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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:

Amateur? Read these posts:

Pro? These posts are for your eyes only:

Got a specific question or request? Contact Me!