Graduation is coming up in a couple months and it’s caused me to reflect a bit on our ministry overall, from 7th grade through 12th grade. By the time they graduate, what should they know? Where should they be spiritually? What should their lives look like?

This is obviously a very subjective list, but here’s what I’d like to see for our youth group’s graduates before they leave our ministry.

1) An overview understanding of the entire Bible. I’m not saying they need to know everything in it, but at least be able to track through Genesis to Revelation at a 35,000 foot level. Biblical literacy is key because you cannot fall in love with someone if you don’t know much about them. But the more you know, the more there is to fall in love with, and the more you fall in love, the more you want to know about that person. Knowing God’s Word is foundational to knowing and loving God.

2) Know how to study scripture for themselves. I don’t want our youth group kids to graduate and always be dependent on someone else to chew on God’s Word, digest it, and spit it out in bite size pieces for them each week at church. I want them to learn how to feed on the Word of God for their own and not just swallow the assumptions that I, or any other pastor or teacher, throws at them. They should be equipped to dig into God’s Word on their own, study it for themselves, and feed on it’s life-sustaining power, not being content with spiritual milk.

3) Worship and evangelism should be a natural part of their daily lives. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” And 1 Corinthians 4:20 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” Learning God’s Word and being able to study it on your own is great, but if that knowledge is just a lot of talk and never turns to love for God and for people (i.e. the Great Commandment), then it’s a waste. The outpouring of their knowledge of God should turn into a passionate love that is exemplified in their lifestyle of worship and a burden for lost people.

Tomorrow I’ll share how we address these things practically in our ministry. UPDATE: Part 2 is now published here.

What 3 things do you want your students to know, do, and/or experience before they graduate? Share in the comments below.

I tend to be pretty open about my struggle with pornography, so I rarely shy away from the issue whenever it comes up in discussions with youth group guys, which is unfortunately pretty often. It also comes up in church staff conversations where I’ll be pretty transparent about the roadblocks I’ve established for myself to gain victory over it.

So, when my sr. pastor asked me if I was interested in taking the Colossians 3:5 passage of a series he’s doing, I was nervously willing to jump in and cover the issue publicly in our Sunday morning services.

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Colossians 3:5 (NIV)

I co-taught the message on pornography and lust with a lady in our church. We first shared our own stories about our struggles with porn, then moved into some of the dangers and consequences that pornography can have, followed by common lies we believe about porn, and finished with steps to start gaining victory over this addition in our lives.

Our main push through the message was to encourage people to just start talking about the struggle. To help people get started we provided a phone number where anyone could anonymously text message us with any question they have regarding pornography and lust. If we had time at the end of the service, we intended to answer some of them publicly from the stage, but unfortunately the clock never permitted that, so we shot a follow-up video answering the questions instead and posted it on our church’s website.

With the video posted, last week our church’s website had the highest traffic levels it’s ever had. The follow-up page I created with links, resources, and our follow-up video generated a lot of hits, which tells me we hit a nerve. So far we have not seen a movement of confessions or talked with a lot of men and women seeking accountability, but the traffic on our church’s website indicates that the need is there. How we respond from here is something we’ll have to talk about in an upcoming staff meeting.

You can watch the Sunday message I co-taught on porn and the follow-up video on our church’s website.

Two weeks ago Adam McLane and I were in Haiti sitting with one of our Haitian translators. The translator asked me, “Are you a youth pastor?” I replied that I am. He turned to Adam and asked the same thing. Adam explained that he used to be a youth pastor, but now he works for Youth Specialties. Our translator pushed back and said that Adam is still a youth pastor even if he doesn’t work at a church. Adam didn’t really agree with him and, without missing a beat, our translator shot back, “You are always a pastor because being a pastor is your spiritual gift, not your title. Even if you don’t work at a church, you are still a pastor.”

The conversation quickly turned to my last name and how I’m a Nazi like Hitler because I have a German last name (don’t ask lol), but I’ve been thinking about what he said. Being a pastor is not just a title we’re assigned because we’re on paid staff at a church — it’s our spiritual gift. There are numerous implications of this perspective.

