A Dozen Ways We Are Better Together

by Brett Eastman | Jul 30, 2019 | Main Blog, Partnerships, Programs

I’m excited to have this opportunity to introduce to you 12 different packages and new programs that LifeTogether is rolling out. I’m guessing that in at least one of these brief descriptions you’ll find a good next step for your church.

1. New Year’s Vision 2020 Campaign/Fall Campaign

You choose the focus and start time, and LifeTogether will help you develop a campaign that unifies your church and sparks in your congregation a renewed passion for their faith. It’s not too late to develop a Fall 2019 campaign even if you’ve never done a campaign before. In fact, most churches we work with take a sermon series from the archives and hand it over to us. After all, the church staff is busy, and the pastor’s dance card is full. So we make the campaign happen for them: we revitalize the teaching, film a video series, find testimonials from church members, and/or create a beautiful curriculum for small groups. And don’t miss out on the opportunity to present a 20/20 vision for your church as we start the year 2020. This is a one-time-only event that marks not only a new year but a new decade! Use this moment to reflect on what God has done in your church’s life in the past ten years and to present the vision He has given you for the next ten. The start of the year 2020 is a killer time to have a churchwide campaign.

2. Starter Campaign + Sustainer  Series Package

It happens because people are people…. A lot of churches do campaigns, fire up the members, and launch more small groups than they expected—and after a while the leaders realize the church has  lost momentum. We at LifeTogether have a breakthrough way of addressing this common situation. We work with you to produce major churchwide starter campaign in multiple formats, some very creative, some very simple, and all of them effective, including a video shoot at your place or ours, here in Southern California. We offer leader training and often incorporate testimonies from your own church members in whatever we do for you. After this campaign we then produce the perfect follow-up: a sustainer series. We add a little consulting to help you really maximize the impact of your campaign. We want you not just to start strong, but also to continue strong!

3. Partnership Options: Train the Trainer, 50/50 &  Executive Producer Package

Whether start-to-finish guidance and production from LifeTogether, or a partnership that has us doing some fine-tuning, or training in video production or small-group leadership for staff and volunteers—whatever your church needs and whatever fits your budget, LifeTogether will make it happen.

1. Our Executive Producer Package is full-service: we come to you for pregame planning, on game day we produce the videos at your site, and then we take care of the post-production for you.
2. Perhaps you have an amazing video staff and the latest equipment, but you’re not getting the cinematic quality you’re after. Or maybe you’d like a better design for a popular home-grown curriculum. In a 50/50 Team Production Package, we share the load. We can step in with graphics, designers, writers, videographers, or directors and help with whatever needs to be done.
3. In this very popular Train the Trainer package, LifeTogether trains church leaders—especially small-group leaders but also the video production team—to be able to train others. For either six or twelve months, we train your leaders and then offer support as the newly trained trainers train others. It’s gratifying for everyone involved. 

4.   Small-Group University

This popular program is exactly what its name says:  we offer basic, intermediate, and advanced training classes for small-group leaders.  We’ve developed a template that can be customized to your people and your needs. After years of doing this, we have version 1.0 for you to load to a teleprompter and get started. Using set curriculum and/or role playing , you can develop new small-group leaders and sharpen the skills of your experienced ones. A comfortable and confident leader can make all the difference in your people’s small-group experiences. Join us for our free webinar this Wednesday to discuss more.

 

5.   Publishing Digital  Media and Small-Group Curriculum

Is this the year you want to build your video library? Help church members get connected? Or reignite excitement about small groups? We’d love to come alongside you and produce three, four, five, or even six video series for you in the next twelve months. You’ll be able to spark and sustain spiritual growth in your people, strengthen their relationship with Jesus and one another, and enable them to be disciplers. A video series is an effective way to enable further conversation about the weekend sermon. Send us video or transcripts of a weekend series, and we’ll prepare a custom curriculum and script for video. You know your church, its vision, and its heart, so you decide the topics and the number of series you want to do—and we’ll make it happen!

