Every third Wednesday of September See You At The Pole takes place at campuses around the nation. This is a great opportunity for not only students to pray for their schools, but for churches to encourage students to see their schools and friends as their mission field. Below is a video we shot at a local school for syatp this year. We weren’t pleased with the videos syatp offered and decided to make our own.
Recently we launched a new website or micro-site called whatisyourproblem.tv. The idea came to us when a couple of our students were creating videos on facebook and were really getting some attention. We got to thinking that maybe there is some stock in their idea and maybe the church or in our case the youth ministry could support their efforts and help them produce the show at a higher level. We spent the last several months figuring out details and this past month we have been developing different episodes and creating the website. The website was actually fairly easy to create using a wordpress template from themeforest. Once we created the website, facebook fan page and youtube site we were ready to go. Creating fun sites like these can be great avenues for students to share with their non-christian friends as a vehicle to starting spiritual conversations, becoming familiar with a youth ministry and going to students instead of expecting them to come to us. This is still a pretty big experiment, however giving students opportunities to take ownership and lead is always an experiment worth taking.
We finally gave in and started to send out a monthly parent email using constant contact to all the parents in our student ministry. I was really amazed how easy it really was to create the email using the online editor. It took me several hours because I was creating custom graphics, however it should be very simple next time because all the emails will be there and I will only have minor changes to make with the graphics. Consider using tools like constant contact when you want to include graphics and pictures in emails and don’t have the time to do it from scratch.
It used to be that everyone got their news from the morning newspaper. Then came tv and the internet. Now the chance that you heard the latest headline is from a twitter post or news article mentioned on facebook. Today more than ever we get our news and information from a wide array of sources and more often it comes from someone we know.
When it comes to communicating news and information to teenagers, we can’t expect to send home a monthly newsletter and that be sustainable. It’s almost like we have to sometimes use every communication device possible in hopes that the shotgun will hit something. Below are some ideas and thoughts to communicating to your group.
1. announce it on the website
2. announce it at a large meeting through slide/person
3. create a video announcement for a service
4. twitter about it
5. send a facebook update through your fan page
6. send out a mass parent email newsletter
7. mail out a postcard
8. send out a mass text
9. word of mouth. word of mouth. word of mouth
10. did we mention word of mouth
Last week I had the opportunity to visit with Rob Shiflet, one of the directors with Liberty Christians’s new online school. After a lot of research and coordination, Rob decided to partner with Liberty Christian and offer online classes to students practically anywhere. In this online enviornment, teachers will instruct via webcam and special teleconferencing software in a new and very interactive way. After hearing about this idea and seeing the demo first hand I was really blown away at the potential this online education really has to offer.
Online education of this kind would be ideal for students in the following areas:
1. Students that don’t live close to a private Christian school and desire to attend one
2. Students that attend a private school but are unable to enroll in a certain class due to inadequate number of students enrolled in a certain class
3. Students that are home school that would like to take certain subjects that may be too difficult for their parents to teac
etc….
For more information about the program click HERE or to watch the newscast click HERE.
I recently published my first ebook on amazon for teenagers. More and more students are purchasing itouch/iphones and soon more of them will be reading books on these devices using the kindle app.
This book I have been working on is designed to challenge students to tap into the serious part of their lives and to follow the example Christ set when he was 12. In Luke 2, there are 12 verses that give us a picture of who Jesus was and how he lived through his teenage years. After creating material for many years while discipling teenagers I began to look more closely at this story and really began to ask some questions. Here is the book.
This past January at the San Antonion Film Festival I got the opportunity to get a sneak peak at Crown Financial’s short films. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, however after seeing them I was very excited and eager to use them.
The vision started after Chuck Bentley, CEO of Crown Financial Ministries begin to ask world country leaders what they could do to help. Bentley soon learned that these countries needed compelling stories.
Recently Crown announced through the God Provides Learning Experience, that they will be made available for purchase sometime in August. These short films in my opinion are great for any audience not just third world countries. I was deeply moved after watching the abraham and isaac short film and could see countless opportunities to use these in the church. Below is a sample of one of the shorts.
We just finished a week long local mission trip for our youth ministry called Lead 222 Servant Leadership and one of the things we did this year for it was blog daily on our website. Doing this helped parents, other students and anyone else who was interested in the progress of the trip see how we were doing. We posted pictures, videos and wrote about certain experiences. The hardest part about doing something like this is being disciplined and proactive to update everyday. Because we use drupal as the content management system on our website, setting up the blog was relatively easy. If you don’t have a blog on your website or don’t have a website you can always get a free blog from wordpress or other blogging sites. I personally would consider buying a domain name that offers wordpress hosting through the hosting provider. It really doesn’t take more than 15 minutes to update everyday and doing this really reasures parents that their kids are having a solid time and can get a glimpse of what they are experiencing. After doing this blog we plan to do the same thing with our camp and other events coming up so that we can better tell the story of our ministry.
Part of creating media in a youth ministry means creating materials such as web, print and video pieces that advertise the ministry. In doing this one of the things we are always in need of is pictures of students. Often the choice is between buying an image from istockphoto.com or using one of our own. We try as hard as possible to avoid using istock or sites like that when possible because it just feels unnatural. Using photos of students in our ministry feels more authentic and original and really gives students ownership in the organization. The problem with using photos within your ministry is that you may not have time to do this when you are trying to create something for a pressing deadline. One solution to this predicament is to have a gallery of photos that are waiting to be used for future projects. Consider having a photo shoot with some of your key students two or three times a year to allow for a quality photo gallery for you to pull from when creating all kinds of media materials.
Recently we held a student photo shoot in our studio and had 10 students show up for about 2 hours. All the photographs were taken by one of my student volunteers who really loves photography. Below is one of the concepts he came up with taking the name of our ministry and using scrabble pieces to spell it out on some-one’s face.
I started reading the “Hole in our Gospel” several weeks ago and it quickly became one of those books I couldn’t put down. Author Richard Stearns also President of World Vision tells a very personal and gripping story of a modern rich young ruler that when heard the call to sell everything and follow Christ did just that. Richard’s personal story of leaving the life of a successful CEO and journeying with World Vision for many years is a story of calling and ruthless trust just as much as it is a story of understanding the entire Gospel. Throughout the book Richard, like Dallas Willard author of “the Great Omission,” makes claims that Christians and the church are often guilty of portraying a gospel that is incomplete. While this may not be a new idea or viewpoint with the resurgence of countless books (oftentimes too liberal to be taken seriously) in this camp in the last five year, a book like this one is needed in a time where the left can’t be trusted and the right is often missing the point. Stearns seems to have a way to somehow bring these two sides together and call us to action without throwing our theology out the window.
As I was reading this book I began to think about poverty and the poor and an upcoming trip I will take to Africa in a few weeks. I can’t help but to feel a burden and desire to stop thinking about poverty and do something. My hope is to tell stories while I am in Africa with my camera and like Richard help Christians in America who are incredibly blessed begin to see the verses in our bibles that have holes in them and to be obedient to this call.
