Tag: Youth Ministry

3 website options for your ministry

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It is so important that your ministry has an online presence if your are serious about connecting with people.  Not only does it help you connect with the people in your ministry but it also helps you reach new people.  Some researchers, such as Richard Riesling, say that people check out at least 10 churches online before they even step foot inside a church.  What does your online presence say about you and your ministry?

It is still possible to spend over $20,000 on a church website, but who has that kind of money?  The most important part of your online presence is that it is online and up to date.  Nobody trusts a website that is advertising Easter Services just before Christmas.  Whilst your online presence doesn’t have to look impressive, it is important that it has all the information that people need.  I have seen some great looking websites that have almost no value as you can’t find their location or service times.  But I would warn you that the graphic style can be so bad that people choose another church over yours so be careful.

So here are three options for the website in your ministry if you have a really low budget:

  1. Update your current website – whilst many church websites are average at best, at least they have one to work with; it just needs updating.  There are some good quality templates online for only $50-100.  A new template and up to date information might be all you need to improve your online presence.  If you are a ministry within your church, such as the youth ministry, then make sure people can find your ministry page from the Church website home page.  People should be able to get to the information they need in under 5 click.  If you want advice on a layout for multi-department websites then look at a University or School website for ideas.
  2. Start a WordPress Blog – many organisations and churches are using WordPress blogs as their website.  It allows you to begin for free or buy a domain name within WordPress for only $20.  The advantage of this style is that you can have a website directly for your ministry.  Each ministry can have a fresh online presence they can control without being buried 10 levels down on an out of date Church website.  If you want to see a church using a WordPress blog for their website check out www.libertychurchnyc.com  Please note that there are other blog websites available, such as eBlogger, which offer free blog style websites.  Here is how to set up a blog style website for free:
    1. You will need to register your blog/website name when you sign up so think of this before you start.
    2. Go to www.wordpress.com and find the section “sign up free”.
    3. Follow the process to register your blog.  You will get a free web address as blogname.wordpress.com or for a small fee you can buy blogname.com (which is a much better offer and WordPress still host your blog for free).
    4. You will need to pick a theme, which is the design and layout of your page.  My suggestion is to use the “Twenty Twelve” theme as this is designed for websites using the WordPress format.
    5. Start adding pages to your blog as these pages act as sections to your website.  Perhaps you need “Service info”, “events” and a really good “about” page.
    6. Remember that a blog posts are listed in the order that you post, which will help you display up to date information.  The downside is that if you post four or five events at once the most recent post will appear first.
    7. Have fun connecting with people.
  3. Facebook Page – almost everyone is on Facebook and perhaps your ministry needs the social networking that Facebook provides as your online presence.  The other positive about Facebook is that it is free to use and everybody knows how to interact with the format.  Instead of it being about your profile, go to the effort of creating a proper Facebook Page for your ministry.  Facebook Pages give you the ability to create events which will help you get RSVP’s and attendance.  Another positive is that people in your ministry can easily share events and information about your ministry with their friends.  If your set it up correctly you will have a web address that you can use in promotional material such as http://www.facebook.com/yourministrynamehere

Most of us don’t have much money to spend on fancy websites so remember that the most important thing is that you have an online presence.  If you start a website after reading this please leave a link in the comment section below so all my readers can see how it is done.

markoffaith.net markoffaith, MarkofFaith, mark of faith, Mark of Faith, mrmarkmcdonald, Mark McDonald

Overall presentation at Events matters

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Have you ever been to an event that has exceeded your expectations?  Have you been to an event where everything looked perfectly in place, well laid out and everything flowed smoothly?  Sometimes in the rush to get our events ready we overlook the presentation of the event to focus on the content.  Whilst content is important, bad presentation spoils content every time.  For example, imagine a poorly designed website which may have great content but you can’t find it.

Last night I went to a youth ministry event by Mustard that exceeded my expectations.  Mustard is a ministry that runs events in schools here in Melbourne and were hosting a Roundtable event for Parents and Youth Leaders.  After almost 20 years in youth ministry I have seen all types of events from well-done presentations to complete train wrecks.  This event was above the average events I attend, even many of the good events that I have been to.  There were just a few things that caught my eye that were better than standard events that I go to.

