There’s a quote from a training series we filmed with Mark Batterson that we’ll use often:
“If your sermons are boring, that’s probably because your life is boring.”
Let’s just say that we’ve been prepared to preach some pretty interesting sermons through our 6 years of owning and operating Ministry Pass. Today, we’ll give you a glimpse behind the curtain, sharing the big wins, highs & lows, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way.
We started out as bivocational pastors doing graphics and announcements for churches as a way to make some extra money. We were serving 12 churches as their entire creative department- all without a website for our agency. Then, we created a website to try to grow our client base. We’d been serving larger churches, but when we put our services online we started getting calls from smaller churches who couldn’t afford our price tag. Through those conversations, we saw an opportunity to serve medium and small-sized churches. So, we began talking about the idea of Ministry Pass.
However, we didn’t start right away.
At the time- and this is still true- there are a lot of places where you could get great sermon graphics online. We had to figure out, “What are we going to offer churches that’s different?” That’s something we learned early on- if you’re going to offer something new, you have to figure out how to differentiate yourself. Not so that you can squash the competition, but so that you can create something worthwhile.
One day, we came up with the idea of creating our Series Guides as a way of taking our series beyond offering simply graphics packages. Of course, we didn’t want to write sermons for pastors. We wanted to give them outline and research material so that they could sit down and really make the message their own. We knew pastors at larger churches often hire research teams to help them with their sermon prep, and we thought this was something that would be super helpful to pastors at regular-sized churches, too.
We tested the concept and marketed it by going to smaller, denominationally-based church conferences. We’d rent booths and sell nothing, but tell ourselves we made “good connections.” It felt like we had stalled.
Then, Justin went on a trip.
During that trip, he felt God impress two things upon his heart: First, that he and Wade needed to go for this idea right away. Justin was about to become a dad, and he wanted to get the business launched before his son was born. We had five months to pull the launch off in time. Then, on the plane ride home, he (and we use this phrase very seriously) heard God tell him to reach out to Mark Batterson and ask if we could buy a bunch of books to give away, then film him on location to use as a training seminar for pastors on our launch day.
It was a crazy idea, and we knew it. We didn’t expect to hear anything back.
We did.
So, prior to launch, we were not only trying to get 200 sermon series put together on our website, but we were also putting together this training series we’d filmed with Mark Batterson. Those were crazy times.
The whole idea of Ministry Pass was to build this huge library and make it accessible for small to medium-sized churches. But it was a huge, expensive dream. We weren’t sure how we were going to pay for it, and we were running out of time to do it all ourselves. Justin started looking into getting investors and had a lot of questions, so he scheduled a meeting with a successful Christian CEO on a site that allowed you to buy time talking to people with expertise in different fields.
Instead of answering his questions, the CEO said, “Write a business plan, and I’ll give you a loan.” We formalized our business plan and had our loan within a week. That allowed us to bring on additional team members and really build momentum for our launch date in October.
(Side note, if you’ve ever wondered why we launch our sermon calendars in October, that’s because we launched the company in October!)
Everything came together at the last minute, and launch day was a huge party. #MinistryPass was rising nationally, and we were amazed when it ranked above #Ebola on Twitter.
But the party quickly turned tragic. Our developer had accidentally removed the password field, so our first 50 churches couldn’t sign in. People started to think we were trying to scam them. It took hours and hours of support on our end to get everything straightened out.
It was the best day that turned into the most stressful day.
However, we got through it. The response was amazing, but soon we had another problem. After the initial success of our event with Mark Batterson, nothing happened. We weren’t getting new sign-ups. Working in ministry, we’d been programmed to plan tent pole events, but we realized that we needed to shift our thinking if Ministry Pass was going to survive.
Thankfully, by God’s grace, we were able to grow as entrepreneurs. MinistryPass has seen slow, steady growth ever since. Six years ago, we never would have imagined that we’d have two million downloads- but we’ve now surpassed that!
We’ve also changed our model along the way, which taught us another lesson: whether you’re in business or leading a church, sometimes you just have to be flexible. Every once in a while it just takes one little tweak to really get things going.
We love hearing stories from pastors who’ve used our series and had success. For example, one of our favorite moments a pastor shared with us was when he use our Vivid sermon series. This series was actually part of our sermon calendars, placed right after Easter. The idea of the series is that when Jesus changes us/redeems us from sin, it naturally changes how we see the world. As a sermon illustration idea, we linked to a Youtube video where a colorblind father gets those special colorblind glasses and cries because he gets to see his family and the world in color for the first time. We encouraged pastors to try to make this illustration come to life in their congregation.
Well, we had a pastor who did just that! He actually surprised a gentleman in his congregation with them. He had a 3D illustration on the screen and gave everyone else 3D glasses, but he gave this man colorblind glasses on the sly. When he puts the glasses on and sees color for the first time, he’s struck by emotion. It was SO COOL to see that story go from being an idea to being implemented in the local church.
Another sermon series that has had a huge impact in the life of a church is called Burned. It’s about how sometimes people can be burned by Christians. A new pastor was able to go into a church that had been burned by past leaders, and preach this series. They talked about and lamented hypocrisy, but also talked about Jesus is our perfect hero. He reached out and told us how powerful that was for him and his congregation.
It’s such an honor to be part of stories like these. Obviously, we didn’t write or preach the messages. But we created something that helped pastors bring joy and healing to their local congregations. We’ve spotted our sermon series bumpers while on vacation, seen our banners while driving by churches, and heard sermons and podcasts on Wade’s book, Failing Faith. We’re humbled and grateful to play a small part in the impact that churches are making.
But our favorite memories are whenever we see smaller churches with limited budgets using our series. That’s who we created Ministry Pass for, and seeing the impact it’s having is what makes us so thankful to be able to do what we do.
Once, we got a call from a bi-vocational pastor who worked 50-60 hours every week in a machine shop. The only day he had for sermon prep was Saturday, so he knew exactly how long it took him to prepare his message every week before he found Ministry Pass. He told Justin, “You save me hours every week, so I get to spend more time with my family.” That was really exciting, because that’s what Ministry Pass is all about.
Hearing all these stories is always a blessing, and it reminds us of one of those parenting sayings, “The days are long, but the years are short.” That’s how we feel about our businesses, too- it’s so easy to get caught up in the mundane details and messes of the day-to-day, and miss the impact that Ministry Pass is having in the lives of countless churches. But when we step back, it’s amazing to see what God has done, and how He continues to bless our small team.
As business owners, it comes back to what Mark Batterson describes as “Long obedience in the same direction.” We never would have imagined the impact or the types of stories we would hear about Ministry Pass when we set out to do this. But, through the grace of God, He’s using Ministry Pass to help pastors preach compelling messages while making time for their families. We can’t wait to see what He’s going to do in the future.
In case you’re wondering, it’s hard to pick favorite sermon series. But here are a few that we love or that we’ve noticed are really popular (with a few surprises thrown in!)
If you’d rather have your year planned out for you than browse our 1,000+ sermon series library, you’re going to LOVE our preaching calendars. On October 7th, we are releasing SIX new sermon calendars for 2021! Each one is a little different. You’ll be able to choose from:
We so appreciate your stories of how God is using Ministry Pass at your church! Whenever someone takes the time to share a story of how God is using a sermon series at a local church, it encourages our team that what they’re doing is truly making a difference.
If you have a story to share or a word of encouragement, send it to Justin ([email protected]) or feel free to leave a comment on our Youtube video!
Ministry Pass is a sermon series & church graphics library created by pastors, for pastors.
© Copyright 2024 Ministry Pass Inc. All rights reserved.
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