JUDY GOTWALD
30 Years in Church Publishing and Communications and a lifetime of serving small churches.
I'm Judy Gotwald. I've spent the last decade developing modern “small-church friendly” resources and strategies. I firmly believe that small, neighborhood churches are vital to the future of Christianity. One popular strategy is to assume failure is the only future. It's a matter of how long can we survive!
True, the big box corporate approach doesn't work well in the modern small church. We've spent years trying to satisfy unrealistic expectations. But it's not the only way.
Modern technology may have yet-unexplored possibilities to help us thrive. It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. You probably already have the tech and skills to get started.
Short Videos About Digital Ministry in the Smallest Churches
Excerpts from an online chat with the Rev. Katy Valentine about the future of small churches and digital ministry.
The potential of small church ministry
Defining Digital Ministry
What could small churches do better with Digital Ministry?
How to ward off “overwhelm”
Are you wondering what to do next now that you are streaming worship and making it possible for members to attend meetings without leaving home or work?
First, let's look at Digital Ministry in general.
2020 was a pivotal year for many churches. Most small churches took the first step in Digital Ministry. Streaming worship and meeting on Zoom—rarely considered before—became second nature.
What else is there to do?
Let's look at the problems that still plague small churches.
Are these familiar?
- Low attendance
- Low offerings
- Too few able-bodied workers
- Burned out leadership trying to do all the work large churches do but without a support staff
- Difficulty maintaining Sunday School and other educational programs
- Hit and miss attempts to reach new demographics
- All around low morale
Actually, each is a SYMPTOM of a bigger problem—and in treating the symptoms we aren't curing the illness!
Forget trying to staff a Sunday School.
Did you know Digital ministry can reach your current members with enriching learning at the same time it reaches people who are just beginning to consider church?
Let's not dwell on the problems. Let's look instead for solutions.
What if this was the key problem?
SMALL CHURCHES HAVE NO PLAN OR VISION
FOR A HEALTHY, VIABLE FUTURE.
Many small churches go week to week with leaders—clergy and lay—surfing the internet for free one-off resources that might work—if only....
So the church tries one with so-so results. Then it's on to a new search and a next resource, hoping to find a magic wand for church transformation and growth.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Believe the message we preach and teach. God cares about the small. All the progress the church has made in the last two thousand years has been fueled by small churches. Even today, in our big box world, 90% of all churches are small and 80% of them are very small. Over the years, they found plans—plans that worked for the moment.
But times have changed. The modern small church needs a new plan.
What Comes After COVID?
The Covid Pandemic taught small churches how to use technology to stream worship and to hold meetings. Huge kudos! Even the smallest churches took a giant step into the digital world of the 21st century. Suddenly all those excuses to avoid technology disappeared. You thought you didn't need it. You thought you didn't have people with the needed skills. You feared it would be an expensive failure.
In fact, you had the people. You found people with the tech skills. The expenses were manageable.
Even more is possible.
Churches face a decision.
Revert to a pre-Covid “normal” that reflects nostalgic memories of the 1950s or build on the skills you mastered in 2020 and join the 21st century.
Returning to normal means returning to a day-to-day, week-to-week struggle and the serious possibility of failure.
Expanding your digital ministry may seem daunting. You may be stuck just determining a next step. Your biggest worry may be your ability to sustain a digital ministry. You have questions—beginning with who will do the work?—and exactly what is the work we should be doing. Good questions!
It's time to figure it out! There are answers! You know the old saying: When one door closes, God opens a window.
Are you so busy caring for aging members, you don't have time to plan an outreach strategy? What if you could reach new demographics without neglecting your current members?
Here are things we can learn from other organizations, including many nonprofits and educational groups that have embraced digital technology.
Digital Ministry relies on content. Content is anything you post online—text, images, videos, recordings. For many churches, streaming worship is the only content they have.
Creating good content IS work. Chances are your church staff and volunteers are already pretty busy!
Having a plan for using the content is also important.
As the Spirit Moves
Done for You Email Campaigns
As the Spirit Moves are Done for You Email Campaigns that do 95% of the work for you.
