Category: YMX

  • How to handle online conflict

    flame warI manage an online community of very opinionated people. Some people are very conservative while others are very liberal. While the majority are very reasonable and deal with their disagreements very well, there is a minority of people who simply cannot handle themselves.

    And so the leaders step in. 99 times out of 100, merely the fact that we’ve stepped in is enough to end a conflict. Just like in real life once you step back and breath for a second you realize that the fight is not worth it.

    Then there is a tiny percentage of people who need more forceful help. They’ve gotten into a conflict online and they just can’t get out of it. Sadly, some people leave our community or are forced to leave because they simply cannot resolve conflicts.

    Here are some practical tips for people who have locked horns online and can’t seem to fix it:

    1. Understand that online communication has built-in limitations and it is likely not as bad in person as it is online.
    2. Allow some time. Breath, relax, take a week or so just to relax.
    3. If you can, re-read how you’ve gotten into the conflict. Have you made the conflict worse with your responses?
    4. Change venues to talk to the person. If you’re all bent out of shape because you can’t communicate well online… it’s silly to think you can resolve anything online. It’s time to pick up the phone or visit that person in real time.
    5. Be willing to let it go. A relationship with a person is worth way more than a position or opinion.
    6. Be willing to let the person go. It’s silly to think that you’ll be friends with everyone forever.

  • 30% taxes on Google Adwords

    adsenseNormally I don’t pay that much attention to what we make on Google ads. But early this morning I was checking some account balances and I noticed I received a payment from Google Adwords.

    I logged into my Adwords account to see some stats and such and then I looked at the payment. More than 30% of what we earned was taken out as taxes. That’s a lot of taxes.

    Is there any way I could figure that tax rate into my earnings per thousand impressions? (Our standard for measuring the value of advertising.)

    That’s crazy-super high taxes, don’t you think? 

  • Twitter takes off in Youth Ministry

    twitIn the last two weeks Twitter has gotten extremely popular among Youth Ministry people. The two biggest Youth Ministry companies, Youth Specialties and Simply Youth Ministry put their Twitter accounts in this weeks newsletter. (YMX was ahead of them by a couple months on this one!) And it seems like every youth pastor around is jumping on the bandwagon now that Andy (the main dude at Simply) has a battle with Doug Fields to get to 1000 Twitter followers. (Both YS and SYM seem to be using Twitter for viral marketing, bravo!)

    I maintain that Twitter is a fad that will fade as soon as a more interesting platform is created. But for now Youth Ministry is on fire with Twitter.

    What is Twitter all about? (see the video) It answers the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. Think of it as “open” instant messaging. I look at it as a back-channel communication for my friends. No fluff, no pontification… just simply “What are you doing?” I’ve found it a cool way to get to know people in a new capacity.

    Here’s what is happening on my Twitter right now.

    You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

  • Youth Ministry Ad Network

    youth ministry ad networkMaybe you’ve noticed that there is a small block of ads on the right side of my blog. What is that all about?

    Patti & I have been thinking of a very focused, very profitable (for both advertisers/bloggers) niche` ad network for youth pastors for a long time.

    Essentially, our goal with it is to connect the best youth ministry bloggers with the best youth ministry advertisers. Its a natural fit… but it needed someone to be the conduit. That’s where YMX stepped in.  For the last two years we’ve built relationships with many of the best companies in youth ministry and we’ve done “direct sales” of ads since the beginning. In other words, we’ve had our own internal ad network for a couple years… so creating another separate network was a natural fit for us.

    Next step. From there it was all about finding the right people and letting people know about it. From January 1st-March 31st we ran a pilot program. When that went well, we decided to keep it going… and here we are!

    Why is it different? Unlike the two most common forms of online advertising (Pay per click [google ads] and Pay per action [affiliate links]) our bloggers are guaranteed payment just for displaying the ads. That isn’t altogether unique… but our payment structure is! The ad network only makes 20% of the revenue… whereas the accepted standard is 50%. That means we’re passing almost all the money onto our youth ministry bloggers. They are happy. Our advertisers our happy. It’s a cool thing.

  • PZ Myers vs. Ben Stein

    Patti just told me of “an interruption” during a media conference call with Ben Stein about his upcoming movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed“

    Apparently, PZ Myers was not invited to the “invite only” call but gained access to the access code through someone else. Patti will be writing about it more soon, but here is her note. I know she is trying to follow up with both Stein’s people and Myers to get the full story. 

  • Managing an Online Community: Flames are bad

    big flamesA couple days ago I talked about how an online community had gotten under my skin. To be honest, the only reason I ever went to the site was to read the 40+ comments they had made about the baptism video we released last year. What type of site was this? Well, it doesn’t seem to be open to “anyone.” It seems to be open to people from a hyper-conservative branch of a denomination. In other words… they are militant about their specific denomination.

    Here’s the fact. I commented once and that was plenty. Then I got a nice email encouraging me to come back and state my opinions on baptism.  Since he was so polite, I decided I would go for it… I’ll talk to anyone! I logged back in and posted a couple of paragraphs about what I believe about baptism as well as stating my personal opinion that there are many acceptable forms of baptism within Christianity and I don’t personally have a problem with their position on infant baptism. I thought I was building a bridge…

    That’s when the floodgates opened up and the flames began. The straw has broken and I won’t go back when a member told me to “man up” and defend every person in the world who believes in believer baptism. So there were 30ish militant people wanting a debate with me, just a guy with a busy schedule.

