Social Networks have been one of the greatest things to happen to college ministry. There are many reasons why I have found them to be so helpful, but let’s begin with a video primer, because I know some of you, though familiar with social networks, may wonder their exact purpose or how they function. For that I turn to the awesome video series Social Networking in Plain English by Common Craft

I believe that it’s important to have your college ministry in a social network, and that that network should act as your central hub. There are several reasons for that as I want to discuss further with you.

Why Social Networks as the Central Hub: A Few Repetitive Thoughts

• It’s where they are at: This is one of the most important reasons. You need to go where your student are at (Facebook, MySpace, etc.). Don’t expect to build a website or some other forum and draw them away from their large networks.

• No other web tool can connect as many college students together in your ministry as does a social network tool/platform: You can put together an email list, create a website, but nothing brings everyone to one spot as does your ministry network. Since they are already on these sites, it’s much easier for them to join your group and for everyone to connect.

• It’s the most effective, and easiest way to stay connected and in touch with as many students in your ministry as possible: With messaging tools, online walls and forums, networks are the easiest way to connect with your students.

• No other tool will allow you to get a view into their daily lives: Where else are you going to get a view into their daily lives but on their network? You can see what photos or music they have uploaded. When their birthday is. What activities they did over the weekend. Etc.

• It’s one of the most effective ways to communicate: As the leader of the group can you tell me another tool that is as effective in communicating with your students? How many times have you sent out emails and the list hasn’t been updated, or emails are returned, etc.

• It’s self-maintained to a large degree: As the leader of the ministry you are not responsible for all the content. You can provide a basic framework, calendar, etc. But it’s the community that provides the commentary, photos, music, etc. And it’s the community that decides when to join or when to leave a group. So you aren’t sending out email messages to people who have left the group years ago, etc.

The Central Hub

By having your social network as the central hub of your college ministry you create the best scenario to provide and disseminate information. For example, students often don’t go to a church’s website, or your college ministry’s website. But if you use your social network (i.e. Facebook, MySpace) as your central hub you can direct them there when necessary. On our college ministry Facebook page we provide the calendar, lecionnary and other tools for the college ministry. And then we provide links to our church website, etc. So if students need it, it is there.

Students most often come to a ministry and check it out through word of mouth. Their friends in their dorm room and classrooms tell them about it and invite them. More often than not they aren’t doing a Google search for a college ministry to attend. So as a ministry, you need to set your ministry’s “front door” in the best viable location….which is the online community they populate. Here they have the best chance to see what their friends are up to and to get connected to your ministry. This also happens in person, but what happens in person is more than likely shared online that same day. So it’s a win-win.

By maintaining your social network as the central hub, you also provide the opportunity through your college ministry’s profile page to create a community. Everyone who is a part of the profile gets a look into everyone else’s life in the ministry. So for example, Emily who doesn’t really know Joe in the ministry will see that he has a birthday today. So Emily can wish Joe happy birthday on Joe’s Wall or in a message. This makes way for a connection to made, where it may have not had the opportunity to be made before. How would Emily know it was Joe’s birthday otherwise if she isn’t friends with him?

It’s about providing connections for those in your ministry. And by keeping your social network as the central hub you have the best opportunity to create a connected ministry that won’t only stay connected online, but that will spill over into the face to face encounters. I see this happen all the time in our ministry.

A College Pastor’s Dream

Social networking sites are a dream for someone who oversees a college ministry. Sure, there are some downsides to them (i.e. too much information; drunk photos, etc.), but overall I think the benefits way out weight the negatives. One of the problems I have come across through the years was how to stay in touch with college students. Maintaining an up-to-date database via email and Excel spreadsheets was nearly impossible.

But now I have been able to create alumni pages for our college ministry, as well as our current college ministry, and I have been able to stay in touch with hundreds and hundreds of students that I never would have been able to before.

My Top Reasons for Using Social Networks in Ministry

1. Removes the Pastor as the Central Figure of Authority and Flow of Information: Not everyone likes this, but I think it’s a good thing. Keeps ministry from being built around a pastor figure; and in the process keeps ego and people pleasing tendencies at bay.




