Today I’m joined by Ryan Howard, an LC—MS DCE (Director of Christian Education), to talk about youth ministry.
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Transcript
[00:00:04] Remy: Thank you so much for joining me on Lutheran Answers.
How you doing?
[00:00:11] Ryan: Doing okay. It’s been kind of a crazy couple of weeks. We had a really big wedding at our church, and we were involved in that. It was our. Our senior pastor’s daughter got married, so.
[00:00:24] Remy: Oh, wow.
[00:00:25] Ryan: Really big deal. And my kids were in it, and we were in it, and we were doing all kinds of stuff. And so that was last week, and then this week we’ve been trying to recover, and of course, you know, my kids got sick, of course, and all that. So crazy. And we also have family in Florida, so we’ve been worried about them, but they’re all okay. Everyone’s good.
[00:00:47] Remy: Good, good.
[00:00:49] Ryan: So how are you?
[00:00:50] Remy: I’m all right, man. Tired. Just, you know, working and school and everything else. Just getting through it. Thank you for asking.
[00:00:58] Ryan: Yeah, of course.
[00:01:00] Remy: So we were talking a little bit before we got started here, and you’re a DCE, and you come from a long line of DCEs, or educators in general, I guess.
[00:01:10] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:12] Remy: Recap that for me.
[00:01:13] Ryan: Yeah, so I. I’ve been a DCE for almost 10 years now.
I’m currently serving in the Houston, Texas area. Before that, I was in. I was on Long Island, New York.
That’s a. That’s a distinction. You can’t say in Long Island. You have to say on Long Island.
[00:01:30] Remy: Okay.
[00:01:32] Ryan: What I learned that I’m not from there, but. Yeah. So I got my DCE certification at Concordia University in Chicago, and that was great. My father is a DCE now. He does primarily music ministry.
He’s an organist and choir director, but he also did youth ministry before that. And his parents were both Lutheran educators. My grandmother taught kindergarten for, like, 40 some years.
My grandfather was a teacher and then a principal in Lutheran schools for a long time. And. Yeah, so it’s kind of run in the family. This Lutheran education has always been a part of who I am and. And hopefully will continue for a long time.
[00:02:23] Remy: Yeah. Good. That’s awesome. What’s your favorite part about being a dce?
[00:02:29] Ryan: I love.
I love lots of. About being a dce. Probably one of my favorite parts is the awesome people that I get to work with, like other DCEs and other pastors, you know, being able to connect with other Lutheran teachers and. And learn from them and grow with them and talk to them. And, you know, you’re the. The ministry team that I have, you know, and even my. You know, it’s just me and. And my pastor at my church, which is great, but, you know, just in our District, we have other DCEs and other workers and professionals that I get to connect with regularly. And, you know, the Lutheran world being kind of small, I really enjoy that because I really love meeting people and seeing what they’re doing and, and yeah, just we’re all, we’re all going about the same mission in lots of different ways and it’s really cool to, to see what other people do and, and grow with them.
[00:03:29] Remy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
For those not in the know, what is a dce?
[00:03:36] Ryan: Yeah, yeah. So stands for Director of Christian Education.
And it is a. In the lcms, it is a commissioned minister.
So I am not ordained. I do not have the collar. Therefore I cannot, you know, do the cool pastor stuff like communion or, you know, absolution or anything like that. But I can teach. It’s a lot of teaching.
I. So at my current call, what I do is I, I run the youth ministry, so I run youth group and youth Bible studies. I do teach a lot of confirmation classes.
You know, I’ll sub in for pastor if he can’t do an adult Bible study one week and, you know, visit people and hang out with them and especially kids, youth, you know, help. I help run the Sunday school, make sure all the teachers know what’s going on, all that stuff. So it’s a lot of education, a lot of, you know, making sure that others, you know, equipping volunteers to teach as well, making sure everything’s on the up and up, evaluating the curriculums that we use and all of that stuff. So, yeah, that’s primarily what I do. And I also get to, you know, play games a lot because I work with kids and kids love to play games. So we get to play games and eat pizza and have fun and, you know, go to church and just, and enjoy life.
[00:05:12] Remy: What’s, what’s the most, like, nerve wracking part do you think of being a dce?
[00:05:20] Ryan: The nerve wracking part is when, you know, the normal nerve wracking stuff of life happens and, you know, you have a lot of fun with kids. But then also, you know, teenagers especially go through stuff and they go through stuff fairly intensely. And so, you know, you never know when, you know, a young man comes to youth group one week and you can tell, you know, something’s going on and you pull them aside maybe and you find out the real stuff that’s going on in life that he’s not gonna, you know, share all the time. But, you know, if, if he trusts you enough to talk to you about it, you know, that’s great. And I love being there for him. But also, man, some of these kids are going through some tough stuff.
[00:06:06] Remy: Yeah.
[00:06:07] Ryan: So that’s, it’s, it’s fulfilling and also really hard.
[00:06:11] Remy: How do you build that trust?
[00:06:15] Ryan: I find you, you keep showing up a lot. A lot of teenagers are. They’re very, you know, if they want to know that you’re going to be there and they’ll get, they get burned by people leaving. They get burned by, you know, teachers, you know, they move on. They, they’re no longer with their favorite teachers or even, you know, they have family members leave or pass away or things like that. And, you know, other churches, you know, pastors take calls, people leave, you know, this, that and the other thing. So the more that you can say to them, well, I’m here, and then prove it by being there, they’ll. They’ll trust you a little bit more. So, you know, a lot of times that looks like, you know, going to their sports games and choir concerts and theatrical shows and stuff, and then just being there on a Sunday, like, yeah, I’m here. We’ve got, we’ve got Bible study every week. You know, I’ve got it and I’ll be here and I’ll keep being here. And eventually they start trusting you and they start showing up, too, because you’re, you show it up and they, they keep showing up.
[00:07:30] Remy: I’m sorry, I’m taking notes.
[00:07:32] Ryan: Yeah, yeah, you’re good.
[00:07:33] Remy: I, I realized very quickly into this conversation it was going to be a note taking conversation for me.
