have called us in to ministry and the ministry calling has different facets. Father, as far as vocational ministry. God we thank you for pastors who do double duty with this. We thank you for student guides who are full time or part time. However that you’ve called them in this season that we’re in. Father we know realize that they wanna have the greatest impact for your kingdom’s work. And so we pray that today would honor and glorify you as a part of continuing to reach people with the gospel of Christ, especially our students, Father, who certainly are continuing to make it through this time. And it’s challenging enough Father with their lives during adolescence, and then all that’s added to it in the time of COVID. So God, we pray you bless and move amongst us. Use scooter, as he shares this morning. We thank you in Jesus name we pray, Amen. All right brother, share with us.

Scooter Kellum

Thank you. I wanted to open this morning and it’s so good to be with all of you. I wanted to open this morning with this passage scripture. And is a common scripture, you’re not gonna be surprised. But this is one that I’ve had to really struggle with. It’s 2 Timothy 1:7. It says for God gave us a spirit, not a fear. It’s common in our world today for us to use that, I’m saying us because it’s common for me to be able to do this. I’m a youth pastor in my heart and so we’re always known as kind of the ones who wanna push the envelope, and we wanna go, we wanna do this. For me, I look at this and I go, man we gotta reopen, or we gotta do this, or we gotta be able to do that. Our students got to get back together. And it’s easy to look at this passage and say for God has not given us a spirit of fear. We can’t fear these challenging times. But then it says this, but a power and love, and self control. It’s accurate, we should not have a spirit of fear but we can have a spirit of love, of power and of self control. I have to have self control although my flesh and Scooter may want to do youth ministry this way, or do church this way. I’ll also have to practice some self control to know what is safe, and what is not to be careless just because I don’t want to be fearful.

And so for today I wanted us to look at a lot of different approaches from a youth pastors around our state. I know that I’m talking to a group of youth pastors, or pastors, or church staff members and whatever it may be, wherever you may serve in your ministry and in your church. And you may be going, what you’re saying there, I can’t do, or I can’t do this or this, and I’m not a full time staff member. Well, here’s the deal. What I did is I gathered some intel from people who were around our state in all locations around our state, who are also big church, small church, medium sized church, or however you wanna define that. We’ve pretty much got most of it covered. We’re not gonna fit everybody. Something I’ll say today might not be you, but there might be something that does fit you, that you can do that you can apply because we’ve gotten it from all over. So I wanted you to know that going in.

So as we open up talking about small groups, what does it look like to do small groups? It’s so quick, or we’re so quick, to wanna get together and do worship together. Whether that’s in youth ministry, we wanna do our Wednesday night service. We wanna go after it. We wanna have our big band, or we wanna have our music, or whatever that looks like for you. We wanna be able to preach and do Bible study. But what does that look like in small groups? Actually, small groups are easier to manage and you get to invest more in them. We’ve seen across our state that there’s a couple of different ways that we’re doing it, well, really three. There’s in-person, there’s virtual and then there’s just we’re gonna take a break from small groups altogether. And so we’re just going to take a break from that and we’re gonna do these other things and see what we can do. And so when we look at that there’s kind of a couple of different options when you think about in-person. Do you do it inside and just social distance? Or do you do it outside? There’s locations, do you do it once a week? Do you do it once a month? How does that work for you? I think we’re seeing several different approaches to it. Some are doing zoom. Again, same thing, are you doing it weekly? Are you doing it monthly? Are you doing zoom every week except for once a month, you’re doing an in person thing that you can spread out for your group? How are you staying connected in your small groups? There’s a lot of different ways you can do do that.

I know that we’ve got some churches that said that what they’re doing is they’re doing their small groups in the backyard or somewhere outdoor like just in the backyard, they got some chairs, they’re socially distance. They’re doing small groups there. We have to be careful because in my watching and my seeing things, in observations around our state, teenagers are the most likely to just excuse the social distance mandates, or the mask mandates, or whatever the suggestions are because they just want to live life together. If we’ve learned anything through youth ministry in my experience through this process, is our students come to church for in-person community. They want that group, their small group time. They want their corporate time. They want to come there and be able.. I’m not saying that they do shut off their phones. I’m not saying they don’t look at all the social media platforms or text, or whatever. They like their Bible on their phone. I get that world. But they come there, what I feel like, for them to be around friends, to connect, to have a community of faith, because they might not be getting that in other places of people their age.