6.   Mission, Vision, and Values Series

Every church is unique in its expression of its mission, vision, and values. Once set forth by the church leaders, these essentials are important for members to not lose sight of and for newcomers who want to get to know your church. We could do a week on each aspect of your church’s purpose or on one of your key values. Or we could do a multiple-week series on a new direction the church is taking. LifeTogether can take sermons you’ve preached on your church’s mission, vision, and values, turn them into a video scripts, and develop a small-group curriculum. Or you could take the templates we have for sermons, curriculum, and video scripts, plug in your specifics, and be good to go. We can customize the package by featuring your church’s pastors, people, testimonies, and campus in the full-color study guide. You know the breadth and capacity of your team, so you know how LifeTogether can best help, whether it’s video, writing, design, layout, or strategy. Whatever you need and want, let’s make this happen!  Click here to see more.

7. Next Step Program

So what’s the next step for your congregation? What gap in biblical knowledge do you want to address? What call to action is most important in this season? What messages would help them get more involved in mission work in local communities? Your church’s Next Step may be to better connect with one another or with nonbelievers. Maybe it’s time to motivate your people to go out and share more openly the gospel message. You might focus on spiritual disciplines or Bible study how-tos to prompt growth. You might be passionate about Jesus coming as a servant and want to help congregants marvel at that choice and adopt the attitude of a servant so they can discover the joy of serving. Or maybe it’s time to review what worship is all about. Whatever your next step, we can help you develop a small-group curriculum or an exciting Conversation Series, a new approach to church that features interaction and discussion between the pastor and those in attendance. We’d love to help you take your Next Step! Join us for our free webinar this Wednesday to discuss more.

8.   Book Publishing

Almost every pastor has a book—or five—in him. In this publishing package, LifeTogether can help you create your first or your next book. We no longer offer just consulting. We’ve developed a process and a team to help your book get into print. The first step is to bring you out to California. We’ll hang out for a day, pull out your life message, and put together a general outline that ideally integrates sermons you’ve preached. We have professional designers, writers, and editors to help you bring your book to life. And once we publish it, we resell it to other churches in our 25,000-church network. Those sales can help you recoup some of the costs. We only have a few more spots on our dance card if you want to kick off the new year with a new book—but a new book will generate excitement at your church any time of the year!  Click here to see more.

9.   Stewardship/Capital Campaign

Let us help you talk about the sometimes-hard-to-talk-about issues of stewardship, tithing, and capital campaigns. We can use messages you’ve already written—or help you develop new ones—as the basis for videos and small-group curriculum. Finances and stewardship continues to be one of the most popular subjects in top churches in America even when the video series stretches over an 18- to 24-month period . Generate excitement about goals, a sense of community, and a greater passion for God’s work through a Stewardship/Capital Campaign series. Whatever the size of your church, we’re here to help. Click here to see more.

10.   Sermon Curator Program

You’ve been preaching for decades. So of course it can be hard to come up with new approaches to the material you want to cover—and just how many ways can you talk about Easter or Christmas? Other times you need some ideas as you consider what content to address over the next six, 12, or 18 months. LifeTogether has hundreds of sermons that you can mine. You will also benefit from all that we have learned from hundreds of the country’s largest and fastest growing churches about what they’re preaching, when they’re preaching it, and why they’re preaching it.   Click here to see more.

11.   Church Innovations

After working with small groups for more than twenty years, we are now broadening our offerings so we can help more churches in more ways. Right now we have seven core categories and 18 elective topics. We truly do have something for everybody—and that includes you! Click here to see more.

12.   Content Champion

Let us come alongside you and help you look back at your sermon library and assess what you could repurpose for an upcoming sermon series, what you might turn into a small-group curriculum, what might become that book you’ve considered writing, and what material could become digital assets for social media, daily email devotions, and countless other options. We want to help pastors like you look backward to see what you can leverage from your years of ministry. What you produce may actually serve as a legacy that honors God and furthers His kingdom. Click here to see more.