[00:07:42] Ryan: Probably good that it’s being recorded then, so you can make sure you don’t miss anything.
[00:07:47] Remy: Yeah, yeah. Show up for your people, man. That’s huge.
So you mentioned the youth and doing the youth groups and whatnot. Do the kids, do you find that they want contemporary worship? Do they want liturgy? Do they care?
[00:08:05] Ryan: They do care.
I’ve got a great mix of both.
There’s some kids that are. So we have two services at our church, one of each, you know, you could say, and I’ve got some kids that are, that they’re at that 8:00 service and they love it, and that’s the one they want to be at. And then, then there’s others that are at the, you know, 10:30 service and they love that one. And, you know, in our church, at least, the difference is not. We, you know, we do liturgical things at both services.
[00:08:35] Remy: Right.
[00:08:35] Ryan: You know, so the first service is, you know, straight up out of, you know, whichever setting we’re using that Month. And the second service is the same things just with, you know, know, guitars and diff, slightly different words, but it’s the same.
[00:08:49] Remy: Gotcha. Gotcha.
[00:08:51] Ryan: Yeah. And they care and they, and they like having, you know, options. I think they, they enjoy, you know, and, and again, a lot of it is about their, their people. You know, if they’ve got their friends who go to one service or another, then they’ll, they’ll, they’re like, no, I need to go to the early service because that’s where the people that care about me go.
[00:09:12] Remy: So you mentioned their people, their friends or whatever. I guess that’s. And it may be because you’re at a Lutheran school, so I guess maybe it’s a bit different than public school kids who maybe. I’m sure you have a few of those as well. But it seems to me then that it’s very important to build sort of a culture with the kids in your youth group, in your confirmation class, so that the kids they’re being peer pressured by are other Christian kids who are peer pressuring them to come to one worship service or another, as opposed to like doing drugs and driving fast cars or whatever.
[00:09:53] Ryan: Right, Right. Yeah. Actually, we have a good variety of different public schools around here that we pull from, so. And it’s actually, I could go into a whole other tangent about seeing the shift in education over the last few years, but that’s a, that’s beyond me sometimes. But the.
Yeah. With knowing that they have a group at church that wants them to be at church, you know, and all not just kids, but like adults.
[00:10:26] Remy: Right.
[00:10:27] Ryan: You know what? Like, if they know that there are adults at church that like, like seeing them and like talking to them. It’s so funny. One of the, one of the teenage girls that I have has formed a really strong connection with our pastor’s mom. Oh, wow. And she’s in her 80s, but they love talking to each other and they love having conversations with each other. And so that’s one of those relationships that like, yeah, she only sees her at church, but like, she makes sure to go talk to her at church. And that’s like a really cool relationship that she has that’s, you know, know intergenerational and that it’s that kind of stuff when we’re talking about the body of Christ. You know, the more time goes on, the more I realize, like, you know, in the 90s, I think everybody tried to silo everybody and we just, we shouldn’t do that. We should just have everybody be together.
[00:11:17] Remy: You do you know, know or know of Josh Craig?
[00:11:22] Ryan: I’ve heard of him, yes.
[00:11:24] Remy: You know, do you know Maddie Craig from Twitter? Madeline Craig?
[00:11:27] Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:28] Remy: Her husband, he’s a dce and I’ve had him on a few times. And that’s his big thing is like a holistic family approach that we shouldn’t be segregating people by age or whatever else. Like we should all be here together. And that the more, I mean, and especially because nowadays with so many blended or broken families, you never know what kid out there needs a mom, what kid out there needs a dad. And the church as like just overflowing with moms and dads and grandparents and cousins and brothers and sisters that are just ready, you know, to absolutely pull you in.
[00:12:09] Ryan: Yeah, yeah. And we saw that play out absolutely. With. We had a couple of brothers who, their father, you know, sadly passed away from cancer, you know, right when I got here. And so I didn’t have a super established relationship with them. But there are other, you know, men in the church. You know, we try to have our elders make sure that they are always talking to them and saying hi and, you know, trying to form those relationships, you know, because it’s, it’s hard. And they, they, they, they don’t have a dad right now. And it’s like, that sucks. But like they know that there are people at church that, you know, love them and care about them at least. And, you know, we start there.
[00:12:51] Remy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not to shift gears too hard here, but how do you teach? How do you teach confirmation? I would just say how do you teach? But that just seems too open ended.
[00:13:11] Ryan: Well, how do you teach Confirmation is not that much, not that much better. Not that much better. But I can, I can give it a shot.
We use, is it. Peter Bender wrote a whole thing for confirmation. We use his stuff.
But our pastor has taught confirmation for years. And so he gave me his notebook. Like, he’s like, copy this when I got here. And so I made a copy. So it’s got all of his notes on the side and stuff. So we always, we go through the catechism. You know, we always hit, you know, it’s so it’s two years and we hit the commandments every year because you always can. And then you do creed, Lord’s Prayer, you know, baptism, Lord’s supper, you know, kind of weave it all throughout the whole thing. And we just meet every week and we try to, you know, get through a little bit of it at a time. And usually we go down Extreme rabbit holes. Um, because that’s what kids do. You know, you’re talking to them and you’re teaching them stuff and then they go, but wait, doesn’t that mean this? And so then you end up in a completely different, you know, area than you did before, which is just awesome. Like, it’s. I love being able to, you know, go with them on those journeys and figure out what do they want to know? Like, if they’re asking questions, let’s follow that and see where it leads. What does the Bible say about that? Like, that’s extremely, you know, important and good that they are getting those questions answered. So we always try to make them think a little bit beyond what’s just kind of there on the page. So. And we always try to make sure that they are looking things up in, you know, we want them. By the end of the two years, I want them to know how to use their Bible so they can go find things and go look at, you know, if they, if a question comes up, you know, we teach them about using concordance and what that looks like and what that means. And we do it in a really fun, cool way. But it’s helping them learn how to, you know, look at the, look at it.
[00:15:22] Remy: What’s the biggest stumper a confirmation kid has given you going down a rabbit hole?
