CEP SEASON THREE EP: 23 - WITH GUEST BEN LLOYD

Jun 29

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

In this episode, Ben Lloyd, who is both a youth and campus pastor at IKON Church, shares his background and faith journey, his challenges and opportunities of leading two roles, the obstacles young leaders face, and how to empower and correct young leaders.

He emphasises the importance of involving young people in the running of the youth ministry to stay current and relevant.

We hope you enjoy Ben's insights on leadership and youth ministry.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

David Mckeown 0:00

Hey welcome to the church explained podcast conversation degree your leadership on Build Your Church. Today we've got a very special guest turned on. Yes, we have. Yes, we have got Mr. Ban Lloyd, welcome down to the podcast.

Ben Lloyd 0:16

Hi. Great to be here. Thank you.

Nathan Benger 0:18

He looked a bit nervous.

David Mckeown 0:22

This is a good podcast.

Nathan Benger 0:24

I'll do a short bio for you though you've not provided one for us. But we have and now let's get Ben is youth Pastor at IKON Church and also campus Pastor of our Stocksbridge campus here at IKON Church. He is married to Hannah Lloyd and has two children. Miles Lloyd who is 233 Recently, in April in April wasn't. And then Toby who is months old,

Unknown Speaker 0:55

what they say he's five months next week,

Nathan Benger 0:58

five months next week. And He's an avid Arsenal fan. And has kicked Nathan a few times playing football. Wow, what a great bio.

David Mckeown 1:08

That's pretty good.

Unknown Speaker 1:10

Because you're much better than me. And that was?

David Mckeown 1:15

Yeah. All right. So man, it's good to have you on the podcast. We've got a few questions for you. I think it's always good to find out a little bit about you, your faith journey and your sort of role in the ministry. Yeah. So why don't you kick that off by that Nathan's give you a brilliant intro. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your fitness journey, and your background.

Speaker 3 1:38

So I grew up in Church. I'm an IKON Church, baby, I guess you could say, been in this Church my whole life. And my parents have always been heavily involved. And yeah, I guess, never stopped going to Church, I think, got to about the age of 11. I couldn't really pinpoint a moment as such, when I started believing in God, I think that was just there from a very young age. But when I was 11, that was the first time I was filled with the Holy Spirit. And I remember going to a conference not too far from here, being prayed for the infant of the Spirit. And just something changed in the after that it was like, Church wasn't just something I went to with family and with my dad, I always enjoyed it. So whatever. But it wasn't just something I enjoyed. It was like this passion was birthed in me it sort of Church became something for me that was bigger than myself and believing in God, just Yeah, I guess just a fire was born in me in that moment. And then I think there was just a clear change that happened in my life immediately after that. I mean, actually, the next Sunday, we were in Church. This sounds funny to say, but that was the first time I'd ever lifted my hands inward. Okay. And that wasn't, you know, no one told me how to do that. You know, I've never had an urge before that. But I think just from that moment of being filled with the Holy Spirit has something changed in me. And I think since then, just my love for God, for Jesus for His Church has just been growing and growing. Since then, I think the first time I ever served in Church was playing guitar when I was 12 years old. So yeah, and then since then, I've done loads of different things in Church and like you guys say now I'm leading youth and leading one of our campuses experts. Yeah. So good.

David Mckeown 3:31

Well dig into the moment.

Nathan Benger 3:34

Tell us Benoit. What do you do for fun? We'd love to ask this question.

Speaker 3 3:40

Nathan's mentioned Arsenal I think they're kind of one of my great loves fun.

Nathan Benger 3:47

For the majority of this season,

Speaker 3 3:51

the past few years before that went great. But yeah, so I watch not loads of football, but I always watch arsenal and I try and play as much as I can. I really enjoy playing football. But then my other big love outside of Church and family is movies. I watch a lot of films. Follow me on letterbox if anyone's out there using letterbox and it's basically something you can log what you watch we

David Mckeown 4:20

I go to the cinema? No, no problem.

