I was meeting yesterday with a couple of volunteer youth leaders. One of the things we were meeting to discuss was some of the youth group programme for the next term, but, as many meetings seem to do, we ended up discussing many different topic (at the end of the meeting we commented how we had discussed subjects ranging from jam to death - not v cheery I know, and not meant to sound insensitive).
One of the things we spend quite a bit of time talking about was the use of the internet in church/youth work stuff. Our church doesn't have a website at the moment. I know it really ought to, and conversations are happening about how this issue can be resolved, but at the moment it doesnt. Having spent some time looking at other churches websites I have become aware of the different uses of church websites. The internet provides churches with another way to present themselves to the world at large. Most churches use their website to portray factual, unchanging information about the church, its activites, the staff, the mission statement etc. This is great, and when it is done well, can be very effective.
Other church websites, and in my (limited) experience it seems to be the youth work/ministry websites, have discussion threads and chat facilities. We got quite excited by the possibilities of this within the youth work context, as well as the wider church context. I'm guessing a number of people have tried out different things, so if anybody has any comments/reflections/suggestions on this area I'd love to hear...It would be great if people have examples of good or at least innovative uses of the internet in terms of church/youth work websites.
1 comment:
I was worried for a second there... wondering what exactly you put in your blackberry and apple jam!!
Yes we have a blogspot for the current events at church (we cut and paste the weekly newssheet into blogger every friday. I've put vaguely pretty pictures up and our service times. I need to work on contact details as well.
We also have an extremely posh looking site but the trouble was that posh took more time and it got out of date too quickly.
Our Sunday youth discussion group has a blog but we've not really used it much. basically I invited each of the young people to become members so they can post stuff but I need to be more proactive in getting them to put stuff on it. I think it could be a good way of continuing discussions during the week as a group rather than just over text/messenger/email/phone with individuals as I do now (in the good weeks!)
Technology is just a tool of the relationship not the relationship itself.
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