I want to share a simple thing with you. A couple of months ago, we started a campaign called COVID proof your ministry, and to facilitate that process and get people to engaged in the topic, I wrote a book on the same topic where we discuss the challenges for ministries because of Covid.

The 3 basic challenges we saw was:

• Ministries got disconnected from their community. At first ministries didn’t know what to do. Those who didn’t already LiveStream SCRAMBLED to get online. But even with that we have realized that live-streaming is not enough. The reason we got disconnected is because we didn’t check in and lost trust with our communities because they thought we didn’t care. Why are we estranged from our community? Well, in the community’s eyes, they were hurting. It was difficult for them. And where was the ministry that I belonged to that I, even if I attended only once a month?

And where were you when I was hurting? Where were you when things were different? So that’s one of the reasons that there wasn’t a connection. Let’s be honest. The church was hurting as well. And at the beginning of the pandemic, churches were hurting, ministries were hurting. It was just difficult. Trust has been broken. So yeah, we need to fix that.

With attendance being low, finances has dissipated (Check our my article where I give you 10 income streams for your ministry).

• The second thing is ministries need to connect to new people, build a new audience, because we believe ‘when you’re not growing, you’re dying’. We constantly need to reach new people. That’s also the progressiveness that the violent force of the kingdom needs.
• And then lastly, there was another thing that we found  is that ministries needed to grow.

In this post I’m going to share with you the path to follow where media and technology starts working together.

As you can see in the picture of  the map , above, I don’t think I have to explain the concept that a ministry is on a path taking it to where it’s going. Onwards toward it’s calling and its purpose. Faith works like that, we obey God’s directions and go where God sends us.

Often we only see this scribble on the map… and that’s how we walk the route. It’s not always a straight path. If we look at the history of the Israelite’s, we’ll notice they did something similar.

I’m going to share with you out of the context of our four pillars to a successful ministry media platform framework. Below you can find the framework:

• Content – Needs to be created, broadcasted and distributed.
• Consistency –This results in trust.
• Community – Naturally evolves from the above.
• Collaboration – Helps you 1 0X  your efforts.

Drawing people to your ministry.

This is the first ‘step’ in this path. How does this happen, Ivan? Well, it happens through the content that goes up. It doesn’t matter what the content is. Usually the content that you share is going to be closely connected to your calling. It is going to be your message. It is why you exist as a person and why your ministry exists.

Then we can go and do a lot of exercises around that and ask questions.

Who’s my message for, uh, what do I need to share with them? When do I need to share with them? So there’s a lot of factors involved in the content and how it comes across and what. But the content going out is going to draw people. Why? Because you’re going to focus on this one key. There’s a scripture that says ‘When I am lifted up, I will draw all men onto me’. And that is the key is when we have Christ centered ministries. When we have ministries that are focused on the message of the cross, that’s when you’ll draw people, it’s going to be curiosity is going to be calling and it’s going to be.

It’s not because of us. Let’s be honest. It’s not because we are great or we are. Paul very clearly speaks about that and says it’s not because of elegance of words, but it causes the simplicity of the message. As we do that, content goes out and the key is consistency. That’s the second bullet.

So it’s going to be content going out consistently out of my well where overflowing comes. And that’s what I’m going to be sharing: consistent content being shared and with that we draw people to our platform, our ministry, et cetera.

Getting People Connected.

The second one is connection. As I shared previously, because of the consistent content going out, you’re naturally going to find a community develop. Now it’s your responsibility to connect them.

‘Ivin, how do I connect them?’

Well, that’s the key in your messaging, as you know your audience best. Grow, and you’ll have more attention. You’re going have to find a way to connect them. Now, there’s lots of ways that you can do that. This is where technology comes in. You’re going to have to probably use a SMS service. If you’re in the us or Canada, there’s a tool called Text-in-Church that you can use, and they’ve got an auto responder process that you can set up beforehand and people can literally just SMS.

Yes, South  Africa, you’re going to use SMS services. There’s lots of them where people SMS straight to a number and automatically get a message with a perhaps link that they can click on.  Even considering the Popi Act and  GDPR, they can fill in the information.

If your live stream, you can mention tne numberto text to and if this call to action is not there, your content means nothing. You have to find a way to connect with your online and livestreama udience. Other options are to send them to your website or to fill in a connection card. Other ways are to invite to join your Facebook group, share the link to your WhatsApp group. The more engaged you are and the more information you have, the better.

I think the best tool to use is planning center.With their database management system called people, they also have a group function, and here, you can go and create a form. So people populates the form with whatever information you need. And then you can generate an automatic process according to your needs.

Serve the Community

 So, now you have their data and you can see the people in the group, then  you can get people connected  to events in the group and set up automated messaging for events. They could receive reminders and even the links if the meetings were in a Zoom room etc.It could also be a broadcast or live video. The key objective if to get people connected and  to serve them.

 I need to find out what to serve them with, what are they struggling with and I give it to them. And that is where the community comes in, but also the collaboration. So often your community needs something that you don’t necessarily have to give. That’s why you bring in a collaboration partner and they can serve your community with you.

That’s why we have guest speakers and we bring in other ministries, maybe there’s a minister, you need an evangelism event and you bring in an expert that does that and they help you achieve your goals. What happenes when you serve your community?

Transformation.

People are going to be transformed by the above activities and that is the key. What happens if I am transformed? From my experience, when I was transformed, my natural response was that I wanted to serve.

I started creating disciples, a program where you develop others and your community naturally grows. Drawing others by creating content, being involved in the community, serving, etc. That is how it works.
So the framework is content consistency, community collaboration, that the path is draw people. The cross is used as a method to draw people, using technology to connect with those people, get people together as a community and serve them. By giving them what they want, then transformation and impact happens.

I believe that if ministries implement this, they really have ministries that grow and that they are transferred.

 What are your thoughts on what I shared in this post? What is your biggest takeaway? Share in the comments below.