Speaker 3 4:23

I go to the cinema a lot like once a week usually, at least with my dad. I'll get out and see some

Nathan Benger 4:28

what's the best movie you've seen in the past few months and the

Speaker 3 4:31

past few months? Gosh. I should have anticipated that question. It's been a bit of a I think just a bit of a slow year for films really. Steven Spielberg's last film called The fav Orman's that came out in the UK in about February time. I really, really enjoyed that. I'm sure about on streaming soon that people can see what you

David Mckeown 4:58

won. You've got a few hobbies there. Yeah. I don't see music as a hobby for you. Oh, yeah, enjoy doing that. We're running out. You're you're married to Hannah. And you've got two kids, Tobias and Myles. Tell us a little bit more about your wider family though thinking of your parents, and your many, many siblings.

Speaker 3 5:23

Me and Hannah both have quite a few siblings were both one of four kids. My immediate family so I would say my mom and dad have been part of IKON Church. For many, many years I grew up grew up in Church. And my two brothers, an older brother called Dan, youngest brother called Jake. And then in between me and Jake, I've got a sister called Amy. And all four of us have been in Church served in Church for many years and still doing I still do. Yeah, we've all got kind of a really strong, strong faith. Which is great. Hannah's family is quite different to that her none of her family are Christians or in Church, which is a different dynamic. But yeah, they've, especially our parents, I've always been super supportive of Hannah since she began Christian. Yeah, when she was a teenager, and, you know, thinking wider family as well. My cousin shout Tom is heavily involved in Church as well. But like my grandparents, or Christian good? Yeah. Great. I

Nathan Benger 6:30

know. Great. So I mentioned you've got a couple of rolls, campus Pastor at Stocksbridge campus and also youth Pastor, which is mainly based out of our Chesterfield campus in for us as IKON Church. So what are the challenges and opportunities you face as you head up those two roles?

Speaker 3 6:52

I guess probably the main, the main one is getting the balance right, between the two just in terms of time and energies and focus. Because that I mean, this is the first time I've ever had to juggle two roles at the same key roles at the same time. So it is getting getting the balance, right. And I think one of the key things I've learned is understanding that there are moments where one of those might take precedent. Over the other I think even just this past week, we had a big youth night, Friday. And then Saturday, this past weekend did a training day for youth leaders around the country. So naturally, I guess sort of in the week and couple of weeks leading up to that youth was taken a big focus taken a lot of my time. But it's understanding that that can happen. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's making sure that long term one doesn't consume the other, that I'm not going through long periods and long seasons. Where I'm only thinking about oneness, you know, I want to try and get the balance. Like I wish it was as easy as you know. 50 5050 Yeah, that you know, Church life is so busy. Yeah, Church life is so changeable as variable. So not you know, naturally, there's there's moments where one can take precedent over the other, but it's just getting that balance, right, I think. But there's lots of opportunities. I mean, it really does force you to raise leaders having to lead to kind of major ministries and key ministries. I can't do everything myself now. Me and Hannah can't do everything ourselves. Yeah. As a Church, you know, we've always been so passionate about raising young leaders. And that's always been a key thing for our youth ministry as well that, you know, we don't want to just put something on for young people, but through it, we want to raise leaders. And I think, just these past few years leading our Stocksbridge campus and youth ministry, it's really forced me to raise leaders and rely more on on people and give people more opportunities. So yeah, I think that's been one of the great benefits of it. And as well, I think there's there's been a bit of a really nice crossover at times, with those two things. I love our Stocksbridge campus, and I love leading youth and there's we don't have loads of young people in our Stocksbridge campus at the moment. But it's been great with the young people that we do have, I've been able to connect them into our youth ministry. And that's been I think, one of just the things I've done these past few years. That was a great joy. As you know, as much as I can. I'll bring a group of young people down from Stocksbridge to youth and just seeing them get involved. It's like the two things I lead and the two things that I'm passionate about really coming together which has been it's been nice as well so great.