The LifeTogether team would love to learn which of these twelve offerings you’d like to pursue initially and how we can help you make that happen.  Our partnership might involve a visit to your church or your visit to SoCal. Let’s start with a conference call between your team and ours to see which one, or two, or three offerings we might work on together.

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter and get to know LifeTogether better! We look forward to working with you!

Let’s continue the conversation this Wednesday during our free webinar.

If you have any questions about the topics above, please join us for a 30 minute call or request a private, no obligation conversation with our team. Click here to register.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Better Together,
Brett Eastman
brett@lifetogether.com

75% of Growing Churches Will Teach a Sermon Series on 1 or More of These 4 Topics This Year

by Brett Eastman | Jul 3, 2018 | Main Blog, Partnerships, Programs

If you’re like most of the churches in America, you probably have plans to preach a topical series over the next 12 to 24 months on one or more of these topics:

The topics of relationships, marriage, parenting and family are some of the best subjects to welcome people back to church, assimilate people into your body, build momentum coming into the Fall or New Year and connect the largest number of people into groups. The result is a greater impact and ability to reach your community for Christ.

While the need for a sermon series like these may be on your mind as a pastor, chances are you already have a handful of these under your belt (or in your filing cabinet) and you could really just use a few fresh ideas on how to approach these important topics. As you may know, we’ve produced dozens of these types of series for some leading ministries and many of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. Here are a few great examples.

Family Matters by Ken Forman at Cathedral of Faith

Doing Life Together by Clay Peck in Colorado

Make Room for Neighbors by Randy Frazee and Max Lucado

If you would like to explore some of the many existing campaigns that are now available to churches of any size, we have more than a dozen like those above that are currently available through our online store. You can order them “off the shelf” or we can produce a custom edition–personalized for your church–from nearly any series you like.

A Whole New Approach to Planning Your Next Sermon Series

Chances are, you may be looking for fresh ideas on an upcoming Parenting or Relationship Series or any number of dozens of other sermon series categories. You’re not alone. We’ve discovered after working with hundreds of churches and consulting with many more, that there is a need for a whole new planning process for pastors and staff who are looking for fresh ideas, new approaches, creative weekend programming, graphic designs, and biblically-sound outlines for their upcoming sermon series.

We’ve identified hundreds–soon to be thousands–of the best sermon series from our favorite pastors in some of the leading churches around the country. We’ve handpicked our favorite sermon series and message outlines on dozens of topics and have created a whole new resource platform. It’s a simple tool and unique 7 Step Process that has helped transform how we partner with churches.

We can’t wait to show it to you!

It is our hope that this new platform will not only help you find ideas for an amazing sermon series over the next 12 months, but that we might also help you develop a small group curriculum and alignment campaign that will ensure that you will connect your entire congregation into community this year.

So, if you and your team are interested in hearing more about how we can create a plan to help you develop a Fall or New Year series on relationships, marriage, or family — or any other topic, contact us right away and we will send you more information and a private conference call invitation.

10 Proven Strategies to Increase the Giving, Generosity, and Stewardship in your Church

by Brett Eastman | Jun 29, 2018 | Main Blog, Partnerships, Programs

The First Question is WHY

Here are a few major reasons we found:

• With a major decline in weekend attendance, many churches feel the need to more fully engage their faithful attenders in financial stewardship, giving and tithing.
• The impact of declining attendance leads churches to explore new innovations in giving: Where people give, why they give, what they give, and even how they give.
• The need to “lead up to” and “finish strong” in a Capital Campaign is critical to accomplish the goals and budgetary commitments the people make to the church and the church makes to the ministries.
• Many churches launch a growth plan to expand their campus or worship center, invest in upgraded technology and in some cases, commit to debt reduction.

Whether your church is growing or declining, the strategies outlined below will help your church strengthen its roots as you grow in fruitfulness and effectiveness for the kingdom.

The Next Question is HOW

Over the last 20 years, we’ve been asked more and more frequently to help churches develop sermon-based series and alignment campaigns that address finances, stewardship, capital campaigns, generosity and other topics that lead to increased giving to the local church.

