by Rhett Smith | Jan 7, 2010 | Parenting
One of the questions that comes up a lot in my work with parents of high school and college students is: “How do I help get my kid connected in a college ministry?” or “What are some ways that I can encourage my kid to get involved in a ministry when...
by Rhett Smith | Mar 5, 2009 | Leadership
Emerging Adulthood I have always seemed to work with a lot of people in the midst of that life transition from college to young adult, or to what is often referred to as emerging adulthood. So because of the extension of adolescence, and the pushing of adulthood and...
by Rhett Smith | Aug 26, 2008 | Leadership
Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed. Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze...
by Rhett Smith | Aug 9, 2008 | Leadership
What is a wiki? Well, if you don’t know, let’s look at what the most famous wiki, Wikipedia, has to say. A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup...
by Rhett Smith | Jul 22, 2008 | Leadership
We define the four-step POST process for creating strategies–people, objectives, strategy, and technology–and reveal why starting with the technologies is a mistake. That is the advice I wish I would have read 6 months ago as I was thinking about creating...
by Rhett Smith | Jul 14, 2008 | Technology
About a month ago I wrote a post Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry: Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry. I was really only focusing on one way college students (ministry) can use Twitter. How about 25 ways? Howard Rheingold had a link...
by Rhett Smith | Jul 8, 2008 | Leadership
This is actually the form of social media and online sharing that I am the least familiar with. I have only had a Flickr account for about 6 months, and I just upgraded to Flickr Pro. How many videos have I uploaded to YouTube? Only a couple. So this is new territory,...
by Rhett Smith | Jul 1, 2008 | Leadership
Social Networks have been one of the greatest things to happen to college ministry. There are many reasons why I have found them to be so helpful, but let’s begin with a video primer, because I know some of you, though familiar with social networks, may wonder...
by Rhett Smith | Jun 16, 2008 | Leadership
Despite some of the bad press recently regarding Twitter, I still must say that I absolutely love it. Sure there are days when things take way too long to load, or they don’t load at all. But despite all that, Twitter is still the first site that I log onto when...
by Rhett Smith | Jun 13, 2008 | Leadership
It was about six months ago when I announced my resignation to the staff and students at Bel Air Presbyterian Church and The Quest, and now the day has finally arrived. I’m sitting at my desk for the last time as the college director and it’s a bittersweet...
by Rhett Smith | Jun 4, 2008 | Leadership
When it comes to Facebook I’m definitely an evangelist, but it wasn’t always that way. I was one of those pastors who was somewhat fearful of online social technology. I was an early adopter in some ways, but when it came to working with college students I...
by Rhett Smith | May 31, 2008 | Leadership
Of all the topics I’m going to address in this series, this seems to be the no-brainer to me. I started blogging about 4 years ago at the encouragement of one of my students at the time, Jared Kleier. He set up a blog for me on our college website and away we...
by Rhett Smith | May 22, 2008 | Leadership
I think it’s important for college ministries to be forumlating a plan, and developing some ideas about how they can strategically use the internet to best serve their ministry. There are a lot of topics that I could cover, and maybe 9 posts is too much, so I...
by Rhett Smith | May 16, 2008 | Leadership
DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are...
by Rhett Smith | May 16, 2008 | Leadership
If you are involved in college ministry and haven’t joined Collective Muse yet, then stop and do so now!
by Rhett Smith | May 15, 2008 | Leadership
One of the most important college ministry conferences is happening May 16-19 up in Seattle at The Inn. The Ascent Conference is a gathering of those involved in college ministry, and it has been real influential in shaping college ministry under the leadership of...
by Rhett Smith | May 13, 2008 | Intentional Living
I absolutely love that this is our college ministry administrator’s “other job”…and passion. Cassie Boyd is amazing to work with, and it’s awesome hearing the things that you usually aren’t privy to in someone’s life outside...
by Rhett Smith | Apr 14, 2008 | Leadership
I’ve been dreaming and thinking a lot about the desire for, and the need to connect those involved in college ministry (i.e. pastors, directors, volunteers, etc.). There are lots of college ministries, and yet there is a certain disconnect among this age and...
by Rhett Smith | Feb 28, 2008 | Marriage
As more and more studies, surveys and research is being done on the “hook-up” culture, especially in college, there are a slew of books that are beginning to emerge. One of the interesting things about the “hook-up” culture in college is that...
by Rhett Smith | Feb 9, 2008 | Leadership
I’m going to blog more about this after the weekend, but I just had a great lunch with Benson Hines, who runs the blog Exploring College Ministry. Ben is on a year long road trip across the country checking out college ministries, so it was great to have lunch...
