Chris Neilands suggests some tips to make the experience a little easier
Whether you're excited, nervous or feeling out of your depth about meeting as a youth group online, working through this brief checklist will increase your confidence.
Online safety
Consider how you safeguard leaders and young people. Services like Zoom can be set so you need a password to enter the meeting. Leaders could get online five minutes before the young people, meaning no adult is by themselves online with a young person. If you use Zoom, young people who sign-in early can stay in virtual waiting rooms until enough leaders arrive. Encourage young people to stay in communal spaces such as living rooms and kitchens when going online. Email information to the parents in advance including information about safety.
Practise and prepare
Before your first session, practise signing in and using the different features on your online platform with your leaders.
For example, on Zoom you can share your screen with other participants, a really simple way to show videos and images. Another useful tool is the mute function, a great way to stop young people talking over each other or certain young people dominating the whole session. Of course, you might find that young people are shyer online, which means you need to speak more. Preparing bullet points or a short script could help you stay on track and keep the session moving.
Be creative
Just because everyone is separate doesn’t mean they can’t do things together as a group as you normally would. For instance, encourage young people to have a drink/snack when you normally would in your session, this provides a familiar routine.
Also, having something physical in front of the young people can help their focus. Encourage them to have their Bibles with them, papers they can take notes/scribble on. If you send an advance list of simple resources your young people will need, there’s no reason why you can’t play games and make crafts.
One area where creativity could be really useful is with prayer. Young people (and leaders) might find the online space different and this may make them feel a bit uncomfortable about praying out loud or as a group. Creative prayer activities such as drawing/making things and using symbols might help them find a way to pray.
Short and sweet
Don’t expect online sessions to last as long as your normal sessions. Activities may take less time when done separately and young people’s attention spans are often shorter. Aim for quality over quantity; somewhere in the range of 30-45 minutes probably works best. Zoom group calls are also only free for up to 40 minutes.
Go offline
Young people are spending even more time online than usual. Can you provide ideas for offline engagement? For example, you could write them postcards and encourage them to write to each other or set them challenges for each week which you can come back to at the start of the next session. ROOTS ‘Live your faith’ works perfectly for this.
Do your best
It’s perfectly natural to feel daunted at the idea of running an online youth group. Don’t aim for perfection. Anything you do will help young people stay connected with their churches and each other.
Chris Neilands is the co-founder of Play it by Ear drama company, based in Belfast.