Vance Martin: Why Kids Pastors Burn Out (and How To Stop It)
Kids ministry is facing a leadership crisis—and most churches aren’t prepared for it.
In this conversation, Vance Martin from Slingshot shares what he’s learned from helping hundreds of churches hire and develop NextGen leaders. He explains why kids pastor roles are some of the hardest to fill, why many leaders struggle to gain support, and what separates those who burn out from those who last.
More importantly, Vance reveals the leadership shift that changes everything: moving from being a doer to becoming a developer. You’ll learn how to build trust with your pastor, lead up effectively, and create a ministry that grows beyond your personal capacity.
If you want to lead with greater clarity, influence, and longevity, this episode will show you how.
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Transcript:
KIDMIN U Team (00:00)
Well, Vance, welcome to the podcast.
Vance Martin (00:01)
Man, I'm so glad that we were able to make this work, Jeremy. I'm glad to be here, man.
KIDMIN U Team (00:07)
Yeah. Okay, for some people who are still learning who you are, how would you describe what you do in the ministry landscape?
Vance Martin (00:14)
Oh, what I do in the manage. What do I not do, Jeremy? That might be easier. What do I do? I would say, so I'll give the simple short answer. Simple short answer is I get to lead a team that makes introductions, that introduces our friends to our new friends. Unpacking that, we get to serve the church, me and my team, we serve the church in really helping.
KIDMIN U Team (00:18)
Haha.
Vance Martin (00:42)
Kids, student ministry leaders find healthy, thriving churches that they want to be a part of. So serving churches and leaders and we're connectors and networkers and it's really cool how God, it rarely works out how you think it will, but we get to be that connection point and see God work in some really cool ways.
KIDMIN U Team (01:04)
Yeah. Well, that's actually how we met some years ago. I remember that there was a time of transition for me. And I think your team kind of helped me land in a new spot, which is really incredible. And I loved my entire experience with slingshot. You know, we were saying before the call, I feel like your whole team, all the guys you got in your next gen division that I interacted with, and even some of the new guys that I know have joined, like all of them share that same spirit of just it's a pastoral heart.
Vance Martin (01:08)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (01:32)
There's a
warmth, there's a human element. So we love what you do. And I'm sure throughout this podcast, there are parts of that that I really want to explore because that's a really unique role. But maybe first, I'd love to talk about how it all started. usually with my guests, I'll ask them, hey, how'd you get started in kids ministry? I know you've got like kind of an unexpected journey of how you got to where you're at now. Maybe take us into that. Like, how'd you end up doing what you're doing?
Vance Martin (01:41)
Sure.
Okay, that'd be great. So I think this might be intimidating to start with and it's not gonna be this long, but I think to talk about my story, have to say it starts with my great grandfather. we don't have to go back. I know, it's not that long of a story, but my great grandfather, it has to do with my foundation and my starting point.
KIDMIN U Team (02:14)
Hmm, it's gonna be a long story.
Vance Martin (02:27)
My great-grandfather was a church planter. My grandfather worked with a denominational district and helped dying churches. My dad was a kids pastor and kids evangelist. So that's what I started. I was born into a family.
that honored God with saying, we're gonna go all in and be a ministry family. So when I was born, I was at my first, back in the 80s, they call them kids crusades, which essentially is my family were kids evangelists, they would come into a church.
My dad would preach Sunday morning and then Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night would do family services, pack up, go to the next city and do it all over again. And then my dad was a kids pastor at a local church for a long time. For me personally, when I was 12, I felt a call towards kids ministry. And at that point we were back on the road as evangelists.
And my dad gave me opportunities to try new things and to, you know, lead in different ways that other people don't have opportunities to do. So by the time I was 15, his ministry really became my ministry. I was traveling with my mom and my brother, driving a big conversion van with a trailer all over the country, doing camps and kids services. that's like how I cut my teeth in ministry.
And then served with my dad. He was a lead pastor at that point and was his kids and students and graphic designer and janitor and outreach pastor and all of that, all those kinds of things. And then served, ultimately ended up being five local churches and towards the end in the last, you know, 12, 10, 12 years of my life, more large.
multi-site churches as serving as a kids pastor and loved it. was, know, leading from that foundation that my dad set for me and then, then finding my own way, leading staff and developing people really became a huge, just passion of mine.
And to get to, okay, how did I get where I am now? So I was at a church in Chicago and at the time we had eight campuses and there were two lead pastors there at this church. And one, they had founded the church together. The church was about 15 years old and had just obviously grown like crazy with eight campuses, probably 7,000 people.
and they decided to part ways. And one of the pastors was gonna go to another church on another side of Chicago land. He was the primary teacher communicator. The other pastor was more of your leader visionary. He did teach. And so what that did was open up a door for me to, to at that point be a part of the teaching team, which I was really passionate about and loved doing that.
And I kind of felt like God was doing something in me, like something was gonna be changing, something was gonna be different, I didn't know what it was. And about that same time, I had an opportunity to start working with Slingshot as an associate. And they were asking me to come and to take over the you know, to lead the kids team. And I was just like, I don't, I'm gonna be at the local church. I love what I'm doing, this is great thing to do as a part of my ministry, but not my main.
source of ministry and ultimate led to a point where I was talking with my lead pastor who I was really good friends with him on this teaching team. We're doing a lot of time together and processing all these and he had the idea of, why don't you just work part-time here and just be a part of the teaching team and then do slingshot full-time, quit your kid's job here and work with them full-time and
I thought like, man, that feels like the best of both worlds. Cause in some ways I was just bored out of my mind on the kids side of things. Cause we had built it and you know, I'm not really a maintainer. so that's what I did. I took that leap and six months into it realized there's not really a part-time role at the church. And especially one that was as visible as teaching team.
KIDMIN U Team (06:54)
Ha
Vance Martin (06:59)
And so Slingshot needed a lot more for me. And so God was sneaky. I don't think if I didn't have that crossover, I don't know if I would have made the leap. And so ultimately I left the church and went completely full time with Slingshot. That was 12 years ago. ⁓ So this January, I've been with Slingshot over 12 years, but this January will mark my 12 years of full time with Slingshot leading.
KIDMIN U Team (07:15)
Hmm.
Vance Martin (07:27)
started off leading the children's division, got to build that. And then in 2019, moved into the vice president of NextGen. So getting to oversee all of our kids and student searches and coaching and all that. And been doing that ever since. And I love it. Love my team. There's 12 of us on the NextGen team and get to serve. Typically we'll do around 180 to 100 NextGen searches in a year.
And so got a lot going on, a lot of churches were serving and helping and it's a blast.
KIDMIN U Team (07:59)
Yeah.
Okay, so there are a million different directions we could go here, but where I'd love to actually ask is, I heard you say at one point that the hardest role to fill was a kid's pastor role, like even more so than youth or other things. First of all, is that still true? And if so, why do you think that is?
