I’ve blogged about texting with youth before. Here’s another experiment:
Feeling the need to hear the teenagers in our church better–to hear them and listen to them and so begin to see them clearly–I sent out an impromptu text message to them on Monday:
“What’s one thing you worry about?”
I promised confidentiality, and I don’t think it’s breaking it to share that school and grades (and failure at school and grades) are prominent worries. I would venture to say that the teenagers in our church’s demographic (upper middle class, mostly white, suburbs) worry more about academic performance than any generation of students since the inception of compulsory public education.
Of course, I sent the message at the beginning of finals week, but I’ve seen the worry in their faces and in their church attendance all year.
What to do about it? I’m working on it. First, though, I want to hear it rightly and give the teenagers a chance to see that I’ve heard it. That’d probably be a good start.
YoRocko! 
It would be interesting to do the same text halfway through summer break and see what the results are then.
I’ll totally do that.
rocko… do you send a mass text, or do it individually? How do you manage that?
I sent a group text. I just got a new phone, so I have to figure out how to do it all over again. My old phone made it easy to create groups of 10 numbers and text them all at once.