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Transcript

Your Youth Ministry Website is ALL WRONG (Here's How to Fix it!) · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The whole concept is we're trying to remove as many barriers as possible.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The more hurdles you remove for parents and the better access they have to you, the better results you're going to get every single time.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about the top mistakes youth pastors make when it comes to their online presence and how you can make it better.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we give you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast-track the growth and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeff Laskola and this is Kristen Laskola, and today we are talking about mistakes youth pastors make when it comes to their online presence, and we're going to give you some practical tips on what you can include to make sure that your social media, your website, whatever it is is communicating exactly what you want it to and maybe what it needs to to help you get better results.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: And sometimes this episode was sort of birthed out of years, actually, of me looking at different youth group websites or church websites or social media and sort of secret shopping, like if I were a parent who wanted my kid to be involved in a youth group.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We just moved to the area and I'm trying to find a church and some information about how to get my kid involved or plugged in.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Could I do it just based on your online presence?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And I hate to say this, but the majority of the time the answer is no, and that's a bummer because they're super easy fixes and after today, if you could implement a handful of these, you will have a super strong online presence that will help someone go from not involved to at least know how to get started to be involved.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And I don't.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I think there's this blindness that happens when you're the youth pastor or have attended a church for a long time, you start to see things as an insider and it just makes sense to you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: But look at someone else's website and do the test yourself and say if I were a parent trying to get my child involved, or a student checking out a website trying to find a high school group or whatever, could I get involved based on the information provided?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And if not, it'll help you kind of see where your own might be lacking, because you, like everyone, knows what this means Well it's like maybe in your city, in your church or whatever, but think of the new person.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: That's going to be the lens that we see this through, of always keeping the new person in mind.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the website first.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So a lot of churches have a website, like I would be hard.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Step one have a website.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you'd probably be hard pressed to find a church without at least a basic website at this point in time.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: That would be shocking.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Now what happens after we get to the website?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: That is where we have a mixed bag of all kinds of experiences, so a lot of youth or a lot of churches.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I see they will have a page that says something like ministries, or student ministries or family ministries, something that leads me to be like, okay, this is probably the area for me, and you click on that and they might give you the option of children's ministries, student ministries, junior high, high school, whatever you're looking for.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And then when you click on that page, here's where it goes wrong a lot of times.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: A maybe you can't even get to that page and it just says youth group meets every Wednesday night from 7 to 8 or something like that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: There's no contact information, there's no extra information about what do you do and stuff like that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So imagine we get to the place where we're actually on the student ministry site.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Here's what we need to be looking for.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: We need to if you have your own website, which I do, so you know I work at North Coast Church and there is information about my youth group on the North Coast page, but it's very bare bones.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: There is a link to click on to go to my actual website, which is jhcom, and that's what opens up to the experience of my specific youth group.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So is there a link to your specific youth group website?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: If not, that's okay.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: If you're not going to build your own website for your youth group, totally okay, but then you need to build out from the church's website.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So you want to make sure you are super clear and this sounds so basic but I can't find it a lot of times when, when and what time you meet and how often Wouldn't when be what time you meet Well what day Gotcha meet?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: well, what day gotcha?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So for example, ours would say we meet every tuesday night from 6 30 to 8 30 at the falbert campus of north coast church.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I would give an address for that.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Now I know, and a lot of times people just like throw out, like well, I'm gonna save that for the social media.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So, and then within that, an event description is really great so you might again have insider language and be like well, everyone knows what youth group is.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Again, who are we trying to capture?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: People that already know right, or are we trying to capture people who are curious?
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: both to be honest.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So you need to have information that caters to both people I mean, if I had to choose, though, I would say I'm looking for like in terms I think basically we're saying is the person that doesn't know, you're going to give more than more information than they even need you know, because you don't want to have them come back and be like I can't find the information, Whereas a person who always is coming, they might know a lot of these things.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Overcommunicating is never a problem.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Right, they might know a lot of these things over.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Communicating is never a problem, right?
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So it's.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're trying to make sure someone who has never set foot on your campus I say campus because we're multi-state or church has ever, like they've never stepped foot.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Could they figure it out?
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: You don't just say in in the fellowship hall, like that doesn't mean something to a non-Christian or a non-church member.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's like where the heck, you know?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So that doesn't make any sense to someone who hasn't stepped foot on your campus, which points again to signage as well.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: You know of, like that night.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Make sure it's very clear the youth are in this building.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: They're not wandering around a church Like where do I put my kid?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Like this is so confusing, so making sure we stay away.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: The bottom line is you stay away from insider language.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Do not use abbreviations.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: You know, even on our own website, never say ncc.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: We say north coast church, you know, and it's like well, duh, we're on the north coast, what?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But it's like I had asked some people to change something on our website the other day because it was an acronym and I'm like that means nothing to a person clicking around your website.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: What is a AON?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Right, like I get so frustrated when the schools send me an email and they're like please participate in the PTO, bac, blah, blah, and I'm like what?