Vance Martin (08:22)
Okay, I'm gonna try and give you a quick answer, because there's a lot to unpack here. Quick answer, yes. Kids are probably not, and again, doing this for 12 years, children's ministry has always been the hardest, I always say the hardest, one of the hardest. There's a few roles that are pretty difficult, like communications directors, those are really hard to fill as well.
Okay, why? Here's my, what I've seen and I would say some of this is, I've done a lot of research into this. But I'd say anecdotally and I think people will kind of feel, I think this may make sense. So if we ask 100 student pastors, hey, how did you get into ministry?
Probably of that hundred, 90 of them are gonna tell you a story. Man, I had somebody in my life that was investing in me, mentoring me. I went to a church camp. There was this moment where I felt a call to ministry. Then they went to Bible college, did an internship, started working at a church. There's very much a, you could look at it like a career path. They were on.
It was, it's ministry, but they approached it as you would, I'm gonna go into this career. So there was intentionality with it. If you lined up 100 kids people, like children's ministry leaders, 90 of them will tell you a very different story. Their story will be, there was a need in my church, my pastor came to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, you are your school teacher,
you were a preschool director, you're just a great volunteer, you're good with kids, would you step in and lead this ministry? And they said yes out of obligation and loyalty to the church. And then it maybe becomes a calling for them. They get into the ministry and they go, this is what I was made for, this is what I was called for.
Those typically children's ministry leaders are overwhelmingly female, probably 80 to 90 percent, not the primary breadwinner. Children's ministry doesn't pay that great, you know. Thankfully we're seeing a little bit of that change. And so even if it does become a calling and a profession, a career, then okay, if I'm going to leave my church,
there's gonna be a 30 mile radius of churches that I'm gonna look at to relocate to. So if you look at just the talent pool alone between just student ministry and kids ministry, one is far more likely to take on a cross the country move versus the children's ministry that isn't. Whereas it's the opposite. You've only got maybe.
with 25 to 30 % of all the people that are in children's ministry that are open to relocating somewhere across the country. So just by that alone makes it really difficult for people to move. Student ministry, believe it or not, is becoming one of the hardest as well. And that's different for very different reasons. But yes, that's just, that's my theory, educated guess.
as to why they're so hard to find and why there's so few children's ministry people out there.
KIDMIN U Team (12:01)
Yeah. Yeah. I've described it as a crisis in the kids ministry space because I think what I've seen and I'm curious, I'm curious because you sit in a space with people that's very different because you're talking to people in transition and sometimes it's heavy. Sometimes it's not. Maybe they're just looking for the next thing in their career. Maybe other times there's a little bit of pain and hurt from wherever they were before, or maybe they're in the middle. Like there's nothing right now and they're looking for something.
Vance Martin (12:05)
Yes.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (12:30)
But regardless of where they're at, you're sitting with them through all of it. And I don't know if this is your experience, but to me, I feel like a lot of people that I know who are experienced kids ministry leaders who have like stepped away, like there are a lot who've actually transitioned out because kids ministry is hard. I don't know if anybody knows that, but kids ministry is actually kind of challenging. And I've often described it as like, it almost feels like a young man's game or young person's game, if you will.
Vance Martin (12:46)
yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (12:58)
And I'm in my mid thirties, but I was in year 14 of my career and it's like, Whoa, I'm feeling it. was like, I don't know if I have the stamina I did in year one as I do in, you know, year 14 it's hard. so you see, at least to me, anecdotally, I feel like I've noticed a lot of people transitioning out to, uh, whether it's in the church or outside the church. If it isn't the church, they would often describe it as an easier role.
Vance Martin (13:07)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (13:23)
Because literally almost anything else is going to be a little less complex and a little less demanding of your schedule than kids. I'm curious, have you noticed that? Like people who are experienced, who are qualified, who find it really hard to stay.
Vance Martin (13:36)
Yeah, so there's several factors here. And one of the factors, yes, all the things that you just mentioned, I would consider those to be, those are internal factors. This job is difficult, or the pay isn't as good as some other roles. Some external factors that are contributing to that is, I can't remember if it was Barna or Christianity Today, just released recently a study.
25 % of the pastoral workforce that's serving the church, 25%, one in four, is planning to retire before 2030.
So 25 % of the pastors that are working now are not going to be working and that's already begun. For the first time ever, there are more pastors over the age of 65 than there are under the age of 40. So an aging workforce that's stepping out and you think about if you look at all the roles in a church,
KIDMIN U Team (14:32)
Wow.
Vance Martin (14:41)
And if we would consider most of those people that are retiring, they're probably in more of senior leadership roles. And so as they're moving out, there's opportunity, everything else, the people serving the church, the pastors and ministry leaders, it moves everything up, right? You're moving, there's vacuums of leadership shifting people up. And typically you're...
roles that you're starting off in ministry typically are kids and student ministry. And so the people that you're describing, the Jeremy O'Neill's of the world that I've been doing kids ministry for 15 years, suddenly now they're typically not filling the senior leadership role, but a lot of times they're filling the role of the person that did. And so there's this in student ministry, we're seeing the same thing. They're moving up and because there's opportunity.
KIDMIN U Team (15:23)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Vance Martin (15:35)
because of the senior leadership vacuum, everything is shifting up. That's causing more stress on the lower, entry level side of the leadership pipeline. Then you compound that with seminary enrollment is down 50 % from the last 10 years. So there's just not as many people going to Bible college to be a student pastor anymore.
There's a lot there's more Christian universities that I see They're moving towards being a Christian university not a school for pastors. They're shutting down their ministry Programs because they don't have enough people to fill them. So there's definitely it's being squished by both sides So that's some of the external factors is there's just there's different and other opportunities for somebody that has been in
kids are student ministry for 10 years, they're gonna get other opportunities to move into something else. And so I think for us as children's ministry leaders, it's knowing that there's gonna be opportunities for us. Who are we raising up? like everybody on this that's listening to this to know that we, there is a crisis looming in kids and student ministries and we are the best option to,
meet that need and it's not by us, it's raising up people behind us. It's developing people under us to release them, whether it's at your church or somewhere else. We're the best solution to help this crisis that we're already starting to see the beginning of, but I think in the next five to 10 years is really beginning as more and more senior leadership, senior positions are open.
more of the talent pool moves up, it's just gonna be more and more need for children in the student ministry people. So, okay, sorry Jeremy, that was a long answer. I tried to make it short, but there you go.
KIDMIN U Team (17:37)
No, I love it. Yeah, I love to do a deep dive in that stuff. I think that's going to be a big shift across, you know, the whole landscape of ministry. And I think what I'd love to pick your brain on is the trajectory, if you will, of a kid's pastor, maybe even compared to a youth pastor, what I found, I'm not sure if you've seen this too, but I feel like when it comes to somebody in student ministry, it's not really hard for them to get promoted, you know, somewhere in the church.