David Mckeown 9:49

Thinking about them. What's been the biggest learning curve or not I know you've talked about the time split and attention. Anything else in there you think of leaders or Listening. And they're trying to split themselves across a number of key things. What's been your biggest learning?

Speaker 3 10:07

I think, yeah, the time thing and getting that, right. It's forced me to really think about my schedule. And my diary as well. And I plant palm. Yeah. Advanced. Yes. Yeah. And it can be as simple as Okay, I'm going to dedicate these days to this thing that one of the ministers on lead, I'm going to dedicate this time. Yeah. I think that's been been a big help. And what been one of the key things I've learned because, you know, those when I first started, I wasn't really doing that. And so what I was saying earlier about the danger of one consumer, the other, that would happen quite a lot of the time where one thing would suffer because I've not dedicated time to it. So I'd think you know, I'd really encourage anyone who is leading multiple, multiple ministries are multiple things, just to really think about your personal schedule and making sure you are devoting some time to each other.

Nathan Benger 11:04

Yeah, great, great. We're going to kind of major on this podcast on this episode around the youth. Pastor role. I wonder if you just talk a little bit about that role with Hannah. And what that looks like for you guys.

Speaker 3 11:21

Yeah, so we lead our youth ministry, which I guess sort of our Chesterfield campus has quite a decent size youth group. And we try and connect young people from the other campuses as well. But Chesterfield is sort of, it's sort of the central hub of youth in IKON Church, we run a weekly Friday night youth programme in our Chesterfield campus. And yeah, a really fit for me and Hannah, it's our main focus is leading our team of youth leaders, I think we've got just over 20 youth leaders in our youth ministry, and just I guess, thinking about us personally, and the way we we lead youth, that takes up pretty much all of our focus, when we think about youth, we want to empower them to go out and lead lead young people. A lot of those guys are small group leaders in youth. So meeting with those regularly, we meet with them at once a month. Get all the youth leaders together. Yeah, so yeah.

David Mckeown 12:30

Some a lot of your time they can just picking that up there. A lot of your time is given then investing in those leaders? Yes. Yeah. Rather than focus on all the other, like, how do we do the programmes on? Yeah,

Speaker 3 12:42

yeah, I think, yeah, that definitely. With you there and my focus, yeah. And I think that's been one of the things you know, I used to do all the planning myself, put together all the, you know, run lists for me and things like that. And that's been one of the things I've kind of been forced through this to empower others to do and

David Mckeown 13:07

so if we would appreciate that little bit, this idea of raising up leaders and empowering leaders, what do you think then, is the most challenging thing young leaders, or young people are facing when it comes to leadership?

Speaker 3 13:22

I think one of the biggest obstacles is probably fear of failure. I think, just the way the world has gotten in the way culture has developed over the past few years, it's like, there's more punishment, I guess, for failing, and more publicity for failure as well. Which I think, yeah, for young people kind of seeing that and seeing how leaders older than them have gone through that. I think that's been one of the big challenges and the big things that has given them a reason to step back, as well. We were talking earlier about how young people don't, it's almost like they don't want to take on something that's already established. It's, there's more of this urge to kind of start and create and build their own thing, as well. So yeah, I guess. But we've kind of want to bring young people that bring young leaders into something that, you know, our youth ministry has been going for nearly 15 years now. So it's a very kind of established Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I think that that's been sort of

David Mckeown 14:42

soldiers. And oh, Nathan, you weren't event last week. Do you want to just mention that? Because I think it does link into this. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 14:49