So we gotta look at this as important. And so we’re seeing a lot of our feedback for small groups is we have nobody coming on to zoom. Hey, our numbers were decreasing. So zoom for small groups has not worked everywhere. Some places it has died quick. However, there are some small groups that have really thrived and are doing well, and has been intentional. And they liked that. I would say that that for youth worship services, a lot of that is the same. It’s really not that different. You got some people that have already gone back to normal. And normal being that they’re in person, they’re there, they’re doing things. We also have some people who were making sure that in doing that, they’re just going ahead and making the extra effort to social distance. Some are coming back, they’re suggesting it, they’re saying that, hey, you gotta do this, but they’re not. I would say to you, make sure that you are doing your part to keep up with all the guidelines that you need to, to keep your church safe. That’s what I would recommend. And I think most of our people are doing that.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a church . And it was really interesting me and Larry hiked to another state missionary and men’s discipleship, we were up there and we’re visiting Seth King. And we saw the chairs that were laid out. They were six feet apart. And it was really neat to watch because here’s what was interesting that I didn’t realize whenever we were sitting there watching. The students were not standing together. They were distanced. But man the personal worship with the Lord was sweet to watch. But not only that, when we started digging into the word, when Seth started preaching, man working through the scripture, the students were diving into the word. They weren’t distracted, they weren’t talking, they weren’t doing other things. They were actually as attentive as I’ve seen students. Me and Larry were talking on the way home, we were like, man, I wonder if that might not be something we wanna practice for a long term. Maybe to get in and dive in and to have that attendance. That might not work for everybody. You might do that with your kids at a worship service and that might not work. But what we saw that night was really good.

There’s some people who are doing Wednesday night worship services outdoors. They’re going out and they’re doing some Bible study. They’re doing some worship and they’re going and having games and do some cool things there. Outdoors, indoors, some people are saying, hey, we’re gonna hold off on the student worship, and we’re just gonna focus on making sure that we’re being safe and doing our church worship well. And then there’s some still doing digital, Facebook and Instagram, on those platforms and it’s working for them, and it’s doing well. They’ve got a lot of people who are watching that and engaging in that. We have another church, First Baptist Trustful, is trying some new things starting tonight. They are doing what they’re calling 205 tour. And on Tuesday nights they’re using tribe teams. What they’re gonna be doing at camp with their tribes. And they’re taking stage and lights, and they’re doing worship and a message, and tribe wars each week. And so they’re gonna go to different places all over the area code of 205. They’re hoping to have that as an event, they’re doing it as an opportunity to outreach to neighborhoods into the area. And so it’s really exciting. Victor Jones and his team there, Matt there. They’re doing such a great job. Being creative, you’re not getting to do camps so let’s go here, let’s keep it safe, let’s be outdoors. Let’s go and reach some neighborhoods. Let’s go and do some things.

So, there’s some cool things you and I could do that, but if you’re in that area, you might want to go and be part. They’re doing some really cool things, and so just trying to be creative. I think that’s a joy. I think that if I could take a break and just say for us, youth pastors, we have an opportunity to be creative in what we’re doing. It’s easy to get caught up in being tired. It’s easy to get caught up in frustrations because everything is being canceled or changed, or some people don’t wanna come back, some do. Here’s the thing, you’ve got to reach people. And so for you when we think about that reaching people is important. There’s some people who are just, like I said, they’re just holding off. We have several of our youth pastors that we’ve talked to that are starting in the next month. They’re starting to work it back in. There’re some things here in Montgomery that a couple of our youth pastors are saying, we’re having to be very cautious because we’re such a hotspot for COVID-19.

You’ve got to wear mask, you’ve got to take some extra precautions. And so because of that, they’re having to be very cautious because they don’t want to go against what the laws are. They don’t want to go against these mandates. But they also wanna be obedient to the Lord and serving and investing in the people. And so they’re doing that the best ways that they can. So that’s kind of small group youth worship services. That’s where we’ve been. But what about outreach? Are you doing any outreach stuff? What are you doing? What can be done? There’s some people who were saying, hey, we’re trying to invest in our churches, we’re trying to do some things. But then there’s some really cool things that are going on. We’ve got a church, in Phoenix city and they’re doing what’s called city owner needs. And so they’re going small groups and they’re going out to laundry mats, and they’re giving people two loads worth of detergent and fabrics, and money to do two loads. Baby wipes on changing stations, popcorn maybe at a red box. And on all of that they’re attaching devotions. I’m sure that they’re being safe with that, wearing some gloves and doing some masks. But what a cool idea. They’re just loving people in their needs. City owner needs.

