Collide Magazine

New Youth, New Media

Daniel Darnell - Originally posted Tuesday, September 1, 2009 -

Back when I was in youth group (more than 8 years ago) my youth pastor communicated with me in three forms: face-to-face, phone, and snail-mail. This is no longer the case for today’s youth ministry. Technology and social media have changed the landscape of communication. Youth today are more connected than ever, and our youth ministries must adopt new forms of communication.

According to research by Pew Internet, 93% of teens are online, 71% have a cell phone, and 65% use social networking sites. The fact is that if you’re in youth ministry, you should be utilizing social media to communicate with your youth. But what tools should you use and how should you use them? I asked youth pastors across the country just that and here is what they shared with me.

Text Messaging & Email
Nowadays cell phones have become standard issue for everyone from the age of 8 to 80. Specifically, the cell phone has revolutionized the way in which youth communicate. “Most of their communication and multimedia consumption is on-the-go,” shares David Penuel of Watermark Community Church. According to most youth pastors, texting has become the most instantaneous and effective means of communication. “I have found that they would much rather text me than have a phone conversation,” shares James Henley of Skillman Church of Christ. “At first that bugged me. I like to hear someone and be able to sense their tone, but this way is their preferred medium.”

It’s clear that the quickest and most effective way to communicate with youth today is through text messaging, but how do you use it for youth ministry? The most practical way is to send massive group texts informing youth of upcoming events and church services. Another option is to share Scripture or words of encouragement via text message.

Luckily, there are tools out there that can aid you in sending these group text messages. Simply Youth Ministry created an amazing tool called SimplyTXT that will aid you in your text messaging communication for a small monthly price. Another paid text messaging tool for youth ministry is Tatango.com; however, when using group text messages, make sure you aren’t upsetting any parents by racking up the phone bill with all of these text messages. The cellular providers may love you but the parents won’t.

As for email, it’s already considered archaic by today’s youth. Since most of them still don’t have smart phones, they only check their email when they get home. If you want to communicate with your youth in the most effective way possible, you need to be speaking their language and texting happens to be it.

Facebook & MySpace
Nothing has changed over the years – kids want to be where their friends are, and their friends are on Facebook. Other than text messaging, youth pastors today agree that Facebook is the most effective and versatile way of communicating and connecting with youth. As Mark Charbonneau of Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church shares, “Facebook is so holistic; you can use it for events, or groups, or posting ideas, or thoughts, or pictures of events.”

Some of the practical things youth pastors are doing with Facebook include creating a group or page for their youth ministry, creating events, sending messages and reminders, posting media, and updating their status. “I try to leave messages on their walls and comment on their statuses, so they know that I care about what’s going on in their lives too,” shares Henley.

Ryan Connel of College Hills Baptist Church is trying something new with his status updates by posting what he’s learning while preparing for lessons throughout the week.

While Facebook should be used as a tool for your ministry, it is not a replacement for it. “Facebook is a relationship primer,” shares Penuel. “It just sets you up. It just gives you questions to ask.” The more you learn about someone, the more you have to talk about. Facebook is helpful in cultivating relationships when it leads to real-life interactions.

As for MySpace, I couldn’t find a single youth minister that actively uses MySpace for their youth ministry. Unless all of the youth in your youth ministry use MySpace, I would encourage you to just stay away from it.

YouTube & Vimeo
Video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo can be another great way to communicate with your youth by allowing you to post videos from events and share them with all the youth. For instance, Penuel has posted over 100 youth ministry videos on YouTube, including the somewhat-famous viral video, The Fake Jonas Brothers; however, the youth from his youth ministry rarely watch or comment on these videos on YouTube. For him, these sites mainly serve as a repository for the ministry’s videos. The social interactions actually happen when he links to them on Facebook and tags the youth in them.

Other youth ministries try to utilize the social aspect of YouTube and Vimeo. “We constantly remind the students of the power of their voice and that this is their ministry,” shares David Miller of Discovery Church. “To put this into practice we have a Vimeo account and YouTube account for students to record and post what God is doing in and through them.”

One thing to remember about YouTube is that due to inappropriate content, many parents have it blocked on their home computers. Vimeo, on the other hand, has less potential to contain inappropriate videos and tends to be the safer choice.

Twitter
While Twitter seems to be catching on with the older generations, the youth aren’t as quick to adopt this new form of communication. Though, a few daring youth ministries out there are attempting to use the technology.

“The main purpose of Twitter for our ministry is to get out any last minute changes and links to our volunteers, staff, and parents,” shares Miller. “As far as we’ve seen, Twitter has not caught on with our students, but it has with our college age volunteers.” Penuel is also an active Twitter user but is experiencing the same problem with the reluctance of youth to join him.

The fact of the matter is that youth just aren’t into Twitter, at least not as of now. With Facebook’s recent changes emphasizing real-time status updates, it’s no wonder youth see no reason to join another social network.

Dangers of Social Media
While social media might allow for constant interaction and communication with your students, there are some dangers you need to be aware of. The biggest danger occurs with private conversations via Facebook messages or personal text messages, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. “I always copy our women’s staff on any message I reply to,” shares Penuel. In the rare occasion in which he contacts female students, Connel makes sure his wife knows and has the opportunity to review what he says. For Charbonneau, it’s about transparency. “My goal is not to hide things better but to live my life where anyone can look at it.”

Another danger you need to be aware of is that you’re going to see things that you wish you wouldn’t have seen. “One of the things that’s been bad for us is seeing other parts of students lives that we didn’t know existed,” shares Charbonneau. And when you come across these things you can’t simply ignore them.

Charbonneau also raises a good question. “Are we endorsing the constant noise issue in these students lives by playing into it or should we just bury our heads in the sand and not be a part of it?” Unfortunately, more connections don’t always mean better connections. The constant bombardment of information can turn into white noise, drowning out your voice completely.

Also, don’t forget that there are always some youth that choose not to use social media to communicate. As Connel reminds us, “not everyone is on Facebook. So you have to be careful that you don’t forget about people that are either not on or are just resistant to social networking sites.”

Building Relationships
We can all agree that social media can aid youth ministry by communicating information, making connections, and building relationships throughout the week, but it can only take us so far. As Penuel reminds us, “Nothing replaces going out to breakfast with a kid or going out to dinner or grabbing coffee.” Social media can lead to a degree of laziness when it comes to investing time into your youth. Instead of spending three hours on Facebook at night, try taking students out for coffee or to a sporting event. No technology or social medium will ever replace deep one-on-one conversations and personal interaction.

Social media and technology have forever changed youth ministry. We must remind ourselves that the reason to use social media is to help us stay connected with our youth and foster stronger relationships. Our end goal should be to have better communication with our youth. If these new tools don’t lead to stronger relationships and better communication with our youth, our innovations and upgrades will have been in vain.