2. Connect: You to students; students to students; a window into everyone’s lives.




3. Communicate: Via messaging, forums, walls, etc.




4. Create Events: Using calendars, invites, etc.




5. Gathering Place: Often the 1st place people visit online and congregate.




6. Database: You can create alumni groups; have emails handy, etc.

Some Social Network You Can Use

• Facebook: Everyone is familiar with Facebook. It’s the most popular.




• MySpace: Most ministries have moved off MySpace because of spam, ads, and college students are more likely to be on Facebook.




• Ning: create your own social network. I did this with the college ministry social network Collective Muse. It’s a lot more work since you oversee all aspects of the network (you and what other admins you have). Anglimergent has done a great job using Ning as their social network platform.




• ROOV: I think this is a great social network to gather your ministry around what they are passionate about and to get them connected with others with the same passions.

What do you think about social networks?

Why do you use them?

Are they helpful?

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Despite some of the bad press recently regarding Twitter, I still must say that I absolutely love it. Sure there are days when things take way too long to load, or they don’t load at all. But despite all that, Twitter is still the first site that I log onto when I get on the internet in the morning. What other site is going to instantly bring me up to date with what everyone in my network (friends, family, co-workers, etc) is doing?

For a great step by step primer on Twitter, check out Matt Singley’s post.

Check out Twitter in Plain English series below:

Those are some great resources on Twitter. And in fact, lots of people are writing about Twitter so it’s not hard to find online some effective ways to use it. So what I want to focus on in this post is just a few ways how you can effectively use Twitter in your ministry…or as I say above, how it can catalyze your ministry.

Three Reasons to Use Twitter in Your Ministry

1. Humanizes the Leaders (i.e. pastors, directors, volunteers, etc.) and places them in a more vulnerable position of leadership. Not everyone will agree with me here, but I’m one who subscribes to Henri Nouwen’s vision of the vulnerable leader: “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.” -In the Name of Jesus, 1989. Twitter in a way does this, because your students get insight into your everyday life, not just what you present to them in person one day a week. Of course, Twitter is only as vulnerable as you want to make it, so if you offer little up about yourself, then why should they check it out. I think it’s fascinating to get insight into certain figures, and I think it gives students a chance to see you are human. Do you post private stuff? No. Do you “bleed” all over your audience, sharing every little detail? No. You must be discerning in this. But I think it’s a great contact point between you and your students.
2. Allows Leaders to See What is Going On with the students in their ministry. As a leader in the ministry you can log on each morning and see what your students are up to. You may see something that you need to pray about. You may see something that concerns you and spurs a conversation. You may see something that makes you laugh. You may see that a student is just down the block and may take that opportunity to go meet up with them. It just may give you some connecting points and information about your students that you may not have had before. When point one and two are used effectively, there is a great reciprocity in ministry between the leaders and students.
3. As a Catalyst to bring people together, especially in a moment’s notice. This is a really important and useful point. Let me give you a few examples of how it has worked for me, and how I would have liked to use it.

• One day I was eating a burger with a student at The Counter down in Santa Monica. I sent out a Twitter, simply saying, “Eating with a student at The Counter in Santa Monica.” Within about 10-15 minutes, two other students, and one co-worker sent me text messages saying they were in the area and wanted to know if we could meet up. That story has been repeated a lot and is one way that it is really effective.
• Okay, so let’s play this out in some practical ways how you might use this as the leader in a ministry. I did not do this because by the time the idea came to me I was on my way out of my former ministry. If I was going into the 2008-2009 school year I would like to try this out with the college ministry. 1) Set-Up an account for your ministry. For example, I was the director of The Quest. So I would create an account/profile with the name The Quest. 2) I would ask the students in our ministry to “follow The Quest.” Not only “follow The Quest”, but make sure that anyone follwing The Quest received updates to their phone. 3) Give log-in access to the leaders in your ministry (choose 3-4 leaders to oversee this). 4) As the director, use your cell phone as the phone to enter Twitter messages via cell text. It doesn’t have to be you, but may be the easiest. 5) Anytime you want to get out important information to your students, or rally them at the last minute, use Twitter to send out a message to them. Now since they agree to receive your ministry’s messages to their phone, use it accordingly, as it can get annoying to receive phone texts from Twitter all day, and some students may not have unlimited text messages and your Twitters may end up costing them.
• So what does this look like: Some of the leaders are hanging out in Westwood, CA at UCLA. They decide, lets get as many students to come meet us for ice cream right now. So the leader sends out the Twitter, “In Westwood right now; meet us @ Diddy Riese in next 30 mins and will buy ice cream.” Within 30 minutes I guarantee you will have a large number of students show up.
• How else could you do something like this in ministry? You could call the students whose numbers you have, send out emails a day ahead of time. Try texting as many as you can as long as you have their cell. It’s just not easy and practical, but Twitter has changed that.