Yeah. It was an event with like some network leaders of networks here in the UK and some Church leaders and this was a big topic on raising young leaders and all Like Ben said, much of their experience has been, they either want to start something new. I think Church planting is quite a hot topic, hot topic, and is a big thing. And I think that's because it's quite new. But they don't want to take on, you know, like maybe established competitors, or there's a problem with even established churches finding the next leader as well, within that, but one of the one of the guys there was from the Salvation Army, and they were talking about this raising leaders. And obviously, they've got a programme and he said, February one was to go through the programme they currently have, in a few years, they would have only have one leader for every eight Salvation Army places and is grateful of faith. He said, Well, we believe God's got it, but that we need some wisdom on it. And, and so I think there is a, there is a, you know, there were some Americans there as well, from North Point Church understand this Church, and we're experiencing the same thing, where young people are not wanting to take on that leadership. And I think some of that is, you know, as you said, the fear, and also the portraying of leadership in our culture today, the crisis of leadership, you think of people who've been in leadership and you you instantly want an example of leadership yet what we've had is bad times, bad examples of leadership. And so it's like young people kind of see leadership as a dirty word in a sense of I don't want to take that. I don't know if you've got any other thoughts on that, Ben?

Speaker 3 16:38

Yeah, I think that last thing you said about leadership being like a dirty word. Yeah, I think it's, like we were saying earlier, failure seems to be just something that's more punished. The world seems like an even less forgiving place. Now, and there's not really much room for redemption. And I think that's something you're just thinking about the youth ministry that we've been building and investing into what I guess one of the key things we've tried to do over recent years, as a result of this stuff is tried to make it really clear to the young people and the young leaders coming through that this is a safe space to fail. That there isn't that punishment there. Isn't that Yeah. You know, if they do fail, there's there's room to go again, you know, there's support around them, there's protection around them, as well. So that's a big thing, I think.

Nathan Benger 17:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I think as well, you know, just thinking of our youth ministry and youth ministry, sometimes we we can shy away from certain standards by so we'd have standards for things and we would say, Hey, if you're a leader, this is what it means. And this is what it looks like. What's been your experience of that? And in terms of maybe bringing correction or teach, you know, the teachability of young people? What's been your experience of that when you've been speaking into those moments? Yeah. And what's helped you in those moments?

Unknown Speaker 18:20

Yeah. That's a great question. Yeah, I think naturally, I've even found this in myself that

Speaker 3 18:29

it's like, we naturally kind of want to, to shy away from that stuff, and shy away from standards. And, you know, try and remove, I guess, any, any chance that we might get told, No, we're doing this wrong, or we need to do this different. We're not doing good enough. And I guess goes back to that of the value system within ourselves and, you know, feeling like, we don't want to feel like we're not good enough. And I guess, being confronted with actually, no, someone's saying to me that I can do this better. Someone's saying to me that I do have room to improve, were confronted with that, you know, oh, gosh, I'm not good enough. But you know, I guess we know as believers I hope we know as believers that God loves us that God values us. And but there's also always room for development and growth as well. So I think just in the way, I guess I've led leaders and tried to help people improve them as well. I think that's just been a key thing is really emphasising to them, how much I love them. How much God loves them. Great. And, you know, any correction any kind of criticism is not because we're trying to punish them, I guess. Yeah. It's for their benefit. Yeah. Because we want to see them grow, and be all that God's called them to be. Yeah. So yeah, great.

David Mckeown 20:08

So one of the things I've got written down here is a Rhiness idea of how to you or your team, how do you stay current with like, you know, within youth ministry without compromising what you believe?

Speaker 3 20:23

That's great question I think involving young people in it has been the big thing. That was like a cheat code for this question, I would say, because, you know, I'm getting older, which means I'm getting less call. But young people, at least, you know, young people in the young people in these ministry, in a sense, they don't grow up. I mean, they obviously all grow up. But when you've got young people in a youth ministry, they're always the most relevant. They're always the coolest. And they're ultimately always going to listen to each other, I think, to anyone that is in a different walk of life, or different phase of life. So I think staying current and staying relevant as a youth ministry, thing, the easiest way to do that, and the most effective way to do that is to involve young people in the running. Yeah, that youth ministry, if a young person is coming to youth on a Friday night, and they're only seeing someone who's 1015 years older than them all night on stage, might be great. But it won't be anywhere near as effective as them coming into youth ministry and seeing our peers for an or seeing, you know, people their age doing things in the youth ministry. And I guess they could look at that and see oh, yeah, that person who's in my youth group is doing this. This is something I can do, as well. So yeah, getting your people involved is massively important.