First, I went to school for 7 years to learn how to use my spiritual gift of pastor/shepherd, but most of the things I spend my time doing each day fall into administrative tasks and organizing details, a gift I don’t have. Hmm… I would much rather be doing pastoral care for teens.

Second, and more importantly, this means that there are probably a lot more pastors in my church than I think, including teenagers! This puts a whole new spin on the term, “youth pastor.” Right now, I am not intentionally using the youth pastors in my ministry, nor training them to do pastoral care in their schools and future work environments.

I think this is will be part of the process of correcting the way I’m doing youth ministry all wrong, but I’m still thinking and praying through it. I greatly appreciate and welcome all your insights. The comments below are open.

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

I’m struggling on so many different levels. It’s hard to know where to even start with all the tension I feel about myself, the American church, and the state of spirituality among Christians here. I’m doing my best not to look down on American believers and the church with any sort of arrogance because, honestly, the attitude of my heart is really just brokenness for what I see. Jeremy Zach and I talked about this on a little walk we took before leaving the Dominican Republic: until I can share with more grace, my response right now is to keep my deepest thoughts to myself to avoid becoming overly-critical in a way that shuts down communication.

A couple times before we left Haiti, I actually thought, from a spiritual standpoint, that it would be cool to never return to America and just stay with the Haitians, except I knew that would definitely be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There’s a lot to be thankful here in America and a lot that is very positive — there’s no doubt that God has blessed us extravagantly and that our response of materialism and consumerism have affected us in ways I never even noticed until I was removed from it for a brief time. Maybe these things are so glaring to me now because I’m still hyper-sensitive having just come off the trip a couple days ago, but I know my heart for my own American people will never be the same as a result of my experiences in Haiti. We are so blessed, yet so poor.

America and Haiti are complete opposites right now. Haiti has such an overwhelming need for basic necessities and we have such an overwhelming need for revival. I want to be used by God to be a catalyst for revival here, but that task seems exponentially more daunting than the physical tasks that lie before Haiti right now. Cleaning up a collapsed city and providing life-sustaining supplies to hundreds of thousands of homeless people sounds much easier.

So, for now, I’m still processing, thinking, and praying with an intensity unlike I’ve never known before.

If you’re even slightly thinking about going to Haiti sometime soon to serve, you must go now! All your excuses are completely invalid: it’s very safe, you can absolutely afford it, you have the time, and you can make a big difference.

Do it. Now. Stop over-thinking it. Get off your butt and go. Seriously. Go.

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

Here’s my first video blog about my trip to Haiti with the Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti. All in all, a great day, but super slow internet. It took over two hours to upload the video from the Dominican Republic hotel. Hopefully bandwidth will be more favorable in Haiti tomorrow, but if it’s not, I may be difficult to upload them on a daily basis. Just FYI.

We’re having a great time this first day, but it’s been mostly travel. Tomorrow we head into Port au Prince and prepare for culture shock.

Also follow my Haiti updates here:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

[ Read more recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or are a fan of the Life In Student Ministry Facebook Page already know this because I announced it last Friday with this post on my personal blog at timschmoyer.me.

To hear the story of this opportunity, I strongly encourage you to go read that post first. It tells the story of how I responded initially to the opportunity, how the Lord convicted me about my self-centeredness, and changed my response.

The short version is this: Early last week I was asked if I was interested in a trip to Haiti. Since it was during time I had already scheduled to be in Texas on a family vacation, my wife and I mostly declined, but as I thought about it throughout the rest of the week I felt very convicted. “Tim, how can you go kick-back in Texas and relax when there’s so many people in Haiti who are literally suffering! And you have an opportunity to help!” Matthew 25:40 and James 4:17 kept kicking my butt all week long until I got the email, “Tim, the trip is officially on. Are you in or out?” Apparently my wife had a change of heart, too, because when I approached her about it again, she said I needed to go even before I said I was actually thinking about doing it.

