Interviews

4.  How are you using technology and social media to reach and teach your teens?

It’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing in terms of being able to reach so many so fast. A curse because it can be a temptation to ONLY use social media as a communication point. While Facebook as a tool has been extremely helpful, and it does allow us to reach to where kids and parents are, I wouldn’t say it’s our most valuable tool because it limits mass communication in some ways. Even from a fan page, you can send updates, but it goes to a separate inbox, making it not as visible to students. We can’t do mass wall posts, and if we use it too much, students just end up ignoring our communication. To top that off, not all families are connected to Facebook, and of the ones who are, maybe half of them are addicted to it. So really, if we’re being honest with ourselves, this should only serve as a supplement to our more concrete methods of getting word out.

By more concrete methods, I mean specifically tangible things we can put in the hands of those we’re trying to reach or put in front of them. Repetition is essential. So aside from week to week handouts, billboards we print monthly schedules on and other papers we hand out that students love to throw away (yes I said it), we still haven’t abandoned snail mail. In fact, we probably see more response to advertising and promoting that way than anything else. It may not be as visible as the social avenues, but parents notice it, remember it, put it on the fridge, etc. And if it’s a goal of a youth ministry to work WITH not against parents, this is a good thing.

I’m going to venture out and say that most of us in ministry use social media because we “have to.” Because everyone else is doing it and it’s the right thing to do, we give in to the pressure and use social media for advertising and promotion purposes. Does it work for that? A little, probably. But I’ll take the risk of saying social media is more useful for teaching and instructing than it is for advertising. Think about it, our students are bombarded with screen media every day of their lives. Television ads, internet popup ads, billboards, magazine ads, myspace ads, facebook ads on the sidebar that we can choose whether or not we like them and even those annoying 30 second ads that you see when you are watching a show on Hulu. What are our teens programmed to do? TUNE OUT THE NOISE!

Here’s a valuable question to ask: Is what you’re pushing/promoting using social media just more noise?

My thoughts on teaching stem directly from the final thoughts on reaching out using social media and maybe even serve as an answer to the problems presented. We try to use the above mentioned avenues as a way of continuing a discussion we had in person. Discussions can stem from what the students are learning in our midweek growth groups to what the message was about or even something we know God is challenging one of our students with. Questions are great discussion points not only to get a conversation started, but to see where our students stand on what they know and what they believe. It’s much more effective than a survey or something they’ll begrudgingly fill out. It requires intentionality on our part and a willingness to do work in order to pull answers out of the clutter rather than just expect students to answer direct questions we put in front of them about where they are in their spiritual journey.

The better your ministry is at drawing people in to discussions and teaching they know they’ll be fed by with the help social media, the more receptive they’ll be when you use it for “noise.” Make sense? Not only will our kids pay attention to what we’re posting, if we do a good job and are consistent with it, they could eventually begin to look for it! Not good at consistently handling the online or social media stuff? Hand it to someone who is good at it, who you can trust, and who will consistently stem conversations from what is happening face to face in your ministry to the media sites.

As a ministry we also use Youversion.com to help our students not just with consistent study of the word but with being committed to studying the word, which we feel is more important than using guilt to fuel a teens devotional life. God bless lifechurch.tv for believing it’s more powerful to empower others and give away their resources than becoming rich off it. Ustream.tv has been very helpful with online discussions and Bible studies, allowing the face of the presenter to be in the home of everyone tuning in without actually being there. It has a live chat function that is almost “idiot-proof” where teens can sign in and be a part of the conversation live with the presentation. While we do have a Twitter that posts updates from our youth fan page, no teens use it and literally scoff every time they see the logo or a link to our Twitter page. Let’s be honest, Twitter is primarily used by adults. Kids think it’s silly and foolish in most cases. But if a parent is active on Twitter and chooses to follow us, it’s one more way to touch base, and the way we have it set up is automatic so there’s no extra effort given on our part as using it as another means of connecting.

5. If you were teaching youth ministry to prospective youth pastors what are the top 3 things you would say to them?

• Parents are your friends! Learn to get along with them, utilize them and work with them. The earlier you do this, the earlier you’ll have success. THEY ARE NOT THE ENEMY, odds are they’re concerned about their child’s best interest.
• Multiply yourself early and often. The sooner you decide to let go, not have to be the “relevant guy,” and allow others to help lead, the longer you’ll last in youth ministry. It’s the fastest way to become a “lifer.”
• Learn to rest. Want to burn out and do something stupid or leave ministry before retirement? Work 7 days a week, don’t protect your Sabbath time and be sure to be accessible non-stop. If you don’t learn to rest you’ll learn to resent your ministry and the people you serve.

Part 1 and Part 2 of the Interview.

Eric Ebbinghaus is the Director of Student Ministries at Greeley Wesleyan Church in Greeley, CO.

He blogs at www.ericebbinghaus.com.

Follow him on Twitter.

Check out the church website.

3.  What’s the biggest challenge in pastoring at a large church?

Again, I’m gonna give you a couple since I think 1 “BIGGEST” challenge is an unfair question. Let me preface my challenges by saying I absolutely love working in a “Team Staff” type setting. We have 7 full-time directors here at GWC that work closely together on a daily and weekly basis. Knowing myself, my creative energy feeds heavily off working collaboratively in a group setting. I know if I’m thinking at my best it’s being done with a team. It only usually takes the pump being primed with one simple thought and it’s off to the races. That’s part of the curse of living with a supremely ADD brain.

The team setting does present a few challenges. Scheduling can be one of them. With so many departments all working simultaneously with support staff in each it’s very important we work collectively and not just in spite of each other. While we do work well as a team, failure to communicate can surprisingly result in the failure of all ministry areas, not just one. If one is succeeding, we all are.

