Rob Chartrand (00:04.249)
Well, we are excited to have on the Church in the North podcast today, Mr. Chet Kennedy. He is the student ministry's lead team at First Alliance Church in Calgary, Alberta. And we're so excited that he's joining us for our summer series, The Old Youth Guys. And Chet is an old youth guy. Chet, welcome to Church in the North.
Chet Kennedy (00:24.718)
Thank you so much, Rob. It's exciting to be here.
Rob Chartrand (00:28.665)
And just a disclaimer for our listeners, Chet and I go way back. We worked together at Beulah Alliance Church together. I was actually your supervisor for a season as well, which was kind of interesting. Yeah, thanks Chet. So we want to go back in time to your beginnings, Chet. How did you end up in youth ministry? How did it all begin for you?
Chet Kennedy (00:32.814)
Way back.
Chet Kennedy (00:37.998)
yeah. You did a good job. You did a good job.
Chet Kennedy (00:53.485)
Yeah, well, how it began, I'm trying to do like a shortened version. But when I was in grade seven, it feels a little bit like when we do testimony night, I'm always like, don't start with birth, right? Like give me the, you know, what's God doing right now? But you do need to know this part. When I was in grade seven, I was traveling home from a really brutal day at school. During that time in my life, my family had recently moved up to Northern Alberta.
Rob Chartrand (01:09.849)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (01:22.892)
I was a new kid in class, I got picked on a lot, and two of my bullies were on that bus. And so every ride home was just awful. And one day, I had my head against the seat in front of me, I was crying out to God and asking why kids in small towns are so mean. And I heard God speak, not audibly, but it was clear. This was God. And he told me, nobody loves teenagers in small towns.
And I knew in my heart that he wasn't talking about parents or grandparents or teachers. I just knew in my heart at that point, God was calling me into youth ministry. After a few years, I completely ignored that call, just focused on school, life, et cetera. Then in the summer of my grade 11 year, I ended up on a missions trip with YWAM. That's a whole other story as well, but I was on that trip and God renewed that calling in my life. And after that, I finished high school. I graduated, I applied to Bible college.
went to school to train to become a youth pastor. I got my bachelor's degree in June of 1997 and I stepped into my full -time role in September of that same year.
Rob Chartrand (02:31.929)
Wow, okay, so you were like the, you followed the pipeline completely all the way through, yeah. Wow, so when you were like a kid, were there a number of people speaking into your life about this?
Chet Kennedy (02:32.651)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (02:36.555)
I did.
Chet Kennedy (02:45.514)
no, but for some reason I always looked up to pastors. So like we grew up in Red Deer. and I went to Red Deer Alliance, broke my collarbone there, broke my Bible there. Like there was so many things that I did. I went to, boys brigade, which was, you know, this bizarre Christian boys club. and it got into so much trouble there. So like, yeah. And I always looked up to the pastors. I don't know why, but yeah, I was in this.
Rob Chartrand (02:49.817)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (03:10.649)
Hmm. Hmm.
Chet Kennedy (03:13.257)
When we lived in McLennan, we were in a church of like 25 people. And I was so excited growing up to join the youth ministry at Deer Park Alliance, which it is now. And then we left six months into, or probably three months in. So I got to do youth group for like three months. And then just, you know, youth ministry got just peeled away from me.
And yeah, so there was this longing in my heart to be part of youth ministry kind of community. And yeah, it just, in grade 11, went on this missions trip, because my mom was kind of worried about me, you know, what I was becoming. And then God got ahold of me. And yeah, so it was just, I didn't really look back.
Rob Chartrand (04:06.105)
So that that theme of no youth pastors or nobody loves youth in small towns actually led you to a small town. Is that what was your first post?
Chet Kennedy (04:16.712)
Strange enough, yeah, I told Jesus in Bible college that I would serve anywhere in the world as long as it wasn't Saskatchewan. And, you know, sorry for all the Saskatchewan listeners, but as an Alberta boy, that seemed like just a terrible place to be. And the only churches that reached out to me, there was actually three churches in Saskatchewan that had reached out to me. And so I interviewed at a church in Regina, a church in, I believe,
Prince Albert and then Melfort Saskatchewan. And so I ended up at Park Avenue Bible Church in Melfort Saskatchewan as the youth slash associate pastor. And I was there for four years and I loved it. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (05:02.169)
So, I mean, for some of our younger listeners, I mean, it's important to point out when he says church is reaching out to him, there were no online job databases that you could apply for. You basically just, the denomination sent your resume out. Is that kind of how it went or how did they get ahold of you?
Chet Kennedy (05:17.255)
Well, what happened is all these churches contacted my professors at Bible college and said, we need somebody who would you recommend? And so one of my favorite professors, Terry Fawson, told them, you got to call this guy, which was great because I had just recently got married. I was selling jeans and like retail. I was no, I was actually selling at the original Levi's store.
Rob Chartrand (05:23.961)
Right, okay.
Rob Chartrand (05:35.449)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (05:41.337)
Thrifties?
Chet Kennedy (05:45.83)
I don't know why you need to know this stuff. And then I was serving. Like I was doing my internship, which had extended sort of into a part -time role at Southview Alliance in Edmonton. And so I was doing all this.
Rob Chartrand (05:45.945)
Nice, even better.
Rob Chartrand (06:04.249)
Well, even to get your resume out back then, I mean, not everybody even had email. So I mean, you're mailing it or just talking to people on the phone. Okay. It was a different world. Okay. So where did you, what are all the different places you served? Melphor four years. What happened after that?
