EP092: How to do Digital Summer Camp for Students

All right everybody, hey episode 92 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planning. Yeah, we're six months in. I still love saying that powered by Stadia Church Planning part. That's awesome. Hey Jeff here. We got it, we got a great episode set up for you. Relevant, um, even as we're heading into late August and September. Here's the deal. At this point, I feel like I talk with thousands of churches in this COVID season trying to help them figure out how to do this church online thing, how to be digital, uh, how to utilize the strengths of physical and digital to work together, trying to help churches figure out the next norm. Blah blah blah. We all, we're all there. We're all feeling this, right? The number one question I get undoubtedly is how do I do student ministry? How do I do elementary ministry? How do I do next-gen ministry digitally? I don't know that anybody really has a good solution, a good formula, a good in-the-box solution for that because honestly right now a lot of people are trying to think out of the box. They're experimenting. They're trying some different things and there's no real quick easy answer for it.

Today, and this really brings in the conversation that I want to have here, uh, here with episode 92. So I get word—I can't hear through the echoes—hey Jeff, there's like a movement where they're doing summer camp online digitally here in South Florida with like a thousand students. Do you know anything about this? And I'm like, no, actually I have no clue. And so I started digging in. I started asking more and more people and got connected and I finally figured out that it's from this movement of a network of churches here in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach called Church United where they had really gotten together, networked 30-plus churches, 40-plus churches together and did summer camp partially online, partially physically, and through it connected with over a thousand students. Some phenomenal stories are coming out of this.

So we put a blog on it on the Church Digital. Raid the Armist, co-host here, talked about it and I started, kept digging. I was like, hey, I really want to talk to like the people who put this together. We so we set up this podcast. What does it look like to network, to work alongside 40 churches and to create a multiple city, multiple county summer camp utilizing digital as well as driving kids to serve in physical? I mean, talking online to offline here. The gospel we learn in our online world affects our offline relationships. James 1:22, don't just be hearers of the word—paraphrase—online. Do what it says—paraphrase—in the real world. All of a sudden, man, we're literally seeing this happen with a thousand-plus students here in South Florida where they're not just hearing the word online through a digital camp but they're seeing it happen practically. Um, and they're executing it digitally. Awesome, phenomenal conversation.

So here's where we are. We're bringing in two student pastors into the conversation. We're bringing in Javin Shashati, uh, here from Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale as well as Angel Garcia from Rev Church in Miami. By the way, Christ Fellowship Miami, uh, Raid the Armistice, Christ Fellowship, was also involved. Ray D'Armis, digital pastor from CF, will also be involved in the conversation, co-host as usual here at the Church Digital in a conversation that I am simply calling how to do digital summer camp for students.

Okay everybody, there you go. Um, Javon, maybe just a minute or two and tell me your ministry story. Uh, how you started student ministry, how you got connected in student ministry down here, why you're a Miami Heat fan, like, like just give me a little bit of the four-on-one of who you are.

Yeah, of course. So my name is Javin. Uh, it's spelled like Javon, so I get that a lot. I get any variation of my name, so don't feel bad at all. I answer to anything close. Uh, but it's Jab and like Gavin. Um, but yeah, so I was born and raised here in South Florida. I grew up here my whole life. Um, was really passionate about sports from a young age and loved playing him, watching him, um, all that stuff. I had a decent high school football career, so it gave me the opportunity to go play in college and that was really all that I wanted to do from the time I was young was to play in the NFL. And so, um, I went to college at Liberty and, um, played quarterback there and majored in youth ministry because I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. Um, and God just wrecked my world and said this is what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. And so, uh, I ended up leaving early. After I got my degree, I had more eligibility left. I was lined up to be the starter and God said no, you're leaving. And so, uh, through a series of circumstances that I won't bore you with the details, uh, God called me back here to South Florida. Me and my wife, uh, I've been married for five years. My wife and I have two incredible kids. I have a three-year-old son, a one-year-old daughter, and grew up at Calvary. So it's kind of cool to be back at the church where I grew up. So I tell our students all the time, I remember sitting in the same seats that you're sitting in, and it's quite literally we haven't changed the seat since I was a student here. So it's very literally the same exact seats. Um, but yeah, that's a little bit of my story and how I ended up in youth ministry.

That's awesome. A homegrown kid coming back to his church to do student ministry. Awesome. Hey Angel, uh, tell me the same thing, man. Tell me a little bit about your story, kind of uh, ministry story, how you ended up down here in South Florida and uh, just ministry in general.

So I'm born and raised down here. Uh, born and raised in Hialeah, and the good country of Hialeah. Uh, and so I started following Jesus when I was in high school and really towards the end of my years in high school, that's when I felt like God called me to ministry. And after kind of like submitting myself over to that call, that's when the door for me to attend Moody Bible Institute became available. And so I went to Moody, uh, right out of high school. I played football just like Javin, but I wasn't as awesome. And so basically, um, I went to Moody, uh, went in, got my, uh, my degree from in theology, and then after my time at Moody, I came back down to South Florida. Uh, took a job at His House Children's Home as a house parent, uh, for at-risk students. Uh, average teenagers were basically the boys that lived in my house. Uh, there was 11 at a time, and uh, basically for them to be in my house, they had to have at least two criminal charges on the record. Um, and so we were getting these kids from the juvenile detention centers, um, and put him in a normal home at His House and seeing if that would kind of help them. And uh, we, I just saw God do something. It was that place there that caused for my belief in the gospel to grow to a place I never knew, uh, just the understanding of how the gospel transforms and, and really if you take people to Jesus, uh, he still changes lives. And so after spending, uh, about a year and a half living there and with those boys, I, I took a position at Christ Fellowship, uh, back when Jeff Borden, um, Frank Hopkins, uh, and just a whole stew of people were there. Um, I, I was, I worked at the Christ Fellowship Homestead campus with Steve Miller, and after being there for about eight months, that's when I was approached with the idea of our campus becoming its own church. And basically, that's when uh, we started the process to uh, plant Core Community Church, which is now called Restoration. I was there for close to six years, almost six years, and then that's when I, um, I was just feeling this burden to, um, to really step out of that church, and that's when I took the position here at City Rev Church as a student pastor. And so I've been here for about three years now. Um, this camp that we did is the 20th camp that I've put together. Um, and I feel like that should be like, like championship rings I wear forever, camp. Like I feel like I should have rap banners hanging up.

