I have no doubt that you have had situations where you had no more power in your phone’s battery at some point in your life. How are you going to send out that next tweet? The Angry Birds need you to fight those pigs! Without a phone, how will you document your life on Instagram or Vine?
Of course, those things are silly, but one time with my youth group, not having power was less than funny. Here is why you need to save your power when in ministry.
The Perfect Winter Escape
My youth group that I was leading had a tradition of going skiing over President’s Day weekend. Being here in the Colorado mountains, this was not a four hour event, but something that you tried to spend a couple of days hitting the fresh white powder, getting to the top of a mountain to see the whole range, and developing strong relationships with teenagers.
Our cell phone policy with teenagers is that they are not allowed to bring them. There is security concerns (sneaking out at night to meet up with girls) as well as it gets in the way of relationships and experiencing nature. So the teenagers tech is left home.
To ensure parents were still up on what was happening, but avoiding texting or calling every parent of a teen that was on our trip, I created a Facebook page. From here, I’d update how we were doing, post a picture or two, and ask for them to continue to pray for our safety and enjoyment.
Serious? I am the perfect youth worker here folks!
Should Have Double Checked My Packing
The trip out to the mountains is a solid three hour drive and I decided to rock out to the latest jams with the teens in my car. Three hours later and in pitch black night, my phone died and we were lost. The car karaoke was our downfall and in 15 minutes, I was looking for my charger. Of course, I forgot to pack it.
Serious? Maybe not so perfect.
We eventually got there thanks to a map that I had put in the car months before (thank God!) and we got on with the night. After a couple of hours, I realized I had no way to update the Facebook page because I was the only one with a smartphone on this trip.
With the teenagers in bed, I had to make a 30 minute trip into town to a local church that let me use their computer to post on the page. This became my routine for the weekend: drive into town to give an update, come have breakfast, go skiing, have youth group, kids in bed, and drive back to the church before going to bed.
What started out as so much fun quickly became a lesson on making sure everything was in my bag the next time around. No parent knew any differently and the whole event was a success, but I lacked more sleep that weekend than when my son was first born.
Next time I am going to put a volunteer in charge of informing the parents of our status.
Has cell phone batteries ever hurt your ministry?
[Image via AndyArmstrong via Compfight cc & baldbrad via Compfight cc]
John says
Getting charged up hasn’t been a problem for me (literally and figuratively). I’ve been to places where there is no cell service or wi-fi. That’s when things get really tough especially if you need to check in on something back home like your wife being pregnant and about to have a baby!
Jeremy Smith says
So true!
Brian Hawkins says
Teens don’t need to have their phones taken away; they need wise and competent leaders. Tech is a huge part of teen life. Having a phone doesn’t hinder their experience of the world, it enhances it. Moreover, it lets them share their experience with friends who may then get interested in joining the church. I say let them study, worship, play, in their natural way – with phones.
Also give the kids some trust that they’re not going to use the phones to sneak out and hook up. They can just as easily do that without phones.
Jeremy Smith says
Not going to lie, I’m very annoyed by your comment. If this article had been, “Let’s take away tech and ensure they only focus on me” this would have been a great comment. Instead, you have completely sidestepped the entire article to simply give your opinion on my leadership in ministry that I gave a single sentence about. Do you feel so informed about how I do ministry, what the retreat was about, and my own personal views on technology that you need to give me advice? Obviously you do, because you did.