So, here I go! I’m scared, nervous, excited, and unqualified, all at the same time. I’m going with the expectation that God will just wreck me, that He’ll shatter my perspective of the world and of life. It will be hard, I’m sure… harder than I can imagine. I’m so comfortable in my tiny, self-centered, narrowly-focused, perfect American world.

There’s more about that in my original post, so let me use the rest of this post to fill in some details that are missing from it and answer some common questions I’ve received so far.

Common questions about the trip

First of all, this is definitely, absolutely, 100% a serving trip. I am not going just to be a tourist and see the sights. If that were the case, I would much rather go somewhere cleaner and safer than Haiti. I’m going to serve water and food in a community where currently no other relief is present except a small team from the organization I’ll be joining. The cool thing about this team is that they are serving along-side of Haitians instead of just taking over and doing it on their own. They’re partnering with local churches, drenching the ministry in prayer, and have a lot of experience in relief efforts, including Katrina.

I know people are being told not to come to Haiti unless you’re an expert, like a doctor or a dentist or something, but they’re mostly speaking to people without a plan, who just show up at the airport without a ride or a place to go. I am traveling to Haiti invited by people who are already there, who have a plan for me and our ministry time together. Reports from the people they’ve helped on the ground are, “Please come help us! We’ve been left homeless and without anything, and we are desperate.” Advance teams from this organization are being met with great gratitude. Furthermore, it doesn’t take an expert to clean up debris, hand out food and water, or just be present to give hope to people by showing them, “Hey, you’re not alone! We’re here for you.”

Follow my trip in Haiti

Depending on wifi availability, you can be sure I’ll do my best to keep you all in the loop with what’s happening while I’m there, including pictures, videos, tweets, and blog posts. I’m not sure what the Internet access will be like, nor do I know a lot of other details yet, but hopefully by next week I can update you all again with how everything is coming together. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to my following channels for my videos, pictures, and updates from Haiti:

• My Twitter account
• Subscribe to my YouTube videos
• Become a fan of Life In Student Ministry on Facebook
• Subscribe to LISM in iTunes
• Subscribe to this blog either by RSS or by email

I need some financial help

It’s no secret that a missions trip costs a lot of money. Fortunately, most of it will be paid for by a very generous donor! (Thank you!!) There are some expenses I have to cover myself, however, most notably are the necessary immunizations and some gear, like decent hiking shoes and mosquito netting. I don’t have final prices on all the shots and immunizations yet, but it sounds like they’ll easily add up to several hundred dollars.

If you feel compelled to partner with me financially to help cover some of these expenses, I would greatly appreciate it. Any funds that come in above and beyond my necessary expenses I will donate to the Haiti relief work of the organization I’ll be joining. The dates for the trip are February 11 to 17. Please use this chip-in widget to donate money to my PayPal account. Thank you!

Just as many of us are becoming familiar with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, here come two more big contenders that some tech sites are claiming will be the next big wave of social interaction. In fact, CNN calls them “next year’s Twitter.” True to my prediction about why teens will leave Facebook within the next two years, both of these services fall under the categories I suggested would characterize what’s next in the social media industry: It will not be tethered to a computer, and it will still enhance and lead to face-to-face socializing.

About the games

Imagine that the entire world is a giant game board. As you travel from place to place around town or around the world, you receive points via your GPS enabled cell phone for the places you visit and how you interact there. At some venues, you can pick up virtual items left there by other players, leave one of your own items behind for others who visit in the future, and view a log of how each item was picked up and passed along from place to place around the world, like a virtual geocache. If you visit a venue more than anyone else, you could become mayor of that place and earn a reputation with everyone else who visits it in the future as long as you retain your mayorship. (Some restaurants and stores now offer perks to the mayors of their venue, such as free drinks or special coupons.) Race to earn the most points among your friends, see their last location and choose to join them (no more calling everyone to see where they are, just check your friends list and drive over), and also race to earn both a local and global reputation as you travel your community and the rest of the world. There are leaderboards to climb, fun badges to earn, pins to unlock, collectable items to find, new venues to be the first to discover, and so much more. You can also leave notes for other visitors who check-in at that spot later (i.e. “I definitely recommend the chicken sandwich”) or leave notes for yourself that pop-up the next time you visit that venue (i.e. “Try the house salad next time instead of the caesar salad”). It’s a local game combined with a global game with both your friends and everyone else in the world.

