Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen some of the recent episodes of my youth group video announcements. Since I rarely make announcements at youth group meetings, I depend on other means of communication to share news, announcements and other important youth group news. My latest experiment is with video, for a couple of important reasons.

My normal communication is mediocre
The open rate of my youth group emails averages 35% (although, that may be partially due to deliverability). The click-through rate for Facebook messages is about 30%. Text message updates seems to be the most effective means of communication for our youth group, but obviously it is very limited with how much I can write in a single message. We also have bulletin inserts every week with youth group news, which may or may not be working since I have no way of tracking that (except to maybe stop doing it and see how many people still ask for it?). Our youth group website generates an average of 100 visitors per day and is probably our most effective means of communication.

Why try video
But we all know that for teenagers, online video is growing in exponential leaps and bounds, so if they’re not going to take 2 minutes to read an email, maybe they’ll take 10 minutes to watch a video. That’s why I’m now experimenting with youth group video episodes each week. I’ll continue it for another couple weeks while keeping an eye on the video traffic stats and then evaluate it’s effectiveness against all the other ways we already communicate.

Give it value
The success of communicating with teens in general, but especially through these videos, is that I need to give the episodes more value than just news and announcements. That’s why I’ve laid out the format of each episode as follows:

• Welcome and summary of what’s coming up in the video
• Announcements and news with L.T.
• A giveaway of some kind
• A devotional thought that serves as a preview to next week’s lesson
• YouTube video of the week

Of course, each episode is available in iTunes as a podcast so teenagers can easily transfer the episodes to their iPods and watch later on the bus, working out in the gym, or whenever they want.

My latest youth group video episodes
Tomorrow I’ll post a tutorial about how I made these videos, but in the meantime, below are the latest episodes from my youth group.

UPDATE: Part 2 of this series is posted and includes instructions on how I created the videos along with links to everything I could think of.

Shawn Michael is also using video for his youth group news. If you want to see an example of what he’s doing, see here.

Sorry guys, still playing catch-up on Q&A topics you’ve submitted, but I love the questions, so keep ‘em coming!

Shelby Craig asked me this question on Twitter.

How do you follow up with students that haven’t been to youth group in a while?

First of all, how we know when a student has been missing for a while is very important. The typical strategy is to take attendance or have everyone sign in when they show up at youth group. After a couple weeks, if Quiet Jonny’s name hasn’t been checked off for a while, then we know to give him a call.

The problem with that approach is that it’s very impersonal. The only way we know if Quiet Jonny is missing or not is because of boxes that are not checked on a sheet of paper, not because we were looking for him specifically and missed his presence at youth group. Maybe we notice when the outgoing kids are gone, but rarely the quiet kids.

In my ministry, we don’t take attendance. When I get the question, “How many kids are in your youth ministry?” the honest answer is, “I don’t know.” Frankly, it doesn’t matter much to me if we have 1 kid show up or 100. We’re excited about whoever is there and will invest into them personally.

And I think that’s the key — investing into every student personally. If every student has a personal connection to an adult leader who is looking for them and can’t wait to talk with them once they show up at youth group, not only does that kid want to be there, but that adult leader notices when he or she is missing. It is then that leader’s responsibility to contact the student during the week.

So here’s the plan, especially for large-group meetings:

1. Have enough adult leaders to meet a 1 to 5 ratio of leaders to kids. As the youth group grows, add more leaders to maintain that balance.

2. Every leader is responsible for 5 specific kids. These leaders are intentionally looking for those students so they can catch up with them about their week.

3. If an adult is responsible for a kid who brings a friend, that friend becomes one more person that the adult leader will get to know and look for in following weeks. If one leader’s group of kids grows too large, then another adult joins and slowly they divide into two groups.

4. When one student is missing, the leader who was looking for them at youth group contacts them during the week just to say HI, hear about their week, and let them know they were missed. (NO guilt trips!!!)

5. Be sure to have designated greeters who look for visitors that come by themselves. Usually they’re pretty easy to spot because they’re sitting alone, looking uncomfortable.

This isn’t a branded process in our ministry. Most of the kids have no idea this is even intentionally happening. They just know that one adult in particular enjoys them, loves their presence, and notices when they’re absent. That feels a lot nicer than being known by a checkmark on an attendance sheet.