Chet Kennedy (06:08.39)
No!
Chet Kennedy (06:12.293)
Yeah, it was a different world.
Chet Kennedy (06:20.485)
Yep. So my second church was a Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Alberta. And I started out as the Friday night youth guy. Then I moved to the student ministry's team lead. And then in my last five years, I was the next gen team lead, which meant that I oversaw the youth ministry, the young adults and the children's ministry. I was at Beulah for almost 15 years. And what kind of transpired? I was at this summer camp speaking out in
Rob Chartrand (06:24.857)
Okay, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (06:43.193)
Wow.
Chet Kennedy (06:50.052)
Saskatchewan and Lawrence Jansen who is running the youth program there called me on like the one week in between me speaking at summer camps, right? And I just was like, no, don't call me. I'm fine. I don't want to move. Like we just bought a house like terrible idea. And then it just became very obvious to me that this was a, a God ordained wide open door. And I
Rob Chartrand (06:57.113)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (07:18.212)
kind of need to walk through open doors in obedience. And so I did and stayed there and loved my time at Buett.
Rob Chartrand (07:28.761)
Yeah. Yeah. So what is what are some of the other places you've served that led you up to Calgary? What you were at a camp for a while?
Chet Kennedy (07:34.435)
Yeah, yeah, it was actually, I spent two and a half years as the executive director of Camp Kamisal, which is a Christian summer camp and retreat center, northwest of Cochrane. And while I was actually there, I was serving because we had a rule in my house, which was you need to be part of church, you need to be part of a small group and you need to be
also serving somewhere. So once I moved to Calgary to be part of this camp, I kind of knew in order for me to be part of this, I should also find a place to serve. So I started serving in the youth ministry at First Alliance, because my friend John Caldwell looked like he needed some help. And so I became the youth leadership coach. And I was there, started January of 2020 with him. And
And then strange enough, January of 2021, Kyle Trigg popped onto I think a zoom call and was like, yeah, we're looking to hire someone. So I actually offered to help him hire the next person. Right. And I called all the people I knew in the province to say, Hey, you should do this. Like they really need some help here. And, and then while I was talking to Kyle, it was very obvious that I
Rob Chartrand (08:44.345)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (08:58.274)
should probably apply for this, even though I was like, no, I'm done with use ministry.
Rob Chartrand (09:03.0)
Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say at the time we're even thinking you wanted to get back into church and youth ministry.
Chet Kennedy (09:08.897)
I, I always, like, I had stepped out of church for a while and then, did the, the camp thing for a while. and I always, like, I had started my master's degree at Ambrose, because I wanted to come back and become an executive pastor. That was my whole kind of plan. and then, yeah, I just, I sat through this interview and, and kind of said to Kyle, I actually think that I'm supposed to apply for this.
And I'm really scared. Wow, at my age, stepping back into youth ministry. But yeah, I'm so glad they said yes, I said yes. And so yeah, I've been there just over three years now.
Rob Chartrand (09:55.353)
Okay, awesome. So you obviously have been at this for a long time and you obviously have a lot of kids. So tell us how have your kids been involved in ministry while you've been like in your youth ministry in particular and and maybe let everyone know how many children you have because it's not a small number but it's not huge but
Chet Kennedy (10:13.343)
Well, I mean, technically I have three, right? Like I have, but Samara, my oldest is married to Abe and, and then Kaysen who is my middle, he's married to Emma and they have my first grandson, his name is Kit. And then, I should also say, that Abe and Samara who I already mentioned just had my second
Rob Chartrand (10:23.129)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (10:41.055)
granddaughter and her name is Eliana so yeah and then my youngest is Taryn and he's currently serving like it's his job or his role out at Camp Mackammon so those are my three so yeah and yes
Rob Chartrand (10:42.201)
Hey, you didn't tell me that. That's amazing.
Rob Chartrand (10:57.145)
Yeah.
But your son -in -law, wasn't he in your youth ministry as well or no?
Chet Kennedy (11:03.711)
My daughter -in -law was. Yeah, my son -in -law went to West Edmonton Christian Assembly and he was on the worship team there. But now my daughter and him both serve on the worship team at Viola. So they still go to the same church I was part of. But yes, they were part of our youth ministry. And because like here's like I literally like texted them to say, I got to answer this question.
Rob Chartrand (11:06.841)
Okay, okay.
Rob Chartrand (11:11.193)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (11:18.521)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (11:31.646)
What was it like, right, for you? For me, it was amazing. Like to have my kids in the youth ministry was so fun. But I learned, Rob, it was very different for all three of them. Because my daughter, because she was the oldest, she came in while I was still kind of hands on in the youth ministry. And so for her, like she was like, she wrote me this thing, but basically said,
Rob Chartrand (11:33.657)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (11:53.721)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (12:01.597)
There was a time where she brought a boy to youth group. I probably, I don't even remember which boy or what that was all about, but she said that she walked in and I was apparently singing Taylor Swift songs in screamo. so what do you do with that? but she, she remembers me like using, like mic stands and stools and, you know, doing object lessons and just the chaos of me preaching, to junior high and senior high.
But she was so used to it. So for her, it was very normal. but by the time my, my middle got in, we had moved our program to the house party model that we were running. And so for him, it was really the house party. and we had hired Ryan Tuck and then we had hired Joel Brigham. And so they were actually, his youth pastor. if that makes sense. And I was just higher up in there.
