Thu, 30 May 2019
For the last few months, I’ve been experimenting with a new type of social media template for churches. And amazingly, this type of post has quickly become one of the most popular within our social program - and hundreds of churches are seeing great engagement numbers with this kind of post. And so in this video, you’ll learn all about what I like to call the ‘Church Invitation’ template - and I’ll share with you 11 real examples of what it can look like. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/the-church-invitation-social-media-template-11-examples/ What's In This Session? - Social program feedback from real churches prompted the creation of these posts (1:58)
- Three Benefits: Build anticipation for church tomorrow, demonstrate to your congregation that every Sunday is special, fill in a day on your social media calendar (3:00)
- Example #1: Slideshow (4:47)
- Example #2: Jackpot (5:55)
- Example #3: Crossword (Church gathers tomorrow) (7:13)
- Example #4: Countdown (7:20)
- Example #5: Breaking News…Church Is Tomorrow…Can’t Wait To See You (7:46)
- Example #6: Church Is Tomorrow Wheel Of Fortune (8:23)
- Example #7: Saving Your Seat (8:41)
- Example #8: Life Is Better Together - Will We See You At Church Tomorrow? (10:10)
- Example #9: Weekend Checklist (10:59)
- Example #10: Here is the church; here is the steeple; open it up and here are all the people (11:13)
- Example #11: Booking Reminder (13:10)
Future ideas: Focus church invitation; Captcha church invitation (13:55) Show Notes & Resources Mentioned:
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Tue, 28 May 2019
Church stage design can feel intimidating - especially if you’re a smaller church. But here’s the good news: you *can* design a stunning church stage on a budget. And by the end of this video, you’ll know exactly how - and I’ll share with you five churches that are implementing these cost-saving stage designs as inspiring examples. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/simple-cheap-church-stage-design-ideas-real-examples/ What's In This Session? - Stage design is one of the things that churches obsess over that doesn’t move the needle forward (0:28)
- 65 published videos on our YouTube channel - the most popular with a quarter of a million views is called
- ‘3 Small Church Stage Design Ideas’ (1:08)
- STAGE DESIGN FOUNDATION: Lighting (1:45)
- BIG IDEA: 1x2x8 wood boards from Home Depot, painted black and combined with LED tape (2:32)
- Example #1: Worship Leader Hangout (4:46)
- Example #2 - The Well (Geneva, IL) (6:22)
- Example #3 - Palm Valley Church (Mission, TX) (7:12)
- Example #4 - Dunn’s Creek (San Mateo, FL) (9:35)
- Example #5 - Praise Church (Beaumont, TX) (10:47)
- Safety disclaimer: Fire and rigging safety is important, and varies per region ()
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Thu, 23 May 2019
“Is the church’s primary goal to convert people to Christianity?” This is a question I recently asked more than 500 church leaders. And the responses I got? Frankly, they surprised me. And so in this video, we’ll breakdown how churches understand conversion - and why we need to stop caring so much about it. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/why-churches-should-stop-caring-so-much-about-conversions/ What's In This Session? - My Thesis: Too many churches believe that converting people to Christianity is their primary goal - and this belief causes harm (0:32)
- 629 people were asked, “Is the church’s primary goal to convert people to Christianity?” 40% said yes; 60% said no (1:05)
- My IG Demographic: 25-34 age; 70/30 men vs. women (1:43)
- How do you quantify a conversion? 603 responses: 33% sinner’s prayer; 4% church membership; 25% baptism; 38% IDK (3:05)
- Harmful #1: Quantifying a conversion is virtually impossible - if your church’s primary goal is immeasurable, how do you know you’re on the right path? (4:25)
- Harmful #2: Reducing conversion to the sinner’s prayer (for the sake of quantification) turns following Christ into a transaction - not a lifelong pursuit of taking up your cross and following Jesus (4:48)
- Harmful #3: When a church’s primary goal is to persuade people into repeating a salvation script - services become overemphasized and programs are bent towards maximizing salvation scripts (7:41)
- Principle #1: Faith in Christ is a continuum; not an on/off switch - your church’s goal should be moving people along the continuum, closer to Christ (15:06)
- Principle #2: Our mandate is to make disciples; not converts. A convert has a lottery ticket to heaven; a disciple has a cross to die on (16:35)
- Principle #3: You will know people by their fruit (21:36)
- Is this all just semantics? (20:45)
- Holistic method: Church growth calculator (22:01)
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Tue, 21 May 2019