Uh, you really should. Every student camp that any minister puts together should be a banner hung from his household. I agree. Angel, every gray hair on my gold tee is from a camp. Uh, so, so Jeff, I, you've done a lot of camps. I've done a lot of camps. God blessed me with many things, but it was very apparent early on in my ministry career patience with students was not one of them. So I, I applaud you just at doing 20 years, 20 different camps, man. We adjusted the 20th camp. Um, tell me, like, tell me what made this one unique, different. There's like I'm hearing stories of like a digital engagement, physical engagement, doing things uh, in the middle of this COVID season. Like tell me the story of SoFlo Camp this year.

Basically, when everything COVID hit or started popping up in March, uh, that's when about a few weeks into it, when I was just kind of like, man, you know, I think I might not be doing camp this summer. And I was just kind of like, oh man, what am I going to do with all this time? Maybe I'm going to learn how to play the guitar. Maybe I'm going to like work out. I don't know. Maybe I'll learn another language. Who knows what I'll do about my spare time now? And, um, and the more, in all honesty, the more I just started really thinking through, okay, what do my students need? And if, man, if this goes on because at that time we were going week to week, but I just remember thinking if this goes on until next school year, oh my gosh, what are these students going to really be looking like spiritually? And what's their connection to this community going to be like? And my heart started breaking for them because in our church, a City Rev camp is a huge part of our culture. We've been creating our own in-house camps for years, and it just is a huge part of what our church does. And so when I was really thinking about, okay, getting ready to announce the fact that we're not doing anything and really what that means for our students, I was kind of, that was kind of hurting me. And, um, and as I was bringing to the Lord and praying, uh, there was one, I specifically remember asking the Lord for wisdom. And then a few days later, I'm on Instagram and something, a page popped up that was being sponsored by this, uh, it's called Digital Camp, uh, something that was happening in Texas. And I didn't even look at the page. I just saw the word digital youth camp. And when I saw that, my wheels started immediately spinning. And, and for days I just couldn't get this idea out of my head of like, man, why can't we just do it all digitally? And, um, and then so then I, I finally after a few days of even praying about it and really just uh, talking it over with my wife and stressing about it, I started thinking, you know what, let's just do it. Let's just do a digital camp. Then, uh, I was one night changing my uh, my three-year-old son's diaper. And uh, for all of us who have kids, we know three-year-old son's diaper is really an unpleasant experience. And uh, that's like, bro, this is you're too big at this point, boy. Uh, but while I was doing that, my mind just disconnected from the moment. And I don't know why I just got this thought thinking, man, you know, I know all these guys. I know Javin and I know Tony. I know all these other student pastors. And I know they're trying to figure out what to do with their kids, with their students this summer. And as I'm changing the diaper, it really hit me like, why don't I, why don't I invite them? Why don't we make it like a huge big party? Like for years I've been praying for something so big that we can all do together. For years I've been hoping for this, and we've tried things and they've always crashed and burned. But if we're doing it all digitally, this can, this can happen. And so...

A few days later, that's when I reached out to Javin over at Calvary Fort Lauderdale. That's when I reached out to Tony Cobb over at Christ Fellowship. And you know, not to embarrass you, Javin, or you, Tony, if you're listening, but you know, I knew if those two big domino pieces would fall, I knew everything from that point will really fall quickly. You, Javin, and Tony, if you're listening again, you guys have an incredible amount of influence in our community, and you guys are people that other people really look up to. And so once that—once they were like, "Yeah, we're all in"—because Javin was actually really funny. Like, before I even asked if you want to join us for this, he was like, "Bro, when's the next meeting?" And yeah, and it just really started snowballing really quickly.

And so we created that oversight team of Tony Cobb, Javin, and then myself. And then that's when we started the work to reach out to all the churches. We divided the work up of the camp where Christ Fellowship was taking over all of the services and taking over all the interactive games. City Rev took over all the workshops and the communication with all the churches. Christ Fellowship took over the mission projects and the social media promotion. And so we divided those big ticket items, and then all the other churches, we kind of let them really worry about their own ministries and how they were going to engage with it.

And so yeah, that's really how it all came together. Javin, so you get the call from Angel, and you go back to your leadership. How are they responding to this? Because I'm sure a lot of people are like, "Well, that sounds like very idealistic," but you know, when you're talking about a lot of churches, cross-denominations, et cetera, and you know, I love seeing the church work together like that, but not everybody's really down for that. So how'd they take it?

Yeah, I mean, this was something that I knew going in. Our church leadership has been so bought in to church united and church coming together to do stuff. And so there's always speculation that you have, even in your own mind, right? Like, could this really work? I mean, let's think about logistics. Could this actually happen? And as you start to think about it during a COVID season like this, I mean, all of the barriers that would otherwise keep you from doing a digital camp together were torn down. It's like, "Okay, so what location, right? What do you mean location? There isn't one. I mean, location is anywhere you are." And it's like, "Well, okay, you talk about budget. You, how about food? Well, all of that has kind of been torn away."

It was literally like God had taken all the barriers that would have kept us from doing something like this before. It was like all those are broken down now. Like, every wall that would have stood in the way of you doing this is completely torn away. And so I think that just opened the door. And to see even lead pastors like Doug Sauder and Roby Barnes talking—I mean, like, "Hey, we're all in on this. Let me know what your youth guy is doing because we're excited about what's happening"—just gave us that much more confidence to pursue what we felt the Lord had called us to do.

And so it was an easy yes for me. Like Angel said, I mean, he called me and I said, "When are we meeting? When are we making this happen?" It just sounded like such a perfect fit. We had just canceled our camp. Like, I think it might have been earlier that day. I don't think I've ever told you that, Angel, but it was like earlier that day we had made the decision, "Hey, our camp is canceled." And then he called me. And so God kind of worked out the details for all that to come together.

And yeah, once it started, that snowball got rolling downhill and it happened pretty quick. And from there, like, where did other churches start to find out about this? Because a lot of churches—what was it, 40? How many churches got involved in this?

