By Joel Williamson
Last night I led youth group on Zoom. Afterwards, my wife received this text from a mom,
“Listening to my teens laugh is priceless. Please tell Joel thank you times a million.”
Connecting with teenagers has been my focus in ministry for almost two decades, but our current pandemic basically erased all my go-to strategies.
Face-to-face is always better. Scratch that.
Hanging out with kids one-on-one. Can’t.
Show up at kids’ activities and events. There are none.
Everything is different.
I concluded, like many other youth workers in the country, that trying something virtually had the most potential for success. So we decided to use Zoom in order to create interaction and we shortened our usual two hour gathering to one hour, knowing that attention spans and connections would be very different.
And they were.
But it worked in so many ways.
Let me give you a peek at what it was like by walking you through our agenda:
5 Min: Signing in, Telling Everyone to Mute. When you get a large group on Zoom, the ambient sounds of each person can become a real problem. I changed the settings so that everyone would be muted upon signing in. I spent the first five minutes saying hello to each person, and immediately telling them to stay muted. It was a very repetitive beginning…over and over, “Hey Maddy – great to see you! Stay muted, because…”. I did allow them to unmute and say hi to other students, but only for a few seconds each as it would have gotten too chaotic.
2 Min: Explain Rules. Our two rules were: 1. Be mostly muted, unless you are called on. 2. Be Respectful or Be Removed. It sounds harsh – at a normal youth night, kids get warnings or chances to talk things through. Yet on Zoom, one person can hijack everything. You can automatically, as the host, mute someone, turn off their video, or remove them from the meeting. I told them off the bat that I would be swift to kick them out. If that had happened, I would have called them afterwards to try and work out the situation.
25 Min: Games. We played two PowerPoint screen games that I found and downloaded. I opened up the PowerPoint, and shared the screen for the students to see. Though some were on their phones and others on the computer, they seemed to be able to see well. We played the household scavenger hunt game (ie: “bring me a….toothbrush…a fork…a roll of toilet paper.”) We played a survival trivia game. It all was fairly smooth – kids would vote for their answers by holding up their fingers, and there was a sense of camaraderie and real fun. Next week I’m going to try a virtual “Two Truths and a Lie” and “Simon Says.”
10 Min: Lesson. Another leader shared a 10-minute message. It was primarily story driven, with a bit of Scripture, as attention is much harder to hold when you are just a tiny talking head on their phone or computer. I think it was helpful to have a different leader lead the lesson than the games, since so much is depending on whoever is in charge, the change helped draw in attention.
5 Min: Prayer Requests. I had students raise their hand, and I would call on them. They unmuted, shared their request, then re-muted. Many shared their concerns and fears, and we prayed together as a group.
7 Min: Announcements. Worked like you’d expect. We talked about the additional things we were doing for our youth group (a giant Group Me chat with daily one-minute video devotionals, an extra mid-week zoom gathering, etc.).
Why it was Good:
I am surprised to say that youth group on Zoom was quite a bit of fun!
Our students were engaged, laughing (even though I couldn’t hear it), and connected. We had cancelled the week before, and it was so great to see the group together. There was really a sense of group bonding, and the prayer time was especially profound.
Why it was Hard:
Nothing can beat being in real life with someone.
The connection is just different. Leading a muted group is just weird. Every time I made a joke, I couldn’t hear if anyone laughed. Though I could see some laughter and movement, it was strange. I had to keep a constant, animated energy despite the lack of audible feedback. It definitely took a lot of mental energy to lead programming and notice all that was happening (I used gallery view) and to keep interactions flowing.
My Most Important Takeaway:
The key thing I learned while doing this is that the leader must create interaction.
It could have been so easy to make this the “youth group show.” Teens would not have stuck around for that – they want to connect. Since they couldn’t, at least in the normal sense, I was very intentional about creating a sense of interaction. On every question of every game, I asked at least one of them to unmute and answer something (ie: “Josh, why did you vote #2?”). And when funny things happened, I pointed them out to try and create a sense of unity.
“Brody? I only see a dog on your screen – did he eat you?”
I can’t stress it enough. Our teens want to connect to each other.
Zoom doesn’t fully allow for that once you have a big enough group – so the biggest way to succeed is if the leader is a constant catalyst for interaction. I asked each person at least two questions that they unmuted and answered, and I commented lots of times on what I saw happening individually. I believe that was the key to making our time successful.
Three Tips to Leave you With:
- Practice your Tech. Even though I frequently use Zoom, I had my wife and daughter setup in a different room and practice switching to screen games, muting them, etc. It was super helpful and I learned from it. When switching to screen games, you can’t see all the participants anymore – it was helpful to know things like that ahead of time.
- Have a co-leader. Assign one of your volunteers to jump in with you verbally, keeping things flowing. Sometimes distractions happen (like when I bumped the desk and my computer fell off of it), and it is good to have somebody ready to jump in. If you are doing outreach ministry to a high number of at-risk teens, I suggest designating a separate leader to be ready to mute or remove students if they get out of hand (they need to sign in as the host).
- Use Hand Gestures. If everyone is muted, they can all at least participate by waving their hands, giving a thumbs up, voting with their fingers, etc. Though you can’t keep track of every sight at once, they are looking at each other and the gestures create lots of helpful interaction.
If you try this, pray and then trust that God will cover you. It wasn’t all that I had hoped it would be. Our attendance was smaller than usual, and that makes sense. It is a completely different draw.
It isn’t always smooth – tech issues for me and for the kids, timing challenges, kids signing in and out. Be ok with that. This is a new frontier, and absolutely no one is the expert in it.