The game names

The two big services in this mobile location-based game market are Foursquare and Gowalla. I’ve been playing both of their games for a couple weeks with my Motorola Droid and love it! As a guy who loves role-playing video games, the idea of being able to unlock badges, find items, rank up, and interact with other locals as I do my normal every-day activities around town is quite addicting.

GPS enabled phones with data plans are becoming more and more mainstream (Blackberry, iPhone, Android-based phones, etc.), which will lead to see a rise in the popularity of these mobile location-based games, first with the young-professionals 20-somethings, but then with teenagers. Within the next year or two, the mobile social networking games will become more robust, more competitive, more social and much more helpful and valuable as you travel to new places.

These services are still very new and there’s not much on the web that explains what they are or how they work in really simplistic terms. Foursquare as a half-decent explanation on their site, but Gowalla doesn’t have an explanation save for a brief video on the front page of their website that really doesn’t do it justice. This YouTube video is the best I could find if you want another (better) explanation of the two services side-by-side.

To see Foursquare and Gowalla compared, Mashable has a slightly out-dated chart of the two since Foursquare recently changed the game to be both global and local instead of just local. Now you play not only with your friends, but you’re also ranked again people who are within a 25 mile radius of you.

Another big player in the location-based mobile gaming industry is MyTown. It looks really sweet because it allows users to earn virtual currency, buy venues they frequently visit and charge rent to other players who check-in there, kinda like a big monopoly game in real-life. Unfortunately, I can’t play because it’s limited to the iPhone. Grrr…

Yelp.com recently got in the action by adding location-based gaming to their existing user-review community, and it’s only a matter of time until Facebook gets in the game, taking their millions of users with them to immediately dominate the industry (thereby somewhat negating my previous prediction).

The implications for the future of youth ministry are numerous

• At a glance on your phone, see where your youth group kids are all hanging out and go join them.
• Not familiar with the venue the teens are at? Check with the mayor, or read some of the notes posted about it.
• Know who your youth group kids are spending time with every day.
• Running some errands? Make your trail available so a kid can catch you if you’re nearby.
• Notice that a new visitor who checked in to your church’s venue last Sunday is working at the check-out lane in the grocery store. Go do some shopping there and make sure you check-out on their isle to introduce yourself.
• Leave virtual notes for kids at a venue for the next time they visit. (“Hey John, I talked with the store manager and I already pre-paid your next coffee here. Surprise! This one’s on me. Love ya, man!” Or, “Welcome to school today! Praying for your test, Jill!”)
• Track attendance at youth group. If someone’s missing, see where they are. Notice the youth group guy is with a girl, probably on a date? Take the entire youth group over there and crash it!
• Become mayor of your church to interact with guests, visitors, and even regulars who check in.
• Thinking about grabbing dinner at Taco Bell, but see a couple kids just checked in at Subway across the street? Eat over there instead. (Plus, it’s healthier for you.)
• A visitor comes to church and you notice they’re the mayor of a local bar. Great piece of info and background as you spark a conversations. Or maybe you notice that this person checked into 5 different churches each Sunday for the past 5 weeks. Again, helpful info. Maybe they’re searching for a church home. Drop a cool virtual item for them to take as a souvenir of their visit along with a note.

The list could go on and on, but you get the picture. Some of these location-based features aren’t available yet, like leaving private notes at a venue for a friend, but given some time I’m sure we’ll see this soon. (Remember The Milk already does location-based personal notes and “to do” reminders for GPS enabled phones. Walk into a grocery store and your phone automatically detects where you are and pops up your reminder, “Hey, remember to get cereal while you’re here.” Or, walk into church and your church “to do” list automatically comes up on your phone.)