Vance Martin (18:05)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (18:05)
Whether it's a higher rung of the ladder or it's an associate pastor role or eventually lead pastor like that path is pretty clear But for kids pastors, it's a little different number one maybe because kids pastors aren't as Maybe driven by that a lot of people in kids minister there because that's exactly what they love like they're not trying to get promoted Yeah, this is their dream job. But for some people
Vance Martin (18:21)
Yeah. Ambitious. Yeah. They love kids.
KIDMIN U Team (18:29)
They actually might be interested in something like that, but the path isn't quite as clear as a student pastor. Why do you think churches have such a hard time maybe projecting the potential of a kid's pastor a little bit more difficult than with a student pastor? Because I feel like we often look at the youth pastor and we're like, okay, he can preach, he can do this, he can definitely do more. But we often don't think about that with a kid's pastor. Why?
Vance Martin (18:52)
Yeah, yeah. You're not wrong. And I think there's definitely something there. The first thing that comes to my mind is a couple of things. One, I see typically that great, good student pastors make good lead pastors. A good children's pastor typically makes a really good executive pastor. And you know, there's just a different wiring.
You think about your stereotypical student pastor. They're not you know the Some so let's talk about let's talk about stereotypes for a second and that we all some of them are true and some of them aren't we live into them in some ways some we don't Stereotypical student pastor. He's fun. He's goofy. The kids love him. It's terrible administration you're lucky if you're he's gonna respond to emails and You know parents drive him nuts because he does things that are just you know, he's
He's just immature, know, all those things. Some of them true, some of aren't. Okay, what are the stereotypes of a children's person? You know, what are the things that, well typically they're sometimes socially awkward. You know, they don't exactly fit in with the adults, right? They're a little nerdy, maybe just a little off. They do love kids. They're creative and eccentric.
you know, little bit of drama. They actually are pretty good at the administrative stuff and do things, yeah, they work really hard. They probably overwork and, you know, might be workaholics and perfectionists. I think often, you know, those perceptions live in a reality where
If you've got a senior leader who used to be a student pastor, he's just gonna be naturally drawn in Seymour and the student pastor. Children's people often feel like aliens to a lead team that has never been involved in children's ministry. I think if they're honest, it's intimidating and they just don't get it. They don't understand it. And so even how that leader behaves and approaches things, they don't really know what they do.
But if I'm a lead pastor, used to be a student pastor, I kinda really have a really good idea of what the student pastor's doing and if he's good or not. So I think a lot of it's just, there's less commonality and shared history with a children's person versus a student pastor. I think gender has a lot to do with it. If you're, you know, for really honest in that, you know, it's just.
You take the theological approach to have a complementarian and egalitarian church. Again, if we know that the majority of children's ministry leaders are female, and it's probably, let's say it's just 50-50, complementarian, egalitarian split, there's gonna be a lid on a large portion of children's ministry leaders simply because of theological.
perspective of churches. So yeah, there is a difference and I think there is some perceived lids and just misunderstanding of children's ministry people.
KIDMIN U Team (22:10)
Yeah, I think so too. It's funny because by the time this comes out, this will be dated. by the time of recording, like next week, we're going to do like a live training with our KidmanU community on how to get buy-in from your pastor. And a lot of it, it's so funny. It's like you're stealing the talking points out of my mouth because a lot of it, I think, comes back to different backgrounds that people have. I mean, think about, I mean, you would have a better answer on this than I would, but it's like, I can count on one hand the people that I know personally.
Vance Martin (22:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (22:38)
who are lead pastors who used to be in any way connected to kids ministry. It's rare, but the amount that did students or whatever, another ministry at the church is like 90%. And so I think sometimes when you're a kids pastor and you're trying to advocate for things, it's really hard for a pastor to understand because they don't know that world. They don't know why it might be helpful to have a play space. They don't know why you need more budget for certain things. If it's a youth pastor asking for stuff,
Vance Martin (22:47)
Yeah.
and speaking a different language.
KIDMIN U Team (23:08)
that lead pastor can say, yeah, I've been there. I understand how that connects to growth. But for kids ministry, it's hard. So I mean, I guess we kind of understand maybe the leadership lids, but for the people who are in it right now, and their thing is, I'm just trying to get support. I want people to understand not only what I do, but also like what I need from my supervisors. How do they lead up in that way? How do they help them understand those realities, even if that lead pastor may not have context for it?
Vance Martin (23:10)
Yeah, they have context.
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic question. And I think often what I see is your success at a church is solely going to be dependent on the relationship you have with your supervisor. And if you want to be effective at a church, your number one priority is to make sure that that relationship is good.
and investing in that because if that's not great, you're not gonna get anywhere. You're not gonna get the resources you're, you're not gonna get the time and attention that you need. So here's what I would say is, is something I've talked quite a bit with Josh Denhart about, and the way I look at it, I think there's four different types of,
executive leaders and bosses and it's knowing you have to know which type you're you're under and speak their language think about it like the you know Gary Chapman's five love languages and you have to so to speak know the love language the leadership love language or the leadership lens of your leader so the first lens is the people lens
and this is typically your very visionary, like they wanna know a story and life change, right? And so anytime that you can translate what you're doing and how it's gonna connect to lives being changed, those narratives about those kids, about the leaders that are affected, about the families and the parents and the...
the dad that came to the baptism class that while you were talking about what it means to be baptism, you got to lead to the Lord because he really thought, man, if my kid is going to do this, I got to make this decision. Those are the stories that you have to interject and tell all the time to win the attention of your leader. And if you do that, you use a blank check. The next leader is the progress leader.
So you got the people leader, the progress lens leader. Their lens in which everything they're looking at is how does this make us better? How are we, how is this gonna, we're climbing this hill, how does this move us forward? How does this advance the mission? How are we improving? What they're looking at is how are we improving? And so what you're gonna wanna do all the time is talk about, we're looking at our check-in system right now, and right now it takes a family three minutes to get through that line and get into there.
Here's what we're doing to make the cut that time in half. Or here was our, this used to be our training process I'm working on, how do we better train our preschool leaders? And here's what I'm doing. And so you're constantly moving and we're making things better. We're moving us towards the mission. Then the third lens is your pennies lens, okay?
And this is all about the nickel, you know, it's the nickels in the noses, right? It's the, lot of times we think about these leaders as misers, but they're really not, they're really good stewards. And so what you have to do is what I found is when you can associate a value to that dollar, like we're not gonna be wasteful. This is actually,
KIDMIN U Team (26:43)
Hmm.
Vance Martin (26:57)
Because everything can be traced back to money in many, many ways. And when I say pennies, what we're talking about is I would put it in a larger bucket of resources. You have three primary resources. It's time, money, and people. And so they're a good steward in making sure that we're not wasting anything. And if you can communicate that to them, that we're not wasting, we're putting it to good use.
