Look at me! I have this video of my 2nd-grade birthday party and there’s a kid there constantly telling my mom (filming) to look at him. Look at me! Look at me! Then she turns toward him. Are you looking at me? Yeah. Then he takes two steps, pretends to fall…
Everyone has their favorite go-to tools and resources. In my time as a pastor and ministry leader, I have found a few favorites of my own that I believe will make your ministry job a little easier as they have mine. This one is going to be long and full…
Recognizing bias in online news media today requires a lot of patience and diligence. It's a responsibility we cannot continue taking lightly. This is what I'm learning about recognizing bias in the news.
I have always liked robots. I was a huge Transformers fan back in the 80’s and loved the idea of robots defending us from space villains. I also loved the idea of having a robo-butler to make my life easier and honestly never thought I’d have robots working for me.…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505959361689{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]It’s Monday, and you know what’s coming. At some point this morning you are going to find yourself sitting in a room with your team talking about what went down on Sunday. You might go over prayer requests about turning the volume of the band down or…
Six surprising takeaways about Instagram and the Church I took away from The InstaSummit.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505959021402{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]Ministry leaders are taught early on to say that our ministries aren't "all about numbers," but we all know that as soon as your program attendance drops below some magical benchmark you’ll start hearing the murmurs and the whispers asking “what’s going on?” And not in that…
Turns out, there's a decent theological approach to marketing found in the Bible. If we're going to cut through the noise today, we have to learn how to embrace the best parts of marketing in the church.
If I were to describe what Hell might look like, it’s a really long meeting about several things that I care very little about. I have to go to this meeting, so I'm just going to be quiet and try to get through it...but it NEVER ends! So, that’s one more…
Want to know how to mine your pastor's sermon for fresh social media posts every week? I'll give you some things to look for in the service that make it easy.
Want to know how to mine your pastor's sermon for fresh social media posts every week? I'll give you some things to look for in the service that make it easy.
I’ve always loved the phrase “Work smarter, not harder.” To be honest, I think I've used it as an excuse for laziness just as much as a battle cry for efficiency. At the core of this statement, however, lies a desire to get the most out of your resources, energy,…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505959250902{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]The jury is probably still hung over how long pastors and ministry leaders stay in at a ministry job on average. No matter who you get your stats from, the average job tenure is not “forever,” as many of us go into ministry thinking it will be.…
Christmas is often called the Super Bowl of Christian church ministry. If that is the case, then I guess that makes Easter the World Cup (El Futbol is bigger than Futbol Americano, trust me). I don’t have to tell you that Christmas is the largest commercial holiday in America, or…
I have two choices on my commute to work: redeem the time and feed my mind by listening to a podcast or damage my witness to the others who clearly have not learned to operate a motor vehicle. Lately, I’ve had a pretty tight rotation of podcasts on church communications,…
The often neglected child of good church communications is the written copy. Which is weird, since the bulk of our faith instruction comes from God’s written Word, so you’d think we would recognize the importance of it. Yet, I digress. “More and more people today are reading less and less.”…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505958914305{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]My parents don’t know this, but I nearly drowned once. I was at a friend’s pool party in the 5th grade and we were taking turns touching the drain in the deep end of the pool. It was only about 10 ft deep, but that was a…
Video is the new black. We’re all going to need to figure out what types of video we should be making. Don’t say sermon clips; we’ve been doing that for years now. I’m asking “what are you going to upload to YouTube?” What would you post on social media if…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505958845053{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"] I hate math. I use it every day, but my love doth not increase. It’s not because I think it’s useless, because that would be stupid. It’s just that I’m so exponentially bad at it. I tend to delegate all my math tasks to Texas Instruments…
If you currently hate Facebook, think it represents the worst of humanity, or that it’s knocked money off it’s pedestal as reigning root of all evil, then you must not know about the three little dots.
Social can be an amazing tool for connecting with people or it can be the root cause of most of the world’s problems. But it's good at some things too.
