The Four Qualities of an Effective Hybrid Church
This article was published by The Christian Citizen on July 26, 2022. Over the last two and a half years, we learned we can do a whole lot more online than we realized. We can worship, learn, pray, even gather. We learned how to stream, Zoom, edit, publish, post; and the learning curve was steep […]
Will you break my heart?
There’s a lot I could tell you about church websites. I could tell you that your website should resource its visitors instead of informing them. When it comes to the information though, I could also tell you that those who use your website will expect to find certain things in certain places. I could tell […]
Social Media as Ministry, Not Marketing: Top Three Tips
A few days ago, I sent an email to my subscribers encouraging them to view their social media content not as a communication tool for their ministry, but as ministry itself. In essence, I asked them to stop using social media exclusively for marketing purposes, to stop only ever publishing bulletin board-like posts. If you’re […]
It’s not as scary as it seems!
Over the past few years I have noticed a new emphasis in church life on AV and digital media ministries. We all know why, so rather than talking about that unpleasant elephant in the room, I would rather talk about one aspect of a good AV ministry: presentation software. There are many different options for […]
the dos and don’ts of email communication
Today, there are 4 billion daily email users and that number is expected to jump to 4.6 billion by 2025. Furthermore, email remains the most effective digital communication tool we have at our disposal. In fact, 4 out of 5 marketers said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing. 74% of Baby Boomers […]
Some Thoughts on Hybrid Children’s Ministry
When I initially developed the curriculum for my “How to Be a Hybrid Church” course, I did not include anything specific to children’s ministry. Along the way, however, participants raised questions about it and requested its addition. I decided to do some digging and adapt the lesson. As I researched and assessed the landscape of […]
The Minutiae of Mevo
Last week during my “How to Be a Hybrid Church” class, a participant shared that his church had had great success livestreaming its worship service with a Mevo camera. Someone representing another church, however, let us know in the chat that the Mevo hadn’t worked for them. Fast-forward just a few days and I found […]
How to know when your church needs a new website
I am currently working on a number of church website projects. For each of them, I am taking a different approach. Some are in need of a quick facelift while others need a total do-over. What a church requests of me, however, is not always what I recommend. Occasionally, a church will ask for a […]
A Passion for the Smaller-Membership Church
I am the Minister of (Old) Rehoboth Presbyterian Church. Rehoboth takes its name from the location of a well dug by Isaac in Genesis 26:20. It means, “There is room”. In 1666 the plantation bearing that name was constructed here and, when it was up and running, hundreds and hundreds of people lived and worked […]
Does your church need digital ambassadors?
My classes are back in full swing. I taught five last week and will teach six this coming week. I’m regularly interacting with anywhere between 120 and 150 churches in an online class setting and during office hours. This interaction gives me an opportunity, yes, to teach but more importantly to better understand the challenges […]