Was totally caught off guard the other day in the best kind of way when one of the eighth graders in our church posted this video to his Facebook. I thought it was awesome – and I love that he blasted it out there for everyone he knows to see and hear about his faith in Christ.

One of my favorite moments in it, though, comes part way through when he calls his small group leader his pastor and then corrects himself. The reality is, small group leaders do function as a pastor, and I love that a part of him views his leader that way! Leaders shepherd, guide, love, instruct, and disciple the people in their group. Sounds like a pastor to me!

We had a blast at Planet Wisdom, the conference for teens in Washington DC a few weeks ago. Here are a couple videos that some of the kids shot; the first one is by Tommy Neilson (I had no idea he was filming all this!), the other one was shot with Rachael’s phone in the van ride. It’s a goat/weird internet thing that’s apparently hilarious.

A little music video from our mission trip to Jamaica last summer … that I finally finished putting together! It is no exaggeration to say that every where we went these guys started dancing around. Not only was it an amazing, exhausting, moving, spiritually challenging experience … there was also a lot of joy and fun!

And yes, they call me Big Bird. Because I had a yellow work shirt that I will never wear in public again!

This past weekend a couple van loads of us went down to Washington DC to the Planet Wisdom conference … and it was amazing. If I’m honest, I went into it with a lot of high expectations; a lot of my personal philosophy of youth ministry has been heavily influenced by the team behind the event, I love their books, their training, and the goals of the event itself. And the reality is, part of me thought it probably wasn’t possible for it to live up to what I thought it would be. I was absolutely wrong. It was an amazing balance of teaching (our teens experienced six plus hours of preaching … and ate every minute of it up), worship (HOURS of worship with The Digital Age), comedy (the Skit Guys – do I need to say more?).

There is something truly, truly moving to stand in a room with thousands of teens worshiping God at the top of their lungs. The messages were great; while designed to be heard by middle school and high school students, as an adult I thought there was tremendous content. I loved that the theme for the weekend moved through all the sessions, with a larger picture being painted and completed (as opposed to other conferences where the sessions are generally stand alone one shots).

On Sunday I spent some time debriefing with a bunch of the students who went; they loved it, they want to do it again, and their only wish is that we would have had more time on the weekend to debrief and process together all that we heard!

All that to say, if you’re a youth worker … check out Planet Wisdom. They host the conference in eight cities each year. It is an amazing value, miles ahead of anything else I’ve experienced for teens, and a great, great catalyst for discipleship in teens. And if you’er wondering, that’s our group below with The Digital Age. That poor, poor band ended the weekend with us attacking them …

Instagram is the ‘it’ social media go to place for teens these days, which means lately I have been trying to use it more and more. Here’s what I’m thinking and playing with …

I created an account for our student ministry separate from my personal account. You can find it here. I would like to get to the point where we’re uploading content to it all the time – it’s a little challenging since that can only be done from a smartphone. I have it linked to our student ministry Facebook page so everything we upload also gets posted there (as well as our Twitter account).

The thumbnails above (click ‘em to get a bigger picture) are something I’ve started doing recently. I create an image, either with an app or on my computer (I have an Instagram folder setup that automatically syncs with my phone – whatever I click and drag into that folder transfers to my phone when I sync, and then I can use it in Instagram), which I then post with details about the event or the Sunday morning teaching. It only takes a few minutes, but seems like a good way to get kids thinking about upcoming events. Some of the more popular ones get reposted and shared by kids which is GREAT. If I’m honest, using it this way to promote regular events as well as special events is what has finally made Instagram something worth putting time into in my opinion.

I would like to get in the habit of posting photos every Sunday and Wednesday night from our church meeting times – kids love getting photos out there and it seems like a great way to use the app. I just need to remember better!

I do use it to post photos from events and trips, which has been popular.

I intentionally setup the account with an easy password with the thought that I could give access to other leaders and trusted students so at certain times or events we could really go to town with uploading photos and generating excitement.

What other ways are people using Instagram with their student ministries? I’d love to get more ideas!

I’m constantly tweaking how I use social media as a youth ministry tool. It’s constantly changing, which means over the years I’ve used a lot of different platforms. What’s really changed from my perspective is that this year I think I’m using my phone as my primary tool for accessing and using all the accounts below vs. the past when I did it primarily from my computer. Wherever possible, I have linked the different accounts so that when I update from one it updates the others – it looks like a big list but actually uses less time than it would appear. Here’s what (and how) I’m currently using based on what’s popular and working in our church:

SMARTPHONE APP: This is new so I’m still waiting to see how it plays out. I used Conduit to put it together. It literally consolidates every other social media outlet we use into one location, so it seems really, really practical. You find the iPhone version here, the Android version here.

TEXTING: Whether we think of it this way or not, texting is a form of social media. I use an app on my iPhone called Group Text which allows me to create different lists and blast out texts to large groups of people. My personal rule is to keep myself to one or two texts per week – otherwise I think I would drive people nuts!