[00:15:31] Ryan: Well, the, the, the big one that I still, you know, can never satisfactorily answer is, who are the Nephilim?
That’s always like, I don’t know, like I know what some people say that they are, but I don.
[00:15:47] Remy: Yeah, that’s a good one.
[00:15:50] Ryan: You know, there’s usually. And usually, you know, you usually. I’ve got the big class on the problem of evil and you talk.
[00:15:56] Remy: Sure.
[00:15:57] Ryan: When we talk about Job, like, wait, Satan was talking to God in heaven and he let him do all that stuff. Like what? Like, you know, that all of those things that plague, you know, adults, like, it’s the same, it’s the same stuff.
[00:16:14] Remy: That’s. So who do you think the Nephilim are? Not kidding.
[00:16:20] Ryan: I don’t know. I always think of, I always laugh because I think of the, that Russell Crowe Noah movie where they were rock giants.
[00:16:27] Remy: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Ryan: And like, I can’t get that out of my head. So I just go that they were rock giants. Sure. Does it matter? No.
[00:16:36] Remy: I lean towards the boring and non supernatural view. And the only reason I lean towards that view is because the Bible says that everything procreates after its own kind, that everything can procreate after its kind and angels and humans are not of a kind. They’re not of the same kind. So how could they procreate and have.
[00:17:02] Ryan: That makes a lot of sense. It’s a pretty sound argument.
[00:17:05] Remy: It’s the only thing. It’s literally the only argument that keeps me on the.
On that. But, you know, I don’t know, man. Kids are crazy. What’s the crate speaking? What’s the kids say? The darndest things. Have you ever had one just let off with something truly unhinged? Like, what’s the wildest thing?
[00:17:29] Ryan: I’m sure you know, it can absolutely come up with something. The one that always pops. It’s not unhinged. It was just like, I had a. It was. And it’s not even a member of my church. We had a family that was visiting because they were in town for. They were visiting family, and their kids came up to the children’s message. So this kid is about, you know, four.
And I. I forgot. I don’t even remember what the topic was, but I was talking about, you know, do we ever do bad things? And. Yeah, we do. You know, that’s called sin. And this kid raises his hand and he goes, because I know why we do bad things. It’s because of the devil. And he just, like, yells, devil, like, really loudly. And he goes. And he’s down there, and he’s gonna stay down there.
[00:18:14] Remy: Yeah.
[00:18:16] Ryan: I’m like, you say it, kid. Say it with your whole chest.
[00:18:19] Remy: Like, that’s.
[00:18:22] Ryan: Yeah, the devil. That kind of stuff. Our.
[00:18:26] Remy: Our pastor, he’ll.
He’ll be doing the children’s talk, and so he does this thing where he gives him a bag, and the next week, the kid has to bring the bag back with a random item in it. And then he uses that to. Off the cuff a children’s sermon based on whatever he’s talking about.
And you think, boy, that’s really, really great. But his secret trick. And don’t tell him I told you this.
[00:18:56] Ryan: Is this Joe?
[00:18:57] Remy: Yeah.
[00:18:58] Ryan: Okay.
[00:18:58] Remy: Yeah. His secret trick is that a lot of times he’ll pivot, okay. So he’ll be like, oh, a transformer. That’s really cool. You know what that reminds me of? And then, yeah, he could just pivot to whatever he wants. So it’s a good little misdirect.
[00:19:13] Ryan: I like it.
[00:19:13] Remy: But he. He’ll have kids that’ll. That’ll go off and just like, start talking. Like, he’ll ask a question, and they’re just. They’re on their way. They’re talking about something and they’re going on and on, and if ever it’s a little boy that is going on and on about something, Joe will look at him and go, do you want to do this job?
[00:19:33] Ryan: You can.
[00:19:33] Remy: You can do this.
[00:19:37] Ryan: Here. Here’s the. Here’s the vestments.
[00:19:39] Remy: You go, you. You do this.
[00:19:42] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:19:42] Remy: No, it’s all funny. You know, it’s. We laugh about it. It’s all fun and games, but I usually have gotten a lot of guys into the ministry.
[00:19:52] Ryan: Yeah, well, hey, that’s great. More power to him. I. I have to laug and I have. You know, the little girls will always be like, I have to tell you something. I have. I have to ask you a question. And then I go, okay, what? And do you like my dress? It’s sparkly. Like, it’s just, you know, stuff like that. And I have to go, that’s great. Can we talk about it later? We have to pray now. You know, kind of a thing.
Like, I need to, like, validate them and acknowledge them for wanting to contribute, but also, like, let’s keep it on Jesus.
[00:20:24] Remy: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:25] Ryan: And.
[00:20:25] Remy: And that’s a. That’s a fine line to walk, especially with younger K kids, because, like, you don’t want to do damage. You know what I mean? Like, you don’t want to just shut them down.
[00:20:36] Ryan: Right.
[00:20:36] Remy: You know?
[00:20:37] Ryan: Yeah, yeah. I’m usually. I’m Usually come find me after service and we could talk about that. Yeah. And then they do, and then it means that I’m stuck there for a good extra, you know, five to ten minutes after church is over. But that’s fine. I don’t care.
[00:20:54] Remy: It’s.
It’s the best time to talk to kids, man, when they’re that age, because they have this amazing, like, internal logic. It’s like dream logic that their thoughts kind of follow, you know, and it’s always so much fun for me to like. Like my nieces and nephews and the kids at church or whatever to talk to them about. To talk to them about stuff and just kind of try and figure out, like, how are they making the leaps? How are they making these connections to things, you know?
[00:21:27] Ryan: Yeah. My own. My own son is almost 4, and so he, like, he’s get. Kind of getting to that part now where he’s starting to make connections in his mind. And, you know, he’ll bring up something that happened two weeks ago, and I was. And I’ve forgotten completely about it, and I go, wait, right. What?
[00:21:45] Remy: Yeah. And you have to wonder, like, he probably also forgot about it until like, just now, something reminded him, right? And it’s like things are starting to click over. Yeah, that’s great. My cousin, when he had his kids, they’re in their 20s now, I think. Are. How old are they?
