Youth Isn't Cancelled
So it looks like our Sunday gatherings and youth events are not happening for a while. So I guess there is nothing we can do as Pastors but go home hide in our rooms and wait it out? Maybe we can tell our students to connect via the Sunday live stream. But that’s about where it ends right?
This couldn’t be more wrong.
We are faced with a challenge at the moment with the COVID-19 virus for sure. You cannot meet and probably should not meet in person. But the fact is we are facing a real opportunity to leverage tools that maybe we have hardly considered to this point. So while you cannot plan a event as normal, your church continues on. We have always been more than a gathering. Here are 3 practical tools you can use to keep the ministry thriving as well as ever during this pandemic and social distancing.
1. Make a phone call.
I know its scary, for me a incoming phone call gives me more anxiety than this whole pandemic. However, stats on the effects of loneliness physiologically, physically, as well as what we know it can do to us spiritually all show that this could be a major concern going forward. So while texting is great please call your students, your leaders, ask how they are doing. Give your people encouragement. Social media is great to broadcast, but a personal call is likely the Pastoral touch that your students and leaders may need. I would recommend 3-5 calls per day.
2. Keep small groups going
Church Is not cancelled. We just are moving into digital platforms. One of the best ways you can do this is by keeping your small groups running. Zoom groups will be great tool for you to keep connection. Any student with a smart phone or tablet can log into a zoom chat with their usual small group leader and friends. You can send a short devotional yourself or link them all to curriculum online to be discussed. Students usually miss things like small groups for sports. Competition is non existent right now. Take advantage. Also don’t stop meeting with your volunteers. Make a volunteer zoom call, talk about creative ways that they can get engaged in this time to keep the ministry thriving. You can download zoom at: https://zoom.us
3. Creative connection
Students will be bored. So different connecting points are a great way to keep them engaged. Have leaders meet up with them via X-box live or PS4 Online. Organize a live stream on “twitch” where students can jump in and play with or against one of your leaders. It doesn’t have to look like it always has, and in this situation frankly it can’t.
This situation us awful, but I believe we are being given an opportunity to reach like never before. Christianity has been at its most impactful historically when it seemed to be the most stuck. Stay innovative, stay passionate, keep leading, and never forget to ask Holy Spirit everyday “What is God’s cutting edge for my context today”
Jeff Kiers is passionate about finding creative ways to communicate the gospel to traditionally unchurched demographics.