Get the pulse on what the community is saying about your church or youth ministry using some simple and free tools that monitor what gets posted to the web.

Use Twilert to get an email when someone uses Twitter that includes a keyword you set up, and use Google Alerts when someone updates a blog or a website in the same way. You could also bookmark a keyword Twitter search page or bookmark a Google blog search page that keeps a real-time eye on things, too.

When you see someone Twitter or about your church or ministry, here’s some ideas on how you could respond:

• someone Twitters about their first time visiting your church - ask if they enjoyed it or had any questions. Encourage them to come back and/or find a service style that might be better for them.
• if someone has a question about your church - find them the answer and shoot it back to them as soon as you can.
• If someone posts generally about your church in a blog post, at least leave them a comment to let them know you read their post.
• If there’s some information in an article or website that is in error, contact the website and give them the correct information.

I like what Guy said recently about responding on Twitter:

•  
  • People are pissed: help them out
  • People are confused: help them out
  • People who have questions: help them out
  • People are happy: ask them to spread the word

Lots of companies are doing this now (here’s a couple of studies on Hulu, Popeyes and Zappos) - I even got a Tweet from Motorola when I upgraded my Q9c. Do you have another idea on how to use these tools? Post it in the comments!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Best Year Ever (Week 2 of 2)
Sermon in a Sentence: Casting the vision for where HSM is heading in 2009 - a look at how we will reach, connect, grow, discover and honor.

Key Verse: Genesis 37-44 The story of Joseph

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 8 out of 10. Multiple videos, stage setup, music, live bits, extra slides, costumes and lots of timing issues. 

Attendance: down 1% from last weekend, up 62% from same weekend last year
Service Length: 75 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we took a huge departure from normal and went with a late night talk show setup. We had a producer come on stage and talk to the live studio audience, then the show went “live.” I came out and did a monologue of sorts, we had the band play a fun cover then we went through a succession of special guests on the program, who each highlighted various upcoming events, resources and plans HSM has for 2009. We went through each purpose, framing them all under the banner of worship, and talked about the new events and activities to invite friends to, how to get in a small group, highlighted a few resources to help them grow on their own and showed videos and told stories of students serving in the church and on mission trips. Huge departure from typical, but I’m glad we took the programming risk and gave it a shot.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students made up the band and also did lights, cameras and sound. Some students were also involved in the program, we interviewed several during the sections on small groups and serving. Volunteers were involved in the audience keeping a positive environtment and greeting students inside the room. Students also were asked to fill out a postcard we would mail them in a few months reminding them of the decisions they made as they started the New Year.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The significant format differences made for a fun change from the typical. We had some fun images of 2008 that we put on the screen and had them cheer or boo - Miley Cyrus always got the most mixed reaction. We also had a few images of students and volnteers and aged them 30 years as we “looked into the future” that got some laughs, too. And we had 4 little The More You Know videos as well that played as commercials during the show.

Music Playlist: New Year (Def Cab cover), [I forget one other song we did], We Shine

Favorite Moment: Last year we started off 2008 with a Best Year Ever vision mesage, it was exciting to do it again - HSM is ready to take on 2009. And there was a ton of excitement announcing a return to our Spring Break trip to Ensenada, Mexico and a new trip to the Dominican Republic. Excited!

Just for the record, Global Soles had nothing to do with this. Oh man!

JG

Amazing time yesterday at the Rose Bowl. Was thinking it would be more of a defensive battle and a bit closer, but still great for sure!

JG

Tonight we had our New Year’s Eve party at The Refinery. For years our student ministry had done New Year’s events, but had gotten away from them the past couple of years. We brought it back this year, and much like PumpkinFest we were super pleased with the results. This threshold event had a couple of strategies in place to connect first-time students to church, here’s some of the thought process behind the event:

We wanted to get word out about our regular service times. This event we printed the service times on the paper bracelet that students received when they came in. In times past we’ve handed out postcards as they left to make sure they knew about what the church had to offer them. If the planets align, I would love it if after a big event like this we could give out a calendar of activities for the next 3 months. The point is, find a way to get your services times and ministry in people’s minds so they remember that as much as they remember having a good time.

We wanted to have an excuse for a second contact. In times past we’ve had students fill out cards for a drawing or for a mailing list, but that can make for an unnatural contact when the event is over. This time we took fun pictures and asked for people’s email address so we could send them a digital copy of the photo. In that email with the photo attached, we put in some basic info about our ministry and a clear invitation to attend a service. Here’s a copy of what we sent out tonight:

Thank you so much for coming to Party Till ‘09 at the Refinery with HSM! We hope you had as much fun as we did! Attached is your photo from the festivities.