We also have something I like to call the “Volunteer Myth.” Everyone automatically assumes the larger a church is, the larger a crop of people you have to draw from to take part in your ministries. Right? Yes and no. Yes in terms of face value. Technically there are more people overall to draw from. But the answer is often no in terms of who visits your church. Large churches are often painted with the brush of being a safe place to visit where you can fade into the background and preserve a certain amount of anonymity in order to evade possible recruiters. I would argue that this is true of all churches regardless of size. We pride ourselves at being a “small large church” where the leaders are easily accessible and getting plugged in to a ministry is easy. But, it’s often not as easy as it sounds. It takes real work, and in a youth ministry where our main weekly service is on Sunday mornings during second worship service, it means my recruiting work becomes significantly more complicated and challenging. This leads to my next thought…

Multiplying myself is absolutely essential. If I had to give a biggest challenge of working in a large church this is it. It is impossible to do my job well without handing things off and recruiting people to do so. Handing it off has come easier the more evident the need has become, finding new volunteers to do so hasn’t been quite as easy. Remember, the bigger the church, the bigger the children’s ministry is. Typically infants-5^th grade ministries require more volunteers. It’s their nature. Bottom line is, Childrens ministry is a much less scary one to volunteer for than youth ministry, right? Well, at least that’s what the perception is. The challenge here is not competing with this ministry to find volunteers AND battling the temptation of recruiting from within, though some naturally make the change as their own children grow older. This also means that you’re recruiting from a pond that’s been pretty heavily fished. It takes a growing church to provide fresh people to recruit from.

Part 1 of the interview is here and Part 3 will be up later today.

Eric Ebbinghaus is the Director of Student Ministries at Greeley Wesleyan Church in Greeley, CO.

He blogs at www.ericebbinghaus.com.

Follow him on Twitter.

Check out the church website.

5 Questions with Eric Ebbinghaus, Student Ministries Director, Greeley Wesleyan Church

1.  How long have you been at Greeley and how did God open that door for you?

We’ve been  in Greeley for approximately 1 year this November. Hard to believe it’s already been that long with the way the church has opened up to us and accepted us as one of their own.

God’s grace is amazing. Brandi (my wife) and I found ourselves talking to Pastor Steve Wilson about the position here at a point in our lives where we had just endured 3 years of trying to understand where my exact place in ministry needed to be.

Did I still belong in youth ministry?

Did I still belong in ANY ministry?

Should I take some time away and try some other things?

10 weeks after resignation and finding it nearly impossible to find work of any kind, Pastor Steve made contact again to ask if we might still be interested in making Greeley our home. He flew out to meet us, offered the job and gave us the weekend to think and pray about it. We didn’t need the whole weekend! In fact, after a restless night of sleep, we barely even needed 24 hours! Something Brandi had said earlier in the summer kept coming back to us. She had expressed during the summer that we would make our permanent home here but didn’t know when, and didn’t think it would be right then. Sure enough, she was right. After 11 weeks with no work and 13 weeks without pay, we watched God provide for our family. One year later, we’re more excited about being here than we were when we arrived. If that’s possible :).

2.  You were in Missouri for several years.  What are some differences between Missouri and Colorado?

The differences are few but they are evident. One such difference is the sheer number of schools we have to work with. In a smaller community and different school system style I had approximately 3 schools with middle school and high school programs to work with. Here I have over a dozen including some separate middle and high schools. Aside from the numerical difference in schools, we’ve got a broader category of schools to choose from. Along with your run of the mill public school system, we have charter schools, which could briefly be described as an experimental public school, prep schools, private schools and a large home-schooled group. While these may not necessarily be MO vs. CO differences, they are certainly identified as differences from one community to the next.

Another is population diversity. Semi-rural/metro St. Louis, Missouri area was predominantly white, with some black and a sprinkling of Latino/Hispanic groups. Greeley is roughly 60% white, 35% Spanish speaking, and a 5% mixture of others. Simply put, the cultural differences are drastically contrasting here, making blending in our programs more of a challenge. Socioeconomic differences are more severe, and while both areas have been hit hard, Greeley’s recession decline has been a bit more hostile than Eastern MO with 45% of homes bought between 2005 and 2009 resulting in foreclosure.

Lastly, and possibly the hardest to swallow as a Christian pastor is, there is no “need” for church here. Confusing? This is the furthest I’ve ever lived from “Bible-belt” (sorry if that sterotype offends) areas. Despite the differences in attitude from Midwestern VS. Western personalities, lie the differences in the influence of the church. Being that this area of the US hasn’t been established as long as those areas further east means the impact of the church has had less time to saturate the area and the church itself wasn’t around when “American Christianity” was at its peak of influence. This could be viewed as both an extreme challenge and a blessing as well. While people’s answer to struggles and depravity is less commonly, “I need to get myself back into church,” the answers more usually revolve around finding ways to get things done on their own or with the help of others rather than enlist in God’s help. We less often see people looking to God for help when they find struggles or are in need, even the needy. It’s not natural, or in the back of the mind. It definitely rings true though that the harvest is plentiful and the workers INDEED are few.

It’s amazing to think that people who live within view of some of the most incredible mountains in North America fail to recognize the existence of the Creative Starter of it all. Oh, did I mention Colorado has mountains? THE mountains?! Living at almost 5,000 feet has definitely been quite a change, more than just geographically.

Parts 2 and 3 to this interview will be up later today.

Eric Ebbinghaus is the Director of Student Ministries at Greeley Wesleyan Church in Greeley, CO.

He blogs at www.ericebbinghaus.com.

Follow him on Twitter.

Check out the church website.