New Lifetogether Publishing Partnerships

by Brett Eastman | Apr 25, 2017 | Programs

At Lifetogether, we are always exploring new ways to partner with local churches to help them leverage the power of community to reach their community for Christ. Over the years, we have produced professionally published video curriculum for hundreds of the largest and the fastest growing churches in America. In many of those cases, these churches may already have extensive production and creative services at their disposal. Understandably, many of our partnering churches have a deep desire to connect their interior congregation by producing professional video-based curriculum and churchwide alignment campaigns, but sometimes budget or staffing interfere with making this vision happen.

As a result, we are introducing TWO new publishing partnerships that share the cost for both staffing and securing necessary equipment for such a production, without losing any quality and expertise. Essentially, we are seeking to scale both the equipment and the team necessary to produce a series for more moderate size churches that have limited budget and resources. We will work with you and your team to help produce a project, with our expert direction and proven strategies, to develop far-reaching and community-oriented curriculum just for your congregation.

An additional bonus feature to these programs is that they can serve as the perfect first step, or even next step, in developing more and better curriculum in your church. They’re designed in a train-the-trainer format, which makes for a more sustainable and discipleship-centric timeline.

LIFETOGETHER PUBLISHING PROGRAM

Here’s Brett introducing the new Lifetogether Publishing Program!

We are partnering with a handful of local churches this next season, offering a special price and package for churches to produce, for the first time or for the next time, their own curriculum production. This will be done as an in-house, forty day-like curriculum that is based off of your Senior pastor’s existing teaching ministry. These curriculum are proven to be and bring the “Wow factor” to any congregation. Our past partnerships with some of the largest and fastest growing churches in the country have shown exponential results, getting north of 75% of a congregation connected through these campaigns. We understand that the cost and resources required can be exorbitant at times, and not every church feels that they are at the right stage to pursue this type of production and curriculum.

This is why we are introducing the Lifetogether Publishing Program, where we bring in our Lifetogether team of experts writers, producers, designers, etc to partner with your team in producing your own curriculum. By utilizing our equipment and staffing, the burden of cost and resources does not fall entirely on your ministry. Other great features of this program is that we would help you develop a full color curriculum study guide, promotional clips for the weekend service, strategies on effective staffing models, and coaching on how to produce video curriculum on a weekly basis. Spots are limited as we launch this next phase of the new publishing model, so be sure to contact us today to learn more on how your church can get involved.

SMALL GROUP PUBLISHING OFFER

Here’s Brett introducing the new Small Group Publishing Offer!

Who doesn’t love going 50/50? Whether the occasion is sharing food, sharing ideas, or sharing places, we always enjoy partnering with others in some way or another.

That’s why, for a limited time, we are rolling out a Small Group Publishing Offer for churches and ministries. This offer is another great, affordable way in which we would partner together, 50/50, to share the cost of producing, publishing, and distributing your curriculum. Instead of having to go to a third-party publisher or purchasing curriculum directly from them, you can have your own!

As you well know, Lifetogether Ministries has partnered with many of the largest and fastest growing churches across the nation. Our team of experts has worked together with diverse ministries in leveraging the life and leadership of a church’s Senior pastor, in order to reach the local community for Christ.

Our team will come alongside churches of any stage or size to produce your first video curriculum at a significantly less cost or even no cost. After production, your congregation can purchase the published materials from us and even make it available to other churches in your network on our platform. We’ll produce them in both physical and online formats for you as well.

There is no time like the present to produce your own in-house video curriculum series, instead of purchasing curriculum from other publishers and authors. Your congregation wants to hear your pastor, over any other pastor, and will respond to your church’s calls to both lead, serve and participate in your custom in-house campaign. Again, spots are limited for when we launch this offer, so contact us below today!

Here are a few samples of how we’ve helped to expand ministries using these publishing models!

WORSHIP SERIES

DISOBEDIENT GOD

PROPEL WOMEN

These new programs are great for churches looking to jumpstart campaigns this Fall, but also would like to explore new ways to navigate and manage their limited resources. We do have a limited number of openings, so contact us today if you are interested!

Discover our NEW Coaching Programs!

For those of you who learn best in community and have a limited budget, this program is more affordable than our consulting partnerships.

See Coaching Programs

How to Produce Fully Published Video Curriculum 52 Weeks a Year

by Brett Eastman | Apr 19, 2017 | Main Blog

Finally, a turn-key strategy to produce professionally published video curriculum based off the weekend sermon series that launches groups 52 weeks a year!

