this was just too cute. my buddy eric coomer sent it to me. i haven’t checked out jonathan rundmans’s other works, but eric says they are really good as well.
Ministry
gold, silver, bronze : top methodist moments on youtube
so why not!
on monday i gave out medals for the top john wesley moments on youtube. figured i'd give out medals for methodism realized over youtube.. why not!
this list i couldn't help but get onto some of my soapboxes, so i hope you don't mind some of my subjective judging.. feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments
gold medal: the methodist clayride – i was pleasantly pleased to see this back on youtube. years ago i had a copy of it that i uploaded to youtube but was asked to take it down by a certain agency. i felt that was a real loss at the time because the video then created a lot of buzz and nostalgia amongst us methoblogger types. not to mention, its a great video for sharing the history of the methodist church. if i remember correctly it had over 15k views (mind you this was the early days of youtube as well). so i hope the clayride gets to ride on & as the methodist presses in the early days of the movement shared its stories, theology, sermons, etc. maybe you all can help share this gold medal of methodism.
silver medal : methodist amendments maxie dunnam – whoa the scandal!! maxie gets the medal for this one because his video showed up on my radar first, though eddie fox put his up a few days earlier. these videos struck off the biggest abuse of the youtube medium by methodist pastors at large. seriously, lets take our sermoning communication medium to a media medium that is short, sweet, entertaining, and engaging (see how youtube community reacts by how they mashedup maxie). still, in the metho-nerd circles, this was scandalous to take the churches business outside the authorities of the general/annual conferences. which, may or may not be a bad thing.. not to leave them out, bishop jones & tex sample took notice and made their counter arguments as well. for stirring the pot and getting a whole lot of amendment mush on youtube, maxie gets the silver medal.
bronze medal : hallelujah chorus by mute monks – okay, this is silly, its only methodist because this one happened to have happened at a methodist church and the youth basically ripped off an otherwise other youtube sensation, but with a hit count of 100k and just observing the reaction of the congregation (or lack there of) and the pastor (what was that?) at what i assume was a christmastide service.. oh boy. bronze medal for having the cajones to try it pine castle umc
standing looking up : patriot guard – this a news report, from united methodist news (i assume), on the methodist pastor who helps with the patriot guard. for those that don't know what the patriot guard is there is just a simple search on youtube and you will get countless videos, some even by national news coverage. this gets the honorable mention for a couple of reasons, 1. it tells the story of how some have take their community into action for the forgotten and the fallen of our culture. 2. it has a pretty decent hit count (i have a version of same video on my youtube channel) which almost doubles it. yes, #2 is not nearly as noble as #1.
so tell me who got robbed from the podium. there's lots to choose from
give to who was there, because they will continue to be there : desparate times in haiti
received word the other day that one of my high school buddies was taking a team of doctors down to haiti for relief efforts. there was quite the bit of news coverages because, since our time in high school he's been able to wedge into the media market place. i saw another news article where a number of children who were up for adoption to american families were rushed to their pennsylvania homes with the political people showing smiling faces as if patting themselves on the back.
no slack on my friend & his medical team, they will do a lot of work and a lot of good work i am sure. but it had me wondering. slight slack to the political players who lord over visas and all these international adoptions.. it had me asking, "why now?"
sure, there was an earthquake & it is devastating, but long before that, there was extreme poverty & suffering… where was the anderson cooper's & media police alarming us to the worlds ills? chasing tiger woods?
i share my thoughts to say this one thing. as you are compassioned to give to help with relief efforts, give to the people who were already there, because, they are most likely to be there long after everyone is gone.. and they will be dealing with the aftermath of not only a physical earthquake, but a systemic poverty.
this is why i am so pleased to say that i am a part of the united methodist church & its continued work under the UMCOR banner. they were there before the earthquake, sadly some died in the earthquake, and will be there long after the earthquake. i applaud & more with the folks at highland park umc who have kept a long standing clinic in haiti since the 70's, but lost one of their church members in the earthquake.
learn more about the stories happening in haiti, long after the news vans leave & continue to help those who will be there long after cameras turn off and go home.
visit: www.umc.org/haiti
top tech trends of 2009 for youth ministry : new day in @ymtoday
i was asked to write a, shorter than this, article for ymtoday on the tech trends of 2009. this is my unedited & proper use of capitals article for your review.
