How to be Present with your Social Media Presence

What is Incarnational Ministry? It's Jesus' involvement in our life. How do we embrace the same philosophy of Jesus' ministry in our own ministry contexts? And how do we do so in a hybrid and digital way to show up where our church people, members and congregants and spending their time?

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Show Notes & Transcripts: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/046
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SHOWNOTES
THE ARTICLE BEING READ & REFERENCED:
https://youthministry360.com/blogs/all/how-to-be-present-with-your-social-media-presence

MY STUDENT SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.tiktok.com/@crosscreekchurch?lang=en

10 FREE SPIRITUAL PRACTICE TIKTOKS:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e4n40o5080lblih/Spiritual%20Practice%20TikToks%20-%20Nick%20Clason%20and%20Bailey%20Fore.zip?dl=0

TIMECODES
00:00-02:18 Intro
02:18-07:24 How to be Present with your Social Media Presence
07:24-12:19 How do we Show Up Where our People are Spending their Time?
12:19-12:58 Don't post Announcements on Social Media
12:58-14:01 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hey there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always, am your host, Nick Clason. Thrilled to be here again with you. And just let me let you know little bit of a shorter podcast today I'm actually gonna do something a little different, a little unique. I recently wrote an article for YM Short for Youth Ministry 360, um, titled How to Be Present With Your Social Media Presence. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drop the link to that here in the show notes, but I'm actually just gonna read it for you, um, and also give you some author commentary as I, uh, am reading it through. So expect like a 10, 12 something minute pod. You probably already saw that. If you already downloaded this, if you're on YouTube, welcome in. Glad to have you. Excited to be with you.

Nick Clason (00:48):
And here's why. Honestly, um, this may release the week before, week after, not sure yet in the order. I'm doing a little bit of some batch pre-recording because my family and I are getting ready to go to Disney and I'm looking to just completely unplug from work, from this, from podcast side hustles, all the things I'm doing. Uh, so excited about unplugging, excited about getting ready to send and go and be with my family in Disney. Um, that being said, I, the, the craziest thing about this article is I wrote it, I can't even remember how long in advance, and then it dropped months later. Like I, I wrote it, I know when I lived in Chicago and it dropped just a couple weeks ago now when I'm living here in Dallas. And so my life has changed immensely. And when I heard it, there were elements of it that I was like, oh, that's interesting.

Nick Clason (01:34):
Oh, I don't know if I would've said it that way. And then there are other things I was like, yeah, I definitely still agree with that, you know, so I thought it'd be fun to bring to you all because I wrote it before, I think I wrote it before we even had a podcast going. So these thoughts, like, just think about that. If you've been on this journey with me listening to, to me in your ear ball holes for a while, think about this. These, these thoughts that have been ruminating inside of me and brewing inside of me. Uh, anyway, all that to be said, show notes, hybridministry.xyz. Subscribe to us on YouTube, follow me on TikTok Act place. And Nick also five star review if you would be so inclined. And without any further ado, let's dive into how to be present with your social media presence.

Nick Clason (02:19):
All right, here we go. How to be present with your social media presence. Read by the author himself, Nick Clayson. Here we go. Incarnational ministry. Did I lose anybody yet? Now before you go dust off your lexicon, you probably already know and embrace this as a characteristic in your life and in your ministry, right? Here's the thing. And I said this cuz I knew that, that pastors, youth pastors, who's ever gonna be reading it, primarily, this is a youth pastor. This isn't aside by the way, in case you didn't know primarily youth pastors reading this. They embrace and embody this, this characteristic, this idea of incarnation ministry just may not use it. You know, super frequently in our vocabulary anyway, in the gospels, we see Jesus going to be with his people that he encounters. So if our ministries are going to be a mirror of Christ's incarnation life and incarnation ministry, we are required to go and be with the people that we're ministering to.

Nick Clason (03:16):
And if you and I were youth pastors in the nineties, well we'd probably be found at the mall sitting next to a Chinese restaurant that's handing out free samples of their bourbon chicken and browsing hot topic on our way out the store. You know, you remember, however, if your towns anything like mine, well, the mall I just described as a of it, former of its former self. So where are all the teenagers hanging out? According to some statistics, 45% of Generation Z report that they're online, as they describe it as almost constantly, 45%, 24% of teams report feelings of discomfort if they go more than just one hour without access to the internet. And finally, on average, generation Z allocates two hours and 55 minutes per day on average to social media. So let's just be honest for a minute. The mall has gone to there, and let's be honest and frank, our pockets, it lives on our phones and the students that we're trying to reach and spend their time, they're online.