We had 40 churches, about 40 churches that signed up saying, "Hey, we're gonna have our students involved." But we had students from about 115 churches that signed up. And so that means like some of those churches had like two students that signed up, but really it hit quite a wide reach. And so now, but the thing was about it that really worked out so well—like what Javin was saying about our lead pastors really being in on it—but I think too, for years I've been here, there have been these monthly and sometimes quarterly gatherings where we were all already becoming familiar with each other. Like, I didn't meet any of these people during SoFlo Camp. Like, I already had their numbers on my phone, and it was just a matter of reaching out to people who, when I called them, my number was already saved on their phone because of these network gatherings that, honestly, when I would go to them, I would think, "What am I doing? I am wasting my time if this is not at the Calvary grill. I am wasting my time." Like, if I'm not getting some free food from this. But what the Lord was doing just in that time is He was starting to form relationships for something like this and for so on.

Even last November, when our churches did the Unsinkable series, and when Explore God was done in Miami-Dade County, you know, all those little things of reminding all of us of the importance of us being together. Even with the Parkland shooting a few years ago, when we're all hitting each other up like, "Hey, how's your student ministry handling this? How's this?" All these little moments of interactions with each other were causing us to be more willing to work with each other down the road.

Awesome. Hey, we're going to want to get to the networking here in a little bit, but I want to get a better understanding of what did the camp look like? What were the elements? What were the parts? What were the pieces? Give me some granular detail. Like, I'm a kid doing SoFlo Camp in the middle of social distancing. What am I actually doing, and how am I doing it?

Yeah, absolutely. So this was an online digital summer camp experience. It consisted of seven main sessions. So if you think of a main session of a summer camp, you've got worship, you've got a message, you have some component, maybe of small groups. And so we tried to incorporate everything that a camp experience would be throughout one week. Sunday, July 26 through Saturday, August 1st, every night at 7 p.m. was a main session.

What's cool about this—this took place at churches all across South Florida. So these were filmed in Miami, in Pembroke Pines, in Fort Lauderdale. I mean, all over the place in Broward and Dade County, which was really cool. And so students got a different experience—different worship teams, different pastors, youth pastors, lead pastors from all across our community—which was, I thought, something special for our students to witness the unity and the body of Christ come together like that.

There were over 40 different breakout sessions, or we called them workshops, where students could watch on a YouTube channel as many as they wanted over the course of the week. So it ranged from topics like how to deal with sexual and gender identity issues, how to deal with surviving high school. If there was an incoming freshman who wanted to just know how to survive high school, there was all different kinds of topics that ranged everywhere on the spectrum, and they all started with the words "how to." And so we realized that when people search—this generation doesn't really search on Google anymore. Gen Z doesn't go to Google to search something; they go to YouTube. And they, the first two words they type in 90 percent of the time, is "how to." And so when you type "how to" into YouTube, we're hoping that some of these gospel-centered resources, gospel-centered workshops, will come up on how to handle some of these issues of life.

Just to kind of point out too, Javin, those were all done by local people. Those were all done by lead pastors, those were done by student ministry leaders. Those were even done—we even pulled in different teachers from different schools. And that was a picture, I feel like, that the workshops was such a picture of South Florida because it was basically all these voices from South Florida teaching the teenagers of South Florida. And I think that's one of the things that they were able to connect with it so well—the level of diversity that came out just in those workshop speakers alone.

Yeah, I think some of the cool components—obviously, you know, engaging with content online is an important part of creating a digital camp. You have to have content that students engage with. But we start asking the question, "How do you go a step further than that?" Because engaging with a video and watching content is one thing, but actually building relationship and even living out your faith through a digital experience is a whole other ballgame. So it's like, "How do you create something that students engage with? They don't just watch on a screen." And so each church put together small groups for their church. So churches from all over South Florida were facilitating small group discussions that followed these breakout sessions and these main sessions. And so whatever God did in the life of a student that day, they would get together and talk about it.

I got to lead a small group that was students who didn't have a church. So if they put on their registration, "Hey, I don't have a church anywhere. I'm just kind of checking this out," there was a kid from New Jersey in our small group. And I was like, "How did you even get here? How did you even hear about this?" This camp was generated from South Florida, as a kid from New Jersey. One of our Calvary campuses had a kid from the Bahamas. There's the same questions like, "How did you hear about this? How did you know that this was going on?" And somehow, some way, from New Jersey to Nassau, had heard about what was going on. And so SoFlo Camp, which was kind of cool.

And then students had the opportunity to do service projects as well. So we had hundreds of students going into South Florida and serving and loving the community well, which kind of went a step further beyond just engaging with content online, but actually being the hands and feet of Christ in our community. So that was very special.

And what was really cool about those service projects is that we broke them up into two categories: things that you can do in your neighborhood and things you could do out of your neighborhood. Because we wanted to kind of teach the students that just because this virus is hitting our community, just because of the quarantine, all that stuff doesn't put a pause on mission. Mission never stops. It didn't stop when Paul was in prison. It didn't stop when there was persecution taking place across all the Christians. Mission never stops. You just figure out a new way to do it.

And so, for instance, like, we were teaching the students, "Hey, go to your neighborhood. Go to your neighbor and wash their cars. Active service. Hey, go ahead and from your home, record a video of yourself giving a message of encouragement to the elderly in assisted living homes. Hey, record yourself doing a video where you're reading us a child's story, and we're going to send that to local foster care programs. Go from door to door and collect canned goods from your neighbors." We were just trying to teach them, like, "Within your neighborhood right now, there's still so much," and it's a long list of stuff that they were able to engage in.

And then the stuff outside the community were just as great, where they were able to go to—we were encouraging them to go to police stations and fire stations and drop off snacks with different cards of encouragement. We were teaching them to make posters of encouragement for them to be hung up in their local hospital break rooms.

For the staff members to see, so really teaching our students, "Hey, listen, all this spare time could be used for something that is incredible as opposed to just you waiting for this all to end." So all that sounds well and cool, but let's give people some practical stuff. Like, how many kids actually took part in the offline activities? Because I think a lot of people are like, "Bro, that sounds crazy awesome, but what was the end result?"

So for our student industry, this is where it gets a little bit different. And so SoFlo Camp and I—I'm gonna build to answering your question right. So SoFlo Camp makes it a little bit different than everything else. SoFlo Camp was just providing content. So we were providing the services, the workshops, the service, the serving ideas, and some challenges. That's what we're providing. And then each individual church was taking that context and applying it in its own specific ways.