For the last two decades, we have published over 500 professionally published video-curriculum series for every major Christian publisher, para-church ministry and hundreds of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. We have learned the science and art of writing award-winning curriculum series with fully integrated color and high quality video production. We’ve produced curriculum in over a dozen unique formats in some of the most creative settings, and have designed for almost every type of Bible study or weekend service campaign. The beauty of this model is that over the course of a single year, you could publish up to five different video curriculum productions based off of any small group curriculum or sermon series, that could even be sold even beyond your partnership with Lifetogether.

Here’s a brief, four-step process that we have developed that will help you produce curriculum on your own or at least take your first steps in producing video curriculum.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

The first strategy is conversation starters. Our recommendation is that your pastor produces a single, video segment that is between 7 and 12 minutes long, serving as a great small group addition of their weekend sermon. Simply, write your weekend discussion questions based on this content and create a simple design template. You could shoot this in the back of the room with the worship center stage behind him, you could have him sit on a barstool on the stage, or shoot it outside near a grassy area in an outdoor setting.

CONVERSATION INTERVIEWS

The second is conversation interviews. Have your pastor sit down for a short interview with a senior staff member using a simple one or two camera production. They’ll simply reflect on some of the big ideas and critical application points, based off a past or future sermon. Again, any edited version of this interview can be used to catalyze small groups and create a small group discussion. The short video clip can be a backbone to a simple weekly small group study guide, developed as a companion to the video interview. This will only take a Senior Pastor a total of 15 to 20 minutes, done anytime on the weekend or in the week.

CONVERSATION GROUP

The third is conversation group. If your pastor is willing to join you in a small group of people on a Thursday or Friday preceding the weekend service, you could create a “model” or “small group experience” hosted by none other than your senior pastor. This can be produced using Facebook Live, where people could watch it anytime and anywhere, and subsequently launch groups after the Sr. Pastor preaches the weekend service. This format is what we call the “Town Hall” and can be shot with any type of camera, GoPro, etc. or could be something far more professionally published.

CONVERSATION SERVICE

The fourth is a conversation service. This is an emerging, breakthrough idea that is not only launching groups 52 weeks a year, but will quickly become the next generation of weekend services. Moving from a traditional service to a contemporary service, now it’s time to have a conversation service.

This format is a little more complex in its production, but can be one of most powerful new ways to reach younger people and engage with people who are not as interested in the current form of weekend services. It is designed to be a more engaging, interactive church service, that launches groups not just locally, but regionally nationally, and globally. Contact us for more details about how to launch your very first conversation service!

For a brief description about the conversation service, watch the video below:

Hopefully this gives you some clean takeaways on how you can begin the process of producing your own in-house video curriculum and even church-wide campaigns.

No longer do you need to wait for an upcoming fall campaign, Fall or New Year campaign, or even the launch of a new semester. You can now produce video curriculum on a weekly basis and catalyze groups 52 weeks a year. This is a breakthrough, and for some of you this could be your first step, but for others, you may be interested in one of the Five Unique Offerings from Lifetogether:

Fall Curriculum & Campaign Package, The Lifetogether Publishing Partnership, Curriculum Subscription Program, Small Group Publishing Program, & The Lifetogether Curriculum and Production Coaching Program.

Descriptions of each are available in our previous blog post, so check it out!

https://lifetogether.com/1404-2/

Hopefully this gives you a little taste of some of the insights and offerings that Lifetogether is delivering to churches, seeking to not only connect their congregation into community but reach their community through community. For churches that are wanting to disciple and reach the people who are no longer attending weekend services, this allows us to be able to move & bring church to where the people are, as well as use the weekend services as a catalyst not a container for next step spiritual growth.

We’d love to talk with you about producing a fully published video curriculum, so contact us today!

Introducing the Next Innovation in Multisite Ministry–MICROSITES

by Brett Eastman | Apr 3, 2017 | Programs

The greatest breakthrough in church planting has come with the decentralization of not only the weekend teaching in a small venue like a home, club house, or conference room, but the introduction of a video-driven worship experience that is actually working. This is produced in a small venue setting for a more engaging and intimate church community experience. Here at Lifetogether, we’ve been at the forefront of microsite strategy and development. Take a look here at how we’ve taken church to the community in the past:

This model of utilizing small venue campuses is clearly the wave of the future – smaller than a multisite yet larger than a small group. Here at Lifetogether, we understand that church planting is church planting, but there have been some new innovations that are helping to launch an exponential number of new churches like never before. Microsites are a great addition based off of your weekend service and conversation production.

Our new microsite coaching program is designed for churches who are looking for the next revolution in taking the church to the community: Microsites. Discover how to launch and lead a wave of microsite campuses regionally, nationally, and globally. We’ve included a short trailer for you down below, in which our team of experts answer all of your questions about our new groundbreaking program.