Try this experiment out, and let me know how it works. I would love to hear about it, and have you share your story.

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

When it comes to Facebook I’m definitely an evangelist, but it wasn’t always that way. I was one of those pastors who was somewhat fearful of online social technology. I was an early adopter in some ways, but when it came to working with college students I was definitely a late adopter to MySpace (my students had been on for more than a year), and I was also a late adopter to Facebook (my students had been on it for over a year as well).

By the time I got the nerve up to put us on MySpace, my students had already left it and were living online on Facebook. I still remember the Wednesday night in the Spring of 2006 when one of my student leaders got up to make an announcement at the end of the night. He announced how he had created our Quest Bel Air Global Facebook page, and I was thinking to myself, “What does that all mean?”, while I could hear the cheers from the audience as if saying, “Finally!”

Ever since then I have been a big fan and it has revolutionized communication in our ministry. And yet, there is more we could be doing with it, I just haven’t had the time and figured out the best ways yet.

So I have some thoughts, but I would also like to hear from you, and see if we can find out some even more effective ways.

Facebook for Pastors
To date, this is one of the more definitive, and simple resources to use if you are in ministry and what to really utilize Facebook. Check out the Facebook for Pastors profile, and then download for free the e-book, Facebook for Pastors. It is a quick and worthwhile read, and you can put the ideas into immediate practice.

5 Movements Towards Online Social Networking
Last year I spoke at GodBlogCon 2007 in Las Vegas on the topic of Ministry to the MySpace-Facebook Generation. The ideas behind that talk will be published in the upcoming book, The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ, where I have a chapter called Navigating the Evolving World of Youth Ministry in the Facebook-MySpace Generation. I can’t go into much detail here in this post, but I explore five aspects of social networking and why we should be utilizing tools like Facebook and MySpace. Below are just a few ideas that I ponder, with a question for each.

Online Journey

What is your online journey? How has it shaped your views of online social networks?

Identity Forming

When a student is in these communities for hours a day, how do we help shape and transform their identity, whether it is online, or in the personal time we get with them?

Leading Within

How does you or your church’s leadership style contradict/correlate with youth in a MySpace-Facebook world?

Intermingling Lives

Does the exposure of student’s lives intimidate, discourage or inspire you to want to engage with them online? Why or why not?

Transforming Communication

What can you do in your student’s social network to help transform their environment and communication? How can you communicate Christ to your students online?

Some Thoughts on Using Facebook Effectively in Your Ministry

1. If You Aren’t On, You Are Missing Out: If you are involved in ministry, especially with anyone 35 and under, then you need to have your ministry on Facebook…otherwise you are missing out. This is where this demographic lives online. It’s one of the best places to interact and communicate with them. If you bury your head in the sand and keep with more traditional means, then I just think you are missing out on a huge opportunity.




2. Provide Information for Your MInistry, But Not Too Much: Facebook is a great place to put information about your ministry. For example, your vision/mission statement; calendar; speaking schedule; prayer requests, etc, etc. It’s a one stop place to get all the information they need. But don’t put too much down. I have found, and am curious if you have as well, that you need to keep the information to a minimum. This is especially true with a calendar listing. Anything more than a month out is too far out and overload, unless you it’s a big retreat down the road. This is so true of college students. It’s hard to get them thinking more than a month out anyways, so keep the information focused.




3. Communicate Regularly to Your Students, But Not Too Regularly: I send out a message to all of my students about once a week. Our worship service is on Wednesday night, so on Monday or Tuesday I usually send out a group email giving information for the upcoming week. This is a great tool, but don’t abuse it. There was a time when I would send 3-4 messages out a week until a student pointed out to me that people were dropping out of our group online and it was due to too many emails. So communicate, but do it sporadically and when necessary. Don’t abuse this privilege. You need to realize that each of your students probably has joined over 100 groups, and if they even get an email from 10 of those groups a week, that’s a lot. Your ministry isn’t the only group trying to communicate to them.