Most churches still use bulletins. But with that being said, when was the last time you examined the true purpose of your church bulletin - and whether or not it was accomplishing its goal? In this video, we’ll lay out a series of principles that we believe a church bulletin should abide by and I'll even give you a free bulletin Photoshop template to help you create your own. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/16645-2/ What's In This Session? - Does your church have a bulletin? 64% of responders said yes; 36% said no (0:31)
- This episode isn’t about eliminating your church’s bulletin (1:04)
- Principle #1: There is value in physical handouts at an in-person experience (1:20)
- Principle #2: Your church’s bulletin should align with your overall communication strategy (2:37)
- Principle #3: The less the content changes - the better (average cost of printing bulletin is $0.25 - a church of 100 people printing weekly bulletins costs more than $100/month) (3:29)
- Our overall communication strategy is The Central Hub - a single destination for every next step (5:10)
- Idea #1: Your bulletin should inspire action, not simply contain information (8:20)
- Idea #2: Your bulletin design should align with your church’s style guide (8:51)
- Idea #3: Your bulletin should be just as useful for new folks as it regular attendees (10:03)
- Idea #4: Your bulletin could be distributed monthly instead of weekly (11:14)
- Idea #5: Your bulletin should point your church to The Central Hub (13:35)
- What to include in your bulletin? Four squares -> Small groups, giving, prayer request, one BIG event (13:39)
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Thu, 16 May 2019
A simple and easy way to get more followers and likes on social media is to run a contest or giveaway. But beware! Because these types of promotions can turn sideways if you don’t follow best practices. So by the end of this video, you’ll know the tools, the strategies, and the frameworks needed to run a successful contest on social media. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/16632-2/ What's In This Session? - The Simple Contest: ex. We’re giving away a $25 gift card to a person that likes us on Facebook (0:51)
- Livestock on IG (1:48)
- The Advanced Contest: Earn more entries by completing more tasks (2:37)
- Advanced contests should have more valuable prizes (2:37)
- Stack the prizes to increase chances of winning (5:47)
- When you should use a contest (7:08)
- The Downsides: Increased quantity hurts overall engagement rate which may impact people reached (9:28)
- Livestock has 0.3% engagement rate on IG (500 likes per post with 200K followers) compared to my 3% engagement rate (500 likes per post with 17K followers) (10:16)
- Tips: make sure to announce and post the winner (13:24)
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Tue, 14 May 2019
Social media is constantly changing and it can sometimes feel like an impossible task trying to keep up. But that’s why this channel exists! And so by the end of this episode, you’ll know all about the big changes coming to Facebook and Instagram right now and what it means for your church online. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/16611-2/ What's In This Session? - Facebook Developers Conference held at the end of April/early May (0:28)
- An experiment was run to Get rid of like counts on Instagram (2:37)
- Instagram announced at its F8 developer conference today that it’ll start testing a new feature later this week that’ll hide users’ public like counts on videos and photos. (2:55)
- Likes are a currency on social; devalue the currency - upend the culture (3:22)
- Problem #1: Do it for the gram - Iceland/Scotland trip research - the performative nature of IG (3:59)
- Problem #2: Like for like (6:48)
- New Facebook app design Is called FB5 - it’s cleaner, faster, and isn’t blue anymore (13:23)
- For the longest time, I’ve said ”The only reason I use Facebook is because of groups” - both as a consumer AND a publisher (14:08)
- Good #1: Less emphasis on news stories generating outrage (16:05)
- Good #2: Focus on communities (16:48)
- Why is this important? Americans are very unhappy "Happiness and life satisfaction among United Stated adolescents which increases between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012" (19:05)
- Correlation does not equal causation (19:25)
- The responsibility falls on the social platforms, the parents/leaders, and the church (22:05)
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Thu, 9 May 2019
Christian churches in North America are facing a crisis. Attendance is down, giving is down, young people are leaving churches at alarming rates - but that’s not the worse part. The worse part is that our Christian churches are exacerbating this crisis thanks to a handful of shoddy beliefs. And by the end of this video, you’ll know what those beliefs are - and how to resist the pull of them. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/16590-2/ What's In This Session? - Branding is what others think about you - before our churches can truly reach our city and/or community - we need to understand how we are perceived (2:22)