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

The typical way of keeping parents up-to-date while on a youth trip is to call home when something bad happens. “Sorry, Mrs. Johnson. Your son has mashed potatoes stuck in his ears and can’t hear a thing. You’ll have to drive 5 hours to pick him up and take him to a doctor.” Messages like that is probably not the one and only thing parents want to hear about the trip so far.

I find great value in keeping parents updated throughout our trips on an almost play-by-play basis.

• Parents feel a part of what’s happening.
• They trust the youth leaders more.
• They feel at ease seeing and hearing the great time their kid is having.
• They know exactly how the trip unfolded, making for a better conversation when the kids get home.
• I can quickly share prayer requests and highlights right when something happens.
• Everyone at home sees the highlights and funny stories right away.
• The kids love reading my updates once they get home and reliving the memories of the experience.

Thankfully, several web services make it simple and FREE to keep parents updated with text, pictures and videos, all from your cell phone (txt/pix/video message charges may apply). I’ve done it almost every trip for over a year now, including just two weeks ago during our jr. high retreat. See individual examples here, here, here and here.

Here’s how you can share text updates, pictures and video clips from your cell phone with parents and anyone else who has access to an Internet connection.

Share short text updates

Twitter is the service that will drive your communication with parents back home. Create an account at Twitter.com and add your cell phone to your account (under Settings and then Devices). Once your number is verified, all you have to do to update your profile page is send a txt message to the number 40404. Within seconds, your message appears online at http://twitter.com/[yourusername]. Give that web address to parents ahead of time and tell them to keep an eye on it for updates while you’re away. The parents in my ministry are usually glued to it, refreshing the page every couple minutes, to get the latest update!

(NOTE: If parents want your updates automatically sent to their cell phones, they can create a Twitter account, too, add their cell phone to their account, and click on the little gray Follow button under your icon on your profile page.)

(NOTE: If you sign up for Twitter, feel free to follow my updates, too: http://twitter.com/rockinyp is my profile page. When logged in to Twitter, click the little gray Follow button under my icon image.)

Add pictures to your updates

Almost every cell phone has a camera on it now, making it easy to share pictures, so why not share photos of your trip with parents right when it happens? To post pictures in your Twitter updates, go to TwitPic.com and login with the Twitter username and password you created earlier. Then click on Settings in the top black navigation bar. There you’ll find a special private email address. Enter that address as a contact in your phone. To post a picture to your Twitter page, just take a picture with your cell phone and send it as a pic message to that email address. Add a brief description of the photo as the Subject of the message and send the picture message. After a few minutes a link to the picture will show up on your Twitter page along with the caption you entered as the Subject in your pic message. Simple.

Add videos to your updates

More and more cell phones are capable of sending video messages now, too. A new service called 12Seconds.tv does exactly that. It works the same way as TwitPic. Register an account at 12Seconds.tv, go to Settings, enter your Twitter login information and check the box to “Post updates to twitter.” Click Submit at the bottom of the page to save your settings. In the right-hand column of your Settings page, take note of the special private email address where you can send videos messages from your cell phone and have them automatically posted on your 12Seconds.tv page and your Twitter page.

(NOTE: 12Seconds.tv is still in early development stages. Joining the site is currently on an invitation basis only. If you request an invitation to join, but don’t get one after a day or so, post a comment below. I have a couple invitations left and I know a couple other people who do, too. We’ll gladly send you one.)

An idea for high-tech nerds

Instead of giving out my Twitter page address to parents, I embed my Twitter RSS feed into my youth group website. It’s easier for me to just tell everyone to keep an eye on our website for regular updates, but for most people it’s probably easier to email a Twitter link to everyone to watch. Of course, you could use TwitStamp.com to embed your Twitter updates into any web page, too.

Twitter can also automatically update your status in Facebook if you add the Twitter Facebook application and set the settings to do so.

A thought on privacy

As you update, be sensitive to what you’re posting. Some parents freak out and immediately think rapists are going to find their kids because you put a picture of them online or mentioned their name. You and I both know that’s absolutely ridiculous, but parents don’t always feel that way. So respect their wishes if they want their kid left out. Either way, use common sense: no sensitive information, no last names, no pictures from the bathrooms, nothing that could be misinterpreted without the full story, no frustration comments about the problem kid, etc.

