What are we doing?

If there’s one thing Youth for Christ are known for all over the world, it’s innovation. With the lockdown in full effect over the past month, Youth for Christ in Llandudno didn’t put on the breaks, instead we just changed lanes. We moved all of our physical projects into a digital space. So what does this look like?

Reverb Live

Every Thursday evening at 7pm, Tim livestreams a video to two different platforms (Facebook and Instagram). In the video Tim gives a fun illustration, maybe a game or a challenge, and ends with a short gospel message. Young people (mostly from Reverb and Recess) can comment and interact in real time with the message. After the live show, the video goes into an Instagram ‘Story’ for 24 hours, so those who missed it can still catch up, and the video is then saved to YouTube and Facebook.

Shuffle and Shake Live

On Friday evening Korey takes over. For a while he did the same thing above, so live-streamed a video onto Instagram featuring how to make a game at home, followed by a reflection. He then found a better way! Korey now plays a digital game with a group on Friday evenings for 45 minutes. He has more time to build those relationships and still ends with a good gospel thought. Fab!

Redefine Meetup

Every Sunday evening we gather team and young people on a digital conferencing platform called Zoom. We all have chance to share our news, play some online games, have Bible studies in small groups (breakout rooms), hear a short talk, and end with a time of prayer and worship. We meet together, sing together, talk together, and pray together – it’s the next best thing to actually meeting. This has been going really well! Last night twenty-three of us had a ‘Star Wars night’ – with costumes, and galactic-themed backgrounds at the ready – looking at who the Holy Spirit is.

YouTube Channel

To keep the fun going and message front and centre, we launched a new YouTube channel called RE:TV. This allows us a way of connecting with young people on the biggest internet platform that they engage with. So far we’ve posted a ‘vlog’ every week – sharing a fun challenge, a silly hook, and a gospel thought. Check out the latest one below! We’ve also put up some thoughts, and we live streamed a full-on ‘grill a Christian’ too. It’s been great!

Q&A with Tim

How did we do this so quickly?

We’ve actually been wanting to setup a proper ‘online wing’ for our projects for a while now. It’s been bubbling away in our planning meetings for a few years to be honest. This gave us the perfect chance to make it work. We had already been connecting very basically with these online platforms, so we just turned up the volume.

Isn’t there some safeguarding issues?

Absolutely! So the first thing we did was took professional advice and worked out a standard of rules and set of expectations. We’re able to kick people off who don’t meet these expectations, not let anyone in who looks like a risk, and limit exactly what can be done in those spaces. Because we started this with that step, we’ve had no issues like this at all, and everything is running smoothly.

Did this cost money?

Alas, yes. The online world is so over-saturated with content that we wanted to make sure we stood out, but also make sure that we had none of the common issues with picture and sound. We invested in some lights, a good microphone, some online games, and a pro Zoom account. If we’re honest, we’re still not there yet. We really need a much better camera and some serious computer storage. I’m sure you’ll agree though, the money has been well spent as we are still connecting with young people several times a week!

How much effort does this take?

In lots of ways it takes the same amount of effort as our usual projects. We still have to set things up, write messages, and plan activities. In other ways there is a little more. We’re still learning the technology and we’re making things to be saved on video. This comes with a little more pressure. It’s well worth it though, and gets a little easier each time.

Will you keep doing this after lockdown?

I imagine we’ll keep doing some of this. We might meet on Zoom less frequently, and not live stream as often, however the YouTube channel and live games give us opportunities that we don’t get anywhere else. We’ll try and keep at least some of that going. The YouTube channel will also be much better when we’ve got a few leaders in one room at one time.

How can we help?

Please pray! Pray for energy, for good content, for safety, and for good interactions. Also, please consider giving to specifically support this work. We’re purchasing a new tripod and very large hard drive this week, but still really need to think about replacing our camera.

Thanks so much for connecting with us on here. Stay safe everyone and see you soon!