4. Don’t Be The Only Administrator on the Site: If you want Facebook to be used effectively, then control can’t be in the hands of one person, or even a couple of people. The more students you can give administrative rights over to, the more dynamic your site will become. The more people you have as well, the more guidelines should be present. You want to get everyone on the same page, so 10 of you aren’t sending out 10 different messages to the group, but one message.




5. Give Your Students Titles: This goes with administrator rights, but I also try and give my student leaders their appropriate titles online as well (in the right column). This way, when a student joins our group, or has a question (”I want to get involved in outreach, who should I talk to?”) then they can see on the right column who is in charge of outreach and can contact that person. This keeps the bottleneck of information from running primarily through the pastor or director.




6. Be Creative With What Facebook Group Pages Can’t Do: Facebook is still working on a lot of things that will benefit all of us. But for now, group pages are somewhat limited. I can’t download third-party applications to the group page (ex. calendar), so be creative and provide your own in the text section . A lot of groups are also moving over to Fan pages as well since they can tend to be more dynamic.




7. Interact With Your Students: I have found that forum discussions aren’t thriving that well on Facebook, depending on the group. But use other means to communicate. When you see a new photo, or birthday, or change in status, etc. on the news feed, message that student or write something on their wall so that they know you are thinking about them. It’s an opportunity for you to be meeting with them online, on their turf.




8. Be Cautious What You Post: If you are the pastor or leader in the group, keep that in mind. As the leader of the group students are looking to you to set a good example, and I think it’s your responsibility as the leader to model good leadership. So you need to think about what you want students to see. I’m careful about sharing too much family information. It’s one thing to share a story about my family in person, but to post it for everyone to see…I’m cautious. As the leader, you are more than likely over 21 and able to drink alcohol. But maybe it’s not wise to post those photos of you drinking some beers with some buddies over the weekend. This may also depend upon what age group you work with. I know some who work with high school kids and absolutely don’t do this. And others who work with adults and do do this. This is just a few issues, but I know you can think of many. What your student’s post can provide good opportunities for discussion, but you as the leader can help provide a healthy environment online in your group.




9. Upload a Variety of Content: To keep your group’s page from becoming static, make sure that you upload a variety of content. Besides providing basic information, you can upload interesting articles, videos, post photos from events, etc. This will keep students coming back to the page because they know the content is always changing and that it is valuable.




10. Update Your Status Regularly: Most people already do this, and some of you have TwitterSync like I do, so the status is always changing. But I think this is a good way for students to get a little insight into who you are as a person, what you are up to, etc. Shows that you are human.

Obviously there is more that I could write on, but these are just a few ideas…and not very technical ones at that. And I mainly addressed group pages since we are talking about ministry. But remember to apply a lot of these to your individual profile page as well. So make sure you check out some of the resources I mentioned above. Bottomline: Just be creative, and empower your students to be a part of shaping the online experience in your Facebook group, etc.

What ideas do you have? What has been helpful for you?


Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Of all the topics I’m going to address in this series, this seems to be the no-brainer to me. I started blogging about 4 years ago at the encouragement of one of my students at the time, Jared Kleier. He set up a blog for me on our college website and away we went, though it wasn’t quite that easy. I remember writing and deleting one post after another because I had never experienced writing something for immediate consumption by the public.

All it took was some encouragement from others, and a few links from other bloggers, and then the blogging bug just seemed to take over.

Lots of people have various reasons for why those in ministry should blog. Mark Roberts has 18 Thesis’ for why pastors should blog. You can view his Powerpoint Presentation, Pastors as Blogger, at GodblogCon 2007.

Mark is just one good resource.

There are a lot of reasons why I think those involved in college ministry should blog, so let me give you just 11 (yeah 11) that come to mind and that I have found helpful reasons for blogging:

1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: A blog is simply in many ways about communication. When you blog, you communicate to others on a variety of topics.
   
2. Reiterate the Mission: When you blog, you can continually communicate, and therefore, one of the important pieces of communication is to continually reiterate and blog about the mission of the ministry. It’s a good way to remind students and keep everyone accountable, focused, and on task.
   