As the Spirit Moves is a next step in expanding your digital ministry. The email campaigns supplement the WORSHIP you are already doing and builds and strengthens EDUCATION and OUTREACH ministries. EDUCATION and OUTREACH are vital for a small church to SURVIVE and THRIVE.
Churches subscribe and use the emails as their own. Your church's logo and contact information competes with no other information. The campaigns are totally editable.
WHAT TO EXPECT
- Each email campaign arrives in your church email mailbox weekly — almost ready to use.
- Each weekly campaign has 9-15 emails.
- The emails follow the Common Lectionary readings for the upcoming Sunday.
Emails contain curated videos, music, art and background information on the gospel, epistle, psalm and Old Testament lessons to be read in any church using the Common Lectionary. - The emails are entirely editable. Use the ones you like. Delete the ones you don’t like. Add your own.
- Add your logo and contact information. (There are no other logos appearing in the emails.)
- Send the first email. The rest will follow automatically timed for 12 to 24 hours later. You can adjust the timing.
- Emails are sharable. Members can forward to family and friends.
All emails are also supplied in a format for cutting and pasting into Facebook or Instagram. That’s where the real share power is!
BENEFITS
- The first benefit is enrichment. Members will regularly find something that speaks to them in a new way.
- Because members have been engaged all week in learning something about all the scriptures to be read, they come to church eager to participate.
- Because churches can't attract a diverse audience without practicing diversity, the campaigns draw from many worldwide traditions—for the enrichment of all.
- It's likely many members want to help but don't know how. Digital Ministry, which relies on sharing, is something everyone can do. Recipients will feel truly part of your ministry.
- Any church can use email campaigns! Even tiny ones. Some pilot churches had fewer than 20 members.
As the Spirit Moves provides the scaffolding to build this ministry. It provides the foundational experience and builds the skills to point you to the next digital step in your ministry.
USER TESTIMONY
Pilot Pastor Christine Olson began using As the Spirit Moves in October 2021. She leads two very small churches in rural Virginia.
Here's her story.
Are you wondering if your busy clergy and member volunteers have time for any new initiatives? What if Digital Ministry could multiply the effect of your current efforts and open new possibilities for new energizing initiatives that require minimal effort?
AND IT’S NOT
A TIME SUCK!
Pilot churches report that after they learn the technology (easily), they spend less than 30 minutes each week. In just one sitting the work is done. Vacation or the busy holidays coming up? You can schedule several weeks ahead of time. It's work any trusted member can do—not just the pastor.
You may not know what small church life will be like a decade or so from now. It doesn’t matter.
As the Spirit Moves is a starting point.
- You’ll learn to use social media.
- Step by step, you’ll learn to create your own content.
- You’ll learn to shape strategies for involving online worshipers and friends.
- Most important: YOU WILL HAVE A PLAN.
But that's not all! There's a weekly bonus! (Pilot churches have found these to be very beneficial!) As one pastor said, “It’s not that I can’t think of things like this. It’s that I don’t have the time! These are a big help!”
Is integrating remote attendees with your in-person congregation proving to be a challenge?
BONUS TIP
Each week, As the Spirit Moves includes a bonus tip for interactive preaching. These tips will help empower your onsite members as they practice sharing their faith and putting what they learn in the sermon to use—immediately.
They will also interest your online worshipers as they too can be drawn into the interactivity.
- The tips encourage involvement—and that’s going to be an important part of the emerging 21st century church.
- The tips provide good material for video clips of church life to post on your website and in social media. You'll have some home-made content!
- The tips present opportunities for home worshipers to take the first step in visiting church. That's been a challenge since Covid!
As the Spirit Moves + Bonus Tip is an ongoing formula for success.
You’ll be in touch with your valuable members daily with information they’ll like to receive.
You’ll have content you can share to begin reaching new demographics. The campaigns rotate with some fresh material every three years—just like the Common Lectionary.
You can stop searching for freebies on line. You'll know that EVERY WEEK they’ll be new content of a consistent quality ready for you.
Soon you'll have the experience and systems in place to use other resources designed for small churches that will stock the Small Church Toolbox library.