Technology and youth ministry

I may not have been in professional youth ministry career, but as a youth ministry intern there are certain things that I notice about youth ministry. All throughout interning I have seen the countless benefits of technology, but I have also sen the disadvantages; it is these disadvantages that I would like to briefly talk about today.

I have observed that our technology can and does at times fail us. There are times where a Video won't play in our lesson, the sound system acts up, or a website malfunctions temporarily. These are only small tech failures that I have witnessed and I can imagine that there are many more. This creates problems for both us, the youth ministers, and for our students/possible job applicants in certain situations.

First to cover when it is a problem for us: it can hinder the effectiveness of our lesson or put a damper to the evening. What I have seen ministers do to prevent disaster from such failures and what I would recommend is: to always plan a back up plan and trust God to use you with the failures to bring about change. Also another suggestion is making sure everything works an hour or so before needed if it is possible.

Now to the effect that it has on our students and job applicants. For our students it can create awkward moments where they wait for you to figure our what you are going to do. It is vital to remember that the students have as little or as much say in the program as we give them; so if we have given them little place it can create this awkward time of waiting and confusion. However if we include them a lot in the program, the students can help create filler time while you as the youth minister figures out what you can do to fix things. Now, however, we come to the job applicant. There are times--that have happened to me-- where someone may be applying for a position in your youth ministry or organization and your website has an error resulting in their application not being processed. Of course a simple email can alert you, the youth director, of this error so that it can be fixed; but there are times where you will not be available to fix the error be because even youth ministers need vacations. My advice for these times would be have alternative ways to submit applications instead of just submitting it online and/or allowing he application to be emailed.

That is my two cents, my thoughts from the dust as a lowly youth intern/