My take

Personally, I like Foursquare the best because it has a native app for my Droid, the game is easy to learn, and it feels more social than the others. Plus, Foursquare seems to be pioneering the market more aggressively than the competition, which is still pretty limited. However, I really like Gowalla’s “virtual geocaching,” so I’ll probably play them both for now and see what happens.

Feel free to add me as a friend both on Gowalla and Foursquare. If you see that I just checked in somewhere close by you, come over and say HI! This will be especially fun to play with all of you at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference next month!

[ Tim Schmoyer on Foursquare ]

[ Tim Schmoyer on Gowalla ]

Note that there’s no gameplay on the site – you have to be on a GPS-enabled mobile phone for the actual game.

Preempting your criticisms

Before anyone gets too critical about the dangers of location-based services, let me remind you of the cycle of youth culture: everything from Elvis to MySpace is first met with criticism from the older generations before it’s eventually adopted as commonplace just as the new generation is moving on to something else. Since the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over the age of 55, I’d say it’s about time to see the cycle start to repeat itself again very soon. Maybe mobile location-based networking will be where criticism comes next before everyone is eventually doing it, maybe not, but I’m guessing it is.

Yeah, there will be some crazy stalker stories surrounding the games of making your exact location known, and most of us (myself included) still feel a little uncomfortable about giving away that kind of information on a regular basis, but I remember feeling the same way about Twitter and letting everyone know, “What are you doing?” all the time. Now it’s normal. I remember way back when it was a privacy concern to post a picture of yourself online! Given some time and wider acceptance, I expect the same will happen with location-aware social networks, too.

What do you think?

Do you think mobile location based services will catch on? How do you see it impacting youth ministry?

Almost two years ago I started doing some one-on-one youth ministry mentoring through this site and since then it’s grown into a full-blown team of mentors who have served over 100 brand new youth workers. We’ve taken a wholistic approach to mentoring by focusing on three main areas that all intertwine with each other: a mentee’s personal life, spiritual life, and ministry life. The response by new youth workers who have gone through the program has been extremely positive, so we’re glad we’re on the right track with this. We tend to do two 10-week one-on-one rounds each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and this year will be no different.

However, this spring round of mentoring will be especially unique because we have the tremendous opportunity to partner with the Simply Youth Ministry Conference and start it face-to-face with you. Most of the mentors will be at the conference, myself included, and are pumped to take mentoring to the next level with a couple one-on-one lunch conversations. It’s advice and wisdom for your youth ministry, your personal walk with Christ, and your personal life that starts face-to-face and continues to weekly telephone conversations from there!

If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and will be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference from February 26 to March 1, 2010, then this youth ministry mentorship is for you! The video below explains a bit more about it, including a story from one of the past mentees who has gone through the program.

Traditionally the mentorship has been absolutely free, but because we want to start investing more into the mentors and into the program, the 10-week mentorship now costs $99 (books included). We realize that some youth workers who really need this mentoring can’t afford that, though, so there are some scholarship funds available.

If you have been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and you’re planning to be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference next month, this is simply an opportunity I promise you cannot miss! Seriously. I don’t say that about many things. Check out the Youth Ministry Mentoring part of this site, look through the expectations, goals, and other parts of the mentorship and decide for yourself. If you’re up for the 10-week journey with a personal youth ministry mentor, fill out the application and if you’re selected by a mentor, I will be in touch with you via email to give you payment information and put you in touch with the mentor.

For those of you who want to be mentored but will not be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, you may also fill out the application to be considered for the mentorship. The mentors who are unable to attend the conference will be considering your applications.

I’m so pumped about this partnership! Seriously people, you new youth workers out there cannot believe how blessed you will be by both the conference and this mentorship, especially when they’re combined together like this. Check it out!

[ Youth Ministry Mentorship ]

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Today Youth Specialties makes a huge announcement and reveals its new Executive Director, Tic Long. Youth Specialties has been through a lot of major transitions throughout the past couple years, so welcoming back a familiar face like Tic is undoubedly a comfort and relief for many. Personally, I’m stoked! I appreciate Tic’s ability to appreciate the rich history of Youth Specialities’ past while still embracing the changes and risks that will always be necessary for the future.

