Today, a number of ministry leaders met together in a collaborative conversation about how to continue inventive ministry with our young people in a time when we can't meet together. We wanted to share those resources with you so that you can see what will work best in your context!
REMEMBER: No one expects you to be perfect or to have spent a ton of money; the important thing is to engage your young people and create relationships and connection. This is new for EVERYONE!
General Guidelines:
1. If you haven’t already, reach out (via text or social media) to your young people and check in on them. They may be anxious, mad, or celebrating the time off. Especially think of those who are missing out of a significant time because of the break in school.
2. Find out needs of your own families/community families. Make sure everyone has childcare, food and medication. See if there are teens, college students or adults who are available to help with childcare for those who may need it. (Of course only those who are healthy!)
3. Contact your schools, health department, other community organizations to see how they are prepared and planning ways to help the vulnerable and coordinate together.
4. We have Disaster Response Teams in every district who are trained for this. Ask your pastor or District Superintendent to direct you to the right people.
5. We work with a generation who is comfortable communicating virtually. Take advantage of it! Do Facebook Live, Zoom or Google hangout. Need help to figure those options out? Ask your young people! Or contact me.
6. Don’t get caught up in rumors. Make sure you are informed and inform those who you are in ministry with.
Check out these other great resources that you can use in your ministry context! Please note, these are suggestions and should be cleared with your leadership team!
General Ministry:
Youth Ministry:
- Shared Resources from the Zoom Call and/or other conferences (Zoom call recording)
- Download Youth Ministry has created an entire page of easy messages, devotionals, games, etc., and they are all free!
- Orange Students put together a podcast you can listen to, as well as an entire Digital Service Guide of resources to implement.
- Youthworker Collective has a great post on how to continue community with required distances.
- Take TRIBES on virtually! Issue weekly challenges and check-ins from groups through a messaging tool or on Facebook Groups. Don't have TRIBES? Download it now. (Hint: Go to the manual first for guidance!)
- Use your leadership to help keep conversations going by dividing your group and assigning leaders groups to connect with.
- Have students help create content: devotionals, lessons, fun content, social media content, etc. Engage your youth to help create content for each other, while also growing them as leaders!
- Have your students create a group hashtag to follow on all social media channels to keep up with what's going on with each other during the pandemic.
- Keep small groups going by Zoom (more info below) and have youth group lessons by a live streaming service.
- Provide tips/helps for stressed out parents: activity ideas, schedule/structure suggestions.
- Create competitive ideas for groups and/or individuals and post virtually: best trickshot by video, scavenger hunts, online talent shows or art projects, weirdest (yet most edible) dish, etc.
Children's Ministry:
- Shared Resources from the Zoom Call and/or other conferences (Zoom call recording)
- 37 Free Sunday School Lessons for Kids
- Post pics of Flat Jesus or Flat Wesley with specific quarantine Items
- Do Sunday School lessons or Children's Church by Zoom! Zoom offers a free account for up to 40 minutes of video and up to 100 participants!
- Read a book to kids via Facebook Live (check out how Trinity UMC did it here)
- Cokesbury Kids is offering free, online, at-home worship services for the whole family. Although the live event is over, you can still gather your family around the computer for a child-centered time of singing, praying and listening. View the recorded webinar here.
- Provide tips/helps for stressed out parents: activity ideas, schedule/structure suggestions.
- Create competitive ideas for groups and/or individuals and post virtually: best trickshot by video, scavenger hunts, online talent shows or art projects, weirdest (yet most edible) dish, guessing cloud shapes, etc.
- Working through grief with Sesame Street resources; other books on grief: "Invisible String" and "Freddie the Leaf"
- Facebook group of North Alabama KidMin Cohort
- Share the successes and fails of ideas that your families are doing in ways that we can all step back and realize that we're doing the best we can.
- A book group via Zoom or other media
- Offer music class digitally
- Dedicate a specific social media feed to kids
- Share basic information with children about the pandemic and how to pray for people
- Share Sunday curriculum with families in your preferred medium
- Schedule specific engagement throughout the week with kids from reading stories to parent engagement to Christian season lessons on Lent/Easter
- Lent in a Box
Streaming Services:
- Facebook Live: Click here for instructions and tips.
- Instagram Live: Click here for instructions.
- YouTube Live: Click here for instructions.
- Outreach: Beginning March 20, Outreach Digital is offering a free solution for streaming your church services online, including chat, notes, and the Bible. This allows you to stream from your church's website without needing to use Facebook or other social media. Read more here.
Communication & Collaboration Services:
- Facebook Groups: Groups are a place to communicate about shared interests with certain people. You can create a group for anything — your family reunion, your after-work sports team or your book club. Read more here.
- Zoom: Zoom is an online video conferencing app for either one-on-one or group video meetings. There is a free version, but there are limits (a 40-minute max duration). Read more here.
- Google: Google is offering its enterprise version to G Suite and G Suite for Education users, which includes access to advanced Duo & Meet video-conferencing capabilities like meetings for up to 250 participants and live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within the domain. Read more here.
- Microsoft: Microsoft is offering Teams for free. Teams is a collaboration tool with chat, video calling, personal and team file storage, and more. Read more here.
- Slack: Slack is a collaboration app with a free version, but they also offer webinars and one-on-one consultations to help you navigate your own transition to a remote workforce. Read more here.
- GroupMe: Think group texting but with access beyond a cell phone. GroupMe offers both browser and celluar technology for group messaging. This is a great tool for youth groups! Read more here.
- Trello: Trello is a free production management tool that you can use for communication and tracking different conversations and/or projects. Trello’s simple and flexible design lets your team collaborate and organize everything (literally, everything—from the day-to-day operations of your business to your next family vacation). Read more here.
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