Here are a few little things that made the overall presentation at the event better than other youth ministry events I have attended:

  1. Welcome signs – as the event was on a large church campus with many rooms there were signs directing me from the car park to location of the event.  Often event coordinators assume that people will follow the crowd or look for where the lights are on to know where the event is being held.  As an event coordinator help participants find the right room with a few welcome signs.
  2. Greeter – at the main foyer there was a person who greeted me and directed me along the hallway to the sign up desk.  At the sign up desk there was a person greeting people in front of the desk and several people behind the desk taking registrations.
  3. Name tags – I am used to writing my name on a name badge with a marker but these name tags had my name printed on the tag as well as the event logo. 
  4. Event logo – The team hosting the event had designed a logo for the event and printed the logo on the registration form, name tags, PowerPoint slides and handouts.
  5. Button Badge – each team member had a button badge with the ministry name on it.  It was that extra step that impressed me.  Each of the team members were smartly dressed rather than dressing like young people because it was a youth ministry event.
  6. Stage set up – there were a few props on stage that got the crowd talking as they entered the room.  These props were then used at a point within the event to explain a key message.
  7. Skype call to Guest – there aren’t many events that attempt a live feed of a guest from another country.  Mustard had a live feed of special guest Cheryl Crawford from Azuza Pacific University and Fuller Youth Institute in the USA.  This isn’t a multi million dollar ministry either; they were just using skype but had done their homework on how to get working well.  Cheryl had been prepared ahead of time and they had a plan for drop outs, which did happen, to keep things moving.
  8. Hospitality – the coffee and tea were laid out really well and there were nice cupcakes to go with the drinks.  Whilst we drank our tea and coffee there were team members connecting with the crowd.  There was a musician creating atmosphere with some live music.  There were also large posters of other ministry events on art easel’s to create atmosphere.

Whilst the ministry team had gone to all this effort to get the overall presentation correct, the content delivered as well.  As we connected over coffee and tea the participants were talking about the content of the talks. If you are interested in the content of the night you hear an audio copy of the event on a special website, click here, which again is above average for many events I go to.

Presentation should enhance the content of an event rather than dominate it.  Yet sometimes we rush our preparation, setup and layout to focus on the content and we overlook how important presentation is.  Take the examples about as a guide of how you might exceed people expectations at your next youth ministry event.

Please add a comment about events that you have attended where the presentation exceeded your expectations.

You might also be interested in Creating a Big Impression at Church

markoffaith MarkofFaith, mark of faith, Mark of Faith

Facebook Friends

Facebook friends can be “real” friends

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Facebook FriendsIf you have ever heard someone comment about how many friends they have on Facebook, almost straight away someone else will say “but none of them are real friends”.  There is an assumption from many people that Facebook is not a “real” way to maintain a friendship.  Whilst this might be true for an older generation, the reality is that most young people do see their relationships on Facebook as real friendship.  Usually it is the people who are not on Facebook that under play the important role that social networking plays in maintaining friendships.

So consider for a minute what it might take to maintain a “real” friendship.  Would you consider these situations to be real friendships?

  • Pen Pals: for centuries there has been great prestige in being pen friends.  In many cases the people never meet face to face.  Whilst your grandmother may consider her pen friend more of a real friend than your 500 Facebook friends does it make it true?  Can you develop a real friendship without ever meeting face to face?
  • Long distance friends: people often move interstate and catch up with their friends when ever they are back in town. Some people think these are real friends compared to Facebook friends even though they don’t see them regularly.  Can you maintain a real friendship seeing someone face to face only once or twice a year?
  • Life long friends: some people who are cynical about the role of Facebook in maintaining a friendship reference their life long friend as the bench mark of real friendship.  Whilst they may have built the friendship over decades they maintain this friendship with as little as one or two events a year.  One of my colleagues lives in the same city as his friend but only sees him once a year at Christmas, another colleague sees her life long friend once a year because they are both so busy with their new lives.  Is real friendship based on longevity or how often you communicate?
  • Family:  all of us know that blood is thicker than water and yet we all have family members who we only see at Christmas, Weddings or Funerals. Sometimes we don’t see our family as much as we should.  Is a real friendship based on an established connection?

