UNKNOWN 0:00

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids' ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids' ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Steve. How's it going?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Good evening. Good. Glad you're here. It's good to be here. Yeah. Amen. All right. Well, what are we talking about today? Tonight's topic is put on your game face.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Put on your game face. Game time. So winners and losers have the same goal, but they don't have the same outcome. Some people come to play a game and they're not fully invested. I'm a youth leader, so I see this all the time. They half-heartedly go through the motions. Then there's the ones that show up. They have their special gym shoes. They're stretching and warming up before the game. And when the game starts, they're all in. You can see it in their face. They have their game face. And so in the workplace, you You know, everyone has a personal life, but for the most part, you have to leave it at the door. You come to work and that's what you do while you're at work. So in Sunday school, we may not always feel, quote, inspired or energized, especially it's early Sunday morning after all, right? We have practice at 830 in the morning. But we need to put on our game face when we go live. And I use that term go live when we have Sunday school kids in the building. It's time to put on our game face. So today we want to talk about giving your all on game day, which is Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Amen. You know, and, and, uh, when you sent me the outline, uh, today, I took a, like a 40 year flashback to, uh, yeah, sports, sporting. I came out of the sport world and,

SPEAKER_00 1:59

and, you

SPEAKER_02 2:00

know, we don't, we don't promote, uh, that, but it took me back to, um, you know, game days and, and we're coming up on, uh, you know, one of the biggest celebrations the world has for the world is Superbowl Sunday. Yes. And those teams didn't get there, but by not putting on their game face, not just their game days, but practice time as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, they didn't get there by being half-hearted or these are professionals.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

They're invested every day, every time they strap their helmet on or put their cleats on. And it has to be the same with us in Sunday school, whether our pregame warm-up, if you will, is the worship service. Yeah, exactly. And having our game face on And

SPEAKER_00 2:47

being invested in that

SPEAKER_02 2:48

before we ever get to Sunday school.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

That's a good point about the worship service is we come in now, and I know not every church is the same. They have Sunday school at different times and things like that. But we, how our Sunday school is, is we start out in church, even with the kids and everything, everybody starts in church, have worship service. And we have, you know, I don't know, a few songs. And then we go to, we have a like a little fellowship break, a couple of minutes, everybody shaking hands and everything. And then shortly after that, the Sunday school is dismissed. And like, basically, at the preaching time. And so, yeah, I, when we have pre-service prayer, I most often, I pray, you know, God touch our Sunday school today, to our staff, moving the kids, you know, and so, yeah, I mean, that's part of our warmup. And, you know, the other thing we just, I had, I had brother Keech and brother Aaron on the podcast and we were, we were kind of talking about, we were joking about, this is our big phone booth back here, the backstage where it's like, I think Aaron mentioned it is, you know sometimes in practice in the morning it's early morning we got our coffee maybe a snack and we're trying to do a script run through and it's hard to get invested you're in your church clothes and I know that you know in practice ideally we're you know full on but it's just not always there you know but we were and we're still getting value out of the practice but he said then when we come back here into our big phone booth he's like we're like Superman changing

SPEAKER_02 4:40

changing

SPEAKER_00 4:41

we come we get into our costume and it's like a switch and we're like we're our characters whether it's a funny character or a dramatic character, whatever. And here we go. And so I think that's, that's kind of part of game face too. It's like, here we are, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

It's, it's, uh, we're getting the game plan together. Um, you know, so we, we talked about the game plan at eight 30, eight 30 to nine. And then when church service rolls around, you know, it's time to warm up and stretch and just, just get, get into it, work up a little sweat. So, you know, uh, then when game time happens in Sunday school, we're, we're ready.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah. Well, and pastor talks about breaking up the fallow ground, you know, like when we are, well, pre-service prayer and even the worship service, breaking up the fallow ground for the preaching, for the word, you know, and that's like the same thing. Yeah. We're warming up, we're stretching, we're getting, we're breaking a sweat, all those things. And here we go. So now when we come into Sunday school, we got some momentum. Yes. And we're ready to go and make this thing happen. Yes, sir. And so I mentioned something and I got it from you. You mentioned this a while back about the workplace. We have personal things often, but we have to leave those at the door when we go to work. And Sunday school is different. It's a different camaraderie and we're a team. It's not just a workplace. But we don't, I have a note here, discipline over feeling. We don't do what we do because of how we feel. We don't worship or praise God because we feel like worshiping and praising God. I mean, we might sometimes. In fact, hopefully most of the time we do. But some of the most important times to do it is when you don't,

