17 Proven Connection Strategies for your Post-Easter Season

17 Proven Connection Strategies for your Post-Easter Season

It’s been a week since Easter Sunday, can you believe it?  We know that the last several months have been hectic (to say the least), you have endured some sleepless nights (no doubt), and poured your heart and soul out service after service, all in preparation for the most important day of your year. It’s hard to believe that Easter has yet again come and gone by so fast.

At Lifetogether we know our hundreds of church partners & pastors just like yourself, are now left with two big questions: “How should I follow up?” and of course, “What’s next?”

For over 25 years, Lifetogether has successfully partnered with churches and pastors to connect north of 100% of their entire congregation into groups & have produced over 500 award winning video curriculum and church wide campaigns. We undoubtedly have the proven solutions and strategies you need to answer these along with any of your Post-Easter questions!

So as we come out of one season and head into another, we recognize that we are now in the perfect season to help you plan, prepare, & produce enough material that will sustain your church for the next year. Even better, we can do it all in one day’s time.

As we are continuing to connect congregations in some of these most exponential ways, here is a rapid-fire overview of our top proven strategies you should consider for your post Easter follow up & next steps.

Discover more in this video of Brett breaking down the top 17 proven strategies for connecting and engaging your congregation post-Easter.

NEXT STEP SERIES

This series is designed for new believers, what we like to call a fresh start or starting point, that is a next step off a weekend service, especially off the momentum of your Easter service. It would be a 4-part video series with the Senior pastor teaching in a direct-to-camera style amidst a small group of people as the audience.

SMALL GROUP STARTER SERIES

Most churches will wait for the next semester or other seasons in order to start a fresh campaign, but the small group starter curriculum series would allow your ministry to catalyze groups amidst any season or timing. It would be a video-driven, walking through and casting vision for your small groups in a plug and play format. Your existing small groups simply play the video and invite friends out, catalyzing the next round of groups.

MEMBERSHIP IN A BOX

We would partner with your ministry in the membership process in creating a four week set, producing video series for classes, discipleship, and more. This is great for larger churches where the pastor can’t attend every single membership class, and especially for multisites where it can be a volume series that is print-based but also contains companion video curriculum.

SUMMERTIME DINNER PARTY

Yes, we said party! This generation of church loves connecting with one another. The Summer dinner parties would be geographically catalyzed, with the flexibility of hosts mixing and matching based on their schedules without having to put on a more costly and scheduled church event. This application is timeless, proven, and very effective, particularly among millennials, that creates relational momentum inspired from Easter. 

JULY 4TH BBQ

Everyone loves a good barbecue! This is a great way to challenge your congregation to host a neighborhood BBQ or potluck, that can be extended even for Labor Day as well. People could pair up to partner in hosting or you could cast vision to have your small groups launch it. You could even create a simple and short video that introduces your church and allows for greater outreach potential in gathering people into community.

SUMMERTIME CURRICULUM LIBRARY

This remedies the struggle of communicating with a third party publisher, especially since your congregation would rather hear relational messages from the Senior Pastor and church staff themselves. You would use the weekend service as a catalyst, and in one day (yes only one day!) produce 3 different video curriculum. The library would include transcriptions, small group editions and curriculum, full color study guides, DVD packages, and so much more. The content could transform and build into a teaching team, mission-vision-values series, fall campaign preparation, life message, testimonies, and the list goes on and on. This is another great application that can be done in a short amount of time and that can be used repeatedly for years to come.

WEEKLY CURRICULUM PRODUCTION

Learn to write and produce curriculum on a weekly basis, building up content 52 weeks a year. The content would be based off of the core ideas of an existing weekend message. You could use GoPros, digital cameras, even an iPhone, plus a simple audio mic, and just have an interactive conversation on the big idea for about 10 minutes. Then, make a complementing video to give to existing groups that would propel a greater application from the inspiration of a weekend service. Essentially, you can produce this off the weekend service and even for the weekend service, utilizing existing worship stage lighting or sets in the background. Learning to consistently write and produce curriculum on a weekly basis is a great application and asset that will catalyze groups and make disciples in your ministry.

