Ministry Offerings
Welcome
I came to Christ in college because someone took a chance and invited me to join a small group Bible study. I heard the dangerous message of the Gospel in a safe place, and was encouraged to gather some friends of my own and start a new group. Seven of the young men in that group ended up accepting Christ, and three of them made the decision for full-time ministry.
Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working on staff at some of the largest churches in the country, including Saddleback and Willow Creek, but the genius of any program is it can work for a church of any size, in any location. In fact, at LifeTogether we believe small groups are one of the most significant, effective ways to disciple existing Christians and evangelize seekers.
Our video-based resources make it easier for churches to launch a new small group emphasis, kick off church-wide campaigns, connect their members, reach their communities, and even start new campuses and microsites. Video teaching, print curriculum, and supplemental tools like video testimonies and devotions combine to create a catalytic tool that can change lives.
What LifeTogether has advocated over the last 20 years is relevant now more than ever — decentralized ministry, empowering members to make disciples, online worship services, and digital ministry. With this experience, LifeTogether can equip you and your church to serve the church in the new digital frontier of ministry.
Better Together,
About Us
After working at Willow Creek, I was invited by Rick and the team at Saddleback to join their staff to champion small group ministry, leadership development, and their membership process. When I arrived they had only 73 off-campus small groups with more than 10,000 people in the church. Rick was then, as he still is today, the most teachable pastor on the planet, and in those early years we tried a variety of strategies to connect people into small groups.
At that point there were only two or three pastoral staff for small groups, which required us to shift from a staff-driven model to a volunteer-driven model. That worked to connect about 50% of the congregation; then we needed to shift to a resource-driven approach with video curriculum. The first one we produced based on the book of James, helped us mobilize 100 people to start new small groups in their home. The production was simple but the lessons we learned were exponential.
We went on to produce a series called The Millennial Member in 2000, then 50 Days of Faith, and ultimately 40 Days of Purpose, which became the model for church-wide campaigns. For the next 20 years, Saddleback produced an annual campaign along with video campaigns for many others.
I went on to produce the first Purpose-Driven small group series called Doing Life Together which sold over three million copies, and had the privilege of coaching the first group of churches using 40 Days in their churches. Since then more than 30,000 churches have used this campaign.
For almost twenty years, in a full or part-time capacity, I continued to partner with Rick, Kay, and Saddleback helping to multiply their small groups, curriculum, and church-wide campaigns. For the last ten years I’ve produced special projects and productions for Rick and Kay, most recently The Daniel Plan series that went on to win Christian Book of the Year in 2015. We also worked together on the Purpose of Christmas and The Gathering on Mental Health and the Church.
6 Things
LifeTogether Does
Content Creator
Over the years it became evident that connecting a congregation is only the first phase in our process. Today, we have produced dozens of new offerings that help to take your people deeper and wider by providing a variety of new resources, production series and creative content, which include small group worship video series, professionally published trade books, daily video devotions, small group leader training videos, and even the production of microsite series. Our primary content services provide the creation of a core video curriculum for a local church that includes over a dozen candidate series to disciple and train your people. A few examples include a vision and values series, core discipleship series, membership series, connection series, stewardship series, outreach series, and past sermon series that provide a timeless message for your congregation.
Publisher
Over the last 25 years, LifeTogether has produced books, study guides, and video curriculum with some of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country. Brett even had the privilege of developing the first video curriculum and 40-day campaign for Rick Warren at Saddleback Church. Since then, advancements in technology and media have made publishing a real possibility for the local church. Pastors can leverage their content like never before for an impact exponentially greater than you might imagine. LifeTogether wants to help you discover more and better ways to repurpose past sermon series, rethink future series, and renew your vision for the reach your church could have.
Digital Ministry Platforms
The trend is resourcing and discipling church members and attenders is online and off-site. The Coronavirus pandemic showed what could and should happen outside of the four walls of the church. LifeTogether’s Digital Ministry Platforms are designed to grow your people (MyLifeClasses and Bringing Church Home), train your group leaders (Small Group University), disciple your group members (Small Group Curriculum), train the church staff (Staff Meetings Together), raise up the next generation of leaders (LT Masterclass), and even help the pastor prepare the sermon (Sermon Curator and SermonStories.com). These platforms are available on a subscription basis or can be customized for a local church.
