All the leading voices agree — online church services are not just recording church. So then, what is online church? Here are some of the best principles experts agree on about how to think of online church.
Most of us have visited a new church for the first time. It’s a unique experience and one that many churches struggle to perfect. Thinking through each step that affects a newcomer can be tricky, especially if you have been part of the church for years and know everything there is to know.
There are still many educators for whom online education represents uncharted territory or a medium for which their skills are “good enough,” and not excellent. Here are a couple reasons to level up the online experience for students with a video-sharing platform.
For all churches, the pursuit of efficiency is high on the list of things to achieve. When churches and Sunday services run efficiently, the church serving experience is far less stressed and everyone is released to be more Kingdom-focused than system-focused. This is why churches must use integrated ministry platforms to aid their tasks.
In past years, many of us have separated how businesses run from how churches run. The church isn’t about making a profit and getting more revenue, but that doesn’t mean there are a lot of things we can learn about operations, efficiency, and even the techniques of onboarding.
Now that there are actual VR churches in existence – ones with real congregations and even baptisms – it’s clear that we do not have to wait for a world where church can be held in the metaverse any longer. In this article, we’ll explore what is making it easier than ever.
Bible software can be a great resource for Bible study, graduate studies, sermon prep, personal devotions, group reading plans, and the list goes on. But with so many different options on the market, it can be hard to know which one is right for you. The following considerations will help.
Drafting your sermon application could be tedious, especially looking for actionable sections of your passage. With the use of Logos Bible Software, you could have these imperative verbs highlighted automatically, making sermon prep easier.
At the rate of 30% of volunteers quitting to serve each year, the church doesn’t want to give willing community members a reason to join that statistic. Using smart software that allows volunteers to easily and quickly sign up for opportunities helps.
Get featured on the Church Tech Today blog when you answer some industry-specific questions about your workstation, your gear, and your church's livestream details.
Lighting consoles are the stuff of dreams when you’re a church lighting director. For Jeremiah Trombley from San Antonio’s CityChurch, he has found a solution in the Hog4 Lighting Rig.
Tyndale offers several editions of the Filament Bible that pair with Filament, an app filled with study tools, devotionals, videos, and interactive content.
All the leading voices agree — online church services are not just recording church. So then, what is online church? Here are some of the best principles experts agree on about how to think of online church.
Most of us have visited a new church for the first time. It’s a unique experience and one that many churches struggle to perfect. Thinking through each step that affects a newcomer can be tricky, especially if you have been part of the church for years and know everything there is to know.
There are still many educators for whom online education represents uncharted territory or a medium for which their skills are “good enough,” and not excellent. Here are a couple reasons to level up the online experience for students with a video-sharing platform.
For all churches, the pursuit of efficiency is high on the list of things to achieve. When churches and Sunday services run efficiently, the church serving experience is far less stressed and everyone is released to be more Kingdom-focused than system-focused. This is why churches must use integrated ministry platforms to aid their tasks.
In past years, many of us have separated how businesses run from how churches run. The church isn’t about making a profit and getting more revenue, but that doesn’t mean there are a lot of things we can learn about operations, efficiency, and even the techniques of onboarding.
Now that there are actual VR churches in existence – ones with real congregations and even baptisms – it’s clear that we do not have to wait for a world where church can be held in the metaverse any longer. In this article, we’ll explore what is making it easier than ever.
Bible software can be a great resource for Bible study, graduate studies, sermon prep, personal devotions, group reading plans, and the list goes on. But with so many different options on the market, it can be hard to know which one is right for you. The following considerations will help.
Drafting your sermon application could be tedious, especially looking for actionable sections of your passage. With the use of Logos Bible Software, you could have these imperative verbs highlighted automatically, making sermon prep easier.
At the rate of 30% of volunteers quitting to serve each year, the church doesn’t want to give willing community members a reason to join that statistic. Using smart software that allows volunteers to easily and quickly sign up for opportunities helps.
Get featured on the Church Tech Today blog when you answer some industry-specific questions about your workstation, your gear, and your church's livestream details.
Lighting consoles are the stuff of dreams when you’re a church lighting director. For Jeremiah Trombley from San Antonio’s CityChurch, he has found a solution in the Hog4 Lighting Rig.
Tyndale offers several editions of the Filament Bible that pair with Filament, an app filled with study tools, devotionals, videos, and interactive content.
Numbers like that show incredible promise for online ministry potential. At the same time, the implications are huge because it means one thing…
Getting your message heard is a growing challenge
According to Facebook, “On average, there are 1,500 stories that could appear in a person’s News Feed each time they log onto Facebook. For people with lots of friends and Page likes, as many as 15,000 potential stories could appear any time they log on.” statistic from https://www.facebook.com/business/news/Organic-Reach-on-Facebook
Facebook knows users would never sift through that volume of content so they rank posts based on interaction and response levels. The better the interaction the more users see the content in their feed. This results in a user seeing approximately 300 items in their News Feed instead of 1500. statistic from https://www.facebook.com/business/news/Organic-Reach-on-Facebook (include funnel graphic)
The ramifications are, most of your churches posts will only be seen by 3-6% of your followers.