Gone
are the days where spent calling everyone on the youth phone list,
cutting clip art books and taping graphics to papers for making
posters, and sorting slides into a projector carousel. Today's youth
ministry is full of early adoption to new technologies to communicate
and build relationships. It seems to be 2009 amped that trend of
leaving behind the those things we used to do so routinely in the early
2000's.
Here's a little list of technology trends from the past
year used, being used, or to use for your youth ministry. Not all were
created in the last year, but they did seem to pick up more steam.
1. Facebook: Do you remember MySpace? I do, and I thought it was pretty cool. Facebook though is just a fabulous youth ministry tool where MySpace
wasn't. Create a group or fan page for the ministry you are a part of,
easily send messages to the whole group, create events, post pictures
& videos. It is easy to do, takes less time, and its where your
teenagers are hanging. Have you watched your teenagers spend time onFacebook, it borders on problematic. If you have some cash, you can invest in ads on Facebook
, the metrics for adverts is amazing, not terribly expensive either,
plus it shows who are 'fans' in your ad extending the trust
relationship. You can even get on board with a free mission trip via the social media network.
2. Twitter:
People are up in the air as to whether Twitter is a usable youth
ministry tool. My teens many follow a few friends and a bunch of
celebrities. I don't have a youth who would create a twitter based newsletter for us like Adam. Twitter for me is brain trust
& community of other youth and ministry leaders. Have a question,
need prayer support, want to celebrate, need consolation after loosing
a job, and more you can join into the community of youth workers on
Twitter. I sought help developing this list via my Twitter community.
As a program, Twitter is a mobile based application, so it has txt and alert capabilities. Which leads us to our next item.
3. Mass Text Services:
If you think it is going to be a pain to get all your people onto
Twitter and then to enable the cell phone alert tweets for your twitter
account, just set yourself up for one of the many mass text messaging
services. If you are like me, youth gathering times are their normal
loud and crazy, but now its all that with the teens staring at their
cell phones. They have entire conversations overtxt . I've even caught
teens not answering their phone calls but then answering text messages.
Tap into that behavior with some of the paid services like txtsignal or a free service like broadtexter.
Note: Txt services use two basic formats: One is where message is more like an email going thru the system. Different cell companies handle that information differently, so a txt
service will have you indicate what type of provider the corresponding
phone number is. Other services are more like a phone to phone
communication, big difference with those is you do not need to know
service providers, but they will most likely charge by the number oftxt's and phone numbers (ie. each txt to 1 number is 5 cents, so one mass txt to 50 people is $2.50).
4. SmartPhones:
I was told once that 'there haven't been any new inventions, only
inventions making everything smaller.' This is certainly the case with
the fusion of computer & cell phone. Whether you are iPhone,
Blackberry, or now Droid the day of a phone being just for talking is
gone.
The smartphone as it continues to become more affordable
& builds in development will become the youth workers greatest
tools (might even out do the guitar,haha!). As new applications are being developed from YouVersion's Bible app, Youth Specialties Tough Topics, productivity apps like Evernote, GPS directions, to even creating your very own phone application
more & more will administration and communication will be done
through the phone. I can be sitting at an sports match and send out
emails & text messages to the whole group or just our leaders, make
notes for the next days to-do list, take pics of the game and load them
up to ourfacebook group or flickr page, and then post new information to our website.
5. Flip Cameras:
Video used to be the toughest thing in the world. Cameras cost a bunch
of money and then you had to edit the videos. Chances are your computer
was not powerful enough to deal with all the resources needed for
video, so it took many days to put together and render videos. Those
days are gone.
With the advent of YouTube being the quality
standard and the destination for most created video content the Flip
Camera is the new video must have. Not only are they extremely cheap
($100-180, for a decent one) they shoot really good quality video,
transfer extremely easily (digitally, so you don't have to do the tape
playback recording), and portable so they can always be on your person.
