Youth minister Lara Blackwood starts her day the same way most of the young people at her church do—she signs on to MySpace.com.
“Any time they post a new blog, I get a message in my e-mail and cell phone,” said Blackwood, the youth minister at First Christian Church of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“If the title tells me, ‘Gosh, prom was fun,’ I’ll read it within a couple days. If it says, ‘I hate my life, I want to die’—and I’ve read some similar to that—I’m on it immediately.”
More youth ministers are using social networking websites such as MySpace to stay connected with their students. MySpace is one of the hottest sites on the Web—hitwise.com rated it No. 1 for November, accounting for nearly 5 percent of all U.S. Web traffic. MySpace has more than 100 million accounts with a demographic that is dominated by teens and 20-somethings. Other social networking sites like Friendster and Facebook also claim millions of young users.
“Social networking is what being a teenager is about,” said Kenda Creasy Dean, associate professor of youth, church, and culture and director of the Tennent School of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. “For people my age (in their 40s), technology is a tool. For kids, technology is the air they breathe. It’s social glue.”
Students in Blackwood’s previous youth group in Abilene, Texas, initially encouraged her to get an account, so she could read their blogs. Her involvement grew from there. She is currently working on building her roster of “friends” with students in her new youth group so she can send out mass announcements about upcoming events.
“They’ll get the word faster if I post it as a MySpace message than if I try to call them,” she said. “Most of them check their profiles so many times each day.”
Some youth ministers serve as watchdogs as they scan their students’ sites. Students sometimes post full names and even personal calendars on their profiles. Michael Davison, an associate regional minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky, said he is concerned that young people see the internet as far-reaching but still anonymous.
“They are surprised when I say, ‘I saw your MySpace page,'” Davison said. “They’re shocked that an adult might see what’s on their site.”
A church in Fort Worth, Texas, is trying to familiarize parents with MySpace. Last month Wesley Black, a professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, led a class for parents at Travis Avenue Baptist Church. Thirty attended, along with some teenagers enlisted to teach.
Dean thinks few parents will be able to keep up with their tech-savvy kids and said it’s more likely for a youth minister to be on MySpace.
“By definition, youth ministers are people who want to connect with teenagers,” she said. “We all can be conversant in it. And we need to be. This is the world we live in.”
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Previous articles on youth include:
Jesus Camp Shuts Down, But Fischer Says Her ‘Indoctrination’ Will Continue | Other Christian camp leaders say her camp and documentary about it don’t represent mainstream Christian camping. (November 13, 2006)
Axis Denied | Willow Creek ends “church-within-church” for 20-somethings. (September 22, 2006)
God and the Water Slide | “Christian camping is bigger than ever, but some rituals never change” (September 1, 2003)
Churches Must Recognize Threat of Youth Sexually Abusing Youth | “Legal experts say rape, like in a recent ELCA case, is rare in youth ministry. But sex abuse by children against other children is a very real risk in churches” (August 1, 2003)
