Youth Group and Youth Ministry | Trinity Talks Podcast

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Good morning.

It's a pleasure to have you.

For those of you joining us here on Trinity Talks today, we have members of our youth

group leadership team.

We've actually just come up with that title just a few moments ago, the YGLT.

We have Zion, our youth director.

So welcome.

Thank you for joining me.

We have Anna, who is a longtime volunteer and also a previous youth, I believe.

Right?

Yeah.

And then, Elliot, you're joining us here.

You are a youth volunteer and you have worked as a director of youth as well here at Trinity.

That's right.

So thanks again for joining me.

I was hoping that over the next, I'm looking at my clock here, but for over the next half

an hour or so, we can talk a little bit about what the youth ministry looks like here at

Trinity, specifically youth group, as well as learn a little bit about what encourages

you as you work with the youth here at the church.

Sound good?

Sounds great.

All right.

So you know that the youth group meets every Friday and you meet between six and 10 o'clock

at night.

Now, Zion, how does a typical youth meeting usually begin?

Well, we pretty much always start with a game.

Like a game.

All right.

Well, if you've ever seen Trinity Talks before, we often also begin with a game.

So I think that would be a very fitting way to start.

As you see, as you sat down in your chairs, everybody, I gave you a paddle.

Is that what they're called?

A paddle?

Yes, they're called a paddle.

And there's a ping pong table downstairs that sometimes our youth actually play with.

And on each side of your paddle, you'll see the letter A and on the other side, you'll

see the letter B. Just show that to the camera, everybody.

Show your A. This is practice.

Show your B. Excellent.

I promise we didn't rehearse before either.

All right.

So we're going to play a quick game of would you rather.

Have you played that before with the youth?

No.

No.

All right.

So you can add this to your repertoire.

So I'm going to ask you some questions, A or B, and you're just going to choose which

one you would rather, A or B. To begin with, we're going to start with an easy question.

Maybe you saw the daffodils coming up, so I was inspired by the weather.

Would you rather live in only A, spring, or B, fall?

Two springs and a fall.

All right.

So you're just going to have to wait six more months and then you'll be a happy guy.

Too much rain.

Too much rain.

Well, April flowers bring May flowers.

All right.

We're just going to have to stay on the seasons train for a minute here.

Would you rather A, summer or B, winter?

All right.

Summer all around.

That's right.

Yeah, I was sort of expecting that one.

All right.

Now we're going to go to more of a youth kind of themed one.

Would you rather A, TikTok or B, Instagram?

All right.

Elliott chose TikTok.

Are you on TikTok?

No, I'm not on either of them.

So I don't really know what, but I know you can make flashy videos.

Yes, we did it one time.

And you chose Instagram.

All right.

Why is that?

You can just do more.

There's kind of like TikTok.

There's like Instagram reels, which is basically the same as TikTok.

It just has more diversity.

Oh, Elliott's learning something here.

I don't know.

All right.

Okay.

Musical.

A musical question.

A, Taylor Swift or B, Ed Sheeran?

Oh, he's...

Oh my goodness.

Unanimous all around.

Sorry, Swift.

Don't come at us.

Projection.

Okay, great.

Okay.

This is one back to your high school days.

Would you rather prefer A, the arts or B, maths and sciences?

Anna Arts?

B, maths and sciences.

It's close though.

It's close.

Yeah, it could go either way.

All right.

It's divisive though, I must say.

We're learning so much about you.

All right.

Now we're going into the modern times.

Artificial intelligence.

A, is it good or B, is it bad?

It's kind of a black and white question.

That's such a nuanced question.

What's your gut tell you?

Right now?

That's right.

All right.

Oh, Anna's the deciding vote.

It's so hard.

I guess, I guess.

Just not.

All right.

Wait, which one?

It's scary, but.

So A, good.

A, good.

That's what makes it easier.

Makes it work easier.

All right.

So there's pros and cons.