Nick Clason (04:26):
Regardless of your opinion of whether or not you believe that this amount of screen time is healthy, advantageous, it's probably not. It is where our students are spending the majority of their time. Let's pause for a minute. Um, a quick aside from this, I was in a recent Barna CoLab group on how to disciple Gen Z and their, they're sharing some recent findings, super interesting, super fascinating stuff. One of the things that they shared, um, actually it was a guy that they interviewed from a church and he said, uh, if Generation Z is the first digitally native generation, then generation alpha right behind them. By the way, if you're youth pastor, that is fifth and sixth, seventh, eighth grade, maybe not as high as seventh and eighth grade, but definitely like sixth, fifth, and on down. So they are the youth ministry of the future.

Nick Clason (05:13):
So if generation Z is the first digitally native generation, then that means that generation Alpha is the first digitally dependent generation. Crazy to think about. And so a lot of times, let's be honest with our generational age gap and difference, even as I'm a millennial, even as some fellow millennials, Xers, boomers on up, what is our constant, like, what are we constantly asking generation Z and younger to do? We're asking them to get rid of their phones. We're asking them to disconnect and unplug from technology. And while I think that there's advantages to that and it's advantageous for people to learn the disciplines of being able to break away, find some silence, find some solace and solitude, um, away from social media culture, away from online culture, I think all of that is well and good. I just think that you have a generation that is dependent on it.

Nick Clason (06:06):
It is literally their alarm clock. It's their calendar, it's their actual phone. It's where they communicate with all their friends, whether it be text message, Snapchat, be real, but it's, it's their their map, it's their navigation system. It's the way that they check their grades. It's how they pay for their school lunches. Like it's everything. It's not like, I'll give you this example. I am recording this podcast when I'm recording it in preparation for my trip to Disney World. Everything at Disney World is now online. It's in the my Disney Experience app Genie Plus, which is the replacement of Fast Passes, lightning Lanes, um, checking into my resort, making mobile food orders, like everything is on my phone. And you are at an amusement park with your family trying to unplug, trying to disconnect Bif, do you have to be on your phone? And there are people who are like, I'm done.

Nick Clason (06:56):
I'm not gonna do that. And that's fine. But the reality is we are moving more and more towards that than we are away from that. And so if this generation is dependent upon it, what we have to do is stop villainizing the phone and we have to start looking at it as an opportunity to teach them and disciple them through how to have faith with a phone through that lens. And I think that's my heart in this article, and that's what's coming through. Let's read the next section. So here's a question for you. If in the nineties you would've gone hung out at the mall to connect with students and teenagers, how in 2023, which is one of the articles written, how in 2023 are you showing up where your students are? See, I'm not necessarily proposing that the digital church replaces the in-person experience hybrid far from it.

Nick Clason (07:47):
But if your students go home after school and spend almost three hours on their phones, which is what the statistics told us, then couldn't you make an impact with your students or your people online? All right, so here's some ideas how to do that. If you've been listening to this podcast any length of time you've heard it, I'm gonna say it in idea and then I'm gonna riff on it. So I'm gonna say idea number one, idea number two, so that you're clear, okay, idea number one, share a devotional thought. Guys, you can hold your phone out in front of you and you can give either a recap of, or you can give a completely new and different from, not different cuz come, gonna come from the Bible, hopefully, but different from your sermon or from the lesson that week or whatever the case might be.

Nick Clason (08:29):
You can give just a devotional thought, boom. Hey guys wanna give you quick encouragement, 60 seconds or less. People don't want longer than that. Anyway, you can do a deep dive into an encouraging, um, or challenging passage of scripture. Again, 60 seconds or less. I, I think maybe it was Mark Twain, I'm not sure, but it was him who said, Hey, I wanted to write a short letter but I didn't have time. So I wrote a long letter. See, it takes more time to make something quick, concise, and short. Idea number three, have fun, create fun and funny posts. Hey, if you're not following us on TikTok on our student ministry, I would encourage you to, you can go check it out. We are Cross Creek students. Um, hopefully now we are at Cross Creek students. If not, I may still have it set as at Cross Creek Church cuz TikTok won't let me switch my name over to Cross Creek students, but that's ultimately the goal.