Well, it’s the second week of January, which means we’re all probably already dealing with feelings of failure. Last year, I set a new year’s resolution for myself to lay off soda for a full year, but by June, I was already back on the sauce. Have you ever noticed…
There are still more active email addresses than social media accounts combined in the world, so don’t count it out just yet. We just aren’t good at it.
Spam filters are more strict than ever, but can you blame them? Here are 10 reasons your email might end up in the spam folder.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1522704521680{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]Do you want to know what the worst prayer request I’ve ever seen was? Get ready. “Please pray that the worship band will be turned down.” That was a regular “prayer request” at one of my previous churches. Someone wrote that into our bulletin’s prayer request section,…
In Acts 2, we see a church that literally makes the worship service last all week. “They met every day in the Temple courts” it says in 2:42 and I wonder what our churches would say if we suggested going to church every single day? “Preposterous!” “You’ve gone mad!” “A…
I used to work about 6 feet away from a guy who cleared his throat as loud as he could every 2 minutes after lunch. “Ok, let’s get this graphic made (uhhhruuggghh) and drop in this great quote here (aurhhrrhhahhgghh) and see how our last post did (URHUURRHHHGGGHHH) and I’m…
Now is the time to coach your staff to become digital communications pros. I'll give you some pointers and resources to help them win while at home!
How many of you have a Pinterest account? Just the other day, I realized that a huge portion of my blog traffic comes from Pinterest. Oh, and it’s a pin I didn’t even make!
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1505959390186{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}"]In my last post, I gave you the first four principles I followed that helped me leave my last church in a healthy way. I was able to quit my job and keep my friends because I had a trusted coach, I got out in front of…
We're always looking for design inspiration, especially for Instagram! Here are 11 Christian designers and 3 Agencies you should follow.
Ready for a new pandemic inside the pandemic? It's called Doomscrolling and it's seriously contributing negativity to our mental health. This blog explores what it is and how you can take a few easy steps to combat it and be much happier!
Being addressed as "white people" used to make me angry. Not anymore. I think we need to have a real talk.
There are four big issues facing church communicators today. They are big-picture problems that affect all the little pictures. Get these under control for 2021!
Maybe you’ve noticed as of late that Instagram has evolved. It's now a multi-function app that will probably one day have Tony-Stark-taking-over-the-government’s-cctv-system” kinds of power. They have done this by “Mr. Pibbing” Snapchat (no, Carol, it’s not ok to bring me a Mr. Pibb instead of Dr. Pepper because I’m…
If you're going to pastor in online discussions, you're going to have to argue a little. These logical fallacies are common on social media and should be looked for and squashed when they rear their ugly head.
Google has announced BERT, the “biggest update to their algorithm in 5 years” and once again, our job as church communicators changes a little.
Don't go back to church! Before you decide to open up your building, make sure you are thinking clearly about the culture shift that has taken place and have a plan for it.
Email is still king. Let me just put it in perspective for you. According to The Radicati Group, a technology research firm, the total number of email accounts worldwide was scheduled to hit 4.9 billion by 2017. That’s 3x more email accounts than there are Twitter and Facebook profiles combined.…
My friend Michael keeps posting Instagram stories about bugs. He’s a youth pastor guy, so this is kinda par for the course, but lately, it’s been a lot. Apparently, he lives in an area that Terminix doesn’t serve yet. (North Carolina = No Pest Control) Today I asked him through…
Walt Disney was known to be a man of great vision. Disney World opened it’s doors on October 1, 1971. Unfortunately, Walt Disney himself died five years prior to that, so he was not able to see his theme park come to life. During the ceremony to dedicate the park,…
I'd love to have your approval. When someone gives me a compliment, it’s like a wave I can ride for a week. However, when they tell me something negative, I have a hard time not taking it personally and it can really bring me down. Are you like that? I’ve…
Nobody really hates email. They hate bad email they didn't want. That's why using email segments is so important for your church. Find out some basic ones to use here.
I’m doubling down on Instagram. Want to know why? Because there is no social media platform as versatile as The Gram (I’m calling it The Gram, now). Think about all the things this little app can do. Posts. Videos. Stories. Live Video. Direct Messages. Mow the lawn. Pick up the…
