Part of the Glue

I was recently introduced to FBML by a friend of mine.  Basically FBML (Facebook Mark Up Language) allows you to drop HTML into your facebook page.  This is useful in creating facebook pages that look like a website and less like a typical facebook wall.  I created one for a ministry called c2 we are doing with our student ministry.  Doing so allows you the ability to get the look of a website with the community that facebook offers.  I think in the future I will be developing alot more facebook pages this way with the plan to abandon micro-sites that were once so hot.

Here are the steps I used to create the page:
1. Create a facebook page
2. Get 25 fans
2. Once you have 25 fans go to facebook.com/username and change the url so that your page has an actual url you can advertise
4. Search fbml and click add fbml to my page
5. Develop your html document in dreamweaver or another web development program
6. Upload any images you are using to outside service such as flickr or a web server
7. Replace the path of the images with the outside path you created
8. Go into your code and copy from table to table (the max width is 790)
9. Go to your facebook page and edit the page
10. Edit the fbml and past the code in there
11. Once your code is pasted you can go to your wall settings and make that fbml page be your landing page if you so desire

I posted about this earlier here.  In January our student ministry embarked on a reality tv show format for a four week series we called True LYF.  You can see all the videos on the facebook fan page we created.  Four four different weeks we followed various students in our ministry and challenged them to do various spiritual disciplines such as (bible reading, prayer, scripture memory and fasting).  The idea was to expose these disciplines to students in a fun and thoughtful way that was similar to that of the show “The Biggest Loser.”

Below is the promo video we created for the series.

True LYF Promo from LYF on Vimeo.

Here is a fact for you, there are students and adults in your church who will never sign up to volunteer in your ministry.  Here is another fact for you, some of these people would love to volunteer if you just ask them.

Sometimes we are afraid to ask people to volunteer their time who have not sought us out, when in fact we should see this as an opportunity for them to really serve in the Kingdom of God.  Occasionally I will find a student or adult who is really into film-making but isn’t using their gifts in the church.  I then call them up and ask them if they would consider using their talents to benefit the church.  Most of the time they are interested and sometimes these volunteers turn out to be the best volunteers.  We can’t be afraid of asking people to volunteer their time because of what we are asking for.  What we are asking them to be apart of is kingdom stuff.  This is the kind of stuff where people can really be used by God in tremendous ways.

Think of some key people in your church that you believe could really help in the needed areas of your ministry.  Don’t cross them off your list too quickly if they are already committed to other parts of the church or you feel that they wouldn’t be interested because your area of ministry is not important enough.  You’d be surprised at how many people will actually say yes if you ask them to be apart of Kingdom work.

I can remember when I was in middle school desperately wanting to be done with being a teenager and hoping to someday be an adult with real responsibilities.  Fortunately I was able to find some outlets as a teenager working various jobs and volunteering in my youth ministry where I was challenged to take ownership.  For me this was exciting, finally getting to a point in life where I was taken somewhat seriously and was able to do something where other people depended on me.

I believe students today feel this same way.  Many of them are anxiously waiting for opportunities where they can be independent and carry out certain adult-like roles.  While this can be a good/positive thing, it can sometimes backfire if handed off too prematurely.

Recently we held a meeting with some of our various student teams where one of our leaders challenged the students to take ownership and iniating start within their teams.  It was cool to see the wheels turn as various students would come to me with ideas they wanted to do or come into our office on a monday ready to volunteer.  The words “student ownership” spoke their language and ignited a desire to step out and do something.  When we speak the language of students, we open doors for creativity and possibilities for them to lead in new and real ways.

Are you letting students in your ministry take ownership?

When the internet (web 2.0) first started to get big, we created websites and people went to them to get information. It was simple. Now that the internet is less about information and more about communication (web 3.0) the struggle to get information out there amidst the communication phenom-on is becoming increasingly difficult. Websites that used to hold valuable information are slowly becoming age-old dinosaurs while social networks such as facebook are now the number one visited website surpassing even google. While this is not a huge problem to loose sleep over, one way you can bring people to your website is to tease them through social media channels such as facebook and twitter.

One thing I try to do on a daily basis is to post something from our youth website onto our facebook fan page by copying the link and writing a short description.  The facebook fan page then automatically sends that information to our twitter feed via the facebook/twitter link.  Doing this on a regular basis reminds the students and parents in our ministry that yes we do have a website and there is important/valuable information for them on there.