Rob Chartrand (12:58.873)
Yeah, you're a level up above them. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (13:02.028)
Exactly. And so, and then with my youngest, he was like, yeah, dad, I mean, every once in a while you preached, but for him, he's like, I just remember you as being the guy who kind of was off in the side, but it wasn't like you were my youth pastor in some sense. And the hard part about my youngest is like everything cool that we did had sort of like YC was over.
I think he got one of our activate arena events. He still remembers this. Like he talks about barricading him and his like grade seven friends. We were playing this big like game called civilization that was created by Josh Thompson. It was basically at some point we were unleashed all these zombies to come take down everybody. And every group got destroyed except for these grade sevens, because they barricaded themselves in a hallway. And they literally like
tagged with the flagging everyone who came after them. And so I had built this game so that the leaders would win and the grade sevens destroyed the game. So he remembers that. That was the other thing that's hard, Rob, is like we built the entire ministry around small group leaders. And so the other thing that I think was good for me in youth ministry.
Rob Chartrand (14:12.281)
Who is their small group leader, do you know?
Chet Kennedy (14:27.77)
I wasn't just the youth pastor and it was just them. It was a ton of different youth leaders. But for my boys, both of them said, dad, I had like nine youth leaders. Right? And like the one said, I had, I think I had 11. Like, so if I can say anything, please, boy, youth leaders, stick around, like spend five, six years, wait till they graduate. Right? Like walk them through.
Rob Chartrand (14:39.225)
Right, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (14:50.393)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (14:55.641)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (14:56.665)
But yeah, both of them say it was good. There were times it was weird. Sometimes people expected that they would know more about the youth ministry or about anything. And the one thing I heard from all three of them, which I really appreciate, is they said, we didn't have any expectations on how we were supposed to act or behave, which they've all heard from other PKs. So somehow I magically managed to do that. I don't know how.
Rob Chartrand (15:10.233)
Mm -hmm.
Chet Kennedy (15:25.945)
But yeah.
Rob Chartrand (15:28.665)
Well, my son -in -law, Drayton Humphrey, he just won, I think a year or two ago, the Long Hall Award. So this has been part of your model and it's been carried on after that is they want students to become a small group with a group of guys or a group of girls and start in like grade seven and stay with that same small group all the way to grade 12. Well, he did that. He stayed with the same small group of guys all the way through and then they got to give him an award.
Chet Kennedy (15:31.097)
Mm -hmm.
Chet Kennedy (15:36.313)
Nice.
Rob Chartrand (15:57.433)
But typically it's like at that time the guys are like, okay, I'm done, but he's like no I'm gonna do it again And so he's he's back in in serving and of course, he's very involved in other ways in the church as well He's now on staff the church But I mean that that's a great thing is if you can have that longevity of small group leaders That's gonna stick with kids for a long period So I asked that because I wasn't sure if that was his small group or not
Chet Kennedy (16:13.177)
Yep.
Chet Kennedy (16:19.193)
yeah, I don't think so. But that's a really few. It just goes way back. Like my son Taryn is now a youth leader, right? And so he's, he's walking his kids through. So he works with your daughter, Elisa, right? Which is, yeah. And I mean, Drayton makes me so proud cause he was in our youth ministry, right? I remember when he started playing guitar and it was all like fuzz and
Rob Chartrand (16:23.161)
No, no, it wouldn't be if your, if your, yeah, your sons changing. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (16:32.139)
Right, yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (16:36.409)
who's now a youth pastor. It's crazy.
Chet Kennedy (16:47.417)
distortion pedal and now he's like amazing. So yeah.
Rob Chartrand (16:49.985)
Yeah. Yeah, he's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so great. And for our listeners who are listening in, you just to understand the dynamic, like the youth ministry now there's like over 200 kids in it. And so you're going to need multiple staff in order to manage you because it's like a small church basically. And then there's a layer above that for next gen as well, because you want to make sure that your children's ministry, your youth ministry and your young adults ministry has continuity as
So because you always lose people in the gaps, you lose people in the gaps between children's and youth, between junior high and high school, and then between high school and young adults. Those are the places where there's the greatest amount of vulnerability for young people dropping off the map. So if you can do that role and have that role in place in your church, that's really helpful.
Chet Kennedy (17:37.241)
Yeah, so good, so good. I think the fun thing is as the guy who started a bunch of this way, way, way back when, it's really fun to hear that the Long Hall of Wards still exists. I had gone to this ridiculous, I had gone to Michael's just to get these like wooden platforms and I would spray them all black and then I got these like toy semi trucks and would...
Rob Chartrand (17:39.609)
So go ahead.
Rob Chartrand (17:50.265)
Yes.
Rob Chartrand (17:57.465)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (18:02.777)
Yeah, that's what like Drayton got. Yeah. Diecast truck. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (18:05.913)
Nah, like I remember creating this silly long haul award, like probably in the 2005 something like that. Like why is that still existing?
Rob Chartrand (18:14.845)
Wow. Wow. But it's a great idea, Chad. It really is like it's it's an aspirational something for people to look at, right? Especially like someone who just picked up a small group of grade sevens and to see someone in grade 12, you know, with grade 12 kids do that. I mean, that's huge.
Chet Kennedy (18:20.249)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (18:31.193)
Yeah, I think if I was to give a shout out, Chris, Whitelaw, and Elisa have done a great job of taking kind of the bones of something that me and my team created and really fleshed it out. Like they've done a fantastic job with the youth ministry out there. So I'm super proud of them.
