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What if starting a youth ministry from scratch wasn’t a disadvantage?

What if it actually gave you an opportunity to strip away everything unnecessary and ask one foundational question:

How do we make disciples of teenagers?

On this episode of Beyond the Youth Room, Keith and Ryne sat down with Brandon Hembree, a former youth pastor turned church planter who also serves on the board of Generation Unashamed Ministries. After ten years in youth ministry and helping plant and multiply churches in Northern Virginia, Brandon has seen ministry from both sides.

His experience has convinced him of something important: youth pastors and church planters have far more in common than we might think.

And youth ministry may become healthier when we learn to think a little more like church planters.

Start With the Mission, Not the Program

Brandon spent ten years as a youth pastor before becoming a church planter. Looking back, he says one of the biggest lessons he has learned is that ministry is ministry.

The strategy may change depending on whether you are reaching 5-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 55-year-olds, or 75-year-olds. But the mission does not.

The Great Commission is still the Great Commission.

That means the first question for a youth ministry shouldn’t be:

What should our Wednesday night program look like?

It should be:

How are we going to make disciples of teenagers?

That distinction matters.

Church planters don’t begin with a crowd. They don’t necessarily begin with a building, a worship team, a budget, or even a Sunday morning service. Healthy church planting begins with the missionary task: sharing the gospel, making disciples, teaching those disciples to make other disciples, and watching multiplication happen.

Youth ministry can begin the same way.

Before worrying about lights, games, worship sets, curriculum, events, or the perfect youth room, find students. Build relationships with them. Share the gospel. Disciple them. Teach them to share the gospel with someone else.

The program can come later.

Be Slow to Program

One of Brandon’s strongest pieces of advice for anyone launching ministry in a church plant is simple:

Be really slow to program things.

That can feel uncomfortable, especially for those of us who have spent years in traditional youth ministry.

We tend to have a picture in our minds of what a “real” youth ministry looks like. There’s a designated meeting time, a cool room, games, worship, a message, small groups, events, and a calendar full of activities.

None of those things are inherently bad.

The problem comes when we mistake the structure for the mission.

When Brandon’s church began reaching teenagers, their youth ministry didn’t immediately look like a traditional youth group. Students gathered in a clubhouse. They played games. Leaders built relationships with them. They shared the gospel because many of the teenagers weren’t Christians yet.

It was simple.

But it was ministry.

When people asked when they were going to start a youth group, Brandon’s response was essentially: when we have a group of youth.

That’s a mindset worth recovering.

Instead of building the program and hoping students come to it, start reaching and discipling students. Then build whatever structure best serves the students God has actually placed in front of you.

Think Like a Church Planter

Church planting forces leaders to work without many of the things established ministries take for granted.

There may not be a building.

There may not be much money.

There may not be paid staff.

There may not be equipment, rooms, established systems, or decades of tradition.

At first, that can feel like a limitation.

But it can also become an incredible advantage.

Brandon described a good church planter as someone who loves a blank whiteboard. Instead of being intimidated by the empty space, they see possibility.

Youth leaders can learn to do the same.

Rather than asking, How do I reproduce what another youth ministry is doing? ask:

What do the students God has placed around us actually need?

Contextualize your ministry to your community.

Maybe discipleship happens in a basement.

Maybe students meet at a coffee shop.

Maybe your first “youth group” consists of three teenagers sitting around a kitchen table with an adult opening Scripture with them.

Small does not mean insignificant.

At one point, Brandon’s church unexpectedly lost access to its meeting space because of mold. While Brandon worried about where the church would meet, his young son reminded him of something he had heard his dad teach repeatedly: the church isn’t a building.

His son pointed to their house and essentially said, We do have buildings. We have our house. Other people have houses too.

Sometimes children understand our theology better than we do.

Your ministry may not have everything you want. But look again at what God has already put in your hands.

Don’t Confuse Frustrations With Limitations

Church plants face plenty of frustrations: lack of space, lack of money, lack of volunteers, and people who expect the new ministry to look exactly like the church they came from.

Youth ministries face many of the same challenges.

But Brandon made an important distinction:

Frustrations are not necessarily limitations.

You may not have the money for a massive event.

That doesn’t prevent you from discipling teenagers.

You may not have a dedicated youth room.