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're asking me to do, because those acronyms are your world.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I'm just a parent.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And you send us 15 emails a day.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It's hard to sift through them, which is true, yeah, I count.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like between the elementary school and the junior high school.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I got 15 emails, not even counting the notifications on my phone.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And everything's urgent, urgent, urgent.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Please read Exclamation.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Is anyone else?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Just us?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so sometimes I'm like I'd love to do whatever you're asking me to do, but I can't define these terms that make sense in a school context when that's your 40 hour a week job, but when you're on the fringe of that like you're like huh.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I think this is what this means.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So never leave somebody wondering by abbreviating stuff.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Just spell it out, Act as if nobody knows what you're talking about and make it crystal, crystal clear.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Another thing you want to have on that website other than so, we break down like the weekends, like Saturday night we meet at 5 30 PM every Saturday night at the Fallbrook campus, you know and then Sunday morning, 9 AM, 11 AM, and we give event descriptions for both of those, Like what can you expect?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And then a calendar of events.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So I came across a church website recently that and they're a fairly large church and it was like upcoming events and it was a little calendar with about this much information Roller skating night Okay, Like what time?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: How much does?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: it cost.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Do I, and so you couldn't click on anything.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh, maybe it's just a heading and you click on it and then it will open up to.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, there's the details of sign up by this day, and here nothing.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: It was just roller skating night, april 26th.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: It's like, what Like?
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Where are you going?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: How like?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: me to the church, meet at the rink Exactly.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: There's so many things.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: So the calendar of events again, for every single one of those things has to be crystal clear of how can I like participate?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Do I sign up?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Do I pick up a flyer?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Do I sign up in person?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Like, how do I go to this thing?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Number two how much does it cost?
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Number three, and this one is so big who do I contact If I have questions?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I am shocked at the lack of contact information on church and youth group websites Email office phone number.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: If you don't want to publish your cell phone number on a website, I get that button that goes to your email or the church office number with your extension, something of like questions, contact David.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And like there, if you could even put your picture there, that's awesome too of like this is the person that I need to get in touch with, and it should be very easy, right Cause.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Again, you're going back to the person that's not been there before and I'm going to be dropping off my 12 year old son or daughter, and I have no idea who.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I'm handing them off to Right Right and I think it should be.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know like.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I think people have different opinions on this, but I think sometimes pastors get elusive with communication.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Because they don't want to be bothered.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Or they feel like, well, I don't, I don't feel comfortable, or like there's.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: There's always seems like a little hesitancy.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I haven't quite figured out exactly the why behind it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I could just only guess, maybe they've been either at churches or even at their current church, where that's been abused.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's not been the case with you.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But, like you were saying, bare minimum your email address is a fairly non-aggressive way of someone getting a hold of you, and if you have an office line with an extension, it's like, well, you can only answer it when you're there.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're afraid of people contacting you after hours, you know, and they don't want to give your cell phone out, I can understand that.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Sure, having at least an office line and a bare minimum an email address, yeah, Because here's the thing I am not sending my child with you anywhere If I can't get ahold of you.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: You know, like if I'm checking something out and there's like it's impossible to reach a live, real, breathing person.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: No way.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not dropping my kid off Like we're going to go to the water park or whatever, but I have no way of getting a hold of anybody.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: And again, then that only serves your insiders.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, assuming they even have your cell phone number.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: There's, there's no way.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Well, but they'd be at church and they'd be like oh yeah, I know about the water park night.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: We're doing this, this and this, you know when everyone knows you and is comfortable, but it's very limited to your reach.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just thinking more along the lines of if there was any kind of emergency or you needed to contact them and they were somewhere else it would be nice to have a cell phone somebody to be able to reach them.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh for sure, on an event, there's no question.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And then this is optional, but I think it really adds a lot of personality to your website of showing videos and pictures of your most recent events, because just by watching that someone can see like, oh, these look like totally normal people here, and here's kind of the sub heading under this that I'm not saying people.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: In my experience I've run across a lot of people who have lost trust with the church and them getting their child involved in a youth group is a big step for them, based on, maybe, trauma they've had themselves when they were younger or something happened, and so they want to know who we are.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Can we be trusted?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Are we who we say we are?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And get a glimpse of us from a distance, which is the website.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: That's a very safe distance to say well, who are they and can I move forward here?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And so I think being like having video and pictures of like look at all these safe, smiling kids and these normal leaders and people thriving here and life change and like let them see like this is safe, you can trust us, because sometimes people just like I mean I wish I only had a handful of people who have this story, but this story comes across my ministry all the time.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Parents very scared to get their kid.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: They're new, you know.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's not like we hurt them, you know at our church.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: But they grew up in some dysfunctional church that had some weird thing happen, some church trauma, and now they're like holding onto their children for dear life that it won't happen to them and I hate that that's the case.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: But wanting to show people like, hey, we have nothing to hide.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: You want to get ahold of me?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Get ahold of me.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: You want to see what we do?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Here's what we do.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I have no secrets to keep.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not being elusive, I'm not being dodgy, I'm being completely there's open transparency here.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: See our youth group, see our camps, contact me before you come.