Youth Ministry Geek » simplytxt

Guest Post: Link Your Accounts!

Chris — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:00:42 +0000

Simply Youth Ministry has always been about saving youth workers’ time. I too love efficiency. I want my computer to run faster. I organize files like an archivist. I even plan my calendar down to the day and hour I’m going to fill up my car with gas. Well, not that last one, but I LOVE being efficient. And the same goes for when I want to get the word out on a youth ministry event.

There are so many different social media routes to do ministry on, and you can spend/waste a lot of hours just keeping up with facebook, twitter, and now Google +. So here’s my philosophy on the proper role of social networks in youth ministry, and how to use them efficiently.

Social Networking is supplemental.

What I mean is that I believe social networking can only accomplish so much. I can keep in touch with hundreds of students, but those relationships must have a “real life” component for meaningful discipleship to occur. In other words, you have to have face time with individual students! Social networking is a bonus to, not the foundation of, a relationship. Therefore I will use social networking for a limited number of tasks.

sharing event info
writing quick notes of encouragement to students and volunteers
checking a student’s wall to gather info that will help me minister to them
making fun of students by posting pictures of them with panty hose on their heads

I really only spend 10-15 minutes a day on facebook. I see it as being supplemental to all of the other relationship building I do throughout the week. Now, how do we make it efficient?

Let technology work for you!

When I first began using social networks I would waste so much time writing individual posts for a blog, facebook, twitter etc. To be an efficient social networker you have to learn how to link accounts. When you link accounts, any information you share on one network gets automatically copied and pasted to the linked account. I began doing this with twitter and facebook. I love the brevity of twitter (you have to be efficient with 140 characters) so I linked twitter to my facebook using the facebook twitter app. Now when I tweet it instantly posts to facebook. Pretty cool huh? But I didn’t stop there…

Our youth ministry also uses the mass text messaging service SimplyText (now Communicate) from Simply Youth Ministry. When you create a text message in SimplyText you have the option to link to your twitter account. This means that every time I send a mass text message close to 300 students who subscribe instantly receive the message on their phones, and the message goes to twitter. Because my twitter is linked to my facebook account my status is also instantly updated. Plus, Simply Text allows me to set up multiple texts and assigned them to be sent at different times and dates. In one 20 minute sitting I can set up 2-3 weeks’ worth of text messages and forget about it. I know that every day for the next month close to 300 students will get daily contact from me, not to mention the 1000 people who follow me on twitter and facebook. Doing a month of social networking in 20 minutes… now that’s efficient!

Jon Homesley

Jon grew up around Charlotte, NC. He graduated from The College at Southeastern in 2010 with a BA doubling majoring in The History of Ideas and Biblical Studies. In 2008 he married his wife Chelsea. They currently live just north of Charlotte where Jon serves as the College Pastor, and Youth Ministry Geek (not his real title) at Christ Community Church. He prefers Windows 7 to OSX, Android to iOS, and Walkmans to iPods.

Jon’s church- www.ccchuntersville.com
Jon’s personal site- www.jonhomesley.com

Communicating youth group news with teens and parents … From SYMC

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:55:14 +0000

Last weekend was the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, and there was lots of great training. One of the speakers, Tim Schmoyer videoed his seminar on Communicating Youth Group News with Teens and Parents and dropped it on YouTube. You can watch it here (it was really good):

If you’d like to pickup more seminars from last week end you can get them here. Or if you’d like to register for next year (It’s going to sell out early) Visit: youthministry.com/symc.

Holy Week Texting Freebie

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:40:37 +0000

I know a lot of people are using text messaging as a communication tool in their ministries, but have you ever thought of using it as an actual worship tool? There’s a Freebie over at YouthMinistry.com that lays out an order of worship for a worship service that consists entirely of text messages. It includes leader texts and student responses, you would need to set this up ahead of time with your students, but it could be a great way to engage them in thinking about activities of Holy Week each day leading up to Easter. It includes the scripture for each day so that you could hold one of these “services” each day without the students ever having to come to church.

If you use a service like SimplyTXT or a similar one you can schedule your texts ahead of time and set it up all ahead of time. Even if you don’t think you would use the entire service, I think the idea of using text messages to get students focusing this way is a great idea, and the scripture provided is a great place to start.

Get the Freebie here: A Cell-ebration for Holy Week

SimplyTXT Now with Reply

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:02:01 +0000

I written about SimplyTxt before, but I wanted to highlight a new feature: Reply. Now when you send out a text to an individual or a group they can reply back and you get the message in your “Message Stream.” It always was a great tool to blast out messages to your students, staff, and parents, but now they can talk back, making it even better.

Watch this quick video to see how the whole system works:

Try out the 30 day free trial. I think you’ll like it. It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways I’ve found to communicate.

LINK: SimplyTxt

No related posts.

Email is for old people

Chris — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:58:25 +0000

Every time I ask students if they got my email, they tell me they never check it. They might check their facebook or myspace, but even that is it or miss trying to communicate with them. The one thing they all seem to do is txt message, and they do it a lot. If you’ve ever wondered how you could use text messaging as a way to communicate with your students, here’s a little video demonstrating a new service from Simply Youth Ministry. I stated using this a little while back and it’s super easy. I’ve also found that my students are actually getting my messages now.

If you want more information, go to SimplyYouthMinistry.com/TXT. They even have a free 30 day trial you can sign up for.

No related posts.