The results have been remarkable, so we’ve compiled a partial list of 10 unique strategies and some sample sermon series that will help to launch Growth and Giving initiatives in your church. Some of these sermon series come from our newly-developed online library filled with hundreds of video sermons on a wide range of topics. Watch for our official launch of that site soon!

As you read through the strategies below, imagine a sermon series that you’ve already done in the past that could be repurposed–with our help–as a new campaign. Check out the numerous other series below that we are now developing for churches like yours. We’ve partnered with some of the leading teachers and emerging voices in the church today and we would love to help you find the perfect series that has been previously developed and has proven results.

10 Proven Strategies to Increase the Giving in Any Local Church

1. Capital Campaign Support Strategy

For many years, we at Lifetogether have been brought into the process of developing campaign alignment video teaching series that help connect the lion’s share of any congregation into small groups. The strategy we recommend has proven successful partly because it’s initiated a full 6 to 12 months before the campaign launches as well as during the capital campaign season itself. Most churches like to present the capital campaign as a “spiritual growth” campaign and a chance to introduce the new vision for the church. We work closely with the church to develop, produce and execute the campaign in a very creative and compelling way. The results show that we’ve been able to demonstrate at least a 10 to 20% increase in the overall campaign giving and sustain overall giving commitments well beyond the length of the capital campaign as well as the duration of any partnerships the church may have with any Capital campaign companies. A great example of this is the All In campaign we produced for Mile McPherson.

All In Case Study

2. Capital Campaign Follow-Up or Finishing Strong Strategy

More and more we are invited in not just before or during but after a capital campaign or stewardship initiative to help sustain or renew the giving committed during a 2 to 3 year capital campaign. Especially in a long term campaign, the giving can drop off a bit so the need to restart, reboot, or renew the vision becomes a critical factor in helping to achieve the goals and dreams that arose during the financial initiatives. In addition, instead of just building the short term “scaffolding” for the numerous meetings that are hosted during the campaign, churches are now wanting to launch small groups that can help to create a plumbing system that lives far beyond the campaign itself. A great example of this is the Generosity for Generations campaign we produced for David Jeremiah.

Generosity for Generations Color Curriculum

3. Preach a Mission, Vision and Values Series

This idea is a simple review of God’s vision and mission for the local church and it is integrated along with the vision for why your congregation exists as a church. Some of our most popular campaigns are comprised of a 4 to 7 part sermon series that communicates the core values and vision of a local church. The benefits of this type of campaign for your church go far beyond facilitating greater stewardship and increased giving. It’s also a great way to build momentum and mobilize people to serve, grow and get plugged into your church specifically. We created a page on our site with several examples. Please visit here. An excellent case study for a successful Mission, Vision and Values series is the I See A Church campaign we produced for Greg and Josh Surratt.

I See A Church Case Study

4. Evangelism and Missions Teaching Series

The Life On Mission series we produced for Parkview Christian Church with Pastor Tim Harlow is a perfect example of teaching a series on sharing your faith in a natural way. If you people background and vision for missions and how it is a foundation to the life of Christ and following Him, your congregation will be excited and hopefully stirred with passion towards outreach, missions, and impacting the world for Christ, and in turn they will give to the life, work, and ministry of the local church.

Life On Mission Case Study

5. Generosity Sermon Series

This is one of the most popular strategies that we have used to encourage pastors to raise the overall bar for living a generous life. There so many unique and creative ways that we have helped churches accomplish this. One of our favorite past projects was a series by Rick Long called Crazy Generosity which encompasses the idea that an individuals time, talent, and treasure is God’s anyways.

Crazy Generosity Color Curriculum

Order Today

6. Mobilize People to Serve

When I was on staff with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church, he always said that one of the best ways to get people to prepare to give during a stewardship initiative is to help them take a step in serving in the ministry. The Reveal study from Willow Creek reinforced this by documenting that someone engaged in serving gave nearly 30% more than someone who was only attending. That’s why we have done numerous sermon series and follow-up curriculum alignment strategies wrapped around the discovery, deployment, development, and the God-given design of any individual. We would be thrilled to share with you some of the dozens of sermon series that help mobilize your congregation to serve. In Generous God, Troy Murphy and a team from Green Bay Community Church study the many ways God has gifted us and how He’s called us to give back with our time, talent, treasure and trust.