No, they’re graduating high school, so they’re 18.
[00:22:10] Ryan: Okay.
[00:22:11] Remy: And when he first had his kids, they’re twin boys. And I asked him about a year into it, I was like, man, how is it, you know, it’s been a year. How is it being a dad? And he said, he said it’s kind of like having a dog that just gets smarter every single day.
[00:22:30] Ryan: Right? That’s true. It’s true. They, they, they. They’re growing up and they’re getting smart. And you’re like, wow, I’m so proud of you. But then also like, oh my gosh, you’re getting smart. Like, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:43] Remy: And then it’s like, pretty soon, like, like you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have a man on your hands, you know?
[00:22:49] Ryan: Right, right. Well, and that’s the thing, right? Like, I’ve worked with kids my whole career, you know, but it’s different when it’s my own because like, the thing about kids at church is eventually, like, at the end of the day, I have to give them back to their parents, Right? But like, with my own kid, I am the parents. Like, I have to give him back to me. Like, he’s, he’s my own. There’s nobody else for him to go to unless grandma’s visiting. Like, that’s it. Like, so it, it’s just, it’s incredible. Like, how much I thought I knew about kids versus actually experiencing it in real time with my own children is like.
[00:23:35] Remy: Yeah.
[00:23:35] Ryan: There’s so much that I don’t actually know. And that’s been, it’s been good for me to realize that.
[00:23:41] Remy: Yeah. Yeah.
I took a class this last semester on confirmation, specifically and teaching confirmation. And one of the things the instructor drilled home for us was like this idea of a whole life confirmation.
You start early, teaching anything you can, and the goal isn’t necessarily to teach more, but to teach deeper as they get older, if that makes sense. So he talked about how his kids and his grandkids, by the time they were four or five years old, they have the Lord’s Prayer. They’ve got that memorized. Do they know what it means? Can they tell you about it? No. But does that really matter at that age? No. Right. It’s like laying foundation and then we’re building over the course of Their life. I just kind of wanted to run that by and get your thoughts.
[00:24:44] Ryan: Absolutely. I would agree with that 100%.
And my, you know, my. I see that in my own kids. We say the Lord’s Prayer every night before bed. And my son is almost 4, and he can say it. He can say the whole thing. And, you know, part of the. Part of his issue is, you know, keeping him on task. Like, you keep your hands folded through the whole thing, you know, we’re saying, yeah, don’t start wandering over there, you know, is that. But, you know, so he could say, and then my daughter is one and a half, so she doesn’t have all of her words yet, but she does have some. And so you’ll hear her hit. It’s really funny that every once in a while she’ll get trespasses and she’ll say. And she’ll say the word trespasses with us. And it’s the cutest thing hearing a one and a half year old say trespass is.
[00:25:37] Remy: So there are, you know, and there are people that say that you can’t teach a kid the Lord’s Prayer at one and a half, at two, at three. But we’re teaching. We’re teaching, like, preverbal infants sign language. You know what I mean? Like, how many parents out there teach their kid, like, the sign for, like.
[00:25:54] Ryan: Milk or whatever, you know, please and thank you and all that. We did that too. And like, and I agree, like, and this applies to not just like infants and toddlers, but teenagers, too. Kids are way smarter than most people give them credit for, which is like. And that’s the other thing that I, like, love about being a DCE and love about, you know, the job that I get to do is that, like, I get to see regularly how awesome all of the kids can be and how smart they are. And, like, when they get it, you know, when a light bulb turns on, you’re like, yes. Like, that’s such a cool moment. But, like, it can happen as, you know, young as one and two. And, you know, even in, you know, middle school and high school, they get it. Like, they, like, they can be taught. And like, I think a lot of adults just kind of assume, like, they want to assume that kids already know things.
Like, they’re like, you should know this by now. But it’s like, well, how are they supposed to know it if nobody ever bothered to teach them?
[00:26:59] Remy: Yeah.
[00:26:59] Ryan: You know, you know what I’m saying? Like, we had. At my last church in New York, we had a.
We would have the teenagers, you know, they would.
To get a job. They would. We’d have them help with the custodial stuff at our church. So we had a cleaning crew of. Of teenagers, and we would have some of the ladies in our congregation just get super upset if, like, something wasn’t perfectly clean the way that they wanted it to be clean.
[00:27:29] Remy: Right.
[00:27:30] Ryan: And I would often have to be like, okay, but did you, like, teach them how to do that? Like, he’s 14. Like, does. He may not have been ever taught how that goes? Like, if you want to let him know exactly how you want those baseboards cleaned in the sanctuary, like, teach him. Like, he probably could figure it out because he’s smart. But if you want it done exactly the way you want to go, you got to, you know, you got to teach them. And generally speaking, for the most part, they are open to instruction and they are open to learning.
I. I’ve. I’ve yet to meet a kid that doesn’t actually enjoy learning as long as it’s done in a way that, you know, speaks to them. You know, they might hate school, but they love learning, and that’s a very different thing.
[00:28:20] Remy: Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it is.
So with this, like, holistic approach, I guess, of you want to, like, always be, like, teaching ABCs, always be confirming with regards to things like how do you keep confirmation from being, like, graduating Christianity as a dce, I’m sure that’s something you’ve spent time thinking about.
[00:28:54] Ryan: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s. It’s. It’s probably my biggest, like, thing that I fight with is when people just treat it as, okay, I’ve. I’ve graduated. I’ve checked all the boxes. Yeah, right. The. The thing that drove me nuts, and this was a New York thing primarily, was they would talk about. And because Long island is such a Catholic area, they would. They would talk about making your sacraments right. Because in the Catholic Church, they get communion at, like, 2 or, like, second grade. Not 2, second grade, like, you know, super early. And then, so, like, they make their communion and then they make their confirmation, and then, like, they make, like. So they view all of the sacraments as these, like, checkboxes. And so they would. You would have people that just, like, show up to our church, our Lutheran church, but, like, all they know is Catholic. And they’d be like, okay, I’ve gotta put my son in confirmation because he’s old enough now and he’s got to make his confirmation. He’s got to do it. And anybody who ever said that like, you know, seven times out of 10, they. You would never see them again after confirmation Sunday. Because that’s. That was just their attitude. They’re like, this is a thing that I have to do because it’s like what I was raised with. It’s what everybody around me does. It’s like they. They check the box. It means I’ve done this. It means I’m good. I fulfilled my obligation to God slash my family, slash.
