recently we reopened life groups for families. to ensure social distancing, we were given the gym. while we were thankful for such a large space, we immediately ran into several production issues: the sound, the harsh lighting from a glass building, and not enough tvs or quality projectors to reach the room.

so how do you lead an hour and a half family life group without screen? enter padlet. (big thanks go to abbie johnson, a coworker, for introducing me to padlet.)

padlet is a free online tool (we paid a subscription for more services) that serves as an online notice board. used mainly in education environments, we knew immediately that this would be needed if we were to successfully use screens in a gym of 200 socially distanced family members.

with so many changes being communicated to families, we kept it simple first. we designed our board (turning off permissions for others to comment and post) and all those that sign up for family life group get a text 15 minutes before we begin with the link to our padlet. once they pull up our page, everything we drop on the main computers padlet shows up on their device. any instructions we give we share on the padlet so they also have the instructions in front of them at their table.

here is what our padlet looks like – dawson kids padlet. i am a sucker for new technology, especially when it is simple and meets an immediate ministry need. check it out.