SPEAKER_02 6:17

when you don't.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah. And I learned that from pastor. I mean, he's, he has told me before, like sometimes he's sick or whatever, and that's when he preaches the hardest. Yeah. And it's kind of like in your face, devil, you want it, you know, and, and, and it's not always a devil. We all get sick. Right. But it's kind of like, you know what? Yeah. I don't feel like it. So since I don't feel like it, this is the time when I really step out.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I heard, um, I heard, uh, somebody say, um, I think I, I think it was that Jocko Jocko or Jocko Willink or something like that and I don't know anything about him so he's not like apostolic or anything like that or Christian as far as I know but he's a he was a Navy SEAL and I remember him saying something about quitting and I might mess this up but if I remember right it was something like you know say working out and you want to quit okay that's fine but not today and he was making a point that you give yourself permission this is how I understood it again if somebody notices better. I apologize. But how I understood it and how I remember it is that he was saying, you give yourself permission to quit, but not today. In other words, not in the moment when you feel like quitting. So it's like, oh man, I'm going to quit doing this. I don't want to go to the gym every day, but I'm going to go this morning. And then later today, I can make that decision. And so, yeah. And I was like, that's so good because that's what happens, right? That's how we end up quitting or failing in something is because it's like, we don't feel it

SPEAKER_02 7:48

right now. Right. You know, it's, it's that, that pressing through that feeling for sure. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah. And I, I, um, I think that I have a note there is skipping ahead, but I'm just going to, I'm going to say it anyway. Motivation is a by-product of doing, it's one of my favorite things to say all the time is, is, you know, you get, you go to, um, clean the house. I don't know, whatever. And you don't feel like doing it, but you start cleaning and then pretty soon you're going to clean the kitchen. Let's say you don't feel like doing it. you don't want to, but then you get into it and you're like, you know what, let's clean, let's clean the living room too. Let's clean this. Let's get on a roll. Yeah. You get on a roll, you get some momentum and, and so you're motivated. And too often we sit around waiting for motivation. Like, Oh, I just don't feel like it. And we never get started.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah. You know, and, and, uh, you know, you talked about momentum, you know, part of that way of whether it's cleaning the kitchen or the garage, or, you know, once you see a little bit of, man, Hey, this looks all right now. I And that helps keep the momentum is if you look behind you and see what you've done, then you can move forward a little bit easier because, man, this is hard work, but man, look what I've done.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah. Yeah. And when, yeah, exactly. Because when you see that, you know, a lot of what we do in Sunday school is it's hard to quantify a lot of what we do. And what I mean by that is it's not like you just see instant results. You don't necessarily, we don't pray kids through to the Holy Ghost every single week. And sometimes we have a lesson that feels like it was like a lead balloon, you know? And so it's hard to quantify, but we do have some data that we can look at. And Brother Brian, you and I joked about this, about Brother Brian and Brother Joey. And now Brother Joey was actually Sunday school staff and Brother Brian was too, but he was in Sunday school when we started doing this style. And he's an evangelist now. And, you know, I even mentioned to him, I was like, we joked about, you know, we take credit at Sunday school for him being on the evangelist field. And he actually kind of said that he agreed with it, you know, that he said, yeah, I learned how to, as staff, you know, he learned how to talk to people, to kids, you know. But so that's some data and that's even more extreme, but there's smaller things. There's, you know, my daughter, Anisha, was in Sunday school. Now she's She's giving back. She lives for God. She sings, you know, on the platform. And there's so many others. I mean, there's countless others. Adrian, my son, and I'm bragging on my kids, I guess, but Adrian, my son started playing drums in Sunday school when he was like eight or something. He wasn't staff. He just got to play drums. Yeah. And now he plays all kinds of music in church. And so, and there's many others that do all kinds of things. And so there is that quantitative difference. data that we can look at. Just like you said, you look around in the garage and see what you've done.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Another thing, we may not have a super powerful move of God in Sunday school, but you see our Sunday school kids in the big church on Sunday night, travailing and praying. So that also is a motivation. It's a boost for us as staff.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Look at that. Look at them reaching out.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