We're not burying the talent. We're taking it, investing it, and multiplying it, and making it. They're willing to give. Then your final one is your process leader. And I really see this especially in like a multi-site situation. This does happen in non-multi-site, but it's this, okay, well if we do for one, we have to do for the other, and we have to keep alignment, and it has to be fairness.
And if I do this for you, how does that affect everybody else? And so they're constantly thinking and looking through a lens of what are the steps? How does this affect everybody else? And if we do this in kids, what does that do to children? And these leaders are typically very strategic, but they're gonna ask a lot of questions. And so when you want something to think through, if you have this kind of leader and you come and you just say, hey, I wanna do this thing,
and then they ask you, what about this? What about this? What about this? And you don't have the answer for it. Your trust just goes.
And so knowing that leader and coming in, in all of these, knowing the questions that they're going to ask, if you come in having an answer for those, you're gonna build trust and you're gonna get more of the resources that you need. So it's knowing your leader and speaking their language. That's gonna go a long way.
Okay, that was another long segue. I'm sorry, Jeremy, but there you go.
KIDMIN U Team (28:53)
No, this is gold. I hope people are taking notes. I literally am. Usually in these conversations, I try and just like listen. I know they're recorded, so I can always go back to them. But I was like, I literally, I want to write them out because I have so many questions. So I love that you went there. I think it adds a really nice framework to it because I think how I often think about it is,
a lot about speaking the language, but I think about it from a lens of the altitude. I had a mentor at one time who said, you know, when you're speaking to an executive, you have to remember how high they're flying in the organization. You know, for most of us, some roles, entry level are ground level. You're seeing all the details. Many people listen to this who are on staff, probably around five to 10,000 feet. You know, you can see your ministry. You know, if you're flying on a plane, you can see the general plot lines. You can still see some details.
Vance Martin (29:25)
Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (29:42)
You can still see some cars moving, whatever. You've got a little vantage point. Most senior leaders are going to be flying at 30,000 feet. You know, your department isn't the only thing that they run. And so when you show up in that meeting, I think what typically happens, the default mode for kids pastors is, let me tell you all the details that you need to know about this event or why I need this budget, whatever. We start at five to 10,000 feet, where I think the key shift is
Vance Martin (29:50)
Absolutely. That's right.
KIDMIN U Team (30:09)
start at 30,000 feet, match their altitude, and then be ready to descend the plane. Like if they ask for details, be ready, be prepared, but start where they are. What I love about what you just said is it adds color to that, where it's not just your level. Even at that level, there are different types of planes that are flying. That's kinda how I hear it. And so that's brilliant. The idea of really identifying in practical ways what type of boss do I have and how can I communicate in a way that they'll actually hear me.
Vance Martin (30:10)
Yes, absolutely.
That's right.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah, I think often too, because of the difference of altitude and what you're talking about, what we want to resist is when we don't get the answer we want, we start to fill in a picture and we create these narratives of why they said no or not. And I think if you're flying at 10,000 feet and you're not playing at 30,000 feet, there's a different perspective.
and you're creating a puzzle that you don't have all the pieces to. They do have all the pieces to the puzzle. And so what you have to do is resist that. You can quickly get to a place where you can be bitter and say, well man, they really don't care about children's ministry. Well, it could be that you just don't know the financial situation or the other...
three conversations that they had before you got in there where they're dealing with some moral failure that just happened on there and some catastrophe that's there's so much stuff going on that we're there serve and support and give them the benefit of the doubt and know that we're not going to have all the pieces of the puzzle and trust them that they're making the best decisions that they can with the with the information that they have.
And so our role is just to give them as much of the best quality information they can. You're right, at a high level, and I love that what you said, Jeremy. If we need to go down to 5,000 feet, we can. But yeah, meet them at that level where they are. It might be good, because sometimes we don't know. We have blind spots. Pitch this to somebody else. If you've got an initiative or some big event or something,
go pitch it to somebody else first and get their feedback and say, think about the way that our leader would process it. What questions would he ask? So that you come in and prepared and ready. You're gonna get a lot further and build trust. I had one of these leaders that I found that when I would come into a one-on-one with him and I had
you know, an issue or a problem and I'm wanting to bring it up to him, I don't need him to fix it. He would get really nervous and would just start, we would, he had a tendency to then to really dig down into the weeds and control and micromanage. I was like, I can't have this. And so what I started doing was I would come into that meeting with him with my own agenda, literally printed out an agenda.
Here's what I'd like to talk to you about. Here's the solution to that problem. Here's how I fixed the problem I told you about last time and the resolution. And I just saw this weight come off his shoulders where he just, it was then I won the trust and know that, ugh, I can trust Vance to handle this. And I was just, because I was speaking his language, I found the way that I needed to communicate to him to relieve that pressure from him. And then from then on, man.
I can get and do whatever I wanted to do, because I won the trust and was willing to prove to him, I'm trustworthy. Because that's a part of it too. Sometimes we want all these things and we want to build, but we haven't proven ourselves trustworthy. And so you've got to earn the trust and own that piece too of doing well with what you've been given, going above and beyond.
KIDMIN U Team (34:10)
Yeah, I think that's great. Because as much as we'd to say that you start with that trust, sometimes it doesn't start that way. Sometimes your pastor wants to see a track record of faithfulness. And that's not bad. That's not like, hey, why is he making me prove myself? That's just a leadership principle right there. And I heard it said one time, just to give legs to what you're saying. I heard someone share like this 131 framework where they're like, hey, when you've got something with your
supervisor, you share the one challenge that you're facing, you bring three potential options of how you might go about it. And then you share, hey, here's the one I think might be best, and then present it to your boss. It's like, hey, if you do that with stuff, if you let them still speak into big, significant decisions, but you show that I am thinking through this, I am bringing solutions, not just problems, you know, things like that really help you build trust with your leader, they can start to see how you're thinking about things.
Vance Martin (34:42)
That's right. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (35:05)
They can see that you do notice when things aren't going great. I think for some pastors, they just want to know that you've got a grip on it. It's not that they don't trust you. They just need to see it in action more than anything else. I would also say too, I love that you even shared like, hey, there's more going on than we often realize with pastors. And I think it's important to assume the best. Cause I think even if you match the altitude and you match their style and you do everything that we talk about,
Vance Martin (35:24)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (35:32)
You're not guaranteed to get a yes on everything you bring. And it's not because you didn't do a good job. It's not because they didn't trust you. It's because there's way more pieces on the board that we don't always see. I even think about this like a year or two ago. It's like there was a pretty big investment that I was trying to get approval for from our leadership team. And I think they really liked it. I think they were about to say yes. But then we had an opportunity for a building project. Guess what? That's more important. We can't spend.
Vance Martin (35:35)
That's right.
yeah,
KIDMIN U Team (36:02)
tens of thousands
Vance Martin (36:02)
right.