I'm sorry for that black and white kind of question, but anyway, we just had to go with

it.

Now we're going to go to the Bible.

We're going to go Old Testament.

If you could have an amazing power, would you prefer to have a super strength like Sampson

or be very wise like Solomon?

Wisdom?

Strength.

Strength and strength.

All right.

Because I think I would like the hair of Sampson as well as I would assume you get that.

You assume you get the whole package?

Yeah.

There you go.

Love it.

OK, and now we're jumping to the New Testament.

If you were present for one of Jesus's miracles, would you prefer to be there when he feeds

the five thousand or be when he walks on water?

See, walking on water would be really cool, but like I want to eat food, though it's fish

and I don't really like fish.

So I'm going to be walking on water.

You know, that was the same thought process I went through if it was candy.

So we've got feed the five thousand and two walking on waters.

All right.

Very cool.

Continuing along, this is a situation that I've been in for a long time.

This is a situational question.

Would you prefer to live in a world where there was a no electricity or B, no indoor

plumbing?

Oh, we just changed gears right there.

A is no electricity.

B is indoor plumbing.

Yeah, that's right.

No, I'm not giving up indoor plumbing.

Yeah, I feel like there would be more disease without indoor plumbing.

Yeah, yeah, right.

OK, so that's unanimous across the board.

And then I have one question left, and this is a Trinity based question.

Which service do you prefer, the 915, our early morning service or the 1115 service?

A, 915, B, 1115 and A, 915.

I could have predicted that, I think.

All right.

Are you an early bird, Elliot and Zion?

Would you consider yourselves?

Not really.

No.

I find I'm more attentive, I think, and like I listen better in the morning.

All right.

And why 1115 for you, Anna?

I'm not a morning person.

So it just fits better with your schedule.

Well, that's great.

So we just played a game and you mentioned that youth group always begins with a game.

To start us off, what's your favorite youth group game that each of you play when you

are at youth group on a Friday night with the youth?

Well, my favorite game is a game called SWAT.

It's kind of like a fast paced name game, but then you get to whack each other or swat

each other with like a pool noodle type thing.

So yeah, that was always my favorite growing up.

And so I brought it with me over to Trinity too.

That sounds fun.

Just watch out, Anna.

He's still holding his paddle there.

What about you?

My favorite, I don't know if we've played it this year.

I don't think we have, but my favorite is we dubbed it, never really had an official

name, but we dubbed it the trash can of doom.

And so you have like a trash can in the middle of the carpet area and everyone holds hands

and you have to try and get everyone else to touch the trash can, any part of their

body.

And then if they do, they're out.

And so it gets really like chaotic.

Oh, that sounds like fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about you, Elliot?

So Anna actually took mine, but that's okay because I have many.

I'll say probably my favorite to be part of myself is mafia.

I love playing mafia and creating like scenes and stories and then having people accuse

each other of being the killer.

And yeah, it's fun.

But I think the youth would say from kind of my time as a youth group leader, like favorite

every single week, we used to play sardines.

I didn't play, but the youth would play and play sardines throughout the church.

And yeah, that was a real crowd pleaser.

Oh, that sounds like fun too.

All right.

So all three of you are right now in the leadership group.

I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit about what your personal experiences were

in church as a youth or if you had those experiences in general.

Yeah, so I grew up not at Trinity.

I grew up in a smaller church, but we still had a decent like core group of youth group

members.

Like we had like 15 or so, but it was actually really good for us because we all got really

tight.

So that was definitely a highlight growing up was going to youth group every week and

seeing all my friends.

Nice.

Nice.

I grew up at Trinity and I actually went to the youth group when I was a youth.

Obviously very different time then.

But I would say the main thing I took away from my time being at youth group was just

the inclusivity.

It was really a space where anyone could come and be welcome and really a space for a lot

of youth who were not church raised youth came.