We would also love to invite you to one of our weekend services. They happen every Saturday at 4:30 and 6:30pm and every Sunday at 9:00 and 11:15am in the Refinery Theater. We promise you won’t be disappointed…this is church like you wouldn’t expect! We try to shatter the stereotype that church is boring with great music, humor, and teaching geared just for YOU!

Let us know if there’s anyway we can be there for you in the future and help you get connected to HSM!

We love you!

Alanna Moine and the rest of the HSM Staff

However you do ask for the second contact, be sure to look for a natural way to reach out to them in the days or weeks after the event.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

JG

Saw this little gem over on new daddy to be Paul’s blog. Awesome.

JG

Doug Fields’ new book Refuel his bookstores this week - Simply Youth Ministry has it for just $8.99 right now if you’re planning on getting it. I read it this summer (review here) and my wife is thanked in the credits, which is cool. Anyhow, pick it up - it is a great book to read at the beginning of the New Year to help you start out right on track.

JG

(here’s the first chapter, be sure to click full screen to read it easily)

Just finished reading a new book I got as a gift from my dad earlier this month - Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham. I love the overall call of the book - a reminder to fathers that we should be the spiritual leaders of our homes and that the home has to be primarily focused on the discipleship for our children. My biggest reminder from this book is that youth ministry must support the home. The only problem is that this fantastic message gets diluted with niche methods of response to the lack of spiritual leadership in the home. Unfortunately, the endgame solution presented of the book goes off topic to make it’s own point altogether. The first 2 chapters and the last 2 chapters are the best. C

JG

Interesting and random observations and findings from a year’s worth of blog stats:

2 Highest Traffic Days

• Feb 26, 2008 - I posted the online video premiere of Overnighter and word started to spread culminating in this highest traffic day ever for MTDB.
• Mar 24, 2008 - I posted a few pictures from lunch with Jason Castro of American Idol fame and after getting some fan-site links, the site was swamped with the 2nd highest day ever.

Referring Sites

• SimplyYouthMinistry.com and YouthMinistry.com - because of my relationship with these sites, we’ve got a ton of traffic coming both ways.
• Google - far and away the highest referrer, they are totally dominating the search world.
• Twitter - I’m pumped to see people finding content on the blog from Twitter. I decided to not have the site automatically Tweet, but the traffic flows over when people get pinged. Interesting new entry on the list this year.
• MuchBetterThanMoreThanDodgeball.com - this site hasn’t been updated since April, but it keeps sending me visitors. Weird.
• Honorable mentions for referring: Tony Morgan, Eric Putman and Kurt Johnston. Thanks, guys!

Where Did People Come From?

• 91% visitors were from the United States, of the US #1 was California, followed by Texas, Ohio, Florida and Georgia.
• 3% of the visitors to my site were from Canada, followed by Australia and the United Kingdom with 1% each, and the rest of the world sharing the balance.

Browser Wars

• Internet Explorer 47%
• Firefox 33%
• Safari 18%

Random Stuff

• 4% of you came back to the site 200+ times in 2008
• 33% of visitors were new vs. returning
• 2% of visitors were on Dial-up internet

JG

Michael Phelps is far and away the Athlete of the Year in every magazine, on every blog and a feature during every year-in-review show. He inspired my Halloween costume and made the Bejing Olympics interested between the amazing opening and closing ceremonies. Enough said.

Athlete of the Year:
Michael Phelps

Honorable Mentions:
Usain Bolt
The Redeem Team
Brett Favre
Tiger Woods
The Boston Red Socks

JG

I love a good movie - and your first impression of the movie comes from the movie poster. While I didn’t necessarily see or agree with all of the films listed below, here are what I think are 2008’s best movie posters. The winner, Step Brothers, just had that classic “Olan Mills” look to it that was so funny that fit the subject matter so well. The others are all over the place from a classic Indy poster and an instantly classic Wall*E to Sarah Marshall and 27 Dresses use of text. Anyhow, here are my picks:

Best Movie Poster:
Step Brothers (see it)

Honorable Mentions:
Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull (see it)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (see it)
27 Dresses (see it)
Wall*E (see it)
Bottle Shock (see it)
Punisher: War Zone (see it)

JG

There’s tons of great churches around the world doing amazing things, and I’m learning from so many of them. This year, one takes the top spot easily as they’ve given so much back to the greater church community. They gave us free metrics software, gave us an amazing online Bible (complete with an iPod version) and basically give away everything they do online. This year looks to continue the trend with an ever-improving online church experience and the new free video teaching network, too. LifeChurch, keep up the good work.

