Managing your youth comms can be challenging and, as a church youth leader, you're probably spending all your time trying not to lose your young people, rather than creating comms around what you've been doing.

You may be just about maxed out managing communicating for the upcoming events, creating risk assessments and answering parents' questions - let alone sharing with the church about what your youth have actually been up to. And what part can your church website play in this?

We thought we'd share why we're so passionate about sharing with your church what your youth are up to with some simple hacks of getting this done without it become a burden. 

Why are youth comms important? 

Many may wonder why it's important to tell your wider congregation about your youth work. However, here are some great reasons to make sure you're keeping them updated:

• Faith builds faith
• Helps your congregation pray
• Great for recruiting
• Includes the youth in the life of the church
• It gets your church used to using tech in beneficial ways 

What are some simple hacks to help you create church youth comms? 

1) Always create as you go

Whether it's as simple as asking the youth to share 'what they learned today' or to sum up the session in one word. Use those words to feed back verbally or you could use a weekly update email to parents and the congregation. 

2) Give them a photo/video challenge and let them create the content for you

Let's face it, your youth are going to be better content creators than yourself. They grew up with more tech than ever and are probably used to using Snapchat at every spare moment. So why not set them the challenge of creating content for you? Maybe don't phrase it like this, I prefer the title 'photo/video challenge'... It's simple to do by just writing a list of the content you want i.e. a video of something you learned today, a video of the place you went, a video of someone reading the bible etc. 

3) Have a youth instagram

You may not have Instagram but it could be a great communication tool with your youth. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a feed of your events and pics from your recent adventures. You may even be brave enough to do an insta-take-over and let them generate the stories and posts for you. In all honesty, this is their forte so why not let them create content on your behalf. 

4) Involve the parents: Get shareable feedback 

Content doesn't just have to come from within your youth group, why not get their parents or carers involved? You may have an anonymous feedback form on the website that you point them to fill out following events i.e www.churchname.co.uk/youthfeedback and create a form on your church website. This is simple and effective, and made mobile-friendly then it can be done on-the-go by busy, yet grateful parents/carers. 

5) Use a shared bible plan & youth can write their current thoughts

Recently, YouVersion (the Bible App) released a new feature that enables you to share your bible reading plan with your 'friends' i.e. 'friends on the bible app'. This means you're able to work through Bible In One Year with a mate and are given the question at the end of every days reading 'What did you take away from today's reading?'. This is a great, consistent way, of firstly getting your youth to engage with the Word and secondly, enabling them to share their thoughts and, inadvertently, create shareable content.

What if you don't have a 'large enough' church youth group/ a youth group at all? 

This can be a challenge however, it's also an opportunity for your church to pray and join with you in building a youth presence within your church. Young people love being with other young people so pray for the youth in your village/town to come to know Jesus and find that community. 

The concept of having a 'large enough' group is a tempting comparison to make but it potentially isn't a helpful one. And, with a youth group of any size, you can be sure that they'll be up for creating some content together (amongst everything else you do!) 

Can we help? 

As you may have guessed, we're passionate about seeing young people come to know Jesus, and using all the power of technology to help this cause (not hinder it!).

If you are not currently using a mobile-friendly website with multi-media content, we'd love to support you in getting a refreshed church website that can become an invaluable tool for your church communications.

Do not hesitate to get in touch with our team if you have any questions and we'd love to get your comments below.