Rob Chartrand (18:49.128)
Yeah. So let's talk about your current gig in youth ministry. You've been at it just over three years, is that right? So just really quickly, give us a context of your ministry and maybe the context of your church. People might not know the size and scope of First Alliance Church in Calgary.
Chet Kennedy (18:55.449)
Yup.
Chet Kennedy (19:06.233)
Right, yeah, so at current GAEG, I'm the Student Ministries Team Lead here at First Alliance Church. First Alliance is a church of almost 3 ,000 people on a weekend. It's a multi -site church. It's basically the Biula Alliance of Calgary, which they probably don't love me saying. It's a regional church, which means that our congregants come from all over Calgary and area. The Student Ministry includes a grade five, six program that happens on the weekends during the services.
Our grade 7 and 12 students meet on Wednesday nights for worship teaching in small groups on site. And we also have a young adults ministry that meets on Thursday nights. And because it's the end of the year, I actually have stats. So yeah, our grade 5 -6 program, we have 269 individual students over those two grades that have attended between September and now with an average attendance of 72 kids.
Rob Chartrand (19:50.521)
Nice.
Rob Chartrand (19:58.489)
Wow. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (20:06.233)
per weekend. So when I got that stat, I was a little bit, ay, ay. But it does tell you that, you know, they attend probably once a month, maybe, you know, by, every once in a while, there'll be some bi -weekly or bi -monthly kids, but mostly it's once a month they show up. In our youth ministry, we have 231 individual students with an average attendance of 97 over the full year. So every Wednesday, somewhere in that,
The fun stat, which I didn't include in this, is we had 190 students at our year -end party. So it does scare me a little, because that means I'm probably looking at a much higher group in September. So yeah, if you're thinking of moving to Calgary, I could use some youth leaders. Exactly. Yeah, we're bringing all the grade sixes in. And then young adults, we have 65 individuals, and our average attendance is 29 over the full year.
Rob Chartrand (20:43.257)
Nice.
Hmm
Rob Chartrand (20:52.633)
while in it, some of those grade sixes are bumping up, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (21:05.465)
Okay. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (21:05.849)
So, and once we start graduating the current groups of grade 11 and 12s, that's also taking off because everything in youth ministry is bridging. So.
Rob Chartrand (21:15.513)
Mm -hmm, yeah. So your role though is changing in the fall. So how is that changing and why is it changing?
Chet Kennedy (21:23.161)
good question. yeah, I'm moving to be the family ministries pastor, which, basically allows me to help with the bridging all the way along. So I can figure out, you know, how do we make discovery land, which runs from basically nursery all the way up to grade four? How do we make that transition properly into grade five, six? How do we make sure grade five, six,
bridges into youth, how do we make sure the youth bridge into the young adults? The other part of that portfolio is we have a marriage and family pastor. And so it allows me to also speak into the lives of parents and also kind of steer that ship. And then I also get to meet with our absolutely brilliant, very, very talented seniors pastor.
And so I get to kind of figure out what does family life look like at First Alliance Church and sort of bring my weird set of skills to that group. And honestly, I don't entirely know what it'll look like, Rob. I'm frantically reading through the first 90 days because I'm like, how do I build this thing? Even though I've done...
Rob Chartrand (22:36.66)
I have a particular sense of humor. Yeah, yeah.
Chet Kennedy (22:49.977)
this before at Bula, but it's a new culture, it's a new group of people. And so I wanna make sure that I work within what I get.
Rob Chartrand (22:53.433)
Mm -hmm.
Rob Chartrand (23:00.825)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that's so important. And I mean, you're, you're also probably touching on another aspect of discipleship, which is family discipleship. And we're starting to see this more and more in the leaders I'm talking about at churches is starting to think through how do we help parents disciple their own families, which is the primary responsibility, according to scripture is with the parents, right? Deuteronomy six and Ephesians five and six. I mean, we, it's
Parents have a responsibility to do it, but if parents have never been discipled or they were never discipled by their parents, how do they do that, right? And how do you equip them to do that?
Chet Kennedy (23:39.065)
Yeah. That is such a ginormous question. I'm like, I'm currently reading the discipleship opportunity by Daniel And it's, yeah, it's just kind of one of those, yeah, how do we do discipleship? Well, like in churches and like I just finished reading The Anxious Generation by John Haight and
Rob Chartrand (23:40.505)
I'm out.
Rob Chartrand (23:50.425)
Okay. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (24:08.601)
I often refer to Faith for Exiles by Kinnaman. It's like all of this is how do we figure out how parents can be the primary disciplers and how do we keep the next generation as the church of today? So all these questions and a lot of different research is highlighting that, yes, teenagers are different, but
Rob Chartrand (24:19.129)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (24:30.745)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (24:37.337)
Also, parents are different. And so we're trying to figure out how do we help without telling everyone how to do this? How do we come alongside?
Rob Chartrand (24:40.057)
Mm -hmm.
Rob Chartrand (24:48.473)
Yeah, well, I'm growing young as well, Carapal, right? And Fuller Youth Institute down there looking at that and how do we integrate intergenerational faith formation with emerging gens and young people, right? So it's, it is a...
Chet Kennedy (24:51.627)
Yep, absolutely.
Chet Kennedy (25:04.363)
There's so much research past COVID, right? To just try and go, what are we seeing? What are we feeling? Like people are sensing there's something different. But what I love is the amount of research that's coming out from Barna, from Growing Young, from Kinneman. Like they're all looking at it and John Haight is going through a ton of research and they're starting to put like their thumb on that. Is it this?