- #1. Persecution Complex (2:55)
- More than 245 million Christians in the world are highly persecuted for their Christian faith. 1 in 9 Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution (2:59)
- White evangelicals think they’re super persecuted (4:23)
- God’s Not Dead feeds the narrative (4:43)
- Don’t belittle the real persecution of others by manufacturing fake persecution for yourself (5:10)
- James Harden comparison (8:48)
- #2. Theological Certainty (11:14)
- Hundreds of denominations and translations and you’re certain yours is the absolute correct one (11:18)
- Theological certainty is a symptom of trusting beliefs more than God (12:47)
- Surrendering the need to be right, and our pride opens the door for empathy and compassion (15:47)
- Judge them by their fruits? The Protestant quest for theological certainty has led to a staggering number of different denominations and sub-denominations that disagree sharply about how significant portions of the Bible should be understood (19:35)
- Things that matter: incarnational living, selflessness, laying down one’s own life for others, generosity, bringing life to death, bringing heaven to Earth, redemption, reconciliation, love being the uniting/redeeming/ultimate force in the world to do good (20:06)
- #3. Celebrity Worship (22:25)
- Canadian commercials versus American commercials (22:49)
- The face of American Christianity is Donald Trump, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Bill Hybels, Pete Wilson etc. (23:46)
- The true danger of each of these beliefs is that they are ancient sins masquerading as Christian virtues (31:29)
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Tue, 7 May 2019
Today, I want to share with you my step-by-step system for creating gripping church testimony videos. This is the type of video that shares the real story of someone in your church - their story of life change in Christ. So follow along, and by the end of this video, you’ll know what questions to ask during your interviews, the best way to light your setup, and I’ll share with you a pair of real examples I’ve produced as well. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-church-testimony-video/ What's In This Session? - Core Value #1: Show don’t tell (1:07)
- Core Value #2: Don’t force resolution (2:41)
- Core Value #3: No story is too small (4:03)
- Core Value #4: The responsibility falls on the storyteller (4:54)
- Stage #1 - The Interview (5:33)
- Finding interview candidates (5:40)
- Interview prep (6:45)
- Film location - interviewee’s home (8:58)
- Record for about an hour of talking (12:07)
- Keep the questions open-ended - ex. Tell me about a time when, or tell me the story of (12:43)
- Shift from story questions to introspective - ex. How have you changed in the last 5 years (14:35)
- Find the bruise: Identify the meaningful moment and dig deep (16:15)
- Stage #2 - The Story (19:45)
- Your main job here is to cut upwards of 90% of the footage you captured in the previous step (19:50)
- You don’t need your story to follow the same linear path of your interview (20:20)
- Once you’ve completed the first edit of your story elicit feedback by asking two questions #1: When are you confused? #2: When are you bored? (20:38)
- Stage #3 - The B-Roll (21:47)
- Plan to capture as much b-roll as to cover every second on your video (22:22)
- Edit your story with 80% b-roll and 20% interview (22:33)
- Visual Element #1: Location (23:40)
- Visual Element #2: Stabilization (24:08)
- Visual Element #3: Framing (24:44)
- Tip #1: Hold each shot for at least 10 seconds (24:50)
- Tip #2: The 3:1 Rule (25:22)
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Thu, 2 May 2019
Your church’s logo is the foundation of your visual identity. And with the prominence of digital platforms, your church logo is now more visible than ever before. So to get you inspired, I want to share with you eleven of my favorite church logos - along with seven rules for logo design to help put you on the right path toward better church branding. ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/?p=16552&preview=true What's In This Session? - #1: Rileyville Baptist Church--Design by Ariel Rudolph Harwich (4:30)
- Rule #1: Meaningful (4:40)
- #2: Risen Church--Design by Michael Sevilla (6:30)
- Rule #2: Scaleable (7:28)
- #3: Trinity Presbyterian Church--Design by Peter Voth (9:15)
- Rule #3: Work well in monochrome (9:30)
- #4: Lakeside Church--Design by Even place (10:24)
- Rule #4: Simple (10:30)
- #5: Limitless Church--Design by Bruno Nascimento (11:32)
- Rule #5: Unique (12:29)
- #6: Harvest Church--Design by Benjamin Oberemok (13:22)
- Rule #6: Memorable (13:50)
- #7: 20 MIle Church--Design by Joel Davis (14:20)
- Rule #7: Timeless (14:25)
- #8: Grace Generation--Design by Stephen Costello (15:35)
- #9: City Hope Church--Design by Ben Stafford (15:43)
- #10: NewSpring Church--Design by Dave Keller (16:10)
- #11: Rush Creek Church--Design by Allan Peters (17:50)
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