And so they’re going to go and invest in people that way. I know that some people, a couple of different groups, are just going out to their city park. Whether that’s just a fun time with hanging out. Hey, everybody come, we’re gonna social distance, and we’re gonna just hang out. Some have played kickball, catch the flag. I don’t know how you play catch the flag and social distance, but youth pastors be careful and try and be creative, remember. Just trying to find some ways to make sure that you’re being careful, that you’re being safe, but reaching others. I had one of my youth pastors who came out and said that he had just purchased tickets to Scott Dawson Evangelism Association. And it’s a night of hope. Knowing Scott, they’re gonna be trying to social distance, the best they can. But on August six or seven they’re gonna be in Montgomery at the Biscuits stadium. On the eighth they’re gonna be in Birmingham. Madison on the eighth and in Birmingham on the ninth. I know that that’s gonna be a big night. They’ve got David Crowder, Scott Dawson’s gonna be sharing the gospel, Tauren Wells. And they’re going to be an outreach event. And Clive Mallory at Eastmont wrote in there as we were looking for what they’re doing, that’s something that he believes safe enough. He’s going to take his kids to, you might not. So guess what, if you don’t feel like it’s safe enough to take your students to, don’t take them, it’s okay. Nobody’s squishing your arm. But there’s some things out there that are still trying to happen, so students can hear the gospel if that’s something that makes you. You may not like the park idea, so don’t take them.

It’s okay for you not to do anything to make sure that you’re being safe. But there are some things that you can do. One thing that you could do, that I know, that some of our guides have said is, they’re just making phone calls. You can safely make phone calls to the students that maybe you’ve really wanted to reach out to in the past, you hadn’t been able to build that, or you hadn’t seen him in awhile and you really miss them. And so you want to reach out to them. Hey, you can call them. Now’s a great time to do that. You can do some encouraging and some training on one-on-one to your students that are there, that you can invest in. So make sure that you’re doing everything you can so that you can reach out to people. Because we wanna make sure that we can do that. And so we just wanna make sure there’s some other things that you could do for outreach, sending care packages. I’ll tell you something that I love to get. And I’m really, confession I’m bad at, but writing handwritten notes, I love to get them. And I really need to work on trying to send some more of those. But doing that, making phone calls, and then, like I said, text or something like that. There are many ways that you can do that. Whether you want to do big event, like Scott Dawson’s Evangelism Night of Hope, or like their tour, or whether it’s sending a text message or note, or something of that sort.

There’s many ways that you can reach others for the gospel, and reach some of those students that you hadn’t been in touch with lately that you really need to reach out to. So you can find out what works best for you and do that. And then events, there’s a lot of people who are halting on the events. Last week we really had the disappointing news this year that COVID-19 hit us, super summer Alabama got canceled. So we’re planning and moving forward for next year. There’s some really cool things going on there. But last week some of our guides got together and we were careful trying to plan what it’s gonna look like for next year, cause we need to do that. But because of that we were at Shockoe. Shockoe is doing their best. They’ve got guidelines once again to host groups if you feel safe doing that. And we saw several groups that were there doing camp. Their own camp. They were making sure that they were safe. They were spreading out and doing some things. And again, you may not feel safe doing that, but there are some opportunities for you to go. Shockoe is open and they are looking to work with you. And they would love for you to bring your groups. So I would suggest calling them and reach out to me if that’s something that works out for you. But then if not there’s a lot of our groups in the state that are not doing camps. They’re just doing some stuff outside.

This past week we had an association, Dale Association had an event where they social distance, they kept everybody six feet apart. But they did a three circles training. So they trained on how to share the gospel. And it was awesome. It was a great time. They they had their box lunches and drinks so that everybody could make sure that they were safe. So those were some really good ways. We’ve got one youth pastor, Justin Caden, at Thorsby Baptist Church, he’s doing a Raising Arrows parent conference on August 2nd. So he’s got something coming in. I know that he’ll make sure you’re safe. And again, these are all some ideas. Invest in the parents now. Take some time invest in your parents, invest in your staff, invest in your volunteers. Maybe it’s a good time to recruit some volunteers. And so whatever that looks like for you it will be a good opportunity for you to invest in your people. We have some challenging times and so we’ve gotta make sure that in these times we know what’s best for your church, following the leadership. Of utmost importance is following and supporting the leadership of your pastor, youth pastor. Make sure that if nothing else that you do that, because if you’re out talking about wishing and badmouthing what you could have been doing, if your pastor would let you, well, guess what that’s not healthy for God’s kingdom and body of Christ.

