Why using today's tech is not optional for ministry
Creating connection - and sharing God's love - should be direct, immediate, and personal
Over at Substack Seminary, we’re talking about how we share our ministry.
How do people find us, and know that they want to be in community with us?
This is a big question for those doing Cage Free Ministry - and it’s a big question for those in traditional ministry, too!
It’s the main reason your church has a website and a social media presence - you want people to find you.
Along with being more visible - which we talked about last week - it’s often a big challenge for us to articulate why and how people can join us in ministry.
Also … ministry doesn’t just happen in-person. Real ministry - real connection - forms online, as well.
Digital tools and platforms help us share God’s love directly - immediately - with others.
This is why I’m so passionate about church tech.
Here’s a simple way I use Planning Center and Substack to make immediate - and growing - connection online.
Substack
I created a ‘gym for your soul’ that invites people to participate in ancient spiritual practice (like saying the Sursum Corda: ‘Lift up your hearts’. ‘We lift them to the Lord’).
No special equipment or gathering needed. Just click and try…
Planning Center
Gym members fill out an ‘intake form’: a cross between the spiritual direction question: ‘what do you seek?’ and the kind of lifestyle and fitness assessments you get at the physical gym: ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Do you feel close to God?’
It’s easy to create custom forms that ask anything - and save the information with a person’s profile….
So you can get to know your members - whether you are a traditional congregation or an innovative ministry, you can know your people more deeply by keeping what they share with you in one place.
This is, of course, my own profile, but you can see it contains not just demographic info about me, but all the ways I have chosen to engage with the life of this ministry. All in one place.
This is using digital tools to create relationship - relationship that extends to in-person community. And relationship that can grow and flourish online, as well.
Once I receive a Gym Intake form (Planning Center helpfully notifies me), I can write a personalized email to each gym member, including spiritual exercise for them.
Planning Center also saves all communication to a person’s profile. And, since I note in this email that I will check in on this member in 3 months - I set that task in Planning Center, and I’ll get a nudge when it’s time to check in.
(incidentally, everything I’ve shown you here is free. Planning Center never charges for its database product (‘People’), which this is whole example is part of. Substack is also free).
We live in an era where people don’t just go to church.
We have to bring church to people.
We need to be able to convey to others how important it is to be in relationship with God, and with faith community.
We have to be able to connect others directly with what it is we’re sharing before they will ever feel comfortable joining us in-person.
We have to build spaces and relationships that are deep and meaningful even when they don’t happen in person.
This is the reality of 21st century ministry. And why ‘technology-based’ is part of the ‘recipe’ for Unstuck Church.
Want to know more about simple, affordable ways to use Planning Center and Substack for more effective and engaging ministry?
I’ve started a new course/consulting called ‘Ditch your Church Website’:
The course is in the works, and comes out by the end of May.
If you want early access - and 25% off - just fill out this interest form:
(the form is part of Planning Center, so you can also get a sense of how it works
by filling it out)