And so I think for myself being church raised, having that experience and exposure and like

meeting other people and really, yeah, had an impact on just my own worldview as well.

That's really nice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Elliot, did you grow up going to youth?

Yes, I grew up at Little Trinity Anglican Church on the east side of Toronto.

And so youth group was on Friday nights and it was a big event obviously commuting from

Mississauga into youth group.

And it just felt kind of as Zion has mentioned it and Anna, it's felt like a family and the

culture of youth group.

It just felt like a safe space and a place where we could learn about Jesus, but also

be together.

So, yeah, I really, yeah, it was a difference maker in my childhood for sure.

That's amazing.

All right.

So what's the purpose?

Maybe Zion, you can answer this of the youth group here at Trinity.

And who is it for?

What are the ages?

At Trinity, we have two different age groups.

We got all the middle schoolers and all of the high schoolers.

And I think Elliot sort of just touched on it to our purpose.

I think we have like two main goals.

Firstly, we try to help all of our youth grow in their faith and teach them about how Jesus

loves them and teach them more about God.

And the second main goal is just creating a safe space where people can come and develop

these relationships with each other and have a safe space to come.

Yeah, that's great.

And like I said, it's really for anyone, whether you come to church or you don't, you're all

welcome at youth group, right?

For sure.

All right.

So why did you feel called to start working in youth ministry here at Trinity?

Maybe we'll start with you, Elliot.

Sure.

So I remember back in 2013, we had a ministry fair and I was immediately drawn to the youth

group table to become a volunteer.

And I really felt kind of just my previous answer that I wanted to help cultivate like

that culture of kind of a family for youth group at Trinity and be part of that and help

develop that and explore kind of the dynamics of youth group learning their faith and living

their faith.

So that was really what called me.

And it's kind of been a little bit of an addictive throughout the years, just getting excited

for youth group every single Friday night coming to youth group.

And so, yeah, it's been since 2013, it's been hard to shake.

And Anna?

Yeah, for me, you know, my experience in youth group was so positive and having those building

relationships with friends and then also leaders.

So I think coming back wanted to help create that for youth.

And also when I was in youth group, there was a lot of change that happened during our time

and like leadership and like the directors and like adult leaders as well.

And so I saw the toll kind of that that took.

So wanting to give the youth that were coming up help be part of the positive of that and

make it a good experience without those negative.

Yeah.

And with you volunteering for so long, and I know it's been several years now, you've

given them that consistency to have having someone that they rely on and someone that

they know will be there.

So that's wonderful to see to see this long term.

And then Zion, you've come into this brand new this year as youth director.

So what what called you into working with this population?

Well, I've always loved working with young people like when I was young, I volunteered

in Kids Church and I've worked here at Camp Trinity for like five five summers.

I think I've worked at a couple of other summer camps as well.

And I also used to be a soccer coach working with a whole bunch of different age groups.

So I've just I've always enjoyed working with young people because it's just really exciting.

They always bring the energy and you never know what they're going to say or what they're

going to do.

So, yeah, I have a lot of energy, too.

So it just works well to come and hang out with them.

And then also, I think I like the opportunity to be a good role model in some of these people's lives.

That's great. That's great.

And I think I've heard very positive things about the youth group this year.

So I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about what a typical Friday night looks like when a youth shows up.

We mentioned you start with a game often.

What else can a youth expect when they show up on a Friday night?

Yeah. So our first game is normally like 45 minutes or so.

So we we let everyone get all their energy out. Well, not all.

That's right. We try to get some of their energy out.

And then after that, we move into lesson time, which we've done like lesson has looked mostly like me going up and talking for a few minutes.

But we also we also watch some videos occasionally, too.

We've had a couple of other speakers as well.

And then after our lesson time, we go into small group to help the youth like unpack sort of what they just heard and have the opportunity to ask more questions.

And then we have snack time, which is like one of the highlights, I think, for the youth.