Think about the young person who is on Facebook every day catching up with what is happening in the lives of their 500 friends.  They know what is happening every day or two with their close friends, workmates, classmates, long distance friends, life long friends and family.  Compare this to the “real” friendships that Facebook objectors are maintaining through as little as one or two face to face meetings per year.  Before you think that I really think all Facebook friends are real friends I don’t, but my point is that many teenagers that we work within youth ministry do.  It is not appropriate to dismiss Facebook as a valid way that young people maintain friendships.

So here are four ways to use Facebook to maintain friendships with people in your ministry:

  1. Watch and listen – people will say and type things on Facebook that they don’t share in person.  If you want to know what a person thinks about then study what they do and say on Facebook.   In ministry you have to be careful not to raise Facebook activity in public forums but you can raise things in conversations with the person face to face.  For example, “I saw that you visited ……. For a holiday, what was it like to be there?”
  2. Comment – it can be seen as Facebook stalking if you read everything but never comment on posts.  Whilst we are tempted just to click “like” make the extra effort to write a comment.  Write something extra to show that you are not just gathering information but that you are developing the relationship.  In the last year or so people are engaging less and less in comments so try harder to make a comment or two.
  3. Groups – the benefit of creating groups is that you can start to link people who may have a similar interest but never meet face to face.  Be clear about what a group is about and don’t get offended if people don’t join your group.  You don’t want lots of group members, you want group members who engage in the conversation.
  4. Birthdays – it used to be so hard to maintain a birthday list, hours of asking each individual, now Facebook reminds you every day who’s birthday it is.  So there is no excuse for not making a comment on a person’s page for their birthday.  Yes it is not as good as a face to face present but it is better than hearing nothing for your youth minister.

So whilst we might not think Facebook friendships are the real deal, in youth ministry don’t dismiss the fact that young people see it as the real deal.  In fact if you start to use social networking more effectively in your ministry you might find it easier than ever to be influential in the lives of the people you’re trying to minster to.

If you disagree with this concept or you have a warning about using Facebook in ministry please add a comment below.  I understand that this post isn’t the definitive guide to using Facebook in ministry but I hope it helps you in some way.

markoffaith, Mark of Faith, MarkofFaith, mark of faith

Young People are the future of the Church

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For over 20 years, Youth Minister have been arguing that the youth are not the future of the Church, they are the Church of today. Frankly, it hasn’t worked, young people are still leaving the Church, youth ministry budgets are still low and staff levels have either declined or stayed the same. The “Church of today” mantra hasn’t worked. What if we return to the motto of “young people are the future of the Church” would it work any better?

Here are a few questions we might ask our Parish Council, Vestry or Elders board if young people are the future of the Church:

  1. Senior Minister:  if you had to recruit your next Senior Pastor, Minister or Parish Priest from within your own people, are you developing future leaders?  Do you have enough good Christian young people entering theological education so that your next Senior Pastor is a great God honouring leader?  Who is your Senior Minister personally mentoring to take over their job in the future?
  2. Youth Pastor: if you had to recruit your next Youth Pastor from within your own people are you developing young people who have had a positive experience of youth ministry?  Do you mentor young adults so that they feel supported enough to take on a leadership role in future years as the Youth Ministry Coordinator?  If young people drop out of Church between the ages of 10-14, perhaps the 14 year old who just gave up on your church was your future Youth Pastor walking out your back door.
  3. Parish Council: if you had to recruit your next Elders board, Vestry or Parish Council member from within your own people would it be possible?  Are there young adults coming through your church who honour God with their lives and in the future could stand for leadership in your parish?  If you are not forming young people in your church today then the future of your Parish or Church leadership team is not looking good.  Perhaps the young people sitting in your church today who are bored and making paper aeroplanes out of the bulletin are thinking the last thing they want to do with their life is serve the Church.
  4. Financial Partners: nobody likes to mention the fact that the Church has always needed, and will always need, people who earn income in the world and donate it to the Church.  Are you investing in young people teaching them to go into the business world and be the best they can?  Because one day those young people will earn a pay cheque and make a decision on how much they give to the Church.  If they skip youth ministry and stop coming to Church, pretty soon your church will have fewer and fewer financial partners.  Perhaps the 14 year old who walked out your back door never to return was going to become the key financial partner in the future of your parish.

