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How do we maintain spiritual, emotional, and relational health during our most demanding seasons?

Lane Moss, Director of MOVE at Christ in Youth, opens up about the real challenges of summer ministry life when routines are regularly disrupted by constant travel. Lane draws an important distinction between routines (which often crumble under pressure) and rhythms (which can sustain us regardless of circumstances).

"Bible before phone" becomes more than just a catchy phrase—it represents a portable spiritual anchor that works whether you're at home in your favorite chair or rushing between event venues. Lane shares practical wisdom about how to maintain connection with God when ideal circumstances aren't possible, including setting daily alarms as spiritual check-in points.

The conversation takes a particularly meaningful turn when discussing family relationships during travel-intensive seasons. Lane reveals that maintaining connection with his wife and children requires intentional strategies like brief phone calls during campus walks and personalized touchpoints with each child. Most refreshingly, he admits these approaches didn't emerge naturally but through difficult conversations—sometimes arguments—that ultimately strengthened his family's resilience.

Perhaps most valuable is Lane's perspective on authenticity in ministry leadership. "Nobody is served when we pretend to have it all together," he observes, noting how such pretense creates impossible standards for others while diminishing the visible work of Christ in our lives. This summer, as you navigate your own ministry challenges, may these insights help you maintain rhythms that sustain rather than deplete you.

What rhythms have helped you stay grounded during intense ministry seasons? Share your experiences in the CIY Community Facebook group, and join us when we return with new episodes in August.

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BTE4.17 Maintaining Work-Life Balance During the Summer with Lane Moss

Maintaining Work-Life Balance During the Summer with Lane Moss

I think there might be like spare parts or something in those bags.

Yeah, it's spare bits and bobs Spare bits and bobs. And herbs Spare, herbs Spare herbs.

We gotta grow more herbs. What kind of guy was he? Chiropractor. That actually was a sufficient answer. Normally, just saying what somebody's occupation was to the question what kind of guy was he is not sufficient, but chiropractor actually tells you a lot. It tells you a lot. Oh my goodness, what kind of guy was he Chiropractor?

actually tells you a lot. It tells you a lot. Oh my heavens.

And he was like a chiropractor. So, okay, the two different chiropractors that I conjure in my mind immediately are the current chiropractor that I've seen most recently, yeah, who is like this young kind of charismatic. He just kind of strikes you as like a Mormon influencer, you know kind of guy.

Yeah, right. And then the other one was a guy in Muskogee and he did all of his chiropractor work wearing jeans, with a tucked in black t-shirt a NASCAR t-shirt. It was a big NASCAR guy. That's her. It was NASCAR pictures all over the world. What was your grandfather closest to NASCAR t-shirt? He was a big NASCAR guy. That's her. There was NASCAR pictures all over the wall. What?

was your grandfather closest to, I mean the NASCAR. Yeah, not that he was a huge NASCAR guy, but he definitely was more of a mechanical thinker. Yeah, apparently I don't know if this is true, but I don't think my mom is a liar.

Brad has met my mom two or three times not a liar. Apparently my grandpa invented his own like odometer, before odometers were like put into cars.

Really to tell him how far he's driven? Yeah, but he like he just never like got a.

Before odometers were like put into cars Really To tell him how far he's driven, yeah, but he like, he just never like got a like he just didn't have any of the right connections, I guess, or had any, like he didn't try to patent it or anything. So Dang, imagine, how, imagine the money I could have come from.

Yeah, imagine Michael's generational wealth, the generational wealth of of being the heir to the odometer empire.

And instead I'm driving around missing a bumper.

The heir to the odometer empire is crazy because it's just like Tommy boy. Can you imagine Tommy boy?

Yeah, hi, I'm Brad Warren. This is Beyond the Event, a youth ministry podcast presented by Christ in Youth, where we help you maintain momentum between the mountaintops, and those mountaintops are getting very, very, very, very close. And this is our last episode of this season of the podcast. We're going to talk a little bit about summer and what life looks like when we're doing all kinds of crazy things and running all over the place, and my guest today to talk through that, among other things, is none other than the director of Move, lane Moss Lane.

Welcome back, brad it is such a delight every time I get to hang out with you and do this. Thanks for having me. That's so kind. Well, I'm in every word of it. That's really nice.

Lane, it's like almost summer. Yeah, we have some crazy stuff going on. Tomorrow is deadline day, so everything has to be done. Michael just gagged. Yeah, yeah.

I didn't gag, but I do have a cough. I think that's the reason why, otherwise, I definitely would have. So if you hear me cough. It's a guarantee almost at this point and I'm not going to try and hide it.

I'm pumped, I am too, I am too. Yeah, no, I I text Kelly, uh, a couple of weeks ago, and said I'm sorry, kelly's my wife. I know, yeah, my wonderful, wonderful wife Kelly. She's great, she is absolutely wonderful. And I texted her a couple of weeks ago and just said okay, I'm excited for the summer and I'm always excited for aspects of the summer. Sure, but to get excited to go do it like to, you know, there are long days and they're like weeks away from home and there are all of these other things, and that you know. I don't spend all year ready for that, necessarily, you know. But there, but there comes a time every year when you get there and that hit just a couple of weeks ago and I'm very excited about it.

