I was reading a post from YM360 called Are You Drawing a Crowd? Ask Yourself Why.
The last phrase of Andy’s blog sparked something,
“Do you have an audience? If your answer is “yes,” today would be a GREAT time to think about your message and why you’re drawing an audience”
I like the term audience. Your audience are people who “paid” something or sacrificed to show up.
- The student who drove himself to youth meeting.
- The girl who texts you to say they’re sorry they’re not going to be at your youth meeting but wants the notes.
- The teenager who liked your social media post.
They are your audience. They are the ones paying attention. They’ve bought in and invested and you should look them in the eye and quit looking over their shoulder to that crowd at that other church.
They may have a crowd, but you have an audience. Let them chase everyone, you pay attention to those who are paying attention to you. You may have a small audience, but they’re listening to you every week.
Crowds in churches and youth ministry rooms can peak, decrease and fluctuate but your audience can continue to grow, even outside your church.
Here are a few ideas:
- Start a You Tube/Podcast/IG Live show for teenagers and talk about the issue that impact them.
- Start a podcast Bible Study that kids can download.
- Start a devotion blog and share it with kids on IG or Tik Tock.
The world is your youth room and their is no limit to how many you can fit in it.
Let your audience, the ones who love Jesus and like you, help in the creation of those things and maybe become the “stars” of those platforms.
Sound like a lot of work? It is, but you’ll be finding and growing your audience. The people looking for hope or peace or God will find you because they’ll be searching for it.
Thanks for the spark Andy.
Tell me about your audience? Who are they?
Who’s listening to you?
Have you ever pursued the crowd? What was that like and what was the result?
You can send me an e-mail to thediscipleproject@gmail.com