Say More

I am so excited to get the chance to catch up with you and tell you where we've been over the last year. I can, and I can't believe that it was a year ago that it was the first time that I had shared we were kind of thinking about calling this new thing KNOWN. ​

Well, we've done a lot of validating since then. We've had over 40 straight hours of listening to internal stakeholders, staff, volunteers, committee donors.

We've done surveys of our staff all around the world. We have written a lot of words... some of which we really liked, some of which we threw away very quickly. ​

But we also have worked on new logos, new colors, all the different things. And I sort of buried the lead. You saw the mark there, but we'll get into some of that. ​

But above all, we're ready.

We have come to a spot, and you'll hear from the rest of the team today as they share where the Lord has led them through their strategy work and much of the work that is already being done already. But I am so, so dang excited for you to get caught up on all the goodness here. ​

So, I'm going to fly through some things. We're going to go to campaigners. ​

So, if you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Luke chapter five for a minute today. And I'm going to go all the way from in our Bible to go to market strategy. So, we're going to go fast and furious. ​

The first thing I would say about KNOWN is that it is more than a catchy brand or a motivating concept. It is that,​ but it's more than that. ​

It's actually founded on Kingdom principles and patterned after the way of Jesus and the ways He cared for those near Him, called them into ministry and then called and created radical communities.

In fact, we see in scripture that KNOWN this concept of KNOWN is even in the early pages of Genesis, we see as God creates the cosmos, the heavens and the earth. We see Him say it is good. And after He creates humans, He takes a step back and he goes, it is very good. ​

We only see one time that He actually says it's not so good. And that's when He realizes people---well, He knew... He didn't realize. He knew it from the start. People cannot be by themselves. ​

We are meant to know and be known by our Creator and by each other.

And so KNOWN is rooted in creation itself, and it's our vision of how will share the gospel with this next generation and this next chapter of Young Life. And as we focus group this, as we talked more and more about KNOWN, it came back time and time again that KNOWN, there's just something there. It's intangible, which makes it so beautiful

And so KNOWN speaks to our human need. And as any good marketer would do, we had to understand the humans we were going to be talking to. And so, we dug in and tried to understand more about our two key areas, our two key audiences: our kids and our staff and our volunteers. ​

And so, as we looked at young people, we found a couple things. I shared some of them at our last board meeting, just the reality of what this generation faces. The truth is, is that there is a relational breakdown among young people, between peers, with adults, away from God and even brokenness in the way they see themselves. ​

Kids are lonely, isolated, disinterested, and in need of caring adults who will point them to Jesus.

And I would say, again, as people might call this a crisis in Young Life, we see a resurgence. We see so much hope and so much joy and so much value in young people. ​

Some would run away from that. And we're running in. ​

Secondly, we look at our staff and our volunteers in 2022. Our staff and our volunteers are encountering things that they hadn't had to encounter yet before. And so, we know that our world is experiencing continual disruption. And so, our staff and volunteers need a community where they are known, experienced belonging and are equipped as ministers of the gospel, so that they can bring the hope of Jesus to a rapidly changing world. ​

And so that is to say that over the last 80 years we've done some real good things.
We're not going to change that, but we have to be open. ​

And as we'll hear some more of the strategy work and some more of the tactics that we'll employ, we have to be open to responding to what this world requires of a mission like ours. ​

And we know that our staff have to be in place where they have community, they experience belonging and are equipped to do the task that God has called them to do. And so how will we do this? Well, there's three ways that we need to do this, and​ they're all tied to how Jesus works. ​

And so, if you have your Bible, we're going to campaigners. I told you chapter five, Luke chapter five, and I've actually asked Arthur to read it. ​

Luke 5:1-11

Reading from the good news translation starting in verse one. “One day, Jesus was standing on the shore of Lake Genesaret while the people pushed their way up to him to listen to the word of God. He saw two boats pulled up on the beach, the fishermen had left them and were washing the nets. Jesus got into one of the boats, it belonged to Simon and asked him to push off a little from the shore. ​

Jesus sat in the boat and taught the crowd. When He finished speaking, He said to Simon, pushed the boat out further to the deep water and you and your partners let down your nets for a catch master. Simon answered, ‘We worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will let down the nets.’