[00:30:28] Remy: Right.
[00:30:28] Ryan: You know, cultural expectations, and now I can move on with my life and I don’t have to think about that anymore. Drives me absolutely insane.
[00:30:36] Remy: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:30:39] Ryan: And so part of. Part of it is, I think we have done a slight disservice to confirmation in that we put it in June usually, and we make the kids wear robes and we have a special ceremony. It looks a lot like a graduation when you do it that way, because they have. There’s another ceremony that takes place in June where they wear robes and they. It’s very similar. So, you know, trying to, I think one just like a practical thing is doing it at a different time of year.
So in New York, I moved it to the fall. I moved it to Reformation Sunday.
[00:31:17] Remy: Oh, nice. Yeah.
[00:31:18] Ryan: Which was cool. And now here we do it on Palm Sunday.
[00:31:23] Remy: Okay.
[00:31:23] Ryan: And the reason we do it on Palm Sunday here is so that they can take communion on Monday, Thursday coming up. So. Which is always really nice. So. But so that kind of removes it from graduation.
But then, like, the other thing is you have to, like, have something else for them to do, like after. You know, you can’t just be like. And now you just. You. Now you come to youth group. Well, you know, sure. But like, they can also go hang out with other people. You know, like, just hanging out is fine, but it’s not like the end all be all. But the kids who, you know, get themselves involved, you know, maybe they want to start helping in the worship service in some way by. They want to be. I have a couple of girls who want to be readers. I have a couple who help out with our, you know, technology. They help run the, you know, slideshow and the. The sound board. And, you know, I have some. Who. We have all of our confirmation kids do acolyting. And then there are some who are like, I really like doing this. Can I keep doing it even though I’m not in confirmation anymore? I said, absolutely, yeah. You know, keep. Keep lighting candles. It’s great.
[00:32:33] Remy: We only have all.
[00:32:34] Ryan: We only have two candles, so it’s not hard. Go for it.
Except at Christmas. Then we have six.
[00:32:42] Remy: Yeah, right.
I think it’s interesting that. That note that, like, we dress it up exactly like graduation, time it with graduation, and then we’re like, why do these kids think it’s a graduation?
[00:32:56] Ryan: I know.
So it’s. Yeah. Kind of a thing. The last couple of years, we haven’t even had them wear robes on confirmation.
And that was primarily because they were.
Most of the kids that got confirmed were late service kids where. So things are slightly less formal. They still looked nice. I made sure that they weren’t wearing holy jeans or anything like that. But so, yeah, it just. And it ended up not being a big deal.
You know, I think people can make a big deal out of stuff like that. And it’s like, okay, but you’d rather them make a confession of faith than not. Right. So let’s. Let’s maybe remove a couple of obstacles to that.
[00:33:44] Remy: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Ryan: So, yeah, so we’ll see. It’s. It’s going to be a constant struggle as long as the. The world is vying for their attention. You know, the pressures of school and their friends and sports and all these other things, you know, it’s always going to be hard to have them see that being a part of a church community is a priority.
But like I said, I keep showing up, so, you know, I’ll be here whenever you want to come. Like, let’s go.
[00:34:16] Remy: How do you.
How do you combat that, man? Because, like, one of the hardest things is when parents put their kids in, like, travel ball, and it’s like every game is on a Sunday. We have. We have one guy, he’s on our church council, and his son does. Does like little league travel ball.
Every time of the year he’s doing a different sport, but he makes his kid go to church. And if they’re going to miss church for a game, he finds like, a church that has like an early morning or a late Saturday night service, and they go, good.
So, I mean, how, like, how do you get. How do you get parents to prioritize church? You know, because if they don’t, their kids won’t.
[00:35:03] Ryan: Right. And that’s the thing. Right. And I think a lot of parents don’t realize exactly how much of an impact that they have on that. You know, they. They say, well, my kid wants to be in, you know, travel volleyball, so I guess that’s what we have to do. And it’s like, well, no, you’re. You’re the parents. You can say. You can say no. Right. Like.
[00:35:27] Remy: He’S Got this little. This little 4 foot 5 dictator running the house.
[00:35:33] Ryan: And I. And I. I totally understand the struggle. Like, my son yesterday asked to. Our school has this little soccer program, and he asked to be a part of that. And it’s like, we would have to pay extra money to do it. And I’m not sure we have it in the budget right now, but I’m like, how do I tell him that I can’t afford to do this right now? And it, like, the struggle with it is rough. Like. Like, I get how rough parents have it sometimes. Like, saying no is hard to do. Like, I don’t discount that at all.
But I think a lot of parents don’t even try it. It doesn’t seem like they, you know, they give an effort. They just. They go with whatever their kid wants to do.
And they. They’re like, we will adapt and we will adjust everything around them.
When it should be the kids adjust everything around you. You know, I think my parents did a decent job of that.
You know, I was in. I was in marching band in high school, which took up a lot of, you know, time during the week, but it wasn’t. It never took up a Sunday. And I think that was probably why my parents were okay with it, because they were like, as long as you’re still coming to church with us, you know, like, that’s. That’s a priority. And they. They made sure that was clear from day one. So I’m trying to make sure my kids know from day one church is a priority. We always go to church.
And I’ll let you know, we’ll. We’ll have to revisit in a few years. And I’ll let you know how I’m doing on that.
[00:37:05] Remy: Sure. Yeah. I remember my. My brother when he first became a dad.
This was six or seven years ago now.
