Tribes

As I work with many people who are in the early 20s age bracket, I'm seeing what a number of others are seeing... tribal behavior. No, I don't mean that they are out there dancing around a camp fire. What I mean is that people run in packs of friends... and each pack has a slightly different behavior. For example: Tribes have different ways of communicating. One tribe texts. One tribe uses Facebook... another, Myspace... another Twitter. Some actually still use email or the phone (but very few). That's just one way that tribes differentiate themselves.

And that is a challenge for someone like me. When I'm hosting an event, I need to be able to pass the word along to each tribe in their preferred method of communication. (Yes, that gets confusing!). And I need to be able to personally connect with people... no matter what their "tribe."

Fortunately, a few people are beginning to understand this challenge. I'm now looking at a web-based church management program that would allow each of our sttenders to set up their own page (similar to facebook) and program in their own communications preferences. This might work for us... I need to investigate more.

I also just got a book entitled "Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us." I'm hoping that will give me some more ideas. I'll let you know if I like the book....