By guest blogger, Brandon Riley

Sell the Vision…
You can have the coolest website or forum that promotes online community, but if you fail to sell the vision to your community, it may be used only by the few that are fairly web-savvy. Helping your ministry see that these online tools are more than just ways of communicating, but are part of the culture and can be used as tools in the ministry will help them to understand the reason behind this new technology.

…To volunteers
When we first started building an online community for our students in August of 2007 I spoke with our volunteer leaders about the importance of being in the student’s world on the Internet. One thing I stressed was using their online profile information as a way into starting a conversation with them. We can in a sense be a student of students by knowing them better through the information they provide on these online profiles. Many students will (sometimes unfortunately) disclose more personal information on the Internet than they will in person.

…To students
In August of 2007 we started using a new online community platform that would allow us to also handle sign ups for our small groups, events, etc. It was a lot of work at first because we were changing the entire culture of doing things. We pushed it pretty hard in the beginning. We made a promotional video, sent home flyers, posted info on our website and had laptops in the back of our facility for students to sign up. We cast the vision as a way to stay connected with our ministry and a way to reach out to new people. One thing we did, which I think was the success to our strategy was that we forced our students to use it. We took one thing (small group sign-ups) and said, “If you want to be in a small group you need to be apart of our online community.” This worked for about 90% of our students over the course of 3-4 weeks.

Conclusion
I have found that people are sometimes skeptical when it comes to new technology or new ways of doing things. Giving them a clear understanding as to why you are using this or doing things a different way will help get them excited about these new opportunities. Don’t be afraid to stop using paper by going completely online. Yes there may be some road bumps, but in the end it will be revolutionary.

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Brandon Riley is the Technical Director of Student Ministries at Denton Bible Church in Texas and is also the Director of User Experience for Tuggle, a social network with built-in management tools for youth ministries.

By guest blogger, Brandon Riley

Just like any Christian community there has to be distinctives that make it “Christian.” Perhaps the same should be true with online “Christian” community. Is it enough to have Christians online in a Facebook group and therefore call it “community?”

As you think about building an online community for your youth group, perhaps you should be asking what makes it distinctively “Christian.” Sure the mere fact of encouraging people and asking how they are doing is good morale, but perhaps you will find this same type of morale among non-Christians as well.

As teenagers spend more and more time on the internet, how are we as youth workers going to reach them in this realm of life for them? There are four areas of focus that perhaps may be of great use in the online community as we strive to enhance “Christian” community that is already taking place in our churches.

1. Testimonies: Stories of life change and stories of being changed by God’s grace are some of the best un-tapped areas that online communities need to embrace. Often online profiles include favorite books and music but no place to include a story of life change. And granted if someone has not experienced life change and has no real testimony at this point in life, perhaps they will look at other profiles to see what this testimony thing is all about and perhaps they might even start to question where they stand with the almighty Creator.

2. Ongoing Dialog: While discussion happens at church and in small groups, the idea of discussing theology or prayer requests or culture ought to be something that Christians are in constant dialog over. As we seek to be a body of believers who not only come together once or twice a week, but are speaking and dialogging together perhaps even at midnight on the Internet about the theology behind the movie I Am Legend.

3. Involvement: Is your online group just an online group? Being on several social networks myself, I have been able to add myself to 15+ groups most of which I never look at or interact with. I simply exist within the group. Is your online community encouraging your students to sign up for things in your ministry such as small groups, praise band or the tech team? Is your online community a place for students to volunteer to go play Wii at a nursery home with the elderly?

4. New People: Does your online community welcome new people and make them feel like they are apart of something unique? Making your online community a place where members can feel welcomed and loved will be a distinctive they may not find in many online groups. Are you welcoming people as they join? Are the members starting dialog with them they
day they sign up? Perhaps students may connect online with others before even connecting in person due the walls that often come down in this relaxed environment.

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Brandon Riley is the Technical Director of Student Ministries at Denton Bible Church in Texas and is also the Director of User Experience for Tuggle, a social network with built-in management tools for youth ministries.