So I beg you and challenge you, and encourage you to listen to your pastor and support him in that, even though it might not be the best. Remember I started with God did not give us a spirit of fear. But he did give us one of power, love and self control. And sometimes as energetic and exciting, and people who want to go do things for the Lord, we’ve gotta practice self control of making sure that we’re supporting those that God has ordained and appointed to be above us in our pastors. And so we have to reach all people. God is calling us even in this time to reach all people. So let’s make sure we’re doing everything that we can in our context, in our abilities in our talents and our time to do that to the best we can. And so thank you for being here today. Thank you Ken, and for having me. And I think we’ve got some time for some questions and things, and I’d love to take any of those but that’s kind of where we are around our state. That’s what’s going on. And if there’s any of those things that I can help you with, please feel free to give me a call, at 613-2280. Or you can email me at [email protected].

Ken Allen

Thank you Scooter. I appreciate that last bit of advice too. Being a pastor previously in past it’s always good to have folks that are part of the team that are working together. So a good word there. There are so many opinions right now, and this is one of the things that’s being tough for pastors that are getting pulled in kind of both directions, as far as gathering versus not gathering. And things are changing certainly with hotspots. But this is kind of my opinion in all of this. It is so critical that people get together. I know that it has to be safe but young folks need to get together. And it may involve being smaller. Getting together with two or three guys or having your wife or another lady be with you and just be with two or three gals or whatever. And again, depending on the size of your group will play a part in that again. Somewhere outside a coffee shop or at a park, or somebody’s backyard. If you can’t do it as a large group do it again in the smaller. What do you think about just the psychological aspect of youth needing to see each other?

Scooter Kellum

I agree with that 100%. I think the hardest battle for a youth pastor is oftentimes in youth ministry. There’s a common term that we use and it’s not always, but in places, it’s easy to get caught up on this group is a clique. And so you look at a small group who might be closer friends or whatever. It’s like, man, they’re exclusive and they won’t hang out. So it’s almost like we’re afraid to get together with small groups because there might be favoritism here or favoritism there. I think that we’ve got to get over that. I think in this moment we’ve gotta focus on community most of all, and I think that there’s unity in community. And I think that we’ve gotta find people that we want to hang out with, because I think it’s most important. I think our teenagers, we’ve seen it. They want to be together more than they want to. For them you got to look at risk and reward, and everything that we do. For them the reward of getting community is worth the risk for them to go and be together, or getting COVID or whatever. And so that might look different for me, it might look different for you, it might look different for some. But I think for teenagers the risk is worth the reward of being able to hang out with one another.

Ken Allen

Scooter there’s a couple of questions here. First one is, “What is a good way to get students to make worship “a priority again? “It seems like the beach and sports “are more important than church to them now, “more than ever.” What do you think?

Scooter Kellum

I think one of the things that we have to do, this has been a battle for a long time, we know that, what I feel I’ve seen more success in youth ministry over the years, has been teaching them how to love Jesus and how to walk with Jesus and making a disciple of them over making them feel bad about being gone for a swim or anything like that, or the beach or whatever. What I’ve kinda became practice is if they’re gone, I say, hey, I missed you, how’d your game go? Because here’s what I know. If you invest in the people that are there and they see you love Jesus, they want personal worship, I think could be the number one answer. Going back to answer the question first off is personal worship. If your students see you worshiping personally, not just on a Wednesday, but seeing you personally worship, seeing you walk out your faith in every way, whether you mess up and you have to confess, repent and say I’m sorry to someone, they see that. That’s a personal sanctification process that they get to watch. Giving them leadership. And then just let them feel missed instead of feeling guilty. I think is a game changer. I’ve had several students who have given up sports and they were very talented athletes, because they wanted to follow Jesus and it was taking too much time away from their time with their church, because that became their community and family. And so sports are good. Sports are good, the beach is good, it’s awesome, it’s great. But anything that takes our focus and consumes us more than our living Father, and the Lord of our lives is sin. And so we’ve gotta teach them that even good things, sports aren’t bad, beach is not bad, homework’s not bad. It’s actually a good thing. But we gotta make sure that we’re honoring God in all the things we do. But that only becomes through personal worship. And they only learn personal worship through watching us in person worship. Because if all they get is corporate worship, sometimes it’s easy to pass that. They can get that on a computer screen. But what they see is personal worship is a game changer for him.