And we talk about it all the time in Sunday school. And when we come time for our altar services, you know, hey, this is the most important part of Sunday school is how we respond to the lesson. Yeah, this is why we're here. That's why we're here. So, you know, that's all part of a byproduct of our doing it.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yes, exactly. Well, and I think, yeah, to your point, a byproduct. I think that sometimes, many, many times when we see that travailing in the altar and quote unquote, big church, as we call it, it is actually a result of Sunday school. Yeah. You know, it's actually like they, they, you know, might, might've even been as recent as, okay, this morning they were in Sunday school and they were affected more than we know. Right. And, and so, you know, pastor has talked about this before, like where the preaching should, it's, it's God's word. And so it shouldn't necessarily have to be this super dynamic message where we're, you know, biting the sheet rock off the walls, so to speak, or swinging from the, chandeliers we don't have. It shouldn't always have to be that. It should be where it can just be the preaching going forth and it's a Bible study. And then if the preacher makes a judgment call and says, let's come to the altar, we don't have an altar service. Every service we do most of the time, probably 90%, but he makes a judgment call and says, let's come to the altar. And it was just a Bible study, man, let's come to the altar and respond. It was God's word. And so, yeah. And that kind of goes back to, we don't do what we do because of how we feel. So I have another note. This is our one chance. And so, you know, what if we have a visitor? I think about this so often. What if we have a visitor that comes and they've heard about our Sunday school from a friend or what? I reached out to him about our Sunday school. They saw our Sunday school video, the promo that we did a while back, the space one. They saw that video and the lady, I guess she has kids, but she was like, I want to come to your Sunday school. And so, so what if somebody sees a video like that? And what if we turn it into false advertising? Oh boy. Yeah. And what I mean by that is that that promo, and we need to do another one, but that promo is a reflection. In fact, some of it's live. live cuts from our Sunday school. It is a reflection of our Sunday school every Sunday, what we do. We have some ups and downs, but for the most part, our Sunday school is not boring. It's dynamic. It's good. But what if we're off? What if we have an off day and a visitor comes and this is their one chance and maybe they beg their mom, mom, I really want to go to that Sunday school. I heard about it. And they come and we have an off day and we're just like, ah, man, we have missed an opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah. You know, and, and And that, that, uh, takes me back to a quote, um, that I remember from when I did play in sports and it's, uh, any man's finest hour is when he has played his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle victorious,

SPEAKER_00 14:31

you

SPEAKER_02 14:31

know, and, and, you know, while, you know, I was taught as a youth and a young man to leave it all on the field, you know, don't leave anything in reserve, even in practice, you know, we were taught, don't leave any, give it all. And like you said, if we haven't, if we haven't offered Sunday morning, children's church.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

You know that we need to examine ourselves and say, man, did I leave everything?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Did I leave it? That's good. Oh yeah. Did

SPEAKER_02 14:54

I, did I, did I give it all? Did I leave anything in reserve?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

You know, so that, uh, kind of makes me emotional a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Because those kids are counting on us. Yep. Those kids are counting on us to, you know, to get them to the altar in children's church or even, you know, we talked about them prevailing at the altar and the big church.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And some don't even know they're counting on

SPEAKER_02 15:15

us. Yeah. They, We don't.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

And they are. There's so much.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

And that's where, you know, pastor trusts us. Yes. To make sure that that happens. And I know pastor leaves it all on the pulpit. Yeah. He gives every service.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Man, that makes me really examine myself. Steve, are you really giving everything you have?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Giving it all. Those kids. Yeah. Take a minute. Yeah. You know, I have been guilty of holding. back because I'm like, I want to save it. And to explain what I mean is, let's say like an idea or maybe it's not fully developed or something. And I'm like, well, you know, I'll save that and make it, you know, better, make it perfect, quote, unquote, perfect. And I've tried to, I think I've done better. I've tried to get out of that habit and do like what you said and give it everything. Because here's the thing is you do that and all of a sudden there's more ideas there's more opportunities if you just give it everything you got and it expands your horizons yeah so and if we could I mean we run 10 staff if we had 10 staff give it their all give it their everything from the time of our warm up in pre-service prayer all the way through to altar call oh man

SPEAKER_02 16:39

well that'll preach brother oh man and we do get that preach to us yes yeah the kids are counting on us. Kids are counting on us. And we need to count on each other too. Right. There's so much trust just in the leadership in Sunday school. We got to trust each other to make this happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah. Yeah. And we, yeah, we need to give it, do it with all your might, you know, as the Bible says. I have, and this kind of, I think this, this all flows together, but I think this fits the next bullet point that I have here is don't lower your standards for kids. Don't ever have the attitude. They're just, they're just kids. Amen. And I think that ties into what we're talking about right now about giving your your all and you have the opportunity actually with i i joke when we do dismissal sometimes and if we have to dismiss early because big church is done and i'll be like big church is not as cool as us they're already done yeah and so we got to dismiss most often the kids are disappointed like oh it's usually around snack time yeah right

