How churches are connecting with young people

Ed Stetzer has a new book out called Lost and found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them. Note this excerpt:

Young adults have very little recollection of communication before e-mail. Now we would not know how to live without BlackBerriers, iPhones, iPods, text messaging, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. American Idol has moved text messaging into the national spotlight, and presidential campaigns use social Web sites to spread the fever for change. So why wouldn't churches seek to embrace technology as a major means to the goal of saturating the planet with the gospel?

In our research I've discovered that a new generation of churches and a growing number of older churches are embracing technology for this very reason. More specifically, churches that are connencting with young adults are increasingly using all sorts of technology:

• church Web sites


• email and IM


• video, video chat


• web-based small groups


• blogs


• social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter)


• e-invites and e-vites


• e-newsletters (and trashing paper newsletters)


• satellite


• podcasts


• vodcasts


• Webinars

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The first thing a missionary must do is learn the language of the people he is trying to reach. We must learn to communicate through mediums that young adults use if they are to hear us.

Which of these communication methods does your church use? Which methods does it need to add?