While I am very much ready to get back to in-real-life interactions, doing youth group on Zoom has given me some fresh perspective on youth ministry. Let’s do the best we can and trust that the Lord is going to bring good out of all things.
So what about you?
How have you been able to use technology to connect with kids the last few weeks? (And did it work?)
Joel Williamson
Joel Williamson has been working with young people for two decades leading a non-profit reaching at-risk youth. He loves youth workers and is passionate about equipping them for effective, transformational ministry. Joel currently works as the Chief Strategist and CFO for Youth Core Ministries, serves on his church's youth team, and lives with his wife and daughter in Noblesville, IN.
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Jeremy Hetzel
March 26, 2020 at 12:10 pmI’d add one more tip. Add the breakout room option! You can find it under advanced meeting options, if I remember right. It allowed us to do some Bible study and then break into smaller groups to discuss. I split into as many groups as I had leaders. You have the ability to assign people automatically or manually and then close all rooms and bring everyone back together. Great way to have large and small group connection!
Rob Williams
March 26, 2020 at 4:18 pmThis is great. I would also use the breakout rooms. In our philosophy, discipleship happens best in the context of relationships. Break out rooms allowed us to mimic our physical gathering, digitally. Our leaders loved it, our students loved. They spent over an hour in small groups because they missed having the space.
Another contribution I would add. We gave space for students to hang out with their mics off in the beginning of the service. Because Zoom is new, we provided 30 minutes before our service for students to log in and get familiarized with the platform. The intention was that they would leave the space and return at 7pm when our service started. But THEY HUNG AROUND! I heard over and over again from students that they missed seeing and hearing each other. The 30 minutes prior to starting felt like we were all back in the gym hanging out waiting for service to begin.
To fill the space, I asked for everyone to introduce us to their pets, go grab a sentimental item from their house, or asked to see who had the messiest room (to name a few). The kids loved it and it gave them some direction so it wasn’t chaos (it was just middle school students after all). This is a unique time and we rarely get an invitation into someone’s home. It shouldn’t be overlooked that this invitation is a personal invitation. Capture this opportunity to discover more about the students that you have been entrusted to shepherd. Have the mindset of Jesus to know your sheep (John 10). There will come a point when we will return to meeting in a physical gathering, how can you be intentional in this time that will have a lasting impact in the years to come?
Tracey Pusey
March 29, 2020 at 2:32 pmDid you disable the messaging chat option? I was worried they would started privately chatting to each other and this would have created safeguarding issues
Tammy Bass
March 30, 2020 at 1:46 pmThere is a feature in Zoom that allows them to raise their “hand”or “Thumbs up” with an icon while muted. It makes it easier for the host to see who wants to share.
Tim Hilario
April 2, 2020 at 7:09 amVery helpful, thanks Joel! I was wondering how you advertised it? Did your team have to contact and send the link to youth individually or did you post the Meeting ID online? Social media? Thanks Tim
A Davis
April 3, 2020 at 10:53 pmI teach 5th and 6th Sunday School in SC. We zoomed this week and it went very well! We played a game and didn’t mute and it was a little chaotic. Next week we may do a scavenger hunt muted. I taught my 10 min lesson without everyone muted and we had dog barking troubles. I got really flustered while teaching because I lost some of their attention and as a former high school teacher, that just shouldn’t happen so I had to dig deep for energy and enthusiasm and look for ways to get them to speak. Will do it again next week!
James
April 8, 2020 at 12:20 amThis is a good way to connect and associate with my youth group.
Joel
April 8, 2020 at 4:04 pmTim — we sent out links to kids individually, through email and texting. Advertising the link and password online is a bit dangroud with “not so good” people joining and doing “not so good’ things.
And Rob – I tried having them grab something sentimintal — that was a great idea! It went really well. Thanks for that.
When i wrote the article, I didn’t know about the breakout rooms. I have used them multiple times now, and it has gone very well! I highly reccomend them.
Miracleswaro
April 11, 2020 at 10:07 amHello to all
In this enigmatical continuously, I disposition you all
Rise your family and friends
Hallieswaro
April 13, 2020 at 12:05 pmHello to all
In this difficult forthwith, I disposition you all
Appreciate your relations and friends
Nicholas l everett
April 15, 2020 at 6:03 pmWhat are some other questions you have asked as ice breakers? I love the introduce us to your pets thing!
Chris Dowswell
April 20, 2020 at 5:06 pmThanks for sharing your experience!
I’ll be going live with our Jr High students for the first time this Wed…. Pray for us LOL!
Your tips and insight are greatly appreciated.
Here’s to new things!
SLH
May 28, 2020 at 3:06 pmDoes anyone know of a virtual youth group that kids around the US can sign into and be a part of? Would be a great ministry to have right now!
Anonymous
June 25, 2020 at 9:31 pmWow, just what I need to prepare for my 1st VBS Zoom. Thank you for sharing.
Anonymous
June 28, 2020 at 5:04 pmThank the Lord for technology .
Judith Hummel
June 2, 2021 at 10:34 amI am a youth coordinator for at risk youth, most of whom have behavioral issues, and usually some mental challenges. This is a non profit organization, not necessarily church oriented. I am really struggling to even get these youth on a zoom call. We have limited the calls to once a month, for an hour. I have called, emailed, texted. We give a gift card for participants, and we play interactive games (or try). This is a small group <25 youth, from middle school to HS students. the HS students act as a 1:1 mentor to the middle school students. This program was school based, and not community based, meaning they met in school. They did not meet outside the school or 1:1 outside of the safe environment. Obviously, Covid changed that arrangement.
Long story short, I don't know how to garner their interest to even join the zoom call. Help is appreciated.
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