What UP! It’s LINKFEST 2010!

Youth Ministers, keep your senior pastor in the loop without annoying him/her. Josh Griffin has an great example of doing this. (Also, senior pastors, feel free to do the exact same thing with your staff.)

As your youth group’s small groups get rolling this fall, here is a list of 35 conversations starters. Put these in the hands of any volunteers who spend relationship time with students.

My friend Kevin and I are starting to work on a project called artFWD. The mission is this: years and years ago, in another age, the CHURCH had a monopoly on the art market. Churches and leaders valued beautiful art that helped tell a story (architecture, painting, liturgy, stained glass windows, etc). Today, there are more art forms than there ever have been in all of history. We’re bringing art back, by moving forward.

My post, “Dear Church,” Got LOTS of traffic and one really lame comment. Oh internet…

Twitter can teach you this:

“We need to understand the church as the effect of discipleship, not the cause.” from Mark Christian

“100% Pastoral Guarentee: No matter how much you give, someone will think you’re inadequate.” from Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Youth Ministry Tweeter of the Week: Graham Buck (mostly because he dominated on helping me jailbreak my iPhone)

Videos you gotta watch:

Josh Garrels “Just Doin Your Thing”

Menomena “Evil Bee”

“Catalyst” by Linkin Park (with lyrics)

When your organization is getting off the ground – or maybe before that – you’re going to want to create communications that help share your story with both current & potential fans. This can be a daunting task when one is strapped for cash or doesn’t have the time, energy or skills to communicate consistently.

Another hurdle small organizations face is the fact that – if they grow – they’re going to have to completely overhaul their communication methods which could be a truckload of work & has potential to create confusion with those who you’d like to be crystal clear with.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could start off with a cheap (or FREE!) method of commication while your needs aren’t tremendous? Wouldn’t it be great if those modes of communication were scalable so you could be consistent while your organization grows?

Well the internet just made that a LOT easier. Here are a few ways my current organization uses cheap (usually FREE) ways to communicate. The best thing about these communication avenues is that they’re easiliy scalable. If our organization doubled in size, we’d still be able to use the same avenues and wouldn’t have to transition our entire tribe to a new communication.

Email: Our organization uses MailChimp because MailChimp offers a “Free-Forever” option. We don’t have enough people on our mailing list to warrant spending lots of money on email marketing. Luckily for us, MailChimp has a super-simple interface which allows us to set up multiple mailing lists (teenagers, volunteers, program leaders, & everyone) without costing us a penny. It’s an easy, scalable way to communicate regularly with your customers. MailChimp works well if you have a list of 30 or 3000.

Blog: Write a blog. It’s free on WordPress, Blogger & Tumblr. It’ll cost you a little bit to purchase a custom domain but it sure isn’t hard. Train people to learn about your company through the web. Once you write a blog, there are only minor differences between having 2 readers & 20,000. It’s super-scalable.

Text Messaging: My organization uses text messages to remind people about upcoming events. There is a small monthly fee for us (which will increase as we grow), but being able to communicate in short bursts is fantastic. We use TXTsignal for this.

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo. Free, simple services that allow you to connect with people. It costs you the same to connect with 3 friends as it does to connect with 30,000 fans. Either way, these avenues of communication are an easy way to pump out your message.

BONUS!: And just for an added bonus, you can interconnect all of these services to varying degrees. TXTsignal can update your Facebook status. Youtube can update Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. MailChimp connects to twitter, facebook & blogs. When you interconnect your communication avenues, you help fans connect with whatever communication is easiest for them.

Figure out a strategy, get to work & never stop learning.

Some audible goodness from Josh Garrels with video goodness from Andrew Ellis. If you can’t see the video, click here.

Ulysses by Josh Garrels from Andrew Ellis on Vimeo.

Josh Garrels performs Ulysses in a New York City backyard.

Sound by Jonathan Seale

Image by Andrew Ellis

Thanks to Vince for sharing this video. This video made me think of all the people who have helped me out. We all need someone to pick us up sometimes. Enjoy.

Sometimes a company or church or youth group will start using social media.

Sometimes they don’t know why, but they know everyone else does.

Here’s a tip: treat your new followers or friends or email subscribers or blog readers the same way you would a quest in your newly opened retail store. Any relationship is a 2-way street & if you hope to GET you’d better be ready to GIVE or the relationship isn’t going to last.

Example:
Tigertree is a terrific shop in downtown Columbus with some pretty cool offerings. The Tigertree twitter account is very active & engaging. They don’t just post links to their shops. They don’t just tweet about themselves. They engage. I’m a big fan of their stuff, because they made the first step.

{thanks to tim for showing me}

Television might actually morph into something positive. Cool…

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say ‘That’s exactly how this grace thing works’
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

This is an anthem of grace. Also, this video lets you see about 10% of the energy of their live shows. If you can get to one, go. Drive far. Pay too much. It’s worth it.

My dad works with this guy. This guy has a son. The son has a big head. Watch and enjoy.

(Also. If I were designing shirts for babies, I’d make the opening for their head much wider…)

To watch the video: click here.

I came across the website of Dwell Missional Community the other day and TOTALLY loved their stuff. Their website is clean, informative, gorgeous and oozes with personality without being overwhelming.

Here’s a few specifics about what attracts me to their site:

• Their “leader” page has a video of each leader introducing himself. After watching a couple of minutes, I quickly got a feel for each leader. Something that photos and a bio just don’t do.
• The line “LIVING FOR THE CITY OF BURLINGTON, VT” is beautiful. I have always thought that a community ought to be better off due to the presence of a church (even for those who don’t attend). From what I can tell, Dwell makes Burlington a better place.
• They’ve got LOADS of content, but it’s all organized in an unobtrusive way. If I were new to town, I wouldn’t feel overburdened. If I had been at the church for 5 years and wanted find out some very specific information about a certain ministry or program, the website would work for me as well.