Rob Chartrand (25:29.273)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (25:34.186)
Is it this? And yeah, it's been even, what was that book you had me read? Beyond the Screen. And that was 2015. So, you know, he, right, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (25:42.777)
Right.
Right, right. Well, a lot has come out since then, right? So even this last week, I don't know if you heard about the Surgeon General in the United States has come out and he posted an article, an opinion article in New York Times, and he is pushing for warning labels on all social media for young people. Because if a young person watches social media or participates in social media for more than three hours a day,
there is a, it doubles their chances of developing anxiety and depression. And the average young person is looking at 4 .3 hours a day already. Like so.
Chet Kennedy (26:21.001)
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, and that's one of the recommendations from John Height, right? No smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, pushing for phone -free schools. And yeah, like trying to figure out how do we rebuild clay -based childhood, right? Rather than phone -based. It's a huge research piece.
Rob Chartrand (26:27.096)
Yeah, totally.
Rob Chartrand (26:39.897)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we're, and if we're pushing parents to, disciple children and youth, right. But the parents themselves are being discipled by their phones.
Chet Kennedy (26:55.752)
Right? Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (26:56.601)
and formed by their phones, right? And I don't just mean the content of their phones. I mean, if you look at technology, it's, you know, the medium is the message, not just the message is the message. And so the device itself is discipling a way of life. It's creating rituals and forms and dopamine and et cetera, et cetera. So if parents are locked in, how are they going to get their kids unlocked? You know, that's the challenge because these 2007s when the iPhone came out, right? 2010, it became popular. It's 2024, 15 years old. Like a lot of the parents today,
Chet Kennedy (27:20.04)
Yep.
Rob Chartrand (27:26.073)
were holding phones by the time they were teenagers. So it's normal for them. They're like digital natives. So Chet, you've got a big job ahead of you. man. Yeah. So, okay, we were already diving into this, but how then have you seen ministry change over the years? I mean, you've seen a lot of things. Lots happened since 1997, Chet, right?
Chet Kennedy (27:26.376)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (27:31.592)
Yep.
Chet Kennedy (27:36.744)
Yup. That's... Yup. man.
Rob Chartrand (27:56.376)
you know, what's changing about young people and yet what remains the same?
Chet Kennedy (28:01.67)
Right, yeah. So yeah, I think in some sense that's two questions. How I've seen youth ministry change over the years. I've seen youth ministry change in a number of really important ways. For too many years, specifically when I was starting, I knew far too many youth pastors who were, I don't know how to say this nicely, but they were just idiots, right? Like they...
Rob Chartrand (28:08.217)
Well, let's start with one.
Chet Kennedy (28:30.79)
They got into youth ministry because they thought it would be fun or because they wanted to be cool. Right. And they were just doing stupid stuff and really terrible and sometimes dangerous things. And and it gave youth pastors in youth ministry a really, really bad name. And so I've also seen youth ministry change from this like crazy thing where students leaders and youth pastors were at the church for sometimes three, maybe four days a week. And there's been
Rob Chartrand (28:35.769)
Yeah, yeah.
Chet Kennedy (29:01.861)
There's been a level of like research, education and engagement in youth ministry that has really changed the men and women who are coming out of college. Right. And like they're, they're ready and they're prepared to take on this generation. Right. And it's, it's been so beautiful. The other thing that I saw in youth ministry was like what we used to call the stepping stone.
Rob Chartrand (29:17.081)
Hmm. Yeah. Okay.
Chet Kennedy (29:31.204)
youth pastor, right? So they do, you know, two years, 18 months, and then they move into senior roles, right? Where, you know, where they get a real job, like, which I heard all my life, when are you going to get a real job? I'm like, this is a real job. But yeah, I know. But I've seen that, that change where it's, how do we disciple, right? Not just build cool, great events, and not just do really terrible things, right?
Rob Chartrand (29:50.233)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (30:02.371)
where the focus has been relationships and discipleship. And it's been beautiful to watch. Yeah, I think the, so to go into your next question, what's changing about young people? I have always said that teenagers are the same wherever you go. They all need to know they are loved and valued by more people than just their parents. That's the simple answer. And for the longest time, it was easy enough to say,
You know, you've got your parents, you've got your grandparents, you've got this whole group of people. We just want to add like a number of leaders into your life. But what I'm watching, and this is shown in so much research, but students don't have the same family groupings, right? Parents are far, or sometimes living in separate houses. Grandparents maybe aren't even in the same city, right? And so that
that community, that village that used to care for a kid all the way up has really disappeared for a lot of teenagers. And so that's where the youth leader who shows up every single week, knows this kid's name, loves them. That's why that is so crucial. And the sooner youth pastors realize that it's actually not about them, it's about the team.
that they're building. That's where, I know that's a terrible word, but that's where the growth comes from. That's where the discipleship comes from. That's where we get more and more kids in the program so that we can build that discipleship structure. So yeah. But yeah, I don't have anyone drinking Coke through a sock or...
Rob Chartrand (31:31.481)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (31:41.145)
Mm -hmm.
Rob Chartrand (31:50.457)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (31:57.817)
Well, yeah, well, that means not something that's changed, though, like the high emphasis on safety and insurance and plan to protect and all of that. Like, back in the day, we didn't have that. We could get away with a lot of things. And do you think that's helped weed out some of the youth pastors that are maybe trying to just get in there and have fun or?
Chet Kennedy (32:07.298)
I'm sorry.