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to you, I'll email you, and the rate of return is very important to like returning those emails and phone calls and all of that.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: That's the first step of trust with a parent or a new family or a student that wants to become involved.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oh my gosh, it took three days for them just to return an email.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: It's like Ooh, when it comes to parents, when it comes to families, when it comes I mean, you've got 24 hours, that is it?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Um, anything longer than that sends a message of Hmm, like wonder if this is a priority to them.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And I get we're busy, like fine, of course it's.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But even just a quick, like hey got this, would love to connect with you.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: How about next?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: You know like, if you need to delay that.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: But even just a quick, like hey got this, would love to connect with you.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: How about next?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You know, like, if you need to delay that, but it doesn't take any time.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I leave my email open while the water is boiling to make spaghetti and can like return three emails in that time of just like oh, sweet, like you find the time right If it's important.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So a little rant on that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I know that didn't necessarily have to do with this 100%, but all that to say, I think contact information is a real non-negotiable, for more than just well, they need to know where the skating rink is at.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: It's a trust thing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: So now let's move on to social media.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Before we move on I have a couple things I wanted to add.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Did you talk about address or are you going to talk about that with social media?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So I kind of did okay just I just feel like that should be very present under the contact.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I put our address in the thing, true yeah, I just I feel like people assume people know where the grace church of whatever is.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what I'm getting to with the social media, too.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: The other thing I wanted to bring up was for your events page or things like that.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Make sure it's current and up to date.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I've been at some people's websites and you click on it it is like, well, I know what you guys did in 2023, but I have no idea what's coming up or then if things change.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: So this is a personal experience, not youth ministry related, but back many years ago when I first was getting started.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I do screen printing on the side and I wanted to take there was a local fairly local, about 40 minutes away class and this website said we're offering this free kind of you know, beginners screen printing thing like that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I thought sounds great like free and it's you know, so I don't know if you remember it, but I drove, like I said, it's about 40 minutes I showed up in marietta.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I do remember and I.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: The front door is locked and I'm thinking well, I knew I've been at this place before.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I knew they had a back side to their business and that's where all like their machines and things like that were.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So I thought maybe there's having it around the back.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: There's no sign, but clearly I'm here at the right time.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And so I went all the way around the building and I went to open the back door, which was open, and as I push it open, I set off the building alarm.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Oh my, God.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, now, what do I do?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, now, what do I do?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I feel like I can't go in, but I don't know what to do.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So I went back around to the front and I waited and finally somebody showed up the police.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It was the police, it was one of the owners, and I said, hi, that was me, I'm here for the class.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And he seemed oblivious, like had no idea.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: So there was somehow.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they canceled it or what, I don't really remember but, the class obviously was not happening and I thought I was going off of your website information which you would think would be reliable but, you're right.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like it was the right day, the right year the right time.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're not doing that anymore but they never bothered, didn't just delete it just say cancel.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You're the only one who showed up.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised, more people could have gone one-on-one instead.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I just set off the building alarm.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a really good show, though, if you have something, an event like, maybe outside of your normal youth group, or if you're a youth group for whatever reason small group night out or something you're not meeting there then that person shows up to an empty church yeah, and it's awkward okay, really bad look yeah, I guess I'm not coming back here because you feel embarrassed.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I was certainly embarrassed for setting off an alarm, but you just feel like this is awkward maybe I just don't want to come back well, and so a good rule of thumb would be check your website once a week.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I think I need to be better at that right before we did this episode.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, if I to talk about this, I better look at my website.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: You know, because I this link is broken.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I hand that off to a couple of people who run it, and they run it Well, they do a great job.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: They missed a couple of things and so I sent them.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: You know three or four edits of like wait, this but that, and we need to clean that up, and this is not updated.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And so if that is you, if you're the one who updates it, you know you need to make sure.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I think a good rule of thumb is checking in on it once a week to make sure everything's up to date and current, because that has come back to bite me before I got a text from a mom like a couple of years.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: She's like hey, I'm confused.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The website says this time, but then your calendar said this time, and then the announcements also said that like there were two different times and two things said this, but the website said this, and I'm like, oh my gosh, how embarrassing she had to text me to like we just look like we don't have our act together and we didn't.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That was a bad, bad look for us and I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry, this is the correct time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And I just was like, ah, darn it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I hate when that stuff happens because you want to come across like we're organized we're on top of it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: You can trust you don't have to go investigating is this, really it, like I just want to be able to say this information is what is happening.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Bottom line like because, at at the end of the day, you people are trusting their children with you and if you look like, you're not running a tight ship at all.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It's like I don't know.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I feel comfortable with my kid going there.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I always ask myself would an idiot do that?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: And if the answer is yes.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I do not do that thing.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: So you have your own dedicated website.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: linked to the church's website.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Have you been listening?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe I heard it, maybe I didn't.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Address, said it Linked to the website.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Said it Wake up little snoozy, Smell Smelling salts.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so just so that if they're clicking because a lot of people, I think, do have their website as part of their church's overall page, which is great, but if you're going to have a separate one, yeah, making sure that one goes to the other Does yours link back to the churches?