THE WHO

Designed for multisite campus directors, senior pastors, campus pastors, executive pastors, and church leaders tasked with launching multisites.

THE HOW

Discover the potential and pathway to starting a small venue microsite campus based off your weekend service and conversation production
Produce weekly small group curriculum based on the Microsite Conversation Service production
Evaluate the purpose and strategy for producing a conversation service that delivers the content for a microsite campus
Evaluate the numerous options available to produce creative mirosite service worship (live, pre-recorded, combination…)
Learn how to brand, market, and promote your new “church in the round” experience
Learn how to recruit, train, and develop microsite campus leaders
Explore business models that can self-fund a microsite campus strategy in your church

and MANY MORE proven and unique features, so flip through our digital catalog below!

Let’s partner together to help your church launch and lead the next wave of microsites regionally, nationally, and even globally. Contact us today!

Breakthroughs in some of the largest independent Christian churches

by Brett Eastman | Apr 3, 2017 | NACC, Partnerships

We have been so blessed by the ministry of so many leaders in the Independent Christian churches network and are so grateful for the partnerships we’ve developed over the years. Recently it seems like God is up to something big, opening even more doors for Lifetogether to work with some of these churches.

The video below shares some details about some of these breakthrough projects and the strategies we’re using with them.

Heartland Community Church – Josh Peigh

In this video, you’ll see footage from three different productions we hosted for Josh and the team at Heartland. In the first series, called “Why Am I Here?”, we produced one of the most creative productions and our beautiful full-color print curriculum connected 75% of their adults into small groups.

We also produced their worship team in what has been an extremely significant new initiative for us. By capturing their worship experience we are able to decentralize worship to the small group as well as create new ways to do midweek services, individual worship experiences, or a small venue multisite campus we like to call “microsites” which can launch three miles, three states, or three continents away from the home campus.

We also tried something new with Gene Appel and Mike Breaux doing a short teaching segment from a studio in California, with Josh providing additional teaching and facilitating our popular “town hall” video shoot, which engages with a live audience.

In addition to starter campaigns we like to do a sustaining series that helps to assimilate new groups. For our second series with Heartland our team interviewed three dozen people and produced those as testimonies that preceded Josh’s teaching.

We then follow the sustaining series with a strengthening series which takes them deeper. In our one-year partnership, Heartland was able to start 300 new groups, connecting over 3000 into community. As one of the first multi-site churches in the country, Heartland is also on the cutting-edge of starting “small venue campuses” around the world. This kind of video-driven, volunteer-led experience is changing the way churches of all sizes are thinking about reaching not only their current members but those outside of their church walls.

Grace Place – Clay Peck

At Grace Place in Colorado, senior pastor Clay Peck and his team shot a town hall project based on a series called “Doing Life Together” which helped to launch much of their congregation into groups in addition to serving as a timeless major church-wide alignment that can be used to launch groups 52 weeks of the year!

This series also had a companion worship piece, and it was a blast seeing their worship team come together to produce something that is really helping to transform their congregation and their community.

River Hills Christian Church – Jeff Metzger

We also loved our projects with River Hills Christian Church in Loveland, OH, where Jeff Metzger and his staff put together a town hall production in the beautiful atrium of their church. Jeff’s son Josh produced a companion worship series and the integration of the two things took them beyond any small group initiative they’d tried before and connected north of 75% of their adults.

Christ’s Church – Jason Cullum

We’ve wanted to work with Jason Cullum and his team at Christ’s Church for years. They are a multisite church looking to connect the rest of their congregation and are doing some of the most progressive stuff with their worship services.

We are excited to help coach their team on producing video-based curriculum that aligns with the weekend and connects their congregation in the community and exploring our microsite strategy. In addition, we will be producing several sermon alignment campaigns, a spiritual growth series, and next step programs.

Real Life Church – Rusty George

Several years back, we helped produce a video series in a home setting like we did with Steve Poe at Northview Church (check out the trailer and full-color curriculum). We worked with Rusty and Mike Breaux to launch a major campaign, and, as with most churches we work with, they were able to connect north of 75% of their adults in the first effort and align the focus with weekend worship.

But what was unique was that they produced a Christmas series for their people to use on the holiday, because that year – like this year – Christmas landed very close to the weekend. Their people responded incredibly positively.

We would love to talk with you more about what we’re doing with town hall series, microsite initiatives, decentralizing worship, connecting your entire congregation, and more. We’re also introducing some new coaching programs, both group and individual options, and we are working with churches to help them develop and train teams to create their own church-wide campaigns.