3. Encouragement: A blog is a great way to encourage those in your ministry, whether it be other staff, leaders or the congregants. Devotionals, posts of encouragement, thank yous, and recognizing others are just some forms.
4. Sermon Interaction: Sermons are typically one way communicative patterns (pastor to congregation), and rarely ever interactive. Posting blogs related to your sermon (i.e. notes, reflections, resources, etc.), allows for more interaction among those in your ministry. This interaction can come in the form of Q & A, debate, dialogue, correction, arguments, encouragement, etc. In the end it provides great accountability and interaction between the speaker and listeners.
5. Engagement with the Culture: When you blog you are automatically thrust into an online world that you possibly never knew existed. You will be exposed to many different ideas, theologies, ministries, pastors, etc., often leaving you wanting to engage with others and their ideas. This engagement helps sharpen your own thinking, and keeps you from being isolated in your own little bubble each week as you prepare your sermon, mentor students and perform administrative tasks.
6. Improve Writing Skills: I can’t think of a better exercise in writing than blogging. A pastor is usually responsible for a sermon 3-4 times a month, and this is often a long, drawn out process. Blogging will improve your writing efficiency, which will help the process of writing a sermon. Some pastors have the luxury of 30-40 hours a week to write a sermon, while others may have only 5-10 hours. Blogging will help both, especially those who have less time and are responsible for other ministerial tasks besides preaching.
7. Network with Others: Blogging will help you engage with multiple networks that exist on the internet. A pastor can network with those in the surrounding community; those in the same denomination across the country; those with the same theological/ministry leanings, etc. These networks help a pastor expand your vision and will help you create friendships in ministry.
8. Interactivity with Students: Blogging is a great way for pastors and students to interact with each other. A pastor may have limited time in person, but that time is greatly expanded when it can be carried online. A blogging presence allows easy access between the pastor and students, and creates an open and vulnerable platform in the ministry for that interaction to take place.
9. Reach Outside Your Ministry’s Walls: When you blog you are instantly reaching beyond the borders of your ministry and engaging those outside. This keeps a ministry healthy, vibrant, and protects it from being isolated and self-absorbed.
10. Have Fun: A blog should ultimately be fun. If you don’t enjoy blogging, then it will never last. You may be able to blog for a few weeks, maybe even several months, but it won’t last in the long haul. So keep your blogging fun. Engage students on fun and interesting topics such as movies, music, dating, theology, travel, etc.
    
11. Provides Opportunities: A blog may ultimately open up other doors for you and provide new and exciting opportunities. You may be asked to speak at a workshop, write an article, or present a topic to your staff. It’s a great endeavor for creating new opportunities in a ministry, and keep you from getting stale or bored.

What do you think? Did I miss some reasons? What would you add or take away?

Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

I think it’s important for college ministries to be forumlating a plan, and developing some ideas about how they can strategically use the internet to best serve their ministry.

There are a lot of topics that I could cover, and maybe 9 posts is too much, so I will try and keep them shorter than my last post.

Last week I posted Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed. Bottom line: You need to have a design and plan that is simple (easy to navigate/aesthetically clean from a design point of view. You also should keep the costs low which is easy to do with all the free and inexpensive tools out there. And speed should be taken into consideration, mainly from the perspective of how fast can you integrate new technology to meet the needs and wants of your ministry. Way too many ministries plunge lots of cost and time into a site, that they no longer can adapt to changes, but are stuck with it for years to come.

Today I want to post about The Purpose of Your Website.

What is the purpose of your website?

This is an important question to begin with. What do you want it to do? What do you want people to come to the site and see and use? What should they walk away with? Sometimes ministries just build websites because they feel like they should have one, but never stop to consider its purpose.

Is it for college students to retrieve information? Is it for them to sign up for Bible studies? Is it for them to be able to visit forums and dialogue?

With these questions in mind we also need to keep in mind that with all the tools out there (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) a website shouldn’t have to do everything, unless it can do it better than those services (which I doubt it can do).

