I wrote a guest post over at Life in Student Ministry about free software that I love.
It’s a list of downloadable software that you can use for photos, audio, video, office/publishing, security and utilities, study, and web stuff. Check it out.
What are some other free applications I should have included?
The last few days, I’ve been working pretty hard on a new design for our Spanish youth ministry website, ministeriojuvenil.com.
I haven’t dedicated as much time to it as I would like, but it is a part of our ministry that has an impact all over the world. For example:
I’m looking forward to seeing this part of the ministry grow as our ministry grows. Keep praying for us as we train youth workers in Latin America.
A while ago, I published a free ebook about how to use online video for ministry, especially youth ministry. I never really announced it much, but I wanted to post it here on the site so it could be useful for others.
It’s got ideas on how to put video on the web and how to use web video in youth ministry. My favorite part, and I think the part that is the most useful, is the part on ways to use online video for youth ministry.
You can download it here: Generation Youtube
Besides writing here and at my own youth ministry site (youthministrytv.com), I read a lot of blogs. Many of them have to do with youth ministry. Since I don’t have a blogroll on this site, I thought I’d post links to the 25 youth ministry blogs I have in my feed reader that I read.
If you’re not on the list, no worries, post your link in the comments. I’m always looking new sites to read. Please, go ahead, I’d love to visit your blog.
There’s a new way to transfer money online called the Revolution Money Exchange. They are paying you to sign up for the service. So, for a few minutes of your time, you could earn $25. It’s really easy, and it’s legit. If you do it through the button below, I get an extra $10, too. Then you can refer your friends and get $10 for each one you refer, too.
Here’s an article from USA Today about it. Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution in transferring money online” So, sign up by clicking below and help support a missionary.
Yesterday in my Professional Orientation to youth ministry class, we talked about contacting students in ministry. We talked about many different ways to contact people, and in class, I asked on twitter for some suggestions on how to contact students during the week.
Of course, the popular way to contact students in the United States right now is on Facebook. I received replies from both Tony and Sara that told me to suggest creating Facebook groups to keep in touch with students. Right now, Facebook has not really caught on in Mexico.
However, Huberto showed me a social network that is taking off in Mexico. It’s called Hi5, and it’s really pretty much like all the other social networking sites that are out there right now. Hi5 is the 3rd largest social networking site in Latin America and has more users than MySpace or Facebook.
It looks a lot like MySpace, in my opinion. Huberto says he uses it to stay in touch with the students in his ministry, and he was worried about the dangers that there are with his students using these sites and putting too much information online, etc.
I thought that this whole conversation was good because it’s interesting to see how different countries’ use of social media evolves. I started a Spanish social network on ning.com for youth workers, which led the youth pastor from our church to create one for the youth ministry at our church.
Social networking is getting more popular in Mexico, and it will definitely be a way to communicate with young people in the future. Right now, it’s cutting edge. I wonder what new thing will be out in the USA when it finally becomes mainstream here?
(image by: dsevilla on flickr)