Most Inspiring Church:
LifeChurch.tv

Honorable Mentions:
NewSpring Church
Granger Community Church
Mariner’s Church

JG

The best seats I’ve ever had in my life for a professional sporting event - a birthday present to me to celebrate turning the big three-four yesterday. Great game, saw lots of celebrities and Kobe scored 31. Nice!

JG

My brother in law and I enjoyed a game up at Staples Center last night. Good game, forgot how much I enjoy how hockey in real life (as opposed to TV - argh). Fun night!

JG

Last year we did our family according to pumpkins, this year we’re rolling out iPods. Merry Christmas!

JG

My first installment of 52 Links Every Youth Worker Should Check Out got a great response (actually, it’s the most clicked on article from all of 2008), so while this one wasn’t nearly as easy to create, I knew you would find value in it. I’ve use/used many of these, but not all by any stretch. Some look intresting to me and might work in your youth ministry context. Most are free, but not all - be sure to add ones for our next list in the comments!

Here’s 52 more links that every youth worker should check out:

FREE YOUTH MINISTRY RESOURCES
www.youthspecialties.com/freeresources/
www.dare2share.org/free
www.simplyyouthministry.com/freebies.html

MUSIC
www.pandora.com
www.last.fm
www.spiralfrog.com
www.ontour.net
ksolo.myspace.com

VIDEOS
www.jumpcut.com
www.fixmymovie.com

WEB STUFF
www.feedburner.com
www.google.com/help/features.html

OFFICE/PRODUCTIVITY
www.thinkfree.com
www.dictionary.com
www.evite.com
www.taskbin.com
www.wufoo.com
www.iwantsandy.com
www.grandcentral.com
www.14dayz.com
www.shoeboxed.com
www.wipeelist.com

MONEY
www.billster.net
www.mint.com
www.rudder.com
www.buxfer.com

COMMUNICATIONS
www.tokbox.com

GRAPHICS
picasa.google.com
www.colorblender.com

CHEAP STUFF
www.craigslist.com
www.oodle.com
www.woot.com

YOUTH/POP CULTURE
www.trendcentral.com
www.ypulse.com
www.cpyu.org
www.bestweekever.tv

SMALL GROUPS
www.meetup.com

NETWORKING
www.youthworkers.net
www.linkedin.com
www.pdymcommunity.org

JOB SEARCH
www.youthspecialties.com/jobbank/jobs
www.churchstaffing.com
www.youthpastor.com/jobs
www.tonymorganlive.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs

FREE ONLINE TV
www.hulu.com
www.joost.com
www.sling.com

MOVIES
www.pluggedinonline.com
www.rottentomatoes.com

LEARNING/TRAINING
www.ted.com
www.leadingsmart.com/leadingsmart/2007/10/watch-innovate-.html

BACKGROUND CHECKS
www.equifax.com
www.churchvolunteercentral.com/shepherdswatch
www.churchstaffing.com/Store/BackgroundCheck.aspx
www.protectmyministry.com

JG

There were some amazing viral videos this year. You can’t avoid them, these bad boys are everywhere. Here’s my favorite, and a few that came close to the top spot.

2008’s Best Viral Video:
Jesus is My Friend

Still Great Honorable Mentions:
Mandles
Christian the Lion
The Japanese Office
Obama Never Gonna Let You Down
Acapella John Williams Tribute
Youth Ministry Overnighter

JG

Been thinking about ratios for some reason - here are a few that are important to me. Leave yours in the comments!

• Small Group Leader to Small Group Size (1:8)
• Soda to Ice  (3:1)
• Thai Food to Week (3:7)
• Overnighter Activities to Year (1:1)
• Straw to Cup (1.3:1)
• Volunteers to Students at Lock-In (1:10)
• Paid Staff to Students (1:75)
• Student to Camp Counselor (12:1)

JG

From the FOX Christmas Broadcast website:

Celebrate with our Saddleback family this Christmas and join Pastor Rick for “The Christmas Connection” as he talks about how Jesus’ purpose when he came was to connect us to God and to one another. Fox News will be airing special coverage of our Christmas services again this year on December 24 at 7:00 p.m. PST and December 25 at 10:00 p.m. PST.

Here’s Saddleback’s Christmas website, too.

JG

Here’s this year’s shot of Saddleback Church’s High School Ministry team. You can see last year’s picture here - I’m hoping that every year we can take a picture in the same spot (the Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland). So fun - Merry Christmas!

JG