Yeah, um, what are the aspects that you're excited for?

Curious, like that I'm always excited for that.

I'm recently this summer that you're like, I'm pumped to try this, pumped to do this.

Well, I mean specifically what I was referring to whenever I texted. Kelly was just like I'm just excited to go travel with the teams and to execute the event that we've been planning in adult leader meetings. We were talking at lunch today. I'm excited about adult leader meetings.

I love them. I love adult leader meetings. I do too. My favorite time of every move is the 15 minutes after adult leader meeting.

I love. It's just the best. I'm excited for adult leader meetings. I'm excited for our post session team meetings where we talk about, we celebrate things with one another, pray about things with one another, we pray. We spend that time praying for youth groups that are out in their youth group times and I love praying for youth groups that are out in their youth group times and I love praying about this.

There's something actually that's really special about praying for people and knowing that in that moment you're coming alongside them in ministry but you're not there and like you're not necessarily seeing it happen, but you know that you are, because what we believe to be true about prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, you are, you know, you are partnering with them in that ministry. There's something really powerful about that, um. So I love, I love doing that. I love watching students respond and just watching youth pastors and adult leaders hang with their students, when you know, when they don't know, anybody's watching them, you know, and we can just kind of creep on them and look at them just being really good, good friends and good mentors and good leaders. It's just, I just love it. I'm excited about it.

I'm excited to um get to go to a couple of moves this summer. You're doing a bunch. Uh, where are you going to be here, like where are you going to?

be. I'm going to be here in Joplin. I'm going to be in Flagstaff. I'm going to be in Ohio. Um, I'm going to be in California. I'm going to be in Florida. I'm going to be in Oregon. I'm going to be in Ireland.

Uh, can you settle this right now here on this podcast?

Good, glad to know that, Um, I've never gotten to do move in California. Um, I'm an East coast boy, you know, but we are having an open move event in Florida for the first time since a long time ago.

a long time ago, seven, eight, something like that Nine long years ago. And as a Florida person myself, I am just so pumped about that event Same so pumped to go to a move in Florida and sweat through my clothes Absolutely Before 8.30 am. Oh man, have to drink 19 bottles of water a day in order to stay hydrated. That's right, send out an emergency text. Blast about an alligator on campus, sunshine State. I can't wait. I quite literally cannot wait.

I'm so excited I'll't wait. I quite literally cannot wait. I'm so excited. I'll never forget, like I mean, those Florida events, loading out at some of those we used to do them in, like you know, panama City Beach and Destin, and loading out into our truck in the afternoon and taking out cardboard boxes of merch and of, you know, cards or prayer cards or whatever we have, and the cardboard boxes literally just disintegrating on the way to the truck because of the humidity, because they're just soaked. It's awesome.

Florida isn't for everybody, but it is for me.

Oh, and there's so much momentum behind that event right now. It's going to be great.

Yeah, the first. Well, we were talking about this at lunch too. Just the amount of growth that Move is seeing right now is kind of insane. And I don't want to sit here and talk about numbers for the sake of numbers, because that's not why we do anything but the fact that we opened up a move event in Florida. So we have five events at Lee university every summer and those events last year were full. Yep, five events. If you wanted to go to Lee university, you could not go, could not. And a lot of churches come up from Florida to go to those Lee events. We're like, okay, sweet, let's put a move event in Florida. Make it a little bit more accessible for those guys. We'll open up some space up at Lee, create some more, uh, some more, some more opportunity for for churches that want to go to Lee. First year sold out, move Florida Sold out. You cannot go right, which is crazy. Yep, and we do have a little bit of space left at tennessee, but those spots have kind of like filled back up. Yep, I don't know it's, it's, it's hard because it's like I want to be excited about the events being full, but also oh yeah, it's, I want to have places for people to go, you know absolutely, and I know

churches feel that and we're working so hard on that. I and we're working so hard on that. I know we're working so hard on making sure that we continue to open up more and more space for people to come in. You know, if, if, uh, if a church of a youth leader, you know, and if parents, if they deem fit to allow us to, to partner with them in ministry and to entrust that part of their ministry to us, then we want to make sure that there's that there's room for everybody to be able to do that, and so, yeah, we're working hard on it.

Oh, okay. So every summer, um, I, I, I want to ask you this too, michael every summer we travel a lot during the summers, yep, and a little bit later in this conversation we're going to talk about like work-life balance during the summer. That's something that's hard for us, it's hard for youth pastors, it's hard for everybody, and we're going to talk about how to how to kind of navigate that. But during the summer, there are always a couple of weeks sprinkled in there that we have off. Right. You might travel a couple of weeks, make another stop, and then you get to come home for five days and then you hit the road again. What is your favorite thing to do during your time at home, during your breaks at home?

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