FACEBOOK LIVE

We understand the desire to keep the conversation going even after the weekend service or small group time. By leveraging Facebook Live and social media outlets, your ministry can simply re-purpose the footage that is already saved on the platform. This footage can then be used to further catalyze groups off of the Facebook Live content.

MOTHER’S DAY AND FATHER’S DAY SERIES

These family holidays are perfect opportunities to catalyze small groups, such as individual women’s and men’s small groups, that would be welcoming to all stages of life. This would be a four week series taught by key ministry leaders that focus on not just bringing, but going.

VIDEO DEVOTIONALS

Video devotions are another fantastic method of taking advantage of social media and taking church to your community. You simply take the top influencers or key leaders in your church, i.e. youth leaders, women’s ministry leaders, etc., and record a short 60 to 90 second video. These clips could be sent out Monday to Friday or Monday to Sunday across various social media platforms. The content would include an greeting the viewers, then introducing the passage, and lastly painting a picture of an application. We like to call this format the “passage-principle picture” or “scripture-story-step” method. The goal is to encourage viewers to share this as well on their own social media networks. Lifetogether can even partner with you in taking these short clips, editing them and send them back.

SUMMERTIME BOOK SERIES

Whether you’ve already written a book or have ideas in the works, a Summer book series is a great catalyst for launching groups. Lifetogether would partner with you in even producing a companion video curriculum for your Spring and Summer seasons.

We invite you out to the Lifetogether office in California to produce your very first video curriculum. The curriculum would be based off a weekend alignment series or maybe a past or future sermon series that you felt would be most influential. A featured benefit is that you wouldn’t have to bring out any equipment and we would use our own to shoot your production on the beach, in our studio, the mountains, and so many other great locations.

NEW VIDEO CURRICULUM COACHING PROGRAM

Lifetogether would provide training on how to produce weekly video curriculum in our new coaching programs, where we come out and coach your team on your first production, i.e. recruiting and discipleship making, select series campaigns, choosing equipment, and so much more.

SUMMER CONVERSATION SERVICE PILOT

The Summer is a great time to do a conversation service pilot. This is in an interview format or smaller group, or even could be a panel or large group, filmed in different environments such as a home or local setting. In addition, Lifetogether could help coach and do even a one day training. The conversation service is essentially a service in-the-round, complete with teaching and dialogue rather than a monologue, that would be an effective addition to the weekend service model. This type of service is proven to be more engaging and interactive in catalyzing spiritual conversations with your Senior pastor and church staff.

SUMMER LEADERSHIP TRAINING SERIES

Live training orientations don’t allow for a substantial amount of time to do true and thorough training. Thus, we’ve put together a leadership training series that sets up a one-a-week video training session. First, you would shoot training segments featuring existing key opinion leaders. Second, you would film your Senior pastor and core staff in a training in-the-round format, i.e tell stories, provide inspiration, offer strategies, and more. The training could be further broken down into tiers of beginning, intermediate, or advanced sessions that would be used for years to come.

DOING LIFE TOGETHER SERIES

This is a small group training that details how to be a healthy small group, how to train a healthy leader or leaders, and how to train a healthy coach or supervisor group. Similar to the leadership training series above, the “Doing Life Together” series could further be categorized into tiers such as basic, intermediate, and advanced group training sessions. This series is another great example of an application that is quick and easy to prepare and film for future use.

FALL CAMPAIGN SERIES

As you well know, Fall is right around the corner. Lifetogether would love to partner with you in preparing a Fall campaign series. Whether it’s coming out to do a personal assessment, coaching for a Fall major campaign, or producing video curriculum that with the weekend service, we will partner with you every step of the way in getting your community connected. We also offer free consultations, so feel free to contact us below.

For more resources, reach out to us today using the Contact button below!

Getting Ready for Your Fall Campaigns

Getting Ready for Your Fall Campaigns

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. There is a powerful impact in aligning and developing curriculum in order to catalyze your community into reaching the community for Christ. 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.

After all, these strategies are not solely connection strategies, but additionally are strategies to be able to reach community and to make disciples in the process. We’ve been blessed to consult and produce for churches their first curriculum series that have consistently launched groups for their ministries up to 52 weeks a year.