KIDMIN U Team (36:03)
of dollars on this other thing, the main thing is the building. So it's like, I could have gone away bitter and said, man, they just don't believe in kids. They just aren't committed to the next gen, whatever. But the reality is, no, that wasn't the only thing in their decision-making process. And we have to understand there's so many things we don't see. And so for a lot of kids pastors, I wonder if there's a narrative that builds where we fill in the gaps with maybe
Vance Martin (36:29)
yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (36:29)
like a less than good story and we're like, they don't know, they don't care, it'll never change. How do you protect your heart in that? Like how do you keep that front and center? Because I feel like that's a crucial skill to have.
Vance Martin (36:41)
Yeah,
I'll tell, I think, let let me answer this. There's a story and a principle I think that might be helpful here. there was a church that I served in Atlanta and there's a church of like six, 700. And I remember my lead pastor, you know, and I was young, I was in my twenties, newly married, you know, setting some expectations that, okay, you, got to be here at nine o'clock, right? Like.
Okay, we're gonna get into the office, nine o'clock. And I remember multiple times, like this expectation of me as an employee is that I'm here at nine o'clock and I'd show up at nine o'clock and be like, pastor's car's not here. Where's he at? I'm here at nine o'clock. I gotta be here, but he didn't have to be here. And I remember just feeling this sense of, kinda like I care about the church, but he didn't care about the church.
I'm here working, slaving away. And I reflect back on that. And as I, what I realize is as I worked at larger churches and moved up in leadership is that there's two types of work in a church. There's work and wait.
And the higher up you go in an organization, the more weight that you carry. And the more weight that you carry, the less work that you can do. And what leads to burnout is when you're trying to carry work and weight, and to know that the leaders that are over you, you might be thinking, and the temptation is, man, I'm doing all these things, I'm.
KIDMIN U Team (38:03)
Hmm.
Vance Martin (38:23)
I'm working on this and I'm a busy little bee and I look at them and like they're just in a bunch of meetings. But there's a difference in the calling that they have is to carry the weight of the church. The mantle of authority and responsibility that you haven't as a kids ministry leader. There's a little bit of that weight that's on you, but nothing compared to the weight.
I mean, it's just like literal weights, weighing them down. And when you're weighed down, it's like juggling all this work. You can juggle if you don't have any weight on you. You put that weight and I'm doing all these tasks and working. So your leader is the one that's over you is more than likely trying to carry a lot of weight and a lot of work at the same time. And the best thing that we can do for them is either share the weight
or share the work and to lighten their, that's our calling. And so to be that, our initial perspective is not how can they serve me and how can they meet the needs of my ministry, but how can I come alongside them, shoulder with them and either share the weight or share the work? What can I take off of them? Because the more that I can take the work or if I can build a team to take the work off of them, the freer that they're gonna be.
to lead and so I think it's having that perspective of I had no idea what my pastor was going through. I look back and now I realize that that pastor that wasn't showing up was also dealing with over the course of three years, six church splits and some crazy staff people and some, and so I had no idea the meetings and the things and the weight that he was carrying. And so I think again is the perspective thing.
We don't know what your leader, so I'd say the first thing is just pray for them. Just continue to pray. Pray for your leader is the best thing that you can do for your ministry, is praying for your leader, because what that does is it opens the door for grace to be there. They're gonna mess up. They're not gonna meet all of your needs. And so, God, give me the perspective of what they're going through and know that they're carrying an immense weight.
And then when you see that, you're able to get a little bit more grace for the people that are leading you.
KIDMIN U Team (40:49)
Yeah, I love what you said about weight. And it reminds me of my first kids pastor role. And I remember, you know, at that time, I felt like I was really prepared by the way, because I'd been working in my church for five years. At that point, I was running an elementary program. I wasn't the kids pastor, but I was running elementary and we would have five or 600 kids on a Sunday. So I thought, Hey, I'm gonna go to this other church. I'm to be a kids pastor. And that 500 number is about how many kids they have in their total kids ministry. So
Vance (41:16)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (41:17)
I've got this. I've done this before. I served at a bigger church. But I remember getting there and being a few months in and just feeling tired. And I remember being on a call with my dad and I'm like, Dad, I don't get it. I feel like I'm doing the same job. In fact, I feel like I know how to do this job. But for some reason, I just feel more tired all the time. He goes, Jeremy, it's the weight. It's the weight of leadership. You know, even though you're doing the same tasks in a different setting, being the one in charge, the one where the buck stops with you.
Vance (41:18)
Totally.
Yeah. Yep.
Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (41:47)
there's a different weight and listen, that was just as a kid's pastor. You know, I can't imagine what it's like to be an executive or to be a lead pastor. You know, the weight gets exponentially greater. There's so much more that they're carrying that you don't even realize and, and listen, you learn to carry that weight a little better over time. You know, like my rookie year as a kid's pastor, like I felt that weight a lot. You learn, you know, you build some muscles to carry it. But for a lead pastor, man, it gets really heavy.
And we don't see all of what's going on. And so I love what you said about finding ways to support them because I think sometimes we just get unhappy when our pastor doesn't meet our expectations or they're not here at nine o'clock. You know, it reminds me actually, I know people probably have mixed thoughts on this particular character, but you know, Jack Dorsey, the guy who founded Twitter, I remember him talking about the early days of Twitter and you know, listen, the tech world in Silicon Valley, you know, it's like,
Vance (42:17)
yeah.
That's right.
KIDMIN U Team (42:45)
a badge value to be the one who like works the most hours in a day. Like people like have like crazy stories of like, yeah, I work 20 plus hours a day when we were starting up the thing. And it's like, that is a value in that community. And when he was the CEO of Twitter in the early days, he would work till about six or seven o'clock. And then he'd go get dinner, go to like a yoga class or something. And all people saw was Jack Dorsey, the founder, our fearless leader, he's gone, he's checking out at six o'clock.
What they never saw is they would leave at like eight or nine and he'd come back at 10 and he'd be there till like three in the morning. They didn't realize like he was out working everybody, but they just didn't see it. Now that's like a time thing. I think what we're talking about here isn't even just the time inputs. I think about it like it reminds me of an athlete. It's like the, the, the crazier exertion on your body, the more recovery time you need. Like I remember LeBron was saying, I sleep like 12 hours a day.
Vance (43:13)
Yep.
That's right.
Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (43:42)
And you could call him lazy, but we know he actually works really hard. His body needs to recover. And I never really thought about it that way until you just said it, but pastors need that too.
Vance (43:52)
yeah, absolutely. mean, if you think about just the simple fact of they have to write a talk every week, that's going to be evaluated by everybody. Not to mention also be this, you know, so they're the, they're the motivational speaker. And I don't mean that to be, you know, content, whatever it's, I'm just, you know, there's a big talk that they got to prepare for that. A lot of weight is on a lot of eyeballs.
KIDMIN U Team (44:00)
Hahaha.
