Tag Archive - TXT messages

Guest Post: Link Your Accounts!

July 18, 2011 in Administration, Web with 0 Comments

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!

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Amazing, Free Resources: Open by Lifechurch.tv

October 11, 2009 in Featured, Media, Resources, Software, Web with 0 Comments

I am constantly amazed at the tools that lifechurch.tv produces.  This morning I found out about what is quite possibly the most useful of them all: Open.  What is it?  It’s thousands of top-quality resources for churches available for free download.  It’s not just youth resources!  Everyone can find something from adults to children and youth to pet ministry (I may have gone a little overboard on the pet ministry).

To begin, you simply sign up for an account and voila, the world of Open resources is at your fingertips.  Browse through the files to find videos of messages, background loops, small group curriculum, skits and video illustrations.

Don’t have a great worship band?  No problem, you can download worship sets to project on a screen with a band, lyrics, the whole deal.  There’s even forms and training.  Like I said, it’s awesome!  The only problem I could find with the well-designed site is that some of the video files require you to burn them on a dvd to play them which for a novice (especially one using a pc) could get a little hairy.

That being said, it’s all there, and it’s all free.  Next time you need help on a message or small group your first stop simply has to be Open.

Free Personal Secretary: Google Voice

July 16, 2009 in Administration, Featured, Web with 0 Comments

I finally received my invite from Google for the Google Voice service, and like a huge retreat coming down to the wire, it is getting me excited and frustrated all at the same time.

The exciting part revolves around the concept that you can have one local phone number that forwards to other numbers based on who is calling and will text message you a “preview” of the content of the voicemail that is left if no one answers.

I think that the texting feature is by far the most interesting. When I tested it, it did not do perfectly, but got the job done. I left the message: “Hi, this is a test message testing the text feature on the google voice service. I received back via text message, “hi this is a test message testing the text to make sure on the google voice servers.” Pretty good, and I didn’t have to click through and listen to find out what the person wanted.

The other great feature is the one that has gotten a bit frustrating in the initial setup.  The basic idea is that you can set up several forwarding phone numbers (home, cell, office, your senior pastor’s direct line… whatever), and google will ring one or more of them depending on the assigned group of the person who is calling.  Sounds easy, and it probably is if you have already been using google contacts as your primary address book.

If you are like me and have a gmail account but use something else as your primary address book, you will have some problems.  First, if you have had a gmail account you will have a ton of contacts that have no name… just an e-mail address.  These will be everything from amazon support to some random applicant for a job you corresponded with twice two years go.  Second, if you choose to sync via an exported .csv or by checking the schnazzy box in Apple’s Address Book, you will have MANY duplicate contacts.  The real problem with all of this is that the contacts area has no advanced search feature.  You cant just find duplicates, or those people with just e-mail addresses.  What you’ll have to end up doing is manually scrolling down the list and either adding the missing informtion, deleting them, or merging them.  One word: hassle.

Once you’ve got the contacts all nice and clean setting up groups is easy and you are off to the races.  Now the sixth grader who just got their first cell phone and has two numbers, yours and their mom’s, will go to voicemail 20 times a day and you’ll get 19 preview texts of “what’s up… just bored… call me” and no interruptions in the meeting with the senior pastor about getting the thousands of flecks of neon spray paint off the gym floor. On top of that, you can have it ring your home, office and cell all at the same time (not in succession like many forwarding services) when your baby is due any day now and save your wife the tracking down of her too busy youth pastor husband.

Another interesting feature is called ListenIn.  It allows you to listen in on the message someone is leaving and jump in by pressing star as if you were screening calls on an answering machine.

This has tons more features including conference calling, recording phone calls, temporary forwarding, and much more.  for an explanation of all their features you can click here to see their help page on the subject.

Overall, I think this is a great product, and if I have gotten an invite they are sure to open it up soon to the whole world.  To request your invite, click here and fill out the form.

Holy Week Texting Freebie

April 2, 2009 in Web with 0 Comments

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

Email is for old people

August 8, 2008 in Administration, Featured, Web with 2 Comments

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.