One of the most challenging realities every church and pastor faces heading into Easter is the thought that we will miss on the greatest opportunity to reach people far from God and to challenge our people. How do we connect with people who are more infrequent in their participation in the local church and even their walk with God? We have to band together and explore more and better ways to help do Easter in a remote fashion. This approach calls for engaging people with the themes of Easter, not only on Easter Sunday, but in the weeks preceding Easter and the weeks following Easter.

We could impact far more people if we:

• Intentionally and systematically mobilize our staff and key volunteers to engage with people online

• Leverage social media and web platforms to reach people in our community for Christ 

• Create content as a source to exponentially multiply the number of views, opens, and responses to the Easter message. 

In this track, you will learn how to do all the above and more. 

Worship in a church sanctuary or auditorium is amazing. Nothing can beat live worship. But, when people are unable to gather together, worship must be designed for church members to participate at home rather than just observe a worship service. By changing the format and even the staging of the worship team into a close-knit circle rather than a large stage will create a more intimate worship environment. We have found that shooting these worship sets in the round will allow online participants to feel they are actually part of the circle just from the way it is produced. This format can be produced in a low-cost method or cinema-quality depending on your needs. 

We have dozens of examples of leveraging your online experience and online service to motivate and mobilize your people into ministry. This can’t stop just because they’re not coming to the campus. We need to create a on-going level of opportunities that are happening off-campus and in the community. We need to tell stories about ways people can connect and serve those in need. Families could serve together. Groups could serve together. Friends could serve together. The church can promote or create different kinds of events in the community that people could go and engage in. Obviously, these need to be smaller gatherings. A couple of people together could find ways to serve someone in need. Doing Ministry Together will be a big one.

The one thing we know about pastors is they have plenty of content from years of ministry. This content can be repurposed into curriculum, classes, online Bible studies, and a variety of other ways to take your people deeper into God’s Word. People could study this content individually with their journal or be challenged to partner with a friend to learn together. You can create a downloadable journal or create a book to hand out. You could even develop short (60 second) video devotions that could be rolled out and compliment what you taught in the weekend service. You have to begin shooting digestible bites of your weekend message to encourage and inspire your members and their friends online.

Pastors can have the production, media, and gear to help them to produce content on a daily basis for their congregations. This might involve more topical series from the weekend. You can add other dimensions to your teaching from training and coaching content to core content from your values. This could be a supplemental series to help your people go deeper.

While serving as the Membership Pastor and managing about 7,000 baptisms at Saddleback, one time we captured Rick Warren in the water as he did a baptism. We had him shoot several different formats. One was for people who would be hosting a baptism in their backyard pool or hot tub. There was also something to play for people from their pastor before they were baptized. While this may seem extreme, it is something that could be done.

To encourage people who aren’t coming to the campus, communion could be grape juice and crackers in their homes with their families. The pastor could walk them through receiving communion. This could also be accompanied by the worship songs mentioned earlier.

We recognize that different churches practice communion and baptism in different ways. For some churches these ideas simply would not work. We understand. For others whose tradition would allow for this, it could be a solution to promote worship in an off-site and practical ways.

You may have never published a book or curriculum, but in this day and age, you have to learn how to publish more and better content. Everything from past sermons in devotional form or small booklet form, we have to figure out how to bring church to people who don’t attend church or cannot due to current public health concerns. 

The value and engagement of a midweek service has gone through a lot of changes over the years. This particular season is not only going to challenge the attendance of a weekend service but is also going to greatly impact the midweek. For those who participate in evening Bible studies, morning Bible studies, Adult Bible Fellowship, and even Sunday school need an opportunity still to encourage, teach, and train their people. How will they do it? We are showing people how to create online resources even with a simple iPhone all the way to producing professional teaching content for their members. This gives an opportunity for everyone who normally prepares and teaches at your church — both pastors and lay teachers — to show up and shoot what they had prepared, so their classes and Bible studies can go on! You could easily add a pre-recorded worship set to introduce the teaching.

Most people are feeling like they are losing the opportunity to communicate on a Sunday morning. While that is very efficient, it’s also not very comprehensive. This day and age, people regularly attend church 1.4 times per month. Imagine a scenario where you can get more done remotely than even all leveraged in a weekend service. By finding more ways to use technology, media, and more volunteers could be a completely different way to do church. The cat is out of the bag. Some people will never go back to church as usual. They will find the online engagement to be something that they enjoy. There is no question that some won’t come quite as frequently and some will find other sources (churches and pastors) to meet their needs. This is why we must find more and better ways to do what we were doing before. What happens now just might change how we do church in the years to come.

Churches have to recognize that catalyzing, challenging, and cultivating spiritual next steps is a vital part of what we do in the ministry to and through our people. We must still be clear on the end in mind. What is the target? What are the steps that it takes to become a fully devoted Christ follower? There are practical steps that you can do through this season to help your people get there.

We need to work as a team to figure out ways to live missionally. This could involve people sharing their stories online in a way that people can share their faith and hope by sharing video stories through their social media. This can be an antidote to some of the hysteria and negativity floating around online. If people are not at their jobs or schools, where will they be? They will be online. They will be looking at their phones. Send your people stories of hope that they can pass onto their friends. Even offer an invitation to receive Christ. Uncertain times call for the certainty of the Rock Who cannot be moved.

Content will always be king. Finding more and better ways to develop content is very important.

What appears to be a crisis could very well be an opportunity to try something new that will impact far beyond the four walls of your church. After the Coronovirus crisis is over, there will be things you discover now that could and should continue to impact your congregation and your community.

This is one of those key moments. This is an opportunity (and excuse) to try something new that just might prove to be a big part of your church’s future. If you need guidance through what to do and how to do it. LifeTogether can help you by teaching you what we’ve learned doing online ministry for many years now.