Nathan Benger 21:55

Yeah. And I think I'd add to that as well, not trying to be something you know. Because I use that bands are cool. Now. I'm not saying Benzac cool. I think Ben's quite cool, but quite cool. I'm quite a bit older than Ben. So we'll just leave that there. But yeah, yeah, well, but I think just being yourself, authentic to who you are. So me and Ben are very different leader. So the story is I lead youth Yeah, before Ben. And, and, and so we're very different leaders, I am like, vision, and, like going to push you all of that bends very much, you know, a lot, you know, right and saying this bit quiet, helps others. I am like, the front line running around the stage, all of that kind of stuff. And so very, very different in terms of leaders. But I think with young people and, and staying current and relevant. I don't think young people are looking for you. They're looking for you to be honest, and real with and so this is what we believe. Yeah, this is who we are. This is what we believe this is, you know, we're called to be different. And this is who we believe what we're doing that as us. So we can share. You know, you share your struggles, you share your problems, you share those things. And I think then young people begin to relate to those more of it. I don't think that's just a young people thing. I think everyone does. Yeah, we ensure leadership. Yeah, I face this, then they're able to say I that's not just me. Yeah. And yeah, we can do that.

David Mckeown 23:32

So Ben, Ben, you've gotten a few ideas there in a rally regard regard sort of like leaders and team and involving them? What have you just shared a little bit more around that idea of like raising up leaders? Like what are you doing here at IKON Church? Or what are we doing? Or what are you doing that would help other leaders as they listened to the maybe they're looking around and thinking, Okay, we want to get something happening in our setting? Yeah. What do you want to tell them?

Unknown Speaker 24:02

A few things, I think give them

David Mckeown 24:03

the cheat codes.

Speaker 3 24:08

I think the first thing is really kind of what you just say and Dave about actually lucky in this identify, and it's looking at who have you got whether it's youth ministry or your Church or in your setting, who is in front of me, that I can invest into and sew into. And that was, you know, thinking about our journeys, yes. ministry that was really what Nathan did at the start. He had a group of young people, and he, you know, obviously believed that was going to turn into something much bigger, but he didn't neglect that small group to begin with that he invested into it. So I think it's identifying who is who is God put in front of you that you can sew into and invest in. I think something else I've learned as well is just to give loads of opportunities, opportunities to lead opportunities to run things you No, I regularly, if I'm if I'm thinking about the leaders, I want to bring through our, you know, things like that when we're doing this special night in youth this theme night or this party night, I'm gonna give it to this group of young leaders to run to organise the plan to execute. And it's just given loads of opportunities. I think, just the way we run our youth ministry and run our Friday night programmes within that there's always opportunity for young people to get up on stage and lead something on, you know, the different teams we have in youth as well, there's plenty of opportunity there to give people a go at leading, and getting getting them into leadership environments, as well, as mentioned earlier about how we try and meet with our youth leaders. Once a month, often we will do things like we call column plus one nights where we get all of our youth leaders to bring a young person with them on that night. And it's just getting those young people into an environment, leadership leadership, which for the majority of them, they're not going to pursue themselves, you might get one or two young people that feel that leadership. You know, we've had a few of them in youth over the years, which is brilliant, but for the majority of young people, they're not pursuing leadership. So we've got to invite and bring into those leadership environment.

