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You’re reading this right now because your church is thinking about launching an online ministry or your church is interested in expanding your online ministry. I want to thank you for caring about leveraging the medium to grow your ministry’s vision. I genuinely believe it’s a tremendous opportunity to reach more people and strengthen your local church, but like anything you have to be strategic (the Bible word for this is "wise").
I remember the first time I got introduced to church online. It was early 2010 in an office at Saddleback Church by a pastor from Life.Church. My mind had been opened to a hidden world during the brief conversation. I never learned about this in Bible school, and it wasn't part of my seminary degree catalog. Sidenote, I would go on to ask many questions to my professors during graduate school, and nobody had an educated opinion. I always thought it was strange people focused on what was not possible and nobody was focusing on the possible.
Back to my 2010 conversation. I couldn’t believe what Life.Church's ministry was doing, and I felt a burst of energy to hop aboard. I wasn’t sure why Saddleback hadn’t done any of this yet, which was a naive statement because many had started to experiment with different online initiatives (way before my time). My leadership gave me a huge sandbox to try new things, I would get in trouble, I would apologize, and then try more new things. I didn't know what the lines were and it took many attempts (and wisdom from bosses) until the outline of what church online would look like at my church came into view.
You can read from some of my early posts like “A New Frontier of Opportunity” that I was super optimistic about the future. The funny thing is I still feel the same way years later. I do want to mention to not neglect prayer when figuring our how to position your online ministry. I know Saddleback Church's leadership was super prayerful about how to handle church online best and your church's leadership should invite God into the process as well.
I’ve broken up the posts the best I could depending on where your church is at with church online. Thanks for taking the time to learn from our mistakes and successes!
Newbie? These posts are for you:
- Finding the Strengths in the Fear of Church Online
- What is Online Church?
- Positioning Your Online Pastor with the Org Chart
- Setting Up Your Church Online Services Easily
- The Story of Saddleback Church’s Online Campus
- Pitching Your Online Campus
- How a Small Church Can Leverage a Church Online
- How to Handle Baptisms with an Online Church
- Doing Communion with an Online Ministry
- Listen to my two appearances on Pro Church Tools Podcast with Brady Shearer
Amateur? Read these posts:
- Saddleback Church’s Online Church Model You Can Steal
- 9 Questions to Ask Before Starting Online Small Group
- What to Track with Your Online Church?
- Learn How 18 Other Churches Position their Church Online Ministry
- Learn Saddleback Church’s Approach in My Free Church Online Course
Pro? These posts are for your eyes only:
- Harnessing the Potential of an Online Campus
- The Settlement is Coming
- The Big Miss for Churches on YouTube & the Fix
- Should Our Church Just Copy Netflix & Kill Our Church Online?
- Change is a Bad Word
- Sears Closing Should Be Our Warning
- Online Meetups, Local Meetups, & Gatherings
- People Are Watching in Fullscreen Mode
- 49 Million Isn’t a Number You Should Ignore
- Using ClickFunnels for Your Church Online
- Big Data Could Help Inform Future Church Plants
Got a specific question or request? Contact Me!