IT'S ELECTRIC - spiritual leadership
I've been having a conversation with peers of mine around this question:
Why does it feel like the spiritual depth of current high school people is not as deep as high school people 10 years ago?
For those of us leading this generation spiritually I don't think we have embraced the opportunity to lead them electronically. If we could go back ten years ago a high school kid had the space in their life outside of activities and school work to further their relationship with God. They might see a Max Lucado book on your shelf and they follow your lead so they asked to borrow it and they begin to read it. A dialogue was formed around content of the book and spiritual growth was a result.
But what about now? Where is that space for high school kid today? That space is lost to catching up on the last five episodes of the Jersey Shore and last nights episode of the Bachelor because of DVR. Have you stopped to consider the affect DVR has had on the space that a kid used to have for spiritual exploration that led to growth? Now add Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Netflix, Skype, and YouTube to the mix.
Any leader knows that complaining about this new life style is not going to change anything, plus IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT! But what about if a leader spent a part of his/her day finding online spiritual content to place them on social networks from 5pm to 10pm. Some people will say, "I've worked all day, I don't want to sit at a computer all night." Just another reason why every leader should be using a social media dashboard like www.hootsuite.com. HootSuite allows you to schedule posts to all your social media channels! If you took the time to find the content you also can take five minutes to schedule them to post on Twitter and Facebook! We have a new opportunity to put great spiritual content out there for kids to see, digest, and grow as a result.