Birth of a ministry (that leaves my thumbs sore)

I started text-messaging a bunch of my students today, first thing as I got into work and put away all the stuff from the Austin conference. Just a quick note letting them know I was praying for them and that they should have a great day. And what do you know? One of them texted back to share some heavy thoughts. Which led to a real phone call and will lead to a lot of prayer and a face-to-face in short order. The message only took me a second to send, but I was blown away by how fast it started to work. This meeting youth on their turf thing has some promise, (the youth minister realizes way later than everyone else!)

Brian Shulenberg had a lot to say about that in his seminar "Why Myspace, Xanga, Facebook, and Blogs are Changing all the Rules in High School Ministry." It's not that becoming savvy with technology and interactive whatnot will give me an open door into every one of my students, but it'll crack the window with one or two more.

The main thing youthworkers need to be, this seems to say, is flexible. We can't afford to pass any new medium by without giving it a look, (although with the amount of work that takes, we'll also probably be praying for a lot of new Betamax-type things that don't go anywhere.)

In the meantime, all the students I have cell phone numbers for are now in my little Nokia, and I have a new way to pass the time at red lights-- sending out these little electronic pats on the back to help them through!