Nick Clason (09:18):
I've had a hard time switching it over. But we do fun and funny posts. I literally, right as I was walking into this spare bedroom of my house to record this podcast, I was literally posting a video of a girl drinking ranch dressing flavored soda and trying to guess the flavor of it. Like it's just fun. And honestly, what I do is I toss out the invite on a youth ministry night. Hey, you wanna be on TikTok tonight? Sure. They all come into the room. I have six bottles of soda with weird flavors. I have a game cud up on my laptop. And another thing with the filter on on TikTok, it gets me like 20 pieces of video content that I just store, bank and pull back out later when I need it in my calendar. Idea number four, film answers to theological questions, right?

Nick Clason (10:02):
People are inspired by answers to deep things that maybe you don't wanna put online, but things that students are dealing with. Like, why do bad things happen? How do I develop a habit? Why, how do I spend time with God even if I don't want to? Why would I go on obeying him and living a life of sinlessness or the goal of that if he's always just gonna forgive my sins? Anyway? You talk about that every week. What's the point of it? What does God think about gay people? Does God require me to be a democrat? Does God require me to be a Republican? What would Jesus think of our current political landscape? You get the idea. Idea number five, encourage spiritual practices and disciplines. I don't know if it's gonna get accepted or if it's out yet, but I recently submitted, if it is, I'll drop a link to it in the show notes.

Nick Clason (10:48):
I recently submitted 10 TikTok videos. Actually, you know what I'm gonna do? It's on ym, um, or I submitted it to d y m I don't know if they took it or not. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drop a link, uh, to that resource, the Dropbox resource in the show notes here, completely free charge. Just go grab it and use it. It's, uh, memorize scripture with me. Practice meditation, sit in silence, have a praise break, all kinds of different things. 10 different spiritual practices that that students or people or adults can use. It's not branded. So you can use it. Just download it and post it wherever you, uh, manage social media free for you. Uh, let's see. Are we on six idea number six, you can do recap posts or videos. Just take, literally you only need 3, 4, 5 seconds worth of of videos and you get like 10 of those real fast at the beginning of the night, um, or during your program.

Nick Clason (11:40):
And then you just put 'em into TikTok. Auto cut. Boom. You got a less than 22nd recap video. Phenomenal way to do that. Idea number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, less idea Number seven, give shout outs to leaders and volunteers. Figure out how to do that on social, whether it's static graphics, whether it's motion graphics, whether it's you talking graphics, whether it's voiceovers, give shout outs to leaders and volunteers. Finally, you can quiz students on their Bible knowledge. Uh, one of my favorite ways to do this is on the Instagram story editor with the story sticker, uh, uh, multiple choice story sticker. You can put it in there and you can ask them bible questions and test their Bible knowledge. Super fun way to go about doing that. Those are just some ideas to name a few. I don't know your context, but here's one thing that I do know, we're back to the article, is that I want you to notice that not one single idea that I mentioned above was an advertisement for an event.

Nick Clason (12:32):
We've gone into this, if you've listened to me for a while, you've heard this before. But what if we could use social media to encourage students to actually take the next step in their faith to engage with you or with your ministry, to challenge them to deeper more meaningful ways and a more meaningful walk with Jesus. It's not just another communication platform, which is what we often default social media into being. It's a means to help accomplish a more incarnation form of ministry. So that's it, that's the article. Love to know how you are using social media in your ministry context for more than just announcements to encourage people in their faith to show up where they are. But the bottom line is we are rooting for you. We are cheering you on. So glad you're in here. Hey, listen, if you didn't know this, 2023 is the year of short form video content, vertical video, short form content, less than 60 seconds. If you're like, man, I don't even know how to get this word out there, we got you right here. Link the description. If you're watching on YouTube or go grab our 100% completely free e-book titled, have I already ruined my Church's TikTok account? No. But this book will help teach you how to post one from start to finish all the way through doing it all on the phone in your pocket. So we're here for you, rooting you on. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being a loyal listener. And as always, we never forget.