TWITTER: I have a Twitter account for the youth group, you can find it here. The teens are using it more and more, however it’s still not as big as other platforms like Facebook. I currently have the Twitter account linked to our Facebook page, so anything I add to the Facebook page automatically pushes over to the Twitter feed as well. It takes no effort from me, but connects with the teens who are gravitating to Twitter.

INSTAGRAM: I’ve really only started using this recently. You can find the student ministry Instagram account here. It seems like it is becoming the primary place for a lot of teens in our group to use as their social media outlet. I use it to post random photos from youth activities, Sunday mornings, and small groups, as well as to post images on Friday with the title of our lesson on Sunday morning and a description of who is teaching, which kids seem to like. Instagram can post automatically to our Facebook page and our Twitter account, so when I update there it blasts out to both of our other accounts automatically.

YOUTUBE: I’ve just recently started using this again. Partially because I can use it to feed directly into our app, but also because as much as I like Facebook video’s ability to tag kids … YouTube is the biggest online video destination for everyone. It just seems impractical to not have videos there.

FACEBOOK: This is still the real center of our online content, you can find the page here. It’s days are starting to feel numbered for sure; teens are moving away from it more and more, however, a lot of the group, event and update tools are still the most effective way for me to keep teens plugged in. Here’s how I use Facebook:

• We use a fan page, not a group page. This allows us to have a unique url for our page (www.Facebook.com/SummitDE) that can be viewed by anyone, including non-Facebook users. At this point, our fan page is the primary online hub for our student ministry (as opposed to the church website). With so much of our content on Facebook, we wanted Facebook illiterate parents to still be able to access it. Even though we have a larger group, I made the decision to have one page instead of two (middle school and senior high). I wanted kids to be used to one place to go to, instead of trying to bounce them in and out of separate groups. It also gave us just one url that we can blast out on all of our materials.
• Events. We put them all on there. While we don’t consider a kid officially signed up because they clicked attending, it’s the best tool I’ve had for finding out which kids are interested in something (so if they don’t end up registering, I can chase them down and find out why not), what kind of turnout to expect, etc. In addition, once they click ‘attending’ or ‘maybe’, Facebook reminds them it’s coming up! For some of our events, we challenge the kids on how many people we want them to try and invite to the event page. We’ve literally been able to have thousands of people connected to kids in our group invited to our events. It’s a fantastic way of getting the word out to kids in our area.
• Photos and Videos. I really want us to have a steady flow of media being added to the page. And I always try to at least start the ball rolling in tagging people in the photos/videos. Partially so they know it’s there and can comment/enjoy the photos/videos. But more importantly, the second someone is tagged, the media shows up on their page and becomes visible to their Facebook friends. In other words, it’s a way of letting all their friends know what our youth ministry does. I want their friends seeing a steady flow of exciting events, grabbing their interest in our church.
• Recruiting. If I am trying to recruit teens for a service project or need at the church, I create an event and blast it out. It’s an easy way to find interested teens. They are good at responding to event invites.
• Friend lists. Speaking of inviting, I have created several lists of friends; a volunteer leader list, senior high list, middle school list, connected to the church list. When I am inviting people to an event, I am able to filter the invite box down to a list and then just click on people on that list. It saves time, and it’s also easy to remember who all to invite. With these different lists, for church wide events I can invite around 300-400 people in the space of a few minutes.
• Parents. More and more parents, especially of middle school students in our church, are active on Facebook. It’s handy for recruiting and communicating. With most middle school kids not on Facebook yet, I invite their parents to events as a way to remind them about what’s coming up. I’ll also tag parents in photos of their middle school children; they enjoy seeing the pictures.
• Groups. We do create groups for mission teams, student leadership teams, worship teams, etc., and use it as the primary way for communicating, developing ideas, and working with groups within our student ministry. Maybe this a separate category of ministry advice, but I put my wife in EVERY group and page I’m a part of because I am horrible at remembering to tell her things … so this way she at least sees it all happening and knows what’s going on!

How are you using social media with your group? What tools do you use? What have you found to be effective?

I’m not sure why I didn’t post this sooner … a couple weeks ago on our high school ski trip we threw together this Harlem Shake video on the spur of the moment using my iPhone for a camera and then quickly editing it on my laptop. Needless to say, we were all pretty impressed with ourselves over it.

I’m really excited about a new communication tool we have for our student ministry; an app for Android and Apple products! It’s free, and manages to consolidate everything in one handy spot – events, updates, photos, YouTube, podcast, Instagram, Twitter, newsletters – you name it! It’s really the easiest way to stay plugged in with what’s going on at the Summit, whether you’re a parent, student … or anyone in our church who wants to keep up with the student ministry!