And they were just. For the first four or five months, they were just having the hardest time with this kid until finally they went to my mom and they were like, what are we doing wrong here with this? You know, he’s just. He never naps when he needs to. He’s always awake at the wrong time. And, you know, all this. What are we doing here? And my mom told him, look, you. Y’all have been here. Y’all have been here. The kid just got here. Yeah, the kid adapts to you. You don’t adapt to the kid. Right? He’s joining you. You’re not joining him. And so you have to, like, approach it that way. And they, like, God bless them. They have kept that mentality throughout this kid’s entire six or seven years, man. And it’s. It’s wild. He’s old enough now to, like, talk and have conversations and whatever, and he’ll want to go play something or do something. And my brother will just say, hey, that’s not what we’re doing right now, buddy. And he’s like, oh, okay.
And that’s it, you know.
[00:38:23] Ryan: Cool. Yeah.
So, yeah, I think sometimes. So that, to me says, you know, there are some parents that just don’t try. Right. Like, they. They don’t want to give it a, you know, a shot of trying to make sure that the kid is, you know, adapting to their schedule. They’re like, I’m gonna. I need to give them everything because I didn’t have everything when I was a kid.
Is it. You know, that’s a real temptation, but at the same time, we have to be like, okay, but, like, you know, the sports thing, you know, to circle back on that. Like, so many people treat their kids like they’re gonna grow up and become a superstar NFL athlete. And.
[00:39:07] Remy: Yeah.
[00:39:07] Ryan: You know, and many kids who live in Houston, Texas, will, like, this is a hotbed of football recruiting down here. Right.
And I go, you know, okay, there’s probably a 1 2% chance that your son makes it to the NFL.
You know, probably a higher percentage that they will play in college, which everyone likes better. But that’s. You know, there’s that. But, like, there’s a 100 chance that they will be judged on the last day when Christ returns. Right.
[00:39:43] Remy: Right.
[00:39:44] Ryan: Like, that is a guarantee.
[00:39:47] Remy: Yeah.
[00:39:48] Ryan: And what are we doing about that? Like, that should be the most important thing. And I love sports. Like, I love. Watch, like, football. I’m a huge football fan. I love going to football games. I love watching football. It’s great.
It’s not more important than Jesus.
[00:40:05] Remy: Right.
[00:40:05] Ryan: And. And I have to keep saying that, and I will say it till I’m blue in the face.
[00:40:09] Remy: It’s.
[00:40:10] Ryan: It’s.
[00:40:11] Remy: It’s something. I think I’ve probably talked about it in.
In record interviews. I’ve. I’ve been recording a lot for this next season. I don’t think this is. I’ve released anything where I’ve expressed this thought yet, but I have recorded a lot of interviews, and I think quite a few times now this season. I have probably said something to the effect of we don’t even look at nearby churches when we’re sending our kids off to college.
It’s not even a factor in the math. When we’re sending our kids off, we’re sending them. First off, I would be nervous to send my kid away from home that, like, far away from home for an education like that.
But to, like, not even have a church set up, you know, like, we like. But looking for a good church for your kid to go to on Sunday while they’re away at college should probably be, like, your first consideration as a Christian parent is where will they be fed spiritually? Where will they be nourished spiritually before anything else. But we don’t even. Like, it doesn’t even occur to people. And when you bring it up, people think you’re crazy.
[00:41:26] Ryan: Right, right. We had. So we had a program at my church in New York where we actually had a fund that was set up for scholarships for kids going off to college. And in order to take advantage of those funds, they had to sit through a class with me about, you know, keeping your faith going in college and, like, make a plan of, like, what church are you going to go to? And how are you gonna, you know.
[00:41:54] Remy: Yeah.
[00:41:55] Ryan: How are you gonna follow up on these things? And that was. That was a requirement of them receiving those scholarship funds was for them to do that. You know, I don’t have that now. I will say a lot of the kids from my church have been going to Texas A and M, and there is a strong Lutheran presence at Texas A and M University.
So anybody listening to this podcast, if you want, like, I could hook you up with Lutherans at Texas A and M. I know some of them. It’s great. So there you go.
[00:42:27] Remy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there’s a buddy of mine, he’s a pastor up in Lynchburg, Virginia, and. Right. Liberty University. Jerry Falwell, all that. And he has. He has quite the college age sort of group going, and they’re all like, Liberty students, you know, and so you have, like, Baptists from all over the world coming to, you know, Baptist Mecca. Liberty University.
[00:42:55] Ryan: Right.
[00:42:55] Remy: And they end up getting invited to some weird liturgical thing that they’ve never been to before, and it, like, opens their eyes. And now he’s got, like, this whole little group of, like, hardcore catechized Lutheran College students.
[00:43:11] Ryan: Nice.
[00:43:12] Remy: Yeah.
[00:43:13] Ryan: That’s awesome.
[00:43:15] Remy: Yep. We. The first time we ever went to his church, we were up there. I have a lot of family in Lynchburg. And the first time we were ever visiting his church, we went up there, and on his church sign, he just had baptism saves, like, right here in the middle of Baptist country. And I was like, yep, great.
[00:43:34] Ryan: I Love that. I love that. Oh, that, that reminds me. I, I drove by, I’m about to, I’m about to go on a rant, maybe. I don’t know.
I almost got out of the car because we. So we have a, a Lutheran camp down here in Texas, Camp Lone Star, and we go there every year for a confirmation retreat, which is great. I love it. There is an ELCA church not far up the road, and we were leaving, and this is the only reason I didn’t stop is because we were leaving and I was exhausted and I had to get the kids home. But we drove by this ELCA church and their sign said, on the ELCA church, it said, baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like, I, I, I almost stopped the car and I was like, I need to go talk to this pastor or something. But I’m like, no, I gotta get the kids home. It’s not, it’s like, oh, you’ve been influenced in the wrong direction. Oh, I mean, I could have told.
[00:44:39] Remy: You that about the elca, though.
[00:44:42] Ryan: I know. I, but like, just, just seeing it, like, I expect that out of a Baptist church.
[00:44:46] Remy: Yeah.
[00:44:47] Ryan: You know, but still, I was just.
[00:44:49] Remy: Like, at least pretend to be Lutheran.
[00:44:52] Ryan: Right.
Yeah. Have we made any progress on that petition to change the L in their name to something different?