They let them down and caught such a large number of fish that the nets were about to break. So, they motioned to their partners and the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so full of fish that the boats were about to sink. ​

When Simon Peter saw what had happened, he fell on his knees before Jesus and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.’ ​

He and the others with him were all amazed that the large number of fish they had caught. The same was true of Simon's partners, James and John, the sons of Ebdi. ​

Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don't be afraid. From now on you, you'll be catching people.’ They pulled the boats up on the beach, left everything and followed Jesus.

Thank you. So here we see in Luke five this beautiful example where Jesus is teaching people. Peter does what He says, despite having done the same behavior, just hours before all night long and what happens? The nets are strained to breaking with fish. ​

And so, we see in this example how Jesus first cares for His people. We see how He sees them and meets their needs.​ And similarly, as we look at the KNOWN vision, the first work to do is to care for our people, care for our growing and our diverse staff to increase their capacity and their impact. ​

Now, secondly, we see further on Jesus says, ‘From now on you'll be catching people.’

And so, in this we see that the call and the equipping are not separated. ​

The disciples become equipped through the calling which is exactly how Young Life has always done it. We call volunteers who make disciples and then, we equip them to reach and teach young people in harmony with the movement that God is already doing.

Finally, we see this community that Jesus creates all through the gospels. We see as He invites more and more disciples, and He creates this new community, a zealot who wanted nothing more than to violently overthrow the Roman rule and a tax collector who wanted to just sign up.

We see Him reach out and care for and love and elevate women from all stations of life. And Jesus' actions go on to radically redraw the boundaries of culture. ​

And so, for Young Life, we want to do the same thing. ​

We want to bring communities of young people and disciple makers around Jesus. And in the process, we reflect this wide welcoming and transformative truth, the gospel.

Well, Lauren here still interrupting myself to help translate some of what you just heard, which was things I presented to the board. That was in November of 2022. But to more so translate some of that to a leader at Young Life. ​

So, a couple things that I really want to highlight specific to what KNOWN is. So, in a nutshell, the work that we have ahead of us, and you'll hear more and more about the specific strategies and the tactics that we'll use to accomplish KNOWN. ​

But in essence, what we're doing is we are knowing and making known. We are knowing kids, knowing our Lord, making Him known more and more.​ And so, if that's our headline that's what KNOWN is. I also want to talk a little bit about the logo. So as you might imagine, we have had several different passes, several different iterations of the logo.

What you see today, which you've seen it in a couple different places, is really something that I think encompasses really beautifully. The duality of the term known now as a marketer, as a communicator KNOWN is intangible, which can make it sort of frustrating, but it also I think is what makes it so beautiful. ​

And so, we have this KNOWN logo that it really gives nod, it's younger, it's a little bit more vibrant. It gives us room to grow over the next several years into 2030. So, we can kind of spin up things and take things down. ​

Right now, it's in mostly this kind of black and white format, but what it really does, and maybe you've noticed this already, but it sort of gives nod to a name tag, which again comes back to this idea, this core fundamental, it's a metric, yes, but it also is who we are as Young Life.

We know kids by name. It's what makes us different. ​

It's what makes our ministry so relational and so beautiful as we know kids. ​

And so, we go from a kid who maybe is unknown, maybe who feels like they don't have a place, and because a Young Life leader knows them by name and can ultimately point them to their creator, that kid has a name. We know that kid by name. ​

And that really means something in a world where maybe kids are dismissed, not maybe in a world where kids are oftentimes dismissed as a Young Life staff person who is on mission and moving forward in this next season of Young Life, we know kids by name and that really means something. ​

And right now, yes, I'm talking a lot about the English translation of that, but I think this is one of the cool things about the moment that we are right now as a mission is we are thinking much broader than how this translates into English.

And you've seen a couple examples of how this is slowly starting to be translated and thought about in some of the other languages where we have ministry. So again, this kind of handwriting logo, this name tag type logo is something that we really believe and have shopped around enough to know that we really believe it has sticking power and has sort of the opportunity to carry a little bit deeper of a message regardless of language. ​

So, what does this look like to take known to market, so to speak, both internally and externally? Well, we know that the first two years of our launch is really going to be focused on three core internal audiences. First, sort of this idea of we've got to get our own house in order before we're able to take something more broadly to an external audience, if that is to be the case in the next two or three years.