If we truly believe that the young people are the future of our Church wouldn’t we do things differently?  If your church had to recruit all its future leaders and financial partners from within your church wouldn’t you take the young people more seriously?  It is my opinion that many churches don’t think the young people are the future or the present of the Church, they are someone elses problem. Many churches are doing nothing hoping that someone else is forming great leaders they can steal/employ years down the track.

Absolutely we should see young people as the Church of today, but if we are serious about them being the future of our Church then let us invest far more into youth ministry than we currently are too.  Please a comment or share your thoughts below.

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3 Questions to ask when preaching to teens

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This is guest post by Michael Angelo Crisafio.  Michael speaks to teenagers every week through school retreats, presenting at Impact Leadership and through preaching at Grace Unlimited.   You can follow Michael on Twitter.  If you would like to write a guest post please contact Mark McDonald.

I believe the quality of the things that you do is going to largely depend on the quality of questions you ask yourself.

When it comes to preaching to youth and in particularly school aged teenagers, it’s really going to be like herding cats if you are not going to ask the Holy Spirit to be with you daily.

In my time this year speaking to thousands of kids in schools all over Australia both in secular capacity, teaching out of bible based leadership principles or directly as a school based retreats speaker and facilitator there are some questions that I always ask myself when I preach.

  1. Who are you? your identity is largely linked to the quality of what you will delivering. are you a person of prayer? are you a person of action. Living out the Gospel is just as important as knowing the Gospel and when you can start seeing that in your own life others will see it too.
  2. What’s your story? Your preaching will come alive when it’s personal; when it’s a story only you can tell.  Teens love stories! You don’t have to look far to see what you’re competing with the likes of Twilight and 140 characters of conversation. It’s said that humour is a universal language and it’s always good to tell stories which bring out passion and humour; focus on things that people can all agree on – like sacrificial love.
  3. What does the bible have to say about it? The mysteries of the bible are as real and true and powerful today as they were 2000 years ago. Ancient rabbis talked of it like an any-sided gem, that when you hold up to the light a unique reflection is cast.  Teens want to know that the bible is relevant; as a matter of fact I make it my personal responsibility to allow people to see that connection as much as possible. If you don’t tell them, then the trash magazines, their friends or social media will tell them.

Please leave a comment about the tips you have for preaching to teens.

Are Ken Moser and Tim Hawkins similar or opposite?

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Recently I attended a training day with Tim Hawkins where he encouraged youth ministry leaders to preach the Gospel, break open the Word with young people and see discipleship as the key.  Then I attended a lecture with Ken Moser where he suggested that we should do Christian things in youth ministry such as preach the Gospel and break open the Word.  Whilst I thought they were similar in their core message it surprised me that at least one training college sees the two as polar opposite models of youth ministry.

From my experience of youth ministry these two “experts” are in the same ball park, they are both focused on preaching the Gospel.  Sure they have had to differentiate their model, either because context or to sell books, but they are very similar.  When you contrast them to a Taize style youth ministry or social justice youth ministry, Ken and Tim are no different.  It is like Ken and Tim are different Rugby League teams with different styles of play but compared to Motor Racing they are the same.

In my opinion Ken and Tim support a “Jesus preaching, bible believing” style of youth ministry that puts them in the same group.  Your style of preaching doesn’t make you polar opposites.  Whether you allow fun at your youth group or you are more serious doesn’t make you polar opposites.  At this point I want to recognise that the two models are not identical, there are differences.  I just don’t think they are opposite models for youth ministry.