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Did you talk about that?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Because if they go to yours, can they go?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, you're part of this church, can I go back to it?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know, oh, riddle me that.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good question.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: You don't need to get all huffy puffy.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: That one's good.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: The rest were not.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So you're one for 30.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I was reiterating can't over communicate anywho social media bro, let's do that, moving on moving on.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I don't know, maybe you still have a facebook one, that I've seen them.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: They are thriving, great, great, great.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just on instagram, so it's this could apply for any of them Instagram, facebook, tiktok, whatever.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I would not do a Snapchat.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just my personal opinion.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: If you're doing it and it's working, well, amen, brothers and sisters, but I can't snap.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, we know social media can be one of two things I don't know.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I Snapchat's more of the other.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I do think so and I tried really hard to give it a fair assessment.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: It's I can't really direct kids there.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I think without even trying it, you get into some pretty bad stuff very quickly and, like the for you pages on snapchat are bad news.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So I was like I think we're done with this, but let's talk about like bios, right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So here's what I see.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Often that is not helpful whatsoever.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So say, your youth group is called fire very good you can have that one for free, but with a y mysterious youth friar, um, because I mean maybe they're trying to name their youth group right now.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Fire, our youth group is fire okay, so it would be like fire, and then it would say it's lit bro.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I'm going to extend that pause, make it like 10 seconds.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Add some crickets in.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Noted.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So then it would say fire youth ministry of, and then they might at their church.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Doesn't tell me a whole lot, because that's all they'll say.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: It's like so you're saying, if that's all they say, yeah, like you could say youth ministry at like north coast church, fine, but that doesn't give me anything.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I need to get involved.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So then I start clicking like through their pictures.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe they gave me information in some of these picture captions or something, nope.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: So now I have to go to your church Instagram and hope they have service times.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: If you can find it.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But chances are well, they at them a lot.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: So then you click on that and then it's like, well, chances are, you're not talking about youth group on your main church page.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So I still don't know when you meet or where, or what time or how often.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So here's what you want to do.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: You need times, locations, including the address for your midweek in the bio I should pull ours up, actually and what it says junior high.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: This is the bio, junior high ministry of North Coast Church, Fallbrook.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: We need to be specific because we're multi-site, so it's not just North Coast Church.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: If you're a multi-site church, make sure you include the campus on there.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And here's when we meet.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: You include the campus on there.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And here's when we meet Tuesdays, 630 to 830 pm.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Saturdays, 530 pm.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Sundays, 9 and 11 am, and then it gives the address.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Right below the address it gives a link to our youth group website.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So everything you need to get involved would be here.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: You know, the address, you know the times, you know the days, you know what church we're a part of, what campus we're a part of.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And then if you scroll and look, well, I don't know if that picks up well on camera, but, um, sometimes I don't like going to youth group websites because you look at their feed on their page and it's just a bunch of text.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: It's just all these words different of like I know they're trying to use it for announcements, but it's such a boring feed.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It's like here's the logo for our new series.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It's like yippee, like what kid is so excited to like a banner for a new sermon series?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Like they want to see their friends, they want to see them, they want to see what the youth group is doing and who's there and what's going on.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And I want to be a part of that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Not like just looks like a bunch of like flyers, you know.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: And so make sure you have pictures of students, not just information.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you can't have banners and stuff like that, but it's like not only that, like seriously, some youth groups.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It's literally like hey, all night event this Friday, and then the next picture is like new sermon series, something, this, and then Easter services, nine and 11.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: You're like this is like for a school, like.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Like this is just like how, like all these.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But if you post pictures and videos of the events and then in the caption talk about what they are like, clover Knight are coming up.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Here's the information you need to know.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Use the caption for the information, because the picture will get the attention and be like oh, that looks fun.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: A flyer cannot convey fun Action.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Can Students in glow paint, like playing dodgeball can.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: But just saying Glover Knight as a flyer, that can't convey who you are.