Updated 3/7/12
Campus is quiet today.
Our students are away on spring break.
And we’ve got 8 different teams scattered across the U.S. that we’re thinking about, and praying for, who are in the middle of their week of education, service and spiritual formation.
I’m so excited for them!
I can remember a time, not too long ago, when our hope and prayer would be to NOT hear from our teams while they were away — NO news was good news.
It was a time back before laptops, wifi, smartphones and much of the technology that makes communicating outside of our own area code so much easier today.
NOW, we love to get updates from our teams in the field!
Now, a call doesn’t necessarily have to mean that something’s gone wrong… it can just be a quick call to update.
No need to wait to see pictures either… Mobile uploads of images from the day are exciting to see pop-up in our Facebook feed.
Tweets, and twitpics, from project sites serve as reminders throughout the day that God is up to some pretty amazing stuff… all over the world.
And for the second year in a row, our office has worked closely with our IT department to create a space for our teams to blog about their experiences throughout the course of their week-long experience (you can check it out over at: http://blogs.belmont.edu/immersion/). Some teams have been better than others about sending back updates… but I think this is a great addition to our spring break missions experience.
And here are 3 reasons why I think you should consider adding a blogging component to your missions endeavors:
- It’s a great way for students to intentionally process what they’re seeing, hearing, thinking, learning and experiencing… as it happens. It’s a matter of stewardship. I know this won’t be the only way they process their experience this week… but knowing that a lot of people will potentially be reading their thoughts, students are much more likely to take seriously their thoughtful reflection, and be just as intentional with the words that they choose to describe their experience.
- It’s a great way to keep friends and family, faculty and staff, donors and supporters up-to-date on how their week is going. Blogging along the way will allow for pictures to be shared, stories to be told and students to communicate with those who care about what they’re experiencing — in real time. Parents don’t have to be as on edge and concerned — getting regular team updates, friends can gain insight into what they’re friends are going through, faculty and staff can have a better idea of what some of their students might be dealing with upon their return to campus, and supporters and donors can see the tangible fruit of their investments!
- It’s a great way to get the word out about the kind of ministry we’re involved in with our students. Since blogs are “forever”, it can serve as a growing online resource for people who want to know what our ministry (or school) are really all about. It can serve to draw new students into our ministries, or future mission experiences, as well as to help perspective students better understand what kinds of ministry opportunities are available to them should they choose to attend our institution.
While I think there are ways that this process could potentially become invasive to the team experience, or get students side-tracked (constantly looking for an “angle” for their post), it has more potential (if done well) to be a powerful tool through which we can multiply the power of our student’s experiences for primary and secondary (and even tertiary) participants.
Does your ministry already do something like this? If so, what benefits have you seen as a result?
Have there been any issues or drawbacks from you perspective?
If you’d like to see what our blog looks like you can click here — and a special thanks to Micah and Alysia for their work with Paul (from our IT department) on getting this ready for the 2012 teams!
Photo courtesy of: blogs.targetx.com
6 thoughts on “3 Reasons Your Students Should Blog About Their Missions Experience”
Our 14 teams head out this weekend across North and Central America. We encourage them to do individual or team blogs for friends, family and donors. This year we have set up a Twitter account and will be RT their experiences and photos from their iPhones (last year when we used a hashtag it was TMI), each campaigner gets a simple journal/pen with guiding questions and scripture for daily reflection. For the first time this year we are sending out small videocameras (the Kodak Playsport – which also lets them shoot underwater) preloaded with memory cards. The images and video be used in our thank you leader dinner, advertising in future years, telling our story and in partnership with the alumni office.
Great thoughts, Guy.
We live on our Spring Break mission trip in a little less than two weeks…and this is the first year we have had our students set up a blog and a Facebook page to keep people updated. They are excited to utilize technology and media to make this happen.
Part of the reason for doing this was to keep folks updated. However, the second reason for doing this was to engage the students who make up this “media team.” Not everybody prides themselves on how they swing a hammer or paint a shutter or preach a sermon. This team gives our techie students the opportunity to engage and contribute.
Good post – two years ago we started having our student missions trip send updates to Twitter via a SMS from a world phone. We tie the Twitter updates into our main website and Facebook page. The parents love it as they feel as if they are on the trip with their students. This year we added Flip video cameras (since they are incredibly simple and affordable). We’ll have six trips out simultaneously this spring, so we’re recruiting and training a “reporter” for each trip. This will be a normal student participant with interest/experience in journalism/blogging/social media, who will have the responsibility for regular Twitter updates, photo and video capture, and telling the story of the trip. Our goal is to encourage more students to be on mission through this media and enable our participants to share this experience with their supporters and friends. Follow our Twitter list to see how it goes @wolmissions/trips
The organization that I am a part of is sending out 160 college students today on a ten day mission trip. The students are organized into six teams led by a staff member. They have used Facebook and email to communicate among the students regarding applications, finances, and training. Each team leader will carry a smartphone with WiFi and a global GSM phone. A Twitter account and Facebook page have been established for each team. A student on each team has been selected as the trip reporter and equipped with a netbook computer and a Flip video camera. Each team is expected to post regular status updates and capture raw video footage. Our communications coordinator in the home office will highlight special items through our main social media channels and organizational website.
In the past we piloted this with Twitter. We chose Twitter because of the ability to easily post updates via text message (SMS) from a simple phone. Some teams will be staying at facilities with wireless internet and can do much more online, but almost all our teams work in areas with mobile phone coverage. We quickly realized that parents really appreciated the updates, and called our home office much less with questions about the trip. Family members shared that they felt like they were on the trip with you, praying for the ministry and see how God worked through the team. However we also discovered that many people were unfamiliar with Twitter, and it was cumbersome to explain how (and why) they should follow us on Twitter. Additionally, most of the college students were not on Twitter, but on Facebook instead. We also wanted a way that the students themselves could get more involved in sharing the missions trips with their circle of friends. This led us to create Facebook pages for each trip and link them to the Twitter accounts. We also put a Twitter widget on our website to create a rolling feed of posts to make it simple. We also created a Twitter list of all of our trips to make easy for someone to follow them all. You can follow us and see how it works. Visit go.wol.org to get the details or follow us on Twitter at @wolmissions/trips
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