Generous God Case Study

Visit a few samples from our Next Steps Series: Belong by Terry Brooks and Grow by Dave Minton

7. Pastor’s Life Message Strategy

There is something unique that happens when a Pastor writes his first book or preaches a Life Message series. My first experience of this was with pastor Rick Warren and his life message delivered in The Purpose Driven Life. Though this example is extreme–50 million copies sold! I was privileged to have a front row seat and play a fun role in what happened at Saddleback Church as a result of the excitement wrapped around my pastor’s book and sermon series.

I could give you dozens of case studies but here are two recent examples that illustrate life messages and books that were developed for a pastor’s local church.

Grace Happens Color Curriculum

Order Today

8. Fall or New Year Vision Sunday

This simple idea of hosting one or two Vision Sunday weekends is being done in most of the growing churches around the country. These weekends are filled with energy, enthusiasm and opportunities to share God’s heart, encourage the congregation and cast vision based not only on what has happened but on what will happen in their church.

If it’s about a shared passion to reach their community for Christ and the people feel like they are part of the vision, they will say yes and give to the vision.

We recommend using this weekend as a catalyst to launch a 4-week follow up sermon series that launches groups by either aligning with your messages or as a motivation to join a group to study the material on their own.

We have done this for dozens of churches with remarkable results.

9. “I Love This Church” Series

This strategy is often aligned with a capital campaign and involves a multi-week series filled with engaging stories and personal testimonies centered on the theme of Why people love their church. We’ve seen numerous innovative approaches to make an ASK at the end of the series.

I “Heart” My Church, or a variation of this theme have proven to be very successful. Another great example is the series we produced for Christ Tabernacle called No Place Like Home by Pastor Chris Durso.

10. Anniversary Weekend Sermon Series

Whether this is your 5th, 25th, 75th or even 100th anniversary at your church, this is a tremendous opportunity to call people to commitment and renew their vision for the church. We are helping churches with dozens of killer anniversary weekend services to help them plan their own multi-week or multi-month anniversary celebration.

Similar to Vision Sunday, you cannot just produce an amazing weekend service, preach a great sermon with a few live stories and then show a video photo gallery like you would at a wedding. However, you can create a beautiful yearbook-like curriculum with hundreds of photos to coincide with the launch of a 4 to 6 week sermon series and small group experience. People will gladly gather in groups and study together for this type of campaign. When your congregation celebrates the legacy of your church and sees the impact you have had on individuals and communities, they will step up and contribute to a great cause.

We did this for the General Superintendent of the Assemblies Of God denomination with Dr. George Wood’s series titled BELIEVE. It was a 4-point outline he delivered to 30,000 people. We then produced a 4-session companion curriculum to celebrate their 100 year anniversary of the denomination.

“Believe” Color Curriculum

The list above outlines practical ways that growing churches are leveraging sermon series to increase the weekly tithes and offerings in their church.

Now the Question is What’s Next?

Now It’s Your Turn

1. All you need to do is select one or two of the ideas above and we can share with you more about how we can make it happen.
2. Or, if you want to start with any one of the hundreds of finance, stewardship, generosity or even capital campaign series we have discovered over the years. Let’s connect right away.

The nice thing about our series is they are already proven to work in growing churches around the country. Not a bad place to start the discussion. In addition, for most of the series we can provide full manuscripts, outlines, video files, design templates and we have the unique ability to create a fully custom video teaching series for your small groups. Which is our most powerful and unique contribution to your church.

Final Thoughts

The truth is, if you want to double your giving you have to connect everyone in community–and keep them in community. And that’s what we do best.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Better Together,
Brett Eastman
brett@lifetogether.com