Whether you are just starting to explore small groups or you already have a program up and running, we’d love to have the conversation about how we could come alongside you and make your ministry more successful. Contact us today!

A Fall Campaign Idea Guaranteed To Transform Your Church

by Brett Eastman | Apr 1, 2017 | Main Blog, Programs

Spring, Summer, Fall…is right around the corner!

I realize it’s almost insensitive to bring up the topic of the Fall, especially when Easter is right in front of us, but this idea needs to be shared now in order to prepare for the upcoming season!

What we know at this stage in the game is that most pastors have either a napkin filled with notes about their plans, or in some cases, it’s a part of a three-year master plan that they have already outlined last year.

No matter what side of the scale you are on, this simple idea has the opportunity and upside of transforming, not only your Fall season, but how you will do church in the future. I can guarantee you this, especially after doing this strategy over and over again in some of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. Now, we are rolling this campaign out for churches of all stages and sizes, no matter what your theological persuasion, denominational affiliation, geographic region or ethnic tradition.

The “Pastor Factor”

After producing the “Purpose Driven Life” video series for Rick Warren, we discovered that aligning with his weekend teaching series was a really big idea. As a result, over 30,000 churches have posted a 40-day campaign in their church of one kind or another. The results from these campaigns were exponential and helped to launch a whole new way of doing church.

In the excitement of of this season, we thought that the results were because of the “Rick factor”. However, over the years we have discovered that the greater principle is more the “Pastor Factor” – every congregation would rather hear from their senior pastor than any other best-selling author, third-party publisher, etc.

The Big Idea

That said, we are recommending that you consider producing a church-wide alignment campaign with a video teaching series, coupled with a full-color companion study guide featuring your senior pastor. This type of campaign is sure to connect your entire congregation this Fall.

Best of all, our expertise allows us to work with whatever sermon series that you want to produce. We can help you develop the scripts and the strategies that will turn your visions into a reality.

Not only is this a great potential first step for those churches that have never considered hosting their own campaign, but it’s also a great strategy to take the quality of your existing campaigns to the next level. It’s no surprise that congregations want more video production and professional quality print curriculum that showcase better design, photography, and quality of writing. With our coaching, you’ll be able to reach your congregation and community farther and further than ever before, guaranteed.

We will utilize all the latest and greatest strategies that we are using to connect more of your congregation, mobilize more leaders, multiply disciples who in turn make disciples, and model for you how to produce your own in-house video curriculum and church-wide campaigns for years to come.

There are a lot more nuts and bolts on how this happens between our ministry and yours, but here are a few features to keep in mind. We will partner with your team to either coach or do full-service production for a video curriculum series, including on-location visits, integration of numerous new formats, and new video features and technology, to produce your state of the art series. Our town hall style production, that has become a primary format for churches around the country, is a great example.

Here’s a link to our YouTube page that has a number of samples of some of our recent trailers and projects.

Production Samples

In addition, we recommend producing a full color, professionally published print curriculum that becomes a signature project for your congregation. Everyone will want to participate, simply because it’s something they have never seen before along with being something that they can keep and reference for years to come.

Next Steps

As you could imagine, the cost can range from one extreme to the other, based on the size, scope and nature of the project. That’s why, we have developed a series of packages and programs that will suit whatever size budget and timeline you may be considering.

The first step is to contact our Lifetogether team to set up a FREE consultation where we can better assess your needs and make a more unique, customized recommendation on your next steps. We recommend you join the conversation, and we can share more on our proven processes to not only produce a Fall campaign that aligns with your sermon series, but will also help you plan, produce and promote the entire series that will ensure 100% participation of your average adult attendance.

In addition, we can send you a care package, including full-color catalog, of our best examples from when we’ve worked with churches and organizations all across the country. These packages include a few sample series, such as books and DVD’s, to give you a better idea of the how and the what behind Lifetogether consulting and productions. Follow this link to check it out!

Lifetogether Catalog

Second, we are including new group coaching programs to our coaching package, where if the production route isn’t financially suitable, then we will partner with you and your team to provide coaching strategies and consulting about production and ministry development instead. Follow the link below to see our new and exciting coaching package, including microsite and conversation service development.

Coaching Package

Finally, we are offering the new Fall campaign, curriculum and consulting package, a special offer for a limited time. This is all-in-one, plug-and-play, package will help you be ready, in only six months, to launch your desired campaign! It is one of the most complete and effective programs we’ve ever introduced to churches across the country.

Happy Easter!

We hope this simulates your thinking, even for a moment, before the Easter crunch happens! As we mentioned above schedule an appointment or contact us using the button below for these limited fall campaign openings!