So here are a few pointers that I have found helpful:

1. Build a website that acts as a central hub for your online ministry tools. It should be the entry point to your ministry, but the gateway to all the tools that your ministry uses. Example: Joe, a freshmen at UCLA should come to your website when he is looking for a ministry. But at that website, he should find links, icons, etc., that will lead him to the tools of the ministry. Like your group’s Facebook page; your group’s Flickr stream; your group’s Twitter feed, etc. Let me give you a couple of examples of this: If you visit the website of blogger I Am Josh Brown you will come across a simple page that has all the icons of his online life. People can then access his YouTube, Facebook, etc. Or you can go The Gathering college ministry website, and by looking at the icons, easily identify where you want to navigate to based on what college you attend.
2. By creating a website that acts only as a central hub it does two things. One, as the college pastor you have made available to the students the tools and information that they need. You are in some sense in control of how the online ministry operates. Second, by keeping the website the central hub, and providing students with these tools, you allow them to be collaboraters in the ministry, and you free them up to control the flow of information and content within the ministry. Something a pastor can’t and shouldn’t do single handedly.
3. But building a website that acts only as a hub, you have just cut cost and clutter dramatically. One, your website can now become just one to two pages which costs nothing, and there is no navigational clutter to wade through.
4. When you build a website that acts as a central hub, what should be on that page. One, I think you need to have links/icons to the online tools. Second, there should be a basic information page about who you are, where and when you meet, and maybe a basic contact email. But do you need a small group sign up? Probably not…Facebook can do that for you. Do you need to posts photos? Why, when Flickr is great at photomanagement. Do you need to have a forum page? Good luck with that.

These are just some basic thoughts. But bottom line: Keep it simple, reduce work and cost. Creat a hub for your students that allow them to access the tools, and let them create and control the information. In the process you will have a much more collaborative and participatory online ministry, then if everything came out of a website that was in the hands of a few people.

Any thoughts on this issue? What have you chose to do for your ministry, or college ministry’s website?

Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the “manifesto” Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don’t.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

• student participation
• the fast changing culture of college/university life
• finicky tastes/styles
• revolving body of students and leaders
• budget
• access/control
• etc. (these are just a few)

So because of these issues and many others, ministries need to keep in mind several things before they decide to develop and build a website, or some other form of online presence. They need to be asking the question of whether or not the investment in the product (i.e. time, finances, people power, etc.) is worth the end product? Primarily because the end product of what students want will often change very quickly, and most likely from year to year. What’s necessary, practical and cool to students in the Fall, may be out of date by Spring.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:2

Now that verse wasn’t written about online media, but I think there are some important principles to take away, mainly:

1. What do you want to build?
2. Have you sat down to think about what it will cost? (time, money, resources, etc.)
3. Why are you building it?
4. With what you have, can you effectively accomplish what you are wanting to set out to do?

Key Ingredients

Simplicity: What you set out to design should be simple. We live in a culture that says more is better, and so you find products with tons of bells and whistles that not only will no one ever use, but they don’t even know how to use it. Students don’t need an owners manual to access your online ministry and use it effectively. Keep things simple. Think of the i-Pod/i-Tunes, Facebook, Tivo, etc. Because of their simplicity they have won over the market in many ways. The best web sites are simple. When you go to that page you know how and where to navigate. Simplicity can be from an aesthetic design viewpoint, to keeping things simple with less tools, buttons, forms, coding, etc. One of my favorite church websites is Mars Hill in Michigan. Simple, clean, easy to navigate.

Flexibility: Your website or online tool must be flexible. I cannot stress this enough. You need to build something that has a strong ability to adapt and be flexible to changing trends in technology. What is cool with a website one year, can be totally out of date the next. Or, why spend tons of money on a site, that once it loses its effectiveness and everyone moves over to social networking, it no longer has the ability to adapt and meet the needs of those in the community. For example, our college ministry spent a lot of money on some websites early on in my time here, and I created things on the site that I though students would love. But when students migrated to MySpace and Facebook, our website wasn’t flexible and adaptable enough to meet the demanding needs of the group. We didn’t even have the capability to integrate these new tools on our site because we weren’t thinking ahead. Also, when it comes to this issue, are you building a site or presence that allows others to use it effectively? Does your coding or template allow you to change the data, or does it require bringing in a designer everytime you want to tweak it….slowing everything down, limiting the access to most of the group, and driving up costs.

Cost: The best thing about the new media and web 2.0 is that you can find hundreds of online tools and platforms with little to no cost. So should you spend $3,000 on a website, when you can get the same functionality or better with an online free platform? A question then arises about good stewardship. I’m a big fan of good design and coding, so I think they are worth paying for to a degree. But at the end of the day a ministry needs to ask themselves questions regarding what they need, and is it wise to spend money on it. In my 7 years at Bel Air I have seen the evolution of cost. We started off paying a top of the line designer for a website that was out of date about a year later. We then moved to a free template and I paid a student to code it. We now find ourselves operating almost exclusively on Facebook. I’m not against paying for good tools and design….but there are alternatives. I paid for someone to code and design my blog, but I have the freedom to change it.