    Here’s why I am talking about this. As a manager of an online community this is a worst case scenario.  When I cried foul… “Hey, I’m getting flamed here!” a moderator actually posted that I wasn’t getting flamed, it was a discussion. As someone who moderates at YMX I know that some people are just sensitive. That’s not me, I’ve got thick skin. But what did happen is that a new member got scared off by a bunch of jerks. Now, I’m telling you about it. Which is the worst thing that can happen to an online community. One negative story negates 100 positive ones, maybe more.

    You can’t have stories like this. One is too many. You must treat new members to an online community with respect. Attacking a new member is death to an online community… as the one I’m writing about will.

  • You Matter to Your Schools

    You Matter to Your SchoolsThis was just posted over at Youth Ministry Exchange. Here’s an excerpt:

    Here’s a thought that will blow your mind. The God of the Universe chose you to help him build the church in your town. Here’s another thought to give you some perspective. The God of the Universe has an enemy, Satan, whose deepest desire is to distract, discourage, debilitate, and destroy you. It’s as if Satan has a special department in the community you live in just for that. Just like there is a Street Department and Water Department, Satan runs the Ministry Destruction Department in your town and people like you are his number one project.  Read the rest

    (more…)

  • The Road Trip from Hell Winner

    road tripMy students know that I love a road trip. There is nothing quite like climbing into a church van and driving to a destination. So a few weeks back YMX decided to have a contest to find out “Who has the worst road trip story?”

    It turned out that my NYWC buddy Chris Wyatt of South Carolina (and an adoptive parent newly back from Ethiopia) had the craziest story. This beats any road trip nightmare ever! Read the rest of the stories. If you like ironies, check out how Gospel.com avoided using the word “hell.”

    Here’s the winner:

    We’ll start with the fact that the last 20 miles of the trip took 2.5 hrs, driving over steep, curvy mountain roads in a whiteout. It snowed three feet in those two hrs. I was driving a loaded van, pulling a 10 ft. trailer, leading a caravan of several other vehicles. We couldn’t pull off of the road, and cars were going into ditches all around us. So, after 12 hrs of driving, we finally get to the lodge. We wake up the following morning to 18 degree temps and strong cross-winds. As we are walking to get the kids their skis, we start down a set of steps. One of our chaperones promptly falls on an icy step and breaks her ankle. Badly. I wrap my coat around her, and take off looking for ski patrol. We hook her up to a sled, and get her the infirmary. I then have to dig our van out of the snow (more than an hour), and go off the road twice driving to the infirmary. The nearest hospital with the facilities to help is almost two hours away over icy mountain roads. We FINALLY get to the hospital, and they tell us she needs surgery. They don’t have the facilites to do the surgery. So they put her in an air cast and send us back to the lodge. We get to the lodge and there are no wheelchairs, so we have to carry her to the room on a luggage rack. We get her settled in and drugged up, and my phone rings. It’s the ski patrol office. I have another girl with an injury, and one of my boys has been in a collision that required the other party in said collision to be airlifted out with a kidney injury (NOT my kid’s fault). So he’s been stuck in the patrol office all day, as he can only be released to his legal guardian (me for that trip…the other party tried to sue him for the wreck, and it went to court…our kid won). I take care of the injury, get the kid back on the slopes. The following day weather is so bad that no one can ski. Every kid at the place was holed up in the lodges. For a whole day. We start the trip back the following day. Our chaperone with the shattered ankle has never been in the mountains before this. She is doped up on painkillers. We are about 10 minutes into the trip when she suddently projectile vomits – right into the back of my wife’s head. There’s nowhere to stop for another 20 miles or so until we get to the bottom of the mountain. We finally stop, and I clean vomit up off of the van while my wife goes into the bathroom to try to clean the chunks out of her hair. Well, you know what happens when a van full of people has to smell vomit for hours. Everyone started chunking, and we had to stop every 30 minutes or so to empty out plastic bags full of barf. One of the vehicles broke down, another got lost from the caravan. It took us over 15 hrs to make what SHOULD have been an 8 hr. trip. On top of that, three kids ran out of money, and I had to foot their meals on the promise from their parents that I would be repaid on arrival. Did I ever see that cash? Nay.

  • An introduction to Youth Ministry Exchange

    I know a lot of people who are a part of my life don’t really know anything about “the other” part of my life. That is, my role at Youth Ministry Exchange. I say, “it’s an online community for youth workers” and I recognize that it doesn’t mean anything.

    Well, our friends at Gospel.com were nice enough to create this video about YMX. It is awesome!

    If you want to explain to others what YMX, how it works, and what it’s all about… here is the code to embed this video.

  • 3 Teen Pregnancy Resources

    Time Magazine Teen PregnancyEvery once in a while we get a great string of synergy at Youth Ministry Exchange and we really hit it out of the ballpark with solid resources.

    Today we released 3 different resources on teen pregnancy.

    Big props to Amy for putting all this together. She’s mucho good at what she does.

    I am continually in awe of what God is doing with YMX. The other day I had the opportunity to talk to a “real publisher” about YMX and publishing and starting a business and all kinds of things. As I look back at the quality of things that we are able to produce with no money, no staff, no offices, and no backing from a major publishing house… it is clearly a God-ordained movement. It really is youth ministry people encouraging and uplifting one another and sometimes I sit back and just go… whoa, this is cool.