So there were some churches that might be a little smaller that what they did was they said, "Hey, we're going to do these service projects and we're going to do them as a whole and we're going to go off and do them." Where at City Rev, what we did was we said, "Hey, we're going to give community service hours for what you do." And so basically, whatever you did, you kind of reported it to what we call them tribe leaders, which was their group leader. And at the end of the week, you get there's a spreadsheet with a breakdown of everything that the student did that week, and then we tally up hours.

So we had one student that earned 107 hours that week. Literally every day for almost 15 hours, just gunning and doing different projects from either in their house. And we worked it out where like, if you record one video of encouragement, really, that's about an hour of service because you gotta plan the video, you gotta record it, you gotta email it, all that stuff. And so if you write a letter—one of them was to write a one-page letter with a drawing to a kid in foster care—and if you did that, that's an hour right there. And so at the end of the week, we tally it all up.

So for our church, I can't speak for any other church because our communication was not good enough for us to know what everybody's doing, but for our church, we believe 88 percent of the students from our church were involved in services just because we have them on spreadsheets. Eighty-eight percent of your students? That's huge. But what's craziest about it is it was all on their own. Like, you had to go do it yourself. It wasn't us busting anybody anywhere. And so there was one group that went and did a six-hour beach cleanup, and they got an hour for every bag that they filled. Now, I don't know if they just went into a dumpster and filled up their bag, but it was just very—it was all on them, which was really special.

That was cool. Javin, how did the students where you're at in Fort Lauderdale experience those offline activities too? Because that to me is kind of the most intriguing thing about SoFlo Camp. It's not just that it was content online. I think a lot of people are like, "Yeah, we'll put stuff on the internet," but the fact that you guys were willing to do online and offline stuff with students is just where, to me, SoFlo Camp just kind of took off.

Yeah, and the opportunity for students to engage in person in something is a lot of what that generation was looking for. You know, there's a lot of stuff like you said that you can put on the internet and engage online, and a lot of that stuff was successful. I think we had close to 18,000 individual viewers on our YouTube channel over the course of SoFlo Camp week. But when it comes to actually doing stuff in person, students were craving that. Something that I can do to get out of my house, something that I can do to get out of my room or to engage with my community in a way that I haven't been able to do in a long time.

And so those type of opportunities is what students loved about SoFlo Camp. Even something as small as being able to walk out of your house and your youth pastors are there with a free t-shirt for you. And that was something that we got to do with our students. I know Angel did as well. And to be able to interact in person with people, even behind a mask, even with all the regulations to make sure things were safe for students, to see people again, I think built a little bit of momentum. And that's what I'd say to anyone listening is like, "How do I gain some momentum and even just help those personal relationships that I have with my students?"

You know, even the digital content that you have, you've got to pair it with some kind of in-person connection. There's got to be a relational component. And it doesn't have to be you as a youth pastor or a youth leader. It could be their small group leader. It could be someone who's investing in their life, encouraging them to show up randomly when they don't expect it, having an opportunity for them to even drive by the church and have some kind of in-person interaction that connects them to the online experience. It goes a long way.

What's really helpful for us at City Rev was that we just thought, "Okay, what are incentives to keep these students engaged?" Because like I think Javin mentioned it early on, we made the camp free. And so there wasn't this feeling of like, "Oh, I already paid for it. I gotta stick to it." So we just said, "Hey, look, let's as a student industry, let's pull in our budget and pull out some money." And every—because what we did for ours was every morning they had a Zoom meeting with their small group, and every evening after the service. And so we said, "Hey, every morning we're just going to give one kid from every Zoom group some big prize. Either we deliver a pizza to your house or we give you a box, we give you some $20 gift card," keeping them in. But then we thought, "Man, you know what? Let's think of some incentives for them to engage in relationship."

So we made some of the service projects: "Hey, if you host a watch party at your house for six people or less from the student industry, you get a community service hour." And so we were using these hours as a way of helping them see that community service is something like that, right? Inviting people to your home for a way of engaging with service, doing it with CDC guidelines in mind, and really thinking through all that. Or delivering a meal to your leader's home. And so all of our leaders had meals delivered to their home all week long. They had meal trains from some of our leaders so that that way they didn't have to worry about food, knowing that they were getting hours and caring for somebody who was caring for them.

And so I think it was just really because the content was taken care of by SoFlo, it freed other student pastors to then get creative in their context because they weren't having to worry about everything. Like, because Calvary, Javin, and all those guys, they did the services—that was one less thing for me to think about. And because Christ Fellowship was doing social media, that was one less thing for me to think about. And I was able to really think about what my students needed.

That's so interesting that often happens when you're in these like networking type of relationships. And really, this is almost the idea behind multi-site where you've got central that's providing the weekend services, and that mentality, and then the campus pastors, allegedly, "Hey, guys, connect in the community, do the things that the content can't," and that you're able to create that networking relationship across all of the different churches that were out there. Which is—did I hear 50? Did I make up that number? How many churches really were kind of networked together by doing this?

Well, over 40. At 40.

I could pull up the final number real fast. I got it up here. But I know for sure there was over—there was over 100 students over 100 different churches that students signed up from, but there was well over 40 that were networked together for this.

Wow. So you even had students volunteer or sign up to be part of this with churches that weren't even necessarily connected for whatever reason?

So we had—I pulled it up right here. We had exactly 39 churches that were networked together for this. And then we had 64 churches, not including those 39, 64 churches of students that were signed up to be a part of it.

So what's 39 plus 64? Um, 103. One hundred and three.

But I love this idea because you're able to help some of these smaller churches that would get overwhelmed with stuff like this, or even normal churches. Every church in this COVID season is overwhelmed with this. And you're able to help them kind of step back and say, "Hey, we'll take care of this piece. You guys figure out how to connect, engage with your kids, do this specific ministry." And just to see how that capitalized like it did is phenomenal.

What was really special about it was that there wasn't one church that was the hero. Like, there wasn't one church that was like, "Oh my gosh, did you see what Calvary did?" Like, it was this reality of—because of the workshops having so many different leaders in them, because of the services being at so many different places, because of the social media almost being anonymous, because of us not putting any church names on the website—it was this beautiful thing where I was just like, "Who's doing this? South Florida is." And it became so much more freeing because I've done things like this where then kids from smaller churches, they're like, "My church sucks. I want to go to your church." And that hurts. That hurts that church. And it hurts that kid in the long run.

And so I think because there was no church hero, Jesus was the only hero of that week.

