BETA01: Get More Value From Your Online Church Services

It's hand now. Hey, we are, we are live. Hey, welcome to, uh, to beta episode one. We did beta

episode zero double O last week. This is beta here with the church digital podcast. I am Jeff

Reed. And of course, once again, joined by Ray D'Armis. Uh, I'm guessing Ray, you want to say

hi to somebody? Uh, hello to everybody out there that is sending their kids back to school today,

specifically in South Florida. We are with you. Oh my goodness, man. Good luck to all of you.

Yeah. Traffic was interesting. Um, needless to say that I was kind of enjoying having like peace

and quiet in my morning drive and all that is now gone. Thank you very much for that. But we,

we don't need to talk about like Miami traffic or wherever you are traffic. We want to,

we want to talk about your question. So beta, this is a new thing for us here with the church digital.

And of course we've got the podcast we've done almost a hundred episodes with coming up on our

hundredth here in a couple of weeks, but we wanted to move away from heady theoretical philosophical

conversations and try to get more practical in the midst of COVID season, try to find some sort of

practical application, even in the midst of all of this chaos. So, uh, to this end, we're doing this

live stream here beta. Here's what we want to do. We're going to get to the topic here in a second,

but moving forward, if you've got questions on, on church online, on digital church, on online

discipleship, on digital church, on digital church, planting, any of this sort of thing involving

ministry in digital space, uh, avatar space, even talking to the virtual reality stuff. Hey,

we want to hear those questions as my dog barks. I love Ray. I love you too, Ray. And the other Ray,

uh, text your questions to, for the church, four, eight, four, three, two, four, eight, seven,

two, four, four, eight, four, three, two, four, eight, seven, two, four. I started to say good girl,

Ray, but then that would just make this podcast even weirder. Hey, is it more effective to create a church

service exclusive for online or to live stream a physical service? Is it more effective to create

a church service exclusive for online or live stream that physical service? Ray, you want to take the

first shot? Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm a bigger fan for exclusive for online. Um, for so many reasons.

Number one, you're talking to a specific audience and you're creating a unique experience. It's just for

them. It's catered for them. Also, uh, just keeping in mind, uh, something as basic, but as important as

the length of a service, we're much more forgiving in person than we are watching through screens.

That's just the reality of the situation. Many of you will watch, uh, you know, even an hour message

live and in person and jive along with your pastor. But when you are either listening to the podcast or

whether you're watching it through a YouTube channel or something else later on, and especially the

smaller the screen gets the less length of time that you're willing to forgive. So I'm a bigger fan

of catering the specific experience for the online audience.

Yeah, I, I would agree with that. Try to create that, that online experience, even if it's things

like a host talking, a campus pastor, one of the pastors talking direct to the, to the online

audience. Maybe it's a sermon where the pastor is looking direct at that lens and engaging with it

at a way that maybe that pastor is not able to do when he's trying to preach to, to an entire room.

There's an opportunity to really dig in to that online environment. Now, keep in mind,

and this is where the COVID season really just gets messy for us because pre COVID you had physical

audience and you had digital audience and, and sometimes they overlapped, but for the most part,

it was kind of, kind of separated. Now here COVID mid COVID post COVID coming out of it, wherever we are

in the season, we're seeing people try to go back to the building, but a lot of our physical audience

pre COVID is still watching online. So just keep in mind that you're going to have these mixed,

these hybrid, uh, kind of services towards that. And, and our ones are people who are cold to Christ.

They're not looking for that 60, 70 minute service, that 40 minute sermon. If, if you're really true,

trying to dig into evangelism, you're, that's not the presentation that the online people are looking

for that, that are cold to Christ. So create that, that shorter, that more succinct environment,

which is actually going to lead us here into question number two. Question number two,

is it easier to get better engagement in five to 15 minute segments rather than a full 40 to minute

service? So we're talking engagement, two way conversations, chat, uh, likes comments. Uh, Ray,

what are you thinking off of that? Man, I got a hot take here. Uh, so good content is good content,

no matter what the length, uh, that's, that's my hot take. So, and I think that's going to require

a lot of honest feedback, especially to you content creators, pastors specifically that are

writing your messages. So you might, might want to make sure and kind of pitch a few people to make

sure that all 40 to 60 minutes of that content is truly engaging because if it's not, guess what?

