Last night I was browsing through the app marketplace on my Android phone and came across Postagram. I’m not sure how I missed this before, but it looks like a great service for youth ministry.

Basically, you take a picture with your phone and use the app to turn it into a postcard that Postagram ships as a high-quality photo to whoever you want. The postcard is a bit unique because the photo can pop out of the card, too, with your message on the back.

As a youth leader, I have a stack of postcards to send to kids and families on different occasions, but I rarely send them because of the time element involved in doing so (lame excuse, I know). This seems to remove that barrier. And at only $0.99 a postcard with free shipping, it’s a good deal, especially because it can pull mailing addresses straight from my phone’s address book.

I can think of many ways to use this in youth ministry.

• Quickly send customized postcards to youth group parents while at camp or on your missions trip (without having to find a mailbox or stamps!)
• Snap a picture of your small group and send it as a “get well soon” postcard to the kid who’s at home sick
• Put something physical in the college mailbox of the kid who graduated last year
• Give that kid a physical copy of his winning shot at his last basketball game with a note saying congrats
• Send a birthday greeting to a kid with a picture of you and him together

Since it only takes about 60-90 seconds to mail a custom postcard straight from my phone, my lame excuses are gone.

Go to Postagram’s website to learn more, or download the app for free in the Android or iPhone marketplace.

[ Full Disclosure: This is not a sponsored review, I just thought it might be a helpful tool. :) ]

Posted on July 7, 2011