Author: Dave Miers

About 4 years ago I started playing with the internet and thinking about how it could be used for our youth ministry. I wondered whether it was worth it, or whether it would be a waste of time and energy. We decided that we would see what we could do with the net and how it could help our ministry. Over that period of time things have slowly evolved and there seems to be some genuine momentum created by ccecyouth’s online component.

There are two things that have heightened my thinking in these areas in recent days:
#1) A number of friends have been asking me about what how we’ve been using online technology in our youth ministry.
#2) On the Poddy with Dave & Dan (our podcast radio show thing) has sat in the top 10 on iTunes all week (peaking at #6) and that has enabled Rhett (our youth and young adults minister) and I to start thinking “what if?” and “where to next”…

My understanding of the nature of church is such that the internet can never replace the physical gathering of God’s people. E-church may keep trying to pop-up in different corners of the web, but God’s people physically gathering around His word in fellowship must not be replaced.

What we do with ccecyouth.com is create a false community of sorts. It’s not real – maybe it’s virtual reality – but it isn’t real community in the physical gathering sense. BUT I think that what we are doing when we create our online false community is help our real physical offline community.

The following are the things that we do with ccecyouth.com. Some we’ve been gradually developing and others are recent editions.
Associated with a day:

Monday Morning – Photoblog – this is new… but the aim is to remind people about the Friday night that has just passed. It is uploaded to blogger and then atuomatically sent out to 300+ email address (including parents) with google groups.

Wednesday Morning – Breaking News – this is basically a ‘what’s coming up’ thing. It has been brilliant for communcation, particularly with parents.

Thursday Morning – Upload ccecyouth talkcast – this is brand new. So we have no idea how many people will download the talks. But doing them as a podcast is a lot easier to manage than having to upload to html based webpage each week.

Friday Night (late) – Record & Upload On the Poddy – the Poddy has been great in helping to build identity within our youth group. On the poddy is theirs. They might be a guest on it. They might have their fanmail read out. It’s even been a tool to promote our ccecyouth via our youth group kid’s iPod. I know of a whole bunch of non-Christians who are now regular listeners which opens the door to evangelistic opportunities. Having it uploaded Friday night is important because teenagers have a 48 hour window where they will ordinarily be able to find time to download On the Poddy. We currently have over 500 downloads a week. This current week we should easily go beyond 700!

Sunday Arvo(ish) – Upload Bible reading notes – I’m not sure how many download these, but all of our juniors know that they are there. We hand their daily reading notes out each week at youth group. But the teenagers know that if they’re away they can download the latest notes from there.

Other:

Forum – the forum has had some 15,000 posts!! But it goes through stages. There was a period of time when 50-odd people were on there regularly. But currently there are between 10 and 20 leaders on there at least once or twice a week.

Articles – this is irregular but there has been good feedback from some teenagers. This is an area we are looking to develop in the near future.

Photos – these are really popular. They are a visual reminder of the shared experiences that we share at ccecyouth.

Games, about us, leader info, parents section, leaders section, info about camps, missions, outline of who Jesus is.

I think that we are doing some good things. We are currently working out how we can streamline things better and there are some big plans not far around the corner. Hopefully we’ll be able to take it up another notch! One of the best things about the false community that is created is that it excites them for when they will physically meet again. We see them on Friday and Sunday. It means on the other days during the week they can be reminded of ccecyouth, they can be reminded of our real community and they can be reminded of Jesus who died to make that gathering happen.

Conclusion: The internet is great for passing on information and it is great to create a false community in order to enhance our real physical community. The net can never take priority over the physical gathering of God’s people week-by-week in our youth group and church.

Note: Last year we had some Christian year 12s on schoolies week who google’d Central Coast Youth Group, found us and came along during their holiday!

One of the most bizarre websites! Found it here. I wonder how many things it has programmed to be able to do??? I was able to get it to die… that was pretty funny. I tried to get it to show me its face but it just came and put its beak near the camera.

Just read this definition on John’s blog. He got it from someone else.

The Emerging Church: This is a term that refers to churches attended exclusively by white people in their 20s and 30s who have at least one tattoo or body piercing. Their distinguishing characteristics are a refreshing, “up to date” interpretation of Christianity, and a reluctance to directly answer questions.

Tonight we were reading Psalm 83-84. Something I’ve reflected on a few times in the last couple of years is whether we ought to sing OT Psalms without any reference to Jesus and the New Covenant.

I heard a new (I think) Hillsong song a couple of times over the weekend on the radio. It was musically a great song… and most of the words were straight from Psalm 84.

Blessed are those who dwell in Your house
They are ever praising You
Blessed are those whose strength is in You
Whose hearts are set on our God

I think that I understand what this would have meant for the person living in the Old Covenant… and also how we ought to understand it this side of the cross. However, more often than not, when we sing OT Psalms there isn’t always a reference to Jesus and what he has done and the hope we have in him.

Mark Peterson had a song a few years ago called Wonder. I thought it was good because it reflects for a verse or two on Psalm 8 but the final verse was all about Jesus.

I’m sure that you can sing an OT Psalm and still understand your Biblical Theological context… but does that mean you need to explain it to the congregation before you sing it? What then of the person leading the song who doesn’t understand the context?

It may even extend to any OT song. When we sing Pharaoh Pharaoh with youth group I try to say something like this: “This song reflects the way that God rescued his people in the OT but we have an even greater rescue in Jesus…”

I’m not suggesting that we don’t sing Psalms. Ephesians 5 says to… but my question is ought we not qualify the OT Psalm this side of Jesus? Maybe it’s even like the sermon that doesn’t mention Jesus…

Question: Can we sing OT Psalms verbatim without any reference to Jesus and the New Covenant?

In Carson’s For the Love of God bible reading plan he mentioned Eric Liddell tonight. I had a read about him here. Have a look at the “Service in China” section.

This arvo at staff meeting we had a good wrestle with thinking through what we are aiming for with church. It was good to think through how this is communicated with the church. It’s exciting to think, plan and pray about how to best build Christ’s church (both spiritually and numerically) by proclaiming God’s Word.

This is my brother’s blog. He’s made some good posts during the last week. There’s a bunch on there about films and in particular ‘Australian’ films. He’s also got some great pictures taken at Bronte. Here’s my fav. Check it out and write some comments for him.