[00:45:00] Remy: I think, I think. Okay. I think it’s going to drop naturally. I think it’s going to come out naturally. Yeah.
[00:45:06] Ryan: This is going to be the ECA.
[00:45:08] Remy: Something or like maybe the eac, the Evangelical American Church or something like that. But I really do think that L is going to drop sooner than later. I think they actually, one of their own people did put forward a, A thing about it. There was some, some ELCA meeting, committee meeting, something somewhere that Bishop Eaton was a part of where they actually did discuss removing Lutheran from the name to be more ecumenical.
[00:45:37] Ryan: Great. Go for it. Have fun.
Yeah.
[00:45:42] Remy: Yeah. That’ll be a, that’ll be a great day.
[00:45:45] Ryan: Yeah. Lutheran Twitter will be on fire that day. That’ll be.
[00:45:50] Remy: Oh, yeah. Overjoyed. Overjoyed. Which, you know, Lutheran Twitter is on fire most days, but, like, it’s the.
[00:45:57] Ryan: Wrong, it’s the wrong Lutheran Twitter is the only reason I’m still on Twitter.
[00:46:03] Remy: Oh, man. Gosh. I wanna, I wanna leave Twitter so often. Yeah, it’s, it’s.
[00:46:09] Ryan: But then you have, like right now, like, do you. I follow Don Stein.
[00:46:14] Remy: I love Don.
[00:46:15] Ryan: He’s great. He’s posting something from the Formula of Concord every single Day. And I’m like, I love this. This is great.
[00:46:22] Remy: Like, yeah, great. Great.
[00:46:25] Ryan: Keeping me on Twitter.
[00:46:27] Remy: He’s, he’s actually going to be my very first interview this season. Awesome. Two weeks from. Two weeks from now.
[00:46:35] Ryan: Okay, cool.
[00:46:36] Remy: Look forward to it. Yeah. Love, Don.
So how do you put together a Bible study? You mentioned that sometimes you got to do that.
How do you do it?
[00:46:49] Ryan: I. The way that we do it around here is we’re trying to go through just like, books. So right now we have a Tuesday morning Bible study for our, you know, retirees, those who don’t work and they are going through the book of Joshua.
And so it’s. We, we read part of the book of Joshua and then we dive into it. And it is, it is such that it usually will take us two or three weeks to get through a chapter because, you know, we talk about something that leads to another thing, that leads to another thing. And those rabbit holes that are so prevalent in confirmation are also there with the adults. Right?
[00:47:32] Remy: Sure.
[00:47:34] Ryan: So it’s a, you know, we have a big, like, I try to come prepped with where could they go? Like, what questions could they ask here, right? So like when, like we just talked about, we just got through the fall of, of I. You know, so shortly after Jericho, they, they, they route Jericho and then they, you know, everything’s great except Akin stole some stuff. So then they lose the next battle, right? And just like the implications of, well, why did God care so much about the devoted things? And why was that such a big deal? And why did that, you know, why did they have to brutally destroy everybody in the city? Why is God’s mean like that? Right? You know, like that kind of stuff. And like, it’ll take weeks to talk about some of those things. And it’s like, you know, let’s talk about justice. Let’s talk about, you know, the fact that the people of Jericho and I were doing some horrific stuff and yes, really needed to not influence the people of Israel. And then they did anyway and it was like, you know, so I just, I try to come prepped with, you know, as much as I can, but it’s, it’s really a lot of like, here’s the, here’s the Bible. I’ve got my, the Luther. We, we use everybody’s got a Lutheran study Bible in our, you know, whether they’ve got one of their own or we’ve got a bunch. So they can look at the same study notes that I look at.
And like, then I will be like, okay, so here’s, you know, outside sources from that that I can bring in to kind of explain those things a little bit. But, you know, it kind of helps them to look at some of those things. I love the Lutheran Study Bible. I think it’s great.
And so we will talk about the notes, and we’ll talk about that, and we’ll see how long it takes us to get through Joshua. So in the hour. In the hour that we have, if we only get through a couple of verses, and that’s what we do.
[00:49:28] Remy: So do you. Have you ever been putting it together and been thinking, like, yeah, this is the question they’re definitely going to ask. This is the thing they’re going to get hung up on. And so you really prep for that. And then they’re just like, no, that’s fine. And they blow right by it.
[00:49:44] Ryan: Oh, yeah, totally.
I forget when this happens. Most recently, it was, I think, a. We would. Something had to do with baptism. And I was. I was just waiting for those who had a Baptist background to kind of come forward with the. Okay, but, like, you know, you know, bringing up all of the Baptist arguments. But we had just kind of done it relatively recently because my pastor went through a whole series on different denominations. So we did that. But. So I was. I was, like, ready to, like, argue about baptism with people, and then they, like, nobody was argumentative that day. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.
[00:50:30] Remy: You’re, like, trying to, like, start a fight.
Jim, what’d they teach when you were growing up?
Yeah, that’s great.
What’s your favorite part of being a dce?
[00:50:47] Ryan: It really is like, you know, just the people. Like, the people are the hardest part. And also my favorite part. Right. Like, I often jokingly say, you know, ministry would be so easy if it weren’t for the people.
I say that often. But, like, it’s true. Like. But, like, this is kind of like what we were created for.
Like, we were created to be together, right? Like, it. The biggest thing, the. The first problem with creation was that Adam was by himself, right? So, like, we were meant. We were meant to have other people, you know, not just marriage, but also, like, just people in general. And so we were, you know, we were created to be with others and to do life together. And like, when. When Jesus established the church and on Pentecost, like, they were always together. They were always talking with each other and, you know, doing all that stuff. And. And so I love doing that, even though, like, it gets hard sometimes because you have people that, like, the hard things that they go through. And then, like, when you get treated like garbage because they don’t understand, you know, there are people who will betray you, and there are people who will, you know, as much as you’ve talked to them about so many things, they just. They won’t come the next week or whatever, and they, like, it hurts. Like, it hurts. And, like, people will just leave and they’ll. They’ll decide they don’t like it here anymore and they’ll go somewhere else. And it’s sad.