And then with whatever time left, we either play another game or we just hang out with each other until it's home time.

That sounds great. It sounds like a lot of fun.

I was wondering then if you could tell me a little bit about maybe some of your favorite memories from youth group that you've had over the years.

What are some stories that stand out in your minds?

Do you want to begin with that, Elliot? Sure. Yeah.

I mean, there's many, many stories and and favorite memories, but many of mine are around youth retreats.

So having that time, you know, usually once or twice a year to go north of the city, usually, and to spend like solid full weekend with each other.

And that's usually involves worship and teaching and time together games.

And usually there's some really beautiful moments of kind of youth kind of coming to Christ or kind of sharing, opening up that kind of that really builds connections,

often with other youth, but often with the leaders as well.

So I really find that that kind of like cultivates a real closeness in youth group.

And it's often a highlight of our year is it's a youth retreats as it was this year. Great. Great.

And how often, sorry, do you go on a retreat? Is it usually once a year, sometimes twice, sometimes once?

Yeah, I think in the past it's been once or twice, but this year we went on one. Awesome. Great.

And the pictures looked great. I wish I had a picture to show everybody because they looked really fun.

What about you, Anna? Yeah, I mean, I was going to say retreats as well.

Again, they're always just such a fun time. But also say honestly, just being in small group is always really good.

With my group, I always like to do like weekly check ins and see how the youth's weeks has been.

And so over time, now they like get excited to do the check in and share what's been going on in their lives.

And that's really cool to see and like that they want to share with each other and then meet with me as well.

And that they, yeah, they just want to be in each other's lives and share their own lives.

It sounds like there's these relationships are formed and built and cultivated through those types of more intimate conversations.

I think that's something that girls, small groups do especially well. That seems to be a real highlight.

I don't know if the guys get as deep, but the girls seem to really, really gravitate towards small groups.

You never know. As I am coming in just this year, what memory stands out for you, perhaps?

Yeah, I was also going to say the youth retreat, of course. I mean, it's just really special.

But if I have to pick something else, I'll go with the youth gala that we do.

I know Elliot's been doing it annually. So I was like, all right, let's keep that going.

Is that the Christmas gala? Yes, the youth Christmas gala.

So we decorated the parish hall here and we threw on a good event.

Actually, sort of behind the scenes action, we were watching the registrations pile in.

And this year there was 80 registrations and my mom said that she would cater for us.

And she's like, how am I going to feed 80 people?

Yeah, but in the end, we had a really successful time. There wasn't enough food for everyone.

And one particular moment at the youth gala that was my favorite was at the very end

when we were all playing Just Dance and there's just a room full of people dancing.

That was really fun to watch. That's great.

All right, so those sound like fun times, but we know that youth also face some challenges

like any generation does. But what, from your experience in working with the youth,

who you say maybe are some of the challenges that are facing the youth at this time?

And feel free, anyone can just maybe jump in and just share that.

I can start. I think it's interesting with this generation growing up with social media

because, you know, even like even me, I'm not that much older than some of them,

but I'm like, I don't know, seven, seven, eight years older than some of the grade sixes.

And they already have phones, not all of them, but some of them already have phones

and they already have social media. And I think it's just it's really easy to compare yourself

to what you see online and on all these different types of medias, which can be harmful

because a lot of what people post, right, they're not posting.

They're only posting their highlights of their lives.

So it's hard for people to compare and see how awesome everyone else's life is.

And then you're constantly looking at that.

And I think it can also is one of the things that's contributing to so many mental health issues

that youth have to deal with these days.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I think social isolation, isolation, as I mentioned, is a big one.

Social media is a huge contributor to that.

And I think, you know, even if it wasn't for social media, I think just so many youth

that feel out of place, maybe in the world or in school that are coming to youth

and hopefully feeling a little bit more connected.

But, you know, through small groups, they do open up and share about some of the concerns

they have with, you know, friend groups and just feeling connected to people.