Ken Allen

Michael Brooks has asked, we talked earlier about back to school and back to Sunday school, and he asked a question, “is this on hold now “with some schools such as Selma deciding to delay?” Saw an email this morning in house here that Autauga may be looking to delay as well, or will be. Again, we’re looking at trying to hit a moving target and just being ready and being able to move at a moment’s notice. Any other thoughts?

Scooter Kellum

I think what it all boils down to is we were looking at what our cities, what our state, what our nation is doing. And so what we have to do is make sure that we are looking out for our people. We know our context. Can we be safe? Can we not? Because there’s a lot of schools, I live Montgomery and August 10th they’re planning to go back to school right now. And they’re given an option. You can either go to school in person, or you can do it online. And I think there’s a lot of discussion on where you go, what you do, things like that. I don’t think that we have that answer to be honest. Michael I don’t think we can answer that question with definite of hey, yeah, you need to start soon school no matter what schools are doing. Or man, you need to wait when school starts back then you can start it back. I don’t think we need to do that because I think if you play that game, it’s a moving target and you’re just gonna get frustrated. Cause I feel like there’s more of a chance we’ll keep missing than we’re gonna hit. And so I think what you need to do is define the target for your church and for what works best for your context, for what y’all feel is safe and what you can do. Because if you can do that I think then your target is a little bit, even though it’s still moving, it may be moving even slower. So you can at least hit a target in trying to make sure you’re taking care of your people while also getting them what they need spiritually.

Ken Allen

Don’t you think now more than ever it’s so important that we’re really listening to each other in the church and we’re hearing each other, that we’re understanding nobody has the absolute final answer, the perfect solution. And that’s part of the difficulty of this is that we really have to talk. We really have to be open, not only in the church, but also outside the church. And to me that is one of the critical aspects or something that we can learn through this time is community, the greater community and talking to them, talking to principals, talking to the superintendent, talking to teachers, really having your ear to the ground, learning all that you can and seeing where that sweet spot is for the church to come in and really play a vital role, and add to the conversation or be an answer to what’s taking place. I don’t know if there’s hardly ever been a time greater than today than to be able to speak into, be a part of, do community ministry cause of so many needs that are out there. You mentioned that church doing community ministry earlier, go ahead.

Scooter Kellum

Ken, I’ll just say that I think not only do we see now, like you just said, that pastors are talking and communicating. Whether that citywide or I know I go to Crossroads Community Church in Elmore, and Robert Mullins is a part with and Sunday school and stops making ministries. And what they’ve done is they’re communicating all over the state. So they’ve got a group of guys that are talking from all over the state pastors wise on what do we do and they’re asking questions or doing that. So I think there’s a lot of pastors city, statewide that are doing a lot of that. But I think also one of the other things that I’ve seen is I think I’m learning from youth pastor staffs, church staffs, or communicating now more than ever. I think they’ve gotta be on the same page. I think they’re devising plans together. I think that it’s not just one person making all decisions. This might not be for everybody, but I think from what I’m hearing everybody is kind of working together, linking arms and coming together, so that they can make sure that they’re saying the same messages, they’re putting out what they need to be putting out and they’re able to accomplish what they want to accomplish. Whether that’s safety by digital, safety by home or safety by in person and moving forward with some in-person stuff. And so I think you’re right on it. I think we’re communicating as a church more than ever. The church not just our local churches. But I think that’s awesome. And then I think our staff are communicating more now than ever because we.. The scripture that talks about we are the body. Now we have to be the body. Now we have to all take our part and do our part as we are. I had a youth pastor just a little bit ago, a few weeks ago, told me that he was in there cleaning bathrooms on Sunday morning, because that’s what he does. That might not be all uncommon but man, every staff member is now doing something different. And that is the body of Christ. Churches, church members are all having to come together if we’re gonna make this happen and make us be safe, and also be able to come and join together.

