I did some SEO (search engine optimization) searching yesterday, looking for key words and such for youth ministry. Here is what I discovered.
In searching for youth ministry key words, to help youth workers find posts they are looking for online, I started by searching the word youth ministry discipleship. Now, I am only getting started in this SEO thing, a complete novice,, but this did not look good,
Search: youth ministry discipelship
Competition Is: Low (which tells me there is not a battle for the words)
Global Monthly Searches: 110 (this how often the subject is searched for,globally, on Google, every month, averaged over 12 month)
Local Monthly Searches: 91 (this is how often the subject is searched for on Google, every month, averaged over 12 months.
I Googled both youth ministry discipleship and youth ministry discipleship ideas
youth ministry discipleship showed over 2 million options
youth ministry discipleship ideas showed 412,000 options
On the other hand, searching
youth ministry games revealed over 4 million options
youth ministry activities, which could include discipleship, but revealed mostly game links, showed over 13 million options
Like I said, I’m no expert, I can only go by what I am looking at.
The questions I have then are:
1. Do youth workers already know how to disciple teens, they just don’t need to search online for it?
Which leads me to the second question:
2. Is there a greater demand, by youth workers, for games and activities than for discipleship ideas, in their youth group?
I would love more people to see this post, but I am afraid no one is searching for it.
Side Note: I am not anti-game, we play them with our group all the time, I am just pro discipleship.
If you are an SEO guru, and I am reading the date wrong, straiten me out. I think the numbers are fundamentally true. Do youth ministries still spend a majority of time still focusing on getting kids to show up versus discipling the students they have to reach their friends for Christ?
If you would like to see some articles on youth ministry games you can go here or here.
If would like some free you ministry ideas about youth discipleship I have a few video trainings here and here (don’t forget to subscribe)
And a couple of my posts on church youth ministry here and here
If you are looking for a systematic way to disciple in kids in your youth ministry, I also recommend the book Multiply by Francis Chan and David Platt