Chet Kennedy (32:21.92)
I mean, every youth pastor across Canada will say that Plan to Protect makes their lives difficult, but I honestly think Plan to Protect has been so helpful because of that exact same thing. We are forced to do the things we should have done. You know, have multiple leaders in a room and have a number of different people who are watching out for the students and watching out for the leaders. Yeah, I think we took so many unnecessary risks.
Rob Chartrand (32:27.257)
Yes.
Rob Chartrand (32:42.105)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (32:51.52)
with students because we were uninformed. But yeah, it's a beautiful world we live in now. And I think the other piece that's been different about maybe my role that has changed. There was one point where I was the Friday night youth guy, right? And I was just running around, coming up with crazy stuff and taking four days to build a youth event. And kind of the highlight of my ministry was
Rob Chartrand (32:55.545)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (33:19.935)
where I moved into being a principal, right? Where I got to, strange enough, deal with like the kids who had maybe more significant issues and contacting parents and, you know, please come to my office. We really want to talk through this. I'd love to have your kid continue in youth ministry, but I can't have this continue. And when I moved to that level, I really felt like that was ministry.
Rob Chartrand (33:36.313)
you
Chet Kennedy (33:47.998)
It was fun. It was challenging. It was hard. But it was fun, right? And where I could backstop the youth leaders and, you know, protect my staff. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (33:50.617)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (34:00.012)
Hmm. So, I mean, let's let's let me let me linger on that question for a little bit, or that response. How is your youth ministry changed then over the years? I mean, so, you know, remember back in the day 97, you were just out of college, you were only five years, six years older than your youth, right kind of thing. But now you're you're a lot different than that you're a lot older than your youth. Like, so you know, you know, you're not the cool, you're not the cool 20 year old chat anymore.
Chet Kennedy (34:06.494)
Mm -hmm.
Chet Kennedy (34:26.814)
Nope. I'm not sure if I ever was.
Rob Chartrand (34:30.009)
So the question is, how has your role in youth ministry changed over the years?
Chet Kennedy (34:34.653)
Yeah. So, I mean, part of it is also church expectations have changed. So when I got to Melfort, like their big emphasis is we just want to make sure there's Friday night events for our kids. And so like my big push was to, can I please also do a Bible study, right? On Wednesdays. Well, sure. But make sure you have the Friday night events happening. And then something I did at Melfort, which I haven't actually been able to duplicate.
Rob Chartrand (34:42.937)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (34:55.961)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (35:04.06)
As we started this youth center model. So basically the youth would end youth night would end at nine o 'clock ten o 'clock all these kids from all over Melfort would just show up and like we'd open up the basement of the church and we had Pool tables and we had foosball and kids would come down and play Yeah, it was a drop -in center. We would have this thing open till 1 a But like it was like
Rob Chartrand (35:27.225)
Nice. Drop in center.
Chet Kennedy (35:34.46)
60, 70, 80 kids would just show up, which was bizarre because the youth ministry was like 15. So I ran that thing for four years and it was fun. It was high energy. Like, how do you do something till 1 a every single Friday? That's not the world I could live in now. I'm old. But then like when I was the Friday night guy,
Rob Chartrand (35:37.465)
Hmm.
Chet Kennedy (36:01.5)
at Biola, it was a similar thing. Like every week you're like, wow, what great thing am I going to do this Friday? And you're just putting all this energy in like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Like you've got all these other meetings, all this other stuff you do, probably you're writing curriculum, but you're also building and creating some ginormous youth event that's going to be so much better than the last one. And that, that is exhausting. And the hard part is
Rob Chartrand (36:29.625)
Hmm. Hmm.
Chet Kennedy (36:31.323)
they don't really remember all of your events that you spent days and days and days doing. I mean, the hard part is they also don't remember any of the curriculum you wrote. So years later, they do remember your relationship. Exactly, yep. That's the piece. And so as I, when I went to Budla, I actually learned pretty quickly that the way I ran things in Melfort,
Rob Chartrand (36:34.009)
Right, no.
Rob Chartrand (36:45.305)
But they'll remember if you love them. Yeah. They'll remember all of that. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (37:01.723)
would not work because it was me and a few parents and like one dedicated youth leader named Marcy Walther. And once I got to Beulah, it was like, like the learning curve was straight up for me. It was so ginormous, the church. And so I had to learn very quickly. And it was actually Lawrence Jansen who said, hey, by the way, I know you have all these different talents.
Rob Chartrand (37:19.193)
Hmm. Hmm.
Chet Kennedy (37:30.489)
You can't do any of those here, right? You can't play the drums. You can't do drama. You can't do any of this because if you do, someone else doesn't, right? And it was really helpful to say, so in order to do this, I've got to have people. I've got to have youth leaders. I've got to have parents. I've got to have students. And so I quickly changed the model from, I do all of this to it doesn't happen unless I have people and that
changed my perspective, but it allowed us to grow everything and scale everything. So that's how it changed.
Rob Chartrand (38:07.161)
right. Yeah. Yeah, Ephesians 411 model. Yeah. Well, now you're I mean, you're you're obviously in your middle age, getting near the tail end of middle age here soon. Can you imagine? Your grandpa? Have you seen your Yeah, do you do you see yourself differently in your role then compared to back in there? Those days in the 97s?
Chet Kennedy (38:23.224)
Thanks Rob. I am a grandpa and it's amazing.
Chet Kennedy (38:36.504)
a hundred percent. Like I honestly, I just don't have the energy anymore for some of this, right? someone actually clarified, like my wife and I, we hang out at our young adults, every Thursday. And, I was trying to say, what, what do I do? Like, what is the point of me being here? Because we have eight incredible young adult leaders who lead this.