So those three audiences are our staff, our volunteers and our donors. ​

And through the informing, equipping, engaging of these audiences early, we really believe that we are going to set the groundwork of moving together as one global Young Life through the entirety of KNOWN until 2030. ​

Again, sort of this opportunity to do something that we haven't done before. ​

Walking together as one Young Life on mission, on purpose altogether. ​

Now maybe it goes without saying, but our first and primary audience is our staff around the world. I think if we miss them, we miss it all. It is so critical, especially early on, that our staff understands when they see and experience and learn more about KNOWN that they can see what is theirs to own and what is theirs to receive. ​

I think it's so critical that we start first with them and how will we do it? ​

What are the stories that we'll tell? ​

Well, no surprise, we will tell them stories about what it looks like to care for them. To care for them. Is a growing and diverse team helping increase their ministry cap capability and their leadership capacity as ministers of the gospel. ​

We're going to tell stories about calling, about calling and equipping and sending disciples who make disciples and harmony with God's movement around the globe. ​

And finally, we will tell stories of creating mission communities of belonging, where we reflect the wide, welcoming and transformative gospel. ​

So, those are three areas that we'll be able to kind of focus some of the stories we tell, some of the ways that we encourage and engage our staff but that's not all. ​

There's more to come and there's more opportunities. And that's where we really need leaders to be coming alongside of my team to help us really determine what are the best messages and when are the best messages... when are the best messages? Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

So, we have a roadmap and this roadmap, this plan over the next, we're just going to focus on the next six months, we'll say April of 2023. We're really focused on just building the initial drumbeat of understanding of what KNOWN is. ​

And in order to do that well, it comes from both sides. ​

It's helping to tell the larger story, the broader story, but also to help equip and enable our leaders to tell the more detailed story of what it means in their own divisions, regions, and areas. ​

And so, what we're doing right now is we're just sharing some general awareness with SLC. We'll have time when we're together in Ethiopia to really dialogue, to hear what's missing, what needs to be adapted, what pieces do we need to ensure that we don't miss when communicating larger to kind of the next group, that GLC audience.

And then we'll do the same process again communicating with GLC to help them feel like they have what they need to go to their vocal area staff to inform them about what KNOWN is and what KNOWN is not. ​

And so, as you hear more from the field leaders and the other functional leaders about their plans around known... would you be thinking about what are some of the important stories or the important things that really need to be underscored or clarified? So that when we go and tell some of the other groups around the mission, there's some clarity in that.

I want to highlight one area that a lot of this is new. I mean, the fact that I'm talking to you on a podcast that's fairly new. I'd say a lot, lot of this is new. We're doing a lot of experimentation. We really want to take this opportunity to communicate well what KNOWN is. And like I said, what KNOWN is not. ​

So we're really marching for and towards this idea of an April event, which is an all-staff digital event where we have the opportunity to all get on the same page again, one global Young Life. ​

So that regardless of where you sit in the me, the mission, we have sort of a general understanding of what we're doing, what's happening around the world. And so that's really what we're marching towards. ​

But again,​ really helping to equip our leaders, so that when messages come from the Service Center for the communications team, that it's not out of the blue, it's, it's been kind of well set up. There's been a drumbeat to lead us up into that point. ​

So that's really the heart behind it that we're able to really help at a very local area and help our leaders feel like they have what they need to communicate well to their teams, but also to support our leaders with some other messaging that's really broad that just reinforces what's happening at an area level.

So that's sort of the intent. Again, when we're together in Ethiopia, this is going to be a big piece of what we're able to talk about and discuss further to make sure that we don't miss anything. ​

I would close by saying this, and I know we've talked a lot about other people and other things, but ​

I really do believe that the vision of KNOWN is for the entire global Young Life family. ​

Those who are part of it today were yesterday or will be soon. And so therefore, this vision certainly includes you.​ And so, I would invite you to explore what the Lord might have for you in this season. Perhaps as we read Jesus' words and we see the examples of how he cared for his people, how he called people into ministry and created radical community. ​

Maybe you're inspired, maybe you're inspired to do the same. As you hear more about the needs of young people today, is your heart stirred in fresh ways? ​

I would invite you, especially in these early days of KNOWN to seek the Lord and to allow Him to use all of us in knowing kids and making his name known. ​

And so for a woman of many words, there are no words, actually, to describe how grateful I am for this work that the Lord has in front of us. Not just the work, but really the opportunity that we have to get to do this work alongside of each other. That's the part I'm excited for.

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