“Faith-based videos are too hard to find”. Check out YouthVids story

This Monday I’m promoting a fabulous website that curates quality Christian videos for use with youth groups. Check out the site at www.youthvids.com

“Faith-based videos are too hard to find.”

That’s the report we got back from many conversations with youth leaders across the U.K. Having spoken to a load of youth pastors they had all revealed their struggles to find videos that were relevant for youth, yet high quality and theologically sound.

It was at that point that we started digging into this statement. We did various searches on YouTube for simple questions such as “Who is Jesus?” and found that not only were there more than thirty-million results but that the top listed videos weren’t answering from a Christian perspective. This was the same for almost every question we searched on YouTube. There was definitely a problem. 

Next, we wanted to see if more youth pastors shared these same frustrations, so we did a poll on a popular youth pastor Facebook group – which currently has over ten thousand members around the world – and asked how long it took them to find a relevant video for their youth groups. 70% of responses said it took them between “over an hour” to “half a day” with some even giving up altogether on finding a suitable video. 

Mission accepted. After launching a fundraising campaign, we partnered with Bible Society and Urban Saints, as well as a few others, to fund the first year of the project. We then got to work at building a website which could be entirely devoted to curating videos that point youth to Jesus. 

We now regularly scour YouTube, Vimeo and various Christian content creators, and have gathered a hefty collection of over 400 videos in categories ranging from spoken word poetry and animation to skits and testimonies. Every video is organised into specific categories and series, making it as easy as possible for youth leaders to find the perfect video.

We’ve now been going for over two years and the feedback we’ve received from youth leaders around the world has blown us away. In November 2019 we were grateful to be recognised in the Premier Digital Awards category of ‘Best use of digital media for youth work’ – this was a real encouragement to us to continue the work of YouthVids and to make sure it remains an invaluable resource for youth leaders wanting to help their youth discover Jesus.

3 Awesome Reasons to use Videos for Youth Work

1. RELEVANT:
   Over 75% of youth use Google and YouTube to find answers about Christianity. They are looking for content that they can relate to and easily understand. They are looking for videos made for them. This is a generation of online influencers. Young people are quick to listen and follow online personalities, so now it’s more important than ever before to meet them where they’re at and introduce them to some great, inspirational Christian influencers. 
2. INSPIRING:
   Learning more about your faith and the Bible can be hard for youth at times, so when the same content is presented in a spoken word format or in a short film, it can be incredibly inspiring. It lifts the Bible from its pages and connects youth to scripture, it motivates them to actually go back into the book and read it afresh. 
3. EASY:
   What once took hours to find theologically sound, youth relevant and high-quality videos, with YouthVids, now only takes a couple of minutes. So let’s stop making excuses and, instead, engage with our youth in a way they can connect to.