Very, very cool. Would this have worked pre-COVID? Like, if you had tried to do this in 2019, is this a thing? I mean, I think it would have been very difficult. I think it could have worked. I think a lot of what SoFlo did was break down some of those barriers like we were talking about earlier. And so I mean, you guys know the busyness of ministry and this rhythm that you get in of just constantly producing and producing and producing. A lot of that stopped and gave us the bandwidth and the opportunity for God to do a work with a digital summer camp and everyone networking together.

There were times throughout this digital camp experience where I felt like I was on the same church team with Angel and Tony and these guys. Like, we would meet more often than sometimes I would meet with my own people that work with me at my church. And it was cool. There was something about that. I was like, "This is special." And I don't know if this happens everywhere, but I want to keep doing this.

And so it was so cool to have that kind of experience. And like you said, the barriers that would have prevented this from happening before were taken away. And we got to realize that God can do a work of unity like this in any season. And so as we look to the future, I don't know if it could have happened—it would have been very difficult to even think of something like this, to even figure out what this could look like pre-COVID. But now that it has happened, I mean, we're talking about, "Man, how do we get together in person more? How do churches, students from other churches, get to come together and hang out and get to know each other?" And not for the sake of, "I'm going to try your church if you're going to try my church." It's not about church hopping. This is about the church—the capital C church, the body of Christ—actually getting to know each other and to be on mission together.

And so Eddie Copeland from Church United says all the time, you know, "Our unity is the greatest apologetic we have as the church." And in John 17, Jesus prays that we would.

Be one as he and the Father are one, and that the world might know him. And so that's what we were all about from the very beginning of this. John 17:21 kind of became our mantra that we wanted to be one. And so I don't know if it would have worked, um, but I'm thankful that it did. Now and I'm hoping that in the future we get to do more stuff like this together. I mean, I got questions about the future because believe me, I know that there's a lot that's coming out of this. But before we get there, why don't you tell everybody kind of how the programming worked out because that aspect was pretty intriguing to me too, as far as like how you guys handled when worship teams did what, who spoke on what day, etc., and how some of that worked out together. Because that to me was one of the great things about the sharing aspect of it, so that not one church felt like it was being dominant over another.

Yeah, so we started off with what do we want to teach and what is it that we want to communicate to? Not it's crazy because you think what I want to teach my students, but now we're thinking okay, well everyone teach South Florida. And we knew very early on that this was the idea that will that's going to give birth to a lot of ideas down the road. And so what we wanted to, what we were brainstorming the actual service topics, uh, that's when exactly what Javin was just saying, the idea of John chapter 17, uh, when Jesus says when he was praying for us to perfectly be one as he and the Trinity is one. And so that's what we were really thinking about. What does that really mean? Like we need to help our people and all these people see what it means to be one with each other. And so that has so many different more components than just being friends. Like that means there's a one gospel, there's a one mission, there's a one body, a one word, one story, one walk, all those different concepts. And so that's what gave birth to that, um, to the sermon series "The One," and everything kind of flowed from there.

But one of the biggest things that I feel like I saw throughout this was the level of humility, uh, from so many of the guys involved. Specifically, I think, and I, I know he's not here, but I want to, I want to really highlight it: Tony Cobb. Like he was just so adamant about not caring about speaking, not being in the front, like being so like, "Hey, whatever, whatever it needs to be for the greater good of making this work." Well, and so we looked at it. It wasn't like, "Hey, if you had some kind of role you get rewarded with teaching." It was no. How do we spread this out well? How do we make sure that Angel's not on every night or Javin or how do we spread it out where there's so many different faces from South Florida in these services?

Yeah, I would even add just to get super practical. I mean, Angel mentioned the humility and people being willing to say like, "I want to do whatever it takes for this to be successful." You know, you look at, if you can use a sports analogy, you know, the best teams are the ones who have the best role players that are willing to give up a starting role or willing to give up the role that they think they deserve for the sake of helping the team. And when it comes to SoFlo Camp, I mean, worship teams stepped up in moments when we needed them to. So we reached out to different churches, say, "Hey, would you host our third session, night three session?" He said, "Hey, we'll go make it happen. We're in the middle of production for something right now, but we so believe in this that we're willing to put this aside and to focus on what God is calling us to do with SoFlo Camp." And so there's so many stories of that, of churches' humility, just being willing to step in and lead and to try to put together, you know, seven different main sessions, 40 different workshops over the course of a couple months to get ready for this full overload of digital content on a YouTube channel was a crazy task that could only be explained by the grace of God. Like that, that much digital content was created and filmed and post-edited and everything in a short amount of time to be able to be uploaded. It really did take every church. Like this would not have been able to happen if it was just Calvary or just City Rev or just Christ Flesh in Miami or just Restoration or whatever church, you mean it couldn't have happened with just one. It took AV teams and production teams and media teams from all over South Florida and say, "We'll edit this piece and we'll record this piece at our church. You know, we'll go down to our downtown Miami campus and we'll do this session here." And there's so many different components, uh, that just happened to fall in place. And, uh, we can't take any credit for it because if we tried to do this on our own it would have never happened.

Yeah, and the thing about it too that I feel like it was such a work of the Spirit because everybody's reward was unity. Like there's no paycheck at the end of this or no hype or more follows on Instagram, whatever silly things we get caught up with. Uh, everybody was just saying, "Yeah, the reward is unity." And you know what was really sweet about the services was that not every service was this high production thing. You know, we gave a variety of different avenues of worship and engaging with God where even one service was a student ministry band that was put together from Calvary Fort Lauderdale where they did this acoustic style worship, and then one's like this super high production, and then like we gave like a good flow so that way students from all different kinds of church circles felt like they were pulled in. And even thought about, um, because it's not every church is high production. That's just the reality of it, and that's okay. That's beautiful.

And it's true because I saw the practicality of it. I saw it all work out and it was wonderful. And then one of the things that, you know, coming from a guy who used to do student ministry, that I thought, because I talked to Tony when we talked, when we kind of just ballparked the numbers, I mean you guys really did do camp for all these students for roughly about six, seven dollars a kid. Like when all the costs kind of added up.

Yeah, yeah. For every pastor that's ever done camp before, when you talk about doing camp for seven dollars a kid for thousands of kids, for over a thousand kids, like you would think that Jesus, you know, came down and did the five loaves and two fish thing like again, which is just ridiculous.