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And another pro tip would be not only linking the website in your bio, but if you have any event registration, so when we have camp coming up, we put that link in the bio so you can just click right there at the top and be directed to the camp signup page, which is so great for students, especially new ones.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes those kids aren't on our parent email list and they just need a quick way to get to the camp signups that they're, or the all nighter signups.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Whatever you're doing, just make it so accessible and simple there.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I think the bottom line is be super clear.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Also, like you're saying how, if you go to the youth's Instagram page, it's like well, I can't see where the church is at, but I see they tag the church.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Let me click there.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Did the church say where they're at?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: No, but they have a website link.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Let me click there.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, now I'm at the website website.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Like stop making them jump from one place to another right so, like you're saying, it's like on instagram.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Here's the registration to sign up for event.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Here's our website.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Here's our church address, where it's like I can get everything I need right here.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Or, if I went to the church website, here's a place to sign up for events.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Here's the address.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Here's like, everywhere you go, it contains all the information that you need, so it's not constantly like well, first click here, then go here and then exactly, and then scroll down to the bottom and maybe it'll be.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: No, it's like everywhere you go it has the same stuff right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And I just looked up another one right now while we were filming because I thought, oh, this one's probably really good.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: It it was not, I won't say.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: But I was like, oh, I'll use them as an example of here's some other pro tips.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: But you can't, like we said before, you can't just link the church because now you've sent them on a treasure hunt.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Like the church's primary website at least ours is not like the front page of it Like here's the youth pastor, here's all the information.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: You're still going to have to click around to find it.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: So if someone's going straight to your Instagram or your Facebook page, why not just put all that right there?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Here's who this is for sixth through eighth graders.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: This is the days and times we meet.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: This is the address we meet, this is the church we meet at, and now you can scroll through and see who we are.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: But at least you have all the nuts and bolts and you don't have to guess right like uh where are they?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I remember seeing that information.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Where did I see it?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Was it on this page or was it?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you know it's like anywhere you go, you're still going to find all that information and like the, the whole concept is we're trying to remove as many barriers as possible, like every time we like create a new hurdle or a new hoop.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Chances are like, if I like the website I was looking at the other day where I was telling you it had like roller skating night but nothing to click on.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'll click around for a couple minutes and then I'm giving up yeah and then if I cannot contact someone easily to ask a question to, I am a hundred percent.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Moving on, if you're not a parent yet and you're a youth pastor, please do not underestimate how busy parents are and how many people and organizations are vying for their attention.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Your, your youth group, is a part of their life.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: They're also on a baseball team, talking to the coach, and they've got to get an order in for their you know uniform, and then they have the booster club and then they are on PTA, and then the school and then their kids project is due and, oh no, everyone has a dentist appointment.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Like their inbox is filled with all of these people vying for their attention.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: So if you're a younger youth pastor that has not experienced that yet, know that the more hurdles you remove for parents and the better access they have to you, the better results you're going to get every single time.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good strong stuff.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Um was as they fired up about all those school emails, man my gosh and and the other thing is like most of the time when you get them I would say nine times out of ten or more you're like I don't need this right now.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I don't need this information right, this second right.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So I you know but then they send it again and again, and again, like fundra for flowers, fundraiser for flowers, and I'm like I don't, I'm not, I don't need it, bye, bye.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Then they send it in the afternoon, in the morning, in the evening.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: They're over communicating, which is not a bad thing, but I think there's well, I'm going to get on a tangent.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I I know we better cut while we're ahead.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I can't end up finding.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Even though they send me 20 emails on the same thing, I can't end up finding it because they're all labeled weird.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: That's a school district issue we have.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Nevermind, I'm exhausted.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: That's not besides the point this is a community comment of the day.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: This comes from Faithful R8Q, who says you have no idea how much your videos help me out our youth ministry, so thank you.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: You're welcome.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: We appreciate that.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: We love hearing those things.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: We thank you guys for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about five words that should describe every youth ministry.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about the five most powerful words that can describe your youth ministry.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about five words that should describe every youth ministry.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: What are five words that should describe every youth ministry Today?
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Hello.