Watch this short video of Brett introducing the

Fall Campaign Curriculum and Consulting Package

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 implementing this strategy multiple times in some of the largest and fastest growing churches in America and witnessing exponential results of Kingdom work in various ministries. Now, we are rolling this Fall Campaign Curriculum and Consulting Package out for churches of all stages and sizes for a limited time, so be sure to contact us today to get started!

Continue reading to explore the details of this exciting new seasonal offer.

How We Do

Curriculum

As we mentioned above, alignment campaigns, such as the 40-Day series, are extremely popular and effective among congregations. This is why right now is the perfect time for you to evaluate what you’re going to do in the Fall.

Lifetogether is excited to come alongside your ministry to partner with wherever you’re going this Fall. We’ll produce video curriculum PLUS a full-color print curriculum companion guide. Our team of experts will also create a consulting packet, so that your leaders have resources to reach your community for Christ. We’ll develop promotional materials, such as video weekend previews, branding, and more assets for you to be ready to produce your very first, or next, Fall video series.

We offer a variety of classic or unique formats for your video curriculum production. One option is our primary format, the classic “talking head,” with companion print. We’ve produced a range of topics as well, from testimonies, leadership training, worship or daily video devotions. We also offer our Town Hall format, one of our most popular features that is the next generation of church video production, with settings ranging from a simple cafe edition or even a full stage “in the round” production. Again, we’ll produce a full-color, companion study guide publication, featuring over 200 photos in a magazine style but with yearbook-like value, that we guarantee will create congregational buzz and can be made available as resources for your small groups.

How We Do

Consulting

We’ve consulted some of the largest and fastest growing churches across the country. From our partnerships, we’ve developed the 5 major features of consulting, that we will incorporate and offer in our Fall Package.

We’ll consult your church in…

1. Ministering to the needs of your congregation by connecting up to of 75% and more of your entire congregation into community

2. Motivating your congregation to gather groups of friends and functionally start small groups up to 52 weeks a year.

3. Motivating disciples who make disciples.

4. Modeling and training your team on how to produce video curriculum video up to 52 weeks a year for any type of series

5. Multiplying the evangelistic impact of your church community

We offer both 6 and 12-month packages, and are extending a discount to a handful of churches who are willing and able to secure a partnership over the next 30 to 60 days. If you’re interested, this is an excellent offering for those churches who know they’re going to produce a Fall campaign, but would like to explore a more cost effective approach and to do more planning as this season approaches.

Check out our other programs as well to decide the perfect next step for your ministry!

Turn your Mission, Vision & Values series into church-wide alignment campaign or starting point for small groups

What’s the next generation of a weekend service?

Check out our Conversation Service Coaching Program!

NEXT STEPS

Whether it’s coming out to do a personal assessment, coaching for a Fall major campaign, or starting your first video curriculum production, contact us today for a free consultation!

Conversation Strategy

Conversation Strategy

Lifetogether has partnered with over 500 of the largest and fastest growing churches across the nation. Emerging from our partnerships, we are launching a brand new model of curriculum and strategies for video-driven experiences in small groups. We’ve learned the irreplaceable value of community leveraging print and video curriculum in reaching people for Christ.

Thus, we are excited to introduce the Conversation Strategy, which catalyzes personal transformation and evangelism, all while incorporating the life, leadership and legacy of your church’s ministry and Senior pastor. This is guaranteed to transform how church is done in the future and to exponentially connect your small groups. Here, we outline the 10 features of the innovative Conversation Strategy. 

Here’s Brett detailing the Conversation Strategy process!

1.  CONVERSATION STARTER

Our recommendation is that your pastor produces single, video clips that are 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. Your Senior pastor can simply sit center stage and interact over the weekend message. Even more so, our vision is to create video content that could be used in a secondary format, such as able to send out via social media or downloadable on your website.

2.  CONVERSATION CURRICULUM

This is an asset to not just to continue the weekend service conversation, but to launch small groups for your community. Essentially, you want to produce a library of curriculum, or the video “training wheels”, to provide the platform for your congregation to gather with some of their friends and discuss the pre-recorded content. Conversation curriculum is great for those churches with a strong evangelism mission. Even better, after creating the curriculum, these groups can subsequently meet anywhere since the material is already on hand.