Kevin, you want to speak into that?

Yeah, I mean, from the very beginning it was one of our convictions or like we want to make this free. I mean, we knew with the crisis that we're facing in our country and even just the pandemic, like financially families are not in a place right now to just dish out a hundred dollars, two hundred, three hundred for camp. And so like, how do we fight for this? And so the generosity of South Florida comes into play here. And so I'm not going to steal any individual organization's blessing in heaven, but there were organizations that donated to SoFlo Camp to say, "Hey, we so believe in this being free for students in South Florida that we want to help fund this." And so if you look at it across the board, you know, a digital summer camp experience, when you look at the cost that's necessary to do it, I mean, do you have an internet connection? Do you have a streaming system? You have YouTube? You know, if you do, like you could pull off a digital camp experience. Even the in-person expressions like the missions challenges and the small groups are all motivated and driven by that digital content. So the next step from a main session could be, "Hey, go right now and bring a note to your neighbor," and that's a physical act of service that happens because of a digital piece of information. Like, how cool is that? And that doesn't cost anything. That's not something that you have to actually pay for. And you know, get a car or a bus for students to go to an outreach. You know, students did a six-hour beach cleanup completely on their own, and that was spurred on from digital content that was created. And so we knew going in, I mean, the cost was going to be low already. We didn't expect it to be seven dollars a kid low, but we knew that going in. We're like, "This is something that because of a digital experience you can do things that you never could have in person." And so the amount of students that participated absolutely blew our minds, and the ways that they were able to practically engage, uh, was just nothing that could be explained by our own gifts and talents because if it was it wouldn't make sense. It literally was Jesus multiplying.

If there's anybody listening who's kind of thinking, "Man, how can I do this with my kids or my student ministry?" We try to make it where it can be done after SoFlo. And so we put everything on the YouTube channel in a way that a church can say, "Hey, we're doing SoFlo the first week of September," and you just take our YouTube channel. All the services are on there, all the workshops are on there, and you can go ahead and access. We can send you all the different mission ideas, and you can do SoFlo yourself for free.

Um, you know, and I just want to also really highlight the fact that I know I mentioned this earlier, all these different networking things that we were a part of that kind of led up to us all being close enough to do this. But like even things like when Tim Keller came down and, and down in at Crossbridge and slapped us all in the face with unity, like and just made it like this was something what Tim Keller does. I remember you were there and we were also sitting there like, and you know, this is all a product of the Spirit going before us years ago and saying, "Look, one day you guys don't think you will need each other that much, but you will see you do." And um, and so I'm just so grateful to think about what's he gonna do six years from now from this.

So usually after camp there's the camp high, right? Like there's the moment where we all take our sticks to the fire, we cry our eyes out, we get on the bus, we get home, things change. What has life been like coming out of SoFlo, considering it was here, it was digital, but it was highly relational and engaging?

Yeah, I think from an individual youth ministry standpoint, I can't speak for every youth ministry, but this has created so much momentum for us. You know, students who otherwise weren't connected during the pandemic, you know, I think every youth pastor can relate. When you think of the student that you haven't seen in months and you trace it back, you're like, "I haven't seen them since the beginning of March. Ever since this pandemic happened, it seems like they've dropped off the face of the earth. I don't know where they are." And so because they're not coming to church in person, you know, you can text them, you can call them, like it seems like they're not responding to anything. A lot of those type of students have come back because of SoFlo Camp. So there's something about that expression of unity that intrigued them, that brought them in. And when we asked them that question, like, "What is it about SoFlo Camp that brought you back? We've been calling you for months," and I said, "I don't know. It was something cool about churches doing something together. I was just curious and I wanted to see what it was about." And that was the hook that brought them back into the fold of community.

And so like I said, I can't speak for every youth ministry, but momentum has been crazy for us on the tail end of this. Uh, one of the coolest parts of what happened at SoFlo Camp, uh, that has continued on, which I'm most excited about, we did a panel where we talked about what it means to engage South Florida in the mission. And, uh, just on a...

When we're like, you know what, if we created almost like this grant process where students could submit a mission idea? Say I have an idea to reach South Florida with the gospel. I'm gifted in these areas. I'm passionate about this and I've had this idea for a long time and I want to go do it, but I've never had the support before. So we said you have the support now of 40 plus churches in South Florida. So we put a Google form and not very complex, I mean very simple tool that anyone can use. When you said submit your idea and we want to support you in this idea, we'll even fund your idea. We said we will. If this is a good idea to go reach that Florida with the gospel, we will fund it. Now we just sat back. We said we'll see what happens. We'll see if anyone submits anything. And there's been tons of ideas that have been submitted that are incredible. And these are students. I mean seventh graders who are saying I want to provide hygiene products to homeless women and share the gospel with them through hygiene products. Or a senior girl from Pembroke Pines who says I want to start a painting ministry where we come together and we paint on canvases and we tell gospel stories through scripture as we paint together. And that's the way I'm going to reach my friends for the gospel who otherwise wouldn't come to church. I mean, these things that are created from the minds of students as they think about what their gifts are, as they think about what they're passionate about, and then God uses them to go accomplish that idea in the community. And so that's one of the coolest things for me that's continued after SoFlo Camp is some of these conversations with these students and asking them very tough questions too. Like, hey, if you were given the money that you're asking for, what would you do with it? Sometimes it feels like ministry Shark Tank. I'm like, yo, this is kind of cool. Like you could, you get to ask questions to, you're dead to me. Yeah, it was like convince me that I want to invest in your company. But it's really your mission idea. And so it's been cool to walk a journey with these students and to hear their passions and how really committed they are to the gospel and bringing the gospel to their community. And these are students that I otherwise wouldn't have known. Angel otherwise wouldn't have known. Now we have this relationship and we're really partners in ministry together. You look at the disciples and they, a lot of these guys were teenagers and they went and changed the world. And so I feel like God could do that again in South Florida.

So looking forward into the future, like immediate future, is there like a winter version of SoFlo coming? Is there something like that? Because in my mind I was like, bro, this was so amazing. I watched, you know, you guys mentioned Tony Cobb. He's our student guy at Christ Fellowship. Like he had so many positive things to say about it. Not talking to you guys, hearing such positive things to me, this is an answer to prayer in regards to a lot of possibilities with retreats. Is there something coming next?

