In youth ministry we have lots of teams; greeters, ushers, small group hosts, etc. Anyone out there have social media teams? #NYLC
— Justin Lathrop (@justinlathrop) March 12, 2012
That tweet, from the wonderfully insightful Justin Lathrop, popped up in my feed the other day, and I’ve been mulling it over all morning.
As a youth pastor—excuse, “part-time” youth pastor—I’m constantly looking for ways to:
- delegate responsibilities and
- involve students in the ministry.
Now, personally, I don’t really have any ‘teams’ in my youth ministry. Our size has never really warranted ushers or greeters, and because our students are too young to drive, we haven’t really had a small group.
But, a social media team?
That could be doable.
Personally, I stink at social media interaction on a pastor-student basis. Why? I’m shy and don’t really have much to say. Plus, I feel a bit awkward as a twenty-eight year old man posting “Hey, what’s up?” on a twelve year old girl’s Facebook wall. Can we say “creeper”?
But, what if I was able to build a team of mature, responsible students who could help me keep in contact with other students in the group? What if these students helped me with our Facebook page and even posted testimonies and devotionals on our group blog? Suddenly, all of my efforts as an outsider, are made more effective as our group becomes a community. (Cue Abed and Troy joke.) Granted, it’s a digital community, but that could be our first step.
I think I’ll be looking very closely at our ministry to see if a social media team might be as helpful as it sounds.
Do you have teams in your youth ministry?
Do you have or would you consider starting a social media team?
Here are some thoughts on creating a church twitter team that could be applied to other forms of social media, too!
[Image via Esther Vargas]
Krist Adams says
Very interesting idea. Kind of never thought of it. However, I still do think that there should be some communication from Youth Pastor to student, however announcements and other less personal interaction could come from a core leadership of the youth. And as far as the creepy thing, it could be. However, I know when I was in youth, my youth pastor and his wife were the most loving people I’ve ever met. He was weird, but never creepy. But that was because I knew him. If you people don’t know you, the student, or the relationship, it’s easy to throw a bland resumption at it.
Phil Schneider says
I completely agree that there still needs to be personal communication from the YP to the students. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
I think, also, after letting this post breathe for a day or two that the “creep” factor wouldn’t be an issue if the YP already has that loving relationship established in “real life,” i.e. non-digital interactions.
Jeremy Smith says
Josh Griffin, youth pastor at Saddleback, actually has one setup and great policies online for what they can and should not do. For many of us in smaller communities or less active churches, this is almost unfeasable. Youth workers either cannot get the volunteers for the higher priority events, students (especially middle schoolers) may not even be allowed on social media, or they simply need to give more energy to person-to-person events as they are starting a ministry or trying to help it recover. In a perfect environment, this would be great to explore.
Phil Schneider says
I hear you on the small church issues, but I personally think that those are the churches that benefit the most. Two or three passionate students can make for an effective social media street team, especially if your community is already tight.
As far as the middle school students are concerned, that’s been one of my greatest obstacles, as well. My solution—I think—is going to be encourage our blog as a rally point for online interaction. Might even add a secure, private discussion board, depending on parent feedback.
Kelley Langkamp says
I talked about this with our youth pastors. We are thinking this might be a really good option for our high school ministry. We would, obviously, choose the students wisely and make sure there was a fair amount of monitoring and guidance. That being said, we feel like there should be a policy/guidelines for the team to follow. Now the question is what do we include in that policy? We don’t really even have a social media policy for our church-wide social media.
Phil Schneider says
One of the best ‘policies’ I ever heard was, “Don’t be stupid,” but since that’s a bit vague…
Here are two of the posts that I believe Jeremy was referring to above. They might be helpful.
http://bit.ly/z8dc9i
Chad Gleaves says
Hi Chad here of http://getyourchurchfanpage.com/… I really like the idea. I know it is going to be fun just by hearing the name of the team “The Social Media Team”. The young people of any church would surely be thrilled to have this kind of team for their ministry. Nice thinking Phil!
Phil Schneider says
Thanks for the comment, Chad. Giving credit where it’s due, my friend Justin Lathrop put the though into my head.
Justin Lathrop says
Phil,
I’m so glad my tweet caused you to think more deeply in student involvement. I think social media gives you a unique opportunity to engage students in ministry.
What about having them search twitter in your zip code for key words like prayer or hospital and respond to people saying that their youth ministry or church will be praying.
Phil Schneider says
That’s a great idea! Thanks, Justin.