Speed: How fast can you change things on your site? Do you have to call up the programmer, or do you have immediate access? Can a student put in an announcement whenever they want, or do things have to go through you? When tasks are funneled through 1-2 people, speed is slowed, and information and participation among students drops off. Have you designed a site, where if you wanted to make some major overhauls, you can do that very quickly? Or are you tied to high costs, bulky tools, etc. I know that the needs of my college group this year will probably be different next year, so I need to have the speed to adapt to that.

There is a lot I can talk on, but I just want to begin there. Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 4–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 5–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 6–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 7–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 8–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

It’s funny how some words become commonplace in a community or culture.  As a resident of Los Angeles you hear a lot of talk about "sex" and "sushi."  It seems that these are two things that Angelenos highly esteem.  So when I came across the book, "Sex, Sushi & Salvation: Thoughts on Intimacy, Community, & Eternity" by Christian George, I knew I must pick it up.  Rarely do you see the word "salvation" in the previous word mix, but I knew as a college pastor these are important topics to the community I minister to.  People’s worlds often revolve around sex (i.e. intimacy, connection, belonging, love, etc.), sushi (i.e. food, sustenance, community, great conversation, going out) and salvation (i.e. God, Jesus, transcendence, community, eternity, etc.).  George says:

Since humans are made in the image of God, we have three basic passions–intimacy, community, and eternity. We burn for them, save for them, pay for them, and pray for them. But only the God who fulfills these desires within Himself can perfectly fulfill them in us. This is a book about sex, sushi, and salvation–a book of snapshots–the ups and downs, the failures and fortunes, the smiles and trials. In these chapters, I retrace my travels around the world, from pagan temples in Greece to Transylvanian mountains in Romania. I confess my lust and love, my struggle with truth, and my quest for Christ.

Fasten your seat belt.  It’s going to be a wild ride. And along the way we just might discover that the God who satisfies us with Himself joins us for the journey.

As I was reading the book, and when I reflect back upon it, there are three basic aspects that really stuck out and drew me to it.

• First, George writes from a real narrative perspective.  And what I mean by that is that often you get a book that is fairly dry with a lot of concepts and ideas, but there is no overarching narrative to pull the reader into the content.  Christian weaves a story that makes you want to turn page after page, and because of this, I think the reader is better able to understand the concepts of intimacy, community and eternity in biblical, practical and earthy terms.

• Second, George really writes from his experiences of traveling.  This is not new stylistically for him, as he returns to a successful writing form that he uses in Sacred Travels: Recovering the Ancient Practice of Pilgrimage.  Humans love traveling, and it is often in traveling, away from our comforts of home, that we are stretched, challenged, and find ourself leaning more and more on God, dependent on Him for direction.  So with the narrative storytelling, the reader will find themselves enjoying different places around the world and how they view intimacy, community, and eternity.  And as you read about his travels, I think that you will think back upon your own travels and how these concepts came to life for you.

• Third, George tackles issues that I think are important not only to everyone, but I think ones that are really prevalent to a college, emerging adult stage of life.  He is obviously not the first to use the metaphor of journey in relation to our life with God, but I think that this metaphor is a much needed one right now, especially in a culture that is used to immediacy and instant fulfillment.

All of these elements combine for a powerful read, and with only 183 pages I think many will want to read it again.  George reminds me of some of the writing Donald Miller has put out recently, especially in its narrative approach to story telling, and with an honesty and vulnerability that I think people are dying for.

I highly recommend this book, so let me leave you with a quote about sushi as I close this post.

Sushi also reflects our search for community.  C.S. Lewis once said ‘Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste.’  In the 1950’s, boy met girl at soda fountains.  Today they meet at sushi bars.  According to the National Sushi Society, the number of sushi bars in the United States quintupled from 1988 to 1998 alone, and food trends expert Phil Lembert remarked, ‘Sushi may well be the new pizza.’

Why do we want community–whether at a sushi bar or a ’50s malt shop?  Because we burn for belonging.  (Just look at a middle school cafeteria when everyone’s finding a seat.)  God gave us the desire for community so He alone could satisfy it.