It can be chopped up into those five to 15 minute bits and redistribute it on social media or even in

your online service, shorten it up. It's okay to trim it down to the best of the best of it. That's totally

fine. Uh, in the same way that when you go to a high end restaurant, you know, you're not getting

like six sides with your main course. No, you have to order every piece that you truly want.

Why? Because it's going to be the best of the best. That steak is going to be the best version

of it. They don't need to dress it up with extra sides because they know they're serving you something

that's quality and a one directly off the bat. And so it's going to take a lot of hardcore feedback,

but if your content is truly engaging, just like, Hey, Avengers end game. Yeah. We sat there for three

hours for three hours. Why? It was great. And because we knew what we were going to,

and we would have sat there for four because we believed it was going to be that good.

But you know, for our messages, we got to reconsider. Yeah. Pastor, that is not an excuse

to preach a three hour sermon. Don't, don't write that down. Those guys on that crazy thing

where they screwed up the first slide, they said we should preach a four hour sermon. That is not,

that's not where we're at. Uh, but, but definitely have that good content and, and, and really,

really beat that down. If it's, if it's 15 minutes, if it's 10 minutes, if it's five minutes,

if it's, if it's 30, it has to be engaging, captivating. And, and, and as a communicator,

let me say the, even the talks that I do, I don't judge whether it's, it's effective in that it's,

for me, it's a, it's a much better conversation to allow others to speak into it. We actually did a

podcast just recently with, uh, with Patrick up at Nouveau church where he was talking about that,

where he was letting others speak into the sermon and getting some of that, some of that feedback.

So pastor be open-handed with some of this stuff towards it. The end game for us, uh, if we're

really interested in doing online in context of reaching people with evangelism comes down to

shareable content. What can you do that is going to make that bit of, of media, a sermon,

a worship clip, a testimony video, what does it look like to make it shareable? Best practices

would be shorter, the better. Or if you're doing a larger service, pastor, wrap up your service by

physical service by saying this, was your, was this service impactful for you? Do you know somebody

in your life that needs this message? Our sermon is completely on Facebook right now. Why don't you

take a moment, just as you're walking out to the car, share this service on Facebook with people that

that need to hear it. Ask your 99, ask the people engaged to your church to share and start to create

assets and resources. It's true. 60 seconds can be more impactful in somebody's life digitally than 60

minutes can. And the ability for us to generate this content, to make it shareable, to get people,

even within the service and with the service, get them connected into an engagement pathway is a

phenomenal opportunity that we have with the church today. Hey, so let's roll into question three

here, kind of stream rolling. How does the church engage? This is a hard one. Like this is, let's

kind of back up here a little bit. I don't know that anybody's got the answer. How does the church engage

the public while heading back to the building for in-person gatherings? How does the church engage the

public while heading back to the building for in-person gatherings, right? What are you thinking off of

this? Well, I mean, the first thing I would say is that's something that's got to just, it can't just

be your services. It's got to go beyond your services. You got to serve your community. And mind you,

if you missed out on that opportunity during COVID, you missed out on a big opportunity, but it's not

too late. Today, you can still get involved in some way in your community, find the needs that are going

on and find ways to engage them. But the reality of it is, is that people don't care what you know

until they know what you care, right? They know that you care. That's the thing that's important.

And your community needs to know that you, church, that you care about them, that they matter to you.

And then there's the age old question that many churches have asked. If your church disappeared

from your community, you had to shut those doors. Would they care? What is it that you provide

for them? That's what matters. And so in the same way, don't just dream of the big online space.

I love what Kerry Newhoff says. He says, "Nobody should out-local the local church." And that should

be true of your church and true of mine. Yeah. Kerry's so good, man. And he talks about this idea of

the church online, the digital church. And he talks about it actually being hyper-local,

instead of glocal and global and going over. He says, "Church, we've got an opportunity with

our digital to be hyper-localized into certain areas." And I would challenge it in this season.