Yeah, forgive me for using a double negative, but we can't not do something in person after SoFlo. Every English teacher is going to hate me for saying that, but it's true. Like we, we can't not come together and do this again. And so we've been talking about what that'll look like as things start to open up, as you know, things start to happen. Even if they don't, continuing to use the momentum of SoFlo Camp, what's cool about this, like Angel said earlier, because no church was tied to the branding of this, you know, the idea of SoFlo, the SoFlo logo has kind of created a brand that is not attached to anything. And so students will associate themselves with SoFlo and they're associating themselves with the church of South Florida. Like how cool was that? Like I was a part of SoFlo. Well, what is that? They're like, well, it wasn't really something my church did. It wasn't really something that any one church did. It was just all of them. And so now, well, are you a part of that? Like, yeah, I'm a part of all of them. In some way, like I associate with my local church and that's where I grow, that's where I'm discipled, but in some way I'm tied to the church of South Florida. And so for us as we look to the future, that name and that branding, but even beyond that, just that community that's been built around SoFlo. I mean, I've gotten screenshots into me of group texts that are just called SoFlo. And I was like, there's a whole group message of sixth grade girls that's just called SoFlo because they built a relationship over the course of this week and it's continuing on. And so yeah, we can't not do something together in the future. We're dreaming about, okay, well now is there a space that will be big enough? So we're dreaming about, is there any space in South Florida that'll even be big enough to hold all the students that are represented in our youth ministry? And we're just praying that God will do big things in the future.

The thing is that I believe, you know, we taught these teenagers in that one week what's possible with unity. And so if there's something that's not going to happen in the next six months, those teenagers that experience that, when they're doing ministry one day, when they're pastors, when they're leading the ministry, they grew up watching unity. And so that's where I'm excited about what's going to take place 15 years from now when those kids now have voices of leadership. And I think it's good because I remember when my youth group, when we thought was a big deal that we had another youth group come to our service. Oh my gosh, the unity and these kids got such a big picture of it that's going to teach them something that's going to echo for a very long time. And so like this weekend we're doing a little celebration with some of the student pastors that, you know, Javin's doing a phenomenal job putting it together. And like the networking meetings coming out here are going to be so much more meaningful. What ideas are going to percolate from those time together? I don't know. But what we did was we injected some steroids into the unity of South Florida and now the Lord's just going to use it in great ways.

I love that. John 3:30, it's not about me. You know, taking the brand away from it and instead creating, I mean, a movement. I don't use that word sparingly, but you're starting a movement here with kids that's not branded to one location or one building, but instead is scalable and reproducible on how it's done. By the way, my daughter started sixth grade like this week. So she will be in sixth grade in the summer. So like we needed SoFlo Camp 2021 to happen because I need to get my daughter connected into this. No pressure, just, you know, make it happen for the girl.

So that's the thing. Hey, I just, I want to, I don't want to take up a lot of time and this has been awesome. I just want to segue a little bit here. Student ministry, COVID. Like how do we do student ministry in the future? I get all sorts of people, all sorts of churches asking me questions. I don't know that there's a clear answer of how COVID is changing that culture and what it's going to look like, even 2021, 2022, towards that. What tensions, what challenges as being student pastors? What are you seeing the future look like here when you look at even your own student ministry here within the next 18 months, two years?

Yeah, I think going into COVID, a lot of youth ministry, people, youth pastors, leaders kind of expected, oh, Gen Z are digital natives, right? So we just put everything online and they'll engage, they'll connect. And I think a lot of us learned that's not necessarily true. Like you can't just produce content and put it online and because your audience are digital natives, they'll know how to find it, they'll connect with it easy. And I think we've realized something about Gen Z is although they're great online, they need personal discipleship. It can't just be content that's created and posted on a YouTube channel. Or it can't just be, you know, digital experiences that don't lead to personal relationships. And so there's always got to be a connection.

I think that's where youth ministry is heading in the future. I think a lot of youth ministries have taken this time to create digital expressions, which is something that every youth ministry needs. So if you're a youth pastor out there and you're listening and you don't have a digital expression for your youth ministry, it could start small. Take baby steps, one by one. Maybe you create an Instagram page and that's your first step. Maybe you create a YouTube channel and you start posting content. That's a first step. But all of those digital experiences have to lead back to personal relationship. If a student stays by themselves in their room watching videos, is that the end goal for their discipleship? And I think all of us would say no. Like that's not ultimately where we want them to end up. We want them to connect personally with a small group, with community of their peers that they can grow with consistently in discipleship. And so any way that your digital expression points back to personal relationship is going to be key, I think, for youth ministry in the future.

And I think all of us have learned that during COVID. If we just create content and post it online, it's not guaranteed that teenagers will engage just because they're digital natives. And so the future is shifting to that model where as digital content is being created, all points back to the local church expression, to getting connected in person, to getting connected to someone who cares about you, someone who wants to walk with you, to do life with you. And even if that's on a Zoom call, when you get to actually have conversations with people, you can't just engage with content and expect that discipleship is just going to happen. I think it's got to be through relationship.

I think about in First Thessalonians 2, there's a passage that talks about this in verse 8, I believe it is, where Paul and Silas and Timothy are writing. They say we cared about you so much that we imparted to not only the gospel but also our own lives. And I don't know if there's a verse that better sums up discipleship: to impart the gospel of Jesus Christ but also your own life. And when the gospel meets real relationships, I think is when discipleship really happens.

Yeah, I feel like with this generation, and Javin, of course you're dead on, man. But if I can add anything to it, um, this is these teenagers right now, this section of Gen Z that we're dealing with, they're becoming more self-taught than any other generation across the board. They're having to develop more self-discipline. They're having to really push themselves. And every week is going to feel like a month in their development and absorption of all that's taking place right now. And so I really feel like even come this, even come January 2021, that the whole shift in the culture is really going to be extreme. And I think what I'm seeing with this generation is we got to make things shorter. We, uh, this is not a generation of 30, 45 minute sermons. This is a generation of give me a short, give me what I need to know. I don't need your fluff. I need your hehe. If I want to laugh, I'll go to YouTube. I'm here to get something. So we gotta make it shorter. We gotta make it lean in our teachings of teenagers. And but not only do we gotta make it shorter, I think we gotta make things easier. Relationships are really hard for this generation and they really struggle to put themselves in it. And so we've gotta do our job of making it more, not as hard of a step for them.