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Life In Student Ministry has an outstanding team of youth ministry veterans waiting to mentor you one-on-one! [Mentorship made free for you thanks to YouthBytes video curriculum.]

I love interacting with youth workers online! I’m often challenged with new perspectives, the stories of how God’s working through other people energizes me, and new ideas abound. Not only does my ministry benefit from the input of lots of other youth workers, but my personal life does, as well.

If you’re looking for ways to interact with other youth workers online, here’s where I am online. Feel free to join me or comment below with other places online you’ve found to be significantly beneficial.

Facebook “Youth Pastors Only” group

Unlike most groups of Facebook, Rob Kashow, the creator of Facebook’s “Youth Pastors Only” group (and an old college friend of mine), does a great job of keeping the group alive and active. There’s always new forum posts of questions, struggles and ideas. If you need input about something, this is a great place to start. Just remember, like anything else you post online, this group is open to the public, so don’t write anything you don’t want your kids or other church people to potentially read.

Twitter

The thing I love about Twitter is that I can ask a question from anywhere via txt message and within minutes several people respond with great ideas, insights, or stories to make me laugh. Just last week I asked for a movie recommendation, input on upcoming blog posts, WordPress help, and more. Even cooler, though, is the opportunity to answer other people’s questions, too, and just generally keep up with what other youth workers are up to during the day. If you’re on Twitter, follow me here. I recommend following these youth guys, too:

• Mike Kupferer
• Josh Griffin
• Adam McLane
• Mark Matlock
• Mike Lovato
• Doug Fields
• Youth Ministry
• Brian Eberly
• Youth Specialties
• Kevin Twombly
• Brian Ford
• Dana Schmoyer, my wife

Skype

I prefer Skype as my choice for instant communication because it’s so versatile: text chat, voice chat, video conferencing, SMS, even telephone calls, and it does it all better than any other communication client out there. Since the Life In Student Ministry Skypecasts started, my contact list has grown to include a lot of youth workers from around the world, which makes for a lot of great conversations during the week. Add me to your Skype contact list: rockinyp. If you join our Skypecasts on Fridays, you’ll also start making a lot of these connections, too, which is exactly why I use Skype for our youth ministry conversations over other voice conference-call technologies.

Youth Ministry Blogs

Since you’re already reading this site, you obviously know the value of connecting with the ideas and stories of other youth workers through blogs. I’ve formed great relationships with many youth workers around the world just through simple comments and linking back to others posts.

Here’s a couple of my favorite youth ministry blogs:

• GregStier.org - President of Dare 2 Share Ministries
• Insight - by Grahame Knox, a veteran youth worker in the U.K.
• More Than Dodge Ball - by Joshua Griffin, high school pastor at Saddleback Church.
• Youth Ministry Ideas - Resources and ideas by Steve Blanchard
• Youthblog.org - by Ian, a Anglican youth worker in Oxford.
• YSMarko.com - by Mark Oestreicher, president of Youth Specialties
• Married To A Youth Pastor - Just started reading this one. Fun YM stories!
• Rethinking Youth Ministry - Two guys exploring different approaches to youth ministry
• Thoughts of a Student Pastor - A student pastor in the ATL
• BrianEberly.com - by a youth pastor in Oregon who started blogging around the same time I did.
• The Poulette Family in Mexico - by Dennis Poulette, a youth ministry professor in Mexico

If you use Google Reader and want to share RSS items with me, add rockinyp@gmail.com to your friends list. Or, for non-Google Reader users, grab my shared items here.

Youth Ministry Exchange

Although I’m not a very active participant at YMExchange.com anymore, they still have the best youth ministry forum on the Internet. There’s lot of great youth workers there who love discussing youth ministry and issues therein, so if you want an online community of youth workers all in one spot, that’s probably the site you’ll want to check out first.

Connect with me personally

Here’s a list of where you can connect with me personally through many different social media sites and services.

Connect with other youth workers personally

Do you want to find more youth ministry friends? Do you want to find other bloggers to follow and network with? If so, here’s an opportunity to do just that. In comments below, leave links to any of your social media profiles that you want to promote (Twitter, Facebook, blog, Skype, Google Chat, etc.). Once you’ve done so, add the other people who post their info in the comments. This will only work if you make connections rather than just promote yourself.