Part of the logic behind it is that it really seems to be something with universal appeal; I already know from my email communication stats that over half the parents of students are primarily using their smartphones to keep up with my communications. Add to that most of the students having some sort of compatible device, and LOVING that we now have an app, it has the potential to be a great tool. Anyway, if you want to check it out, follow the links below:

iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app: http://bit.ly/YDlnVV

Android app: http://bit.ly/YDkXPd

This past December our student ministry tried something new – a live nativity. I was excited about it for a couple reasons; I thought it would be a great way for our students to serve families, but I also thought it would be a great onsite Christmas event for students to be responsible for. In past years, the adults have had the Christmas concerts and children have had the Christmas Play, and while the students do host a Christmas party at a local homeless shelter, as well as a benefit for the homeless on December 30th called Brief Relief, they’re not too visible during the Christmas season to the rest of the church.

My experience with Live Nativities is pretty limited; I stood in one as a shepherd when I was thirteen. That’s it. And apparently 24 years can take a toll on the memory! Here’s what I learned this time around …

The good …

• Families like FREE holiday activities to take their children to, especially if it ties back to the actual message of Christmas.
• I didn’t think of it ahead of time, but of course people loved getting photos of their kids in the Nativity with the characters. Next time around I want to be more clear upfront that the Nativity is interactive and kids are welcome to hop in, talk to the students, etc.
• Animals are a hit. Any opportunity to get to pet animals normally not around is exciting for kids.
• Having music, hot chocolate, and candy canes with Christmas tracks on them were popular.
• I actually liked having the Nativity in the back of the church instead of the front; we were able to keep the kids safer from traffic, while still being in view of the YMCA and everyone there.
• While cold, the weather was okay. That day it looked like rain, and with it scheduled just a few days before Christmas, I realized we had never advertised an alternate date in case of poor weather. Thankfully it wasn’t an issue!

Could have been better …

• Too long. We scheduled it for three hours, which meant we had a rush at the beginning, and a rush at the end … but a dead hour in the middle when people were having dinner. This made keeping teens in the cold motivated a challenge.
• Too many events at the same time. Too make it easier on families, I had scheduled our middle school and high school Christmas parties for after the Nativity, thinking it would make it easier on parents of students. What I didn’t take into consideration was that the parties would attract around 80 students, many of whom showed up really early to see their friends in the nativity … and then managed to get into the building. This was an unnecessary distraction that ultimately meant we pulled the plug on the Nativity early so we could get control of too many students onsite who weren’t connected to the Nativity.
• A further complication; we pulled the plug on the Nativity early because of the complications above, not realizing that parents with kids in student ministry and children’s ministry age would time their arrival so their younger kids could catch the end of the Nativity while the older kids got dropped off for the parties. I felt REALLY bad about people showing up for the Nativity and missing it because we stopped sooner than we advertised.
• It was a little too free flowing. I should have had a tight schedule with specific time slots on costumed parts, singing, scripture reading, etc., with mandatory breaks mixed in for students to duck inside and warm up before returning to the Nativity.
• For some reason, our sound system just wasn’t producing the volume it should have. Even though teens were using the mics for the readings, it was challenging to hear them. Because we’ve never had a problem with the system before, I didn’t realize it was a problem until it was too late to do much about it.
• We ran out of hot chocolate!
• Of the nine animals that were supposed to show up, only one actually did. Thank goodness it was the donkey – he was the star of the night. Very easy going, he spent the whole three hours chewing on grass while child after child got to pet him and pose for pictures with him.

So all that to say, we learned a lot. Next year, we’ll follow the Fall Festival’s example in scheduling by having it for two hours, AFTER dinner, on a night with nothing else happening, and a tight schedule to keep the flow moving well and teen actors involved.

Last Sunday I got to preach in the main worship services, an opportunity that doesn’t come to often on a larger pastoral staff! I spoke on the topic of discipleship, why it’s important, and the critical importance of Christians of all ages pursing discipleship – especially as those who are younger tend to emulate the faith of the adults in their lives.

Tommy and Elizabeth, two of our students, introduced the topic for me with the above skit. Definitely a riot watching Tommy interact with unexpected targets – none of them knew what was coming. I knew it was working when the sound guys were still some of the loudest laughers in the room even the third time around!

Here are the notes I spoke from. They may or may not make sense, but they kept me mostly focused.

The meat of the message was discipleship. I referenced the research done by Christian Smith, as well as the text of ‘Almost Christian: What the faith of teenagers is telling the American church,’ by Kenda Creasy Dean throughout the sermon. I gave examples in our church for opportunities, like the Path, and a short checklist of what devoted young people have in common as a starting point for adults to be examples in:

• Attends religious services weekly or more
• Faith is very or extremely important in everyday life
• Feels very or extremely close to God
• Currently involved in a religious youth group
• Prays a few times a week or more
• Reads scripture once or twice a week or more

If you’re so inclined, click here to listen to or download the audio.

Another fantastic book based on similar research with a lot of GREAT practical advice to parents in passing on faith to the children is ‘Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids’ by Dr. Kara Powell and Chap Clark.