Why is this important to write about?  Rather than becoming a fan of the Tim Hawkins model or a fan of the Ken Moser model we should become fans of Jesus.  I know that sounds obvious but when we spent our time comparing and contrasting two models of “Jesus preaching, Bible believing” youth ministry we are no better than the people who spend all their time arguing of the virtues of the football team they support.

So having met Tim and Ken personally I like a bit of both of their youth ministry styles.  I like that they point young people to Jesus and encourage leaders to break open the Word of God.  I will continue to learn from both men as I grow youth ministry in my context, I hope you can too.  Learn from both styles of youth ministry rather than picking one over the other.

Are Australians ahead of America in ministry?

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I have just walked out of the Peter Corney Lecture at Ridley College in Melbourne where Ken Moser addressed the gathering with a few observations about the Youth Ministry landscape.  If you don’t know who Ken Moser is, he is an American who came to Australia, worked here in a number of settings and now works in Canada.  He has written many good books from his time in Australia which have that Australian attitude of doing stuff that works.

Whilst I can’t quote Ken word for word I want to share a thought with you all from his talk but here are few points to keep in mind:

  1. Traditionally Australians have looked to American for the Youth ministry model, bought the books and hired them as guest speakers as “the expert”.
  2. The key American practitioners are all writing that the youth ministry model is no longer working as the society becomes increasingly post Christian.
  3. Australia was never as Christian as America
  4. Australia moved into a post Christian society 10-20 years ago depending on the view point you take.

So here is the big idea:

Why are we looking to America who is 20 years behind us for what is coming next?

Whilst I can’t remember the exact wording, Ken is suggesting that in fact Australia should and can lead American youth ministry to what comes next.

After the lecture I had the privileged of taking to Peter Corney himself, who started ministry in 1960 and has influenced youth ministry in Melbourne.  His perspective was that ministry has always changed and evolved similar to the down turn in the great Sunday School movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

So whilst I usually like to blog with you about a solution, tonight I thought I would share with you these thoughts and admit that I am as keen as ever to work with other Aussies to think though what’s next.  So please leave a comment to add to the conversation about what comes next.

Don’t get trapped within a Youth Ministry Cohort

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Have you ever had a bumper group come through your youth ministry?  I mean a group that is firing on all cylinders.  This group volunteers for everything, invite their friends, engage in worship, pray regularly, take an active interest in the youth ministry and everything is going very well.  These can be the golden years or dream years for the youth ministry.  You seem to connect with this group, you make friends more easily and they really seem to understand you.  In simple terms a cohort is a group like this that moves through your ministry in a group, they join and leave together.

Leading this cohort in youth ministry is what we dream of, it makes it worthwhile.  But the trap is that this group grows up and moves out of your ministry into the next group, which you don’t lead.  Perhaps you have never seen this happen, maybe you have.  In the youth group that I attended, the dream cohort were finishing up just as I joined.  It seemed that just after I joined everyone got too old for the group and left, leaving all of us a little deflated.  In fact these dream cohorts can create such a bubble in a group that when it bursts, they all leave, the group can’t go on.

Recently I put this question to Tim Hawkins from St Paul’s at Castle Hill.  Whilst Tim has been in Youth Ministry for a long time, he has led cohorts through St Paul’s for 18 years, so I thought he would have experience in this area.  Well Tim’s advice was really really simple.  He said:

“You gotta keep thinking of who is coming next”

Sounds so simple that everyone would do it.  But here are several practical tips that Tim mentioned:

  • People in Children’s ministry should keep an eye on birth announcements, these are the couples who will be bringing their kids to children’s ministry in a year or two.
  • People in Junior high ministry should be looking at the years 4,5,6 who are getting bored in the children’s ministry and are ready to move on.
  • People in Senior high ministry should be looking for the next Senior who can learn to lead at their youth ministry nights and be trained to run small groups.