It’s great to feel a sense of stability at Youth Specialties again now that the YouthWorks deal is finished and Tic is back on board (and, of course, that Adam McLane is still around). I’m looking forward to exciting new developments in the the field of youth ministry from YS for a long time to come.

I had the privilege of interviewing Tic in anticipation for this announcement. Here’s our discussion:

TIM: First of all, welcome back to YS! What’s been going through your mind, soul and heart during the time off?

TIC: To tell you the truth Tim the first couple months I was trying to get YS out of my system. After 32 years I had to relearn about life outside of YS. I tried to not really think too much or too soon about what was next but to enjoy my family, friends and God in a more leisurely manner. I spent a month Backpacking which did wonders for my Soul.

TIM: You could’ve taken a lot of different opportunities from a lot of different organizations. What drew you back to YS?

TIC: It was really a couple things. First I was actually surprised by that fact that in the end I had some really cool opportunities to choose from. Others said that would be the case but it still surprised me. In my time away I wrestled with the question was it time to leave youth ministry. In the end there was just nothing else that excited me as much. I think some of us are just lifers. We might be a sick group but it is home to me. There is nothing else that I am as passionate about. I wasn’t expecting this so it took a while to get my emotions around it. First I really fell in love with the YouthWorks folks. I went to Minneapolis to their HQ which is kind of dumpy. It reminded me of the early YS offices. They have had the money to build big fancy offices but to do that would mean they would not be able to give away as much money. They give serious money away to the communities they do mission trips in and that really spoke to me. They are serious about being the church to folks. There is a lot more to this part of the story but I really felt they were the perfect home for YS after I sniffed it out. I think the other thing is deep down I am just a YS guy. I love YS and I think this home can return us closer to what I dream we can be. In the end I just could not say no to YS.

TIM: Based on Youth Specialties’ past that has brought it to where it is today with YouthWorks and Zondervan, where do you see God taking YS in the future? What’s vision has God laid on your heart for YS?

TIC: It is still a little early to speak to this to a great extent extent as I just said yes to returning December 27 and have just spent a couple days with the folks here in Minneapolis and have yet to even be in the YS office since coming back. What I am feeling most strongly is returning our focus to loving, training and resourcing youth workers. These last couple seasons at YS we have had so many internal issues and financial pressures we had to focus more on ourselves than youth workers and that hindered us. YS at it’s best is playful, prophetic, inclusive, grounded, willing to take risk to help youth workers engage culture and equip their students to follow Jesus. I think our calling is to be an advocate and safe haven for those working with students, our events a place where youth workers are nourished spiritually and encouraged and at the same time challenged to take chances to meet God on the outer edge of their faith and not play it safe, go for it for the kingdom of God…. Sorry I’m rambling.

TIM: What are the biggest obstacles for YS to overcome to get there?

TIC: Being better listeners to not only what God is calling us to but to what youth workers are asking for. We have been at this for a while and have lots of ideas and approaches with many peers. We need to make sure we make room for new voices and not just stay in our own comfort zone. We need to provide platforms for the new voices God is calling to speak into the youth ministry community. It is much easier to go just with those we know well but we just can’t do that. Someone gave Yaconelli a chance, We gave Duffy Robbins, Chap Clark, Doug Fields, Les Christie and many others a platform to speak to the youth ministry community with what God placed on their heart. We need to keep doing that, to keep presenting new voices.

TIM: NYWC has been the Mecca of youth ministry conventions for decades, but recently many youth workers have become increasingly disinterested in it for a number of reasons. What changes can we look forward to specifically at NYWC?

TIC: I think the above applies here. The convention is not about us but about youth workers. I think we refine what we do best in response to what we hear from the trenches. I actually think Youth Ministry is better served with the SYM convention, Orange and others on the scene rather than the NYWC being the only game in town. It makes harder for us but better for the kingdom. I think as all our events fine tune and respond to each other and the youth ministry community the church wins.