Vance (44:20)
there's the financial pressure of building campaigns and the salaries. You know, the larger the church is, I mean, just the weight of, we've got a lot of people that, you know, obviously God is ultimately responsible, but I'm the steward of that. I'm a steward of, you know, 20, a hundred, 150 people. That's a huge weight. And then dealing with
elders and staff issues and man, it's, yeah, we gotta have, we have our own stuff. Kids ministry people have our own stuff. There's things that we're dealing with. It is at a different level and a different stakes. The stakes are higher and different for senior leaders and we gotta have grace for them.
KIDMIN U Team (45:08)
Yeah, totally agree. Okay. I think that that makes my mind think about leaders leading well over the long term. I think a lot of people get burnt out over time, especially in kids ministry. We've already talked about that. It's really hard and you've got to, you've got to be super intentional. If you're going to actually guard your heart, if you're going to maintain healthy rhythms, if you're going to be able to lead faithfully over time, you've seen a lot of leaders, who've probably either done it well or maybe experienced the challenge of
maybe not being intentional in certain areas, from what you've seen, what does it take to actually be faithful over the long term in kids ministry?
Vance (45:43)
Yeah.
That's a very good question. I can tell you, I'll just tell you the story of my failure, because I think there's something that I learned that changed the perspective and trajectory. So when I was 24 years old, I got to have my dream job. I was the lead kids pastor at a church of 3000 with three campuses overseeing a staff of five or six.
And like, I thought I was the stuff, man. I was pretty great. And when I went to this church, this was in 2006, and you know, 2007, 2008, there's the downturn in the economy, the housing market kind of crashes. And so this church had invested in building this 3000 seat auditorium.
and the growth and the giving didn't match and now they had to do some massive layoffs and essentially my team of five or six to execute ministry which was three Sunday morning services like a fine arts kind of stuff for kids on Sunday nights because parents would drop their kids off and go to small groups and then we did midweek so we did small groups on
on Wednesday nights, plus we had a school of ministry that was like 150 students that I had 12 children's ministry specific interns that I'm leading at three campuses. And so with that staff, we could keep up and it was still a lot. And then that staff went to a part-time early childhood person and a full-time admin support for me.
And like we just kept the thing rolling and I did everything I could. I mean, I sacrificed a lot. Now on the church side of it, I was promised that my team would be the first team to be rebuilt. It wasn't exactly. But what I learned was I was really good at
KIDMIN U Team (47:45)
Hahaha
Vance (47:52)
doing what I did, but I wasn't good at leading and developing others. And instead of being put in that position and saying, I'm gonna develop other people, I just said, I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna dig in deeper. Ultimately, that led to me completely burning out. I mean, I was a vegetable. I was no good for anybody. And ultimately, three years into that,
They fired me. They did the most loving thing they could. They fired me and let me go. In between, I had to go and live in my parents' basement up in New York and we rented out our house and I was interviewing and talking with different churches but to make ends meet, I was a handyman on a farm, shoveling poop and fixing stuff. And man, I gotta tell you, I had some of the most intense conversations with God.
Like God met me there out in that barn. And what he revealed to me then was you weren't doing it my way. You were doing it yours.
So flash forward, my next church is the church that I was, my most recent church that I was at in Chicago. let's see, I started in October and by March, I had a meeting with my executive pastor and he's telling me, man, we're gonna have to make some, we're gonna do some reorg, we're gonna have to reduce the size of the staff and that. And I just started having this like PTSD, right?
And so literally cut my staff in half. And this is a much larger church, eight campuses. And so at this point, I always had to make a decision. And what I remembered was what God had told me. Like you can do it your way or you can do it my way. And so what we did from there on was I learned.
and put into action what it actually looked like to be an Ephesians four leader and to lead through other people and develop other people. And we did far more with less staff, with half the staff than we ever did with a staff person in every room, because that's essentially what we had. And it was all about getting to, it was for me, and this is where I'll bring it back to your question.
Longevity for a kids ministry person is directly connected to can you make the conversion from being a doer to a developer in ministry. If you will continue to be a doer and to carry and to do all the work because you like it, because your identity is in it, because you love kids, because you love teaching. you...
KIDMIN U Team (50:27)
Hmm.
Vance (50:41)
If you do not get to the point where you say, get as much joy or more joy in leading other people and developing and letting go in ministry, you're not gonna last. It's like this, when I was a kid, I really loved Christmas, because I loved opening presents. I still love opening presents. But Christmas now that I have kids is completely different. And as much joy as I love opening that one
to 10 presents that they have, one for me, 10 for them, and as a dad, I don't really care because there is so much more joy for me watching them open the presents than I ever had as a kid opening the presents myself. That's the perspective you've gotta take on is I gotta find the joy in my calling and going, I find as much joy in letting somebody else open the present.
and watching them experience what it is to use your gifts and your talents and your abilities to be a contributor to the kingdom. And so if you want to last a long time in children's ministry, you have to develop other people. You have to work through others. I think that in my mind, what I see time and time again is the...
the thing that causes the most burnout, but it's also the lid that keeps people from stepping into the next level. In fact, I see when I look at churches and I talk with churches, I think the, you know, the thousand mark barrier, I think the number one contributing factor to churches not being able to break through a thousand people is staff that work at a church are doers and not developers. And so I think the sooner that you can get to that, the sooner that you can be
Your primary focus as a kids person is the volunteers and the parents, then the more successful you're gonna be. It's not about the kids. You're gonna lead leaders that lead leaders that lead leaders that lead leaders that lead kids. You can do that. You can do this thing forever. So it's one piece, there's way more to it, but I think that's the primary factor, I think, to success.
KIDMIN U Team (52:47)
Yeah.
It's a great place to start. And I think that's the unexpected part that hits people their first time in kids ministry, like as a leader, like on staff, because I think most of us end up here because we love kids. And so we just think, Hey, if I get, if I get a paycheck for this, it means I just get to hang out with kids all the time. And I think the thing that sneaks up on people so fast is you quickly realize it's not just about the kids. in fact, there's a
Vance (52:57)
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah!
KIDMIN U Team (53:13)
Training part of our kid menu program where we talk about target audiences And so I believe everybody's got three some people have four but a lot of us think when we get started It's just kids. That's my only audience that I'm concerned with I'm gonna serve them. I'm spend my time with them Every single kids pastor actually should be more focused on volunteers and parents. That's number two and number three In fact, if you're trying to invest directly in kids, not only is that gonna be frankly ineffective because you're only one person and there's too many kids
but it's also gonna burn you out from both ends. The best thing to do if you wanna influence kids is influence the people who influence kids, that's volunteers and parents. And some people, depending on the size of your church, might have a fourth audience, which might be your staff. You for me, I had to remember, I serve them too. In fact, at a certain level, I influence my staff who influences the volunteers and the parents. So wherever you're at, it's like, okay, who else do I need to bring with me? Because what does that proverb say?
Vance (53:46)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yes. Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (54:11)
I don't think it's in the Bible. It's like maybe an African proverb. They say if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Same thing, man. You've got to do it with people. And I love what you said, developing them to you know, it's not just like allowing them an opportunity to do ministry. That's important. But the other part that's important is how are you helping them grow? I'd love to get your thoughts on this because I know you actually teach on this. I think you're even doing a breakout at CPC if I read that correctly, but
Vance (54:19)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (54:40)
What does it look like to create that leadership development culture on your team? Like what steps can we take to actually begin being intentional about that within our kids ministry?
Vance (54:50)
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think, you know, as a segue, I'd say this, this is the phrase that I use a lot with specifically children's ministry people is when a kid, men leader focuses on kids, everybody suffers. But when a kid, men leader focuses on leaders, everybody's served. And, and so if you, if your focus is on kids, it hurts everybody. It hurts you, it hurts the kids, it hurts the leaders.
KIDMIN U Team (55:07)
Wow.
Vance (55:17)
It hurts your staff. Everybody's hurting. But if you're focusing on leaders or your staff, then everybody gets served. That's your calling. That's your role. That's who you've been given as a gift to your body, to your church, to equip and develop the people that God has stewarded to you to do the work of ministry. So I think, I think
The first thing, the first step would be is an identity conversation with yourself. And why do I do this? And why do I not wanna let it go? And getting to the root of that. if you don't, and you don't have, I've heard some call a third conversion.
So if you, your first conversion is you accepted Christ. You surrender your life to Jesus. At that point, you're a consumer. And then at some point, you answered a call to give your life to ministry and now you're a contributor. That was the second conversion when you stepped into this role. The third conversion is from a doer to a developer, that I'm gonna be a coach. I'm gonna, and I would say if,
It has to reach the level of a conviction because if you're just, if more than just you're convinced, as I think, like I think this is what I'm supposed to do, you're gonna drift back, you're gonna be the children of Israel that wanna go back to Egypt. This has to be a conviction that says I'm convinced, I have a conviction that I can't do anything but this. It's a heart trans, it's a heart, it's.
moving from, I think you probably that most of the people listening this podcast would cerebrally agree with everything we're saying, but viscerally, emotionally, not be able to fully allow themselves to make that leap and that jump. And so what is this? What's the, what is the visceral heart thing that's keeping you from doing it?
Is it because you like control? Is it because that you want to be liked? Is it because your identity is wrapped up in this? Is it because you're telling yourself that nobody else is willing to do it and you've got a savior complex and you just like the drama of, I'm coming in and I'm the savior because nobody, what is the thing that's driving you and keeping you? And that's between you and Jesus. And if you don't fix that.
you're not gonna get anywhere with this. So fix the heart issue first. and then there's two things, there's two trains that gotta leave the station at the same time. You do all this heart work, but you don't build the structure around it, support it, it doesn't matter. You can build the structure and not do the hard work, it doesn't matter, it's gonna fall and fail. You gotta both have, it's the poetry and the plumbing. It's the heart, I gotta make the heart transplant, I gotta make the,
the move from being a doer to a developer, but then we also have to develop the systems and the structure to make sure that that supports it, the scaffolding, the plumbing that makes all this work. So it's those two simultaneous things. And what that looks like is, you know, creating a system and structure in your ministry that everybody is investing in someone and being invested in by someone.
and that the spans of care are adequate and aren't crazy. And you start at the bottom of your organization with how many kids in classrooms and have a leader in every room. And whether it's your small groups or your early childhood, and if you start from the bottom up and you say your ratio is, we're not gonna have more than five or not more than seven, then you need a leader above that person.
above those people every time you get past seven. And so start at that area and depending on your size and your scope, you've got your services and your age groups and build the system and structure, create a job description, create a process of how are we going to actually invest in these people? Like, what does this look like? What are the expectations? What are the conversations we wanna have? And it's gotta be a holistic approach.
There's the personal life, the leadership life, and the ministry life. So how are we gonna address those things with these people? I want the people that come into my ministry to be better parents, moms, and dads, to be better at their job, and to be better leaders, and to be the best children's ministry people that they can be because they're serving in our ministry. So what would it look like to create community and clear structure?
I mean, this is, so this is the Jethro principle, right? This is Jethro coming to Moses saying, what you're doing is not good, okay? And then what is, you gotta break these up, people that are over thousands and hundreds and tens. This is creating that system and structure in your ministry. There's a lot there I gotta go into, but I think that's the two primary things. It's the heart and it's the poetry and plumbing. It's the heart.
and casting this vision and casting it to yourself over and over and over again. And it's building the structure to support it. Because without that, it's not gonna last.
KIDMIN U Team (1:00:44)
Yeah,
I feel like this is a masterclass right now. I feel like we should charge lots of money for people to listen to this, but it's free. It's gold. It's so good. I think one takeaway I had is I'm listening to you is identity plays a much bigger part of this than we often think. You know, I once heard somebody talk about, you know, the way that you teach kids and they talked about, you've got to separate this idea. Sometimes we teach kids what to do. What we really need to teach them is like who they are. It's not just what you're doing. It's who you are.
Vance (1:00:49)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That's right.
KIDMIN U Team (1:01:12)
The way they put it always stuck with me They said you know a lot of times we teach kids do this do that The goal is to get kids to think internally I am the sort of kid who does this like if you can get to that point where a kid starts saying to themselves I'm the sort of person who dot dot dot and What you're talking about is the leadership version of that. I'm the sort of person who develops the people around me It's not just what I do. This is actually who I am
Vance (1:01:38)
Yeah. Yes.
KIDMIN U Team (1:01:40)
And the sooner we can make that shift, the better for them and the better for us because it's like, man, kids ministry people, I think this is probably one of the Achilles heel type things that we all have because I think it attracts people who have a huge heart and it attracts people who are really hard workers and they're faithful. So they're going to work really hard. They're not going to complain. They're going to suffer silently alone somewhere. And you're not going to know that they're actually really struggling.
Vance (1:01:44)
Yeah.
yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yep. yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (1:02:07)
And think the upgrade for us is figuring out how do I let people into that? How do I not carry this all by myself? And I think it starts with just sharing the load a little bit. You know, I wonder how many people are listening and thinking, man, the reason that I don't want to share these opportunities is because I don't want to burden people. You know, who would really want to do this or who would really want to do that? What would you say to that objection? Because I think, I think that's a limiting belief that holds us back.
Vance (1:02:13)
Yes. yeah.
yeah.
Yeah, I wish I had my notes. I have a whole talk on, it's called The Lies that Leaders Believe. And I can try and come up with all of them. And it's the reasons we don't let go of these things. And that's what I miss. I don't want to dump. I don't want to dump on, I don't want to take advantage of people. That's a lie that we tell ourselves. In my own family,
There is something that brings my wife so much joy. She loves this thing more than anything in the whole world. To me, it's like if I think I'm gonna make it to heaven, but if I wasn't, hell for me would be doing this thing for all of eternity. And that thing is organizing a closet. My wa-
KIDMIN U Team (1:03:14)
You
gosh.