And so whether it being the kind of thing where with the Zoom calls we actually tell them, "Hey, there's a time limit on it. It's not gonna go more than 30 minutes." We make it easier, but hey, these are the questions that you're going to discuss. We give those out to them two days in advance. Kind of making it, thinking, "Okay, how do I make it easier for them to be involved in relationships?" Because they're not gonna, they're not gonna search those on their own. That has to be something you got to take them to it as easy as possible. So in my opinion, I think the more shorter, the more lean you make things, and the easier you make things, the more chance there is of connecting with this generation. But not only in making it shorter and easier, you also got to give them more of a voice. This is a generation that has a lot to say and they want to be heard. They don't want to be told. They want to process and they want to process with others. And so I think really putting your student ministry in that focus of making things shorter, easier, and giving them a voice, there can be a big win at the end of that.

That's awesome. Very, very well said. Hey, this has been a great podcast, a great time. I want to hear about SoFlo, like Christmas version 2021. I want updates on this, and I love Church United South Florida. You guys working together towards doing this. So looking forward to hearing what's next and having you guys back on. We'll bring on some others to get a full picture next time, but definitely love this path that you're on. Thanks for taking care, by the way. Thank you for taking care of and ministering and shepherding and doing student ministry. I made a joke earlier about how student ministry's hard, and there's a reason why God told me not to do student ministry because I am not wired to do that, and I discovered that quickly in my ministry career. But I love the fact that people like you are out there taking care of kids like mine who are wrestling with tough questions. And yeah, we're dealing with stuff at home, but there's always someone else they can go to that can show the love of Christ in that. So thanks for doing what you're doing for ministry in South Florida as well as it sounds like Bahamas. And I don't know where the other one was. Rhode Island? New Jersey? James 1:22, don't just be heroes of the word online. Paraphrase: do what it says in the real world. You had the main sessions, you had the small groups for, you know, some accountability, and then you had service opportunities where they're literally engaging with people. The content that we're hearing online is driving towards offline relationships. And if we could figure out, honestly, how to like bottle everything that you did and teach that to every church across America, I think that we would be better moving forward.

Work on it. Give us some time. We'll figure out how to do it. So hey, once again, Javin Angel, thanks for jumping on the podcast. This has been great. As we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts from anybody? Any last-minute zingers? Mike drops? This is the moment. What do you call it? Oh God, anything? Honestly, man, I would say this has been such a joy getting to work with these guys and build these relationships that I never otherwise would have had. And so I would say if there's anyone out there listening right now who doesn't have a relationship with someone from another church, maybe that's even in your similar role, research them, reach out. Like, don't stalk them. Don't show up at their house late one night. That's not a good look. But find out their email address and reach out to them and just say, "Hey, how can we work together?" And maybe it even starts with, "How can I pray for you? Like, what are you going through right now that I can help support you with?" Like, I can talk about countless times before SoFlo was even an idea that Angel and I just said, "Hey, how can I pray for you today, man?" You know, Tony, "Hey, how can I pray for your ministry? How's your family doing?" You know, it starts with relationship. And so I would encourage anyone who works in any church role, not just youth ministry. If you work at a church, it's important to connect and be unified with like-minded churches around you that are centered around the Gospel and the mission of Jesus Christ. So reach out to someone. Send an email. Make a phone call. It'll go a long way.

Yeah, if I was to give one last thing, I think it's very important to remember that prayer, that the Lord actually hears us and the Lord listens when we ask Him for things. That He wants unity. And when we ask Him for people to come alongside us in ministry and teach us and give us wisdom, the Lord legitimately hears that. And I know sometimes when we think about prayer, we don't think that's very practical. But according to Jesus in John chapter 17, before He goes to the cross, that's the most practical thing He did. He took time to pray. And I think that's so significant to not just push that aside. SoFlo came is a result of years of prayer together. Years. And we didn't know how that prayer would be answered. But the Lord answered it on His own time. And so I think being mindful of, wherever you are on the spectrum of unity with other churches, really focus in on praying and then seeking after the Lord for this to happen. It's amazing. It may not feel like it's necessary at the moment, but you're laying that foundation for years that set you up for the time when it's necessary. You're banking that stuff and building those foundations and friendships that's going to allow you to do God's work when it's necessary in His timing.

So well said. Well done. Hey, Ray, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts?

Yeah, a couple things. I feel kind of like the grandpa in this conversation to a degree because I'm so happy. I feel like the grandpa. Have you looked at my beard? Oh yeah, the old bald guy here. Well, I mean, you know, having done student ministry, like now, what's now like, the kids who are in my student ministry are now the kids leading student ministries. So that's why it's like, "Oh man." But to see this happen also with guys who are, and for those of you who are national, you just got to understand like I'm so emotional about this. To see local guys doing this because, you know, kind of like what Jeff said, the community down here, especially amongst ministers, is so small. You just gotta understand that Miami has been a tough nut to crack. Like, we don't have the same kind of thing that you see in Texas or in California. We got like these massive churches that are just killing it like all over the place or whatever else. There's. And to see, especially specifically in student ministry, see churches working together gives me so much hope, not just for the now but also for the future of how the church is going to continue to push against the gates of hell here in Miami-Dade County and even up in Broward where Javin's at. Because that's just such a huge, huge deal. We've taken a lot of L's in this area, especially spiritually. I mean, you know, we've taken a lot of losses. And so to see the student guys kind of pick up and to say, "Hey, we can do this," and not to leverage it as their own platform but to leverage it as an opportunity for unity and to even humbly allow other people to step up and lead, that to me is just one of the things that I got to gush over, you know, from the sense of pride and admiration. And so guys, I thank you for leading. You know, the future is bright. The now is bright. And so thank you so much for doing this and for leading it well.

Yeah, the humility of this conversation is the thing that I wasn't expecting when we started. I just wouldn't want to go on the record, kind of echo that. Not that I was expecting anything prideful, but even to the place of, "Hey, I don't need to. I don't need to talk. Let's bring other guys in here to better represent the city." That's where that's where movement comes in. It's, "Let's elevate God above all, but let's let others have ownership of this idea and this movement instead of trying to territorialize and control everything." And so that, I want to thank you for that lesson and echoing that. So this has been a great conversation for Javin, for Angel, for Ray. This is Jeff at the Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on the podcast, and we'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good day.