Not. And I haven’t even gotten into, like, church politics and conflict and all that. Like, that’s a whole other. That’s a book I’m gonna write someday, I think, is church conflict, because I’ve. I’ve seen a lot of it, but it just, like, so people are really hard, but, like, they’re also the best, you know? Like.
[00:52:45] Remy: Yeah.
Yeah. When you.
When you.
When you see what you’re doing, make a difference, you know?
[00:52:57] Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like, when a kid, like, makes a connection in confirmation class, they’re like, oh, like the. Like, that’s why you said that. I’m like, yes, that’s why I said that.
[00:53:11] Remy: Like.
[00:53:13] Ryan: Like, the light bulb moments are so, like, cathartic. Like, just like, oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Jesus. They got it. Like.
Like, I know that. Like. And, like, especially, like, I know that, like, it wasn’t necessarily because of me that they got it. You know what I mean? Like, God is using me to teach them, and I’m happy to do it, but, like, you. When. You know, it’s like, oh, yeah, like, the spirit has, like, worked in their heart and they’ve understood something. Like, you go, God. Like, that’s so cool when you do stuff like that.
[00:53:51] Remy: Like, yeah, yeah.
[00:53:53] Ryan: I love that, man.
[00:53:54] Remy: And I. And it’s oftentimes, too, where it’s like, you. You’re up here doing this thing, you know, God has you in this place. You’re called to this ministry. You’re doing this thing.
And, like, you. I don’t know.
For me, anyway, it feels a lot of times like I’m like, man, like, when you see God do something and. And really work, it’s. It almost feels like God’s doing it, like, in spite of me, you know?
[00:54:31] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:54:31] Remy: And it’s like. It’s like, man, like, God is just really out here using whatever vessel he gets his hands on to do whatever work he needs done, and it’s like, he can’t be stopped, you know? Like, he’s God or something.
[00:54:48] Ryan: Right, Exactly. I can’t tell you the number of Sundays that, like, pastor and I have both, like, shown up in the morning and we’re both like, I’m not feeling it today. Like, it like, today’s gonna be rough. Like, we just kind of got to get through it and then, like, we get to the end of the morning and usually we’re like, that was one of the best, like, Sundays we’ve had in a while. Like, worship was really good and the hymns were awesome, and the, like, pastors, like, like, I don’t really, Sometimes he’ll be like, I don’t even really know what I preached. But, like, everybody said it was good. Like, that kind of stuff. Like, it just like, usually it’s like, when we’re not feeling it, like, then I think we get out of our own way and we realize, like, how much God is doing.
[00:55:32] Remy: Doing this thing.
[00:55:33] Ryan: Yeah, it’s just so cool.
[00:55:34] Remy: And, like, how comforting, too, knowing that, like, God is going to do his work, you know, regardless, you know, he’s the operating force, you know?
[00:55:49] Ryan: Yep.
[00:55:50] Remy: Very cool.
Very cool. Ryan, thank you so much for coming by.
[00:55:55] Ryan: Absolutely. Man, this has been great. I love talking about church. This is fun.
[00:56:01] Remy: Yeah. Well, you’re welcome back anytime, anytime you want to. Come on, we can chat about whatever conflict.
[00:56:09] Ryan: Yeah, maybe we’ll do it. Oh, man, I, I, we don’t have time to get into it, but, like, who I’ve been through, I’ve been through some doozies, so.
[00:56:19] Remy: Well, you know, we’re, we’re all just a bunch of sinners, you know?
[00:56:23] Ryan: Right, right.
I thought about, I was. So we were. A couple weeks ago, we, so we’ve been talking about, like, Heroes of Faith. That’s been our current sermon thing recently. And we did Samson a few weeks ago, and I’m like, I gotta come up with a children’s message for Samson.
And, and, and like, Pastor’s point that he was making was like, Samson is like a jerk. Like, he’s, he’s such a terrible guy.
[00:56:52] Remy: Dude.
[00:56:53] Ryan: He’s not a good dude. And God uses him anyway. So I was like, okay. So when I’m, when I do the children, I didn’t end up doing this, but I thought about, like, getting up there, sitting down and being like, what’s up, sinners? Like, but like, the young kids would have just like, not gotten that at all. Like, it just. Yeah, but like, that’s how it is. Right? Like, we’re just like, God is doing great stuff and we just gotta let him.
[00:57:18] Remy: I remember Samson was a It was definitely, definitely. I want to say I had started seminary and I was reading, reading through.
And I get to, like, the end where he’s, like. Where he’s blind and he’s pushing the.
The. The wheel or whatever.
And.
And I remember getting to that point and thinking, like, he kind of earned it, bro. Like.
Like, dude was a jerk. Like, he was absolutely not. Because we. I think we have this tendency to play him up as some kind of, like, Hebrew superhero, but, like, he was actually a huge dick.
[00:58:09] Ryan: Yep, yep. Really? And well. And that was so pastor’s point. I’m going to sum up his sermon that he made, but it was a really good point that I didn’t. I never really thought of before.
Samson’s whole life, he, like, he would look at something and he’d go for it. Like, Delilah, she looks great. I want her. The other woman that he married, she looks great. You know, that lion. You know, I’m that honey. I’m going to eat that honey. You know, whatever he saw, he went after. It was only after he couldn’t see anymore that he realized that he needed to follow what God was doing.
[00:58:45] Remy: Yeah.
[00:58:45] Ryan: And it took his eyes getting gouged out, and I was like.
[00:58:48] Remy: I was like, whoa, wow.
[00:58:50] Ryan: Like, that’s me, too. I need to not look at stuff like God. Like, God, like, I don’t want my eyes gouged out, but, like.
[00:58:57] Remy: Right.
[00:58:58] Ryan: God let your vision, not mine, basically.
[00:59:02] Remy: So, yeah, that’s good. I’m gonna actually steal that and.
[00:59:05] Ryan: Yeah, right. Write that one down.
[00:59:07] Remy: Yeah. I really am awesome, Ryan. Thank you so much, man.
[00:59:12] Ryan: You bet.
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