Today, I came across a blog written by Walt Meuller, the founder and President of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding. In his post, he compares the news and attention given to the disaster in Myanmar versus the death of a race horse at the Kentucky Derby. He brings up some interesting issues. I appreciate Walt’s view, and how he challenges youth ministries to get involved in what is happening in other places around the world. I just wanted to respond to his blog by passing it off to all of you.

Recently, I wrote a post called We Are All Pastors, and was discussing this topic with my co-worker and friend Rhett Smith. He brought up an interesting point in his response to the post, and something I think is worth evaluating (or re-evaluating). He said:

I wonder if the expectations that pastors have upon lay leadership, congregants, volunteers, etc. is actually quite skewed. We challenge people to commit and step up, not taking into consideration the demands of their daily life, when those of us in full-time ministry have the luxury to make that our job, have flexible schedules, etc.

Many of us in youth ministry are probably dealing with over-committed and over-stressed students who have over-committed and over-stressed parents. In thinking about our context in particular, we have kids who go to school all week, hours of homework every night, and have parents that drive all over the city to take them to their different teams and recitals. Then the weekend comes and Saturday is an excuse to schedule more “make up” time to catch up on the time lost during the week. Because they have no time during the week or are not available, we respond by scheduling stuff on Sunday at church because that is the best time for us to get things accomplished pertaining to church. The same pattern is followed with the volunteers working with students. The question becomes: Are we contributing to or relieving the stress placed on the people of the church? How would our ministries look if we “scaled back”? Do we, as leaders in the church, even have that luxury?

Dr. Archibald Hart at Fuller Theological Seminary has done some great work regarding stress and its affects on people today. In his book Adrenaline and Stress, he talks about the toll our body, mind, and soul takes in our “hurried” culture. He says that many people suffer from “Hurried Sickness” in which people live in a constant state of “internal state of emergency”. David Elkhind in his book The Hurried Child defines stress as:

Any unusual demand for adaptation that forces us to call upon our energy reserves over and above that which we ordinarily expend and replenish in the course of a twenty-four-hour period. (The Hurried Child, p. 166)

The stress is felt by everyone: Students, parents, volunteers, and even pastors. Pastors feel the stress of expectations placed on them to provide great programs for the people in their congregation. If the needs of the congregation are not met, then the people (and their wallets and calendars) leave with them. The response is to get help running these programs to meet the needs of the congregation. The help comes from people within the “stressed out” congregation leading to a vicious cycle in which the “good news” becomes the casualty. It seems that the culture of stress has created unrealistic expectations on both pastors and congregants alike. How did we get here? Better yet, how can we break this cycle?

I am starting to think out loud, and want your interaction and feedback.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Acts 2:42-47

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

1 Peter 2:9

Without getting into detail, there have been some issues at our church. I know all churches have issues, so that is nothing new. But the issues occurring at our church have got me thinking about what we value in being ministered to by others, in particular those with the title of “pastor”. It seems that there has been a disconnect in the pastors and the rest of the staff when it comes to being ministered to. Now, please know that I am not letting the pastors off the hook, or saying anything about their leadership style; I am going for something deeper…

I guess what the entire situation has got me thinking about is this: Why do we put so much onus and credence in what the person with the title of “pastor” does or doesn’t do? And how do we get people to see that we are all “pastors”?

It seems that all of us in church ministry want to be ministered to and be acknowledged by our pastors. In looking at these passages, I can not help but ask the question: Why? Why does it matter what those with the title of pastor think? What does it matter if they do not minister to us? What does it matter if they barely even know who we are? (Speaking from a mega-church perspective) More importantly, is it fair to them to have the these expectations placed on them?

As I read the passage from Acts and 1 Peter, I see a “mega-church” community ministering to each other regardless of a pastor’s or an apostle’s presence. In the Acts passage, people are following the teachings of the apostles, but no where does it say or assume that the apostles are personally tending to the needs of ALL the people. It is the community of people that is speaking in to the lives of one another. They are all pastors!!

My question is: How do we get back to this? How do we get people to be okay with being ministered to by people that do not carry the title of pastor? How do we get to the place in our ministries where people “pastoring” one another is enough? Maybe the bigger question is: How do we get to the place where God is enough?