Well, Tim Schmoyer over at StudentMinistry.org has just launched the Online Missions Trip 2010 website. It has a ton of free resources on how to get started preparing your students for two weeks on a social networking evangelistic mission.

What is the Online Missions Trip?

• Equipping students to use social networking (which they already use) to share their faith.
• Two weeks of focused and intentional posts on their social network pages that talk about their stories and faith.
• A real life outreach event at the end of the two weeks. The projected date for this also happens to be Valentine’s Day! No greater love than this.
• Follow up with new converts.

This is a great opportunity to work together with the other churches in your community. Imagine all your kids in town using their Facebooks and MySpaces to be witnesses. Then you can combine resources and do a large event together to end the two weeks.

I think it would be best to equip the students to do the follow-ups as well (with some help from the leaders), and give the new converts opportunities to get connected to one of the local ministries in town.

Getting other ministries involved, like the Christian Clubs and parachurch organizations like Youth For Christ and Young Life can make this experience a whole lot more fruitful. You can also get parents and other adults on board to pray for the whole “trip.”

Online Missions Trip Video

Additional Resources

• For more information, check out Tim’s blog post on reaching students online.
• Facebook Page for Online Missions Trip.

What Now?

So go ahead, sign your group up!

1. National Network of Youth Ministries

These guys are great and would be the first place I’d recommend you go. Depending on how many people in your area use this service, you might get away with it being the the only place you go!

You will need to register with them. As you sign up, you will be able to see networks that have been created near your location, and you will be able to create your own network. (I will blog more about using this service next week.)

Not only do they offer a way to get connected with other leaders, they also offer mentoring. They have a regional structure so that each network has its own overseeing director, who works to equip and mentor network coordinators. I received an email within a week from my regional director and though our summer schedules haven’t allowed us to meet just yet, we are planning to get together soon.

2. Power of Connecting

I haven’t spent much time on this site, but it offers many ways to connect to other ministries who have similar interests. It’s not limited to youth ministry, though there are a few networks dedicated to youth. This would be a great tool for your ministry if you’re trying to connect with other ministries on a more global scale.

3. Facebook

Using Facebook, you can do a search for “youth pastor” or “youth leader” or another similar term. Be sure to narrow your search down to your regional network, so that you’re not looking up the millions of people on Facebook. Then, look for matches for “Job Title” or “Job Description.” Typically, if you’re in the same regional network, you can see a person’s entire information tab, in which case you can find which church or ministry they work at and see how close they are to you. Since Los Angeles is so big, I have to make sure the people I find are actually within a reasonable distance from me otherwise I could be making a very long drive to meet someone!

4. Twitter

As trendy as Twitter is, I have not found it a great tool to meet new local youth leaders. You are not able to search for anything other than a username, first or last name (at this point). [Update: I just found a service called TweepSearch that allows you to search for specific words in people's profiles in Twitter.] It is a great tool to continue to stay in contact with new leaders you meet, however. A lot of the “big name” youth leaders have Twitter accounts and posts very helpful tweets to the twittersphere. Keeping up to date with other leaders opens up doors for partnering up for events.

In fact, you can follow us @ministryallies (sorry, had to plug this!).

I’m sure I’m missing a few other great tools. What would you recommend?

Don’t forget! Check out ways to connect to other youth leaders in person, what you’ll need to network effectively, and 8 benefits to being part of a youth ministry network.

Photo by rahims from Flickr

The most popular way of exchanging contact information is the business card. Business cards are not bulky, easy to pass around, and conveniently short on words.

You can buy business card templates now and print your own. This might be easier than going to your local print shop, like Kinkos/FedEx Office, and it allows you to be more personal than using your church’s business card (In fact, I am in favor of personalized business cards where you can list your social networking URLs).

What should you put on your business card?

I am in the process of creating some new business cards, so I am exploring different options and trying to decide what to put on my card. Here are the things I am considering having on my new cards:

1. Name
2. Photo (a nice, professional one)
3. Church/position
4. Office number (I prefer not to print my cell phone number on my cards, but I often write the number on the back of the card for people I trust with it)
5. My Facebook and Twitter URLs
6. My blog’s URL and tagline
7. A list of skills that I can offer to people. The sentence at the bottom of the card might read, “Need help with web design, video editing, graphic design, or questions about youth ministry in general? Give me a call or shoot me an email!”

These are just some ideas. What do you put on yours?

A social networking profile can work as a business card in the online world. LinkedIn is a great service offering a public professional profile. Facebook and Twitter offer a comparable networking experience.

Additional reading on business cards:

• What should you put on your business cards? – Matt lists some different items that typically go on a business card, then suggests creating a more comprehensive profile that lists more information.
• Should you put your photo on your business card? – This article argues that a photo helps market you as a product. While I disagree with the idea of “selling ourselves,” a photo might help others remember who you are more clearly, especially in youth ministry, where much of our ministry is our interaction with people.
• 10 tips for what to put on your business card – Ten additional suggestions for what to put on your business card.

Tool belt item #2: A way to organize other people’s information

The worst way to organize other people’s contact information is by having a pile of business cards you collected from a convention hidden in your desk. The best way to make this information accessible to you is by putting it in one place.

Web-based contact management system

The good ol’ fashioned Rolodex works great, but I prefer to use an online service called Highrise. I like Highrise because not only can I add contact information, I can also:

• Upload a photo of the person
• Tag the contact with key words such as “youth communicator” or “video guru” for future reference
• Leave notes to remind me of the different conversations or meetings I’ve have with this person

Highrise’s free version works perfectly and allows you to store up to 250 contacts. The pay services offer additional features, including multiple users in case you want to share contact with other people. I will be talking more about how to use Highrise in the future.

Is there anything I am missing? Is there anything that you use to network that works really well? Please leave a comment below.

Coming up next: For the next week, we’re going to take a look at some fundamental networking strategies. First, we will explore different ways to network with local youth leaders in person. Then, we will take a look at how to connect with other youth leaders online.