Friday, August 31, 2012

Fall Dates in GCalendar

FRCZ Youth Ministry Calendar

All the Fall Dates for High School Youth Ministry Activities are posted on the Youth Ministry Calendar.  If you would like follow or link your Gcalendar to the Youth Calendar let us know at youth@frcz.org and we can add you.


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Youth Ministry Communication Plan


When is that trip to Michigan’s Adventure? 

What weekend is the retreat? 

Do you need any forms turned in? 

Have you ever asked your student these questions? 
Did you get the answers you desired? 

In our fast paced culture, communication is difficult.  Getting all the right information to the right people in the right amount of time always proves challenging.  In my years of youth ministry I find myself perplexed that on a regular basis there are at least five different ways to contact people: Email, Phone Calls, Text Message, Facebook, Bulletin Announcement…and the list can go on.  I would be kidding myself if everyone was contacted and “in the know” for all the various activities and events connected to the youth ministry at First Reformed.  It is a challenge to get everyone “in the know” for everything that is happening.  I am also fairly confident when we hand out something at a youth event that maybe 25% of what we hand out makes it home.  In order to confront these challenges, and because we realize that a student’s connection to our youth ministry is directly connected to their access to and understanding of all the necessary information (and their parent’s access to that info). 

As we step into this Fall, a new communication system is going to be in place for all correspondence and information concerning youth ministry at First Reformed.   The short story is this; since there are so many different ways to communicate, we are going to pick a few ways that to try and consolidate the moving pieces.  Our commitment is to still distribute information at the beginnings of semesters via email and paper distribution, however, in an effort to keep the stream of information flowing we are going to encourage people to always check a few different places to obtain information.  The three main places to look for the Youth Ministry information are:

·      Middle School Ministry Blog: http://frczmsyouthministry.blogspot.com/
·      High School Ministry Blog: http://frczhsyouthministry.blogspot.com/
·      Facebook Profile: Joe G Impact

The plan is to update the blogs 2-3 times each month with all the short term details on Youth Ministry events for Middle School and High School.  Whenever there is a new post, an email will be sent to our parent list, and a link will be shared on the Facebook Profile page.  We also encourage that everyone save the link to the Youth Ministry Google Calendar (This link can be found on the blogs of the church website).  The weekly church bulletin will have the dates of upcoming events for youth, and from time to time detailed information; however, most weeks the bulletin will only have a link to the Youth Ministry Blogs.


The best way to describe what this will look like is to draw a picture!

 
Next steps for you as a parent or student:

1.     Make sure we have your email address (Email youth@frcz.org if you do not receive emails from the Youth Ministry)
2.     Go to the blogs and the Google Calendar and bookmark them as favorites in your web browser.
3.     Facebook Friend Joe G Impact