Want to learn how to produce video curriculum 52 weeks a year?

Then check out our previous blog post, which includes some of these Conversation Strategy features!

 3.  CONVERSATION GROUPS

Conversation groups can be launched not just at the start of new semesters or new series but even launched 52 weeks a year. They’re aligned with the weekend service and allow for a more interactive setting. Ultimately, you are moving the inspiration from the weekend message to application to launching groups. 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. 

4.  CONVERSATION TEACHING

This next step is an incredible asset whose time has finally come. Ed Stetzer stated that 78% of people would be interested in having a spiritual conversation with someone they know and trust. The challenge is to empower and vision for your congregation in order to bring people, who may be at different stages of their spiritual walk, into community. We recommend producing teaching that is more experiential and engaging that complements the teachings you already have prepared. After all, millennials want a conversation, not just a sermon; they want to interact, not just be instructed. Again, conversational teaching is creative in interactive formats and settings, and can be filmed on your iPhone, GoPro, or even streamed on Facebook Live.

5.  CONVERSATION WORSHIP

Here, we’re not just talking about the guy standing on the platform and worshiping and singing songs. The obstacle in church worship most of the time is the “watching instead of worship”. But, with Conversation Worship you can turn any small venue, such as a living room, café, etc., into a place of worship for people to engage more and be able to sit in the middle of a jam session-like feel. In the majority of our partnerships, this format has proven to be highly effective and exponential. Take this a step further, you can even stream the session online and engage even more people, creating a platform that extends beyond corporate worship and is far more community oriented.

WORSHIP PRODUCTIONS

Preview our latest productions

 6.  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. As we’ve mentioned before, the Conversation Service takes the best of a weekend service and the best of a small group to create arguably the most groundbreaking model of how to do church yet. 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. For more information, check out our webpage giving the full breakdown of Conversation Services.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF A WEEKEND SERVICE

See more on Conversation Services

 7. CONVERSATION FACEBOOK

Facebook Live and the use of digital media has revolutionized church engagement. This platform is easy to add to your existing productions and media formats. Now is the time to incorporate new ways of leveraging social media. We recommend having one or two representatives on the sidelines fielding and answering questions via social media comments. Other volunteers can help monitor the feed as well and invite others to view the stream. Conversation Facebook is an additional way to engage your audience and is great for multi-site campuses. We challenge you to do a pilot of Conversation Facebook on one of your weekday services or meetings, and we guarantee that the results will connect north of 75% of your adult attendance to small groups as well.

Explore our Production Formats to help launch your campaign!

From Town Hall to Panel Style, we have a a variety of production formats for your ministry!

8.  CONVERSATION CAMPAIGN

The Conversation Campaign takes the opportunity to first introduce the conversation format, then to flow into the full Conversation Strategy. One example of a great, proven campaign is utilizing our “Town Hall” production format. This unique approach brings out the best from the teachers, engages people more, and models the types of interactions your small groups can have during the study. By spending only 30 minutes to an hour on the curriculum and service, your ministry can get an exponential response that can further be shared on social media. This format allows for more interaction instead of simply a talking head on a stage.

 9.  CONVERSATION CAMPUS

Now that we’ve outlined producing Conversation Curriculum, which launches Conversation Groups, which in turn builds to Conversation Services…it’s time to launch a Conversation Campus. This is similar to a microsite or small venue multisite, but is more video-driven, and volunteer led, with an average congregation of 10 to 100 people (more than a small group but smaller than weekend campus). This is essentially a video venue where you can recruit people off the online experience. The Conversation Campus is the next generation of exponential church models.

10. CONVERSATION CHURCH

By launching Conversation Groups in small venues, your ministry could have the potential to launch a Conversation Church. By mobilizing the network, or “six degrees of separation”, of your congregation, you can revolutionize your ministry and expand your ministry from local to national. Our vision is to present the Gospel in a simple and transferable way, and we believe launching a Conversation Church is THE NEW weekend service format that will leverage your community to reach community for Christ.

NEXT STEPS

Whether it’s coming out to do a personal assessment, coaching for a Fall major campaign, or starting your first video curriculum production, contact us today for a free consultation!