Rob Chartrand (38:44.441)
Right. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (39:04.983)
And I don't remember who it was. I wish I could but they said you're actually the pastoral presence And so we're there Just to be there just to be this like someone needs some to talk to Like my role right now on Thursday nights we meet at a provincial park and my role is to turn the fire on which is basically make a little teepee And then we you know light some matches and
Rob Chartrand (39:27.193)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (39:32.726)
just get the fire going and then we just kind of hang out by the fire while they go play whatever sport they're gonna play. And I just kind of watch. I played soccer like last year I played soccer and Melissa, my wife was like, you shouldn't be playing soccer because I fell over during the soccer game, went straight down. Everyone thought I died, right? I was like.
Rob Chartrand (39:40.441)
You don't go and play with them. You don't go and...
Chet Kennedy (40:00.182)
Took me a little while to get up and it took me probably three days to recover from falling down. Like things that I used to do all the time. And so it's weird. You just have to manage, you know, your body is different, right? It's so frustrating.
Rob Chartrand (40:05.145)
Yes. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (40:15.865)
I remember the young adults ministry at Bula had a seniors couple in it who were there faithfully. He was a retired principal. She was a retired nurse, Ian and Audrey Ross. Remember them? And Karen and I have looked at each other over the years and we said, you know what, when we get to be that age, we want to be like Ian and Audrey. Like just being that presence, right, in the room.
Chet Kennedy (40:26.934)
Yep. totally. Yep.
Chet Kennedy (40:34.646)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (40:39.417)
And the young adults love them. So you they, you know, if you think you're too old to do young adults ministry or youth ministry, you're not, you're not like, Ian, I mean, Audrey had like a list of young women who wanted to go out for coffee with her and just pick her brain and spend time with her. And she was like, her calendar was full during the week because of just lingering and loitering and hanging out in the room with these young adults. Incredible couple.
Chet Kennedy (40:45.526)
Right?
Chet Kennedy (40:51.732)
Right?
Chet Kennedy (41:01.94)
yeah, like you, you moved to the role of mentor. and I think another piece that I just want to make sure that I say, somewhere in my time at Bula, I read first break all the rules by Marcus Buckingham. and it taught me very clearly when you have some area that you're weak in, go find someone who has that strength and, and
Rob Chartrand (41:16.473)
Mm -hmm.
Rob Chartrand (41:30.009)
Right.
Chet Kennedy (41:30.836)
give it to them. And so for me, like Sherry Letts had this administrative strength. And so if there's been any success in the years at Bula, it was because Sherry took what I had thought or imagined and administrated it to make it make sense. Or Denise Lang was that, like she would just take young adult leaders out and say,
Rob Chartrand (41:37.561)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (41:57.524)
you know, let's go for coffee. And she would meet with these women and just talk through life. And so, yeah, like for me, it was such a big thing to go, who can I give this away to? And it allowed them to thrive in their skillset and allowed me to thrive in my skillset.
Rob Chartrand (42:09.929)
Mm. Mm.
Rob Chartrand (42:18.777)
Yeah, totally. So, Jett, if you could go back and talk to your 1997 year old self and give yourself some advice, what would you tell yourself?
Chet Kennedy (42:30.003)
Yeah, I think that, I mean, that last piece, first of all, I'd say read more books. Second, I would say find those people whose lives will be enriched by doing those things that ultimately destroy your passion, right? Find those people because they will love what they're doing because you gave it to them, right? And so often we see
Rob Chartrand (42:37.401)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (42:50.841)
Hmm.
Chet Kennedy (42:59.698)
what we do or what we're asking people to do is painful, but in reality it's life -changing for them. So I'd say find more people, not just because you need them, but because it actually helps change their lives. And just kind of get that in your head. As a young adult youth pastor, find the people. The other thing I would say is like,
Rob Chartrand (43:27.417)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (43:29.298)
Things started to change for me at Bula when I aimed 35 and older, even though I wasn't. But when I found youth leaders who were 35 and older and like partnered them with young adults, the change was monumental because there was that maturity and that energy. Once that got together, it was so much easier. You know, you're dealing with a little less chaos.
Rob Chartrand (43:38.457)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (43:50.585)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (43:58.865)
And you know what, some of the 35 year old women had more understanding, right, for, yeah, we get it, but don't do that. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (43:59.001)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (44:11.993)
Well, they're probably past that young infant toddler stage too with their own families. So they have more, yeah, they don't have that compulsion to have to be fully engaged at home as much.
Chet Kennedy (44:16.912)
coldly.
Chet Kennedy (44:23.376)
Yeah, and it brings in that multi -generational peach that so many students don't have, right? And so if you don't have access to a grandma or a grandpa, there's that older youth leader who kind of feels that, yeah, you're an auntie, yep.
Rob Chartrand (44:38.041)
Yeah, your auntie. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, talk to me about ministry fail. You ever have any ministry fails? Got some stories to share with our listeners?
Chet Kennedy (44:48.176)
Yeah, I am This one like the problem is there's some legends now and I've heard that the legends have gone on way too long But I did this I Did this food fight night and I did it because Josh Thompson who is in our youth leadership Group he was in high school at the time. He always came up with these frustratingly
Rob Chartrand (44:58.681)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (45:16.176)
really complicated and complex ideas, which I knew would be amazing, but I didn't want to put them on. But he came up with this idea for a food fight night. And so then I spent two, maybe three days covering our gym at Bula. You remember that tiny gym that we had? It was about the size of a volleyball court. Yeah. And I hung like plastic sheeting from the roof and then
Rob Chartrand (45:33.977)
Yeah, yeah, which they've converted. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (45:45.049)
Okay.
