Last week we talked about the importance of Name Tags. The top 3 reasons for having the youth wear name tags were
Name – Face Recognition
Approachability
100% Attendance Reporting.
Now, how do we get those cool congregants to wear name tags? We make it cool to wear name tags.
It first starts with the messaging from the youth leadership and the enforcement (encouragement) of wearing the name tags. The messaging from the Youth Pastor and other Youth Leaders has to show that everyone sees the importance of wearing the name tags. If the Youth Pastor is negative, then the youth will easily and quickly catch on to this vibe and not wear the name tags. Also, everyone needs to wear the name tags including the Youth Pastor and Youth Leaders.
Secondly, condition the youth to wear the name tags. If they’re not already wearing name tags, they might rebel just at the thought of wearing them. You can condition them to wear name tags, by having a drawing for everyone that checks in and gets a name tag. This drawing can be done over the first few weeks. You can have a weekly drawing or one big drawing after the first few weeks. To help facilitate the drawing, just print out an Asset Tag at the Check-In Review screen. The Asset Tag is used normally for nursery-aged children to ensure that their belongings (diaper bag, bottles, etc.) are returned to them. In this case, the Asset Tag would be used for the drawing. It works great, because it has the church logo, date, and the student’s name on the Asset Tag.
The drawing can also be used as an outreach tool. For every friend that the student brings, print another Asset Tag. Thus, if they brought 3 friends, they now have 3 more entries into the drawing.
Allow the youth to add “flair” to their name tag. Flair was made popular by waiters and 
waitresses at T.G.I.F. restaurants. It refers to the buttons, sunglasses, etc., that they’d wear. Using the same concept, once a month or weekly, allow them to add stickers (flair) to their name tag. It’s best for you to create the flair beforehand. Some fun ideas for the flair stickers: sports stickers, sport teams stickers (college and pro), skate boarding sticker, shopping sticker, etc. Fellowship Technologies actually used this flair idea at the 2007 Dynamic Church User Conference. It was a great fun way to get to know each other. Shameless plug... please make sure to mark your calendar for May 15th-17th for the next Dynamic Church User Conference in 2008. It's never too early to budget for this great event!
Back to the name tags... Make the wearing of name tags necessary to participate in Youth Activities (Xbox, pool, foosball, etc.) or enter the Youth Service. As mentioned last week, the wearing of name tags will ensure that the attendance is at 100%. As well, it allows everyone that checked in the privilege of participating.
Lastly, for the cool factor, use Fellowship One Self Check-In. This allows the youth to check themselves in. In their own minds, they don’t need you to be doing this for them.
Next week, we’ll talk about the best way to roll out Self Check-In for Student Ministries.