Whilst we are all tempted to look for a complex plan, it seems from Tim Hawkins that it is as simple and as complex as keeping ahead of the game.  It might be hard and repetitive work but the alternative is having to rebuild your ministry from scratch every time a dream cohort leaves.  So who is coming next in your ministry?  Do you need to start recruiting for the ministry below you in the age cycle so you have a pipeline coming into your ministry?

What are your youth ministry tips for avoiding “Cohortism”?

Are there “Flashbacks” in the Bible?

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Sometime when people want to be critical of the bible they point to passages in the bible that they call “errors”.  An issue that some critics raise are what they perceive as chronological errors.  Some critics look at stories that are out of chronological sequence as a proof that the bible is made up.  Yet if we look at modern day film making, we may have a clue to why some passages in the bible seem out of chronological order.

For example in Judges 1:1 we read that Joshua died, yet in Judges 2:6 we read that Joshua is still alive sending out the nations then dies again.  Did the author get it wrong? Is this a chronological error?  Is this a different Joshua?  In Genesis 10 we read that after the flood, people filled the earth yet in Genesis 11 all the people are back in the one place, is this right?

It seems that some people look at these literary tools as “errors” in the bible but when it happens in modern movies we all call these “flashbacks”.  Whilst I use this term here I have to be careful because the ancient writers didn’t use the term “flashbacks”.  However if you want to explain some literary tools of the bible in terms that young people might understand then you can suggest the parallel to flash backs in modern movies.

For example in the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy we see one character go into an optometrist to get a new pair of glasses.  Whilst the scene is quiet boring and might seem unimportant, the film maker uses the two different set of eyewear to show different periods of time in flashbacks.  When the character is wearing the old set of glasses the audience knows it is a flashback without the date having to appear on the screen.

So flashback to the example in Judges, the author is reminding the reader that Joshua sent out the nations to fill Canaan because it explains the problems Israel faced in chapter 1 and the rest of the book.  So Judges 2:6-8 is like a mini flashback to remind the reader of an important point for interpreting the future chapters.

Likewise with the earlier reference to Genesis 10 and 11.  In Genesis 10 the author is showing what happened after the flood involving Noah and so finishes the narrative with the people filling all the earth, which would have taken some time.  In Genesis 11 the author has a flashback account to explain why the people dispersed rather than stay together in the one place.  This is not a chronological error in the bible, simply a literary tool that the author uses to tell compelling accounts of God and God’s people.

What other “flashbacks” can you see in the Bible?  Leave a comment.

Would you do what you ask your workers to do?

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There is a WorkSafe campaign on Victoria television at the moment with the slogan “would you do what you ask your workers to do?”  In each of the seven 20 second commercials a supervisor asks a worker to do something that is obviously unsafe and the worker agrees.  The point of the campaign is that workers are asked to do unsafe things all the time, just not that obvious.  Of course a worker would never do something unsafe if it was that obvious but what if it wasn’t obvious.

Check out the adds: Worksafe victoria


Whilst the campaign is frightening it drives home the point that we can’t ask people to do something that we know is unsafe.  One supervisor asks the young worker to work on a broken machine, another asks them to work in an inappropriate desk, another to fall off the back of a motor bike on a farm and another to work on a roof without a harness.

So it got me thinking about the situations which we ask our young ministry workers to go into.  Here might be a sample add:

Church leader: Will you work in our church unsupervised with no support but with all the responsibility, you will receive complaints from parents and church members, you will burn out after 18 months and probably hate the church for a while?

Young Leader: Sure

Church Leader:  Oh and we will pay you less than you would get at a fast food restaurant but work longer hours

Young Leader: Sure

If you think this is a far fetched situation then why is it all too common?  Why do we ask people to take on children ministry or youth ministry for 8-10 hours per week?  Many young people take on jobs in ministry for low pay with little supervision because we take advantage of their interest to serve the Church.  My hope is that we reduce the turn over rate of young ministry workers by putting into place support systems for our youngest leaders.   I know some churches can’t pay any more but lets give them the best mentoring and supervision available, lets disciple them like Jesus would.

Would you do what we ask young worker to do?