Using Your Sermons as Daily Devotional Content
Use your sermon content as devotional content for your people to consume daily. This will help them in their spiritual walk and it will continue to build trust and influence online with your congregation and community.
Three Powerful Lessons Churches are Learning in 2020
The world has changed. 2020 always seemed like this science-fiction type of year from afar but now we are here and the world is fighting a pandemic and economic impact of biblical proportions. As the church navigates these uncharted waters, we are learning and adapting. It’s vital church leaders use this season to consider all methods of delivering the Good News so that we can meet people where they are in these unprecedented times. As we adjust to a new normal and work our way through 2020, here are a few powerful lessons churches are learning. A Polished Presentation is Not Mandatory Anymore For years, the argument has been, “If you can’t do streaming well, don’t do it at all.” I am here to tell you, 2020 is the year that turned that idea upside down. Streaming your service has been a novel for most smaller churches. The idea of spending thousands of dollars to have mediocre sound and video quality just to stream your service just seemed impractical. A lot of churches that did stream were typically larger organizations with greater financial capabilities so they had the infrastructure and resources to add that online polish. Enter stage left, COVID-19. With most of the world forced to abandon physical gatherings, church leaders rushed to get their services streaming online. I talked to many pastors who said they were busier than they had ever been. When I asked why, they said the planning and producing of an online service was exhausting. They secured private locations to film and produce their services so they could later be edited with precision and polish. One pastor told me, “We want to put our best foot forward during this pandemic.” For the record, I have no problem with this. It’s just unnecessary in 2020. During the quarantine we have seen highly produced shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon take a more practical approach and film a show completely from their phone or iPad. We also saw NBA superstar Steph Curry host a live worship service from his phone on Instagram with many artists. The production value was very low. But it didn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter to your congregation either so it shouldn’t matter to you. Just be yourself, flaws and all. Your people and everyone for that matter will connect more with your authenticity than you staring at a camera preaching in an empty room for 45 minutes. Streaming Church is Not THE Solution The way people consume content has changed dramatically over the last decade, and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Our culture is creating and consuming content at an ever-increasing pace while simultaneously, the availability and accessibility for that content is also increasing. And yet, even though the way in which most of our people consume content has changed, the way we’ve approached our church services online hasn’t. Many of us are still publishing our services as if our culture hasn’t seen a seismic shift in their consumption habits. For example, most people don’t watch hour long videos on Facebook or Instagram. They are watching short 2-3 minute clips as they scroll their feed. While I have seen some churches shorten their services during the quarantine, the average service length is still MUCH longer the what people are normally used to on social media. Does this mean we need to eliminate streaming altogether, of course not. But we do need to be aware that the content we are producing needs to be in alignment with the way people consume content on each respective platform. I talked to several pastors who said their live Q&A sessions from their phones was getting more traffic than the stream of their service. Again, the reason goes back to habits. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If all your church does is stream your service every week, you are essentially, going against the grain of people’s habits. The message remains the same. The way you deliver the message needs to be evaluated. Whatever effects we may or may not be feeling, our job as pastors is to shepherd our people to the best of our ability. And to do that, we need to not only to recognize that there’s been a change, but we need to do something about that change. We have to adapt. The Era of the Digital Pulpit is Here Pastors spend on average, 10.5 hours every week preparing the sermon. That’s more time than they spend eating their meals in that same week. Every week, pastors research, study, write, and deliver a sermon to their congregation or online. Every week. Then, just mere hours after they finish this process, they begin writing a new sermon for the very next Sunday. It’s a rinse and repeat cycle that can be greatly undervalued. So much time is put into the sermon. It’s a dense piece of content. For most churches, the pastor preaches the sermon, it gets recorded and then uploaded to their website to be viewed or listened to later. And while there will always be a need for the physical gathering hearing of God’s Word, we must not allow the preaching to stop after it’s preached or streamed once. There is so much content your church can repurpose for blogs, social media posts, devotionals, video highlights, audio highlights and the list goes on. All from one sermon. Don’t let all of that work be forgotten. Use your digital pulpit to continue to communicate the message throughout the week to your congregation and online following. 2020 has changed us. It’s changed the church too. Maybe some of these changes are good though. I am so inspired by the creativity and agility I have seen from church leaders in this unique season. Churches that are unafraid to try new things and new ways to communicate the Gospel are not only thriving in this season but will continue to see growth as our world finds
Ministry Pass Review from Mark Batterson
Photo by Adam Mason Photography Video review from New York Times bestselling author and pastor, Mark Batterson. Not too long ago, we had a chance to sit down with Mark Batterson. Here is what he had to say about Ministry Pass: “Hi, I’m Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. I wanted to take a moment and just thank Ministry Pass for the role that they play in the Kingdom. Here’s the bottom line: church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. I believe that. I also believe that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You can’t come up with an original idea every single week. Sometimes, it’s just good stewardship to beg, borrow and steal from someone else. There’s some incredible ideas. One of the things I appreciate is that Ministry Pass is really a clearing house where you can take an illustration or a graphic or an entire series, put your fingerprint on it, and leverage it in your church. So, a huge thanks to my friends at Ministry Pass and just an encouragement to check out the resources that are available to you. God Bless.”
Ministry Pass Giveaway (Enter Now)
Do you want to get Ministry Pass for a year for FREE?!?! (Value $499) We are giving away a one year, unlimited access membership to Ministry Pass. With this membership, you get access to our library of sermon series, sermon illustrations, church media and so much more! To enter this contest is very simple: Register for the Church Marketing Summit (FREE) Watch Justin’s session “The Digital Pulpit” during the Church Marketing Summit. (FREE) The winner will be announced on April 25th. Watch this video for more details… Here are the two steps in entering our Ministry Pass Giveaway: Register for the Church Marketing Summit (FREE) Watch Justin’s session “The Digital Pulpit” during the Church Marketing Summit. (FREE)