TIM: What is your relationship with Marko? I know you were at one time the President of YS, but what makes you think you are the person to do it again?

TIC: I don’t really know how to answer that but let me start with this point because I think there is some misinformation out there. Marko and I are good, we have always been good. We are friends and had a good working relationship. We have not blamed each other or had any big weirdness throughout this wild ride. We will continue to be friends and speak into each others lives. I am not worried about my ability to lead YS (other than the fact that there is always some fear in me when handling something I think God has places in front of me). It is is my giftedness and skill set. I know YS, I know youth workers but I am not doing it alone, as always we will have a team. We have always seen YS as a gift, a sacred trust and not something we owned. I am once again a caretaker of that trust and that is humbling. I am excited and humbled at the same time, does that make sense?

TIM: What does YS need from youth workers during this transitionary time? How can we support you all?

TIC: Give us some time to catch our breath, your prayers and your voice.

TIM: Any chance you’ll be moving to my backyard here in Minnesota to be closer to YouthWorks? :-)

TIC: Ummmmmmm………NO. That would take a burning bush.

Read the official announcement about Tic’s position at YouthSpecialties.com, including this teaser video on YouTube.

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If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer, there’s a solid team of experienced Life In Student Ministry youth workers who want to support you and invest into your ministry on a one-on-one basis! Read more on our Youth Ministry Mentors page.

Yesterday I wrote about how new technology becomes a ministry tool and mentioned how that’s happening for Google Wave right now. This post is not intended to explain what Google Wave is or how it works — there are plenty of posts and videos around the web that already explain that. My point here is simply to give an example of how we’ve been using it for personal use until last Sunday night at youth group when it became the most logical solution for ministry use. There are probably other ways to accomplish what we wanted to do besides using Google Wave, like good ol’ pen and paper, but this worked best for our situation.

We just finished up a series with our high school students based on NewSpring’s, “Don’t get married until…” series and wanted to end it with an anonymous conversation between the guys and the girls. The idea was to split the girls and guys into separate rooms and write a list of questions they wanted the opposite gender to answer. We would swap lists, write down answers in our groups for the other gender, and then send the answer sheet back to the other gender to read and discuss.

That sounded good except for the time it would take to run back and forth and the time of writing out all the answers when we could instead be discussing and talking. So, my wife had the idea of using Google Wave to collaborate instead. Here’s what we did:

I went in the room with the guys and my wife went with the girls. We both took our Macbooks, connected to our church’s wifi, and started two Waves, one titled, “Guys questions for the girls,” and another called, “Girls questions for the guys.” We gave each group about 10 or 15 minutes to list their questions in order of highest priority to least (to ensure we addressed their top questions first before we ran out of time). We each listed our group’s questions in the appropriate Wave. Then we switched Waves and started reading the other group’s questions aloud and typed our group’s responses. At that point all the teens really started digging it! In the guy group, after answering some of the girls’ questions, we hopped back to our origional Wave to read how the girls were responding to our questions. We posted our follow-up questions, added other comments, and then went back to answering more girl questions. It was serously a lot of fun!

The guys and girls had a great open and honest “conversation” with each other, feeling safe to ask anything without risk of embarassment or knowing who was saying or asking what.

Since this is a bit hard to explain, especially if you’re not familiar with Google Wave, here’s a screenshot of part of the girls’ Wave and part of the guys’ Wave.

The cool thing about this that I didn’t anticipate was that the teens wanted to continue the conversation online even after youth group ended. So I gave away a bunch of Wave invites to the students and added them to the Wave as soon as they were accepted. It’ll be interesting to see if and how the Waves that started at youth group continue throughout the week. It might be a good follow-up tool or “for further discussion” type of things?

The teens really want to do it again sometime, so I probably will when it’s appropriate for other discussions in the future.

P.S. Speaking of technology, I just wrote yesterdays and today’s entire blog posts on my cell phone, the new Motorola Droid. Who even needs a computer anymore?