David Mckeown 26:25

Okay, so So Can I just jump on here? Do you think then, is that I'm trying to answer the, the challenges we've mentioned earlier about the fact that leaders do see leadership as a dirty word or something they do want to get involved in. So you have to go that extra step, ready to get them involved in demand, isn't it?

Speaker 3 26:46

Oh, yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. You know, I think I think my my own personal experience, you know, youth was something I was very passionate about. From the get go, but I think it was, it wasn't until Nathan, I guess, gave me opportunities as a leader, and invited me into those environments that I actually started to think and believe this is something you could do this. And so yeah, yeah, definitely get get them into those environments, invite them to things, you know, if you go into leadership, events and things like that, you bring in young person leader with you know, Nathan always used to send me, you know, we still do a little bit of this with each other, but MCs watched or things you said, and that's something that I've I've learned and applied in the way I, you know, bring up young leaders as well. I'm sending them stuff that I'm listening to and watching. So. Yeah,

Nathan Benger 27:46

yeah, no, no, some great, great thoughts there. And, yeah, I think, I think that's something you know, not just for youth leaders, but I think it's really important to try and address that issue. And that question of, can we bring them to into those environments? And I think also it addresses the question, an issue where they see a leader in a world. And they see, you know, what the world is calling a crisis of leadership? Well, we can bring them into leadership settings in the Church, where actually we're able to give their good role models, and role models of people who actually are willing to say, I'm not perfect, I haven't got everything sorted. But I'm working towards this, or I'm going to journey towards this. And so I think that's amazing. I wonder if you just share a little bit about maybe the vision going forward and what you see in the future, maybe even if you feel comfortable, maybe even speaking into youth ministry as a whole, so not just even thinking of our context as our Church. But in terms of we present a youth leaders training day had a few youth ministries with us, which was amazing. What what do you see going forward? And what do you think, you know, maybe, you know, asking you to ask God something that maybe he's not giving you, but what do you sense that God might be doing?

Speaker 3 29:08

Yeah, I believed always believed believed for a long time that the youth ministry is there to build Church. And I think that's sort of always been that the way I've approached it since since lead in IKON youth with Hannah is that we want a youth ministry that builds the Church, which means reaching people with the gospel, which means reasonably there's in everything that we've been talking about today. So I think, I guess, thinking about youth ministry as a whole or at least thinking about youth ministries in the UK that they would be not its own entity and not separate but would be very much there to build the Church and equip the Church. You know, I think

David Mckeown 30:00

so they're not side project. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 30:03

And, you know, I guess we know that the world needs healthier churches, the world needs stronger churches, and I think youth ministries plays such a key role. And, you know, youth ministry is the future of the Church, because it's those young people, those your Christians, your believers, young leaders, going through, I think, from on a personal level, I've always, for many years, had a picture in my head of a youth ministry of like, 500 or so young people, and that was that came through me go into another youth event in another part of the world, and just seeing a picture of something, and that picture always stuck with me. And that's, you know, still trying to work towards that vision. But I would say to, you know, young leaders, younger youth pastors, to not shy away from dreaming big, and dreaming 1000s of young being reached. So

Nathan Benger 31:05

just think just picking up on that whole idea of building the Church and not let it be a side project. How do you like just thinking, How do you do that? How do you make sure the youth ministry is attached, you know, to the church's vision, and, you know, you keep keep that in terms of, we're not just running this thing we do Friday night, whatever night it is, you do it? We're not just running this thing. And then that's it. It's a part of the Church. Yeah,

