In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show, we tackle the cellphone problem in youth groups and reveal a 3-step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry that actually works. Instead of fighting students for their phones, you’ll learn how youth pastors can use a variety of tools to their benefit, including how to turn phones from a distraction to an actual asset. If you’re looking for practical youth ministry tips, phone management strategies, and digital discipleship tools to keep students engaged, this episode is for you.

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🕰️TIMECODES

00:00 Phones in Youth Group

00:23 How Do you Keep Kids off Phones?

00:38 Step #1

01:24 Step #2

02:15 Step #3

04:09 Idea #1

06:09 Fall Social Media Plan

07:22 Idea #2

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 :00 - 00:00:08 :05

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

In this episode, we're going to talk about my three step phone prevention strategy for youth ministry.

00:00:08 :05 - 00:00:17 :01

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

But what I also want to show you is how I've turned phones from a distraction to an asset in our youth ministry. And frankly, it's

00:00:17 :01 - 00:00:24 :08

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

a lot easier than fighting kids to get rid of their phones. Welcome everyone to the Hybrid Ministry Show.

00:00:24 :10 - 00:00:29 :05

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, we are answering this question.

00:00:29 :05 - 00:00:34 :17

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

What are the ways that you have been able to keep students from being on phones during lessons and smog?

00:00:34 :17 - 00:00:34 :26

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

Glad you

00:00:34 :26 - 00:00:51 :02

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

asked. Here's my three step strategy. Step number one is a central parking location. Like you read the comments of this post and just about everyone has either like some charging stations solution a little like hanging basket,

00:00:51 :02 - 00:00:54 :20

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

place for them to just like, leave their phones in the middle.

00:00:54 :23 - 00:01:11 :12

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

Some different pictures, some different links to different things. We even had at our church at one point in time, we had like cell phone lockers. So this is like lockers with temporary codes where you go, you put your phone in, you create your own code, and then you come back and you get it. At the end of the night, we no longer have them.

00:01:11 :12 - 00:01:30 :26

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

I tell you why in a minute, but, that's an option that was like the most, like next level solution. But basically everybody does it. Like, you just make that the thing. Hey, everyone, put your phones here before we go on into the room for youth group. The other option, let's be honest, like one of the good things that they could be using on their phone is like the Bible app.

00:01:30 :26 - 00:01:49 :19

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

And so if you're teaching from the Bible, you're going to give them some sort of like scripture lesson, and they're going to pull their Bibles out on their phone to read it. But then you know how phones work. That's because distraction there, over there, then playing clash clans in a minute, and they're no longer reading the Bible because you stopped reading the Bible in your lesson.

00:01:49 :19 - 00:02:15 :20

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

And so, the solution set in two is just very simply like, provide paper Bibles, like if you want kids not on their phones and you want kids in the Bible, provide paper Bibles everywhere, all throughout your space so that there's no excuse for it and or also encourage, and even like potentially bribe and reward students who do bring their paper, Bibles to youth group to engage with Scripture in that way.

00:02:15 :23 - 00:02:16 :13

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

The third

00:02:16 :13 - 00:02:20 :04

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

and most effective way, in my opinion, this is more of like in a small group setting.

00:02:20 :04 - 00:02:25 :04

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

So if you're in like a large group, room, this doesn't quite work. But in a small group setting,

00:02:25 :04 - 00:02:35 :27

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

I'm a huge fan of the idea of a thing called a group covenant. Okay. And a group covenant is essentially something that you do at the beginning of a small group term or cycle.

00:02:36 :09 - 00:02:55 :12

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

So you got to think about this. If you have like groups that never break for any sort of rhythm or any sort of reason, then you got to create natural kind of like start points. So, you know, beginning of the school year, maybe like beginning of the calendar year, something like that. Or in certain contexts I've worked in, we've, we had three distinct small groups cycles.

00:02:55 :12 - 00:03:15 :21

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

So we had the fall, the winter and then the summer. And so and then each of those ran for 12 weeks at a time or whatever. And so, during the beginning section of those, you, you have a small group covenant. So you talk about rules and expectations. What's the expectation in this group for treating one another and all those types of things?

00:03:15 :21 - 00:03:20 :13

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

However, in that the other thing that I recommend,

00:03:20 :13 - 00:03:41 :09

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

is you ask, what are we going to do about phones? And you let the students decide, and that's more powerful than you having temporary cell phone lockers. That's more powerful than you having paper Bibles. When you let the student say, decide and dictate what's going to happen with phones, that's where the wind is found.

00:03:41 :10 - 00:04:07 :11

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

And so you just simply ask, what are we going to do about phones? They come up with it. And I've always found that students in a group covenant setting actually make stricter rules than rules that you would probably want to make for them. And so let them decide through the avenue of a group covenant, which, by the way, is one of the things I did not see in the comments of the description, however, of that of that question.

00:04:07 :11 - 00:04:24 :00

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

However, this is the hybrid ministry show, and so I would be remiss to not talk about the ways in which I have actually tried to use phones as an asset. And so in our student ministry, when I started here and this episode links right

00:04:24 :00 - 00:04:31 :26

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

here, I detailed and discussed how our hybrid ministry strategy has to our growth over