That doesn’t prevent you from sharing the gospel.

You may not have a paid youth pastor.

That doesn’t prevent you from identifying and developing an adult who loves students and is willing to be equipped.

An event-driven ministry can be effective, but events are not the only way to minister.

Sometimes having fewer resources forces us to rediscover the resources that matter most: the gospel, relationships, hospitality, homes, ordinary believers, and a willingness to make disciples.

Raise Up Leaders Instead of Waiting for Them

One of the realities of church planting is that you often cannot simply hire your way out of a leadership need.

Church plants rarely have the resources to launch a national search, hire the perfect candidate, and hand that person a fully funded ministry.

Instead, church planters learn to look around and ask:

Who has God already put here?

Brandon believes the future youth leader of a church plant may already be part of the church. The job of the church planter is to identify that person, invest in them, develop their character, equip them, and give them opportunities to lead.

That principle applies to established youth ministries too.

What if we stopped viewing volunteer recruitment primarily as filling holes on a schedule and started viewing it as raising up leaders for the mission of God?

The person checking students in today might lead a small group tomorrow.

The small-group leader you are discipling today may become a youth pastor.

The teenager you are equipping today may become a missionary, pastor, church planter, or lifelong disciple-maker.

Healthy ministry is always looking for the next person to develop.

Youth Pastors Can Make Great Church Planters

Brandon also believes youth ministry can be excellent preparation for church planting.

Think about everything a healthy youth pastor learns to do.

A youth pastor shares the gospel, makes disciples, preaches regularly, develops leaders, recruits volunteers, organizes small groups, plans worship gatherings, baptizes new believers, builds teams, casts vision, and eventually has to multiply leadership because every student will eventually graduate.

Those are many of the same muscles a church planter needs.

But Brandon offered an important warning: check your motives.

Church planting is not the solution to frustration with your current church.

If you want to plant because you believe you could run things better, because you are frustrated with your senior pastor, because you feel overlooked, or because you want more authority, becoming the senior leader will not solve those problems.

A call to church planting should be accompanied by a genuine sense of God's calling, circumstances that affirm that direction, and affirmation from the local church.

If you believe God may be calling you from youth ministry into church planting, don’t secretly turn your youth group into your church-planting practice field.

Talk to your senior pastor.

Invite your church into the discernment process.

Seek affirmation.

Let other mature believers help you determine whether this is really where God is leading.

What If Every Youth Ministry Thought Like a Church Plant?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the conversation isn’t just for youth pastors serving in church plants.

It’s for all of us.

What if every youth ministry thought more like a church plant?

Even if you have hundreds of students.

Even if you have a beautiful youth facility.

Even if you have a large budget, full staff, worship band, elaborate programming, and an established ministry calendar.

Keep asking the missionary question:

Are we actually making disciples?

Not simply:

How many students attended?

But:

How many students are hearing the gospel?

Who is following Jesus because of this ministry?

Who is being discipled?

Who is learning to share the gospel?

Who is making another disciple?

Who are we raising up to lead?

A full room can be exciting. But filling a room and fulfilling the Great Commission are not necessarily the same thing.

The goal isn't simply to add more teenagers to a program.

The goal is to make disciples who make disciples.

When Ministry Feels Small, Stay Faithful

For the youth leader who has been working for years and still only has a handful of students, Brandon offered perhaps the most important encouragement of the entire conversation:

Don’t quit simply because the ministry doesn't look successful yet.

Ministry can be painfully difficult to measure.

A family leaves.

A budget gets cut.

A senior pastor transitions.

Momentum disappears.

The ministry you thought was finally growing suddenly feels like it is starting over.

But visible size is not the same thing as faithfulness.

If you spend five or ten years consistently sharing the gospel, discipling the people God gives you, casting vision, taking steps of faith, and sowing gospel seeds—and the ministry never becomes as large as you imagined—that does not make those years a failure.

God does not measure ministry the way we often do.

Success isn't necessarily a certain attendance number, budget, building, or social media following.

Faithfulness matters.

So examine your heart. Guard your character. Abide in Jesus. Share the gospel. Make disciples. Develop leaders.

And stay in the game.

Because the next generation doesn't simply need better youth programs.

They need faithful disciple-makers who refuse to quit.