In these hard times, it is important to remember that the Church is not a building. In today’s day and age, it’s can be easier than ever to stay in touch with members and provide support without physical contact. The church is its people, here are 7 ways to bring them together.
1. Sermon/Church recordings
You should have probably seen this one coming. This website is currently pretty focused on the idea of recording your church services. Now that things are changing due to the current crisis it is more important than ever to get your message out via recordings. The good news, there is no need to live to feed this. It will likely be a 1 or 2 person shoot and you can make edits and cuts to make it great. Take that to heart. Test your sound and video quality and make sure its right before continuing. Try new things that you can’t do in normal services. My Pastor and I record him talking directly to the camera, we test several times before starting the actual recording. We have even done things like reposition him to better backgrounds and light and have him pose for cover photos. This week we even rolled in a video and an image during his mini-service.
2. Social Media
All of that is fine and dandy but it means nothing if no one is watching it. People are spending tons of time on social media so you should capitalize on that and get into their feeds (The church is its people, bring them together). Don’t just post your video and walk away, you need to interact with your members. Post fun articles, post your videos, reply to comments on your posts. One Fun thing to do is schedule videos to release at a time and try to watch them with other members of the church. Another thing you can do is create surveys to intrigue people and get feedback from them. Post fun activities parents can do with their kids while everyone is home, teaching their kids about God.
3. Conference Software
Conference software is an exciting idea that I had for our church. We will be using it to hold council meetings while people are not able to get together. I think this is also a great option for adult Sunday School. During school, your pastor or leader can share the information you will be covering on their screen with all attendees. Attendees can openly discuss the subject. Google, Facebook, GotoMeeting, Webex all of these companies have some type of software where you can schedule meetings to share and collaborate. Most of them offer free versions or free trials.
4. Webinars
This is more of the outside the box type of thinking. If you have a large congregation and want them to view the services together this might be an option that works for you. This could also be an option for large Sunday School or other types of classes where you are not looking for feedback from others. It is an option but some of the others are better in my opinion.
5. Meal Delivery
If your church is anything like mine, there are a number of older and at-risk people who should not be leaving their homes to go to the store. There also might be members in need who cannot afford groceries because of being recently laid off. This is a great time to show the church is you are there for its members by helping out. Make a meal that you can provide to anyone who needs it or even just go shopping for your members who need it. These people support the Church, the Church should also support them.
6. Website
If your church has a website, you are off to a great start. If not build one. There are lots of easy build applications out there and even free hosting for non-profits. Make sure you are updating it often as people will come here to find out updates with what’s going on in the church. Also, make sure you are linking it to your social media pages as well. Social media is way more popular than a website these days but some people will not do one or the other so both are necessary.
7. Offering
It is important for the church to support people during these hard times but, the church will also hurt. Most churches will still have bills but will no longer be taking an offering. Also if you want to do things like food deliveries you need income to support it. Create a place where members can donate to the church. Popular options are Stripe and PayPal. I like Paypal’s donate buttons personally. They have a lot of support for donations and offer a discount for non-profits. You are going to want to put a donate button on your website and links on your social media. I also put links in all of our video descriptions.
If you have any suggestions on things you think I missed, I would love to hear them. I can’t stress enough how important it is for the church to stay together during these hard times. The church is its people, this was 7 ways to bring them together.