Speaker 3 31:30

language is a big thing. And whenever we're talking about vision in youth, and what we're dreaming for in youth, making sure that that aligns with what we're seeing as a Church, the word and doesn't have to be exactly the same. But the same idea pretty much, you know, we've always had a pretty clear vision as IKON Church and a clear idea of of what our mission is, as a Church and in the language. I want to make sure that what we're saying, yeah, in youth, so that alignment with that? Yeah, yeah. But I was, I would say, as well, just on a practical level, just getting young people to Sunday's getting young people involved in serving in Church. Yeah. That's my experience growing up as a young person and IKON Church. You know, we do that in a very practical way. Yeah, our youth ministry, because of the size it is, it's great that we can break that down into lots of small groups, connect groups and youth. And that's sort of guess, our main avenue to getting young people there on Sunday. So the small group leaders we have in IKON youth with very clear with them that, you know, we want them to encouraging get their young people their days. Because, you know, if a young person grows up in IKON youth only ever come into Friday nights. What happens when they're too old to be there? And yeah, whereas we want to, you know, equip young people and help them to stay committed to God's Church for their whole lives.

David Mckeown 33:08

Not just you hear that. Yeah. Let me just nibble on that, because leaders are listening today. I think they're thinking about this idea of like, youth not been a side project, which I think is brilliant. But I think it's bigger than that, in the sense of it's like a 360 approach. Because as a Church, when we're having staff meetings or leaders meetings, we we talk about youth as part of our services. Don't wait. Yeah. And not just us on Friday. And then our services. No, actually the whole weekend. Yep. Is about what we're Yeah. So I think of leaders are listening. It's not just stop and know. It's like, the bigger the Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, the leaders at the top, they've got to see the whole thing connected. Yeah. Rather than, you know, oh, the youtube gonna get you used someday. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 34:02

And I think it you know, just to kind of like, push it out there with lead pastors, senior pastors, is so important. 85% I think the statistics are in the UK. 5% of people make a decision before the age of 18. Yeah. And so if that's the statistic Well, that should be the priority. Yeah, a priority for us as a Church the next generation, and seeing the next generation reach with the message of Jesus and seeing young leaders raised up for the future of the Church and even the Church right now as well. And so that you're right, David has to go full circle. And we've been incredibly blessed that our lead pastors here have prioritised you. And he talked about, he's become that's been our language, you know, they've even protected you for at times youth have, you know, put holes in walls, and we just lamed the women's ministry in there was a true story. One, someone came up and said to lead Pastor, Hey, I can't believe what the youth have done and put a hole in the wall. And it mean, our lead Pastor said, No, that was the women on Tuesday. Quiet and and very quickly. So I think, you know, just having that mindset as a leader kind of helps you move forward in that area.

David Mckeown 35:26

Hey, so Ben, it's been great to have you on your show. One final question. Before we wrap up for today before Nathan sort of puts out where to find the smallest Yeah. Hey, just tell us what what do you do very briefly now what do you do for your own personal development? Because as a leader, that's key, isn't it? So what do you do?

Speaker 3 35:47

I guess, try and read and listen to as much as I can. That helps that development. I mean, an example of something recently do a lot of preaching in youth, and in churches, a campus Pastor, passionate about communication, and was watching last week, McManus shared sort of a free he does a course which is paid for around communication, but you sort of gave away some of that free which

David Mckeown 36:18

thank you everyone for your input.

Speaker 3 36:22

But I think as well you know, not not just doing that stuff personally. But also try and make sure I keep talking to people about my development for its I want to make sure I talked to people that are passionate about my development. I think that's the key thing as well because no talk to anyone about that stuff. But I want to make sure I'm talking to those who are actually passionate about me improve and grow and so yeah, identifying who those people are in your

David Mckeown 36:51

group people around you that yeah, do some reading. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 36:55

Great, great, well, great stuff and when if you're listening to this this is an invitation to the church explained podcast and we think he should be on here. He should he should. We have we've had some amazing guests but that's been it for the church explained podcast been great to have been with us and if you could rate review, subscribe wherever you're consuming this content, then that is a massive help to us at the church explained podcast also just want to mention we have a whole load of resources youth resources on there, some youth leader training resources on our IKON dot Church forward slash open, which are completely free and will always be free for you as well as many other resources, not just youth resources on there. But that's been it for the church explained podcast and we look forward to seeing you and being with you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai