Black Friday and Youth Ministry Trends
Last Thursday night, I prepared for my annual tradition of Black Friday Shopping. For the record, I hate shopping, but there is something very enticing to me about Black Friday shopping. Maybe it is the great deals or the thrill of racing to get that “it” gift for my daughters. I don’t know, but alas at 10:30 pm Thursday, I stood in line for a the midnight opening at Toys “R” Us.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent trend over the past few years has been to shop online for Black Friday rather than stand in line. In fact, ShopLocal said that online traffic this year was up 27% from last year.
Now, if you were to ask me if this was true based on my experience at Toys “R” Us, I would have to say no because by midnight the line had to consist of well over 500 people. However, as I went back out shopping later that morning to my local Target store, I could see how this was a possibility because there was definitely not as many people there as I had seen in the past. There were still many great items in stock that were on sale.
This Wall Street Journal blog made me think about Youth Ministry and trends that are going on that affect how we do and the way we do ministry. So, I’m curious, what do you think are some trends in youth ministry (both good and bad) that have developed or are developing right now? Also, especially if this is a negative trend, how can we counter it so that we can be more effective proclaimators of Christ?
To start things off, 1 trend that I definitely see happening in Youth Ministry is video and tech integration. I believe that this is a great thing overall as I feel that it can make our presentations more clear and effective if we have a powerpoint slide relaying what we are trying to say or to have scripture up so they can follow along. In addition, it can spice up our messages and help hammer home a point if we integrate a video clip into it. Video and tech integration can also be great for playing a game or doing a mixer. Overall, I think there are many ways that you can integrate video and tech stuff into our programs that will help students see that we are “cutting edge” and have a positive impact in our ministry.
One of the main cautions about this trend is on our time management. For me, a techie guy, I have found that I can become so enamored with the tech stuff that I can sometimes lose focus on other areas of my job. We have to be careful of this and not focus so much on this and lose sight of other things we need to do, like spend relational time out with students, leaders or parents. The ideal situation is if you could identify 1 gifted leader, student or adult in our ministry that could take this on so you can give them assignments and not have to spend too much time working on it yourself.
So, TAKE A MINUTE and…
- Think through some trends you are seeing in Youth Ministry and post them. It would be great to get a good dialogue going so we can be aware of them and either jump on or counter what is happening.
