Welcome! The website is still a work in progress, but it is now the best place for communication and information related to the Youth Ministry at Santa Clara. I want to make things as easy as possible for you, so I always welcome comments and suggestions. I thought I’d take a quick second to explain a few things that we are trying to accomplish with the website:
Enhanced Communication
Anything that needs to be communicated about the Youth Ministry will happen through this website. From information about trips and events, new things within the ministry, weekly youth culture articles, and more. We will be using the bulletin and the bulletin board less, and focusing on communicating through the website in the best way that we can.
Available Information
Having the website as the main source for ministry related information makes having access to this much easier. Instead of just having Sunday’s and Wednesday’s to pick up an event info sheet or a permission form, you can now access this information any time!
How the Website is Organised
There are two main menu bars at the top of website. The first bar is for static pages, meaning that these are links to specific pages. Like the calendar, contact information, and downloadables. The second bar is a menu of post categories. Meaning that if you click on “Youth Culture”, you’re going to get a listing of all the posts that have been put into the category of youth culture.
On the right hand side, you’ll see a search box that can help for finding something specific. It works very well so don’t be afraid to use it!
Online Event Registration
For events and trips, we will now have all of the registration for those online. They will be located at the bottom of the post for the trip/event. Click here to checkout a post about an upcoming Boise visit to see the online registration form.
Weekly Youth Culture Articles
Currently, we have a monthly newsletter with some youth culture information, and when we have a quarterly parents meeting, we usually have a few youth culture items available as well. Understanding youth culture is essential as we seek to minister to our own youth and the youth in our community. To help with this, we will have a weekly youth culture post that takes a look at current findings within the ever evolving youth culture. Click here for an example this.
Pictures and Videos
Sharing videos and photos from events and trips will be much easier now! We’ve taken over 1000 pictures in the last year and a half, and most of them haven’t been shared at all. We want to be able to share our experiences with everyone, and the website is the perfect vehicle for this. Click here to see a post that has a video collage of pictures from the summer!
Downloads – Files and Forms
Permission forms are everyone’s favorite thing! Now you have a quick and easy way to get your fill on permission forms. Our Downloads page will have all downloadable media for your continent access. Forms, fliers, and other documents will be here.
Calendar
Relying on the bulletin and monthly newsletters for calendar communication hasn’t been very effective for us. Now you can have access to all the calendar information. We have a main Youth Ministry Calendar, as well as a Youth Community Calendar, where youth are able to list things going on in there life so that we can share our lives together.
Thoughts and Discussion
Most things on the website will have a comment box at the bottom, so if you have any questions about an event, need more information, or want to start a discussion about a particular trend related to an article on youth culture, you can! There is also a contact page that you can use to ask questions and send suggestions and comments.
Subscribe!!!
You have several easy options for staying connected to the information here on the website. You can sign up for an email to be sent to you when new information is available (one short email is sent if new information is available, no spam!). If you know what an RSS feed is, the you can subscribe to our site that way as well. We will also be integrating the website into Facebook so that if you have an account, you can receive notifications of new information that way.