You can purchase one, two or three of these gems & hand them out to
youth during events to capture footage for a highlights video. Pull out
a camera when you are out on the town and inspired to do a little
devotional for a video podcast. Get some of the youth to create a
news/announcement video. Have a bunch of cameras to do a scavenger hunt
and post stuff immediately to your presentation software or to the web.
So
what's on your list of big trends for the year? Leave a comment or two,
I'm sure there is something I'm missing or maybe my numbering is off.
Honorable Mentions:
- Digital Photography: Every youth event I go to seems to have youth & youth
leaders in tow with high quality cameras. Bye bye disk camera &
slide film. - Digital
Publishing: All those pictures & graphics can be printed into
beautiful books & posters for affordable prices & effort.
Forever keeping the narrative of that ministry - Netbooks: Though I'd say that might be more for the college scene
- Google: From Google Voice, Docs, Earth, Ocean, Maps, Latitude to the beta test of Wave there's something for everyone
- Affordable
Presentation Equipment: Doing the projector thing was a huge ordeal
(not to mention projectors were HUGE!) now the hardware & software
is small in size and price - Collaborative Tools: Maybe its Basecamp, could be Google Wave, we all are using stuff to help us collaborate with our team of ministers & cohorts.
naming the paradigm : rob bell on youth ministry
i've often said when working with other youth ministry leaders, 'you can get anything done if you can speak to it well.'
my thinking behind that is, my observation, that much of youth ministry actions are intuition/gut moves (some may say Holy Spirit leading, which i'm cool with). those movements are done with great intentions and well meaning, but just as i have a hard time telling folks why i am a 'nice guy' (something i've been accused of on occasion) it is hard to explain intuitive actions. coupled with, many 'professional' youth leaders are quite young and haven't had a great deal of experience working with & coaching adults sometimes twice their age. but, if you can speak to people why this or that is necessary, they are more apt to go with your leading, even if they do not completely agree. thus, an importance to speaking well of what you are doing in ministry.
with that in mind, i was quite excited to read some of rob bell's thoughts on youth ministry in this interview with youth worker journal. he speaks so well to some of the issues i feel at hand for our current crop of youth growing up in youth ministries around the country.
YWJ: OK, the magic bullets, if you don't mind.
RB: The
dominant paradigm in churches is production, not discipleship. It's
about how to keep kids coming—how are the numbers? In the gospels,
whenever there were large crowds, Jesus gave a difficult teaching that
thinned out the crowd. Over and over, He chose those moments: John 6—Unless
you eat my flesh and drink my blood. Nice. Very accessible for kids.
There is a certain pattern where He's trying to find out who is
serious. Youth workers are put in this position where their paychecks
are based on how many people they can keep in the place. When they read
the gospels, they realize this whole system seems to be going the other
direction. Many youth pastors I've met are promoting something they
don't believe.YWJ: Like what?
RB: They're
told by the senior pastor to encourage the students to attend the
service where there's a seven-part sermon on raising funds for a giant
building, and kids don't really buy it. At the same time, the kids are
wearing a red bracelet and becoming passionate about AIDS and water in
Darfur. So the youth pastors and the kids sit in a system that says the
preservation of this system is the first priority, and they look around
at these giant issues of justice that are demanding a generation to
step up and do something about it; and guess what they do?
this excerpt i pulled basically because it shares two tensions i feel in youth ministry, 1. the need to have top notch programming & 2. the culture of preservation (something i feel is paramount, not in a good way, in my mainline tribe). those two things are just not part of the Kingdom of God that i envision.. now, can #1 be a gateway, sure.. can #1 help in discipleship, sure.. but at what cost are we going so overboard that we loose sight of our goals.. living at Christ lived, loving as Christ loved. to me that isn't grounded in a program or an institution. those are ground out in relationships beyond human measures and being remarkable because you have been inspired to be that way.
anyways, check out the interview i could go on and on with the various questions & answers.