SPEAKER_01 17:39

yeah

SPEAKER_00 17:39

exactly yeah we script our altar services early so we could get to it but um but yeah so i i I joke about that, but we have the opportunity with kids simply because they are kids to really invest. And I talk about all the time, you get more return on your investment with kids. You don't have to wade through all the baggage and years of pain and regrets and all that. So with kids, instead of having the attitude, oh, lower our standards because they're just kids, we should raise our standards and say, we can do more because these are kids. These are kids, so we can do extra. Pastor told me a long time ago. He's like, with kids, you can take authority more than maybe you're comfortable with adults. You know, like with adults, you got to be a little more polite. And what I mean is we're not being mean to kids, but I mean, here's the example I used is with kids, you can say, let's raise our hands. With an adult, you kind of have to ask. But they're kids. You can tell them, hey, it's time to raise our hands. Raise your hands. And now I want you to worship God. You know, and you can talk them through it. Yeah. And

SPEAKER_02 18:45

99% of the kids follow that directive.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Right. Yeah, exactly. They're going to do it. They're used to, you know, for the most part, obeying. And so that's where, yeah, give it your all and don't have the attitude, oh, these are just kids. It's not as important. It is every bit as important. We're training them. Yeah. Sister Autumn mentioned something about, I can't remember exactly how she worded it, but don't minimize kids' problems. And she was saying like you know it's easy for us to say oh you're a kid you you haven't been through nothing but she was saying you know a lot of times in in dealing with people of course she's got some experience with this her and brian been on the uh evangelistic field in dealing with people that are in their 40s or whatever a lot of their issues are from when they were kids and

SPEAKER_02 19:33

and also you know brother baker uh some of the kids that we pick up have already had some experience oh yeah in their

SPEAKER_00 19:41

lives oh yeah someone went through some terrible things

SPEAKER_02 19:43

terrible things you know and uh You know, when the Bible says train up a child in the way they should go. Yes. But it also says when they're old, they won't depart. I wish you meant when they're young, they won't depart.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

But, you know, what we're training them as children now, you know, they may lose an interest. Yeah. But sometime in the corners of their mind, when something happens, they're going to remember.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

And I remember what Brother Baker said. Yes. So when they're old, you know, they'll remember that. And I know we have people come back to church that used to go. come on the Sunday school

SPEAKER_00 20:17

bus. Yeah. Oh, exactly. You

SPEAKER_02 20:18

know, so train up a child in the way they should go. And when they're old, they won't depart from it. When they're old, we want them to come back when they're old.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing about the quantifiable is sometimes I believe if we're doing Sunday school right, I believe that we are making an impact every Sunday. Yes. And so sometimes we can't quantify that. And God forbid they do backslide or God forbid that they move, but we all know that kids that come on the bus they move all the time yeah they do and they disappear you know it's like they move to another state or maybe it's maybe it's another you know place in the city that our bus hasn't gone or whatever and so we lose contact but in spite of that we want that yeah when they they're laying down at night or going through something or whatever they remember and that's why we do like like we do so many things but plan of salvation is one that comes to mind we do it every week every week and that's That's one of the reasons we do it every single, we didn't used to way back in the day, but we, for many years now, we do it every week. And that's why is we want that to stick. Sink in. We want it to be over and over again, but going back to that one time, what is this, our one chance? Right. If a child comes and they don't come again, maybe they remember, you know, this plan of salvation, we've done it often with a map and stuff. We did kind of an interesting take on it recently with, with the news theme where we had the experts, you know, we had the repentance expert and the baptism expert, and it was funny, but it was just a different take on it. And so hopefully, you know, somebody will remember that. And again, I say, God forbid that they backslide, but even if they don't, maybe they remember that. You know, and the other thing is, I guess, too, is like, I've overheard, this has been a while ago, I remember overhearing my little one, Ashton, telling his cousins a Bible story.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_00 22:17

cool. And he gets it from Sunday school. Yeah. And so, man, what if, what if kids are telling their friends about, and then there was, what was John's character, Barry, Barry Baptism, Professor Barry Baptism, you know, and it might be a little convoluted and funny, but what if, you know, if the kids are telling, if it's stuck in their heart and their mind and they're telling their friends, like, you know, no, this is, this is how it is. I was, I mean, I was in a group chat. I have a group chat with some other Sunday school people, apostolic Sunday school people. And somebody mentioned something I thought was really good. We were talking about some of the issues with all this gender identity and, you know, crazy stuff that's going on in the world and just throwing out ideas on how to address that, you know, in Sunday school curriculum and things. And boy, I want to attribute this, but I can't remember exactly who said it. But one of the, people said that if we can, it was something along these lines, if we can teach, if we can teach the concepts of the word of God and the word, so it's so deeply ingrained that instead of having to address the quote lies, well, not quote, they are lies, you know, but instead of having to address the lies in our lesson, we are addressing truth so deeply that when a lie comes, they'll know, they'll know, they recognize it because it's not truth. It doesn't look like truth. So let's do a little little bit of a recap here. And I, maybe in this recap, so discipline over feeling, we don't do what we do because of how we feel. Now you, I know that I had this topic and I chose you on purpose because I know your