This poses a significant problem when you want to build a thriving community.
While the reach percentage is better than Facebook it still isn’t great. At its heart, Twitter functions best as a real time delivery system. It has been compared to watching ‘live tv,’ versus a DVR. If a person is online at the time you post, the content is seen. Tune out and it’s easy to miss information.
So how do you get your message heard in and stay on budget?
Facebook
The growth of Facebook and changes to their business model means going forward, most churches will need to Pay to Play. While it’s easy to complain and question why a ‘free’ service would make you ‘pay’ the reality is, Facebook is a business. For them to continue to exist they need income. With that income comes research and marketing tools. Those tools are the thing that makes our church outreach more effective than ever before.
There are 2 features to help with this…
Boost Post
Create posts like you normal would and watch the reach (how many people interact with it)
Chose the posts that people interacted with the most and pay to boost them
Target your post to reach your church or community
Costs as little as $1 per day
Increases the likelihood of being seen by your fans and community
Power Editor – Facebook Ad Creation Program
Pick a budget
Per day or per campaign options
Costs as little at $1–5 A Day
More effective reach for $30–40 Per Campaign
Create a delivery schedule
Length of campaign
Days of week for campaign
Time of day for campaign
Create an ad
Text
Image
Link to follow
Send it out
Track the results with Power Editor analytics
There is no other advertising medium that allows you to speak to your specific audience for so little money.
Twitter
Because of the nature of Twitter paying isn’t the only option. You can start by making sure to…
Post multiple times a day to hit the 2-3 post minimum for 30% engagement
Use a scheduling service to free up your time
Hints:
Don’t copy and paste the same tweet (retweets are allowed but duplicate posts aren’t)
Address the same topic in multiple ways and post them throughout the day
Use hashtags for your posts
Interact with other people utilizing your hashtags
Use shortened links to send people to your website
allows you to track which posts worked and which didn’t
Include images to increase engagement
If you come to the conclusion that reaching everyone in your target is the best way to go then check out…
Twitter Ads
Pick a campaign objective
Choose an existing tweet or create a new one
Target your audience
Schedule delivery
Pick a budget
Launch your campaign
Track your results with the ad dashboard
Overall, the cost for connecting with your audience through social is incredibly low.
I encourage you to try a daily budget of $1-5 and see what type of difference it makes.
I’d like to know what kinds of results you have as you dive further into telling your story through social media. Let me know in the comments section below.
Ryan is the founder of RAD Ideas and Graphics.Church. He works with churches and denominations to grow their ministry through graphic design and marketing strategy. Follow Ryan at RAD-Ideas.com.
4 COMMENTS
Great article. Good advice.
One other suggestion I often make to church leaders is to encourage their community to select “Get Notifications” (the option that drops down in the “Liked” tab) so that whenever the church or ministry updates its status they’ll be notified.
Thanks for chiming in, Derek! This is so sneaky of Facebook – you “like” a page but still need to select from the drop down to “get notifications.” Good to point this out. Cheers, Lauren
Eric, you are so correct. Time is definitely our greatest enemy when it comes to social media.
I’m amazed though by the number of people who don’t realize how they can leverage social media as a targeted medium for reaching their community.
I keep seeing churches pour money into direct mail and other costly options that have low return rates and little if any personal connection. An intentional social campaign with relational follow up would be more effective, build greater rapport and communicate a very different sense to the community they are trying to reach.
All the leading voices agree — online church services are not just recording church. So then, what is online church? Here are some of the best principles experts agree on about how to think of online church.
Most of us have visited a new church for the first time. It’s a unique experience and one that many churches struggle to perfect. Thinking through each step that affects a newcomer can be tricky, especially if you have been part of the church for years and know everything there is to know.
Leadership Network is hosting the Metaverse Summit on May 18, 2022. The online event is available with free registration.
According to event organizer, Jeff...
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Great article. Good advice.
One other suggestion I often make to church leaders is to encourage their community to select “Get Notifications” (the option that drops down in the “Liked” tab) so that whenever the church or ministry updates its status they’ll be notified.
Derek
Thanks for chiming in, Derek! This is so sneaky of Facebook – you “like” a page but still need to select from the drop down to “get notifications.” Good to point this out. Cheers, Lauren
The “cost of connecting” is relativity low. It’s the cost (time) of engagement that is where many of us underestimate or fail to consider.
Great stuff, thank you Ryan!
Eric, you are so correct. Time is definitely our greatest enemy when it comes to social media.
I’m amazed though by the number of people who don’t realize how they can leverage social media as a targeted medium for reaching their community.
I keep seeing churches pour money into direct mail and other costly options that have low return rates and little if any personal connection. An intentional social campaign with relational follow up would be more effective, build greater rapport and communicate a very different sense to the community they are trying to reach.