And it's such a tricky transitional part of life that I think that's natural and always has been.

But and everyone experiences it differently.

So I think that continues and social media certainly.

Yeah, Zion's correct. It hasn't made it any easier.

It's made it more difficult. Right.

Right. Well, I'm just wondering then how you have also maybe been encouraged by this generation.

So every generation brings its own.

And I don't want to paint everyone with the same brushstroke, but everyone, every generation

brings its own strengths and gifts and learnings to us.

So from your experience working with them, what have you learned as leaders from them?

I personally have learned.

I kind of remember my early days helping out with youth group that, you know, you think that maybe

one tactic or one approach to something or a topic is going to be universally kind of accepted

and a good tactic. But obviously, youth are so different.

The way they learn, the way they think, the way they approach things is all unique.

So it's really important to see how things resonate with each person individually

and have those one on one conversations set apart from kind of, you know, just the group conversations or discussion.

And it's amazing. I've also learned like how especially this generation, how innovative and, you know,

tech savvy, but also just kind of creatively thinking this generation really is.

And I tend to learn new things apart from the kind of, you know, updating the slang.

I learn new things about kind of how to navigate this modern world from them basically every week.

So, yeah, it's a pretty impressive coming to youth group and seeing the creativity and innovation

in some of these youth.

Well, that's encouraging as well, isn't it?

I think I would say on one like thing, I think social media and just like the internet in general has done

is brought more exposure to things.

So like the differences of personalities and different struggles that people may have

and just different ways that people do think and act.

I'm just thinking of like neurodivergent people and things like that.

And so I've seen a real kindness from the youth to those people in how they, you know, welcome them in

and treat them and like more understanding of those differences as well.

That's great. It's great. Thanks for highlighting that.

And I also think that this youth, these youth do a great job of enjoying the ordinary moments in their life.

Like when they come to youth group, you know, we're all just playing and having fun.

And not to say that they're always on their phones, but you know, sometimes when we're having a good time,

all of a sudden they whip out their phone and they got to record this moment just because, you know,

it seems like just kind of an ordinary fun time, but they just they always want to document everything

and save these memories.

Yeah. Well, that's that's encouraging as well to see that this is something that they consider memorable.

They want to connect with other people about.

And I'm really hearing a theme of connection and relationship in general from the youth here.

Now, if anyone is out there and would like to get involved in youth ministry here at Trinity,

be it a volunteer or be it being a youth and want to come out on a Friday night, how can they get involved?

Well, to the youth, we we typically meet.

So if you're in grade six to eight, we meet from six to eight p.m.

Pretty much always here at the church.

And you can just show up any time.

You don't have to register in advance or anything.

And then if you're in if you're in high school, then we meet from eight to 10 p.m.

And same thing. You can just show up whenever whenever you feel interested.

We're always hoping to have more people come out and build some more relationships with some of the people that we have.

And we also have I think we do have a really inclusive group of of youth that, you know, are welcoming to to newcomers.

So that's really great to see. And then to people who are maybe older than youth age and are interested in in volunteering.

Please feel free to reach out and we can have a chat about that and see if yeah, if we can make that work and you can come and volunteer on Fridays.

If you also want to contribute in another way, but you don't really feel like coming out to the youth group is your thing,

then maybe you can also bake us a little a little gift because something else that the youth have taught me is that they are a very hungry group.

They're hungry and we know snacks happen every every week.

Yeah, every week we need snacks, no matter how many snacks I buy, we always run out.

I love leaving it on that note. So that's great.

So an inclusive, welcoming, relationship building, consistent Friday night is for the youth here at Trinity and any youth who'd like to get involved.

And that is not not because of the amazing leadership that has has supported that.

So thank you very much for supporting the youth here at Trinity Zion and Anna and Elliot, as well as all the other volunteers.

You're just representing some of the amazing people who support our youth here.

So thanks for joining me.