SPEAKER_01 24:00

history.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And so the main sport you played was football, right? Yeah. And so I'm sure that you've played hurt before. And so I think that that applies as well. Now, I do think that there's a balance with this. I'll preface it a little bit and I want you to talk about this a little bit but I do think there is a balance obviously if you're going through something really deep then you might take yourself off the field and say hey I need to take a little break from Sunday school or today I need a break or whatever but I'm really kind of talking about when I talk about playing hurt I'm not really I really am talking about more like you're tired or you're not feeling quite you may feel a little sick a little bit or something and like I said about pastor you push through You say, you know what, I'm still going to give it everything, even if everything is not as much as it usually is.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Right. You know, so on that note, you know, you've mentioned, and we've seen pastor where he's been sick and barely talk, but he's given it everything he has, you know, and that's my example because the Bible tells me to follow his faith. Right. You know, and yeah, there's some mornings when, you know, I get up early every morning for work and I just want to sleep in. Yeah. You get up and go to Sunday school, but you know, uh, kids are counting on us, you know, you're counting on me to be in Sunday school. Right. Um, and so even if I'm just feeling a little bit off or a little bit tired, you know, that's, you know, we go through the game plan, then it's time to warm up, get the blood flowing and, and, and shake, shake the devil off, shake the devil off, you know? Yeah. But it's, it's important to, to, to play through those, those, uh, issues that, the, you know, the, the injury. So that, that's important to staff. Uh, Um, cause we, we don't want to let the kids down.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so good. Cause if we, if we can get that concept and I try really hard to, I mean, um, if we can get the concept of, I don't do this because of how I feel, I don't do it because I feel inspired and thank God for those moments when I do, when I feel energized, thank God for those moments. But I, that's, that's not why I do it. I do it because this is what we do. Right. And then the byproduct of the motivation, the the inspiration, the energy, feeling God's presence, all of those things are because we do what we do. This is how we do

SPEAKER_02 26:22

it. And our reward is seeing the kids pray through, get baptized, and that's our reward for working hard as a Sunday school staff. That's our harvest.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

That's exactly. Yeah, and with some of our younger staff, I feel like there's probably a deficit in communicating that from me, from our leadership. might be a deficit in communicating that clearly enough and we're going to do better is that is our reward you know because we have a lot of fun in Sunday school and I feel like and I don't want I'm not indicting anybody but I feel like maybe sometimes it's like the only thing that maybe they look as the number like how many did we have today or if somebody got the Holy Ghost or like yeah and that's great that is good but our reward is in that development and seeing kids pray hard pray through through kids getting baptized and it transferring over to service, to church service. Big church. Yeah, to big church.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

You know, and on that line too is, you know, we do have some younger members of our Sunday school staff. Yes. And it's been a reward for, I consider myself a dinosaur in whatever occupation I'm doing. But seeing them be- You've earned the right. Yeah. Seeing them be engaged in our altar service at, in Yeah, praying with kids.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

And even with Brother Brian, Brother Joey, you know, they have both preached in Sunday school. And so that's where we kind of joke about, you know, that's where they learn to preach. But this is an opportunity that's maybe less intimidating where, and we should, I say we, Sunday school leaders, we should develop that more as this is their place where they can learn how to pray people through in a less intimidating environment because it is, quote unquote, just kids. And I know I said, you know, they're not just kids, but take that, flip it around and say, because they're kids, I can, I'm going to pray with them and I'm going to really pray them through. I'm going to, I'm going to help them pray and teach them. And then that transfers. So then they're in the altar in big church and praying adults

SPEAKER_01 29:01

through.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

And I've seen some of that in our younger staff. I've seen some of that where they have a little bit more of that confidence, you know, in the altar service. All right. To recap and wrap this up. So discipline over feeling, and then this is our one chance so every Sunday has to be top notch has to be top level and that's the difference between like in the business world or a restaurant even is when you get to that high level it's always top notch you go there and it's it's always great and that's you know that's professional and then motivation is a byproduct product of doing so don't just sit around waiting for motivation just get up and do it and then the motivation comes and then don't lower your standards for kids if anything else will Alright, well, I think that's a wrap.