Chet Kennedy (45:45.806)
all the way down the walls and covered the floor in plastic. And then we had all this like, we made this oatmeal jello kind of mush. And our ministry, like our kitchen ministry basically took food that they were gonna throw out from different things they had done for like two weeks straight and like just kept it in a fridge for us. And my plan.
was that it would all stay in the gym. That was the plan. But what I didn't conceive in my brain was that the students would be covered from head to toe in this mush and food, and then they'd have to go down to a washroom. And they walked through the building and I had custodians like cursing my name, which is not that often, but in youth ministry,
Rob Chartrand (46:29.369)
through the building.
Chet Kennedy (46:41.613)
You dent a few drywall, you know, and you wreck it through a few things, but that was a monumental mess that we created throughout the building. Yeah, that was.
Rob Chartrand (46:53.721)
because he must have loved that. I seem to remember this for some reason. I don't know why it's in the back of my mind.
Chet Kennedy (46:57.645)
Well, like I said, it's probably legend at this point. You know, it seems bigger than it was. But yeah, and I just like that the end of the night, it probably took us three, four hours at the end of the night to just clean up from it. Right. And we did the best we could and we still got in trouble from the custodians, which is not that unusual.
Rob Chartrand (47:12.057)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (47:18.329)
I think it made its way up into like the executive team meetings. But, but I think I'm not saying like, I think I would have just said, that's awesome. Like, cause it's youth ministry, right? I'm like, epic. You know, if you, yeah, it's a little messy. Well, you know, you didn't lose your job. So that's good.
Chet Kennedy (47:22.253)
I'm sure it did, yeah.
Chet Kennedy (47:29.292)
Ha ha!
Right?
Chet Kennedy (47:38.283)
I did not lose my job. Yup. I do. I, this is way, way back in time. So once again, it's become legend, but we had a game. so Danny Taylor and I were actually, this is how old this story is, but we were shopping at a dollar store just prior to our youth retreat. And for some reason he was really excited about this little plastic donkey or I was.
Rob Chartrand (47:42.329)
All right, you got another one?
Chet Kennedy (48:07.531)
I had one of us and we bought this like $2 plastic donkey and all weekend long we're like, how are we going to use this donkey? Right? We had no idea. And then we came up with this game that we called, get your donkey back home. And we would put the donkey in the middle of the room and we would just, you know, we'd say grade seven, we'd number all these kids and then we'd say, okay, one and two.
Rob Chartrand (48:26.745)
I remember this.
Chet Kennedy (48:36.139)
get your donkey back home and these kids would run from different sides of the room and you know they'd pick up the donkey and they'd wrestle and somehow the donkey would make its way across the line everyone would cheer and for some reason we played this thing for years and years and years until a grade 12 girl lacerated her kidney as a result of this game and we were out at Count Nakamen we had to
Ryan Tuck had to put her in a car and drive her to a hospital the whole time, like, phoning the parents saying, you've got to meet me here. Like, we've had an injury. And so that game got shelved. And I would say to anyone out there, don't play that game.
Rob Chartrand (49:26.425)
Well, and just to be clear, when you said get your donkey back home, you said donkey, but there's a double meaning there that, yeah. People think about it. Think about it hard enough. It'll come to you. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (49:34.696)
Yep, we'll leave it at that. You'll get it. Yep, the game had a different name at the retreat, I guess we could say that.
Rob Chartrand (49:42.521)
man.
Yeah. Yeah. And you probably can't, yeah, there's things that you just can't do now, right? I mean, that's, yeah. Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (49:50.664)
Right? Yeah. that's for sure. There's, man, there is a lot of things that I probably used to say while preaching to teenagers that like Denise Lang used to edit me. Sherry Latz always edited me. And even at my current role, Morgan Clark, who is a brilliant young youth pastor and Paige Flewelling, both of them edit me on, you know, you probably can't say that anymore.
Rob Chartrand (50:00.889)
Yeah.
Chet Kennedy (50:20.68)
wow. Okay. I am. It's terrible. Yeah. So offensive. So yeah, I'm, I'm growing and learning. Yep.
Rob Chartrand (50:22.809)
So you're like the old grandpa sitting in his rocking chair, spouting off things that is like, dad, that is so offensive. Yeah. But you have more discernment.
Yeah. Well, Chad, this has been Rich. I wondered if you could share a final word of encouragement with our listeners as we finish off today.
Chet Kennedy (50:47.079)
Sure, yeah. Youth ministry, in fact any kind of ministry to the next generation is absolutely vital for the ongoing health of the church. You've heard it said that youth are the church of tomorrow, but I believe that unless youth are active and involved in the church of today, there will be no church of tomorrow. And so that's why, you know, God called me into ministry to young people.
at you heard at like 13, 14 years old. And he still has not released me. And so I still put my heart and soul into building up the next generation for the sake of Jesus church and for the sake of the gospel.
Rob Chartrand (51:37.769)
Amen. Well, chat, we'll have to check in with you down the road, see how things are going in the new role. Thanks, sir, joining us today on Church in the North.
Chet Kennedy (51:47.014)
Perfect. Thank you so much, Rob. It was better than all of our one -on -one meetings.
Rob Chartrand (51:49.433)
All right. Yeah. Stay safe, brother. All right. See you later.