Consulting Services
The partnership between a local church and our ministry is founded in a relationship that helps to achieve your desired goals and objectives. While we provide full-service production only packages, most churches want to be trained on how to do this themselves over time. Whether you want to connect your entire congregation, create video curriculum for your groups, or produce your first church-wide campaign, we can help you get there with our experienced team members.
Curriculum Production
After publishing video curriculum for most of the major publishers, producing hundreds of video curriculum for local churches and thousands of pastors, church leaders and best-selling authors on camera, we know how to produce life-changing and church-transforming campaigns and video curriculum. Today we offer curriculum subscription series, semi-custom series or full-service video curriculum packages to fit a variety of needs and budget considerations.
Campaign Design
Producing and publishing a beautiful video curriculum series doesn’t necessarily mean it translates into committing your congregation into community or maximizing the momentum that comes by developing an alignment campaign. The systems, strategies, staffing and scheduling of a campaign is vital to a successful church-wide campaign. By partnering with our team, you have the step-by-step plan to achieve the desired outcomes. This includes promotional videos, marketing materials, timelines, and companion resources that help to bring greater alignment and momentum with your campaign.
Program Offerings
LifeTogether programs are designed for the changing, specific ministry needs in the church, especially in the aftermath of COVID-19. This is a new day of ministry. Worship services are now seeing equal or greater attendance online as they are on-campus. While people were quarantined and social distancing, we discovered that connection and community was more significant than ever.
We also discovered that a number of things we had invested in personally and corporately were ineffective and did not need to continue. Some of these categories were as big as Multisite campuses, which were quickly replaced with more affordable and effective Microsite campuses and Online worship services. For those waiting for things to return to normal, there really isn’t a normal to return to — things have changed for good.
LifeTogether pioneered new categories of ministry starting with Brett’s time at Saddleback and the creation of the first video-based small group curriculum and campaigns. The innovations have never stopped. LifeTogether in many ways has been ahead of its time. That has prepared us to serve you in times like these.
LifeTogether’s Consulting Programs
include the areas of:
Doing Church Remotely:
30 Innovative Solutions to Navigate the Implications of the Coronavirus for Churches, Classes, and Small Groups.
The spirit of these 30 ideas will be the beginning of a 30 day campaign to help churches discover more and better ways to help their congregations not just react, but respond to the Coronavirus.
Content Creator:
Leverage Your Past, Present, and Future Content
What if you could take your best content–from the content you already have–and use it to create additional materials like books, curriculum, devotionals, study guides, courses, journals, social media posts, and more?
Doing Small Group Ministry Together:
How to Build a Healthy Small Group Ministry
There is no simple solution to growing a healthy, balanced body of believers. However, a thriving small group ministry may be one of the best ways to fulfill the biblical purposes of the church—and solve many of the issues of evangelism and stewardship that can confound pastors.
Digital Ministry Program:
The Next Generation of Online Ministry
The hot new position for churches since the onset of Coronavirus and quarantine is the Digital Ministry Pastor. While churches were social distancing and streaming online only worship services, many pastors discovered they were reaching a larger and broader audience online than they ever did in an on-campus weekend service. In the most innovative churches, not only did the worship service go online, but so did everything else: membership classes, Growth Track, counseling, support groups, visitor follow-up, and everything else. This started because it was essential, but stayed because it was effective.
Sermon Curator Program:
Find More Creative, Innovative–and Proven–Sermon Series
Ideas As a pastor, you know that your weekend sermons are key to growing your church, discipling members, and impacting your community with God’s powerful Word. But coming up with fresh and creative content every single week is a daunting task!
Church Publishing:
The Experience, Leadership & Resources for Every Publishing Need
Church members love studying with resources created by their own church and leadership team. With changes in the publishing industry, churches are now able to create and leverage their content in ways like never before for an impact that is exponentially greater.
Church Innovations:
Learn the Best Practices from the Most Innovative Churches
Church Innovations enables you to learn about effective practices and breakthrough ideas from more than 1000 of the largest churches in America. These ideas will help guide the conversations we have about any and every aspect of ministry you want to discuss.
Specialty Offerings:
LifeTogether License
The licensing program entitles a church to the use of Lifetogether Ministries’ intellectual property, curriculum methods, and curriculum template in the production of curriculum. The church is entitled to a perpetual license and unlimited intellectual property rights for teaching and training scripts, curriculum templates, appendices, DVD master templates, and all resources necessary to produce physical and downloadable print and video curriculum for any and all future curriculum projects.
