Youth Pastors generally freak out when we see a teen whip out the cellphone during church to text their friends. It damages the ego…. but in essence, it truly can be a distraction. My mantra has been….’You have your cell phone 168 hours a week…and us for 1. Let’s do the cell phone seranade and put that thing to sleep’.
But not last night. We began a Lifechurch series called ‘Its all in your mind’, and after reading some youth ministry blogs on the subject of cellphones recently, I had the guinea pig mentality to try something new last night. After our message, as part of the program we broke the students into groups by grade level, and had the group leader lead in with this task…text 3 friends any of these 3 questions (about the message content). We encouraged them to share answers with their peeps from their grade groups…
After their group discussion (15 minutes), I came up for a 5 minute closing for a redux to the message, as I had asked the students to text me with some questions and comments. All in all, it was a huge night…and really kept the word of God on the edge of their brains long after the night ended as their friends poured in the texts.
My feelings on this….text messaging so huge at this point in history. I remember reading in the Vanity Fair Africa issue that the whole growth sector of the Nigerian economy is done by text…even bank transactions. If we create space in our programs for text messaging that is distinct and interactive, it can have a very positive and relevant impact.
Tags: big john scott, element, text messaging in church, Youth Ministry
Brilliant, John! That was a creative use of technology, had the benefit of being novel…well done. It will be interesting to hear your student’s reactions, too.
Cool to see you adding technology to help students dig in to this message – way to go!
thanks Lori- it was great! , We’ve decided when Pastor Craig comes here this summer, the youth staff needs to give him free surfing lessons…and pretty much whatever else he wants. The messages and media have been priceless. Thanks so much for your hard work as a staff to extend the platform God has given him.
Great idea. I might just have to steal that one for over here too.
the best teachers are good stealers..at least that’s what we said here in u.s. public education.
true for pastors too lol?
We call it sharing here in the states….haha…. now some ministries don’t allow that…they sell their ideas. I strongly recommend you check out Lifechurch.tv (Lori from their ministry commented on it in the second comment up above). They have the most excellent resources I’ve seen for Pastors/Teachers and it’s all free.
I think in this case your use of texting was warranted. Sometimes, though, I think the Lord would have us take away the distractions of technology for a little while. We encourage the kids to leave the cell phones at home or turn them off during the service. I think it allows for them not to be distracted from the Spirit of the meeting. However, in some cases it could be quite effective. Great post though!
thanks Nate for the word. the conversation that started with our guys at the Association of Related Churches conference this year had to do with ‘interactivity’ and how we can have the students in the space of an evening interact with God, his word, and each other in more unique ways. this was most likely a 4 times a year activity we may try. We ‘d love to hear some of the things that have worked in interactivity threads for you guys as well.
we have had students cut their phones off and place them in a bucket during the service to limit distractions and we have also used text messaging for Q&A and interactivity. http://www.ministrytxt.com allows us to do this and to send out reminders, bible verses and weather notices. It’s been a great tool