Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same.
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Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same.
When I was in college there was always that guy on our dorm floor who had a girlfriend back home. He would leave every Friday and come back late on Sunday nights. We would always joke that we would never really get to know him until he broke up with his girlfriend. Invariably that would eventually happen and he would tell us how much he missed out on by going home so much.
Flash forward to 2011. We now have a similar situation happening on college campuses every day. Many of the students who graduate from our youth ministries “leave” for college but never really leave their high school friends and life behind. It’s possible now to stay totally connected to all your old friends and not feel much pressure to make any new ones when you go away.
There is a part of this that is a great thing. In the last few years I’ve reconnected with many of my high school and college friendships via facebook and even this blog. But, there’s a huge problem to it also. We feel so “close” to people that we can start to rely on those again as our primary relationships.
Here’s the best way I know how to illustrate why this is a problem. Some friends moved from here in Dallas to the West Coast. While the wife was pregnant and pretty sick she stayed very connected to all of her friends in Dallas via facebook and cell phones. They were her support group. But, then the baby was born with serious complications and they quickly realized that not building any relationships on the westcoast had really hurt them because they had no physical help.
“I’m so digitally close to you” is something that our students are dealing with more and more every year as they continue to find new ways of connecting. It is a great thing but unless we address the potential problems with it we will graduate students who have no concept of why they need new friends, how to build them or why they should value community.
Think about how that might apply to their Christian Community also. Many of our churches now stream our worship services. Students could just lie in bed and watch their home church. They could also reach out to you as their youth pastor when they need help. In a certain way we are enabling them to take the easy way out with their faith.
So what do we need to do.
1. Address the issue. Talk to them about why old friends are great but proximity and digital are two different things.
2. Help connect them to a church. One great thing about having so many ways of communicating with them when they are gone is that you have different channels of pestering them. :)
3. Teach them the difference between Primary relationships and digital relationships. Both have value but they need community where they live.
One other thing to point out is that many of our students value their online relationships as highly as offline ones. Don’t forget that the world has changed. Don’t try to teach them by saying online relationships are bad. Affirm both but use examples of why local community is so important.
Digital kids need face time
Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same. I’m so Digitally Close to you
When I was in college there was always that guy on our dorm floor who had a girlfriend back home. He would leave every Friday and come back late on Sunday nights. We would always joke that we would never really get to know him until he broke up with his girlfriend. Invariably that would eventually happen and he would tell us how much he missed out on by going home so much.
Flash forward to 2011. We now have a similar situation happening on college campuses every day. Many of the students who graduate from our youth ministries “leave” for college but never really leave their high school friends and life behind. It’s possible now to stay totally connected to all your old friends and not feel much pressure to make any new ones when you go away.
There is a part of this that is a great thing. In the last few years I’ve reconnected with many of my high school and college friendships via facebook and even this blog. But, there’s a huge problem to it also. We feel so “close” to people that we can start to rely on those again as our primary relationships.
Here’s the best way I know how to illustrate why this is a problem. Some friends moved from here in Dallas to the West Coast. While the wife was pregnant and pretty sick she stayed very connected to all of her friends in Dallas via facebook and cell phones. They were her support group. But, then the baby was born with serious complications and they quickly realized that not building any relationships on the westcoast had really hurt them because they had no physical help.
“I’m so digitally close to you” is something that our students are dealing with more and more every year as they continue to find new ways of connecting. It is a great thing but unless we address the potential problems with it we will graduate students who have no concept of why they need new friends, how to build them or why they should value community.
Think about how that might apply to their Christian Community also. Many of our churches now stream our worship services. Students could just lie in bed and watch their home church. They could also reach out to you as their youth pastor when they need help. In a certain way we are enabling them to take the easy way out with their faith.
So what do we need to do.
1. Address the issue. Talk to them about why old friends are great but proximity and digital are two different things.
2. Help connect them to a church. One great thing about having so many ways of communicating with them when they are gone is that you have different channels of pestering them. :)
3. Teach them the difference between Primary relationships and digital relationships. Both have value but they need community where they live.
One other thing to point out is that many of our students value their online relationships as highly as offline ones. Don’t forget that the world has changed. Don’t try to teach them by saying online relationships are bad. Affirm both but use examples of why local community is so important. Lifechurch.tv Trying to figure out what to say
Hey all- I went to Oklahoma City on Friday and took an extended tour of Lifechurch.tv We toured their main campus where everything happens and then went to two other campuses and distribution centers.
Pretty powerful day. I'm still trying to reconcile all my feelings about it. They are great people and doing ministry in a very unique way but completely different from any paradigm I've ever been a part of.
So that's why I'm still wrestling with my thoughts. It's not that I have anything controversial to say it's just that I want to do the tour and the conversations justice and I'm working to figure out what that will mean.
The one thing I will say here though is that I was tired after my experience. Again remember I didn't meet with everyone but when we were walking around the main headquarters our guide would walk us by a section or an office and tell us what those people did and without a doubt for every single job I thought to myself "yea me too."
Does it mean my role isn't specialized enough or perhaps that I do too much.
Wrestling.
Andy Root and Lars Rood talk about Plural Identities and Youth Ministry | Youth Specialties
In this Andrew Root liveBlog youth worker Lars Rood and I discuss the mobility of kids leaving our ministries and how that connects to the ways they take on plural identities. This pushes us to wonder what churches can do and how this calls our ministries to move beyond the four walls of the church.
Listen below. Check out The Promise of Despair. And find Lars in San Diego and Nashville at theNational Youth Workers Convention.
Connecting: A Neat Facebook Trick for Ichat
Sometimes I think that my geekness is pretty useless but today I stumbled upon a trick that is pretty helpful.
I have a Mac. I'm an Apple Fanboy and I really don't care much for Pc's so this trick is useless to you if you use windows although I'm sure there is a duplicate workaround for Pc's I'm just not going to make it happen for you.
I figured out how to have Ichat display my facebook friends and allow me to talk with them without ever opening up the facebook application.
There are a couple of reasons to do this but the number one for me is to not have to be on facebook being distracted by everything there. This way people that want to talk to me can message me but I'm not going to spend hours getting sucked into the rest of facebook updates.
In my job I like it when I can instant messages students in the youth group and this is a helpful way for me to send a quick message whenever they log on.
Here's the steps.
1. Open Ichat
2. Click Ichat in the menu bar and open preferences
3. Click on Accounts in the box that opens and in the bottom left hit the "+" sign
4. Under "account type" switch it to "jabber"
5. Description Type "Facebook"
6. Jabber ID: This is the only confusing part. It's not your login id which is your e-mail it's actually your name. So for me I typed in "larsrood@chat.facebook.com"
7. Password: It's your facebook password
8. Under Server settings do this: Server: Chat.facebook.com Port: 5222 Make sure SSL is not checked.
Now all you have to do is go into the Ichat Windows tab in them menu bar and click on facebook and it should all show up.
Let me know if you need any help.