Vance (1:03:23)
My wife would absolutely, there's nothing she loves more than organ. I could take this camera, I have a closet here in my office. I could take you in and there is, it's like the Berenstain Bears, know that one where they do all the organ and label all the toys and stuff. This closet is covered from floor to ceiling with bins everywhere with labeled things. Like she's the person that comes into the resource. You walk into those resource rooms at some churches and you're like, wow, somebody's obsessive.
for me to do that, that would be my eternal damnation is clean up closets forever. Here's what we do. We make assumptions about the things that I hate, and then you go, everybody else hates this too. And so we tell ourselves this lie that because I'm paid, that I have to do this part of the job, because this is just part of it. When in fact, there's somebody out there that's weird,
KIDMIN U Team (1:03:56)
Ha ha ha.
Vance (1:04:20)
and loves this thing, or you might be the weird one. And that, know, is to them. They're like, well, this is amazing. I love this. And so it's giving people and finding people, you know, if this is their gifting, it's a gift to you and to them. And so it's not dumping. Now it can be, it can be dumping. And this is not what we want to do. We don't want to just offload.
and not set people up for success. But the lie that we're telling ourselves, it's often because it's associated with that feeling of, I've gotta save this thing, I've been given the responsibility, I don't wanna ask too much of each other. And especially kid-man leaders, because we're used to being told no a lot, like I don't wanna serve, I don't wanna, we can get a rejection narrative built in our head.
KIDMIN U Team (1:05:14)
Hmm.
Vance (1:05:15)
And
we just assume what we do is we say no for people all the time. Because I don't want to be rejected. I'd rather not ask. Here's what I also learned is later on in my ministry career, I never got told no. And if I did, was very, very, very, very rare. If somebody tells you no, that they don't want to clean up the closet, it's because of a few factors. One.
you're asking them to do that something is outside of their gifting and they're not the crazy clean up the closet person. You haven't invested enough relationally to build the equity for the ask. Or third, you haven't clearly identified the expectations of what the role is and what you're asking for them. And so here's what I would say.
There is nothing that is in your ministry that you can accomplish through somebody else that you don't build the relationship for, is aligned with their calling, and you give clear expectations. People will always say yes. And so if you're getting a no, no, no, no, no, it's because one of those three things is missing. One of those three elements is missing. And so if we do that a lot, back to your original question, and we don't hand that off, we don't invite people in.
We don't wanna dump. It's because we've been rejected and we just assume and we say no for people. But in reality, it's because we're not leading in the proper way. We're not preparing the soil for that ask and that action and for people to make it an easy yes. That's what we'll be thinking. How can I make this an easy yes? And do the work on that front end and hand it off.
KIDMIN U Team (1:06:54)
Yeah.
Vance (1:06:57)
Okay, that's enough on that. Too much.
KIDMIN U Team (1:06:59)
No, I mean the way I think about it it's like, you know, what could be a smooth handoff of the baton sometimes ends up is like me throwing a baton at somebody and hoping they catch it. You know, I think sometimes we do that with our asks and it's so flippant. We're not clear about what it is. We're not clear about why it matters. We're also not like clear about how we're going to support them or any of that. But listen, there are people who want to do these things. There are people who want to prep crafts. There are people who want to
Vance (1:07:08)
Yeah, yes.
Yes!
KIDMIN U Team (1:07:26)
help you with their database. There are people who want to organize your cabinets, all of that stuff. I mean, I'm thinking over the years about some incredible people who have helped with things that to me would have been so tedious. Like I think like you, I am not a huge maintainer. Like I love to build things. I love to create systems. I love to put people and things in place that they operate without me. But when you make me maintain stuff, I struggle. And so I remember in my most recent church,
Vance (1:07:37)
yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's dread. ⁓
KIDMIN U Team (1:07:55)
I was working with a church plant. It's like when you're in a church plant, it's different. You're not going to have a huge army of staff to just do all the tasks. And so I had to raise up people. I remember there are people helping with crafts. I had another gal who like her only job is she would help me onboard volunteers. She would move people through the workflow. She'd text them. She'd make sure to run the background check, you know, and she'd schedule calls for me to connect with people. So the only thing I had to do was actually get on that call and do the interviews and orientations myself, which
Vance (1:08:01)
Right.
KIDMIN U Team (1:08:24)
is something I did protect for myself because I think, you know, for me, it's important to get to know every person on our team. It's important for me to vet them, but I handed off as much as I possibly could. And guess what? They loved it. You know why? Because it was a young mom and she's like, Hey, I can't serve on Sunday. That's too hard for me, but I could give you some time on like a Tuesday afternoon. Would that be okay? Yeah, that'd be great. In fact, this is something you could probably even do from home if you want. So
Vance (1:08:36)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (1:08:51)
There are people who can help you with stuff and oddly enough, they may find joy in it. Like what feels like dread, like organizing the closets to you, that might be heaven to them. Like your wife, your wife is the one who's like, no, no, no, I'll do it. She probably thinks you're weird though. That's often how it works. We think each other is weird.
Vance (1:08:58)
Absolutely.
I know, they might be so weird.
It's how we fit.
Yes, but come on guy clean in closet. I gotta admit. That's a little weird. I mean come on
KIDMIN U Team (1:09:17)
Yeah, 100%.
Well, listen, I feel like I could probably ask you questions for days, but to honor your time, I want to wrap it up there. We'll probably have to have you on again at some point if you're cool with that, because I feel like there's so many things that people would love to hear from you. know myself included. If there are people listening to this who have loved what you're saying and they want to learn more about you and the things you're up to, where would you point them?
Vance (1:09:28)
Yeah, I'd love that. Love that.
Yeah, I think the best place to go, I'm terrible on social media. But I would say slingshotgroup.org, that website, you can find my info there. My email, vmartin at slingshotgroup.org. I'd be happy to help anybody that's out there with anything you need. I'll make myself available to you.
and just know that I'm cheering you on. I don't even know you, but I'm cheering you on and praying for your success out there. But yeah, that's probably the best place.
KIDMIN U Team (1:10:14)
I would just second that too. I mean, I think what I've learned about you and everybody on your team, you know, listen, you guys could very easily draw a line and say, you know what, we're only gonna hop on a call if you're looking for a job or you're with the church and you're trying to hire, like you could easily do that. But what I've learned about you and your team is you just care about people. You care about pastors, you care about the local church. And so yeah, if there are questions that you have, I imagine you probably get calls and texts from people who...
Feel like a change is coming, but they need a neutral third party to talk to. I don't want to flood your inbox here, but I think Vance is a great person to talk to. People on his team are great people to talk to. So go to their website at Slingshop group. They're amazing. Vance, thank you for coming on. You're amazing for everybody listening. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
Vance (1:10:44)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah, man.