Ken Allen

It is emotionally good Scooter for youth guys to get together, to zoom together, to try to find ways to come together. Again, maybe in that socially distant outdoor coffee place whatever it is. It’s just emotionally good. Like the question earlier about youth, maybe not prioritizing worship being here being there and talking through those emotions, talking through what could potentially be a solution. It is again very important. That when it talks about that in the last days some may not attend like they should, but we should attend all of the more as the day approaches. And so it’s even more important for us to lean on each other in these times. It’s emotionally healthy for us to lean on each other, to talk to one another and to have those types of friendships together, and network, it’s important. I’ve been looking at some Bible study things to recommend to pastors during this time. And I think that’s same type of scenario goes for youth guides as well. The Psalms, we’re looking at them the last few days. When you think about one author has put the Psalms into three different categories. Orientation where life is oriented and things are well, by the way, this is the history of Israel in the old Testament. And then there’s disorientation either by what we’re experiencing now, or with Israel through their own disobedience. There was disorientation being judged, coming into slavery, going into Babylon, whatever disorientation. Then there was reorientation. And I think it helps our youth to see the bigger picture cause they get so caught up in the narrowness of life that they miss hey, we’ve done this before a hundred years ago. The church has been through world wars to kind of calm their fear, so to speak. So even looking at what you share with them during this time is critically important. Anything else along that line Scooter?

Scooter Kellum

In tough times of my life I have to remember that God is good and faithful. And so knowing that our history, we’ve got that. I think that we’ve just got to trust in Him as we do that. And make sure that we’re moving forward knowing that we’ll probably be here again one day. Maybe not in this exact moment but challenging times are a part of our journey with the Lord.

Ken Allen

Here’s a question from Parker Allen. “I’ve noticed that when our students get together “they are more focused on connecting with each other “than studying the word, “because they’re so excited to be with each other, “you mentioned that earlier. “What are some ways to make connecting with each other “and studying the word happen simultaneously?” Kind of meeting the need of them wanting to get together and bringing that together with studying the word.

Scooter Kellum

Parker that’s a hard one because for me I would like to say there’s a good answer in the sense of we just need to settle down and focus on Bible study or personal worship, like I used earlier, but there’s really not. Here’s the thing. If you get together at a retreat or camp they spent the first couple of days together and they’re just having a good time cause, we’re at camp, whatever. But then there’s always this thing. And it may happen in the first or second day. It may happen day four. But there’s normally a time where it switches and our focus turns on the Lord. And I think we’re missing that because we don’t have that time. We’re getting together for 45 minutes to an hour a day. But then we’re not really getting together again for another week. And so I think almost to a point we’ve gotta look at Christian fellowship and community can be as important during this time as Bible study. Not the Bible, but there’s gotta be some kind of spiritual growth on their own individually. But I almost think that the days look different. So if you go to a camp you’ve got three days together where for us we’re looking at a longer term range because we’re not together as often. Say you’re getting together for four weeks straight. By the second week, and they’ve been together, you may catch that third week, it’s a change. You may catch it. Okay, we’ve seen each other a few times now. We hadn’t been apart for months. And so maybe a longer range plan to where then you start. Then they might become more, not that they’re less excited about the community, with each other, it may shift where, all right, we’ve been together now. Now let’s study the word together. Now let’s do this. And so I think it just might take a little more time of us getting back to some kind of normalcy of at least in meeting. I get that we’re not a normal season. I get we’re not in a new normal at this point. Like we’re just kind of here. We’re in uncharted territory still. And so as we’re starting to see this I think it just may take more time. Just keeping encouraging that Christian fellowship and keep teaching. But maybe you just need to focus on that fellowship, and then as it grows maybe you can see the shift of the community and the Bible study, and the spiritual growth that may balance itself out in the long run.

Ken Allen

And again, you talked about phone calls, et cetera, just continuing to carry on those conversations with our youth personally as much as possible is so good. Some churches have their own camp in their association. So just that day trip of going out and spending some time together, might also be a part of going from being together to then being in the word as well. Scooter, again, I wanna thank you for being a part of today, I appreciate. I’ve known over the last couple of months that you have been talking to youth guides, and been well aware of what’s going on in local church settings. Again, Scooter this is a great opportunity for the church and for youth ministry, to dramatically maybe change the way that you do ministry. And so this is a good time to be prayerful and to look and see what is critical and essential versus what is non-critical items, and really focus in on healthy way to go forward ministering and reaching youth with the gospel. Again, thank you Scooter for being here with us, let me lead us in a closing word of prayer. Father, again, this day we’re grateful for your presence in our lives. For the rest of this day God that we’ll come out of this time, these moments of sharing together and really seek you and your will for what you have for each person that’s been listening. For Scooter and I as we think about our own ministries. Lord really allow you to speak into our hearts toward individuals cause that’s what it comes down to. These are not faceless. They have faces, they have needs, they have homes that they’re part of. And so God may we sense you through us speaking into the lives of our young folks. Lord again, thank you for the time. Thank you again for Scooter and we love you and praise you in Jesus name, Amen.