Engaging with Trends
What a fancy title… ‘Engaging with Trends’… let me subtitle even fancier…
Engaging with Trends
“Why using relevant pop culture elements can help
you create a ministry that kids refuse to miss.”
I started two new elements in our weekend services last weekend. It got dozens of kids excited, engaged and begging to attend church.
We have a bunch of ’stations’ setup before we start the service so the kids can hang out and interact with the leaders before we start.
Craft stations, Air Hockey, Playstations, Xbox etc.
Well I added two new stations last weekend.
- Nintendo DS Station
- Tazo Station
The biggest selling portable gaming system in the world is the Nintendo DS… Especially with kids.
And one of the coolest things to do is collect tazos… especially Footy Tazo’s. It is so popular various schools have banned them from being traded at school!! (You know something is engaging kids when they ban it!!)
Listen, you may not live in Australia and have NRL or AFL Tazo’s, but I would place money on the fact that your kids are trading some kind of sports collector cards!
So I create an area where kids can play each other on their DS’s (over Wi-Fi) and trade tazo’s… it is amazing the kids that come out of their shell when you start trading with them.
Of course as a leader you don’t just create an area for kids and not get involved yourself… so I am now the owner of a Nintendo DS with Diddy Kong Racing and have a huge pile of NRL Tazo’s (research I tell my wife!).
As a minister to kids you do not bring in your KIDS toys… you bring in YOUR toys!
I don’t tell the kids that I have bought a DS for my little boy Brooklyn, I tell them it’s mine! (And it is… Brooklyn is allowed no where near it! - he’s 1)
Your mission is to find out this weekend:
- How many of your kids have a DS
- What cards are they collecting
OK…
This is not a post about technology (none of your kids may have a Nintendo), it is about getting into your kids world!
So you can bet at the beginning of next years footy season I will have a whole corner devoted to Rugby League and will be finding out the most popular games so I can buy it and practice enough to whip all my kids at it!!!
FOR AUSSIES: Go onto ebay and search for ‘Tazo‘, you can buy a whole set without having to go through the hassle of collecting them in chip packets. While you’re there, buy a second hand DS!
I am:
- Building credibility with kids
- Building a bridge to speak into their lives
- Creating a cool environment to participate in
- Staying young
- Creating topics I can talk to kids about
- Redeeming technology
- Bringing ‘new and fresh’ elements into our services
- Having fun!
- Finding excuses to buy stuff
- Training my hand-eye coordination
- Supporting Australian sport
- Creating opportunities for introvert kids to be admired (who has the most cards/highest score is the ‘man!’)
It’s a win-win situation!
NOTE: Don’t get too attached to your collecting cards… make a point to give away your best and rarest to your kids. I don’t care about collecting the set… only helping my kids to get every card.
I love it! We’ve got the XBox and Playstation thing going now, but we’re going to need some fresh stuff this Fall. Question… do you provide all the handhelds, or do most the kids just bring their own? I really like the idea of having up to 8 playing in a single game… you can get a lot of kids involved all at once.