Semi-Custom Curriculum
In our Semi-Custom Curriculum Production, you can personalize any of Lifetogether’s existing curriculum and produce a customized companion video curriculum to package it as your own. Or you can choose a published print curriculum off-the-shelf, and we can produce a customized companion video curriculum to package it for your church.
Custom Small Group University
Small Group University is a comprehensive small group ministry training series designed for every level of leader in any size church. LifeTogether will partner with a church to create a custom edition of Small Group University to train small group leaders, coaches, staff, and others to oversee and support a growing small group ministry.
Online Conversation Service
An online conversation service is exactly what it sounds like — a conversation between the pastor and a small group of people instead of just a talking head. It is the best of a weekend service and the best of a small group together. This online interactive format engages the audience at home by providing an exchange between the pastor and audience as well as featuring stories from members of the congregation and worship in a more intimate setting.
Church Alignment Campaign
Connect Your People and Take Them Deeper
In this program, LifeTogether involves their whole team of writers, producers, designers, directors, and others to partner with your team in producing your alignment series. We take the hard work out of producing your series starting with creative meetings until your books are delivered to your church. LifeTogether will not only produce the series, but will give you all of the tools to promote the series in your worship services, through social media, and in your community.
Core Values Alignment Campaign
Proven Strategy to Get Everyone Going in the Same Direction
By taking the technology of a church alignment campaign and applying it to your connection process, you could bring people who are further out a little closer in. For all of the great reasons you have that process in place — deeper commitment to the church, more giving, more serving, and more connection — people who can’t get to the class could now have the experience online or off-site. Get every person and every group going in the same direction on your church’s vision and values.
Core Values Curriculum Series
Lifetogether is now offering a complete series of small group curriculum designed to engage your church with some building block series. Each 4-session curriculum series includes teaching scripts that we film in our studio, a full color study guide that includes photos from your church, and testimonies filmed on site at your church. We also provide you with access to sermons for each series for when you use it as an alignment campaign.
Book Writing and Publishing
At Lifetogether, our team of writers can take any book idea you have begun writing, or you’re dreaming about writing, and convert it into a professionally published trade book that you can self-publish and make available to your congregation. We can even help you secure a third-party publisher to make it available on a much wider scale.
Digital Ministry Platforms
Leveraging the extensive library of, and access to, highly produced Lifetogether content, we developed a suite of 8 platforms that provide education, inspiration and coaching needed for churches and their members to engage, connect and grow.
PROGRAM FEATURES:
Church Ministry Assessment
- Establish the initial and ongoing relationship with key staff
- Complete an initial comprehensive assessment and ongoing evaluation
- Create the ministry plan, objectives and a master calendar
On-Campus Visits (when available)
- Establish the initial and ongoing relationship with key staff
- Complete an initial comprehensive assessment and ongoing evaluation
- Determine and develop the combined customized tracks & electives
- Create the ministry plan, objectives and a master calendar
Virtual Team Meetings
- Designed to address strategic topics selected from the Top 100 learnings
- Serve as a review of the progress and renewal of next-step plans
- Targeting strategic leadership and ministry teams
Online Video Coaching Sessions
- Take advantage of on-line training sessions designed by topic
- Available at your convenience to choose sessions based on individual or ministry needs
- Wide variety of coaching topics developed over years of working with the largest and fastest growing churches
One-On-One Coaching Calls
- Calls for the senior pastor and team leaders
- Master schedule will be developed to help determine which individuals based off of content and conversation
- Includes regular and infrequent sessions with staff members, ministry team leaders, and key volunteers
- Sessions serve as a deeper dive on strategic topics plus accountability and preparation for team meetings
Online Toolbox
- Training videos for senior pastors and staff
- Exclusive Top 100 articles and downloads
- Live case studies from the leading churches
- Teaching materials and session downloads
- Webinars with Brett and faculty of Pastors
- Small group and volunteer training materials
Electives
Choose from dozens of LifeTogether electives featuring ideas and practices proven most effective. Having these new or sharpened tools at hand will mean greater impact on your ministries during this difficult time.
Go Deeper and Wider With Online Experience & Audience Participation
Produce In-Home Video Curriculum & Alignment Campaigns With Your Team
Catalyze Community with Breakthrough Weekend Alignment Strategies