For us as church, as much as we're interested in reaching the world, let's understand that through

digital, through church online, we've got an opportunity to be hyper-sensitive to the communities

around us. We know this. And you talk to any online pastor, they'll tell you this. People connect to

community before they connect to Christ. And so even at least in online circles, and I would suggest

coming out of this COVID season, I think culture is shifting more and more that way where we're not

necessarily embracing this idea of the organization of the church as much as church. We need to allow

individuals an opportunity to speak into that. And so having that happen, giving individuals an

opportunity to speak, that is the true engagement point where it's not a nameless organization trying

to tell people how to live their life, but it's individuals telling the story of what Jesus has

done for them through the Holy Spirit in their own individual lives.

Yeah. And touching base on that, social media outlets now, Facebook, YouTube, and others are

really trying to figure out on how to build those communities locally too. And so everything from,

hey, in your online broadcast, it's okay to throw in a few local jokes, things that only your community

would get, things that are unique to your niche area. Like Miami, we have a lot of these things.

Last week, we celebrated reopening. And so we took out pots and pans and we banged them together.

Why? Because in Miami, that's a hilarious way that we celebrate all of our sports

teams. Folks show up at the local Cuban restaurant on 40th Street and 87th Avenue called La Careta and

they show up with pots and pans and they bang them around. That's how we celebrate championships and

all sorts of other ridiculousness. And so those are like small little details that you can throw

into your service that guess what? Yeah. Only your local audience is going to get that. Nobody else is

going to get that, but that helps bring that community even more together. Why? Because guess what?

My people on Facebook are connected to people on Facebook in Miami more often than not. Yes, they will touch

the person in California or the person in Spain. But most of the time when they smash that share button,

people in Miami are checking. That's awesome. Let's be honest. We're in Miami. We really don't

celebrate our sports teams that often. So in the grand scheme of the number of times you would expect to

see the pans and pots. Yeah. Like the heater down three to one. It's over. So, um, you know,

we celebrate more than Cleveland and that matters. So Cleveland shots to that out to the people in

Cleveland that are watching this right now. I'm sorry. I'm actually going to be up, up in the Ohio

area here in a couple of weeks. So Phil Underwood, the pastor who asked these questions. Um, you know,

these are great questions, by the way, Phil, you're doing ministry in the Florida keys.

So hats off to you. You are the true winner, whether or not your question got selected,

sitting alongside the beach, doing the work of God, uh, Phil, I'm envious of you in this season.

So thanks very much for this. Remember people out there, if you've got questions, we want to answer

them through shows like this, that will be better structured. And my dog Ray Skywalker,

hopefully won't be barking as much. So text those questions in 404-324-8724. It's literally

alphabet on the keyboard for the church. Check that out. Hey, we've got beta as well as other free

resources, of course, over at the church.digital. Uh, and this show beta will be seen on, I think

it's on Facebook and YouTube right now. We'll get it on all the social media networks on the website.

And of course, on the podcast, if you're not listening to the podcast, check this out. It's

got our church digital podcast, which is far more theoretical future driven. And then of course,

beta here, which gets more practical. So, Hey, Ray, as we're landing in the plane quickly,

any closing thoughts? No, just keep those questions coming.

And I love the thought of now that many churches are considering reopening.

Don't forget online matters. The majority of people are going to join you outside of the room.

Yeah. Online matters. Church culture is shifting away for us. As much as we want to go back to

the way that it was February, 2020, we go back there. There's nobody there. And so learn lessons,

keep fighting for this direction of it. Not, not even embracing this idea of, of digital being the

end game, combining the two together, but ultimately comes down to creating that, that disciple maker

and letting that person be the focus of our ministry moving forward, post COVID and into

the next normal. So, Hey, thanks very much for jumping on this for Ray. I'm Jeff with the church

digital. Thanks for being here. And we'll see you next time here on beta. Y'all have a good one.